Juissance (Enjoyment) of the Reading of the Word

One of the Enjoyment of the signifier is the enjoyment of the written or spoken word. The word is made of signifier pointing to the signified/ meaning. The relation between the signifier and the signified as thought by Ferdinand Saussure, the father of linguistics as arbitrary. To Lacan it is not just arbitrary, but is unstable, multivocal and never complete. Derrida sees the same instability as the reason why the meaning in the coming ( delayed).

Lacan’s Real somehow enters the signified and keeps it meaning in an unclosed plurivocal dynamism. There is always an excess/ surplus meaning or the signified. This is why the real meaning is the meaning of the Real. Real meaning is given through the Real. The Real is not somewhere outside the symbolic. The symbolic is punctured by the real. This is why all speaking and reading is not without Lacan’s Real. The real speaking is speaking through the Real. Hence, there is always unsaid , unuttered in everything that we say or utter. There is also the unutterable or the unsayable too.

There is also never fuller reading. Every reading keeps something left unread. There is also the unreadable in all that we read. The Real is in the unsaid, unsayable and unread and unreadable and therefore, ungraspable. Just as there is a lack attached to desire, so to there is lack to our enjoyment of the signifiers/ word. This is why all that we speak and read is always already deconstructed as well as deconstructable. With Jacques Derrida, we may have to say that all speaking and reading is undecided and as such remains open ( unclosed). There is no singularity of the speaking as well as reading.

When it comes to the reading of the sacred text like the Bible. The real reading of the Bible is also the reading of Real. Lacanian Real in this sense has to be understood as the Logos. Bible is the word of God given in the words of humans. This is why there is always a surplus of meaning in the text of the Bible. We cannot empty the meaning, though every reading of the text is also the kenosis of the logos. Hence, it is mainly in the reading the holy scripture that word truly becomes the word of God. And as such there is excess or surplus to it. There is thus, unreadable side to it. We cannot fully empty the divine in the word of God. This means there is readable and unreadable side to every reading of the word of God. This also means that there is no masterly reading of the text. This is why we need the Holy Spirit to read the Bible. Given the fecundity of the text, we also need the Pope , the vicar of Christ to assist us to find the point de capiton to read the Bible. Otherwise, our reading will suffer dispersion and will bring about dissonance among the faithful.

The enjoyment or juissance of reading the word of God being not the order of market/ profit but one of death/ loss , on reaching the point of fulfillment, we come in danger of losing the object of desire or the word of God. This is why we have to humbly submit before the word of God in humility and stay open for the fullest meaning to come. Therefore, the teaching office of the Church has the role to guide the reading of the word of God in the Church.

The Christian juissance of reading the word of God is not simply reading it for inspiration or guidance of life. Christian juissance is kenotic. Following the order of death , Christian juissance of reading the word of God is also kenotic or self-emptying/ sacrificing , just like Christian love is. This means the fulfillment of the juissance of the reading of the Bible become loss of the word itself. It means the subject of the reading of the Bible gets lost in his/ her reading. It means that in the reading of the word of God, the word becomes flesh in the reader. The word of God , therefore , never returns empty as Prophet Isaiah would tell us. in this reading of the word of God , one is enabled to be the true follower of Christ in the Church. The word becomes flesh in the reader who is in the community, the body of Christ. Thus, the word becoming flesh, and the Church as the mystical body of Christ cannot be separated.

Christian juissance, thus, embraces the juissance of the Real of Lacan. The Real of Lacan in the Christian context can be known as the unnamable Logos. The unnamability of the Logos is within unknowability of the Real that Lacan keep out of the symbolic without really keeping it out. Later Lacan actually accepts these types of naming of the Real. Thus, a Christian as a follower of Christ is challenged to embrace the Juissance of the unnameable Logos, that we call our Lord Jesus Christ. In reading the word of God, a Christian has the opportunity to follow the juissance the Lord Jesus Christ.

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GREETINGS

Attention is a generous gift we can give others.

Attention is love.

- Fr Victor Ferrao