A Grace of Sense - theological aesthetics

"Les offrandes oubliées" (1930) is a major achievement of a newly graduated composer, a work that points out the essential traits of Messiaen's music: his preoccupation with rhythm, his modal language (Messiaen is not tonal or atonal composer, but modal) and his Catholic Christian faith. These features, with the later extensive use of birdsong, prevailed throughout Messiaen's career until his death in 1992. Messiaen commented on his faith in an interview in 1961 as follows: "God for me is manifest. and my conception of sacred music derives from this conviction. God being present in all things, music dealing with theological subjects can and must be extremely varied. The Catholic religion is a real fairy-story, with this difference, it is all true. I have therefore, in the words of Ernest Hello, tried to produce 'a music that touches all things without ceasing to touch God'. But, if my music is a spontaneous act of faith, without premeditation, it is by...

Roman de la Rose , or "The Romance of the Rose" was arguably the most read book in late medieval Europe. It is a courtly romance manifesting troubadour world view and suggestive of the erotic poetry of Decamerone.  The French allegorical poem tells about the pursuit of a woman and the final enjoyment of her favors. The book has two authors. Guillaume de Lorris wrote the first part in twelfth century and Jean de Meun continued in the thirteenth century. Generally speaking, the first part is still innocent, but the stanzas written by Jean de Meun are more graphic in their sexual imagery. No wonder that Roman de la Rose alarmed church officials and aroused heated discussions. When the chancellor of the University of Paris, Jean Gerson (1363-1429), one of the foremost theologians of his day, decided to enter into the discussion on  Roman de la Rose in the beginning of the 15th century,   the book had been around for a hundred years. Perhaps the book had not achieved an ep...

I browsed in vain three philosophical  internet encyclopedias ( The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie and L'Encyclopédie philosophique ) to find an entry on joy ( Freude, joie ). Joy is apparently not a major philosophical concern, but something subordinate to bigger questions.  There seems to be two philosophical approaches to joy. In the first one, it is associated with general discussion on emotions. In the western tradition, emotions stand for an inchoate or lower form of understanding, or even something opposite to the reason. On the other side, joy is connected to pleasure. Pleasure for its part stands for something sensuous, which again introduces the question whether gratification of senses is tantamount to happiness - and whether happiness is the ultimate goal of human existence. Religion in general and Christianity in particular provides a deeper understanding of joy. The Christian gospel, euangelion, is "the good new...