Have we lost our sense of wonder? Have we lost our sense that extraordinary things are happening all around us, through the faith of people and the love of God? Our sense that the Holy Spirit is working all around us? Our sense that there are so many exciting things in the world to wonder at?! (Sorry that was quite a few questions! 
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I think we sometimes get bogged down in rationalising, and simply occupying ourselves, and we forget to be open to the mystery of faith all around us. Not everything can be comprehended and rationalised, as much as the human race tries to do this.
I read an essay by Fr David Ranson recently. It emphasised the importance of having a sense of wonder. He describes a sense of wonder as “essentially an opening attitude – an awareness that there is more to life than one has yet fathomed.” Jesus placed importance on a sense of wonder with his special regard for little children. He said “unless you become like little children you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven”.
So do we take from this that we should be a bit detached from reality? I don’t think so! I think maybe the meaning Fr Ranson was getting at was that the ordinary things of life often are extraordinary. Maybe we have to experience what is all around us more.
David Ranson comments that we must be attentive to the ordinary things of life all around us, and through prayer we can see these things in new ways. He further comments that “Our true desire for God does not take us out of life, but it inserts us more into life. It enables us to live with a greater and greater sense of reality.”
I hope this isn’t really confusing!! I just found it an interesting and true thought.
eW,
Nice post. A series of good questions you raise. I’ve not read any complete texts of Fr David Ranson, but a priest friend of mine shared some comments of his on the difference between religion and spirituality. I’ll try to source those points and post them tomorrow.
I really like his comment about how God inserts us more into life. I’m not sure where I heard (or read) a similar comment, but I think it gets at the same point: “The more one focuses on the divine, the more human s/he becomes.” That has certainly been the case for me.
Yes, for sure! I recently read this article by an Angelologist, Fr. Marcello Stanzione: Angelologist Says God Is Beyond Rationality: Warns of Loss of “Mystical Impulse”. I think the sense of wonder, of mystery, is such an important part of our faith, and that is something currently suffering in the Latin rite, needing to be complimented by our Eastern Orthodox brothers (who emphasizes the mystical through what is termed “Apophatic” ['negation'] theology).
That said, rational and “Cataphatic” ['affirmation'] theology is also a treasure that the Church has. I think rationalizing and retaining a sense of wonder can happily co-exist. Indeed, one is lacking without the other, and need each other to complete themselves.
Rational thought is like seeing a dimention of truth; rather like looking at 2D photograph of a 3D space. We are here presented with a choice, whether to focus on the picture itself, or on the reality that it seeks to capture. The former is reductionist, and properly describes the way our societal mentality is today. As Filia Day mentioned some weeks ago, this is one of the problems facing our culture; it can no longer perceive the meaning of existence, and this is manifested in various evils such as boredom (and idiotic acts!). We are called to focus on the greater reality than that symbolized by what we can perceive. To quote Peter Kreeft, “Christianity is anti-reductionistic”; only through perceiving the symbolic meaning of things in our everyday existence, can we look around the world with a sense of awe and wonder. I’d highly recommend Kreeft’s Love Sees with New Eyes. It’s a brilliant related reading.
Blessings,
TTM
hi there TTM
thanks for that link to the Peter Kreeft excursus – it was an interesting read. Your comment:
…really made me think a lot.
I see parallels with the Work – St Josemaria Escriva is saying something similar, perhaps, in that push to sanctify our daily work, to see that everything we do, even the simplest of things, has value in the eyes of God…this realisation, then, colours our perception and attitude to these things.
Similar, anyway?
Hi FXD,
for sure! I think the Saints had that realization – Saint Therese said something similar too: “Remember that nothing is small in the eyes of God. Do all that you do with love.”
In our society, we’re all so used to getting more and more extreme, elaborate and expensive, that we no longer see the beauty and goodness of simple things, innocent music, and humble people. I really think the society needs to recover this innocence and simplicity, if it isn’t too late:
“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).
Blessings,
TTM