All you need to know...

...about the National Catholic Reporter can be found by noting which social issue its Washington correspondend Joe Feuerherd gives scare quotes and which he does not:

[Senator Rick] Santorum, who shepherded the ban on "partial birth abortion" through Congress and coauthored the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage....

Link | John da Fiesole
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Hope this helps

If the Council of Trent is correct in teaching that, "except by special revelation, it cannot be known whom God has chosen unto Himself" (Sixth Session, ch. 12), then it cannot be known that God has chosen everyone unto Himself, except by special revelation.

Since Scripture is not special revelation, it would be contrary to the Faith to say that Scripture teaches that all men are saved. We can similarly be sure that we can't reason our way to knowledge that all men are saved.

So we can neither know nor have faith that all men are saved, and to the extent someone's position on the nature of the hope that all men are saved asserts or implies such knowledge or faith, the position is itself contrary to the Catholic Faith.

Hope is related to knowledge (and therefore to faith, which is a participation in someone else's knowledge) in this way: We can only hope for something that we know is a future possible good. I'll grant the futureness and goodness of salvation for now, and look at its possibility.

How do I know that my salvation is possible? Because, as a Christian, I have faith in the promises of Christ that those who have a living faith in Him will be saved (and further, that it is possible to have a living faith in Him). Since this hope is based on the promise of God Himself, it is a "sure and certain hope" that, if I love Jesus and keep His commandments, I will be saved.

And how do I know that the salvation of all men is possible? At a minimum, because I know that the salvation of each man is possible in principle (the same principle by which my own salvation is possible (in fact, the only principle by which salvation is possible)), and I don't know that the salvation of any one man is impossible in actuality.

Beyond that, though, do we know of a possibility of the salvation of all men that is not simply the union of the possibilities of the salvation of each man? A possibility, in other words, that the final end for which God is acting is not the salvation of all men who have faith in His Son, but more straightforwardly the salvation of all men (with faith in His Son as the means that, in His providence, will be made sufficiently available to each man)?

At this point, it appears to me that if we do know that it is possible God's final end is simply the salvation of all men, then we know it through reason rather than faith; that is, we can show that it is not impossible, but we can't point to the possibility directly in Revelation.

And that, I hope, wraps up the "universal salvation" posts for this revolution of the great Karmic Wheel O' Catholic Topics.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Not a collective hope

As Kevin Miller points out, the Catechism uses this formulation:

In hope, the Church prays for "all men to be saved."

What is the nature of this hope?

Suppose you invited six people over for a dinner party. You would naturally "hope that all come," but that could mean two different things. You might hope that each of them comes, or you might hope that the group as a whole comes. If Alice doesn't come, then, you might be disappointed because Alice isn't there, or because all of those you invited aren't there (or both, of course).

One way of putting it is that "a hope about a set of individuals" can mean "a set of hopes about individuals" or "an individual hope about a set."

Is the hope that the Catechism speaks of the first kind, or the second, or both?

I think it clearly includes the first kind. Just before the above quoted words, the Catechism says:

In every circumstance, each one of us should hope, with the grace of God, to persevere "to the end" and to obtain the joy of heaven, as God's eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ.

That's hope about an individual.

What about the other kind of hope, the individual hope that the set of all humans will be saved?

Every hope is founded upon a possible good. What makes the good of the salvation of the set of all humans possible seems to be God's will that all humans be saved –- to put it negatively, that God's will would be frustrated, His omnipotence denied, if any single person were not saved.

But is this true?

All are agreed, I hope, that the Catholic Faith teaches that "[e]ternal damnation remains a real possibility".

But since the Church also teaches that God's [consequent] will cannot be frustrated, she cannot teach that personal damnation frustrates God's will. Interpreting 1 Timothy 2:4, for example, to imply that everyone must be saved or else God's will would be frustrated cannot be what the Church teaches, and therefore cannot be part of the basis for the hope the Catechism mentions.

Is there some other basis for a collective hope for universal salvation? Perhaps, but I wonder whether the very nature of such a collective hope is contrary to the Catholic faith, insofar as it adds to the one means given us for salvation –- faith in Christ –- another means: membership in the human species.

To sum up, it seems to me "the Church prays for 'all men to be saved'" in the hope that each man is saved by virtue of faith in Christ, not that all men are saved by virtue of being men.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Universal hope

Consider the proposition that you will go to heaven. What can you say about whether that proposition is true?

Well, what can you say about whether any proposition is true? You can say you have knowledge about it, or faith about it, or hope about it. (You can also say you have an opinion or an expectation about it, but that's not relevant here.)

If you have knowledge, then either you know the proposition is true, or you know it is false.

If you don’t know whether it's true, then you might have faith on the point – that is, you might believe someone who knows whether it's true.

If you don't happen to have knowledge about whether it's true, and you don't happen to have faith, then you still might have some sort of hope.

Now, hope breaks into three distinct parts: presumption, which is unwarranted certainty that something is true; despair, which is unwarranted certainty that something is false; and hope proper. So you might presume the proposition is true, despair of it being true, hope it is true, or hope it is false. (Presuming it is false and despairing of it being false amount to despairing of it being true and presuming it is true, respectively, although different emotions are usually involved.)

So, applying this breakdown to the question of whether you will go to heaven:

• You know it is true: This can only be by special revelation. Congratulations!
• You know it is false: This can only be by special revelation. My condolences.
• You have faith that it is true: You've been canonized! Congratulations!
• You have faith that it is false: You, alone of all the children of Adam, have been singled out as the one person whose damnation is de fide. That can't make you feel good.
• You presume it is true: Careful! St. Paul has some choice words for cocky folks like you.
• You despair of it being true: Buck up! God really does love you.
• You hope it is true: Exactly as the Church teaches.
• You hope it is false: You don't really get this whole "heaven" concept, do you?

In short, absent the exceptional cases where knowledge or faith is given, the proper response is to hope that you will go to heaven.

And if you run through the exercise with the proposition, "Your mother will go to heaven," you wind up with the same conclusion: the proper response is to hope that she will go to heaven.

In fact, for every person (except the saints whose eternal destiny is known by faith), the proper response is to hope that he or she will go to heaven.

So far so good. No less a non-universalist than St. Augustine himself said we shouldn't despair of anyone’s salvation as long as they live.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Foster father of the Son of God

Joseph's title "foster father of the Son of God" probably doesn't need much theological explanation. I mean, once "Son of God" has been explained, and the Incarnation has been contemplated, Joseph's role as Jesus' foster father is relatively straightforward.

I think, though, there's a tendency to understand the title "foster father" to mean "not really the father," which does a disservice not only to St. Joseph but to the Incarnation. (And there should be nothing in devotion to St. Joseph that cannot be referred to the Incarnation.)

That St. Joseph was the father Jesus we have on no less an authority than Mary:

When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, "Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety."

Note also that Luke refers to Mary and Joseph as Jesus' "parents."

It's true that, in this story, Mary's reference to Joseph as Jesus' father is used as an opening for Jesus to refer to His Father by nature ("Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"). But He does not deny that Joseph is His father by human law, and indeed He proves Joseph's fatherhood in this sense by His obedience to him.

Obviously, the content of Jesus' preaching (as early as this passage) makes discussing Joseph's fatherhood potentially confusing. (Though Joseph has a larger role in Matthew than in Luke, or possibly because of it, Matthew always uses "the Child and His mother" in relation to Joseph.) The Church could hardly say anything doctrinally about Joseph before settling the question of Mary's relationship to Jesus, which didn't happen until the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

Given the Christology of Chalcedon, though, I think it becomes necessary (once the question is posed, which didn't happen for centuries after Chalcedon) to confess that, humanly speaking, St. Joseph was true father to Jesus, and Jesus was true son to St. Joseph. To deny this, to stick some "but not really" caveat between father and Son out of some impulse to protect the Son's divinity, is to deny something of the Incarnation. Jesus was like us in all things except sin; there's no need to add "and in how He related to the man who raised Him as a son" to that list of exceptions.

Moreover, God's plan was clearly that Jesus should live as one of us; He wasn't just going through the motions of growing up, with a pretence of obedience toward Joseph so that the neighbors wouldn't talk. Jesus was an infant, a child, a youth, a man. As such, He had a genuine human relationship with the man who was his genuine human father. We cannot split that relationship without, in some way, splitting Jesus from His humanity.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Unsettling arguments

In a comment thread yesterday, I revealed a secret: Not everyone is saved.

As secrets go, it's not one that has been well-kept, but there seems to be a growing number of Catholics who do not believe it is true.

It's a debate that can only be settled by a dogmatic pronouncement by the Church, binding under pain of heresy. A pronouncement that won't be coming any time soon, because the Church doesn't make dogmatic pronouncements to settle debate, but to safeguard the Faith, and the Faith is not directly challenged by "contingent universalism," the belief that, though the potential for damnation exists, no one is actually damned. (If belief in contingent universalism were to lead to widespread indifferentism, a pope or council might condemn it, but that's not happening now.)

Without making an attempt to prove that not everyone is saved, then, let me just point out a couple of bad arguments I've seen at least implied by those who, practically speaking, accept contingent universalism.

First is an argument from silence. It is suggested the fact the Church has not dogmatically pronounced that not everyone is saved is suggestive. I don’t see that the fact has much significance, however. As I wrote above, the Church doesn't go about making dogmatic pronouncements just for the sake of settling arguments. We wouldn't expect a pronouncement one way or another unless and until an argument on the point grew to threaten the peace of the Church and witness of the Faith. (And in fact, when the doctrine of apocatastatis did become a threat, it was condemned at the Council of Constantinople.)

Second is what I'll call an argument from "let's just make stuff up." The Faith tells us that salvation demands a positive act on the part of the one saved. Observation tells us that some people do not make such a positive act prior to their death. If these people are saved, therefore, it must be that they make this positive act somehow in the instant of death, in a manner not observable to others.

But where does the idea of making a positive act of faith in the instant of death in a manner not observable to others come from? As far as I can tell, someone just made it up. The idea that, at the moment of death, time stops and God appears to the wretch and says, "You have this one last chance to choose Life," is a fabrication to patch the obvious hole in contingent universalism.

That’s not to say it's impossible that this happens, merely that there's no reason to think it does unless, for some reason, you think it has to. It's a bit of speculation that goes far beyond anything in Revelation, made necessary to support a doctrine that itself is not in Revelation.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Chaste guardian of the Virgin

St. Joseph wasn't his wife Mary's "guardian" in the sense that she was his ward, or a child who needed looking after. He was, rather, the guardian of the Virgin; he guarded the secret of the Virgin Mother of God, which is to say the secret of the Incarnation.

In a narrow sense, he did this simply be being Mary's husband. A married woman gives birth to a son; nothing to wonder about there, happens every day. He guarded her from scandal or gossip in the years of Jesus' childhood.

More broadly, he guarded the mystery that Jesus would reveal when He began His public ministry. God always works through creation to bring about our salvation, preeminently in the Incarnation of His Son, and since Jesus was to work privately until He was about 30, there was a need to keep His presence among us private. (Yes, there were also occasions along the way when it was revealed, but on the whole people weren't expecting much of Jesus bar-Joseph before He went to see the Baptist at the Jordan River.)

Then, too, God worked through Joseph to guard Mary's physical safety. Legions of angels were available, but in the event it took just one to tell Joseph in a dream what to do, and he did it.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Pray!

A selection (emphasis added) from the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, as Perpetua "left it described by her own hand and with her own mind":

After a few days, whilst we were all praying, on a sudden, in the middle of our prayer, there came to me a word, and I named Dinocrates.... And for him I began earnestly to make supplication, and to cry with groaning to the Lord. Without delay, on that very night, this was shown to me in a vision. I saw Dinocrates going out from a gloomy place, where also there were several others, and he was parched and very thirsty, with a filthy countenance and pallid color, and the wound on his face which he had when he died. This Dinocrates had been my brother after the flesh, seven years of age, who died miserably with disease, his face being so eaten out with cancer, that his death caused repugnance to all men.... And I was aroused, and knew that my brother was in suffering. But I trusted that my prayer would bring help to his suffering; and I prayed for him every day until we passed over into the prison of the camp, for we were to fight in the camp-show. Then was the birthday of Geta Caesar, and I made my prayer for my brother day and night, groaning and weeping that he might be granted to me.

Then, on the day on which we remained in fetters, this was shown to me. I saw that that place which I had formerly observed to be in gloom was now bright; and Dinocrates, with a clean body well clad, was finding refreshment. And where there had been a wound, I saw a scar.... Then I understood that he was translated from the place of punishment.

Link | John da Fiesole
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In the land of the blind

Suppose someone came up to you and offered to spit on the ground to make clay with which to rub on your eyes, then send you to wash the clay off so that you would be able to see. If you aren't blind, what would you tell him?

There are a lot of parallels between the story of the woman at the well and the story of the man born blind. An outcast encounters Jesus, comes to believe in Him first as a prophet, and then as the Messiah, and testifies to others on His behalf. (Of course, the reception of that testimony is one of the major differences.)

To choose just one similarity, notice that Jesus approaches both the Samaritan woman and the blind Jew through their natural desires. She desires water to drink, he desires sight. They know what they lack on a purely natural level, and on a purely natural level they will accept it from Jesus if He can provide it.

But these two, of no great learning or distinction, recognize the implications of Jesus' actions. Water that doesn't leave you thirsty, sight where there has never been sight, these things are unheard of and can come only from God.

The Pharisees of John 9, meanwhile, cannot be reached through either natural or spiritual desire. "Surely we are not also blind, are we?" As Jesus' answer shows, they compound their spiritual blindness with the sinful denial that they are blind.

But how would the Pharisees know they were blind? How do we know what we lack, so that we know to desire it, so that we know to ask Jesus for it?

Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance but the LORD looks into the heart.

We must ask God to let us see through His eyes -- even and perhaps especially if we believe we already do.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Spouse of the Mother of God

The Church speaks of the Holy Family as the model of all families.

This would seem to let husbands off the easiest. After all, the wife is measured against Immaculate Mary, and the children against Jesus Christ Himself. The ideal husband and father, meanwhile, was, dare I say, an ordinary Joe who went about his business and did what he was told to do.

But the Spouse of the Mother of God is not a passive role. Mary was not a porcelain statue God asked Joseph to keep on his shelf for a few years. They were true husband and wife, and together they fulfilled their roles in bringing the Son of God to the world.

Some people have argued that if their marriage was never consummated, then Joseph wasn't really Mary’s husband. But this is reasoning backward; we ought to try to understand other marriages in the light of Joseph and Mary, rather than the other way around.

The lesson is not that theirs was less than a marriage for being physically unconsummated, nor that other marriages are lesser for being consummated. It is rather, I think, that the unique role of Joseph and Mary, who through their marriage raised Christ in the flesh for the sake of the world, should be reflected in every Christian marriage raising Christ in the spirit for the sake of the world.

Nor should we forget that the first to benefit from their work as husband and wife were Joseph and Mary themselves. All praise and honor, all praise and honor due them is due because of their Son. In a similar way, the primary beneficiaries of each Christian marriage are the husband and wife, sanctified by Christ’s Spirit as they act to make their marriage bear the fruit of the Spirit.

Link | John da Fiesole
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TOP This!

The Third Order Dominicans of the Province of St. Joseph are having a congress:

Duc in Altum!
The Third Order for the Third Millennium
If you're a Third Order Dominican of the Province of St. Joseph, you'd better be there.

If you're a Third Order Dominican from somewhere else, or a Dominican from another part of the Dominican Family, or you just like the summer weather in Washington, you can come too.

We've got ordinations, we've got cardinals, we've got plays, we've got Masses, we've got musical concerts, we've got barbecues, we've got Vespers, we've got workshops, we've got banquets, we've got Sherry Weddells, we've got contemplating, we've got sharing with others the fruits of contemplation, we've got praising, we've got blessing, we've got preaching, we've got eating.

Semper Veritas, baby!

Link | John da Fiesole
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Maryland, My Maryland

March 3, 2005

My dear friends in Christ,

At times, we are called to live out our faith in a very particular way, to speak out when the dignity of human life is being directly challenged. Now is one of those times, as the Maryland legislature considers two serious pieces of legislation. One would respect human life by banning human cloning. However, a second bill would violate fundamental moral principles by allocating $25 million for unethical human cloning and embryonic stem cell experimentation. I am asking your help in speaking out to our state legislators.

I am not against scientific research. On the contrary, proper research can do so much good and bring healing to so many. What is troubling is when research is done at the expense of individuals, when it harms someone or misleads people; for example, dangling the hope of a possible cure when this elusive hope is based upon destroying the lives of others. No research should ever be done at the expense of another person's life.

Yet, that is what embryonic stem cell experimentation does. It destroys tiny humans, still in the earliest stages of creation. That is against everything we believe. These embryos come from two sources: human cloning, which involves creating humans asexually by fusing an unfertilized egg whose nucleus has been removed with another person's DNA, or by harvesting "extra" fertilized human eggs that were created in a lab, as occurs with in-vitro fertilization.

Both embryonic stem cell and human cloning experimentation tear at the fabric of God's plan by separating the creation of new life from the natural process and by treating young human embryos not as unique creations of God deserving of nurturing and respect, but simply as raw materials to be destroyed in the name of science. This is a dangerous and risky path.

The effort to promote this is particularly disturbing considering there are ethical alternatives that do not involve the destruction of human life. These include umbilical cord or adult stem cell research, which we don't hear much about in the news, but which has provided tremendous therapeutic results for four decades, successfully treating patients with Parkinson's, spinal cord injuries, leukemia and other conditions.

I ask you to join me in urging our lawmakers to oppose this attack on the dignity of human life. Ask them to oppose Maryland Senate Bill 751 and House Bill 1183, the "Maryland Stem Cell Research Act of 2005." These bills, authored by legislators from the Baltimore area, would provide $25 million in state funds for the unethical embryonic stem cell research and "therapeutic" human cloning, which would involve cloning human beings for the sole purpose of experimentation.

And, please urge your Senator and Delegate to support a ban on human cloning. Senate Bill 272 and House Bill 885, the "Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2005," would prohibit the production of a cloned embryo. This legislation also is sponsored by Baltimore-area legislators.

To learn more about this important issue and to get contact information for your state legislators, please visit www.mdcathcon.org, the website of the Maryland Catholic Conference.

Thank you for your assistance on this critical matter of human life and please join me in praying that our lawmakers always seek to promote the dignity of human life in all that they do.

Faithfully in Christ,
Theodore Cardinal McCarrick
Archbishop of Washington

Link | John da Fiesole
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Christology isn't doctrine, it's recollection

A wise post at Integrity makes the point that Christianity is not a matter of belief, but of encounter:

Too easily, our modern culture looks at Christianity as an ideology... But that is not what Christianity is. As Msgr. Albacete says, in this wonderful piece over at Godspy about faith and politics:

"The encounter with Christ -— it all began when a bunch of people encountered this man. No one sat down to design a Christology. It doesn't emerge from any particular system of thought. It was a fact, an encounter. That's how it begins. You meet this man -— something happens. If we cannot grasp that, then what follows is just concepts."

When we talk about Christ, we should talk about Him as though He were with us in the room. Not just because He is with us in the room, but because if we don't we aren't really talking about Christ, we're talking about our own ideas of Christ. And frankly, who cares about that?

Link | John da Fiesole
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Love isn't rocket science

In a comment below, Chris Sullivan replies to me:

Even keeping the commandments you quote is not always clear cut.

Let me say, in a spirit of fraternal cheer, that this is bosh.

Not utter bosh; hard cases do exist. But the idea that I can't tell, in general, whether I love my neighbor is absurd. I should know. I am I.

And since I don't think I'm exceptionally perceptive, I assert that most people, most of the time, can know whether they love their neighbors if they go to the time and trouble to ask themselves.

To support his statement, Chris offers this:

For example, knowing that in the world people are hungry, how much money ought I take from my family to feed them? If I took none, then I'd be violating the commandment. But if I took all, as my son has donated all his pocket money to Caritas for Lent, then I'd be neglecting my family. I don't find where to draw the line in the middle to be particularly easy!

And should I give more to feed the hungry or more to our local prolife group or more to education in the faith or to build a new Cathedral or to the parish collection? Again, not easy.

I answer that, pfui. All of this is a matter of prudent use of the means to help others; all of this presupposes a love of others.

The question is not, "Do I love others perfectly?" (the answer to that is, "No."), but, "Do I love others at all?" And St. James explains how to answer it: "I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works."

If you can't demonstrate your love of others to yourself from your works, you don't love others. And if you don't love others, it's not because Christ does not provide you the means to the grace with which to love them.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Light of Patriarchs

In the narrowest sense, the Patriarchs are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. St. Stephen broadens the term a bit, calling Jacob's sons "the twelve patriarchs," and St. Peter calls David a patriarch as well. (Then there are the antediluvian patriarchs going back to Adam.)

St. Joseph's title "Light of Patriarchs" has several connotations. He is, in one sense, the last of the Patriarchs; after him comes the Son, and we are no longer concerned with being children of Abraham apart from being brothers and sisters of Christ. (In fact, not long after St. Joseph's death, St. John the Baptist quite spoils the cachet of being children of Abraham by pointing out that rocks could be made his children if God so willed it.)

Spiritual writers have made much of St. Joseph as the type of his great-great-...-great-uncle Joseph, son of Jacob. The versicle and response of St. Joseph's litany comes from Psalm 104, which refers to Pharaoh and Joseph:

He made him master of his house, and ruler of all his possession.

St. Joseph was, of course, made master of the house of the Holy Family, and ruler not only of Mary Immaculate, but of the Son of God Himself.

Parallels exist as well between St. Joseph and Abraham, our father in faith. Both are renowned for their faith, both accepted a son from God under exceptional conditions, both did everything the Lord told them to do promptly and without demurral.

It is the role of a patriarch to watch over and guard his family, with an eye to its future prosperity. St. Joseph fulfills this role for the family of Abraham -- for that matter, for the family of Adam. He is the light of the Patriarchs in that he completes their mission; he sees what they foresee, he knows directly what they accept in hope: God's salvation, and the glory of His people Israel.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Living less wrong

I attended an excellent talk last night by Fr. Gabriel Pivarnik, OP, on the participation of the laity in the Eucharist.

He recalled the fact that Sacrosanctum Concilium famously (in some circles, notoriously) stated, "Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy." To "full, conscious, and active," Pope John Paul II has added "fruitful" as a condition for a "successful" liturgy. Put another way, he is reuniting the opere operato and the opere operantis, the "work of the work" with the "work of the worker."

Put yet another way, the measure by which the Liturgy should be measured is not "doing the rites right," but "living less wrong." It's all well and good that the sacrifice of bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, however miserable the priest, the congregation, and the liturgy. But the purpose for which Jesus gave us the Eucharist is nothing less than our sanctification in Christ. If we fail to be sanctified -- if we fail to go forth and feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick, and preach the Gospel to every creature -- nothing is taken away from Christ. He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself, but we prove our faithlessness.

To my mind, this idea goes a long way toward resolving one of the great puzzles of the Catholic experience: how the grace we receive before the altar can so thoroughly and promptly evaporate. I'd been thinking that something must happen in the walk from the church through the parking lot to my car, that somehow I left my vices in the narthex on my way in and picked them back up on my way out.

According to Fr. Pivarnik, though, this is not the case. The problem is not with what happens after I join in the Eucharistic liturgy, or before; it's what happens while I join in. I don't do it right. And he is surely correct in this. I come to Mass with certain expectations; I participate in Mass according to my own rules and understanding, which do not, considered honestly, include the sort of radical transformation Christian discipleship demands. Be more patient, be a better husband and father? Yes, these things I ask for from the Eucharist. Become another Christ? No!

But becoming another Christ -- if you prefer, becoming joined to Christ in His prayer to the Father -- is precisely what the Divine Liturgy is! That's what our actions, our gestures, our words signify. If that's not what our interior posture is as well, then we absolutely are doing it wrong.

Not utterly wrong, perhaps. We might still receive grace. I may be a better husband and father for receiving Communiuon. But how can I receive the fullness of grace if I not only don't ask for it, but in a way don't even really want it?

What is this fullness of grace that I don't even really want from the Eucharist? It is participation in the divine life of the Trinity. And who wouldn't really want that?

Link | John da Fiesole
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Renowned offspring of David

March is traditionally the month of St. Joseph -- although, as traditions go, it's relatively young, March 19 not becoming the Feast of St. Joseph on the Roman Calendar until late in the Fifteenth Century.

The first title given St. Joseph in his litany (promulgated in 1909) is "Renowned offspring of David." And indeed, this is how the angel addressed him in Scripture: "Joseph, son of David."

If you read the genealogy from David to Joseph according to Matthew, there are plenty of men listed who bring little honor to their descendants, and plenty more of whom nothing is known outside the genealogy. Yet it was through them -- the great, the wicked, the unknown -- that God's extravagant and freely given promise to David was kept.

And it is in us that this promise is kept still; we are the house and kingdom that will endure forever before God.

This is the way of God's providence. An unlikely chain of fathers and sons produces a man worthy to be (as was thought) the father of Jesus, proving all at once God's fidelity to His word, the patience with which He acts in the world, and the cooperation of men He employs to do His will. An even less likely chain of spiritual begetters has produced us, by God's grace kings, priests, and prophets, sons and daughters of David if we are brothers and sisters of Christ.

In St. Joseph we have a model for conducting ourselves as children of so noble a house: the House of David; the House of the Lord.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Putting it together

If you combine the last two posts in a certain way, you come up with this: Every event can be seen as God's will for us, as Fr. Vann writes, in which case it becomes something in which God's love and wisdom are active. This is as true when the event is one that brings suffering as when it is one that brings joy or satisfaction or rest or insight or triumph or growth.

It's just that we like satisfaction and rest and insight and triumph and growth, so we don't scratch our chins trying to understand what method might lie in the madness of God by which such events are granted to us.

It's only when things happen that we don't like that we demand an explanation of God, even though He has already explained it to us.

Link | John da Fiesole
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That your joy may be complete

A fine post at Dappled Things sketches out the Scriptural basis for the Catholic understanding of the role of suffering in the Christian life.

This is what St Paul is getting at in that fascinating line from the first chapter of his Epistle to the Colossians, that he in his own flesh is making up "what is lacking" in the sufferings of Christ, and that he, Paul, is doing it on behalf of Christ's Body, the Church. In the absolute sense, Christ's sufferings are all-sufficient and lacking in nothing. But, of course, St Paul is no heretic. In regard to individuals whose hearts are somewhat (or completely) hardened, those infinite graces do not have an infinite effect. As I begin to suffer for Christ's sake, my hard heart is softened so that Christ's Passion can be more perfectly fruitful within me. And we can offer up our prayerful sufferings for the good of others, as well, "for his body's sake, which is the church." This Scriptural notion of participating in Christ's own suffering is what is behind otherwise confusing Catholic ideas like co-redemption and intercession.

I suspect one key to unlocking much of the mystery of suffering lies in this statement of Christ:

"Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

Or better, look at His statement in a slightly broader context (this is, of course, from the Last Supper Discourse):

"If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you... This I command you: love one another."

Taken all together, we are to lay down our lives for Jesus and for each other, and by so doing we will be friends of Jesus and our joy will be complete.

Without the suffering laying down your life entails, then, your joy will not be complete. (And what is incomplete is not in the eternal presence of God....)

But back to the single idea that laying down your life for others is the greatest human love: Why is this? What is it about creation that makes laying down your life an act of love? What makes it the greatest possible act of love? For that matter, what makes it even possible to lay down your life? And, a question that might be crucial in a discussion on the difference between Catholic and Protestant perspectives, when and under what conditions can it be said that you are laying down your life for others?

Link | John da Fiesole
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The sacrament of the present moment

In The Pain of Christ and the Sorrow of God Gerald Vann, OP, writes:

We cannot afford to be less humble than God: what this scene in the Garden [of Gethsemane] again shows us is indeed precisely the completeness with which God emptied Himself of His glory and took on Himself the form of a servant. He did not become man, and enter as man the stage of history, merely in order to perform one or two dramatic actions in the sight of the world. He took upon Himself the helplessness of a baby, the ways of a child, the daily tasks and troubles and fatigues of manhood in a poor home, the dread of suffering. We shall become like him, not by trying, every now and then to do great and grandiose things for God, but by trying all the time to do all the little things of life for God, to give each of those in turn its sacramental value.

Sacramental value? This idea Fr. Vann explains a few paragraphs earlier:

Every event can be seen simply as a result of other events, a purely human thing; but it can be seen too as our Lord saw it: as God's will for us. And if we see it, and love it, like that, then it becomes something great and deep, something in which God's love and wisdom are active because we have made it an act of love, have made it part of the love-story.

Link | John da Fiesole
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In the end

Karen Marie Knapp provides a dogmatic answer to the question of why we have to go to church: So that the faithful

• "take part in the sacred action consciously, devoutly and actively,
• that they be instructed by the word of God,
• that they be nourished at the table of the Lord's Body,
• that they give thanks to God,
• that, offering the immaculate host not only through the priest but with him, they may learn to offer themselves,
• and that, through Christ the Mediator, they may be drawn day after day into more perfect union with God and with one another, so that in the end God may be all in all."

Link | John da Fiesole
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St. Peter, pray for her

Later today, Terri Schiavo may begin to die of starvation. Who will be neighbor to her?

For updates, see Thrown Back and Blogs for Terri. The Old Oligarch offers some thoughts on the implications of Terri's case for "the gradual collapse of secular democratic liberalism" as foreseen by the First Vatican Council's Dei Filius.

Link | John da Fiesole
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The density of Good Samaritans

I came across an interesting sociological claim yesterday: that, independent of circumstances, 10% of people will help a stranger in need. Whether it be Polish Catholics being kind toward Jews during the Nazi occupation or motorists offering assistance to someone by the side of the road, nine people pass by for every one who stops.

I don't know whether this claim is true, either the part about there being a fixed percentage regardless of circumstance or the part about that percentage being 10%. Neither part seems patently ridiculous. If the cost-benefit ratio is roughly the same, I could believe people generally do easy things with mild benefits at about the same rate they do hard things with great benefits.

As for the exact percentage, even in the canonical example it only reached 33%. Do I, who am not like the rest of men, stop to help a stranger more than one time in ten?

The ideal is to reach 100% in any population of self-identified Christians; human progress is to do better today than we did yesterday. Christ Himself gives the context in which to understand the commandment to help strangers: the parable of the Good Samaritan is told in answer to the question, "And who is my neighbor?"

The moral implication of being a neighbor to another is that we are to love him, to act for his good, and in particular to treat him with mercy. The Christian implication is that everyone is a neighbor, so that everyone we see -- whether in distress or not, whether treating us as neighbors or as enemies -- are to be loved by us.

That might be too inert a way of putting it, though, since we've heard this all our lives and we can see how far that's gotten us. Let me try it this way:

The presence of another person compels the disciple of Christ to act.

Christians get around this in a lot of ways. We can in effect deny the personhood (the "neighborness," so to speak) of the other. We can deny his presence. We can resist the compulsion. We can relativize the act.

I suspect, though, that when we think we're getting away with not loving another person, the part we're really denying is the "disciple of Christ" part.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Tuesday night in Maryland

Just a reminder: There is a program of Evening Prayer followed by a talk on the Eucharist on Tuesday, February 22, at St. Andrew Apostle Church in Silver Spring, MD, beginning at 7:30 p.m.

The speaker tomorrow night will be Fr. Joseph Barranger, OP, Prior of the Priory of the Immaculate Conception (a.k.a. the Dominican House of Studies in Washington). He will be speaking on The Place of the Eucharist in a Sacramental Church.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Name that commemoration

On the whole, I prefer February 18 to fall before Ash Wednesday, and if I can't have that it would still be okay if it fell on a Sunday.

But since I can't do anything about the fact that the Feast Commemoration of Beato Angelico is observed on a Lenten Friday this year, I'll make do by looking at some of his artwork.

And here is a painting not by Fra Angelico, but of him:



It's found in the corner of a fresco in the Cappella Nuovao of the Orvieto Cathedral. Fra Angelico (he's the one in the Dominican habit) is portrayed with Luca Signorelli, who finished the chapel's frescoes half a century after Fra Angelico began them.

Moniales, OP, has another portrait of Blessed John of Fiesole.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Noted

A few words on Christ the Eternal Tekton, plus something distantly related to the idea that the communicant is transubstantiated.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Roadmap for the journey

Brad Haas is way more organized than I am.

It occurred to me that a week is a good measure to use to set goals and map out my Lent...

Week 1 - Penitence...
Week 2 - Supplication for grace / Entrusting myself to Him...
Week 3 - Purging / Fasting...
Week 4 - Meditation on our relationship...
Week 5 - Thanksgiving...
Week 6 - Adoration / Final preparations...

Sounds like a good way to arrive where you want to go. Better, certainly, than the "It's Ash Wednesday, so I'll head over in the 'no candy' direction for forty days and arrive at the Empty Tomb."

Link | John da Fiesole
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While they argued, their mother sat quietly in the mud

In a comment on open book, Neil Dhingra quotes the International Theological Commission's 2000 document "Memory and Reconciliation," which in turn quotes Pope John Paul II:

"Hence it is appropriate that as the second millennium of Christianity draws to a close the Church should become ever more fully conscious of the sinfulness of her children, recalling all those times in history when they departed from the spirit of Christ and his Gospel and, instead of offering to the world the witness of a life inspired by the values of faith, indulged in ways of thinking and acting which were truly forms of counter-witness and scandal. Although she is holy because of her incorporation into Christ, the Church does not tire of doing penance. Before God and man, she always acknowledges as her own her sinful sons and daughters." These words of John Paul II emphasize how the Church is touched by the sin of her children.

Neil adds:

Have we acknowledged this solidarity in sin? Have we collectively confessed? Without a collective penance and renewal, there can be no "purification of memory" - past sins will continue to "make their weight felt and remain temptations in the present as well," there can be no liberation of our "personal and communal conscience from all forms of resentment and violence that are the legacy of past faults." Look at how the Scandal has intensified the polarizations in our Church.

If the Scandal is not to remain a bone in our throat, someone had better write a version of the Pope's May 12, 2000 Lenten liturgy - "We forgive and we ask forgiveness!" - for us. All of us need a day of atonement.

An interesting thought. We each and we all need to atone for the sins of each and all of us. It could even be taken further, by suggesting that those of us willing to atone must do so for those who are unwilling. Christ is owed a spotless Church; which of His priests (and remember: if you're baptized, you're a priest) will make the offering to Him in reparation for the scandal's grave disfigurement of His Church?

Neil's comment, however, prompted the expected response:

"Sinfulness of her children," my rump. I didn't abuse anyone. I didn't tamper with the Mass. I haven't lied to the cops. I didn't try to undermine the Catholic Church politically from the pulpit. Yes, I'm deeply sinful but I'm not going to jail anytime soon for sex abuse, Neil.

So don't lump me together with the *ladies* of Boston and Palm Beach, ok? I am at least trying to live a Christian life, even if I'm lousy at it.

In reacting to the state of the Church, many Catholics say, "We need another St. Catherine of Siena today!" They apparently think she spent all her time writing blistering letters to wicked bishops.

In fact, St. Catherine blamed herself for the sins of others, believing they would not have sinned had she been as holy as she ought to have been. Her constant prayer was for suffering, physical and spiritual, in atonement for the sins that disfigured the face of the Church.

Come to think of it, maybe we do need a few St. Catherines today.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Remedies for temptation

Mmmm... tables!

Herb Ely posts a table listing the three temptations of Jesus in the desert in the left-hand column. Subsequent columns work through how to recognize and deal with such temptations in our own lives. The final column contains the specific remedies.

I’m no spiritual doctor, but I’m sure the remedies listed are good for what ails you.

Link | John da Fiesole
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"Why do we have to go to church?"

This was the subject of Fr. Giles Dimock's talk last night at St. Andrew Apostle Church in Silver Spring, MD.

Of course, the ideal audience would have been the children of the parish, with their parents sitting beside them. But although the people who did come were the people who would come -- which is to say, people who already go to Mass at least once a week, and who know and believe in the Eucharist -- Fr. Dimock made the point that, in this Year of the Eucharist, we are to enter more deeply into this sacrifice that is the "source and summit of the whole Christian life." And it's a safe bet that no one alive has yet emptied the cup of this particular mystery.

Fr. Dimock quoted St. Augustine's adage that, while other food becomes a part of us, we become a part of the Eucharist. He suggested that Christ gave the Church bread and wine transubstantiated that those who eat of It may be transubstantiated. Of course, the effect in us is only analogous to the transubstantiation of the Eucharistic species; we remain substantially present even when perfected in glory.

But I think of St. Paul's "I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me." Under the appearance of an ordinary man is to be found Christ Himself, dwelling with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Not the identical Real Presence as in the Sacrament of the altar, but the same Person.

Praestet fides supplementum
Sensuum defectui.

Why do we have to go to Church? Because it is our glory.

Link | John da Fiesole
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When gods fight among themselves

Endlessly Rocking quotes Etienne Gilson on contemporary polytheism:

Just like the world of Thales and of Plato, our own world is "full of gods." There are blind Evolution, clear-sighted Orthogenesis, benevolent Progress, and others which it is more advisable not to mention by name. Why unnecessarily hurt the feelings of men who, today, render them a cult? ... Millions of men are starving and bleeding to death because two or three of these pseudo-scientific or pseudosocial deified abstractions are now at war. For when gods fight among themselves, men have to die.

It's a stock observation that atheistic materialism is a religion for many of its adherents. Gilson suggests, though, that atheistic materialism is also a religion for many of its Christian opponents. Which in turn suggests that it may be treated with all the open-minded deference we in the West apply to the religious beliefs of everyone we encounter.

All well and good as far as it goes; concord is a virtue.

But in exchange, men have to die.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Are you talking to me?

But what if we read Isaiah's prophecies as being directed to us, personally and specifically?

Remove from your midst malicious speech.

Or, using the Douay Rheims:

Cease to speak that which profiteth not.

Is anyone free of unprofitable speech?

And though it may just be a guilty conscience, I have the suspicion that, just as almost everyone overestimates the profitableness of his speech, almost everyone underestimates its malice.

For St. Thomas, "malice" simply means choosing to sin. (This choice is present in every sin, but other factors -- like ignorance and passions -- may contribute to causing us to sin.) It can also mean the evil present in human acts.

Nowadays, though, it connotes a particularly deep and malevolent evil, I think, of a kind only thoroughgoing villains engage in. The sound Thomistic principle, "Do not attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity," is expanded to, "Do not attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by any vice you care to name."

But can't we say "both"/"and"?

In this light, then, how rare is our "malicious speech"? And by "our" I mean yours, gentle Reader, and mine, not the professional spittle-fleckers. How unusual is it for me to say something with the intent to hurt or embarrass or belittle, or simply to puff myself up? Oh, with another, nobler intent as well, no doubt: to instruct, to enlighten, to entertain. But with malice as well, with a desire however slight to do what I ought not to do, as icing or laignappe -- or perhaps simply to make my words interesting enough to myself to bother to say them.

Cease to speak that which profiteth not.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Boilerplate prophecy

Last Saturday's first reading contains a bold promise from God:

If you remove from your midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; if you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; then light shall rise for you in the darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday; then the LORD will guide you always and give you plenty even on the parched land.

He will renew your strength, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails. The ancient ruins shall be rebuilt for your sake, and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up; "repairer of the breach," they shall call you, "restorer of ruined homesteads."

Now, the Bible in general and Isaiah in particular are full of such extravagances; who pays them much heed? It would be great were the gloom to become for us like midday, but really, "Repairer of the Breach"? Ever heard of the concept of oversell, Isaiah?

Maybe these passages come and go in the Lectionary because the promises all depend on us doing things we know we aren't going to do anyway. And by "we" I of course don't mean you and me; we don't oppress, or falsely accuse, or speak maliciously; we do feed the hungry and satisfy the afflicted. But our world, our society, our diocese isn't really about to do all these things. So the promises remain eschatological.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Evening prayer and Eucharistic lecture in Silver Spring, MD

Just as a reminder, tomorrow night (February 15) St. Andrew Apostle Church in Silver Spring, MD, will host a program of Evening Prayer followed by a talk on the Eucharist by Fr. Giles Dimock, OP. It begins at 7:30 p.m. and will end by 9 (except, perhaps, for some disputing in the vestibule).

I'll be the young fellow about my age leading the chanting. Identify yourself as a Disputations reader, and you'll get a free cookie.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Noted

The Eucharist as Trinitarian valentine.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Offer it up, but to whom?

I don’t know if the priest today was in a good mood or a bad mood, but he laid down a blistering homily on the need for us to find and face the lies in our lives. The readings remind us of who the father of lies is, and of how freedom to choose between the truth and a lie becomes slavery the moment the lie is chosen.

It was very much a “rend your hearts, not your garments” homily, with a special emphasis on the point that rending your garments can be a lie – done not as a baby-step toward perfection but out of pride or idle habit – that makes rending your hearts impossible. It may well be, we were told, that it’s the devil who suggests you give up butter in addition to candy.

Link | John da Fiesole
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