The idea of Being

It is an oddity that a notice in an Italian street should read not that so and so was born or died in this particular house but that: ‘While walking down this street lost in thought, Antonio Rosmini conceived the “Idea of Being”, which became the foundation of his philosophical system.’

Rosmini himself wrote about it: At the age of 18 I was walking alone wrapt in thought along the street called Terra, which as you know lies between the tower and the bridge over the Leno; and while various thoughts were going through my mind, I noticed that the explanation of a mental concept is to be found in a wider concept, and this wider concept in one of a still wider application; and thus ascending from concept to concept I found that I arrived at the most universal of all ideas, being; and when I tried to take away the idea of being, I found I had nothing left.

I thus became persuaded that the idea of being is the ultimate in every concept, the principle of all thought. The conviction that I had found a truth gave my soul serenity and joy, and I gave praise to the Father of light. 

From pages 43/4 of John Michael Hill's biography of Antonio Rosmini: Persecuted Prophet. 

Death and Being

Now it is with this intense passion for being, that the idea of death clashes. Let us search why it is we shrink from death. This reason brethren, we shall find, that it presents to us the idea of not being. Talk as we will of immortality, there is an obstinate feeling that we cannot master, that we end in death; and that may be felt together with the firmest belief of a resurrection. Brethren, our faith tells us one thing, and our sensations tell us another. When we die, we are surrendering in truth all that with which we have associated existence. All that we know of life is connected with a shape, a form, a body of materialism; and now that that is palpably melting away into nothingness, the boldest heart may be excused a shudder, when there is forced upon it, in spite of itself, the idea of ceasing forever.

Frederick W Robertson in his sermon on Victory over Death, in Sermons Preached at Brighton, Third Series. 

The whole being

The followers of Christ are engaged in the world with their whole being. Engagement is not a matter of either speaking or doing; not a matter of either offering a compelling intellectual vision or embodying a set of alternative practices; not a matter of either merely making manifest the richness and depth of interior life or merely working to change the institutions of society; not a matter of either only displaying alternative politics as gathered in Eucharistic celebrations or merely working for change as the dispersed people of God. It is all these things and more. The whole person in all aspects of her life is engaged in fostering human flourishing and serving the common good.

Miroslav Volf
A Public Faith

Being something

Please pray for me to Our Lord that, instead of merely writing something, I may be something, and indeed that I may so fully be what I ought to be that there may be no further necessity for me to write, since the mere fact of being what I ought to be would be more eloquent than many books.

Thomas Merton
Dialogues with Silence