Love God Back

Did you know that St. Augustine wrote a 6-series work on music theory? He called it “De Musica“. Until this week, I had no idea. When I read about it, I knew I had to learn more.

Recognizing Beauty

The first five books discussed rhythm. (His intent was to later write a series on melody but it never materialized.) The sixth book was different. According to John MacInnis, Augustine felt his last book was the most important one. The saint felt that in comparison, the others were “childish trifles.”

What makes the last book so different? In Book VI, Augustine took a philosophical turn. According to MacInnis:

Augustine then explains how the discernment of rhythmic equality and symmetry in music is only one way in which we may identify an order pervasive throughout all creation. For example, the motions of the cosmos demonstrate an appropriate ordering for the soul; the planets move in perfect unity in imitation of eternity, and their rhythms unite earthly things in “the hymn of the universe.

Two things stood out to me. First, as noted in my past columns on Catholic scientists such as Father Stanley Jaki, St. Albert the Great, and Takashi Nagai, there is an important theme of an orderly universe.

Thomas E. Woods, Jr., who holds a Ph.D. in history, wrote How the Catholic Church Build Western Civilization. When talking about Father Jaki, he states:

Jaki places great significance on the fact that the Christian tradition, from its Old Testament prehistory through the High Middle Ages and beyond, conceives of God — and by extension, His creation — as rational and orderly. Throughout the Bible, the regularity of natural phenomena is described as a reflection of God’s goodness, beauty, and order.

“The world”, writes Jaki, summing up the testimony of the Old Testament, “being the handiwork of a supremely reasonable Person, is endowed with lawfulness and purpose”.

The concept of order and predictable laws seems obvious, but other cultures did not see it that way. Jaki gives us several examples. For instance, he speaks of the Babylonians. He tells us they held an annual ceremony to prevent “total cosmic disorder.” He does not deny the contributions of other cultures, but claims they lacked “sustained scientific inquiry.”

Woods discusses Jaki’s explanation of the Thomistic Catholic view, saying:

It was important to find out precisely what kind of universe God created and so avoid abstract thinking about how the universe must be. God’s complete freedom means it did not have to be any particular way. It is by means of experience — a key ingredient of the scientific method — that we come to know the nature of the universe that God chose to create. And we can come to know it because it is rational, predictable, and intelligible.

After all, Scripture tells us, “But thou hast arranged all things by measure and number and weight.” (Wisdom 11:20, RSCVE).

We can study an orderly universe to learn more about God. Since God made it this way, He must want to be known.

The second thing that stood out to me was how Augustine’s dedication to God showed in his works. While writing about music, he relates it all to God. As an example, MacInnis says:

In De Musica VI.14, Augustine proposes that orienting the soul toward God is a matter of properly ordered love, to which all the movements and rhythms of human life are to be directed:

“Now, do you think that I should speak at length about this, when the Holy Scriptures in so many volumes and with such authority and sanctity tell us nothing but this, that we shall love our God and Lord with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and love our neighbor as ourselves [Luke 10:27]? Thus, if we direct all these movements and rhythms [motus numerosque] of our human activity to this end, we will undoubtedly be purified.” ([8], p. 91).

Father Jaki showed the same dedication. Anybody who chooses to write about the metaphysics of the Eucharist has God on his mind. I quoted Jaki in my earlier article as saying this:

Hunger for true love — heroic, self-sacrificing love — remains humankind’s basic hunger. Acknowledgment of this comes on occasion even from those who earned their fame (often their fortunes, too) by preaching salvation through science. When Bertrand Russell stated at Columbia University in 1950 that Christian love or compassion was the thing most needed by modern humans, he moved revealingly close to declaring intellectual bankruptcy on his and many others’ behalf. He said much more about Christian love. Although fully familiar with the enormous power of modern science, medicine, and technology, he held high Christian love as the answer to human needs in the broadest sense: “If you have Christian love,” he declared to a stunned audience, “you have motive for existence, a guide for action, a reason for courage, an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty.”

Beauty In Everything, Everywhere

When we see God in everything, we become like Servant of God Takashi Nagai. He was a physician specializing in radiology. Nagai was working in a hospital in Nagasaki when the second atomic bomb dropped. He not only saw God’s hand in it; he expressed gratitude. At a requiem Mass at the Cathedral, he spoke these moving words:

Is there not a deep connection between the annihilation of this Christian city and the end of the war? Was not Nagasaki the chosen victim, the spotless lamb, the holocaust offered on the altar of sacrifice, immolated for the sins of all the nations during the Second World War? … Let us be grateful that Nagasaki was chosen for this holocaust! Let us be grateful, for through this sacrifice, peace has been given to the world, and religious freedom has been given to Japan.

Then there is St. Albert the Great. Author Kevin Vost, in his book St. Albert the Great: Champion of Faith and Reason, writes:

For him, science served as a means to understand God through His creation, to deepen our awareness of His majesty in the glorious wonders of the universe that is His handiwork.

In other words, his love for God motivated St. Albert. It led to a desire for understanding, making a difference in his life and the world.

Woods’ book gives numerous examples of people who live in the service of God. It is not just scientists, though there are plenty of them. For example, did you know that Catholics developed the University system? It began in the middle ages. Woods quotes historian Lawrie Daly as saying that the Church was “the only institution in Europe that showed consistent interest in the preservation and cultivation of knowledge”. That interest is a result of loving God and desiring to know Him better.

Love God

Mark Mallet recently wrote about some time spent in what he called “the Silence”. He said, “I tried not to think about anything except the present moment and what God was carving in the heavens, His little love messages to us in Creation. And I loved Him back.”

It is in loving God back that we desire to know more about Him. We want to recognize those “little love messages.” We want to show our love, and knowing Him helps us to know how to serve Him. This is why Christianity is so important to the development of so much good in society.

At the beginning of a romantic relationship, we think of our beloved constantly. We desire to learn more about them. Every song becomes a love song.

How do we develop that intense love for God? As in other meaningful relationships, through communication. We learn about God through the study of His Word and speak to Him in prayer. Mass offers us both, but it is important to speak with Him outside of Mass as well. Adoration is a great place to better understand His greatness and grow closer to Him.

If someday someone was to examine my life, what would they conclude? Do I love God back? Seeking God in everything should be a goal for us all. The more we live to love and serve God, the more we bring others to Him and make the world He created a better place.