Posts Tagged ‘Páscoa’
Pain, Being and Easter
18
Apr
This is a time that has tried to abolish pain and exalt pleasure and joy at
any price, but it is a time of depression, panic, intolerance and no empathetic life, writes Byung-Chul Han: “Just in the palliative society hostile to pain, silent pains multiply, crowded on the margins, which persist in the absence of meaning, speech and image” (Han, 2021, p. 57).
Nothing could be more paradoxical in this time which shows that pain is an essential part of existence. Who can accept this if not those who have overcome the desire for immortality and pursue the desire for eternity, Han who has Buddhist leanings and Hannah Arendt who has Jewish roots wrote this.
Walter Benjamin, who had strong roots in the Frankfurt School, wrote: “Pain alone, among all bodily feelings, is for the human being a navigable stream, with waters that never run out and that leads him to the sea”.
The lack of understanding of this feeling proper to Being leads to difficulties in dealing with frustration, loss and the twists and turns of existence, making us weaker and less resilient to any contradiction, often unable to deal with them.
Understanding pain also helps us to understand human finitude, death not as an end in itself, which makes life limited and small, but believing that there is something beyond it, that there is a “passage” to eternity, and that without it life seems ephemeral.
We live by consumption, by what is “available”, where “the world that consists of what is available can only be consumed. The world, however, is more than the sum of what is available. The available world loses its aura, its aroma. It allows no lingering” (Han, 2021, p. 94).
It is also a world without “otherness”, as described by Han: “It protects it from being degraded into an object of consumption. Without the original distance, the other is no you. He is not summoned in his otherness, but appropriated” (idem, p. 94), here Han is recalling a text by another thinker and educator, Martin Buber.
Only those who have already moved on from the finitude of the world, from immediate consumption and passing life, to a true desire for eternity, already here, can understand pain, and extreme pain such as Jesus’ death on the cross, but as Han emphasizes, it then returns to the surrounding world, which is reality, but does not cancel out the desire and reach beyond the finite Being.
Han, B.-C. (2021) A sociedade paliativa: a dor hoje. Transl. Lucas Machado. Brazil, Petrópolis, RJ: Editora Vozes.
Pain and ashes
05
Mar
The period of Lent is the 40 days after Carnival,
as it was already part of the early church, coming from the Easter of the Jews, it is before Carnival, it recalls the Jewish Easter (Pesach), which has the meaning of passage or liberation, remembering the period when they were slaves in Egypt.
Christian Easter is a renewal, it recalls the death and resurrection of Jesus. We are reading and remembering the book by Byung-Chul Han (who is not a Christian) where he talks about the ontological meaning of pain and its current erasure, clarifying: “we live in a society with increasing loneliness and isolation” (Han, 2021, p. 59).
The author quotes Viktor von Weizsäcker in his essay “The Pains”, where he characterizes pain as a “truth that has become flesh”, as a “becoming flesh of truth” (p. 61), and also “Everything that is true is painful” (idem).
Society without truths, says the author in the following passage, is “an unparalleled hell”, and “pain can only arise where true belonging is threatened. Without pain, then, we are blind, incapable of truth and knowledge” (p. 62).
So in Christianity and Judaism, the ashes and Passover as a way of of 40 days, appear to remind us of the dust we are and the path of salvation and belonging we must follow: “pain is distinction [Unterschied]. It articulates life” (pg. 63), ‘it marks boundaries’.
“Pain is reality. It has a reality effect. We first perceive reality in the resistance that hurts. The permanent anaesthesia of the palliative society derealizes [entwirklicht] the world” (p. 64) and ‘reality returns in the form of a viral counter-body’ (p. 65) wrote the author because it was the period of the pandemic.
So the ashes and the period of Lent for Christians is to renew the period of Jesus’ passion as its apex in Holy Week, where there is the apex of the pain of crucifixion and the apex of renewal that is his resurrection, Christians or not, this is the true and real logic of life.
If we don’t understand this, we become paralyzed by the pain of hatred, wars, indifference, various types of injustice, the exclusion of the Other, in short, the non-life that all this senselessness of pain causes, and so it is necessary to remember the dust of ashes, everything that passes and that only makes sense if we understand pain not as an end, but as a passage to life.
Han, B. C. (2021) Paliative Society: pain today. Transl. Lucas Machado, Brazil, Petrópolis: Ed. Vozes.
Corpus Christi and spirituality
28
Mar
There are those who believe in transubstantiation
during the consecration of the host and wine during religious worship and those who think it is just something symbolic, others still believe the purest worship leads to salvation, and forget that it must be taken to the world , then there is the Eucharistic fulfillment among men and in the world.
It is not surprising that a faith is quite fideistic (without works) and another that is quite worldly (only works are enough), this occurs inside and outside churches for obvious reasons, there is the Eucharist, that is, communion within the church must be carried out in the soul to the world, becoming a “world soul”.
For both Plotinus and Augustine of Hippo, the “soul” was the vision of the One, that is, of true communion and it is not done without God and is not realized if it is not taken to substance, in fact it is curious that bread and wine They are not substances of nature, they are made by man from wheat and grapes, so they are only realized in the “world soul” by the action of men in society.
Although the day was established by Pope Urban IV, 1264, to be celebrated on the Thursday after Holy Trinity Sunday, before he became pope he met a girl named Juliana who dreamed of this Eucharistic feast.
However, it is little told in history that the holiday was declared after a “miracle” that occurred in a church in Bolsena, Italy, by a priest who doubted Juliana’s visions, at the time of consecration, a moment in the Catholic mass that raises the bread and wine, blood began to flow and stain the corporal (cloth) on the altar.
Most non-Catholic Christian churches or those with Orthodox and Eastern rites celebrate only a symbolic supper that resembles Jesus’ last supper. Luther in the Protestant reform no longer used the term transubstantiation but rather consubstantiation, wine and bread, which are corporeal of blood and flesh. of Christ, but one of the leaders of the reform Ulrico Zwingli convinced the “reformed” that it was only a symbolic Lord’s Supper as a memorial of his death and resurrection.
Whatever the professed faith, communion with the One who is God and with men, its realization in humanity cannot be done without a true communion “among” men, In Greco-Roman churches this is done with the foot washing ceremony, remembering that Jesus washed the feet of the apostles (John 13:1-17) (above painting in Saint Maria del Mar, Barcelona).
Being, Pain and Easter
15
Apr
This is a time that did not abolish Pain, because as we developed
in previous posts it is inherent to existence, but we condemn it to oppose it to Being and Happiness, the philosopher Byung Chul Han wrote: “Just in the palliative society hostile to pain , silent pains multiply, crammed into the margins, which persist in their absence of meaning, speech and image”. (HAN, 2021, p. 57).
Nothing is more paradoxical in post-modernity than Pain, so the Cross is imagined as a symbol of liberation and of life, one could even say: absurd, but Paul the Apostle warns: “For both Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek wisdom; but we proclaim Christ crucified, who is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” (Corinthians, 1:23).
It is in this perspective that racial violence, various forms of exploitation and what Byung Chul Han calls “self-exploitation” are explained, we no longer need others to exploit us, we do it voluntarily, incitement to a daily life with the mark of counting and not of Being.
The Pandemic could be an occasion for solidarity pain, but it was another impulse for exclusion, for isolation, for the strengthening of barriers and individual anxieties, which exploded in an anxiety crisis, in various ways of ignoring the pain of others, the point of denying it altogether.
It took a while, but in the final battle against the Pandemic we gave in to fatality, to the delirium of public parties out of time, the desire to overflow and try to ignore the pain for the ecstasy of public parties.
What appears on the horizon of this delusion are even more hellish wars, desires for domination and more power, lives are ignored with almost always absurd justifications: it was inevitable, there is no way to stop them without weapons, etc. more wars, more deaths, more suffering and market crashes.
Apparently, ignoring the divine Passion, we are making great strides towards a civilizing, humanitarian “passion” (of suffering) and a greater abyss than that which would be to live and manage the pains of a sick civilization and postmodernity with a horizon dingy.
There remains the hope of those who believe in the solidarity overcoming of a dormant humanity, of a balanced civilization center that recovers not only the process of hominization but also its solidarity with nature and the universe we live in.
This is a possible reading for the Divine Passion of the one who for love endured human pain, only a “passage” through Pain can make us understand a new possible humanity.
HAN, Byung-Chul. (2021) A sociedade paliativa: a dor hoje (The palliative society: pain today). trans. Lucas Machado. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.
The palliative society or the absence of pain
13
Apr
Palliative society explains Byung Chul Han has nothing to do with palliative medicine, as the Korean-German philosopher explains: “Thus, every critique of society has to carry out a hermeneutic of pain. If pain is left solely to medicine, we miss its character as a sign” (Han, 2021).
It reminds us of a saying by Ernest Jünger: “Tell your relationship with pain, and I will tell you who you are!”, so a critical society is not possible without a hermeneutics of pain, the relationship with each suffering not only that produced by history, but that which is in the particularity of each Other.
“Survival society completely misses the point of the good life. Enjoyment is also sacrificed to high health for an end in itself” (Han, 2021, p. 34).
He recalls and quotes Agamben in his vision of homo sacer and via naked: “Without resistance, we subject ourselves to the state of exception that reduces life to bare life” (Han, 2021, idem).
In the palliative society “The art of suffering pain is entirely lost to us… Pain is now a meaningless evil that must be fought with painkillers. As a mere bodily affliction, it falls entirely outside the symbolic order” (Han, 2021, p. 41), emphasis added by the author.
So today, pain is removed from any possibility of expression, it is condemned to remain silent, and “the palliative society does not allow to enliven, to verbalize pain into a passion” (p. 14), emphasis added by the author.
Vargas, Cecília (2018) Systems of Pain/Networks of Resilience project in one gallery. Curated by Cecilia Vargas, Dickson Center at Waubonsee Community College, June 7-July 10th(foto).
HAN, Byung-Chul. (2021) The palliative society: pain today. trans. Lucas Machado. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.
Pain, Being and the Other
08
Apr
Pain is essential in existence, philosopher Byung Chul Han in
the essay “The society palliates pain today” writes talking about the pandemic and the rediscovery of Being: “I feel pain, therefore I exist. We also owe the sensation of existence to pain. If it disappears entirely, substitutes are sought” (Han, Vozes, 2011, p. 65). But the pain of the Other is strange to us, writes Han: “The nakedness of the soul, the being exposed, the pain with the other, are entirely lost to us” (Han, p. 104), there is no compassion.
That’s why the cruelty of war, the totalitarian leaders who expose this kind of contempt for the Other, for their pain, in the case of the Pandemic the number of dead are so anesthetized, it doesn’t hurt us so it doesn’t exist, which is a falsification of being , for it is Being only with-the-Other.
Megalothymia, the overvaluation of oneself, or of the social group to which one belongs, is both for Chul Han and for Fukuyama (who wrote “The End of History”, poorly read and interpreted), inspired by Nietzsche that this is the “last human being”, which reveals this type of anesthesia: “a little poison now and then: it gives pleasant dreams” (Han, p. 105).
It is important to understand why we admit death, even if unfair (of the innocent and those infected by the virus) because we do not imagine it as non-life, it does not hurt us, and the pain of the other is not felt, it can even be denounced by group aspects , but not as being and as Other. But it was not Nietzsche who “killed God”, not even the divine in us, the passion of the cross is pain-with-the-Other, it makes no sense but a divine Being who gives himself up for the Other, and there he is pure Being, it is divine Being.
When judging Jesus and even finding no crime, he hands him over to crucifixion, and even condemned the divine Being who will be subjected to a cruelty of thorns, scourging and finally crucifixion, still looks at the humanity of his executioners and says: “Father, forgive -them! They don’t know what they’re doing!” (Luke 23:34).
Who killed Jesus were the power of the Roman Empire, a face of totalitarian power, and the Pharisees: bad religion and misinterpretation of what should be our re-connection (true re-ligion) to the divine. Pain is essential in existence, philosopher Byung Chul Han in the essay “The society palliates pain today” writes talking about the pandemic and the rediscovery of Being: “I feel pain, therefore I exist. We also owe the sensation of existence to pain. If it disappears entirely, substitutes are sought” (Han, Vozes, 2021, p. 65).
HAN, B.C. (2021) Sociedade Paliativa: a dor hoje. Trans. Lucas Machado. Brazil, Petropolis: Ed. Vozes.
O homem na natureza e o sobrenatural
08
Apr
Entre o mistério e o conhecido, entre o humano e o sobrenatural, há mais coisas 
entre o céu e a terra do que pensam a nossa vã filosofia e nossa humana teologia, ambas precisam de uma mão “extra”.
Precisamos para caminhar em frente de acreditar em algo, ou em alguém que é muito mais palpável ao humano, mas esquecemos como diz Morin, como diz Heidegger e até o crítico literário que nos deixou: é preciso saber o que é Ser.
Morin reclama do humano que não sabe mais do próprio humano, a Pandemia tem mostrado isto com inúmeros exemplos em todo lado, gente que não se compadece dos que morrem todo dia, gente que quer atribuir a culpa do vírus a esta ou aquela pessoa, e pessoas com comportamento como se não estivéssemos numa pandemia, em todos âmbitos faltam humanismo do respeito ao ser humano primeiro e a sua vida como consequência.
Na visão de Heidegger expressa em seu clássico “Ser e Tempo”, o homem é o ser-no-mundo, ou seja, um ser-em-situação-temporal, mas não preso a ela e está sempre aberto para tornar-se algo novo, assim poderíamos pensar o que será o novo no pós-pandemia, isto dará um traço existencial ao que significa ser preso ao tempo.
Porém estava aberto ao novo, isto depende de uma visão de mundo (weltanschauung ou cosmovisão), nela se prende sempre uma visão do mistério da vida, do universo e do que pode existir além dele o sobre-natural, porque o nosso conceito de natureza é incompleto.
Se viemos do barro, ou se a própria vida surgiu de pequenas reações orgânicas do inorgânico (o conceito de mutação aórgica), significa também que nesta origem há mistério e uma série de hipóteses são válidas, porém algo “novo” já aconteceu no passado que deu origem a criação da natureza orgânica, dos animais e do homem nesta “natureza”.
A ideia que podemos objetivar a natureza (supondo que nela nada é sobrenatural) era na visão de Teilhard Chardin a necessidade de entender o homem como algo “complexo” da natureza, que possui consciência dela, porém a objetivação das ciências atuais que procura vê-la só “do lado de fora”, foi citado por Ways (apud Chisholm, 1974) como uma forma arrogante e insensível de lidar com o mundo material, há sempre algo do Ser nela.
O trabalho sobre Ecologia de Chisholm destaca o papel que a não compreensão da natureza como um todo pode ter na sua degradação e o surgimento de anomalias, escreveu (Chrisholm, 1974): “uma vez que o método e a ideologia dependiam do fracionamento dos fenômenos naturais em parcelas controláveis, em teorias e experiências antes de passar ao problema seguinte, o homem foi perdendo o sentido da vida como uma grande teia que é a que a Ecologia ensina” (Chisholm,1974), assim também o homem e a natureza operam como uma rede, uma “teia ecológica”.
Também há a ligação inversa do sobrenatural com o natural, é curiosa a passagem Bíblica que Jesus depois de ressuscitado aparece aos apóstolos, mostra os pés e as mãos que foram perfurados e quer comer um peixe (Lc 24, 41-42): “Mas eles ainda não podiam acreditar, porque estavam muito alegres e surpresos. Então Jesus disse: “Tendes aqui alguma coisa para comer?” Deram-lhe um pedaço de peixe assado.”
Assim no sobrenatural também a relação com o natural não se perde, embora na visão bíblica este “noutro plano”.
CHISHOLM, A. Ecologia: uma estratégia para a sobrevivência. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 1974.
We’ve been out to update the software.The Easter of Unleavened Bread to the Eucharist
01
Apr
It is true that Easter celebrated by Christians as the passion, death
and resurrection of Jesus, was already celebrated with the passage of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt to their promised land, today Israel, however the festival is older.
The two strongest signs of Christianity are the death of Jesus precisely in the place of the lamb that is sacrificed at the Jewish feast, remembering the lamb that was sacrificed by Abraham in the place of his son, and his resurrection on Easter day, that is, the passage to eternal life.
However, the date is older, the Jewish calendar is lunisolar, that is, it is based on the cycles of the sun and the moon, unlike the Christian who is between the autumn / spring equinoxes in the northern hemisphere, and summer / autumn in the southern hemisphere.
The feast was still celebrated in the exile of the Jewish people in Egypt, it is estimated that about 3,500 years ago, they sacrificed a healthy lamb, one year old, on a date called the 14th of nissan, for a week they consumed unleavened bread and bitter herbs, and the blood of the animal was used to mark the thresholds of the Jewish homes, so that the passing angel of death would not enter those houses.
The breads consumed in this period because they are unleavened, are called unleavened bread that give rise to the feast before Easter, on Friday the lamb is sacrificed, and should be eaten before dawn and what is not eaten must be burned.
Jesus was sacrificed just on a Easter Friday and this confirms the prophetic sign foreseen in the Bible, and on Thursday he performs the supper with unleavened bread, however, while purifying and sharing the bread and wine, he says: “this is my body and my blood ”instituting the Christian Eucharist, in which an aortic event takes place, an inorganic substance becomes organic and in this case divine, this is the consecrated host.
Christians call it transubstantiation, but our whole body, except the soul for those who believe, is also composed of inorganic substance, and in Christian eschatology the entire universe will be transformed into the body of Christ, in the view of Teilhard Chardin it has always been, because everything he is your body.
So it can be said that the future of the universe and humanity is to become all Eucharistic.
Quarantine and Lent
17
Feb
Those who manage to live this long quarantine, which enters the
second year, as perspectives and hopes are true, but also with anguish and concerns, understand that there is a cause for attention, encouragement and concern, especially with the anguished. There was no carnival, and there is no reason to party, it is true that some groups insist, but if we look at the number of people compared to society as a whole, they are a minority, the majority are concerned and want us to have a way out of this suffering soon.
For Christians it is a period of prayer, fasting and abstinence, it means to abstain from some things that the new normal is already taking away from us, however this can be done voluntarily, thinking about the society as a whole that suffers. Representative of Catholicism, but also of Christianity, Pope Francis always looks at the whole human family with tenderness and passion as a good Latin, in his February 12 message he invited us “Let’s go up to Jerusalem…” (Mt 20, 18) which means how he himself explains a “journey of conversion, prayer and sharing of our goods”, and so to live this Lent with an attentive eye to those suffering from abandonment and anguish because of the pandemic (in the photo the door where Jesus began his final journey in Jerusalem).
When Jesus approaches Jerusalem, he goes there to live the days of the Passover, the Jews already celebrated it and still celebrate it today, but it does not always coincide due to the Jewish calendar being different from our Christian, but the lamb that is “sacrificed” during Easter, referring to the sacrifice Abraham made in place of his son, it is Jesus himself this lamb at Christian Easter.
The quarantine of all is the pandemic, saying words of encouragement that comfort, comfort, strengthen, stimulate instead of words that humiliate, distress, irritate and despise emphasized the Pope.
I think that due to the quarantine situation it will be a different Lent, in which we will go deeply into our pains as humanity, and we will be able to think about a much more promising and hopeful future ahead, Lent is not just death, we go through it , but the resurrection that is on the other side for the one who accepts to pass through the narrow door.
All humanity suffers, so it is a moment of passion for all humanity, and those who are fraternal and supportive will know the way to alleviate the pain of those who suffer.
It is time to think about the essentials of life, to review our false paths of progress and to review our personal lives.
