Metablogging: Disputations goes multi-media

Through the genius of Victor Lams, Disputations now has its own BlogTone. Readers are encouraged to click on the image at the top of the page every time they visit, to get the full Disputations experience.

(I mean strongly encouraged. Don't make me make the BlogTone play automatically.)

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In their own image they created Him

A common Catholic response to the Calvinist doctrines of election and atonement is, to quote Mark Shea, "That is, to put it bluntly, not a God I can love and indeed a God for which I feel hearty contempt."

Mark immediately concedes this "re-opens the question of whether I really love God." This is not just an anticipation of a likely Calvinist rejoinder, but a critical point to keep in mind in theological and doctrinal debates.

There is an argument for universal salvation that insists no one would reject God if they knew the truth about Him. I think this is an extremely weak argument, because I regularly hear people say things like, "I could never love a God who lets children die of cancer." I believe them. Scripture and history are rich in examples of people who have chosen to blind themselves to God; better to enter Gehenna blind, they seem to believe, than to look on One who permits, or even causes, this or that human tragedy. Universal salvation advocates may be right (I think St. Thomas would agree) that no one can see God and reject Him, but they don't account for the possibility that a person can reject the opportunity to see God.

The bigger problem, as I see it, is the tendency to trim God to fit the frame we've built for Him. Sentimental attraction or repulsion is not a good basis for determining truth. It shouldn't be ignored; we are not wholly corrupt creatures, and the ick factor can play the canary in the coalmine of unhealthy doctrine or morals. But as fallen creatures, we can't rely on our sentiments alone, or even principally.

Catholics know how to do this in clear matters. God is love, and children do die of cancer, so the fact that children die of cancer doesn't mean God is a great big brute more deserving of a poke in the eye than praise and obedience. But in more abstract matters? If God didn't love the massa damnata, should we then treat Him with hearty contempt? Or what if -- pardon the impiety -- our beloved pets don't go to heaven?

The point is this: My God is God. Every Christian's God is God. Terms like "my God" and "the Calvinist God" refer to beliefs about He Who Is, not about a god that may or may not exist. To say to a Calvinist, "My God is not cruel the way your God is" is like telling your brother, "My father is not left-handed the way your father is." God either is or is not cruel; your father either is or is not left-handed. In either case, though, the subject is the same. It's wrong to think the subject is different, and that's an error that can have lasting consequences.

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Short questions with long answers

There's a discussion at Catholic and Enjoying It! on the subjective distaste Catholics have with the reported difficulty Calvinists have answering the question, "Does God love me?" (One Calvinist, who runs a very thoughtful blog, conceded, "I believe He does," when Mark Shea asked him that question.) Catholics [should know enough Catholicism to] give a quick and simple, "Yes."

Catholics shouldn't feel too smug about Calvinists' answer to this question, though. Ask a Catholic, "Am I going to heaven?" and you get a similar run-around, since as I understand things, "Am I going to heaven?" is to Catholicism as "Does God love me?" is to Calvinism. The Catholic can take some comfort in the fact that his squirrelly answer deals with the future, and most answers about the future require some bet-hedging. He'll need all the comfort he can get when he's asked, "If God loves everyone, why would He damn anyone?" With this, at least, the Calvinist has a quick and simple, "Exactly!"

The problems with the idea that there are people whom God doesn't love go beyond sentiment and proof-texting. If God doesn't love a person, the person is unlovable. This means there is nothing good about the person: not his reason, not his eyesight, not his existence. But God is the sovereign creator; the unloved person's existence, which is evil, can have no other source than God.

This seems to produce a metaphysical mess. Even if we finesse the matter of God creating an evil existence, we have the question of whether the reprobate's evil existence is the same thing as the predestined's existence. If they aren't the same, then the reprobate and the predestined are essentially different kinds of creatures; if they are the same, then how can the predestined share in God's existence as His child? It would be like drawing a face on a rock with a crayon and saying, "This is my adopted son Theo."

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Veritas

This week, John Allen's "The Word From Rome" column covers a talk by Fr. Augustine DiNoia, OP, Under-secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and all-around good egg:

One intriguing moment came when Di Noia suggested that the emphasis on whether or not a doctrine is "infallible" that followed the First Vatican Council has in some ways placed the accent on the authority of a teaching rather than its truth. He said that when the New York Times called him upon the release of the papal encyclical Evangelium Vitae to ask if it was infallible, he responded that this was "the least interesting question to ask."

"The better question is, is it true?" he said.

That reminds me of something a lesser Dominican once wrote, "Away from the neighborhoods of unambiguity, the question of whether a proposition is heretical or infallible is of vanishingly small interest to me, compared to the question of whether it is true!"

I suspect, though, that some NCR readers will misunderstand Fr. DiNoia's point.

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Certainly there's risk

Therese makes a good point commenting on my "Certitude and risk" post, in which I wrote that for some people "preemption is admittedly a form of risk management":

The same can be said for a "non-interference" attitude. A good number of the peace protestors were more motivated by fear of what might happen if we went to war than concern for true justice and peace.

I agree. Fear of the consequences affected both sides in the debate over invading Iraq. Fear tends to inflate both the estimated probability and the estimated cost of a bad thing happening, which form the basis of risk management -- or, less formally, simple prudence.

But there is an important distinction. In just war theory, the bad things that might happen if war is started are treated in risk management terms: the probability of success must be estimated. The bad things that might happen absent a war, however, are treated in moral absolute terms: the damage inflicted must be grave, lasting, and certain.

So while fear needs to be resisted to have a clear understanding of the circumstances and a decent idea of what might happen in the future, to go to war and to not go to war are not simply two alternative plans to be proposed for mitigating the risks to a country's security and prosperity.

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Great opportunity!

Have you been pulling your hair out over the "Bush = Caligula" moral equivalency coming from the Democratic Party at Prayer? Here's your chance to set things right!

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Certitude and risk

In his "Ends and Means" post on preemptive war, Mark at Minute Particulars writes:

Preemption attempts to anticipate with moral certitude what another person will do before they do it.

For some people, maybe. For others, though, preemption is admittedly a form of risk management.

In a simple version of risk management, you weight a risk by multiplying the probability it will occur by the cost of it occurring. You then think of the best way to mitigate the risk, by reducing its probability or its cost. If the cost of mitigating it is sufficiently less than the weighted cost, and you can afford it, you go ahead and mitigate.

I don't know if anyone who favored attacking Iraq went through any sort of structured analysis, but language like, "What if we do nothing and they blow up Buffalo?" is fundamentally an appeal to risk management, a willingness to act -- in some cases an insistence on the moral necessity to act -- with explicitly less than moral certitude.

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Where is my sense of proportionality?

Commenting on my previous post, Patrick Sweeney suggests I'm grousing at the wrong guy: "Of course Donohue's comment was petty, but the real enemy here is Bishop Grahmann."

Actually, the real enemy here is nonsensical reasoning. Donohue was fulminating against a hippie-dippie television character; he did not mention Bishop Grahmann.

Still, it's an accurate criticism of me that I often criticize critics for being critical and say little or nothing critical about those first criticized, whose sins may well be greater. Why do I do this?

If we want to make the right decision in a given set of circumstances, we need to know what the circumstances truly are. A critic presents his view of the circumstances created by the person he criticizes; the criticism is an argument of what the circumstances truly are.

Between evaluating circumstances and evaluating arguments, I am (I think) much better at evaluating arguments. I am also usually in a much better position to evaluate an argument, because there are usually circumstances of which I am not aware. A piece of criticism, though, is more or less self-contained and can be considered on its own merits.

Criticizing criticism is a critical skill. It's also transferrable. If I know how to criticize a letter to the editor on a religious topic, I know how to criticize an opinion piece on economics or a blog posting on the U.N. Too often, I think, people respond to what they read with a simple, "I agree; you're a genius," or, "I disagree; you're an idjit." When thinking like this achieves prominence in the public conversation, grave damage can result. Even when we agree with a conclusion, we should be able to test the soundness of another's argument.

Finally, I've never found there to be a shortage of first-order criticism. If I do go after the wrong guy, there are still plenty of others attacking the real enemy.

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Covered in glory

The Dallas dust-up has gone national with a letter from William A. Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights (or, as I think of it, the Catholic League for Publicizing the Opinions of William A. Donohue).

Set aside the relative merits of Rod Dreher's attack on and Bronson Havard's defense of Bishop Grahmann, and take a look at what William Donohue wrote:

It is not hard to figure out why Mr. Havard is angered by Mr. Dreher. Mr. Havard was a staunch supporter of the failed ABC show Nothing Sacred. His hero was Father Ray, the pro-abortion hippie-dippie priest who exploited the poor and defied the church. Unfortunately, it was precisely those malcontents in the church (exemplified by Father Ray) who created the sex abuse scandal.

The president of an extremely public Catholic organization claims, in a secular forum, that the reason a bishop's longtime employee, supporter, and friend is angry with the bishop's denunciatory critic is clearly seen in the fact that the employee liked the lead character of a TV show that went off the air five years ago. The same president goes on to claim pro-abortion malcontent priests created the sex abuse scandal.

With friends of the Church like this, who needs the Boston Globe?

The Church's spiritual recovery from the scandal may require fidelity, fidelity, and fidelity. Recovering the Church's voice in the public square, though, will requirer clearer thinking than Donohue's bizarre hobbyhorseride exhibits, and a heap less of the sort of petty foolishness that's been appearing in the Dallas Morning News.

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Revised works of spiritual mercy

Most of us have pet peeves, emotional buttons that, when pressed, engage our irascibility while bypassing our reason. (How else to explain Usenet?)

Some people, though, seem to have their buttons stuck, their PEEVED bit set and never cleared. When this emotional state occurs in a Catholic of a certain liturgically conservative bent, we get the phenomenon of the Crabby Catholic, someone who has a measurable physiological response at the mention of the rumor of a clown Mass that might have occurred in Oakland in 1972.

Crabby Catholics have a reputation for believing that the Church achieved perfection in 1958 and that every change made since then has been a move further downhill into the swamps of relativism and decay. This reputation is undeserved. For example, Crabby Catholics have embraced a revised set of Spiritual Works of Mercy:

1. Admonish the sinner Ted Kennedy. At least once a month. No need for him to be present at the time.
2. Instruct the ignorant about how ignorant they are. Stupid, too.
3. Counsel the doubtful that yes, on your reading of the GIRM, if the sacrament wasn't actually invalid at least the priest ought to be censured. Not that he will be.
4. Comfort the sorrowful, unless fraternal correction in charity demands the quoting of Canon Law.
5. Bear wrongs ostentatiously and indefinitely.
6. Forgive all injuries for which sufficient apologies have been offered. (Of course, no apology is sufficient for guitar Masses.)
7. Pray for the living modernists to soon be dead.

Who says development of traditions is dead?

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Irony and moralism

In the admittedly small amount of commentary I've seen on Bill Bennett's gambling, I haven't yet come across a sufficient reason for me to care.

The primary reason offered seems to be that I can finally slake my blood-lust, can drink my fill at the gashed throat of a self-anointed scold of morality.

I'll pass.

A lot of the foaming hatred of Bennett people are expressing seems to be based on their resentment at being reminded that there are such things as virtues, that there is such a thing as morality. Some people may already know these things and just not want to be reminded; others, I suspect, don't really believe in them at all.

If someone tells me, "James Buchanan was the fifteenth president of the United States," my first thought is,"That's true." If someone tells me, "You are a sinner," my first thought is, "Who are you to say that to me?" I can't acknowledge the truth of a statement that casts me in a bad light.

That's due to pride. Pride is a vice.

Those enjoying the irony of a morality merchant who is a high stakes gambler don't recognize, or don't care about, the irony in the immorality of their own enjoyment.

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This business of religion

I've spent a bit of time, off and on, among writers. Amateur writers, part-time writers, full-time writers, real writers (this last category comprising people who have published books). I don't think I've ever heard any of them worry out loud about making too much money at it.

Amy Welborn, both a real and a full-time writer, is worried, sort of:

Ever since I have been writing on religion, I have struggled with the issue of making money off of it.... Not that I make a lot, mind you.... But it still seems to me not quite right - hoping for more sales, negotiating for a favorable advance, trying to think of an idea that will perhaps get the attention, not just of a Catholic publisher, but of a secular publisher that can distribute more widely and therefore make us more money...

It seems to me that, if doing all these things is quite all right for a freelance science writer, it's quite all right for a freelance religious writer. Absent private revelation, there's no simony involved in optimizing your writing income; the laborer is worth his wages, which are modest enough to begin with.

And yet, in the natural discomfort she feels at mixing faith and business -- even in as leverage-less a way as writing -- Amy has an advantage over those of us with purely secular occupations. She has a built-in mechanism for asking herself hard questions:

Making a living off of religion or the preaching of morality is a treacherous path. People who do so should always be scraping their consciences and willingly allowing those consciences to be pricked. Do I want this to sell so more people can get the message or so I can make more money? What responsibility do I have towards the money I make as I talk about spiritual and moral issues? And - always - is my life matching up to what I'm saying?

Aren't these the same sorts of questions we should all be asking ourselves, regardless of what we do for a living? "Has money become my primary motivation? How am I spending the money I earn? Is my life matching up to what I'm saying I believe?"

"Professional Catholics," be they writers, clergy, or parochial school secretaries, do have a potential for scandal the rest of us don't. In the eyes of some, their personal failings can invalidate everything they say, including the quotations from the Catechism. But even here they have an advantage: it's easier for them to judge how well they are spreading the Good News in their work. It's less obvious, though just as necessary, to figure out whether I'm doing a good job of mediating the Spirit of Jesus Christ while developing software.

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The Angel of the Apocalypse

Today is the memorial of St. Vincent Ferrer, OP, on the Dominican Calendar. Yes, I know it's April 5 on the Roman Calendar, but April 5 is usually during Lent, and though few saints are more Lenten in spirit than St. Vincent, the Dominicans decided to move his feast so it wouldn't always be trumped by Holy Week and Easter Week.

In a word, St. Vincent was a celebrity. An extraordinarily gifted preacher and a prodigious miracle worker, he was an important source of credibility for the Avignon antipopes during the Great Western Schism. Eventually, he left the court of Benedict XIII to travel through a Europe still recovering from the Black Death, spending the last twenty years of his life as an itinerant preacher. He believed the world would soon end; that conviction, coupled with his gifts of preaching and miracles, led many to repentance. He obtained permission to refer to himself as the Angel of the Apocalypse -- which is why, if you see an old statue or painting of a Dominican with wings, you can assume it's St. Vincent -- and had upwards of ten thousand penitents following him from town to town on his preaching missions.

(We complain now about priest shortages, poor homilies, and weak faith formation. In one of his letters, St. Vincent writes of visiting villages that hadn't seen a single priest in thirty years.)

In addition to his work as a preacher and on healing the schism (even though his belief in the legitimacy of Benedict XIII's claims had through the years strengthened the antipope's position), St. Vincent wrote several valuable treatises. One, The Treatise on the Spiritual Life, was written for Dominican friars but is worthwhile reading for everyone; Preserving Christian Publications sells a paperback copy for three dollars. A couple of chapters, on spiritual temptations and false revelations, are excerpted online.

While not all his advice is directly applicable -- I think of the passage where he points out that if you sleep on straw without a pillow, you'll be less likely to laze about in bed in the morning -- most of it is at least adaptable:

Do you desire to study to your advantage? Let devotion accompany all your studies, and study less to make yourself learned than to become a saint. Consult God more than your books, and ask him, with humility, to make you understand what you read. Study fatigues and drains the mind and heart. Go from time to time to refresh them at the feet of Jesus Christ under his cross. Some moments of repose in his sacred wounds give fresh vigor and new lights. Interrupt your application by short, but fervent and ejaculatory prayers: never begin or end your study but by prayer. Science is a gift of the Father of lights; do not therefore consider it as barely the work of your own mind or industry.

His insistence on the importance of poverty in the life of the successful friar was so extreme, he did not even follow the Dominican tradition of excepting books from the precept of possessing nothing.

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D.I.Y. sanctity

There are two general criticisms of the Church's canonizations under the current Pope: there are too many of them, and there are too many priests and religious among them.

The first criticism is one I don't understand at all. Does public recognition of the sanctity of a relatively large number of people somehow devalue the sanctity of an individual person?

The second criticism doesn't make much more sense to me. Is there a room in the Vatican where the causes of laypeople go to die? Some sort of clerical conspiracy to keep the laity below the altars?

It seems to me the mechanics of canonization explain everything about the preponderance of religious and clerics among the newly-proclaimed saints. I haven't seen any proposals for altering the mechanics to be more lay-friendly, and as I sit here I can't imagine any such alterations that would appeal to me.

The best way to silence the critics of the number of lay canonizations is to be a saint. Not just in the "my mother was a saint" sense, but in the "even the governor said she was a saint" sense. To have Christ so live in you that people can't stop talking about you even fifty years after your death. Maybe one of those people will be rich, and another will be a good organizer, and they'll get together and petition the bishop to open your cause.

Probably not, though, which is one reason the criticism is mostly invalid. You don't have much say in whether a cult forms around you after your death. You do, though, have some say in whether your life is one around which a cult could form.

I've been thinking about "lay nonisity," the sense in which layfolk ought to be satisfied with nothing less and nothing other than God. It's one thing for a religious to desire nothing but God, and to be happy with nothing less; that, more or less, is what they vow when they enter religious life. A layperson, though, has relationships with others that are neither forsworn nor forswearable; there is something wrong in a mother saying, "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away," upon the death of her child. A layperson's family and friends are his means to God; a spouse is a source of sanctification.

At some level, everyone must recognize that God alone suffices -- nothing less and nothing more.

"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."

But that level is, or at least appears, different for a layperson and for a religious. A religious sister might become famous for her spiritual and corporeal works of mercy among the poor; a married woman is called to spiritual and corporeal works of mercy among her family. Just as a nun who told a beggar to wait in the street until she finished her prayers fails in both contemplation and activity, so a mother who tells her children to wait until she's finished contemplating God is neither a good mother nor a good saint. (Remember the story of St. Frances of Rome, who returned to her prayerbook after the umpteenth household interruption to find the letters had turned to gold.)

A layperson may encounter God in the relationships with the people around him as much as in the prayer time he carves out for himself. So too may a religious, of course, but the different states of life have different relationships. It's easier for people to see the holiness in caring for the poor or putting up with an incompetent superior than in caring for the kids or putting up with an incompetent father. That's true as we look through the Church for candidates for sainthood, and it's true as we look through our own lives for the means God gives us to obtain Him.

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Nonisity

It is said that once, when St. Thomas Aquinas was praying before a crucifix, Jesus' voice spoke to him, saying, "You have written well of me, Thomas. What should be your reward?"

"Non nisi te, Domine," St. Thomas answered. Nothing but you, Lord.

Several things can be said about this anecdote, including the observation that St. Thomas composed a miniature, impromptu Latin poem in response to Jesus' question.

But I think the gist of his reply -- non nisi te -- is reflected in recent posts at Flos Carmeli arguing against the sufficiency of knowledge. So I'm coining the word "nonisity" to mean precisely the attitude of the person satisfied with nothing less, and nothing other, than God. Since Mr. Riddle and I are having so much trouble finding the words with which to agree with each other, maybe we need some new words.

O Lord, it is you who are my portion and cup;
it is you yourself who are my prize. [Psalm 16:5]

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Good habits

Apropos of nothing, here are some habits I recommend cultivating:

1. The habit of silence.
2. The habit of solitude.
3. The habit of intercessory prayer.
4. The habit of praying the Psalms.
5. The habit of praying the Rosary.
6. The habit of Eucharistic adoration.
7. The habit of lectio divina.
8. The habit of spiritual reading.
9. The habit of ejaculatory prayer.
10. The habit of blessing others.

Cultivating a habit is simple: do it every day for a month.

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Computer aids for the Rosary

There is a link at Summa Contra Mundum to the Virtual Rosary, a program which (among other assistance) tells you which mysteries to pray depending on which day it is.

If you don't have the time to download the program, you can just use my little web-based program:

Choose the day of the week: SundayMondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFridaySaturday

Labels: Praying the Rosary

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Stupid test

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Extreme
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very High
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Extreme
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Extreme
Level 7 (Violent)	Very High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very High

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

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Celebrate May Day in style

Kat Lively's new book, Saints Preserve Us, is out! Stop by the party at Come On, Get Lively, one of the most appropriately-named blogs I know.

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Dusting off that other blog

I've added a couple of posts to Praying the Post today. The good is news of a servant of God from the Washington Archdiocese. The bad and the ugly are, as usual, both in today's column by Richard Cohen.

In his defense, one of Cohen's recent columns -- probably from April some time -- contained nothing with which I disagreed. So it is possible.

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Playtime's over

It would be easier to take some people seriously if they acted like grownups.

If I wrote an action statement for an imaginary Islamo-Christian religious movement, put on a silly costume, trespassed on federal property, committed petty vandalism against a nuclear missile silo, stood around until someone showed up to arrest me, stayed in jail until my trial because I refused to promise I wouldn't do it again, represented myself at trial, was convicted of the crimes I committed, and found myself facing up to thirty years in prison, I am sure I would experience a variety of emotions.

But surprise at the guilty verdict would not be one of them. Unless, of course, I was just playing and expected everyone else to play along until I said the game was over.

I suppose the game is over for the three sisters; they've been released until sentencing, after promising to behave themselves. I'm sure al-Qabid understands that the thrill of playing the prophet is gone once people start treating you the way people usually treat prophets.

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An illuminating May

Happy Feast of St. Joseph the Worker! Happy Month of Mary! I hope your day has been as invigorating as mine.

This, as you know, is the first May since Pope John Paul II recommended the addition of the luminous mysteries to the Rosary devotion. A lot has been written since October about the luminous mysteries. I've come across two new articles just this week.

One looks at the Third (and vaguest) Luminous Mystery, the Proclamation of the Kingdom of God. The author suggests "we might see this mystery as crucial because in it Christ makes known just how every person ought to live, no matter what their state in life."

(Incidentally, the author of the article is a Sister of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, a new congregation of Dominican sisters I commend to your prayers and support.)

The second article, in this month's St. Anthony's Messenger, is a personal meditation on the entire set of luminous mysteries, by a Franciscan friar. (Thanks to Peter Nixon for this link.)

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Happy St. Michael Ghisleri Day!

Today is the feast day of a little-known Dominican friar, St. Michael Ghisleri. According to one online source, Fra Michael

made at least two meditations a day on bended knees in presence of the Blessed Sacrament. In his charity he visited the hospitals, and sat by the bedside of the sick, consoling them and preparing them to die. He washed the feet of the poor, and embraced the lepers. It is related that an English nobleman was converted on seeing him kiss the feet of a beggar covered with ulcers.

He was also devoted to the Blessed Virgin and her Rosary.

That a saint would be doing all these sorts of things isn't surprising; that's why they're saints. Fra Michael was too zealous in his service to others to let the fact he was reigning as pope at the time slow him down.

(Oh, and there are some other, less important things he was involved with, like that battle and that grant "in perpetuity" for that missal. Let those who wave these banners under his patronage today take the time to kiss the feet of beggars as well.)

It's probably true that, if Fra Michael hadn't been elected pope, he wouldn't be a canonized saint today. But you have to go back two hundred years, or forward one hundred, to find another pope who was beatified. Obviously it wasn't the papacy that sanctified him.

There's an astonishing variety in the lives of the saints, along with a pronounced similarity. It's like the difference between your hand and your foot, which are distinct with different purposes but united by a single soul that vivifies both. We may not all be called to be pope, be we are all called to the same end, and called by the same Voice.

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Contemplation is for everyone

I heard second-hand about two homilies given for St. Catherine's feast yesterday.

One involved a long set-up leading to the payoff that, if St. Catherine's parents had practiced contraception, the Church would have been denied a Doctor of the Church. (She was at or near the end of about two dozen children.)

This has been suggested as an example of "underpreaching" the material.

The other homilist held up St. Catherine as an example writ large that intimate union with God is not a treat reserved for a special few in this life, but something everyone is capable of, through the graces of the Holy Spirit given us prodigally at baptism. "Union with God in love" is also known as "contemplation," and it's as available to you as it is to a hermit. All you have to do is seek, knock, and ask.

To say that contemplation is for everyone is to say it's for every person in every state of life. It's not to say it's for every lifestyle. A socialite may be a contemplative, but the "socialite lifestyle," as commonly conceived, is not contemplative. Contemplation is a free gift of God, but it doesn't usually come free. St. Catherine's advice includes this:

Die to the world and hasten along this way of truth, so as not to be taken prisoner if you go slowly.... Beware that you never leave the cell of self-knowledge, but in this cell preserve and spend the treasure ... which is a doctrine of truth founded upon the living stone, sweet Christ Jesus, clothed in light which scatters darkness....

Her example shows that an extremely public life can still be an extremely contemplative life. We may not all be called to the same extremes, but we are all called to the same end. Nothing but our own contrariness prevents us from experiencing something of that end in our lives today.

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More on merit

Human minds, as I've written, aren't very good at thinking two things at once. Losing the balance of "unmerited merit" is dead easy, and even if you can keep your balance it often looks to others as though you've fallen off in one direction or the other.

The Catechism sums up the Catholic teaching on merit with these words:

We can have merit in God's sight only because of God's free plan to associate man with the work of his grace. Merit is to be ascribed in the first place to the grace of God, and secondly to man's collaboration. Man's merit is due to God.

The grace of the Holy Spirit can confer true merit on us, by virtue of our adoptive filiation, and in accordance with God's gratuitous justice. Charity is the principal source of merit in us before God.

No one can merit the initial grace which is at the origin of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life, as well as necessary temporal goods. [CCC 2025-2027]

The balance this doctrine achieves isn't like the balance of a rock at the bottom of a hill. It's dynamic; like all mysteries of the faith, it's not a concept we relax in, but one we embrace with (ideally) a certain sense of exhiliration. We can't rest yet, because even though God has given us the fullness of truth we don't yet fully comprehend it.

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The doctor of self-knowledge

For St. Catherine of Siena, self-knowledge is the root of all virtue. Self-knowledge itself is based on the principle God explained to St. Catherine in the well-known words, "I am He Who Is, and you are she who is not."

Most people, probably, would readily agree that they are not God. Some people, though, find it more natural to observe that the people around them aren't God, and I'd guess almost everyone has trouble understanding that (and in what sense) they "are not." Sure, I obtained and preserve my being through a free act of God, but everybody else better treat me right if they aren't looking for trouble.

St. Catherine's Dialogue includes this passage, spoken to her by God:

This virtue of discretion is no other than a true knowledge which the soul should have of herself and of Me, and in this knowledge is virtue rooted. Discretion is the only child of self-knowledge, and, wedding with charity, has indeed many other descendants, as a tree which has many branches; but that which gives life to the tree, to its branches, and its root, is the ground of humility, in which it is planted, which humility is the foster-mother and nurse of charity, by whose means this tree remains in the perpetual calm of discretion. Because otherwise the tree would not produce the virtue of discretion, or any fruit of life, if it were not planted in the virtue of humility, because humility proceeds from self-knowledge.

Note St. Catherine's fondness for the untamed metaphor. I think it makes passages here and there somewhat confusing, especially when metaphors meet (e.g., when humility is both soil to the tree of virtue and nurse to charity in the same sentence); once untangled, though, they are powerful constructs for understanding and remembering her teachings. I recommend a modern translation, though; Algar Thorold's public domain translation is a bit tangled itself.

The passage continues:

And I have already said to you, that the root of discretion is a real knowledge of self and of My goodness, by which the soul immediately, and discreetly, renders to each one his due. Chiefly to Me in rendering praise and glory to My Name, and in referring to Me the graces and the gifts which she sees and knows she has received from Me; and rendering to herself that which she sees herself to have merited, knowing that she does not even exist of herself, and attributing to Me, and not to herself, her being, which she knows she has received by grace from Me, and every other grace which she has received besides.

The humility proceeding from self-knowledge is not a false humility, denying one's own merits, but one that understand merit properly belongs to a person, even as it understands that no merit is caused by anything intrinsic in the person, but only by the grace of God. That my merit is due to God is implied in the knowledge that I am not God, but I don't habitually dwell in that cell of self-knowledge where such implications are found. I rely on the words and intercessions of Dr. Benincasa to teach me what God would love to teach me directly if I really wanted to listen.

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Hail, victim of the love divine

The Little Office of St. Catherine of Siena is not much prayed these days, I suspect. Dominican tertiaries who once would have prayed it are now praying the Liturgy of the Hours. That's good, I think, although I have a sort of false romantic nostalgia for the little offices.

I have a copy of the Little Office of St. Catherine, featuring three hymns across the eight hours. Matins, Sext, and None use verses from this one:

Well do we count thee worthy of all praises,
O peerless virgin, for thy spirit bright
Ascends on high, crowned with triumphant graces
And robed in light.

To thee in all its fullness now is given
The high reward won by thy noble life;
Thou here on earth didst prove thy right to heaven
Where joys are rife.

   Sing we the Father anthems of thanksgiving;
   Sing we the Son who reigns eternally;
   Sing we the Holy Ghost forever living --
   The One and Three.

Thou shinest in the train of Him whose spirit
Did gather preacher bands from every shore,
Bright'ning the world with His effulgent merit,
Our pattern pure.

Earth ne'er could chain thy heart from love's sweet duty
Midst all the gilded pleasures of the flesh:
Maintaining still thy spiritual beauty
Forever fresh.

   Sing we the Father anthems of thanksgiving;
   Sing we the Son who reigns eternally;
   Sing we the Holy Ghost forever living --
   The One and Three.

Thy pure and blameless body, vowed to Heaven,
Chastising oft, thou in most dol'rous mood
Wouldst weep the sins of men, nor spared'st even
Thy willing blood.

All who by divers woes and great tormented,
Whom fickle fortune tossed in life like toys,
On every side by fearful cares prevented
From tasting joys.

   Sing we the Father anthems of thanksgiving;
   Sing we the Son who reigns eternally;
   Sing we the Holy Ghost forever living --
   The One and Three.

Lauds, Prime, Terce, and Vespers share this hymn:

The maid by angels taught to pray,
To heavenly secrets finds her way,
And by her signs of sore distress
Christ's bitter Passion doth express.

O happy Bride, who dost possess
The full of heavenly happiness,
Lend gracious ear unto the plea
Which we thy clients make to thee.

   O Spouse of Virgins, Jesus mild,
   Thy maiden Mother's only Child,
   May blessed spirits chant Thy praise
   Throughout the span of endless days.

The advent of the morning star
Now sends the shades of night afar,
And ushers in this day so bright
With Catherine's worth and deeds of might.

Hail, thou who didst forever yearn
The Passion and the Cross to learn!
Hail, victim of the love divine,
And modesty's pure lily shrine.

   O Spouse of Virgins, Jesus mild,
   Thy maiden Mother's only Child,
   May blessed spirits chant Thy praise
   Throughout the span of endless days.

Finally, Compline uses this:

O Virgin, summoned and drawn near
To virgins' Spouse by love's great power;
Yet not content with pains severe,
Still eager more on self to shower.

With firm resolve in pain she bows,
The sorrows of the Cross to know,
To suffer with her dol'rous Spouse,
Unvanquished friend in grief and woe.

For you the Lamb of love did die,
With Him, in turn, you then communed,
With blows of love you chastely vie,
Jesus' gentle heart to wound!

To thee, Jesus, be glory meet,
Of virgins both reward and crown;
With Father and the Paraclete,
Forevermore be all renown.

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"Have you come to believe because you have seen me?"

There's a good insight at Minute Particulars on St. Thomas the Apostle's culpability for failing to believe his fellow Apostles when they told him Jesus had appeared to them.

I'm a bit defensive on St. Thomas's part. Jesus did show the other Apostles His hands and His side, after all; He even breathed on them and gave them the Holy Spirit. Who can blame St. Thomas, who lacked these advantages, for his doubt? Or rather, who doubts he would doubt in St. Thomas's place?

I like to think St. Thomas's fault was an excess of piety: he couldn't believe Jesus was risen unless Jesus Himself told him, because as a faithful Jew St. Thomas couldn't believe Jesus was God unless God Himself told him.

From another perspective, though, this piety was presumptuous. As pointed out at Minute Particulars, it was wrong to refuse to believe the Apostles, to whom Jesus had transferred His authority by giving them the Holy Spirit. "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained": whoever forgives sins possesses God's authority, as the Jews of Jesus' time knew well.

We are called to believe this without seeing. This may be harder than it sounds, especially for people who find Christianity, and in particular Catholicism, perfectly reasonable. "Of course Jesus' Church needs to act with His authority," we reason, "and there is nothing in this world that even could act that way other than the See of Peter and those sees in union with the Holy See." The final leap of faith is sometimes a hop over a tiny chink. The risk is that we might come to expect it to always be a tiny chink, then find ourselves ill prepared for the day when, from whatever causes, it suddenly becomes a blind chasm. When we no longer see, will we still cry out in faith, "My Lord and my God"?

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A limited-time offer

As I just wrote, today is St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort Day. St. Louis was one of the Church's greatest preachers on the Blessed Virgin Mary. Kathy the Carmelite posted today about an audiotape series on Mary she considers the best tool she's "ever seen for addressing the Protestant impasse on Mary."

Trusting Kathy's judgment, I'd be happy to send a set of the tapes to the first Protestant bothered by the Catholic Marian doctrines who sends me his address.

Here's the description of the series, "The Bible and Mary" by Steve Wood, on the L & C Christian Software online catalog:

Steve Wood is a former Protestant minister, noted pro-life leader and the founder and head of St. Joseph's Covenant Keepers, who became a Catholic only after much soul searching. One of the beliefs that kept him out of the Catholic Church so long was his misunderstanding of what Catholics really believe concerning Mary. In this fascinating series, Steve lays the groundwork for understanding the dramatically different views of Mary held by Protestants and Catholics. He shows, for example, how the definition of Mary as the "mother of God" was taken at the Council of Ephesus in 451 A.D. to combat the Nestorian heresy and how failure to do so would have undermined the divinity of Christ. This doctrine of theotokos (Greek for Mother of God) was universally accepted by Christians up until the Protestant Reformation. Steve also discusses the misunderstood doctrine of the Immaculate Conception as well as the perpetual virginity of Mary, in the context of both Scripture and Apostolic Tradition. Drawing on Biblical passages often overlooked, he explains two Marian doctrines often misunderstood by Protestants, the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven and her intercession before the throne of God for sinners on earth. His presentation is both enlightening and insightful, providing a view of the first Christian that all generations, according to Scripture, will call holy.

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It's Dominican Week in the Roman Calendar

Today is the feast of St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort, whose love of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary was so great he was even willing to become a Third Order Dominican to be able to preach it.

Tomorrow is the feast of St. Catherine of Siena, Patroness of the Dominican Order and Doctor of the Church. She is admired and claimed as soul-sister by many people today, not all of whom are demonstrably keen on following her example of humility and discretion founded on the truth:

But, in no way, does the creature receive such a taste of the truth, or so brilliant a light therefrom, as by means of humble and continuous prayer, founded on knowledge of herself and of God; because prayer, exercising her in the above way, unites with God the soul that follows the footprints of Christ Crucified, and thus, by desire and affection, and union of love, makes her another Himself.

Wednesday is the feast of St. Pius V, of Lepanto and Our Lady of the Rosary fame. As bishop and later pope, he continued to wear his Dominican habit, with some modifications; to this day, popes wear white. In 1570, St. Pius excommunicated Queen Elizabeth of England and absolved English Catholics of their obedience to her, leading one Irish-American to say, on behalf of the Irish of the Penal Years, "Thanks, Pope."

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You get more of what you reward

If comments are the food pellets of the blogger's cage, then, as was pointed out at Flos Carmeli (inspired by The 7 Habitus), most of us are trained to avoid spirituality in favor of pressing the scandal lever. (Or my personal favorite, the unresolvable debate lever, which can prompt comments from people who haven't had a new thought on the subject since 1992.)

There are two not-quite-identical questions to ask: Why do non-spiritual posts generate relatively greater response? And why do spiritual posts generate relatively less response?

Part of the answer to the first question is, as Johann Tauler might have put it, that people don't live in the depths of their souls. Bobbing along on the surface of their existence, people naturally react to surface things, like whether a priest eight dioceses removed sat down during Mass without purifying a chalice. (Take a moment and imagine the conversation:

Jesus: So, what's on your mind today?
You: I am upset about how little love is shown to You.
Jesus: I forgive y-
You: Just today I read about what a priest in Des Moines said during a homily last month. The nerve!
Jesus: Indeed.

)

The religiosity I've been harping on comes into play here, too, since people (well, me, but presumably other people too) think that religiosity signifies depths, when what it really signifies is, I suppose, concentration.

The answer to why spiritual posts don't generate much of a visible response, whatever the interior response might be, is probably more involved. Speaking for myself, there are a lot of contributing reasons: Even by my low standards, I am relatively unlikely to be in the depths of my soul when I am sitting in front of a computer; when I read something that affects me, I often don't have anything to say about it right away; there's a sense that responding along the lines of, "Very good," is at the same time inadequate and condescending, like giving someone a good grade for surpassing my expectations of them. For posts on Catholic blogs, there's also the sense that everyone has already read them, or soon will, and that pointing them out is unnecessary and even a bit intrusive. (Also a bit clumsy, while Blogger's archiving remains flakey.)

Maybe we should create a Chrysostom blog (it would have to be a blog, of course; a mailing list would be so 1990s), where people can recommend good spiritual writing. That might make bloggers pander to people who want good spiritual writing, but maybe that wouldn't be an entirely bad thing.

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Hammering on religiosity

Fr. Rob Johansen returns to the aptly-named Thrown Back, with these words:

But some of the comments directed at Bishop Murray were, to be blunt, nothing short of scurrilous. I am always amazed at the conclusions that people are willing to draw from scanty evidence, or the entire lack of it. I hope that those who were quick to condemn Bishop Murray will be equally ready to give him their support and prayers.

That quickness to condemn is one of the things that I meant to condemn when I started by "Remember the joy?" post below, until it wandered off in several other directions.

I think a lot of Catholics have bought into the me-and-Jesus notion of Christianity, in which whatever faith and spirituality they live by is lived in private. That means their public conversation, even when it's about religion, is not about faith and spirituality. It might be about aesthetics, it might be about ecclesiology, it might be about social politics at the parish level. All of these things have something to do with the Catholic faith, but they aren't the faith. They're part of the religiosity I mentioned the other day, with which a lot of people (myself included) busy ourselves.

The sort of combative religiosity that condemns a bishop as some sort of apostate for doing something not approved of doesn't really go well with Christian joy, and it doesn't do much to convince others that their lives will never be completed and fulfilled without a personal commitment to public prayer in a Catholic church.

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Which Twentieth Century Pope are you?


You are Pope St. Pius X. You'd rather be right than newfangled.


Which Twentieth Century Pope Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Raise your hand if you're surprised.

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Remember the joy?

Last Friday, the Church commemorated the passion and death of our Lord. Last Sunday, the Church celebrated His resurrection. "Alleluia!" we all sang. We were joyful.

It's a peculiar kind of joy. Its source is the presence in our midst of a Man who once was dead but now lives. If we ask, He might show us the nail prints in His hands, but they aren't very noticable. He cleans up real good. The Crucifixion was last week's news.

When I was reading Ecclesia de Eucharistia, I was struck by the thought that the Eucharist is an extraordinarily clever idea:

In the Eucharist we have Jesus, we have his redemptive sacrifice, we have his resurrection, we have the gift of the Holy Spirit, we have adoration, obedience and love of the Father.

All of that, and more, packed into the most ordinary version of the most ordinary thing mankind makes.

With our wee brains, we can only think one thought at a time. We can think about the Crucifixion, or we can think about the Resurrection, or we can think about the link between them, but we really can't hold them both fully in our minds. And yet, through the magnanimity of God, we can hold them both fully in our hand, receive them both fully on our tongue. That may be the secret of Eucharistic adoration: whatever our minds are fixed on, our souls are made present to the fullness of Truth.

So the Eucharist gives us both the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. These are inseparable, not like two links of an unbreakable chain, but like two syllables in the name of our beloved. His death on the cross wasn't something Jesus endured on the way to His resurrection, like the stinky refineries you endure on the way to New York City. The Crucifixion was the way to the Resurrection. St. John's Gospel almost suggests an identity between them, and it may only be our boundedness to time that forces us to make a distinction. Perhaps when (God willing) we see Christ Jesus face to face, we will see the Crucifixion and the Resurrection at once and understand their essential unity.

Well, whatever the best way to think about it, it's certain that there's a relationship between the events of Good Friday and the events of Easter Sunday. The Passion isn't just a bad memory but an integral part of Who Jesus is, and so of who we are as His disciples. The human experience is of cycles of suffering and rejoicing. As Christians, though, we should always suffer and always rejoice, and whenever we're not doing one or the other we're shirking our discipleship of telling the world the Good News and of dying for each other.

In his Easterweek column for the archdiocesan newspaper (here this week; there after), Cardinal McCarrick writes of looking at the Triduum crowds in St. Matthew's Cathedral and being "troubled by the fact that they do not come to Mass every Sunday, that despite all the Church tries to do, we have not convinced them that their lives will never be completed and fulfilled without a personal commitment to public prayer."

I wonder if part of the reason we -- note the pronoun -- have not convinced the Christmas-and-Easter Catholics to come to Mass every Sunday is because we do an unconscionably poor job of manifesting Christian joy.

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Rumor Centralis

In a bid to broaden Disputation's appeal beyond the 18-35 market segment^*, and taking advantage of the hunger for news caused by Zenit's vacation, I'm going to start peddling baseless ecclesial rumors. (Why not? It worked for that other blog. You know the one.)

Tell your friends.

The inaugural rumor is that, emboldened by the reception of his 20-page book of poetic meditations A Roman Tryptych, Pope John Paul II is planning on publishing several more poems, including A Krakow Tryptych, A Manila Tryptych, and A Cryptic Tryptych (this last being a poetic meditation on the Three Secrets of Fatima). Some senior Vatican officials, who fancy themselves custodians of John Paul the Great's legacy, are less than enthusiastic about this new program, possibly because they fear the publication of such lesser papal works as "Attraverso il Parabola Pallido di Gioia" will lessen the Pope's literary stature. One cardinal admitted off the record that he was made extremely nervous when the Pope asked him recently whether he knew of any language in which "blatzinger" was a real word.

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^*18-35 is an estimate of the number of people worldwide who are interested in arguments over Balthasar and Garrigou-Lagrange.

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Probability and humility

Continuing on the "Knowing, Loving, and Comprehending" post at Flos Carmeli (my reply didn't fit in his comment box), Steven suspects our strongest disagreement might be over the probability of study becoming an end in itself, which I hope he'll allow me to interpret as believing that study is meritorious (in the Matthew 25 sense) before God. I'm not sure probability is the right way of framing the issue; it suggests an empirically observable distribution and statistical measures applied to populations, and I doubt either of us is interested in measuring the empirical correlation between theological study and pride.

Do theologians love God less than any other group (the canonical group being, for some reason, old peasant women)? I don't know, and I don't much care. I think it suffices to observe that the more exalted a thing the more debased it can be, and that knowledge of God is an exalted thing. But that doesn't make exalted things doubtful.

Personally, my concern is mistaking religiosity for sanctity. Religiosity can take the form of Googling the Summa Theologica, but it can also take the forms of reading Catholic periodicals, putting images of antique holy cards on the Web, writing letters to the local bishop, and singing in a church choir. The mistake is to say, "I spend this many hours a week doing Catholic stuff. That makes me a good Catholic."

As everyone from St. Paul to the Kairos Guy has observed, the way to avoid this mistake is the way of humility. Humility is the universal solvent of self-righteousness. I expect to be astonished on the Last Day, when I am shown how much time and effort I had to spend to avoid getting it on me.

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"Why did God make you?"

"God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in heaven."

I want to agree with Steven Riddle when he writes that "knowledge and study of the things of God are a good in themselves, but they are not the highest good, and they cease to be good when they become the sole purpose of our study. The point of knowing about God is to love God." After all, isn't loving God the greatest commandment?

Unfortunately, I don't think I do agree. I think the point of knowing about God is to know God, and following the trusty old Baltimore Catechism I think knowing God is distinct from loving God. Knowing God is a means of loving God, but it is also an end in itself. In fact, according to St. Thomas, knowing God -- the union of the human intellect with God's very Essence -- is the end, the way we will be happy with God for ever in heaven.

Of course, for St. Thomas the vision of the Divine Essence necessarily produces love of God, so saying our end is to know God as He is is equivalent to saying our end is to love God as He is. Some of my disagreement with Steven is like two people arguing over whether to say, "She is his aunt," or, "He is her nephew."

But if you go back before the part where I swapped "knowing God" for "knowing about God," it still sounds to me that Steven is saying that knowing about God is good only for its utility as a means for loving God, and I still think this is wrong. We know about God with our intellect; we love God with our will. The intellect has its own perfection, independent of the will.

Two examples come to mind to help explain my point. Physical health is good for me. Not as a means for me to love God, but in itself, it is good for me as a physical creature, and I ought to act so as to achieve and maintain physical health. Since physical health is not the greatest good, I shouldn't act to obtain it at all costs; when necessary, I should choose a greater good. But that fact doesn't reduce physical health to a merely useful good. Similarly, knowledge of God is good not merely as a means for me to love God.

The second example is more similar to knowledge of God, and one on which Steven might have further insight: Knowledge of mathematics. It can be a useful good, as a means of obtaining work -- and, as Steven has movingly written, as a means of appreciating the beauty of God. But it can also be a pleasant good, something in which the intellect rests in enjoyment. For mathematicians, knowledge of mathematics is good not primarily because it makes them love God, but because it is a form of perfection of their intellect.

Since humans are made in the image and likeness of a God Who is simple and of perfect integrity, and since our last end is to become like God, all of these things -- health, knowledge, love -- are related and can be considered relative to each other. But knowledge for knowledge's sake is not an optical illusion, so to speak, that clears up when we look at things properly according to the end of loving God. Knowledge genuinely is virtuous and pleasant, as well as useful.

I'm not sure Steven disagrees with any of this, though I suspect he does, and I certainly concede none of what I've written is all that useful for someone trying to follow St. John of the Cross along the narrow road of nada up Mt. Carmel.

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Links for the morbidly curious

In case you were wondering about the dust-up over Pere Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP (TOSO), EWTN has six of his books in its on-line library.

And in case that doesn't tell you enough, here they are:

1. The Three Ways of the Spiritual Life
2. Life Everlasting
3. Christ the Savior
4. Providence
5. Reality: A Synthesis of Thomist Thought
6. The Trinity and God the Creator

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Thinking about thinking

My favorite male Carmelite numerophilic blogger writes:

But the case of Balthasar once again raises a point I often make and often get derided for from the Thomists and proto-Thomists out there. Thought and speculation about God is wonderful and good so long as it leads the thinker and those who can follow him or her toward God. But thought about God is not an end in itself.

One place where St. Thomas touches on this is in his Treatise on Happiness (ST I-II, qq. 1-21). In arguing that everything we desire we desire for our last end, he considers the objection that (as Aristotle says) "speculative science is sought for its own sake."

St. Thomas's reply is that speculative science "is desired as the scientist's good, included in complete and perfect good, which is the ultimate end."

What is this "complete and perfect good," this "ultimate end"? Certainly not speculative sciences, which cannot raise a man above his natural human intellect. Still, St. Thomas insists, "the consideration of speculative sciences is a certain participation of true and perfect happiness." True and perfect happiness itself, however, "can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence."

So are the Thomists and proto-Thomists out there right, from St. Thomas's perspective, to deride Mr. Riddle for raising his point?

Mostly no, but a bit yes, I think. Thought about God is not man's last end, but it is "included" in the last end. It doesn't constitute true and perfect happiness, but it is (or can be) "a certain participation" in that happiness. I think Mr. Riddle's point is, in Thomistic terms, that theology is only a "useful good," something desired as a means to another good. If I'm reading St. Thomas correctly (a big if), theology, as an "imperfect happiness," can actually be a "virtuous good," desired for its own sake.

That's not to say a good can't be virtuous from one aspect and useful from another; if everything is desired for the last end, then everything desired but the last end is a useful good relative to the last end. But I think it's better to speak of greater and lesser goods than of only one virtuous good with the rest being useful (or "not ends in themselves"). Bodily health is, I think, a straight-up good, to be desired for its own sake, even if it is not the highest good or the ruling desire or the last end. And I think the same is true of thinking about God.

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"He speaks the language of love"

You've probably already seen Gerard Serafin's list of reasons he likes Balthasar. I think they're all good reasons to like a theologian, although (as you might expect) they don't all resonate with me as much as with Gerard.

Let me add, with a hint of arrogance, that my issue with Balthasar is whether certain of his speculations are true. I think it's reasonable, based on the historical records of other significant theologians, to expect that at least some of them are false, even if it's not particularly reasonable to expect that I would be able to discern which ones they are. But a few incorrect speculations don't necessarily destroy a body of work, and even were we to accept none of Balthasar's conclusions, from what I know of his life he would still serve as a model of the humility and sensitivity to Tradition all good theologians should possess.

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The beauty of blogging

The best part about blogging is, if you play your posts right, you can get other people to write your best stuff for you. As witness the comments to the "Abandonment of a toady" post below. I mumble something that sounds reasoned -- like the mathematician's wife who learned to ask algebraists, "But do the roots lie in the field?" -- and people who know a lot of things I don't fill me in.

On the density of Balthasar's writings, Fr. Aidan Nichols, OP, has written a trilogy of guides to Balthasar's trilogy. They're basically a rewording of Balthasar's magnum opus, with a little bit of commentary here and there, and I expect them to suffice if or when the time comes for me to look more directly at Balthasar's theology.

(Frankly, I'm a bit disappointed that, so far, it looks like I'll turn out to be a paleo-Thomist. I'm working my way through TAN's Garrigou-Lagrange booklist, and I'm finding him brilliant. I'm such an Aeternipatrician.)

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You know how to and You can and You want to

Today is an excellent day to begin a novena to St. Catherine of Siena, whose feast day is in eight days.

You've probably noticed that St. Catherine has been frequently invoked since January 2002 as the model for how the laity should respond to clerical scandal. You've probably also noticed that she has been invoked both by those who want aggressive confrontation with sinful priests and bishops, and by those who want more passive and less public lay reactions. Who, if anyone, can claim St. Catherine's support is a matter of debate. As far as I know, she hasn't explicitly endorsed a particular group in this matter.

I hope to spend some part of the rest of April reading The Prayers of Catherine of Siena, if I can find my copy in time. (You can browse the entire text online, if you're feeling prayerful yet cheap.) The book is an English translation, by Sr. Suzanne Noffke, OP, of an Italian edition of the collected prayers of St. Catherine. Here is prayer number 5:

Eternal Father, Power,
help me!
Son of God, Wisdom,
enlighten the eye of my understanding!
Holy Spirit, tender Mercy,
enflame my heart
and unite it to Yourself!

I proclaim, eternal God,
that your power is powerful and strong enough
to free your Church and your people,
to snatch us from the devil's hand,
to stop the persecution of holy Church,
and to give me strength and victory
over my own enemies.
I proclaim that the wisdom of your Son,
who is one with you,
can enlighten the eye of my understanding
and that of your people,
and can relieve the darkness of your sweet bride.
And I proclaim, eternal gentle goodness of God,
that the mercy of the Holy Spirit,
your blazing charity,
wants to enflame my heart
and everyone's
and unite them with Yourself.

Eternal Father, Power;
with the Wisdom that is your only-begotten Son
in his precious blood,
and the Mercy that is your Holy Spirit,
fire and deep well of charity
that held this Son
fixed and nailed to the cross --
You know how to
and You can
and You want to,
so I plead with You:
have mercy on the world
and restore the warmth of charity
and peace
and unity
to holy Church.

Oimé!
I wish You would not delay any longer!
I beg You,
let Your infinite goodness force You
not to close the eye of Your mercy!
Gentle Jesus!
Jesus love!

This seems like a common or garden prayer of a saint, and I suppose it is, as long as we understand that a saint's garden is different from the gardens of the rest of us. The notes accompanying the prayer point out, not only the richness of the prayer's Scriptural basis, but also its theological depth. Note the Trinitarian understanding:

Father -- Power -- You can
Son -- Wisdom -- You know how to
Holy Spirit -- Mercy -- You want to

It would probably suffice for both my salvation and my perfection if I could merely learn to pray -- and I mean pray -- those final words, "Gentle Jesus! Jesus love!"

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It's like I was saying

Fr. Bryce Sibley quotes Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar on the relationship between the Father and the Son when Christ descended to Sheol: "the moment of their separation is paradoxically their moment of most intense union."

Now, I'm not a very sophisticated thinker. When I hear "the moment of separation is the moment of most intense union," I assume that the "separation" and the "union" do not refer to the same relation in the same respect. If I say, "I am never closer to my wife than when we are far apart," "far apart" is a measure of physical distance and "closer" an analagous measure of spiritual or emotional "distance." That way of talking is, at least since Chesterton, called a "paradox," but really it's a sort of rhetorical equivocation. It's just a pithy way of making your point.

I sense, though, that Balthasar does not intend his statement the way I interpret it. I think he really does mean "separation" and "union" to describe the same relation in the same respect. As Melanie suggested in a comment below, this is not a paradox; this is a contradiction.

I'm partial to the idea that theology happens at the point where the language breaks, but I'm not sure anyone is trying to break language here. Perhaps, following Mr. Riddle, Balthasar is better thought of as a misdiagnosed poet.

Standard disclaimer: I am not a theologian. There is no particular reason why my sense of what is sound theology should be accurate.

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Happy Easter!

Every now and then, I get my mind, my heart, and my soul aligned with the Church's calendar and have a life-changing solemninty. More often, though, they're out of phase, and the day passes much as any other day, only with better food.

Easter is a particular challenge for me, for a lot of reasons. Lent is too long; I could do a nine-day Lent for the ages, but after a month I am slouching toward Ordinariness. Children do not add a Cistercian-like quality to the Triduum home.

Mostly, perhaps, I am an Easter person anyway. You'd think that would make keeping Easter easier, but for me it means Easter Sunday isn't that much different from the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Even on Good Friday, by temperament I'm thinking about how the story ends (or rather, how it doesn't end).

I take some comfort in the thought that my life, interior and exterior, need not track the liturgical year like the artwork on the EWTN homepage. The point, I think, is to be formed by the liturgy's cycles, not perfected in an instant. Perfection is the goal, of course, and we shouldn't dawdle on the way, but since I wasn't perfect at sunset on Thursday, it's no surprise I wasn't perfect at sunrise on Sunday.

But just wait till sunrise on the Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time!

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On encyclicals and the Ginger Factor

So I'm racing through Ecclesia de Eucharistia, to finish it before tonight's Mass of the Lord's Supper, and I get to the point (in no. 37) where it mentions that the Code of Canon Law "states that those who 'obstinately persist in manifest grave sin' are not to be admitted to Eucharistic communion."

And it suddenly hits me why reporters seize on such bits of rehashed doctrine as the hook on which to hang papal letters. It may have less to do with reporter's prefab notions of the Church than with everyone's experience of the Ginger Factor.

The Ginger Factor, named for a well-known "Far Side" cartoon, is a measure of the ratio of words said to words understood. A dog named Ginger, for example, only understands the word "Ginger" in the sentence, "Okay, Ginger, if you get into the garbage one more time, you'll be spending the night outside."

I think most people, not just benighted reporters, experience a high Ginger Factor with most papal encyclicals; my post below includes a paragraph from an apostolic letter that has a high G.F. for me. Naturally, a reporter doesn't report on the parts of a papal statement that sound like, "Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah.^blah" And naturally, a reporter does recognize (and report on) the part that sounds like, "This means Senator Rawkins is being naughty."

But as I say, it's not just reporters. I haven't seen much commentary on St. Blog's yet about Ecclesia de Eucharistia; let's see how much of it amounts to, "The liberals better watch out!"

A corollary of this -- which is what made me stop reading the encyclical to post this -- is that all the other stuff sounds like "Blah blah blah," even to us knowledgable Catholics.

To choose a sentence more or less at random, in no. 4 the Pope writes, "Whenever the Eucharist is celebrated at the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem, there is an almost tangible return to his 'hour', the hour of his Cross and glorification." I read that and think, "Oh, umhm." It's not till I get to the bit about clean consciences that I sit up and think, "Oh, he's saying something to me, now."

The parts about specific, concrete disciplines or doctrines seem to actually be more concrete than the parts about union with God and others. The identity of the sacrament celebrated at St. Moribund's with the sacrifice on Calvary, that's just part of the comfortable background humming which is my experience of the riches and depths of the Catholic faith. But ooh, tell me an Episcopalian can't receive the Eucharist in my church, and now you're telling me something real.

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Abandonment of a toady

Scratch a boot-licking Vatican toady, and you'll find a cafeteria Catholic waiting to emerge at just the right (or wrong) papal statement.

Kevin Miller at HMS Blog identifies a papal statement that brings out my own "Here I stand" resistance:

When Christ says: "My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?", his words are not only an expression of that abandonment which many times found expression in the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms and in particular in that Psalm 22 [21] from which come the words quoted. One can say that these words on abandonment are born at the level of that inseparable union of the Son with the Father, and are born because the Father "laid on him the iniquity of us all." They also foreshadow the words of Saint Paul: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin." Together with this horrible weight, encompassing the "entire" evil of the turning away from God which is contained in sin, Christ, through the divine depth of his filial union with the Father, perceives in a humanly inexpressible way this suffering which is the separation, the rejection by the Father, the estrangement from God. [Savifici Doloris, no. 19]

In my abjectly amateur opinion, Kevin is right to say that this passage is "consistent with, and perhaps indeed informed by, Balthasar's theology."

Now, I am familiar with only a tiny portion of Balthasar's theology. I understand only a tiny portion of what I am familiar with. But the funny thing is, the more I understand it, the less I like it.

Part of it is, shall I say, a discontinuity of style; the English translations of Balthasar's German don't make much sense to me. I mean, I have a hard time figuring out what the actual words strung together in paragraphs (and, occasionally, sentences) actually mean. (It's been suggested to me that my mistake is assuming they mean anything at all.)

And frankly, the difficulty I have understanding Balthasar extends to the Balthasar-informed passages by Pope John Paul II. Note in the passage quoted above, first the reference to "that inseparable union of the Son with the Father," and second the reference to "this suffering which is the separation, the rejection by the Father." So ... is there a separation?

There's a sense I get -- and this sense has been confirmed by at least one professional theologian I've read -- that Balthasar likes to have his cake and eat it, too. This is sometimes defended as a mysterious paradox, or perhaps as a paradoxical mystery, but I'm not buying the defense, either. A paradox is not the same as a mystery, and if a thing is both a paradox and a mystery, it's paradoxical and mysterious natures can (and probably should) be considered separately. A thing can't both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect, whether or not someone is waving his hands and saying, "But it's a mystery!"

So do I actually reject what the Pope teaches in Savifici Doloris? How can I, when I don't know what he's actually teaching? I take the point that Jesus' cry from the Cross signifies more than His fulfillment of the prophecy of Psalm 22, but I honestly can't make out what the Pope is saying that more is. This sort of "One can say...born of the level of that inseparable union...encompassing the 'entire' evil...through the divine depth" way of speaking is, I think, one of the least attractive contributions Balthasar has made to the Church, and I hope (though who am I?) the Church will soon learn to take what is valuable from Balthasar's theology and put it in more comprehensible terms.

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The kenosis of the Son, the kenosis of the mother

Which stations in the Way of the Cross do you most relate to?

It's not a question I'd considered before it came up in a conversation last week. I don't do the Way of the Cross that often, nor when I do it is it with much depth of heart.

What I settled on was the pair of "Jesus Meets His Mother" and "Jesus is Taken Down From the Cross." (The presence of Mary as Jesus walked to Golgotha and as His body was taken down are supra-Scriptural intuitions, you might say, consistent with but not explicitly mentioned in the Gospel accounts of the Crucifixion.)

The role of Mary in the Church is not -- as many people, including many Catholics, think -- a way of sneaking into heaven, past Christ the Stern Judge, by way of His softie mother. Can anyone really believe any other person could love us more than Jesus does? Rather, Mary's role in the life of the Church is the same as her role in the life of the Savior. When we reflect with Mary on the things she kept in her heart, we are "led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love," as Pope John Paul II put it in Rosarium Virginis Mariae.

"There is no beauty in him, nor comeliness," Isaiah prophesized of Jesus, "and we have seen him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of him." Did His mother see the beauty of the face of Christ as He was led to His death? I imagine her, as striken in her heart as her Son was in His. What did she hold in her immaculate heart? The memory of the angel's promise: "He will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end"; of her faith in that promise, her hope in its accomplishment, her love of God for His love of her.

And not just love of God, but of her child, her infant whom foreign magi worshipped. That unwavering faith and hope and love, renewed each time she caught sight of, even thought of her Son Jesus, todlding though the house, playing with other children, learning from His father, shocking His parents with a painful and confusing reminder that He was not theirs to keep always.

Mary carried her faith, hope, and love with her, and at the sight of her condemned Son, what was she to do? Lose faith, abandon hope, cry out bitterly against the God Who would ordain this for His, for her, only Son?

No. In the emptiness and abandonment of Jesus, Mary saw her own emptiness and abandonment. There was nothing for her to do but offer the husks of her faith, hope, and love, now hollow and weightless, to the Father. "May it be done to me according to your word."

Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. While others engaged in political machinations, His mother stood vigil over His body, the Bread of Life dead to bring forth fruit, to yield a hundredfold. At last, His body is released, first from Roman possession, then from the Cross. Mary receives the body, again not hers to keep always.

How can there be anything left of her faith or her hope? Jesus did not come down from the Cross. He was not given the throne of David. At the sight of His tortured body on the way to Golgotha, Mary offered God all that she had. God accepted her offering, and gave her nothing back.

And yet... offering up hope is not the same as giving up hope. As empty as the body she holds, Mary is still receptive to God's will and His ways. She is, so to speak, between breaths; she has exhaled all she has, and there will be a pause before she draws in the sweet fragrance of the news of Easter, before God fills her like an overflowing fountain at Pentecost, and gives her a crown above all crowns and honor above all honor once she is assumed into the presence of her Risen Son.

But that fulfillment must wait. Now she sits at the foot of the Cross, her dead Son in her arms a reality no knowledge of the future, no wisdom of divine providence, can set aside. And still she offers God her faith and her hope and her love.

Michaelangelo understood something of this moment, and his Pieta puts it better than words ever could. The expression on Mary's face, the gesture of her left hand, these do not belong to a woman for whom life has lost meaning, on whom God has turned His back. Rather, in her sorrow and misery, she sees that the Cross is not something Jesus had to endure along the way to His glory, but the very means of His glory. She is telling us, "Come, contemplate with me the beauty on the face of Christ. Experience the depths of his love."

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He has been silent because we make much noise

Zenit reports an interview with Fr. Georges Cottier, OP, theologian of the papal household, on the job of rebuilding Iraq. Here are some selections:

Q: In response to the Pope's appeal, millions of people prayed for peace. Have they been heard?

Father Cottier: By God? I think so. He listens to what we say, although the way he responds is something else. We hope for verifiable, immediate results, but we must not think that this is God's way of acting.

Q: Why pray then?

Father Cottier: Pray, pray ... because there is a very strong belief that peace is almost beyond man's ability. We are all ready to oppose, to dominate, to fuel hatred.

Peace is a gift of God. So we must pray that he will transform us into builders of peace. In this way, he answers our prayers.

...

Q: How should one act, then?

Father Cottier: We need prayer to obtain wisdom, courage and generosity....

Q: You say God is not absent, but many have perceived his silence as a weight.

Father Cottier: What is the silence of God? God is always silent. He speaks in the depth of hearts. He inspires us through the Holy Spirit -- let us think about the many persons during these days who have prayed and called on God.

I would not say, therefore, that he was absent. He has been silent because we make much noise.

You can read the whole report for the more political bits; mention of the United Nations seems to be distracting, and what I wanted to emphasize with the above edits is the primacy Fr. Cottier places on prayer as action. Note his answer to the question, "How should one act, then?"

God speaks silently in the depth of hearts. How, then, can He speak to someone who never attends to the depth of his heart? How can you hear a silent voice if you are never silent?

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Those passing by reviled Him

It seems to me that one source of anguish Jesus felt in the garden before He was arrested was how poor a job He had done convincing the Jewish religious leaders He was the Messiah. Only a tiny fraction of the Jews with whom He spoke would come to believe in Him. And remember, these were His Chosen People, His dearly beloved from among all the nations.

What might have made the anguish all the sharper was Jesus' knowledge that He had the power to make them believe. He could perform the signs they demanded of Him, call upon the angels who waited upon Him to show themselves. He could even have answered the taunts of the chief priests and scribes as He was dying, "He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe." He could have come down from the cross.

Would they have then believed?

Suppose so. Suppose that, in a flash, Jesus came down from the cross and stood before the Sanhedrin in clothes of gold and purple, cherubim on His right and His left. Suppose that this, at last, opened their eyes, and they flung themselves on the ground before Him and worshipped.

Even then they would not have believed in Jesus!

God became man to die on a cross, forsaken and reviled. This is Who Jesus was, so much so that if He had done what, strictly speaking, was within His power and come down from the cross, the King in glory the Pharisees might have worshipped would not have been the Son of God. It would have been the Son of God playing the role of the Pharisees' idea of the Son of God. Faith in the Pharisees' idea of the Son of God never has and never could save anyone. Jesus had the power to make His enemies believe in Him, but it would have been a false belief. They would have known Him no better serving Him from His throne in the Temple than they did mocking Him from His throne on Golgotha.

I've sometimes wondered why Jesus tried to keep the Messianic secret, why He didn't adopt a more irenic approach to the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin, whether fewer insults and more diplomacy might not have won Him more believers. But maybe He did literally all He could to show them, short of disobeying the Father. Maybe the limit on what Jesus can do for those whom He meets is set, not by some divine tough love standard, but by the way we have closed off all but a narrow approach to our minds and our hearts, along which we insist the King travel if He is to reach us.

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