The Abbey of the Genesee

Fr. Eugene Chung, OCSO

2nd Friday in Ordinary Time

1 Sam 24:3-21; Mk 3:13-19

Here is the man who has been trying to kill David finally at his mercy. And he walks away. He will be Israel’s greatest king of all time, and here we see why. In his best moments, he serves as a shining example of all that a leader should be. He knows that only God can judge the truth and right of a situation, that no one but God is in a position to claim vengeance. Perhaps David is even trying to bring Saul around to right thinking and action. David is first and foremost a God-fearing, God-bearing man whether he is at low or high. What makes David a distinguished figure in the Bible and favored by God is not so much what he did or avoided. Rather, it is the manner in which he praises, the manner in which he repents, and the manner in which he handles yes, fighting. Even when he commits crime, he is more conscious of God he offends than the person he is against. His very consciousness of God is rendered uneasy and restless.  That shapes eventual David, the person who he becomes. What matters most seems to be manner. After all, the primary vow in monastic tradition is Conversion of Manner.

Perhaps Jesus may have had this type of men in his mind when he assembled the Twelve. So, their primary task of discipleship was ‘to be with him’ before anything else.  To be with Jesus means to be a disciple looking beyond their reality before one's eyes. And obviously this is especially difficult for us far removed from his spatial-temporal world. All we have is the words and the images, and of course, the Spirit.

But then, we now live in deluge of material, information, and images, so much so that everyone seems to agree that we have some serious problem. Yet, no one seems to know clearly what to do. A newspaper clip titled 'The Joy of Quiet' I saw in the periodical room the other day depicts just that. Accordingly, attempted remedies, sort of, or reaction to this problem is also increasingly unsettling. Many are engaged in various forms of meditation, whether it be yoga, or zen or Tai chi  or whatever;  psychologists, self-help gurus who once replaced religion are now incorporating their business with some form of spiritual practice; Running Buddhist or zen retreat centers becomes lucrative business competing with high end exclusive resorts. Some scholars even say that we are entering post-secular era.

In a way all these things are more or less welcome development. But there is a catch, indeed a danger for us, Catholics. Davidic manner should not be confused with any other manner, however noble it may look, that doesn't have anyone to be with, but oneself. We, Catholic contemplatives, do not want to contribute to the present climate of 'no distinction.'

Getting away from the killer for a while only to encounter him again and again is one thing, facing down the killer, getting free from the killer and even freeing the killer is completely another. To put it another way, looking away from me in the mirror only to come back to look at again is one thing, looking beyond myself in the mirror, not only to be free from myself but most importantly 'to be with Him' is completely another.

J-L Marion, French thinker, once made an illuminating contrast between an idol and an icon, which I found helpful on this matter. It is not primarily a question of what they are – pictures, statues, representations, etc. – for the same physical object can function as either an idol or an icon. Instead, the icon and the idol determine two manners, not two classes of beings.

An idol is, as the term itself suggests (coming from Greek, eido, to see), something visible, in fact supremely and uncomplicatedly so. The idol invites and takes in the gaze of the observer so thoroughly that it is effectively exhausted in the act of being seen: “the idol fascinates and captivates the gaze precisely because everything in it must expose itself to the gaze, attract, fill, and hold it.” The identity of an idol is not derived from its being made (for the same must be said of an icon), but rather from the decision of the viewer to fix his gaze upon it and to find a sort of final visual satisfaction in it: “When the idol appears, the gaze has just stopped: the idol concretizes that stop.” In this sense an idol functions as more of a mirror than a portrait, for it reflects back to the viewer the nature, quality, and purpose of his own gaze.

So what of the icon, which I would also call Davidic manner? Whereas the idol absorbs and exhausts the gaze, “the icon summons sight in letting the visible … be saturated little by little with the invisible.” The authentic icon “summons the gaze to surpass itself by never freezing on the visible, since the visible only presents itself here in view of the invisible.” In the case of an idol, the gaze of the viewer determines its meaning, but in the case of the icon it is the gaze of the icon that determines the viewer.