We make our home in meanwhile

In a chaff-filled discussion at open book on caring for the homeless, one aside caught my attention:

But meanwhile...and there is a lot of meanwhile...

There is indeed a lot of meanwhile. One day, Christ will return. The Day of the Parousia, the Day that has no evening, and every tear will be wiped away.

Meanwhile...

One day I shall breathe my last and face my particular judgment.

Meanwhile...

One day, I'll have the strength and wisdom and grace to break free of all attachments and distractions that keep me from loving God and neighbor as I should.

Meanwhile...

Link | John da Fiesole
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How do you join?

After my habesne veritatem post the other day, inviting people to consider joining the Dominican Third Order, someone pointed out that I didn't say how to go about joining.

That depends on where you live. If you're in the U.S., you're in one of four provinces:

The Eastern Province of St. Joseph
Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, D.C., West Virginia

The Central Province of St. Albert the Great
Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming

The Southern Province of St. Martin de Porres
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas

The Western Province of the Holy Name of Jesus
Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Nevada, Utah, Washington

The above links take you to the best pages I can find to put you in contact with people who can tell you where to find the closest Third Order (a.k.a. Lay Dominican) chapter.

There's a list of Canadian chapters here. If you live elsewhere in the world, you might try starting here or here. Good luck.

Wherever you live, you can send me an email and I'll try to help you contact your friendly neighborhood Dominican for further information.

And if anyone has any better links, please let me know.

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Notes

1. I ripped off the idea for the habesne veritatem ("got truth?") image from a promotional brochure for the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC.

2. Blogger.com's spell checker recommends "Hoboken perditions" in place of "habesne veritatem."

Link | John da Fiesole
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Why the tremendous focus on Mary?

Because devotion to Mary makes bad Christians better.

It makes good Christians better, too, but I only know that from what I've read.

Link | John da Fiesole
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A note to the reader

Reginald the Tiger Quoll says:



By which he means that I don't do apologetics. In large part because I'm no good at it; as I say, if you ever catch me not thinking with the mind of the Church, it surely won't be because I'm thinking with the mind of a Protestant.

When I do discuss Catholicism with non-Catholics, I generally try to keep it at the level of explanation rather than justification. I haven't really worked out justifications for much of what I believe that don't ultimately rest on my faith that Christ founded a Church that subsists in the Catholic Church.

So if your question is, "Why should I accept this or that Catholic doctrine?", I probably don't have a very satisfying answer for you. What I try to do instead is consider the question, "What does this or that Catholic doctrine mean, in itself and for me?"

I probably don't have a very satisfying answer to that question, either, but I do what I can.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Yikes

Closing in on 200 comments on the post below, and the wisest of all may be Albertus M's, "It looks to me as if this additional explanation may not have been all that helpful."

Link | John da Fiesole
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Perpetual virginity and the brothers of the Lord

A priest very kindly forwarded a few Patristic quotations he has found useful in discussing our Lady's perpetual virginity with skeptics:

Some dare to claim that Mary became fully Joseph's wife after the Savior's birth. How could she who was the dwelling-place of the Spirit, who was overshadowed by the divine power, ever become the wife of a mortal and bear children in pain, according to the ancient curse? It is through Mary, "blessed among women," that the curses uttered in the beginning have been removed, according to which a child is born in pain and shame. A woman who bears a child in such torments cannot be called blessed. Just as the Lord entered through all closed doors, so he came out of a virginal womb, for this virgin bore him truly and really but without pain.
-- St. Ephrem, Commentary on the Diatessaron

And just as it was through a virgin who disobeyed that man was stricken and fell and died, so too it was through the Virgin, who obeyed the word of God, that man resuscitated by life received life. For the Lord came to seek back the lost sheep, and it was man who was lost; and therefore he did not become some other formation, but He likewise, of her that was descended from Adam, preserved the likeness of formation; for Adam had necessarily to be restored in Christ, that mortality be absorbed in immortality, and Eve in Mary, that a virgin became the advocate of a virgin, should undo and destroy virginal disobedience by virginal obedience.
-- St. Irenaeus, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 33

That the Lord then was manifestly coming to His own things, and was sustaining them by means of that creation which is supported by Himself, and was making a recapitulation of that disobedience which had occurred in connection with a tree, through the obedience which was [exhibited by Himself when He hung] upon a tree, [the effects] also of that deception being done away with, by which that virgin Eve, who was already espoused to a man, was unhappily misled -- was happily announced, through means of the truth [spoken] by the angel to the Virgin Mary, who was [also espoused] to a man. For just as the former was led astray by the word of an angel, so that she fled from God when she had transgressed His word; so did the later, by an angelic communication, receive the glad tidings that she should sustain God, being obedient to His word. And if the former did disobey God, yet the latter was persuaded to be obedient to God, in order that the Virgin Mary might become the patroness [advocata] of the virgin Eve. And thus, as the human race fell into bondage to death by means of a virgin, so it was rescued by a virgin; virginal disobedience having been balanced in the opposite scale by virginal obedience. For in the same way the sin of the first created man receives amendment by the correction of the First-begotten, and the coming of the serpent is conquered by the harmlessness of the dove, those bonds being unloosed by which we had been fast bound to death.
-- St. Irenaeus, Adversus Haeresies V. 19. 1

In short, Mary as the New Eve enters a new dispensation -- a recapitulation, a re-heading, a new beginning -- free of the curse of childbirth laid on Eve in Genesis 3:16. To have more children after Jesus would be to surrender to the old dispensation, to accept the curse that, by her fiat, Mary had already overcome.

Since the Second Century at the very latest, the Church has understood Mary's perpetual virginity in a profound way, one thoroughly based in Scripture. It is not a dull biological fact, still less a hatred of women or marriage or sex. It is an eschatological revelation of God's plan -- which, not entirely incidentally, means those who say the doctrine makes no difference to their lives ought to rethink their position.

There are those for whom the New Testament references to Jesus' brothers and sisters suffices to prove the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity false. For them to understand what the Church believes, they must be willing to unclench these verses, not to write them off but to set them down while they listen to what we say. Afterward, if they choose to pick them back up and insist again that they contradict the doctrine, so be it, but it requires an act of listening on their part to know what the doctrine they're rejecting actually is.

At the same time, Catholic apologists must be willing to listen to what the skeptics have to say. "Oh pish, 'brother' means 'cousin'" is didacticism, not conversation, and unless a person has come to you as your student you aren't likely to get very far with didacticism. Even if someone happens to see that "brother" does mean "cousin," you've only brought them one verse closer to the fullness of the Faith, leaving untouched the faults of the method by which they interpret the rest of Scripture.

Link | John da Fiesole
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We're looking for a few good men

Over the weekend, I attended a regional meeting of the Dominican Third Order. There were about twenty women and four men in attendance. Two of the men were Dominican friars, one was a Knight of Columbus whose wife is a tertiary, and I was the fourth.

Last night, I got an email from someone who has noticed that most of the younger people he knows (which group he prudently extends to age 45) who are involved in lay associations belong to the various newer groups, and wonders whether the Third Orders are thought to be too stodgy.

Well.

I can only speak for myself and from my own experience on this blog. It seems to me that what distinguishes the Dominican Third Order from the newer associations, in terms of demographic causes, is the sense of clear purpose the newer associations offer. Their founders have expressed their visions for the associations within living memory, and these visions have an intentionally lay orientation. They know what they want to do, and they know how to do it.

The purpose of the Dominican Third Order, on the other hand, is harder to express in terms that can be acted upon. We share in the charism of preaching for the salvation of souls, but what does preaching in accord with a secular state in life involve?

Time was when it involved a penitential rule of life and suffrages for the dead. You knew whether you were doing a good job of being a Dominican tertiary if you followed the Rule.

Then the Second Vatican Council changed the rules, almost literally. Our Rule was rewritten, replacing specifics with generalities -- in accord, I should add, with the intent of the Council, but at the cost of an explicitly penitential nature. You can read the new Rule (in principle; the latest version is currently stuck in Rome awaiting translation) for spiritual guidance, but not for a yes-or-no answer to the question, "Am I doing this tertiary thing correctly?"

Meanwhile, other associations were not standing still. There was a collapse of various traditional parish-based associations like the Holy Name Society and the various sodalities, and there was an explosion of new associations that are less parish-based and more outward-focused. Lay Catholics looking for a challenge can pick up the gauntlet tossed down by the new movements and ecclesial communities.

What I believe the Dominican Third Order, on the whole, failed to do was to toss down a gauntlet of our own. If penitence and prayer is how we live the charism of preaching, it suffices for the Order to comprise little old ladies of both sexes who gather once a month to listen to Father preach on the Rosary.

If, however, the Third Order is to live the charism of preaching by bringing the Truth Who is Christ into the world along avenues the friars cannot travel, then the little old ladies are going to have to get off their duffs and preach.

And, lest you think I am being patronizing, a word of warning: Don't get between little old lady Dominican tertiaries who are off their duffs and the pulpits from which they preach. (You shouldn't get between Dominicans of any sort and the dessert tray, either, but that's a different post.)

The long and the short of it, then, is that the Dominican Third Order offers a way of life that is largely what each tertiary, chapter, and province makes of it. There is a tremendous push under way in the Eastern U.S. Province to make the whole province thoroughly formed in the Dominican tradition and vibrantly apostolic, in particular through sponsoring Scripture study circles. We have a great deal to offer -- St. Dominic, St. Thomas, St. Catherine, St. Martin de Porres, St. Rose, just for starters -- to our tertiaries, our Church, and our world. But, ironically enough for preachers, we need to get the word out.

So you, dear Reader who is not already a member of a Third Order or ecclesial community: Are you up to the challenge of saving souls by preaching the Truth?

Link | John da Fiesole
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Episode VII: Pretence of the Geeks

Amy Welborn links to part 1 of an over-the-top look at the alleged spirituality of the Star Wars movies:

Clearly, Lucas intends to pose hard questions about the foundation of knowledge, metaphysical reality, and personal human destiny—questions of fate or providence.

These questions and other important ones become more insistent as the series progresses; indeed, they become the matters on which the outcome of the whole story hinges.

Because, you know, a lot of us were worried that the Emperor might win.

The spiritual insights of George Lucas can be expressed in one brief sentence:

Light sabers are cool!

Link | John da Fiesole
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A problem for the reader

Rob poses a question:

Suppose that the Church was 100% successful in bringing about, through the grace of God, the living of perfect Christian lives on the part of the entire laity. Would that perfected laity consist of a billion happy, productive and moderately prosperous tithers? Or would it consist of a billion penitents, who had given all they possessed to the poor to devote their lives to prayer and fasting in detachment from worldly concerns?

Or what?

Link | John da Fiesole
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Two ways of thought separated by a single Revelation

A post at the Dawn Patrol referred to Mary's virginity, which as might be expected led to a couple of Protestants wondering what the big deal is:

Now, here we open up a very good question: is Mary any less than a holy Mother of our Lord Jesus, or less deserving that all will "call her blessed" if we accept what the Bible says more obviously, i.e., that she did not have sex with her husband until after Jesus was born, and that Jesus had brothers and sisters, which are named in the Bible?

...

... asking forgiveness in advance if I offend, I believe Mary might be bemused and maybe even amused with how many people who claim to follow her Son fight with each other about what did or didn't happen in her uterus after He left.

Well. When instruction is requested, instruction is offered. I offered the following:

I don't think anyone can understand the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary if he understands it to be purely a matter of uteruses and the like, any more than one could understand the significance of the Ark of the Covenant (with which Mary is traditionally identified) if he understands it to be purely a matter of luggage.

Virginity represents purity, in particular the purity of heart of one wholly devoted to God. In Mary's case, one might almost say her virginity is a "sacrament" -- a sign that effects what it signifies -- of her purity of heart. Honoring her as Ever-Virgin recalls for us in this moment that perfect purity of heart, and also brings to us the hope of our own such purity in the life to come.

Mary is the Virgin Mother. As Virgin, she perfectly loves Jesus in His Divinity. As Mother, she perfectly loves Him in His humanity.

Which goes to show that I am not an apologist, since the reply came swiftly:

Redefining "virginity" to mean "purity of heart" doesn't answer the question of the basis for believing such a doctrine, regardless of its definition (or redefinition).

To say "virginity" means purity of heart not only evades the question, but would seem to do so ineffectively, for doesn't such a definition run afoul of the view of marriage as a holy and worthy gift of God? My heart is no less "pure" from having sex with my wife than were I to have become a eunich long ago.

The concepts of sacrament and sign are invisible to people who think like this; they hear "definition" where I say "representation."

For my part, I simply do not think in terms of the specific verses to be cited as the basis for belief, and find it a great bore to be asked for them. I don't want people to be forced by argument to accept Mary's perpetual virginity. I want them to understand what it means, and I don't know how to get them to understand what it means if they take a secondary implication -- that "what the Bible says more obviously" is untrue -- for the primary meaning.

Link | John da Fiesole
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The call

They say if you've met one Dominican, you've met one Dominican.

Servant of God Rose Hawthorne was a writer well known in the world of letters when, at the age of forty-five, she began nursing poor people who had incurable cancer. It was four more years before she became a Dominican tertiary and turned her growing apostolate into a religious congregation. She died twenty-six years later, her congregation firmly established.

Blessed Jane of Portugal was a Fifteenth Century princess who wanted nothing more, and would settle for nothing less, than the life of a Dominican nun. Due to the opposition of her father and brother, not to mention numerous nobles and bishops who could think of better uses for her than making altar cloths, it wasn't until she was thirty-three that she was able to enter the cloister. Even then, she was frequently called back to court, where, five years after becoming a nun, she was poisoned, dying "with the detachment of a religious and the dignity of a queen" after several months of agony. Her feast day was yesterday.

Blessed Imelda Lambertini, whose feast day on the Dominican calendar is today, was the daughter of a count who sent her to a Dominican convent school. There she lived as much of the convent life as she could, longing especially for the Eucharist, but she was a year or two short of the requisite age of twelve. One day, while she praying after Mass, a brilliant light was seen shining above her head, with a Host within the light. The priest understood this to be a sign from heaven, and he gave the girl Communion. The joy of receiving her Eucharistic Lord was too intense for her body, and Bl. Imelda died in rapture there in the chapel. She is a patroness of First Communicants.

Three paths to sanctity.

Most Catholic hagiography seems to feature the "fasted from mother's milk on vigils" type path, where a serene glow seems to follow a saint from childhood. Another type of path is the "road to Damascus," where a great sinner is converted.

For those of us who aren't particularly great, one way or another -- or even, for that matter, particularly young -- Rose Hawthorne suggests a quite different path. A quite fearful one, too, one that hounds us with the disquieting thought that it's never too late to get started.

Link | John da Fiesole
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The response to our preaching

The recent national convocation of the Federation of Dominican Sisters has been talked about some in St. Blogs, in the fish-in-a-barrel way you'd expect if you know anything about the Federation and about St. Blogs. Barb Nicolosi offers a fortuitous peek at the convocation which does not contrast jarringly with the summaries of discussions posted on the federation's website.

Setting all that aside, I'll just quote from a talk given by Fr. Chrys McVey, OP,
Socius for Apostolic Life for the Dominican Order:

I was told a story by a family who had gone on a picnic. A summer storm had come up and they sought shelter under a huge tree. When the storm passed, there was the most beautiful rainbow filling the whole sky. The mother roused her young daughter, who had been
sleeping in her lap, and said, "Look!"

The little girl looked, was quiet, then looked up at her mother and said, "Take me to it!"

That should be the response to our preaching: not a mumbled "Amen," but the cry, "Take me to it!"

Link | John da Fiesole
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The immigration reflex

It's odd how the mere observation of a sentence containing the words "bishops" and "immigration" sends some American Catholics into fits of indignation.

I don't pretend to understand the issues involved in forming immigration policy. I do note, though, the categorical rejection of everything our bishops say on the matter as outside their competence and beyond their understanding. To quote a bishop saying, "We can no longer tolerate the death of human beings in the desert" -- which, to me, sounds like a matter entirely appropriate for a Catholic bishop to pronounce upon -- is to invite the response, "See? The bishops favor illegal immigration!"

The logic of that response escapes me, but more striking is the absence of an acknowledgment of our Christian duty toward others that is not pro forma and immediately followed by a "but." It is the same attitude as that expressed by the anti-war organizations who are unable to admit without caveat that Saddam Hussein was an evil despot. Of course, in this case, the attitude toward the bishops is the same as it was among pro-war folks: "We have nothing to learn from them."

It may be that the bishops and I happen to be the only Catholics in the United States who aren't fully versed in every social, political, economic, cultural, and religious aspect of immigration policy. Based on the attitudes and arguments advanced by those who refuse to learn from their bishops, though, I doubt it.

And under cover of the position of one person who certainly knows more than I about the economic and political aspects, at the very least -- and who also is not given to peace-n-justice vacuity -- I will boldly assert that, when Cardinal McCarrick says "we must change attitudes, including those of many of our own flock,"
he is speaking from a more sound position than that of those Catholics he is referring to.

But but but: Sovereign nations. Rights. Own borders. Primary obligations. Those people.

Yeah yeah yeah: Tell it to the crucifix. Go kneel before the utter self-abnegation of the Eucharist and say, "What about me!" When you've received your answer, then you can ignore the bishops.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Framing the question

I received a whacking great package of material from the Rose Hawthorne Guild today. And now I see to my shame that it's been nearly two years since I mentioned the Servant of God, Rose Hawthorne, who founded a congregation of Dominican sisters whose apostolate was and remains "to nurse and shelter incurable cancer patients who cannot afford care elsewhere."

Rose Hawthorne was received into the Catholic Church on St. Joseph's Day in 1891. Less than ten years later, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1900, she received the Dominican habit and made public profession as Sister Mary Alphonsa.

Midway between these two events, she began to dedicate her life to the care of the sick and dying poor of New York City. At the time, cancer carried a great social stigma, and once a patient's cancer was declared incurable, the hospitals of the city would no longer treat him.

A biographical article on Rose Hawthorne expresses the effect of this reality on her this way:

"How can anyone... how can we treat suffering people like that?" she thought. "How many of these sufferers there must be! Why doesn't someone do...?" The question soon became, "Why don't I do something about it?" Framing the question took more courage than answering it.

She was to spend the remaining thirty years of her life living the answer.

What questions in our own lives do we lack the courage to frame?

Link | John da Fiesole
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Superiority

Once, when my father was in the Navy ROTC, an officer told him to polish a brass bell. My father said, "Okay," and the officer immediately corrected him:

"You don't say, 'Okay,' you say, 'Yes, sir.' You aren't agreeing with me, you're obeying my order."

My father said, "Yes, sir," and polished the bell.

The distinction between agreement and obedience is an important one for the Church these days. It is, at times, blurred, as when someone argues from etymology that obedience consists, not in doing what is commanded, but in listening with an open mind to what is commanded.

It may also be inverted, for example when obedience to a superior is regarded as contrary to the personal autonomy of a rational being. Since obedience is implicit in the very notion of the role of superior, such a repudiation of obedience amounts to a repudiation of the authority to command.

To say a lot of Catholics are okay with that is to understate the case. In fact, a lot of Catholics insist on the repudiation of the authority to command, a repudiation that goes hand in hand with, if not the repudiation, then at least the drastic downgrading of any authority to discern.

If no one is my superior, then I am not obligated to do or believe anything based on what anyone else tells me. I may, if I choose, listen to what they say with an open mind -- or rather, with as open a mind as I can manage, given the biases, habits, and convictions I bring to every act of reason.

When the Church tells me that something is so, however, I am in the unfortunate position of being unable to believe the Church. The best I can do is agree with her. "I find the Church's position the most reasonable of all those I have evaluated," I might say; or, more briefly, "Okay."

But if I feel free to accept any position that is solidly probable, and I regard any position I happen to hold as solidly probable by virtue of the fact that I happen to hold it, it will be deucedly difficult for me to even muster agreement with any Church position contrary to my own.

I wind up holding, not the fullness of the Faith, but the patchwork of the Concurrence. But hey, at least no one is my superior.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Preach what

Bl. Humbert of Romans, the fifth Master General of the Dominicans, wrote of Mary as the "special Mother" of the Order of Preachers, an Order "whose purpose is to praise, to bless, and to preach her Son."

Now, Laudare, Benedicere, Praedicare -- "to praise, to bless, to preach" -- is a motto of the Dominican Order. In tying the Order more tightly to Mary, Bl. Humbert makes a critical point: the purpose of the Dominicans is to preach Christ Jesus.

If you ever catch a Dominican preaching, but not preaching Jesus, you should ask him why.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Be a ________

In a post on the term "neoconservative," Zippy observes that

the way to plant the flag of victory into our public conversation is to stop being an adjective and start being a noun.

"Catholic" is, as is fitting, both an adjective and a noun. But, "Stop being an adjective and start being a noun," sounds like a good rejoinder to anyone who begins a sentence with something like, "As a progressive Catholic," or, "As an orthodox Catholic."

Link | John da Fiesole
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Authority qua authority

Have you ever found yourself saying something like, "As a coroner, I prefer Shemp to Curly"? Of course you have. Who hasn't?

But what does that "As a coroner" qualifier really mean? Too often, I think, it means, "Speaking on behalf of all coroners living and dead, who think as one mind on this matter." I say "too often," because it should only mean that when it is actually true that coroners think as one mind on the matter, and we all know the old joke about how any two coroners will have three opinions between them.

It might be a good idea, when you find yourself about to say, "As a coroner, I...," to ask yourself whether you mean to speak for all coroners, or merely point out the coincidence within your person of your profession and your opinion. If it's the latter, there might be a better way to phrase your thought; perhaps something along the lines of, "I happen to be a coroner, and I...."

The same would still be true, of course, if your profession happens to be Roman Catholic.

Link | John da Fiesole
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"We should spend on virtue what we take away from our pleasures"

The third general grant from the Enchiridion of Indulgences uses perfect language for yesterday's posts:

A partial indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who, in a spirit of penitence, voluntarily abstain from something which is licit for and pleasing to them.

Christian perfection presupposes and is distinct from "faithful" obedience to God's commandments. Those seeking perfection regard everything "which is licit for and pleasing to them" with detachment; they do not pursue these goods, they may in fact avoid them. But they do so "in a spirit of penitence," or more generally in a spirit of charity, not a spirit of obligation (as might those on the First Stair) or vainglory (as might those on the Second).

What does that mean for us?

"You going to eat that donut?"
"Sure. Why not?"
"Well, if you wanted to, you could abstain from eating it, in a spirit of penitence, and apply the indulgence to the dead as suffrages. If, you know, you loved the dead as your suffering brothers and sisters in Christ."
"See, this is exactly why no one likes you."

Link | John da Fiesole
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For example

St. Catherine of Siena distinguished between "more perfect" souls, who love God because of the good things He gives them, and "most perfect" souls, who love God for Himself.

Now, let me suggest an example of "more perfect" and "most perfect" acts that will annoy a lot of readers. It would certainly annoy me if someone else suggested it.

I'll start with a "more perfect" act, meaning only that it, like the rich young man, follows all the Commandments: Drinking a glass of wine with dinner.

Note that there's nothing at all objectively wrong with drinking a glass of wine with dinner (assuming ordinary circumstances: it's not stolen, there isn't someone dying of thirst watching you, you're not drinking from the skull of your enemy, and so on). In fact, done with the intention of conviviality or hospitality or joy in God's bounty, it can be positively virtuous.

Now consider the act of drinking only lukewarm water with dinner. Is this a "most perfect" act?

Objectively speaking, I don't see much to choose between the two acts. In themselves, a glass of wine is about as good as a glass of water; if anything, I suppose, the wine is a modestly superior good.

It is the actor's intention that seems to make the real difference. To drink a glass of wine for pleasure is permissible, I'm pleased to say. To drink water instead with the intention of offering the trivial sacrifice in reparation for sin is positively meritorious; if done with the intention of succoring the souls in purgatory, it's actually indulgenced. If for such a reason you pass on wine, then yes, your act is "most perfect" -- or at least, more perfect than drinking the wine for pleasure.

On the other hand, if the choice is between drinking a glass of wine with the intention of making a guest feel welcome in your home and drinking a glass of water with the intention of proving that some killjoy blogger's notions of Christian perfection don't leave you any more perfect, then the wine would seem the better choice.

For completeness, the circumstances should be considered as well. Drinking water with dinner guests present may well be more of a display of fasting than of fasting itself.

From all of which, we conclude what? Perhaps that perfection lies more in the interior disposition than in the outward act, and that the first rule of becoming perfect must be "charity before all rules."

Link | John da Fiesole
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One thing lacking

Since the days of Ananias and Sapphira, Christians have been asking themselves, "When Jesus said, 'Sell all you have and give the money to the poor,' He didn't mean me, did He?"

On one side, people use Scripture, Tradition, and reason to develop arguments of varying quality to the effect that no, Jesus did not intend that as a universal commandment.

On the other side are those who see in these arguments little more than attempts to squirm out from under the clear words of Jesus to avoid doing something most people would rather not do (for that matter, absolutely won't do).

I think, though, that a far stronger argument can be made that the true challenge of that verse lies in the first half:

Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be perfect,...."

Yes, Christians in general cling too stubbornly to our material goods, but I suggest more of us cling more tightly still to our imperfections.

How many Christians are minimalists, whose question to Jesus would be, "Good teacher, what may I do and still inherit eternal life?"

And how many are imperfectionists, who feel superior to the minimalists (you can judge your own reaction to the above paragraph) while refusing the more perfect choices each day offers?

Suppose you are deciding to do something, to perform some act. Let's say it, like the rich young man, follows all the Commandments: it's truthful, does not harm others, it isn't blasphemous, doesn't reflect or engender lust or envy, it violates no precept of God or Church.

That, I suspect, is the ideal most Christians would at least admit they probably ought to aim for.

But Jesus is not waiting for them in this ideal. To follow Him, we must go beyond the Law and approach perfection. Is the act you're deciding to do perfect?

Well, first, yikes!; and second, so what if it's not?

Perfection does seem like a tall order. But then, so does printing your name, if you've never tried to learn to write. Of course people who have never tried to be perfect will find trying to be perfect hard to do. What is Jesus' answer to His disciples dismay after the rich young man leaves? "For man this is impossible, but for God all things are possible."

And so what if an act isn't the best of all possible acts, as long as it's permissible? Obviously, if it's permissible no one can tell you not to do it, but ask yourself: Do I want to do what I am allowed to do, or what best proves and strengthens my love for God and neighbor? Do I really want to be perfect, or do I rather want to insist on my rights before God and man? And since you can't intend the end without intending the means, there's an even tougher question all Christians answer by their lives even if they never explicitly ask it of themselves:

Do I want to become perfect?

Link | John da Fiesole
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Speaking of poetry

There is a new effort underway to foster the use of poetry in the preaching mission of the Dominican Family, launched with the OPrize for Poetry contest. The winning poems are on-line, as well as other submissions and poems by the judges, too. There's even a planned on-line poetry seminar (apparently open only to Dominicans).

Link | John da Fiesole
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..., Manny, Moe (called Sparky), and Jack

There sure are a lot of Apostles, aren't there?

I mean, yes, twelve tribes of Israel and all that. Symbolism and meaning in numbers.

But in more practical terms, how many Apostles do we need? Peter, James, and John are the big three; Thomas gets his one big scene on Mercy Sunday; Matthew has his Gospel; you might have your own favorite. But for the rest? If today were the feast of Sts. Zeppo and Sneezy, would it make any difference?

O, ungrateful thought! As if the Faith I have inherited is naturally mine. As if the Christians of the Apostolic Age, who scattered the seeds given them by Christ, were a mass of undifferentiated individuals. As if the very Sacraments, by which we are raised to life in Christ, and sustained in that life, come to the Church through Peter alone. As if the community of the Twelve, which Jesus formed and confirmed, was an accident, or merely there to sustain the one Apostle who really counted.

The Church invites us to enjoy today. Lets!

Sts. Philip and James, pray for us!

Link | John da Fiesole
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Free Verse

From Acadamia's Stranglehold!

Join the rebellion at Flos Carmelli.

Link | John da Fiesole
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A four-letter word

My suggestion that what makes St. Catherine of Siena so foreign to us is her zeal for God and for the souls of others (that's her language, by the way; I could call it her zeal for the salvation of others, but that would be to step back from someone who wrote of getting fat on eating the souls of others) has received some resistance. The idea of zeal isn't merely unappealing, it's one people actively dislike.

I think the reason is the obvious one: someone with zeal is a zealot, a zealot wants to kill you or at least send you to a re-education camp, and you don't want that to happen. Zeal is like nitroglycerine; no one really trusts other people to handle it properly in large doses. Aristotle says virtue lies in the mean between extremes, and nothing says extreme like zeal.

Or does it? St. Thomas teaches that zeal is an effect of love:

In this respect, a man is said to be zealous on behalf of his friend, when he makes a point of repelling whatever may be said or done against the friend's good. In this way, too, a man is said to be zealous on God's behalf, when he endeavors, to the best of his means, to repel whatever is contrary to the honor or will of God....

Love is the desire for another's good, and zeal is acting on that desire to prevent what hinders the other's good. But love of God is a virtue that does not lie between extremes; there's no such thing as being too charitable. As love increases, zeal increases. Can we be too zealous for God?

It's certainly true that I can endeavor to repel something contrary to the honor of God in a way that does more harm than good. In this sense, zeal can outstrip prudence. The problem, though, isn't too much zeal; it's too little prudence. And that means it isn't solved by reducing zeal, but by increasing prudence -- by, for example, learning to ask whether the action taken will in fact achieve the end of preserving God's honor.

It was zeal that caused Jesus to drive out the moneychangers, bringing to His disciples mind the words of the Psalm, "Zeal for Your house consumes me." But look at those words in a larger context:

For Your sake I bear insult, shame covers my face.
I have become an outcast to my kin, a stranger to my mother's children.
Because zeal for your house consumes me, I am scorned by those who scorn you.
I have wept and fasted, but this led only to scorn.
I clothed myself in sackcloth; I became a byword for them.
They who sit at the gate gossip about me; drunkards make me the butt of their songs.

This -- in the psalmist's day, in Jesus' day, in our day -- is the price of zeal.

We talk in terms of what effect another's zeal might have on us, how it will disturb our peace, but neglect to face up to what effects our own zeal for God would have.

There is, to be sure, an internal effect of zeal; I give up the choice to not act, which means I give up the choice to go uneventfully home to a restful evening.

But there is also an external effect. I am not in a position to send anyone to a re-education camp; others have no need to fear any zeal for God I might have. But me? Insult, shame, scorn, gossip, jokes: that's the life of a saint among the indifferent. When my love for God is greater than my fear of these things, then I too will be consumed by zeal, and others will say, if they're feeling charitable, "He's really going overboard with all this."

Link | John da Fiesole
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Live via remote

St. Catherine of Siena is not a particularly cuddly saint. Many of the tales told about her don't make her seem approachable so much as a bit nutty. Her charism of exhortation tends to get detached from her charism of obedience, producing an abstract symbol of complaint rather than a real, much less historically accurate, personality.

Her teachings, meanwhile, were written from the unyielding perspective of a Fourteenth Century Italian female mystic. For people who aren't as close to God as she was, they have a certain unavoidable remoteness. Even her spiritual director, Bl. Raymond of Capua, theologian and Master General of the Order of Preachers, wrote that many times he didn't really understand what she was trying to explain to him.

Furthermore, an important aspect of her teaching, and more clearly of her life, is a radical asceticism that can be taken for a rejection of the licit goods of life:

When the soul has passed through the doctrine of Christ crucified, with true love of virtue and hatred of vice, and has arrived at the house of self-knowledge and entered therein, she remains, with her door barred, in watching and constant prayer, separated entirely from the consolations of the world. Why does she thus shut herself in? She does so from fear, knowing her own imperfections, and also from the desire, which she has, of arriving at pure and generous love. And because she sees and knows well that in no other way can she arrive thereat, she waits, with a lively faith for My arrival, through increase of grace in her.

Some see this as a tendency toward Manichaeism, as though St. Catherine saw physical pleasure itself as at best a temptation to sin. Others sense a degree of narcissism, that her emphasis on shut-in self-knowledge amounts to self-obsession.

Here is my suspicion: What makes St. Catherine seem so foreign to us is not her personality, not her obscurity, not her doctrine. It is her zeal.

Zeal for God: to be happy with nothing less than perfect union with Him; to be satisfied with no thought, word, or deed that is not worthy of being offered to Him.

Zeal for souls: to be consumed with instilling in all those she met her own zeal for God; to be constantly aware of the choice between Life and death all must make, and of how many are choosing death who might yet choose Life.

All saints are marked by zeal, in their own way, but St. Catherine shows a particularly raw and palpable zeal, a headlong and headstrong love responding with utter abandon to the love of God that is Christ’s blood, to Christ's blood that is the love of God. Such full-bored, whole-hearted zeal is not something many people can identify closely with.

We say -- and with accuracy, I think -- that we aren't called by God to live the way St. Catherine lived. And yet, zeal is desire is love, and who is not called by God to love with their whole heart and their whole mind and their whole soul and their whole strength?

Link | John da Fiesole
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Making my own fun

I know, I know. Everyone says the animal on the Pope's coat of arms is a bear.



I'm sure they're right.

Link | John da Fiesole
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A question for moralists

One curse of the autodidact is to be wholly ignorant of a lot of fairly basic stuff.

Suppose I am throwing a baseball with my son in our back yard. After several tosses back and forth, one of my throws sails over my son's head and through our neighbor's window. (This is purely hypothetical, and would never happen in real life.) (All my bad throws are low and away.)

Was the human act that I chose the act of throwing the ball to my son, or the act of throwing the ball through the window? If the former, where did the act that broke the window come from? If the latter, how exactly did I choose it?

The question, by the way, came to me as I was reading Zippy Catholic, which has a post that, for some reason, makes me feel sincerely flattered.

Link | John da Fiesole
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St. Catherine on prayer

"Systematic" is not a word I would use to describe St. Catherine of Siena's style of teaching. She skips steps, abandons trains of thought, and leaves some key concepts maddeningly vague -- yet she also habitually interjects clarifications of great theological precision and sophistication.

There's a section in the Dialogue where she presents her version of the stages in a Christian's prayer life, from vocal prayer to mental prayer, which culminates in the perpetual prayer of desire:

see then, that perfect prayer is not attained to through many words, but through affection of desire, the soul raising herself to Me, with knowledge of herself and of My mercy, seasoned the one with the other. Thus she will exercise together mental and vocal prayer, for, even as the active and contemplative life is one, so are they.

But what does she mean by "mental prayer"? She doesn't say, exactly, though she does write that God may visit the soul

in a flash of self-knowledge or of contrition for sin, sometimes in the broadness of My charity, and sometimes by placing before her mind, in diverse ways, according to My pleasure and the desire of the soul, the presence of My Truth... The moment she feels her mind disposed by My visitation, in the many ways I have told you, she should abandon vocal prayer...."

Someone well-read in Catholic spiritual thought might sigh at this, then patiently tease apart the different stages of meditation, infused contemplation, direct contemplation, and so forth that St. Catherine so carelessly bundles together.

In fact, she goes further in mixing things together that are commonly treated separately:

Each one, according to his condition, ought to exert himself for the salvation of souls, for this exercise lies at the root of a holy will, and whatever he may contribute, by words or deeds, towards the salvation of his neighbor, is virtually a prayer.... I have also spoken to you of ... how every exercise, whether performed in oneself or in one's neighbor, with good-will, is prayer.

Labora est ora. If prayer is a lifting up of the heart to God, and if it is through a habitual holy desire for God that we do good for our neighbor, then the very act of doing good is a form of prayer.

St. Catherine's spirituality is not of the via negativa. What she contemplates is not Ineffable Being, but the inebriating blood of Christ, which clothes the soul "with the fire of divine charity." It isn't God-in-Himself that captivates her, but God-as-Lover, as the Lunatic so crazy for mankind that His very love pins Him to the Cross. And the proper response to that love can only be crazy-mad love for Him.

What sustains this crazy-mad love for God is nothing less than God,

the food of the Body and Blood of My Son.... This food strengthens little or much, according to the desire of the recipient, whether he receives sacramentally or virtually. He receives sacramentally when he actually communicates with the Blessed Sacrament. He receives virtually when he communicates, both by desire of communion, and by contemplation of the Blood of Christ crucified... with the affection of love, which is to be tasted in the Blood which, as the soul sees, was shed through love. On seeing this the soul becomes inebriated, and blazes with holy desire and satisfies herself, becoming full of love for Me and for her neighbor.

The concept of virtual or spiritual communion -- which, according to St. Catherine, truly strengthens the communicant according to his desire -- could, I think, be emphasized today with much profit. Not the least in relation to the difficulties around who may be admitted to Communion.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Revising my position

Exception has been taken to a post below, in which I looked at an interview Pope Benedict XVI gave a couple of years ago and concluded that he was not speaking of a vision of a "smaller but more devoted Church." (The quotation is from something someone else wrote, not from the then-Cardinal.) Let me try to clarify my point:

What does it mean to say a Pope has a certain vision of the future of the Church? The vision might be something toward which he intends to guide the Church. Or it might merely be something he foresees will happen regardless of what he does.

When I hear people speak of Pope Benedict's comments about a smaller Church -- be they fearful "progressives" or eager "traditionalists" -- it usually sounds as though they believe he was speaking of an intentional reduction in the number of Catholics. They expect him to embark on a program of kicking out heretics or people more open to the movement of the Holy Spirit than he is.

I can see no implication of such an intentional vision in his interview. Nevertheless, there is already some "Faster, please" restlessness among the doctrinally pure.

(As an aside, I was puzzled by the many comments I saw last week along the lines of, "I hope all those dissenters do leave the Church.... Oh, not the ordinary dissenters in the pews, just the obstinate heretics who work for the Church." How many obstinate heretics do they think work for the Church, anyway, if they think such an exodus would leave a mustard seed-sized Church?)

From the little I've read, I'd say the Pope's vision of a smaller Church regards size as less a matter of absolute numbers than of relative concentration in the population. It's not a small Universal Church as such that will bring about a new springtime at a global level, but small communities within the Church that will bring the springtime to the places where they exist, attracting others by their devotion to Christ, even some who are not yet ready to join in their devotion.

Moreover, the whole idea of a "more devoted" Church seems, in the minds of many on both extremes of enthusiasm for the new Pope, to amount in practical terms to a Church comprising only those who publicly accept that women will never be ordained.

But that's not what the Pope has said and written, perhaps because he knows that doctrinal purity is no guarantor of devotion to Christ. Every Catholic in the Fourteenth Century publicly accepted that women will never be ordained, yet the writings of the saints of that time are not limited to marveling at the devotion of the Church.

What the Pope has said and written is that what will mark this "more devoted" Church -- and it can't be overemphasized that the only devotion that really counts is the devotion to Christ -- is radiating the joy of the faith, bringing the good into the world, communion with other ways of being Catholic... and, yes, obedience to and service of the Universal Church. But obedience is just one part of one note, not the whole tune.

And in all honesty, "radiating the joy of the faith" is not how I would characterize those eagerly awaiting the first batch of excommunications.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Have a heart

The blogger at Totus Tuus asks, "Do I have the heart of a Dominican?"

(Yes, yes: "Dominicans have hearts?" Very witty of you, and a very impressive demonstration of your Jesuit education.)

Allow me to quote from the comment I wrote:

I would say that St. Dominic's was a heart burning with zeal for the salvation of souls through preaching the Truth Who is Christ Crucified and Risen.

We tend to emphasize study in distinguishing the Dominicans from other orders, since what order doesn't pray, what order isn't a community, what order doesn't do apostolic work?

But the Order of Preachers is very goal-oriented, and for us study is only a means to an end. As St. Vincent Ferrer, OP, advised the friars, "Study less to make yourself learned than to become a saint."

Dominicans become saints in service of the Holy Preaching.

If that's what you want to do, then you have the heart of a Dominican.

Link | John da Fiesole
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The anchor of Cattaro

Today is the feast day of Blessed Ossana of Cattaro, a Dominican tertiary who died in 1565. She was born in Montenegro to Orthodox parents; her desire to live near a church where she could pray led her to become a maid in a Catholic woman's house.

In time, Bl. Ossana became Catholic herself, and later a solitary living in a sealed cell in a church in Cattaro. Such anchoresses were not rare at the time; what was more unusual was that she also joined the Dominican Third Order. (A friar I know has said the only Dominican hermits are spice cookies brought to a Chapter meeting; that's almost true.) From her cell, she dispensed spiritual direction to those who sought her out and God's graces upon the town.

I mention her because, within the Dominican Order, she is invoked in the cause of Christian unity, and Christian unity is a cause for which we can always use more intercession.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Uncle, Papa! Uncle!

It's probably obvious enough by now, but let me come right out and state that I will not be reading and pondering every word spoken by Pope Benedict XVI. The days of our years are threescore years and ten, and all that, and as it is I'm not sure I can keep up with everything written on the Pope Benedict XVI Fan Club blog, much less all the speeches and audiences and homilies and all the rest direct from the Pope himself.

It's an exciting time in the Church, but as a matter of sanity if nothing else, I think I need to unplug myself from the 24-hour Vatican news cycle.

Link | John da Fiesole
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An agonizing hope

To understand Christian hope, you need to understand it from several angles. You need to know what it means to hope at the Annunciation, at the Crucifixion, at the Resurrection.

The Crucifixion would seem to be the one moment in time when hope is most absent. Perhaps it would have been entirely absent, had the Blessed Virgin not been there. But it's precisely when all is hopeless that Christian hope -- the virtue of trusting in God's promises -- is most present; in a hopeless situation, you can't hope in anyone or anything but God.

But what is Christian hope seen from the perspective of the Agony in the Garden? Put another way, what would our Lady's hope have been if she were aware of her Son's agony?

The simplest answer is wrong. When Jesus said, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from Me," He wasn't expressing the hope that it would be taken away. You can't hope for the impossible, and it was for this sacrifice that He was born. Rather, He was making explicit the difference between His human will and His divine will, without which His passion would not have been an act of obedience, but one of agreement.

The aspect of Christian hope shown in Christ's agony, then, seems to be this: the hope that one's natural hope will be wholly overcome by one's supernatural hope. Not eradicated; the Christian remains human, and so retains his human will. But overcome, made obedient to, what he hopes for in Christ.

This indeed is an agony for holy people, the final defeat of that one last corner that holds out for something other than what God desires for us. Jesus Himself, whose humanity was perfect from the moment it came into being, wept tears of blood over what, for Him, was not resistance but merely difference. It's an agony that is probably literally inconceivable for those of us who aren't particularly holy and aren't particularly interested in becoming holy; it's the agony of purgatory.

And it is what we, as Christians, hope for.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Talking about touching

Much could be said about the Washington Post-ABC News Poll on the views of Catholics toward Pope Benedict XVI, in which 81% of Catholics said they approve "of the selection of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now known as Pope Benedict the 16th, as the next pope," and 73% said they would describe their feelings about the selection of Ratzinger as pope as very enthusiastic (27%) or somewhat enthusiastic (46%) (margin of error is 6%). (Post article here, more details here.)

For now, I just want to mention one question in the poll: "In general, do you think the Roman Catholic Church is in touch with the views of Catholics in America today, or is it out of touch?"

If I had been polled, my answer to this question would have been, "Um, what?"

More expansively, what does "in touch with" mean? Aware of? Consonant with? Guided by? Hep to?

Who decided that American Catholics do or should think in terms of whether the Church is "in touch with" their views? Do American Catholics actually think -- if that's the word I want -- in these terms, or did it merely emerge as a trope of post-conciliar therapeutic dissent, becoming adopted without much thought through repetition and familiarity?

The expression itself is suspiciously asymmetric: "I am out of touch with you" does not imply "you are out of touch with me." It suggests that there is something objective -- in this case, "the views of Catholics in America today" -- to which other things may relate via being "in touch with."

To the extent such groovy language should be used at all, it seems to me the objective something to which other things may relate ought to be the Church:

"In general, do you think Catholics in America today are down with the views of the Roman Catholic Church?"

Ah, but that would be too much like suggesting there's something other than me at the center.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Hearing the News

One of the previously untranslatable documents from the Oxyrhynchus Papyri has turned out to be a fragment from the Gospel of Luke. There are some interesting differences between this version and other known manuscripts. Here is the fragment, with words not found in other manuscripts shown in italics and words missing in the new MS shown in strikethrough:

… Jesus had heard, he said to him: Yet one thing is wanting [to thee]: sell all whatever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me. He having heard these things, became sorrowful; for he was very rich, said: Oh, you don't really mean that. And Jesus answered him: No, I really do. And the ruler said: Surely your words are being taken out of context. Do not worry; I will remain with you until you modernize your beliefs. And Jesus seeing him become became sorrowful, [and] said: How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God.

What effect, if any, this discovery will have on matters of faith and morals, it's too soon to say.

Link | John da Fiesole
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The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ According to Mark

Here are the first words of each sentence in the first chapter of the Knox translation of Mark's Gospel:

The beginning
It is written
And so it was
And all the country
John was clothed
And thus he preached
I have baptized
At this time
And even as he came up
There was a voice
Thereupon, the Spirit
But when John
And as he passed along
And they dropped their nets
Then he went
So they made their way
And there
Hast thou come
I recognize thee
Jesus spoke
Then the unclean spirit
All were full
What is this
See how
And the story
As soon as
The mother
And all at once
And when it was evening
And he healed
Then, at very early dawn
Simon and his companions
And he said
So he continued
Then a leper
Jesus was moved
And at the word
And he spoke
But he

You need the rest of the words, of course, to get the full sense of the chapter. But these words as they stand give a pretty good sense of Mark's style, energy, simplicity, and directness.

Try this: Find a place where you can talk aloud to yourself. Stand up and read the first chapter of Mark out loud, in a brisk and lively manner, as though you were telling a story you had just heard to someone who hadn't heard it before.

If you do this, you will learn something about Jesus, something Mark has to tell you that the other Evangelists don't. You will also learn something about yourself. If nothing else, you will learn whether hearing the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, makes you want to hear more.

Mark is a book for reading out loud, standing up.

Link | John da Fiesole
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