Episode 90: Interview with Fr. David Meconi, S.J.
In this interview, Fr. Meconi talks about Augustine's role in his own academic studies, CS Lewis as an expositor of the Christian tradition, and why Augustine is not too "other-worldly." We hope you enjoy this conversation. It was one of the few times when I, Chad, just had a free flowing conversation with my doctoral advisor. I for one greatly enjoyed this conversation.
Timestamps:
9:23- C.S Lewis and Ancient Christian Writers
12:32- Augustine and Calvin
17:46- Creation and Deification
27:19- Augustine as Occasion Theologian
Episode Transcription
Charles Kim 0:01
Hello and welcome to history of Christian theology. My name is Chad Kim. With me this week will be my doctoral advisor father, David Meconi. Our conversation will range from my experience to being his doctoral student to many different issues, some of which involve his most recent book published last year, I believe, which I helped him edit to some degree. It's called on self harm and narcissism, atonement and the vulnerable Christ. And so we will discuss a lot of different things. And as Father Meconi is a man of great learning, our conversation will go from CS Lewis to St. Augustine to Anselm, the Milton, it is a pretty, pretty wide ranging conversation, but as well, a father Meconi has a pastor's heart. So part of this conversation will also include how he sees his theology as being beneficial to the people that he's able to serve as a as a pastor and as a priest, and even a conversation that he had with his mother about things that he has learned from, from Augustine and from scripture, and ultimately about how all of us are united to Christ. So I hope that you enjoy this conversation. Rate us review us on iTunes like us. And we appreciate all engagement. If you are enjoying these interviews, please let us know. And if you have suggestions for other interviews, or any other kind of content that we can deliver other things that we can talk about, please let me know. We're lining up other interviews. I think I've got a few coming up at least one with Dr. Jeff wicks, one of my professors as well from SLU, who has a book out on poetry from the Syriac tradition, so that should be a fun conversation. So look out for that as well. Thanks for listening, and have a good week. poured a little louder. It's just a little soft. I've never done an in person interview for this. We've always loved them. Well, I guess that's not true. When we we started it was still an Idaho. So something we did just me and my other friend, but Alright, so this morning, or this afternoon, I guess, although it's a podcast, so who knows when people will be listening to it. I have father David Meconi. With me and father Meconi is my doctoral advisor or was I guess I finished now. So he just signed away my degree audit. So I think I think that's pretty much it right? Also always be your doctoral fellow. That's right. The Germans call it the Dr. Fata right. So so I get you are stuck with me forever. Not long and you're an easy student. And finally, McKone is Professor professor of Patristics at St. Louis University. And he's written a few different books on Agustin and that's his kind of area of special specialty and expertise. Your first your dissertation was the one Christ right and was published with Catholic University Press. And I recently helped you a little bit like I just did a quick glance edit of on self harm and not on self harm, the atonement and no, and the vulnerable
Fr. David Meconi 3:09
credits and unwieldy title but ya know, you were one of the proofreaders. Thank you. Yeah. And you helped me with my Peter Christakis book, another fifth century ambition. So you've been very helpful.
Charles Kim 3:19
Yeah, well, so and the esophagus book is mostly gonna be translation of its translation and commentary. Yeah, is that out yet?
Fr. David Meconi 3:26
That'll be out this fall here or maybe early 21.
Charles Kim 3:29
Okay. So what? Just kind of going back to the beginning for you? I think you said you did your undergrad at Hope College, right.
Fr. David Meconi 3:36
I was at Hope College, three in some years, and went to work for a while and got dragged into daily mass when I was working in Chicago, and it made me start thinking about higher things. And I ended up at Marquette University where I did a degree in philosophy. And then I stayed out and did a master's in theology, and ended up joining the Society of Jesus back in 1992. I became a candidate and 91 entered the novitiate. 92. And so it's been a while though.
Charles Kim 4:06
Yeah. So 9192 So so then but you started you're like more academic writing and work. I mean, the one Christ was only published, like, like 2010 2012 Something I
Fr. David Meconi 4:17
don't remember. Now that my intellectual awakening came through to Jesuits Donald Keefe, okay. And Marquette University and father Leo Sweeney Loyola University. I say the Donald Keefe taught me to love the church and father Sweeney taught me that Christ and the church were one and that really obviously puts a little spark into your academic interest. It's not just about writing or amassing lines on your CV, it's about growing in conformity with Christ. Okay. And some are called to that professionally as academics and with all baptize, you're called to it and whatever state of life they're in. Yeah. And that's always given me an impetus toward the fathers because they didn't they didn't divide their academic life, their scholarly life, their speculative life and the practical concerns of Christian men and women.
Charles Kim 5:00
Yeah. Well, and I think that also is an entree sort of into some of your interests with Augustine. Right. So you're talking about the Church of Christ. And that's the Totus Christus. And the whole Christ was one of these phrases that comes up, especially in the, in his commentaries on the Psalms, but but even throughout his other homiletic writings he does, he does mention that so. So Augustine is a natural fit for those two concerns.
Fr. David Meconi 5:23
That's an amazing insight, isn't it, that Christ alone ascended in heaven is incomplete, with the entire Christ is all those He longs to bring to himself. And so every time we offer a prayer, every time we reach out to an unbeliever every time every time we try to amend the body of Christ, we're actually, if you will, amplifying Christ's presence and making him more and more himself. It works. In one way, when we become more like Christ, we become more ourselves. And when Christ becomes more and more like us, he becomes more and more himself, right. And so the whole Christ, the Totus Christus, Augustine sprays for the church is a really provocative, I think, invitation to see that we have a role to play in the ongoing incarnation, that Christ is in some historical figure knows some heavenly being will meet one day, but he's actually present here and now. Yeah, and that's where I guess until Eucharistic theology comes in, not only as ecclesiology but it's, of course, his insistence on charity that when we love we become Christ.
Charles Kim 6:20
Yeah, that's very good. Well, and even that, the Pope, like the polls that you were talking about, we become more selves, and more like Christ at the same time, that that might actually speak to some of the themes and the most recent book on self harm and, and narcissism and the vulnerable Christ, because that has something to do with the individual. I mean, when I was reading through that book, One phrase that struck me which I shouldn't be, I guess I probably should have known but But you say somewhere in there as it which is an Augustinian insight, that if we have anything of our own, that's basically sin. Sin is the one thing that we keep away from Christ. And at one at the same time, that's both sort of comforting that Christ can be so near and dear to us that he you know that everything that we are that matters is from him. But it's also can be a sort of scary insight, because we are Americans, and we're individuals, and we want to have things that are our own. So could you speak a little bit about the power of that? Well, yesterday, the
Fr. David Meconi 7:15
lectionary, we started the Sermon on the Mount, blessed with the poor in spirit and poor in spirit means to admit everything is gift. And I think one of the reasons that Gustin was raised up by the father at the time of the Collegium crisis, because he had a real understanding of the power of plagiarism thinking, there's good in you that you placed there. And so it took someone who was insistent upon grace. But of course, Grace doesn't eradicate who we are and makes us fully who we are. And everything goes back in one way to Genesis 126 and 27 that were made in God's image and likeness. So the more we become like God, the more we actually become like ourselves. And that's a real key anthropological beginning, because our godliness isn't some afterthought. It's precisely for whom we're made. Yeah. And unfortunately, it takes many us years to realize for whom were made. You think it's you think it's arrows, you think it's romance, you think it's finances, you think it's success or popularity? And toward the end of your life, you realize, as Augustine said, so Well, at the beginning, our hearts are restless to the rest of God. And of course, St. Paul has Galatians 220, right. It's no longer I who live but Christ who lives were in me, not us. Christ doesn't make a schizophrenic or dual identity, right? He makes us truly ourselves. And today's Gospel in the Catholic mass, right? You are salt and light. And if you remember, CS Lewis has a great image. If somebody who didn't know what roast beef was, and you said, I'm gonna put a little salt on that. No, I want to taste the roast beef. Exactly. It's about salt, or someone from outer space. And you say, I want to show you what's in this room. I'll turn on light. No, no, I don't want to see light. I wanna see what's in the room Exactly. That Christ brings out if you will, the truest flavor, the truest image of who we are. And so that's a really key, I think, unbroken trajectory to keep that when you're trying to talk to someone about Christ, you try to show them that only He can make them fully who they are. Or if you regard it as is you go down the inferno, there are less and less, fewer, fewer faces fewer and fewer names. People don't want to be known. They don't want to be seen and that's what sin does. Right? That's why self harm is ultimately that tendency to go away. Right to say I love you means I'm glad you're here to say I hate you means I wish you weren't here. Yeah. And we can say that to ourselves in very subtle ways. Yeah,
Charles Kim 9:23
let's say you I know that you love CS Lewis and you brought up one CS Lewis image that also makes me think of the great divorce you become less than less yourself and more disintegrated and he begins with a line that you also use which is from done right but rather reign in Hell than serve and Milton Milton. Sorry, I was getting confused. Yeah,
Fr. David Meconi 9:41
good point. And actually I'll give you another Louis till we have faces Yeah, the more we grow in love the more our faces return, to be truly who we are. Yeah, yeah, Lewis had mastered all Christian literature in a very beautiful way I think. So
Charles Kim 9:55
yeah, I was teaching the so in my in my podcast streams of my listeners will know that we just did a class that I called Africans against the world. And I took it from the machinations come from London. And the first thing we read was The CS Lewis introduction and about the and, and Lewis sort of admits that he's not a master necessarily, of Athanasius in the early Christian literature, but he talks about the importance, like you just said, of noting the whole body of the tradition, and how important it is. And maybe this is some of like your own academic work, but but also your pastoral work is the importance of seeing the insights of those who have gone before. And Lewis says, For every modern author, you should read several other ancient authors. Because we there's not the same sort of time tested truth to the most. Well, I guess that truth, but they're not they haven't been tested through the generations in the same way, in these recent books will remind
Fr. David Meconi 10:47
your listeners of that great image of Louis at the beginning of that introduction, where he says you can't intelligently join a conversation and 11 that started at eight, right, because you miss out on so much. And that's why I think so many modern Christians, they're good and loving people. But intellectually, they're shallow, because they don't really have a foundation in the early church. And so as you progress, you start to see that what the Scriptures opened up, the father start to unfurl. And the medieval doctors start to let flourish in the modern Sue think well begin to see the fruits. And I mean, it's all well, it's the church. Yeah. Joan of Arc At her trial, before she was condemned unjustly. They asked her what do you know about Christ in His Church? And he said, she said, The only thing I know is that they're one and we shouldn't complicate the matter. Right? And so there's this notion of Christ unfurling unfolding himself in history. And that's where we are today. We're the recipients of all that. And so, if that's true, then those foundational figures like Athanasius and Agustin and Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, they deserve a special attention for us.
Charles Kim 11:45
Yeah. And I mean, so I come from more of the reform side of evangelicalism, I guess, that's basically I was trained it while I went to high school at Westminster Christian Academy, and my parents are Southern Baptists here in town here down to St. Louis. And so those kind of shaping and forming influences. You know, we didn't talk as much about the church fathers but but I think part of your you know, what you're suggesting is that for all of us, who are like talking about CS Lewis as well, all of us, even though we may not come from a Catholic bathroom background, there is still a great tradition. There are still I mean,
Fr. David Meconi 12:24
Luther is an Augustinian monk, Calvin, more Agustin than anybody really in the 16th century. So yeah, it is part of your legacy, too, obviously, has to be
Charles Kim 12:32
Yeah, I have a couple things that you were saying reminded me of Calvin, which is, you know, he begins, his Institute's asking the question whether or not he should begin with God or man, he isn't sure. And sort of the point about, you know, you are most fully yourself in Christ is something that, that we can say, Calvin probably learned from Augustine and from Paul, you know, and which is it, but it's that same insight that, you know, those two are so closely connected to Kelvin isn't sure where to begin his sort of systematic account, and
Fr. David Meconi 13:04
Augustine would have an answer for him. Augustine says, obviously, the two great commandments are to love God and love neighbor, and it doesn't matter where you start. And that's a really essential insight that love is love. So we've been talking about CS Lewis, I mean, the four loves right. Affection, arrows, friendship and Agha pay. A big question is, are those species or modes if their species there are different kinds of loves? If they're modes, they're all reflections of the one same love. And Augustine will he'll he'll throw his hat in the latter ring because love is ultimately divine, the God is love. And he says, Therefore Love is God. And actually that inversion he attributes to John himself, which is a bit of a slip or an intentional. Yeah. And so the point is that we gauge our love of God by how we love one another. That's what John says in his first letter, whoever says they love God and hates his brother sister is a liar. And so Agustin will argue that even though love of God is ultimate, it's really the love of neighbor that begins that drama that most of us learn to love God by seeing a face dangling over the crib. We came to love God, by loving neighbor first and even the love of neighbor may be chronologically or even emotionally prior. It's the love of God. That's ontologically formatively first, yeah. And as a priest, I do a lot of obviously, ministry in hospitals and places and you see mothers at the Children's Hospital holding their children just as lovely and tenderly as they do. Holy Communion. So yeah, that's right. I mean, there's a convergence here that Augustine I think got better than any other thinker so far. I really do maybe Dante right Dante gets into heaven by watching Beatrice this his love for his girl that elevates him in any good man knows that by loving his wife properly he becomes actually holier Yeah, yeah. And that opens a whole new doors for what it means to be outside the church no salvation you know, the anonymous Christian. Those who love rightly love Yeah, yeah, because God excusable. Well, this, it
Charles Kim 15:01
strikes me that I hear often sermons that will try to dissociate these loves that like, you could love God at the exclusion of loving your wife or your friend or something like that, where they want to pit these loves against each other. And I always like want to cry out from the Pew, like, read Psalm Augustine or read some John, if we love one another, you know, we truly love God. And this is, you know, this is sort of that same insight. But why is it that we want to fracture these that we want to make these like competition,
Fr. David Meconi 15:32
the Pharisees and all of us, by loving God, we love a remote being who we probably made our own image likeness. And what we mean by that is by the law, and if I've kept the law and I'm okay with the ultimate, and it's okay that I'm not okay with those around me, the horizontal beings who are as equal as I am. And I think there is a tendency in all of us to be Pharisees, and to keep the rules. And that way, we don't have to really put our eyes on anyone else. We can think about myself, because Christians are they love talking about my salvation, my forgiveness my and really were to be other centered at all times. It's not about your salvation. It's about Christ's presence in us that and so I think there is a tendency to do that, because it's convenient and safe, especially in trying times, and turbulence, we all want security, and the rules and the laws give us security. And you don't need to be a modern Christian to do that. There's a strand in our Christian history of what Eleanor stump here at St. Louis University calls the stern mind to Christian, the person who will destroy himself herself, those around them in order to show God how much he matters to them. In fact, a couple days from my mom died, I walked into her room, and she was in tears. And I said, Well, what's the matter? And she said, I'm disappointing our Lord. I said, Well, what's the matter? And she said, I don't want to leave you kids. And that must really hurt him. I thought, Mom, you're thinking of this wrongly. So I want to get the scriptures and we read the story of Lazarus. So even he cries at the loss of his friend, mom, death is not a good in and of itself. And you're not going to impress God by not letting out how much God's people mean to you. Yeah. And that's the thing about friendship, this thing about the communion of the saints, we can only love God by loving those whom he loves. And so for secondary, my mom made a mistake. She she became stern minded, Lord, look how much I love you. I don't care about this earth. Yeah. But first Corinthians 1528 Is God will be all in all. The moment God chose to create, he chose not to be everything. And so therefore he loves to share his presence with all things. And that's why a prayerful soul that makes his or her way through this world does it with a certain joy and freedom. They don't worry about the law, because they know the Father has everything in his hands. Right? What does Agustin say? Love God and do what you will. That's right. Right. So
Charles Kim 17:46
it seems like even there we could bring up your sort of interest in Augustine and deification. And that like God wanting to share himself with us, right? So creation, in creation, there's a sort of separation, there's a sort of like, there is something that's necessarily different between God and His creation. But all of creation is a sort of, like through sin has been marred that image that likeness to God. But in deification, as you understand it in Augustine, which is not not an insight that many have seen, I guess some but but you sort of you did sort of a groundbreaking study on that right? That was the the one Christ was to really show how integral this was even to Augustine but but even on a pastoral level, it sounds like it has it can have this relationship, even to our this sort of connection to our relationships here on Earth, and how that we understand everything being in this love for God.
Fr. David Meconi 18:41
That's right. That's right. Again, CS Lewis, one of his friends, Charles Williams, one of the Inklings. He has a letter to his wife in which he says, Love you question mark. He says, I am you. And if you think about it, that's precisely what Matthew 25 is about. That's what Acts nine for when Saul hears from the cloud, Saul, Saul, why you persecute me that Christ is us. We are Christ, because love transforms the lover into his beloved. I mean, you must know that after years of marriage, you start to become more and more like each other. And one day your children say, Oh, you Mom, you're just alike. And that's a compliment. Because you should be like, right? You see that with dog owners? After a while, they start to look like they're Fuch you know, same haircut, same sweater vest. But yeah, so love is one of these. Well, what as soon as the visit unity, but the unifying force, and that God loved us so much he became like us, but that's only the first. First half of the play. Yeah, the second half is weird. I love God and such as that we become like Him. And so Second Peter 1/4. That we become partakers of the divine nature that we never possess godliness. We never possess charity or joy, but we do partake of them. We, we participate in that. And that, that way we can say two things that are both true. I am a sinner and I am holy. Right because the holiness is not my it's not something I possess and I can be assured of, and something I partake of and be convinced of, but it's ultimately God's continuous incessant gift to me even in heaven, that'll be gift. So,
Charles Kim 20:11
yeah, yeah. When it also strikes me that in the way that you just phrased that it was miles from blank, oh, the sort of you used a lot of you talked about a dog owner becoming like his dog, a wife and a husband, and you talk all about these very earthly relationships. I know that well, for, for one, there's just a book out on the meaning of Protestant theology by Philip Carey. But but others have have asserted, even Calvin actually one of his criticisms of Augustine, he says in the Gospel of his commentary in the Gospel of John, he says that Augustine is excessively concerned with Platonism. And so there's this charge that Augustine is so in the clouds and is so spiritually minded, that he's totally forgotten the sort of the bodily or has so sort of ignored our in, like, the fact that we're flesh and so how would you respond to those that would sort of say that? Yeah, I mean, Augustine has a lot to say that's good, but but like Calvin said, He's just too concerned with Plato and Plato's too concerned with ideas and the other realm and the spiritual life.
Fr. David Meconi 21:19
And I would say they would like that say, Read his sermons read how he speaks to the farmers and the housewives and, and the people before him day after day after day you wrote on the sermons, you see that he is not an otherworldly figure, he understand that this world makes sense only in the other world. And so often in the homily is where he'll remind the Christians who are about to say, the mass, Lift up your hearts or some court, that you and I are on earth, but our hearts have to think heavenly, we have to be with a different kind of mind. But that doesn't take our body weight. In fact, he calls his flesh is amico, Tara has eternal friend. And so yeah, I just think it's ungrounded. Now, you could certainly take parts, like the data and the topic, the body plays a very minor part in how he understands the imaging of the Triune God within the soul, but that doesn't eradicate or dismiss the body just isn't his concern. Yeah. In fact, in the diversity question, when he goes to anything questions, he talks about that you and I play, how does he put the image of God participates in our bodies, because we are the animals who stand heavenly word. We stand erect, we stand upright, like other animals who faces are to the ground. Now imagine other animals due to like, I guess penguins are, but they our bodies even represent our heavenly status. So I would not hold at all that Augustine dismisses the body. I think part of his maybe part of that critique would be that he understands the power of Eros, he understands the power of carnal lust, because he was entrapped for a while, but most of my students are disappointed when they read the confessions. It's not as steamy as they thought it was gonna be he was, I mean, he's no more trapped by Karna less than any purview or MTV today. Right. Yeah. So now I just think it's an unfounded claim. It's convenient claim, but I don't think it's real. Yeah. Well, what do you think you wrote?
Charles Kim 23:03
Yeah, I mean, well, this podcast is supposed to be about you. So they hear enough to say, well, it's not a book yet. We're working on it. Yeah, I mean, I think well, one of the things that I wrote on in the article that I did before I did, the dissertation was on the sort of, well, the rhetorical use of like a humiliating rhetoric. And so it could be seen from one angle as humiliating, that Augustine speaks about Christ's incarnation in such bodily terms, but that's also precisely the glory of it insofar as, as Christ is uniting himself in that way to partaking in the human flesh. So it's not a rejection of because he partakes in it. And he becomes the one Mediator, right. So one of those oft quoted phrases from from Augustine is that Christ is our mediator from First Timothy, but he, he loves this, I think, because he's, he knows and he sees that Christ doesn't reject it. That's the whole point of taking on the form of the servant. And at some points that he I think, in that article I draw on he uses a Latin word for the beast, it's a brute dumb, are you meant to say, is this very like this word for a stupid animal? And he says that Christ is that pack horse of the flesh, is what Agustin calls it. And,
Fr. David Meconi 24:22
in fact, his commentary on the Good Samaritan that the Pack Mule upon which the Good Samaritan puts the poor man is the flesh of Christ. Yeah, he comes down in order to put us on literally just as and lift us into heaven. Yeah, it's an amazing, earthy, no fourth century, fifth century thinker can be really without the flesh unless he's a monk somewhere out in the desert. But these people, they smell differently. They acted differently. They sounded differently. I mean, the body was very much a concern each day.
Charles Kim 24:50
Yeah. That's, that's definitely helpful. So yeah, I mean, it was just a I mean, I don't know really share the concern but but it was Dr.
Fr. David Meconi 25:02
Curie is he's a force. And he writes well,
Charles Kim 25:05
yeah, well, and he's a little bit concerned, I will see if I can get him on the podcast, please. I, I get to actually interview with him slightly for a job for shortly for a job but but he has this like idea that well, and one of the things that you mentioned and data and autonomy as well, is the difficulty of understanding exactly in what flesh we shall see Christ. So one thing that, that I don't think I really thought too much of until I started reading Augustine in earnest and spend time here at SLU was the beatific vision. And so one of the questions that Carrie has is like, Who will we see Christ? What is it exactly that we will see what is the role of the flesh in this? And he thinks that Augustine is too concerned with visual metaphors that preclude the body, and he has a lot about hearing and the importance of hearing the gospel. And so he makes it so Carrie, when he reads a gusset, he sees this inward turn, that seems to ignore the bodily function. And then there's ultimately becomes this question of is, do we see Christ in the body? Where is the body in this eschatological and final vision?
Fr. David Meconi 26:14
And that's an important question, right? Because if we do gaze upon the Godhead, how do we see the father in the Spirit who never became visible? Agustin has a great line and one of his Easter homilies where he talks about the wounds of Christ in John 20, not healing. And he says that will be the same for all of us that our bodies tore mentum will become our own event, that the torments will become our own events. And so he never dismisses the body, even in the scars and the wounds. Now, I think Carrie's point is right, what does it mean to see God in the beatific vision? Well, we see only the sun. Yeah, who knows? First John three, two, that we've become like God for him, we shall see Him as He is. Augustine only uses that line and all of his corpus, I think, six times but they always appear in widow letters to widows, and they obviously have reached out to him, What is my husband doing right now? What is the scene? And Augustine admits? I don't know. Yeah, I really don't know what's going on. But we do have the promise of seeing God and therefore becoming like him. So the dynamics are there the content, obviously, he knows now, but he didn't.
Charles Kim 27:19
Well, that's also one of the things that has drawn me to reading Augustine is, you know, we have a whole life of his writings. And of course, the retrack Tatsiana is at the end. So we actually even get to see Augustine at various points, admit where he got things wrong, or ask questions about what maybe he doesn't know. Like, he's never quite sure exactly how Original Sin is transferred through the body and the soul, there's at least something of a question, you know, because he doesn't want to fall prey to certain what he knows to be heresies. But, but we do have like, and so I think, even in this question about the vision of God in the end, because it is a little, like, Look, I'm not 100% sure exactly how all this plays out. But to me that, you know, that draws me more into wanting to read Augustine, because it's someone who's willing to say at the moment at these precise moment where he doesn't know
Fr. David Meconi 28:05
Yeah, and as dogmatic as sure he's he can be also exhibits often intellectual charity saying, Yeah, I, I don't know. I think book 12 The Confessions is a great example that what does it mean to create heaven on earth? And he gives these various options. I don't know exactly what the Scriptures mean by this. Here's what it can't mean. Yeah, but here are four or five different ways of understanding those terms. So yeah, he's, he's what we call an occasional theologian, right? He's rarely systematizing anything, but he's responding to people's questions. And I see in that a real appreciation for the other.
Charles Kim 28:37
Yeah. Well, and even the confessions and then I was thinking about Anselm but this idea that like writing you know, the confessions or prayer and Psalms PROLOGO Proflow Tian and mana Lujan our prayers. And so writing theologically for Agustin at times is just prayer. And so they're like, so it's not a systematic treatise in the sense that we might mean it now. But for him, it's, yeah, it's a dialogue with God.
Fr. David Meconi 29:03
It's a prayer, but it's also with his learning. Remember the beginning of the day train of thought that he says what I don't know, I usually learned by writing Yes, getting it out, which is a great example, I think, for all of us who tend to stay inside our heads. But is, you know, you don't know somebody to
Charles Kim 29:16
teach it. Well. So that has got to say that I like that the Seneca says, By teaching we learn. And I use that as my mantra because I've often called into teaching things that I don't feel quite ready to teach. And I start, I use that as an excuse. And I say, Okay, well, here's an opportunity to learn. I may not have mastered x or y subject, but but I get to learn more about it. And so there's definitely I am also learning that by writing, we learn a lot. So the program here at SLU has given me an occasion to really beef up my writing, which, I guess a little self disclosure, that was one of the things that was common to be very early on, not by you, but by other professors like hey, you're gonna need to work on writing if you're going to make this a life. And so that's been one of the harder challenge Just for me, is trying to get get, get some clarity with with writing. But I have learned through that as well, we
Fr. David Meconi 30:07
are disciples of the word. And it's not just writing, you have your podcast you preaching. But as an academic writing is the medium with which we can reach a lot of people. Yeah. So it is important that the word can be expressed, both orally, verbally. But also, personally, I think you do that, exhibiting the love of Christ.
Charles Kim 30:28
Yeah, well, I'll wrap up here pretty quick. I don't want to take up too much of father's time. But it strikes me as we talk about the words. You know, someone I think he actually said the O'Donnell biography, which I don't always like, but he points out that. But he points out that Augustine always has friends around, and he never seems to have a quiet moment. And like, it reminds me that there's a in Scott Momaday is an author, and he wrote a book. Oh, shoot. I'm trying to think of what the House made. No, I can't remember the name of the title. But anyway, I'll think about it. I'll put a link up to it. But he writes in the beginning that Westerners and white people are obsessed with talking, and maybe it's because their god is the word. And so I guess maybe in a weird way, it has always reminded me of the place of silence. And so that's what Mamma Mia is trying to sort of teach about or talk about is the importance of silence. So it's, it's an interesting thing to think about Augustine, who left us 5 million words, five and a half million words and, you know, all these different things. But the, yeah, he just talks about how much we talk. And Augustine is always talking and they're always these friends and but in fact, there is a place for silence and an importance for silence and just listening to the Word making.
Fr. David Meconi 31:51
Yeah, that would be a great study Agustin on silence, but he had the tradition of writing during the wee hours of the night, there was a silence and as a popular bishop, he spent most of the days with people adjudicating cases and listening to pastoral concerns and, and and ministering to families. And so he was a very busy person. But I think in one way, he really was an introvert, I think he recharged by returning to his cell returning to his desk. And oftentimes I get the sense that his preaching and his his public life was somewhat of a drain, but he did it because he knew the Lord needed to there.
Charles Kim 32:24
Yeah. Well, very good. I think that's probably there's a lot to digest that now having Yeah, it's, it's fun. We I don't know that we've had too many. Just sort of free flowing conversations. You just you and I were always working on a project or something that you know, trying to get me through the program
Fr. David Meconi 32:41
to run a monologue on urine.
Charles Kim 32:45
Thank you. All right, very good. Thank you for listening to history or history of Christian theology. My name is Chad Kim, and I hope you enjoyed this interview with father David Meconi.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
