Fr. Hesse: Man in the Image of God
Transcript of a talk given by Fr. Hesse: „Man in the Image of God‟
In this talk, Fr. Hesse examines the infinite simplicity of God through St. Thomas Aquinas, explaining that God’s essence consists purely in His being - the divine name „I AM‟ reveals three persons sharing one existence within the Trinity.
He locates the image of God in the human soul’s three faculties: will, intellect, and love, critiquing St. Thomas for recognizing only the first two while missing the third and greatest faculty of love. Fr. Hesse explains why Catholics worship the Sacred Heart of Jesus rather than His will or intellect, traces the theological virtues to these faculties, and argues that love alone remains in the beatific vision when faith and hope pass away.
Fr. Hesse concludes by discussing why this third faculty remained hidden in Church history until later development and speculates on the concealed humor of God that was too great to reveal in the Gospels.
Man: The Image of God – Exploring Divine Simplicity
Father Hesse: Many of my wonderful visitors tonight, to a point, will be very disappointed about what I have to say because I’m going to speak about a topic that is so infinitely simple that you will not understand it. The reason why… One of the reasons why tonight’s talk will be on tape is so that even the ones present here who have heard my talk can hear it again, can listen to it again on a tape, because infinite simplicity is incomprehensible to man. I’m going to talk about on how man is made in the image of God, what it is in the human being that is the image of God. Every one of you realizes that the image of God cannot be in our having two eyes, one nose, one mouth, two hands, and two feet. Very obviously, that is not the image of God. We will have to explore a little bit of that infinite, incomprehensible simplicity of God in order to be able to understand where the image of God is really to be found. And because some of the things that I say today, I cannot repeat 20 times over, it is good if you buy the cassette that will be available after this talk.
St. Thomas Aquinas and the Simplicity of God
The first doctor of the church who really made the simplicity of God somewhat comprehensible was the greatest of all doctors of the church, St. Thomas Aquinas. As a matter of fact, The Summa Theologiae, his most important book, sometimes wrongly called The Summa Theologica, which doesn’t make any sense if you know Latin, because the Latin is, would ask you s-… the theological sum of what? So it is not the theological sum of whatever. It is the sum of theology, The Summa Theologiae. In this book, St. Thomas Aquinas as the… in the first part of the book, the first question he asks is, „Is theology a science?‟ Well, of course, it’s the mother of all sciences because it’s the only science that can rely on God’s revelation. Unlike what the Western concept of science will tell you, the Western concept of exact sciences like mathematics and physics and chemistry, astronomy, et cetera, about which even the great Max Planck said, „It will always be depending on your weltanschauung, on your way to view the world.‟ In the second question of the first part of The Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas deals with the question, „Is there a God? Does God exist or is He a product of human fantasy?‟ We don’t have to deal with this because you all are reasoning people. None of you is a maniac, and only a maniac will not see God with His natural light of reason because He has no natural light of reason, as you can easily conclude from the First and Last Vatican Council. In the third question of The Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas Aquinas deals with the simplicity of God, De Simplicitate Dei. The entire problem of understanding today’s excursion into the deep mystery of God will be dependent on how much you understand and how much you are able to conceive the simplicity of God. Don’t get discouraged because we will never understand it into all eternity, not in its full depth, because the full depth of the simplicity of God is in its simplicity. Depending on how much you understand the simplicity of God, you will understand the image of God very easily, very easily. Once you grasp the concept of B, existence as such, being itself, you will understand the image of God very, very easily. So I really try to put all of my efforts into explaining something which I needed years to understand, and I try to explain something to you I needed years for it, and I’ll try to explain it to you in a few minutes. So bear with me.
The Mystery of Divine Being: Infinite Simplicity
The very point of the mystery of the divine being, and we do not yet talk about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but about, about God as such, is the infinite simplicity of God. God, whenever He talks about Himself to us, with a few exceptions that I will quote, God will always be complicated towards us in order to get our complicated brains to understand His infinite simplicity. God will tell us He is merciful, He is good, He is loving, He is omniscient, He is omnipresent, He is omnipotent. He is just and merciful at the same time. Enough contradiction here, apparent contradiction for our complicated brains. For God, His justice and His mercy are exactly the same…. because as we can learn from Holy Scripture, God is not in the full sense of the word. He’s not merciful, just, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, good, etc., in the full sense of the word he is.
Now, you know that you exist. Everyone here knows that he exists. Everyone knows that he has a being. You also know that your mother, if she’s still alive, is, if she’s dead, she was on Earth. You all know that what the word existence means. It means to be here. You have heard that God said, „I’m omnipresent. I’m present everywhere.‟ So he’s not here, he’s everywhere. How? Some animalists with whom John Paul II loves to pray together with, some animalists see God in a tree, and they worship the tree for being God like the tree huggers do. That, of course, is nonsense. God is not the tree. God is as much in the tree as in, as he, as he is in this table or in every one of you and me, because there cannot be anything without God giving it existence. You know that we live in God’s creation. Everything that we know, including ourselves, has been created by God. God is not a teller machine like an ATM for getting money. You push a button and that’s it. Every single movement in our life, every single decision, everything we do, everything that we accomplish has been accomplished with God giving it the possibility. Remember when Christ said to the apostles at the Last Supper, „Without me, you can do nothing.‟
Now, you have to understand that if everything is dependent on God giving its, its own exsist- its own existence, then that means that God is the very simple being as such. God is. There’s nothing else. Whatever we say about him is to understand what we will never comprehend. Because you see, you and I, we all had a beginning. We have a body and we have a soul. We will have an end on Earth, but our soul will have no end, whether it’s in hell or heaven. You have to understand that we are imperfect, not because of original sin, but we’re… that added to the imperfection. We are imperfect for the simple reason that we have had a beginning. Before we were born, we were not. Before a tree grew, it was not. Before the world was created, it was not. God always was, always will be. (Latin). For all ages, through all ages, forever and ever. God is not anything complicated. He does not depend on anything. He has never started. He has no one that created him. He has no one above him. He is the beginning of everything, and he is the end of everything in the sense of purpose. Saint Thomas Aquinas says everything that has been created has been created for a purpose, including us. And you know, if you ever heard a sermon of mine, then you know that our purpose is the greater glory of God. But God Himself is the beginning of everything and the purpose of everything. He’s the beginning and the end. Remember the alpha and the omega at, on the Easter candle. So God is not anything but the fact that he is. He is. Period.
"I AM": The Name of God
The thing that we will never understand fully is that when we talk about God, we talk about the one who is. How would the one who is speak to you? He would say, „I am.‟ When Moses met a burning thornbush that talked to him… Sounds quite adventurous, but it’s true because it’s in the Bible. The voice in the burning thornbush said to Moses, etc., etc., etc. And then Moses asked the burning thornbush and said, „Who are you?‟ And the voice answered, „I am who am.‟ He didn’t say, „I am who I am.‟ I could say that any time joking. He said, „You ask me, ’Who are you, Father?‚ I am who I am.‟ The voice said instead, „I am who am.‟ I am is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Who am is God. The nature of God. Am. Is. And as a matter of fact, Moses, being prudent and careful, asked our Lord, the Father, „When I go down from this mountain and I talk to the people down there…‟They will ask me whom I talk to. Whom did I talk to? What do I tell them that I talk to? And the answer is, tell them you talk to the one who is. He didn’t say, God did not say, „You talk to the one who is merciful. You talk to the one who created everything. You talk to the one who is good. You talk to the one who is just. You talk to the one who can do everything. You talk to the one who is present everywhere.‟ No. Our Lord said, „You talk to the one who is.‟ So you have to understand, that’s very important, God is nothing else but he is. You cannot put that in correct grammar in any living language, not even the dead languages such as Latin and Greek. He is nothing else but that he is. Not what he is. Wrong. He’s nothing else but that he is. You ask me, „What, what is God?‟ And I will answer, „He is.‟ What does that mean? He is. That’s it. That is including everything that we know, except evil, which is not of its own. Evil is only a lack. If this bottle is empty, that’s an evil. Evil doesn’t exist. The bottle exists, the wine in the bottle exists. Or the carafe, excuse me. The carafe exists. The wine in the carafe exists. When the carafe is empty, there is a lack of something in it, and that is evil. So everything that is, is good, and everything that is, is from God. God, therefore, is infinitely more than everything that is, and he’s infinitely simpler than everything that is. This wine contains, well, 200 to 400, maybe 600 substances. Modern chemistry doesn’t know. You call that complicated, I think. God is infinitely simple. He only is. You cannot describe him because he only is. He describes himself in order to make us, to give us some peace. Because if he had told us nothing else but, „I am.‟ We would have said, „You’re what?‟ Like if I tell you, „I am.‟ You would say, rightly so, „Uh, excuse me, Father. What? What are you talking about? You are, you are what?‟ If God had never mentioned anything but, „I am.‟ And every time we ask him, „But who are you?‟ He’d said, „I am.‟ We would have been confused. We would not have known that he’s good, that he’s just, that he’s merciful, which is the only reason why he told us. But the Father never told the Son that he’s merciful, because the Father only tells the Son, „I am.‟ The Son tells the Father, „I am.‟ And both tell the Holy Spirit, „I am.‟ I will come back to that in its relationship.
God is, which is the reason why Christ said… And that’s in the… I think it’s in the eighth chapter of Saint John, the Gospel of Saint John, anyway. The Pharisees attack Christ as usual, and they say, „How dare you talk about Abraham as if you lived? You’re not even 40 years old. You talk as if you witnessed Abraham.‟ That’s the Gospel of Passion Sunday. Excuse me. That’s, yeah, it’s the Gospel of Passion Sunday. And it’s usually translated, uh, I don’t know about the English translation, but in very many languages, it’s translated wrong. Christ actually said nothing else but, „Before Abraham was, I am.‟ And they start to stone him, to throw stones at him, because he just said, (foreign language) , which is the name of God, I am. The name of God is not God. The name of God is not Father, it’s not Son, and it’s not Holy Spirit. The name of God is, I am. „I am who I am,‟ he said to Moses. „Before Abraham was, I am,‟ he said to the Pharisees. And with the most definitely universally wrong translation in the passion of Saint John on Good Friday, which is one of the reasons why I refuse bluntly to celebrate anything in the Holy Tree Dome ever in a vernacular, because I consider that blasphemy and a falsification of the message of God. When they ask him, the people who, who were sent by Ca- by Caiphas to arrest Christ, they look at him and said… He looks at them. I’m sorry. He looks at them and says, „Whom do you want?‟ (foreign language) And they say, (foreign language) „Jesus of Nazareth.‟ And he does not say in the Latin, he does not say, „I’m he,‟ as it is usually in your Roman… In, in your Sunday missals. He does not say, „I am he.‟ He does not say, „I’m the one you’re looking for.‟ No. He says, „I am.‟ Which is the only logical explanation for why Saint John says, „And they sort of retreat, and terrified, they fall down to the earth.‟ Terrified.Why would they be terrified if they’re professionals looking for a, a, a gangster, a, a criminal, uh, a perpetrator? Like they say in New York, a poipitrator. A poip is a poip is a poip. If there were professionals looking for a poip somewhere out there, why would they be terrified the moment he says, „I’m the one you’re looking for‟? That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. And none of translators ever noticed it. But in the original it says, „Quem queritis? Responderunt ei, Iesum Nazarenam. Et iterum dixit eis, Ego sum.‟ And they asked him and he asked them, „Whom are you looking for?‟ And they said, „Jesus of Nazareth.‟ And again he said to them, „I am.‟ And then, Saint John says they fall down and they are terrified. Because he said, „Yahweh.‟ Which means he told them, „I’m God.‟ It’s like saying in English literally, as if you said literally in English, somebody asks me, „Are you Father Hess?‟ „Uh, who are you looking for?‟ „We’re looking for Father Hess.‟ And instead of saying, „I am Father Hess.‟ Or, „I am the one you’re looking for.‟ I would say, „I am God.‟ Even a New York cop would be slightly shocked at that answer. Or he would think, „Okay, another nutcase.‟ But certainly there will be an effect, and there will be an effect slightly different as to the effect that you would have if I had only said, „I’m the one you’re looking for.‟ They would say, „Okay, good. Gotcha.‟ You can see from the very logic of the context that Christ again says, „I am God.‟ He says, „I am.‟ But he doesn’t say, „I am God.‟ He doesn’t say, „Ego sum deus.‟ He doesn’t say, „Ego sum filius hominis.‟ „I am the son of man.‟ No. He only says, „Ego sum.‟ Which is accented, by the way, in the melody that the priest has to sing in the Passion of Saint John on Good Friday. So both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, we see that when God, in the most serious, in the most dramatic of circumstances, talks about himself, he only says, „I am.‟
Chesterton is one of the few, unlike Saint Thomas in that case, who perfectly well understood what we’re talking about. He wrote a poem which I want you to think about. That’s a good thing about, uh, 20th century technology. You can hear again what I said. Um, the vision of a haloed host that weep around an empty throne. Auriols dark and angels dead; Man with his own life stands alone. „I Am,‟ he says his bankrupt creed: „I Am!‟ and is again applaud. The sparrow starts, the grasses stir, for he has said the name of God. „I Am‟ is the name of God. And the very fact that his name is „I Am‟ means there is nothing else but His existing in person. The Father says, „I Am.‟ The Son says, „I Am.‟ And the Holy Spirit says, „I Am.‟ And in truth, they can’t say anything else. They cannot say anything else, in truth. God doesn’t lie to us, so when he says he’s just, he doesn’t lie about himself. He only reveals one tiny little aspect of this infinitely simple fullness of his being as such. He is as such. His very essence. Look up the word essence in the dictionary. Essence means where something is what it really is. (Latin). In essence, something is what it really is. The essence of wine is not being red. It’s not being, uh, so and so many percentage alcohol, which is only of concern to Protestants and Muslims anyway. Uh, the essence of wine is being wine. That is why wine is what it is. It is wine. It is not anything else. It is wine. Everything else is accidental, which doesn’t exist with God. God only is the very being his- himself is His actual real being. His being Himself. The essence of God is being. You will have to meditate on that, because I did not exactly figure out all of what I’m telling you now in 10 minutes, if you know what I mean. God is… Period.
The Trinity: Three Persons, One Being
If God is infinitely simple, then how can He be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Well, there’s only one being that can say „Am.‟ But three persons can say „I‟. Only one pers- only one being can say „Am‟, but three persons can say „I‟.The Father says I, the Son says I, the S- Holy Spirit says I am. Is there a difference between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? No. They would be three. Exactly what the S- what, what the Quran that, uh, the present Holy Father wants to kiss every time he has a chance to, says. The Quran says that the Christians believe that we have three gods; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Everyone a separate god. No. Separate I, common am. It’s so simple that we will never understand it fully, so do not try to put any complicated thoughts in it. Consider the fact that three persons are… No, I’m sorry. Wrong. Three persons am. Does that make sense? Three persons am, not three persons are. The Father is I am, the Son is Ho- I am, and the Holy Spirit is I am. Three I, one am. Infinitely simple, but three persons.
Distinction within the Trinity: Relations
If there is no difference between them, how can there be three persons if there’s no difference? What is actually… If you don’t talk about the difference and there’s still something not exactly the same, then you talk about what is called a distinction. A distinction means there is actually no difference, but there are different relations. I give you an example. There is no difference between this wine and this wine. Can there be a distinction between this wine and this wine? Of course. I like it, you mi- you might not like it. You might say, „I’ve had much, much better wines before,‟ and I will agree. But you also might say, „This is the worst wine I’ve ever had,‟ and I will certainly disagree. It’s a very good wine. So there’s a distinction. The way you see it is a different way than the way I see it. Or somebody might look at it, not with neon light, but with some decent candlelight or whatever and say, „This is the most beautiful red I’ve ever seen.‟ And somebody else will say, „No, certainly not. I’ve seen much nicer.‟ Not a difference, a distinction. Same thing. What is the distinction within the trinity? Is the Father older than the Son? No. That’s heresy. As the, uh, the Creed of Saint Athanasius will tell you, the three persons are exactly the same. Omnipotent, no beginning, no end, eternal, perfect wisdom, everywhere, just, merciful, and loving. As Saint Thomas says so very well, without making us understand anything a little bit better… As Saint Thomas says so very well, there’s only one distinction in the trinity. It’s their relationship among themselves. You don’t understand that? Maybe you don’t understand it, but you have said it thousand times over. Every person, every single person here, unless there is a convert of yesterday, has indeed mentioned that distinction within the trinity thousands of times over. Every mass you ever went to, if it had the Creed. So every Sunday mass you ever went to. It’s in the Creed. (Latin) Genitum non factum it says later on. The relationship between the Father and the Son is generation. Not generations the way we understand it with a beginning and an end, but a never beginning, never ending generation. That’s why we talk about father and son. The son is generated by the father, very obviously. The f- the son is usually not born from the father, if you know what I mean. But, uh, the son is generated by the father. So we talk about a generation like we talk about a generation on Earth. One generation after another generation. Now, in the trinity of course, being infinitely simple, there cannot be a generation with a time sequence, because there is no time and space in eternity, and God is an eternity. Are you following me? God is not in time and space, so there’s no here and now. There’s no beginning and no end. If there’s no beginning and no end, then the generation in God has no beginning and no end. So when the Creed says (Latin), as if it was concluded, the creed, even in Latin, is slightly misleading, as if it was talking about something that happened. The incomprehensible fact about the Trinity, but a fact that you will have to remember…… is that the generation is eternally generating. The Father generates the Son. The Son is generated by the Father, not has been generated, but is generated by the Father. And the Holy Spirit proceeds from both of them.
Let me try to explain this to you in a parable. When I give my conference here, I’m the Father, my words are the Son, and if my conference was somewhat decent, there will be a loving relationship between the conference and me. That’s the trinity. Except I’m only Father Hess and my words are not eternal. The God- the God Father generates the Son, the Word, at that very moment which, which is an everlasting moment, he generates that Son, there is a relationship between the Father and the Son, and that is the Holy Spirit, the love between the two which cannot be less than the two, since both are perfect, since both are infinitely simple. If the Father… And that’s why you have to understand the infinite simplicity. If the Father is infinitely simple and generates without beginning or end, the Son, which is infinitely simple, then the loving relationship between the two is infinitely simple. And if it’s infinitely simple, it’s on their level, same thing. Therefore, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, I am three I, one M. The relationship between the Father genering- generating the Holy Spirit will make the love between the two proceed from both of them. And it says in the creed, (Latin), „Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.‟ See, the Eastern Church, Paul VI and John Paul II never understood that, and that’s why their theology is down the drain, because they have never even bothered to try to understand their own God creator. There cannot be, in all logics, anything like the simple God of Islam, because if God is, as He reveals to us in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, infinitely, eternally loving, He cannot only infinitely and eternally love something that He created. That is absurd. His infinite love, His perfect love can go to the creatures, not an eternal love. Where can there be an eternal love if there’s only one person of God and his creation, which had a beginning? Whom did he love then before he created the world? No answer to that one. And there goes Islam with all the other lies and heresies and trashy books. Or the Koran. It is perfectly logical once we have the revelation about it, of course. Our reason could never fathom, uh, in any way fathom, uh, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but once we have the revelation, we will understand in logics that if God Father is the perfect love, then there must be something eternal to be loved. That’s the Son. And the love cannot be less than the two. If the love cannot be less than the two, then that is the third person of the Holy Trinity. And this is exactly what Holy Scripture says, the Father, Creator, the Son, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, the love. I think I have made myself perfectly misunderstood on the first trial, but, uh, you will be able to listen to my cassette again.
The Image of God in Man: The Soul
Now, the image of God. The image of God, as we can easily see with our common sense, cannot possibly be our body. There is nothing in our body that would be an image of God, unless by parable. You could talk about in the eyes of God, but he doesn’t have eyes, the hand of God, but he doesn’t have hands, and even the very fact that the Son, the second person of the Trinity, became man does not mean that we are the image of God in that sense. Where’s the image of God? It can only be in our soul. Our soul, however, is not infinitely simple. Our soul consists of something that God doesn’t have, potency. Act and potency.
Act and Potency in the Human Soul vs. God as Pure Act
Now, if I told you I am Pope, you would say, „Oh, my, Father Hess. I’m sorry, Father Hess. I, I thought you were a reasonable person.‟ And yet I told you the truth. Of course I’m Pope, potentially. Or the probability is close to zilch. But potentially, I’m Pope. I could be elected. I could be made a cardinal. I could be elected. Father Bolduc, potentially Pope.So if he says, „I’m Pope,‟ he doesn’t lie to you. He only says something that’s very, very incomplete, ‚cause he would have to say, „Actually, I’m a priest. Potentially I’m a bishop. Potentially I’m a father of children.‟ Well, we know each other and we won’t be. But, um, „And potentially I’m Pope,‟ and we don’t know that. Point is, there is something that… There is three ways of being, non-being, possible being, and actual being. Actual being means I’m really a man and I’m really a priest. Potentially I’m a father of children. Potentially I’m a bishop. Potentially I’m Pope. And as far as Father Woller concerned, potentially he’s president of the United States. Me not, because I wasn’t born here. So, potentially and actually is something that doesn’t exist in God. God is everything that He is, period. He’s only what He is, and what He is is only His being. He’s infinitely simple. He is, period. Therefore, there’s already a difference between Him and our soul. We have had a beginning, and we have possibilities. We may be a condemned soul or we may be a blessed soul, only God knows. Actually, we are a soul on Earth, hopefully striving for the paradise, but we’ll see. Potentially, we are condemned. Potentially, we are blessed. Where’s the image of God? So it’s not in the soul, simply speaking, because the soul, simply speaking, is not an image of God, not simply speaking. There is potency and act in the soul of the human being, which can’t exist in God. God is what St. Thomas calls the Actus Purus, the Pure Act. He only is what He is, and that’s it. There cannot be anything added. There cannot be anything taken away. With us, grace can be added and grace can be taken away. So where is the image of God? We’re still looking for it.
The Two Faculties of the Soul: Will and Intellect (St. Thomas Aquinas)
And St. Thomas, believe it or not, did not know the answer. St. Thomas said that the human soul has two possibilities, two faculties, like the faculty in, in, in a university. In one faculty you can do such and such a doctorate. In another faculty you can do such and such a doctorate. St. Thomas spoke about the two faculties of the human soul. What every one of you will e- easily realize that there is something like a human will, not to be confused with the will of your dog. We’re talking about the human will, a will force that no animal has, a will force that can go against reason, against instinct, against everything that we know and have learned. That is obviously not in our brain. It’s in our soul, and it’s actually called the will. (Latin) But then we have the possibility of recognizing things. Let’s take the 10 O- 10 Commandments, for example. The will is not going to tell us what the 10 Commandments are. Our intellect will inform the will. We will read in catechism, in school, „Thou shalt not kill.‟ We’ll say, „Aha, okay, I realize I’m not supposed to murder.‟ And then my will force will decide if I’m going to kill my mother-in-law or not. So we realize some truth, and then the will will decide for it or against it. And that is not in the brain, because the animal doesn’t realize anything. The animal has no possibility of reflection. There is a tree, and here is the dog. The dog sees the tree, goes (barking) and knows what he will do, but he doesn’t know what he, he’s doing. He doesn’t know that he is doing because there is no such thing as a reflective, a reflex thought. If I do something behind that tree and if it’s only to change money with some, uh, uh, uh, bookmaker, uh, it… I know what I’m doing. I realize what I’m doing. When the dog uses the tree, he doesn’t know he’s doing that. Instinct will say, „Do it.‟ Dog will do it. Dog no know what doing. Dog doesn’t know it. There is no such thing as a reflective thought in any animal whatsoever, which is easily proven if you look at nature, especially dolphins being stupid enough still to swim with the tuna.
The Missing Third Faculty: Love and Laughter
Now, we have seen that the human soul has a will, which will, in the end, decide if we go to hell or heaven. It is, uh, very much underestimated how much we will decide if we go to heaven or hell. Some people tremble at the thought that God will send them somewhere, and they forget that they will decide where they will go. The human being will say, „I will go to heaven, and I will go to hell.‟ Unless, of course, spoken in vain.If you really want to go to heaven, you will. If you don’t care, you won’t. If you wanna go to hell, you will. Period. Now, the intellect… I’m simplifying things, of course. I’m not talking about intercession or miracles and… But, um, the intellect is the faculty in the soul that tells us what we are talking about in the first place and what we are deciding about. But you can see from the very way I put it, there’s something missing here. I talk about man being the image of God, and then I talk about the two faculties of the human soul, as if there were two persons in God. What else could be the image in the soul? Divinity cannot be. That’s likeness of God. I will talk about that later. What else can it be, if not the image of the Trinity? The very fact that God is not the lonely God of Islam or the lonely God of the Old Testament as the way the Jews see it, but the very fact that God is the Triune Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That must be the image of God in the soul. And yet, Saint Thomas only speaks about the will and the intellect. And Saint Thomas is horribly mistaken about what I shall call the third faculty of the human soul. He does admit saying, Risus erit in beatis, „That laughter will be in the blessed,‟ which is easily concluded from the Sermon of the Mount- on the Mount. But at the same time, Saint Thomas says something very strange. He says, „Laughter is something strange to human nature.‟ I don’t know why he said it. Sometimes Saint Thomas was quoting authorities not knowing that there were no authorities. I don’t know why he says it. It is absolutely an idiotic statement. The fact that laughter would be something strange to human nature is plainly an idiotic statement, and it comes from the greatest teacher of all teachers of the church. Why? Aristotle said, „Man is the risible animal.‟ As my philosophy professor said, „No, don’t fall for that.‟ I’m not risible at all. It’s for the bull that knows. I don’t like to get up in the morning. (laughs) Man is the risible animal. Uh, risible, laughable. The cap- the animal capable of laughter. No animal, not even the tiniest little cutie, cutie little cat could ever laugh or smile. Only human beings can be stupid enough to interpret a smile into an animal. It doesn’t exist. Animals have no humor. Animals don’t laugh. But how long does it need for a newborn child until it will really smile at you the first time? Well, not in the first days, you know? Ugh. It needs a while, but, uh, give it, give or take, a few months, weeks. The child will, for the first time, go (laughs) (laughs) And that’s the essential difference to all animals ever. Was that an a- act of will or intellect in that child? The intellect is still clouded. The will doesn’t really exist. There’s instinct. I’m hungry, (babbles) I’m cold, (babbles) Please, Mom, close the door. (babbles) Same language for everything needed. Anyone here who’s ever been a mother or father knows that. Same language for everything. No intellect, no will, instinct. And yet, there is a smile. Where does that smile come from? Is that a real bright whiz kid that says, „Now I’m gonna smile at me, mom so I get more chocolate.‟ (laughs) Is that a great understanding in the child? „Hey. Wow, this is me, Mom. Hi.‟ No, it isn’t. We are still at the basis of animalistic instinct, as a matter of fact, for the whole first two years of a child. The basics are still instinct, even when a child is able to talk already. It has been known that several animals have been trained to speak a certain number of words. Difference is they don’t know what they’re talking about. Like the child that talks about something, doesn’t know what it’s talking about, but it will smile. What is a smile, if not the expression of love? You smile at somebody if you want to stab him. Well, yes, the grownup do that, but (laughs) a child doesn’t. So (laughs) the, the very faculty of smiling in a tiny little innocent child that has not yet developed its will force or intellect will show you there’s something very gravely wrong in Saint Thomas Aquinas’ assessment of the human soul. Dare we call that faculty in the human soul love? Should we call it the heart? Should we call it the fire?If St. Thomas had realized what he was talking about, he would have called it the fire. Because when he ta- when he talks about the three baptisms, he says there is the baptism of water and the Holy Spirit, and then there is the baptism of the blood, and then there is the baptism of the flame. He doesn’t say desire, which is a very vague 20th century term. He says, in a streetcar in New Orleans too, but he says… He talks about baptismal flaminus, the burning desire, the flame. So shall we call that third faculty the flame, the fire, the love, the heart? Maybe in the future, the Pope will agree on the term, uh, uh, how to call it, but we have a term.
The Sacred Heart: Symbol of Love
Have you ever given any thought to the adoration of the Sacred Heart? No, you have. I know everyone here has. But have you ever given any thought on why the Sacred Heart? Why the Sacred Heart? Why worship a blood pump? It was the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ that transmitted the Holy Spirit onto the apostles. It was, according to the definitions of, uh, Trent and Vatican, the first and last Vatican Council, it was the very mouth of Christ out of which the apostles heard what is part of tradition. Tradition is defined, as I said before, as everything contained in all the scriptures and everything that the apostles heard out of the very mouth of Christ. So how about (Latin)? Most blessed mouth of our Lord, have mercy on us. Why not (Latin)? Most blessed hands of Christ, have mercy on us. Why the blood pump? Well, very obviously, we do not refer to the blood pump at all. Very obviously. In all the history of human literature, go into the Latin and Greek classics, the heart has always been the symbol of love. „I love you with all my heart.‟ One of the oldest phrases in mankind. So we take the heart as a symbol of love. And a symbol, by the way, the word symbol is greatly misunderstood. A symbol is not just a, a simple, unimportant sign. In dogmatic theology, the creed, the Apostolic Creed or the Nicean Creed are called (Latin), the symbol of faith. Okay? So, if the heart is the symbol of love, then we suddenly understand with what I said before, why we adore the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But why the Sacred Heart of Jesus, not the sacred will of Jesus, not the sacred intellect of Jesus? Why the Sacred Heart? Why not the sacred will, sacred intellect? Well, look at the image of God in the human soul. The Father is the creator. Isn’t that what I call will? Doesn’t it say in Holy Scripture, „The Father willed creation to be‟? In the last gospel, don’t we talk about (Latin)? In the beginning, there was the Word, the Son, the second person of the Trinity, the Word. Isn’t that what the intellect is about? Isn’t our intellect informed by words and foremost the word? And doesn’t the words „Holy Spirit‟ also stand for the word „love‟? Then you would say, again, „Yes, Father Hess, I understand that, but why do we adore the Sacred Heart of Jesus and not the sacred will or the sacred word, the sacred intellect of Jesus?‟
Theological Virtues and the Primacy of Love
Take the three theological virtues, and I name them in the right order now, not the way it has been done traditionally: hope, faith, and charity. When you do an act of hope, what do you say? „I want to go to heaven. Forgive my sins, Lord, but because you died on the cross, I have a chance, and if I try hard, I will be able to go to heaven.‟ But it’s an act of will. If you don’t want to go to heaven, there’s no sense in your hope. You have no hope. Hope is essentially your wanting to go to heaven, which is an act of the will. „I will go, go to heaven. I want to go to heaven, and I have a chance to do it.‟ That is hope. And the faith, what is the faith all about? „I want to go to heaven.‟ What is heaven? The faith will tell me, the intellect will tell me, the word will tell me. „And I love you, my Lord Jesus Christ,‟ is charity. But what did St. Paul said? What did he say about faith, hope, and charity, or as it should be, hope, faith… I’m not correcting St. Paul. Please, no misunderstanding. About hope, faith, and charity. Did Christ have hope?No. There was no hope in Christ because He knew the future. Was there faith in Christ? No. He is the truth. There’s only love, and only (laughs) quote unquote, „Only love‟ in Christ. So then St. Paul says, „There will be one day in heaven, there will be no hope, there will be no faith, but, but there will be charity.‟ Which is said… which why? He says in the, um, 13th chapter, 1, first letter to the Corinthians, that love will prevail. There will be no sacraments in heaven except Holy Eucharist. Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, love Himself, the Holy Spirit Himself. Therefore, we have to reasonably conclude, looking at the innocent child that long before it can say yes or no, before it can develop its intellect, that will smile at you in love. And looking at the end of the human being, having no hope, no faith, but all the love that is possible in heaven, which is perfect love always, in the reduced measure for every single human being, like a big glass for one, always filled, a small glass for another one, always filled, a cup as St. Paul says, you will see that the third of the faculties of the human soul, love, is not just the third, it’s also the greatest. Now, that is an explanation why we adore the J- Sacred Heart of Jesus. We do not adore His will, even though we may very well, and there’s a litany to that. But we worship, first of all, His heart, because His heart is about the greatest faculty in His being a human being. There’s no such thing as three faculties in the Trinity. Impossible. That’s infinite being. As far as God the Son is concerned, Jesus Christ, we can only worship and adore the infinite simply be- simple being, God Himself. But we worship the Sacred Heart because it’s the heart of the same person, because the human nature of Christ and the divine nature are united incomprehensibly in the same person. But that person now has a human nature, and in that person’s human nature, there never was faith, there never was hope. Therefore, we worship the Sacred Heart, not the sacred intellect, and not the sacred will. Um, I know, I know, I know I’m overburdening you with all of this because it’s so simple that one day when you see everything of what I said, you will say, „Ah, why didn’t I see it the first time around?‟ That’s how simple it is. The simple answer to what is the image of God, it is our having a will, an intellect, and our capacity of love.
The Beatific Vision and the Faculty of Love
Let’s look at St. Pius X. Where is St. Pius X? His soul is in heaven. His body is slightly dysfunctional in St. Peter’s Basilica on the side, in the side altar. St. Pius X in heaven has no faith and no hope. His will is basically shut down because as we know dogmatically, in the beatific vision, once you have the beatific vision, once you can look into God and somewhat be closer to the mystery of what it means to be infinitely simple, you cannot say no anymore. You see, at the first test that was given to the newly created angels, they were given sanctifying grace, but they were not giving, they were not given the beatific vision. So, they were given a test. Before they were given the beatific vision, they had to submit, which some of them, Lucifer starting, did not do, and they went to hell forever. They’d rather be first in hell than second in heaven. They chose it, they deserve it, and they shall be there forever. But St. Pius X said yes on Earth. Now he’s in heaven facing the ultimate, intimate, and deep, deepest of all truths. He cannot say no anymore. What good is his will now? He doesn’t need it anymore. What good is his intellect now? Him… He remembers everything in perfection, especially once he will resurrect at the last judgment, get his body back perfectly. He will remember everything. He will know everything. He will understand everything. But his intellect is completely overpowered, completely crushed by the insight into the infinite simplicity that is God. Where is his joy? Where is the beatitude? Where is what we call the beatific vision? St. Thomas on one place says it’s in his memory. Oh my. No. The memory is a part of the intellect, and I don’t remember God. St. Pius X in heaven does not remember God. He faces Him. Where is the beatitude if not in that third faculty in the human soul, which is the heart? Not this here…. but his cap- capacity of loving. And what is then, if you talk about that, you say that his greatest faculty is love. In the third faculty of his human soul, he enjoys the beatitude given to him by the very fact of being able to face God. Logical, by the way. Wouldn’t you be happy in facing exactly everything that caused you? Just like the little child that smiles at his mother. The child doesn’t know, „This is my mom.‟ The child only knows, „Uh-huh, it’s her.‟ Doesn’t know what her means or what she is. The child just looks and says, „Hey, haven’t I seen this face before?‟ It’s just, there is an instinctive relationship as to the origin. Can you imagine what beatitude we’re talking about, looking at the origin of everything, including ourselves? You’d say, „If that is all what heaven is, I don’t know.‟ Yes, exactly, you don’t know, because that’s all what heaven is. Everything else is accidental. The infinite love of God, the extremely infinite eternal absolute simplicity of what created us that cannot be felt in the intellect, that cannot be enjoyed in the
will. The will has already said yes. The intellect has already noticed what it is, as I explained it to you. It is in this faculty of loving that the beatitude takes place. Have you ever been happier before or after th- when you love the human being? No, you haven’t. None of you. But the saints are the happiest people on Earth, even when they suffer, because their third faculty is fully developed, just like the intellect is developed in a genius and the will is developed in a tyrant. Not good. The love is developed fully in the saint. An innocent, outgoing, self-condemning, self-abolishing, you, you, you love to God. The third faculty of the human soul, greater than any other, more capable of doing anything else. As Saint Paul said, „Even if you had the faith to transfer mountains, what good is it if you don’t have love?‟ What good is a Father Hess conference in comparison to one moment of love? I tell you, I tell you, and I give this conference, nothing. All the words that I ever spoke are not worth one spark of love. And that’s the third faculty of the human soul, the greatest, and the one that has been hidden from us for such a long time.
Questions and Answers (Part 3)
Father Hesse: Have I made myself totally incomprehensible? (laughs). Totally understandable? No questions left, and I think you understood everything. Wonderful. Did you? Any questions left? Yes?
Q1: Christ's Humor and Church Fathers
Questioner: Excuse me, I’m not sure. I think God he explicitly said whenever he had no humor.
Father Hesse: Saint John Chrysostom was speaking unknowingly blasphemy, as Saint, uh, Ambrosius was unknowingly pronouncing heresy when he said, „I baptize thee in the name of Christ is a valid baptism.‟ So far, for the church fathers. That only proves my point. Saint John Chrysostom was one of the most wonderful church fathers, and so was Saint Ambrose. Saint Ambrose thought you can be validly baptized in the name of Christ. Saint, uh, Chrysostomos, as I hear now, was convinced that Christ had no humor. If Christ had had no humor, he would not only have been no perfect human being, but no human being. Humor is an essential quality that distinguishes the human being from the animal. Therefore, I call it blasphemy to say that Christ had no humor. I’m not accusing Saint Chrysostom, the church father of blasphemy. (laughs) He didn’t know, but he’s… Sometimes, you know, errors can easily be, uh, ending up in heresy, blasphemy, or just simply, uh, nonsense. One of the most noble and essential qualities of Christ must have been his humor, but I’m glad you brought up the question, because we are obviously not talking about the primitive humor that is, uh, fashionable nowadays. We’re not talking about Christ telling stupid jokes, and we are not talking about Christ being amused by dirty jokes. That’s not humor. That’s only bad taste. Humor is something like, uh, when you find in the Book of Job, when Job says, complaining obviously about some nonsense that he found with God, because Job says, „Why does thou, Lord, let it rain where no people are?‟ That’s not a crummy joke. That’s God’s humor. Why does he grow the famous, uh, Sound of Music edelweiss on mountaintops that were never seen by human beings until the 18th century? That’s God’s humor. Why did God create such a huge infinite universe with natural phenomena that would maze, make our minds boggle, would bog… It would be, uh, we would, we would just be speechless in the eyes of what he created, and yet, we might never see it? That’s God’s humor. It’s not a little yo- rotten human joke. God’s humor is so way above us that, uh, sometimes we won’t even understand it, why we, we are here on Earth. And whenever we understand it while we are being here, then probably most people who would hear it would still turn it into something blasphemous. I make this sh- tape shorter so you’ll be able to hear it more often and contemplate on it. (laughs) (laughs). (speaks in Italian) Amen. (Speaks in Italian)
Interviewer: Thank you, Father.
Father Hesse: You’re most welcome.
Interviewer: Yes. Most unusual, Father.
Father Hesse: Very much so.