In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

290 CODES
has played on a mountainside as a child, and in whose intimacy one has
never ceased to live in the depths of one's heart" (Jouhandeau, 13). As a
reactivation of traditional concepts of Transcendence, the renouveau
catholique pays specific attention to this motif of the world's sanctification.
It promotes the (re)transformation of Immanence into Transcendence.
Such a form of religiosity explains why French intellectuals are
becoming ever more interested in Christianity's mystical tradition, in
which the experience of God is brought to the highest-and most uncanny-degree
of subjective closeness and intensity. French theologians
initiate an effort to promote the Spanish mystic and poet Saint John of
the Cross to the status of a Doctor Ecclesiae Universalis (Catholicisme,
446), and the Vatican document in which Pope Pius XI confirms the
Church's favorable decision on Saint John's behalf indeed emphasizes the
theme of the world's sanctification: "Some of his works and epistles,
despite the complexity of their arguments ... , are so adapted to the
reader's understanding that they can serve as an orientation and school
for those faithful souls who wish to attain a more perfect life" ("Sanctus
Ioannes," 380). In the context of the renouveau catholique, the first
novel by Georges Bernanos, an insurance agent with more religious
ardor than stylistic subtlety, marks an important event. It tells the story
of an intellectually naive, ethically heroic village priest named Donissan,
whose many efforts to rescue souls and bodies in the name of the Lord,
and whose multiple acts aimed at sanctifying the everyday world, fail
dismally. But Donissan's life gains significance and meaning from histheologically
problematic-insight that human existence, without knowing
it, is part of an eternal battle between God and the Devil: "The world
is not a well-organized machine. God throws us between Satan and
himself, as his last rampart. It is through us that, for centuries and
centuries, the same hatred has striven to reach him; it is in poor human
flesh that the ineffable murder is consummated. Ah! As high and as far
as prayer and love can lift us, we take Satan with us, attached to our
flanks-a horrible companion, erupting in peals of laughter!" (Bernanos,
190). None of Donissan's attempts to sanctify the world is noticeably
successful. The renouveau catholique-like all the other neoreligious
movements of the day-has no real interest in the possibility that God,
angels, or saints might intervene and actively change the course of
worldly events. [see Action = Impotence (Tragedy)] Individual existence
is supposed to be significantly affected by religion, whereas the social and