What is presumed is not redeemed

Some people are just naturally better at something than other people. This is an utterly unremarkable remark when it comes to things like athletic and musical talent.

But there are also such things as "religious talents." Aren't some people just naturally better believers, hopers, and lovers than other people? Aren't some people simply inept when it comes to praying, or even just sitting through Mass?

Just as there are some people who aren't natural athletes, there are some who aren't natural saints. And --

Hold on.

Christianity isn't about "natural saints." In fact, it teaches that natural saints are nothing but clashing cymbals. Christianity is about supernatural saints, saints sanctified not as God made them but as Christ's blood makes them.

The fact that someone finds it naturally easy to say, "I believe everything the Church proposes as true," does not in itself guarantee that this is a person of great faith. This may be a person who would, in other circumstances, just as readily say, "I believe everything the Party proposes as true." Faith, salvific faith, is a supernaturally infused virtue, not a natural temperament to accept things on authority.

Grace perfects nature, as we all know, and I wonder whether there's an 80-20 rule that makes it harder for grace to perfect a more talented nature.



Let's say there are three people -- A, B, and C -- with different natural amounts of some talent useful to the Christian disciple. Docility, maybe, or recollectedness. Person A has hardly any of it, Person B has a decent amount, and Person C has, as far as anyone can tell, all he needs and then some.

It may never occur to Person C that his nature is lacking perfection. He may even go so far as to criticize Person A for lacking his own natural talent ("I dunno, I always get a lot out of that devotion.").

There are lots of possibilities open to Person A in this situation, too. He may recognize how far short he falls of perfection, and so pray all the more for the grace to achieve it. Or he may say, "What's wrong with me?," and despair. Clumsy people generally get used to the fact that they will never be professional dancers, but when you lack a talent that seems necessary to love God, you may well conclude that you aren't supposed to love God -- which can only mean that God doesn't love you.

(Person B, meanwhile, can feel complacent looking at A, zealous looking at C, and anywhere in between.)

Since they aren't salvific, those with natural religious talents must not be presumptuous -- of either their own perfection or of the imperfections of others -- and those without them must not be despairing.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Springtime for Scotists

In a comment below, Fr. Maximiliam Mary Dean, F.I., mentions that he has recently begun a series of vlog posts on the doctrine of the Absolute Primacy of Christ; he has also written a book, A Primer on the Absolute Primacy of Christ.

The Absolute Primacy of Christ is the name of the thesis that God willed the Incarnation as His greatest work from all eternity, for its own sake. Bl. Duns Scotus was its great advocate, and Danny Garland has outlined his thought in a post on Irish-Catholic and Dangerous.

Finally, Mark Shea and several commenters at Catholic and Enjoying It! have taken up the discussion; in particular, Scott P. Reichert suggests:

this division is at the basis of many of the differences in Eastern and Western theology--and I'm speaking here of differences that were evident before the Schism.

So while I'm not altogether sure the counterfactual question, "What would have happened?" is well-posed to begin with, the larger question of why what did happen happened is by no means a trivial or dusty point of scholastic method.

Link | John da Fiesole
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It's not the truth/Ain't actual/Everything is counterfactual

Having linked to this article of the Summa Theologia in a recent post, I was struck by how -- well, Geoff used "pretty mealy-mouthed," but I'll go with "tempered in his support" St. Thomas is regarding the opinion that the Son would not have become man had man never fallen. He writes:

There are different opinions about this question. For some say that even if man had not sinned, the Son of God would have become incarnate. Others assert the contrary, and seemingly our assent ought rather to be given to this opinion.

Here, "seemingly" translates the Latin "videtur," which is the first word of the first objection in every article in the Summa. "It would seem that...," St. Thomas writes again and again, only to go on to argue that what seemingly is, is not.

Seemingly, his opinion on whether, if man had not sinned, God would have become incarnate was more doubtful than his opinion on -- to choose the next article -- whether God became incarnate in order to take away actual sin, rather than to take away original sin:

It is certain that [certum est] Christ came into this world not only to take away that sin which is handed on originally to posterity, but also in order to take away all sins subsequently added to it....

To try to figure out why St. Thomas hedges his bet on the question of the Incarantion, look at the reason he gives for why "seemingly our assent ought rather to be given to" the opinion that the Son would not have become incarnate:

For such things as spring from God's will, and beyond the creature's due, can be made known to us only through being revealed in the Sacred Scripture, in which the Divine Will is made known to us. Hence, since everywhere in the Sacred Scripture the sin of the first man is assigned as the reason of Incarnation, it is more in accordance with this to say that the work of Incarnation was ordained by God as a remedy for sin; so that, had sin not existed, Incarnation would not have been.

Notice how modest St. Thomas's concept of theology is. As he says way back in the beginning of the Summa, "sacred science [sacra doctrina] is established on principles revealed by God." God revealed that His Son became man because of Adam's sin; God did not reveal that His Son would have become man regardless; therefore "it is more in accordance with" God's revelation that His Son would not have become man if man hadn't sinned.

You could say that St. Thomas advocates using a "minimum speculation" measure in choosing between uncertain opinions. Might we even consider it a version of Ockham's Razor?

Now, there are two things to keep in mind in applying such principles of parsimony. One is that the proper measure -- of "speculation," as I called it here, or of "plurality," as in Ockham's formula -- is not always evident. I have to think one reason St. Thomas saw the No Incarnation Without Original Sin opinion as "more in accordance" with Scripture is that it was the opinion of St. Augustine, and St. Thomas did not lightly disagree with him. Others may find St. Augustine less compelling on this point.

The other thing to keep in mind is that God is not bound by parsimony, which is why Ockham's Razor is properly understood as a guide for constructing theories, not proving facts. It's also why St. Thomas is careful to say "seemingly" and "more in accordance with," not simply "is."

And if he doesn't think it can be known for certain what God would have done, there's no question in his mind about what He could have done:

And yet the power of God is not limited to this; even had sin not existed, God could have become incarnate.

And if you think this whole question of a counterfactual Incarnation is utterly irrelevant, Irish Catholic and Dangerous sketches some of the theological implications of the different opinions.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Prayer, feasting, and almsgiving

Whenever you sing "Alleluia," give your bread to the hungry, clothe the naked, take in the stranger. Then not only does your voice sound, but your hand sounds in harmony with it, for your deeds agree with your words.
-- St. Augustine, Commentary on Psalm 149

Link | John da Fiesole
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Seeing isn't believing

As the NAB notes, the Gospel According to St. Matthew uses the same verb ( δισταζω) to refer to Peter's doubt as he walked across the water to Jesus and to the doubt of [some of] the Apostles who saw Jesus after His resurrection.

In both cases, there was available all the evidence a skeptic could want. Peter even proposed and conducted a scientific test to collect further evidence. Unfortunately, his hypothesis failed to account for a hidden variable: Faith.

Jesus' original disciples may have found Him to be too incredible to believe in. His disciples today may find Him too believable to be incredible. If I have always known by faith that Jesus rose from the dead, then what would I find remarkable about Jesus rising from the dead? That would be like finding it remarkable that clouds float in the sky.

And if I don't find Jesus' resurrection remarkable, then I won't remark on it. If I don't find Easter remarkable, then (if you'll pardon the rhetorical over-reach) Easter will leave no mark on me.

I worship, certainly. But do I doubt?

Link | John da Fiesole
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Christ is risen!

But you already know that. It's the people who don't already know that who need to be told.

Tell them!

Link | John da Fiesole
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Why is this night different from any other night?

The NAB's note on Mark 14:26 -- "Then, after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives." -- reads, "Psalm 114-118, thanksgiving songs concluding the Passover meal."

Christians have always read the Psalms as prefiguring Jesus, but what must it have been like for Jesus Himself to sing these psalms of deliverance with His disciples mere hours before they were to be fulfilled? Did the disciples have any idea that the words they sang were not mere recollections of the past events but prophesy of the present?

How did the words of Psalm 116 sound in that upper room?

I was caught by the cords of death;
the snares of Sheol had seized me;
I felt agony and dread.
Then I called on the name of the LORD,
"O LORD, save my life!"

And what about Psalm 115's taunt of Israel's enemies, that describes their idols this way:

They have mouths but do not speak,
eyes but do not see.
They have ears but do not hear,
noses but do not smell.
They have hands but do not feel,
feet but do not walk,
and no sound rises from their throats.

Here singing these words is Jesus, Israel's God, Who has a mouth that speaks, eyes that see, ears that hear, a nose that smells, hands that feel, feet that walk, a throat from which sound comes. Before the sun sets again, His mouth will speak of betrayal, His eyes will see abandonment, His ears hear blasphemy, His nose smell His own blood, His hands feel the nails, His feet walk under the cross, and from His throat will come a loud cry and His final breath.

Afterwards, His body will be as the idols of the nations.

And, for all that, it will be the source of life for us all.

Link | John da Fiesole
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The man carrying a jar of water who came in from the cold

Of all the things I would like to know about how Jesus spent the days leading up to His death, the details of how the location for the Last Supper was settled on are pretty far down the list. Yet each of the synoptic Gospels takes the time to explain it; Mark even (and uncharacteristically) gives a more detailed version than Matthew.

Matthew	Mark	Luke
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,	On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,	When the day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread arrived,
	when they sacrificed the Passover lamb,	the day for sacrificing the Passover lamb,
		he sent out Peter and John, instructing them, "Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover."
the disciples approached Jesus and said, "Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover? "He said, "Go into the city	when his disciples said to him, "Where do you want us to go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?" He sent two of his disciples and said to them, "Go into the city	They asked him, "Where do you want us to make the preparations?" And he answered them, "When you go into the city,
	and a man will meet you, carrying a jar of water. Follow him. Wherever he enters,	a man will meet you carrying a jar of water. Follow him into the house that he enters and
to a certain man and
tell him, 'The teacher says,	say to the master of the house, 'The Teacher says,	say to the master of the house, 'The teacher says to you,
"My appointed time draws near;
in your house I shall celebrate the Passover with my disciples."'"	"Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?"'	"Where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?"'
	Then he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there."	He will show you a large upper room that is furnished. Make the preparations there."
The disciples then did as Jesus had ordered,	The disciples then went off, entered the city,	Then they went off
	and found it just as he had told them;	and found everything exactly as he had told them,
and prepared the Passover.	and they prepared the Passover.	and there they prepared the Passover.

In particular, that cloak-and-dagger business with the man and the jug of water strikes me as a most unlikely thing to have been recorded in the Gospels. We can construct various plausible scenarios which explain why it happened that way -- to keep Judas from being able to betray Jesus before the Last Supper, for example. But why it was written down, what it meant to the Evangelists and to the early Christians for whom they were writing, that's a slipperier question.

As usual, the Church Fathers were able to derive spiritual lessons from this incident:

Pseudo-Jerome: And in a mystical sense the city is The Church, surrounded by the wall of faith, the man who meets them is the primitive people, the pitcher of water is the law of the letter.

Bede: Or else, the water is the laver of grace, the pitcher points out the weakness of those who were to shew that grace to the world... it is designedly that the names both of the bearer of the water, and of the lord of the house, are omitted, to imply that power is given to all who wish to celebrate the true Passover, that is, to be embued with the Sacraments of Christ, and to receive Him in the dwelling-place of their mind.

Theophylact: He who is baptized carries the pitcher of water, and he who bears baptism upon him comes to his rest, if he lives according to his reason; and he obtains rest, as being in the house.

These three go on to propose the upper room as a sign of "the wide-spread Church" (Pseudo-Jerome), "the Law, which comes forth from the narrowness of the letter" (Bede), or "the loftiness of intelligences, and which... is prepared and made level by humility" (Theophylact).

Perhaps the literal sense of the man with the jar of water (the NAB notes that "only women ordinarily carried water in jars," though the Greek word "implies simply a person and not necessarily a male"), the point about that day in Jerusalem the Evangelists were trying to make by recording the fact, lies less in the specific details and more in the overall effect of careful and elaborate planning on Jesus' part, in a way that depends for its success entirely on the free choices of others (the disciples, the water carrier, the owner of the house), of the Last Supper. It is a proof in action of Jesus' words, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer."

Link | John da Fiesole
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"Weep not for Me"

One way of praying the Rosary involves meditating first on how the mystery relates to Mary's love for Jesus, and then on what Mary's love teaches about our own love for Him.

Obviously, this requires a certain amount of imagination. We project onto our meditations our own ideas of what Mary may (or "would have" or "must have") thought, felt, and done.

But it may also involve some psychological projection onto our own thoughts and feelings. With the finding of Jesus in the Temple, for example, whatever reflection I have has to work around the facts that a) I am not nor have I ever been Jesus' mother; and b) I knew all along how the three-day search would turn out.

Similarly, the sight of Jesus carrying His cross "must have" related to Mary's love for Him in a way that it cannot relate to mine. I do the pop Ignatian thing of imagining myself in the scene -- especially this week -- and am sometimes given the grace of being profoundly affected.

But it can't stop there. I am not living in First Century Palestine. I am not, in fact, standing next to the Blessed Mother as she reaches out to her condemned Son. I am actually driving in a car, or kneeling in a church, or sitting in a comfortable chair in a quiet room.

If I get my emotions and my reason properly attuned to the sorrow of Jesus' passion, if I tell Him, "I have placed myself along the Way of Sorrows, and I offer to You as You pass my grief and my support," ... what good does that do Him?

Yes, I've heard people say that they feel, or at least like to think, that their own prayers today in some way helped support Jesus in His suffering. But what did Jesus say to those people who actually did express their grief to Him as He passed?

"Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children."

What Mary's love for her suffering Son teaches us is love for her suffering Son, not as He suffered in Jerusalem in the days of Caiaphas the high priest, but as He suffers today.

When the Son of Man returns in glory and says,

I was hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, ill, in prison... Whatever you did for the least of My brothers, you did for Me.

He will not be speaking in a merely juridical sense. If an ordinary king said this, he would mean that, for purposes of reward and punishment, actions toward his brothers shall be treated as if they were actions toward himself. I don't think Jesus is proposing such a legal fiction here; I think that what is done for His brothers is done, really and for true, for Him.

The hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the ill, the imprisoned: these are the people whom we must love as Mary loved Jesus. If we try to love Jesus now the same way Mary did then, we'll only be fooling ourselves -- blinding ourselves, even, to the mission He has given us. "Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?"

This is even true of Mary herself. We think of Jesus' word, "Woman, behold thy son," as proof of His loving care for His mother, who would otherwise be alone in the world, and it is that. But I'd suggest that it is also an instruction to her, that she must now reach out to others with that very love she had for Jesus; given at a moment when all she "would have" wanted to do is look to her Son, it may even have caused her some pain.

But no one, not even the Blessed Virgin, gets to set their own terms as a disciple of Christ. We may wish to remain at the foot of the Cross, our eyes never leaving Jesus. But that grace was not even given to those who physically were at the foot of the Cross. We must take all that we gain from the Cross to others; that's the only way for us to love Him now as Mary did then.

Labels: Praying the Rosary

Link | John da Fiesole
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The Boast

A triolet:

Someone will betray You, Lord?
Surely, Master, it's not I.
I would sooner die by sword.
Someone will betray You, Lord?
Though for You my blood be poured,
You I never shall deny.
Someone will betray You, Lord?
Surely, Master, it's not I.

Link | John da Fiesole
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We are Church

In his homily for today's Gospel, in which Judas complains about the oil Mary of Bethany pours on Jesus' feet, Fr. Philip Powell, O.P., says:

Look again at who's gathered in the house with Jesus: Lazarus, Martha, Mary, Judas... Here Jesus has with him a living miracle, a selfless good work, an indulgent act of devotion, and a heart hardened by avarice and scorn. A week or so before his death he has with him the Church....

The Church has always been a mixed bag. Golden ages, such as they are, are defined more by the number of individual saints who appeared than by the average holiness of all of her members. (See Culbreath's Equilibrium, as quoted by O'Rama: "Protestantism, historically, is better at elevating the morals and behavior of the masses. Catholicism, on the other hand, is better at making saints.")

And to some extent each of our own hearts is that house in Bethany; we are by turns and by degree miraculous signs and selfless works and indulgent devotions and greedy lies. The world plots with the Judas in our hearts, to kill not only Christ but also Lazarus. But in three days, Christ will rise again. Will He find the Judas strengthened or weakened?

Link | John da Fiesole
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The Action and Death of Our Lord

I have a way of praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet that I'm inordinately proud of. Each decade, I meditate on how Jesus was betrayed or abandoned, first by Judas, then by Peter, then the Sanhedrin, then Pilate, and finally the whole world. It emphasizes the mental and spiritual suffering Jesus endured, and tends to leave me feeling like the disciples in Gethsemane who have no answer to His question, "Could you not watch one hour with Me?"

But the other night, quite unintentionally, I prayed the Chaplet the other way around. Instead of looking at Jesus' encounters with Judas et al. from the perspective of His passion -- that is, of what happened to Him -- I looked at those encounters from the perspective of His action, of the Father's love Jesus brought to everyone he met on that last day.

To Judas and to Peter, He brought a question and a look, respectively, both invitations to repentance and to rejoining Him in His glory. To the Sanhedrin and to Pilate, He brought the witness of Himself, of the Just One Who spoke the word and did the will of the Father. To those who crucified Him, He brought prayers for mercy, and to the good thief, He brought the promise of Paradise.

And, in His last moment before death, Jesus brings back to the Father His Spirit.

While Jesus' suffering, what He received from the world as punishment for loving it so much, plays no little part in the liturgies and traditions of Holy Week, we should not mistake Him for a purely passive figure, even as He stands silent before those who condemn Him. We misread the Passion Narratives if we lose sight of the love with which Jesus acts throughout.

St. Paul wasn't exaggerating when he wrote, "If I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing." When Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow Me," He doesn't mean to follow him only in the way of suffering. We must not only bear our crosses, we must do it with love, as He did.

Link | John da Fiesole
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A most excellent quiz

I don't often post the results I get to "What kind of X are you?" quizzes. Mostly because it's nobody else's business what kind of anime heroine or which Smurf I am (though sometimes because of the results I get).

With this quiz, though, I am too pleased with my result -- come by honestly, with no intentional rigging of the answers -- not to share it:

I am a triolet.

Even better, if I were not a triolet I would be a clerihew.

(Link via Intentional Disciples.)

Link | John da Fiesole
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Salvation history arc

The incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, taken as a whole, constitute the central fact of creation, the unexpected pivot point of the story of our salvation. From the Christian perspective, the Old Testament describes the long lead-up to the Gospels.

In fact, the (traditional) first book of the New Testament opens with a sort of mnemonic summary of the Old:

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

And after the sequence of begats, we're off into "how the birth of Jesus Christ came about."

If we think about the story of our salvation as a story, we might find it makes sense to think of the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection as the climax, even though the climax of a story comes near the end, not in the middle (or at least as near the middle as Matthew 1 is). And of course, we do speak of Jesus in terms of "fulfillment" and "fullness," and of the "final victory of the Cross" and so forth.

If (to narrow it down to a single scene) the Cross is the climax of our salvation story, then what happens before is the "rising action," which in turn arises out of some initial conflict. Or, as you might say, an Original Conflict.

But the Bible tells one of the few stories that really does begin at the beginning, and in the beginning there was no conflict. I won't say this is a reason there are two creation myths, but one of the consequences of the two we have is that we get a clear break between the opening exposition -- which sets a rather pleasant scene and ends with the words, "Such is the story of the heavens and the earth at their creation." -- and what proceeds to happen to Adam and Eve in that rather pleasant scene.

It's not altogether unlike "The Tale of Peter Rabbit," for example, which begins with a rather pleasant scene:

Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits, and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter. They lived with their Mother in a sand-bank, underneath the root of a very big fir-tree.

And only then do we begin to approach the conflict, in stock folk-tale language that (not by coincidence, I think) echoes Genesis:

"Now, my dears," said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, "you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden: your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor."

(Which suggests the unanswerable question, "What might children's stories be like if man had not sinned?")

Anyway, that's my take on the opening exposition, initial conflict, rising action, climax, and denouement of the story of God and man told in the Bible. The topic of the hero of the story could, I think, be profitably explored (by which I mean I think there's more to say on the topic than, "God is the hero.").

And it's a challenge to see ourselves as truly living in the denouement, isn't it? Don't we feel like we're still part of the rising action, that it's really the Second Coming that will be the climax, with what follows as the happily-ever-after?

There's something to that, I'd say, in the way the Church is "already and not-yet," but we shouldn't tell the story in a way that loses sight of the already. We should be able to see that we ourselves are already living happily ever after. Maybe not in the world's eyes, but let the world tell its own story; I prefer comedy.

We should be the ones who compose songs about His deeds, keeping them fresh in the minds of His people. And last I heard, He's still King of those parts, and all the people in His Kingdom are happy and rich.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Lectio Divina talk tonight

The Lenten speaker series sponsored by the Bishop Fenwick Lay Dominicans concludes tonight with Fr. Peter Fegan, O.P. His topic is, "Unlocking the Scriptures: The Ancient Art of Lectio Divina."

The program begins with Evening Prayer at 7:30 p.m. The site is St. Andrew Apostle Catholic Church, Silver Spring, MD.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Once upon a time

One of my pet theories is this:

Man is a creature designed to glorify God through story.

That is, by telling the story of God's glory.

Man is to glorify God not only through story, I hasten to add, before the poets all leave in a huff.^*

But we are creatures bound by time; by our very nature, things happen to us, followed by other things. We experience everything sequentially. If our nature is to be perfected rather than replaced by grace, even God's self-revelation must be sequential.

The old joke that time is nature's way of making sure everything doesn't happen at once contains the seed of what I suspect is great wisdom: Time is not an accident of creation, an optional feature. It's essential to it; talk of it as the "fourth dimension" suggests it's as essential as depth.

It just so happens that time -- thought of, perhaps, as the process of substantial change (i.e., matter that changes from one substantial form to another, in the old hylomorphic sense) -- is also a dimension that can manifest God's glory, in the unfolding of creation as described in Genesis 1, or in the undoing of Adam's fault as described in Genesis 4 onward.

We, creatures of matter and of reason, are ideally suited to observe and relate this dimension of God's glory. And how is a process of substantial change, of unfolding and undoing, related? You tell a story.

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*. The gardeners, being more phlegmatic, would all leave in a minute and a huff.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Now I'm frightened

Rumors have been flying for months about the always-imminent release of a motu proprio from Pope Benedict XVI regarding the celebration of the Mass according to the 1962 Latin Rite.

I haven't mentioned it here, because I don't care about it.

Still, it does seem that something will happen at some point along these lines, so I thought I should go to the one source of information everyone else seems to have ignored. What I learned is startling.

For one thing, "motu proprio" is an anagram for "omit pro-pour," which certainly sounds like a tightening of the rubrics for Communion under both species.

"Rout poor imp" calls to mind the smoke of Satan that allegedly entered the Church following the promulgation of the Mass of Paul VI. Could a whole-scale rollback be in the offing? Particularly when we add "mop out prior" and "I uproot, mop"?

"Rio pomp tour" suggests a release date before the Pope visits Brazil in early May. "Pimp our root" evokes a call to even more smells 'n' bells than ever before.

Perhaps "Pout Room, R.I.P.," signals an end to papal patience with those who dislike the Latin Mass.

"Pup moor riot" -- with its clear invocation of "God's Rottweiler" and the Moor's head of Munich -- does not augur widespread acceptance of the pronouncement -- which, considering "mop up or riot," may be something the Vatican is prepared to live with.

I mention "trim our poop" here only to keep potential tastelessness out of the comments.

Most disturbing of all, however, is "opium torpor," which, however it's taken, can't be good.

Needless to say, in all these suggestions, I purport moo.

Link | John da Fiesole
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To reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily

A key concept in Catholic Social Teaching is "the common good," a term that goes back at least to the Epistle of Barnabas. The Catechism teaches that,

By common good is to be understood "the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily." The common good concerns the life of all. It calls for prudence from each, and even more from those who exercise the office of authority.

The Catechism goes on to identify three essential elements of which the common good consists: "respect for the person as such"; "the social well-being and development of the group itself"; and "peace."

Fr. Albert Nolan, O.P., in a homily preached on Human Rights Day 2007 in South Africa (here's a link to the audio), gives a succinct description of the common good:

... what is best for me is what is best for everyone. And if we can see what is best for everyone, then that is what is best for me. This is what we call "the common good." This is also the will of God.

If we can get to the point where we really see what is best for us being what is best for everyone, and vice versa, then we can get to the point where the common good is achievable. To do that, though, we can't settle for the easier goals of individualism or collectivism.

Link | John da Fiesole
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The solemnity's supporting role

The angel Gabriel is mentioned by name four times in the Bible: twice in Daniel, where he explains Daniel's visions of the end times; and twice in Luke, where he tells Zechariah and Mary of their children.

The connection between Daniel's vision of "a most holy [one who] will be anointed... [and] shall be cut down" and the birth of the Messiah is clear enough. Gabriel's role in salvation history is one of announcing Christ's arrival -- and the traditional belief that he will be the angel who blows the horn announcing the return of Christ in glory is well known.

Less well known is the traditional belief (recorded in Jewish midrash) that Gabriel was the angel who led Adam and Eve out of the Garden after their fall. Thus he who gave the bad news to the first Eve is he who gives the good news to the second.

(The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that, while Christians see Gabriel as "the angel of mercy" and Michael as "the angel of judgment," Jewish traditions reverse their roles and "attribute to Gabriel the destruction of Sodom and of the host of Sennacherib.")

A curious note to make of what you will: In Daniel 8, Daniel learns Gabriel's name, and after the angel leaves, writes, "I, Daniel, was weak and ill for some days...." In Luke 1, Gabriel only announces his name to Zechariah after the priest doubts his words, and Zechariah becomes dumb. Mary is not told (in the Gospel account) the name of the angel who appears with the greeting, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women," and she is, to say the least, not left physically disabled following their meeting.

Maybe that's coincidence (after all, St. Raphael announces his name to Tobit's family, and nothing untoward happens to them ("No need to fear; you are safe.")), or maybe the way to look at it is that no visit of Gabriel leaves you physically unaffected. Still, if I ever meet an angel who doesn't tell me his name, I think I won't ask.

Link | John da Fiesole
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We could do it the easy way or the hard way

Drusilla makes an essential correction to my point below about the completeness of Adam and Eve's knowledge of good and evil before the Fall:

Be careful not to take a short term view of creation – a view that insists there was nothing more for A&E to learn, that they had no need to grow until after they ate of the fruit. Growth seems to be built into creation (cf. Romans 8 and elsewhere)...

Obedience is also an opportunity to choose that which has been bestowed, an opportunity to participate in that which God is doing; it makes love something more than nice, warm feelings. There is reason to believe that A&E, though in a blessed state of sinlessness, had not yet grown up into the fullness of what it means to be made in God's image.

This makes a great deal of sense to me: If Adam and Eve had never sinned, they would have continued in innocence but they wouldn't have remained unchanged in wisdom.

I don't think that directly contradicts my suggestion of the completeness of their knowledge, since it was (and, without the fall, would have continued to be) all they needed to know at the time. The "shortcut" to wisdom, as Drusilla put it, that Eve tried to take with the forbidden fruit knocks them out of this state of fullness. They suddenly have more knowledge (e.g., their nakedness) than they have wisdom (fig leaves?), and they must be expelled from Eden. We might suppose that, if they had eaten of the tree of life at that moment, theirs would be lives forever be out of balance.

This idea seems to help with a few difficulties I've had with the myth. One was the impression of the pointlessness of the whole Garden environment. From eternity, God knows Adam and Eve will disobey Him; the trees and the naming of the animals and all that seems like an awfully elaborate set-up for something that will be discarded even before their first child is born.

But if they could have continued to grow in Eden, then it becomes a fully realized place, a Paradise that could have sustained mankind forever, not just a Potempkin rest-stop between the void and our current vale of tears.

It also resolves the accusative dimension of the cry, "O happy fault!" If our state of union with the Trinity will be greater on the Last Day than was Adam's in Eden, then God could be accused of coming up with a highest and last good for us that would only be possible if Adam sinned. That's like saying, "If you play fair and win, you'll get a hundred dollars. If you cheat and are disqualified, I'll reinstate you and you'll get a thousand dollars."

This way proposes a Plan A, which would have gotten the human race to the same place we're headed for with such and so great a Redeemer.

Finally (and don't tell the Dominicans), I can't say that I'm all that happy with St. Thomas's assent to the opinion that Christ would not have become incarnate had man not sinned. Given the love God showed for us as sinners, it seems even more fitting for His Son to become one of us if we were all perfect.

Clearly, Plan A would give the Incarnation quite a different purpose. As St. Thomas writes elsewhere, "the fellowship of friends conduces to the well-being of Happiness," and Christ might become man as friend -- or better, as Bridegroom come to wed His ever-spotless Bride.

I don't know, obviously. But it does make sense to me.

Link | John da Fiesole
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A little learning is a dangerous thing

[And this post is composed by someone with little learning, so consider yourself forewarned.]

Why did Adam and Eve have to go and eat that crummy old fruit anyway?

Genesis 3:6 tells us:

The woman saw that

• the tree was good for food,
• pleasing to the eyes, and
• desirable for gaining wisdom.

So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

I once heard it pointed out that the three things Eve saw correspond to the three transcendentals of goodness, beauty, and truth, respectively.

They also correspond to three powers of the soul: to sensuality, will, and intellect, respectively. By sensuality, or sensitive appetite, we tend toward things we sense as good for us ("good for food"); by will, or rational appetite, we choose goods such as the apprehension of beauty ("pleasing to the eyes"); by intellect, we comprehend truth ("gaining wisdom").

As a temptation, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil had its bases covered.

If we look a little closer, though, we can see what fools Adam and Eve were -- and, by extension, what a rotter that serpent was. Genesis 2:9 says:

Out of the ground the LORD God made various trees grow that were

• delightful to look at and
• good for food,

with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and bad.

The forbidden fruit, then, offers nothing to the sensitive and rational appetites that all the permitted fruits don't already have. And, as we all know,

The LORD God gave man this order: "You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die."

So Adam and Eve already have knowledge of good and bad! They already possess all the wisdom they need. As their postlapsarian sons and daughters, it's hard for us to see that something so simple can actually be complete. The subtlest manual of casuistry possible in Paradise could be printed on a matchbook:

WHAT'S EVIL: Eating from that tree.

WHAT'S GOOD: Everything else.

Adam and Eve knew what was good and what was evil before they fell. Claims that they didn't -- that eating the forbidden fruit represents their acquisition of moral awareness or free will, that the serpent in some manner brought them rationality -- are simply mistaken. The serpent tempts them into disobedience so that they can acquire... nothing they don't already have. Which they proceed to lose.

Yet it is written that, after eating the fruit, "the eyes of both of them were opened;" for that matter, God Himself calls the tree "the tree of knowledge of good and evil" (I'll leave "good and bad" for when I'm quoting the NAB). Doesn't this mean that Adam and Eve didn't have knowledge of good and evil beforehand?

Let me propose this explanation: Through their disobedience, Adam and Eve changed the rules. In the state of innocence, the only evil available to them was disobedience. Having once disobeyed, though, great sweeping vistas of evil were opened and available to them, together with the goods opposed to them. Cruelty, for example, was impossible to Adam before the Fall -- and so was clemency as such, since there was no context in which he could act in a way that moderated the punishment of another.

Thus too, "they realized that they were naked." Nakedness connotes weakness, as Fr. Alobaidi pointed out, and before the fall the weakness of Adam had no relevance to him. He lived within the context of God's ordering of Creation, and within that ordering there was no way for him to act with weakness.

It was only when Adam disobeyed God, when he decided to live by his own rules, that he had to look to himself as guarantor of his own life. At which point he noticed something, something that would have been useful to have noticed ahead of time but which couldn't be seen from the perspective of innocence (because the perspective of innocence looks at God, not oneself):

Adam wasn't capable of guaranteeing his own life. Hence the moment he ate from the tree he was surely doomed to die.

That would be an eye-opening realization, all right.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Join the Dominicans!

Go to Argentina!

The International Congress of Lay Dominican Fraternities is going on this week just outside Buenos Aires. The self-understanding of the Lay Dominican Fraternities is undergoing rapid development, and this Congress is, if not altogether unprecedented, certainly the largest devoted specifically to the Fraternities on a world-wide scale.

There are six main issues being considered at the Congress: preaching and prayer; study and formation; government; organization and structure; finance and economy; and the presence of Lay Dominicans in the OP Family and in the Church. I'd be surprised to learn there were many of us who gave a hoot about finance or government, but these are the sorts of things that need to be considered if we want to do something tomorrow that we weren't doing yesterday.

At some point, the keynote address of the Master of the Order, fr. Carlos Azpiroz Costa, O.P., will be posted. The title of his address, which is also the theme of the Congress, is "Companions in Preaching." I have not seen the text, but the title alone is a challenge. People usually choose their own companions, and what the Order has been saying for some time is that a Dominican's companions are his fellow Dominicans: friars, nuns, sisters, laity.

Moreover, they are companions for something. And the something isn't prayer, it's not study, it's not community. It's preaching. Since we don't even really have a solid explanation of what "preaching according to your state in life" means for Lay Dominicans that it doesn't also mean for the laity in general, acquiring companions in preaching isn't often the goal that first attracts someone to the Fraternities.

But preaching and the salvation of souls is the purpose of the Order we join, which makes it our purpose, too.

And if you think that might be your purpose, you may want to drop us a line.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Marian math

In his talk last night, Fr. John Langlois, OP, brought out a couple of aspects of the historical development of the Rosary that were new to me.

One is that the Rosary devotion is a combination of two spiritual streams popular at the time the Rosary developed: a general devotion to Mary (think of all the cathedrals dedicated to her that were built in the high Middle Ages, or the preaching of St. Bernard of Clairvaux); and meditation on the life of Christ (the medieval passion plays, the living creches of St. Francis).

So you might say that

Rosary = (Life of Christ) + (Love of Mary)

You certainly don't have the Rosary as it's been known for five hundred years without both, but I hadn't thought about the naturalness of the Rosary emerging from the combination of both. (I'm not sure a Roman Catholic can have both -- that is, meditate on the life of Christ while expressing love and honor for His mother -- without having the Rosary. At the very least, it would seem an unnatural omission.)

Another aspect is the significance of the Rosary picture books that began to be printed in the late 1400s. Rosary devotees today often say the reason many Catholics downplay the devotion is that they, the downplayers, are snobs who regard the Rosary as too common and lowbrow. However many anti-Rosary snobs there may be, it does seem to be true that the Rosary is common and lowbrow. It's in the form it is today in large part because you could print a book with three woodcuts, or commission a painting with fifteen scenes, and people could look at the pictures. If you wanted fifty different meditations, or a hundred and fifty, as a practical matter you'd have to do it with words, and at the time reading was (relatively) uncommon and highbrow.

And once picture books began to appear, standardization of the mysteries happened quickly. It was less than a hundred years between the first picture book (printed in 1483 by Conrad Dinckmut of Ulm) and Pope St. Pius V officially defining the fifteen mysteries (1569). The only change the Pope made to Dinckmut's selection was the final glorious mystery: Mary's coronation makes a more cheerful conclusion than Christ's return in glory, with the Final Judgment that entails. (People who aren't sure what to make of Mary's coronation, though, can regard it as representative of the more general reception of all the saints, body and soul, into heaven on the Last Day.)

A thorough on-line source of information on the history of the Rosary in the Catholic Church, both the prayer and the physical set of prayer beads, is "Journaling the Bead." It naturally mentions the tradition that St. Dominic received the Rosary from the Blessed Virgin in 1208, although as Fr. Langlois points out this is a tradition that cannot be traced back earlier than the preaching of Bl. Alain de la Roche (or Alanus de Rupe), beginning about 1460. I've seen some contemporary attempts to defend the tradition, but the complete silence on the matter of all surviving sources for the first 250 years after the vision reportedly occurred makes for a mighty tough burden on the defense.

Labels: Praying the Rosary

Link | John da Fiesole
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Heaven and earth shall pass away

So what does happen in heaven and on earth, according to the Book of Revelation?

All sorts of crazy things. A third of the land is burned up, a third of the sea turns to blood, a third of the stars become dark. There are earthquakes, and stars that hit the earth, and smoke and locusts and plagues, and hailstorms, and disappearing mountains, and a good deal more blood.

What's up with all that?

Fr. Corbett's suggestion is this: That God's promises are so wonderful the earth as it presently exists cannot contain them.

If God's promises amounted to nothing more than literally giving a certain stretch of land to the descendants of Abraham forever, to literally granting His faithful ones long lives, prosperity, and lots of children, then the earth as we know it can pretty well suffice. But His promises, as given in their fullness by Jesus, are so outrageous, so over the top, that the very world we inhabit needs to be remade for them to be fulfilled.

The language of Revelation is the language of the very world we inhabit coming apart, from below and from above and from the sides.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

The new heaven is also required: what happens on earth happens in heaven, and who wants a heaven where a third of the stars are missing?

From this perspective, Revelation describes not just a battle where the field belongs to God's victors, but one where the very battlefield joins in the fight, passes away, and is recreated anew. The Apocalypse, expressed apocalyptically, isn't the sober separation of sheep and goats or of wheat and tares, it's a full-scale cosmic blowout.

And not (if we follow Fr. Corbett) due to how closely matched the forced of goodness and evil are. This isn't Ragnarok or Hamlet, where everybody destroys everybody else. This is the fulfillment of God's will; it's a blowout because the cosmos God intends to endure forever is far more wonderful than the cosmos that exists now.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Self-selecting miracles

Yesterday's solemnity honored St. Joseph under the title "Husband of Mary." As many wives know, husbands can be quite literal at times:

Reminds me of the Little Sisters of the Poor, when they needed a gardener. One of the sisters found a picture in a magazine of a man with a hoe. She cut the picture out to put by the statue of St. Joseph, but in her hurry, she trimmed the man's arm right out of the image. And shortly after, a one-armed gardener came to the door, volunteering his services.

It doesn't matter how often this didn't happen, just that it did.

Link | John da Fiesole
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Literal reflections

One feature of apocalyptic literature (according to Fr. Corbett) is that what happens in heaven happens on earth, and what happens on earth happens in heaven. ("Heaven" here obviously doesn't mean just the state of perfect happiness with God, His angels, and the Church Triumphant, but the spiritual realm generally.)

Let me run with that idea a bit, considering it not just as a literary conceit but as literal truth. What if what happens on heaven happens on earth and what happens on earth happens in heaven?

For one thing, the smallest earthly sin and the least earthly suffering are in some way present in heaven. They have a spiritual reality, a spiritual weight that we are in no position to dismiss.

It works in the other direction, too. Every evil done by Satan in his fall is realized in this world, and all the good done by St. Michael and his company can be found here as well.

This puts both the devil's temptation and our own sins in a quite different light. The serpent in Eden can be seen, not as the devil let loose on the world after his fall, but as the earthly manifestation of the devil as he falls. "Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?" might be earth-speak for, "Non serviam." Looked at this way, in tempting Eve he doesn't even do her the courtesy of treating her as a subject of temptation; she is merely the earthly collateral damage of his own spiritual pride.

Moreover, in each of our earthly sins we create a spiritual sin that is of a piece with Satan's fall. When I sin, I am in a certain way joining with and endorsing the devil's fall. Which is to say (if what happens in heaven happens on earth) that I am joining with and endorsing all the evil, moral and natural, that we experience in this life. War, famine, disease, death: it's all a small price to pay for me not helping my wife fold laundry.

...

Okay, that's a bit excessive, right? And I'm just playing with a literary device, not exploring a doctrine of faith.

But then, the First Letter of Saint John seems a bit excessive, too:

No one who remains in him sins; no one who sins has seen him or known him...

Whoever sins belongs to the devil, because the devil has sinned from the beginning.

Can we take this literally? Can we at least take it seriously?

Link | John da Fiesole
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Talk on Scripture and the Rosary tonight in Silver Spring, MD

Tonight at St. Andrew Apostle Church in Silver Spring, MD, Fr. John Langlois will speak on the topic, "Mary's Scriptural Journey and the Rosary."

The event begins at 7:30 p.m. with Evening Prayer, during which several people will make their final professions in (and one person will be received into) the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic.

Link | John da Fiesole
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He made him the lord of his household

As traditional as the St. Joseph's Table are the expressions used when discussing the Patron of the Universal Church: "not much is known," "never speaks," "toiled in poverty and obscurity," and so forth. Let me try to shake things up a bit by proposing something non-traditional, in fact somewhat counter-traditional:

St. Joseph is a major figure in the Bible. In particular, the Old Testament is lousy with references to him.

Today's first reading is an example of one kind of reference. In the literal sense, "It is he who shall build a house for my name," refers to Solomon, who built the first Temple. Christians naturally also understand this as a prophecy of Jesus, since it goes on,

And I will make his royal throne firm forever.
I will be a father to him,
and he shall be a son to me.

But between Solomon and Jesus, there is Joseph. He stands between them, not just chronologically, but in straddling the literal and the spiritual sense of the prophecy. Joseph, Son of David (a title acknowledged by the angel of the Lord), built a house (we would say made a home) for the Name of the LORD.

All the Biblical prophecies regarding the house of David lasting forever, which we rightly take to be fulfilled in Christ, are also prophecies of St. Joseph, who "did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home."

What makes them prophecies of St. Joseph in a unique way -- a way, that is, that they aren't likewise prophecies of, say, Shealtiel, or even Joseph's own father -- is this: St. Joseph chose to be the father of Jesus.

When it came to sons, everyone else in David's line -- even David himself, much to his sorrow -- had to take what he could beget. To St. Joseph alone God came with a request to accept a son. God's own Son, of course, but a son of David only through the free choice of Joseph.

Centuries worth of promises, then, awaited their redemption in St. Joseph. His own "Yes," unrecorded in the Gospels, is recorded in prophetic terms throughout the Old Testament.

St. Joseph does speak in the Bible. We just need to be as quiet as he is to hear him.

Link | John da Fiesole
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All in the Family

The Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic keep on growing.

A couple of weeks ago, Rosamundi made her Temporary Profession (a promise to live according to the Rule of the Laity of Saint Dominic for three years).

Yesterday, Joe Bradley of Musings of a Dominican Inquirer was received into the Order (with about a year to go before his temporary profession).

Tomorrow, three people will be making Final Profession (to live according to the Rule for life), and a fourth received, during Evening Prayer at St. Andrew Apostle Church, Silver Spring, MD. Everyone is welcome; Evening Prayer begins at 7:30 p.m.

Two of the three making profession, as well as the one being received, are from a chapter new enough that this will be the first final professions for the chapter.

The third one making Final Profession belongs to my chapter, whose birthday we take to be Pentecost 1999, when the first new members were received. Eight years isn't very old, but there are a couple of dozen Lay Dominican chapters in our Province that are younger.

Link | John da Fiesole
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