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The Call to Holy Rest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Dennis J. Billy C.SS.R.
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Extract

I once read a mystery novel where the main character, an author by profession, always finished one of his books by lighting a candle, uncorking a bottle of champagne, and toasting himself for a job well done. It was his way of celebrating the outpouring of his creative juices. It brought closure to his work, a festive spirit to his life, and release to pent-up tensions. The ritual became so much a part of his work that the two could hardly be separated. His creativity was sparked by the thought of the celebration to come; the celebration, in turn, derived its significance from the many hours of labour dedicated to the writing process. These two very different activities were closely related. Neither made any sense without the other.

This simple example from the world of fiction has led me to think of God’s “rest” from his creative action in a similar way. The Book of Genesis reminds us that, after six days, God completed the work of creation by resting, blessing, and making holy the seventh day (Gn. 2:1-3). To say that God “finished” or “completed” his work on the seventh day implies that the very activity of “rest” is itself part of the creative process. Without it, something would be missing; the creative act itself would not be complete; a new creative act could not begin.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 82 , Issue 962 , April 2001 , pp. 182 - 187
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Stephen King, Misery (1987).

2 The Masoretic (Hebrew) text has God finishing the work of creation on the seventh day; the Septuagint (Greek) text has it on the sixth. See The Jerome Biblical Commentary, eds Raymond B. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphy (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968), 11.

3 The Jerome Biblical Commentary, 11.

4 Robert Farrar Capon, The Third Peacock: A Book about God and the Problem of Evil (Garden City, NY Image, 1971), 12.

5 Bonaventure, Breviloquiwn, 2.12 [Opera omnia (Quaracchi, 1891), 5:230].

6 Hugh of St. Victor, De sacramentis, 1.10.2 [PL 176. 327-311. See also Bonaventure, Breviloquiwn, 2.12 [Opera omnia (Quaracchi, 1891), 5:230].

7 The Latin phrase, visto Dei, can be taken as an objective or a possessive genitive. The former refers to our vision of God; the latter, to God's vision of us. Both elements are integral parts of the beatific vision.

8 Augustine of Hippo, De civirare Dei, 19.19 [CSEL 40.2.407]

9 Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture, trans. Alexander Dru, with a Foreword by T. S. Eliot (New York/Toronto: Random House, 1963), 43 [Pieper is here citing Karl Kerhyi, Die mtike Religion (1940), 66].

10 Pieper, Lisure, 43.

11 Ibid., 58.

12 Ibid., 59.

13 William of St. Thierry, Epistola aurea, 1.12 [Sources chrétiennes, 223.176-811.

14 For a treatment of monasticism and the vita angelica. see John Bugge, Erginitas: An Essay in the History of a Medieval Ideal (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975), 30-35.