I- A Shift in Human Consciousness

Blaise Pascal famously wrote: “Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed (Pensées, 347, 1670)

This 17th-century image captures both the fragility and the dignity of the human person. Fragile like a reed, man is nonetheless capable of thought — and in that thought lies his greatness. Pascal’s vision is deeply rooted in a Christian and Augustinian worldview: man is fallen, yet capable of knowing truth and of opening himself to God. His dignity lies not in power but in consciousness — a reason that can recognise its finitude and turn toward transcendence.

Just a few decades earlier, René Descartes had penned the foundational statement of modern philosophy “Cogito, ergo sum” – “I think, therefore I am.” (Discourse on the Method, 1637)

With Descartes (1596–1650), reason becomes the foundation of certainty, the pillar of self-knowledge. If for Pascal (1623–1662) man’s greatness lies in his thought directed toward God, for Descartes it lies in thought as the ground of being itself. Both share a conviction that reason, though limited, is central to human dignity. This era of the 17th century gave birth to a vision of man as a rational, responsible, and oriented being, situated between dust and infinity.

The Descent into Depth: Freud and Jung

Three centuries later, a profound rupture occurs. With Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), we are no longer in the world of the thinking subject, but of the unconscious subject. Freud opened up what is arguably one of the most important discoveries in modern anthropology: that the conscious mind is only a small part of who we are. Beneath it lies a vast, dynamic, often repressed realm — the unconscious — where trauma, desire, memory, and instinct shape behaviour in ways the rational self cannot control.

Freud’s theories, developed especially in The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) and The Ego and the Id (1923), introduced key mechanisms like repression, projection, and the Oedipus complex. Though his model was primarily pathological and conflict-based, he cracked open a hidden architecture of the human psyche.

Carl Jung (1875–1961), Freud’s one-time disciple and eventual rival, expanded this discovery into a much broader horizon. For Jung, the unconscious was not merely a repository of repressed material but also a source of wisdom, containing archetypes and a collective unconscious that linked humanity across time. Jung shifted the spiritual centre from God to the Self — not the ego, but a deep centre of totality within, which includes both light and shadow.

In this new model, human flourishing is no longer achieved through faith and reason alone, but through integration of the inner depths — a process he called individuation.

A New Awareness: The Immensity Within

This shift from the thinking reed to the unconscious Self marks a dramatic transformation in human self-awareness. Humanity has changed — not biologically, but in the way it perceives itself. The ancient and medieval world looked outward to the stars and upward to God; the modern world increasingly looks inward, toward the vast, unmapped terrain of the soul.

We are now aware — perhaps for the first time in history with such clarity — that there is an immensity within the human being, a depth more expansive than the universe itself. This is not poetry but existential fact. As the astrophysicist Hubert Reeves once remarked, “Man is the most complex object we know in the universe.” The more we explore the cosmos, the more we also confront the even more mysterious cosmos within.

This interior immensity brings with it new awareness, new needs, and a new style of life:

• We hunger not just for truth but for meaning.
• We seek not just knowledge but integration.
• We need not just moral codes but paths of inner transformation.

This is why psychological language has entered ordinary spirituality, why practices like silence, meditation, and inner healing have become widespread — and why theology itself must rediscover the anthropological depth of its message.

Conclusion: From Finitude to Mystery

There is, indeed, an abyss between Pascal’s “thinking reed” and Jung’s unconscious Self. Pascal saw man as small before the infinite God. Jung places the infinite within man himself. These are not just shifts in theory — they represent a deep anthropological evolution in the self-understanding of humanity.

To navigate this shift wisely, we must neither reject the depth psychology offers, nor lose the horizon of transcendence that thinkers like Pascal and Descartes still held dear. The real challenge of our time may be to reunite the vertical (God) and the depth (the unconscious) — to rediscover the grandeur of man not only as a rational creature but as a being of infinite openness, both toward the mystery within and the mystery beyond. The shift we observe reveals the vast depths within the human person and the innate need to fill them.

References & Sources

• Pascal, Pensées, Brunschvicg 347.
  English: Pensées, trans. A. J. Krailsheimer (Penguin, 1995)
  https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Pens%C3%A9es_(%C3%A9d._Brunschvicg)/347
• Descartes, Discourse on the Method (1637), Part IV.
  English: Project Gutenberg
• Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1899); The Ego and the Id (1923).
  See Standard Edition, vols. IV & XIX.
• Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul (Routledge, 1933);
  The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Princeton, 1981)
• Hubert Reeves, L’Univers expliqué à mes petits-enfants (2007)

II- A New Birth of the Human: From the Thinking Reed to the Unconscious Self

The journey from Blaise Pascal’s “thinking reed” to Carl Jung’s unconscious self marks not merely an intellectual evolution but an immense leap in human self-understanding. What has emerged in modern times is not simply a new theory of the psyche or another step in philosophical anthropology, but something more akin to a mutation in consciousness. It is as if the human being, once seeing himself largely in terms of rational thought and moral responsibility, has suddenly discovered depths within himself that he never imagined were there.

And yet, as a civilisation, we have not yet processed this change. We live in the wake of a transformation whose consequences are still unfolding. We are like children who have stumbled into a vast palace of mirrors, where every reflection reveals something new and unfinished. Our symbolic language, cultural institutions, educational structures, and even spiritual traditions struggle to keep up with the new dimensions of the self that have come into view.

Spring Is Not Enough

To compare this shift to the early days of spring — sudden growth, burgeoning life, the unveiling of hidden potential — is both meaningful and insufficient. Spring speaks of freshness and awakening, but it lacks the existential weight, the inner upheaval, the structural metamorphosis that the human person is undergoing.

A better image may be that of adolescence.

Adolescence as the Key

Adolescence is not merely a transitional phase. It is a birth within a birth — the emergence of a self that did not exist before, though it was always latent. The transformation involves every dimension of the human being:

• The body expands, reshapes, reorients itself in space and function.
• The emotions deepen, intensify, and often destabilise.
• Thought becomes more abstract, reflective, capable of grasping larger systems and inner contradictions.
• The social self emerges: awareness of others’ perceptions, the desire for belonging, the pain of exclusion.
• Sexuality awakens, not just as desire but as a question of identity and union.
• And, perhaps most dramatically, the self-consciousness becomes acute: the adolescent sees himself seeing himself.

One of the most telling moments in adolescence is the encounter with the mirror. Not as a functional tool, but as a threshold. Many adolescents find themselves suddenly pausing, staring — not at their face, but at themselves. A new I is surfacing. This moment is more than vanity. It is the dawning of the inner self as an object of reflection.

In the same way, humanity today is standing in front of its own mirror. The immense exploration of the unconscious in the 20th and 21st centuries, the growing complexity of personal identity, the global interconnection of narratives and values — all these are signs that we are no longer dealing with the “child” of rational modernity, but with a new being whose faculties, needs, and worldview are expanding rapidly.

A New World, New Needs

The needs of a ten-year-old and a sixteen-year-old are not just different in degree — they belong to different existential orders. A child needs clarity, rules, structure, and affection. An adolescent needs meaning, integration, freedom, and the tools to navigate internal contradiction. What sufficed at ten becomes oppressive at sixteen. Similarly, the categories and structures that framed the modern human — rationality, progress, self-control — no longer suffice. A new human world is being born.

This new world is:

• Wider, because the self is now seen as dynamic, relational, and unconscious as well as conscious.
• Heavier, because the burden of self-understanding has grown — we are now responsible not only for our actions but for the integration of our inner chaos.
• More fragile, because the tools for this integration are not easily found in inherited traditions, and identity is easily fragmented.
• More immense, because the horizon of the human has become psychological, cosmic, spiritual, and transpersonal.

Humanity is in a new adolescence — one where the old maps do not work, and where new forms of meaning must be forged in fire and freedom.

Rethinking the World from the Self

This adolescence is not an end, but a beginning. Just as adolescents eventually come to maturity — if they are accompanied with wisdom — so too can this new human journey bear fruit. But it requires that we recognise the stakes: the self is not just a private reality, but the very lens through which we interpret the world.

The new self-awareness now emerging means that humanity is capable of:

• Thinking the world again — but from a deeper, more integrated place.
• Rethinking society, culture, relationships, education, and even spirituality in light of a more complete anthropology.
• Shouldering greater complexity and paradox, because our faculties — like an adolescent’s — have grown strong enough to carry more weight.

We are only at the beginning. But already we sense that what lies ahead is not a return to the old certainties, but a path that leads through depth, not over it; a path that reclaims both the fragility of the thinking reed and the immensity of the unconscious self, and dares to unify them.

Conclusion: The Task Ahead

This new awareness of the self is not narcissistic — though it can become so. It is not a rejection of tradition — though it can lead to rupture. It is, rather, a revelation of human complexity, and with it comes a new ethical and spiritual task.

As in adolescence, we are being born again, not into new bodies, but into larger souls. And as every good educator knows, such a birth needs both firmness and tenderness, clarity and mystery. What humanity now needs is a new kind of guidance — one that can speak to this interior immensity with depth, with hope, and with courage.

III- From the Thinking Reed to the Abyss of Holiness: A New Anthropology of Grace

When Blaise Pascal described the human being as a “thinking reed”, he captured both the fragility and the dignity of man. “Man is but a reed,” he wrote, “the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.”¹ Fragile yet conscious — this was modernity’s noble portrait of the human person. A being endowed with reason, capable of discernment and moral freedom.

Yet today, that image has undergone a seismic shift. With the emergence of depth psychology in the 20th century — first through Freud, then Jung and beyond — the human being has discovered himself to be not only rational but also unconscious, symbolic, driven by forces and longings deeper than thought. Humanity moved, we might say, from “the thinking reed” to “the unconscious self.” And with that shift came a revolution in anthropology — a new awareness of the immensity within.

This change is not just conceptual; it is existential. A new human has emerged, and this human bears new needs, new questions, and a new thirst. The mirror of reason was once sufficient; now, we seek to understand the depths behind the mirror. The abyss within us has opened — and it is still opening.

The Church Wakes Up to the Call

At the same time — and surely not by coincidence — something remarkable happened within the Church. When the Second Vatican Council concluded in 1965, it marked more than an aggiornamento. Something like a spiritual awakening had occurred. The Church, as if suddenly aware of a new situation, proclaimed two profound truths that resonate deeply with the modern self:

1. Freedom — In Dignitatis Humanae, the Council affirmed the full dignity of the human person in religious matters: “The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth.”² Faith must be chosen, not imposed. Man must decide for God — freely, consciously, personally.
2. Universal Call to Holiness — In Lumen Gentium, the Church proclaimed that all the baptised are called to holiness, regardless of their state in life.³ Not just the monks, nuns, or clergy — but every Christian. Every person. No one is excluded.

This proclamation is nothing short of a revolution. It is not only ecclesiological; it is anthropological. The Council seemed to say: now that humanity has discovered the abyss within, it is ready to hear the call from the abyss above.

“Abyss Calls to Abyss”

The Psalmist writes: “Abyss calls to abyss in the roar of your torrents; all your waves and breakers sweep over me” (Ps 42:7). The verse, poetic and mysterious, finds a surprising fulfilment in our time.

• The first abyss is the interior one — the one discovered by the modern self. The depths of our unconscious, the complexity of desire, the weight of freedom, the mystery of personal identity and suffering.
• The second abyss is the divine — the unfathomable holiness of God. “Holy, Holy, Holy” (Is 6:3; Rev 4:8). A holiness that is not a mere moral attribute, but absolute otherness, transcendence, and uncreated love.

This double abyss sets the stage for a radically new spiritual journey. Human depth meets divine depth. The fragile, complex, symbolic self is now called — freely, personally — to enter into the holiness of God.

But Called to What, Exactly?

If all are now called, the natural question arises: called to what?

To be a saint? Yes. But what is a saint?

To be holy? Yes. But what is holiness?

Holiness, as the tradition tells us, cannot be grasped by analogy from below. It is not the sum of moral virtues. It is not human perfection plus divine help. Holiness is “other.” It is defined only from above, by participation in God’s own being. As St. John Paul II wrote: *“Holiness is not a luxury of the few, but a simple duty for you and me.”*⁴

But it is a duty in response to a gift: the call to share in the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4). The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us: “The holiness of the Church is the hidden source and infallible measure of her apostolic activity and missionary zeal” (CCC 828). In other words, holiness is the new frontier.

A New Convergence

What we are witnessing is a historical convergence. Two abysses — once separate, now calling to one another:

• The abyss of the human person, newly aware of its depth and complexity.
• The abyss of divine holiness, newly proclaimed as the universal call and destiny of every person.

This convergence is not a coincidence. It is a sign of divine timing.

The modern self, burdened with new freedom and new psychological depth, risks collapsing into narcissism or despair — unless it is met by a greater horizon. And that horizon is not human transcendence alone. It is the mystery of God, who is “wholly Other”, yet calls us into communion with Himself.

Holiness, then, is not a relic from the past but the only adequate response to the new human condition. It is not about being better. It is about being drawn into the mystery of God — to the point where our depths become His dwelling.

Conclusion: The Threshold Before Us

This is the paradox of our time: we are more fragile than ever — and more called than ever. Our consciousness has grown, our freedom expanded, our wounds deepened. And precisely here, God calls us — not to retreat into comfort or ideology, but to dive into His mystery.

Abyss calls to abyss. And in that call, a new kind of human being is being born.

References

1. Blaise Pascal, Pensées, fragment 200 (Lafuma edition).
2. Second Vatican Council, Dignitatis Humanae, §1.
3. Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, §39–42.
4. John Paul II, Homily at the Beatification of Mother Teresa, 19 October 2003.

IV- From Magnifying Glass to Electron Microscope: The Urgent Need to Rediscover Contemplation in the Church

1. A Double Shock

We are still waking up from a dual anthropological and theological shock. On the one hand, modern humanity has discovered its own inner abyss. The tidy rationalism of Pascal’s “thinking reed” has been overwhelmed by the revelation of unconscious depth, psychic complexity, symbolic multiplicity, and existential ambiguity. On the other hand, the Church, through the Second Vatican Council, unexpectedly reawakened to a core truth: the universal call to holiness. This was not directed to an elite, but to every baptised person. The psalmist’s cry rings anew: “Abyss calls to abyss” (Ps 42:7).

The modern subject stands at the edge of an interior vastness never before so consciously apprehended. The Church simultaneously stands at the edge of a divine invitation to plunge into God’s own mystery. The question arises: are the means we currently use sufficient to bridge these abysses?

2. Technological Analogies and Anthropological Shifts

Imagine the impact of technological progress: the invention of the optical microscope opened new biological worlds; the electron microscope unveiled the architecture of molecules; telescopes have expanded our cosmic vision to the edge of the observable universe. Human perception of reality has been fundamentally altered. Can we continue to see and think the same way after such progress?

Likewise, the psychological and anthropological revolutions of the 20th century have revealed new inner landscapes. From Freud and Jung to neuroscientific discoveries, we now know the human psyche is vastly deeper and more dynamic than previously imagined. These are not marginal discoveries. They reshape what it means to form, to heal, to grow, to pray.

Yet ecclesial formation often proceeds as if nothing has changed. The human being has evolved in self-awareness and depth, but spiritual formation remains stagnant, relying on methods no longer proportionate to the modern condition.

3. Prayer as Exploration: Self and God

Prayer is not simply a moral duty or an act of piety; it is the deepest act of exploration. “Know yourself and you will know your God” echoes through the Christian mystical tradition. Saints and doctors of the Church—from Augustine to Teresa of Ávila, from Gregory the Great to John of the Cross—insist that authentic prayer is the place where self-knowledge and divine knowledge meet.

This meeting point is not reached through discursive meditation alone. It requires a transformation that only God can accomplish. The tradition calls this transformation contemplation. It is not the privilege of the few but the normal maturation of grace. Garrigou-Lagrange, Arintero, and Bl. Marie-Eugène of the Child-Jesus all affirmed this clearly: contemplation is not optional. It is essential.

4. The Post-1940s Decline of Contemplation in Formation

Yet, by the mid-20th century, the Church began to lose clarity on contemplation. Curricula shifted. The term itself became rare. A generation of priests and religious grew up with no access to the doctrine of contemplation. The rise of Lectio Divina—while a positive development—presented a final “step” labeled “contemplation” without doctrinal or experiential definition. The theological and pedagogical infrastructure needed to prepare souls for contemplation had quietly vanished.

Thus, while modern humanity was discovering vast inner complexity, the Church offered increasingly simplified spiritual programs, detached from its own mystical heritage.

5. The Tragic Disparity: New Abysses, Old Tools

We now face a tragic irony. Never before has the human being been so aware of his own depths. Never before has the Church proclaimed with such clarity the universal call to holiness. And yet never before have we been so ill-equipped to guide souls toward the fullness of divine intimacy.

We continue to rely on what amounts to a spiritual magnifying glass. But the soul today requires the equivalent of a theological and mystical electron microscope. The tools are available in our tradition. But we have forgotten how to use them.

6. Contemplation or Collapse

This is not a marginal issue. It is a matter of spiritual survival. Without contemplation, the human abyss remains unexplored and untended. Without contemplation, the call to divine holiness becomes either moralistic or abstract. Contemplation is the only adequate response to the convergence of the anthropological and theological abysses.

We must recover the theology of contemplation. We must teach it again—not as an optional enrichment, but as the core trajectory of every Christian life. We must form seminarians, religious, and lay people not just to act, reflect, and serve, but to be drawn into divine transformation.

7. Conclusion: Reclaiming Our Inheritance

The modern world has made breathtaking discoveries. So too has the Church. But we risk becoming a spiritually obsolete institution—armed with the tools of a bygone era, irrelevant to the actual hunger of the soul and the call of God.

It is time to return to our own treasure house. To reclaim contemplation not only as possibility, but as destiny. Only then can the human abyss be filled with divine light. Only then will the Church fulfil its vocation in this new age.

The hour has come.

References:

• Garrigou-Lagrange, R. The Three Ages of the Interior Life.
• Arintero, J.G. The Mystical Evolution in the Development and Vitality of the Church.
• Bl. Marie-Eugène de l’Enfant-Jésus, I Want to See God.
• Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, ch. 5: The Universal Call to Holiness.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2709-2724: On Contemplative Prayer.

V- Spiritual Theology or Bust: A Wake-Up Call for the Church in the Age of the New Humanity

“All pastoral initiatives must be set in relation to holiness.” — St. John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, §30.

As seen above, there is today a cosmic discrepancy—indeed a spiritual scandal—between the depth of need and thirst present in the emerging “new humanity,” and the paltry means the Church continues to deploy in response. As we stand amid seismic anthropological and cultural shifts, the spiritual food we offer often amounts to mere scraps from an abandoned banquet. The poverty of our theological tools and pastoral imagination, in light of the growing abyss of human consciousness, should rattle the very foundations of our institutions.

This is not the time for moderate adjustments or bureaucratic resolutions. We must acknowledge that we have crossed several red lines. The human person has changed—become deeper, more aware, more complex. Yet the Church’s formation, theology, and pastoral methods remain in many ways fixed in a pre-modern modality. As a result, we are offering a magnifying glass to a generation equipped with the equivalent of electron microscopes and interstellar telescopes. The outcome? Disinterest, departure, or despair.

From Magnifying Glass to Immensity: The Paradigm Shift

The shift in human self-awareness—from Pascal’s “thinking reed” to the discovery of the unconscious and beyond—is not merely psychological or philosophical; it is spiritual in essence. Humanity today experiences a radical interiority, an abyss within, a longing for transcendence that older spiritual formulas barely touch.

The Church, at the close of the Second Vatican Council, was prompted by the Holy Spirit to recognise the radical dignity and freedom of each human being before God. The Dignitatis Humanae declaration on religious freedom was not a marginal note; it was an earthquake. More decisively, the Council’s universal call to holiness (Lumen Gentium, ch. V) opened a new horizon: all are called to the heights of divine intimacy, to participation in God’s own holiness. Not just monks, not just mystics—everyone.

But what have we done with this call?

A Theological Inversion: From Pastoral to Spiritual Foundations

St. John Paul II, writing at the dawn of the third millennium, offered the decisive interpretive key: “All pastoral initiatives must be set in relation to holiness.”¹ But today, this must be expanded: all theology must be set in relation to holiness, and likewise, all formation—of priests, laity, religious, theologians— must be oriented toward it.

These are not decorative phrases. They imply a radical transformation in the entire ecosystem of Church life. They imply that dogmatic theology must not merely argue truth claims, but usher the soul toward union with Truth. They imply that moral theology must not merely regulate behaviour, but cultivate the virtues needed for the fullness of divine life. They imply that every seminary course, every academic discipline, must be reinterpreted from the standpoint of divinisation.

This is what Spiritual Theology should be: not a marginal field, not an elective for pious students, but the integrating science that gives coherence and propulsion to all theology and formation.

The Scandal of Neglect: A Buried Treasure

Yet, let us be honest: we have neglected, forgotten, even disfigured our own spiritual tradition. In the past century, we ceased to speak seriously and systematically about contemplation. We forgot the distinctions painstakingly elaborated by St. John of the Cross, the luminous pathways offered by St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the practical spiritual genius of St. Louis de Montfort. Prophets such as Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Fr. Arintero, and Bl. Marie-Eugène were all but buried under the rising tide of psychological reductionism and bureaucratic pastoralism.

We even now speak glibly of “Lectio Divina,” often without the slightest awareness of what contemplation actually is. We insert a “contemplatio” step at the end of a reading exercise, yet no one bothers to ask what contemplation means, how it arises, how it is prepared for, or how to discern it. This is not merely ignorance—it is malpractice.

A Call to R&D: Strategic Investment in the Church

If any other institution faced such a dramatic mismatch between its tools and the reality it engages, it would declare an immediate crisis and launch massive R&D investment. Where is our research and development in Spiritual Theology? Where is the dedicated funding, staffing, institutional prioritisation? Where are the endowed chairs in Contemplative Theology? Where are the interdisciplinary teams studying the mystical life with theological, psychological, and anthropological precision?

Instead, we continue to feed the new humanity with recycled meditations, pre-packaged moral advice, and forms of community that fail to address the abyss now crying out within each soul: “Deep calls to deep” (Ps 42:7). And what is that abyss calling to? The abyss of God’s Holiness—that mystery which alone corresponds to the immensity awakened within the human heart.

Conclusion: Until When?

What more do we need to wake up?

Until when will we speak of “renewal” while maintaining the same antiquated means? Until when will we entrust the formation of priests, religious, and laity to those who have never tasted the depth of contemplative life? Until when will we remain blind to the cosmic call issuing from our own time?

The hour is late. The treasure is buried, but not lost. The Spirit continues to whisper. But we must now listen—and act.

Footnotes

1. John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, §30. Available at: https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/2001/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20010106_novo-millennio-ineunte.html
2. Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, §39–42.
3. Second Vatican Council, Dignitatis Humanae, §2.

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