94 Chapter 7
REGARDING OUR STORY SO FAR
which is
the Eucharistic 'order' of flesh, One Flesh, and life.
Only by so undergoing our own crucifixion into time, into 'flesh,' resisting the flesh's own urge to flee to
the time-less, do we accept his Lordship as the Lord of history, and thereby find the sole ground not only for
freedom and responsibility but also for novelty and creativity.
The discovery of Man's subjection is Man's to make in the fallen world of 'flesh.'
The discovery of Man's freedom in the Lord of History can only be made within the Eucharistic order of
history.
That is, the discovery of Man's freedom can only be made within the `order' given in the seven
sacraments of Holy Mother Church, and preeminently in the Eucharist, in and by the Eucharistic discovery
that "Jesus Christ is Lord" and is the true Bridegroom of his Bride, the Church, because he "emptied himself"
into Man's subjection.
This joyful discovery, this complete surprise, is available in time, but in our fallen world which remains
'flesh,' it is fully available only sacramentally, in Eucharistic worship, within the Eucharistic 'order' itself. It is
the effective sign of the discovery, the surprise, by which Man finds the strength and the sanity to sing, "Holy,
Holy, Holy."
But this joyful discovery, this complete surprise, will scarcely register with Man until he concludes that he
is imprisoned in Cause and Chance. Thus, far from being something for Catholic thought to 'refute,' Mr.
Minsky's -- and Ecclesiastes's -- portrait of Man is a powerful resource for the evangelization of the modern
world.
Buoyed by its science, the modern world half-believes itself engaged in, and fully capable of, the quest for
self-salvation. However, its own science, as Mr. Minsky demonstrates, can in the end do no more than
corroborate Ecclesiastes's conclusions -- which are conclusions scarcely convenient to the modern world, and
which in fact could not be more pessimistic about Man's fate. For within Mr. Minsky's world, Man is not the
master of anything at all, but only pretends that he is, and further, he survives in this universe of fundamental
insanity, in which he must lie to himself just to get through the day, only by becoming a devil or an idiot.
So, the acceptance of the abjectly pessimistic conclusion that 'flesh' inevitably draws when it is at its best,
is in fact the beginning of the acceptance of reality, and thus, is the beginning of all evangelization, in this
time or in any other, but strikingly so in this time.
For as this book has shown, to take Mr. Minsky -- a true modern -- seriously is to conclude that time is
Hell, that Man is in Hell, that the universe itself is insane, and that escape is only a flight into the nothingness
of the time-less.
Only because Catholic thought has so thoroughly substituted its own flight to the time-less for the plain
liturgical freedom of the Church's 'time-full' worship has it been unable to say the simple thing that might
actually begin the evangelization of the modern world:
It is that very world of fate, the world of death and despair, from which there is no
escape -- our world -- into which Jesus Christ was sent by the Father to give himself in
"a holy and perfect sacrifice." [Eucharistic Prayer I]
N.B. This is an html-ized copy of a page from the pdf file, The Knucklehead's Guide to Covenantal Theology.