Folia Theologica et Canonica 3. 25/17 (2014)

IUS CANONICUM - Michael Carragher, O.P., The sacrament of confirmation and personal development

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MICHAEL CARRAGHER, O.P.

beings with their faces forward and not downward have a broader sweep of sensible objects around them and can discern more perspicaciously the differences of objects, identifying them under different descriptions.15 In addition, human beings can glean intelligible truth from all persons, animals, tangible or material entities present to the five senses. Our Lord, dying on the cross, could hear16 the groans of his crucified companions, could see his mother and the beloved disciple besieged by grief, could smell the stench of death, could experience thirst, and could feel the pain inflicted by the crown of thorns on his head. All five sensible experiences conveyed intelligible truths of human actions, whether of friends, enemies, curious bystanders or passing onlookers. Consequently, his internal suffering was all the more intense because of these tangible experiences.

Being erect affords the person freedom to perceive and reflect on what is present and absent. By holding the head high the person is not burdened by what happens lower down unless he feels an obstacle, discomfort or some distracting phenomenon which calls for his attention. There is the freedom to engage in reflection which presupposes leisure from unremittingly physical hard work, the facilities to study, the amenities to relax and encounter like-minded people.17

15 Denys Turner supra 9, pages 87-88. “[i]f you bump into three hard objects in a darkened room, you are (in Locke’s sense of the word) in possession of purely abstract impressions of them: that is to say you have grasped of all the three objects that they possess in common the properties of solidity, minus any others. But if, as we saw Thomas to say, you then turn on a light, you see them all in the medium of much greater complexity and variety, you experience them no longer as abstractly tangible objects but as furniture. You grasp their wealth of differentiation in respect of position and color and shape and size and elegance - or ugliness, as the case may be - their usefulness, their layout, you begin to understand the social purposes of the room thus furnished. In short you see a living room.”

16 What does it meant to hear? See Grisez, G. G., Sketch of a Future Metaphysics, in New Scholasticism 38 (1964) 310-340 at 313: “Suppose we attend a lecture by a philosopher who discusses a problem of some interest. What is it that we really hear at the lecture? Asked this question afterwards, we might reply in several different ways. If we happen to be interested in physics, we might comment on the sound which we heard, and evaluate the man’s voice, its amplification, the acoustics of the hall. If we attended to the line of argument, we might talk over the problem itself, the evidence and arguments which were offered, the clarification gained, and evaluate the competence of the piece of philosophic workmanship we have heard. If we were impressed by the speaker himself, we might express our appreciation of the man’s character and commitment to philosophy, and we might exclaim that we now know how the Athenians felt after listening to Socrates. Finally if we were concerned about the difficulties of expression and communication, we might remark upon the words and phrases, the subtle and accurate use of language we had noticed. In short, if a problem is presented for our consideration, we may really hear one of the following: the sounds, the problem, the person, and the language.” It would be an interesting exercise to analyse the other senses.

17 Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 66, a.7, ad 3. Ad tertium dicendum quod principalis pars corporis, praecipue quantum ad exteriora membra, est caput, in quo vigent omnes sensus et interiores et exteriores. Et ideo, si totum corpus aqua non possit perfundi, propter aquae paucitatem vel propter aliquam aliam causam, oportet caput perfundere, in quo manifestatur principium anima- lis vitae. Et licet per membra quae generationi deserviunt peccatum originale traducatur, non ta-