St. Anthony's of Mendocino Catholic Church
Home
Beginning with the first moment in which a child’s sensorium is awakened to wonder–that great source of all the epiphanies of beauty, visions of truth, and quests of the ultimate good–it remains rooted forever in the human heart. But like all roots, it can be forgotten. Ideally, song and story should flourish, from fable and nursery rhyme to Shakespeare and the music of Bach; rational reflection later ripen like a fruit, from the rampant “why’s” of a child to the meditations of a Chinese lohan or an African
The call of wonder from within each of these domains can easily fade when art degrades into willful fancy or wanton technique (with means losing sight of ends); when philosophy fragments into isolated specializations, throwing off orphaned sciences (with insight drowning in information); and when authentic religion evaporates into subjective spiritualities (with sanctity ceding to ‘states of consciousness’).
The three homes and fountainheads of wonder are best preserved by staying in communion one with the other. But that requires effort. This is what I understand to be cultivated, disciplined wonder. As ever-new technologies, specialized sciences and multiple spiritualities fill the world, true wonder is often replaced by titillations and curiosities, and bullied by the pseudo-wonder of mere bigness and power. The ultimate purpose of the arts with the humanities, of philosophy with the sciences, and of religio
St. Anthony's of Mendocino Catholic Church
Home