#sinceritas

[elucubrare]

disclaimers: I am really not trying to subtumbl anyone, just examine a trend; I'm not against treating historical material with levity.

That said: there's a certain tendency among people who study classics/history/what the Academy calls serious literature to say things like "the reason to study history is that everyone was such a petty drama queen!" or "haha, Shakespeare is just dick jokes!" I think there are several reasons for this: it's a reaction to the centuries or millennia of the material being treated as inviolable; a reaction to peers calling us pretentious; a "best defense is a good offense" shield to "why do you study this?"; an offshoot of cringe culture & a desire to not appear too earnest. And all of that is valid! and I think that being able to play with and joke about the material you study and love is really important. 

But I don't (...um, didn't) study classics because Greek has funny words, or because Caligula's hijinks are amusing (if you can ignore the impact they had on Romans' lives), or because Zeus/Apollo/whichever god is like, such a dudebro. I studied classics because I'm fascinated by several aspects of Greek and Roman religion; because I want to examine the tension between the myth of the Roman state and its reality; because the transformations and receptions of myths are so cool; because I love Homer's dactylic line; and because Horace really did build a monument more lasting than bronze. 

There's no one true way to engage with material and with love, of course. But there is beauty and strength in the humanities, whatever friends and relatives who ask "what are you going to do with that degree" think, and I think we'd be well-served by acknowledging that. 

[frayjuanluisofm]

MARÍA, LA QUE NO SE ROMPIÓ: 

La verdad sobre la Corredentora que nadie quiere discutir

Hay temas que la Iglesia, en su sabiduría y a veces en su miedo, evita porque incomodan a todos. Se dejan en la sombra del debate académico, esperando que el tiempo los resuelva.

Este es uno de ellos.

La palabra “Corredentora” provoca alergia, y hay que decirlo con franqueza:

A algunos les parece demasiado “católica”, ajena al diálogo ecuménico.

A otros, demasiado “femenina”, casi un reto al tradicionalismo.

A otros, excesivamente “teológica”, un tecnicismo que distrae.

Y a la mayoría, simplemente, les da miedo que suene a que “María es otra redentora”

Pero la verdad —y aquí viene el golpe que necesitamos— no es ninguna de esas cosas.

La verdad es más simple, y al mismo tiempo, más profunda:

María no compite con Cristo. María no sustituye a Cristo. María no es la “segunda Redentora”

María es la única humana que no se rompió por dentro. Y por eso pudo colaborar con Dios sin distorsiones ni interferencias.

La verdad duele. Pero también sana.

¿Entonces María es Corredentora o no?

Sí.

Pero no como piensan los extremos. Corredentora no significa que María sea una diosa, ni una “redentora paralela”, ni la cuarta persona de la Trinidad.

Corredentora simplemente significa:

La única humana que colaboró plenamente con Cristo porque su interior nunca fue manipulado por el miedo, el ego, la ideología ni el pecado.

Eso es todo. Pero ese "todo" es inmenso.

María es corredentora porque tuvo la Sinceritas intacta. Tuvo esa transparencia interior que tú, yo, la Iglesia, las naciones y el mundo hemos perdido.

Ella dijo: “Hágase.” Nosotros respondemos: “Depende.” “Luego.” “No quiero.” “No entiendo.” “Pero yo…”

Ella entregó su interior. Nosotros lo negociamos todos los días.

La gran mentira: que Cristo no necesita colaboración de nadie

Aquí está el gran error de la piedad moderna y el gran malentendido teológico: creer que la gracia de Dios, por ser todopoderosa, no necesita un cuerpo humano.

¡Falso! La gracia siempre necesita un cuerpo para manifestarse y salvar:

Necesitó el cuerpo de María para encarnarse.

Necesita las manos de los apóstoles para bautizar.

Necesita las palabras de las mujeres para anunciar la resurrección.

Necesita tu libertad para salvarte.

Cristo lo puede todo, sí. Pero Él no quiere hacerlo sin nosotros.

La redención es el proyecto más humilde y participativo de todo el universo. Por eso María es corredentora: porque es el icono perfecto de la cooperación humana con el amor divino. Ella no le añade poder a la Cruz; le añade humanidad perfecta al proyecto de Dios.

María es la única que no se dejó manipular

El trauma manipula. El ego manipula. La política manipula. El miedo manipula. Las ideologías manipulan. Las redes manipulan. La religión, cuando se desvía, también manipula.

María es la excepción universal. En ella, nada tuvo poder para distorsionar la transparencia interior.

Por eso la tradición la llama Inmaculada, Llena de gracia, Espejo sin mancha.

En palabras sencillas: María no tuvo grietas internas. Por eso Dios se pudo reflejar en ella sin distorsión.

Eso la hace corredentora. No un título pontificio. No una corona de oro. Una interioridad.

En la Cruz, María hace lo que tú no podrías hacer

Es fuerte decirlo, pero es verdad.

La mayoría de nosotros no hubiera resistido al pie de la Cruz . El dolor te rompe. La culpa te destruye. El miedo te petrifica. La vergüenza te ahoga.

María permanece.

No predica. No reclama. No exige. No negocia. No huye.

Permanece.

Y permanecer en el dolor sin que tu espíritu se rompa… eso es redención. No porque ella sea la fuente, sino porque ella deja que el Amor haga lo que tiene que hacer en ella, sin interferencias, sin resentimientos, sin condiciones.

El verdadero problema no es María. Es la sombra que revela.

Esta es la parte que duele… pero sana.

María Corredentora está molesta porque nos recuerda dolorosamente lo que no somos.

Nosotros dudamos, resistimos, negociamos, posponemos, racionalizamos, nos justificamos, nos escondemos.

Ella no.

Ella revela la herida más profunda de nuestra generación: la incapacidad de confiar plenamente.

Por eso necesitamos a María ahora más que nunca: porque la humanidad vive con la Sinceritas rota, fragmentada, siempre negociando su corazón. Y la única persona cuya interioridad no se fracturó jamás nos recuerda hacia dónde caminar.

María es la sanación de la Sinceritas

En la filosofía profunda de la vida espiritual, María es:

La Sinceritas perfecta.

La transparencia absoluta.

La humanidad sin doblez.

La libertad sin miedo.

La fe sin manipulación.

La obediencia sin servilismo.

La madre sin posesión.

La discípula sin protagonismo.

Por eso su vida sana. Y por eso duele verla tan clara, porque expone nuestra opacidad.

El golpe final: La Corredención no es un título. Es una invitación.

María no es corredentora para que la admiremos simplemente. Lo es para que la imitemos:

Cuando escuchamos a Dios sin filtros.

Cuando permanecemos al pie de la Cruz ajena.

Cuando no nos dejamos manipular por el poder ni por la ideología.

Cuando decimos “sí”, aunque duela.

Cuando dejamos que Cristo nazca de nuestra carne herida.

Cuando amamos más allá del miedo.

La corredención no es un privilegio. Es camino.

María es corredentora no porque haga lo que Cristo hace, sino porque deja que Cristo haga lo que tiene que hacer a través de ella sin poner resistencia interior.

Esa es la verdad.

Duele. Pero sana.

Porque nos obliga a preguntarnos de frente:

¿Qué parte de mí está tan manipulada que ya no puede decir “sí”? ¿Dónde rompí mi Sinceritas? ¿Qué tendría que morir en mí para que Cristo nazca en mi historia?

María no responde por ti. Solo te mira. Y su mirada —limpia, transparente, intacta— es la medicina que el mundo moderno no sabe pedir.

Fray Juan Luis Guerrero, OFM

[frayjuanluisofm]

The Truth that Hurts.

Why are we Catholics divided?

The fault is ours.

I'll say it bluntly: the Church is divided because we religious and priests—we ourselves—don't live what we preach. We don't live what we teach. We don't form incarnate Christians.

Vatican II sought to renew the Church. But it was received by a spiritually deformed generation of clergy, and today we are paying the price.

This is the painful truth.

It wasn't the Council's fault… it was our formation's fault.

Decades of priestly formation produced:

rigid priests → without humanity, without acknowledging their wounds, without empathy

activist priests → burned out, without deep prayer

moralistic priests → full of rules, empty inside

ideologue priests → radicalized to the left or right

frightened priests → incapable of listening or accompanying

Pelagian priests → believed that holiness was only discipline

Gnostic priests → reduced faith to concepts and techniques

clerical priests → confused power with ministry

And what happens when the mind is sick? The body suffers.

The current division is the bitter fruit of decades of poor formation.

And yet, in history's darkest moments, God has always raised up guides who restored the path: St. Athanasius, who upheld the divinity of Christ when the whole world was leaning toward Arianism; St. Basil and the Cappadocian Fathers, who restored spiritual depth and community life; St. Benedict, who rescued humanity and the dignity of work; St. Francis, who embodied the Gospel without violence or ideology.

They proved that even when leaders fail, God sends sound hearts.

This is where Trent enters our contemporary history.

After centuries of corruption, theological tensions, and a divided clergy—the fruit of wounds that had existed for centuries—the Protestant Reformation exposed what was already fractured.

The Council of Trent (1545–1563) saved doctrine, but it did so in a way that was entirely defensive:

absolute uniformity

rigid discipline

spirituality based on obligation

sharp separation between clergy and laity

strict morality

identity defined by opposition

authoritarian structures of obedience

formation centered on rules, not on inner integration

Trent was doctrinally necessary. But spiritually, it left a wound: we created obedient priests… but not always humane. Devout… but not always integrated. Well-trained… but not always incarnate.

This Tridentine mentality—which bore good and necessary fruit—also created the clerical mold that would reach the 20th century intact.

And that clerical mold—rigid, defensive, dualistic, moralistic—is exactly what Vatican II received.

Without Trent, it is impossible to understand why we are where we are today.

Trent defended the faith. But it did not heal the heart. And that fracture continues to resonate.

Vatican II called for an incarnate Church… but it was received by hearts without incarnation.

Vatican II was neither modernist nor progressive. It was profoundly Christological.

It called for:

human dignity

genuine dialogue

participatory liturgy

common priesthood

mission in the world

the Church as the People of God

Christ as the center of history

But… what happened?

It was received by a clergy formed in spiritual distortions inherited from centuries past:

Pelagianism (salvation through effort)

Gnosticism (faith as an abstract idea)

Moralism (everything about conduct)

Clericalism (“pure vs. impure”)

Practical Arianism (Christ reduced to a moral teacher)

In other words: heresies lived, not taught, but real.

Then each priest interpreted the Council through the lens of his own wounds:

Some: “The world is dangerous”

Others: “The Church must dissolve into culture”

Others: “Rite is ideology”

Others: “Morality is everything”

Others: “Pastoral ministry is technique”

And so, without realizing it, we destroyed unity.

But in the 20th century, there were also voices that defended the truth of the Council: Guardini, Congar, De Lubac, Rahner, Ratzinger, Edith Stein. They saw that the only way to receive the Council was to live the Incarnation with spiritual maturity.

The Incarnation: What We Have NOT Understood

Here is the central point:

We have not integrated the human and the divine. And that is the cause of all our disaster.

Therefore:

Extreme traditionalists live Monophysitism.

Extreme progressives live Nestorianism.

Modern spiritualists live Gnosticism.

Modern activists live Pelagianism.

Liturgical ideologues live existential Arianism.

These are the same heresies from the 1st to the 5th centuries. But now they are preached from micro-pulpits, social media, and empty homilies.

The painful truth is this:

We don't preach the Incarnation because we don't live it. We don't live it because we don't understand it. And we don't understand it because it was never taught to us in its entirety.

The Church Fathers did understand it: Irenaeus (“the glory of God is the living man”), Leo the Great (“what was not assumed was not healed”), Cyril of Alexandria (unity without confusion), Augustine (grace over nature).

They marked the path that we have forgotten today.

That is why Vatican II “is failing”—not because of itself, but because of us.

The Council did not fail. We failed the Council.

Why?

It called for profound prayer… and we gave activism.

It called for incarnate humanity… and we gave clericalism.

It called for dialogue… and we gave ideology.

It called for community… and we gave bureaucracy.

It called for discernment… and we gave uniformity.

It called for holiness… and we gave perfectionism.

It called for mission… and we gave fear.

It called for integration… and we gave fragmentation.

Vatican II asked for an incarnate heart. We responded with dead structures.

That is why everything is polarized today. Because the Church that was meant to embody Christ… became a caricature.

But there were also shining witnesses here: John XXIII, who opened the windows through trust in the Spirit; Paul VI, who held the helm in the storm; John Paul II, who restored human dignity; Benedict XVI, who put Christ back at the center.

And Pope Francis reminded us that the Incarnation is made concrete in mercy, discernment, and closeness.

History has never been without saints.

The painful truth is:

Polarization doesn't come from the Council, but from the wounded clergy who didn't know how to put it into practice.

Ancient heresies have returned because we never developed an incarnate anthropology.

The Church is divided because we don't know how to live the mystery we preach: God made man.

The solution is neither to go back nor to move forward without discernment: it is to return to the Incarnation. The Church will heal when:

we stop forming clerical robots

we form contemplative hearts

we integrate psychology, spirituality, and theology

we return to Chalcedon

we return to Christ, true God and true man

we stop pretending that everything is alright

we accept that the Church was wrong in its approach to formation

and we begin to form from truth, not from fear. The Church is divided because it has forgotten the Incarnation. And that responsibility falls first on us, the religious and the priests. I don't say this to destroy: I say it to awaken. The truth that hurts… is the only one that can heal us.

And the hope lies in the fact that we have never been alone. Every time the Church has strayed, God has raised up saints to correct its course. Trent gave us Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross, Ignatius of Loyola, and Francis de Sales. Vatican II gave us John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, and Ratzinger. Our time will also have its own. God will do it again.

And this is the truth that hurts.

Brother Juan Luis OFM

[elucubrare]

This is my grandfather:

I never knew him. He died a long time before I was born. Until tonight, I never cared. I had vague memories of his wife, my grandmother – a scratchy carpet in a green slightly brighter than olive, the smell of smoke in the apartment, microwaved lamb chops, a long string of imitation pearls I tried on, mock-arguments with my father over minutiae – but barely any emotional connection. 

But my father doesn't talk about his family. I gathered a few data points from anecdotes he told: that my grandfather was a military engineer who'd talked his way into his first job, as a phone switch operator, with no experience, and called the repairman to ask how it worked and that the family had moved around a lot for his job, and not much else. I don't even know how their relationship was, except that my father still observes the anniversary of his death, in December. 

Now, looking at him, I wonder if he'd like me, and if I'd like him. He looks kind and slightly worried and completely foreign to me, like he'd stepped out of a movie or a history book. A year, a suit, a pipe, and a pair of blurry hands. Is this my history? And yet, I carry his initial forward into the future. 

Maybe all of history is made of threads that crisscross and interconnect, spanning years and continents. Maybe there's no point at which our threads touch, but my father's bridges the gap. Or maybe we are all points of light in a vast darkness. My light reaches back, tonight, and illuminates his.