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Views from the Choir Loft

Musings of an Aristotelian Catholic

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski · August 22, 2013

476 Kwasniewski F I WERE to write a book in defence of Aristotle’s epistemology, I would entitle it The Primacy of Here and Now, the Ultimacy of Everywhere and Always.

As my central proof I would offer the mystery of love, which, in keeping with its paradoxical nature, makes a man rooted while uprooting him. On the one hand, Aristotle is an absolutely unbending realist: whatever I can see, hear, touch, taste, smell, feel, or otherwise perceive, is The Real; compared to these, concepts, memories, and imaginings are Less Real. On the other hand, Aristotle is an uncompromising spiritualist: God, the unseen, untouched, inaccessible, imperceptible object of pure thought is The Real, and the entire universe of bodies undergoing alteration, substantial change, and local motion is Less Real, emanating from Him who is the First Principle, striving upwards towards Him who is the Last End. Form and matter, the two great principles of all composites, are themselves unseen, untouched, and the rest. We surmise their necessary presence, hidden though they are behind the veil of common experience.

The Here and the Now is our daily bread, our human sacrament. What is Everywhere and Always is difficult to penetrate, hard to recognise, noble beyond all words, wise beyond all thoughts, consoling to the immortal man. The concrete physical presence of the beloved is the focus, the goal, the fulfillment of the Here and Now, but it is only the beginning of the Real Presence, the spiritual omnipresence of the beloved, by which the Here and the Now is elevated, enlarged, suffused with intimations of eternity and ubiquity that not even (what mortals call) absence can forestall or weaken.

Touch is the only sense that puts us, as we say, “in touch with” reality, touch tells us that things are there, not just in the mind. Touch is closer to matter, but also closer to the truth of material things, which have their being in matter; sight is closer to form. Touch is the sense of certainty. Whatever is fundamental to the sense of touch is fundamental to things themselves. This is our immediate and unshakeable perception of the world that lies before us, the world we “grasp.”

In the mystery of the Incarnation, God takes delight in responding to this foundation of sanity and realism. The being of the Word is not just to be divine, spiritual, holy, but to be man, and therefore to be bodily, embodied, tangible. Christ tells the doubting Thomas to touch him, He tells Mary Magdalen not to touch him. St. John later writes: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us…” (1 Jn 1:1–2)

In our Lord Jesus Christ, the God who is Always and Everywhere, who dwells in Light inaccessible, infinitely beyond us evanescent and confined mortals, deigns to become the Here and Now in flesh and blood, a body we can touch and hold on to for certain, a soul we can intimately know and love. Praised be this man, our God and Lord Jesus Christ, now and forever! “He is the head of the body, the Church; He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may hold the primacy.”

I make my own the wonderfully incarnational prayer of St. Gertrude the Great: “May my heart and my soul, with all the substance of my flesh, all my senses, and all the powers of my body and my mind, with all creatures, praise Thee and give Thee thanks, O sweet Lord, faithful lover of mankind, for Thy infinite mercy”!

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Dr. Peter Kwasniewski

A graduate of Thomas Aquinas College (B.A. in Liberal Arts) and The Catholic University of America (M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy), Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is currently Professor at Wyoming Catholic College. He is also a published and performed composer, especially of sacred music.

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    Tempo?? • 𝘏𝘰𝘭𝘺 𝘎𝘰𝘥, 𝘞𝘦 𝘗𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘛𝘩𝘺 𝘕𝘢𝘮𝘦
    Once, after Mass, my pastor said he really loved the hymn we did. I said: “Father, that's Holy God, We Praise Thy Name—you never heard it before?” He replied: “But the way you did it was terrific. For once, it didn't sound like a funeral dirge!” Last Sunday, our volunteer choir sang that hymn. I think the tempo was just about right … but what do you think?
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Don’t You Agree About These?
    If you want to make Jeff Ostrowski really happy, send him an email with effusive praise about the individual voice recordings for hymn #296. [Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass] They came out dazzlingly sensational, don't you agree?
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    Choral Vowels? Yes? No?
    Here's a live recording of one of the choral “warm-up” exercises my choir enjoys. It was taken during our rehearsal on 27 January 2023. It’s good to make sure each chord is perfectly in tune and balanced before moving to the next one. That only happens when each singer has the correct vowel. If you like, you can freely download that vocal exercise.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

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The union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it.

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