What Plato Did Not See

The School of Athens
Raphael

From "Homestretch" in The Story of St. Monica and Her Son Augustine:

That a great pagan philosopher should present the theory of the Word seemed to confirm the doctrine of the Word in the teaching of the Catholic Church. In short, he was reading Plato, but he could not help doing so in the light of his childhood faith, the faith of his mother and of the great Bishop Ambrose.

However, it was soon apparent to him that Plato, for all his genius, had not reached the heights of St. John. It was impossible to find anywhere in Plato the magnificent thought that become the faith of Christians: "the Word become flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:14). Plato had known nothing of the great themes of the Gospel: the fall of man through sin, God's mercy, the Incarnation of the Word, the redemptive death of Christ on the cross. Evidently, Augustine did not at first understand these things, but he has said that he kept hearing a voice crying out to him:

"Courage! I am the food of the strong. And you will eat me. But it is not I who shall be changed into you, for you shall be changed into me!" (Confessions, Book Seven, X). 

-Leon Cristiani

"Jesus Christ, Bread of Life

Mane nobiscum

-Taize

 

The Future Trap

Newburgh Pointe, The Last Twilight of 2021

From The Screwtape Letters, Chapter XV:

The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things: to eternity itself and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment--and of it only--humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present--either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing a  present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

Our business is to get them away from the eternal and the Present. . . It is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. . . Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the Future. Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.

. . . To be sure, the Enemy wants men to think of the Future too--just so much as is necessary for now planning the acts of justice or charity which will probably be their duty tomorrow. The duty of planning morrow's work is today's duty; though its material is borrowed from the Future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present. This is not straw splitting. He does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it.

We do!

. . . (We) want a man hag-ridden by the Future--haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth--ready to break the Enemy's commands in the Present if by doing so we make he think he can attain the one or avert the other . . .    

-C. S. Lewis