Theology of the Body

Faithful

2011-10-11T14:42:00.001-07:00

I have been thinking a lot lately about fidelity. It's not a popular term; there's a reference to the idea in the motto of the United States Marines, "semper fi," and it bears the dull shine of scandal when one speaks of its absence, as in, "there has been an in-fidelity," and then there is an awful sense of wrong doing of some sort that teases the limits of our moral sense. Its root is very simple: Wiki says fidelity is the state of being faithful or loyal. One might think most immediately of vowed monogamy, in the sense of showing up, staying put, avoiding physical or emotional excesses of the wrong kind, looking straight ahead, doggedly avoiding flirtations; a quiet, unchanging custodianship of that which once was desired and prized, now retained in quieter, solidly exclusive bonds.

When I think about fidelity, I tend to make the grim prognosis that our culture doesn't, can't "do it" any longer (be it as it may, as Cole Porter seemed to intimate, that elephants and certain kinds of swans can). Electronic networks and imaging seduce the eyes, the thought, the heart, the imagination, and then the hours away from their rightful possessors. Our quick modes of communication allow for anonymity and nonchalance in intimate exchanges. We women have so infiltrated the workplace and the academy that each and every well-intentioned husband is daily surrounded by females who are more closely aligned than his wife with the professional interests that most immediately exhilarate and motivate him. We don't even cover our shoulders in church. The clever, mercurial spirit of the age knows exactly how to distract and deter us from the kind of fidelity that merely shows up and waits around.

Those who make and keep vows in this context have undertaken an unusual and heroic thing; maybe that's why marriage rates in the Catholic Church have fallen in my lifetime by sixty percent, or whatever it is, while our annulment tribunals increasingly recognize in the Church's members the inability to make valid vows in the first place. Perhaps we are a culture so wounded, so underdeveloped in our hearts, so jaded in our sexuality and sensibilities that we ought not to be held responsible for the promises we speak.

Against this grim little landscape is, of course, the God of Israel, the definitive covenant maker and promise keeper. In the beginning, the great creator and provider dignified His people with a role in the reciprocity which He allowed them; "if you will be faithful to me as your fathers were, do everything I command, and obey my laws...then I will establish you...as I spoke in promise to your fathers." (II Chronicles somewhere) A righteous exchange, for a righteous people. Later, when those righteous people fail to the point of committing a kind of adultery, the divine covenant maker reveals His sorrowful but faithful heart; the bargain is gone, the covenant broken, and there is nothing left for God to say but "I will be faithful to you, and make you mine, and you will know me as the Lord." (Hosea somewhere) And then, at the end, for an uncontrite and uncovenanted people who had not even heard of His offers, the divine covenant maker reveals His very self, clinging to a lashing-post while He is flayed and bled, demonstrating the full extent of divine fidelity, loving them to the end; "herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (I John)

For God's part, the story of divine fidelity does not merely show up and stand still, containing and maintaining that which was desired. Rather, the story speeds up as it goes, urgently disclosing the full nature of the divine Person who has promised, hastening towards the vowed end, that anticipated bridal banquet. It is to the increasingly needy that He becomes most ardently faithful. It is always in our saddened, weakest state that He will show Himself most strong, in His rushing and passionate and enduring fidelity.

"Look down upon me, good and gentle Jesus, while before your face I humble kneel and with burning soul, pray and beseech you to fix in my heart lively sentiments of faith, hope, and love, true contrition for my sins, and a firm purpose of amendment, while I contemplate with great love and tender pity your five most precious wounds..."

Lucy is Enceinte

2011-08-10T13:50:00.001-07:00

On Sunday we took a picnic to a nearby lake and parked on the shore, where we could watch the water from the interior cool, protected from the ovenlike environment that is north Texas in August. My little one perched on her daddy's lap, peering with great delight over the steering wheel; we tuned into a favorite NPR program. The topic for the day was that dear old sitcom, "I Love Lucy." In particular, the interviewer discussed the program's iconic depiction of mid twentieth century American marriage and family life.

Of particular interest was the show's depiction of Lucy's modern pregnancy, the first instance of such in the history of American television. The producers and actors had been quite nervous about this; they softened the fact of Lucy's twin-bedded pregnancy by referring to it in French ("inceinte" --that's three syllables); they called in a Catholic priest to consult on the presentation. After all, those were the days in which little girls averted their eyes from pregnant mothers seen in public, as my grandmother tells me.

I was really struck by the language and postures selected by this 1950's sitcom culture in relating the facts of being in a family way. These weren't just the days of sexual scruples and inhibitions; this was a unique time in the modern world, a situation between the dawn of mass communications on the one hand, and on the other, the changes that would come with the distortions of contraception (at the time, still illegal in many parts of the United States) and the legalized crime of abortions.

What most interests me are the smaller changes that have influenced our attitude towards early motherhood and fragile, newly conceived babies since that time. In our times, our mores tend to be shaped by our technologies. Hence in a world where early human life is so easily destroyed and discarded by our machinations, we find ourselves speaking so tentatively about it. We don't say "babies;" rather we say "embryo," or "fetus," or worse, we refer generically to "the pregnancy." We don't announce the fact of a new human life with the ready joy that it deserves; we wait long months until we announce the fact of conception, constrained by sterile medical definitions of "viability."

(I understand that it may be an act of prudence to refrain from early announcement, if the mother fears the chance of miscarriage and would like to protect her privacy. But a most beautiful mother I know has announced all of her ten pregnancies right away- including the seven that she was able to carry to term- as an act of honor and celebration for each little one, in a gesture that I think very much befits the crazy, courageous generosity of motherhood in general)

...and finally, our culture has a funny way of treating the mother- in -waiting like an incubator; she is told patronizingly that for the nine painful, emotional, highly involved months of her baby's gestation, she is merely a "mother to be." Give me a break.

In contrast, the seemingly innocent, constrained culture of the "I Love Lucy" millieu (twin beds, pearls, vacuum cleaners) presents a much, much more robust embrace of little ones, of sexuality, of humanity. In those days, there seemed to be a simpler recognition of the facts of life: a tiny human person was recognized as just that- a tiny human person. He or she was not deemed to be anything else. The baby's mother was also just that- the mother. And the same for the father. Alive and well, a growing, unborn "baby," with "parents" to protect and provide. And so we see in the language of the first scripted announcement of a pregnancy, at the dawn of modern media. You can watch it here. All so blunt, so uninhibited. Lucy is "having a baby." As soon as she knows, she goes to tell her husband. There's no reticence; she tells Ethel about her urgency to announce, and then the announcement is made in celebratory song, at Ricky Ricardo's nightclub. He exclaims to the crowd of unprivate strangers, "I am a father!" He sings, "we're having a baby, my baby and me." No hedging around with fetal viability. No mincing with the idea of prospective "parents to be." No cordoning off the baby's unborn life, lest it interfere with the privacy of others. Lucy is enceinte; that means there is a "baby," and that baby has jubilant "parents." The little one is "expected" by all, only in the sense that anyone "expected" regarding their arrival, already fully exists, and is already acknowledged, invited, rejoiced over.

We've come a long way from the culture of that sitcom, the NPR program continued. In one particular regard, the modern wives and mothers that crazy Lucy anticipated have been liberated into a whole new nexus of desires and opportunities. And yet at the same time, the way we think of ourselves has digressed into a strange agnosticism, such that we have come to speak ambivalently, and so very prudishly, about our very selves, even in the midst of our newly available opportunities. We are women, with nuptial and fecund meaning inscribed in our bodies, not workplace agents with a dibilitating susceptibility to fertility. If and when we become pregnant, we are then and there fully engaged *mothers*; we are not warming ovens with morning sickness. And the little ones conceived within and from us are little *babies*, developing onwards from the moment of their conceptions into the bouncing, teething, triumphant little tots they will become.

...this may all be a study in semantics merely, but I don't really think so. The seemingly prudish and innocent culture of the I Love Lucy era displays a kind of primal freedom that we in our modern "liberation" have lost. Lucy may have had to wear pearls and high heels to do her housework, but she had not been so confused by the modern world as to second guess the facts of life.

Carmel

2011-07-16T12:07:00.001-07:00

My breviary describes Mt. Carmel as "the lovely place where the prophet dwelt in service to the word of God...it expresses a sense of the beauty, prayer, and silence that characterize Mary, the Mother of our Redeemer."

A few days ago, I pulled an old scrap book off the shelf and recalled that I had once been to Mt. Carmel, on a summer journey when I was sixteen with my mother, and my brother, and an old friend. In my photos we are suntanned and windblown and happy, and distracted; my journal records being under awed with the holy place, and being more enchanted with the pleasures of the company, and the day, and the charms of a rugged countryside. Perhaps there was little of the "beauty, prayer, and silence" of the Redeemer's mother in my heart then...and perhaps there is only a little more now...but the symbol of Carmel remains the same, calling us to the high place where our God takes us as we are, accepts whatever we've got to give to Him; "on my holy mountain...there I will accept them, and I will claim your tributes and the first fruits of your offerings, and all that you dedicate." (Ezekiel 20)

Those who wear the medieval brown scapular particularly celebrate Mt. Carmel today. In the ancient time, our Lady appeared to a humble monk of the order dedicated to the holiness of Carmel, offering to him a little symbol of faith; "a sign of salvation, a protection in danger, a pledge of peace." The scapular was and is God's gift to us; He is always giving us things. But it is also a potent symbol of our gifts to Him. Worn on the body, it can signify a certain childlike humility, an act of renunciation of one's own merits and strengths, a symbol of the total offering of the self to the Savior. Our ultimate gift, the whole gift of ourselves, signified in a little brown thing. And what dignity is lent to us in this: we teeny, tiny folk have something to give to God.

I have given some things to God. I have given Him grubby things, small in sacrifice, things diminished by my laziness and inconsistency. I have given Him things rash and ill-advised, more acts of raw and unformed zeal than perfect love. In truth I have never given to Him a gift that is perfect, timely, rounded out with all the contours of the virtues, properly motivated and complete. I'm not capable of it. It is only once in His receiving hands that my gifts are made fit for Him. He is the great Recipient. He makes all things beautiful in His time.

In this way, the grace and mercy of God is best comprehended not in the facile idea that "Christ has given all, I've got nothing left to offer," nor even in the hope that God might restore and return that which we've given up. I think that God's mercy is most strikingly known in the promise that He will receive what I try to give to Him. "He will accept, He will claim." And therein, He will transform, He will redeem. And all of this for the broken things we offer up, the haphazard works of cooperation, the mistaken selections, the little efforts, the smudged sacrifices, the daily moments that, even in our mistaken judgments and in our zealous foibles, come to signify the giving of our whole selves.

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, pray for us.

The Fellowship of His Suffering

2011-06-30T09:08:00.001-07:00

"I want to know Christ, and the fellowship of His sufferings." Philippians 3

There is a whole Catholic lingo surrounding the problem of suffering. As often happens, this lingo refers to a whole, deep, profound theology about the nature of things. But to me in my charmed life it has been a lingo merely- a friend's lighthearted statement of intention "to offer it up" when her children are unruly, for instance. It sounds so economical. And while it has been deeply consoling to believe that there is some meaning, even some redemption behind the experience of my stubbed toe or my hurt feelings- or more profoundly, the hunger of my neighbor's children- I think it has never before fully sunk in that suffering can be a gift. That is to say, I've given this proposal the assent of faith. Really, though, I never believed it; I've felt closest to the Lord in a cool, clean swimming pool. But suffering, I think I am learning, is just as St. Paul puts it, the grace of fellowship with Christ- near, intimate fellowship, the kind that is costly and messy and hugely inconvenient and out of the way.

It's true that there is also a lovely, robust fellowship in joy, and our Lord is a laughing, risen Lord. When we sing "thine is the glory, risen conquering son," the undercurrent of our sympathy is a hurrah indeed- truly, ours in Him is the glory, the strut of a risen and conquering people. And it's all true- about Him, and about us- He is risen, we are risen with Him in baptism, we wait in hope. And everyone wants to be friends with the winner.

On the other hand, there is no natural fellowship in suffering. Maybe that's the hardest thing about it. Pain hurts, but it's the disconcerting perplexity and exhaustion that hurts most. Pain tends to disarm and alienate the person from his own thoughts and his own feelings, to the extent that "lovers and friends stand afar off" because the man of sorrows himself is put out of himself by his sorrow. Bewildered and confused by the nerves or the brain chemistry that bid us fight or fly from our pain, we are left with nothing to say, no conversation, nothing to offer. The time when things hurt the most is the time when we must be left alone. For the mother in the labor of childbirth, for the friend with a broken bone, for the daughter mourning a loss...there is no sharing of the deeply, uniquely personal experience of a personal agony.

This, I think must be the grace of suffering. In His human condition, Christ suffered alone. The ancient fathers insisted that in His purity and perfection, His loneliness and pain became the maximal instances of both. And it is in our own lonely suffering that we touch something of that which He endured alone, and hence, in our own experience, we get to share with Him that which no one else has ever shared. When we rejoice with Him, we stand with the whole joyous throng that He has won; but when I suffer with Him, it is my unique and unrepeatable and lonely pain that I know, and that He as God knows, as no one else can. It is precisely because I must suffer alone that in my suffering I enjoy the richest fellowship with my God, the man of sorrows. He alone is the friend who is nearer than the brother.

There is a precedent for this. The mother of the One who would suffer was quite closely united to Him already- by the affinity of supernatural grace, by proximity, by physiology. And yet the prophecy goes that even for her there was something more to be shared with Him, the otherwise isolated experience of suffering, which is otherwise impossible to share. The prophecy of Simeon proclaims a novelty, a new thing of intimacy in the human experience, an aspect of the Incarnation: "a sword will pierce your heart also." Here, for Mary, as for all times and all people, the merely human heart is to be united to that of the Trinity, in the shared experience of utter isolation.

"Your heart also." Catholic culture portrays the immaculate heart of Mary having been pierced with little spiky symbols, peeping through her flowers. We recall that she is alone at the Cross, and yet not alone, in the way that it is Christ alone who gives Himself for us, and yet He is not alone either. He is joined by all those who "make up in their bodies that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ," who thereby live nearer to Him, in the ontological nearness that is requisite for our redemption.

Yes, I "add" my little sufferings to His. If my salvation and that of the whole world is accomplished by union with the Savior, then the union that is realized in my lonely suffering brings about my healing and, by extension, that of the composite brokenness of the world. The cross is not the site of a lonely death; it is the Tree of Life. It is, in the mind of the ancients, a fecund marriage bed. Having been invited into the place where none can otherwise go, in the fellowship of His suffering my suffering becomes the irreplaceable site where I meet Jesus, just the two of us. I am made new by that nearness. And here I maintain and renew fellowship with others through forgiveness, removing a just burden from them, and losing it in that abyss of mercy that was the suffering of God.

I want to know Him, in the fellowship of His suffering.

Caves of Forgotten Dreams

2011-05-28T14:19:00.001-07:00

My husband and baby daughter and I crept into Werner Herzog's latest film last night, and we were enchanted. Herzog can create and capture magic. It takes a little patience on both ends, but I love that in this film he is willing to teach me how to connect the soulful images left long ago by passionate, drum-beating people, with the passion of the somewhat clumsier modern folk who scan, synthesize, and study the same images on their modern technology, and then go home to dream of lions. When my little one started to sing along with Herzog's kind, lulling voice, we crept out a little early, but every curve of those cave walls, every undulation of the human face in response to quiet brush strokes stays with me...

I thought of a lot of things while watching this film. How striking that even in a primal subsistence culture that was necessarily more utilitarian than ours, humanity paused to express itself in the leisurely pursuit of beauty for it's own sake. How unsurprising that such a creature can pause, successfully, to reflect upon and worship it's creator. How logical the proposal that we were *meant* to do so.

And I thought of the secret within every person for that particular participation in and with the Creator, where truth is lived out, where art is made. As a mother, I thought of that place where primal little infant people dance in hidden places to the drum-like rythm of a heartbeat. I remember our first golden little sonograms of our baby in her primal little cave, in the womb; I was struck then by the sheer holiness of that quiet, hidden place where something is made for it's own sake, and for God's. So purely artistic. Such aimless, perfect recreation.

Herzog's team stoops and grunts gracelessly enough to enter the Chauvet Cave. Once inside, it must have required gymnastics to achieve such beautiful camera work from the awkward crowding on their aluminum platform. But once there, Herzog asks his crew for total silence so they can "hear the cave," and perhaps also their own heartbeats. The silence feels a little stilted at first. For audience and filmmaker alike, it has got to take a lot of work to really enter a space like that, and then to recollect the self enough to really experience it. Because in its own way, it's a holy place.

May our utilitarian world recall itself to its caves of dreams...all of them.

Love and Responsibility: an excellent summary

2011-05-25T14:15:00.001-07:00

...I'm not one to deny that I really appreciate a good set of cliff notes; and for a document as crucially needed for our times as Bl. John Paul II's reflections on the body and the marital relationship, Prof. May's summary is welcome indeed.

Here.

The Royal Wedding...theological notes, etc.

2011-04-28T01:49:00.001-07:00

The Church of England's Book of Common Prayer (a Protestant liturgical text which, incidentally, is authorized for use by Catholics) explains that William and Kate's wedding will signify to all millions of viewers "the mystery of the union between Christ and His Church." Furthermore, their wedding surrounds "a holy union," intended by God for "mutual joy...help and comfort in prosperity and adversity...and the procreation of children." One of my friends points out that it's at such times that the grand institution of monarchy fulfills it's properly evangelical role by providing for occasions which highlight the proper union of culture and sacraments in the lives of royal persons...excellent, excellent point.

Since William and Kate are both baptized, and presumptively suited and disposed, their exchange of vows will constitute an indissoluble sacrament, whereby their souls are really united and marked for one another (oh dear..such public intimacy!) Hardline readers of Apostolicae Curae will rejoice in such fullness of sacramental life on William and Kate's side of the Tiber, but that is another issue for another day. What is interesting is that while the Book of Common Prayer makes much of marriage as a "covenanted" union rather than a sacrament, the Windsors' laudably respectful treatment of the indissolubility of marriage reveals something of a kickback to the old ways; for instance, Edward was ousted for marrying a divorcee, Charles refrained from remarry during Diana's lifetime, and the Queen has expressed reservations about her archbishop's flamboyance on point.

The traditional order of service for Anglican marriages does not require the inclusion of holy communion in the marriage rite. However, the presence or absence of holy communion is quite telling as to the theological leanings of the royal couple; it was Martin Luther who insisted, even before Henry VIII, that Christian marriage should be treated as a civil contract and a creature of the state, ideally enacted outside of church and the Eucharist. Thus the absence of holy communion from this royal wedding might refer to a distinctly bare-bones reading of the Anglicansim which William will one day govern, even more so than the treatment of other issues such as whether there will be lots of candles on the altar (I've heard the Queen doesn't like them) or whether the bride will display bare shoulders in church (ditto).

A rather thorough sampling of some of the invited heads of state is offered here . Pope Benedict is not among them; Muammar Gaddafi, Swaziland's King Mswati, and Mr. Bean, are. It is particularly lovely that Cardinal Sean Brady of Armagh will be there. He may be one of the first prelates of Rome to attend a British royal wedding since...June 11, 1509, shortly after Katherine of Aragon arrived in London to wed the Defender of Faith.

The weekday selected for the royal wedding, Friday, would be highly illicit for any other week of the year, since traditionally Fridays are days of penance, fasting, and recollection of Christ's suffering. However, the royal wedding falls on Easter Friday, the Friday following Easter within the eight-day octave of the Resurrection Feast. Thus it's fitting to feast and to marry. Plus, it's gracious to provide for a national three-day weekend.

I really love the traditional selection of music for royal weddings...can't wait to hear William and Kate's selections:

On that note, I'll conclude with the words to a hymn sung at the royal weddings of Prince William's grandparents and great-grandparents, because it's one of my favorites, and because it's so apropos of good royal manners to acknowledge The Sovereign at these events...

Praise My Soul the King of Heaven

Praise my soul the King of Heaven
To His feet thy tribute bring
Ransomed, healed, restored forgiven
Evermore His praises sing
Allelujah! Allelujah!
Praise the Everlasting King.

Still a League: Newman on Western Civilization

2010-09-24T09:20:00.000-07:00

Bl. John Henry Newman

on The Papacy

and the Preservation of Civilization

Bl. John Henry Newman has some excellent things to say on point in his 1900 Letter to the Duke of Norfolk. This piece is essentially Newman's explication of a political theology based on a Catholic historical construal, and an explanation of the Christian's civic duties in light of his primary duties to Christ and Christ's Vicar. Newman invokes a basic argument in defense of the papacy: ecclesial government by the monarchial papacy is simply most efficient, aesthetically proper, and benevolent. This has been the classical proposal for human government from the beginning. Newman also invokes a striking passage from Dean Milman's Latin Christianity to insist that themonarchial papacy was the only means by which Christ's Church could constitute itself as Christ's autonomous society in the earth, and then resist being hijacked by transient medieval states. Consequently, Newman urges that papacy provided the only means by which Western Europe developed into the civilization that we know and love. In fact, Newman here refers to the Roman pontiff as "the Father of European civilization."

Read on:

"The Papacy was the only power which lay not entirely and absolutely prostrate before the disasters of the times—a power which had an inherent strength, and might resume its majesty. It was this power which was most imperatively required to preserve all which was to survive out of the crumbling wreck of Roman civilization. To Western Christianity was absolutely necessary a centre, standing alone, strong in traditionary reverence, and in acknowledged claims to supremacy. Even the perfect organization of the Christian hierarchy might in all human probability have fallen to pieces in perpetual conflict: it might have degenerated into a half-secular feudal caste, with hereditary benefices more and more entirely subservient to the civil authority, a priesthood of each nation or each tribe, gradually sinking to the intellectual or religious level of the nation or tribe. On the rise of a power both controlling and conservative hung, humanly speaking, the life and death of Christianity—of Christianity as a permanent, aggressive, expansive, and, to a certain extent, uniform system. There must be a counter-balance to barbaric force, to the unavoidable anarchy of Teutonism, with its tribal, or at the utmost national independence, forming a host of small, conflicting, antagonistic kingdoms. All Europe would have been what England was under the Octarchy, what Germany was when her emperors were weak; and even her emperors she owed to Rome, to the Church, to Christianity. Providence might have otherwise ordained; but it is impossible for man to imagine by what other organizing or consolidating force the commonwealth of the Western nations could have grown up to a discordant, indeed, and conflicting league, but still a league, with that unity and conformity of manners, usages, laws, religion, which have made their rivalries, oppugnancies, and even their long ceaseless wars, on the whole to issue in the noblest, highest, most intellectual form of civilization known to man ... It is impossible to conceive what had been the confusion, the lawlessness, the chaotic state of the middle ages, without the medieval Papacy...The right to warn and punish powerful men, to excommunicate kings, to preach aloud truth and justice to the inhabitants of the earth, to denounce immoral doctrines, to strike at rebellion in the garb of heresy, were the very weapons by which Europe was brought into a civilized condition."

Blessed John Henry Newman and the Primacy of Peter

2010-09-22T12:46:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, Cardinal John Henry Newman was beatified this week by Pope Benedict XVI in England. I hope to spend the next few days reflecting on some of Newman's legacy...

Papal Infallibility, Papal Error, and the One Church

(Edited)

"For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard…the revelation..."Pastor Aeternus 4.6

When John Henry Newman explicates the issues of papal primacy and infallibility, he is aware that these topics pose a major stumbling block to most Protestants, in as much as the ideas defined by the definitive statements of Pastor Aeternus state that “the sentence of the Apostolic See (other than which there is no higher authority) is not subject to revision by anyone, nor may anyone lawfully pass judgment thereupon." The Protestant rejoinder to this doctrine (which Newman admits having once shared) is that it is completely untenable to accept the solemn and infallible declaration that "there is no higher authority" than the Apostolic See, especially where this authority extends over interpretations of Scripture and Ecumenical Councils. Even the Orthodox tradition claims that it is the Church herself that is “the pillar and foundation of the truth,” and that the mind of the Church is therefore expressed ecumenically, and not by a monarchial pope. On such rebuttals, Petrine "primacy" would translate into neither universal and ordinary jurisdiction, nor infallibility. Rather, a college of bishops would retain ultimate jurisdiction, under the primacy of the Apostolic See, who, as a sort of “chairman of the board” would act as a first among equals, setting the agenda and directing discussion as would a significant figure head, but nothing more.

As Newman anticipates, such an argument holds that the Church’s infallibility and empirical unity cannot reside in the Pope as head, because that head has historically made doctrinal mistakes: the early Church's Pope Liberius anathematized Athanasius; in another instance, Pope Honorius promulgated monothelatism. History thus problematizes the Pastor Aeternus claim that "in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has always been preserved unblemished, and sacred doctrine held in honor." Accordingly, detractors have argued that the Catholic religion of the 7th century was only preserved in spite of the best efforts of the Apostolic See.

Newman’s responses suggest that the doctrine of papal infallibility proceeds from the conviction that Christ, the single Author of Truth, does not contradict Himself in any sources of revelation; by extension, Christ does not speak in one way through the episcopal Magisterium, while speaking in another way through its leader. Therefore, the papacy's claims to primacy need not cause scandal to those who are convinced of the unity of truth. Furthermore, Newman’s arguments suggest that the primacy of the popes is not only a necessary epistemic criterion in the life of the Church, vis a’ vis the discerning of God’s revelation, but that the papacy is such an essential feature in the hierarchical constitution of the Church that there can be no such thing as an ecumenical council independent of, nor in opposition to, the pope; and this should be understood in the same way that no body can perform a corporate function without the cooperation of its head.

Newman’s proposal is not that the pope should be pitted over and against the Church as a distinct agent; rather, Newman regards the pope's authority as derived from Christ, the Head of the Church, and from the nature of the infallible Church itself. Newman allows that papal infallibility does not always translate into clear and heroic witness to Christ; however Newman still insists that the papacy is vitally expedient for the mission of the Church in the world. In this regard, there is warrant for finding in Newman the assertion that the Church cannot be the Church without its head. Newman suggests that because the Catholic faithful were constituted under their pope and bishops, the consensus of the faithful could thereby preserve important doctrines even when the hierarchy's discernment of truth failed; the Church, on the metaphor of a body, has its epistemic voice only in as much as it has its ontological head. Newman provides us with an eloquent description of the pope, who, on the model of Ignatius of Antiochs’ bishops, does not provide for a merely epistemic or juridical unification of Christ’s Church; rather, the Church is united in and under the pope's person, as the visible vicar of Christ.

A brief summary of the relevant evidence for this claim follows. In On Consulting the Faithful (1859), Newman notes that “the tradition of the Apostles, committed to the whole Church in its various constituents, functions per modum unius, (and) manifests itself variously at various times: …sometimes by the mouth of the episcopacy.” (Consulting 2) Newman adds that “for myself, I am accustomed to lay great stress on the consensus fidelium,” even to the extent that the sensus communis fidelium can make up for the silence of the Fathers;” furthermore, “the voice of tradition may in certain cases express itself, not by Councils, nor Fathers, nor Bishops, but (by) the "communis fidelium sensus.”

Newman holds that "the sense of the faithful" is distinct but inseparable from the teaching of the pastors, and is indicative of the judgment or sentiment of the infallible Church, and thus should be taken into account to the utmost; in fact, the sense of the faithful could even be taken to ground the decision of the pontiff. At this point, Newman invokes the metaphor of an organic “body” that reactively expels whatever substances it finds to be foreign to itself and obnoxious to its health; Newman further extends this principle of the vital role of the laity’s faith in the discernment of true doctrine, as was evident in the lay opposition to the heresies of the episcopal hierarchy during the Arian controversies of the early Church.

Next, in his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk (1875), Newman describes the voice of the faithful as drawn together and held together in the visible institution of the Church; and here, Newman explicitly describes this Church as constituted under the head that was commissioned by Christ Himself, and secured by historical exigency:

We must either give up the belief in the Church as a divine institution altogether, or we must recognize it at this day in that communion of which the Pope is the head. With him alone and round about him are found the claims, the prerogatives, and duties which we identify with the kingdom set up by Christ. We must take things as they are; to believe in a Church, is to believe in the Pope. And thus this belief in the Pope and his attributes, which seems so monstrous to Protestants, is bound up with our being Catholics at all; as our Catholicism is bound up with our Christianity. I say, we cannot help ourselves…we should not believe in the Church at all, unless we believe in its visible head… the Papacy was the only power which lay not entirely and absolutely prostrate before the disasters of the times—a power which had an inherent strength, and might resume its majesty. It was this power which was most imperatively required preserve all which was to survive out of the crumbling wreck of Roman civilization.

Having described the Church as an institution united and constituted in, by, and under the pontiff, Newman returns once again to the theme of the “voice of the faithful” that is implicit in the issues of the individual conscience addressed in his Letter IV. Raising various hypothetical situations, Newman considers whether “the case (could) ever occur, in which I should act with the Civil Power, and not with the Pope?” Newman answers this issue by invoking the principles of three authorities: Cardinal Turrecremata, Cardinal Bellarmine, and Archbishop Kenrick:

A) Cardinal Turrecremata says, "Although it clearly follows from the circumstance that the Pope can err at times, and command things which must not be done, that we are not to be simply obedient to him in all things, that does not show that he must not be obeyed by all when his commands are good. To know in what cases he is to be obeyed and in what not ... it is said in the Acts of the Apostles, 'One ought to obey God rather than man:' therefore, were the Pope to command anything against Holy Scripture, or the articles of faith, or the truth of the Sacraments, or the commands of the natural or divine law, he ought not to be obeyed, but in such commands is to be passed over (despiciendus)." -Summ. de Eccl., pp. 47, 48.

B) Bellarmine, speaking of resisting the Pope, says, "In order to resist and defend oneself no authority is required ... Therefore, as it is lawful to resist the Pope, if he assaulted a man's person, so it is lawful to resist him, if he assaulted souls, or troubled the state (turbanti rempublicam), and much more if he strove to destroy the Church. It is lawful, I say, to resist him, by not doing what he commands, and hindering the execution of his will."—De Rom. Pont., ii. 29.

Finally, Newman’s invocation of Archbishop Kenrick hearkens clearly to the earlier principles of On Consulting the Faithful: "(the pope’s) power was given for edification, not for destruction. If he uses it from the love of domination scarcely will he meet with obedient populations." Consequently, Newman elaborates on the idea of the seemingly extensive discretion permitted to the individual who is faced with an “emergency” of conscience. In such cases, the person does not owe absolute obedience either to the (potentially conflicting) Church or state, and he would consult available ancillary authorities, resorting in the end to his own judgment and conscience: “it seems, then, that there are extreme cases in which conscience may come into collision with the word of a Pope, and is to be followed in spite of that word.”

Despite this allowance, it is clear that Newman thinks that such hypothetical divergence between the de fide statement of a pope and the constraints of the individual conscience are hardly possible, since both conscience and pope are in some sense “the vicars of Christ,” such that the Church is “built on” the foundation of the obedient conscience answering to the will of God.

Given these qualifications of papal infallibility in light of “the sense of the faithful” and the prerogatives of the individual conscience, it is at this point that we may see that the role of the pope in Newman’s ecclesiology is not primarily one of epistemological or moral adjudication; rather it is primarily a role of ontological headship, established by Christ to be the given constitutive of His Body in the world. In this regard, Newman explains that the “supreme” human conscience, as itself a vicar of Christ, is itself always to be formed by the principle of charity with regard to the heir of Peter:

He must have no willful determination to exercise a right of thinking, saying, doing just what he pleases, the question of truth and falsehood, right and wrong, the duty if possible of obedience, the love of speaking as his Head speaks, and of standing in all cases on his Head's side, being simply discarded. If this necessary rule were observed, collisions between the Pope's authority and the authority of conscience would be very rare.

Finally, Newman explicates the following principles in his Preface to the Third Edition (1877). Though Popes may err, nonetheless, their role as temporal, vicregal heads of the Church, by and in whom the Church is united, remains uncompromised:

Acts simply unjustifiable, such as real betrayals of the truth on the part of Liberius and Honorius, become intelligible, and cease to be shocking, if we consider that those Popes felt themselves to be head rulers of Christendom and their first duty, as such, to be that of securing its peace, union and consolidation.

Thus although Newman dwells so much on the sense of the faithful and the individual consciences that comprise the one body of the faithful, there is also a strong sense in Newman by which we understand that the corrective voice of the infallible Church entire is, as a body, possible only when the body is aligned to the Head. Recalling Ignatius’ principle that the ecclesia is united in the person of the bishop, and not merely by obedience to his rulings, a reading of Newman’s position can be summarized as follows. In Consulting the Faithful, Newman holds that “the ecclesia docens is not at every time the active instrument of the Church's infallibility,” since historically, the faith has itself been impugned by the Church's bishops. In terms of the expediency of the papacy, which Newman highlights, we recall that even in the debaucle of the Arian debates, the great Council of Nicaea, with its 318 Bishops, was convoked under the authority of the pope; the very council that refuted the pope was convened by the pope. As Newman cites in Letter 3.3.213:

To Western Christianity was absolutely necessary a centre, standing alone, strong in traditionary reverence, and in acknowledged claims to supremacy. Even the perfect organization of the Christian hierarchy might in all human probability have fallen to pieces in perpetual conflict: it might have degenerated into a half-secular feudal caste, with hereditary benefices more and more entirely subservient to the civil authority, a priesthood of each nation or each tribe, gradually sinking to the intellectual or religious level of the nation or tribe. On the rise of a power both controlling and conservative hung, humanly speaking, the life and death of Christianity—of Christianity as a permanent, aggressive, expansive, and, to a certain extent, uniform system.

In conclusion: in addition to these considerations of the expediency of the papacy in the life of the Church, Newman is also positing an ontological claim about the metaphysical nature of the Church in his considerations of the papacy. To speak epistemically and coherently, with the voice of the faithful, she must have a head.

Getting back to posting... sort of

2010-09-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,

For those of you who are kind enough to follow this blog, my apologies for all of the contemplative silence around here for the past month. I took a few weeks off to finish writing my dissertation, and I have since succesfully made the transition to "nesting" in preparation for the birth of my daughter in the coming month. In between laundering receiving blankets, I hope to continue this little blog as a small act of cooperation with my honored advisor's mandate to do a little theology every day. Pray for my family, and we will pray for yours! And happy reading!

In Christ
MM

Blessed Angela of Foligno, 13th Century

2010-09-20T09:15:00.000-07:00

A Franciscan tertiary and mystic who was also a wife and mother...

"At times God comes into the soul without being called; and He instills into her fire, love and sweetness; and the soul believes this comes from God, and she delights in it. But she does not yet know or see that He Himself dwells in her; she perceives His grace, in which she delights. ... And beyond this the soul receives the gift of seeing God. God says to her, 'Behold me!' and then the soul sees Him dwelling within her; she sees Him more clearly than one man can see another.

For the eyes of the soul behold a plenitude of which I cannot speak; a plenitude which is not bodily but spiritual, of which I can say nothing. And the soul rejoices in that sight with an ineffable joy; and this is the manifest and certain sign that God indeed dwells in her."

For Christ Alone: Thinking about Mary 101

2010-08-13T04:55:00.000-07:00

Among others, August is her month, and this weekend is the Feast of her Assumption into Heaven by the grace of her Son.

As often happens, I have a lot of explaining to do around the time of the Feast of Mary's Assumption. And as always, simpler is better. Yes, she is our Queen Mother. She's the mother of the King. And yes, we believe that her Son once called her to be assumed through the clouds to be in His presence in Heaven. This is what He promised to do for all of us, as He did for Elijah and a few others of His Old Testament servants; and it just makes sense that our courteous Lord would have His mother go first, in the promised resurrection of the body which He alone can provide.

I am struck lately by how desperately the Church needs to cling to its Queen these days- not just in terms of gorgeous litanies and personal affection, but in terms of the doctrinal rigor that only she can afford. The heresy of our day is that the Incarnation of God that occured in her womb is negligible. Spiritually, liberalized Christianity has decided to die the easy death of those who follow an unembodied Christ ideal. Our atmosphere is rife with such lovely-sounding, air- headed proposals of uber groundless spiritualities. Politically, a national culture that once generally affirmed that the Body of Jesus saves us now has its future threatened by the irritated Islamic heresy that does not tolerate this truth, while from within, we kill our unborn babies and "euthenize" our infirm because we have forgotten that from the reality of the Incarnation, every human body intrinsically belongs to God. And all the while, the sacred warning of I John rings in the backgound like a distant memory... every spirit that denies that Christ is come in the flesh is the spirit of antichrist... who is the antichrist but he who denies that Christ is come in the flesh...any spirit that denies...

The Church has not forgotten that we are saved by knowledge of the Son, in the Biblical sense. The Church has not forgotten that we are not saved by a set of well-worded propositions about God, but by the visceral, physical reality of Jesus of Nazereth, who is God united to human flesh. The Church has thus not forgotten that Mary, above and beyond all the human creation, really knows the Son. He is her Son. She knew his stirrings in her own body before His birth. She recognized dominant DNA patterns from her parents and grandparents in His features. She knew Him when He was two. While He grew in wisdom and stature, she knew what He liked to eat and what He did not (look people, this is essential to what Christianity is- the firm conviction that God in Christ probably has favorite foods). It is she who knew that just as much as His human will grew in perfect conformity and union to His divinity, He had eyes of a certan color and pains of a certain sort, and she knew exactly what His excruciating bloody wounds looked like on the day He died for the great love of His life. And it is thus that it is Mary, the mother of our Lord, who can uniquely crush that elegant and sinister lie that God has not come in the flesh, that redeeming Truth is separate from a Person. Mary wiped His nose and rocked Him to sleep. She knows.

History has proven that it is the mother of God who protects the essential, precious truth of our salvation: the Word is made flesh and dwelt among us. Several essential aspects of the Church’s worship and confession were expressed around the 4th century in response to the proposals of detractors. The first, at the Council of Nicaea in 325, declared that Christ is fully God. At stake was an understanding of salvation: the Cross can save us only if the Crucified Redeemer is fully divine. Once the Church had expressed that the Son is also fully man at the Council of Constantinople in 381, the third statement, expressed shortly thereafter at the Council of Ephesus in 431, responded to the proposals of Nestorius.

Nestorius wanted above all things to evade the harsh implications of the Cross. In sum, Nestorius was convinced that a God who suffered in the flesh could not save us. Surely such a God would have ceased to be God. So, Nestorius invented the sad proposal that I have run into over and over again: Jesus of Nazareth is not fully God because in Him God is not fully united to man. Jesus is only a "temple" in which God dwells; the child born of Mary may be honored as the vessel in which God's power became manifest, but Jesus cannot be worshipped as God. In short, the Nestorian heresy contended then (as it contends now) that the Word has not been made flesh, that God has not united Himself to us.

As promised, the Holy Spirit led Christ's Church into all truth, and the conciliar clarification came through loud and clear in the orthodox doctrine that Catholic Christians confess today while we joyfully worship Jesus. Mary's testimony won the day: the Person conceived by the Holy Spirit in her virginal womb is Himself the unity of God and man. He has a rational soul and a human body born of His mother; everything that belongs to a real human is in the divine Christ. The subject of the whole human reality is the Logos, which He took on from the Virgin in mortal time. With respect to His essential humanity born of Mary, God was born, God suffered, God did everything that Jesus was doing… the one who was born of the Jewish girl is the same as the one who was begotten of the Father before all worlds. As Athanasius had put it, the whole Christian story must be the story of Jesus’ descent and ascent- of the Logos' descent into our flesh, and of the taking of our flesh into the very heart of God. The story of salvation is the story of the Logos, from the bosom of the Father, to the depths of our flesh, returning to the Father clothed forever in our flesh, fused with it. What Christ has not assumed of our nature and united to His godhead cannot be healed.

The conclusion centered on Mary. In the end, in summary of the Church's Christological confession, Mary was declared Theotokos, Mother of God- not mother of a fleshly "vessel," nor mother of an earthly "temple." Rather, she herself was known to be the Vessel and Temple in whom God Himself had dwelt. In sum, we are left today with the historic Fourth Anathema against Nestorius: if anyone distributes between two persons/subjects of Jesus Christ and attaches some to the man as separated from God, let him be anathema.

The lie that the second Person of the Trinity had not come in the flesh and been born of a woman was silenced. At the time, the Church celebrated with processions similar to those that Catholic churches will perform this Sunday. In defeat of the heresies, an image of the mother of God Incarnate is paraded through the towns of the fallen world in public proclamation that the hellish lies about her Son have to stop at her humble feet. The Church recalled prayers from the Fathers Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Origin, and Gregory of Nazianzan then, as we do now: sub tuum presidium, we fly to your patronage, oh holy mother of God. Do not reject our prayers in time of need... you who alone are pure, holy and blessed... if anyone does not believe in Mary as the Mother of God, he is severed from the godhead…

(On this Feast of the Assumption, while I am in glad procession against deadly heresies, I will enjoy recalling the prayer of a more modern figure):

In this work whereby she was made the Mother of God, so many and such great good things were given her that no one can grasp them. ... Not only was Mary the mother of him who is born in Bethlehem, but of him who, before the world, was eternally born of the Father, from a Mother in time and at the same time man and God...She is full of grace, proclaimed to be entirely without sin- something exceedingly great. For God's grace fills her with everything good and makes her devoid of all evil...The veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart...It is the consolation and the superabundant goodness of God, that man is able to exult in such a treasure. Mary is his true Mother, Christ is his brother, God is his father...Mary is the Mother of Jesus and the Mother of all of us even though it was Christ alone who reposed on her knees . . . If he is ours, we ought to be in his situation; there where he is, we ought also to be and all that he has ought to be ours, and his mother is also our mother.

- Martin Luther, Little Prayer Book, 1522.

Cardinal Mahony on Homosexuality and Marriage

2010-08-09T08:33:00.000-07:00

Here.

..."There is only one issue before each of us Californians: Is Marriage of Divine or of Human Origin?"

Bishop Jaime Soto's 2008 Address on Homosexuality and Marriage

2010-08-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

September 29, 2008

"...The nature of love has been distorted. Many popular notions have deviated from its true destiny. Love for many has come to mean having sex. If you cannot have sex than you cannot love. This is the message. Even more destructive is the prevailing notion that sex is not an expression of love. Sex is love. This reductio ad absurdam deprives sexuality of its true meaning and robs the human person of the possibility of ever knowing real love.

Sexual intercourse is a beautiful expression of love, but this is so when intercourse is understood as a unique expression intended to share in the creative, faithful love of God. As the Holy Father, Pope Benedict, elaborated in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, “Marriage based on exclusive and definitive love” - between a man and woman - “becomes the icon of the relationship between God and his people and vice versa. God’s way of loving becomes the measure of human love.” (DCE, n. 11) Sexual intercourse within the context of the marriage covenant becomes a beautiful icon - a sacrament - of God’s creative, unifying love. When sexual intercourse is taken out of this iconic, sacramental context of the complementary, procreative covenant between a man and a woman it becomes impoverished and it demeans the human person.

Sexual intercourse between a man and a woman in the covenant of Marriage is one expression of love to which the human person can aspire, but we are all called to love. It is part of our human nature to love. We all have a desire to love, but this love can deviate from its true calling when it exalts only in the pleasure of the body. Pope Benedict said in the same encyclical, “The contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure ‘sex,’ has become a commodity, a mere ‘thing’ to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man’s great ‘yes’ to the body. On the contrary, he now considers his body and his sexuality as the purely material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will.” (DCE, n. 5) This is not our true calling. The human desire to love must lead us to the divine. Looking again to the Holy Father’s encyclical, he says, “True, eros - human desire - tends to rise ‘in ecstasy’ towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.” (DCE, n. 5)

This path is the path of chastity. This is very true in marriage. It is also true in all of human life because it is the nature of all authentic love. We are all called to love. We are all called to be loved. This can only happen when we choose to love in the manner that God has called us to live. Love leads us to ecstasy, not as a moment of intoxication but rather as a journey, “an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God: ‘Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it’ (Lk 17:33).” (DCE n. 6)

Sexuality, then, as part of our human nature only dignifies and liberates us when we begin to love in harmony with God’s love and God’s wisdom for us. Chastity as a virtue is the path that brings us to that harmony with God’s wisdom and love. Chastity moves us beyond one’s desire to what God wills for each one of us. Chastity is love’s journey on the path of “ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.” Chastity is the understanding that it is not all about me or about us. We act always under God’s gaze. Desire tempered and tested by “renunciation, purification, and healing” can lead us to God’s design.

This is true for all of us. It is also true for men and women who are homosexual. We are called to live and love in a manner that brings us into respectful, chaste relationships with one another and an intimate relationship with God. We should be an instrument of God’s love for one another. Let me be clear here. Sexual intercourse, outside of the marriage covenant between a man and a woman, can be alluring and intoxicating but it will not lead to that liberating journey of true self-discovery and an authentic discovery of God. For that reason, it is sinful. Sexual relations between people of the same sex can be alluring for homosexuals but it deviates from the true meaning of the act and distracts them from the true nature of love to which God has called us all. For this reason, it is sinful.

Married love is a beautiful, heroic expression of faithful, life-giving, life-creating love. It should not be accommodated and manipulated for those who would believe that they can and have a right to mimic its unique expression.

Marriage is also not the sole domain of love as some of the politics would seem to imply. Love is lived and celebrated in so many ways that can lead to a wholesome, earnest, and religious life: the deep and chaste love of committed friends, the untiring love of committed religious and clergy, the profound and charitable bonds among the members of a Christian community, enduring, forgiving, and supportive love among family members. Should we dismiss or demean the human and spiritual significance of these lives given in love?

This is a hard message today. It is the still the right message. It will unsettle and disturb many of our brothers and sisters, just as Peter was unsettled and put off by the stern rebuke of his master and good friend, the Lord Jesus. If the story of Peter’s relationship with Jesus had begun and ended there, it would have been a sad tale indeed, but that is not the whole story then nor is it the whole story now. Jesus met Simon Peter on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. He said with great love and fondness, “Come, follow me.” Peter would not only continue to follow the Lord Jesus to Jerusalem. Despite his many failings and foibles, he would eventually choose to love as Jesus loved him. He would die as martyr’s death in Rome, giving himself completely for the one who loved him so dearly.

The teaching of the Church regarding the sacred dignity of human sexuality is not a rebuke but an invitation to love as God loves us. The Church’s firm support of Proposition 8 is not a rebuke against homosexuals but a heartfelt affirmation of the nature of the marriage covenant between a man and a woman. We hope and pray that all people, including our brothers and sisters who are homosexuals, will see the reasonableness of our position and the sincerity of our love for them.

For that reason, we should let the words of St. Paul haunt us and unsettle us: “Do not conform yourself to this age.” In so many ways we can allow ourselves to be duped, fooled, by the fads and trends of this age. It is far better that we allow ourselves to be drawn into the ways and the manners of Jesus. The Lord Jesus challenges us as he challenged his friend, Simon Peter, to not conform to what is fashionable and convenient. He has so much more to offer us. Do not think as others do. Let us think as God does. He shows us the way, the truth, and the life."

More Here. And Here.

Proposition 8 and a Good America

2010-08-05T07:51:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, California joined a handful of other states in overturning their ban on same-sex sexual relationships being legally identified as "marriages." Many commentors and I are sure that this means that this controversy will make its way to the Supreme Court.

In the interim, lobbyists and lawmakers will be scrambling to preserve the interests of their constituencies. What are these interests? The cool timbre of legal explanations will hold forth various arguments.

Proponents of same- sex "marriage" will argue against discrimination with regards to the natural rights of homosexual persons to free expression and association. They will claim the right to privacy, the fact that the choice of a marriage partner and the right to marry is a fundamental human right, and that the interests of adopted children who are involved in such relationships might benefit from the security of a "marital" home. In particular, they will argue the 1993 holding of Baehr v. Lewin, that homosexual persons are entitled to equal protection under the law. They will hold forth the 1999 conclusion of Baker v. VT, that the state cannot exclude same sex couples from the benefits and protections which its laws provide to heterosexual married couples, and that same sex couples are constitutionally entitled to all of the common benefits afforded to married couples. And they will challenge their opposition to prove a rational basis, given these facts, that can justify the exclusion of same sex couples from "marriage" on reasonable grounds.

On the other hand, those who fight for the traditional norm of heterosexual marriage will remind this nation that the legalization of same sex relationships as "marriages" will separate the properly intrinsic link between sexuality, marriage, and procreation. They will argue that such authorization creates an unhealthy environment for the children adopted into the same sex household, as well as for those children who are engineered for the same sex couple in the most cumbersome ways, while also contaminating the moral atmosphere for all young people. They will ask why our society should be forced to endorse that which the larger society holds to be immoral, in as much as the practical affirmation of marriage "costs" our society in terms of tax breaks and benefits; they will propose, in sum, that the United States courts cannot conclude that a right to same sex marriage is so rooted in the traditions or collective conscience of the people that failure to recognize it would violate the fundamental principles of liberty and justice. In other words, such a “right” to the legal recognition of same sex relationships is not so implicit in the concept of ordered liberty that it would become the case that neither liberty nor justice could succeed if that "right" were sacrificed. Declining to recognize gay relationships as "marriage" is not to authorize an unjust deprivation of proper entitlements, nor is a state's refusal to recognize such relationships sufficiently grievous, coercive, or intrusive to amount to the "deprivation" of a natural or legal right.

...And in response to the traditional arguments against the authorization of same sex relationships, proponents of homosexual "marriage" will reply that our arguments are "all about religion," and the intrinsic link which all religious traditions recognize between sexual intercourse, marriage, and children, and the concurrent recognition of the inherent disorder which distorts every homosexual sexual act. And they will be right.

This is the sort of juncture where we have to throw the towel in with regards to our highly sterilized and Gnostic presumption of a separation between Church and state, when no such stern dichotomy can actually exist between religious structures and a society of religious people. By definition, a religion is that which proposes a normative truth, ensconced in a normative system, applicable to all of life. The Catholic Church understands this; and while she gladly acknowledges a nation's claim to civil life, structures, and autonomy, she does not cease to propose the universal norms which she understands to be the truth about the world and about all people. One of these truths which the Church proposes is that not every "right" is to be exercised, if the goal is real freedom, strength, and civic excellence; accordingly, another such truth is that those who are empowered to make and interpret laws will only fulfill their responsibilities when they legislate broadly to affirm the deeper truths that enable and assist persons to be truly free. To authorize sexual license apart from real moral structures is to fail in this responsibility; that's why our laws prohibit statutory rape, incest, polygamy, prostitution.

(This is the case even though I have seen some fairly tight arguments to the contrary pop up in family law textbooks- a merely Constitutional case can be made for the legalization of incest, believe me- but here the inevitable question always arises as to what is truly good)

And yes, our objections to same sex "marriage" are all about religion. The Church interprets her Scriptures and her own history in such a way that enables her to speak to the current situation with stunning clarity. Writing in 1968, and without direct reference to the issue of homosexual relationships, Pope Paul VI warned in Humanae Vitae that our culture's gradual and contraceptive dissociation of the intrinsic link between sexuality, marriage, and procreation would lead to the isolation of each, the exploitation of each, and a disordered approach to each. The Pope held forth what the Church undertands to be the truth about marriage, about sexuality, and its fruits:

(We hold) the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act. The reason is that the fundamental nature of the marriage act, while uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy, also renders them capable of generating new life—and this as a result of laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman. And if each of these essential qualities, the unitive and the procreative, is preserved, the use of marriage fully retains its sense of true mutual love and its ordination to the supreme responsibility of parenthood to which man is called.

Against such a religious definition of the proper ordering of sex and marriage, homosexual partners demand the right to receive national and state benefits and authorization for their decision to have sex with each other, in a stable sort of way. Is this marriage and family, in the way the Church understands it? No. Is it plausible that a compelling Constitutional argument can be made for the rights of homosexual persons to receive legal benefits for their decision to have continuous and monogamous sex with each other? Yes. But in as much as the Church (and all other religious traditions) hold forth what may (to the secular audience) be the actual truth about persons, marriage, and family, then the exercise of a legal right to imitate marriage may lead to our demise as we attempt to enact a new sort of "marital" institution based on a delusion. When our nation ceases to order its life within reality, even in the purported name of justice, we will cease to be an instantiation of sound civic order among the nations of the world; we will become as fragile as another social construct. It's a risk. The world's religious traditions have millenia on our innovative little USA.

Alexis De Toqueville, one of our colonial statesmen, had this in mind when he remarked that America, and her constitution and legal structures, were great- technically- only because they were good- morally. And he continued that when America ceased to be "good," in the way that religious and moral traditions describe goodness, she would cease to be great. Yes friends, in that way, we are "all about religion."

Anne Rice in a Weaker Vein

2010-08-03T08:54:00.000-07:00

There has been a bit of hulabaloo recently about Anne Rice's decision to depart from the Catholic Church and all "organized religion" after her much-touted return to it in 2005; NPR characteristically aired an interview with her yesterday, in their amusing mode of offering only diametric counters to EWTN's "The Journey Home," on which I was a guest last fall (what would be fun is to hear a really good conversion story in Terry Gross' breathy voice).

We can leave aside for now the sterner internal interptation of her choice as a self-conscious act of apostasy and a sin against charity itself; what worries me is the intellectual credibility of this public decision. Anne Rice's list of negations and denials is boringly thin, aimed at a line of straw men who are less robust than her bloodless Undead. Where has the Catholic Church ever self-identified as "anti-feminist," "anti-gay," or "anti- science," as Rice puts it? Is this not the same Church which, in its authoritative statements, identifies itself in the image of a woman and enthusiastically lauds women's contributions to every sphere of life, defends the dignity and rights of homosexual persons, (Catechism 2358), and affirms the integral roles of faith and science? Anne Rice should know better; she referenced such good scholarship for her first faithful novel, Christ the Lord. Instead, she has chosen to affirm a mere negation, which, apart from being logically impossible, is intensely boring. She has become another postmodern cliche.'

On the other hand, I so well remember stopping by one of Anne Rice’s Manhattan book signings for Christ the Lord when the book first came out, in the wake of Rice’s public return to the faith. I remember a certain warm sense of real fellowship- a community of friends with a common cause. I remember how serene and whole and firmly resolved Rice seemed, how secure. I’d asked her to inscribe my book for a certain priest, and she held that book for an extra second, repeating the priest’s name almost tenderly. If that little sliver of time represents a small part of the graces at work in her return to the faith, she will be back. The chilly tone of her recent renunciations lacks the compelling tenor of real love and conviction altogether. She was not made to live a negation.

For those in the popular media who are applauding Rice's constrained and insipid choice as a sort of clarion call to Christian believers, please. She offers no radical new proposal; she suggests nothing new or positive in terms of constructive change for us awful Catholics and Christians who actually love our organized structures. She is not proposing a reform. She is re-hashing a tired, weary strain which does not do justice to her fairly good literary style. She can do nothing but make qualifications now. And that is just sad, on so many levels- with regard to her spirituality, and with regard to her brain.

Queen Susan's Bow: Woman as model for the role of the laity

2010-07-21T08:01:00.000-07:00

(Because movie audiences these days are excited about the forthcoming "Voyage of the Dawn Treader," which I love)

When the film 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" was first released, various feminists began cooing over one particular moment in C.S. Lewis' adapted story: Susan Pevensie fires a well-aimed shot from her bow and mortally wounds the wicked little dwarf who is about to kill her brother in the Great Battle. This moment is notably absent from The Book, wherein Lewis, that consummate and self-identifying layman, points out that he would rather not have his women fighting in battles, for the mere fact that they are women.

As a joyful gender essentialist, I believe that there are intrinsic gifts, responsibilities, and vocations inherently connected with being male or female, and I love being the latter, because it means being a mother and a sister and a daughter to the rest of the world, in a variety of ways. I think that a good solid patriarchy can be wonderfully advantageous to ambitious young women. I trust my father and almost always defer to his wishes; I obey my husband, with God's help. I think that men are naturally inclined to lead and protect women, and I think that women should let them do so. But I am not one to shrink from battles.

Queen Susan, the Gentle and Accurate, takes up her weapon and defeats a demon, and with that she joins the generals Deborah and St. Joan of Arc as women who I, purportedly submissive and non-feminist gender essentialist, want to imitate. Why? Because on Lewis' allegory, we all know that Susan has fired her shot in a spiritual battle between an enslaving, death-dealing, and demonic power, and it is on this sort of battlefield, that we truly are all one, neither male nor female, in Christ Jesus. Having delivered another traditonal household code in Ephesians 5, wherein women obey while men sacrifice, Paul turns immediately in Ephesians 6 to the weapons which all take up in order to deal out death blows to the Enemy of souls. This warfare is the prerogative of every Christian Person. And the offensive is not optional. It is on the battlefield where the Church is attacked by a ruthless enemy that gender is truly relativized in light of the expediency of Christ's Kingdom, such that women as well as men must take up arms to deal death blows to demons. Was there ever a besieged army that cut its ranks in two at the height of a conflict? Why would the Church do such a thing? Why would the Church not promote her daughters in the gender-neutral Christian mandates to evangelize, to chatechize, to do systematic theology... in short, to do warfare? And in this regard, the Church is no civic community. The Church is, in many ways, an army that needs every baptized person to bear arms in the context of its critical, eschataological Battle.

At this same time, this does not mean that the Church has the option of counting women in that apostolic succession which adminsters the sacraments and formulates doctrine. As Kalistos Ware has put it, "to no woman has Jesus said, 'he who hears you hears me...to no woman did He make the promise to ratify in heaven what she has bound or loosed on earth." And, as Thomas Hopko concurs in On the Male Character of Christian Priesthood, to speak of women being "excluded" from the Christian episcopacy is absurd and nonsensical, because "exclusion" supposes a possible and prior "inclusion," which does not in fact exist in the history of the Christian tradition. But neither does the Church have the option of preventing women from passing on the Faith once delivered to the (male) apostles through the teachings of her female doctors and mystics, or engaging in the ministry of an apostolate, or prophecying, or leading and initiating in the Church, in as much as the Church may require. If we are an army under attack, then we need all hands on deck.

It is in this way that the Church's understanding of women corresponds to her understanding of the laity in general. The sacrament of Holy Orders is not one of those sacraments to which everyone is entitled; the conferring of ordination is simply the Church's obedient acknowledgment of those rare and particular men whom God has called to serve His Church as priests. At the same time, the Church makes it very clear that her ministry, her vocation of taking Christ's light into each and every dark corner of the earth, properly belongs to those women who are not ordained by virtue of their essential vocation to the lay state, and to those men who are not ordained by virtue of having received an alternative calling. The Church's seeming "no" to women who might like to be priestesses is really at the same time the Church's resounding and urgent "yes" to the lay vocation, in which the gift of our Confirmation flourishes in the most radical ways, because God has entrusted the more dangerous responsibilities of non-ordained ministry to all women and to Christian laymen.

And this brings me to two conclusions. The Church reminds us that at her very heart there is not an oppressive patriarchal system, but a woman. It makes sense that a Church that is essentially Marian would call to her women to model the patience, surrender, and perfect love that is required of all her people in their original lay state; perhaps it is in this regard that John Paul II stated that "women will be the most fruitful element in the Apostolate." And with this mandate in mind, as women who submit in love to the Catholic tradition, and who, in speaking first to Christ, remain silent or speak very softly in the Church, by all means let us do so wholeheartedly; but let us carry a very big stick.

A small tirade against feminism: "now, now dearie, use your feminine pronouns..."

2010-07-20T09:14:00.000-07:00

I've about had it. The next time a White European Male professor with fewer degrees than I've got tells me that I cannot refer in my extensive writing to "mankind" or the masculine pronoun "he" or "his" for the human being, or the Fatherhood of God, or the Sonship of Christ, etc., I am going to throw a royal fit.

... actually, no time like the present.

Feminists, God bless them, have exploited the rhetoric of The Oppressed! to revise the way we speak about one another. They have thus distorted the beauty of the English language and the dignity of a woman's right to self-expression in the academy. - We have to refer to "humanity," never use the masculine pronoun (though we can use FEMININE pronouns, which is hilarious when one is speaking about historically male-dominated cultures), and above all, God must be "Mother" and "Nurturer" and "Sustainer," etc. etc. Which makes things very difficult when once wishes to refer to Christ's robust language of His Father. Which makes things difficult when one is perpetually sick of being patronized for (her) refusal to be a feminist.

Even with references to our predominately male-behaving God aside, I prefer to use masculine pronouns. Why?

1. Because I am a Christian. As such, I believe that all of humanity- and especially we baptized- are categorically and really identified by this MAN, Christ the Lord. We are capitulated by this male. We believe that we are from Him, through Him, in Him. We believe that in some sense, every person ever created is from Him, through Him, in Him, even for Him. He is before all persons, and by Him all things consist. We hope, in the end, to be regarded as "in" Him, under His juridical and ontological headship and hence constituted by His very self, safe and flourishing under His protection. Thus- from His masculinity- it becomes perfectly rational to refer to persons in general with the masculine pronoun.

2. Because I am my father's daughter and my husband's wife. Whether modern feminism likes it or not, my life has in a very precious way been lived "through" these amazing men who lay their lives down to promote the women in their lives. My dad was instrumental in my creation. He protected me and trained me and made sure that I had every opportunity that he and I could imagine. He inspires me. He interrupts his meetings to take my calls. He takes me around the world and insists that I never neglect a single dream. Now, I similarly live my life "through" and "in" my husband, who became my husband in order to serve Christ in me. In as much as my whole life is characterized by the gifts, love, and leadership of such men, it makes sense that I would employ... masculine pronouns.

With this in mind, I recall that language is supposed to be an instrument for honoring the other. Language, with its grammatical order and normative clarity, was (and should be) a means of the charity to which we are called in every moment. When this woman refers to the masculine pronoun, I freely honor the men in my life. (If the men in my life were to become so besotted with me that they insisted on always using feminine pronouns in my particular honor, well then, more power to them). As a woman who is willing to use masculine pronouns, I honor all men as fundamentally other than myself, and with whom I stand in loving solidarity as persons nonetheless. It's all about charity, people.

All this to say: I am a traditional Catholic woman who regards herself in the man Christ Jesus, and who honors her dad and her husband among men, and I am thus become a voice of the marginalized.

Off to overthrow the oppressors.

Reinhard Huetter and a Marian corrective to feminist theology

2010-07-19T09:11:00.000-07:00

Reinhard Huetter is Professor of Christian Theology at Duke University. These are my notes from one of his conference presentations in 2008.

Professor Huetter describes the enterprise of renewing theology in a Marian key as a project of re-discovering an "abandoned palace" full of particularities that are relevant to ecclesiology and soteriology, in lieu of contemporary theology's less fecund abstractions.

In particular, Huetter focused on the doctrine of Mary's Assumption as vivifying the eschatalogical hope of the Church; in Mary we find fulfilled - and already actually anchored in Heaven- what God has promised for all humanity. In this way, the Church's hope for salvation and the particular resurrection of the body is sustained because of Mary, in whom the Church can rejoice that the economy of salvation has been completed.

Huetter invoked Louis Bouyer's own renewal of Marian theology in The Seat of Wisdom of the 1960's. Huetter also referred to and the Scriptural significance of Mary's being the only creature ever greeted by an angel as indicative of her excellence above all creatures in grace and consequent familiarity with her Creator, and as indebted above all for the grace which preserves her, unstained, from original sin.

My favorite acecdote from this presentation was the suggestive note that the doctrine of Mary's assumption into Heaven reminds the feminist revolt in modern theology that there is indeed already a woman in Heaven, so they need not worry so much about de-gendering God the Father; we see in Mary that there is a fully, integrated, maternal creaturely life enjoying the Beatific Vision and interceding for the rest of the creation already.

The Vatican: Equating the abuse of minors with the attempt to "ordain" women?

2010-07-16T12:56:00.000-07:00

How is this for some drama? No, I don't mean that the recent promulgation of substantive norms for discipline by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is so hot- it happens regularly, and is generally pretty dry stuff- but the fact that if NPR says one more time that the "Vatican has equated the ordination of women with the sexual abuse of children," I am going to SCREAM.

Instead of behaving with such obtuse sloppiness in such honeyed tones, the media would do well to begin simply with the facts: the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has issued revised norms for disciplinary measures in central areas of Church life. The attempt to make priestesses is defined as a "more grave delict" against the life of the Church; (Article 5) the sexual abuse of minors is defined as a "more grave" violation of the moral law itself. (Article 6) These are different categories entirely, which even the New York Times is fair enough to recognize, in its brief citation of Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna, the Vatican’s internal prosecutor:

“Sexual abuse and pornography are more grave delicts, they are an egregious violation of moral law,” Monsignor Scicluna said in his first public appearance since the sex abuse crisis hit. “Attempted ordination of women is grave, but on another level, it is a wound that is an attempt against the Catholic faith on the sacramental orders.”

These are the facts and the relevant distinctions. That a horde of antsy feminists and dissenting Catholics wish to take this opportunity to propose that a defunct Church revise its foundational tradition with respect to the sacrament of ordination... that is another maelstrom of a different color. Expect some thoughts on feminist revisionism here in the next few days.

Aborted Fetal DNA in Children's Vaccines

2010-07-09T06:51:00.001-07:00

I have been doing some research into the traditional gamut of vaccines administered to infants and toddlers; the Autism Research Institute and the National Vaccine Information Center have been especially helpful. Perhaps one of the most concerning things is the connection between aborted fetal DNA and some traditional vaccines. The Minnesota House of Representatives is currently dealing with legislation on point:

"ST. PAUL – Citing studies that suggest stem-cell based vaccines are temporarily linked to rising autism levels across the nation, State Representative Laura Brod (R-New Prague) is authoring legislation requiring product labeling and patient consent before human DNA vaccines are administered to them." You can read more here.

The National Catholic Bioethics Center confirms that this should be a point of concern for parents who vaccinate their children:

"There are a number of vaccines that are made in descendent cells of aborted fetuses. Abortion is a grave crime against innocent human life. We should always ask our physician whether the product he proposes for our use has an historical association with abortion. We should use an alternative vaccine if one is available."

Blessed Conchita of Mexico

2010-07-06T07:07:00.000-07:00

“I did not see there was any other pathway for me to come to God... I am going to seek my perfection and become a saint on carrying out the sacred duties of a mother.” (the latter from Diary, October 1901)

This amazing woman was the wife of one, the mother of nine, and the foundress of the religious community in which she died at the age of seventy-five; "her children all had the same words to say about their mother. She was balanced, simple, fun-loving, always turning the conversation toward Christ without boring anyone. She had a deep love for the poor and those who suffered. She wore a constant serenity that made even the most difficult situations, possible to get through. She (would say) time and again, ‘Everything passes, except having suffered for God out of love.’ The Lord led Conchita to an always-deepening interior life with Him. He led her to prayer. She received visions about the renewal of the Church and about her own mission and vocation as a mother for priests and foundress of communities." More here.

Considering Radner- and the alternative

2010-06-29T08:09:00.000-07:00

In considering Radner, we consider one of the most formidable Protestant ecclesiologists of our day; and his proposal that the Church be understood on the model of a broken, dispersed Israel has its compelling features. One alternative, as emphasized by significant contemporary Catholic theologians, is to understood the Church in and by the young Israelite in whom the Church finds Israel's Holy of Holies- Mary of Nazareth, called from among the nations and from among her own to be God's chosen one and bear Him to the Gentiles, as though she were the most radical form of her nation Israel.

Protestant ecclesiologies who would converse with Catholic doctrines of the Church need to recall Charles Journet's emphasis in The Church of the Word Incarnate that the Church enjoys a present consummation with Christ, with regard to the present fecundity and maternity which is already realized in Mary, such that the Church need not be called "broken," but rather, "abundant" in the grace and presence of the Savior:

When (we) speak of fecundity (we) recall that the Holy Spirit…by the mediation and free acquiescence of our Lady, formed Christ to Him to the world… on the day of the Annunciation the Holy Spirit gave a mysterious fecundity to our Lady, making her the mother of Christ and consequently, the mother of all men. This fecundity He now communicates, in a different and analogical manner, to the power of order… so that it may bring the Eucharistic Christ into the world, and generate the Church which is His body.

Accordingly, Journet continues:

The collective grace of the whole Church is condense and intensified in the Blessed Virgin… this is the very mystery of the relations between Christ, on the one hand, and the Virgin and the Church on the other, of which St. Thomas speaks when he says at the moment of the Annunciation, the Virgin’s consent was sought in the name of all human nature…all the maternal and virginal dignity of the universal Church, all the joys and sorrows of her childbearing through the ages, are collected and brought to a supreme point in that precise moment of her pilgrimage when she, by the blessed Virgin, gives birth to a Son…(and) at the moment when Christ dies on His cross, it is coredemptive compassion of the entire Church… that is condensed and carried to a supreme point of intensity in the heart of the Blessed Virgin.

In this way, Journet continues that in Mary’s unique “nuptial” relationship to the Godhead, the Church finds the pattern of her espousals, such that the Church need not be called "estranged" from her full vocation nor even "scattered" with regards to her integrity; rather, viewed in a Marian key, she has been and is "gathered," in the fullest sense:

Mary is the supreme realization of the Church… more Bride (even) than the Church… she is Mother, Bride and Virgin prior to the Church and for the Church; ... it is in her, above all, and by her that the Church is Mother, Bride and Virgin. It is by a mysterious excellence that is diffused from Mary that the Church can truly be, in her turn, Mother, Bride, and Virgin.

Considering Radner: Is the Church a "Chaste Whore?"

2010-06-25T12:43:00.000-07:00

Ecclesiologists and theologians who follow Radner would be prone to echo this term as a preferred mode of reference for the Church, with regard to the simultaneous reality of her total holiness even while her members persist in human sins. This fact is of course an important theological problem, although the Catholic Church does not view it as a paradox; rather, as Pope John Paul II puts it in a decree for the Jubilee of 2000, "the Church, strong in the holiness which she receives from her Lord, should kneel before God and implore forgiveness for the past and present sins of her sons and daughters." (John Paul II, First Sunday of Lent "Day of Pardon," 2000). The Church's definitive summary here bears witness to her identity as the creature which subsists unceasingly in her Lord alone, such that en toto she always enjoys, participates in, and extends His holiness without hinderance; and while her sons and daughters do commit sin, she exercises the authority that is hers in her very essence as "bone of (Christ's) bone and flesh of His flesh" by interceding for them, representing them to their Judge to ask for pardon, and extending His remission of their guilt and punishment. In other words, sinners are within her; but she, by God's grace, stands over and above them in His own perfect righteousness.

However thorough the Protestant attempt to construe the holiness+sinfulness problem, the Protestant's persistent denial of the Church's authority and essential holiness before her Lord requires recourse to the paradox of two contradictory states with regards to the Church as a whole, such that she would be said to be, as Luther said of the individual baptized, "simul justus et peccator," at once justified and sinful- or, as Radner finds helpful, she might be said to be "a chaste whore."

Given the great reverence with which the Christian tradition has always treated the figure of the whole Church, regardless of the sins of her members, "the chaste whore" reference needs to be qualified much more carefully, particularly since Hans Urs Von Balthasar, as the only contemporary Catholic theologian to utilize the term, refers strongly to its contradictory meaning as being “blasphemous” on its face in his work Sponsa Verbi, "Bride of the Word." (There is some suggestion that Hugo Rahner may have made reference to this term as well, but I've not yet found it if that is the case)

There are in fact two Patristic allusions to the Church as a casta meretrix, "chaste whore," but these references do not relate to the problem of the simultaneous "sinfulness" and holiness of the Church. Both St. Augustine and St. Ambrose (In Lucam VIII) use the casta meretrix term with reference to the repentant Rahab, in order to illustrate the Gentiles' former status as idolaters, who have become a chaste body (and a whore no longer) in their reception of the sacraments, such that they have emerged from "whoredom" into espousal with their Savior, and as such, they constitute His Body in the world as His chaste bride; and all of this is read on the model of the just Gentile Rahab, who significantly provided her house as a place of refuge and protection for God's people, and who was incorporated into Israel in her repentance. Apparently, it was with regard to the Gentiles' transition in time- from "whores" prior to baptism and conversion, to saints afterwards- that Rahab was cast as a type of the Church by Justin, Clement, Cyprian, Irenaeus, and Origen. By the 9th century, Rabanus Maurus clarifies that “we are not saying that the Church remained a prostitute, but simply that she used to be."

Taken in this way, it seems that these references do not directly pertain to the problem of the fomes of sin which remain in the Church’s structures and baptized members- and in light of Catholic theology’s post- Vatican II references to the Church as the present spouse of Christ, the “whore” language construed as a general reference seems... dialogically "unhelpful."

Considering Radner in a Marian Key

2010-06-22T08:25:00.000-07:00

Ephraim Radner explains that he "likes figural images for the Church;" and while his point of reference for this idea is the great George Lindbeck's proposal that we regard Israel as the symbol of the Church, Catholic ecclesiology insists that there is something more to be said in addition. Fundamentally, the Church can only exist where Christ is, where He dwells; and He has dwelt, as Scripture instructs us, not primarily in tabernacles made with men's hands, but within His people, somewhat in the same way as the way in which He dwelt uniquely in the very body of His mother. Mary's relationship to her Son, in its ontological intimacy, shows us what it means to be the Church. This is the reason why the Catholic Church insists in some of its most important ecclesiological encyclicals that the Church is foremostly Marian in its character; and that is also why, when you step into a Catholic Church, one finds her portrayed all over the place. She is our point of reference for discerning what we are all about. The bride who comes down from Heaven in St. John's vision once lived in Nazareth; she is the new Jerusalem who explicates to us just how near our Creator has come.

If we look at Mary, and her self-description relative to her Lord, what might the Church understand to say about herself? More particularly, what would she say of herself contrary to certain contemporary Protestant proposals (of which we might use Radner as an exemplar)?

Rather than identifying herself as "an historical creature," the product of human trends and identities, she would say behold the handmaiden of the Lord.

Contrary to the noble Anglican Richard Hooker's suggestion that Christian communities ought always to be run by councils, which, by the fact of their frequency over time, will gradually rectify their problems, such that those who leave to seek solace in other communities are merely exemplifying "impatience," she would recall the immediate readiness of her response to the angelic annunciation that the Lord was with her, there and then, and let it be so; and the angel departed.

Rather than suggesting that the various movements of the Holy Spirit among Christian communities can be rightly reduced to explosions of self-conscious, democratic movemements towards individual self-realization, generally the product of environments which are plagued with poverty, social marginalization, and a need for political liberation, she would say with confidence that what has been unto her has been according to His word.

She would certainly frown gently on the idea that although we might confess belief in one holy apostolic church, this confession is merely a descriptive, explicative claim by which we ought to construe the more real historical givenness of a scattering of thousands of "churches;" she would instead proclaim victoriously that for her, at least, the mighty one has done great things in order to show His own humility, in His visible incarnation, to be exalted among the nations.

Rather than dismissing the Catholic and Orthodox claims to enjoy the fullness of the Church's life as mere suggestions held by two "models" of the Church among hundred of others, she would treasure and honor in her heart of hearts the givenness of God's sovereign work in the history of the world, and honor it accordingly.

She would not wring her hands over the seeming failures or absence of normative ecclesial structures, such that all that seems to remain are "different modes of ecclesial life" or "a range of possible emphases," which may be selected by believers according to historical conditions and trends of expression, such that the only really important thing is for Christians to be nice to each other while they determine for themselves "what the Church ought to be today;" she would say simply, as she did at Cana, do whatever He tells you.

And in response to the idea that Christian communion must refer to something much larger and more nebulous than you and me, such that the only open question remains how to concretize a unity yet to be realized, she would turn her gaze back to Calvary, where she stood with her dying Son and heard Him say, so simply: it is accomplished.

Considering Radner III: Is the Catholic Church "wounded" by schism?

2010-06-18T13:08:00.000-07:00

In this week of considering Radner, I have corrected my earlier misunderstanding that Radner purports to speak as a Protestant theologian with a "catholic" mindset; in reality, it turns out that Radner is more of a liberal and thoroughly postmodern ecclesiologist. In that regard, we can let him off the hook somewhat. However, in as much as Radner and his following purport to approach ecumenism according to their own version of the Catholic Church's self-description, the corrective below remains important.

One of the most significant rejoinders given to Catholics who object to Radner's wounded ecclesiology is the reminder that the Catholic magisterium has itself described the Church as "wounded" by the departures and sins of her members; and in fact, although the Catholic Church does not refer to woundedness in any of her documents on ecumenism, the Catechism of the Catholic Church does explain as follows:

"In fact, in this one and only Church of God from its very beginnings there arose certain rifts, which the Apostle strongly censures as damnable. But in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the Catholic Church - for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame. The ruptures that wound the unity of Christ's Body - here we must distinguish heresy, apostasy, and schism - do not occur without human sin: Where there are sins, there are also divisions, schisms, heresies, and disputes. Where there is virtue, however, there also are harmony and unity, from which arise the one heart and one soul of all believers."

The correct interpretation of this passage requires the reader to keep in mind several principles of Catholic theology. First, while the Catholic Church firmly holds that the fullness of the visible Body of Christ subsists within her own household, she also joyfully recognizes a certain sharing in Christ which belongs to every baptized believer. And it is with respect to these separated brothers and sisters that the Catholic Church is most aware of a real woundedness that harms those who remain separated from the fullness of grace available in the one Church. This principle was explained most recently by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2007 :

"Despite this unequivocal recognition of the (Orthodox churches) 'being particular Churches' and of their salvific value, the document could not ignore the wound (defectus) which they suffer specifically in their being particular Churches...that wound is still more profound in those ecclesial communities which have not preserved the apostolic succession or the valid celebration of the eucharist."

It is in this way that the Catholic Church recognizes woundedness in the Body of Christ, with respect to Christ's members who are separated from the fullness of the Catholic faith.

In the same way, the dogmatic constitution on the Church of 1967 (Lumen Gentium) laments a certain woundedness in every member of the Church who falls into sin; and these wounds are healed by the Sacrament of Penance, which can be received by those who are in full communion with the Catholic Church.

Probably the most helpful interpretive passage for the idea of the woundedness in the Body of Christ is to be found in the declaration Dominus Iesus, which was authored in 2000 by Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger:

"The lack of unity among Christians is certainly a wound for the Church; not in the sense that she is deprived of her unity, but “in that it hinders the complete fulfilment of her universality in history” by the persistence of schism.

In other words, true to her conviction that the authentic experience of being part of Christ's Body is possible only in full communion with the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church does not speak of herself as disfigured, wounded, or divided by the decision of numerous bodies to separate from her throughout history; this is because she believes that her purity and integrity come only from Christ, and are preserved by Him for Himself, regardless of what separatist communities may choose to do. Thus, any references to the woundedness of Christian communities- especially with regard to ecumenical conversation and Catholic self-identity- should keep these qualifications carefully in mind. It is with respect to such qualifications that the Catholic CDF described the following norm with regard to ecumenical dialogue just over a year ago:

"If (ecumenical) dialogue is to be truly constructive it must involve not just the mutual openness of the participants but also fidelity to the identity of the Catholic faith. Only in this way will it be able to lead towards the unity of all Christians in "one flock with one shepherd" and thus heal that wound which prevents the Catholic Church from fully realising her universality within history."

...Enough for woundedness. With regard to the Catholic Church's proper universality, I personally would echo a line from my favorite Catholic ecumenist, addressed to all non Catholic friends and readers: we have great need of you.

Considering Radner II

2010-06-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

Before his death in AD 258, St. Cyprian of Carthage interpreted such Scriptural descriptions of the Church as that found in Ephesians 5- "Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless"- with the following language excerpted below.

St. Cyprian's exhortation seems relevant to Radner's theological claim that Christ's Church is inherently susceptible to blemishing by human causes:

"The Lord said I and the Father are one. And it is also written of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost- these three are one. Who then would believe that this unity, which derives from the very divine stability and homogenaity with the heavenly mysteries, could be, in the Church, torn and broken by the opposition of human will at variance with each other?"

...Who, then, is so wicked and faithless, who is so insane with the madness of discord, that either he should believe that the unity of God can be divided, or should dare to rend it—the garment of the Lord—the Church of Christ? He Himself in His Gospel warns us, and teaches, saying, “And there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” And does any one believe that in one place there can be either many shepherds or many flocks? The Apostle Paul, moreover, urging upon us this same unity, beseeches and exhorts, saying, “I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you; but that ye be joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”

- St. Cyprian, De Unitate Ecclesiae VI.

Awesome! Evangelical Catholicism is (has been) back

2010-06-16T16:05:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite Catholic blog teams renewed their postings last year, and I've just re-discovered it today- check out Evangelical Catholicism, because the vibrant renewal of Christ's Church is everybody's business... enjoy!

Considering Radner I.

2010-06-15T09:41:00.000-07:00

Covenant Communion?

De Lubac on

Incorporation in the Two Aspects of the Church

In Conversation with Protestant Construals

(The Splendor of the Church, 1986)

“I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas;" still another, "I follow Christ." …Is Christ divided?” I Corinthians 1:10-13

It seems that recently trendy Protestant ecclesiology is increasingly conducted in a Radnerian key, which (very loosely construed) seems to proceed from the following principles. First, the Church is viewed as fundamentally broken or “wounded.” Secondly, in as much as the evidence of this inherent woundedness is located in the sins of schism and division among Christian communities, the obvious alternative seems to be for Christians to get along by first blaming their problems on this indemic woundeness, and then to attempt to cohabit by the sheer force of willed commitment. Thus the primary work of the Holy Spirit will be to operate through human agents for the gradual re-constituting of the Church through the human mechanisms of binding agreement, such as diplomacy, bargaining, and covenants, construed in various ways.

On this rather sad view, it would seems that the broken world was merely handed another intrinsically sick body at Pentecost, whose total mission is to try to heal itself by inspired negotiations. Setting aside for a moment the depressing gloom of this description, as well as Barth’s severe warning on point, the above construal bears for this reader scant resemblance to the Biblical authors' contagious rejoicing at the marriage supper of the Lamb, and hearkens even less to Augustine’s breathless admiration for the immaculate bride-as-new-Eve born from the wounds of Christ on His Cross. On the contrary, it seems that the sincere penitent, on considering his salvation, might be driven to outright panic on Radner's description, when he considers the more basic principle, affirmed by the Fathers and modern theologians alike, that his salvation depends on his proper and full incorporation into this body, which, in the Radnerian key, is so wounded that the lone penitent might be always at great risk of falling through a crack. It has been suggested that the solution to this dire problem is for Christians to “covenant” together, in order to shore up the grace which is promised to all the baptized, for the outworking of their common mission. Putting such proposals in conversation with De Lubac’s resourcement ecclesiological theology might clarify fruitful questions for future dialogue.

It is true that the idea of securing grace through binding agreements or “covenants” is a very old one. In the thirteenth century, the scholastics Richard Fishacre and Robert Kilwardby proposed that the sacramental grace needed for salvation was “contracted” in the Church through the due enactment of authorized symbols. Gabriel Biel followed suit in his argument that God would show mercy to humanity in exchange for a sincere and adequately demonstrative performance of faith and charity. St. Thomas refutes these proposals in his victorious explanation of the unmerited nature of the grace which, in as much as it belongs to God alone, operates instrumentally and directly by literally touching the body and cleansing the heart of the recipient through the sacraments. When Protestant theology turned away from its foundation in the tradition compiled by the medieval schoolmen, it rehearsed the former trends with a new urgency; thus Calvin and his following reduced the life of Christian faith to a covenant, enacted in and through a covenant community, which appropriated salvation for its members through the covenantal symbols of baptism and the Eucharist; the communion of believers, joined by the invisible bonds of consensus, thus becomes a means and locus of engaging grace through the offer/acceptance dynamic of a covenant conducted among God and neighbor.

Against this modern proposal, De Lubac summarizes one of the most striking aspects of Catholic ecclesiology: rather than describing the Church’s emergence from the union of human covenanters, in which grace is secured by various authorized mechanisms, De Lubac echoes the more ancient teaching that the Church comes only from Christ. Thus she is herself simply “the sacrament of Christ, as Christ Himself, in His humanity, is for us the sacrament of God.” (De Lubac, Splendor of the Church 202) If we apply Thomas’ definition of a sacrament here, we would say further that in as much as the Church belongs to God alone, she exercises on the bodies of the people whom she touches a direct effect accomplished through the Divine institution, by virtue merely of her creation; there is no humanly intermediary covenant mechanism required. As the “last testament/covenant,” formed by the final assent uttered by humanity in Christ on His cross, after which there is to be no other, (204, 205) the Church is “that which we already have, not a heralding or a preparation more or less remote-” but here and now- “the whole coming of the Son of Man.” (ibid) De Lubac finds the ample foundation for his explanation in the writings of the fathers; but his extensive citation of their writings, in which the Church is simply identified with Christ, is summarized by a statement of the peasant saint Joan of Arc, which De Lubac deems adequate to summarize all the thought of the ecclesial Doctors: “it seems to me that it is all one, Christ and the Church, and it seems to me we ought not to make any difficulty of it.” (211)

It is in this regard that we find no mention of “covenant” in De Lubac’s ecclesiology as a fundamental descriptor of the Christian’s communion with Christ in the Church. De Lubac is eager to affirm the Church as creature of the context of the New Covenant, in which God has come to dwell with His people in the spiritual and human person of His body, the Church; but De Lubac has no sense of the Church as a spiritual reality emerging from the consensus of her members. In fact, on his insistence of “a relation of mystical identity” between Christ and His church, (209) De Lubac sternly rejects this sort of impulse as idolatrous; on his explanation, if modern ecclesiology construes itself as the product of a negotiated covenant among Christian members, we might find “the growing tendency toward a real homogeneity between (the) worshippers and the beings that are worshipped.”

Instead, De Lubac construes the worship of Christ by the Church, which is appropriated by her members, as involving two aspects, on the model of the hypostatic union of Christ’s divinity and humanity, from which the Church is also constituted “under two aspects.” (103) Here, de Lubac distinguishes the inseparable “active” and “passive” aspects of the Church, in whom both the voice that calls and the members assembled are united indissolubly, (ibid) in the one call of the Bridegroom who continually calls the world’s ungathered to His Body, through His Body. De Lubac insists that this construal is the only way in which the Church can bear witness to her Lord’s Incarnation- the hypostatic union of Logos with Jesus of Nazareth- and any attempt to divide the invisible, mystical, transcendent form of this ecclesial Body from its historical, visible boundaries and instantiations reduces the human aspect to such sociological considerations as those which apply to covenant making, and then shades the entire Gospel with the monophysite and Platonic slurs which deny that the Christ has come, in the flesh. (102, 105) As Christ’s Body, the Church has full divinity and fully humanity, inseparably.

Still, De Lubac is aware that in herself as recipient creature, the venerable Church should not be worshipped as her Head alone is to be worshipped, since she possesses of herself nothing of His divinity which she did not first receive. Thus, having established the principle of mystical identity between Christ and the Church, it is here that De Lubac qualifies his insistence on this relation of "identity” with recourse to a covenant framework. The covenantal framework invoked here is, however, not described in the sense of a product of ecumenical discourse arrived at between the Church’s human members as to how they will co-create a common life together; rather, De Lubac seems to envision a covenant which was once and for all engaged between the human Body and her Head to constitute the new flesh of “the great mystery” in an ontological, real nuptial union. Here, De Lubac’s punctuation of his ecclesial metaphors with the language of the Church as covenanted “Bride” and covenant-created “Household” is significant. De Lubac introduces the Church as the Bride who wields her Spouse’s authority and grace while at the same time benefiting from them, by virtue of her total union with her divine spouse. (107-109) Furthermore, “the Church (is) the House of Christ, in which Christ is given to us in a final and eternal alliance.” (211)

Thus, on De Lubac’s terms, there is indeed a covenant which constitutes saving union with Christ; but the covenant is not made with respect to the members of the Church, but with respect to the Church entire, as she is in her fullness. In De Lubac’s invocation of the nuptial imagery for the total union between Christ and the Church, we find implicit the notion of a total covenant. And if this is the case, De Lubac introduces a way of construing covenant in discussions of ecclesiology and soteriology. By its nature, a covenant requires two voices, one to issue an offer, the other to guarantee a response. Following on Calvin’s proposal that a saving covenant must be engaged between the individual and God at baptism, and that the Church thus emerges as the covenant communion of covenanting individuals, De Lubac’s proposal of the mystical identity between Christ and the Church teaches us that in the Church there is ultimately only one voice, which is Christ’s, saying to the Father in His humanity, “it is finished.” And, on St. Joan’s humble explanation, there is nothing more to say, though there is surely much left to obey.

In this way, as De Lubac summarizes, the notion that for each one of us Christ is His Church becomes a very practical matter. (210) In sum, De Lubac’s governing principle seems to be that the only covenant that matters with regard to individual salvation in and through the Church has already been made and consummated between Christ and His immaculate Bride; “he who is not a member of the body does not receive influx from the Head; he who does not cling to the one Bride is not loved by the Bridegroom.” (210) The unity of the Church thus subsists not in human agreements, but in the integrity of the Head, who has united Himself to His Body:

The integrity of Christ signifies the indivisible unity of the Head and the Body, in plenitudine Ecclesiae, and in consequence, the indivisible unity of all those who are parts of this body… (thus) her mysterious reality always transcends all those who belong to her and gather to her… she is actualized and localized in their groupings, but she is neither divided not multiplied by them, for she is always more than they are. (110-111)

Thus, when elaborating on the implications of the Church’s nuptial covenant with her Lord with respect to individual members, De Lubac lists the following aspects of the covenant communion between the Body and Her Head, to which the Church’s individual members must be found to conform. The implication of the Church’s dual human and divine interaction, as consummated in her own nuptial covenant with Christ, clearly “involves a meaning that is not interchangeable: no children without a mother; no people without leaders;… no communion of saints without a communication of holy things. And similarly, no constituted assembly without a constitution, which includes a hierarchy.” (109-110) And finally, in the reality of the givenness of this already- consummated covenant, which has formed “one flesh” into which the baptized are born, De Lubac warns: "we should remember that there is no substantial hope of unity outside the institution which received the promise of unity... we should hold as an absolute principle that there can never be a valid reason for separating ourselves from her." (211)

In conclusion, De Lubac seems to remind us that though the Church as corpus Christi does, in one respect, exist under the aspect of a human covenant, this covenant does not belong to us as her members; it is the Church’s nuptial covenant, formed with her spouse, with which her members have nothing to do but assent, in order that they may benefit ontologically from her union, and then extend Christ’s household benefits to the waiting world.

From CNA: Hyundai pulls television ad after Catholic uproar

2010-06-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

Many of you may have seen the blatantly sacriligious commercial aired by Hyundai during the World Cup matches this past weekend; the awful commercial has merited the company's apology for its "insensitivity" in mocking a Catholic procession and nuptial Mass, while "Agnus Dei" is chanted in the background.

You can read more here: "Responding to “enough of an outcry” from Catholic individuals and blogs, Korean car maker Hyundai announced on Monday that it has pulled a World Cup-themed television ad that ran during the USA-England soccer match on Saturday featuring a "church" in Argentina mocking Catholic sacraments." Fox News.com offers an additional report here.

It's disconcerting to see a major company based in South Korea, one of the world's largest and most vibrant Protestant Christian populations, hiring this kind of advertising; it's shameful to see a California-based ad agency like Innocean Worlwide Americas, the advertisement company which created the ad, devising such a coarse treatment of a religious topic in our allegedly highly sensitized era. And most of all, it's gratifying to see Catholics rallying around their Lord and the faith once delivered, in a way which really makes a difference. In a time when so many Catholics are wondering whether and when to speak up about anything, this instance provides a lot of encouragement... let's speak up.

HT: Andy Bartus, who alerted me to this news.

Wounded Body or Glorious Bride? Ephraim Radner in Dallas

2010-06-14T15:16:00.000-07:00

A retrospective from a few years ago, since the elegant and erudite Dr. Radner is currently back in town

Perhaps one of the most interesting things about being a Catholic in modern day Dallas/Fort Worth is that one finds herself situated in an arena of vivid ecclesiological questions. We have some of the largest and most vibrant Catholic parishes in the world here; we also have some of the most ardent proponents of the idea that Protestants can co-exist alongside these parishes in a form of Catholic life and devotion which is fully symbiotic with the Catholic tradition while remaining ensconsed outside of it. They may call themselves "anglo-catholics," "bapto-catholics," "metho-catholics," etc; one eminent French Vatican II ecclesiologist called them "parasites," but that is another topic for another day. At any rate, it's never a dull moment in Texas.

One particular issue which I have wanted to address for a long time is involved in the proposal of Ephraim Radner, an erudite Episcopalian theologian, who suggests that a fundamental construal of the Church should deal with her "woundedness." This idea is supposed to lead to ecumenical advances, in as much as we all can identify as victims of some sort of hurt or another. My unformed response to this kind of idea is that the proponent should immediately stop whining theologically, but of course, there is more to be said.

So, for the next few days I will be considering the idea of the Church relative to the construals of Radner and his following. Throughout the consideration, I will be keeping one central issue in mind: is the Church something which we create for ourselves? Or, on the other hand, is the Church (exclusively) Christ's creation? In other words, should the ecclesiological article of the Creed- in which we confess belief in "one, holy, apostolic Church"- be taken as referring to the only aspect of the Creed which is not God's unexacted self-gift to us? Should we rather treat this article as describing something which we form for our own use, via communal practices and covenants? The solution may help to clarify the dividing line between Catholic and Protestant ecclesiologies, which- I think- goes to the heart of every other divergence in understanding, and certainly addresses the question of how we might go about conforming ourselves to the Church which we confess.

I will be leaving the comments open in case any of our learned readers would like to weigh in. Thanks for your attention...

Ecumenical Acumen: De Lubac on the ecclesiologically limp-wristed

2010-06-10T08:25:00.000-07:00

"We may avoid making a fatal dissociation of the visible and the invisible (as schism or spiritual anarchy so often do); we may be far from adopting the blurred concept of "evangelical catholicity" put forward by the liberal type; we may be equally disinclined to set in opposition charismata and the hierarchy, or spirit and authority. We may do all this, and yet still get onto the slippery slope- if we are not careful- via a dangerous distinction between the "visible Church" and the "Mystical Body" of Christ. Some thinkers have even found themselves led into this situation without actually so intending, through a lack of grip in their theological reflection."

Henri De Lubac, Splendor of the Church 91.

Indulgences Cont'd.

2010-06-09T08:52:00.000-07:00

I recently found an excellent post on indulgences at Aimee Milburn Cooper's blog "Historical Christian." The post is entitled, "For Daily Growth in Holiness, the Beautiful Spiritual Practice of ... Indulgences."

I really like the author's conclusion, which hints at the direction of my dissertation:

"One last note: The doctrine of indulgences is a beautiful example of the Church truly acting authoritatively as the agent of God, the channel of His grace, binding and loosing, forgiving sins and dispensing rivers of grace from Christ for all who come and ask. For me, as a member of the Church and her ingrafted child, I intend to make use of this beautiful grace. I think I need it, and I think the whole Body will benefit from it.

I hope you will, too. It is a gift the Church has freely given us. Let us come to know, use, and love this gift, daily and well, and spread knowledge of it, and so spread its use among the children of our Mother the Church, our brothers and sisters in Christ and members of our own Body. Let us humbly, with awareness of our sinfulness and littleness, ask our Father in Heaven to daily indulge us, by daily lavishing upon us the riches, merits, and grace of Christ, so that we may be increasingly freed of the effects and consequences of sin, and increasingly made holy, pure and beautiful in the grace of Christ, so that His features may be carved in us, and seen in us, more and more clearly. In pursuing and growing in holiness and grace, we truly will not only help uplift the Church, but help uplift each other and the whole world, by making Christ visible and knowable in the world - which we so need today, and which our Mother the Church is calling for us to do."

Saint Sabina, 126 AD

2010-06-08T08:49:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite churches in Rome sits atop the Aventine Hill, on the site of one of the earliest titular house churches where the first Christians met in secret. This one is vast, and brooding, with ancient carved doors that display the earlist known image of a Christian Crucifix. I have visited there late in the evening after Vespers, when lone Dominicans kneel in the chapels to pray; last spring, I heard the Holy Father say Mass there, on Ash Wednesday, after his solemn procession from St. Anselmo up the way. This old church is dedicated to the memory of St. Sabina, a Roman wife and mother who was martyred in the second century along with the slave who had converted her. Now, we worship her Lord, with her memory, at her house.

This church, which was once a home to a family, and is now a home for the whole world, is particularly special to me because it is a headquarters of the Dominican order. I was received as a married woman and mother into the Domincan third order for the laity this past Sunday, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, which fulfilled my desire of many, many years to participate with those who have given their entire lives to God in a way appropriate to my own vocation. The wonderful priest who heard my initial promises to follow the Dominican rule and charism stopped my husband and me after the Mass to give us a special blessing as a family. He asked for the intercession of Christ's own Holy Family, on whose feast day my husband and I were married. And then he winked at me and said, "now you are a family... within a family."

In the days before I knew that the Catholic Church had already thought all about it, I spent a lot of time stuggling to understand the role of the family within the Church. Which existed for which, I wonderered- the family for the Church, or the Church for the family? Without resolving such questions, I figured that it was impossible for a Christian family to justify its own existence- anyone can marry and have children, but Christians have a Great Commission to follow; there is work to be done! That attitude evidenced some latent problems with my anthropology at that point; and it was a great relief when I discovered that the Church's characteristic answer to my question is, as usual, "both"- both the family for the Church and the Church for the family, in as much as both exist to form and present one soul to Heaven, one at a time. As John Paul II put it, man is the way of the Church; she serves him, and in his mandate to give himself to Christ through his brothers, he will realize his highest potential by giving himself to her. And I think that it is this sort of intuition whereby the Church generously acknowledges and provides for the ministry of the laity, and calls us to realize our responsibilities fully, perhaps in the kind of special lay consecration that I am so excited about. And all of this while remaining simply what we, as Christians, are- famillies, within a family.

Visit Second Star to the Right

2010-06-07T15:28:00.000-07:00

I interrupt the usual sequence of this blog to announce the gorgeous arrival of a truly great and good contribution to the Blogosphere: Second Star to the Right, a blogging sort of "guide for parents seeking good children's books and tips on quality reading for families." Amazing, and beautiful.

The author, one of my childhood and dearest friends, has "a lifelong obsession with quality books for children, and this blog is dedicated to promoting a healthy appetite for good children's literature and helping mothers to navigate through those Realms of Gold, the many passages of Neverland."

If you love books, or children, or both, you will love this new blog.

Perhaps the best Catholic Parish... in London

2010-06-03T12:55:00.000-07:00

My husband and I concluded our recent trip abroad with a wonderful week together in London. Before we left, we had conducted a quick online search for a Catholic parish where we could attend Mass, since for each of us this would be our first time in that magical city as Catholics. We did not find anything as readily as we had hoped, and so off we went, thinking that we would rely on our hotel's concierge to guide us (fully expecting to hear, as we did hear, "A Catholic parish? Well now, you don't hear THAT request very often now, do you?"). Furthermore, we fully expected to be attending Mass in London's barrio, whatever that might be.

Imagine my surprise when one quiet evening in posh Mayfair, my husband gestured towards a beautiful church set in a lovely garden- the rose window was particularly glorious... could it be? "Of course not," I mumbled, "we've lost all the best church buildings to the Anglicans. There won't be anything so grand for Catholics in London." Characteristically, husband persevered, and sure enough, once we actually ventured in, we found ourselves within one of the most glorious Catholic churches I have ever seen. This eighteenth century Jesuit church is Immaculate Conception, Farm Street. It is glorious, and truly English. There was a large side chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Walsingham; there was a gorgeous altar by Pugin; there was a majestic choir.

Even more importantly, this parish is a vibrant and healthy parish. There is daily exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, and there are daily Confessions before each daily Mass. There is a religious community on site, the members of which provide spiritual direction and classes for spiritual enrichment, on topics like evangelisation in the workplace and Catholic family life. There is a robust community service program. And when we attended Mass there, there was hushed reverence and beautiful preaching, and prayers for the Holy Father, and preparations for his upcoming visit to England.... all in England.

Edit: I have omitted the latter paragraph of this post due to several objections from Anglican readers, who took offense. My apologies to them.

Mary's House

2010-06-02T08:24:00.000-07:00

During my recent travels with my husband, we had the huge privilege of making a May pilgrimage to the little stone house just outside of the ruined city of Ephesus, which tradition holds to have been the home of Mary and St. John.

The first-century house (partly original, partly restored) is tucked safely away in the hills, far outside of the old town, where the mother of Jesus could have lived quietly, relatively protected from those naysayers and enemies of the new faith who eventually ousted both St. John and St. Paul from their territory. First-century converts flocked to this place to be baptized in the back yard of the mother of their Lord; the fifth century fathers of the Council of Ephesus, who gathered in that vicinity against the Nestorian heresy to authorize belief in Christ's full humanity from she who was truly His mother, acknowledged their own affirmation of the tradition that this place had been Mary's home.

As we walked up the forested hill to the little house, leaving behind our Protestant companions who remained on the bus in protest (it confirmed some of my suspicion that even the most well-meaning modern evangelicals are ridden with old Nestorianism), we caught glimpses of the young Franciscan friars who steward the place; we passed the enormous baptismal pool, carved in the shape of a fish; we passed an outdoor altar were Masses are offered; and then we entered the solid little house. We knelt there, very briefly, in our place in line, before the tiny and unadorned altar which past pontiffs have blessed. I have heard friends say that following their own pilgrimmages to Marian sites, they have found that there is a distinct difference between the experience of prayer in her "presence," as compared to the presence of her Son. Although both can overwhelm you with the most satisfying sense of love, Christ in the Eucharist penetrates; by the mediation of the Holy Spirit, Mary more gently envelopes. My experience was that of feeling, briefly, more "mothered" than I ever could have imagined. It was an awesome place, in the quietest sense of the word; I felt like I was there with the one woman, who, blessed above all to be Christ's mother and ours, prayed and waited there on His will as no one else ever could. Who am I, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? (Luke 1:43)

From the top

1) Orthodox women add their prayer requests to a collage of other petitions; these are written on scraps of paper and rags, and knotted together to form a kind of tapestry outside the house.

2) The ancient baptismal pool- the large size bespeaks a large number of converts

3) Mary's house

St. Frances of Rome

2010-06-01T08:06:00.000-07:00

This Roman noblewoman gave birth to at least three children before her husband's untimely death; she was known for her patient perseverence through suffering, her piety as a Benedictine oblate who influenced many other matrons, and her visionary gift of prophecy.

My husband and I stumbled across this great married saint on a recent trip to Rome, while re-visiting the Roman Forum on a hot Sunday afternoon. The church that is dedicated to Santa Francesca stands in and over the ruins of the ancient Roman temple of Venus.

One sees this kind of transition all over Rome, particularly in the Forum; the ruined temples of pagan worship have been consecrated to become places for the adoration of the one God, commemorative of His graces in the lives of some of His greatest servants. When I look at these old ruins, I like to think that their original function had not been merely replaced by another; rather, their purpose of serving as a place for divine worship was only truly fulfilled when the baptized erected their crosses, consecrated their altars, and dedicated temples like that of Venus, and her one-sided description of human love, to the memory of women who loved in as many dimensions as did St. Frances.

It's a way of thinking about the entirety of our lives too, especially our lives as secular laity. Our mundane tasks are not replaced, displaced, or subsumed by our worship of God; rather, they are fulfilled by it. And it works the other way around too. Our prayers and our offerings at Mass, and our solemn invocations cannot become whole and pleasing unless they are woven through our trips to the bank, our quibbles with our colleagues, our plans for dinner- and all this because we are not the only ones who need sanctifying by the grace and presence of God; through us, the whole world needs it too, and it is our job to bring that sanctification to bear... at the bank, among our colleagues, on our way to dinner.

We have heard it so many times, and I think that the best way to put it comes from a message of Fr. Benedict Groeschel's, which I overheard once (appropriately) in the car, on my way to the grocery store: "not everyone becomes a saint by doing extraordinary things. Before each and every one of us, at each moment, is a good thing to do. That is your path to sainthood."
St. Frances, pray for us.

Was Martin Luther a Manichean?

2010-05-05T06:37:00.000-07:00

Historians such as S.J. Barnett take it as granted that Catholic apologists of the 16th century and beyond have generally "designated Luther and Calvin as Manichean heretics, from the third century dualism of Manes." (Barnett, "Where was your Church before Luther? Claims for the Antiquity of Protestantism Examined," in Church History vol. 68. no. 1, 1999). Other historians note that Luther's own marginal notes on the writings of the early fathers indicate his opinion that the Patristic rejection of the Manichean heresies was misguided. In fact, Catholics find the Luther: Manichean comparison made definitively in Pope Leo X's 1520 bull Exsurge Domine, which condemned Martin Luther's errors; in this text, the Pope describes Luther as "a new Porphyry rises who, as the old once wrongfully assailed the holy apostles, now assails the holy pontiffs, our predecessors."

As Luther well knew, the historical Porphyry referenced by the Pope was none other than an original proponent of the neo-Platonist ideals which translated into the cult following of Manicheism; St. Augustine, himself a convert from the dualist tradition of Manes, had referred to Porphyri in this passage in the City of God:

“For, even when His angels hear us, it is He Himself who hears us in them, as in His true temple not made with hands, as in those men who are His saints; and His answers, though accomplished in time, have been arranged by His eternal appointment ...though Moses conversed with God, yet he said, “If I have found grace in Your sight, show me Yourself, that I may see and know You.” (Exodus 33:13)...But Porphyry, being under the dominion of these envious powers, whose influence he was at once ashamed of and afraid to throw off, refused to recognize that Christ is the Principle by whose incarnation we are purified. Indeed he despised Him, because of the flesh itself which He assumed, that He might offer a sacrifice for our purification—a great mystery, unintelligible to Porphyry's pride, which that true and benignant Redeemer brought low by His humility, manifesting Himself to mortals by the mortality which He assumed.” (City of God X.12, 13, 24)

What then is the content of the proposal that Luther might have been a Manichean, as some of his own notes on Augustine would seem to indicate? Augustine's ancient response to the Manichean heresy deal with the root proposal of God's total separation from the creature, such that it would ultimately become necessary to deny Christ's Personhood and Incarnation in human flesh. The extensions of this proposal also include such issues as those which most concerned the earliest Catholic respondants to Luther; to separate the divine from the creature in the manner of the Manicheans was and is to say, with Luther, that God is always hidden, that His power must be totally dissociated from human agency, that the true society of the elect is hidden and secret from the grubbier mass of the one Church, that humanity bears no image or likeness to its Creator, that our return to Him from our indebtedness and sin involves no bodily acts of reparation to His glory.

On the contrary, the Biblical faith of the Catholic Church resists these proposals with total allegiance to this fundamental truth: the Word has become flesh, and He dwells among us.

Indulgences: Some Useful Clarifications

2010-05-04T09:16:00.000-07:00

A friend who attended a talk that I recently gave on indulgences passed on this helpful summary authored last year by Baylor professor Michael Foley; in my humble opinion, Professor Foley did a great job.

Professor clarifies myths about practice of indulgences

March 31, 2009

As the controversy over a recent editorial in this newspaper illustrates, indulgences are easily misunderstood by non-Catholics and even by Catholics themselves. One cannot do justice to the topic of indulgences in a 680-word article, but at least the following clarifications can be offered.

Myth No. 1: Indulgences are a part of Catholicism's doctrine of works-based salvation.

There is a double myth here, that the Catholic Church has a "works-based" soteriology (it doesn't) and that indulgences stem from it. The key to understanding indulgences is not the prism of faith and works, but of what is called operative and cooperative grace. Operative grace is grace that God works in us without us, such as the gift of faith, which none of us deserve and for which none of us has meritoriously prepared ourselves. Receiving operative grace is like being brought back to life on the operating table after spiritually flat-lining. Cooperative grace, on the other hand, is akin to our cooperating with the Divine Physician in rehab, doing what he tells us in order to facilitate our recovery.

It is not that we are "healing ourselves" through our good works; rather, we are simply cooperating with the healing process orchestrated by the Physician. In Catholic life, indulgences can be one part of this healing process.

Myth No. 2: Indulgences are an "excuse" for sin or a "do-over" of some kind.

Indulgences do not forgive or re-forgive sins; they help to remove the effects of sins that have already been forgiven. Sin is not only a transgression against God; it is also a wounding of oneself and of one's community -- and wounds leave a lingering effect.

As St. Augustine puts it, there is a difference between having a poison dart removed and having the body recover afterwards. Hence the total triumph over sin involves not only its removal (forgiveness), but a healing of those wounds (its effects). Indulgences only deal with the latter.

Myth No. 3: Indulgences are "Get out of Jail" free cards ("jail" being either Hell or Purgatory).

As should be clear by now, indulgences are not about getting off scot free but about a complete transformation of one's life such that one becomes holy--a living, shining icon of Christ, a fully restored image and likeness of God (for this is the goal of all true spiritual healing). That is why indulgences are not efficacious unless they are accompanied by a genuine conversion of heart and a devout and active life in the Church, Christ's body.

Myth No. 4: Indulgences were sold.

The term "sale of indulgences" is so commonplace in the annals of Christian history that it is surprising to learn that the Catholic Church never technically sold indulgences.

What it did was allow a donation to charity to be an indulgenced act. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with giving money to a church (it is a biblically-endorsed activity), but unfortunately, the practice was vulnerable to abuse and gave rise to all kinds of corruption, especially in the hands of the unscrupulous. That is why the Council of Trent (1565) wisely forbade charitable donations from the list of indulgences.

Myth No. 5: Indulgences are a medieval invention.

While indulgences became more explicitly defined in the early Middle Ages, they have existed in one form or another since at least the second century. For their history, see the "Indulgences" entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia on newadvent.org.

Myth No. 6: Indulgences were discontinued.

Neither the Council of Trent nor the more recent Second Vatican Council (1965) discontinued indulgences. In fact, Pope Paul VI expanded the practice of indulgences in 1967 by allowing any prayer to count as a partial indulgence. Thus, when a contemporary Pope grants an indulgence for a particular act, it is not to "remind" Catholics of the importance of acknowledging sin, but to actually assist in the removal of sins' effects.

Exposing these myths is far from adequately explaining indulgences, but hopefully it is a start.

Michael P. Foley is an associate professor of Patristics in the Great Texts Program.

Saint Gianna Molla

2010-05-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

This saint for our times was a wife, mother, and a highly skilled professional who lived between 1922-1962. She played tennis; she went skiing with her husband; she dressed well; she took her babies on picnics. When a tumor was discovered inside her body during her fourth pregnancy, her doctors urgently advised its surgical removal, which would inadvertently result in the death of her unborn baby. Although the Church's moral law would have permitted such a therapeutic procedure, in as much as it did not have as its end or goal the deliberate killing of her child, St. Gianna chose the heroic option and gave her own life so that her baby could live. In so doing, St. Gianna demonstrated the heroic virtue that is only made possible by God's supernatural grace, which had worked quietly in her life before her choice, and which manifested itself for the glory of God and the flourishing of the world at the appropriate time. St. Gianna joined the Church's ranks of martyrs simply by living out her motherhood to its fullest extent; her children attended the ceremonies surrounding her canonization in 1994.

As I prepare for motherhood, I've often thought about my own mother, her own heroism, and her own manifold gifts of herself to her children. My mother is a famously exquisite creature, but she offered up her body for eight pregnancies, six deliveries, and the tumultuous adolescent and adult years that followed for each of us. She chose a grubbier path than many of her friends because she believed such would be best for her babies; home deliveries, life in the country, organic gardening, homeschooling, and she accepted the criticism that came with ther choices heroically, and with a sense of humor. She was even willing to accept criticism from her children, when her loving choices sometimes seemed experimental. And with her choices, she did her part to preserve her children in chastity, curiosity, and a lot of joy in a jaded, degraded era. Most importantly, she taught us to pray- to take long walks and to rejoice in God's beauty, to console ourselves with the victorious Psalms when we were afraid, to sing and dance with the angels when we felt defeated.

And as I enjoy my own motherhood for the first few months of my baby's prenatal life, I'm beginning to understand all of the mystical awe that surrounds the relationship between mother and child. There is truly nothing like it in the world. What I already feel for my baby has got to be something like the holy love with which God looks on His creatures, simply because it is unspeakable. And the tiny sacrifices that I have to make for my baby now- little bits of physical discomfort, no champagne, carrots instead of chocolate- only make me love my baby more. They also make me pause in deep respect for all that my mother has done for me, and they make my historical complaints about some of her decisions seem terribly short-sighted.

They say that saints, those who are closest to the heart of the Father, were often people who were very difficult to live with. The record does not show this, but I wonder whether some of St. Gianna's children were ever tempted to complain about their mother leaving them for the sake of their youngest sister. Probably even the most saintly mother has done or said things that her children do not know how to accept. In this way, the saintly hearts of those who are very, very near to Heaven calls to the latent love of God in our own hearts, and requires that His love in us grow bigger, wider, higher, so that we too may become filled with what has filled them. And certainly this is the fundamental role of mothers in our lives- no matter what conflicts may have born on our relationship with our mothers, the very fact that we have life from them bears testament to the fact that their love was (and maybe is) larger than ours.

St. Gianna Molla, pray for all mothers.

Books for Babies

2010-04-30T08:02:00.000-07:00

My favorite blogger in the whole world is Mrs. J at More Water. She is my oldest friend, and a dearest friend, and she celebrates God's sheer goodness every time she writes. Because I've always known her to be a guru of English literature, I asked her for her top recommendations for beautiful and edifying books for babies and children. Here it is...

For Babies, 6months-12 months

Anything by author Lois Lenski

Pat the Bunny

Usborne Touchy Feely books

The Toddler Busy Bible

Matthew Van Fleet: Tails, Alphabet, etc.

For Toddlers, 12months-24months

Jane Yolen's rhyme books:

Dimity Duck

How do Dinosaurs...
Here We Go

Karma Wilson, The Bear Snores On (and others in a series)

Margaret Wise Brown, The Runaway Bunny

The Wonderful House

Iza Tripani, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, How Much is that Doggie

The Snowman

Bow Wow, a First Book of Sounds

Eric Carle's Caterpillar, Cricket, Ladybug,

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

Martha Alexander, Poems and Prayers for the Very Young

The Jesus Story Book

Margaret Wise Brown, Barbara Cooney, Christmas in the Barn

Hush Little Baby

Winkin Blinkin and Nod, illustrated by Cooney

Tasha Tudor, The 23rd Psalm, First Prayers

Barbara Cooney, Miss Rumphius

Christina Rosetti's Children's Poems

Wonderful Children's Illustrators:

Peter Sis

Barbara Cooney

Trina Shart Hyman

Lois Ehert

Lois Lenski

Garth Williams

Karen Katz

Jan Brett

Martha Alexander

Eloise Wilkin

Peter Spier

Gennady Spirin

Arthur Rackam

For Older Children:

Black Beauty
The Secret Garden

Anything by George McDonald

Beatrix Potter

The (original) Velveteen Rabbit

Other places to find good books:

Honey for a Child's Heart

lamplighterpublishing.org

Lurkers All

2010-04-29T11:59:00.000-07:00

When I first started blogging a few years ago, it was a fun thing to post a lurker alert, so let's do it again! If you are a reader of this blog, I would love to hear from you. I've turned the comments on for this purpose- and if you have any recommendations for improvement of this blog, please share them!

Nice to meet you...

Ecumenical Acumen: A Beautiful Sermon and a Surprising Twist

2010-04-29T08:10:00.000-07:00

These reflections by Fr. Ray Ryland were passed on to me via Marcus Grodi's March 2010 newsletter.

The question is, how are we Christians to be united in our Lord Jesus?

Not only does Jesus will that His people be one- He has provided the means by which they can be one- indeed, the only means.

In the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church XVIII, we read 'Jesus Christ...set up the Holy Church by entrusting the apostles with their mission as He Himself had been sent by the Father... He willed that their successors, the bishops... should be shepherds in the Church until the end of the world... in order that the episcopate itself... might be one and undivided, He put Peter at the head of the other apostles, and in him He set up a lasting and visible source and foundation of the unity both of faith and of communion.' And so, as successor of Peter, the Roman Pontiff is 'the perpetual and visible source of the unity... of the bishops of the whole company of the faithful.'

...as soon as someone breaks with the papacy and starts his own denomination (like Martin Luther and John Calvin) that denomination starts to break apart... there is no end to that proliferation. There are at least 39,000 separated denominations in the world today. And several hundred new ones are being created every year.

(Thus) the goal of the Catholic Church's ecumenical endeavor is quite clear. As the Decree on Ecumenism XXIV states, 'this holy objective (of the Church's ecumenical efforts) is the reconciling of all Christians in the unity of the one and only Church of Christ.' Repeatedly in her magisterial statements, the Church makes it plain that the Roman Catholic Church is 'the one and only Church of Christ.'

The Catholic approach to overcoming Christian disunity is unique. The Church declares that Christian unity is not something to be achieved, but something to be accepted...in 'the unity of the one and only Church, which Christ bestowed on His Church from the beginning. This unity...(exists) in the Catholic Church, as something she can never lose.' (Decree on Ecumenism IV)

...We Catholic need what many Protestant can offer us... (they) have much to teach us about personal witness and evangalization... (yet) so long as they remain apart from the Catholic Church's communion, they will always be hopelessly divided... they can never know Christ on His terms until they allow themselves to be drawn into the communion of Christ's one true Church, (so that they can) listen to and obey Jesus Christ speaking to them directly through His Church."

Edit: Check out this April 22 article in Christianity Today, which describes a recent attempt at the Wheaton Theology Conference to get the bottom of Protestant Christian divisions, which the author rightly lumps together as "schisms." I like that kind of clarity. Even more striking is the article's report of a statement made by N.T. Wright, celebrated Pauline scholar and current Anglican episcopal figure. Within weeks of reporting his retirement from that position, Wright responded to loaded questions at the Wheaton conference by stating that "nothing justifies schism." Could Wright's decision to leave his schismatic position in Anglicanism be related to this astute and proper claim? It might be interesting to watch what happens.

Dallas Ordains Two Bishops

2010-04-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

Monsignor Mark Seitz and Father Douglas Deshotel were ordained as Assistant Bishops for the Diocese of Dallas yesterday at the beautiful Cathedral Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

It was glorious; I turned down my invitation as a 3OP postulant, and instead joined the standing room only crowd outside of the Cathedral, which was really the best place to be. We stood in the sunshine, surrounded by the sounds of drums, clapping, and dancing, and watched the procession enter the sanctuary. As they passed by, we were just feet away from the sixty+ young seminarians who followed behind the crucifer, Archbishop Jose' Gomez, Cardinal DiNardo, Bishop Ferrel, and hundreds of diocesan priests. The crowd outside freely called to their favorite priests and applauded their pastors and confessors as they passed. It was an amazing congregation; there was the little Indian priest who valiantly offers daily Mass and two daily confessions at the chapel of St. Jude for the workers and homeless downtown, there was Msgr. Zimmerman, who presides over one of the wealthiest parishes in the world, there was Fr. Roch and his fellow Cistercians, wise and kind, and our own pastor, Fr. John, who cares for over six thousand families and remains cheerful about it.

Working at home yesterday afternoon, I listed to Bishop Ferrel's homily over the radio and was struck by his clarion call for the ordinands to devote themselves to their own prayer and study of the Scripture, so that they might better preach the Gospel and assist the laity, their revered co-laborers in Christ's mission in the world. In turn, the new suffragan bishops addressed the faithful before giving their first espicopal blessings, and they thanked their families most of all for teaching them to love the Church, unconditionally.

Truly, we are blessed here in Dallas by the presence of two such holy men to represent Christ our Shepherd to the hundreds of thousands of Christians in Dallas who need their leadership. Praise be.

St. Bridget

2010-04-26T08:17:00.000-07:00

St. Bridget was a fourteenth century wife and mother who mourned the early death of her husband and then moved to Rome for a life of religious devotion, taking her children with her.

She is especially interesting to me because she vividly honored the Church's understanding of her nuptial union with Christ, and in conesequence, St. Bridget was an avid defender and promoter of the Church's practice of indulgences, which I spend most of my time thinking about. Some excerpts from her recorded Visions and Prophecies are very striking; while obtaining indulgences as “the compendium to heaven because of the indulgence that the holy pontiffs have merited by their prayers,” Bridget was partly responsible for the decision of Pope Clement VI to proclaim the 14th century indulgence granted in the bull Unigenitus, in which the Pope definitively lays out the Scriptural basis for indulgences as proceeding from the copious merits of the Passion of Christ. Bridget also believed herself to be instructed by Christ in a vision to request the promulgation of an indulgence associated with the Church of St. Peter’s in Chains in Rome, for the benefit of the cloister of the Blessed Virgin in Vadstena, Sweden, and her language can be construed as reflecting the idea of a dower; speaking to the Pope, Christ utters as follows:

"Now I want you not only to confirm (an order that should be founded) by your authority but also to the it the strength of your blessing, for you are my vicar on earth. I dictated it and endowed it with a spiritual endowment by granting it indulgences." (Prophecies Chapter 137, page 565).

Bridget’s personal quest for the “spiritual goods” of indulgences was confirmed by visions and interior locutions which confirmed their efficacy and the authority of the Church to grant them; in particular, St. Bridget reported a vision in which Christ and the Blessed Mother “assured Bridget of the efficacy of the Church’s ministrations…(and that) a pope who is without heresy possesses full and complete authority to loose from God through his succession to Peter.” Just as Shaffern points out that Bridget’s endorsement of indulgences flourished when the “spiritual vanguard of the later medieval centuries… represent a great flowering of mystical ecstacy,” which included the explicitly nuptial spirituality of St. Catherine of Sienna, the rubric for Bridget’s confidence in the Church’s indulgence grants emerged from her personal, cultural, and spiritual understanding of the meaning and implications of the Church’s espousal to His Church. In the first place, Bridget makes clear her affirmation of Christ as the “husband” of the chaste member within His espoused Church in her Prophecies and Revelations, (in which she also refers to indulgences at least twenty-seven times); so espoused by responsive love, the chaste soul must be purified by the acts of reparation associated with indulgences, and receives her spouse’s “rewards.” As Christ speaks to the soul in Bridget’s account,

"I have chosen you and taken you to myself as my bride in order to show you the ways of the world and my divine secrets… you are mine by right because of this great love of yours, and I will provide for you because of this…it is the obligation of the bride to be ready when the bridegroom wants to celebrate the wedding so that she will be properly dressed and pure. You purify yourself if your thoughts are always on your sins… the bride should also have the insignia of her husband on her chest, which means that you should observe and take heed of the favord and good deeds which I have done for you… how lovingly and sweetly I redeemed you when I died for you and restored your heavenly inheritance to you- if you want to have it… I bought back the inheritance (for you) which (mankind) had lost because of his sin… but if you, my bride, desire nothing but me… I will give you the most precious and lovely reward." (Prophecies, Chapter 2, page 4)

These spousal promises are immediately connected to the need and means of penitence which are provided as an aspect of the spousal covenant in the same chapter:

"Therefore, as you have sinned in all your limbs, so shall you also make satisfaction and penance in every limb. But, because of your good will and your purpose of atoning for your sins, I shall change my justice into mercy by foregoing painful punishement for but a little penance. Therefore, embrace and take upon yourself a little work, so that you may be made clean of sin and reach the great reward sooner. For the bride should grow tired working alongside her bridegroom so that she may all the more confidently take her rest with him.
(Prophecies, Chapter 2, 5)

These personal revelations which St. Bridget received are encouraging to me as I complete the third chapter of my dissertation (a milestone, I've heard); but what is more important to me as I prepare for the birth of my baby is the fact that St. Bridget took her daughter with her on almost every indulgenced pilgrimage that she was given. I've had several appointments to share with various local groups on the theory and practice of indulgences, and by God's grace the audiences have been warmly enthusiastic about the topic; and while I've long gotten over any stage fright regarding this controversial topic, what sobers my heart more than anything is the prospect of succesfully handing the same ideas on to my most important audience: my children. How in the world can I help them to see the beauties and importance of what the Church offers, in a frequently misunderstood practice? How will I be able to teach them about this practice while avoiding the mercantile reduction of the doctrine, and instead promoting a vision of their authority to participate with Christ in the redemption which He gives, and in the rescue of poor souls from their own woundedness?

What St. Bridget instantiates, and sucesfully at that, given that her children followed her, is the fact that an indulgenced life, a life lived with the general intention to offer satisfaction for our sins in honor of Christ's all-sufficient offering of Himself, cannot be a life of calculation. It must be a life of charitable trust in the Church which Christ gave us, of humility before the world as we live out our testimony precisely by affirming our sinfulness and our need for mercy, and of mission as we offer our little acts of worship to rescue those who are still imprisoned by their sins and brokenness.

And for anyone who tries to hand these ideas on... as with obtaining indulgences and passing their understanding on to others, there can be no other reliance but on the fact that God alone will "give the increase" for the little efforts that we plant every day on our way to join Him in Heaven (He wants us to be there even more than we do).

St. Bridget, pray for us.

Natural Family Planning: Theology of the Body in Action

2010-04-24T17:09:00.000-07:00

To many people, the phrase “Natural Family Planning” brings to mind the archaic and inaccurate methods of determining fertility, such as the rhythm method. Significant research has resulted in a complete reworking of the old methods into a combination of rules that have yielded a 99.9% rate of effectiveness when followed correctly.

As a volunteer Teaching Couple trained and certified through the Couple to Couple League, we present the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning. In this modern method, husbands and wives practice fertility awareness by charting and interpreting the daily-observed universal signs of fertility. Previous cycle history is also incorporated in this method. Natural Family Planning can be used to achieve or postpone pregnancy throughout all fertile years, including postpartum times and premenopause. Women with irregular and long cycles can also employ this method. Recently, some doctors versed in Natural Family Planning have been able to make reproductive health diagnoses with the observations charted by their patients.

The Couple to Couple League’s class series model consists of three monthly classes, approximately two and one half hous in length. During each monthly session the science, theology and particular details of the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning are explained. Elective classes for postpartum and premenopause, in addition to update classes for couples who learned Natural Family Planning many years ago, are offered frequently. Answers to individual questions and chart interpretations are also available on a consultation basis. Taught in the context of the Theology of the Body, and its exhortation to love divinely as God loves, Natural Family Planning respects the innate dignity of both spouses by encouraging the complete acceptance of each other - including their fertility - as “one flesh.”

Couples who live out Natural Family Planning have reported numerous benefits including: stronger marriages, better communication between spouses, and a monthly ”second honeymoon” period following times of abstinence. The Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning is also less costly, more effective and because it is 100% natural, lacks all of the unpleasant side effects contributed to other readily available methods of family planning. Finally, in situations where pregnancy is intended, Natural Family Planning is instantly reversible and can be utilized to aid conception.

Unlike other methods of family planning, Natural Family Planning is morally and ethically acceptable in the eyes of the Catholic Church. In his Letter to Teachers of Natural Family Planning, Pope John Paul II states that Natural Family Planning “supports the process of freedom and emancipation of women and peoples from unjust family planning programs which bring in their sad wake the various forms of contraception, abortion and sterilization.” With this freedom, Natural Family Planning fosters a shared responsibility between spouses regarding the spacing of their children and family size. This virtuous application of each couple’s fertility knowledge is “Responsible Parenthood.”

For more information or to sign up for an upcoming class series visit the Couple to Couple Leagues website at www.ccli.org.

Ecumenical Acumen Excursus: The Church Triumphant and The Ecumenism of Return

2010-04-22T08:39:00.000-07:00

A few posts ago, I wrote about contemporary ecumenism's resistance to a so-called triumphalism in the Catholic Church; this seemingly bad attitude of the Catholic Church would become most blatant in the Church's assertion that Christ's members belong with her, with His body, and those who find themselves in the unfortunate position of being separated from her- whether by birth into a non-Catholic family or by misguided personal decision- should return, for their own fourishing, and for the realization of the Church's universality in a world which so desparately needs it. Modern liberal ecumenists would like to forget or downplay the fact that the above really is something like what the Catholic Church believes and proposes about herself, but there is just no getting around it: the Catholic Church wants YOU, always has, always will, and she does not think that you properly belong in a separated, denominated Christian community that does not, cannot enjoy the fullness of Christ.

What about seeming assertions to the contrary? There are statements a'plenty by non-Catholic ecumenists (who like to put words into the Church's mystical mouth) that deny that the Church holds forth an "ecumenism of return;" there are even comments by Catholic spokesmen and women that might seem to imply the same thing. And well they might. The thing to keep in mind is, regardless of the eloquence of "mainstream RC ecumenical literature -from Congar to Bea to Willebrands to Kasper, and many others, including Pope John Paul II," (if I may quote a resident liberal ecumenist), even regardless of off-hand remarks made by Cardinal Kasper or the Holy Father himself, the Church is not run or defined by the despotism of ad hoc remarks offered in eloquent commentary. She has been entrusted with the mission of making disciples of all nations by Christ Himself, and taking that call seriously, the Church issues her official teaching only with great care, reflection, and consensus.

There is a hierarchy of proposals in the Catholic Church; there are dogmas which are proclaimed with infallibility, given the Holy Spirit's promises to guide His Church; there are encyclicals which propose definitively, and which require the religious assent of the faithful as an exercise of faith, hope, and love; and then there is midrash, which can be taken up or left behind by the faithful in good conscience. And when a Catholic responds to modern ecumenism, he will properly represent the Catholic tradition only when he responds within the bounds and context established by the Church's explicit and authoritative statements on point (on the other hand, this would not be the case if the Catholic respondant referred instead to a hodge-podge of personal midrash, selected according to to his own personal whims de jour).

In other words, even the seemingly accomodationist commentary of the highest Vatican official in an address to those who are persistently separated from the Catholic Church does not diminish or posit an official contradiction to the definitive statement on point: “… the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it…” (Pope Pius XI, Encylical Mortalium Animos (#10), Jan. 6, 1928).

The same sentiment is affirmed in the definitive statements of Vatican II; Lumen Gentium VIII (1964) insistst as follows:

"This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour, after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd, and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority, which He erected for all ages as "the pillar and mainstay of the truth". This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity."

Even the beautiful encyclical Ut Unum Sint of John Paul II (1995), which liberal ecumenists like to tout as a rebuttal of Catholic "triumphalism," refuses to equate schismatic and defective "ecclesial communities" with the fulness of Christ's Catholic Church, to which every Christian is called; God's plan of gathering all Christians into unitiy is identified as the particular prerogative and vocation of the Catholic Church, such that she cannot be identified as one disparate community among many to be gathered into a nebulous consensus; (V) the encyclical holds that the unity bestowed by the Holy Spirit "does not merely consist in the gathering of people as a collection of individuals, but rather is a unity constituted by the bonds of the profession of faith, the sacraments and hierarchical communion," which the Church identifies as fully present only within her body (IX); the encyclical affirms that the Catholic Church has alone "been preserved in unity, with all the means with which God wishes to endow his Church, and this despite the often grave crises which have shaken her, the infidelity of some of her ministers, and the faults into which her members daily fall." (XI) We could go on, but we can conclude just as well with this striking paragraph XIV of the same encyclical:

"All these elements (of grace present in separated Christian communities) bear within themselves a tendency towards unity, having their fullness in that unity. It is not a matter of adding together all the riches scattered throughout the various Christian Communities in order to arrive at a Church which God has in mind for the future. In accordance with the great Tradition, attested to by the Fathers of the East and of the West, the Catholic Church believes that in the Pentecost Event God has already manifested the Church in her eschatological reality, which he had prepared "from the time of Abel, the just one". This reality is something already given. Consequently we are even now in the last times. The elements of this already-given Church exist, found in their fullness in the Catholic Church."

In short, the "triumphalism" of the Church's definitive self-understanding is not really triumphalism at all, though it is understandable how a liberal ecumenist might resort to that accusation when feeling whiny; rather, the Church is merely willing to recognize that the will of her Lord does not return to Him void, and that in as much as His Word has gone forth into all the world, the one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church is Christ's present gift, ready to be found by all those who seek her in obedience to Christ.

The Catholic's Biblical Problem with "Private Interpretation" of "All-Sufficient" Scripture

2010-04-21T08:56:00.000-07:00

In the first place, those who promote the idea that the individual believer exercises sole authority over his own Bible fail to notice St. Paul's explicit statement to Timothy that it is the Church of the living God- not the Canon which it produced and protects- which is "the pillar and ground of the truth" (I Timothy 3:15).

Secondly, those who argue that St. Paul "commends himself to the conscience" of his audience fail to notice that Paul commends *himself,* and his repeated claims to personal apostolic authority, to the consciences of his audience (II Corinthians 4), while he continually rebukes them for adopting alternative teaching based on their private judgment. (I Timothy 1, II Peter 2, Colossians 2, etc.)

Thirdly, the proposal that St. Paul "encourages private interpretation" explicitly contradicts the mandate that there is NO private interepretation of/by the prophets (II Peter 1); rather, "the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets," within the apostolic community (I Corinthians 14)... and all of this within the Church, which the Holy Spirit inaugurated in the persons of the apostles, to the be the fullness of Christ which filleth all in all (Ephesians 1), wherein we submit to one another out of the fear of the Lord (Ephesians 5).

Finally, it is perhaps most important to keep in mind that if private interpretation is the order of the day, then Christians will never believe and confess the same thing, as Paul urges in I Corintians 1:10, nor will they ever be one as Christ Himself commands in John 17; and to presume that each and every Christian is sufficiently responsive to the Holy Spirit to make accurate and true interpretation of the Scriptures every time is to flirt with the heresy of Pelegianism (or Montanism, which is even more fun) .

For the Protestant proposals that the believer stands as his own authority over his Bible, I Timothy 3 is pretty clear about the criterion for those who resist the authority which God has set in place. It is the "spirit of antichrist" described in I John which attempts to divide Christ (and His Scriptures) from the Church, His visible Body in the world, the fruit of His coming to us in the flesh, not between the covers of a holy book.

"As the depositary and guardian of Scripture (the Church) is the diffusion point for its illuminating power, which alone can make our history intelligible. And thus she leads us to Christ, by many ways which all converge. In her, God makes Himself continually visible to the eyes of those who see wisdom." - Henri de Lubac, Splendor of the Church 46.

Down with The Times, Up with The New Yorker

2010-04-20T13:13:00.000-07:00

Although I have been pretty down on the media lately, let today's post demonstrate just how nuanced yours truly can be...

First, kudos to the truly elegant and informed New Yorker magazine for recently casting Catholic religious life in a positive light; a recent article features the celebrated fashion designer Brunello Cucinelli, who along with his wife, has for a long time been a friend and supporter of the Benedictine monastery in Norcia, where American vocations are flourishing. Towards the end of the article, the writer explains Brunello’s fascination with things Benedictine and in particular with the work of the monastery, and even offers many good quotations from the monestary's abbot, Fr. Cassian. You can find an abstract of the article here, which describes how "the next project he (Cucinelli) hopes to undertake in Solomeo is the construction of a “sacred park” in the hilltop woodland... (described in) a visit to a monastery in Norcia, where Cucinelli’s 'spiritual father,' Father Cassian Folsom, resides."

...But now, more characteristically, the bad news from the American press.

Today's New York Times marked the 5th anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI by asserting that the sexual abuse scandal is "growing" and is "quickly defining his papacy." Furthermore, the pope has "alienated Muslims, Jews, Anglicans and even many Roman Catholics." Yikes. Although their own responses often need to be taken with a grain of salt, the Catholic League rebuts as follows- and I found it worth repeating:

"In point of fact, the scandal ended about a quarter century ago: the timeline when most of the abuse took place was the mid-60s to the mid-80s. The only thing "growing" is coverage of abuse cases extending back a half-century, something the Times has contributed to mightily. To say his papacy is being defined by old cases may be the narrative that suits the Times, but it most certainly is not shared by fair-minded observers.

... (nor is it) correct, as the Times says, that the pope attempted "to rehabilitate a Holocaust-denying bishop," rather he attempted to reconcile a break-away Catholic group which unfortunately had as one of its members a Holocaust-denying bishop. (As for) Anglicans unhappy with the pope's outreach, the disaffected in their ranks represent an embarrassing chapter for them, not Catholics.

The pope can be justly criticized for missteps in governance and communications, but to paint him as a divider is a cruel caricature being promoted to hurt him, in particular, and the Church, in general."

Blessed Marie-Azélie Guérin Martin

2010-04-19T09:09:00.000-07:00

She was the mother of Saint Thérèse de Lisieux. She gave birth to nine children; the five daughters who survived their infancy all consecrated their lives entirely to Christ. Her canonized daughter still leads the Church in the contemplation of the face of Jesus and the sweetness of His love.

In my imagination, Bl. Marie is second only to the great Eliza Vaughan, a recent hero of mine.

I have recently been sternly instructed by my baby's priestly godfather that I am in no way to presssure to him or her about a religious vocation; I, in turn, solemnly promised that whenever tempted to do so, I will simply take the little one out for ice cream. Of course my husband and I have prayed for vocations for our children. On a very human level, there is probably no greater mark of inspired parenting than the succesful gifting of a child to the Church, and the Church is in great need of the vocations to priesthood and religious life which my husband and I did not receive. We were called to each other, and to the celebration of Christ's love in our little home, and as we prepare for the birth of our child, I will be adding to my prayers for my child's vocation (whatever it is) that I will simply do my part to surround him with God's own love, in every way, at every time, in every place. That is the making of a saint, after all- the formation of one who is made able to love in the way that he has been loved first.

... by the way, have you heard about the new film entitled "Babies: The Movie"? It looks wonderful... what a gift to our baby-suspicious culture. The producers echoed my thoughts here at their conclusion of the preview: "...parents, doing their best, in many different ways... so long as there is love, everything will be fine."

Blessed Marie, pray for us and for our babys' vocations.

Saint Monica

2010-04-12T08:42:00.000-07:00

St. Monica is one of those maternal and spousal saints who taught her child to pray really well; she then prayed for her child faithfully throughout his variegated life of bumping into Love, and ultimately she was graced by joining him in a legendary vision of the glory of God.

She was a faithful wife in an unhappy marriage, but she was able to exercise a veritable apostolate amongst the wives and mothers of her hometown. She also pursued her wayward son Augustine from city to city until he was baptized by Ambrose, and found his rest in "Him who was higher than his higest and more inward than his inmost self." (Augustine, Confessions III)

St. Monica is the patron saint of married women and of wayward children lost to addictions, but she is also an excellent exemplar of what contemporary Catholic theologians call the dual aspect of the Church; like her Lord, who is both human and divine, the Church shares in these two realities simultaneously, being at once both the Mother who intercedes for her children and the wayward children who require that intercession. She is both mystical, visible and involiable whole, and a myriad of sinful members within her.

St. Monica is often depicted as one who wept for the sins of her child; and I think that this depiction is apt for the tumult in which Catholics find themselves, in light of the recent media reports of sex abuses and the allegation of negligence in the Church's hierarchy. Surely we will weep for those who have sinned, for those who have failed in their pastoral responsibilities, for those whose faith will falter because of the errors of others, and for ourselves, who will be implicated by their reputations. And just as surely we should weep for those in the media who ought to be careful of the truth, but who instead sell their vocations for messes of scandalous pottages based on rumors.

The point to recall is that just as St. Monica persevered in her maternal intercession for her child, just as the ontological bond between them was unaltered by Augustine's flirtations with sexual sins and heresies, so the Church remains who she is towards us all- the spotless bride of the Lamb who cares for her sinful members. Henri de Lubac puts it beautifully in The Splendor of the Church:

"Whether in the eyes of God or of man, it is not righteousness which is the test of membership of the Mystical Body, that is, the Church. Infidels of good faith and good will, even Christian dissidents... are only ordered to her by a certain unconscious desire and aspiration, and cannot be called her members in the full sense of the word. Sinners, on the contrary, continue to be truly part of her, provided they have not denied her; indeed, as we well know, they are a vast majority. Although they do not live according to the Gospel they do still believe the Gospel, though the Church, and although this bond is not enough to constitute the Church it is enough, even when stretched to its utmost, to keep them her members- though they may be infirm, arid, putrid, or even dead members. The Church extends to them a patient toleration. Even the best of her children are themselves never any more than in the way of sanctification... thus it is that the Church which we are must say daily, as with one voice and without exception, "and forgive us our trespasses... every day she must call upon the power and the pity of Christ, for each day in this world is day of purification for her and each day she must wash her robe in the blood of the Lamb." Splendor, 115-116."

St. Monica, pray for us.

Divine Mercy for Souls Who Do Not Believe

2010-04-07T09:57:00.000-07:00

Today the Church asks that God shed "the rays of His grace" on those who have yet to believe in and extol His mercy.

One of the most consoling passages in Scripture for me is the assurance that the very heavens declare the glory of God, and their light has gone into all the world (Psalm 19); there is a light which has enlightened everyone (John 1). There is excellent support for this Biblical idea in the unassuming defense of the Christian faith that is offered in the most surprising corners.

For instance, it was the French sociologist Emille Durkheim (1858-1917) who originally proposed the familiar refrain against our faith that religion is humanity's created device, by which humanity can meet its needs by forming the community and society that it craves. Primal people want and need to be together; so they form various religions to provide a sense of social cohesion and moral responsibility. A sense of religion provokes communal consciousness and common emotions, which enhance a sense of group identity and establish the group itself as a worthy, 'sacred' reality. Furthermore, necessary societal expectations are framed and protected as the will of the gods. In reality however, it is the human community that is really "god," and it is the community- not a real divinity- which humanity ultimately "needs." In Durkheim's words, "the sacred is nothing more nor less that the human society (with its authority and beneficence) transfigured and personified." In another instance, Durkheim explains: "Society determines, while religion is the thing determined. Society controls; religion reflects." The essence of Durkheim’s theory of religion is that society is the all-pervasive force from which religious beliefs have evolved.

It was Mircea Eliade, the Romanian father of modern Religious Studies (1907-1986) who answered these reductionist claims by asserting that the religious experiences of human beings matter, and that on the evidence of the human experience of a personal and real God, theories such as Durkheim's become indefensible.

First, Eliade pointed out that the religious longings of humanity tend to be universally the same, regardless of time and place, whereas social needs are transient and socially conditioned, and their solutions are widely diverse; thus it is the former reality of the universal human sense of the sacred that points to something truly transcendent and real in human experience. In particular, the universal prevalence of mythic atoning savior tropes and myths of an eternal return pointed to the Christian story as the best manifestation of the sacred.

Secondly, Eliade reminded the world of the gross elitism of Durkheim's claims. Durkheim spoke as a Frenchman of the nineteenth century, for whom everything was political. As such, he could not purport to speak truly for the millions of complex and spiritual human beings who had their own account of what religion really was, and knew for themselves what they meant by the reality of the sacred. Eliade proposed that we actually listen to the claims of faithful people. Rather than imposing Western reductionist structures upon personal accounts of the sacred, Eliade held that a more authentic account of religion should be derived from the stories of simple people who claimed to have encountered God.

In short, Eliade might democratically suggest, "how do you know there is a God? - Listen to the people who worship Him."

More on my hero Eliade here.

Divine Mercy for Devout and Faithful Souls

2010-04-06T13:03:00.000-07:00

On the days following Easter, the Church prays the novena of the Divine Mercy, celebrating our total reliance on our Savior. We have prayed on the first and second days for the souls of sinners and the souls of priests and religious; today we give thanks for the lives of the devout and the faithful, and we ask God to protect them.

My husband and I have a favorite priest, Fr. Roger Landry, who perhaps exemplifies dynamic holiness better than anyone we have ever known. Fr. Roger recently passed on the news that a miracle experienced by one of his parishioners, and attributed to the intercession of John Paul the Great, was being showcased on an episode of 20/20. Of course we watched the program, which also highlighted miracles attributed to St. Damian of Molokai and Fr. Emil Kapuan. We were amazed at the respect with which these stories were reported, and we were amazed by the honest, beautiful and strong faith of those who shared their stories. Like the heroes who had prcedeed and interceded for them, the devout and faithful souls who had been granted the grace of healing simply responded to the needs of their present circumstances in immediate ways which honored their Savior.

For some reason, their stories reminded me of St. Augustine's mandate that holiness is acheived closest to home, in the cares and concerns that are nearest to us, since it is those which are God's gifts to make our souls devout and faithful.

"All persons are to be loved equally. But since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you. For, suppose that you had a great deal of some commodity, and felt bound to give it away to somebody who had none, and that it could not be given to more than one person; if two persons presented themselves, neither of whom had either from need or relationship a greater claim upon you than the other, you could do nothing fairer than choose by lot to which you would give what could not be given to both. Just so among humanity: since you cannot consult for the good of them all, you must take the matter as decided for you by a sort of providential lot, according as each one happens, for the time being, to be more closely connected with you."

- St. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana I.28.

St. Faustina of the Divine Mercy

2010-04-05T09:28:00.000-07:00

"You have given to me your trust, your good work. And now give to me what you alone can give to me- your sins and weaknesses."

- Plain and simple. In a lot of ways, this humble Polish nun accomplished within the Church's theology that of which Martin Luther had only dreamed.

It is fitting that in the days immediately following Easter, the Church plunges into the depths of the divine mercy which Christ won on His cross for a prolonged swim. It takes nine days; consequently, this blog will be following the novena of the divine mercy through this special season.

Holy Week

2010-03-29T09:36:00.000-07:00

No blogging here this week.

It's a time for confession. A time for silence and stillness. A time for waiting for an assured rejoicing. It's the final stretch on the road to the resurrection; it's just a matter of time.

"We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, despicably hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us. ... not because of any works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His mercy... through the waters of baptism and the renewal by His Holy Spirit." Titus 3:3-7

Ecumenical Acumen: The Church Triumphant

2010-03-25T09:40:00.000-07:00

I have been stewing this week over a line which I recently read. It goes like this:

"I am not persuaded by that account of Roman Catholic ecclesiology which could fairly be called triumphalist, in contrast to mainstream RC ecumenical literature -from Congar to Bea to Willebrands to Kasper, and many others, including Pope John Paul II. For those to whom ecumenism is not really interesting (though conversion in the sense of "submission" is!), the best antidote to this that I know of is John Paul II's Ut Unum Sint."

The "triumphalism" mentioned here is a common term of reproach leveled at the Catholic Church for the claim that she has the fullness of divine revelation and the right to pass judgment on the personal and social obligations of humankind. This "triumphalism" might be most easily contrasted with the proposal that it is right and proper for the Body of Christ to be disseminated by schisms, such that she shows forth to the world the wounds of Her Savior rather than the seeds and presence of His immanent Kingdom, and that the Church thus ought not to proclaim propositional truths about herself and her people; rather, she and her members ought to commit themselves to the sort of ecumenism that perpetually seeks to re-construe an identity, in the kind of irenical group-grope that I have described as a telling of riddles in the dark, or at worst, a confused whine for attention.

I have a few responses to the statement repeated above, and you may have to read them here as time permits; but my first response is that the Church is Christ's, and He is not one to equivocate. The Church has no subsistence apart from Him; her doctrines and disciplines have no grounding other than what He established. She is no covenanted community of like-minded individuals, which serves as a resource for their mutual self-actualization, on the model of a neighborhood YMCA. She has no life apart from His; and it is by reason of this utter dependence on her Lord that Christians from the very beginning have recognized a mystical identity between the Lord and His Church, to whom He has joined Himself, "in one flesh," as St. Paul tells us. The Church must be one with Christ, because she has no existence otherwise. And thus what we confess about Jesus, we properly say about the Church; there is nothing else to say about her.

(And if we shy away from speaking about the Church as we speak about the triumphant Christ- perhaps in the laudable attempt to be humble about her- then we will only succeed in talking about her as though she were our own creation, not His; and that is to make much more of ourselves and the Church than we ought)

And in this regard, let us note that Christ is either the Son of David, of whose Kingdom the increase shall have no end, as the Angel said to Mary, or He isn't; He is either the victorious Bridegroom, or He isn't; He is either the Lord who leads us in triumphal procession (I Thessalonians somewhere) or He isn't. And yes, this Lord was meek and merciful, a servant, the one broken for our offenses; the same one is still Lord. And if we are willing to confess these things about Jesus, then we must be willing to say also that if the Church is the Church, she will share in His Kingdom as a spouse shares, she will lead the triumphal procession with Him, and in meekness, mercy, and service, she will stand in time and space for His dominion. Her members will fail, as we see time and time again; but beyond them, beyond me, beyond us, she is that body who subsists not in our frail flesh, but only in her Lord's triumphant, risen self.

And another thing- those who want to quash the Catholic triumphalism which annoys them must both deny the Church's mystical identity with her Lord (as though she had an existence of her own) and the presence of His Lordship in the visible present; they must insist instead that the Church exists invisibly, somewhere in the nebulous ether, hoped for but unidentifiable here and now. Yet the Church's Lord did not live among us nebulously or spiritually; thus, neither does His Church. He was and is fully man, and in such unequivocal ways. He lived the life of a poor man, a working man, undefended and undefined by the structures of wealth and social position that sometimes mask a mere human person and make one seem to be nebulously other than one really is. His death by public execution left no room for doubt as to the actual death that He suffered with respect to His humanity. He confronted doubts afterwards by asking His disciples to touch His wounds. When He wanted to found His Church, He turned to another sweaty working man and told him to stand for Jesus in the world, concretely. This Lord is not one to confuse His people by equivocal appearances; and, for those who live on their persuasions, He is no rhetorician either. This is the Lord, who founded a Church, to whom we are called to submit. Unequivocally.

(As for "mainstream RC ecumenical literature" and the magisterium's Ut Unum Sint... till next time)

Aquinas on the Meriting of our Salvation

2010-03-24T14:28:00.000-07:00

"Now it is clear that between God and man there is the greatest inequality; for they are infinitely apart, and all man's good comes from God... hence man's merit with God only exists on the presupposition of the Divine ordination, so that man obtains from God, as a reward of his operation, what God gave him the power of operating for... God seeks from our goods not profit, but glory, i.e., the manifestation of His goodness; even as He seeks it also in His own works. Now nothing accrues to Him, but only to ourselves, by our worship of Him. Hence we merit from God." Summa Theologiae I-II. 114.1, corpus and ad 2.

...Do you see how there is nothing of "earning" our salvation here?

Scott's Spiritual Direction Blog

2010-03-23T12:19:00.001-07:00

My spiritual director, Br. Scott Kallal, is a member of a relatively new religious order called The Apostles of the Interior Life; I spent some time discerning a potential vocation with them a few years ago. When Br. Scott contacted me about spiritual direction, I felt that I had been given one of the biggest and best undeserved blessings of my life. Br. Scott has decided to make his excellent devotional thoughts, currently being formed in his seminary training in Rome, available on his new blog! You can read it every day, here. Enjoy!

Saint Anne

2010-03-22T12:20:00.001-07:00

(You will all have to forgive me if I seem a little obsessed with maternal saints lately)

St. Anne is the mother of Mary and the grandmother of our Lord. Perhaps of all the saints in the Christian assembly, St. Anne stands out to me as definitively Mother; true, our Lady is primordially and ultimately the Mother, but she is such because she is the mother of the one who is also God, and as such she is not only known as mother, but by all of the other attributions that are appropriate to her: the Immaculate Conception, the Door and Ark of salvation, the Holy of Holies. Mary's fully human womb, once fully inhabited by God Incarnate, is no ordinary place. But St. Anne is just a mother- unlike her daughter, she is a mother without the supernatural gifts of conception by the Holy Spirit, angelic annunciation, a host of corroborating prophecies. And yet historians say that most of the great domes of European Churches were modeled as tributes to St. Anne; they are shaped like a great, maternal human skirt, under which the Tabernacle of the Lord and the Lord Himself could dwell, sound and secure and heralded on the horizon by merely human things.

Today- especially today, after yesterday's maddening vote in the U.S. House of Representatives-our culture needs "just mothers." Our laws cannot provide them; our government will not enforce the natural law that mothers remain and act like mothers towards their offspring. As of today, our legal system has once again given up on child abuse, infanticide, and the state- and commerce- sponsored murder of a particular class of persons; all of this in the name of a nebulous "right to privacy" that was coined in 1965 to legalize contraception, and all the grisly forms of contraception that would follow.

But we don't need new and tighter laws, ultimately. We need a reform of conscience. We need a celebration of life, at every stage of its development, as the good and holy gift of the God who (always) rejoices in His own creation. We need to imitate the God who reaches and flies to tend to the weakest. We need a culture of mothers.

Edit: I loved this post on the spiritual motherhood provided to young seminarians by a group of Dominican sisters.

St. Joseph, Custodian of the Lord

2010-03-19T08:40:00.001-07:00

On today's feast of the foster father of God incarnate, the Church turns her mind to the quiet obedience and custodianship of the chaste carpenter to whom God entrusted Himself.

It's this theme of custodianship that stands out most to me; St. Joseph is the patron saint of the dying, but his role as caretaker of Jesus and Mary- a Son who was not his own, and a woman espoused not to himself, but to the Trinity- instantiates the underlying theme of our living too. We are a people who ultimately control and own nothing of our own; all those things for which we care merely pass through our hands until our days are over, to be handed on as the fruits of stewardship to those who will take over next. Whether our Creator is honored by our temporary handling of His life in us is all that really matters. And to embrace this understanding is a humble thing, on the model of Joseph's own anonymity and humility.

But there is another side to our humble story too. We are a people entrusted. Against the late 17th century innovation of monergism, we recall on feast days like today that due attention to God's Incarnation requires that we acknowledge all that He deigned to receive from His creature, and from whom He received. The all-sufficient Creator of the universe, who needs nothing, responding to no exigency, made it the case that He was nourished by a woman and protected by a man. And so it is for all the baptized that we too are a people to whom God has entrusted Himself for nourishment and protection, in the persons who are weaker and more in need than we are, and in all the persons to whom we owe our care; as St. Benedict put it in his explanation of why strangers are owed hospitality, "Christ, who is received in you, shall now be adored."

And in this way, God honors us greatly. May St. Joseph pray for us as we too care for our Lord, in His people.

Ecumenical Acumen: St. John Henry Newman

2010-03-18T11:59:00.000-07:00

"Truth," he says, "has the gift of overcoming the human heart, whether by persuasion or compulsion; and, if what we preach be truth...it will make itself popular." Newman, Preface to the Third Edition

The Vatican confirmed this week that the canonization of Bl. John Henry Newman will take place in September. Newman was a leader of the Anglican Tractarians, a gloriously profound author, a convert to the Catholic Church, priest, and cardinal. You can learn more here.

I have always owed a profound debt of gratitude to this saint, since his The Idea of a University was one of the first texts to strike me in its gentle, wise allusions to the unchanging Church while I was an undergraduate.

Various pundits have been quick to point out this week that there is something significant about this immanent canonization of a convert from Anglicanism juxtaposed against the Church's recent generosity towards Anglicans and Episcopalians who seek reunion with the Church that Christ founded. I think that these hints about a meaningful connection must be true, because in a time of tired failures in ecumenical efforts, and in a time wherein the ecumenical conversation has become muddled beyond comprehension, the Church's recognition and promotion of her martyrs and models of holiness leaves no ambiguity as to Christ's calling for each and every one of the baptized. The lives of St. Margaret Clitherow and the hundreds of Catholic martyrs of the English Schism outline the relevant distinctions with sobering clarity: one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

In other words, with the canonization of Cardinal Newman- the one who attempted to live as a "catholic" while within an Anglican community separated from the Catholic Church, until he repented- the Church gains a reference point against a few of the utterly confusing statements of our day. You have probably heard them. In 2001, Cardinal Walter Kasper, Prefect of Vatican Council for Promoting Christian Unity, stated that“… today we no longer understand ecumenism in the sense of a return, by which the others would ‘be converted’ and return to being Catholics." (Adista, Feb. 26, 2001) In 2005, Pope Benedict made a statement which has been drastically misconstrued when he stated that “and we now ask: What does it mean to restore the unity of all Christians?... This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (Unitatis Redintegratio, nn. 2, 4, etc.); the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world. On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history. Absolutely not!”(Benedict XVI, Address to Protestants at World Youth Day, August 19, 2005: L’Osservatore Romano, August 24, 2005, p. 8.)

The Pope's words- which affirm the fact that those who do enter the Catholic Church find that they have to renounce nothing of the truths of Christian doctrine which they previously held- have been used by many Anglicans to insist (falsely) that the Church's ecumenical efforts have "moved on" from the clearly stated, definitively taught, and repeatedly affirmed mandates of Apostolicae Curae, which unequivocally call Protestants home: speaking to those who have at heart the Church’s desire for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, Pope Leo XIII states as follows:

Let them be the first in joyfully submitting to the divine call (to the Catholic Church) and (obey) it, and furnish a glorious example to others. And assuredly, with exceeding joy, their Mother, the Church, will welcome them, and will cherish with all her love and care those whom the strength of their generous souls has, amidst many trials and difficulties, led back to her bosom. Nor could words ever express the recognition which this devoted courage will win for them from the assemblies of the brethren throughout the Catholic world, or what hope or confidence it will merit for them before Christ as their Judge, or what reward it will obtain from Him in the Heavenly Kingdom.

...When asked whether the Catholic Church "really wants" faithful Anglicans and Episcopalians to convert, the Church's people will not have to scramble to find just the right clever statement to present to those interlocutors who don't buy the Church's authority to authorize statements anyway. We will only have to point to the vividly real lives, deaths, and corroborating miracles of Anglican converts like St. Elizabeth Anne Seton and St. John Henry Newman, and say simply- as they did- "yes."

Bishop Chaput, Homosexual Parents, and Who We Really Are

2010-03-11T07:54:00.000-08:00

Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput made the courageous decision this week to prevent admission to Catholic schools for the children of couples who flagrantly live a lifestyle contrary to the Church's teaching on sexuality.

The archbishop carefully explained that the parochial schools list among their entrance requirements that their families must live in full cooperation with the mandates of the Catholic Church; such a requirement provides for an atmosphere of coherence, harmony and progress in comprehending the tenets in which the Catholic families of Denver have chosen to raise their children. As the Archbishop explained further, the presence of children from dissenting families would inhibit the ability of Catholic teachers to explain the Church's moral teaching freely in their classrooms, and would risk exposing such children from dissenting households to a sense of confusion and derision. One version of the story is available here. The relevant statements made by both the Archbishop and the director of the school in question are available here.

At first glance, the Archbishop's decision will seem garishly counter-cultural; it might even provoke some to worry that the Archbishop is ignoring the Magisterium's stern warning that all forms of social prejudice against homosexual persons are to be avoided (see The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2357-2359). In response to such attacks, we recall that the Church recognizes that the disorder of practiced homosexuality is, with all forms of unchastity, a sin against the Church's members and the Church's God; to assert and enforce this recognition is a thing entirely different from exercising unjust discrimination against homosexual persons. And on a civil level, it is incumbent that the public recall that it is the natural, proper, and Constitutional right of a privately funded, self-directed institution to limit its membership according to its determination of appropriate behaviors.

I applaud Bishop Chaput because I have been thinking this week about America's allegedly greatest theologian, Stanley Hauerwas. Stanley has a provocative little 1993 article entitled "Why Gays (as a Group) are Morally Superior to Christians (as a Group)." In this article, Stanley points out that the American gay community has a stronger sense of identity, coherence, loyalty, and ethos than most American Christians. They have a clearly defined moral compass and agenda. For what they believe and do, they are frequently rejected by conservative elements in our modern culture. And, they have been willing to suffer for what they stand for. Stanley's point is that the same can hardly be said for the larger community of American Christians, whether it comes to our position on sexuality or war or education, and he lambasts us for it.

It is American Catholic bishops like Chaput who prove that this is not necessarily the case, and that Christians (as a Group) can (in the Catholic community at least) demonstrate that we believe in something, that we can and will act in certain ways, and that if necessary, we will suffer for it- perhaps as well as our homosexual fellows in this weary world have done. The Church stands for something; good Bishops like Chaput will not let us forget it.

Another Theology of the Body

2010-03-10T11:58:00.000-08:00

I notice that a Catholic site that lists my blog has TWO blogs entitled "Theology of the Body." Our title is a poetic extension of John Paul II's term to the corporate Body of the Church, which is constituted by embodied persons who must live out their allegiance to Christ in mind, heart, and body; the second blog of the same name deals with the Theology of the Body per se. Written by a religious sister, the blog invites readers to "Be amazed by what the Catholic Churchreally teaches about gender, sexuality, marriage, birth control, relationships...and the Trinity."

Check it out.

Stanley

2010-03-09T07:46:00.000-08:00

"I cannot think of a more conformist and suicidal message in modernity than that we should encourage fellow Christians to make up their own minds. That is simply to ensure that they will be good conformist consumers in a capitalist economy by assuming now that ideas are but another product that one gets to choose on the basis of one's arbitrary likes and dislikes. To encourage Christians to think for themselves is therefore a sure way to avoid any meaningful discourse..." Stanley Hauerwas, After Christendom

I love the decidedly Protestant Stanley Hauerwas. When I was sorting out what it meant to be a Christian really, It was Stanley personally, and his prolific work, which called me to try to be serious about what it meant to follow Jesus- not the culture, nor the state, nor my friends and family, but Jesus. It was Stanley who insisted that to follow Jesus is impossible outside of the Church; it was Stanley who explained to me that the Church is called to be the Church, in and against and yet for the world, and within that simple statement lies the fullest description of the Church's vocation and of the vocations of those who live within her. It is largely because of Stanley that I was able to discern that the only way to do all of these things completely is within the Church Catholic, and not in one of her fragile derivatives.

(These opinions are no doubt shared by my revered friend Joshua Whitfield, whose recent book Pilgrim Holiness: Martyrdom as Descriptive Witness and decision to enter the Catholic Church also reflect his studies under the great Hauerwas. You can hear Josh's impressive conversion story here).

Our Lady of Tenderness

2010-03-08T08:21:00.000-08:00

My husband and I recently had the joy of discovering that God has blessed us with a little one, whom we will welcome in late October. To celebrate, some dear friends presented us with an icon of the Marian image that is similar to the 0ne shown above. We love it; as we venture forward in our vocation as spouses and parents, there is no clearer reminder that the Church's greatest saints, and our Lord Himself, lived a family life, and that to consent to this calling is to be nearer to who He is.

Today is the feast of St. John of God, a sixteenth century soldier who founded a religious order; and it is perhaps in juxtaposition to such a calling that I often felt perplexed about the meaning and value of family life. After all, the family vocation is ideally centered around such cozy, comfortable themes as the hearth and the table, the abundance and stability that are so often not possible for so many in our wounded world. And it would often seem to me that the only way to live the Christian life in its proper radicality was through the renunciation of hearth and home, and I spent a lot of good time in prayer and reflection as to whether I should be a nun instead of a wife and a mother. In God's grace, the understanding only deepened that the baptized are not called to renunciation or militant expansion of the Kingdom ipso facto; we are called to be the true members of the true Church, which is a family. Yes, she is an army terrible with her banners; yes, she is a sentinel who stands guard over the truth, armed against invaders. But in her first member, our Lord's own mother, the Church is foremostly the nurturing place where the creation is re-born for the glad things that the Father intended in the first place, and as such she is the life of a family, who lives her life in her various families. And as such, in the humility of a family, she bears witness to the truth that her life is not a matter of mission merely. Rather, the Church is in herself, in her very existence, witness to the great consummation of all things, of the provision of the life, the joy, the bounty that constitutes Heaven and the grace of being that our God began. The appointed Kingdom has been given to the Son, and He hands it on to His Church, here and now; and perhaps there is no greater instantiation of the absolute givenness of this joyful truth than the audacious, humble, human act of forming households (whether domestic or religious) and welcoming children (whether through birth or through spiritual formation). To form a family in a seemingly war-torn environment is to say boldly in faith that, appearances to the contrary, our battles are won, our work is accomplished, the joy to come is given already, and it has only to grow.

In this way, there need be no dichotomy between the Church's invasive battles and the nurturing life of the family in our times, because as the saints remind us, the Church's territories are not marked and defended in terms of space and time; rather, the frontiers of the Church pass through ourselves. It is through mothers and fathers, sons and daughters that the lines which divide good and evil pass; these borders, and not those of an alien territory, are the lines which separate the "with God" from the "without God," the "for God" from all that is against Him, as the servant of God Madeleine Delbrel put it. It is in ourselves and through one another that we open up space for God's life to pass through; nothing else will carry us into the inner reality of the Church, and nothing else will extend God to the waiting world. For His life within us, we ought to be waiting- with a hearth, and a table, and the attitude of nurturing kinship. Our Lady of Tenderness, pray for us.

Go Saints!

2010-02-08T12:10:00.000-08:00

(It seemed apropos to renew this post today)

Catholic scholar Paul Griffiths once delivered a lovely lecture on friendship, and it was beautifully done; the speaker’s remarks were clear, and effective, and structured, like a Scholastic disquisition ought to be- definitions and procedures clearly delineated, the relevant distinctions made, categories bounded. He was going on about whom Christians might be friends with, and how. To his great credit (I think), Griffiths made one of the distinctions that I go nuts over; when prodded by a beautiful question about the depths of the human heart and the paradigm of the outpouring of Jesus, he gestured to the difference between the nature of ontologically functional friendship (we find people who look the same, act the same, and talk the same to be our friends, as though we had been configured for one another) against the more juridical nature of love (it seems to be that we attribute worth freely to the strangers whom we desire for God’s sake, compensating for their defects by bearing their burdens, teaching them to speak our language, calling things that are not as though they were, so that we might find a place to dwell in God, in them).

But when our speaker described reciprocity and symbiotic status- blending as necessary for friendship, I think that he was thinking more about transactive covenants all along; he must have been. He spoke of equity and a kind of calculation in our friendships of a certain kind, but it seems to me that there is something much more spontaneous about Christian friendship. Timid Abraham is called the friend of God long before God endows the little guy with the means to enter into symbolically equitable covenant with the Creator of the universe. The same is true for the ridiculous David. God Incarnate, with the cattle on a thousand hills, calls His friends from the social and economic situations of the illiterate fisherman and the wily tax collector. He, in unapproachable light, is the friend of sinners. Heck, I think God may have called even me to be His friend. Perhaps it is because Christian friendship is constituted by the one, ever intermediate, and truly free Personal God that Christian friendship cannot be construed in terms of equitable exchange and moderated growth. After all, it’s the gorgeous hint of utterly attractive and unpredictable holiness that the baptized ultimately desire and are drawn to in one another. It’s the wild and crazy Holy Spirit who stirs our hearts to reach out to whomever He likes. It is Him whom in all these we love.

If what we believe about the Christian life is true, then each of us has got a Christ-shaped dent within, on which a slow simmering fire is set both to burn and to throw sparks into the slow simmering fires of other hearts, a colloquy not so much of moderated conversation, but of inevitable warmth, and wind, and light. Even in his own measured discussion about the difference between the proper enjoyment of God and the loving use of people, with careful regard as to when, and how, mode and manner, Augustine catches his breath: “moreover, love itself, which binds men together in the bond of unity, (has) means of pouring soul into soul, and, as it were, mingling them one with another.” (De Doctrina Christiana Preface vi.) …Thus, I’ve always thought that the gist of Jesus’ response to The Relevant Query was that we should not ask “what is the correct method for evaluating who my neighbor is?” but rather, “how fast can I get to him?”

If this is so, Christian friendship is (it sounds trite) pure gift, particularly in its inequitable freedom. I’m thinking of the communion of saints as a model. We are never alone; Scripture says that the members of the church triumphant watch us rather like star-struck fans, (Hebrews somewhere) eagerly waiting for our reunion with everything that they’ve got- how long, Lord? (Revelation somewhere). We may have very little to do with them. And yet they, with the holy angels, are given to us; and it is by them, through Christ our Lord, that we are ever watched and heard and waited for. There is nothing of equity in this arrangement; we are little people mysteriously mucking through a vale of tears, they are heroes and martyrs who can see the face of God; we are delighted with our current loves and losses and perhaps we don’t spare a thought for loving those invisible strangers who have gone before, though they rejoice to attend to us. This too is the love of God- who did not spare His own Son, and, in freely giving us all things, calls us to fellowship in the perfectly inequitable community of His friends.

Aquinas and the Mission of the Christian University

2010-02-02T10:16:00.000-08:00

Sacred doctrine derives its principles not from any human knowledge, but from the divine knowledge, through which, as through the highest wisdom, all our knowledge is set in order. (Summa Theologiae I.6.ad 1)

My husband and I attended a panel discussion on the topic described above, last night at the University of Dallas. The panelists struggled to do theological justice to their ideas, and ended up landing on what seemed to be the only cogent point of departure: the changing demographics in American parishes (read: a vocation crisis with regard to the priesthood and a wonderfully surging Catholic population from the Southern hemisphere, which sometimes awkwardly encounters we Northern Catholics who have to endure a modern identity crisis that is commensurate with our dearth of priests). Let's just say such treatment of such an important, and really lofty topic left a lot to be desired. The real question presented to the Christian university just does not seem to have to do ultimately with how to reconcile magisterial teaching with good social justice, as one dichotomized speaker proposed.

I would have vastly preferred if one of the panelists had democratically reached back beyond number crunching to the thought of one of the Church's canonized saints and doctors. Aquinas is unequivocal when he describes the vocation of Catholic learning: It all has to do with God, and what God knows, and what God has graciously deigned to teach us. Having clearly established how and why theology, as the study of God, can take its place among the other sciences and disciplines on campus, Aquinas rolls the whole enterprise into one coherent whole: "objects which are the subject matter of different philosophical sciences can yet be treated of by this one single sacred science, under one aspect precisely, in so far as they can be included in revelation. So that in this way sacred doctrine bears, as it were, the stamp of the divine science, which is one and simple, yet extends to everything." (Summa Theologiae I.3. ad 2) In other words, Aquinas assures us that in as much as we know anything- who and what we are, who and what the Church is, how to fix the world's problems- our knowledge merely a participation in God's own perfect knowing, of all things, of the ways in which they are ordered and connected, since He willed and made them all. And it is this recognition which provides for us the means by which we, in obedience, might "take every thought captive to the glory of Christ." (II Corinthians 10)

In other words, the Church has the truth because God Himself has handed it on. Furthermore, this truth is comprehensive. The dichotomized questions have a point of reconciliation, not only in their resolution, but in the ultimate quandry which is common to every aspect of human enquiry: what must I do to be saved?

(The solution, of course, is not so much that we will "do" anything, but that God in His mercy will show something of what He knows about Himself to us who consider Him, in all His gracious effects, in the university.)

A Wedding

2010-02-01T09:06:00.000-08:00

My husband and I were joined in the sacrament of marriage on the Feast of the Holy Family, 2009.

To celebrate my (hopeful) return to this little blog, I am making available a link to a slideshow of some of our photos, here. The celebration was everything we could have hoped; a glimpse into the joys of Heaven that the Church makes tangible here and now, particularly in and through her families, who in each and every Christian household display a microcosm of the whole joyous throng. This is the meaning of the domestic church: the life of the Christian family cooperates with the God who renews His creation and His Church, and as such utters a robust refusal to enter the shadows of death and diminution.

My wonderful husband and I hoped to make this enactment of Christian life manifest in the small details of our celebration- lots of children, vibrant music, the joy of the Incarnation at Christmas, and little hints of fruitfulness. We entrusted ourselves and our lives together to our Lord Jesus Christ.

End of the Term

2009-12-07T10:44:00.000-08:00

I've pasted below my summary "lecture" for the last day of the course I've been teaching- it is always so hard to let the students go...

Dear Friends,

On the last day of our class, it is time to consider what you have accomplished in this course. We have considered many themes, and referred to a lot of new vocabulary, but what you have formed on the whole is a conceptual framework by which to interpret your experience of the Jewish and Christian traditions through the rest of your lives. Whether in the community where you worship, or in your personal reading of Scripture, you should be able to keep in mind the underlying paradigm: “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” The story is familiar to you now: the one God, Creator of the universe, calls His people together to make a binding covenant with Him, which He will uphold according to His own mercy. Those who keep covenant with God form God’s ecclesia, which exists to bear witness to the one God in the world which He made. The Christian tradition takes these promises to their fullest extent, in the belief that God has dwelt with humanity by entering, suffering, dying, and rising in humanity’s own flesh- and in this way, the story of God Himself becomes our story too when we are born in baptism, renewed in confession, and find sustenance from Him for rebounding from the sufferings of our age; and all the while, always with God, we wait in hope for our own resurrection and assumption.

I hope that if this class has accomplished nothing else, we would remember to take the central paradigm seriously, and look for the God who is with us, with expectation to find Him. And when you enter a Jewish synagogue or a Catholic Church, and you see the tabernacle, you will recall that God is present, as He promised– in word on the one hand, in full presence on the other- and that for the baptized, our lives are caught up in His.

Another thing, which I hope you will keep at the forefront of your mind, is that the story of the ecclesia is a love story. The story which is recorded in the ecclesia’s authoritative texts is not merely a canon- rather, it is a description of the most passionate encounter in eternity, between the one God of Israel who bound Himself to His people in love. Then, in mercy, He also espoused the Gentiles through Christ. By virtue of our human birth on this planet, we are all caught up in this story- and whether we choose to be found within God’s ecclesia, or outside of her, our own story will be characterized by the response that we choose to make to this historical reality of the one God who, as the prophet Zephaniah tells us, is “dwelling in the midst of us, mighty to save; and He will rejoice over us with singing.”

You have asked in this course whether God’s inclinations towards His people ever changes, and this is an excellent question; you have noticed that at one point, God can sound so stern, but at other points, He can sound so tender, and with your question you focus attention on the unchanging character of God. Whatever the tone of a difficult sermon, or a passage of Scripture that rings with fire and brim-stone, or whatever encounters with the problem of pain you may have to endure in your lifetime, remember this: the words of God, the tone of God, the will of God, are always to be understood as the words and the tone and the will of a passionate lover- not of an irritated judge nor a stern instructor, nor an angry father, nor a betrayed friend, but a passionate bridegroom who has utterly disclosed Himself to His beloved. He thus communicates with her honestly, holding nothing back- not anger, nor warning, nor words of endearment, because the sine qua non of the lover is that he gives himself entirely to his beloved.

For my part, you have answered the question that I brought into this course. I wondered whether a bright group of students of your age could approach these traditions and texts with real curiosity as well as reverence and affection. You have answered this question with a resounding yes. You have taught me many things, but mainly I am grateful that you have taught me this. I rejoice with you in all the hope of your great potential, and I commend you to the God we have considered this term.

If I wrote that homily... Thoughts on John 8, The Woman Caught in Adultery

2009-10-22T11:26:00.000-07:00

We begin with those portions of the holiness codes in Leviticus 21 and Deuteronomy 22 which pertain to the adultery that Jesus confronts in John 8. The Levitical regulations required death by stoning as the capital punishment for such sexual sins as fornication, adultery, incest, and bestiality; the reason given for such harsh punishment is the fact that those who have committed such sins have “defiled God’s sanctuary (the ecclesia) and profaned His holy name.” Consequently, the defilement brought about by such sins must be purged from Israel, the corporate ecclesia or “sanctuary” in which God dwells.

This legal prescription points us back to the basic doctrinal principle which the legal prescription illustrates: God and the ecclesia are “married.” The text of Leviticus 21 explains that Israel’s strict laws are given because she “must not live according to the customs of the nations… you are to be holy to me because I the Lord am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.” This statement is an elaboration of the briefer statement which constitutes the covenant between God and Israel in Exodus: “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” The prophets and theologians of Israel would later interpret this agreement as a wedding vow, as we find explicitly provided in the language of Hosea 2:

(God says): "Therefore I am now going to allure (Israel); I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth,  as in the day she came up out of Egypt. "In that day," declares the Lord, "you will call me 'my husband'; you will no longer call me 'my master.'…In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the creatures that move along the ground….I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord. I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one. I will say to those called 'Not my people, ' 'You are my people'; and they will say, 'You are my God.' "

Given this understanding of God’s covenant with Israel as a marriage which is ratified by Israel’s obedience, even a small sin becomes an act of “adultery;” for instance, Leviticus 21 describes how the mere act of consulting a sorcerer constitutes an act of “prostitution.”

However, sexual sins are particularly important because they explicitly reflect the nuptial nature of God’s (personal) relationship with Israel, as one spouse relates to another. In other words, given the fact that the ecclesia is a nuptial ecclesia, sexual regulations are mandated with great specificity and severity so that the individual lives and behavior of each Israelite person can reflect the true identity of the ecclesia as a whole; each individual tells the story of Israel as God’s “wife” through his behavior. We have noted that the law forbids homosexuality, bestiality, fornication, adultery, and incest. We might say that the law which restricts sexual relationships to persons reflects the fact that God engages in nuptial relationship 1) only with humanity, that aspect of the creation which has a share in His personal image, and more particularly, 2) only with Israel, that aspect of the creation that engages in God’s life through obedience and sacrifice; God has called humanity to Himself for unique relationship from among the creatures, and He has then called the ecclesia to Himself from among the rest of humanity. Furthermore, we might say that the law forbids sexual relationships between family members to reflect the fact that God engages in nuptial relationship with His creatures, which are in no way naturally “related” to Himself; rather than being a reltionship of kinship, God’s relationship with humanity can only be secured by a covenant. On another note, we might say that the law restricts sexual relationship to marital relationships between a man and a woman, thus forbidding homosexual relationships, to reflect the fact that the encounter between God and Israel is initiated, sustained, and provided for by God (who acts in the gendered role of masculinity), while Israel (acting in the differentiated, gendered role of femininity) only and always receives from God and responds to God. It is easy to recognize that the requirements of purity and chastity both prior to marriage and within marriage reflect the idea that Israel is a “bride” who was preserved in purity by God for Himself; and having been consecrated to Him, she must remain totally faithful to her marriage vows. Finally, the fruitfulness which is expected of Israelite families reflects the fact that Israel was the one creature in the universe who is enabled to obey God fully, which includes the primordial mandate to “be fruitful and multiply.”

The message that God has a nuptial relationship with Israel is communicated by Israel’s laws, and these laws are honored in each individual’s life in order to bear witness to Israel’s corporate status as God’s “bride.” These messages a only intensified by the merciful message which continues in the book of Hosea, where God explains what kind of merciful “husband” He intends to be. In this text, God commands a holy prophet of Israel to marry a prostitute, and to live with her in love and fidelity, even though she continues to commit the fornication and adultery which contaminates Israel: “The Lord said to me, "Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods.” (Hosea 3)

When we turn to John 8, we are struck by the fact that Jesus seems to contradict God’s Levitical law when He spares the adulterous woman from her penalty. Jesus is understood in the text to be God, and therefore acting as God. Why would God overthrow His own law? God’s actions in Hosea 3 offer the interpretive key; In John 8 we see that God in Jesus is not acting as Israel’s “judge” or “master,” but as her “husband;” this is the basic fact to which all of Israel’s laws merely bore witness. Therefore, John 8 depicts Jesus acting as God, the forgiving bridegroom. As such, Jesus shows that God has taken His adulterous “wife” (here represented by the woman caught in adultery, as well as by the sinful Pharisees who have also done their part to contaminate Israel and contribute to her corporate adultery by their smaller and secret sins) back into His embrace, therefore re-asserting Jesus’ claims to be one with the forgiving husband-God of Israel.

This story also highlights the fact that despite her covenant, Israel shared the same problem with the rest of the creation: original sin. The voice of God had called the world into existence, and the world said “no” to God. Then the voice of God called Israel into existence, and offered her particular means of managing the problem of original sin, to which Israel said “yes,” as a community of one person after another who makes covenant with God. As a Jewish rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled the typical role of the faithful Jewish person: He kept covenant with God. He lived a life of faithful obedience under the Jewish law. He even offered Himself to the fullest extent of the Jewish law, by being killed as a Jewish martyr under the Roman authorities. However, Jesus claimed something else: He claimed actually to be the God of Israel.

The evidence for Jesus’ resurrection validated His claims, and His followers began to reason that if the God of Israel- the Creator of the universe- had fulfilled Israel’s covenant in the Jewish man Jesus of Nazareth, there would be implications for the whole world. The rest of the nations- the Gentiles, who had not been given means for managing original sin- had finally been given their own means of managing original sin and living with God, through the person and teachings of Jesus. Thus, Jesus would be the way that the Gentiles could also dwell with God; thus the original ecclesia would have to be expanded to include the Gentiles who followed Jesus. In fact, when the earliest Christian apostles reasoned about the status of Gentiles Christ-followers in relation to Israel, they explained that the Gentiles could now be part of God’s ecclesia; in fact, they too could be God’s “bride.” (See Ephesians 1-5) In this way, Jesus’ extension of mercy to the woman caught in adultery in John 8 illustrates the radical extension of mercy not only to adulterous Israel in her persistent concupiscence, but also to the Gentile nations, who had always lived in the deadly sin from which Israel had been separated.

On another note, it is also important to recall too that God does not contradict His requirement that adultery be purged from His “bride;” rather, the Christian narrative holds that God does just that. However, as Israel’s committed “husband,” God Himself becomes her purgation when He takes on the iniquities of His “wife” when He-in the body of Jesus of Nazareth- dies a criminal’s death (it is interesting that under Jewish law, a husband was allowed to take on his wife’s penalties). Again, we see the same line of thinking: if God Himself has done this, then not only has a particular sin been eradicated, but rather the primordial, original sin itself has been purged- and all of humanity can now enter, clean and pure, into God’s embrace, and become the sanctuary in which God dwells.

Benedict throws open gates of Rome to disaffected Anglicans

2009-10-20T09:52:00.000-07:00

Damian Thompson of the Telegraph describes how a new era has begun, here.

"This is a decision of supreme boldness and generosity by Pope Benedict XVI, comparable to his liberation of the Traditional Latin Mass. The implications of this announcement will take a long time to sink in, but I suspect that this will be a day of rejoicing for conservative Anglo-Catholics and their Roman Catholic friends all over the world."

I had not dared to hope that this could happen within my lifetime. To celebrate, I've opened the comments.

Ecumenical Acumen: The Church Fathers as the "Door to Rome"

2009-10-08T12:17:00.000-07:00

The Fundamental Baptist Information Service has issued its warning: "Many people have walked into the Roman Catholic Church through the broad door of the “church fathers,” and this is a loud warning today when there is a widespread attraction to those “church fathers.” Here.

Yikes.

If I wrote that homily... Thoughts on the Prodigal Son

2009-10-07T08:22:00.000-07:00

At first glance, this beautiful parable offers the obvious opportunity for catachesis on the Church's understanding of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which is grounded in such basic Scriptural passages as Matthew 18 and James 5. Such catachesis could be attended by explanations of baptism as the total re-formation of the person, such that the penitent can become an active agent in his own restoration through the acts of penance; these explanations could be followed by an explanation of the doctrine of Purgatory and the practice of indulgences.

On another level, however, the same parable employs such rich emotional language as would lend itself well to a consideration of the divine impassibility, wherein God's unfailing love manifests itself both in unchanging anger towards sin and disobedience, and in simultaneous and absolute readiness to run to the returning penitent in extravagant mercy. The ostensibly mysterious doctrine of God's impassibility is facilitated by such passages as Augustine's beautiful encomium near the beginning of the Confessions:

Oh my God... who art most beautiful and most strong; stable, yet not supported; unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new, yet bringing old age upon the proud, and they know it not; always working, ever at rest; gathering, yet needing nothing; sustaining, pervading, and protecting; creating, nourishing, and developing; seeking, and yet possessing all things. Thou dost love, but without passion; art jealous, yet free from care; dost repent without remorse; art angry, yet remainest serene. Thou changest thy ways, leaving thy plans unchanged; thou recoverest what thou hast never really lost. Thou art never in need but still thou dost rejoice at thy gains.

Finally, it is significant that the parable of the Prodigal Son has recently been treated by scholars such as N.T. Wright, who have explored the story's potential to clarify the relationship between Israel and Gentile Christians allegorically: with the elder brother who has "always been with the Father and who shares all that the Father has" treated as Israel, and with the younger brother who has squandered being treated as the Gentiles who have rebelled against the most basic mandates of their natural and moral responsibilities, we see the Biblical understanding of the Christian and Jewish ecclesiae as brothers reunited in the one human family inaugurated by the Incarnation of the Creator.

A Brief Apology

2009-10-07T08:16:00.000-07:00

Those of you who follow this blog will have noticed how silent things have been here at Vocatum over the past few months. I have been busy preparing for my wedding, which will take place on the Feast of the Holy Family this year, and I have also been tending to thirty undergraduates in a course that I am teaching at my university. I am struck at this point by the need to continue posting here, and the recent events in my life for which I am so grateful will provide the chance to reflect on the material in my introductory course on "Judaism, Christianity and the Bible," and more fun than that, on the glorious gifts of matrimony and family life, to which I am headed with a lot of joy.

So stay tuned and thanks for bearing with me! I and all of the Vocatum contributors value our readers.

Martin Luther on Sola Scriptura

2009-08-28T09:57:00.000-07:00

... From our friends at Wiki and Patrick O' Hare's The Facts about Luther:

"In matters of faith, to be sure, each Christian is for himself Pope and Church.”

“There will be the greatest confusion. Nobody will allow himself to be led by another man’s doctrine or authority. Everyone will be his own rabbi: hence, the greatest scandals.”

“There are as many sects now and beliefs as there are heads. This fellow has nothing to do with baptism. Another one denies the sacraments. A third believes there is another world between this one and the last day. Some teach that Christ is not God. Some say this, some say that. There is no rustic so rude that if he dreams or fancies anything believes it must be the whisper of the Holy Spirit and that he himself must be a prophet.”

“Since the downfall of Popery, and the cessation of excommunication and spiritual penalties, the people have learned to despise the word of God. They no longer care for churches, they have ceased to fear and honor God. After throwing out the yoke of the Pope, everyone wishes to live as he pleases.”

"If God had not closed my eyes, and if I had foreseen these scandals, I would never have begun to teach the gospel."

"If the world lasts, it will be necessary, on account of the differing interpretations of Scripture which now exist, that to preserve the unity of faith, we should receive the Catholic councils and decrees and fly to them for refuge."

Ecumenical Acumen: The Catholic Church Welcomes the All Saints Sisters of the Poor

2009-08-27T11:55:00.000-07:00

One of the last remaining communities of faithful non-Catholic religious life will be received into the Catholic Church during a Sept. 3 Mass celebrated by Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien in Baltimore. The formerly Anglican sisters will be received with their chaplain, the Rev. Warren Tanghe , who served as Chaplain of Pembroke College, Cambridge and also as Secretary and Vice-President of Forward-in-Faith North America.

Orthodoxy and unity were key reasons the sisters were attracted to the Catholic faith. Many of them were troubled by the Episcopal Church’s approval of women’s ordination, the ordination of a gay bishop and what they regarded as lax stances on moral issues.

“We kept thinking we could help by being a witness for orthodoxy,” said Sister Mary Joan Walker, the community’s archivist.

Mother Christina said that effort “was not as helpful as we had hoped it would be.”

“People who did not know us looked at us as if we were in agreement with what had been going on (in the Episcopal Church),” she said. “By staying put and not doing anything, we were sending a message which was not correct.”

And we're back

2009-08-26T08:09:00.000-07:00

Prayer of St. Thomas Before Study

O INFINITE Creator, who in the riches of Thy wisdom didst appoint three hierarchies of Angels and didst set them in wondrous order over the highest heavens, and who didst apportion the elements of the world most wisely: do Thou, who art in truth the fountain of light and wisdom, deign to shed upon the darkness of my understanding the rays of Thine infinite brightness, and remove far from me the twofold darkness in which I was born, namely, sin and ignorance. Do Thou, who givest speech to the tongues of little children, instruct my tongue and pour into my lips the grace of Thy benediction. Give me keenness of apprehension, capacity for remembering, method and ease in learning, insight in interpretation, and copious eloquence in speech. Instruct my beginning, direct my progress, and set Thy seal upon the finished work, Thou, who art true God and true Man, who livest and reignest world without end. Amen.

Calvin's Quincentenary: A Catholic Response

2009-06-30T16:04:00.000-07:00

This summer marks the five hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Swiss Protestant John Calvin.

Calvin was an adequate theologian, whose statements on justification were found to accord well with the Catholic doctrine on the same point by several Vatican cardinals who conversed with him at the Regensburg Colloquy on the eve of the Council of Trent; he was an experimental politician, who attempted to adapt the Church's internal ordering and sacramental life to the civil sphere; as a family man and friend, he was a frequent failure. As an heir of the proposals of Martin Luther, Calvin manages to sidestep most accusations of outright schism, although the charity at work in his writings is scarce. And yet, as the Church's ecumenical documents remind us, grace was at work in his proposals; his stern commendation of local accountability, the careful study of Scripture, and his personal striving for holiness can resonate with the Church's life and even offer a breath of fresh air from the outside, in the same way that the fourth century schismatic Donatists, with all their rigor and care, probably offered a note of inspiration to the struggling Catholics of the earliest Church.

On the whole, Calvin's legacy is a shining one. I was in Geneva a few weeks ago, and I strolled with a friend by the long Reformation monument in the center of the lovely park which faces Lake Le'man. For all Calvin's denunciation of the so-called "doctrines of man," the monument seems to refer to little beyond a few men and the textual approach to the life of God which Calvin championed. Here there are no crosses, no images of the often illiterate sainted men and women who have born witness to Christ through their bodies, and whose lifeblood has provided the seed of the Church. There is instead a small cluster of fierce men, holding books, and a running script of the Lord's prayer cast in several elite ancient languages, all shining with the benefits of the education, industry, and prosperity which Calvin decided to associate with the faith of the wandering Nazarean. Everything was quiet around the shining monument, which stood very silent in the sunlight, as though it were waiting for something more.

It was a different sight that evening at Mass in the Geneva cathedral of Notre Dame. I was not prepared for what we saw there, but it was the eve of Pentecost, and the Holy Spirit is on the move, making one of the Father's scattered people. There were two hundred men, women, and children waiting outside the cathedral, all kinds, many dressed in white, standing in the dusty pavement. There were old and young, rich and poor. There were Swiss bankers and French families and dozens of couples from Africa. They were waiting to process into the Church, amid noise and laughter and voices and celebrating families; and in they came, not just for any Mass, but for their confirmation. Each and every one of two hundred adults professed their faith in all that the Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims. And the Scripture was read and honored, as always, and the families were exhorted, and something more; while light streamed in through medieval stained glass windows, and the glorious strains of Palestrina filled the air, I worshipped there with saints and sinners, with illiterate children and homeless people who entered at the back (though they are probably the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven). Together we knew that we were in unbroken continuity with those who had sung to our Lord from the beginning. It was an imperfect fellowship that day, but Catholic fellowship it was in the fullest sense, with nothing left for which to wait on this side of Heaven. It was the fellowship which reaches around the globe and back in time to the will of the wandering Nazerean who is our Lord and God.

For all his shining legacy of a literate and carefully delineated approach to a revised doctrine, Calvin chose to overlook the fundamental tenant of all that his teacher Augustine held forth when he spoke to those of his own time who contemplated leaving the Catholic Church for what seemed to them like a purer ideal: "The spirit that is in you, oh man, and by which you are a man- does it then quicken any member that has been separated from your flesh? Your soul quickens only the members that are in your body; if you cut off any one of them it soon ceases to be quickened by your soul, since it no longer has any share in the unity of your body. I say these things that you should learn to love unity and fear separation. The Christian should fear nothing so much as separation from the Body of Christ." (Tractates on John 26.13)

For all his highly literate rigor, Calvin overlooked the more important thing- that Joy comes at the price of the obedience which preceeds understanding, of submission to authority, which lies at the heart of the law of the universe. It is the same logic which reminds us that though we have all wisdom and knowledge, and though we might have refined our faith such that we are ready to move mountains of cultural accretions, if we have not the love which can hold the most ancient fellowship in place, we will come to back only to ourselves, which is to come to nothing. And indeed, that coming to nothing which the enemy of our souls always intended continues to find its slow, steady work of demise in every fragile, well-intentioned community which has been cut off from the whole. Contemporary theologians who marvel at Calvin's resonance with Catholic doctrine note that the one point on which there could be no consensus was the matter of authority. Calvin's legacy is in the end not a legacy of a return to Scripture or of the adoration of Christ alone; those gifts were given to the Church in full long ago, and they were lived out by humbler saints for centuries. Even Calvinists are eager to point out that Calvin is merely the true offspring of 14th century Catholics such as St. Bernard of Clairvaux and his Cistercian brothers. What Calvin left to the world is a pattern of justifying one departure after another.

When I departed Geneva, I returned to the work which is defined by the wounds of our time; I returned to a local community in which abortion mills are presided over by good Presbyterians, and I returned to the news of the violent death of one particular church-going Lutheran who made his living by carving up little babies. The ongoing cycle of those who live by the sword continues, and a myriad voices chatter for attention, while our Lord simply waits in Calvin's quincentenary for His people to return and to be one, under the voice of one Shepherd, for all the world to see- just as He intended.

The Annual Vocatum Summer Hiatus

2009-06-05T08:53:00.000-07:00

Posting will be light around here for the next few months because these enthusiastic Catholics are (for the most part) overworked graduate students who celebrate the enjoyment of God and one another each summer by getting away from our laptop screens a bit more than usual. We are still busy; NCCatholic is saving lives and bearing witness to the one Church in the deep south, Lux Intellectus is gearing up for his dissertation, and MM is preparing to speak at next week's Anglican Use Conference in addition to wrapping up dissertation chapters, refining a syllabus for the fall, and tending to other important things.

(Yours truly is also slowly recovering from jet lag and a presentation at the 16th Century Society in Geneva. Although there was a lot going on for the 500th anniversary of John Calvin's birth, I counted over one hundred adult confirmations at Mass on the feast of Pentecost at the cathedral. So there you have it.)

Happy Summer!

Hurry up to see...er, Up

2009-06-04T17:03:00.000-07:00

It is a great to have a story that reminds us about what is important.

Make sure you get there in time to see the short "Partly Cloudy" at the start of the movie. It is a nice little reminder of the value of sacrifice for life even in its seemingly less ideal forms.

Happy Birthday, Church

2009-05-31T11:38:00.000-07:00

And suddenly there came from the sky
a noise like a strong driving wind,
and it filled the entire house in which they were.
Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire,
which parted and came to rest on each one of them.

At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd,
but they were confused

because each one heard them speaking in his own language.

Acts 2:2-3, 6

It would seem appropriate that they saw them (and painted them) through their own eyes as well.

The Ascension

2009-05-24T06:57:00.000-07:00

Men of Galilee,
why are you standing there looking at the sky?
This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven
will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.

Acts 1-11

New Friend on Facebook

2009-05-24T06:44:00.000-07:00

Time to add Papa Ratzi to your friend list.

Benedict on Facebook

Cute Obama at Notre Dame

2009-05-18T11:22:00.000-07:00

We have seen quite the ruckus over this past weekend; our president addressed the commencement audience at Our Lady's erstwhile university in the measured, paternal, liquid intonations which we wished characterized more of our priest's sermons- and indeed, his remarks hovered on the homiletic. Our dear leader exhorted us to give the benefit of the doubt to the ideological opposition, to rediscover the joys of personal presence when the "paradoxes" and apparent "contradictions" of our social teaching that human life does in fact begin when it begins becomes too much for the weary world to comprehend. And, hooray, he had even prayed about this position! Praise be... (?)

In the aftermath, CNN has clucked condescendingly about how the earnest student protestors at yesterday's commencement may have to "discover the realities of controversy for the first time, now that they are graduated;" the footage has run, and we are on to another set of cleverly positioned stories on religion's encounter with reality ad nauseum. As for me, once I do as I've been told and get beyond his ideological positions to the person, here is what I'm left with: Obama is cute. I mean, the man is adorable. Our president is favored with a remarkably chiseled jaw and an earnest tilt of his well-proportioned features when he stands tall and broad behind his podium. We have a president and first lady who represent all the benefits of beauty, recently acquired affluence, and a first class education at all the appropriate places. Mrs. Obama is also really cute; she has glorious hair, and enviably defined arms, and a wardrobe designed by hipsters. So really, what more needs to be said? Once we have gotten beyond their personal positions, we might as well do as the president suggests and content ourselves with gazing fondly upon their pretty faces and be friends.

It remains however, that neither the president nor the first lady will allow us to forget who they are and how far they have come. It was the hallmark of this year's election cycle and inauguration that the USA can boast of two people who have come very, very far indeed; in their chiseled features and impressive academic credentials, we can see the ambitious evidence of a developmental process that has overcome old systemic weaknesses and barriers. Mrs. Obama, with her glorious hair, admirably alluded to the obligations attendent upon this kind of development in her own commencement remarks yesterday at the University of California at Merced, in which she urged the members of the school's small graduating class to give back to their communities:

"By using what you've learned here you can shorten the path perhaps for kids who may not see a path at all. I was once one of those kids. Remember that you are blessed -- remember that in exchange for those blessings you must give something back...You must reach back and pull someone up. You must bend down and let someone else stand on your shoulders so that they can see a brighter future."

I loved Mrs. Obama's words, but the sad fact is that the Obama regime is only enforcing the scandalous idea that the only people who deserve to be pulled up from the back, and seated on the shoulders of the prosperous, are those who are at such stages of development wherein we can see their potential to become cute, educated, and functional. How far is our culture really prepared to reach back, to judge from our president's positions? Certainly we are not ready to reach all the way back to the smallest people who at their earliest stages of development (pre-hair, pre-limbs, pre-cognition) need it the most. Unborn children are not particularly cute; in them we cannot yet see the ambitious evidence of a developmental process that can overcome old systemic weaknesses and barriers. Yet they are precisely the ones who must wait-on us- to see a brighter future.

Carry on, Mrs. Obama, and go to it.

Pro-Life Majority

2009-05-17T14:21:00.001-07:00

This from the coverage of Barack at Notre Dame