Alpha Omega

Editoriale

2019-08-30T02:35:53-05:00

La persona como vocación en Romano Guardini. Fundamentación desde la Antropología trascendental de Leonardo Polo

2019-08-30T02:46:41-05:00

Summary: According to R. Guardini, vocation is the free communion of the person with his Creator, in the light of which the person truly comes to know himself. Leonardo Polo considers that vocation is the person himself, whose existence is the gift of an act of being, coexistent and destined to give itself freely, and which awaits being accepted. Vocation is something personal, something radically new; nevertheless, its manifestation or its state of life is in accordance with the community within which it is formed. The family represents the basic form of community, on the basis of which the other communities, which form every vocation, can be understood.

Key words: community, coexistence, freedom, state of life, acceptance, gift.

Sommario: Secondo R. Guardini la vocazione è la comunione libera della persona con il suo Creatore, alla cui luce la persona si conosce veramente. Leonardo Polo considera che la vocazione sia la persona stessa, la cui esistenza è la donazione di un atto di essere coesistente destinato liberamente a donarsi e che attende di essere accettato. La vocazione è qualcosa di personale, novità radicale; tuttavia la sua manifestazione oppure il suo stato di vita è in accordo alla comunità nella quale si forma. La famiglia rappresenta la comunità basilare da cui si capiscono le altre comunità che formano ogni vocazione.

Parole chiave: comunità, coesistenza, libertà; stato di vita, accettazione, dono.

Romano Guardini e l’esperienza del sentire della forma

2019-08-30T02:54:51-05:00

Summary: The contribution which Romano Guardini has made to the liturgy finds a paradigmatic expression in the description which the theologian from Verona offers of a Eucharistic celebration in the cathedral of Monreale. This circumstance provides the starting point for a profound reflection upon the meaning of the celebration and the individual member of the faithful who, living the experience of the celebration and participating in it, is ‘transfigured’ by the encounter with the mystery of the latens Deitas. The rediscovery of the most authentic meaning of participation in the liturgy, in the proposal of Guardini, is the interpretative key for overcoming the crisis of representation, which modernity is experiencing by reason of the loss of the connection between philosophical reflection and the ideal of mimesis. Liturgical experience is the experience of form and it is the basis for the cognitive, aesthetic experience which ‘expounds’ the Christian life, insofar as it is a form-of-life, in the sense that it is ‘transfigured’ by the liturgy.

Keywords: Guardini, experience, theology, liturgy, mimesis, representation, form-of-life.

Parole chiave: Guardini, esperienza, teologia, liturgia, mimesis, rappresentazione, formadi-
vita.

L’Agostino di Romano Guardini: Uno studio storico-teologico della formazione agostiniana del pensiero guardiniano tra grazia, conversione e destino

2019-08-30T03:02:42-05:00

Summary: The present study shows the influence that Augustine of Hippo had in the formation and development of the cornerstones of Romano Guardini’s thought, above all in the themes of grace, freedom and destiny. First, we analyze the reception of the Augustinian notion of grace and its impact upon themes related to prayer and liturgical spirituality. Second, we examine how the concept of freedom, central to Guardini’s reflection, is indebted to the conversion experience (Bekehrung) of Augustine, for whom conversion consists of an existential turning to God the Savior. Finally, we present how the harmonic conjunction of grace and conversion results in the dissolution of poles of tension through the event that surpasses all human expectations: destiny. Instead of a deterministic fatum, Guardini follows Augustine of Hippo in conceiving of destiny as providence, which implies in its historical development the correlative collaboration (concursus) of grace and free will.

Key Words: Romano Guardini, Saint Augustine, conversion, grace, liberty, destiny, liturgy, prayer.

Parole chiavi: Romano Guardini, Sant’Agostino, conversione, grazia, libertà, destino, liturgia, preghiera.

Malinconia, polarità ed esistenza in Romano Guardini

2019-08-30T03:06:26-05:00

Summary: My intention is to show through the writings, and especially through the figures of St. Paul, St. Joseph and Mary, as sketched by Guardini, the existential tension experienced in trying to maintain himself in the faith after his conversion. Every truly creative man lives in the power of the Holy Spirit and has to struggle a lot to keep himself under his power. But if this had not happened in the works of Guardini, they would not be able to speak to us today in the way that they do.

Keywords: opposition, melancholy/Schwermut, play and existence.

Parole chiave: opposizione, melancolia/Schwermut, gioco ed esistenza.

La rivisitazione dell’idea di “spirito” nell’antropologia personalistica di Romano Guardini

2019-08-30T03:18:26-05:00

Summary: The main objective of this project lies in the presentation of the most relevant features of Romano Guardini’s concept of ‘person’, as characterised by the presence of the spiritual dimension, which determines the person and his freedom as irreducible to other entities, and which thus determines the inviolability of his human dignity. The aim of this reflection will be to put forward a model of anthropology, which, in contradistinction to modern orientations of an idealistic kind, the ‘spirit’ appears as disconnected from its being levelled down to the ‘io’, understood in an immanentist sense, as pure subject, who orientates his activism as dominion over the world, and is bound to the idea of the interior centre of the person, as his point of balance, and as the source of the different and opposing vital tendencies, as the place in which man must enter into the full, free possession of his existence, reconnecting himself with his divine origin and re-appropriating his essence, as a ‘spirit’ truly involved in the complexity and multi-dimensional nature of the human person.

Key words: Person, freedom, spirit, Idealism, polarity, transcendence, consciousness, inwardness.

Parole chiave: Persona, libertà, spirito, idealismo, polarità, trascendenza, coscienza, interiorità.

Il Medioevo come paradigma dell’analisi politica di Romano Guardini

2019-08-30T03:25:29-05:00

Summary: Romano Guardini's political thought is strictly entwined with an idea of community in which communitarian and not individualistic sensibilities flourish; he does not want to replicate the medieval world in this model of community, but he finds in the union of «faith and world», which he considers typical of the Middle Ages, a useful means for avoiding any totalitarian experience in Europe. The Middle Ages, therefore, becomes a political model for contemporary society and a paradigm by which it can be analysed. To refer to this theory, I use the expression: “Newest Middle Ages”.

Keywords: Guardini, political community, Middle Ages, Newest Middle Ages.

Parole chiave: Guardini, comunità politica, Medioevo, Nuovissimo Medioevo.

La coscienza situata come “polo opposto” della norma morale

2019-08-30T03:33:03-05:00

Summary: In this paper, I examine the thought of Romano Guardini regarding human conscience and its consequences for moral theory. One specific feature of Guardini’s view of conscience is his focus on the concept of “situation”, which could make him appear close to the position of so-called “situation ethics”. However, situation is only one pole of reality, i.e., the subjective one, which as such requires another, objective pole – the norm. To explain this kind of relation I find the Guardinian image of “ellipse” particularly useful. Conscience cannot but be always located between the two foci of an existential ellipse: one’s own situation which requires certain action and the objective goodness of acts revealed in universal norms.

Key words: ethics, conscience, ellipse, situation.

Parole chiave: etica, coscienza, ellisse, situazione.

Somiglianze e differenze tra le virtù in R. Guardini ed in S. Tommaso

2019-08-30T03:39:14-05:00

Summary: The issues treated – the good of the concrete living being, the virtuous end, the features of the virtues as intentions, nature, habitus, and actions, the polyphony of the virtues,
the mean, the link between the virtues and the Absolute in God – indicate numerous points of analogy between Thomas and Guardini. Guardini is not independent of Thomas in terms of his discussion of the virtues, despite the fact that he does not follow the latter’s presentation in a strictly exemplary fashion. The aspect which indicates this closeness most of all is fundamentally the question of the concreteness of the good, or, put in other words in the language of Guardini, of the concrete living being. His strongest point of contact with Thomas lies basically in his sustaining the view that, if man does not grow in his life in acquiring the virtues, then he will not be able to give fulfilment to his own life. All of this is not an absolute end in itself; since our final fulfilment is always a fulfilment in God, both for Guardini as for Thomas, it is fulfilment in the action of grace in this life and in the beatitudo of the final encounter with God.

Key words: Virtue, good, habitus, intentionality and ends, fulfilment, happiness, concrete living being.

Parole chiave: virtù, bene, habitus, intenzionalità e fini, compimento, felicità, concreto vivente.

Dalla Weltanschauung all’Entweltlichung Alcune considerazioni sull’attualità del concetto teologico di “mondo” in Romano Guardini

2019-08-30T03:51:03-05:00

Summary: Pope Benedict’s call to a new Entweltlichung [unworldliness] of the Church, issued during his last visit to Germany in 2011, relaunched the debate on the relationship between the Church and world. Many theologians of different provenance share the conviction that the model elaborated by Vatican II has lost its plausibility in the context of postmodernity and has to be rethought. However, their solutions differ significantly. In view of a certain ambiguity in theological speaking of the “world”, my article proposes to review some aspects of Romano Guardini’s idea of the Catholic faith as Weltanschauung. After drawing on the historical context, in which Guardini urged us to reintegrate the positive meaning of the world into Catholic thinking, his constant effort to distinguish the specificity of the Christian message, as well as his lifelong research into the indispensable tension between proximity and distance between the world and God, are presented.

Key words: Romano Guardini, Joseph Ratzinger [Benedict XVI], Entweltlichung [unworldliness], Catholic Weltanschauung [worldview], world.

Parole chiave: Romano Guardini, Joseph Ratzinger [Benedetto XVI], Entweltlichung [demondanizzazione], Weltanschauung [visione del mondo] cattolica, mondo.

Umanesimo tecnologico: una antropologia per il futuro dell’uomo. La visione profetica di Romano Guardini

2019-08-30T04:43:14-05:00

Summary: The contemporary world lives under the mark of technology. The robotic, the social network, the Internet of Things are the environment in which humanity lives. People feel as if they are in the midst of an epochal change. The need for a new vision of humanism emerges, alongside the need to develop the capacity for making technology a true resource for the development of humanity. The thinking of Romano Guardini is very relevant even today. Guardini helps us to understand technical power and the relation between nature and culture. He asserts the centrality of the human person and he shows the human qualities needed to be able to live in a time like this. This paper examines the questions of contemporary technology, comparing them with the answers found in the work of Guardini. Its main focus is on the anthropological changes produced by ICT and on Romano Guardini’s suggestions as to how to govern the power of technology.

Key words: technological humanism, anthropological change, human person, nature, culture, technical power, the control of technology.

Parole chiave: umanesimo tecnologico, mutamento antropologico, persona, natura, cultura, potere tecnico, governo della tecnologia.

Alcune riflessioni sull’analisi guardiniana del pensiero di S. Bonaventura

2019-08-30T04:49:01-05:00

Summary: In this contribution, I shall present key aspects of the interpretation of Saint Bonaventure’s thought developed by Romano Guardini. The central point upon which I shall concentrate is the “mystical orientation” of the Serafic Doctor's perspective, which also shapes his metaphysical point of view. In the second part, I shall show that some elements of the developed “Bonaventurian standpoint” are also central to the perspective which underpins Guardini’s conception of liturgy.

Keywords: Metaphysics, Natural Theology, mysticism, Guardini, Bonaventura.

Parole chiave: metafisica, teologia naturale, mistica, Guardini, Bonaventura.

Religione, rivelazione e atteggiamento epistemologico. Guardini e Ratzinger a confronto

2019-08-30T04:58:06-05:00

Summary: This study begins by applying Guardini’s polar opposition between religious experience and cultural élan to his fundamental forms of religion as developed in the second chapter of Part One of his course on “Religion and Revelation” (1958). It will be suggested that distinct configurations of man’s cultural-religious development involve different forms of “rationality” or epistemological attitude. Next, according to Part Two of Guardini’s course, the relationship between religiosity and Judeo-Christian Revelation, will be investigated, the latter corresponding – as we will propose – to a unique epistemological attitude: faith. Finally, the relationships between religiosity, Revelation and epistemological attitude are considered once again in Ratzinger’s Truth and Tolerance, seeing first how he sees the progression of the fundamental historical forms of religion, and then how he opposes Revelation to the mystical form of religion. In doing so we will see how Ratzinger’s position complements and enriches Guardini’s view.

Key words: Guardini, Ratzinger, religion, Revelation, culture-ness, religious experience, faith, mysticism, typology, rationality, epistemological attitude, Gegensatz, existence.

Parole chiave: Guardini, Ratzinger, religione, Rivelazione, culturalità, esperienza religiosa, fede, mistica, tipologia, razionalità, atteggiamento epistemologico, Gegensatz, esistenza.