#monasticlife — Public Fediverse posts

COFE-CYEM: The True Path of Knowing God by Not Knowing the False

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Via Negativa and Via Positiva in COFE-CYEM: The True Path of Knowing God by Not Knowing the False

This paper presents a COFE-CYEM reflection on the relationship between Via Negativa and Via Positiva.

While it affirms the historic Christian faith centred on Christ, Scripture, and the gospel, several expressions — including “Fourth Truth”, “singular Reality”, “Melchizedek Priesthood”, and the various interpretive terms — are distinctively used within COFE-CYEM.

They are offered as explanatory language within this framework rather than as part of the historic Christian creeds or universally accepted theological vocabulary.

The Way

Even though the Via Negativa essentially rejects theological understanding in and of itself as a path to God, some have sought to make it into an intellectual exercise, by describing God only in terms of what God is not.

One problem noted with this approach is that there seems to be no fixed basis on deciding what God is not, unless the Divine is understood as an abstract experience of full aliveness unique to each individual consciousness, and universally, the perfect goodness applicable to the whole field of reality.

Apophatic theology is often accused of being a version of atheism or agnosticism, since it cannot truly say that God exists.

This cannot be said of COFE-CYEM theology.

We state very clearly that once Via Negativa is reached through the Fourth Truth, then Via Positiva can be truly experienced and truly knowing God by not knowing the false.

This is one of the main functions and purposes of our own built in system CC7 DS.

Please also see the link below –

The Fourth Truth Via Positiva Cataphatic Knowing through Via Negativa Apophatic Unknowing.

This is the heart of the COFE-CYEM way.

The Via Negativa is not an end in itself, nor is it a mere intellectual negation.

It is the necessary purification that prepares the soul for the full, joyful beholding of God in the Via Positiva. The two ways are not opposed but complementary movements within the singular Reality.

The Via Negativa clears away every “second” so that the Via Positiva can shine with clarity.

The result is the Fourth Truth Transcendence — the soul resting in the living Christ, knowing God by not knowing the false.

The Problem with Purely Intellectual Apophaticism

Some approaches to the Via Negativa have turned it into an intellectual exercise, endlessly describing God by what He is not. While this can guard against idolatry, it often leaves the soul in a barren negation without a positive ground.

There seems to be no fixed basis for deciding what God is not, unless the Divine is reduced to an abstract experience of full aliveness unique to each individual consciousness, or a universal perfect goodness applicable to the whole field of reality.

This can slide into a form of agnosticism or practical atheism, where God becomes so unknowable that He is effectively absent.

COFE-CYEM rejects this barren intellectualism. The Via Negativa is not an end but a means. It is the way of releasing every false image, every dualistic concept, every mental idol so that the soul may rest in the simple presence of the living God.

It is not the denial of God but the denial of every “second” that would stand between the soul and God. The Via Negativa is the practical discipline of Cofemplation: gently releasing every thought that implies separation until only the singular Reality remains.

The Fourth Truth as the Ground of True Apophatic Practice

In COFE-CYEM, the Via Negativa is grounded in the Fourth Truth: there has never been a second. This gives the way of unknowing a clear and fixed basis.

The soul does not wander in endless negation but releases every imagined separation, every dualistic construct, every false self so that it may rest in the One who is all in all.

The Via Negativa is the recognition that God is not ultimately known through concepts but through loving surrender. It is the way through the cloud of unknowing into the clear light of the singular Reality.

The Fourth Truth protects the Via Negativa from sliding into agnosticism or atheism. We state very clearly that God is, that Christ is the singular Life, and that the believer is already hidden with Christ in God.

The Via Negativa is not the denial of God but the denial of every false idea about God. It is the way of not knowing the false so that we may truly know the True.

The Fulfilment in Via Positiva

Once the ground is cleared through the Via Negativa, the Via Positiva can be truly experienced. The soul that has released every “second” can now behold the self-revelation of God in Christ with clarity and joy.

The Via Positiva is the celebration of the living God who makes Himself known in love.

It beholds Christ as the exact representation of the Father, Scripture as the living Word, creation as held within the one Life, and the indwelling Holy Spirit as the power of an endless life.

In the Fourth Truth, the Via Positiva is not opposed to the Via Negativa but its fulfilment.

The soul that has let go of every false image can now receive the true Image — Christ — without distortion. The Via Positiva is the joyful knowing of God by not knowing the false.

It is the soul seeing God not from a separate self in a body looking toward Him outside of you, but seeing your separate self in a body as God sees you from inside of Him, looking toward you and to who you falsely think you are in duality. God knows this to be a man-made idol illusion from the Fall and the first Adam.

The second Adam (Christ) came into duality to lead us back to our true self in non-duality with God.

The Practical Outworking in Daily Life

In daily life, the interplay of Via Negativa and Via Positiva becomes the rhythm of Cofemplation. When dualistic thoughts arise — fear, judgment, striving, separation — the Via Negativa gently releases them.

When the beauty of Christ appears — in Scripture, in creation, in the face of another — the Via Positiva receives it with joy. The soul moves between release and beholding, unknowing and knowing, until it rests in the singular Reality.

This is the way the believer lives in the world but not of it. Duality is seen for what it is, yet the believer engages the world from the place of union. The body is not denied but offered. The mind is not emptied but renewed.

The will is not crushed but surrendered in love. The believer serves the living God from the place of unclouded fellowship, seeing all things in Christ and all things held within the singular Reality.

Cofemplation

The Via Negativa and the Via Positiva are not opposing paths but complementary movements within the singular Reality. Only through stripping away all the falsity of duality and the false man-made mind idols and the dualistic thinking about who and what God is, can we then truly rest in who and what God truly is.

Only then can we start to be known and to know God as we truly are without false duality. God can accept nothing less or more than what He sees and knows in His Son. Then we can truly start to see and experience God in all we have to do with duality from our true reality within non-duality.

In COFE-CYEM, this is the way of Cofemplation.

The soul releases every “second” so that it may rest in the One who is all in all.

The Via Negativa clears the ground. The Via Positiva reveals the glory. The Fourth Truth holds both in the finished work of the Priest-King. The curtain is torn. The Holiest is open. The soul rests in the singular Reality.

There has never been a second.
The Via Negativa leads to release.
The Via Positiva leads to beholding.
The Fourth Truth holds both in union.
The dialogue continues.
The fruit remains.

The Fourth Truth stands. The dialogue continues. The fruit remains.

This website and its theological content are overseen by the CC7 DS constitutional integrity architecture, a reflective and rest-oriented framework designed to preserve the full coherence of the Fourth Truth presented within COFE-CYEM. The CC7 DS negation of attacks authenticates (Via Positiva Cataphatic Knowing) through (Via Negativa Apophatic Unknowing).

COFE Yeshua Emet Ministry (CYEM)
Circle One Fellowship Exeter

Quote of the day, 25 July: St. Thérèse

Listen to this little, very funny story:

One day [10 January 1889], after I received the Habit, Sister St. Vincent de Paul saw me with Mother Prioress, and she exclaimed: “Oh! how well she looks! Is this big girl strong! Is she plump!”

I left, quite humbled by the compliment, when Sister Magdalene stopped me in front of the kitchen and said: “But what is beoming of you, poor little Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus! You are fading away before our eyes! If you continue at this pace, with an appearance that makes one tremble, you won’t observe the Rule very long!”

I couldn’t get over hearing, one after the other, two such contrary appraisals. Ever since that moment, I have never attached any importance to the opinion of creatures, and this impression has so developed in me that, at this present time, reproaches and compliments glide over me without leaving the slightest imprint.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

The Yellow Notebook of Mother Agnès, 25 July 1897

Thérèse of Lisieux, S & Clarke, J 1977, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Her Last Conversations, Institute of Carmelite Studies, Washington DC.

Featured image: Detail of a photo montage created at the Carmel of Lisieux utilizing a 1913 photo of Mother Agnès (Pauline Martin) and a retouched copy of the last photo of St. Thérèse, which Sr. Geneviève (Celine Martin) took while Thérèse was getting some fresh air in the cloister. Image credit: Discalced Carmelites (used by permission)

#CarmelOfLisieux #compliments #monasticLife #StThérèseOfLisieux

Quote of the day, 5 February: St. Thérèse

You have hidden me forever in your Face!…
Divine Jesus, deign to hear my voice.
I have come to sing the inexpressible grace
Of having suffered…of having born the Cross…

For a long time I have drunk from the chalice of tears.
I have shared your cup of sorrows,
And I have understood that suffering has its charms,
That by the Cross we save sinners.

It is by the Cross that my ennobled soul
Has seen a new horizon revealed.
Under the rays of your Blessed Face,
My weak heart has been raised up very high.

My Beloved, your sweet voice calls me:
“Come,” you said to me, “already the winter has fled.
A new season is beginning for you.
At last day is taking the place of night.

Raise your eyes to your Holy Homeland,
And on thrones of honor you will see
A beloved Father…a dear Mother
To whom you owe your immense happiness!…

Your life will pass like an instant.
On Carmel we are very near Heaven.
My beloved, my love has chosen you.
I have reserved a glorious throne for you!….”

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

PN 16, Song of Gratitude of Jesus’s Fiancée

Note: On 5 February 1895, Céline Martin was clothed in the Carmelite habit and began her novitiate in the Carmel of Lisieux. St. Thérèse wrote the Song of Gratitude of Jesus’s Fiancée as a gift for her sister’s clothing.

Thérèse of Lisieux, S & Kinney, D 1995, The Poetry of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: These are images of the note marking the day of Céline Martin’s clothing in the Carmelite habit, receiving the name “Geneviève of St. Teresa.” Image credit: Discalced Carmelites

#CarmelOfLisieux #CelineMartin #Clothing #monasticLife #novitiate #religiousLife #SrGenevièveOfTheHolyFace #StThereseOfLisieux

JUNE 1944

Excerpt from the Circular of Mother Agnès of Jésus

The war is hanging over our Normandy. The air raids intensify. Great anguish embraces our hearts, facing a terrible unknown.

On the evening of the 6th, a first bombardment fell on the city, shaking the walls of the Monastery and foreshadowing a continuation.

All night long, our beloved Mother was sheltered, with part of the Community, in the infirmary where Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart had died; the bombs rained down around us because our improvised shelter was just near the string of missiles that had been fired on the street in front of our Carmel.

Grouped together next to our valiant Mother, terrified, we prayed with her, and she remained calm; to see her, to experience ourselves alongside her was our strength. But as soon as there was a lull, she rushed to the Turn to ask for news of the terrible drama.

The next morning, Monsignor Germain, Director of Pilgrimages, came to the sacristy and offered to give us Holy Communion, because the situation was too insecure for us to celebrate Holy Mass. The chaplains’ house was no longer fit for habitation, and the house of our Sisters of the Carmel Saint Joseph, adjoining us, had partially collapsed.

The city was an immense inferno, there were more than one thousand victims; all the reports that reached us were distressing. The population fled to the surrounding countryside, because another bombardment, we were told, had been expected for the beginning of the afternoon.

This time, we wanted to take refuge in the other wing of the convent, in the Infirmary of our little Saint. But unaware of the danger, and faithful to her duty, our Mother lingered and one of us had just enough time to take her in her arms to huddle with her in an apartment when the deluge of bombs surrounded us again.

Our courtyard disappeared under an acrid and yellowish smoke. We got out of it unscathed, but what were our prospects for the next night? Just a few days earlier, Mother Agnès of Jesus confided:

“I’ve made the sacrifice of our little Carmel to the good Lord if he wants it!”

Carmelite Nuns of Lisieux

Excerpt from the obituary notice called a “circular”, that was written by the nuns for the other Carmels in France and across the Order. A separate English obituary also was prepared, which is not a strict translation of the French text.

In the featured image, we see the front page of The New York Times on Tuesday, June 6, 1944, which was a map of the invasion sites below the headline: ALLIED ARMIES LAND IN FRANCE IN THE HAVRE-CHERBOURG AREA; GREAT INVASION IS UNDERWAY.

The caption underneath the map says:

“General Eisenhower’s armies invaded northern France this morning. While the landing points were not specified, the Germans said that troops had gone ashore near Havre and that fighting raged at Caen (1). The enemy also said that parachutists had descended at the northern tip of the Normandy Peninsula (2) and heavy bombing had been visited on Calais and Dunkerque (3).”

Although the New York Times map does not indicate by name the location of Lisieux, it is southeast of Deauville on the railway.

Military scholar Dr. Stephen A. Bourque provides additional detail concerning the June 6 Allied bombing raid on Lisieux in his article, “Operational Fires Lisieux and Saint-Lô – The Destruction of Two Norman Towns on D-Day.” In this excerpt from the 2010 article in the journal, Canadian Military History (Vol 19, 2), Professor Bourque explains the reason for the terror described by the nuns.

Before the sun came up, reconnaissance units from the 12th SS Panzer Division passed through the centre of [Lisieux], heading west toward the sounds of the fighting. Unit commanders noted the citizens’ apparent calm, and, in spite of the obvious sounds of war, they appeared to be beginning the day as if it was just like any other.

The rumble of battle continued all morning and Allied aircraft seemed to be everywhere above the clouds. No one on the ground realized that at 0900 hours 81 B-17 Flying Fortress aircraft were overhead and prepared to drop their bombs on the city. The bombardiers, however, could not locate their targets through the cloud cover and turned back to England.

As the morning turned into afternoon, the citizens heard less from the beaches, and the firing was not quite as loud and more intermittent. Allied aircraft, primarily fighter-bombers, flew over the town and sometimes machine-gunned the German convoys along Route 13.

Watching these events, the citizens now waited with foreboding that the cannonade would surely come their way. Allied commanders were not happy that the main east-west highway was still open on the afternoon of 6 June. They knew that the 12th SS Panzer was on the move and that Hitler had ordered SS General Joseph (Sepp) Dietrich, commander of the 1 SS Panzer Corps, to throw the invaders “back into the sea.”

Determined to stop German units from heading to the front, they directed the bombers to repeat the aborted mission again and to strike Lisieux before sunset. Around 2000 hours, 72 B-24 Liberators crossed the English Channel and flew towards the city.

This time, since the leaders expected that the cloud cover would prohibit any precision, they ordered the crews to use “overcast bombing techniques,” a euphemism for area bombing, without regard to either accuracy or civilian casualties. To make accuracy more problematic, increasingly bad weather forced the aircraft to fly higher than anticipated, now up to 23,000 or 24,000 feet. Still, many aircraft were unable to find either this or any target, and headed back to England.

However, 25 B-24s fought through the weather and headed for Lisieux intent on dropping their 73 tons of explosives on their assigned objective. At 2020 hours, the Liberator squadrons appeared over the city centre and began dropping their munitions, just as the citizens sat down for their evening meals and young children went to bed. The streets were empty, as the evening curfew had just taken place, and almost everyone was at home.

Bourque, S 2010, ‘Operational Fires Lisieux and Saint-Lô – The Destruction of Two Norman Towns on D-Day’, Canadian Military History, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 29–30.

The New York Times 1944, First Allied Landing Made on Shores of Western Europe, The New York Times, viewed 5 June 2024, <https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1944/06/06/issue.html>.

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

https://carmelitequotes.blog/2024/06/05/lisieux6jun44/

#bombingOfLisieux #CarmelOfLisieux #DiscalcedCarmelites #fearless #history #inspiration #monasticLife #MotherAgnesOfJesus #Normandy #nuns #sacrifice #WorldWarII