Pulchritudo tam Antiqua tam Nova

Faith, Science, and the Interpretation of Genesis Chapter 1

2013-05-06T18:50:00.002-05:00

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day. — Gen. 1:31

Dominica V Post Pascha

5 May 2013[1]

Let me begin by saying a bit about a scientist named Clair Cameron Patterson. In the early seventies, he was the world’s foremost expert on the subject of atmospheric lead contamination. It was largely his expertise and tenacity that led the EPA to begin phasing lead out of gasoline, paints, food containers, glazes, and water fountains.

Now, as far as I know, Patterson was not a Catholic. But let us suppose he had wished to enter the Church and be baptized (perhaps conditionally), in the year 1960. And let us suppose he was to be so baptized during the Paschal Vigil. After the Exultet he would have listened to the four lessons. The first of these, as you know, is taken from the Book of Genesis, and recounts the creation of the world. Now suppose Mr. Patterson, upon listening to the lesson from the Book of Genesis, asked his sponsor whether he had to believe as a de fide proposition that the heavens and the earth were created in six 24-hour days, and that the earth, in accordance with the numerous Biblical genealogies and chronologies going back to Adam, is no more than roughly 6000 years old, since the world was around for only five days before Adam was created. Had his sponsor replied in the affirmative, Mr. Patterson (of all people) would have been placed in the untenable position of trying to maintain two irreconcilable truths; namely, a truth arrived at by unaided reason (science) and a purported truth of faith. You see, Patterson’s knowledge about atmospheric lead contamination derived from his research during the late 1940s and early 1950s dealing with the presence of lead and its various isotopes in certain rocks, including meteorites. This research culminated in a paper he published in 1956 in which he was able to demonstrate the age of the earth to be, not 6,000 years old, but 4.5 billion years old (give or take 70 million years).

Unfortunately, there are plenty of Christians, even Catholics, who, despite Patterson’s conclusions (as well as the conclusions of other independent scientific research) continue to believe that the age of the earth has been revealed by God in the pages of Scripture, and that that age is considerably less than 4.5 billion years. Those who hold this position argue from the following two premises:

1. That the “days” of creation must be understood to mean six 24-hour periods.

2. That as recently as the 19^th century, people used to take for granted the relatively narrow temporal parameters of the Biblical worldview. I’ll illustrate this with two examples:

In 1848, when Jacob Grimm published his History of the German Language, he regarded the age of mankind — six thousand years — as an undisputed postulate that needed no further reflection. [Ernst] W[ilhelm] Wachsmuth declared the same thing as a matter of course in his widely acclaimed General History of Culture, which appeared in 1850 [nine years before Darwin published The Origin of Species].[2]

These examples (and many more could be given) “indicate the narrow horizon within which our view of history and of the world still ranged”[3] only 160 years ago. But with the onset of the theory of evolution, the Bible-based boundaries of time and history began to be challenged, just as the Copernican and Newtonian theories about the solar system and beyond had challenged the Ptolemaic theory — which seemed to be more in line with the Biblical worldview. After the Galileo affair, the saying arose that Scripture is not about how the heavens go, but about how to go to heaven. What does this mean? It means that Scripture is not a science manual. If that were the case, any development in human knowledge that takes the human race beyond what the people of the ancient Near East knew about the universe would have to be rejected by people of faith. Faith and science would always be incompatible, or at least have nothing to do with one another.

Here, we must raise a very important question: Is the scientific worldview expressed in the opening pages of Scripture synonymous with the faith itself, such that the faith is necessarily incompatible with alternative worldviews that take shape according as man’s knowledge of the universe expands and exerts its influence? No it is not. Therefore, to be a truly faithful Catholic, we are not obligated to embrace the worldview of Babylon and the ancient Near East. On the contrary, we are free to understand the truths of faith contained in the Genesis account of creation in relation to the modern worldview, even though those truths are expressed through the lens of a more ancient, pre-scientific worldview.

We should also realize that we are not the only generation of Christians whose scientific outlook is vastly different from that found in the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis. And thus, we are not the only generation of Christians that has had to ask these sorts of questions about faith and scientific worldviews. The Church fathers and theologians of the early Church also had to ask themselves essentially the same questions.[4] For the Biblical worldview found in the account of creation not only was not the same as their own, Hellenistic worldview, but would have appeared as intolerably pre-scientific to them as it does to us. And while many of them appear to have had no reason to suppose that the days of creation were anything other than six 24-hour days, it does not follow that such an interpretation is a divinely revealed truth, or that what truths are contained in the account depend on this prima facie interpretation.

Before enumerating some of the basic truths conveyed in the opening chapter of Genesis, we would do well to look at the relationship between faith and science and ask whether they can ever contradict one another.

When we use the word “science”, we often mean “the probable results which modern scientists have arrived at using their paradigms, models, and methods.” Such results may certainly be contradicted by truths known by the light of faith, and when that happens, we can be sure that science is in the wrong. Sometimes, however, by “science”, we mean “truth attained by unaided reason, and with certainty.” That is more or less what Aristotle meant by “science.” Of course, scientists are often in error, and for a variety of reasons (e.g., insufficient data, hubris, self-interest, fear). Usually, these errors are recognized as such by later generations of scientists. However, the provisional character of some, even much of the scientific knowledge of the present does not prevent some scientific knowledge from becoming certain. Water, for example, which was once thought to be an element, is now correctly understood to be a compound of hydrogen of oxygen. Accordingly, this certain knowledge that we may call science can never contradict the certain knowledge of contained in the deposit of faith, since both have God as a common source.

So, then, when Christians and scientists disagree, who is in the right? Unless they speak with the infallible authority of Christ Himself, individual Christians can be mistaken about what the content of faith actually contains. And unless their knowledge moves beyond the provisional and into the realm of true scientific certitude, scientists have no business claiming dogmatically to be in the right.

Stephen J. Gould once attempted to do away with contradiction between faith and science by claiming that the truths of faith and those of science have nothing to do with one another. He saw them as being completely separate, since they both represent independent authorities; i.e., Non-Overlapping Magisterial Authorities (NOMA). Thus, as long as each authority remain within his own sphere, the truths contained in both will likewise remain apart and therefore remain unopposed.

The only problem with this proposal is that the contents of faith and science do overlap to some extent. Certainly, not all matters of faith are of interest to scientists, and not all matters of science are of interest to theologians. Natural scientists should not attempt to pontificate about the Trinity, and theologians would do well to avoid using Scripture to explain the migration habits of the sandhill crane. However, some matters of faith may also be of interest to scientists, and some matters of science may be of interest to theologians. After all, both talk about reality, the universe, about life, about history. For example, the origin of the universe: Is it eternal (even if eternally created), or did it have a definite beginning? Both theologians and scientists have a legitimate interest in such questions. How about the origins of the human race, to say nothing of other species? Are we all descended from a single set of parents, or were there multiple sets? It’s understandable and legitimate that both theologians and scientists ponder this question with their respective tools and sources of knowledge. Is a line made up of an infinite number of points? Such a question of interest not only to the geometrician, but also to theolgians. Thus, we cannot avoid contradiction merely by proposing that matters of faith and science should stay away from each other, or by claiming that they really do have nothing to do with one another.

In 1950, six years before Patterson published his findings about the age of the earth, Pope Pius XII issued his Encyclical Humani Generis. With this encyclical, the pope took the opportunity not only to affirm that faith and science do indeed intersect at some points, but also to address and condemn some of the errors that had arisen in connection with the theory of evolution. Here’s some of what he writes:

It remains for Us now to speak about those questions which, although they pertain to the positive sciences, are nevertheless more or less connected with the truths of the Christian faith. In fact, not a few insistently demand that the Catholic religion take these sciences into account as much as possible. This certainly would be praiseworthy in the case of clearly proved facts; but caution must be used when there is rather question of hypotheses, having some sort of scientific foundation, in which the doctrine contained in Sacred Scripture or in Tradition is involved. If such conjectural opinions are directly or indirectly opposed to the doctrine revealed by God, then the demand that they be recognized can in no way be admitted.[5]

What conjectural opinions that “directly or indirectly” oppose divinely revealed doctrine does the Pope have in mind? First, the idea that the human soul is not created by God; second, the idea that the human race did not descend from one set of parents, but from multiple sets. Is he worried about the idea that the earth just might be older than 6,000 years? No. Is he opposed to scientists and theologians researching and discussing the theory of evolution insofar as it “inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter”? Not at all. Now, perhaps he makes no mention of the age of the earth because he was writing six years before Patterson published his paper on the subject. Even so, no Pope since 1956 has condemned Patterson’s findings as contrary to the faith and therefore false. Nor has any Pope or Council ever proposed the “young earth” reading of Genesis as an article of faith.

The truths of faith enunciated in the first account of Genesis and taught by the Church have to do God the Creator, creation, man, and his relationship with God, not about the age of the earth. These truths include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. The Universe is not eternal, not even eternally created, but had a beginning.[6]

2. There is only one God, one Creator, and He alone brought the entire universe into existence.[7]

3. God made all things freely and on purpose, not by accident or out of necessity, nor as a result of some conflict with other gods.[8]

4. The entire universe, as well as everything in the universe, including matter, is good.[9]

5. God made man, and that man did not simply come forth by accident, and that man among all earthly things is most like God.[10]

6. God made some things immediately and without the help of any creature, but other things he made by giving power to a creature and cooperating with that creature to produce them.[11]

7. God established a hierarchy among created things: from inanimate, to animate, to the human race (the “crown” of the material world), such that all earthly things are for man, and not man for them.[12]

8. God made man and woman and marriage, and willed (in fact commanded) them to procreate.[13]

All of these truths pertain in obvious ways to understanding God and his creation, and contribute to our understanding of how to please God. Nor do these truths require that the six days of creation equal six 24-hour periods.

Now, to some Catholics, merely to suggest that the six days of creation need not be understood as six 24-hour periods is tantamount to undermining the deposit of faith. After all, if we are prepared to assume that the faith content of Scripture is not always equivalent to the simplest understanding of the text, what is to stop us from interpreting it any way we please? Answer: an infallible guide. The Magisterium of the Catholic Church exercises this role in various ways. Of course, the Magisterium is not in the business of providing an official interpretation for every verse. Rather, it acts as a referee, providing an authoritative judgment on matters deemed to be of vital importance to the faith whenever some controversy arises.

We should not forget, either, that Scripture itself, acknowledges how difficult it can be to understand it correctly, as when St. Peter warns his readers that the writings of St. Paul "contain certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction";[14] or the Ethiopian eunuch asks Philip the Deacon to explain to him a text of Isaiah because he does not understand it.[15]

Finally, since we are all called to evangelize and bring even scientists like Clair Patterson into the Church, let us realize that insisting on a “young earth” reading of Genesis in the face of solid scientific evidence to the contrary does a triple disservice.[16] First, it obscures what Scripture is really saying, distracts us from the real purpose of Scripture, sending it down a path defending things not germane to the purpose of revelation. Second, it promotes among the faithful a needless antipathy toward science. Third, it exposes the faith to unnecessary ridicule from scientifically-minded non-believers and gives them the impression that the Catholic faith is for fools and simpletons. As Catholics, may we always strive to respect all knowledge, whether derived from what God has revealed to us or from what man has discovered through the use of his God-given powers of inquiry. For in respecting all true knowledge, regardless of its provenance, we pay homage to God, the source of all knowledge and truth.

[1] This sermon came about in the wake of a talk given by a proponent of a “young earth” reading of Genesis that gave the impression to some that such a reading constituted official Church teaching. In preparing it, I was greatly assisted by insights offered by Dr. Michael A. Augros, a tutor at Thomas Aquinas College, in an unpublished paper that addresses the problems with and consequences of this interpretation of the Scriptural text in opposition to the findings of science. Also most helpful to me was the essay Belief in Creation and the Theory of Evolution by Joseph Ratzinger in his book Dogma and Preaching (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 2005).

[2] J. Ratzinger, Dogma and Preaching, 133.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Cf. J. Ratzinger, Dogma and Preaching, 137.

[5] Humani Generis (1950), §35.

[6] Errors of Eckhart (1327): “Again, when God existed, and when he begot his Son, God co-eternal with himself and co-equal in all things, then at the same time and at once he also created the world.”

[7] Lateran IV (1215), ch. 1: On the Catholic Faith (DS800); Vatican I, Dogmatic Constitution Dei Filius, can. 1: “If anyone denies the one true God Creator and Lord of things visible and invisible, anathema sit.”

[8] Ibid., can. 5: “If anyone refuses to confess that the world and all things contained in it, he spiritual as well as the material, were in their whole substance produced by God out of nothing; or says that God created not by an act of will free from all necessity, but with the same necessity by which he necessarily loves himself; or denies that the world was made for the glory of God, anathema sit.

[9] Council of Braga (561), can 13: “If anyone says that the creation of all flesh is not the work of God but of bad angels, as Manes and Priscillian have said, anathema sit”; Council of Florence, Decree for the Copts (1442), DS1333

[10] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Redemptor Hominis (1979), §13.

[11] Vatican II, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (1965), §36; Profession of Fatih of Paul VI (1968);

[12] Vatican II, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (1965), §14: “Human beings are not mistaken when they regard themselves as superior to material things, and not a mere particle of nature or an anonymous element in human society. By their capacity for interior life, they outstrip the whole universe of things.…

[13] Pius XI, Encyclical Letter Casti Conubii (1930): “Matrimony was not instituted or restored by men, but by God; not mankind, but God, the author of nature and Christ our Lord, the restorer of nature, provided marriage with its laws, confirmed it and elevated it” (DS3700); “…The Creator of the human race himself, who in his goodness has willed to use human being as his ministers in the propagation of life, taught us this truth when instituting matrimony in the Garden of Eden he bade our first parents, and through them all married persons who should come after: ‘Be fruitful and multiply’” (DS3704); John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem (1988), §6.

[14] 2 Pet. 3:16.

[15] Acts 8:31.

[16] I am indebted to Dr. Augros for making these observations.

When innocence can lead us astray

2013-04-20T19:44:00.001-05:00

Amen, amen, I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice;

and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.

Third Sunday after Easter

21 April 2013

When we hear these words of our Lord, spoken to His disciples at the Last Supper, we easily understand their reference to the Passion of Christ, and how it will lead His disciples to “lament and weep”, and how His Resurrection will turn their sorrow into joy. But because the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ is re-presented in the life of His Mystical Body the Church, we can and ought to apply this passage to our own lives as we traverse the stage of history and play out our various roles. Evils like the bombing of the Boston Marathon may befall us that make us sorrowful, but that sorrow need not have the final say. And yet, we often act as if it did, just as the disciples drew little consolation from Christ’s prophecy of His own Resurrection. Yes, we too may sometimes find ourselves so overwhelmed by the darkness of some evil that we neglect both the hope we ought to have in knowing that Christ rose from the dead, as well as the practical consequences of that knowledge.

Perhaps when we feel overwhelmed by the darkness around us — the frail and tangled mess of a world economy, the rising specter of terrorism, the ineptitude of craven politicians, the reduction of basic morality to a blather of platitudes about equality and dignity, and the subsequent coarsening of the society’s moral fabric — it’s all too human for us to begin to question whether God has not lost control of the reins of history, or whether He ever was in control. Nor does it help matters when we ponder the sorry state of the Church and widespread loss of faith, or have experienced personally the consequences of someone else’s sin, to say nothing of our own. Given time, we may find ourselves developing a cynical attitude, going so far as to persuade ourselves that Goodness and Love — indeed, Divinity itself — have gone down to defeat; that “God is dead”, as well as our faith. And yet, if we have understood the significance of Good Friday, we not only can escape the ill effects of such darkness; we can even triumph over them.

What took place in Boston was without a doubt a most heinous evil. Thanks to the twisted ideology of the perpetrators, three people lost their lives, many more lost limbs, and suffered debilitating injuries. Nevertheless, in the face of such evil, we should not forget that no greater evil ever befell anyone than what Christ took upon Himself in His Passion. In no other conflict could there ever be found such a stark contrast between good and evil as we find in the Passion of Christ. Indeed, evil would never be stronger or darker than it was during its hour of triumph over the Son of Man. When evil strikes us, it may be our darkest hour, but the evil Christ faced was darker still. For when Christ died, Goodness Himself was slain. God, in His human nature, died. Evil could do no better than that.

If that were the final chapter of the story, cynicism would be a virtue. But the story enjoys an unexpected conclusion. As we know, Christ submitted Himself into the hands of His enemies, patiently bore the torments they inflicted upon Him, and calmly accepted the ignominious death on a Cross for a reason. He did so, in order that, through His divine power, He could conquer and rise above sin and death for our sake. ; that He might "save us from the fires of hell and lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of [His] mercy. And on Easter Sunday, beyond all merely human expectation, Our Divine Savior manifested His victory over sin and death, over the world and the prince of this world. He took the worst the forces of evil could muster and then, by the Power of God, rose above it. Conquered at the moment of its greatest ferocity, evil might in the future win some, even many, battles; but it would most certainly lose the war.

And yet, when we find ourselves passing through some valley of death, it’s easy to neglect the practical import of the Resurrection in our own lives, just as the disciples of Christ had great difficulty accepting the very fact of the Resurrection. A more skeptical set of believers would be difficult to find. When we examine the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection, there can be no doubt that Christ’s disciples were completely unprepared to accept the fact of the Resurrection. Notwithstanding Our Lord’s own predictions about His Passion, Death, and Resurrection, the disciples simply failed to anticipate that the Power of God would — or could — intervene to raise Christ from the dead. On Easter morning, some of the women followers went to the sepulcher, not to meet the Risen Lord, but to embalm His body. Their main concern was that there would be no one to help them roll the stone away from the mouth of the tomb. And so, when they found the stone rolled back and the grave empty, they were utterly astounded. Seeing the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene concluded that someone had “taken away” her Lord, had stolen the Body. So unprepared was she to admit the possibility that Christ had risen from the dead that when He did appear to her, she was unable to recognize Him, mistaking Him instead for the gardener.

The Apostles themselves proved to be no less skeptical. When the women related to them what the angel had reported, that the Lord had indeed risen from the dead, how did they receive such Good News? St. Luke tells us: “these words seemed to them as idle tales, and they did not believe them.” Later, when the Risen Lord likewise appeared to the Apostles, it seemed at first more probable to them that they were seeing a ghost rather than thee Risen Lord. The reality that Christ was truly risen and very much alive could hardly be true, they thought. And when the Apostles related to Thomas that they had seen the Lord, he too refused to believe this fantastic report without solid, palpable proof: “except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”

If Christ’s disciples had been eagerly anticipating His Resurrection, if they had truly understood Our Lord’s prediction about his Passion, Death and Resurrection, they would have accepted it at once. Instead, they suffered what psychologists call “cognitive dissonance”. There was no doubt in their minds that He had died. How, then, could they be seeing Him alive and well? And so, it took the disciples a little time to assimilate and yield to the incredible, yet tangible, evidence of Christ’s Resurrection.

Likewise, it sometimes takes time for us to realize that whatever sorrows trouble us, this same power is ready to intervene. And if, for some reason, we overlook or underestimate this Power available to us, we inevitably find ourselves traveling down the path that leads to bitter cynicism, hopelessness, and despair. We may concede that Christ overcame evil and rose from the grave by the Power of God, but when we encounter sin and death ourselves, we may act as though that Power goes no further, and that the pattern of Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection has no bearing on the evil we face here and now. And yet, it is no accident that Christ gave to His Church the Sacrament of Reconciliation (wherein penitents may receive the merciful forgiveness of God) after His Resurrection. In this way, what Christ prayed on the Cross (“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”) could be realized down through the ages, “even ’til the end of time.” Nevertheless, in one way or another, we sometimes make the case that, in our own lives, our own relative innocence justifies our refusal to forgive our enemy.

Let’s consider more closely how our sense of innocence can lead us astray by alienating us from Christ’s mission to reconcile the big, bad world to Himself. Most of us know from experience that granting forgiveness is sometimes relatively easy. When we recognize in some grievance a past offence of our own, or something of our own character, we can forgive with relative ease, especially if we have ourselves received forgiveness for the very same offense. But when see nothing of ourselves in some grievance, when it fails to resonate with our own flaws and dispositions, then (humanly speaking) forgiveness truly becomes difficult. No one here present would even think of planting a bomb in the middle of a crowd in order to maim and kill innocent bystanders, as did those two youths in Boston last Monday. Put yourself, then, in the place of the man whose wife suffered a brain injury, whose daughter lost a limb, and whose son lost his life — and ask yourself, “Could I forgive these persons?” Most people, I suspect, would answer No. For, humanly speaking, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to forgive such an abominable crime. But with God, all things are possible. And with the help of His grace, we too can forgive the seemingly unforgivable — as long as we do not let our own relative innocence prevent us from imitating Christ, who, though wholly, absolutely innocent, still desires the conversion of the sinner, no matter how appalling his sin. Consider the example of Bl. John Paul II, who forgave his would-be assassin, or that of St. Maria Goretti, who forgave her attacker. Such is the path all of us are called, with God’s help, to follow. For if we don’t forgive, the joy of the Resurrection will have no place in our hearts. Instead of seeking the power of God to follow the example of Christ, we will have let our sorrow have the final word. Instead of seeking to assist Christ overcome the darkness of the world, we will have granted that very darkness (in the form of cynicism, bitterness, and even despair) access to our hearts. We will have forgotten that, even though He truly sees nothing of Himself in the sins of the whole world, Christ still forgives, still wishes to reconcile the world to Himself; still wishes to show (as the collect would have us pray) the light of His truth to those who go astray, that they may return to the way of righteousness. And all that we pray and sing, say and do in the name of Christ as a witness to His triumph over sin and death, and that Goodness and Love are more powerful than hatred and evil, will sound hardly more appealing than sanctimonious claptrap. "Lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy."

Now, of course, forgiveness does not exclude temporal punishment. Forgiven criminals are not automatically immune from just punishment meted out by the State. But, if they have reconciled themselves to God, they are rescued from eternal punishment ("the fires of hell") by the saving Blood of Christ.

So, then, let us remember that, as Archbishop Fulton Sheen once put it, He who can make snowflakes out of dirty water, diamonds out of charcoal, and saints out of penitent Magdalenes can also make us truly victorious. But only if, with the help of His grace, we follow His lead. The power that wrought the Resurrection can indeed intervene in our own lives, just as it intervened in the lives of the Apostles and countless saints so that, just as the sorrow of the disciples was turned into joy, so too, whatever sorrows the darkness of evil heaps upon us, they too may be turned into a joy so profound that nothing we suffer can ever take it away.

Fidelity to God's score

2012-08-07T11:40:00.001-05:00

Everyone that exalts himself shall be humbled, and he that humbles himself shall be exalted.

Dominica decima post Pentecosten

5 August 2012

In today’s parable, Our Lord evidently wishes to impress upon us the importance of humility. Without humility, it is impossible to be just before God. To underscore the importance of humility, Our Lord presents us with two individuals, a Pharisee and a Publican or tax collector. In the eyes of contemporary Jewish society, the Pharisee would have been regarded as the quintessential just man, the man whose life and conduct is rightly ordered towards God. After all, the Pharisee endeavored to follow all 613 laws contained in the Torah, and doubtless succeeded in doing so, at least to some degree. The tax collector, on the other hand, was the most despised man in Palestine — and understandably so. He had no problem collaborating with the hated Roman authorities to collect taxes. And if he was a typical tax collector, he would have been in the habit of collecting far more than Rome expected him to collect. That’s how he made his living. Thus, as far as the Jews were concerned, the Publican was irretrievably wicked, the Pharisee almost automatically holy and “just”.

And yet, the divine calculus comes to the exact opposite conclusion because it takes into account the variable of humility. Not realizing that following the Law does not give him the right to be contemptuous of others (as if he does not need God’s mercy just as much as anyone else), the proud Pharisee fails to achieve justification or righteousness in the sight of God. On the other hand, the wicked Publican receives the mercy of God and comes away “justified” precisely because he recognizes that he has sinned and needs God’s mercy and forgiveness.

St. Bernard defines humility as “a virtue whereby a man, knowing himself as he truly is, abases himself.” Self-knowledge and self-abasement: the one provides the rationale for humility; the other may be called the act of humility. But it also seems true to say, as we shall see, that accepting the rationale for humility itself takes a certain humility, a kind of innate humility.

Now, because both true self-knowledge and self-abasement make up the virtue of humility, the word humility itself, or humilitas, fittingly derives from humus, which means earth or dirt. As dirt is beneath us, humility entails self-abasement, a lowering of ourselves, or an attitude of lowliness. This lowliness does not derive from a lack of self-worth or poor self-esteem. Nor is such lowliness an excuse to be vulgar, uncouth, or slovenly. Rather, this lowliness arises from a recognition that next to God, the Creator of the world, we are all but lowly creatures; all the work of the divine Artist; no one is His equal in anything. God freely wills to create the world to be in a certain way, such that no one should consider himself free to re-make the world according to his own will, or do whatever he wants independent of God’s will. This is precisely what the devil claims for himself when he declares, “Non serviam!”

In Paradise Lost, the poet John Milton fleshes out the devil’s non serviam in these very terms of freedom and equality. In his rousing speech to the “Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues [and] Powers,” Satan asks these angels:

Will ye submit your necks, and chuse to bend

The supple knee? ye will not, if I trust

To know ye right, or if ye know your selves

Natives and Sons of Heav’n possest before

By none, and if not equal all, yet free,

Equally free…

Who can in reason then or right assume

Monarchy over such as live by right

His equals, if in power and splendor less,

In freedom equal? or can introduce

Law and Edict on us, who without law

Err not, much less for this to be our Lord,

And look for adoration to th’ abuse

Of those Imperial Titles which assert

Our being ordain’d to govern, not to serve?[1]

Having exalted themselves by claiming to be God’s equals in freedom, the devil and all the fallen angels want to be free to govern themselves apart from the law of God. They refuse to humble themselves before the God who made them. Instead, they want to be like God; equal to God.

Like the angels, we too are God’s creatures. Before Him, we too ought to lower ourselves, since all that we have is from Him. When a man possesses a sense of lowliness before God, he will exercise a certain restraint or modesty, no matter how talented he may be. We have all heard of the Italian Renaissance genius Michelangelo. In comparison to other artists, this sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer, knew no rival. But did Michelangelo himself bask in the accolades of his admirers? No. Towards the end of his long life, instead of declaring, “I am the greatest artist who ever lived”, he simply said, with all sincerity and humility, “I am still learning.”

Or consider the singular case of St. Thomas Aquinas, arguably one of the greatest theologians who ever lived. Towards the end of his life, after experiencing a moment of ecstatic union with the source of all goodness and perfection, the saint remarked, “All that I have written seems like straw to me.” The humble man realizes that, however great he may be in comparison to other men, his greatness pales when compared to the divine Artist Himself, to say nothing of His own works. As Michelangelo himself explained, “The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.” The humble man, then, because he knows all too well that he is not God’s equal, and that his talents have their source in God, will neither bask in nor encourage the adulation of his admirers.

But what does the self-knowledge of humility have to do with the earth? A man is humble when he grounds himself in the unchanging terra firma of truth, especially the truth about himself, such that all of his actions may be said to be built upon the foundation of humility. And the ground, the terra firma of all self-knowledge is the recognition that God created us for Himself, that we may serve Him, love Him, and glorify Him; and that even our very existence depends upon Him. As the Psalmist writes, “Know ye that the Lord he is God: he made us, and not we ourselves.”[2]

Inasmuch as a person intuitively recognizes that everything depends upon God for its very being, we may say that he acts upon a certain intuitive or innate humility. Indeed, all of us have being, but not because of what we are. It’s not because I am a man that I exist. My nature (that I am a man) does not require that I exist. Only God necessarily exists because of what He is. For that reason, it is more correct to say that God is Being itself. He is necessarily his own existence. His essence and existence are one and the same. As He told Moses, “I am who am.”

And since God is the only necessary Being, it follows, that all created being begins to be and continues to be only because of Him who is uncreated, necessary Being Itself. God is the source of our being. As St. Paul, quoting one of the Greek poets, reminded the Athenians, in God “we live and move and have our being.” Moreover, as Aristotle observed, God Himself brings into existence the soul of every human person. That is why human reproduction is also called procreation. For the parents of every child have the awesome privilege of participating in God’s own act of creation: they dispose the matter, he provides the soul.

But thanks to the inroads of rationalism and atheistic evolution, modern man no longer exercises this innate humility as he ought. He no longer knows himself. Atheistic evolution has made such inroads that, by the time a child graduates from a typical university, he is unlikely to see the universe or himself as being dependent upon God in any way. He no longer recognizes in nature the work of a divine Artist; that things are the way they are for a purpose. He does not acknowledge with Michelangelo, that “Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all are come.” And so, like the devil, he refuses to “bend the supple knee” to His Creator, the King of all Creation. He will not serve. He thinks of himself and the entire universe as being completely autonomous. Instead of seeing the universe as the creation of a Creator, he regards it as a self-creating, self-evolving entity, operating by automatic and blind physical forces. The order he finds in nature is merely apparent, the result of random adaptation, and in no way reflective of the will or intention of a divine Artist. Therefore, modern man more often than not does not consider himself to be morally obligated to respect the natural order and operation of things the way a conductor of an orchestra considers himself morally bound to follow the musical score of the composer.

On the contrary, man sees himself as free to impose his own will on nature without regard to the will of God. He is like a conductor who thinks he can dismiss the intention of the composer and fiddle with the notes of the score. He is not interested in merely perfecting nature, as when a man cultivates a vineyard to produce wine, or when he builds a city and establishes political authority. Instead, in certain areas he wants to transmogrify it. He is now in charge; no longer is he the conductor at the service of the composer. Rather, he assumes the role of composer. God’s will be damned!

Now, where man most especially ignores nature is in the area of marriage and procreation. Blinded by pride, man claims for himself the right to change the notes of God’s score. After all, as far as the secular worldview is concerned, marriage is but the effect of chance, the result of the blind evolution of natural forces. It is not the wise and provident institution of God the Creator, whose purpose was to effect in man His loving design. Thus, marriage need not even be between a man and a woman. Hence, it need not involve a cooperation with God to bring about new life. And so, man feels perfectly free to change the score as regards the notes concerning marriage, procreation, and family life.

The Catholic Church, of course, has never adopted this secular, atheistic worldview. She wants to remain faithful to God’s score. Indeed, in 1968, Pope Paul VI, in his encyclical Humanae Vitae, rejected that worldview and then, basing himself upon “the first principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage”, found himself “obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children. Equally to be condemned,” continues the Pope, “… is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary.” At the time, men had not yet so challenged God’s score as to desire to change the definition of marriage of itself. Yet the worldview that sees nothing wrong with contraception, sterilization, and abortion is the same that will see nothing wrong with changing the definition of marriage so as to accommodate any and all of the diverse appetites of individuals, no matter how perverse.

In addition to upholding the teaching of the Church, the Pope also reflected on what would happen if this teaching, this defense of God’s score, were rejected. He predicts “a general lowering of moral standards”. He warns that when a man “grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods” he “may forget the reverence due to a woman”; will disregard “her physical and emotional equilibrium”; will “reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.”

Sadly, these predictions have all come to pass, and it is not difficult to see that the contraceptive mentality is largely to blame for the disappearance of chastity and the honor and respect it fosters between men and women. We all know, of course, how Paul VI’s authoritative teaching regarding contraception was received. Millions of Catholics belligerently rejected it, and thousands of Catholic clergy and theologians justified this dissent in the name of freedom of conscience. In America, Fr. Charles Curran, together with over 600 theologians and other academics, opined that “spouses may responsibly decide according to their conscience that artificial contraception in some circumstances is permissible and indeed necessary to preserve and foster the value and sacredness of marriage.” Episcopal conferences the world over provided cover for dissenting theologians and faithful. The USCCB, even while strongly defending the encyclical in its Pastoral Letter Human Life in Our Day, also provided “norms for licit dissent”. An unintended consequence of these norms was that dissent from magisterial teaching became acceptable and institutionalized within the Church. In 1987, Blessed John Paul II reminded the U.S. bishops that the “Church’s teaching on contraception does not belong to the category of matter open to free discussion among theologians. Teaching the contrary amounts to leading the moral consciences of spouses into error.”[3] Yet this blunt admonition did not lead to a conversion amongst theologians and clerics to abandon their errors. Nor did it inspire bishops to rise up and speak, defending and explaining why the likes of a Charles Curran are in error, and why what the Church teaches is right. Instead, everything proceeded as usual. The general policy of silence obtained. And so, the Church’s vital teaching about marriage and procreation, rooted in a Catholic worldview of reality, was upheld in theory, but not in practice. In the practical, day-to-day living of out of the Catholic faith, the dissent that fostered the contraceptive mentality was given a pass. As a result, Catholics became increasingly steeped in the proud atheistic worldview of modern society. The Catholic worldview practically disappeared from sight.

But where every Pope since Paul VI has failed to galvanize the bishops of the world to speak publicly with one voice, defending this unpopular teaching, and to explain why the teaching of the Church is right while that of Charles Curran and his ilk is completely wrong, President Obama has succeeded, at least with respect to the American bishops. He has inadvertently compelled the bishops of America to defend the right of Catholics to exercise the right to practice what the Church officially teaches in the realm of sexual ethics — even though most Catholics, thanks to poor catechesis and the tolerance of widespread institutionalized dissent within the Mystical Body, don’t care to exercise that right.

For through his Catholic secretary of Health and Human Services, the President has introduced a mandate (the HHS mandate) that will require Catholic institutions to cover the costs associated with contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilization.

With this mandate, the President has fulfilled in part the third of Pope Paul VI’s predictions about what would happen if the Church’s teaching on contraception were rejected. The final consequence of rejecting the teaching of the Church that the Pope warned us about, was what happens when government involves itself: “careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures married people themselves regard as lawful in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may put into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife.” Thus, the Pope concludes, “unless we are willing to leave the responsibility of procreating life to the arbitrary decision of men, we must accept that there are certain limits, beyond which it is wrong to go, to the power of man over his own body and its natural functions — limits, let it be said, which no one, whether as a private individual or as a public authority, can lawfully exceed.”

So, then, faced with the coercive power of a government that now reflects in the area of sexual ethics the same disregard for the precepts of the moral law as most Americans (Catholic and non-Catholic alike), the bishops of the United States have finally begun to take a public and united stand. They have begun to speak. No longer content to remain silent in the face of opposition from the State, they are now defending, in the name of religious freedom, the right of Catholics to follow the teaching of the Church. A few weeks ago, the bishops launched a campaign called “Fortnight for Freedom.” As part of that campaign, the bishops reminded us that, as Catholics, “we are constantly called to live out our faith in our daily lives. In our charities, we comfort the sick, feed the hungry, care for the poor, and protect life. In the marketplace, our values guide us. We strive everywhere to practice what we preach.” Indeed. Except that, over the past 44 years, the general policy was to avoid preaching the very thing that Catholics needed to hear! That is why many of today’s Catholics do not exercise the right to practice, or agree with, what their religion actually teaches as regards contraception, sterilization, abortion, homosexuality, and marriage.

It’s time, then, for bishops and their co-workers to exercise their primary duty and actually preach the teaching of the Church to the faithful regarding these marriage and family issues, so that the faithful can indeed begin to recover the Catholic worldview and exercise the tenets of their religion. President Obama has gotten the episcopal ball rolling. He has managed to bring all the bishops together to speak with one voice and remind Catholics that, notwithstanding freedom of conscience, contraception, sterilization, abortion, and homosexual unions contradict the practical, day-to-day living out of the Catholic faith. But it is not President Obama’s responsibility to keep that ball rolling. It is not his responsibility to teach the Catholic faith to Catholics. Nor is it his responsibility to strip from Catholic theologians who obstinately persist in their errors the faculties to teach at Catholic schools. Nor is it his responsibility to discipline the clergy that lead the faithful into moral error. That responsibility ultimately lies with bishops. It’s up to them to keep their own ball rolling.

Now, in their opposition to the HHS mandate, the bishops are arguing that it constitutes a violation of religious freedom. But let us understand exactly why this is so. The mandate constitutes a violation of religious freedom, inasmuch as the Catholic religion does not and cannot condone activities and procedures that violate the natural law, or that would have man change God’s score. Put another way, the mandate indirectly violates religious freedom because it directly violates God’s score, which the Catholic Church officially strives to uphold and defend.

After all, it makes no sense for any religion, much less the true religion, to promote union with God and peace to men of good will while at the same time remain indifferent to whether a man honors and respects God’s work of creation and His plan for marriage and family. For if “a man who loves iniquity hates his own soul”, no religion — especially the true religion — can countenance iniquity and claim to have the best interests of men at heart.

Now, given Church’s refusal to bless the world’s desire to alter God’s score and permit abortion, sterilization, contraception, same-sex marriage, and God knows what else, she is very much like the Publican in today’s gospel: despised and hated by the world. And given the poor state of catechesis in most dioceses around the world, and the relative silence over the last 44 years regarding these issues, it would be naive of me to suppose that no one here harbors a similar contempt towards the Church on account of her refusal to “get along”, or that no one here has refused to accept in his own daily life the Church’s teaching on marriage and procreation. Yet, like the Publican, the Church’s worldview truly makes her humble before God. It is the world, permeated as it is with its atheistic worldview, that is filled with demonic pride. But unlike the devil, who can never repent and be converted, any Catholic, no matter how greatly he has sinned, can with the help of divine grace, repent of his sins. He need only humble himself, be sorry for his sins and confess them to a priest. If he does this, he will receive absolution from his sins and be reconciled to almighty God and, like the Publican, come away justified. For as we can infer from today’s collect, God prefers to manifest His omnipotence by exercising mercy on the humble penitent, than by executing justice and punishing the proud, unrepentant sinner who refuses to serve Him.

May we all learn to follow God’s score and make beautiful music with our lives, acknowledging that God’s creation is the work of His hands. May we always seek to abase ourselves before our Creator and Lord, that we may truly be able to say in the power of the Holy Spirit, “Jesus is Lord”.

[1] Milton, Paradise Lost, Bk. 5.

[2] Ps. 99:3.

[3] L’Osservatore Romano, English edition, July 6, 1987.

Ordination of Women and the Spirit of Revolution

2012-07-15T16:54:00.000-05:00

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheeps’ clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves:

by their fruits you will know them.

Dominica Septima post Pentecosten

15 July 2012

Epistle: Rom. 6:19-23

Gospel: Matt. 7:15-21

When He was about to ascend to Heaven, Our Blessed Lord commanded His disciples to go throughout the world, teaching all nations and baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. This commission to evangelize the world is implied in today’s introit, wherein all the nations are exhorted to clap their hands and shout for joy to God in a voice of exultation. We should not, however, take this psalm text to mean that the world is in no way hostile to the message of the Gospel. Indeed, a watershed moment in history that demonstrates that hostility occurred two hundred twenty-three years ago yesterday in France in what is known as the French Revolution, the spirit of which still animates the world today.

Ever since 1880, France has celebrated every 14th of July its “Fête Nationale”, also known as Bastille Day. This national holiday, officially commemorates the huge celebration that took place in 1790 on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. When this anniversary, known as the Fête de la Federation, was actually celebrated, many viewed it as the conclusion of the Revolution. History had other plans, however. Less than three years later, on January 21st, 1793, King Louis XVI was beheaded.

In his Last Will and Testament, the King included what may be described as a profession of faith or oath of fidelity:

“I die in communion with our Holy Mother, the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church, which holds authority by an uninterrupted succession, from St. Peter, to whom Jesus Christ entrusted it; I believe firmly and I confess all that is contained in the creed and the commandments of God and the Church, the sacraments and the mysteries, those which the Catholic Church teaches and has always taught. . . .”

According to the memoirs of his chaplain, when the King mounted the scaffold, he said in a very loud voice these memorable words: “I die innocent of all the crimes laid to my charge; I pardon those who have occasioned my death; and I pray to God that the blood you are going to shed may never be visited on France.” Well, God had other plans: nine months later, during the Reign of Terror, the king’s wife, Queen Marie Antoinette, followed him to the guillotine, along with some 40,000 other victims — including one of my own great uncles, l’Abbe Pierre Fromageot. And so, in the name of Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality, unparalleled butchery descended upon the eldest daughter of the Church.

Today, the ideas that once enkindled the fires of revolution in France (particularly those of untrammeled liberty and radical equality) continue to drive those who are determined to transform the world either into a socialist paradise, or else into an amoral libertarian state of anarchy. Nor is the Church immune from agitators, who seek to subvert the divinely revealed Deposit of Faith, so that it may conform to their own misunderstanding of equality and freedom. For this reason, we ought to take particular heed of Our Lord’s dire warning about false prophets. This warning comes towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount, right after his description of the path to life. “Enter by the narrow gate,” Our Lord exhorts us, “for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” And just because someone professes to be Catholic, crying out “Lord, Lord”, it does not follow that He will enter the kingdom of heaven. In order to enter the kingdom of heaven, one must submit to the will of God as regards what He has revealed to us to be believed and to be done.

Every era has its share of false prophets who seek to entice the faithful to abandon the narrow path that leads to eternal life. Ours is no exception. Plenty of false prophets today would have us embrace a false notion of freedom. In our day, freedom means complete autonomy from the restrictions imposed by external authority, or even from the internal authority of natural law. Nowadays, such irksome restrictions, including man’s own nature, are often ignored or denied. As a result, it is left to the human faculty of choice to decide the moral rectitude of this or that action. In short, the complete autonomy of every man is said to extend to his own nature: to define who he is and what he ought to do.

What, then, happens, when the false prophets of such freedom attempt to redefine the Catholic faith according to what they believe it should be? What eventually happens is that the Magisterium of the Church, at one level or another, passes judgment and thus guards the Deposit of Faith from such attacks.

Take, for instance, the squabble taking place in the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia. Last May, as part of an effort to take full advantage of the approaching Year of Faith announced by Pope Benedict XVI, Bishop Loverde expressed his desire to reinvigorate the catechetical programs of his diocese. Included in this reinvigoration was a new diocesan policy, which stipulates that “every catechist … publicly make an annual Profession of Faith”, or what may be called an oath of fidelity. Such public professions of faith, the bishop explains, represent “a further sign of our catechists’ commitment to teach in communion with Christ and His Church.” Well, it turns out that this new diocesan policy did not sit well with some of catechists of the diocese. Last Friday, Dr. Rosemarie Zagarri, a history professor at George Mason University, and a fifth grade catechist in Arlington, VA, wrote a letter to Bishop Loverde, the chief catechist of the diocese, asking him to reconsider this new policy. Although Dr. Zagarri claims to “fully understand the authoritative role of the Catholic hierarchy in defining the teachings of the faith,” in her view, “only a person who is willing to abandon her own reason and judgment, or who is willing to go against the dictates of her own conscience, can agree to sign” an oath of fidelity. One of her arguments is that such oath-taking expresses “mistrust” on the part of the bishop “either in [her] sincerity in transmitting the faith or in [her] capacity to convey the tenets of our faith authentically.” She does not consider what King Louis XVI took for granted; namely, that her willingness to take such an oath publicly is meant to be an expression of her desire to submit to what the Church believes.

Essentially, Dr. Zagarri is contending that those who exercise the Magisterium of the Church have no right to bind and form the consciences of the faithful as regards what they are to hold definitively as belonging to the Catholic Faith. On the contrary, the freedom of conscience must enjoy autonomy from such authority. Otherwise, it cannot truly be free. Thus, an autonomous conscience, not the divinely imparted and protected teaching authority of the Church, is to be the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes the Church’s deposit of faith.

At bottom, Dr. Zagarri’s refusal to take the oath of fidelity to the Church’s Magisterium manifests an appalling lack of docility towards the Church’s teaching authority, which is precisely what the submission to oaths of fidelity is meant to express. It matters little that Our Lord and Savior Himself imparted His own authority to the Apostles and to their successors, such that He who hears the Church hears Christ. It matters little to her that the Church’s Magisterium is charged with guarding the Deposit of Faith, so that it may be handed down intact from one generation to the next, even as the articulation of the same doctrines take on greater precision.

Now, judging from her letter, it’s obvious that Dr. Zagarri takes issue with at least some of the doctrines taught by the Magisterium of the Church. That she fails to specify those doctrines is understandable: had she done so, she would most likely have been summarily dismissed from her catechetical post. Nevertheless, it would be safe to assume that she takes issue with the usual set of doctrines that oppose modern notions of freedom and equality. Chief among them would be the Church’s teaching on the ordination of women to the priesthood of Jesus Christ. If that is the case, she joins the ranks of those for whom the historical fact that “Priestly ordination … has in the Catholic Church from the beginning always been reserved to men alone” makes little difference. And even though “the teaching that priestly ordination is to be reserved to men alone has been preserved by the constant and universal Tradition of the Church and firmly taught by the Magisterium in its more recent documents”,such malcontents remain unyielding in their dissent. They refuse to respect or accept the completely free and sovereign manner in which Christ acted when He chose only men as His Apostles. Finally, when the Church speaks authoritatively, decisively, and infallibly on the matter, they refuse to submit to the voice of Christ. Thus, the following judgment made by Pope Blessed John Paul II in May 1994, is waved aside:

“Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church’s divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”

In short, the Church has no authority to change what Christ established to be what theologians call the “matter” of the sacrament of order (men), just as it cannot use something other than water for baptism, bread and wine for the Holy Eucharist, and one man and one woman for the sacrament of holy matrimony.

Accordingly, anyone who advocates or agitates for the ordination of women may certainly be held to be a heretic, a false prophet who would lead others astray in the name of freedom and equality. Zagarri may or not be one of these, but she should not be engaged in catechesis if she objects to making a basic profession of faith.

It should be noted that the catalyst for the 1994 judgment was the Vatican's acquiescence to the novel practice of using female altar servers and the confusion that decision caused:. Women could now serve priests. Could they one day hope to become priests? John Paul definitively answered that question in the negative. This Arlington flap will most likely not elicit a similar official response from the local bishop or from the Pope. But it does serve as a reminder that some Catholics have difficulty with the magisterial authority of their Church.

In one of his sermons, Pope Benedict XVI points to the foundation of true human freedom when he cites the words St. Peter uttered before the supreme religious authorities of Israel: “We must obey God rather than men.” A Catholic who rejects the divinely sanctioned authority of the Church to guard the Deposit of Faith will never enjoy true freedom. A Catholic who strives to redefine the Deposit of Faith to suit her own ideas has lost the Faith. May we always follow the example of King Louis XVI who, though imprisoned and eventually murdered, enjoyed true freedom in the profession of His faith and submission to the authority of the Catholic Church.

Trinity Sunday 2012

2012-06-19T14:39:00.001-05:00

…teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Trinity Sunday

3 June 2012

We are accustomed, I think, to regard every Mass and every liturgical celebration as being directed to God the Father through Christ in the unity of the Holy Spirit. After all, the Roman Canon begins with, Te igitur, clementissime Pater, per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, and many collects are directed to God the Father, through Jesus Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. And yet, these three divine Persons are not three gods, but the one and only God. Nor is any divine Person subordinate to any other. On the contrary, all are inseparable in being, all equal in dignity. Thus, even though the way we speak appears to separate the Persons of the Trinity from each other and subordinate one to another, the threefold Unity in Trinity which is God forces us to acknowledge with Dom Guéranger, that

[e]very homage paid to God by the Church’s liturgy has the holy Trinity as its object. Time, as well as eternity, belongs to the Trinity. The Trinity is the scope of all religion. Every day, every hour, belongs to It. The feasts instituted in memory of the mysteries of our redemption center in It. The feast of the blessed Virgin and the saints are but so many means for leading us to the praise of the God who is One in essence, and Three in Persons.[1]

Accordingly, to keep the limitations of human language from producing in the minds of the faithful a false or heretical understanding of the Godhead, the Usus antiquior of the Roman rite wisely gives expression in various ways to the truth that all worship is directed to the Triune God, the Blessed Trinity. In keeping with today’s feast, allow me to give you not one, but three examples of this. As you may recall, during the Offertory, after praying to each of the three divine Persons, the celebrant then beseeches the Holy Trinity to accept the oblation being offered to It in memory of the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ. And towards the end of the Mass, just before imparting the final blessing, the celebrant again prays to the Blessed Trinity, asking that the devotion and docility of his service may be pleasing to It, that the Sacrifice of the Mass which he has offered may be found acceptable, and that it may obtain forgiveness for him and for those for whom he has offered it. And then there is today’s preface. Not surprisingly it directs us to the mystery of the Holy Trinity, succinctly encapsulating the perennial teaching of the Church; namely, that God is One, not in the singularity of one Person, but in the Trinity of one Substance. All three divine Persons are equally God without difference or discrimination, such that in confessing the true and everlasting Godhead, we adore distinction in Persons, unity in Essence, and equality in majesty. In the Usus antiquior, this pithy instruction on the Trinity is presented to us not just on Trinity Sunday, but on most of the Sundays after Pentecost — the liturgical time that corresponds perfectly with the historical present, when the Church continues to carry out the mission which Christ entrusted to her in the power of the Holy Ghost, whereby the Father draws all those who believe to Himself. In doing so, we are reminded of the ultimate reason why we should be interested in loving Christ and keeping His commandments, especially the one that bids us to love one another.

It so happens that the Ordinary Form, for reasons known only to liturgists, lacks the abovementioned prayers, restricts the use of the preface of the Holy Trinity to today’s feast, and omits the doxologies found in the Usus antiquior. As a result, I would not be surprised if many Catholics these days labor under the false impression that some sort of inequality or subordination exists among the Divine Persons. Be that as it may, the Ordinary Form would doubtless be greatly enriched if those prayers which, so to speak, keep the Trinity of Persons together were incorporated into it, and if the Preface of the Holy Trinity were used for the Sundays after Pentecost. But I digress…

Since every Mass is directed to the Holy Trinity, it took a while for the idea of a special feast in honor of the Blessed Trinity to catch on. In the eighth century, the monk Alcuin composed a votive Mass in honor of the Trinity. However, the man who did the most to promote today’s feast was St. Thomas à Becket. On this very day in 1162, which was also the First Sunday after Pentecost, Thomas was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury. Soon afterwards, he decreed that, in memory of his consecration, a feast in honor of the Trinity be celebrated on this Sunday throughout the land. Some two centuries later, in 1347, Pope John XXII extended this feast to the entire Western Church. Following the lead of the martyred archbishop of Canterbury, he too placed it on the first Sunday after Pentecost. That such a feast be celebrated right after Pentecost is far from arbitrary. For Pentecost Sunday commemorates the descent of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles, which was necessary if they were to carry out their mission to spread the Good News, of teaching all nations, and baptizing men in the Name of the holy Trinity.

As much as could be said about how there arises in the Godhead this distinction in Persons, it can be reduced to God’s eternal act of knowing and loving Himself. In knowing and understanding His own divine essence, God generates a perfect Image, a perfect Word or Idea of Himself within Himself. This perfect mirror Image or Idea of God is so perfect as to be God Himself. This intellectual generation is implied in the opening words of the Gospel according to St. John, which we hear at the end of every Mass: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Similarly, when God loves Himself, there proceeds from Him what Scriptures call the Holy Spirit. Just as God’s understanding of Himself generates within Himself a divine Idea or Word of Himself, so too, in loving Himself, there arises in God the presence of Himself as the Object of His love, which Presence, as an impetuous Force, as an irresistible Sigh, as subsisting Divine Love, drives Him towards His own infinite loveliness.

Now, perhaps some of you are asking yourselves, does this mystery of our faith really matter? What difference does it (or should it) make in my life that there are three divine Persons subsisting in the undivided unity of the Trinity? All one has to do to answer that question is to look at how other people have interacted with their various gods. Among the ancient pagans, the endless myths about the gods reflected and justified the sin and violence found on earth. The best you could hope for is to become another god, a practitioner of sacred sin and violence. That’s a lot different from the idea that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever should believe in Him may not perish but may have everlasting life”;[2] or that the Son of God became man to die for our sins and show us what divine love looked like; or that the Son of God was born of a woman so that we could be born of the Holy Ghost and drawn to the Father so as to be immersed in that inner life of Being Itself! If this is our destiny — indeed, if we are made partakers of the divine nature here and now — how foolish the man who goes through life observing only the outward forms of the true religion, with no desire to be united to and immersed in the Object of these outward forms; with no desire himself to know and love God with his whole heart, and with his whole soul, and with his whole mind, and with his whole strength, and his neighbor as someone called to the same eternal destiny as himself! That’s right: if God did not so love us as to desire to share His life with us, it would be pointless to act with the supernatural motive of charity, seeking first the kingdom of heaven, asking God to forgive us our own sins, according to the measure that we forgive those who sin against us. The more we think we can afford to treat God with indifference, the less we have a reason to complain when we discover ourselves living in a Hobbesian world, where every man is in a constant state of war with every other man, and where the life of every man is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”.[3]

In sum, then, let us always believe in the divine Trinity and the threefold Unity, taking care that no one seduces us from the faith and truth of the Catholic Church, that we may be able to lay hold of the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of the flesh and life everlasting through the one, true, and holy Catholic Church, in which we learn of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God, to whom is honor and glory forever and ever.

[1] Abbot Guéranger, OSB, The Liturgical Year, Vol. X, Bk. 1, 90.

[2] Jn. 3:16.

[3] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 13, ¶9.

The Roman Coliseum: a Microcosm of the World

2012-04-28T22:39:00.000-05:00

Amen, amen, I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice;

and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.

Third Sunday after Easter

29 April 2012

When we hear these words of our Lord, spoken to His disciples at the Last Supper, we understand their primary meaning. We understand that the Passion and Death of Christ will lead His disciples to lament and weep, and that His Resurrection will turn their sorrow into joy. We understand that the “world” — that is, those who wanted to see Christ suffer and die — rejoiced when they saw their wish fulfilled. And yet, Christ died to reconcile the world to Himself; to bring about the conversion of the world; to provide the Way for people to escape the degradation and darkness of sin and restore to them their original dignity. Perhaps this is why Our Lord does not say that the joy of the world will turn into lamentation and sorrow.

St. John likens the Jews who sought the death to the “world”. That’s because these Jews, in rejecting Christ and seeing to the death of the Son of God, represented at that moment the entire world. After all, the entire human race was estranged from God because everyone incurs the guilt of Adam’s sin and thus is born outside of the state of grace.

Now, the Roman Empire, the world into which Christ was born, the world in which the early Christians lived, was at that time wallowing in depravity. Shortly before the birth of Christ the Roman historian Livy, in the preface to his massive history of Rome, advised his reader with these words:

"I would …have him trace the process of our moral decline, to watch first the sinking of the foundations of morality as the old teaching was allowed to lapse, then the final collapse of the whole edifice, and the dark dawning of our modern day when we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them."

During the first 250 years of Christianity the mores of Roman society became particularly depraved. Here are some of the main reasons why. First, the widespread unemployment of the plebian class. This unemployment was caused by the introduction of cheap slave labor.

The plebs, then, became dependent on hand-outs from the State. In a short time, thousands of Romans chose simply to live on subsidies. They sacrificed a higher standard of living in order to live an easy, boring, and idle life. Well, as we see ourselves in our own society, when a large segment of the population is idle and bored, they become restless. And if not addressed, this restlessness leads to civil unrest. What, then, did the Roman authorities do to mitigate and minimize civil unrest, as well as bolster their own popularity? Why, they provided the masses, together with every other segment of society, with truly spectacular entertainment. In Rome, the most famous entertainment center was the Flavian Amphitheatre, more commonly known today as the Roman Coliseum.

Constructed over the course of a decade, the Coliseum was a perfect microcosm of the Roman Empire. Covered in Travertine marble, it was a truly grand edifice. And if today, in its dilapidated condition, the Coliseum can still manage to evoke a sense of grandeur, stability, order, and power in those who behold it, how much more would the awestruck onlooker have felt these things when he saw it in all its glory!

Likewise, until around A.D. 180, the Roman Empire would have given to every onlooker the appearance of grandeur, stability, order, and power — what Edward Gibbons called the Pax Romana.
During this time, the empire boasted a unified legal system; the Roman legions methodically and successfully patrolled the Empire’s borders, and the internal empire was free from major invasion, piracy, or social disorder on any grand scale.

But behind this façade of stability and peace lay an abyss of bloodlust and debauchery, pain and degradation — all of which was on full display within the walls of the Coliseum for almost 400 years. In A.D. 80, when this magnificent product of Roman engineering was first opened to the public, the opening ceremony is said to have lasted 100 days, during which at least 5000, and as many as 11000 wild animals were killed. Over the years, tens of thousands of gladiators were killed — all in the name of entertainment.

And in between the animal and gladiatorial bloodshed, there would be other shows run by, among others, local brothels. These were the Coliseum’s equivalent of a modern television commercial — only leaving nothing to the imagination. According to one author, the owners of said brothels would often urge the lights around the Coliseum’s arena be dimmed. Then, with the aid of visual special effects like smoke and mist, the prostitutes’ “skills” would be showcased for all to enjoy.

Many of the spectacles in the Coliseum also had a religious component to them. The religions of Rome, however, did not provide meaning to human existence. At best, they offered a utilitarian system of quid pro quo. Gods were capricious entities that needed to be appeased. If you wanted something from them, you had to perform the correct rite, offer the correct sacrifice. At worst, they reflected and sanctioned the violence and debauchery that permeated the everyday lives of millions. And thus, it should come as no surprise to anyone, that in a society where the value of life was cheap, the purpose of life unknown, and the gods largely indifferent to human affairs, a sense of hopelessness and despair pervaded society.

What made everything so much worse was that people didn’t hate being part of so much depravity. On the contrary, they could not get enough of it. Watching, and even causing the sufferings of others gave them a sadistic pleasure and joy. And that pleasure was addicting. St. Augustine tells the story of how his friend Alypius, while in Rome, had become “carried away” by the gladiatorial shows:

"For although he had been utterly opposed to such spectacles and detested them, one day he met by chance a company of his acquaintances and fellow-students returning from dinner; and, with a friendly violence they drew him, vehemently refusing and resisting, into the Amphitheatre, during these cruel and deadly shows. He protested to them 'Though you drag my body to that place, and set me down there, you cannot force me to give my mind or lend my eyes to these shows. I shall then be absent while present, and so shall overcome both you and them.' When they heard this, they dragged him on in, probably interested to see whether he could do as he said. When they arrived at the Amphitheatre, and had taken what seats they could, the whole place became a tumult of inhuman frenzy. But Alypius kept his eyes closed and forbade his mind to roam abroad after such evils. And would that he had shut his ears also! For when one of the combatants fell in the fight, a mighty cry from the all the spectators stirred him so strongly that, overcome by curiosity, and still prepared (as he thought) to despise and be superior to it no matter what it was, even when seen, he opened his eyes, and was struck with a deeper wound in his soul than the victim whom he desired to behold, had been in his body. Thus he fell more miserably than the one whose fall had raised that mighty clamor, which had entered through his ears, and unlocked his eyes, to make way for the wounding and beating down of his soul, which was more audacious than truly valiant—and weaker too, in that it had presumed on its own strength which ought to have relied on Thee. For, as soon as he saw the blood, he drank in with it a savageness. Nor did he turn away, but fixed his eyes on the bloody pastime, unwittingly drinking in the madness—delighted with the wicked contest and drunk with blood lust. Nor was he now the man he came, but one of the mob he came into, a true companion of those who had brought him there.… He beheld, he shouted, he was kindled, and he carried away with him the madness that would goad him to return, not only with those who first enticed him to come, but even without them; indeed, dragging in others besides."

This was the world in which the early Christians lived, and which, through those early Christians, the love of God entered. This was the arena of violence and bloodshed into which the soldiers of God entered and bore witness to the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

As the Church describes them in one of her hymns, these were the men and women whom the world in its folly rejected; followers of Christ who despised the world that blooms only to whither; who reckoned the pleasures of the world and its enticing allurements to be as joyless and bitter as gall; who bravely passed through tortures and endured them manfully; triumphed over men’s rage and savage threats and cruel scourgings. The hook that fiercely tore them to bits effected nothing and left them, their spirit unconquered. They were cut down by the sword like animals for a sacrifice. No sound, no complaint passed their lips. Instead, their souls, dauntless and sure of its cause, kept their endurance firm and unshaken. They shed their blood for Christ and so obtained their eternal reward. And, within three centuries, they saved the Roman Empire from itself and brought it under the rule of Christ.

My friends, for many reasons our country may be called the greatest country that history has ever seen. Our system of government appears to provide a certain unity and order.

Our military is the powerful the world has ever seen. Our navy methodically patrols the seven seas and projects our political will the world over.

Since the War of 1812, we have not suffered a major invasion from any foreign power, nor seen social disorder on a grand scale since perhaps the Civil War. Nevertheless, the moral corruption, the degradation and despair that beset the Roman Empire and contributed to its dissolution, can also be seen at work in this country, as well as in many others. Perhaps we may be more discreet in flaunting our debauchery than Roman society once was, but our world is fast becoming as hostile to Christ as the Romans once were, even as it seeks to surpass the filth and dissipation of that ancient Empire — and all in the name of liberty.

But like our ancestors in the faith, we cannot expect to halt the descent into chaos and depravity (and win the world for Christ) unless, considering ourselves as strangers and pilgrims in this world, we abstain from those “carnal desires that war against the soul.” For only in this way will be able to make effective use of us to convey the light of His truth to our secular neighbors, who have gone astray. As today’s collect reminds us, it is only by rejecting all that is opposed to the Christian way of life and following after the things that befit it will we be able to attract those who have gone astray, so that they may return to the path of justice.

Our coliseums may not be sites of bloodshed and gore, or of sexual perversion on the scale seen in the Roman Coliseum, and throughout the Roman Empire. But our social media, especially the Internet, provide us with plenty of sites — websites — that will entangle us and trap us — and render us virtually useless in bringing about the transformation of today’s world. In short, we must be prepared to take our faith very seriously and put the power of God and the example of Christ into practice in our own daily lives: in the way we treat one another, and in the way we respond to the assaults of the world. For our mission is the same for which Christ came into the world: We seek to reconcile the world to Christ; to let people know by how we live, by all that we do and say, that there is a God, who loves us more than we can ever ask or imagine. And so, when we experience the hatred and rejection of the world, let us remember that the world first hated Christ our Head; that the world is blinded by its own depravity. And above all, let us pray for the grace of perseverance, that we may always remain united to Christ by embracing in faith what He has revealed to us and following His example in the conviction and strength of the Holy Ghost, so that even in the midst of weeping and lamentation, we may always share in the joy of His resurrection.

Judica me Deus et discerne causam meam: Sharing in the Cause of Christ

2012-03-26T16:38:00.000-05:00

Judica me, Deus, et discerne causam meam de gente non sancta. –– Introit, Ps. 42:1
Passion Sunday, 25 March 2012

George Clooney is not only an actor; he is also an activist. He devotes a lot of his energies to a cause; namely, the plight of the good people of Sudan.

Now, the greater the good sought, the greater the cause. Accordingly, the greatest cause is that which Our Lord and Savior pursued to gain for us the remission of sin and the reward of eternal life. This cause of Our Lord, moreover, was more than just a passing concern of His. It is the very reason why He assumed a human nature in the first place! Even the name He adopts, the Holy Name, gives us to understand that He identifies Himself completely with His cause. Recall the words of the angel of the Lord to Joseph: “And she shall bring forth a son: and thou shalt call his name JESUS. For he shall save his people from their sins.”1

As we know, this mission, this cause of Our Lord, required, in accordance with divine Providence, that He be rejected by His own people. As St. John puts it: “he came unto his own, and his own received him not.”2 Indeed, always in keeping with divine Providence, this cause of Our Lord required that He should suffer and be put to death. Our Lord Himself says as much to Nicodemus when He assures him that, “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish; but may have life everlasting. For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him.”3 And elsewhere Christ tells us, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself.”4 And lest anyone should not understand what it means to be “lifted up”, St. John adds that these words of Our Lord are to be understood as “signifying what death he should die.”5

Now, this cause of Christ, the salvation of souls, does not belong solely to Him. It belongs to us as well, in accordance with our state in life. For recall what Our Savior says to His disciples: “Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you.”6 If we have been baptized into Christ, we cannot opt out. We must always be willing to confess Christ. Compromise is not an option. Again, Our Lord declares to us: “Everyone … that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven.” To love Jesus is to love the reason for which came into this world. To love Jesus without embracing His cause is impossible: Christ demands that we choose Him (and therefore His cause) above all else: “He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me.”7

Now, if we think that we can take up the cause of Christ without sharing in the sufferings of Christ, we confuse the peace of Christ with that of this world. For Our Lord warns us: “Do not think that I came to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household.”8 “They will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. And you shall be brought before governors, and before kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles… Brother also shall deliver up brother to death, and the father the son: and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall put them to death. And you shall be hated by all men for my name’s sake: but (he) that shall persevere unto the end shall be saved.”9

Given the cost of discipleship, we should not be surprised that many Christians in every generation since the time of Christ are unwilling to pay the price, are unwilling to persevere unto the end. In fact, the entire letter to the Hebrews is meant to encourage the Jewish converts of the early Church. When they converted, they experienced many of the sufferings spoken of by Christ: disinheritance, excommunication, persecution, even death. Naturally, they were tempted with renouncing Christ so as to be able to return to the “normal life” they had previously enjoyed. How fitting it is, then, that we read a small portion of that letter at this Mass, when we turn our attention to the Passion and Death of Our Lord and Savior.

Now, to be willing to suffer for Christ and continue to persevere requires the power of divine love operating within us. Remember that the Apostles, notwithstanding their earlier protestations of fidelity, all fled the scene when they realized that Christ willingly gave Himself over to His enemies. They had not as yet received the gift of the Holy Ghost. And even after one has received such a gift, he remains free to abandon Christ. Over the ages, plenty of bishops have displayed more zeal in gaining the approval of the elites of this world than in defending the faith. And in times of crisis, not a few precious princes of the Church, whose vermilion garb is meant to convey their willingness to shed their blood for Christ, have been known rather to yield to the whirling winds of the zeitgeist than stand their ground and suffer –– God forbid! –– the smug reproaches of a hostile press. In our own day, an activist lesbian Buddhist, who presumes to be the arbiter of how the sacraments are to be dispensed in the Catholic Church, obtains an immediate apology because she was denied Holy Communion, while the priest who refused to “give to dogs what is holy”10 is just as quickly removed from pastoral work. Such a scandal exemplifies why the road to hell is said to be paved with the skulls of bishops.

When Catholics no longer dedicate themselves to the cause of Christ; when being nice to one another, avoiding confrontation, and making everyone feel comfortable become the defining criteria for what it means to be a good Catholic, those looking to live for a cause worth dying for will most likely look elsewhere. And make no mistake about it: other causes do exist that demand a great deal of sacrifice from those who would champion them. Radical Islam is one such cause; communism another. Needless to say, the misplaced and often inordinate dedication one finds in such causes hostile to Christ does not have God for its object. Nevertheless, however misplaced and inordinate, the dedication of these adversaries does us the favor of warning us that if we become decadent and pusillanimous in pursuing the Cause of Christ, we will lack the resolve needed to meet and rebuff the challenges of such determined foes.

Consider, then, the following story of a man who was both a communist and a fiancé. When he realized that he could not persuade his fiancée to become a communist herself, he called off the engagement. In his “Dear Jane” letter, the man explains that his decision is rooted in his dedication to the communist cause. Here is what he writes: “We communists have a high casualty rate. We are the ones who get shot and hung and ridiculed and fired from our jobs, and in every other way made as uncomfortable as possible. A certain percentage of us gets killed or imprisoned. We live in virtual poverty. We turn back to the party every penny we make above what is absolutely necessary to keep us alive. We communists do not have the time or the money for many movies or concerts or T-bone steaks or decent homes or new cars. We have been described as fanatics. We are fanatics. Our lives are dominated by one overshadowing factor: the struggle for world communism. We communists have a philosophy of life which no amount of money can buy. We have a cause to fight for, a definite purpose in life. We subordinate our petty personal selves into a great movement of humanity. And if our personal lives seem hard, or our egos appear to suffer through subordination to the party, then we are adequately compensated by the thought that each of us in his small way is contributing to something new and true and better for mankind. There is one thing which I am in dead earnest about: and that is the communist cause. It is my life, my business, my religion, my hobby, my sweetheart, my wife, my mistress, my bread and meat. I work at it in the daytime and dream of it at night. Its hold on me grows, not lessens, as time goes on. Therefore I cannot carry on a friendship, a love affair, or even a conversation without relating it to this force which both drives and guides my life. I evaluate people, looks, ideas, and actions according to how they affect the communist cause and by their attitude towards it. I’ve already been in jail because of my ideals, and if necessary I am ready to go before a firing squad.”

When a priest prepares to offer the Body and Blood of Our Lord to God in an unbloody manner, he unites his zeal to the zeal with which Christ offered Himself to the Father on Calvary to accomplish His mission and fulfill the cause for which He was sent into the world. How fitting it is, then, that the priest should refer to this greatest of causes, and ask God to distinguish what he is about to do from the deeds of a profane people. And when this sacrifice is offered to God, we all turn ad orientem towards the Lord. In so doing, we give physical expression to the Gospel truth that, if we wish to possess eternal life, if we wish truly to love ourselves, then we must first love the Lord our God with our whole heart, and with our whole soul, and with all our strength, and with all our mind.11 But after the Sacrifice has been sent; after we have received our spiritual nourishment and been assimilated to Christ crucified, we too are sent forth to live and spread the Gospel. What can this mean but that we are to go forth to love our neighbor as ourselves, just as Christ loved us unto death?

Judica me, Deus, et discerne causam meam de gente non sancta. Every time we hear these words, let us remember that whatever causes we champion in this life, however noble or worthy, let us always subordinate them to the great Cause of Christ. For we cannot love the Lord without embracing and participating first and foremost in His great Cause of reconciling the world to Himself.

1. Mt. 1:21.
2. Jn. 1:11.
3. Jn. 3:14-17.
4. Jn. 12:32.
5. Jn. 12:33.
6. Jn. 20:21.
7. Mt. 10:37-38.
8. Mt. 10:34-36.
9. Mt. 10:16-18, 21-22.
10. Thomas Aquinas, from the Lauda Sion (Sequence for Feast of Corpus Christi).
11. Lk. 10:27.

Feast of Corpus Christi: Revisiting the Upper Room with the Help of Leonardo Da Vinci

2010-06-05T21:38:00.004-05:00

For as often as you shall eat this bread and drink the chalice,

you shall proclaim the death of the Lord, until he come.

External Solemnity of Corpus Christi

6 June 2010

Epistle: 1 Cor. 11:23-29

Gospel: Jn. 6:56-59

Were ours a Catholic society, we would have celebrated the Feast of Corpus Christi last Thursday with all the solemnity and splendor that we now accord this beautiful feast. I mention this fact that we may all be reminded of the connection we should draw between the Feast of Corpus Christi and Maundy Thursday. For both days would have us return to the Upper Room to commemorate the institution of the Holy Eucharist. And yet, the approach we take today is somewhat different from that of Maundy Thursday. On Maundy Thursday, we went to the Upper Room to accompany Christ and His Disciples through the Passion and Death of Our Lord. For that reason, the joy expressed on Maundy Thursday is mixed with somberness and sorrow. The Gloria is sung, but afterwards the organ falls silent, the bells are replaced by clappers, and the altar is stripped of its festive adornments and usual appointments. The sobriety and somberness of the Passion fill our hearts, leaving little room for joy. Today, however, having passed through the sorrows of Our Lord’s Passion, as well as the joys of His Resurrection, we now revisit the Upper Room. Our purpose is twofold: First, to ponder devoutly the Holy Eucharist, that wondrous gift of Himself that Christ imparted and entrusted to His Bride, the Church; second, to give free rein to our joy and gratitude for this gift of the Holy Eucharist, going so far as to give public veneration to Our Lord contained in the Blessed Sacrament.

Let us, then, return to the Upper Room. And today, I propose to do so by way of a special place in Milan, Italy that received the attentions of an exceedingly brilliant man, one of the greatest painters of all time. The place to which I refer is the Dominican Convent of Our Lady of Grace. And the genius who left his mark there was none other than Leonardo Da Vinci.

Between the years 1495 and 1497, during a particularly fruitful period of construction, Leonardo managed to transform the north wall of the refectory of this convent from an ordinary wall into an extension of space through which the Dominican friars could gaze into the Upper Room and contemplate the scene of the Last Supper as they enjoyed their meals in the twilight of the day. Notwithstanding the fanciful attempts of certain contemporary persons to discover in Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper some cryptic message of scandalous import, the symbolism contained in this magnificent work of art serves only to give expression to the Catholic theology of the Mass. And so, with our mind’s eye, let us place ourselves in this famous refectory. And, in imitation of those Dominican monks who could enjoy it in all of its original splendor, let us likewise gaze upon Da Vinci’s exquisite Last Supper adorning the north wall.

As we take in the 15 × 29-foot mural as a whole, we would do well to ask ourselves the following question: What is the precise moment that Leonardo has captured with his brush? Is it the moment of consecration? No, it is not. It is the moment immediately following our Lord’s disturbing prophecy regarding his imminent betrayal. “Amen, Amen, I say to you; one of you shall betray me.” Leonardo has depicted the disciples’ reactions to Our Lord’s frightening prophecy, subtly capturing their distinct personalities. As for Judas Iscariot, he appears stunned: his secret scheming has not escaped the notice of the all-knowing Word of God.

Now, at first glance, it should seem very odd to us that Da Vinci has chosen this dramatic moment of Our Lord’s revelation of His own betrayal and not the far more important moment of the consecration, when Christ instituted the sacraments of both the Holy Eucharist and of Order. Leonardo’s choice, however, simply follows the lead of the Catholic liturgy itself. For on Maundy Thursday, an addition is made to that part of the Canon known as the Communicantes so as to make special reference to that Thursday. And that addition is this: Communi-cantes, et diem sacratissimum celebrantes, quo Dominus noster Jesus Christus pro nobis est traditus, etc. Which means: “In communion with, and with them celebrating the most sacred day on which Our Lord Jesus Christ was betrayed for us”. That a Catholic liturgy would do this makes sense, for it is Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Our Lord that triggers that inexorable series of historical events that brings Christ from the Upper Room to Golgotha, thus linking (at least historically) the Last Supper to the Cross.

As we observe the details of the Last Supper scene a little longer, their significance begins to dawn on us. We begin to realize that, through a variety of means, Leonardo has taken this implicit link which the betrayal of Judas establishes and rendered it explicit in a way that would have been difficult, if not impossible, for the Evangelists themselves to accomplish. Take, for example, the feet of Christ. They are pressed close against one another and are situated just above one of the vertical bands of wood running down the length of the floor. Under normal circumstances, no artist would have had any reason to depict the feet of a seated male figure in this manner. But Leonardo’s purpose is to express the Catholic theology of the Mass. Accordingly, guided by his Catholic faith, Leonardo has so disposed the feet of Christ as to evoke in the mind of the perceptive observer the wood of the Cross to which Our Lord’s feet would soon be fastened, and even suggest the willingness with which the divine Victim was prepared to undergo His Passion and Death, and offer Himself up as the ultimate and perfect Sacrifice for the redemption of the world.

Consider also the disposition of Christ’s hands and arms: they are outstretched, not into the air but towards the elements of the Holy Eucharist. They address those homely species of bread and wine which He, the High Priest of the New Covenant in the order of Melchizedek, will soon consecrate. For Leonardo the Catholic well knew that the Last Supper was also the First Mass.

Finally, by happy coincidence, an extra feature of the refectory helps Leonardo achieve his theological purpose. On the wall opposite the Last Supper one finds a fresco depicting the Crucifixion. And so, if Our Lord were to look up, he would see an image of that Sacrifice, a sacramental representation of which He is about to impart to His Disciples and to His Church.

Even though over 500 years lie between us and Leonardo Da Vinci, we share the same Catholic faith that comes to us from Christ and the Apostles. As Catholics, we should recognize Leonardo Da Vinci’s association of the Last Supper with the Crucifixion and with the Mass as being nothing other than an artistic expression of what the Church has always taught in her magisterial pronouncements, and what she has celebrated in her liturgies. To be sure, this association was at one time more dramatically expressed than it is now. For instance, prior to the reform of Holy Week in the 1950s, the Passions of Matthew, Mark, and Luke began, not with the Agony in the Garden, but with the Last Supper. And when, on Good Friday, the Blessed Sacrament was retrieved from the Altar of Repose, it was not just the deacon and a couple of acolytes who went to retrieve It, but the celebrant himself, together with all the ministers, acolytes, and servers. In this way, Holy Thursday’s procession to the Altar of Repose was recalled, and with it, the Last Supper. And during this Good Friday procession, in order to associate the Holy Eucharist with the Cross that much more powerfully, the choir would sing the Vexilla Regis, the Hymn for Vespers during Passiontide, a veritable panegyric to the noble wood of the Cross.

Even though, in my opinion, the Roman rite we celebrate today, in either of its two forms, fails for the most part to integrate the sacred Triduum as well as it had prior to the 1950s, it nevertheless remains true that the way we worship today continues to reflect what we have always believed; namely, that in the divine Sacrifice carried out during the Mass, the very same Christ who made a bloody sacrifice of Himself once for all upon the Cross is likewise contained and immolated in an unbloody or sacramental manner. And we believe this for two reasons. First, because “Christ our redeemer said that it was truly his own body that He was offering under the form of bread,” and truly his own blood that He was offering under the form of wine: “This is my body; this is my blood”; “My flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink.” For this reason, “there has always been complete conviction in the Church of God that by the force of the words of consecration pronounced over the bread and over the wine, there takes place that wondrous and unique change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood,” while only the appearance of bread and wine remains. Ever since the Fourth Lateran Council, “the holy Catholic Church has most fittingly and properly called this change transubstantiation.”

The second reason we believe is that, in the Last Supper or First Mass, the pattern found in the Book of Exodus is repeated, though in a far superior way. Before God delivered the Israelites from the Egyptians, He provided them with a way both to anticipate their delivery through the celebration of the first Passover meal and for subsequent generations to commemorate and re-present that same delivery. Similarly, at the Last Supper, “after celebrating the old Passover which the whole people of the children of Israel offered in memory of their departure from Egypt”, Christ, the true Lamb of God (of which the Paschal Lamb of the Old Covenant was but an imperfect figure), “instituted a new Passover, namely the offering of Himself”. This same offering Christ commanded His Church likewise to “do in remembrance” of Him “through her priests under the visible signs of bread and wine, in memory of His own Exodus from this world to the Father, when He redeemed us by the shedding of His blood, rescued us from the power of darkness, and transferred us to His kingdom (see Col. 1:3).” For this reason, we Catholics rightly maintain the true faith of the Apostles when we assert, together with St. Paul, that at every Mass, when the Body and Blood of the Lord is made present and becomes our spiritual food, we “proclaim the death of the Lord, until he come.” This same true faith was expressed in the third century by St. Cyprian of Carthage, who declares that the “Passion of Our Lord is the Sacrifice that we offer.” In the fourth century, St. Cyril of Jerusalem handed on this same deposit of faith in his Catechetical Lectures. Commenting on the benefits of the Mass as a propitiation for the sins of both the living and the dead, he writes that “we … offer prayers to Him for those who have fallen asleep, though they be sinners. We do not plait a crown, but offer up Christ who has been sacrificed for our sins; and we thereby propitiate the benevolent God for them as well as for ourselves.” In the early fifth century, St. Augustine bore witness to this same faith in his work Against Faustus the Manichean, where he writes: “In the Psalms these words are sung: ‘A sacrifice of praise will glorify Me, and the path is there, where I will show him My salvation’. Before the coming of Christ, the Flesh and Blood of this sacrifice is promised by victims offered as likenesses thereto; in the Passion of Christ it is rendered in very truth; after Christ’s Ascension it is celebrated by sacramental memorial.” Towards the end of the 6th century, St. Gregory the Great taught the same faith when in his Dialogues he wrote: “This sacrifice alone has the power of saving the soul from eternal death, for it presents to us mystically the death of the only-begotten Son. Though he is now risen from the dead and dies no more, and death has no power over him, yet living in Himself immortal and incorruptible He is again immolated for us in the mystery of the holy Sacrifice.” And in the 13th century, we cannot fail to mention those immortal words of St. Thomas Aquinas: O sacrum convivium, in quo Christus sumitur; recolitur memoriam passionis eius; mens impletur gratia; et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur. “O sacred banquet, in which Christ is consumed, the memory of his passion recalled, the mind filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.” This is the faith that has been handed down through the centuries, reaffirmed at the Council of Trent, and bequeathed to us. This is the Mystery of Faith that we joyfully affirm today.

On this day, then, having revisited the Upper Room and pondered the significance of what took place there, let us thank Our Lord that, unlike the unbelieving Judas, we do believe. Let us also pray that, unlike Judas, we may never betray Our Lord by receiving Holy Communion unworthily, or by rejecting our faith and falling into the sin of apostasy. Let us also pray that those who lack the gift of the true faith may receive it and persevere in it unto eternal life. And after receiving Our Lord today in Holy Communion, let us express our joy and gratitude towards Him by giving public expression to our faith in and devotion towards our Eucharistic Lord.

O Sacrament most Holy, O Sacrament Divine,

all praise and all thanksgiving be every moment thine!

The Holy Eucharist: The Mystery of Faith

2010-06-04T19:28:00.001-05:00

"My flesh is real food; my blood is real drink."

Feast of Corpus Christi
3 June 2010
Epistle: 1 Cor. 11:23-29
Gospel: Jn. 6:56-57

Today’s Feast of Corpus Christi is properly celebrated on Thursday, for today we commemorate the institution of the Holy Eucharist. In this respect, today’s feast is comparable to Maundy Thursday of Holy Week. In many other respects, however, these two liturgical celebrations, even though they focus our attention upon the same event, greatly differ from one another. Holy Thursday celebrates that most holy day as it took place in the life of Our Lord: the day on which He celebrated His Last Supper with His disciples; the day on which Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, betrayed Him to the Jews who sought to kill Him, and in so doing, unwittingly triggered those historical events that brought about our redemption. The Feast of Corpus Christi, on the other hand, celebrates the Mystery of Blessed Sacrament as the Lord’s gift of Himself to His Bride, the Church — His Body, the Corpus Mysticum.

Now while the Catholic faith contains many sublime mysteries, the mystery of the Blessed Sacrament enjoys the singular dignity of being called the Mystery of Faith, the Mysterium fidei. Why is that? Should we not, someone may reasonably ask, reserve that title to the Holy Trinity, a mystery that is wholly Other, entirely divine, entirely removed from our not so mysterious humanity? No, we should not. For far more sublime, far more mysterious, are those mysteries that entail some sort of communion between the divine and the human, between Creator and creature, between the eternal and the temporal, between the ever unchanging and the always changing. Such is the mystery of the Holy Eucharist. It makes use of lowly, corruptible matter: bread and wine. It involves a twofold change — a wondrous supernatural change, to be sure, but a change nonetheless: First, the change of the substance of the bread into the flesh of the Incarnate Word, and that of the wine into His Precious Blood, even while the species of these same lowly elements of God’s creation remain the same — veiling, as it were, from sight, the extraordinary reality hidden within. And this change doesn’t happen only once, but at every Mass celebrated in time — from the Last Supper to the present.

The other change occurs in those who worthily receive this divine food at the sacred banquet. Unlike ordinary food, which is assimilated by the one consuming, this divine Food of the living God assimilates those who worthily consume Him — the members of His Body — into Himself. In this way, the members of His Body are not only united to one another through this Sacrament of unity, but they are also united to Christ crucified, the better to love Him and one another with that same divine, sacrificial charity with which Christ loved us even unto death, death upon a cross.
How, then, does the mystery of the Holy Eucharist surpass even the mystery of the Incarnation? For Christ is true God and true man, generated from all eternity in His divinity, yet born in the fullness of time in His humanity; all-powerful and impassible in His divinity, yet was subject to weakness, fatigue, and death in His humanity. As a mystery of faith, the mystery of the Holy Eucharist surpasses even that of the Incarnation insofar as it expands and perfects our faith. For when Christ walked the earth, an act of faith was needed to believe He was the Son of the living God, but that He was truly a man was evident to all. In the Holy Eucharist, however, such is the Real Presence of Christ that our act of faith extends even to His humanity, for this too is hidden under the species of bread and wine. Understood thus, the mystery of the Holy Eucharist surpasses in its profundity the principal mysteries of our Catholic faith; namely, the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation.

Yet another reason to call the Holy Eucharist the Mystery of Faith is that it lies at the very heart of any and all authentic Christian liturgy. For a properly celebrated liturgy subordinates all of its elements and parts to the Holy Eucharist, such that these elements and parts derive their ultimate meaning and significance only in their relation to the Blessed Sacrament. For example, if one were to ask why Sacred Scripture is read during the Mass of the Catechumens, incomplete would be the response that failed to show the relationship between the Word of God and the Holy Eucharist; how the one may cause one’s heart to burn and long for the Lord, but only the latter enables one truly to recognize and know the Lord. Only the Holy Eucharist, together with the operation of the Holy Ghost, fosters that mutual indwelling between God and man; between Christ and His Bride — that unity which, on the one hand, has its original paradigm in the mutual indwelling of the divine Persons of the Blessed Trinity (what theologians call circumincession), and which, on the other hand, is reflected analogously in the unity enjoyed between spouses in the sacramental bonds of holy matrimony.

Speaking of matrimony and all things nuptial, if one were to ask why women wear veils in the house of God, the most profound and complete answer would likewise have its foundation in the Holy Eucharist. After all, veils constitute a subtle yet important element of the sacred liturgy. Briefly, then, it is in the nuptial character of the Holy Eucharist — its capacity to assimilate and unite the members of the Church, the Bride of Christ, to Christ her Head — that one will discover the deepest meaning of the veil. Put another way, the traditional custom of wearing veils visibly manifests the nuptial unity that the Holy Eucharist invisibly fosters.

I cannot fail to mention, moreover, that those women who have reclaimed and restored this ancient part of our Catholic heritage do us all a tremendous favor by gently reminding us that their capacity to bear children is a sacred capacity. What does it mean for something to be sacred? Sacred things are not only good but also dangerous. They cannot be desired, used, and enjoyed in any which way; on the contrary, they must be desired, used, and enjoyed in very specific ways. Fire, for example, is a good thing. But if used in the wrong way, it can burn, destroy, and even kill. The Blessed Virgin Mary bore Our Lord for nine months, which is why both St. Luke and St. John associate her with the Ark of the Old Covenant. She is the Ark of the New Covenant, who carried the Word of God within her womb, the Word of God — not inscribed in tablets of stone, but united to a human nature, the flesh of which she provided. Now, the Ark of the Old Covenant was a sacred object, a dangerous object. No one was allowed to touch it except for the members of the priestly tribe of Levi. Anyone else who touched it was struck dead, as happened to Uzzah, that unfortunate dunderhead who, as we read in the Second Book of Kings [6:6-7], “put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled.” If, then, the Ark of the Old Covenant was so sacred — so dangerous — as to kill those who touched it, how much more sacred must be the Blessed Virgin Mary! Similarly, precisely because their capacity to bear new life is a sacred function, and because the mores of modern society but dimly reflect and affirm the sacred character of that capacity, women who make it a point to wear the veil in liturgical settings help remind us all of this largely forgotten truth about themselves. For the same Divine Word who was born of the Virgin Mary is now reserved in a tabernacle — the liturgical equivalent of the Ark of the Old Covenant, and thus the liturgical equivalent of the Ark of the New Covenant, the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And because the tabernacle (to say nothing of chalices and ciboria) is a sacred object, it too is veiled. As with the Ark of the Covenant, access into it is restricted: notwithstanding the aberrant practices of contemporary times, only certain consecrated individuals can and should open the tabernacle and touch the Holy Eucharist with their hands; namely, those who have committed themselves to the virtue of chastity expressed through celibacy. Similarly, no man is allowed to “touch” a woman except when both he and the woman have committed themselves to the virtue of chastity expressed through total and exclusive fidelity to one another in the bonds of holy matrimony.
Now, the mysteries of the Catholic faith all contain this paradox: they are simple enough for the simplest child to understand and believe, yet profound enough to remain for the greatest of minds the continual object of study and contemplation. As someone once observed, the mysteries of the faith are like puddles of water at once shallow enough for a mouse to scamper across them, yet deep enough for an elephant to swim in them. The Mystery of Faith is certainly no exception. As Pope St. Pius X well knew, every child who enjoys the use of his reason can understand what the Holy Eucharist is sufficiently to receive the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Communion. At the same time, a genius like St. Thomas never tired of gazing into its depths and expounding on what he found contained therein. And when he did expound, he did so in two ways. The first way we may call the scholastic approach, and is exemplified in works like the Summa Theologiæ. Not everyone, however, can benefit from this approach, since it presupposes some training in philosophy. The other way that St. Thomas expounded the mysteries of the Catholic faith we may call the poetic approach, the best example of which we find in the Sequence of today’s Mass, the Lauda Sion. Unlike the Summa Theologiæ, everyone can ponder the truths expressed in the Lauda Sion.

One of those truths concerns the unworthy reception of Holy Communion, a truth also expressed in today’s epistle. How easy it is for Catholics living in a decadent age to become the victims of its superficiality, such that they glibly go through the outward motions of their faith while failing to discern the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist, and failing to see any connection between the state of their souls and a worthy reception of Holy Communion! As St. Paul declares, such Catholics “shall be guilty of the Body and of the Blood of the Lord.” In the Lauda Sion, St. Thomas renders this same Biblical truth into verse: Sumunt boni, sumunt mali: sorte tamen inaequali, vitae, vel interitus. Mors est malis, vita bonis: Vide paris sumptionis Quam sit dispar exitus. “Both the wicked and the good eat of this celestial Food: but with ends how opposite! Death to the wicked, life to the good: See how from an equal reception a very different result is produced.”

Indeed, just as only the living eat food, so too only the spiritually alive should eat spiritual food. Unlike Baptism and Penance, the Holy Eucharist is not intended for the dead. And so, as we give thanks to God for the great gift He has given us in the most Blessed Sacrament, let us resolve never to dishonor or betray Our Lord by receiving the Living Bread from heaven, the Bread of Angels, so long as we find ourselves to be dead in sin. And may our faith in the Mystery of Faith remain firm and steadfast during our sojourn in the wilderness of this life, that we may one day be united to Christ and Him to us, with the company of the saints in Sion, the heavenly city.

The Mystery of the Ascension and the Mass

2010-05-17T13:52:00.001-05:00

Hear, O Lord, my voice with which I have cried to Thee, alleluia: my heart hath said to Thee, I have sought thy countenance; thy countenance, O Lord, I will seek.

Dominica post Domini Ascensionem

16.V.2010

Epist.: 1 Pet. 4:7-11

Evang.: Jn. 15:26-16:4

Sometimes, we ask questions the answers to which are contained in the question itself. Usually we do this to test a person’s ability to pay attention. Who, for example, is buried in Grant’s tomb? Or, What color is George Washington’s white horse? The following question also appears to contain the answer: When we celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, what is it that we call to mind? If you were to answer, “The Passion and Death of the Lord”, your answer would be true, but inadequate, incomplete. If you were to answer, The Passion and Resurrection of the Lord, again, your answer, while true, would leave something more to be said. The complete answer may be found in the Canon of the Mass, just after the Consecration, beginning with the words, Unde et memores. There you will discover, that when we offer to the divine Majesty, from all of His gifts and presents, a pure Victim, a holy Victim, an immaculate Victim, the holy Bread of eternal life, and the Chalice of everlasting salvation, we do so while calling to mind not only the blessed Passion of Our Lord, not only His Resurrection from the grave, but also His glorious Ascension into heaven.

When we assist at holy Mass, we may be in the habit of imagining ourselves at the foot of the Cross, in the company of our Blessed Mother, St. John the beloved disciple, and St. Mary Magdalene. That we should so imagine certainly corresponds with the nature of the Mass, since the Sacrifice of Calvary and the Sacrifice of the Mass are one and the same Sacrifice, differing only in the manner in which it is offered: the one bloody and non-sacramental, the other sacramental and non-bloody. Yet even as we call to mind the Passion of Our Lord in this way, and even though the celebration of the Holy Eucharist necessarily entails the re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Calvary, nevertheless, it is the Risen Lord who is made present under the species of bread and wine, and it is the Risen Lord whom we receive in Holy Communion.

To understand this, let us consider what would have been the case had the Apostles offered the holy Sacrifice of the Mass on Holy Saturday. On that day, before the Resurrection of the Lord, the Body of Christ, by virtue of the words of consecration, would have been present under the species of bread and His Blood would have been present under the species of wine. And since the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity always remained united to the Body, Blood, and Soul of Christ, had the Apostles received Holy Communion on Holy Saturday, they would have received the Body and Divinity of Christ under the species of bread, together with the Blood and Divinity of Christ under the species of wine. In short, they would have received the dead divine Christ, because during this time the divine Christ was really dead: Even though they always remained united to His Divinity, the Soul, Body, and Blood of Christ were all separated from one another.

Now, we celebrate the holy Sacrifice of the Mass after the Resurrection. But when Christ rose from the dead, His Body and Blood were reunited to His Soul. Therefore, while it remains true that, by virtue of the words of consecration, only the Body of Christ continues to be made present under the species of bread, and only the Blood of Christ continues to be made present under the species of wine, it is also true that the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ are united to one another in reality. Therefore, under the species of bread, where the Body is made present by virtue of the words of consecration, the Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ are also made present, not by virtue of the words of consecration, but by virtue of already being joined to the Body of Christ in reality; i.e., by virtue of what theologians call concomitance. Likewise, by the force of the words of consecration, the Blood of Christ is made present under the species of wine, but by virtue of concomitance, the Body, Soul, and Divinity are also present. Therefore, even though the Holy Eucharist sacramentally commemorates the death of the Lord, nevertheless, the whole Christ — that is, the Risen Christ — is present under the species of bread and wine. That is why the Canon affirms that we call to mind not only the Passion of the Lord, but also His Resurrection.

But what about the Ascension of Christ? Why should we call that to mind? Well, first of all, because the Risen Lord, whom we receive in Holy Communion, by virtue of His Ascension now dwells in that very place which we wayfarers, who are nourished and sustained by the Body of Christ, hope to reach ourselves. That is why each and every time we receive our spiritual Food in Holy Communion (at least in the extraordinary form of the Roman rite), we are reminded of this journey towards heaven when the minister of Holy Communion prays: Corpus Domini nostri Iesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam. “May the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy soul unto eternal life.”

The second reason why we should call to mind the Ascension of Our Lord is that the pondering of this mystery will exercise our faith, raise our hope, as well as enkindle and direct the fervor of our charity. For Our Lord ascended into heaven that we might benefit from it in these three ways.

Let’s look first at faith. As I said, Christ ascended into heaven to exercise, and even increase our faith, which pertains to what is not seen. For Our Lord, in the Gospel according to St. John, declares that the Holy Ghost shall come and “convict the world . . . of justice,” that is, of the justice “of those that believe,” as Augustine explains in his commentary on this passage. “For even to put the faithful beside the unbeliever is to put the unbeliever to shame; wherefore Christ adds: ‘Because I go to the Father; and you shall see Me no longer’—For ‘blessed are they that see not, yet believe.’ Hence it is of our justice that the world is reproved: because ‘you will believe in Me whom you shall not see.’”

As regards raising our hope, recall what Our Lord says at the Last Supper: “If I shall go, and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to Myself; that where I am, you also may be” (Jn. 14:3). For by placing in heaven the human nature which He assumed, Christ likewise gives us the hope of arriving there; since “wheresoever the body shall be, there shall the eagles also be gathered together” (Matt. 24:28). Thus, the Prophet Micah writes: “He shall go up that shall open the way before them” (2:13).

Finally, Christ ascended into heaven so as to direct the fervor of our charity towards heavenly things. In his Letter to the Colossians, St. Paul exhorts us to “Seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth” (3:1-2). And why shouldn’t St. Paul so exhort us? After all, Our Lord did say in His Sermon on the Mount, “Where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also” (Matt. 6:21) And since the Holy Ghost is the love of God drawing us up to heavenly things, Our Lord therefore said to His disciples, that it is “expedient to you that I go; for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you” (John 16:7).

Now, in order to take advantage of these things, our disposition at Mass ought to resemble that of the Little Flock that had gathered in the Upper Room to await the coming of the Holy Ghost by watching and praying. Which is to say, that when we gather in this ‘Upper Room’ to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we too should be here to watch and pray for the Spirit of Truth and Power. For we should not go into the world and face those who would wish to persecute us and even kill us, relying upon our own strength. No, we should go forth only after we have received Power from on high, strengthened in faith, hope, and charity. That is why the sacred liturgy is not about catering to our emotional needs. For we are not going to be disposed to receiving an increase in the virtues of faith, hope, and charity by seeking an emotional high. On the contrary, the sacred liturgy properly celebrated invites us to converse with God, meditate upon His Word, and gaze upon the beauty of His countenance. What a lofty endeavor! And so, everyone should ask himself: Am I willing to accept this invitation and, according as my circumstances allow, strive to immerse myself in what each Mass has to offer me? Does it bother me if I remain willfully disengaged, neglectful, and ignorant of the Mass, perhaps because I think that if something doesn’t make me “feel good” it can’t be worthy of my attention? can’t be worth the price of a missal, or the time it takes to read and ponder the scriptural texts? can’t be worth being calm and recollected before the Lord, attentive and receptive? If it doesn’t bother me, at least I know now that it should bother me. I should desire to accept the invitation of every Mass to come up higher still: to converse with God in prayer, ponder the mysteries of Christ and the eternal truths of faith; and in this way dispose myself to receive the Lord in Holy Communion. Christ prayed to His eternal Father, not that His disciples should be taken out of the world, but that they be kept from evil while living in the world. I should be here, then, to be charged with the Power of God, that I may be faithful to Christ according to my state in life, even in the face of a hostile world. Let us, then, in cooperation with the grace of God, always strive to seek the face of the Lord, His holy countenance, that He may make His light shine upon us. For He is our light; He is our salvation. Whom shall we fear? May the almighty and merciful God grant us ever to have a will devoted to Him, that we may always serve Him with a sincere heart. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

The Return to the City (Laetare Sunday) Part II

2010-05-07T12:31:00.000-05:00

Laetatus sum in his, quae dicta sunt mihi: in domum Domini ibimus.

Dominica Quarta Quadragesimae “Laetare”

14 III 2010

Epistola: Gal. 4:22-31

Evangelium: Joan. 6:1-15

In the traditional form of the Mass, the season of Lent is very clearly divided into two parts: The first part (which is simply called Lent) is ordered to the purification of the faithful. It gives the Catholic faithful a desert-like experience wherein they have the opportunity to readjust their attachments to the material things of this world, discover their “hidden sins”, and enkindle contrition and detestation for their past sins. In this way, the faithful are able to return to “city life”, having been strengthened against the allurements that will inevitably confront them there. In a word, the focus of this first part of Lent is on the self. But the second part of the Lenten season shifts to Christ and the central mystery of our faith: the Paschal Mystery, within which are contained the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of the Lord. Accordingly, this part of Lent is called Passiontide. And so today, Laetare Sunday, is the last Sunday of the first part of Lent.

Now, as the first word of the Introit suggests, today’s liturgy, especially when sung, is calculated to fill us with joy. For on this day, we leave in a way the desert of purification to return to the city, the earthly city of Jerusalem, that, having been purified in body and soul, we may see more clearly into the depths of the Mystery of Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection. Not that we cease our Lenten resolutions; rather, we continue them even as we turn our gaze towards Christ.

Now, we advance towards Jerusalem in three distinct yet related ways. And so the joy we express today pertains to all three ways. The first two ways are liturgical and outside of ourselves; the third way is within ourselves. The first two ways are distinguished from one another according to the twofold way we commemorate the Paschal Mystery, which took place in Jerusalem. The first way is through the daily celebration of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, whereby the sacramental representation of the Paschal Mystery is effected, together with the participation in its fruits. It is offered daily on account of our daily defects, for which we need daily the fruits of the Passion of the Lord. It feeds us daily during our terrestrial sojourn, just as the manna in the wilderness fed the People of the Old Covenant during their forty-year sojourn. That is why today’s gospel recounts the Miracle of the Loaves, a miracle that points to the Holy Eucharist, our spiritual food during our sojourn through the desert of life towards the Promise Land of heaven. This spiritual food unites us to Christ and to His Paschal Mystery, strengthening us daily to follow His supreme example of love.

Thus, through the daily reception of our supersubstantial bread, we may be likened to the tribes of the Lord mentioned in today’s Communion antiphon (Ps. 123:3-4), advancing towards the Heavenly Jerusalem, joyfully praising the name of the Lord as we ascend.

The second way the Paschal Mystery is commemorated is through the annual celebration of Passiontide, which culminates on Maundy Thursday (when Our Lord instituted the Sacrament of His Body and Blood), Good Friday (when Christ the High Priest offered Himself on the Cross as a Sacrifice of propitiation for our sins), and Holy Saturday/Easter Sunday (when Christ rose from the dead, dying now no more). On these days, the Paschal Mystery is commemorated as it happened in reality, but not by way of the Blessed Sacrament, which is a certain figure and exemplar of the Lord’s Passion. It is for this reason that the Sacrament of the Lord’s Passion — the Holy Eucharist — is not celebrated on Good Friday. For the same reason, moreover, extra hosts are consecrated on Maundy Thursday and received (in Thomas’s day and in our own) by the faithful on Good Friday, that they may partake of the fruits of the Passion of the Lord even on this day (cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae IIIa, q. 83, a. 2). Thus, if we have made every effort to purify our minds and our hearts, especially during the season of Lent, surely God will bestow abundant graces upon us during Passiontide! Moreover, even though the Passion and Death of Christ should fill us with sorrow for our sins, we can nevertheless have joy in knowing that Christ has redeemed us by the noble wood of the Cross. You will hear this joy wonderfully expressed on Good Friday through the singing of the Pange Lingua.

The third way we ascend the heavenly Jerusalem and participate in its mansions even now, is by advancing in prayer. It is not by accident that St. Teresa of Avila, that great mistress of prayer, likens the soul to a Castle with many mansions, in the center of which resides Almighty God. For the Blessed Trinity takes up its abode in those who love God and are faithful to His Word (Jn. 14:23). Advancing towards this interior City or Castle, which is undoubtedly one of the goals of the Lenten season, leads to a corresponding joy in the soul, which joy we rightly highlight this Sunday.

With regard to this progress towards the “Interior Castle” within the soul, it seems timely to impart some of St. Teresa’s advice, if only to help those who find it difficult to make any advance at all.

The first thing the Saint insists upon is that no progress can be made so long as a person is separated from God through mortal sin. Speaking about herself, she relates how she “knew a person to whom Our Lord revealed the result of mortal sin and who said she thought no one who realized its effects could ever commit it, but would suffer unimaginable torments to avoid it.” From this revelation, St. Teresa learned two things: first, a great fear of offending God; second, the importance of recognizing in all humility that it is God who gives the strength to do good and avoid the evil of mortal sin: “…for we are weakness itself, and unless He guards the city, in vain shall we labor to defend it” (Ps. 126:1). This led the Saint to beg Almighty God constantly to preserve her from falling into sin, and we would all do well to follow her example.

Then, assuming a person has begun the practice of prayer and is striving to overcome sin, he often lacks the determination necessary to quit his present condition by avoiding the occasions of sin. For this reason, he continually falls into sin and rises again. Because persons in this state are often tempted to give up, St. Teresa first gives us Christ’s perspective: “such are the pity and compassion of this Lord of ours, so desirous is He that we should seek Him and enjoy His company, that in one way or another He never ceases calling us to Him. So sweet is His voice, that the poor soul is disconsolate at being unable to follow His bidding at once, and therefore … suffers more than if it could not hear Him.” As for the “poor soul” himself, the essential virtue he should have at this stage is that of perseverance. “Let us endeavor to do our best,” exhorts the Saint: “beware of the poisonous reptiles— that is to say, the bad thoughts and aridities which are often permitted by God to assail and torment us so that we cannot repel them. Indeed, perchance we felt their sting!”

As to why God allows such souls to be tried in this way, Teresa offers two reasons:

First, to increase our vigilance, to teach us to be more on our guard in the future. Second, to manifest to ourselves the degree of our sorrow for having offended Him. This in turn should lead us to exercise the virtue of penance all the more, that we may hate sin all the more and seek to make amends for our offenses. These reasons may be regarded as goods which God draws from our sins, our falls. Accordingly, Teresa urges such souls who occasionally lapse into sin not to lose heart, not to cease trying to advance, but to persevere.

Also of the utmost importance is for the beginner “to associate with those who lead a spiritual life, and not only with those in the same mansion as herself, but with others who have travelled farther into the castle, who will aid her greatly and draw her to join them.”

As Job tells us, life is a warfare. The spiritual life necessarily entails spiritual combat. Nevertheless, this life of combat need not be without joy. That is why Lent, the first part of which encapsulates that combat, fittingly ends on a joyful note. For the more we are united to Christ — by receiving Him in the Holy Eucharist, by immersing ourselves in the Mystery of His Passion, Death, and Resurrection through the sacred liturgy, and by growing in holiness, we advance towards the Heavenly City, Jerusalem on high, where our hearts shall be at rest, our joy complete.

The need for the desert in an urban religion (First Sunday of Lent, 2010), Part I

2010-05-07T12:27:00.000-05:00

Behold, I stand at the gate, and knock. If any man shall hear my voice, and open to me the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. — Rev. 3:20.

Dominca prima in Quadragesima

Epistola: ad Corinthios II, 6, 1-10

Evangelium: secundum Mattæum, 4, 1-12

21 Februarii a.D. 2010

In Greek, the word for city is polis. In English, this word is found as a suffix in many familiar city names, such as Annapolis, Indianapolis, and Minneapolis; and even in many less familiar city names, such as Lithopolis, Teutopolis, Uniopolis, and Thermopolis. In addition, words like politics and political derive from this same Greek word, polis.

Now, every student of political philosophy knows that his subject can be divided into two categories: ancient and modern. This division is based on two very different ideas about human nature, and the origin and purpose of political authority. The overarching principle of modern political philosophy is that man is by nature apolitical; which is to say that there is nothing in his nature suggesting that he belongs in a political community, a city-state (or simply state) where some rule and others are ruled; in short, where political inequality must exist between those who rule and those who are ruled or governed. On the contrary, modern political philosophy takes as its starting point the proposition that man is by nature equal—no ruler can claim any basis in nature for his authority. As Thomas Jefferson famously put it, “all men are created equal”; for which reason, a just political authority is rooted not in the nature of man (both ruler and ruled) but solely in the consent of the governed. Why, then, do governments exist at all? What are the circumstances that would prompt anyone to exchange his apolitical equality for political inequality? Why would anyone consent to be governed? According to the modern theory formulated by men like Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, and reduced to practice by men like Hamilton, Adams, and Madison, governments are formed because individuals tire of the consequences of pursuing their own self-interest, which is the only thing they are capable of pursuing. Put another way, governments are formed for this reason only: to keep men from robbing from one another, enslaving one another, and killing one another. Government is evil, but necessary to mitigate the adverse consequences of men living without government and in a ‘state of nature’. Without government, life is “nasty, brutish, and short”; but with government, a mechanism is erected whereby some self-interested men are permitted, under a given set of parameters, to regulate the activities of other self-interested men, and thereby not only “establish Justice” and “provide for the common defence”, but also “insure domestic Tranquility”, “promote the general Welfare”, and “secure the Blessings of Liberty” for themselves and their posterity.

In contrast to this relatively novel raison d’etre of government, the ancient view proposed that political life, life in the city-state, was perfective of man’s nature; that it was a necessary good. To be sure, the ancient view understood that men were often actuated by self-interest, but the same view also maintained that, however difficult it might be (and was) in practice, men could perceive and aspire to something greater than themselves, to something nobler and grander than the pleasures of the flesh, the riches and glories of the world, or even the dark powers of demons.

With the advent of Christianity, the idea that the polis was perfective of human nature took on a new meaning. For the apostles and their delegates did not spread the Gospel by preaching to nomads. No, they preached to city-dwellers, specifically to the Jews who lived in cities such as Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome. Churches comprised of both Jews and Gentiles, sprang up in these and many other cities, and the grace of God was now readily available to enable man to desire, strive after, and even now share in the greatest good; namely, the restoration and unity of all things in God through Christ Jesus Our Lord. Make no mistake about it: Christianity is a religion of the polis. For grace builds on nature, and man is indeed political by nature. His nature is not to be solitary, but to belong to a community, even as he is called to be a citizen of the heavenly city of Jerusalem.

But what happened to these churches? To one degree or another, the allurements of the world so readily available in the cities exerted their influence, and those who had been illumined by the light of Christ began to recede once again into the darkness of sin and error. Many of them had received the grace of God in vain. We witness this trend in the Book of the Apocalypse, which is addressed to seven churches in Asia Minor, lying within a fifty-mile radius of one another. In most of these churches some decline has occurred. The geographical order in which Christ address these churches is in a clockwise direction, from West to East: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea. But on the spiritual plane, Christ is moving from East to West; that is, from Life to Death, for the problems plaguing some of these churches go from bad to worse. Christ gives the church at Ephesus a fairly glowing review, but then tells them this: “you have abandoned the love you had at first.” He then admonishes them: “Remember … from what you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first.” The church at Smyrna seems to be on the verge of apostasy. The churches in Pergamum and Thyatira are harboring heretics who are promoting a casual attitude towards idolatry and sexual immorality. The church in Sardis has the reputation of being “alive”, but in fact is “dead”. Finally, to the church in Laodicea, Christ offers this stinging rebuke: “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing; not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. … Those whom I love, I reprove and chasten; so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the gate, and knock. If any man shall hear my voice, and open to me the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

In later years, many of those who wished to bear witness to Christ and the truth of the Gospel chose to leave the fetid cities behind and flee into the desert. In doing so, they experienced and bore powerful witness to the paradoxes of Christian discipleship, paradoxes which St. Paul himself had experienced and to which he too bore witness, exhibiting himself as a minister of God, “in much patience, in tribulation, in necessities, in distresses … in labours, in watchings, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Ghost, in charity unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God …As unknown, and yet known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastised, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as needy, yet enriching many; as having nothing, and possessing all things.” And so, with this exodus into the harsh but purifying desert, Christian monasticism was born.

But what about those of us remaining in the polluted, filthy city? Though we can all be inspired and strengthened by those who live in the desert of monastic life, not all of us can follow the monks into that desert and embrace their radical way of life. We cannot all abandon the city of secular life and enter the desert of religious life. And yet, we can, in a way — a powerful way — enter into a kind of desert, even while remaining in the city. For in her wisdom the Church has provided the season of Lent as a special time of purification and renewal; a time during which all her children are prompted by the divine mercy to turn away from sin and towards God, to become more deeply rooted in Christ, and that much more ablaze with the fire of His love, poured into our hearts by the Holy Ghost. During these 40 days, the liturgy is stripped of its usual adornments, that we might taste the austerity of the monastic life: flowers disappear from the altar, the Gloria and Alleluia are dropped, the organ silenced. Similarly, this liturgical austerity is reflected in the various physical austerities everyone is called upon to practice as a penance for his sins and as a means more clearly to see the relative worthlessness of things in comparison to his union with Christ crucified. Moreover, just as the stark simplicity of desert life lends itself to an ever-deepening and enriching life of prayer, the Lenten liturgy provides us with considerably more time and Scripture than usual, so that, like a monk in the solitude of his cell, we too may open our hearts to the Word of God through prayer and meditation. For those, then, who find themselves bored by the Mass, who think the Tract too long, or the silence too loud, I ask you: do you really know why you are here? Do you not wish to deepen your relationship with Christ? Do you not wish to foster that mutual indwelling between you and the Blessed Trinity, the better to participate here and now in the joys of eternal life? Or would you rather be neither cold nor hot, only to be spewed from the mouth of Christ? In theory, the choice seems obvious. But in practice, how easily we exchange our eternal inheritance in the City of God for a mess of pottage available in New York, Las Vegas, or even here in Lincoln, Nebraska! How thoughtlessly we strive after the gifts of God as if they were God Himself! How foolishly we reject the order that God has put into things and vainly impose an order of our own devising over and against that which God has inscribed into our nature! That is why, through the corporeal and spiritual exercises of the Lenten season, the Church nudges us — beckons us! — to come away from city-life and enter the desert with Our Lord, to repent and be cleansed of our sins, enkindled with the charity of our first conversion, no longer lukewarm, but ablaze with the fire of divine love. “Now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation!” Let us, then, flee into the desert! Let us embrace the silence of its solitude and the sting of its desolation, the better to find and follow Christ our crucified King, and live in the joy of His Resurrection, even while we sojourn in this vale of tears towards God’s polis, the heavenly City of God, our eternal home.

Divine Providence and Human Freedom

2010-05-07T12:25:00.000-05:00

O clap your hands, all ye nations: shout unto God with the voice of joy.

Dominica Septima post Pentecosten

19 July 2009

Epistle: Rom. 6:19-23

Gospel: Matt. 7:15-21

Today’s collect speaks of God’s providence, which never fails in what it orders. The root meaning of the word providence is “foresight” or “foreknowledge”. In a temporal sense, it means knowing something before it takes place. We apply this way of knowing to God because our knowledge is conditioned by past, present and future. God, however, is not conditioned by time since he exists outside of time—he transcends time. Because of his infinity and immensity, God is therefore present immediately to all time and every place.

In the context of the Bible, divine providence is much more than simply God knowing what will happen next. God does not simply know what is going to happen; rather, he has a plan, a plan for the universe that encompasses all that has happened, is happening, and is going to happen. In addition, the biblical idea of divine providence includes God’s infallible ability to carry out His plan through his loving rule or governance. In sum, then, providence in God is foreknowledge of a plan which the divine will accomplishes infallibly.

In today’s epistle, St. Paul speaks of servitude and freedom; how the Roman converts to Christ were once free as regards justice, but “slaves of uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity”, but now are slaves to God unto sanctification and have life everlasting as their end. And in today’s gospel, Our Lord warns us about false prophets, teachers who would lead us astray. Taken from the Gospel according to St. Matthew, Our Lord’s warning is found towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount, right after Our Lord’s description of the path to life. “Enter by the narrow gate,” Our Lord exhorts us, “for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” Thus, we may infer that false prophets are those who, in one way or another, would draw us away from the narrow and right path into the broad path that leads astray, or who would have us believe that the path to eternal life is, in fact, broad and easy.

But why would God allow such prophets to exist at all? Why does he allow anyone to pursue iniquity? This is not a question we usually ask, unless we find ourselves overwhelmed with the evils of this world. Indeed, it is very difficult for us to understand how evil and the freedom of creatures can be reconciled with divine providence. On the one hand, we say that God is in control of everything, yet He has created men and angels free, free to reject Him if they so choose, free to commit sin. And yet God’s will is not thwarted; His plan for the universe remains on track.

How, then, is this possible? The short answer is that the greater good of free acts ordered to the praise and glory of God is worth all the pain and suffering and destruction that the misuse of freedom necessarily entails. Moreover, as St. Augustine said while pondering this difficult problem, God is so powerful that he can bring good out of evil.

There are many stories in the Bible that illustrate the reality of divine providence working in concert with misguided human freedom. Consider the example of Joseph in the book of Genesis, chapters 37-50. Joseph proudly boasts of what he knows from his dreams, prophesying that he will one day rule over his brothers, and even over his father. His brothers, who already envy him because he was their father’s favorite son, envy him all the more. When opportunity arises, they plan to kill him, but then decide to sell him into slavery: to merchants on their way to Egypt. With the help of God Joseph becomes the governor of all Egypt. During a famine, the threat of starvation prompts his starving brothers to come to Egypt to buy grain from none other than Joseph, their brother. In the end, Joseph saves his brothers and brings his father Jacob and all his relatives to Egypt. Thus, God made use of the wickedness of Joseph’s brothers to save the descendants of Abraham from starvation.

Or consider all of those holocausts of rams and bullocks and fat lambs prescribed under the Old Covenant. While this variety of sacrificial victims may at first glance seem meaningless, they all come together and find their meaning in the one perfect Sacrifice of the New Covenant, to which, we now know, they always pointed. Similarly, Christ is the source and summit of God’s plan. Which means, then, that whenever some event doesn’t make sense, we should look to the life of Christ, especially the mystery of His Passion, Death, and Resurrection, not so much to understand the all the whys and wherefores, but simply to be assured that things will work out in the end — and to our eternal benefit if we stay conformed to Christ throughout the riddles and wanderings of life.

Perhaps a way to visualize the weaving interplay between divine providence and human freedom may be found on the floor of Chartres Cathedral. There you will find a circular labyrinth. Unlike the plan of the church, which enables you to walk in a straight path from the doors (which symbolize everything associated with earth) to the sanctuary (which in turn symbolizes everything associated with heaven), the labyrinth guides the pilgrim from a point along its circumference to its center by a circuitous and laborious route.

Given the numerous illustrations of divine providence in sacred scripture, let us not be shaken in our knowledge that God does have a plan for the universe and that His all-powerful will infallibly carry it out. At the same time, we ought to pray for the divine assistance, that we may always do the will of the Father and persevere in the path of sanctification that leads to eternal life. For it is not by our own strength, but by the grace of God, which is both gentle and vigorous, that men and angels exercise their freedom rightly. Put another way, it is by God’s grace that natural liberty (the bare ability to choose between good and evil) blossoms into moral liberty (that is, the perfect freedom obtained through obedience to, and resting in, the divine reality of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty). Thus, the Church, praying on our behalf, will ask almighty God to free us from our evil inclinations and lead us to those things which are right. With such a prayer ever on our lips, God will have already come to our assistance without our having asked. All the more reason to believe, therefore, that He will assist us when we do ask Him to put away all things harmful and to give us all things profitable to us, so that when we do cry, “Lord, Lord,” we shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven and will be among that host of nations which will clap their hands, shouting unto God with the voice of joy.

Enemies within and without

2010-05-07T12:20:00.000-05:00

My house is a house of prayer.

Dominica nona post Pentecosten

2 August 2009

Lectio Epistolæ: 1 Cor. 10:6-13

Lectio Evangelii: Luc. 19:41-47

Most Psalms have a story behind them. Psalm 53, from which the text of today’s introit comes, is no exception. David wrote this psalm when he was being persecuted by Saul. He was sojourning in the land of the Ziphnites, who let Saul know about it. Saul comes down and traps David. But then he is told that the Philistines have attacked the kingdom, so he withdraws, letting David and his men live another day.

David was being afflicted by an external enemy, but not because he was being punished for something he had done. His trials at the hand of Saul aptly exemplify what David writes in Psalm 33: “Many are the afflictions of the just, but out of them all the Lord will deliver them.”

Sometimes, however, the source of external afflictions lies within.

Fast forward a few hundred years to the early 7th cent. B.C. With our mind’s eye let us ascend Mount Sion and go to the Temple Mount, where we find in all its splendor the House of the Lord, the Temple that Solomon, the son of David, had built. But not all is well. There is a man standing by the gate of the Temple. What is he doing? He is accosting the passersby, offending them with a torrent of disturbing rhetoric. Here is some of what that man is saying: “Hear the word of the LORD, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the LORD.… Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’ — only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, says the LORD. Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. And now, because you have done all these things, says the LORD, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, therefore I will do to the house which is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.”

Who is this man? Why, he is the Prophet Jeremiah. Sadly, no one listens to him. And so, in 586 BC, the unthinkable happens: the Jews find themselves besieged by their enemies, the Babylonians, who capture the Holy City, destroy the Temple, kill the sons of the king and all the nobles, and lead the Jews into captivity. Tragic though these events were, they were God’s way of penetrating the blindness of His people. If they had become so depraved that they could not see how their wicked ways had ruined their hearts, God would show them by reducing the Temple itself to ruins.

Now, since the New Covenant established in Christ’s Blood fulfills and perfects the Old Covenant, the temples where the Sacrifice of the New Covenant is daily renewed (namely, our churches) fulfill and perfect the Temple of the Old Covenant. For Christ Himself is our Pasch, our Sacrifice. Which means that whenever we partake of this Sacrifice through Holy Communion, not only do we eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of the Son of God, but, as today’s communion antiphon will remind us, we also abide in Him and He in us.

And so, if God was displeased with the Jews in Jeremiah’s day on account of their mortal sins, how much more displeased will God be with us if we ignore our mortal sins and receive Our Lord unworthily!

But even if we are happily in the state of grace, it does not follow that we are not complacent about the astounding realities in which we are privileged to partake, or that we unwittingly promote such complacency by our outward comportment. Perhaps there are some here who are of the opinion that the way a man presents himself to the external world has little or no effect on his own or others’ interior dispositions. In which case, I pray the following rhetorical questions will at least persuade him to reconsider.

Would it matter, I ask, if all the marble in this sanctuary were replaced with concrete? After all, the materials used in the sanctuary do not affect the validity of the sacrament!

Would it matter if the celebrant donned cheap polyester vestments,

or used a clay chalice?

Would people have the same regard for the episcopal office if the bishop wore lay clothes wherever he went? After all, he would still be a bishop, regardless what he wore. Or how would the faithful regard the clergy if they never wore clerical garb? Would it affect their belief that they were men of God, set apart from the rest of men? I think we all know the answer. In short, human nature is such that spiritual realities must be expressed not only in propositional form but also in some physical way.

Luiz Demétrio Valentini, Bishop of the Diocese of Jales
paying a visit to the local masonic lodge

Fortunately, the level of dress here surpasses that of the average American parish. But that does not excuse anyone from asking himself whether he can do better, if only to give a good example to the younger generation. This place is, after all, not only a house of prayer, but the house where God dwells, where He is present in the Holy Eucharist, body, blood, soul, and divinity. We are on sacred ground, where we are privileged to be united to heavenly mysteries. And so, even though our relative prosperity enables us to draw near to the Lord of heaven and earth with relative ease and convenience, for our sake and for the sake of our fellow wayfarers, may we always approach in accordance with the dignity of the Mass, and not in accordance with what is easier and more convenient to us.

The Holy Trinity and the Mystery of Predestination

2010-05-07T12:17:00.000-05:00

O the depths of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments and how unsearchable His ways!
Trinity Sunday
7 June 2009
Epistle: Romans 11:33-36
Gospel: Matt. 28:18-20

Today’s epistle may be regarded as having two distinct, though not altogether unrelated, purposes. The one concerns the Being of God, the other His acts and judgments in relation to men and their salvation. The one requires our faith; the other our trust. These two purposes arise from the two different contexts in which we this text is situated; namely, the liturgical and the original biblical.
In its liturgical context, the text of the epistle is given to remind us how utterly mysterious is the Being of God; that as Catholics, “we worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance. For the Person of the Father is one, that of the Son another, that of the Holy Ghost another; but the divinity of Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.”1 He is three Persons in one God: “thus the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God”; “the Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, the Holy Ghost uncreated.”2 Likewise these three Persons of the Triune God are each infinite, eternal, and almighty; yet, they are not three uncreated beings or three infinite or uncreated or eternal or almighty beings, but one uncreated and one infinite, one eternal and one almighty Being. In short, the Father is God and Lord, the Son is God and Lord, the Holy Ghost is God and Lord; yet, they are not three gods or three lords but one God and one Lord. We confess these truths because, in the words of the Athanasian Creed, just “as the Christian truth compels us to acknowledge each person distinctly as God and Lord, so too the Catholic religion forbids us to speak of three gods or lords.”

Now, we believe all of this because Christ has revealed it and the Church has defined it. Besides commanding His disciples to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost”, Christ tells us that He and the Father are one,3 yet not without distinction, for He is in the Father and the Father in Him.4 Likewise, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father and the Son send to us,5 is the Spirit of God, and is God; just as the Son, whom the Father sends to us,6 is the Son of God, and is God.7 These missions correspond to the relations within the Godhead, the terms of which reduce to the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. Thus, the Father sends the Son in time, born of a woman,8 because He begets Him from all eternity. And the Father and the Son send the Holy Ghost upon the Church in time because He proceeds from both Father and the Son from all eternity. And so, the Father begets the Son and “spirates” the Holy Ghost, but is Himself unbegotten and unspirated; the Son is begotten from the Father and also “spirates” the Holy Ghost; and the Holy Ghost proceeds from both the Father and the Son.

Given such a profound mystery as the Blessed Trinity, we can certainly exclaim with St. Paul: “O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments and how unsearchable His ways!”
But in its Biblical context, the text of today’s epistle concerns not the doctrine of the Trinity, but rather the inscrutable mystery of divine providence — specifically, how God used the nation or people of Israel to reconcile the Gentiles to Himself; how “as regards the gospel, [the people of Israel] are enemies of God” for the sake of the Gentiles, “but as regards election they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers.”9 As St. Paul explains, “God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew”,10 though not all the people are saved. For “not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his descendants”;11 and, when Elias pleaded with God against Israel, saying, “‘Lord, they have killed thy prophets, they have demolished thy altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life’, what was God’s reply? St. Paul reminds us: “‘I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal’”.12
The point of all of this with respect to Israel is that “a hardening has come upon a part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved”.13 With respect to the Gentiles, St. Paul warns the Romans (and us): “If some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place to share the richness of the olive tree, do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you”.14 This corresponds to what Our Lord taught the Apostles on the eve of His Passion and Death: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine you are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing.”15 Given our utter dependence on God, what should be our overall disposition? St. Paul tells us: “You will say, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’ That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast only through faith.16 So be not high-minded, but fear [i.e., ‘stand in awe’ —RSV]. For if God did not spare the natural branches, fear lest perhaps he also spare not thee. Note then the goodness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but the goodness of God to you, provided you abide in goodness; otherwise, you too will be cut off.” 17

Indeed, when it comes to God’s dealings with men, particularly with regard to the gift of final perseverance, we can only echo St. Paul’s words: “O, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor? Or who has first given to Him, that recompense should be made Him?”

Now, just as there are those who would like to remove all mystery from the being of God by denying the Trinity, so too there are those who would like to remove all mystery from the sovereign actions of God over men. They either claim to have, or would very much like to have, apart from a special revelation, absolute and infallible certitude that they are in God’s good graces and that they will receive the gift of final perseverance. Such a claim is as heretical18 as the desire is foolish. For it often happens that those who have convinced themselves they will be saved tend to neglect their relationship with God, deserting Him while presuming He will not desert them. As for those who desire such certitude, they either fail to “place an unshaken hope in God’s help and rest in it”,19 such that they fall either into scrupulosity and despair; or they fall into indifference, arguing that, if it is impossible to have mathematical certitude about one’s eternal destiny, then it is impossible to know anything at all about it. Consequently, such persons, even should they be model citizens,20 tend to be preoccupied with worldly concerns, conforming themselves to this world, having little idea of what it means to present their “bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, their reasonable service.”21 They are not reformed in the newness of their minds; thus, they neglect the spiritual life and lose sight of “what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God”.22

But as for those who acknowledge and maintain with St. Paul that man cannot know the mind of the Lord as he can the solution to a math problem, they will work out their salvation in fear and trembling, always contrite for their sins, ever confident in the mercies of the Lord. They trust God to show them mercy as they pass through the valley of death into the land of the living. They are content to know conjecturally by way of certain signs23 that they enjoy God’s grace, which grace endows their souls with a certain beauty that attracts the divine love.24 What are these signs? Taking delight in God and having a certain contempt for worldly things; being possessed of a clean conscience, even after an honest and diligent examination thereof: these are signs of God’s favor.25 Another very helpful sign is having a devotion to the Mother of God, especially through her Rosary. As St. Dominic and Blessed Alan taught, devotion to the Rosary “will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of men from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things.” Moreover, “those who are faithful to recite the rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plentitude of His grace; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the saints in paradise.” Indeed, devotion to the Rosary “is a great sign of predestination.”26

Let us, then, always cherish the gift of the true faith that God has given us. Through that gift, we are privileged to know and acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, as well as adore the Unity in the power of His majesty.27 Let us be firm in that same faith, that we may always be defended from all adversities.28 For God is the strength of them that hope in Him, and He is graciously present to those who invoke Him.29 May we always be mindful of our mortal infirmity, that we may never forget that without God, we can do nothing.30 Let us pray, then, that God may always grant us the assistance of His grace, that in executing His commands, we may be pleasing to Him both in our desires and in our deeds.31

1 “Athanasian” Creed.
2 Ibid.
3 Jn. 10:30
4 Jn. 14:10, 11; 17:21-23.
5 Jn. 14:16; 14:26; 15:26; 16:7, 13
6 Jn. 8:16, 42; 14:24.
7 Jn. 1:1; 5:18; 8:58.
8 Gal. 4:4.
9 Rom. 11:28.
10 Rom. 11:2.
11 Rom. 9:6-7.
12 Rom. 11:4.
13 Rom. 11:25-26.
14 Rom. 11:17-18.
15 Jn. 15:4-5.
16 Cf. Gal. 3:26.
17 Rom. 11:18-22.
18 Council of Trent, Sess. VI, can. 16: “Si quis magnum illud usque in finem perseverantiae donum se certo habiturum absoluta et infallibili certitudine dixerit, nisi hoc ex speciali revelatione didicerit: a.s.” Also, Sess. VI, ch. 9: “But though it is necessary to believe that sins are not forgiven, nor have they ever been forgiven, save freely by the divine mercy on account of Christ; nevertheless, it must not be said that anyone’s sins are or have bene forgiven simply because he has a proud assurance and certainty that they have been forgiven, and relies solely on that. For this empty and godless assurance may exist among heretics and schismatics, as indeed it does exist in our day, and is preached most controversially against the Catholic Church. Neither should it be declared that those who are truly justified must determine within themselves beyond the slightest hesitation that they are justified, and that no one is absolved from sin and justified except one who believes with certainty that he has been absolved and justified, and that absolution and justification are effected by this faith alone — as if one who does not believe this is casting doubts on God’s promises and on the efficacy of the death and resurrection of Christ. for, just as no devout person ought to doubt the mercy of God, the merit of Christ, and the power and efficacy of the sacraments; so it is possible for anyone, while he regards himself and his own weakness and lack of dispositions, to be anxious and fearful about his own state of grace, since no one can know, by that assurance of faith which excludes all falsehood, that he has obtained the grace of God.” See also can. 14.
19 Council of Trent, Sess. VI, ch. 13: “…nemo sibi certi aliquid absoluta certitudine polliceatur, tametsi in Dei auxilio firmissimam spem collocare et reponere omnes debent.”
20 E.g., the late late-term abortionist George Tiller.
21 Rom. 12:1.
22 Rom. 12:2.
23 See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia-IIae, q. 112, a. 5: “…cognoscitur aliquid coniecturaliter per aliqua signa. Et hoc modo aliquis cognoscere potest se habere gratiam.”
24 See Summa Theologiae, Ia-IIae, q. 110, a. 2, sed contra: “…dicit Glossa quod ‘gratia est nitor animae, sanctum concilians amorem.’” Also, Ia-IIae, q. 112, a. 5, sed contra: “…gratia gratum faciens facit hominem dignum Dei amore.”
25 See Summa Theologiae, Ia-IIae, q. 112, a. 5, corpus.
26 From “The Fifteen Promises of Mary to Christians Who Recite the Rosary”, given to St. Dominic and Bl. Alan, Imprimatur: Patrick J. Hayes, D.D., Archbishop of New York (1919-1938).
27 See Collect, Trinity Sunday.
28 Ibid.
29 See Collect, First Sunday after Pentecost.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.

The Influence of Culture on Prayer

2010-05-07T12:13:00.000-05:00

Dominica post Ascensionem D.N.I.C.

24 May 2009

Be prudent and watchful in prayers.

Since the liturgical season gives us the opportunity to contemplate the days leading up to Pentecost, when the “little flock” — the “Pusillus Grex” — had gathered in that high place known as the Upper Room to await and pray for the coming of the Holy Ghost, we would do well to consider this little mountain with two other high places of no mean significance in the life of Our Lord.

On His way to Jerusalem, our Lord climbed Mount Tabor — to pray. And as you know, He took with Him Peter, James, and John. And while He was praying, He was transfigured before their eyes: “His face shone as the sun, and His garments became white as snow.” That is to say, Our Lord allowed the full splendor of His impassible divinity to shine forth, revealing to these three Apostles what the Incarnation really looked like when the Divine Power was not withholding from plain sight the full effect of its presence. Little wonder that St. Peter, no doubt speaking for his companions, imprudently desired to remain atop this mountain and avoid Mount Calvary, the mountain of supreme sacrifice, where our Lord manifested His incomparable charity, humility, and obedience.

Once in Jerusalem, shortly before He was to be delivered up to His enemies, our blessed Lord went up another mountain, the Mount of Olives into the Garden of Gethsemane — again, to pray. And once again, He singled out Peter, James, and John to pray with Him. And had they remained awake, they would have witnessed, evidence not of Christ’s divinity, but of the fullness of His sacred humanity. For this time, instead of shining as the sun, Our Lord’s face — bathed as it was in a mixture of blood and sweat — reflected only the pale light of the moon. Divine though He was, Christ was not above the agony arising from His knowing every last detail of His impending ordeal. And yet, all this occurred while He prayed.

Now, whereas Our Lord took with Him Peter, James, and John, during this Paschal season, the Church, with the Letters of Saints Peter and James, and with the Gospel of Saint John, takes us almost every Sunday to the Upper Room to ponder the words that Our Lord spoke on the way to the Mount of Olives. It’s as though the Church uses Paschaltide to help us overcome the earlier missteps of Peter, James, and John, that we too may learn to pray correctly; that we may strive to unite ourselves to God without imprudently desiring to rest in Him apart from the Cross of Christ; that we may bear faithful witness to Christ because we have first been watchful and awake with Him in prayer.

And so, it should come as no surprise to us that, as the Paschal season draws to its fulfillment, the liturgy brings us to the Upper Room, where the universal Church has gathered in the persons of the Apostles, the Virgin Mary, and some 120 other disciples. They have gathered to pray and await the descent of the Holy Ghost, the coming of the Spirit of Christ, the Soul of the Church, the Power of God that would perfect the work of Christ in their souls and give them the power to bear witness to Christ in the face of a hostile world. For had they not received this power from on high, the disciples would have descended from the Upper Room as powerless as they had been that fateful night in the Garden of Gethsemane, when they slept while Christ prayed: so that when the Shepherd was struck the sheep indeed were scattered. Or, they would have been as powerless as the disciples had been at the foot of Mount Tabor, when they found themselves unable to cast out the demon from the child. This kind of demon could not be cast out but by prayer and fasting, and they had not gone up with Our Lord to pray. Or they would have been as powerless and afraid as St. Peter had been on Holy Thursday night to bear witness to Christ and defend Him to a woman, a servant girl. Only when the promised Spirit came upon them could they go forth and bear witness to Christ, even to the point of shedding their own blood for His sake.

Now, it would be the height of folly for any of us to suppose that the gathering of the entire Church in the Upper Room in the days preceding the Feast of Pentecost was not meant to be a model for us all to follow. Yet, all too often, we ignore this model and follow instead the misguided example of Peter, James, and John. We either fail to pray, or we pray apart from the Cross of Christ that bearing witness to the world necessarily entails. God forbid that we should have to suffer! Consequently, our witness is at best mediocre, while our fear knows no bounds. Conformity is our watchword, acceptance our desire. We forget that “all that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution.” We forget that we cannot live godly lives in Christ apart from being “prudent and watchful in prayers.” Was not such forgetfulness spectacularly displayed last week at the University of Notre Dame? And yet, let’s not be too surprised and dismayed: for it has been over forty years since the University of Notre Dame, together with many other erstwhile Catholic institutions of higher learning, sold the birthright of its Catholic identity in exchange for a mess of this-worldly pottage. This fateful decision occurred in 1967 with the issuance of that infamous Land O’ Lakes Statement, which was essentially a Declaration of Independence from the Magisterium of the Church. With that decision, this once great Catholic university deliberately chose to conform itself to the prevailing wisdom of secular culture and win the favor of its moneyed gatekeepers, paying lip service to the teachings of the Catholic Church whenever it was expedient to do so. Thus, we should not be too surprised when a secular university dressed in the trappings of Catholicism betrays Christ and acts like the secular university it really is.

But insofar as we also live in the same secular culture as do all those erstwhile Catholic schools, we ought to recognize and appreciate that we are also at risk, especially if we are not “prudent and watchful in prayers.” As Americans, we are all influenced by the mores of American society, elements of which exercise a harmful influence on the mind.

One of these elements was aptly described by the French social scientist Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited America back in 1831 and wrote about his observational tour in his great work, Democracy in America. “America”, writes Tocqueville, is … one of the countries where the precepts of Descartes are least studied and are best applied. … The practice of Americans leads their minds to other habits, to fixing the standard of their judgment in themselves alone. As they perceive that they succeed in resolving without assistance all the little difficulties which their practical life presents, they readily conclude that everything in the world may be explained, and that nothing in it transcends the limits of the understanding. Thus they fall to denying what they cannot comprehend; which leaves them but little faith for whatever is extraordinary and an almost insurmountable distaste for whatever is supernatural.” In other words, we tend to be Cartesian in our thinking. We like the certitude of clear and distinct practicality. Regardless whether it be created or divine, mystery tends to bore us. And if we judge something to be true or good, or boring, we tend to resist the claims of any higher authority to which we have not given our consent, and are loathe to accept its judgment. Let us, then, be aware of this aspect of our national character and oppose its baleful influence upon us by being prudent and watchful in prayer.

Another element to be wary of is pragmatism; that is, the idea that the relevance of anything is determined solely by whether it works. The nineteenth century scientist and logician Charles Peirce, one of the great American articulators of this way of thinking, put it this way: “In order to ascertain the meaning of an intellectual conception one should consider what practical consequences might conceivably result by necessity from the truth of that conception; and the sum of these consequences will constitute the entire meaning of the conception.” In other words, an idea without practical consequences lacks “meaning”, “significance”, or objective importance. Thus, pragmatism rejects the value of gazing upon the true, the good, and the beautiful for its own sake, which gazing just happens to be the activity of contemplation, the highest form of prayer. American culture does not deal easily with the true and the beautiful. It values getting things done without worrying too much about why they are done, or whether there are more important things to be done. Such pragmatism even affects the way we pray. Content with vocal prayer and, contrary to the exhortation of the Roman Catechism, how often do we neglect to devote some portion of the day to meditation on the mysteries of our Lord’s Passion, the better to be stirred and inflamed to the imitation of the most ardent love of our Redeemer?

And so, when St. Peter admonishes us to be “be prudent and watchful in prayers”, God forbid we should ignore his admonition, as if it did not apply to us. God forbid we should underestimate or deny the pervasive influence of pragmatism and Cartesian rationalism upon our souls. On the contrary, let us imitate the “Little Flock” and fervently pray the Spirit to enkindle in us the fire of His love. Let us contemplate the brightness of His purity, the unerring keenness of His justice, and the power of His love. May we desire not to be conformed to the darkness of this world but rather, with the help of the true Strength and Light of our souls, let us allow the true Light of the World to radiate from us, even through our blood, sweat, and tears — that those in darkness may be brought into the light and be reconciled to the Father of Lights.

Lent: A time to learn how to love things by using them

2010-05-07T12:08:00.000-05:00

But that upon good ground, these are they who, with a right and good heart,

having heard the word, hold it fast, and bear fruit in patience.

Sexagesima Sunday

Epistola: 2 Cor. 11:19-33 et 12:1-9

Evangelium: Lk. 8:4-15

15 February 2009

Every year on Whit Sunday, the Sunday after Easter, we are reminded that the mission of the Church is that of Christ. Recall what the Gospel relates, what Our Lord tells His awestruck disciples: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. And when He said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Ghost.’” And with the Holy Ghost, God’s love was poured in their hearts. And when the Holy Ghost manifested Himself visibly on Pentecost, the Apostles lost no time fulfilling this Mission, the Great Commission given to them by Christ.

In today’s liturgy, originally celebrated at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls (of Rome), the epistle provides us with an astounding example of this Mission in the person of St. Paul. Earlier in this same letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul informs us that he was “afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus” might also be “manifested in” his body. Just to what extent he carried “in the body the death of Jesus”, today’s detailed resumé of the Apostle’s trials and tribulations makes it impossible to accuse him of exaggeration. On the contrary, St. Paul may be said to epitomize the man in the gospel who heard the Word, held it fast, and bore fruit in great patience.

As I have mentioned before, this “Great Commission” of Christ to the Church is represented symbolically by the so-called Dismissal; namely, the Ite, missa est, which, in the extraordinary form, precedes the final blessing, following the Biblical order given towards the end of the final chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke. Nowadays, this formula is used throughout the Lenten season, from Septuagesima through Spy Wednesday. Before 1960, however, the Ite, missa est was replaced with Benedicamus Domino. As long as we do not insist on ignoring or denying the realm of liturgical symbolism (an all too common neglect in our age), we should find ourselves asking what might have been the symbolic significance of omitting the Ite, missa est during penitential seasons? One answer might be that Lent is a time of conversion, reparation, and renewal — that we may share in the Mission of the Church that much more effectively.

And so, if Lent is supposed to make us more effective witnesses of the Paschal mystery — the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ — operating in our lives, it behooves us to look to St. Paul our model and ask, How did St. Paul do it? If I am supposed to pattern myself after him, I should very much like to know what was his secret. Well, the pithy answer may be found in today’s gospel: He had a “right and good heart”. That is, he was filled with the charity of God — the charity of God, which (as St. Paul tells the Romans) “is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us.”

This divine love which the Holy Ghost enkindles within our hearts enabled St. Paul — and enables us — to love God after the example that Christ gave us to follow. What was that example? St. Peter will remind us two weeks after Easter Sunday: “…when He was reviled, [He] did not revile; when He suffered did not threaten, but yielded Himself to him who judged Him unjustly; who Himself bore our sins in His body upon the tree, that we, having died to sin, might live to justice”. Now, if it was by the charity of God that Christ mounted the Cross and died for our sins, it is the same charity of God that enables us to pick up our crosses and do the same. Make no mistake about it: this charity of God enables us to recognize and be attracted by the beauty —the sheer beauty! — of the Way, the Truth, and the Life which is Christ. And apart from that charity, we will be unable to follow Christ to Calvary.

Why, then, do we need Lent? We need Lent to purify our love, lest the goodness of created things begin to appear more beautiful to us — and hence more loveable — than the infinitely more beautiful Creator and Redeemer Himself.

In Book XIII of his Confessions, Saint Augustine, making use of basic physical phenomena, compares love to weight and the tendency of weight to incline some body to its natural place. And depending on what sort of love drives a person determines whether he will find his true resting place.

“By its own weight, a body strives towards its own place. Weight tends not toward the depths only, but to its own place. Fire tends upward; a stone downward. They are driven by their own weights, they seek their own places. Oil poured under water is lifted up above the water; water poured over oil is submerged under the oil. They are driven by their own weights; they seek their own places. Remove their order and they are restless. Restore their order and they come to rest. My weight is my love. [Pondus meum amor meus.] By it I am borne, wherever I am borne. By Thy gift [O God] we are enkindled and are borne upwards; we burn inwardly and we go forward. We ascend the flight of stairs [Ps. 82:6] in the heart …. By Thy fire, by Thy good fire we burn inwardly and go forward, because we go upwards to the peace of Jerusalem, because I rejoiced in those things, which they said to me: we shall go unto the house of the Lord. There will a good will place us, and we shall desire nothing other than to remain there unto eternity.”

Is it wrong, then, to love anything created? Does a pure love desire only God and nothing else? No. How, then, is it possible to love created things and God at the same time? St. Augustine provides the answer. Imagine you are on a trip, traveling by car from Lincoln to New York. Insofar as you desire to go to New York, it can be said that you love New York. Now along the way, suppose you desire to stop at an inn for the night. Well, what are you desiring? What are you loving? You are desiring and loving sleep, refreshment, and the safety and comfort of the inn. But there is this difference between your love of the inn, together with all it has to offer, and your love of New York. You do not desire the inn as your final destination, where you will be able truly to rest and enjoy yourself. Rather you are using the inn to reach your final destination. And so, in Augustine’s terminology, there are two different kinds of love: the love known as use (that is, loving things for the sake of something else), and the love known in Latin as fruitio and in English as enjoyment (that is, loving something for its own sake).

And so, if we are to love with a “right and good heart”, we will “use” all created things for the sake of God and “enjoy” God alone. The problem, of course, is that we tend to love created things with the love of enjoyment rather than with the love of use. Instead of the charity of the Holy Ghost — caritas — ours is the love of cupiditas. Thanks to cupidity or concupiscence, we become inordinately attached to created things (or, to put it in our Lord’s sobering words, we get “choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life” — with the result that our “fruit [our enjoyment] does not ripen” unto eternal life. Sadly—incredibly!— instead of our celestial home, we tend to prefer the terrestrial inn along the path of our Pilgrimage. We “enjoy” the created goods of the earth and soon forget about our heavenly destination. That is why St. Paul reminds St. Timothy, his man in Ephesus, that “in a great house” (that is, the Church), “there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth: and some indeed unto honour, but some to dishonour” (2 Tim. 2:20).

And so, the season of Lent is a time of conversion: an opportunity for us all to adjust our desires, our loves, that we might love both our Creator and Redeemer, together with created things, as we ought. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Lent is a time of penance, a time of detesting the sins that our enjoyment of created things necessarily entailed, a time of making reparation for these sins, sins that did nothing but weigh down our souls, even to the point of extinguishing the fire of the Holy Ghost within us “unto dishonour”. My weight is my love. Well, then, may my weight be that of the ascending fire of the Holy Ghost! “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

You know how, in all too many parishes, liturgical committees work overtime to come up with catchy little themes for a particular Mass or liturgical season. While I don’t plan to impose one upon you, I do have something that you can use daily to remind yourself of the overarching purpose of Lent. No matter where any of us may be on the great Pilgrimage to our heavenly home, let us learn truly to bless the Lord by making our own the following prayer penned by St. Augustine:

“Give Thyself to me, O my God, restore Thyself to me! See, I love Thee; and if it be too little, let me love Thee still more strongly.” Pondus meum amor meus. In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

Americanism and the Pungency of the Gospel

2010-05-07T12:06:00.000-05:00

…for our Gospel hath not been unto you in word only, but in power also…
Dominica Sexta Epihaniae post Pentecosten resumpta
16 November 2008

Today’s parables, that of the leaven and the mustard seed, are the third and fourth of the seven “kingdom” parables found in Matt. 13. Among the fathers one finds a variety of interpretations.
St. Jerome’s understanding of the mustard seed is particularly cogent.

So that we are on the same page as Jerome, let us first call to mind the natural properties of the mustard seed. As Our Lord Himself indicates, it is very small — indeed, extremely small: A single seed will fit in between the ridges of a man’s fingerprints. Moreover, as consumers of mustard, we are familiar with its pungent quality which in Jerome’s day (and perhaps in ours too) was thought to assist the body in repelling toxins.

Aware of these natural properties, Jerome proceeds to the spiritual level, identifying the seed with the doctrine of the Gospel communicated in preaching: “The kingdom of heaven is the preaching of the Gospel and a knowledge of the Scriptures which lead to life, concerning which it was said to the Jews: ‘The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof.’ Such a kingdom, therefore, is like to a grain of mustard seed which a man receiving, sowed in his field.”

Jerome goes on to describe the mustard seed as the grain of preaching, which is sown into the souls of the hearer, a grain which, nourished by the “moisture of faith”, sprouts forth in the field of the heart.

Noting the extremely small size of the mustard seed, Jerome finds its spiritual equivalent in observation that the “preaching of the Gospel is the least of all exercises. Indeed, for its very first doctrine the Gospel does not have even the semblance of truth, preaching as it does a man-God, Christ who died, and the proclamation of the stumbling block of the Cross. Compare such a doctrine with the tenets of the philosophers, with their books and the brilliancy of the eloquence, and the arrangement of their words, and you will see how much less than all these seeds is the seed of him who sows the seed of the Gospel.” And yet, there is a hidden power in the preaching of the Gospel, a power that the Thessalonian Christians experienced, who had received St. Paul’s preaching of the Gospel not only “in word … but in power also, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much fulness.”

Indeed, as St. Paul reminded the Church at Corinth: “…the word of the Cross, to them indeed that perish, is foolishness; but to them that are saved, that is, to us, it is the power of God. For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; and the prudence of the prudent I will reject. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? … But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumbling block, and unto the gentiles, foolishness. But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men: and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

In keeping with the words of St. Paul found in today’s epistle, this power of the Gospel may be called pungent, for it purifies the soul of the darkness of error and the worship of idols, disposing it to receive the light of grace and truth and the knowledge of the one true God.

Next, Jerome directs our attention to the aftermath. Though the mustard seed is very small, it grows into something very large. For when the tenets of the philosophers have, as it were, sprung up, they “show themselves without vigor, without spirit, without life”; insofar as they are “altogether languid, degenerate, and soft, they develop into herbs and plants which quickly dry up and waste away.” For these are not the word of God but the word of men. “But the preaching of the Gospel, which in the beginning seems small, when it is sown in the souls of the faithful or in the whole world, springs up not into an herb, but develops into a tree; so that the birds of the air (which we must understand to be the souls of the faithful or deeds of virtue performed in the service of God) come and dwell in its branches. I consider the branches of this tree of the Gospel, which sprang from the mustard seed, to be the various dogmas on which each of the above-mentioned birds rests.”

In his own commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew, St. Thomas Aquinas, after reiterating all that Jerome has observed, remarks that the solidity of the tree aptly describes the solidity of the doctrine of the Gospel, about which we will hear next week from the lips of Our Lord Himself, who assures us that “Heaven and earth shall pass, but my words shall not pass” (Mt. 24:35).

Now all of us know where to find the Gospel according to Sts. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But if we were asked to preach the Gospel, what doctrines would we preach? Certainly, we would want to preach the same Gospel that St. Paul preached. For the Apostle did insist to the Galatians that “if anyone preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema” (Gal. 1:9). How, then, would we know that what we preached perfectly harmonized with St. Paul’s Gospel?

There are two schools of thought on this matter, two approaches that have as their respective foundations two different concepts of faith — one of them Protestant, the other Catholic. Here is how Fr. Gustave Weigel, S.J. puts it:

“Faith has different meanings for a Catholic and a Protestant. To the Protestant, faith means a trusting self-surrender of the compete man to the revealing God. For a Catholic, however, this act of cordial surrender is called faith, hope, and charity. To a Catholic, the word faith alone conveys the notion of an intellectual assent to the content of revelation as true because of the witnessing authority of God the Revealer.

“Consequently the Catholic understands faith intellectually and supernaturally. Faith is the Catholic’s response to an intellectual message communicated by God. For the Catholic, God reveals Himself through the medium of the teaching of the living holy community called the Church. It is so important for non-Catholics to appreciate this from the outset. A Christian of the Reform tradition believes that God makes Himself and His truth known through a collection of books called the Bible. This book is the teacher, and all other teaching is commentary, good or bad. The divine message itself is restricted to the Book.

“In the light of these basic observations we can see the great difference between the Catholic and the Protestant conceptions of the God-encounter. For the Catholic, the locus of meeting is the Church, which for its task of bringing men to God uses many means: the teaching of authorized masters, i.e., the bishops and their primate the Pope; the liturgy; books written by men of the Church under divine inspiration, the Scriptures; the common beliefs and practices of the Catholics stretched out over time and space. The inspired books, which have God as their author in consequence of their inspiration, are ecclesiastical instruments for teaching, guiding and exhorting. They are not over the Church, but rather a part of the Church’s panoply to be used in her work of accomplishing the task of uniting man to God. It is the Church which teaches, the Church which sanctifies, the Church which builds and vitalizes. The Church is not a fruit of the Book but rather the Book is a fruit of the Church.

“Hence it is that the Catholic does not say in the first instance, What does the Book say? The Church and the Book say the same thing, and since the Book is in a peculiar sense God’s Word, he will turn to the Book. However, this is not his ultimate recourse. He has only one ultimate recourse, the Church herself, and the Book is accepted from her hand and with her explanation. The Book is not the proof but only a divine expression in human language of the Church’s teaching. [Or, as Cardinal Ratzinger would later say: the doctrines of the Church are “official interpretations” of Scripture.] Over the Book stands the Church, while according to the Reform conception, over the Church stands the Book.

“This fundamental vision of the Church causes the Catholic to look to the episcopate for doctrine, because the bishops are the authentic exponents of God’s message to the world. This is no idolatry of the bishops or their primate, the Bishop of Rome, but only a consequent of the Catholic theory of the Church. The Church is an organized visible fellowship theologically explained by the great scriptural symbols of the People of God, the Vine and Branches, the Body of Christ, the Temple of the Holy Ghost, the Marriage of Christ and His Spouse. Because it is a visible society, it has the social structure of such a union. Because it is divine in institution and dynamism, the Holy Spirit dwells in it, keeping it alive, keeping it true, making it grow. The Spirit is the source of the life of the Church, but that life is the life of a body. The body is made up of many members which are distinguished one from the other by functions for which they have a fixed structure. The hand is not the foot nor is the eye the ear, though all are in the Body and all live the one life of the Body. (I Cor. 12.)

“In the Body, the bishops have the function of teaching and guiding, and this task they perform through the power of the Spirit, who transfuses the whole Body, making each member effective in his function. The Body is one, and so the episcopate is one, as St. Cyprian said seventeen centuries ago. The unity of the episcopate is achieved through solidarity with the prime source of episcopal power, the Bishop of Rome, who is the successor of Simon changed into the Rock, on whom the Church was built and who received the keys of the Kingdom. In the primate dwells the fullness of episcopal power, and all bishops share it with him. Altogether they have no more than he has and he alone has all that they have.

“Therefore, the Catholic sees in the Bishop of Rome the supreme source of teaching and guidance. In that man the episcopate is fully gathered; by means of the episcopate the Church teaches; through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit the Church teaches because with the Spirit as the soul and the believers as the members, one living Body is formed and it is the Body of Christ Himself, God’s definitive legate to the world for redemption, sanctification, and doctrine.
“So it is that in the Catholic vision the pope teaches in the name of the episcopate and the episcopate teaches in the name of the Church and the Church teaches in the name of Christ, and Christ teaches in the name of God.”

Scripture itself bears witness to the teaching authority which Christ conferred upon His Church. Towards the end of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, Our Lord commands His Apostles: “…teach all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” And in 1 Timothy 3:15, St. Paul speaks of the house of God, “which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.”

The fathers of the First Vatican Council put it this way: “The doctrine of faith which God has revealed has not been proposed, like a philosophical invention to be perfected by human ingenuity, but has been delivered as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully kept and infallibly declared. Hence that meaning of the sacred dogmas is perpetually to be retained which our Holy Mother, the Church, has once declared, nor is that meaning ever to be departed from under the pretense or pretext of a deeper comprehension of them.”

Most Catholics do not preach the Gospel in an official capacity, though all Catholics are called to preach the Gospel by the witness of their lives. At times, opportunities arise to “preach” the Gospel by handing it on — catechizing and instructing someone, or perhaps simply stating what, as a Catholic, I believe. If I have embraced the Catholic faith in its entirety, then my preaching will have the power of leaven, and the meal of the world about me will rise. If I adhere to the pungent doctrine of the Gospel, then my preaching will not “in word only, but in power also, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much fullness”.

Sadly, vast numbers of Catholics do not embrace the Catholic faith in its entirety. Instead, they pick and choose: some doctrines they accept, others they water down, still others they altogether reject. Is a moral teaching unpopular? Let’s tone it down, neglect it, abandon it. In effect, the Catholics who give selective assent to the doctrine of the Gospel have adopted a Protestant approach to the teaching Church: if what the Church teaches fails to harmonize with their own criteria, their own ideas and ideologies, all too often they carry on and pay lip-service to Rome. Thus, too many Catholics have become dead leaven, mild mustard, candles hidden under a bushel, so much bland salt: “good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men.”

There are a variety of names given to this attitude: Catholic-lite, cafeteria Catholicism, etc. Pope Leo XIII also gave a name to it when, in 1899, he condemned it as heretical. He called it “Americanism”. In Leo’s own words, “The underlying principle of these new opinions is that, in order to more easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should shape her teachings in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions. Many think that these concessions should be made not only in regard to ways of living, but even in regard to doctrines which belong to the deposit of faith. They contend that it would be opportune, in order to gain those who differ from us, to omit certain points of her teaching which are of lesser importance, and to tone down the meaning which the Church has always attached to them.”

Pope Leo speaks of “new opinions.” What are these new opinions? The main one stems from a false notion of liberty; namely, the idea popularly known as “rugged individualism” applied to the Church. No one is going to tell me how to run my life, etc. In Leo’s words: that “such liberty should be allowed in the Church, that her supervision and watchfulness being in some sense lessened, allowance be granted the faithful, each one to follow out more freely the leading of his own mind and the trend of his own proper activity.” In short, an Americanist exchanges the freedom of the Truth for the slavery of an ill-formed conscience. Don’t listen to the Church; listen to yourself, listen to the princes of this world, follow the latest opinion poll, the latest trend; conform yourself to the world. The doctrine of the Gospel is what I say it is.

After exposing the heresy, Leo reiterates the manner in which Catholics ought to live in the world as effective witnesses of our Savior Jesus Christ: “The scriptures teach us that it is the duty of all to be solicitous for the salvation of one's neighbor, according to the power and position of each. The faithful do this by 1) religiously discharging the duties of their state of life, 2) by the uprightness of their conduct, 3) by their works of Christian charity and 4) by earnest and continuous prayer to God.” He also warns against arrogance. Since many “are separated from Catholic truth more by ignorance than by ill-will”, these will be “more easily drawn to the one fold of Christ if this truth be set forth to them in a friendly and familiar way.”

Today, the Church holds before us the example of the Thessalonians, for as St. Paul tells us, they had received the Gospel, the pungent preaching of the word of God “not as the word of men, but (as it is indeed) the word of God.” Let us, too, follow their example and shun the heresy of Americanism. Let us not be ashamed of the pungency of the Gospel, nor reject the call of Christ to be a leaven in the world, that it may rise from the darkness of error into the Light of world: the Incarnate Word, the Prince of Peace, Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. To whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Easter Sunday Sermon (2008)

2010-05-07T12:03:00.001-05:00

Thy knowledge is become wonderful.
Easter Sunday 2008

Since the time of man’s creation, and the first sin of Adam and Eve, the natural life of all men has been the same, an existence clearly described in the Book of Job: “Man born of woman is short-lived and full of trouble.” This was life for most people — you were born, you worked by the sweat of your brow. And if you had not been cut down by famine, disease, or war, and if you had the time and the leisure, you might — with the faint candlelight of reason, begin to grope around in the dark — begin to wonder and ask, what this short and uncertain existence was all about. But before you had a chance to advance very far, you came face to face with the very thing to which you would have had no answer at all. In short, you died. Yes, for fallen man, death was inexplicable. And for that reason, the purpose of the life that preceded it was, and is, an inscrutable mystery.

But when our Lord rose from the dead, this bleak situation called existence changed completely, and a new, supernatural order of life came into being. While death did not cease to be, it lost its pointless finality — that is, for those who believed in, and died, in Christ. With His death and resurrection, the mystery of creation and of life was overcome, the purpose of creation and of life fully revealed. For our Lord died that we might live life abundantly through Him, with Him, and in Him — “the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation”, in whom, through whom, and for whom all things were created. For “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is the head of the Body, the Church; He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything He might be pre-eminent.” Through Him God was pleased to “reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.”

For us, the basis for our belief in Christ, the Divine Plan, is the Resurrection. “For if Christ has not been raised, then our faith is empty.” But for those whom Our Lord chose to witness His Resurrection, the idea that anyone could rise from the dead was unbelievable. Because of this, when these witnesses first confronted the effects of the Resurrection, and even Christ Himself, the Gospel accounts of that morning convey their confusion — a confusion that stamps their testimony with an unmistakable — and indelible — seal of authenticity.

Who, for example, was actually in the garden where the tomb of Christ was located? Who saw our Lord first? Who believed and who did not? And exactly what was said, when?
When Mary Magdalene hurried to tell the Apostles what had happened, she did not say, “The Lord is risen — come and see.” She said, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we do not know where they have put him.” Clearly, she did not realize at first, what had really happened.

Peter and John, hearing what Mary Magdalene had to say, ran to the garden and entered the tomb. Scripture says they examined the burial cloths that had been left there, and John says that he himself actually believed. But what did he believe? If he believed that Our Lord had truly risen, he kept it to himself. For the Gospel goes on to report, that when Peter and John were finished examining the tomb, they went back into the city — not to proclaim the Lord’s Resurrection, but to wait — to wait and see what might happen next.

Mary Magdalene, left there by Peter and John, didn’t know what to think, much less what to believe. Doubtless, she must have been very upset and sorrowful. She had come to the tomb to mourn, only to discover that the body of the Lord, her Lord, was not there to mourn over. And so Mary Magdalene did what any of us might have done — she sat down and wept. For as Job might have said, she was “full of trouble.”

But then, her time of grief and confusion was brought to an end. She sees a man in the garden — “Mary,” He calls to her— and in the sound of His risen voice, she knows Him, she knows it is the Lord, and she becomes the first to know, to understand, to see, that He who was dead, now lives, never to die again.

When Mary then goes to the house where the Apostles are waiting, it is not to argue or to persuade or to boast. Instead, as the Gospel says, she simply tells them, “I have seen the Lord.” With that statement of fact, the clouds of doubt and confusion begin to dissipate, and the waiting that began when our Lord had died on the Cross, comes to an end — for them, and for us. “I have seen the Lord.” With that greatest of all exit lines, Mary Magdalene passes from the story, and from before our eyes. But her testimony ever remains before us to keep us firm in our faith in the Risen Christ.

For those who lived and worked alongside our Lord, it seems to us that it was almost their duty to believe that He would rise from the dead. After all, had they not heard Christ repeatedly tell them that, even though He must go to Jerusalem to suffer many things at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes; even though they would condemn Him to death; that they would deliver Him to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and be killed — did He not also tell them that on the third day, He would be raised from the dead? And even though we know of their ignorance, their doubts and their fears, we also sense that in the depths of their hearts, the Apostles (save one) never lost hope; so that when they encountered the Risen Lord, and their hope turned to joy that first Easter, it was inevitable, if not their duty, that they believe in their Lord and Savior.

As for us, we tend to measure our own response to the Resurrection with a different ruler. After all, we were not there; we did not walk with Christ or witness His Resurrection. Even so, are we so different from them that we are excused from accepting their testimony? Like the Apostles and the other witnesses, we too are born of woman. Like Mary Magdalene, we too have our troubles and fears — at times we suffer confusion. Perhaps some of us here have suffered doubt, or even lost their faith and felt the bitter pangs of despair. And yet, like the Apostles, we too are obliged to believe. For if they who witnessed the risen Lord were compelled to believe by the evidence of His Resurrection, their testimony likewise obliges us to believe as well.

Of course, testimony, no matter how reliable, cannot force anyone to believe — I cannot even force myself to believe. For faith is a gift of grace, a light given to us from above to see and to understand what the dim light of our own reason cannot even begin to comprehend concerning the Divine Plan. Oh, yes, we can perceive certain hints of creation that seem to suggest that behind all of it, there is a Divine Plan. We see, for example, that death comes with the winter and new life with the spring; that before one generation passes, another takes its place. But what does this mean? Given our fallen state, we could not possibly have known until its ultimate significance — the Passion, death, and Resurrection of Christ — had been accomplished. And even then, nothing will make sense until we embrace the gift of faith and ourselves die with Christ and rise to new life in Him through the waters of baptism.

Those of us who have received this great gift have every reason to share in the joy of those first witnesses of the Resurrection. And if we should ever find ourselves plagued by doubt, let us never forget that the Resurrection is not a theory or a fantasy, but is a historical event that transformed the lives of those who witnessed it, as well as those who accepted their testimony and themselves believed.

And let us also remember, that even as Our divine Savior called Mary by name, and she knew Him, our Lord calls each and every one of us by name, that we may know Him: now and for all eternity — His kindness, His consolation, His steadfast love: “Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. … And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

On Protecting the Eucharist from Unworthy Reception (2004)

2010-05-07T12:01:00.000-05:00

Fourth Sunday after Easter
(First Holy Communion)
9 May 2004

My dear children: You may not have heard of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was a great man who once ruled all of Europe. He was a brilliant general who won many victories. Well, when he was finally defeated he was sent to spend the rest of his days in exile on a desolate island. But because he had been so famous, many people came to visit him. One day, a man asked him what the happiest day of his life was. The man expected to hear Napoleon choose among his many great accomplishments. But instead, Napoleon said that his happiest day in his life was the day he made his First Holy Communion.

In today’s epistle, St. James tells us that “Every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” Well, you have been preparing at least since last September to receive the greatest gift: Our Lord Himself contained in the Blessed Sacrament. When you receive Our Lord in Holy Communion, He will be your divine Guest. Up to now, you have prepared your mind, and you have prepared your soul by beginning the habit of receiving the Sacrament of Confession. And to impress upon you the importance of receiving Our Lord in Holy Communion, a lot of people have made a great effort to make this a day so memorable that you too will cherish it for the rest of your lives, just as Napoleon did. No matter what great things you may accomplish, the privilege of hosting our Divine Savior has no earthly parallel.

There is another reason why this day is very special. Even though your parents, and all of us grown-ups are supposed to be good examples for you to follow, in your own way, you give us an extremely important example of how to be a child of God, of how to be a good and faithful Catholic. Our Lord once told His disciples: “Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
How are you an example to your parents, and to all grown-ups? By your simplicity, confidence in your parents, your obedience to them, your innocence; but above all, in your ready acceptance of all that the Church teaches concerning faith and morals.

And now, I am going to speak to your parents and all the other grown-ups, because they need to be reminded in a special way just how important it is to follow your example.

So, then, my dear people, even though the Blessed Sacrament is among the greatest of gifts that God has given to the Church, it is not to be given to all indiscriminately. First of all, only Catholics are supposed to receive Holy Communion. Why is that? Because, as the fathers of the sacred Council of Trent taught, Our Lord wished that the Blessed Sacrament be “a pledge of our future glory and of everlasting happiness, and thus be a symbol of that one ‘body’ of which He Himself is the ‘head’, and to which He wished us to be united, as members, by the closest bond of faith, hope, and charity, that we might “all speak the same thing and there might be no schisms among us.” [D875] Holy Communion is not a means to achieving full communion; it is, on the contrary, the visible sign of full communion with the visible Church of God. When a person receives Holy Communion, he is, in effect, saying: I am in full communion with the Church, the Body of Christ. He is not saying, I hope to be one day in full communion with the Church of God, the Body of Christ. He is saying, I accept the Catholic faith whole and entire, not, “let me think about it and I’ll get back to you.” He is saying: Here and now, I acknowledge and submit to the authority of the Church, especially that which is exercised by the Pope and all the bishops who are in union with the Pope; he is not saying, I’ll accept the authority of the Church only in my private life, or only when the Church conforms to my understanding of what is true and false, right and wrong. In short, when a person receives Holy Communion he is, in effect, saying, “I hereby testify and do solemnly swear that I am a Catholic, and I accept all that the Catholic Church teaches concerning faith and morals.”

Given this dimension of Holy Communion, it is easy to understand why the Church bars non-Catholics from receiving Holy Communion. For if the Church permitted this, she would be allowing, even encouraging, non-Catholics to perjure themselves before God and men; that is, to testify through the public act of receiving Holy Communion to being Catholic when in fact they are not.

Even though it’s true and just that the Church generally restricts Holy Communion to baptized Catholics, not just any Catholic ought to receive Holy Communion. One must be a Catholic in good standing. This doesn’t mean that a worthy reception of Holy Communion requires that a Catholic be absolutely without sin, without faults, in order to receive worthily. For Holy Communion is a remedy for faults, not a reward to those who have attained perfection. Again, to quote the fathers of the Council of Trent, Our Lord wished that “this sacrament be received as the spiritual food of souls by which they may be nourished and strengthened. . . and as an antidote, whereby they may be freed from daily faults and be preserved from mortal sins.” [D875]. However, these “daily faults” must not be themselves mortal sins. Again, as the fathers of the Council of Trent taught, “No one conscious of mortal sin, however contrite he may seem to himself, should approach the Holy Eucharist without a previous sacramental confession.” A Catholic who is conscious of mortal sin and receives Holy Communion anyway would be guilty of a grave sin, or in the words of St. Paul, “guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord.”

Unfortunately, many Catholics who know that they are in mortal sin approach the Holy Eucharist anyway. When this happens, the priest who is distributing Holy Communion may sometimes know (say through what he has learned through the confessional) that the person to whom he is about to give the Blessed Sacrament is in mortal sin. Let’s say, however, that no one else knows. In this case, what must the priest do? He must give that person Holy Communion. Otherwise, he would manifest to everyone else the state of that person’s soul. But what if a Catholic who approaches the Holy Eucharist is already in manifest grave sin, and is known to obstinately persist in it? What if he is dealing with someone who obstinately persists in some sin, and everyone already knows about it? What, then, is the priest to do? With regard to this question, the Code of Canon Law provides a clear, unambiguous answer: such a person is “not to be admitted to Holy Communion.” (C. 915)

This is the objective norm. However, it falls to the local bishops to apply the norm to specific cases. For in particular instances, it may be difficult to determine whether or how the law applies. Is such and such a person’s sin truly manifest? Is he obstinately persistent in it?

That there are some difficult cases, however, does not mean that all cases are difficult. Indeed, at least some cases are painfully clear. Of course, whether a case is clear or not has little to do with how much controversy or media attention it may generate. Which means that, even in the most obvious case, great courage may be required on the part of both priests and bishops to take a stand against what would amount to a public sacrilege against the Blessed Sacrament and the practical acceptance of the sin in question. If everyone in Nazi Germany had known what Adolf Hitler stood for (this may not have been common knowledge), how many priests or bishops would have risked their lives by denying him Holy Communion? I don’t know the answer, but I hope all of them would have been willing to sacrifice their lives in defense of the Blessed Sacrament, had Hitler ever tried to approach the Holy Eucharist (he probably did not).

Now, in this country, since 1968, the number of Catholic politicians who have zealously promoted abortion with impunity is shamefully high. Abortion is no small matter. Throughout her very long history, the Church has always condemned abortion in the most explicit terms. In our day, the Second Vatican Council called abortion not just a crime, but an “abominable crime.” That these politicians share in the culpability of abortion was made clear by Pope John Paul II, who asserted in his Encyclical, Evangelium Vitæ that the responsibility for this crime falls not only on those who are directly involved in abortion, but also on “the legislators who have promoted and approved abortion laws.” It’s hard to imagine a more heinous crime than abortion. So if Canon 915 does not apply to pro-abortion Catholic politicians, one would be hard pressed to think of any case where the objective norm set by this canon should be applied. But while a great many Catholic politicians have defended and promoted the “abominable crime” of abortion in this country and around the world, canon 915 has remained unused and practically forgotten.

But now that one of those Catholic politicians, John Kerry, will soon be in a position to be elected President of the United States, the obvious dichotomy between what the Church condemns and what John Kerry unabashedly promotes has become national news. Which means that the stance that the bishops take will come under ever-increasing scrutiny. Well, practically speaking, there are only a few positions for a bishop to adopt: he can go on record and state that any Catholic politician who is known to promote abortion is to be denied Holy Communion in his diocese. As you know, a few bishops have done this. Or, a bishop, after weighing the pros and cons of making such a statement, can choose to remain silent and try to withstand the pressure from the media or from his own flock to say yea or nay. Or, if he is really sophisticated, he can adopt the so-called “seamless garment” position that Cardinal McCarrick has publicly espoused; namely, that even if it may be the most important issue, abortion is only one issue out of many. I call this position sophisticated (i.e., in the sense of being sophistical) because it treats the moral issue of abortion, and the question of imposing sanctions on those who promote it, as if it were a math problem. How many evils must a Catholic politician promote before he should be refused the Holy Eucharist? One? Oh, no, that’s too small a number. Two, ten, twenty? 50% plus one? 99%? Where should the line be drawn? What issues shall be counted? No doubt, a committee would have to be formed to solve such a quantitative conundrum. Needless to say, the seamless garment position does not, in fact, recognize the qualitative weight of abortion (despite the explicit condemnation of abortion by the fathers of the Second Vatican Council), to say nothing of the entire moral tradition of the Church. Rather, this position, first articulated (at least in recent memory) by the late Cardinal Bernadin, assigns to the crime of abortion a quantitative value equal to the value of any other issue on the table, so that it becomes just “one issue out of many.”

I certainly hope and pray that all of the nation’s bishops exert their God-given authority not only against Senator Kerry, but against all of these pro-abortion Catholic politicians in defense of both the unborn and the Blessed Sacrament. But if they don’t, may the example that these children are giving you today keep you from following the example of the likes of Senator Kerry, or approaching the Holy Eucharist when you know you are not suitably disposed. Indeed, may these children inspire us all to become like them in their unhesitating acceptance of all that the Church teaches, so that, to paraphrase the postcommunion prayer, what we receive in faith may truly cleanse us from our sins and deliver us from all dangers.

The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity & the Athanasian Creed (adapted from a sermon by Newman

2010-05-07T11:57:00.000-05:00

“Go, therefore, and teach all nations;
baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”
—Matt. 28:19.

Trinity Sunday

That in some real sense the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost are They whom we are bound to serve and worship, from whom comes the Gospel of grace, and in whom the profession of Christianity centers, surely is shown, most satisfactorily and indisputably, by the words of this text.

The first thing to observe about these words is that they blatantly contradict the ordinary rules of grammar. The Name is one, yet it embraces three Persons. The reason for this is not that Our Lord wished to obscure what would otherwise be clear. Rather, in communicating to us the eternal mystery at the heart of the Godhead, there could not but be a difficulty in the words in which Our Lord chose to reveal it. At the same time, however, the individual words themselves could not be more plain or exact. And this deserves notice; for it may also be extended to the details of this great Catholic doctrine, as found in the venerable Creed of St. Athanasius.

Listen, for a moment, to that part of the Creed which concerns the Blessed Trinity:
… we worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity. Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Spirit. But the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have one divinity, equal glory, and coeternal majesty. What the Father is, the Son is, and the Holy Spirit is. The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, and the Holy Spirit is uncreated. The Father is boundless, the Son is boundless, and the Holy Spirit is boundless. The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, and the Holy Spirit is eternal. Nevertheless, there are not three eternal beings, but one eternal being. So there are not three uncreated beings, nor three boundless beings, but one uncreated being and one boundless being. Likewise, the Father is omnipotent, the Son is omnipotent, the Holy Spirit is omnipotent. Yet there are not three omnipotent beings, but one omnipotent being. Thus the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. However, there are not three gods, but one God. The Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, and the Holy Spirit is Lord. However, there as not three lords, but one Lord. For as we are obliged by Christian truth to acknowledge every Person singly to be God and Lord, so too are we forbidden by the Catholic religion to say that there are three Gods or Lords. The Father was not made, nor created, nor generated by anyone. The Son is of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son, not made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding. There is, then, one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits. In this Trinity, there is nothing before or after, nothing greater or less. The entire three Persons are coeternal and coequal with one another. So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity is to be worshipped in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity. He, therefore, who wishes to be saved, must believe thus about the Trinity....

If unbelievers speak against this Creed and the doctrine expressed therein as being unintelligible, the real objection which unbelievers feel, if they spoke correctly, is that it is too plain. No sentences can be more simple, nor statements more precise, than those found in the Creed. The difficulty is not in any one taken singly, but in their combination. For most of the words used in the Athanasian Creed are but common words used in their normative, ordinary sense, as “Lord” and “God,” “eternal” and “almighty,” “one” and “three.” There is no difficulty, except such as is in the nature of things, in the Adorable Mystery spoken of, which no wording can remove or explain.
And now I propose to state the doctrine, as far as it can be done, in a few words, in the mode in which it is disclosed to us in the text of Scripture; not at all to explain the great Mystery before us, but rather to impress upon our mind what it is that the Catholic Church means to assert, and as making it a matter of real faith and apprehension, and not a mere assemblage of words.

First, considering how often it is told us in Scripture, I need scarcely say that God is One. “Hear, O Israel,” says Moses, “the Lord our God is one Lord.” “To us there is but one God, the Father,” says St. Paul. Again, “One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all.” Again, “One God, and one Mediator between God and man.”

Now, it may be asked, in what sense “one”? For we speak of things being one which really are many; as Scripture speaks of all Christians being made one Body; of God being made at one with sinners; of God and man being one in Christ; and of one Baptism, though administered to multitudes. I answer, that God is one in the simplest and strictest sense, as all Scripture shows. This is true, whatever else is true: not in any nominal or secondary sense; but one, as being individual; as truly one as any individual soul or spirit is one; nay, infinitely more truly so, because all creatures are imperfect, whereas God is all perfection. In Him there are no parts or passions, nothing inchoate or incomplete, nothing by communication, nothing of quality, nothing which admits of increase, nothing common to others. He is separate from all things, and whole, and perfect, and simple, and like Himself and none else. He is one, not in name, or by figure, or by accommodation, or by abstraction, but one in Himself, or, as the Creed speaks, one in substance. All that He is, is Himself, and nothing short of Himself; His attributes are He. Has He wisdom? This does but mean that He is Wisdom. Has he love? That is, “God is love”, as St. John speaks. Has He omnipresence? That is, He is omnipresence. Has He omniscience? He is omniscience. Has He power? He is almighty. He is holy, and just, and true, and good, not in the way of qualities of His essence, but holiness, justice, truth, and goodness, are all one and the self-same He, according as He is contemplated by His creatures in various aspects and relations. We men are incapable of conceiving of Him as He is; we cannot attain to more than glimpses, accidental or partial views, of His infinite Majesty, and these we call by different names, as if He had attributes, or were compound in nature. And thus He deigns in mercy to speak of Himself, using even human, sensible, and material terms; as if He could be angry, who is not touched by evil; or could repent, in whom is not change; or had eyes, or arms, or breath, who is a Spirit, not a Body; whereas He is at once and absolutely all perfection, and whatever is He, is all He is, and He is Himself always and altogether.

Thus we must ever commence in all our teaching concerning the Holy Trinity; we must not begin by saying that there are Three, and then afterwards go on to say that there is One, lest we give false notions of the nature of that One; but we must begin by laying down the great Truth that there is One God in a simple and strict sense, and then go on to speak of Three, which is the way in which the mystery was progressively revealed in Scripture. In the Old Testament we read of the Unity; in the New, we are enlightened in the knowledge of the Trinity.
And here, let it be observed, that we have a sort of figure or intimation of the sacred Mystery of the Trinity in Unity even in what has been now said concerning the Divine Attributes. For as the Attributes of God are many in one manner of speaking, yet all One in God; so, too, there are Three Divine Persons, yet these Three are One. Let it not be for an instant supposed that I am paralleling the two cases, which is the Sabellian heresy; but I use the one to illustrate the other. Accordingly, by way of illustration, I observe as follows: When we speak of God as Wisdom, or as Love, we mean to say that He is Wisdom, and that He is Love; that He is each separately and wholly, yet not that Wisdom and Love stand for ideas distinct from each other, and not to be confused, though they are united in Him. In all He is and all He does, he is Wisdom and He is Love; yet it is both true that He is but One, and without qualities, and entirely true again that Love is not Wisdom. Is He unchangeable? So is His Wisdom. Is He uncreated, infinite, almighty, all-holy? His Wisdom has these characteristics also. Since God has no parts or passions, whatever is really of or from God, is all that He is. If there is confusion of language here, or an apparent play upon words, this arises from our incapacity in comprehension and expression. We see that all these separate statements must be true, and if they appear to oppose each other, this we cannot avoid; nor need we be perplexed about them, nor shrink from declaring any one of them. That simple accuracy of statement which would harmonize all of them is beyond us, because the power of contemplating the Eternal, as He is, is beyond us. We must be content with what we can see, and use it for our practical guidance, without caring for the apparent contradiction of terms involved in our profession of it.
We hear much in the Old Testament of those attributes of God of which I have already spoken. Omnipotence: “I am the Almighty God; walk before Me, and be thou perfect”; Self existence: “I am who am”; Truth: “His truth endures from generation to generation”; Omniscience: “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” Mysteriousness: “Truly Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel the Saviour.” These are some out of numberless proclamations in the Old Testament of the Divine Attributes; and though every thing concerning the Supreme Being is mysterious, we do not commonly feel any mystery here, because we see a sort of parallel to these attributes in what we call the qualities, properties, and habits of our own minds. And since we are accustomed to them and cannot deny their existence, we are not startled when we are told they exist in God. But Scripture also discloses to us other things con-cerning the Divine Nature, even from the first page of Scripture, and growing in definiteness as Revelation proceeds, of which we have no image or parallel in ourselves, and which in consequence we feel to be strange and startling, and call unintelligible because we are not used to them, and mysterious because we cannot account for them. Thus in the history of the creation we read: “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” We read there that all things came into being by and through God’s Word: “Let there be light.” And when he created man, God said, “let us make man according to our image.” Further in the same book of Genesis, when three angels visit the patriarch Abraham, he mysteriously addresses them as if one angel only were present. Again, we are told that “the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the Word of the Lord.” And the Psalmist says, “By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the hosts of them by the Breath of His mouth”; and, “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand”; and again: “Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit?” And Wisdom says in the Proverbs, “The Lord possessed Me in the beginning of His way; before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. … I was by Him, as one brought up with Him; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him.” Who shall say how such intimations are to be interpreted? Who, indeed, shall “desire to look into” the Abyss, and yet not be silent from conscious weakness, till he hears the Catholic doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which explains to him such texts by revealing the mystery towards which they point.

But this Mystery, which the Old Testament obscurely signifies, is in the New clearly declared; and it is this, — that the God of all, who is revealed in the Old Testament, is the Father of a Son from everlasting, called also His Word and Image, of His substance and partaker of all His perfections, and equal to Himself, yet without being separate from Him, but one with Him; and that from the Father and the Son proceeds eternally the Holy Ghost, who also is of one substance, Divinity, and majesty with the Father and the Son. Moreover, we learn that the Son or Word is a Person, — that is, is to be spoken of as “He”, not “it”, and can be addressed; and that the Holy Ghost also is a Person. Thus God subsists in Three Persons, from everlasting to everlasting; first God is the Father, next God is the Son, next God is the Holy Ghost; and the Father is not the Son, nor the Son the Holy Ghost, nor the Holy Ghost the Father. And God is Each of these Three, and nothing else; that is, God is as wholly and entirely God in the Person of the Father, as though there were no Spirit and Father; as entirely in that of the Spirit, as though there were no Father and Son. And the Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God, while there is but One God; and that without any inequality, because there is but One God, and He is without parts or degrees; though how it is that the same Adorable Essence, indivisible, and numerically One, should subsist perfectly and wholly in Each of the Three Persons, no words of man can explain, nor earthly illustration describe or typify.

Now the passages in the New Testament in which this Sacred Mystery is communicated to us, are such as these. First, we read, as I have said already, that God is One; next, that He has an Only-begotten Son; further, that this Only-begotten Son is “in the bosom of the Father;” and that “He and the Father are one.” Further, that He is also the Word who was in the beginning; that “the Word was with God”; that the Word was God.” Moreover, we learn that the Son is in Himself a distinct Person, in a real sense, for He has assumed our nature, and become man, though not the Father nor the Holy Ghost. What is all this but the doctrine, that God is in the strictest sense One, is both entirely the Father, and is entirely the Son? Or that, though the Father is God and the Son is God, there remains but one God? Moreover, we discover that the Son is the express “Image” of God, and He is “in the form of God” and “equal with God”; and “he that hath seen Him, hath seen the Father,” and “He is in the Father and the Father in Him.” Moreover, the Son has all the attributes of the Father: He is “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, Who is, Who was, and Who is to come, the Almighty;” “by Him were all things created, visible and invisible;” “by Him do all things consist;” none but He “knoweth the Father,” and none but the Father “knoweth the Son.” He “knoweth all things;” He “searcheth the hearts and the reins;” He is “the Truth and the Life;” and He is the Judge of all men.

And again, what is true of the Son is true of the Holy Ghost; for He is “the Spirit of God;” the Spirit of Christ, who “proceedeth from the Father;” He is in God as “the spirit of a man that is in him;” He “searcheth all things, even the deep things of God;” He is “the Spirit of Truth;” the “Holy Spirit.” He is the Giver of all gifts, “dividing to every man severally as He will;” we are born again “of the Spirit.” To resist Divine grace is to grieve, to tempt, to resist, to quench, to spite the Spirit. He is the Comforter, Ruler, and Guide of the Church; He reveals things to come; and blasphemy against Him excludes all possibility of forgiveness. In all such passages, it is surely implied both that the Holy Ghost is a Person in His own right, and that He is God.

And thus, on the whole, the words of the Creed hold good, that “there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost; but the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one, — the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. And in this Trinity, none precedes or follows another; none is greater or less than another; but the whole Three Persons are co-eternal together and co-equal; so that in all things the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped.”

And if you peruse the common texts of the Mass, you will see that it is precisely this Trinity in Unity whom we worship. The Mass is celebrated “in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” During the Offertory prayers, the priest offers the host to the Father, the chalice to the Son. He then bids the Holy Ghost, the Sanctifier, the Almighty and eternal God, to come and bless the oblata. Finally, the priest offers to the oblata to the Holy Trinity. At the conclusion of the Mass, just before the final blessing, the priest once again addresses the Holy Trinity: praying that the Sacrifice offered be found pleasing.

It is nothing short of the Divine Life of this Holy Trinity that Almighty God has wished to share with us here and now, and in which, please God, we shall find our eternal rest. May we, therefore, never speak on subjects like this without awe; may we never dispute without charity; may we never inquire without a careful endeavor, with God’s aid, to sanctify our knowledge, and to impress it on our hearts, as well as store it in our minds!

The Limitations of the Peace of this World

2010-05-07T11:53:00.000-05:00

The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him: to all that call upon Him in truth.
Fourth Sunday of Advent
23 December 2001

As Advent draws to a close, we would do well to ponder what Advent is all about. Advent is a time of preparation, a time to prepare for the coming of the Baby Jesus, the coming of Christ into our hearts. We are, or should be, preparing ourselves by doing penance for our sins and striving to uproot our vices. As St. Paul exhorted us during the first week of Advent, “The night is passed and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light. . . . Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscenses.” Why is it worth our while to do just as St. Paul tells us, but that Jesus is the Prince of Peace.

But what is it about this peace of Christ that makes it worth my while to put on the Lord Jesus Christ? Is it really worth all the effort and trouble?

First of all, the peace that Christ offers us, we are told, is of a different sort from what the world can offer us. Our Lord Himself assures us: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, do I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid.” Moreover, the peace of Christ is intended to be universal, worldwide, or catholic. It is meant for everyone. As St. Paul taught us in the second week of Advent: “. . . that the gentiles are to glorify God for His mercy, as it is written, “Therefore will I confess to Thee, O Lord, among the Gentiles and will sing to Thy name.” And at the end of today’s gospel, the universality of the peace of Christ is hinted at: “and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” Finally, the peace of Christ is meant to unite all mankind, as St. Paul teaches in the same epistle when he says: “Now the God of patience and of comfort grant you to be of one mind one towards another, according to Jesus Christ, that with one mind and with one mouth you may glorify God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So far, we have not seen much in the peace of Christ by which it differs from the peace of this world. For peace, as St. Augustine famously defines it, is the “tranquility of order”, while St. Thomas Aquinas cogently defines the peace in society as the “unity of the multitude”. Surely can we not say that the peace of the world enjoys both unity and tranquility? Certainly, at the popular, or rather mythical, level we Americans boast of our having achieved unity in the words found on our currency: e pluribus unum. And when we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, we speak of “one nation, under God, indivisible, with justice for all.”

But then there are the pessimists among us who, though often cynical and sometimes exceedingly bitter and misanthropic, nevertheless manage to preserve a degree of sensitivity to the tragic side of reality, and for that reason are blessed with a more realistic vision of human affairs than those whose acceptance of the myths of modernity has severely undermined this sense of the tragic. Perhaps if we shatter these myths the pessimists will not have a monopoly on this very important sense of the tragic in life, that sense of pathos that leaves a man repulsed by the superficial banalities of this world.

We live in a world where, in the name of freedom, the laws of God have long ago been abandoned. Contrary to what the popular myth would have us believe, we are not a nation, or a world, under God. To many a person and politician, what is true and what is good means nothing more than “the successful effort to think impersonally and inhumanly.” In other words, to think pragmatically with neither hesitation nor regret, and to place our own pragmatic, short-sighted desires above any other consideration. Hence, when Nixon and Kissinger resolved to pull out of Vietnam, they did so slowly and bloodily, so as to maintain, even strengthen, in the eyes of the Soviets, a perception of strength and resolve.

In such a world, where freedom and law are thought to be fundamentally opposed, where raw power and perception carry more weight than discipline and truth, what becomes of the unity and order upon which “domestic tranquility” is based? I contend that in such a world, they become increasingly difficult to attain, and thus, the “domestic tranquility” or peace of society becomes increasingly elusive.

The founding fathers of this country seemed to understand this. In 1787, Thomas Jefferson, writing to James Madison, confided to his good friend and protégé that “a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.” Later that year, Madison himself echoed Jefferson’s sentiments when, in his now famous essay 10 in the Federalist he promoted the idea that the violence of faction could be controlled, not by striving to eliminate faction and uniting the multitude through some common good, some spiritual good, but by multiplying faction, thereby dividing the multitude. Any attempt to unite the multitude, he thought, would be tantamount to “giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.” As if unity (i.e., authentic peace) could not support any diversity whatsoever! But why would Madison think this? Could it be that the father of the Constitution does not believe that there are any truths that an entire people can share and thus be united? Perhaps he does not. But even if they do exist, any effort to bring about the unity of the multitude would remain “impracticable” because men are by nature (i.e., necessarily) factious. That is why Madison does not understand peace as the unity of the multitude, but rather as the reduction of the violence of faction to tolerable levels. And how does Madison propose to reduce the violence of faction to tolerable levels? Not with truth or virtue, or any other such qualitative means. His solution is strictly quantitative: first, make the republic as large as possible to spread factions around, and second, encourage the multiplication of faction so that no single faction (except, perhaps, for Madison’s own views) can ever obtain a majority and thus overpower any other faction.

Do we believe this? Do we think that Madison has correctly understood human nature? If so, then we may as well stop preparing for that Advent of the Prince of Peace. For if the nature upon which grace is supposed to build is necessarily factious, the supernatural peace of Christ could never be compatible with human nature. At best, Christ would have to impose peace on unwilling subjects much like a dictator.
This understanding of reality is not at all passé: Do we not hear an echo of Madison in the opinion of the Italian political theorist Gaetano Mosca, who actually fears universal peace because it could be attained “only if all the civilized world were to belong to a single social type, to a single religion, and if there were to be an end to disagreements as to the way in which social betterment can be attained. . . . Even granting that such a world could be realized, it does not seem to us a desirable sort of world.” In other words, some peace is good, but too much peace is bad. What Mosca does not realize is that unity is not the same thing as uniformity.

Notwithstanding these misguided solutions arising from men who do little to distinguish between truth and opinion, we can glean something of value from the position of men like Jefferson, Madison, and Mosca. Unless you aim for true peace, what peace you do aim for had better not last too long: a little rebellion from time to time must be endured, blood must flow; otherwise, men and nations will tend to forget just how fragile one’s way of life really is; how easily things can go awry. In short, when societies enjoy prolonged periods of secular peace, they tend to become more vulnerable to catastrophe, the way a forest without small fires regularly burning here and there often become victim to an all-consuming conflagration. The reason is that too much peace tends to erode man’s sense of the tragic; his appreciation that we have no lasting city this side of heaven. This erosion happens because the peace the world offers is bound up with pleasure, which is all about momentary satisfaction. For when societies become preoccupied with pursuing an endless series of momentary pleasures, a false sense of security inevitably descends upon them. They become preoccupied with the present, forgetful of the past, unconcerned about the future. They forget just how frail they really are without God.

This is exactly what happened in Europe between the Treaty of Vienna of 1815 and 1914. During this time, with the exception of the 10-months’ long Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), Europe knew no major conflicts. By 1914 Europe had long begun to regard peace and steady economic growth as natural and permanent phenomena. The world order forged by Austrian diplomat Clemens von Metternich and British Foreign Secretary Robert Castlereigh with the ingenious Treaty of Vienna proved to be too stable. As a result, Europe lost that vital sense of the tragic whereby man remains aware of his mortality, his frailty in the face of pain and suffering, sin and death. Had it kept this sense, perhaps WWI would not have occurred. Perhaps, when that great and terrible cataclysm did begin, soldiers would not have thrown themselves onto the battlefields of Flanders in a fit of romantic naivete. Perhaps the generals who fought the war would have been quicker to conserve their armies instead of lavishly wasting the lives of their soldiers in battle after battle. Absurd as it may seem, in order to avoid utter devastation, the world must promote faction, unrest, even a certain amount of bloodshed, not because man’s nature is incapable of unity in truth, but because man enjoys his freedom too much to see it perfected by truth.

Such is the dubious peace that the world gives, a peace that must incorporate some measure of instability to avoid total chaos. This is not the peace that Christ, the Prince of Peace offers us. His is a peace that is not too good for our own good. His is a peace that surpasses all understanding, transcends the fleeting moments of earthly pleasures, fosters no illusions about man’s frailty; a peace that runs deeper than pain or violence or evil; runs so deep that it can and often does coexist with suffering of one sort or another. The peace that Christ offers us is not synonymous with the absence of violence or pain, but upon repentance and sincere conversion of heart. It is based upon the truth that we are poor wretched sinners in dire need of God’s mercy and love in order to be united with Him.

One way or another, the paths of the Lord will be made straight. When He comes, a certain separation takes place, a division between the valleys (those who acknowledge their guilt, submit themselves to Him, and receive His mercy and love) and the hills (those who refuse to know themselves as they really are). The hills will be brought low, but the valleys will be filled. That is why St. Simeon, even while holding the Prince of Peace in his arms, could prophesy: “Behold, this child is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted;” or why the Mother of God, also speaking prophetically, could exclaim, “He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble;” or why Our Lord Himself would one day say: “Do you think that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, no; but separation. For there shall be henceforth five in one house divided: three against two and two against three.” The peace that the Lord offers neither depends on social justice, nor fails in the face of injustice. Rather, social justice flows from it, even as it overcomes injustice, persecution, and death.

Indeed, unlike the peace the world has to offer, the peace of Christ dwells in the hearts of men of good will, men who, though saddened by their sins and justly afflicted for them, pray that they may be comforted by the visitation of His goodness. Truly, His peace is not of this world, yet it is the only peace worth knowing, the only true and lasting peace this world can ever know.

The sacredness of women and life: the basis for the wearing of the veil

2010-05-07T11:50:00.000-05:00

Put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth.
19th Sunday after Pentecost
7 October 2007

I. Kingdom of heaven compared to a wedding feast:

1. Not all the initially invited guests accept the invitation (history of the Jews, treatment of the prophets).
2. The invitation is expanded to include everyone (Gentiles & Jews).
3. Not everyone who accepts the invitation puts on the wedding garment.

Why the harsh treatment?
1. Literal level: host provided the wedding garments. Like renting a tuxedo.
2. Spiritual level: Habitual grace (i.e., sanctifying grace) is a gift that elevates our nature to the supernatural level. Divine life.

II. The Seven Sorrows of the BVM. The Second of these: the Flight into Egypt. Broad outlines of the Incarnation and Redemption. The Word entered into a fallen world in order to redeem mankind. That redemption signified by coming out of Egypt and entering into the Promise Land.
Significance of Prophecy: “Out of Egypt have I called my Son.”

The Mystical Body of Christ like the People of Israel: they walked dry shod through the waters of the Red Sea to freedom; we have been washed in the blood of Christ in the waters of Baptism. We have put on Christ like a garment. Galatians 3:27: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

Putting off the old man, putting on Christ. (i.e., leaving Egypt and heading for the Promise Land as a member of Christ’s Body.)

St. Paul speaks of this in today’s epistle. The full text: “Put off the old man that belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth.”

Romans 13:14: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”

In the early Church, newly baptized catechumens were clothed in white robes. With this image in mind, Paul is challenging his readers and us to put our baptismal commitments into practice by stripping off sinful habits (vices) and putting on the new garments of Christ (virtues).

We are reminded of this not only at baptisms today, but also at every Mass. For the surplice: a reminder to us all that we have put on Christ; that we are called to lead holy lives in Christ. (All the more reason why when they are finished with them, altar boys should hang them up properly, and not leave them on the floor!)

The Church as Bride of Christ; liturgy as a wedding feast: highlighted by use of veils by women.

a. Church as bride (by extension, the nuptial relationship between every individual soul and Christ).
b. Veil as symbol of hierarchal nature of authority: “the head of every man is Christ; the head of a woman is her husband.”
c. Rooted in the way in which God created Adam and Eve; that God made Eve from Adam, and that Adam, not Eve, was the principle of the whole human race, just as God is the principle of the entire universe.
d. Fosters the sense of the sacred with respect to a woman’s ability to bear children; moreover, the veil fosters this sense of the sacred by linking this awesome ability to none other than Christ Himself contained in the Blessed Sacrament. Insofar as I am supposed to make the sacredness of life the theme of this sermon, let's unpack this last point.

Before speaking of the significance of veils worn by women, it may be helpful to speak of the use of veils in the sanctuary.

As we know, at every Mass, bread and wine are substantially changed into the Body and Blood of Christ such that Christ, the perfect Image of God the Father, the Source of all life, is contained under the species of a little bread and wine. In this way, Our Lord makes Himself our daily bread as we make our way to heaven, the ultimate Promise Land.
Needless to say, everything about the Holy Eucharist is sacred. That is, we have in the Holy Eucharist not only a great good, but also a dangerous good—dangerous because if we approach the Blessed Sacrament unworthily, we do ourselves great harm. As St. Thomas reminds us in his Lauda Sion: Sumunt boni, sumunt mali: Sorte tamen inæquali, Vitæ vel interitus. Mors est malis, vita bonis: Vide paris sumptionis Quam sit dispar exitus. (The good receive, the bad receive, yet with a disparate fate of life or death. It is death to the bad, it is life to the good. See how unlike the effect of the same reception.)
Among the many different ways in which the sense of the sacred is brought out during the liturgy, the use of veils is perhaps the most obvious one. Whatever contains or is meant to contain the Blessed Sacrament is usually veiled: the tabernacle, the chalice, the ciborium, the monstrance. And even when the veil is removed from the chalice, the liturgy provides other ways to veil it. At each moment of the double consecration, when the celebrant pronounces the words that bring forth Our Lord upon the altar in the species of bread and wine, he bends over the bread and wine, and places his arms upon the altar, the symbol of Christ. Such a gesture is meant to show the priest’s union with Christ at that moment, while also helping the priest to focus his entire attention on the consecration. Physically speaking, however, the priest is literally covering the species, veiling them, as it were and thus producing the same effect as any other veil: namely, he manifests the sacredness of the moment of Consecration. In this way, the ancient rite gently inculcates in the faithful a proper disposition towards Our Lord contained in the Blessed Sacrament.
Consider also, the function of those things which are ordinarily veiled: the tabernacle, the chalice, etc. All of these are vessels of the very Source of life, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Light and Life and of the World. It is because these vessels are designated to contain Christ Himself that they are sacred vessels; hence, they are used for no other purpose than to receive and contain the Blessed Sacrament. At one time, only bishops, priests, and deacons were permitted to open the tabernacle, handle the sacred vessels, and touch the Sacred Host with their hands. All of these vessels, moreover, but especially the chalice, are usually made with great care out of gold and silver, jewels and precious stones. Finally, the chalice is the only vessel that is consecrated by a bishop and anointed with oil. Little wonder, then, that the chalice veil is invariably the most beautiful of all the veils found in the sanctuary.
Taking our cue from the use of veils in the sanctuary, we can say that every woman who embraces the ancient tradition of wearing a veil creates a wonderful harmony between herself as a vessel of life and the vessels that hold Life itself. Like Our Lord contained in the Blessed Sacrament, a woman shares with Him a certain vulnerability. For just as a person who does not respect the Body and Blood of Christ can have his way with the Lord by receiving Him unworthily, so too can a man who has no respect for the opposite sex easily overpower her and have his way with her. Moreover, just as Our Lord makes Himself vulnerable by being born anew upon our altars under the perishable species of bread and wine, so too a woman shares in the vulnerability of her newborn infant in the very act of giving birth to him, to say nothing of the extra help many women need when they are pregnant.
Women are also sacred, inasmuch as the rise or fall of civilizations depends largely on how men regard and treat them, and how women understand and treat themselves. Just as only those who have committed themselves to the Lord through a life of celibacy may justly touch the Holy Eucharist with their hands, so too only those men who have committed themselves to their wives through the bonds of holy matrimony may justly “touch” a woman in a way that may bring new life into the world. For women are vessels of new life, life made according to the image and likeness of God Himself, just as the tabernacle, chalice, and ciborium contain the Image of God, Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Of all the sacred vessels, however, women are best likened to the chalice of the Precious Blood. For when a woman conceives and bears a child, it is through her blood that the life of the child is sustained and nourished. Similarly, the Bride of Christ, the Church, is said to sustain her members through the Blood of Christ. For just as Eve was taken from the side of Adam, the fathers of the Church see in the blood and water flowing from the side of Our Lord the birth of His Church: the New Eve, the Bride of Christ, which sustains and nourishes her members through the grace of the sacraments.
The leading lights of our age often claim to champion the rights of women, and in certain respects the claim is legitimate. At the same time, however, our age has clearly not sought to protect and foster the sacred dignity of women. On the contrary, society would have us remove our wedding garment, divest ourselves of Christ, and put on the “old man” and make ample provision for the flesh. Men are practically encouraged to treat women as mere objects of pleasure, and women are encouraged to seek this degrading form of attention and accept it as normal and compatible with their dignity. Men and women, but especially women, have become desensitized to using contraceptives, choosing abortion, and embracing sterilization. In short, our society no longer respects or values the gift of fertility; society no longer honors the unique privilege of being a woman. Consequently, it no longer cultivates the responsibility that necessarily accompanies this gift, this privilege. This collective failure on the part of society has wreaked havoc, and it is far from certain that we shall recover and escape dissolution and destruction.
Sadly, some forty years ago millions of Catholics decided to put on the old man when they rejected the teaching of the Church concerning contraception. Around the same time, the ancient tradition of wearing veils or head coverings of any sort was likewise abandoned. Knowing what the veil stands for, it is difficult to not to regard that these two events — the rejection of the Church’s teaching on contraception on the one hand and the liturgical practice of wearing veils and head coverings on the other — as wholly unrelated. Indeed, many took both events as a step forward in the emancipation of women from so-called male dominance.
But as members of the Mystical Body of Christ, we should know better. We have all been called to the wedding banquet of the Lamb; we have received our wedding garment. Knowing, therefore, that "many are called but few are chosen", let us cherish that garment and pray never to be without it. On the contrary, let us ever implore the divine assistance always to “put off the old man” with all of its deceitful lusts, and ever strive to be renewed in the spirit of our minds. Let us “put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh.