Way of Christ

Just as the senses can neither grasp nor perceive the things of the mind, just as representation and shape cannot take in the simple and the shapeless, just as corporal form cannot lay hold of the intangible and incorporeal, by the same standard of truth beings are surpassed by the infinity beyond being, intelligences by that which is beyond intelligence. Indeed the inscrutable One is out of the reach of every rational process. Nor can any words come up to the inexpressible Good, this One, this Source of all unity, this supra-existent Being. Mind beyond mind, word beyond speech, it is gathered up by no discourse, by no intuition, by no name. It is and it is as no other being is. Cause of all existence, and therefore itself transcending existence, it alone could give an authoritative account of what it really is. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Divine Names, 1-1

There is no reason to suppose that any such confrontation of Plato's ideas with our own notions of truth will yield only harmony and reciprocal confirmation. We must be prepared for the fact that profound disagreements may also come to light. But we should not be too hasty about defining those disagreements. Quite often we discover that even where we cannot fully accept Plato's literal statements, we find that they capture and express an aspect of reality which might otherwise have remained hidden from us. Josef Pieper, Love and Inspiration, p91-92

"Dear brothers and sisters, keep reading the Bible! But do not forget the pocket Gospel: carry it in your bag, in your pocket, and at some moment during the day, read a passage. And this will make you very close to the Holy Spirit, who is in the Word of God. May the Holy Spirit, who inspired the Scriptures and now breathes from them, help us to grasp this love of God in the concrete situations of life." - Pope Francis, 12 June 2024, General Audience.

The icon yields up the content of Scripture, not in a theoretical way, as some particularly excellent textbook of dogmatic theology might do, but after the fashion of the Church's worship–namely, "in a living way, addressing itself to all the human faculties." It transmits the truth of Scripture "in the light of the whole spiritual experience of the Church, of her Tradition." Icon and Liturgy, the liturgical image and the liturgical word, reinforce each other in such a way that, by their joint means, "Scripture lives in the Church and in each of her members." Aidan Nichols OP, A Spirituality for the 21st Century, p122