The Mystery of the Ascension and the Mass

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…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.