PWJ: S3E17 – Bonus – C.S. Lewis and the Authentic Self

Matt was invited to give a talk at the Edith Stein Project 2020 at Notre Dame. In today’s episode, we’re sharing the audio of that presentation.

S3E17: “C.S. Lewis and The Authentic Self “(Download)

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Time Stamps

02:46 – The Talk
43:53 – Closing remarks

YouTube Version

After Show Skype Session

None this week!

Show Notes

• This talk was given at the Edith Stein Project at Notre Dame in 2020:

• Quotations about the False Self:

“I leave home every time I…follow the voices that offer a great variety of ways to win the love I so much desire.”

Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son

“As long as I keep running about asking: ‘Do you love me? Do you really love me?’ I give all power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with ‘ifs.’ The world says: ‘Yes, I love you if you are good-looking, intelligent, and wealthy. I love you if you have a good education, a good job, and good connections. I love you if you produce much, sell much, and buy much.’ 

Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son

• Quotations about the True Self:

“Home is the center of my being where I can hear the voice that says: ‘You are my beloved, on you my favor rests.’”

Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son

“From the moment we claim the truth of being the Beloved, we are faced with the call to become who we are. Becoming the Beloved is the great spiritual journey we have to make.”

Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved

• Quotations about the Divine Live

“The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“For the son of God became man so that we might become God.”

St. Athanasius, On The Incarnation

“The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself. He is beginning to inject His kind of life and thought, His [divine life] into you; beginning to turn the tin soldier into a live man.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

• Quotations about Authenticity:

“It is no good trying to ‘be myself’ without Him. The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires…What I call ‘my wishes’ become merely the desires…pumped into me by other men’s thoughts or even suggest to me by devils.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“There must be a real giving up of the self…. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it…submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

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