I love retreats. In high school I tagged along on every
class’s confirmation retreat because I liked my own so much and because there
were no other retreats offered. As the years pass, though, I tend to expect
more from every retreat I attend. Some deeper theological insight into my
faith, some knowledge I didn’t have before, some emotional revelation during
adoration, some intellectual puzzle finally solved. I’m not sure if I received
any of these things on this retreat, except maybe the knowledge of some new
Greek words. Reflecting on what made the weekend so special, then, I resolved
that it was the fact that I was in that specific place at that specific time
with those specific people.
The linguist Ferdinand de Saussure once made the distinction
between langue and parole. Langue is the system of a language—its grammar, its rules, how it
works. For example: the knowledge that adjectives describe nouns. Parole is a single act of speech:
unique, in time, unrepeatable. For example: I tell my little sister “Happy
Birthday!” at 9:47 am on the morning of her sixteenth birthday. This is the (admittedly
nerdy) distinction that came to my mind as I thought about my experience of the
retreat. Basically, I know that the Eucharist is the body of Christ.
Transubstantiation etc. But what I didn’t know was the longing for the
companionship with Jesus offered by Communion that a friend felt while going
through a difficult time while she was still finishing RCIA (classes to become
Catholic).
Being on team for one of the upcoming retreats has
reinforced for me the importance of every individual on a Koinonia retreat.
Since our first meetings were pretty close to finals, I got a little weary of
the many icebreakers and getting-to-know-you games, which seemed to take up so
much time. But getting to know people really is half the point of the whole
endeavor, at least as far as I’ve understood it. Getting to know real people
and how they live the sometimes seemingly abstract truths of the faith in their
daily lives.
St. Ignatius of Antioch, an early Christian bishop and martyr,
referred to himself in his Epistle to the Romans[1]
as an “intelligible utterance of God,” which the commentary explains as “an
expression of the Gospel; a manifestation of the divine purpose.” Interestingly, utterance is the word often used to translate Saussure’s parole into English.[2]
Catholicism is (happily, in my opinion) a very systematic religion. Studying
the theory of this system can be the occupation of a lifetime, and can be quite
fascinating for theology aficionados. But staying at this level, which is
necessary but, like grammar class, preparatory in nature, would be like
studying a foreign language as langue all
your life, without ever actually using it as parole. An individual human life is the concrete expression of the
theories which form the grammar of our faith, Christ being the most perfect
expression of all. In this sense, we are all words of God, spoken unrepeatably
into history, and coming to know each other in community is one of the most
profound means of studying and contemplating the One Word—good to keep in mind
during the next awkward icebreaker!
[1]
Translation by Maxwell Staniforth in Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers. Penguin Classics, 1968.
[2] Phillips, John and Chrissie Tan. "Langue and
Parole". The
Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 February 2005. [http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=662,
accessed 16 January 2016.]
No comments:
Post a Comment