KHÔRA

                                                                                               https://youtu.be/HTKYsj1Yktg?si=vM8MbX3B-J5R_ecp        " I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him ," [1] as Shakespeare famously wrote. In a reversal of intent, I come not to applaud but to witness folly in its most uninformed form.  I find myself compelled to observe the absurdities of self-assured ignorance. Few things are more maddening than enduring the endless rambling of someone who, with unwavering confidence, stumbles through a jumble of half-formed thoughts, blissfully oblivious to their own confusion. The effect is not merely mentally draining; by the end of it, one is left with the disconcerting feeling that th...

  Hemen A. Emmanuel O.S.A Colegio Mayor Mendel. C. del Rector Royo-Villanova, 6, Moncloa - Aravaca, 28040 Madrid Madrid, España.      

            I was invited to write a short reflection for Via Christi's philosophy magazine on the question of whether politics is a divine mandate. At the time, the question struck me as rather humorous, given that we had just completed the election that brought in the current president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The irony was not lost on me.  In response, I adopted an attitude of Wittgensteinian silence: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." Yet somehow I managed to slip in a few words suggesting that the politics of deception had long held democracy hostage. Whatever conclusions one draws from this observation should, I think, suffice to answer the question at hand.     I must confess that I am somewhat allergic to politics, so much so that I tend to take a cursory look at what is being broadcast. Yet, almost imperceptibly, I find myself increasingly fascinated, not by the political machinations of the world at ...

               To say "Here I am" is, at its core, a response to the unspoken question, "Where are you?" This utterance carries with it a deep sense of faithfulness—not merely in terms of physical presence but in how the self-responds to the interpretative demand embedded in the call. My reflection is less concerned with the literal positioning of the "I" or “Self” and more with the manner in which the self acknowledges and responds to the call itself. Recently, I have become increasingly absorbed in the inherent dynamic within this acknowledgment of presence—one that transcends the simple matter of location and delves into the profound significance of being summoned. In this reflection, w e shall explore Jean-Louis Chrétien’s idea of "call and response," examining how his ideas converge within the hermeneutics of presence and the act of proclaiming, "Here I am." In his work The Call and Response , Chrétien thoughtfully observes: In...

    Como si un cielo ignoto hubiera desplegado todo su vigor sobre la fragilidad de mi espíritu, he percibido una hermosura que me redime, una verdad que me ensalza, un destino que me sana. [1]   Si la fragilidad es parte inherente de la existencia, ¿podemos ofrecerla como un don, como algo valioso para el mundo? Ilber sugiere que la verdadera belleza de la vida no reside en trascender nuestra fragilidad, sino en abrazarla como un elemento vital de nuestro ser. ¿Y si nuestra fragilidad no se viera como un déficit, sino como una contribución, una suave ofrenda al mundo que revela nuestra autenticidad? En un mundo a menudo blindado con certezas y fachadas, el acto de abrazar y compartir la fragilidad puede fomentar una comprensión y empatía más profundas. Como escribió Leonard Cohen, «Todo tiene una grieta. Así es como entra la luz » [2] . Ilber se mueve con fluidez entre poetas y filósofos, entre mis favoritos Paul Ricoeur y Simone Weil.  La fragili...

  Some years ago, when I was a novice in the Augustinian novitiate, I had the privilege of listening to one of Brendan's homilies. He began by referring to the death of the Irish poet Seamus Heaney, whose unforgettable last words were " Noli timere ", which means "Do not be afraid". These words encapsulate a sentiment that Brendan himself would want to convey as we bid him farewell, a reassurance not to be paralysed by grief or fear. Brendan would want us to embrace peace in the face of death, to face its inevitability with acceptance, not shock. The usual religious sentiment of someone “going to a better place” will, no doubt, cross our minds as we move through this moment of loss. Yet Brendan’s outlook extended beyond such platitudes. He embodied an understanding of the Heideggerian assertion that we are "Beings-towards-death" . As the Spanish philosopher Julián Marías reminds us: "If mortality were merely possible, but not necessary, if man wer...

       For the first time since a catastrophic blaze almost reduced it to ruin in 2019, the towering Gothic masterpiece that is Notre-Dame has reopened for worship, resplendent and renewed. Beneath its soaring arches, voices rose in song and prayer, celebrating a rebirth that seemed almost miraculous in its splendour. With three resounding knocks on its doors, Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich, wielding a specially designed crosier carved from fire-scorched beams, ceremonially called the monument back to life on Saturday evening.         French President Emmanuel Macron declared that Notre-Dame would be "even more beautiful than before." Whether Macron views the rebirth  as more glorious than before to silence his critics or as a form of liturgy symbolising a transition from the old to the new, one thing remains certain: his declaration operates within the realm of language steeped in visual and spatial rhetoric. Roland Barthes might rem...