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In Tune With The World: A Theory of Festivity
In this stimulating and still-timely study, Josef Pieper takes up a theme of paramount importance to his thinking—that festivals belong by rights among the great topics of philosophical discussion. As he develops his theory of festivity, the modern age comes under close and painful scrutiny. It is obvious that we no longer know what festivity is, namely, the celebration of existence under various symbols.
Pieper exposes the pseudo-festivals, in their harmless and their sinister forms: traditional feasts contaminated by commercialism; artificial holidays created in the interest of merchandisers; holidays by coercion, decreed by dictators the world over; festivals as military demonstrations; holidays empty of significance. And lastly we are given the apocalyptic vision of a nihilistic world which would seek its release not in festivities but in destruction.
Formulated with Pieper's customary clarity and elegance, enhanced by brilliantly chosen quotations, this is an illuminating contribution to the understanding of traditional and contemporary experience.
Pieper exposes the pseudo-festivals, in their harmless and their sinister forms: traditional feasts contaminated by commercialism; artificial holidays created in the interest of merchandisers; holidays by coercion, decreed by dictators the world over; festivals as military demonstrations; holidays empty of significance. And lastly we are given the apocalyptic vision of a nihilistic world which would seek its release not in festivities but in destruction.
Formulated with Pieper's customary clarity and elegance, enhanced by brilliantly chosen quotations, this is an illuminating contribution to the understanding of traditional and contemporary experience.
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1963
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About the author
Josef Pieper
143 books306 followersJosef Pieper was a German Catholic philosopher and an important figure in the resurgence of interest in the thought of Thomas Aquinas in early-to-mid 20th-century philosophy. Among his most notable works are The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance; Leisure, the Basis of Culture; and Guide to Thomas Aquinas (published in England as Introduction to Thomas Aquinas).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
February 3, 2024
This was one of the most moving books I've read in recent years—I'm tempted to say ever. It addresses a topic I care deeply about (based on experience and a vague conviction that it's important) but that I lacked a philosophical or theological apparatus for considering. To put it a different way, before reading this book I believed that festivity was absolutely necessary (and I had observed that my family engaged in festivity almost compulsively), but I didn't know why. Now I do!
The very notion of the book is delightful: what joy to add the delight of theorizing celebration to the delight of celebration itself. And it was an exciting read; I found myself saying again and again, "oh, YES, that's what I've always known, without knowing that I knew it!" Festivity, in a nutshell, arises from affirmation of the goodness of the world and the goodness of its Creator; it is essentially worshipful. It allows us to step outside of time and partake of eternity, and it gives shape and meaning to our workaday lives.
On a personal note, I think I discovered why my husband and I are compulsive celebrants. Daily toil and difficulties weigh us down and deplete us almost entirely every day; we feel keenly what Pieper calls "the constant attrition of our portion of vital substance" that comes from mere living of life. Time always passes too quickly, and we're perpetually rushing to complete our work. So it makes sense that we enthusiastically seize upon any opportunity to step outside our temporal reality, to experience a divine timelessness—and to taste, I think, union with God the Father.
The first half of the book is so good, so rich, and so inspiring that I quickly filled up four pages in my commonplace book with quotations from pages 5-43. The second half becomes more historical, looking at some of the false festivals instituted in France following the Revolution and the impossibility of creating a holiday to celebrate work—still fascinating, but less inspiring. My only criticism of the book, and this obviously comes not from a philosophical perspective but from a literary and rhetorical one, is that the emotional climax comes midway through, and it ends on a sort of footnote.
The very notion of the book is delightful: what joy to add the delight of theorizing celebration to the delight of celebration itself. And it was an exciting read; I found myself saying again and again, "oh, YES, that's what I've always known, without knowing that I knew it!" Festivity, in a nutshell, arises from affirmation of the goodness of the world and the goodness of its Creator; it is essentially worshipful. It allows us to step outside of time and partake of eternity, and it gives shape and meaning to our workaday lives.
On a personal note, I think I discovered why my husband and I are compulsive celebrants. Daily toil and difficulties weigh us down and deplete us almost entirely every day; we feel keenly what Pieper calls "the constant attrition of our portion of vital substance" that comes from mere living of life. Time always passes too quickly, and we're perpetually rushing to complete our work. So it makes sense that we enthusiastically seize upon any opportunity to step outside our temporal reality, to experience a divine timelessness—and to taste, I think, union with God the Father.
The first half of the book is so good, so rich, and so inspiring that I quickly filled up four pages in my commonplace book with quotations from pages 5-43. The second half becomes more historical, looking at some of the false festivals instituted in France following the Revolution and the impossibility of creating a holiday to celebrate work—still fascinating, but less inspiring. My only criticism of the book, and this obviously comes not from a philosophical perspective but from a literary and rhetorical one, is that the emotional climax comes midway through, and it ends on a sort of footnote.
September 14, 2020
Uh-huh, yes.
Deep stuff.
I'll be thinking about this for quite a while.
I think it pairs nicely with Capon's Party Spirit.
Pieper's point about festivity being impossible in Totalitarian regimes is novel, deep, and troubling as I survey the broader culture.
Plus, I borrowed Luke Deacon's copy, so there were plenty of insightful, over-achieving scribbling from him.
Deep stuff.
I'll be thinking about this for quite a while.
I think it pairs nicely with Capon's Party Spirit.
Pieper's point about festivity being impossible in Totalitarian regimes is novel, deep, and troubling as I survey the broader culture.
Plus, I borrowed Luke Deacon's copy, so there were plenty of insightful, over-achieving scribbling from him.
September 16, 2025
the perfect follow up to Leisure: The Basis of Culture, Josef Pieper's "In Tune With the World" is not just a theory of parties, although it is (whatup to the party people, you're not far from the kingdom of God), but also of worship, rest, and joy.
We've lost the joy of festivity, along with many other important things. But we can get it back.
We've lost the joy of festivity, along with many other important things. But we can get it back.
November 16, 2021
If you want to read one book on scholé or conviviality, it is this, not the more-oft-referenced Leisure: The Basis of Culture. This title gets to the heart of scholé and is translated clearly rather than cumbersomely.
https://www.scholesisters.com/ss64/
https://www.scholesisters.com/ss64/
February 19, 2024
Dazzling!! And very good preparation for the Paschal feast!
Festivity embeds us in God’s world (the world outside our heads), acknowledges the goodness of existence, and catechizes us in our true creaturely being.
“What is more, the reason and occasion for this festival is that in Christ’s Resurrection something began by which man’s life ever since, and today and for all the future, received that incomprehensible, exaltation that the language of theology calls Grace and New Life. And therefore in the Christian celebration of Easter quite particularly an affirmation of the whole of existence is experience and celebrated. No more rightful, more comprehensive and fundamental an affirmation can be conceived.”
Festivity embeds us in God’s world (the world outside our heads), acknowledges the goodness of existence, and catechizes us in our true creaturely being.
“What is more, the reason and occasion for this festival is that in Christ’s Resurrection something began by which man’s life ever since, and today and for all the future, received that incomprehensible, exaltation that the language of theology calls Grace and New Life. And therefore in the Christian celebration of Easter quite particularly an affirmation of the whole of existence is experience and celebrated. No more rightful, more comprehensive and fundamental an affirmation can be conceived.”
November 30, 2020
3.5-3.75 rounded to 4.
I loved the beginning of this book, the end ... less so? It didn't go where I expected it to and I was kind of frustrated by that. It isn't that I disagree with Pieper's diagnosis, but that I 1) was less conversant with the topics so probably need to read something about the French Revolution and 2) wanted more of the ideas from the beginning and less a diatribe against modern "festivals" which aren't.
I will take the idea of acknowledging the very goodness of creations and the Creator Himself with me for a long time.
I loved the beginning of this book, the end ... less so? It didn't go where I expected it to and I was kind of frustrated by that. It isn't that I disagree with Pieper's diagnosis, but that I 1) was less conversant with the topics so probably need to read something about the French Revolution and 2) wanted more of the ideas from the beginning and less a diatribe against modern "festivals" which aren't.
I will take the idea of acknowledging the very goodness of creations and the Creator Himself with me for a long time.
April 3, 2020
Here is Pieper's Classic on festivity.
We must distinguish between work and rest, to avoid festival falling into requiring a 'use' like work requires a use . Festival and arts are 'useless' which is precisely how their true value and worth see preserved.
Festival is rooted in worship. Hence it is that the Lords Day is a festival because a day of worship and Eucharistic service.
We must distinguish between work and rest, to avoid festival falling into requiring a 'use' like work requires a use . Festival and arts are 'useless' which is precisely how their true value and worth see preserved.
Festival is rooted in worship. Hence it is that the Lords Day is a festival because a day of worship and Eucharistic service.
December 18, 2021
In Tune with the World was an appropriate book to read and think about during this time of Advent and Christmas. In it, Pieper teases out the nature of festivity and helps develop a deeper appreciation for feasting and festivals.
True festivity is a rare thing. The hedonist is incapable of it. The nihilist, too. The materialist, the utilitarian, the workaholic, the idler--none of these can keep the feast. "Festivity" is a delicate flower that blooms only when planted in soil that consists of both meaningful work and appropriate leisure. The workaday society, or a totlitarian state, cannot produce true festivals, but neither can a decadent society, or an "idle rich class of do-nothings" (the pursuit of pleasure is a "desperately unfestive affiar"). But these are only the prerequisites. Where the right conditions are present, they are still not sufficient in themselves to produce the festive spirit. More is needed: thanksgiving and adoration; affirmation of God's goodness. Festival, in the best sense of the term, is rooted in worship and praise.
When you think about it, this makes perfect sense. The holidays (holy days) celebrated by most cultures have revolved around religious feasts and memorials. Secular nations have struggled to produce anything similar (Pieper devotes one chapter to the French Revolution and its miserable attempt to establish purely secular festivals). But, few people (me included) take the time to consider the nature of festivals. I'm thankful that Pieper did.
The book is full of good insights that I hope to return to:
On festival as true wealth: "A festival is essentially a phenomenon of wealth; not, to be sure, the wealth of money, but of existential richness."
On the relation between joy and festivity: "Now it is the nature of joy to be a secondary phenomonon. No one can rejoice 'absolutely,' for joy's sake alone. . . The reason comes first; the joy comes second." This section reminded me of CS Lewis's quote about losing interest in the subject of joy after funding God who was the true source of his "stabs" of joy. Pieper is saying something similar.
On gift as the essential element for festival: "[W]hile man can make the celebration, he cannot make what is to be celebrated, cannot make the festive occasion and the cause for celebrating. The happiness of being created, the existential goodness of things, the participation in the life of God, the overcoming of death--all these occasions of the great traditional festivals are pure gifts. But because no one can confer a gift on himself, something that is entirely a human institutions cannot be a real festival."
On Christmas: "Strictly speaking, the past cannot be celebrated festively unless the celebrant community still draws glory and exaltation from that past, not merely as reflected history, but by virtue of a historical reality still operative in the present. If the Incarnation of God is no longer understood as an event that directly concerns the present lives of men, it becomes impossible, even absurd, to celebrate Christmas festively."
On festvials as tradition: "Festivals are, it would seem, traditional in a very special sense, a traditum in the strictest meaning of that concept: received from a superhuman source, to be handed on undiminished, received and handed on again."
On the Christian Sabbath: "Thus the holiday and day of worship for Christendom, recurring every week, is meant to serve both to recall the beginning of Creation and to herald future bliss."
On the burden and responsibility of Sabbath/festival: "Plainly, it is an extraordinary demand that such an interpretation of Sunday makes upon the average man."
On the difficulty of festivity: "[H]owever easy it may seem, we have far less talent for relaxation, slackening effort, letting ourselves go, than for the hard task of work. . . In wishing your fellow man well on a holiday, you are essentially 'wishing the success' of the festive celebration itself, not just its outer forms and enrichments, not the trimmings, but the gift that is meant to be the true fruit of the festival: renewal, transformation, rebirth. Nowadays, to be sure, all this can barely be sensed behind the trite formula: 'Happy holidays.'"
On meaningful work as a prerequisite for true festivity: "Not all activity, not every kind of expenditure of effort and earning of money, deserves the name of work. That should be applied only to the active--and usually also laborious--procurement of the things that are truly useful for living. And it is a good guess that only meaningful work can provide the soil in which festivity flourishes. Perhaps both work and celebration spring from the same root, so that when the one dries up, the other withers. . . If one element in these pairs is suppressed, the reality of work is falsified and festivity is ruled out."
On sham festivals: "The fundamental vapidness of these artificial festivals is clearly exposed when we try to find out what they are actually celebrating. . . There can be no festivity when man, imagining himself self-sufficient refuses to recognize that Goodness of things which goes far beyond any conceivable utility; it is the Goodness of reality taken as a whole which validates all other particular goods and which man himself can never produce nor simply translate into social or individual 'welfare.' He truly receives it only when he accepts it as pure gift. The only fitting way to respond to such gift is: by praise to God in ritual worship. In short, it is the withholding of public worship that makes festivity wither at the root."
True festivity is a rare thing. The hedonist is incapable of it. The nihilist, too. The materialist, the utilitarian, the workaholic, the idler--none of these can keep the feast. "Festivity" is a delicate flower that blooms only when planted in soil that consists of both meaningful work and appropriate leisure. The workaday society, or a totlitarian state, cannot produce true festivals, but neither can a decadent society, or an "idle rich class of do-nothings" (the pursuit of pleasure is a "desperately unfestive affiar"). But these are only the prerequisites. Where the right conditions are present, they are still not sufficient in themselves to produce the festive spirit. More is needed: thanksgiving and adoration; affirmation of God's goodness. Festival, in the best sense of the term, is rooted in worship and praise.
When you think about it, this makes perfect sense. The holidays (holy days) celebrated by most cultures have revolved around religious feasts and memorials. Secular nations have struggled to produce anything similar (Pieper devotes one chapter to the French Revolution and its miserable attempt to establish purely secular festivals). But, few people (me included) take the time to consider the nature of festivals. I'm thankful that Pieper did.
The book is full of good insights that I hope to return to:
On festival as true wealth: "A festival is essentially a phenomenon of wealth; not, to be sure, the wealth of money, but of existential richness."
On the relation between joy and festivity: "Now it is the nature of joy to be a secondary phenomonon. No one can rejoice 'absolutely,' for joy's sake alone. . . The reason comes first; the joy comes second." This section reminded me of CS Lewis's quote about losing interest in the subject of joy after funding God who was the true source of his "stabs" of joy. Pieper is saying something similar.
On gift as the essential element for festival: "[W]hile man can make the celebration, he cannot make what is to be celebrated, cannot make the festive occasion and the cause for celebrating. The happiness of being created, the existential goodness of things, the participation in the life of God, the overcoming of death--all these occasions of the great traditional festivals are pure gifts. But because no one can confer a gift on himself, something that is entirely a human institutions cannot be a real festival."
On Christmas: "Strictly speaking, the past cannot be celebrated festively unless the celebrant community still draws glory and exaltation from that past, not merely as reflected history, but by virtue of a historical reality still operative in the present. If the Incarnation of God is no longer understood as an event that directly concerns the present lives of men, it becomes impossible, even absurd, to celebrate Christmas festively."
On festvials as tradition: "Festivals are, it would seem, traditional in a very special sense, a traditum in the strictest meaning of that concept: received from a superhuman source, to be handed on undiminished, received and handed on again."
On the Christian Sabbath: "Thus the holiday and day of worship for Christendom, recurring every week, is meant to serve both to recall the beginning of Creation and to herald future bliss."
On the burden and responsibility of Sabbath/festival: "Plainly, it is an extraordinary demand that such an interpretation of Sunday makes upon the average man."
On the difficulty of festivity: "[H]owever easy it may seem, we have far less talent for relaxation, slackening effort, letting ourselves go, than for the hard task of work. . . In wishing your fellow man well on a holiday, you are essentially 'wishing the success' of the festive celebration itself, not just its outer forms and enrichments, not the trimmings, but the gift that is meant to be the true fruit of the festival: renewal, transformation, rebirth. Nowadays, to be sure, all this can barely be sensed behind the trite formula: 'Happy holidays.'"
On meaningful work as a prerequisite for true festivity: "Not all activity, not every kind of expenditure of effort and earning of money, deserves the name of work. That should be applied only to the active--and usually also laborious--procurement of the things that are truly useful for living. And it is a good guess that only meaningful work can provide the soil in which festivity flourishes. Perhaps both work and celebration spring from the same root, so that when the one dries up, the other withers. . . If one element in these pairs is suppressed, the reality of work is falsified and festivity is ruled out."
On sham festivals: "The fundamental vapidness of these artificial festivals is clearly exposed when we try to find out what they are actually celebrating. . . There can be no festivity when man, imagining himself self-sufficient refuses to recognize that Goodness of things which goes far beyond any conceivable utility; it is the Goodness of reality taken as a whole which validates all other particular goods and which man himself can never produce nor simply translate into social or individual 'welfare.' He truly receives it only when he accepts it as pure gift. The only fitting way to respond to such gift is: by praise to God in ritual worship. In short, it is the withholding of public worship that makes festivity wither at the root."
March 13, 2025
Another magnificent long essay by Pieper. He seems a bit more focused here, at least until the end, and covers less ground with more detail than other essays he wrote. As usual, he doesn't argue as much as he states his philosophical thoughts, which is generally just fine. Here some of his ideas become lost in their original context (1963 Germany, which I know absolutely nothing about). Even still, this is good philosophizing with nothing of nothing and all about everything.
September 5, 2025
The substance of creation is rooted in festivity! “Miraculously created and more miraculously restored, it cannot be corrupted by the “will to nothingness””.
January 22, 2025
Excellent.
September 26, 2024
Pieper is my boxing coach hyping me up between rounds. What a guy.
May 25, 2025
In an age inundated with distraction and superficial entertainment, Pieper’s essay on Festivity is a piece more and more Christians should read. For Pieper, festival is an ultimate concept and phenomenon of human experience, comparable to life and death. It is something that testifies to the nature of reality and goodness itself. “At bottom everything that is, is good, and it is good to exist. For man cannot have the experience of receiving what is loved, unless the world and existence as a whole represent something good and therefore beloved to him” (Pieper 26). Contrary to many popular notions, festivity is not to identified with the mere cessation of work, although this is an essential component to it. Importantly, the cessation of work presupposes a definition of work also; to have a proper understanding of festivity requires a proper understanding of work. Work must be understood both to be meaningful and bitter; work must be taken and accepted on its own terms, neither propagandized nor solely seen as a means to an end.
Festivity, however, cannot be fully understood only in contrast to labor. Pieper provides his definition clearly: “To celebrate a festival means: to live out, for some special occasion and in an uncommon manner, the universal assent to the world as a whole” (Pieper 30). For the active participant in festival, reality opens up in a contemplative style; Pieper compares true festivity to reflections of the beatific vision. Further, this universal assent to the world is inextricably connected the praise and worship of God, the Creator who guarantees the goodness of life and creation: “The conclusion [concerning festivity] is divisible into several parts. First: there can be no more radical assent to the world than the praise of God, the lauding of the Creator of this same world. One cannot conceive a more intense, more unconditional affirmation of being. If the heart of festivity consists in men’s physically expressing their agreement with everything that is, then — secondly — the ritual festival is the most festive form that festivity can possibly take. The other side of this coin is that — thirdly — there can be no deadlier, more ruthless destruction of festivity than refusal of ritual praise. Any such Nay tramples out the spark from which the flickering flame of festivity might have been kindled anew” (Pieper 31–32).
Even though festivity is grounded in the assent of being that is fundamentally ritualistic, “wherever festivity can freely vent itself in all its possible forms, an event is produced that leaves no zone of life, worldly or spiritual, untouched” (Pieper 34). Festivity transcends boundaries, just as creation is the common denominator for all of life and experience as creatures. As such, gift and excess characterize festivity: “The fruit of the festival, for which alone it is really celebrated, is pure gift; it is the element of festivity that can never be ‘organized,’ arranged and induced” (Pieper 39). By means of the giftedness of being that is experienced in festivity, “the celebrant becomes aware of, and may enter, the greater reality which gives a wider perspective on the world of everyday work, even as it supports it” (Pieper 43).
After these broad reflections on the nature of festivity, Pieper concretizes festivity in the Lord’s Day and Easter. As seen in both of these expressions of festive worship, God is praised and creation is affirmed, which is especially apparent in the meaning of the Resurrection, the celebration of Easter: “The reason and occasion for this festival is that in Christ’s Resurrection something began by which man’s life ever since, and today and for all the future, received that incomprehensible exaltation that the language of theology calls Grace and New Life. And therefore in the Christian celebration of Easter quite particularly an affirmation of the whole of existence is experienced and celebrated” (Pieper 49).
If there are to be genuine festival, Pieper goes one, the arts and recreation must be present: “A festival without singing, music, dancing, without visible forms of celebration, without any kind of works of art, cannot be imagined” (Pieper 52). Pieper ties the nature and meaning of the arts very closely to festivity here; if one goes, the other falls with it. Pieper critiques superficial entertainment here, stating that “a deceptive escape from the narrowness of the workaday utilitarian world is found in the form of entertainment and ‘forgetting one’s worries.’ And the same mendacious message [of pseudo-festival and pseudo-art] also reaches men through the medium of the pseudo-arts, whether trivial or pretentious, flattering or entertaining, or intoxicating like a drug. Man craves by nature to enter the ‘other’ world, but he can attain it only if true festivity truly comes to pass. For it appears — but it is appearance only — that this other dimension of reality can be produced with ease and at will; it appears to stand at the disposal of the harried or bored man who needs ‘entertainment’ and a ‘change.’ And the Sophist, the producer of fictive reality, has his day” (Pieper 58). Pieper’s strong words against entertainment may not be as qualified as they should be, but for the specific context of festivity, Pieper minces no words.
With the introduction of arts or the lack thereof in festivals, Pieper moves to artificial festivals, the central antithetical object of his study. He places this antithesis in sharp relief, explaining how the ritual worship of God is the crucial difference: “There can be no festivity when man, imagining himself self-sufficient, refuses to recognize that Goodness of things which goes far beyond any conceivable utility; it is the Goodness of reality taken as a whole which validates all other particular goods and which man himself can never produce nor simply translate into social or individual ‘welfare.’ He truly receives it only when he accepts it as pure gift. The only fitting way to respond to such gift is: by praise of God in ritual worship. In short, it is the withholding of public worship that makes festivity wither at the root” (Pieper 71). Indeed, so strong is this antithesis, Pieper explains that “the artificial holiday is not only a sham festival; it borders so dangerously on counterfestivity that it can abruptly be reversed into ‘antifestival’” (Pieper 79).
Lastly, Pieper argues that the recognition and affirmation of reality manifest in festivity is not an escape from history and all of its evils, but rather a confrontation of them. “I really do not know how an incorruptible mind, faced with the evil in the world, could keep from utter despair were it not for the logically tenable conviction that there is a divinely guaranteed Goodness of being which no amount of mischief can undermine. But that is the point of view of the man who sees the world as creatura — not to speak of the believer who is confident of a salvation that infinitely surpasses all creature goodness” (Pieper 82). The individual festivals we celebrate are to be understood as individual substantiations of the eternal festival of God’s goodness transfused into the fabric of creation, and as such they are acts of hope and grace carried out in the spirit of fraternity and love.
In the end, this is a wonderful reflection on the nature of festivity that many Christians should read and reflect on. This is an especially helpful work for a robust understanding of the Sabbath, both for Christians who do not see any special value to the Lord’s Day and for those who are strict Sabbatarians and attempt to institute overly binding rules for the observance of the Lord’s Day.
Festivity, however, cannot be fully understood only in contrast to labor. Pieper provides his definition clearly: “To celebrate a festival means: to live out, for some special occasion and in an uncommon manner, the universal assent to the world as a whole” (Pieper 30). For the active participant in festival, reality opens up in a contemplative style; Pieper compares true festivity to reflections of the beatific vision. Further, this universal assent to the world is inextricably connected the praise and worship of God, the Creator who guarantees the goodness of life and creation: “The conclusion [concerning festivity] is divisible into several parts. First: there can be no more radical assent to the world than the praise of God, the lauding of the Creator of this same world. One cannot conceive a more intense, more unconditional affirmation of being. If the heart of festivity consists in men’s physically expressing their agreement with everything that is, then — secondly — the ritual festival is the most festive form that festivity can possibly take. The other side of this coin is that — thirdly — there can be no deadlier, more ruthless destruction of festivity than refusal of ritual praise. Any such Nay tramples out the spark from which the flickering flame of festivity might have been kindled anew” (Pieper 31–32).
Even though festivity is grounded in the assent of being that is fundamentally ritualistic, “wherever festivity can freely vent itself in all its possible forms, an event is produced that leaves no zone of life, worldly or spiritual, untouched” (Pieper 34). Festivity transcends boundaries, just as creation is the common denominator for all of life and experience as creatures. As such, gift and excess characterize festivity: “The fruit of the festival, for which alone it is really celebrated, is pure gift; it is the element of festivity that can never be ‘organized,’ arranged and induced” (Pieper 39). By means of the giftedness of being that is experienced in festivity, “the celebrant becomes aware of, and may enter, the greater reality which gives a wider perspective on the world of everyday work, even as it supports it” (Pieper 43).
After these broad reflections on the nature of festivity, Pieper concretizes festivity in the Lord’s Day and Easter. As seen in both of these expressions of festive worship, God is praised and creation is affirmed, which is especially apparent in the meaning of the Resurrection, the celebration of Easter: “The reason and occasion for this festival is that in Christ’s Resurrection something began by which man’s life ever since, and today and for all the future, received that incomprehensible exaltation that the language of theology calls Grace and New Life. And therefore in the Christian celebration of Easter quite particularly an affirmation of the whole of existence is experienced and celebrated” (Pieper 49).
If there are to be genuine festival, Pieper goes one, the arts and recreation must be present: “A festival without singing, music, dancing, without visible forms of celebration, without any kind of works of art, cannot be imagined” (Pieper 52). Pieper ties the nature and meaning of the arts very closely to festivity here; if one goes, the other falls with it. Pieper critiques superficial entertainment here, stating that “a deceptive escape from the narrowness of the workaday utilitarian world is found in the form of entertainment and ‘forgetting one’s worries.’ And the same mendacious message [of pseudo-festival and pseudo-art] also reaches men through the medium of the pseudo-arts, whether trivial or pretentious, flattering or entertaining, or intoxicating like a drug. Man craves by nature to enter the ‘other’ world, but he can attain it only if true festivity truly comes to pass. For it appears — but it is appearance only — that this other dimension of reality can be produced with ease and at will; it appears to stand at the disposal of the harried or bored man who needs ‘entertainment’ and a ‘change.’ And the Sophist, the producer of fictive reality, has his day” (Pieper 58). Pieper’s strong words against entertainment may not be as qualified as they should be, but for the specific context of festivity, Pieper minces no words.
With the introduction of arts or the lack thereof in festivals, Pieper moves to artificial festivals, the central antithetical object of his study. He places this antithesis in sharp relief, explaining how the ritual worship of God is the crucial difference: “There can be no festivity when man, imagining himself self-sufficient, refuses to recognize that Goodness of things which goes far beyond any conceivable utility; it is the Goodness of reality taken as a whole which validates all other particular goods and which man himself can never produce nor simply translate into social or individual ‘welfare.’ He truly receives it only when he accepts it as pure gift. The only fitting way to respond to such gift is: by praise of God in ritual worship. In short, it is the withholding of public worship that makes festivity wither at the root” (Pieper 71). Indeed, so strong is this antithesis, Pieper explains that “the artificial holiday is not only a sham festival; it borders so dangerously on counterfestivity that it can abruptly be reversed into ‘antifestival’” (Pieper 79).
Lastly, Pieper argues that the recognition and affirmation of reality manifest in festivity is not an escape from history and all of its evils, but rather a confrontation of them. “I really do not know how an incorruptible mind, faced with the evil in the world, could keep from utter despair were it not for the logically tenable conviction that there is a divinely guaranteed Goodness of being which no amount of mischief can undermine. But that is the point of view of the man who sees the world as creatura — not to speak of the believer who is confident of a salvation that infinitely surpasses all creature goodness” (Pieper 82). The individual festivals we celebrate are to be understood as individual substantiations of the eternal festival of God’s goodness transfused into the fabric of creation, and as such they are acts of hope and grace carried out in the spirit of fraternity and love.
In the end, this is a wonderful reflection on the nature of festivity that many Christians should read and reflect on. This is an especially helpful work for a robust understanding of the Sabbath, both for Christians who do not see any special value to the Lord’s Day and for those who are strict Sabbatarians and attempt to institute overly binding rules for the observance of the Lord’s Day.
December 27, 2020
Dense and rich! A great primer on the theory of festivity.
February 16, 2022
Really good, although this was right on the edge of being to heady for me, so it took me some time to read it despite being so short. Makes you want to start rebuilding our lost Christian festivals.
August 25, 2024
This book, though concise, was hard work for me to read; but not unpleasant work and very worth the effort. It’s heady, but not pretentious. I am more convinced about what makes a festival truly festive and WHY we celebrate…and how much it matters and why you can tell when the why is all wrong. His explanation of antifestival was very helpful and clarifying too. I also was so encouraged in the creative work I get to do because art in itself is like a small act of festival and it’s pretty great to think I was made to party ;D Ha! Honestly, this was just a helpful book to read as a homemaker…because much of that work involves planning and facilitating festivals for our people. Understanding what is necessary to do that well (belief and joy in our Creator and His creation) is actually sooo helpful! I’m not doing the book justice. There’s a lot shoved in this short book.
April 3, 2024
A good book to think on for the Easter season, and it convinced me that there’s something missing in our modern expression of the Christian faith when it comes to the celebration of our diluted and secularized “holy days.” Festivity is more than a day off of work and a “well-lined pocket book.”
Our ability to be festive stems from our ability to rejoice in love and affirmation of the whole of creation; something our modern society is very bad at. “One who loves nothing and nobody cannot possibly rejoice, no matter how desperately he craves joy. Joy is the response of a lover receiving what he loves… The inner structure of real festivity has been stated in the clearest and tersest possible fashion by Chrysostom: ‘Ubi caritas guadet, ibi est festivitas,’ ‘Where love rejoices, there is festivity.’”
Our ability to be festive stems from our ability to rejoice in love and affirmation of the whole of creation; something our modern society is very bad at. “One who loves nothing and nobody cannot possibly rejoice, no matter how desperately he craves joy. Joy is the response of a lover receiving what he loves… The inner structure of real festivity has been stated in the clearest and tersest possible fashion by Chrysostom: ‘Ubi caritas guadet, ibi est festivitas,’ ‘Where love rejoices, there is festivity.’”
June 10, 2017
At bottom, festivity is rooted in an affirmation of creation. A nice little book to read with summer in full swing.
4 stars on content. 3 stars because this edition is riddled with mistakes grammatical.
4 stars on content. 3 stars because this edition is riddled with mistakes grammatical.
October 25, 2022
I will be revisiting this one and likely begin a collection of Pieper books.
Read
October 9, 2024fascinating
May 20, 2024
Really good book. Pieper continues examining parts of his worldview, stemming from Leisure as the Basis of Culture, here focusing on festivals. What are festivals? What does it mean to celebrate something?
A festival, he comes to, is a specific public manifestation of a festive attitude toward life, an attitude that life is a gift and is “very good.” As a Catholic, Pieper sees this as exactly right, an affirmation of our place as creatures appreciating through festivals and arts within the festivals that we are creatures, we are good, the world is good, and God is good. A festival spirit cannot exist if life is fundamentally absurd or fundamentally bad, since a festival is simply the ultimate response to the goodness of the world given to us by God.
But false festivals (and art) can and do arise, often at the service of a utilitarian state and its propaganda. These festivals can even be successful for a time in communicating a similar spirit to true festivals, since they take the forms found in those festivals. However, they are ultimately not true, are hollow.
This marked turn took place after the French Revolution, where traditional Catholic festivals were banned in favor of the new religion of the State. “This habit of inventing festivals took a serious turn only when, in the course of the French Revolution, entirely new festivals were initiated by the state. These were intended to displace and replace the traditional religious holidays, although that tendency only gradually gathered strength during the Revolution. In 1791 Mass was still celebrated at the July 14 festival, with “altars of the fatherland” erected everywhere.10 In Paris, incidentally, the celebrant was the newly appointed Bishop Jean Baptiste Gobel, whose life had the elements of tragedy.11 (In 1789, an ambitious suffragan bishop and member of the National Assembly, he approved all the anti-religious measures of the Revolution. Later, under pressure, he “voluntarily” renounced all his offices “as servant of the Catholic cult,” and six months later, in April 1794, under Robespierre, who officially introduced the cult of the Supreme Being, he was charged with atheism and executed. He died crying: “Long live Christ.”) The very next year, 1792, priests were no longer allowed to take part in such celebrations, not even the priests who had “fallen in line.” Shortly before the famous Festival of Reason in the Cathedral of Notre Dame (November 10, 1793) the Commune of Paris banned all acts of public worship of the traditional kind.12 When the Parisian artists celebrated the planting of one of the countless Trees of Liberty, they sang a parody, composed by François Joseph Gossec, of the hymn O salutaris hostia.”
These types of festivals are essentially coercive, rather than naturally flowing from communal belief and joy. One attends them because one must unless one wants to risk social/political suicide. A true festival would not have this element. Like all modern movements, the end of this is boredom at unreality: “Contemporary accounts of the festivals of the French Revolution reek of boredom, the infinite boredom of utter unreality, which makes the reading of them a startling experience. The “extravagant expenditure . . . on pinchbeck symbolical properties, on plaster, cardboard, and tin,”15 the bombastic declamation of platitudes, the empty histrionics of the pseudo-liturgy emanate a ghostly unreality. At the translation of the body of “Saint Voltaire,”16 “the first philosophical festival”17 of the Revolution, young men in the costume of ancient Romans accompanied the sarcophagus to the Pantheon. From the altar of the fatherland the Mayor of Paris displayed the book containing the Constitution, holding it out to his fellow citizens like a monstrance. A girl ignited a Bengal light, by means of a magnifying glass producing the “holy fire,” which then flared up from a Greek vase in the hues of the Tricolor.18 The painter Jacques Louis David, the canny stage manager of almost all the great Festivals of the Revolution (and incidentally the representative of a numerous band of painters, sculptors, poets, and musicians who clamored to be “appointed” – and paid – by the new rulers19), went to the Convention in the summer of 1793 with a plan for a festival of the “fraternity of all Frenchmen.” It was instantly accepted and the show swiftly put on. Among its features were the following: A procession marched to the site of the Bastille, where the President of the Convention was the first to drink water jetting from the breasts of a monumental female figure (“Nature as the Fountain of Rebirth”), after first sprinkling the statue of the “Sun of Freedom” erected beside her. Incidentally, he drank from an agate cup which, as the Convention Minutes stipulated, was to be placed in the National Museum with an inscription to remind posterity of its “exalted use.”20 At the moment of this solemn act three thousand caged birds were released, tagged with ribbons hearing the inscription: “We are free – imitate us!”
They end in boredom precisely because they aren’t real. They’ve robbed the essence from festivals and kept only the religious form/appearance in an attempt at giving their new beliefs a profundity that they lacked. What they lack, Pieper says, even when all else about it seems right, is the very heart and soul of the matter—they do not recognize the fundamental goodness of all reality as given as a gift by God and respond with worship. Rather, what is worshipped is only the goodness of man. Man is the beginning and end of the sham festival and spectacle.
This reached its apex with socialism, the socialist state seeking to establish man as a worker first and foremost and most importantly, thus eradicating even the potential of festival which sees man and creation as a creature. In the socialist state, a festival/holiday becomes a day where you work more, for free, because of your “love” of the State which has become God. “‘This holiday is one of general work’ (Leon Trotsky).12 And Maxim Gorky: “It is a wonderful idea to make the spring festival of the workers a holiday of voluntary work.”13” “Naturally, the “voluntary” nature of this holiday work must be understood in a propaganda sense. And no one versed in the instrumentation of such “revolutionary” rhetoric would fail to hear the overtones of threat. It was Lenin himself who said: “Only people who have sold themselves to capitalism are capable of condemning the use of the great May holiday for our mass effort to introduce Communist work.”14 Gorky ruled that it was a “crime not to understand” the purpose of giving that particular form to the holiday.15”
To subject humans into work for the State is the opposite of a festival. It is an antifestival. The end of this “festival” which sees the world as absurd is a celebration of the world’s end.
But there is hope. “But this is not the whole picture. In this same contemporary world of ours there remains the indestructible (for otherwise human nature itself would have to be destroyed) gift innate in all men which impels them now and again to escape from the restricted sphere where they labor for their necessities and provide for their security – to escape not by mere forgetting, but by undeceived recollection of the greater, more real reality. Now, as always, the workaday world can be transcended in poetry and the other arts. In the shattering emotion of love, beyond the delusions of sensuality, men continue to find entrance to the still point of the turning world. Now, as always, the experience of death as man’s destiny, if accepted with an open and unarmored heart, acquaints us with a dimension of existence which fosters a detachment from the immediate aims of practical life. Now, as always, the philosophical mind will react with awe to the mystery of being revealed in a grain of matter or a human face. Of course, all such responses are not in themselves festivity. They are the postludes of festivity, but in the proper circumstances they could again become the preludes. All such modes of ascending out of the world of mere utility once arose from the soil of a festival perhaps long since faded or forgotten; and so they may, by virtue of their evocative power, once again become a step toward a new festival to be celebrated in the future. Consequently, for the sake of what prospects there are for true festivity in our time, it is essential to resist the sophistical corruption of the arts, the cheapening of eroticism, the degradation of death, as well as the tendency to make philosophy a textbook subject or an irresponsible juggling of big words.”
As always, he ends with a great thought and then in silence: “The Christian, however, is convinced that no destructive action, no matter how thoroughgoing, even if it is fervently celebrated as a gruesome “antifestival,” can ever corrode the substance of Creation. “Miraculously founded and more miraculously restored,” it cannot be corrupted by the “will to nothingness.” Thus there always remains the “festive occasion” which alone justifies and inspires celebration. It remains in force, forever undiminished. And not even the complete “success” of self-annihilation on the part of the human race, not even the complete “destruction of the earth,”16 could stamp out true festival. To be sure, in that case it would be celebrated “not in this eon nor on earth.” But basically this is true, as we have seen, even for the festivals we celebrate here and now, in this present historical time. Such thoughts lead, of course, far beyond a philosophical study of festivity. And we have reached a boundary at which the philosophical mind must necessarily fall silent. But it would be no very exceptional case if this silence made it possible to hear – to hear a more than philosophical message.”
A festival, he comes to, is a specific public manifestation of a festive attitude toward life, an attitude that life is a gift and is “very good.” As a Catholic, Pieper sees this as exactly right, an affirmation of our place as creatures appreciating through festivals and arts within the festivals that we are creatures, we are good, the world is good, and God is good. A festival spirit cannot exist if life is fundamentally absurd or fundamentally bad, since a festival is simply the ultimate response to the goodness of the world given to us by God.
But false festivals (and art) can and do arise, often at the service of a utilitarian state and its propaganda. These festivals can even be successful for a time in communicating a similar spirit to true festivals, since they take the forms found in those festivals. However, they are ultimately not true, are hollow.
This marked turn took place after the French Revolution, where traditional Catholic festivals were banned in favor of the new religion of the State. “This habit of inventing festivals took a serious turn only when, in the course of the French Revolution, entirely new festivals were initiated by the state. These were intended to displace and replace the traditional religious holidays, although that tendency only gradually gathered strength during the Revolution. In 1791 Mass was still celebrated at the July 14 festival, with “altars of the fatherland” erected everywhere.10 In Paris, incidentally, the celebrant was the newly appointed Bishop Jean Baptiste Gobel, whose life had the elements of tragedy.11 (In 1789, an ambitious suffragan bishop and member of the National Assembly, he approved all the anti-religious measures of the Revolution. Later, under pressure, he “voluntarily” renounced all his offices “as servant of the Catholic cult,” and six months later, in April 1794, under Robespierre, who officially introduced the cult of the Supreme Being, he was charged with atheism and executed. He died crying: “Long live Christ.”) The very next year, 1792, priests were no longer allowed to take part in such celebrations, not even the priests who had “fallen in line.” Shortly before the famous Festival of Reason in the Cathedral of Notre Dame (November 10, 1793) the Commune of Paris banned all acts of public worship of the traditional kind.12 When the Parisian artists celebrated the planting of one of the countless Trees of Liberty, they sang a parody, composed by François Joseph Gossec, of the hymn O salutaris hostia.”
These types of festivals are essentially coercive, rather than naturally flowing from communal belief and joy. One attends them because one must unless one wants to risk social/political suicide. A true festival would not have this element. Like all modern movements, the end of this is boredom at unreality: “Contemporary accounts of the festivals of the French Revolution reek of boredom, the infinite boredom of utter unreality, which makes the reading of them a startling experience. The “extravagant expenditure . . . on pinchbeck symbolical properties, on plaster, cardboard, and tin,”15 the bombastic declamation of platitudes, the empty histrionics of the pseudo-liturgy emanate a ghostly unreality. At the translation of the body of “Saint Voltaire,”16 “the first philosophical festival”17 of the Revolution, young men in the costume of ancient Romans accompanied the sarcophagus to the Pantheon. From the altar of the fatherland the Mayor of Paris displayed the book containing the Constitution, holding it out to his fellow citizens like a monstrance. A girl ignited a Bengal light, by means of a magnifying glass producing the “holy fire,” which then flared up from a Greek vase in the hues of the Tricolor.18 The painter Jacques Louis David, the canny stage manager of almost all the great Festivals of the Revolution (and incidentally the representative of a numerous band of painters, sculptors, poets, and musicians who clamored to be “appointed” – and paid – by the new rulers19), went to the Convention in the summer of 1793 with a plan for a festival of the “fraternity of all Frenchmen.” It was instantly accepted and the show swiftly put on. Among its features were the following: A procession marched to the site of the Bastille, where the President of the Convention was the first to drink water jetting from the breasts of a monumental female figure (“Nature as the Fountain of Rebirth”), after first sprinkling the statue of the “Sun of Freedom” erected beside her. Incidentally, he drank from an agate cup which, as the Convention Minutes stipulated, was to be placed in the National Museum with an inscription to remind posterity of its “exalted use.”20 At the moment of this solemn act three thousand caged birds were released, tagged with ribbons hearing the inscription: “We are free – imitate us!”
They end in boredom precisely because they aren’t real. They’ve robbed the essence from festivals and kept only the religious form/appearance in an attempt at giving their new beliefs a profundity that they lacked. What they lack, Pieper says, even when all else about it seems right, is the very heart and soul of the matter—they do not recognize the fundamental goodness of all reality as given as a gift by God and respond with worship. Rather, what is worshipped is only the goodness of man. Man is the beginning and end of the sham festival and spectacle.
This reached its apex with socialism, the socialist state seeking to establish man as a worker first and foremost and most importantly, thus eradicating even the potential of festival which sees man and creation as a creature. In the socialist state, a festival/holiday becomes a day where you work more, for free, because of your “love” of the State which has become God. “‘This holiday is one of general work’ (Leon Trotsky).12 And Maxim Gorky: “It is a wonderful idea to make the spring festival of the workers a holiday of voluntary work.”13” “Naturally, the “voluntary” nature of this holiday work must be understood in a propaganda sense. And no one versed in the instrumentation of such “revolutionary” rhetoric would fail to hear the overtones of threat. It was Lenin himself who said: “Only people who have sold themselves to capitalism are capable of condemning the use of the great May holiday for our mass effort to introduce Communist work.”14 Gorky ruled that it was a “crime not to understand” the purpose of giving that particular form to the holiday.15”
To subject humans into work for the State is the opposite of a festival. It is an antifestival. The end of this “festival” which sees the world as absurd is a celebration of the world’s end.
But there is hope. “But this is not the whole picture. In this same contemporary world of ours there remains the indestructible (for otherwise human nature itself would have to be destroyed) gift innate in all men which impels them now and again to escape from the restricted sphere where they labor for their necessities and provide for their security – to escape not by mere forgetting, but by undeceived recollection of the greater, more real reality. Now, as always, the workaday world can be transcended in poetry and the other arts. In the shattering emotion of love, beyond the delusions of sensuality, men continue to find entrance to the still point of the turning world. Now, as always, the experience of death as man’s destiny, if accepted with an open and unarmored heart, acquaints us with a dimension of existence which fosters a detachment from the immediate aims of practical life. Now, as always, the philosophical mind will react with awe to the mystery of being revealed in a grain of matter or a human face. Of course, all such responses are not in themselves festivity. They are the postludes of festivity, but in the proper circumstances they could again become the preludes. All such modes of ascending out of the world of mere utility once arose from the soil of a festival perhaps long since faded or forgotten; and so they may, by virtue of their evocative power, once again become a step toward a new festival to be celebrated in the future. Consequently, for the sake of what prospects there are for true festivity in our time, it is essential to resist the sophistical corruption of the arts, the cheapening of eroticism, the degradation of death, as well as the tendency to make philosophy a textbook subject or an irresponsible juggling of big words.”
As always, he ends with a great thought and then in silence: “The Christian, however, is convinced that no destructive action, no matter how thoroughgoing, even if it is fervently celebrated as a gruesome “antifestival,” can ever corrode the substance of Creation. “Miraculously founded and more miraculously restored,” it cannot be corrupted by the “will to nothingness.” Thus there always remains the “festive occasion” which alone justifies and inspires celebration. It remains in force, forever undiminished. And not even the complete “success” of self-annihilation on the part of the human race, not even the complete “destruction of the earth,”16 could stamp out true festival. To be sure, in that case it would be celebrated “not in this eon nor on earth.” But basically this is true, as we have seen, even for the festivals we celebrate here and now, in this present historical time. Such thoughts lead, of course, far beyond a philosophical study of festivity. And we have reached a boundary at which the philosophical mind must necessarily fall silent. But it would be no very exceptional case if this silence made it possible to hear – to hear a more than philosophical message.”
December 12, 2019
This book has widened my view. The shift in thinking about festivity and holidays that Pieper has caused has the potential to alter the trajectory of my life. What is so interesting is how minuscule the shift is at this point. I want to keep studying this to solidify what is, right now, merely amorphous thought.
For a festival to be practiced festively, the Divine must be the root and the end of the festivities. Sunday is a festive day. We even sacrifice the wages we could have earned that day, had we not been worshipping and affirming Creation. Festivity reminds us what life is all about. It reorients us toward an eternal perspective. It reminds us of deeper purposes that we tend to forget in the workaday life. Festivity is more than just a day off work or a day of rest. I want to celebrate this way.
In reading, I have been thinking of the different holidays we celebrate in the United States. One that has been steadily losing its festivity (and nearly all of them have been) is Independence Day. We have disconnected from the covenant made by the pilgrims, Washington, and Lincoln. The covenant to follow and recognize God’s word; to acknowledge Him as the one from whom all rights and freedom come. It thrills me to think what this festival would be like if we turned back. A day of humility and gratitude and celebrating in pure joy.
For a festival to be practiced festively, the Divine must be the root and the end of the festivities. Sunday is a festive day. We even sacrifice the wages we could have earned that day, had we not been worshipping and affirming Creation. Festivity reminds us what life is all about. It reorients us toward an eternal perspective. It reminds us of deeper purposes that we tend to forget in the workaday life. Festivity is more than just a day off work or a day of rest. I want to celebrate this way.
In reading, I have been thinking of the different holidays we celebrate in the United States. One that has been steadily losing its festivity (and nearly all of them have been) is Independence Day. We have disconnected from the covenant made by the pilgrims, Washington, and Lincoln. The covenant to follow and recognize God’s word; to acknowledge Him as the one from whom all rights and freedom come. It thrills me to think what this festival would be like if we turned back. A day of humility and gratitude and celebrating in pure joy.
Want to read
December 10, 2009Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 2, as one of Five Books Addressed to the Heart of Things.
Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Intro to Part Three, as one of Schall's Unlikely List of Books to Keep Sane By---Selected for Those to Whom Making Sense Is a Prior Consideration, but a Minority Opinion.
Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Intro to Part Three, as one of Fourteen Books by Josef Pieper.
Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 18, as one of Seven Books on Sports and Serious Reflection.
Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Intro to Part Three, as one of Schall's Unlikely List of Books to Keep Sane By---Selected for Those to Whom Making Sense Is a Prior Consideration, but a Minority Opinion.
Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Intro to Part Three, as one of Fourteen Books by Josef Pieper.
Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 18, as one of Seven Books on Sports and Serious Reflection.
September 15, 2021
“Festivity is a liberation. Through it the celebrant becomes aware of, and may enter, the greater reality which gives a wider perspective on the world of everyday work, even as it supports it.”
“For in the praise of Creation, above all, the arts and festivity join hands; both are nourished by affirmation of Creation.”
“It is the withholding of public worship that makes festivity wither at the root.”
“For in the praise of Creation, above all, the arts and festivity join hands; both are nourished by affirmation of Creation.”
“It is the withholding of public worship that makes festivity wither at the root.”
August 24, 2017
Marvelous, breathtaking, and hopeful. A necessary argument for an undeserving age.
July 13, 2020
The need for the affirmation that “the world is good, in spite of everything” resonates particularly poignantly at this point in time.
“The Seventh Day commemorates not only the completion of the divine work, but also the divine assent to Creation. It was on the Seventh Day that the prodigious words were spoken that everything was ‘very good.’ We can not conceive a more radical, a deeper-lying justification of the essential goodness of all reality than this, that God Himself, in bringing things into being, affirms and loves these very same things, all of them without exception. And to man also, insofar as he accepts it, this is the uttermost legitimation - perhaps I should also say, the ultimate encouragement which alone is unassailable, likewise to find the things of the world good, in spite of everything.” -p. 47
“The Seventh Day commemorates not only the completion of the divine work, but also the divine assent to Creation. It was on the Seventh Day that the prodigious words were spoken that everything was ‘very good.’ We can not conceive a more radical, a deeper-lying justification of the essential goodness of all reality than this, that God Himself, in bringing things into being, affirms and loves these very same things, all of them without exception. And to man also, insofar as he accepts it, this is the uttermost legitimation - perhaps I should also say, the ultimate encouragement which alone is unassailable, likewise to find the things of the world good, in spite of everything.” -p. 47
September 15, 2018
It's a curious thing to read about, a philosophy on festivity, but in many ways this is Josef Piepers continuation on his work on Leisure - as festivity is a celebration away from our working everyday but still differes from our non-working leisural activities. Pieper seems to master doing philosophy in this way on a topic not much written about, but that still seems to give some insight into how we work as social beings in the world, and how we show joy and gratitude. It is a fringe read, but very interesting nontheless.
December 13, 2020
"There remains the indestructible...gift innate in all men which impels them now and again to escape from the restricted sphere where they labor for their necessities and provide for their security—to escape not by merely forgetting, but by undeceived recollection of the greater, more real reality. Now, as always, the workaday world can be transcended in poetry and the other arts. In the shattering emotion of love, beyond the delusions of sensuality, men continue to find entrance to the still point of the turning world."
October 14, 2025
“There can be no festivity when man, imagining himself self-sufficient, refuses to recognize that Goodness of things which goes far beyond any conceivable utility; it is the Goodness of reality taken as a whole, which validates all other particular goods and which man himself can never produce nor simply translate into social or individual “welfare.” He truly receives it only when he accepts it as pure gift.”
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