All posts by techdecisions

Being Catholic = asking questions!!: Summa Theologiae

Saint_Patrick_Church_(Columbus,_Ohio)_-_stained_glass,_St._Thomas_Aquinas,_detail

(As Bp Barron will eloquently state, the form of education in the High Middle Ages, and for a long time thereafter, was the “disputed question”. The instructor would pose the question a day, or so, before. Students’ homework would be to then go and prepare objections to the disputed question, of their own creation. The instructor would then address each valid objection produced to demonstrate the validity of the argument and correctness of the answer proposed.  This is why Aquinas’ Summa is written in the form it is.  It is ancient, time honored, and foreign to us in the 21st century.)

robert_barron
-by Bp Robert Barron

There is, in many quarters, increasing concern about the hyper-charged political correctness that has gripped our campuses and other forums of public conversation. Even great works of literature and philosophy—from Huckleberry Finn and Heart of Darkness to, believe it or not, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason—are now regularly accompanied by “trigger warnings” that alert prospective readers to the racism, sexism, homophobia, or classism contained therein. And popping up more and more at our colleges and universities are “safe spaces” where exquisitely sensitive students can retreat in the wake of jarring confrontations with points of view with which they don’t sympathize. My favorite example of this was at Brown University where school administrators provided retreat centers with play-doh, crayons, and videos of frolicking puppies to calm the nerves of their students even before a controversial debate commenced! Apparently even the prospect of public argument sent these students to an updated version of daycare. Of course a paradoxical concomitant of this exaggerated sensitivity to giving offense is a proclivity to aggressiveness and verbal violence; for once authentic debate has been ruled out of court, the only recourse contesting parties have is to some form of censorship or bullying.

There is obviously much that can and should be mocked in all of this, but I won’t go down that road. Instead, I would like to revisit a time when people knew how to have a public argument about the most hotly-contested matters. Though it might come as a surprise to many, I’m talking about the High Middle Ages, when the university system was born. And to illustrate the medieval method of disciplined conversation there is no better candidate than St. Thomas Aquinas. The principal means of teaching in the medieval university was not the classroom lecture, which became prominent only in the 19th century German system of education; rather, it was the quaestio disputata (disputed question), which was a lively, sometimes raucous, and very public intellectual exchange. Though the written texts of Aquinas can strike us today as a tad turgid, we have to recall that they are grounded in these disciplined but decidedly energetic conversations.

If we consult Aquinas’s masterpiece, the Summa theologiae, we find that he poses literally thousands of questions and that not even the most sacred issues are off the table, the best evidence of which is article three of question two of the first part of the Summa: “utrum Deus sit?” (whether there is a God). If a Dominican priest is permitted to ask even that question, everything is fair game; nothing is too dangerous to talk about. After stating the issue, Thomas then entertains a series of objections to the position that he will eventually take. In many cases, these represent a distillation of real counter-claims and queries that Aquinas would have heard during quaestiones disputatae. But for our purposes, the point to emphasize is that Thomas presents these objections in their most convincing form, often stating them better and more pithily than their advocates could. In proof of this, we note that during the Enlightenment, rationalist philosophes would sometimes take Thomistic objections and use them to bolster their own anti-religious positions. To give just one example, consider Aquinas’s devastatingly convincing formulation of the argument from evil against the existence of God: “if one of two contraries were infinite, the other would be destroyed…but God is called the infinite good. Therefore, if God exists, there would be no evil.” Thomas indeed provides a telling response, but, as stated, that is a darn good argument. Might I suggest that it would help our public discourse immensely if all parties would be willing to formulate their opponents’ positions as respectfully and convincingly as possible?

Having articulated the objections, Thomas then offers his own magisterial resolution of the matter: “Respondeo dicendum quod… (I respond that it must be said…). One of the more regrettable marks of the postmodern mind is a tendency to endlessly postpone the answer to a question. Take a look at Jacques Derrida’s work for a master class in this technique. And sadly, many today, who want so desperately to avoid offending anyone, find refuge in just this sort of permanent irresolution. But Thomas knew what Chesterton knew, namely that an open mind is like an open mouth, that is, designed to close finally on something solid and nourishing. Finally, having offered his Respondeo, Aquinas returns to the objections and, in light of his resolution, answers them. It is notable that a typical Thomas technique is to find something right in the objector’s position and to use that to correct what he deems to be errant in it.

Throughout this process, in the objections, Respondeos, and answers to objections, Thomas draws on a wide range of sources: the Bible and the Church Fathers of course, but also the classical philosophers Aristotle, Plato, and Cicero, the Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides, and the Islamic masters Averroes, Avicenna, and Aviceberon. And he consistently invokes these figures with supreme respect, characterizing Aristotle, for example, as simply “the Philosopher” and referring to Maimonides as “Rabbi Moyses.” It is fair to say that, in substantial ways, Thomas Aquinas disagrees with all of these figures, and yet he is more than willing to listen to them, to engage them, to take their arguments seriously.

What this Thomistic method produces is, in its own way, a “safe space” for conversation, but it is a safe space for adults and not timorous children. It wouldn’t be a bad model for our present discussion of serious things.”

Love & good thinking,
Matthew

Science & Faith: visible & invisible, seen & unseen

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-mosaic from the crypt of Louis Pasteur, in the Pasteur Institute, Paris, France. Pasteur was given a state funeral by the French Government in 1895.

“Absolute faith in God and in Eternity, and a conviction that the power for good given to us in this world will be continued beyond it, were feelings which pervaded his whole life; the virtues of the Gospel had ever been present to him. Full of respect for the form of religion which had been that of his forefathers, he came simply to it and naturally for spiritual help in these last weeks of his life.” -Pasteur’s son-in-law and biographer, (Vallery-Radot 1911, vol. 2, p. 240)

“Little science takes you away from God but more of it takes you to Him.” ~Louis Pasteur

Brian-Jones_avatar-75x75
-by Brian Jones, Brian is pursuing a graduate degree in philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. His writing has appeared in the New Blackfriars Journal, The Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly, Catholic World Report and Homiletic and Pastoral Review. He and his wife Michelle have three daughters.

“At the end of a class in early March, one of my students raised his hand and asked if there was any homework in ethics class. I was somewhat confused by the inquiry, since the student was currently not taking ethics. When he saw the expression of confusion on my face, he responded, “You know, in religion. Is there any homework in religion?” Finally, it clicked for me. This young man is currently in my moral theology class, and was wondering if there was any religion homework, which he was calling by the misnomer “ethics.” Unintentionally, the student was setting up an opportunity to review (and correct) one of the fundamental errors of the modern age, namely, reducing religion solely to the sphere of ethics.

Michael Tkacz, in his 2002 essay “Faith, Science and the Error of Fideism,” has drawn attention to this attitude, particularly as it concerns the relationship between faith and science. Borrowing from Harvard biologist Stephen J. Gould, Tkacz calls this attitude NOMA, or Non-Overlapping Magisteria.

The position can be briefly summarized as follows: the realms of science and religion involve two separate orders of human rationality and experience, and they are distinguished by the two objects that define their subject, and so do not overlap with each other. From this conception, science is considered to be rational, public, and verifiable, whereas religious faith is considered to be non-rational, private, and unverifiable.

The point of this method of analysis is not to say that faith never uses rational modes of inquiry; rather, it is to posit that faith is not something that can be rationally established at any level. This contrasts with a proper understanding of science, since nothing in science is believed or thought to be true unless grounded in factually based evidence and verifiable data.

To posit that science is rational is simply to assert that the claims made by science can be demonstrably proven. Science seeks to explain the causes and reasons for things that occur in the order of nature, and is such that even if a particular cause cannot be identified at a given moment, science nevertheless presupposes that not just any reason can be eventually provided; it’s foundation must be in factual evidence. Theoretically speaking, through continuous observation and critical analysis, a rational explanation can be given. A causal explanation exists for everything, and it falls to the field of science to provide one.

A good example to consider would be the fiasco that surrounded the Malayasian jetliner that went down in early 2014. The story of the plane crashing would not cease to be covered in the media until a rational, factually based account of what truly happened in this tragedy, which lead to the plane’s eventual crash. Notice too, thankfully, the anger that resulted from some of the initial explanations given that were only later shown (via evidence) to be false reasons for what led to the plane crash. Everyone involved, whether it was the family members of the victims, or the airline personnel, was not satisfied until a fuller explanation was given, since a plane does not just go missing without sufficient reason. While the example does not necessarily apply to the domain of science in the exact same way, it does nonetheless reveal my point about the rational character of an explanation that science is expected to provide.

Since science is a rational explanation of the material order, then it is also public–the knowledge acquired is based upon a mind-independent reality. Our feelings, desires, or thoughts about the matter at hand are not involved in discovering and learning the truth. Unlike private emotions, desires, or even religious belief, knowledge is capable of being shared by others, and thus entails an objective, rather than a subjective, element. Finally, scientific knowledge is verified and confirmed by the good reasons it gives for holding particular explanations of things. The reason why X is the case is because there are sufficient reasons to show that it is so, and there are experiments that can be repeated by anyone with the requisite equipment and knowledge. The repeatability of results will yield the same explanations each time, something that is fundamental to scientific theories and their particular validations.

While a variety of responses could be given to the NOMA position just described, I want to briefly elucidate a much fuller account of the integral relationship between reality, history, science, and the very nature of religious faith. The separationist account between science and faith rests precisely on a mistaken notion of the content of religious faith.

For Gould, what establishes the rational, public, and verifiable nature of scientific reasoning is the fact that it is concerned with and treats the very order of reality. In contrast, religious faith does not concern itself with reality, for it is centered upon holding beliefs that contradict the scope and, one might say, certitude that is given in science. Moreover, it seems that religious faith does not portend to make any metaphysical or historical claims, but only provides a way of living with that reality of which science alone concerns itself. However, such a perspective is not in keeping with Christianity’s understanding of the faith, and Catholicism’s in particular. When one examines the teachings of the Catholic Church, what one is hopefully struck by is its continual claims regarding both history and reason.

For example, the doctrine of the Incarnation holds that Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, took on a real human nature, was born in time, performed numerous miracles and healings, suffered and was crucified by Roman authorities, and rose from the dead three days after his death. We could also mention the creation account in the opening book of Genesis where we come to understand, among other things, that the underlying purpose of the story is to reveal “the fact of creation.” Aquinas mentions this very point regarding the proper way to interpret the creation account in Genesis:

“There are some things that are by their very nature the substance of faith, as to say of God that He is three and one … about which it is forbidden to think otherwise… There are other things that relate to the faith only incidentally … and, with respect to these, Christian authors have different opinions, interpreting the Sacred Scripture in various ways. Thus with respect to the origin of the world, there is one point that is of the substance of faith, viz., to know that it began by creation…. But the manner and the order according to which creation took place concerns the faith only incidentally.”

If the “manner and order according to which creation took place” does not belong to the essence of the faith, then studying and seeking to give a proper explanation of such an event and further processes stemming from it requires human minds to do just that. And such an explanation about the world, the order of nature, and all its processes, presupposes something outside of our minds to observe and better understand, but which we did not make.

When considering the examples given, is it not the case that these doctrines concern factual claims about reality? If Christ was not God, born into time, or if some archaeologist discovered the bones of Jesus buried deep in the ruins of ancient Palestine, would Christianity not crumble? What makes Christianity so unique among religious faiths is precisely its historicity: if any of the historical claims about the Christian faith were shown to be false, then its very foundation and legitimacy would be undermined. Religious believers have frequently failed to articulate that the object of our faith, of what is believed, is truth. Although knowledge and belief must be distinguished, they are nevertheless united in that what we seek to know and what we hold on the basis of the authority of another is nothing other than the truth. This was precisely the point St. Paul sought to make when he told the Corinthians:

“If what we preach about Christ, then, is that He rose from the dead, how is it that some of you say the dead do not rise again? If the dead do not rise, then Christ has not risen either; and if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is groundless, and your faith, too, is groundless… If the dead, I say, do not rise, then Christ has not risen either; and if Christ has not risen, all your faith is a delusion; you are back in your sins.” (1 Cor 15:12-17)

Furthermore, the creation account in Genesis is, among other things, a METAPHYSICAL claim about the very structure and nature of reality: it is something to which human intelligence has access to and is able to better understand through repeated observation and experimentation. (Ed. that is to NOT say, Genesis does not have actual, simple, clear, demonstrable, factual, literal elements to it.  Roman Catholicism requires we believe in factual, literal, previously and now dead existent persons:  Adam & Eve.  Exactly how that is to be understood, is beyond my humble abilities and the scope of this blog post.  However, notwithstanding, the literal, actual, factual elements Catholics are required to believe by faith, requiring Genesis to be NOTHING more than a newspaper story limits God, and His beauty and wisdom, unnecessarily.  Let us not assume, in arrogance, that we understand either EVERYTHING there is to understand regarding the science nor the exegesis regarding Creation.  That position would “spit-in-the-wind” of human experience, and not withstand rational nor reasonable scrutiny.  Recall, “mystery”, used in the Catholic sense, is NOT unknowable; rather, it is infinitely knowable.  Sounds reasonable to me, your humble, favorite, applied scientist.)

St. Paul tells the Romans that man is able to rise to a knowledge of the Creator through the things he has made, those observable effects seen in the world. Revelation is here positing a philosophical position, namely, that the world is intelligible and the essences of things can be known by human intelligence. If God can be known to exist, this then could only be the case after we know and understand the essence of his effects in the natural world, those things “that he has made.” To have a real knowledge of the world existing outside of our minds is not a conclusion of religious thinking or scientific inquiry, but is presupposed by both.

The reliance on the following examples from Catholic teaching is meant to refute the Gouldian position that what belongs to the order of faith is entirely cut off from the real, thereby giving strength to the all-too-prevalent error that holds science alone is concerned with reality, and that faith is how believers seek to morally live with that reality. Catholicism’s ancient axiom is that the source of truth, whether it be from science, philosophy, history, or revelation, is the same. Believers and non-believers (and high school students) must continually be reminded that assenting to a scientific or religious claim can be based upon nothing other than the truth itself. As Catholic philosopher John Haldane reminds us in Atheism and Theism:

‘If one’s world view makes no metaphysical or historical claims then it has nothing to fear from these quarters, but equally it has nothing to contribute to them either; and this raises the question of what people think they are doing when they engage in personal prayer or sacramental worship. If Christianity is compatible with Christ’s having been a confused, trouble-making zealot Whose bones now lie beneath the sands of Palestine and whose exploits are no more than the self-serving fictions of people ignorant of the real events of His life, and with their being no reason to believe, and some reason not to believe, in the existence of a Divine Creator, then its claims to our attention are only those of a self-contained lifestyle and not of a true account of reality.’

Aut Deus, aut malus homo.  Either God, or very bad man.

Love,
Matthew

Who are the saints?

Full title: The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs Artist: Fra Angelico Date made: about 1423-4 Source: http://www.nationalgalleryimages.co.uk/ Contact: picture.library@nationalgallery.co.uk Copyright © The National Gallery, London
-“The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs”, Fra Angelico, OP, about 1423-4, The National Gallery, London, please click on the image for greater detail.

JPKern
-by Br. John Paul Kern, OP (Br John Paul converted to the Catholic faith while studying mechanical & nuclear engineering at Penn State)

“I recently heard a priest explain, “saints are like stained glass—they let the light in.” I have had ample opportunity to reflect upon this beautiful image while living at St. Vincent Ferrer Church in New York City this summer, which is adorned with several, striking stained glass windows. Indeed, without these windows, the church would be very dark inside, and so would human history without Jesus Christ, Who is the light of the world, reflected in the lives of the saints. They let the light of Christ in.

Unfortunately, we sometimes think of saints as mere archetypes of heroic Christian virtue. Like beautiful Greek statues their beauty is in the abstracted form—excellent, but generic. Yet the true glory of the saints lies in their reflection of God’s glory, and their luminescence comes from the way in which God’s grace perfects them as unique persons. As St. Irenaeus wrote, “The glory of God is man fully alive.” The fully-alive saints make manifest the light of God’s greatness not like perfectly standardized windows, of the uniformly bland kind seen in so many office fronts, but as the handcrafted stained glass windows of a church. Just as God knit us together in our mother’s womb—something common to all of us and yet also unique in a way for each individual—he also forms us throughout our lives, by grace, into the image of Jesus Christ. And yet each Christian and especially every saint is a unique living image.

It is right that we remember saints as heroes in the faith, for in this way they most fully manifest the Imago Dei. But this emphasis, combined with the stories of their greatest actions, such as the conversion of thousands of people at a time, miraculous healings, and even raising the dead, can also leave us feeling a bit disconnected. Watching the ESPN highlight reels of all-stars is inspirational for every young, aspiring athlete. But no one is born an all-star, so it’s also important to hear that Michael Jordan didn’t make the cut for his high school basketball team and to remember the stories of struggle, hard work, perseverance, and the ups and downs along the way.  (Ed. Christians are not born, they are made, by their cooperation, through their own free will, and His most AWESOME grace!!!  His grace is EVERYTHING!!!  EVERYTHING!!!)

None of us is born a saint, and so we similarly find great encouragement in the conversion stories in the lives of the saints as well as people we know. I especially enjoy the way in which the Jesus of Nazareth series, which is usually televised each year before Easter, shows the fallen humanity of the Apostles when Jesus begins his work of forming them. Before they were pillars of the Church, they certainly appeared to be rather poor clay. (AND HOW!!!)  All persons are wounded by sin, but this affects us in different ways. Sin affected Peter’s temper, Matthew’s honesty, and Thomas’s faith. Yet for each of the saints this is where Jesus met them, and this is where Jesus meets us, right where we need Him most.

Each saint has a unique life story with particular struggles and also many unique moments of conversion, some hidden and gradual, others public and spectacular. In the extended interview Salt of the Earth, Cardinal Ratzinger (before he was Pope Benedict XVI) was asked, “how many ways are there to God?” He replied,

‘As many ways as there are people. For even within the same faith each man’s way is an entirely personal one. In that respect there is ultimately one way, and everyone who is on the way to God is therefore in some sense also on the way to Jesus Christ. But this does not mean that all ways are identical in terms of consciousness and will but on the contrary, the one way is so big that it becomes a personal way for each man.’

Jesus Christ, the one mediator between God and man, is the one path to God. As He told the Apostles, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me” (John 14:6). Yet, the saints, through their incredibly diverse lives, show us that the redemption offered in Jesus Christ is a unique path for each of us. While, as Lumen Gentium states, the call to holiness is universal, this holiness will reflect God’s glory in as many ways as there are people, and this more fully manifests God’s glory.

God calls us to holiness in Jesus Christ and wills to make each of His unique children saints. May we strive to respond to His call and cooperate with His grace so that we may let His light into our lives and into our world in the unique way God has in store for each of us.”

Praise Him, Church. Praise Him.

Love,
Matthew

Whither Shame?: Catechesis & Narcissism/MTD

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In Greek mythology, Narcissus, was the son of the river god Cephisus and nymph Lyriope. He was known for his beauty and he was loved by the god Apollo due to his extraordinary physique. Narcissus was so beautiful, he could only love himself and no one else.

Aminias, a young man fell in love with Narcissus, who had already spurned his other male suitors. Aminias was also spurned by Narcissus who gave the unfortunate young man a sword. Aminias killed himself at Narcissus’ doorstep praying to the gods to give Narcissus a lesson for all the pain he had provoked. The gods heard Aminias’ prayer and answered.

Narcissus was walking through the woods when the Nymph Echo saw him and felt madly in love with him. She started following him and Narcissus asked “who’s there”, feeling someone after him. Echo responded “who’s there” and that went on for some time until Echo decided to show herself.

She tried to embrace the boy who stepped away from Echo, telling her to leave him alone. Echo was left heartbroken and spent the rest of her life pining after Narcissus; until nothing but an echo sound remained of her.

Narcissus walked by a lake or river and decided to drink some water; he saw his reflection in the water and was surprised by the beauty he saw; he became entranced by the reflection of himself. He could not obtain the object of his desire though, nor could he part from it for any reason, and he died at the banks of the river or lake from his sorrow.

According to the myth Narcissus is still admiring himself in the Underworld, looking at the waters of the Styx.

Jonathan-B.-Coe
-by Jonathan B. Coe, is a graduate of Bethel Theological Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. Before being received into the Catholic Church in 2004, he served in pastoral ministry in Anchor Point, Alaska, and in campus ministry at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He is the author of Letters from Fawn Creek, a volume of spiritual direction, and is currently at work on a novel.

“Millennials—whom most researchers and commentators identify as that generation born from the early 1980s to 2000—may grow weary of hearing their parents and grandparents say, “Young people today seem more self-centered than in my day,” but their forebears are right. Their narcissism, in comparison to past generations, has been empirically verified in the work of San Diego State University psychology professor, Jean Twenge, and is confirmed in another study by the National Institutes of Health that was published in 2008. I can almost hear someone’s feisty Catholic grandmother or grandfather saying, “I don’t need a study to tell me what I see with my own two eyes and hear with my own two ears.”

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Of particular interest to the Church is the work of Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith, and Melinda Lundquist Denton, in the early 2000s, that foreshadows the aforementioned studies and provides an illuminating window into the spiritual and religious lives of American teenagers and, undoubtedly, many of their parents.

The results revealed that the typical teenager in the U.S. believed that each individual is uniquely distinct from all others and deserves a faith that fits her or his singular self; that individuals must freely choose their own religion; that the individual is the authority over religion and not vice-versa; that religion need not be practiced by a community; that no person may exercise judgments about or attempt to change the faith of other people; and that religious beliefs are ultimately interchangeable insofar as what matters is not the integrity of the belief system but the comfortability of the individual holding specific religious beliefs. (wtf????really? Really.)

Smith and Denton called the dominant religion of American teenagers in the early twenty-first century “Moral Therapeutic Deism,” whose primary agenda is to make one “feel good and happy about oneself and one’s life.” God is “something like a Divine Butler and Cosmic Therapist: He is always on call, takes care of any problems that arise, professionally helps people to feel better about themselves, and does not become personally involved in the process.” The results of these studies spotlight the narcissism of the Millennials but it’s easy to forget that they are often the offspring of the Baby Boomer generation who gave us the foolish saying, “If it feels good, do it.”

These trends were remarkably predicted six decades ago in the landmark book, Triumph of the Therapeutic, by Philip Rieff, who recognized that, in the West, the religious world-view that is concerned with personal salvation in God had been eclipsed by the therapeutic culture whose primary goal is for the individual to feel good because there is “nothing at stake beyond a manipulatable sense of well-being.”

Eminent moral philosopher and Catholic convert, Alisdair MacIntyre, laments the corrosive effects of the therapeutic agenda on ethics in the West that reduces right and wrong to something that is entirely subjective and feeling-based: “whatever makes you happy as long as you don’t hurt anybody.” Erudite author and radio talk-show host Dennis Prager interviewed a 26-year-old Swedish woman and graduate student and discussed some of the more controversial religious and moral issues of the day with her. Prager, whose religious faith is deeply rooted in Judaism, told her that he got his values from the Torah and asked her where she got her values. She said, “ From my heart.” (Ed.  being young, they are pretty, as all generations before in youth, but boy are they dumb!! :/  “Fame is fleeting, Beauty fades, Dumb is 4evah!!! – a t-shirt I created, mea culpa.)

It’s not an exaggeration to assert that many American Catholics have been colonized by the Therapeutic. How else can we account for the fact that, according to a recent Pew Research Center study, 58 percent of them who attend Mass weekly believe that divorced and remarried parishioners, who have not been through the annulment process, should be allowed to receive Communion; 42 percent think that co-habiting couples should be able to partake of the Eucharist, and only 46 percent think that pre-marital sex is a sin?

It’s difficult to believe that a weekly attender of Mass would be ignorant of the Church’s teaching on these issues. It’s more likely that a large percentage of the people are aware of the teaching, have chosen to reject it, and are appealing to the authority of the feelings of their autonomous self. Like the Swedish grad student, they are following their heart. MacIntyre calls this way of doing morality “emotivism.”

The therapeutic sensibility often comes out of hiding when there is controversy among Christians and the issue of authority comes to the foreground. Over the years, when I’ve had arguments with other Christians about the homosexual lifestyle, I’ve encountered the therapeutic world-view: “I like Bob and Bill. I know them. They’re great people. They didn’t choose their sexuality. They’re good neighbors, hard-working, and law-abiding citizens.” This all may be true but notice the source of authority here is how the person feels about Bob and Bill.

A co-worker I knew who was a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America had these sentiments until we discussed the witness of Scripture concerning homosexual behavior. He then changed his mind and embraced the orthodox view. The results weren’t so good in discussing the same issue with a middle-aged Catholic man in an Adult Christian Education class I co-taught in the mid-2000s. On the one hand he was aware of the witness of Scripture (Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26; Matthew 19:1-12) that was buttressed by over 2,000 years of Church Tradition and the teaching of the Magisterium. On the other hand were his own feelings about the issue that were greatly influenced by a close friend who had a gay son. He went with his feelings.

The good news in these two stories is that minds and hearts can change if you have some common ground in the area of authority. However, catechesis in a therapeutic age can feel overwhelming at times and calls to mind Hercules fighting the Hydra: with the serpent having so many heads, where do you start? The deleterious effects of the Therapeutic on ethics is just one head. The Church should strap in for a long, hard struggle and needs to have an “all hands on deck” approach with both the lay priesthood and ordained priesthood fully engaged in the battle.  AMEN!!!

It’s a conflict whose spiritual and moral lineage can be traced back to the Garden of Eden and the seduction that took place there. The serpent undermined divine authority, Eve consulted her subjective feelings and disobeyed, Adam followed suit, and we’ve been living with the consequences ever since. Perhaps a good starting point for catechesis in a therapeutic age is to present sharp contrasts—bold colors, not faded pastels—between the Therapeutic and the Orthodox—i.e. Christian traditions rooted in orthodoxy—with the hope that the parishioner will choose the latter and leaven the culture with that faith. A small beginning of that instruction might read as follows:

  • The orthodox Christian believes the purpose of their existence is to know, love, honor, and glorify God.
  • Their raison d’etre is to serve God; for the Therapeutic, the purpose of God’s existence is to serve them.
  • For the orthodox Christian, their relationship with God is an end-in-itself: their highest goal is to love God; their greatest possession is an intimate relationship with Him.
  • For the Therapeutic, their relationship to God is a means to an end; it is utilitarian in nature. Their highest goal is for the Deity to provide them with feelings of well-being; their greatest possession is to have a life that is a journey of self-discovery and self-fulfillment.
  • The orthodox Christian seeks a pilgrimage that imitates the Passion in self-giving love.
  • The mission of the Catholic is to incarnate what has been re-presented in the Mass—the self-donating love of the Crucified God—and be sent forth as the anti-therapeutic in a therapeutic culture.
  • As important as catechesis is, the spirit of the anti-therapeutic is caught more often than it is taught. This explains Malcolm Muggeridge’s conversion to Catholicism late in life. It wasn’t Mother Teresa’s erudition that moved him but her example of self-giving love.

The orthodox Christian knows it is the Father’s good pleasure to give them subjective feelings of happiness. Scripture commends the enjoyment of life (Ecclesiastes 8:15); their Lord performed his first miracle at a wedding feast turning the water into wine. Many Catholics would call this “good Catholic fun.”  (Ed.  Saints have a Sense of Humor!!  JOY!!! is the definitive mark of the Christian!!!)  However, whereas the Therapeutic see feeling good as a right, the orthodox Christian sees it as a gift that is not guaranteed. Catholics hearken back to the words of the Mother of God to St. Bernadette of Soubirous: “I do not promise to make you happy in this life, but in the next.”

It is interesting to note that in his last published writing, C.S. Lewis wrote, in contradistinction to the Declaration of Independence, a piece called “We Have No ‘Right To Happiness.’” He averred that we should not be pursuing feelings of happiness but the “happiness” that Aristotle called eudaimonia that has nothing to do with feeling good, but has everything to do with spiritual health: a moral quality of life that Aristotle described as “an activity of the soul expressing virtue.” The Therapeutic want to feel good; the orthodox Christian wants to be good.

The orthodox Christian also knows that there is an undeniable measure of disappointment built into the ancient faith. This is summarized cogently by Simon Tugwell, O.P.: “Christianity has to be disappointing, precisely because it is not a mechanism for accomplishing all our human ambitions and aspirations; it is a mechanism for subjecting all things to the will of God.” For the orthodox Christian these disappointments become a doorway to humility and self-knowledge; for the Therapeutic they become a cause for offense and a reason to move on and explore other “spiritualities” or churches that will help them “find themselves.”

Despite disappointment being built into the Christian faith, multiple studies indicate that orthodox Christians, in general, do experience subjective feelings of well-being more consistently than the Therapeutic. But since the pursuit of feeling good is not front and center in their lives, they often experience feelings of well-being as a result of putting other things first (e.g., faith, serving others, charitable giving, family, friendships, etc.). While the Therapeutic put feeling good at the top of their agenda, many of them will experience the law of diminishing returns: the more they chase subjective feelings of well-being, the less they will experience them, like a drug addict who has the initial cocaine high then spends twenty years trying to recapture the original experience.

The Therapeutic will often say, “I’m not religious; I’m spiritual.” Devout Catholics will often say, “I’m not spiritual; I’m religious.” For the therapeutic personality, the “spiritual” is defined as those experiences that increase good feelings while “religious” experiences decrease them or are neutral. Thus the Mass can be deemed spiritual or religious based on the particular mood of the therapeutic parishioner. If Christian leadership accommodates the therapeutic Zeitgeist, they will be consigned to emerge every Sunday morning as the “Therapist-in-Chief” with their homiletical grab bag of affirmations and happy talk—Deepak Chopra in religious garb—in an effort to facilitate a plentitude of endorphins among the gathered assembly. This is what the apostle Paul called “preaching another gospel.” Instead, both the ordained priesthood and the lay priesthood need to stand firm in the faith once delivered to the saints, imitate the self- sacrifice of the Passion, and extend the tender mercies of God to those who have been bewitched by the Therapeutic.”

Love,
Matthew

Solemnity of Corpus Christi – Lauda Sion

eucharist

Lauda Sion Salvatorem is a sequence prescribed for the Roman Catholic Mass of The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. It was written by St. Thomas Aquinas around 1264, at the request of Pope Urban IV for the new Mass of this Feast, along with Pange lingua, Sacris solemniis, Adoro te devote, and Verbum supernum prodiens, which are used in the Divine Office.

The hymn tells of the institution of the Eucharist and clearly expresses the belief of Christians that the bread and wine become actually, literally through a divine act, the body and blood of Jesus during the celebration of the Eucharist. Transubstantiation is the name given to the process in the Roman Catholic faith. As with St. Thomas’ other three Eucharistic hymns, the last few stanzas are often used alone, in this case, the Ecce panis Angelorum.

Lauda Sion is one of only four medieval Sequences which were preserved in the Missale Romanum published in 1570 following the Council of Trent (1545–63)—the others being Victimae paschali laudes (Easter), Veni Sancte Spiritus (Pentecost), and Dies Irae (Requiem Masses). (A fifth, Stabat Mater, would later be appointed in 1727.) Before Trent, many feasts had their own sequences. It is still sung today, though its use is optional in the post-Vatican II Ordinary form. The Gregorian melody is borrowed from the 11c sequence Laetabundi iubilemus attributed to Adam de Saint-Victor.

Old English version

Sion, lift up thy voice and sing:
Praise thy Savior and thy King,
Praise with hymns thy shepherd true.

All thou canst, do thou endeavour:
Yet thy praise can equal never
Such as merits thy great King.

See today before us laid
The living and life-giving Bread,
Theme for praise and joy profound.

The same which at the sacred board
Was, by our incarnate Lord,
Giv’n to His Apostles round.

Let the praise be loud and high:
Sweet and tranquil be the joy
Felt today in every breast.

On this festival divine
Which records the origin
Of the glorious Eucharist.

On this table of the King,
Our new Paschal offering
Brings to end the olden rite.

Here, for empty shadows fled,
Is reality instead,
Here, instead of darkness, light.

His own act, at supper seated
Christ ordain’d to be repeated
In His memory divine;

Wherefore now, with adoration,
We, the host of our salvation,
Consecrate from bread and wine.

Hear, what holy Church maintaineth,
That the bread its substance changeth
Into Flesh, the wine to Blood.

Doth it pass thy comprehending?
Faith, the law of sight transcending
Leaps to things not understood.

Here beneath these signs are hidden
Priceless things, to sense forbidden,
Signs, not things, are all we see.

Flesh from bread, and Blood from wine,
Yet is Christ in either sign,
All entire, confessed to be.

They, who of Him here partake,
Sever not, nor rend, nor break:
But, entire, their Lord receive.

Whether one or thousands eat:
All receive the self-same meat:
Nor the less for others leave.

Both the wicked and the good
Eat of this celestial Food:
But with ends how opposite!

Here ‘t is life: and there ‘t is death:
The same, yet issuing to each
In a difference infinite.

Nor a single doubt retain,
When they break the Host in twain,
But that in each part remains
What was in the whole before.

Since the simple sign alone
Suffers change in state or form:
The signified remaining one
And the same for evermore.

Behold the Bread of Angels,
For us pilgrims food, and token
Of the promise by Christ spoken,
Children’s meat, to dogs denied.

Shewn in Isaac’s dedication,
In the manna’s preparation:
In the Paschal immolation,
In old types pre-signified.

Jesu, shepherd of the sheep:
Thou thy flock in safety keep,
Living bread, thy life supply:
Strengthen us, or else we die,
Fill us with celestial grace.

Thou, who feedest us below:
Source of all we have or know:
Grant that with Thy Saints above,
Sitting at the feast of love,
We may see Thee face to face.
Amen. Alleluia.

New American Version

Laud, O Zion, your salvation,
Laud with hymns of exultation,
Christ, your king and shepherd true:
Bring him all the praise you know,
He is more than you bestow.
Never can you reach his due.

Special theme for glad thanksgiving
Is the quick’ning and the living
Bread today before you set:
From his hands of old partaken,
As we know, by faith unshaken,
Where the Twelve at supper met.

Full and clear ring out your chanting,
Joy nor sweetest grace be wanting,
From your heart let praises burst:
For today the feast is holden,
When the institution olden
Of that supper was rehearsed.

Here the new law’s new oblation,
By the new king’s revelation,
Ends the form of ancient rite:
Now the new the old effaces,
Truth away the shadow chases,
Light dispels the gloom of night.

What He did at supper seated,
Christ ordained to be repeated,
His memorial ne’er to cease:
And his rule for guidance taking,
Bread and wine we hallow, making
Thus our sacrifice of peace.

This the truth each Christian learns,
Bread into his flesh He turns,
To his precious blood the wine:
Sight has fail’d, nor thought conceives,
But a dauntless faith believes,
Resting on a pow’r divine.

Here beneath these signs are hidden
Priceless things to sense forbidden;
Signs, not things are all we see:
Blood is poured and flesh is broken,
Yet in either wondrous token
Christ entire we know to be.

Whoso of this food partakes,
Does not rend the Lord nor breaks;
Christ is whole to all that taste:
Thousands are, as one, receivers,
One, as thousands of believers,
Eats of him who cannot waste.

Bad and good the feast are sharing,
Of what divers dooms preparing,
Endless death, or endless life.

Life to these, to those damnation,
See how like participation
Is with unlike issues rife.

When the sacrament is broken,
Doubt not, but believe ‘tis spoken,
That each sever’d outward token
doth the very whole contain.

Nought the precious gift divides,
Breaking but the sign betides
Jesus still the same abides,
still unbroken does remain.

Love,
Matthew

“We’re FREE!” & miserable: women & hookups

Alone-Sad-Girl-660x350-1465889560

anne_maloney
-by Anne Maloney

“A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.”
∼ Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“…The young women I encounter every day on the campus of the university where I teach are worse off than the Stanford University victim, because they do not know what has gone wrong in their lives. Nonetheless, something has gone terribly wrong, and on some level, they know it.

In thirty years of teaching, I have come to know thousands of women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six. These women are hurting. Badly. Consider these examples from “the front lines”: a young woman says to me with all earnestness, “This weekend I went to my first college party, and I hit it off with a guy so we went into the back bedroom where the coats were and started kissing, but then he reached down, moved my panties aside and penetrated me, so I guess I’m not a virgin anymore.” Another young woman came to me in tears because her doctor told her that since she has genital warts, she may have trouble conceiving children in the future. She had always assumed she would get married and have a family someday. “And the worst part is,” she wailed, “I’m not even promiscuous. I’ve only had sex with six guys.” This young woman was nineteen when she said this to me.

Once, in a writing assignment about Socrates and the Allegory of the Cave, a student wrote that she decided to make better choices after she woke up one morning in a trailer, covered with scratches, naked, next to a man she didn’t remember meeting. At least she knew there was a problem. All too often, these women come to me in a state of bewilderment. Women have never been more “sexually liberated” than these women are, or so they are told. No more are they shackled by ridiculous bonds like commandments, moral rules, words like “chastity.” They shout: “We’re free!” Yet they whisper: “Why are we so miserable?”

It is no coincidence that the top two prescribed drugs at our state university’s health center are anti-depressants and the birth-control pill. Our young women are showing up to a very different version of “college life” than that of the previous generation. One woman, while in her freshman year, went to her health center because she feared she had bronchitis. In perusing her “health history,” the physician said, “I see here that you are a virgin.” “Um, yes,” she responded, wondering what that fact might have to do with her persistent cough. “Would you like to be referred for counseling about that?” This student came to me to ask if I thought she should, in fact, consider her virginity—at the age of eighteen—a psychological issue. (I said no.)

In a seminar I teach every other year, we discuss the ways that addiction reveals certain truths about embodiment. One of the books we discuss is Caroline Knapp’s Drinking: A Love Story. The students adore this book, and we have fascinating conversations in class. The chapter that generates by far the most passion, however, is the chapter on drinking and sex. Knapp speaks honestly about the key role that alcohol played in her decisions to have sex, sex that she regretted and that made her feel terrible. My students resonate deeply with Knapp’s experiences, and I continue to be struck by how unfree these students feel. Once the culture embraced non-marital sex and made it the norm, women who do not want to have casual sex often feel like outcasts, like weirdos. College is the last place where one wants to feel like an utter misfit; couple that with the fact that first year students are away from home for the first time—lonely, vulnerable, insecure—and you have the recipe for meaningless sexual encounters followed by anxiety and depression.

Why don’t these women just stop it? Rather than get drunk in order to have casual sex, why don’t they put down the glass AND the condom? The world we have created for these young people is a world which welcomes every sort of sexual behavior except chastity. Anal sex? Okay! Threesomes? Yep. Sex upon the first meeting? Sure! Virginity until marriage? What the hell is wrong with you?

I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the reason so many college-aged women binge-drink is so that they can bear their own closeted sorrow about what they are doing. The woman who got drunk and got raped behind the dumpster is the victim of a toxic culture. But my students are also the victims of a toxic culture. Small wonder that the number of women suffering from eating disorders, addiction, anxiety and depression is at an all-time high.

They end up in a stranger’s bed with a bad headache, a dry mouth, and an incalculable emptiness. An entire generation of women is wounded yet unable to find the source of the bleeding. There is, indeed, an “unconscious despair” behind their “games and amusements.” They “hook up,” feel awful and have no idea why. It’s hard to heal when you don’t know you’ve been damaged. And the despair and shame that these women who hook up feel is real. Contemporary sexual culture is toxic for young women, and until women stand up and acknowledge that fact, despair, sadness and regret are going to be the underlying chord structure of their very lives. We fail an entire generation when we withhold from them the “wisdom not to do desperate things.”

Love & prayers,
Matthew

“Abandon all Hope!!! Ye, who enter here!!!

the-repentant-peter_el_greco
-“The Repentant Peter”, El Greco, 1595, oil on canvas, 75.2 x 93.6 cm, Philips Collection, Washington DC, USA

nicholasschneiderop
-by Br Nicholas Schneider, OP

“Dante sees these words engraved on the archway over the Gates of Hell as he follows Virgil on their journey down through the nine circles of Hell. Dante witnesses in The Inferno how the punishments of the damned reflect their sins during life. Among the multitude of punishments, those who caused schism or division are split open, the wrathful continually fight against each other, and the lustful, blown about in a great storm, are unable to settle on anything. The sinners are living out in their punishments the actual effects of their sins, over and over again, for all eternity.

All sin is of serious concern because sin “is an offense against God” (CCC 1850). As Psalm 51 reminds us, it is primarily against God that we sin. All our sins, even our venial sins, damage our relationship with God and upset the great balance and beauty of creation. When we sin, we are “loving what God hates, and hating what God loves,” as St. Catherine of Siena describes in one of her letters. She is not concerned merely with mortal sins. Venial sins also damage our relationship with God, and, as St. Catherine writes in another letter, “Our ingratitude [to God is] shown in the sins we commit every day.”

The critical question concerning our sins is the same one Jesus asked St. Peter after the Resurrection: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” (John 21:15). Do we love our sins more than we love God and His forgiveness? Indeed, we commit our most common sins (including venial ones) precisely because we love them more than we love God. This is nothing new, as reading any of the Old Testament prophets demonstrates. The prophets continually complain about idols. Sometimes, the people of Israel outwardly worship God, but they also worship the idols of the land (Ed. or in their hearts!!!). The people love their idols and cannot part with them, even for God. God remains secondary because the people keep their trust in the (lifeless) idols and do not trust that (the living) God alone can provide. ( O ye, of little faith!!) The same is true of our habitual sins. We gain some passing pleasure from them that we do not want to give up. Because of this pleasure, breaking free from this attachment to sin is very hard, even if we know and can see how our idols are hurting and destroying us and our hope (name your deadly sin, and KNOW NOW WHY it is deadly). If we fail to break free from these sinful attachments, we will remain with them for eternity without any hope for liberation. (Truth is a bitch!!!)

Our Lord Jesus Christ is our hope, and He gives us the tool to break free from these sinful loves that pull us away from God: frequent and regular confession. Confession destroys the vices within us, even our venial sins, and sets us right with God. However, we are a fallen people, and the inclination toward sin and the bad habits can remain, which St. Catherine of Siena calls “rust.” We still need to fight against these tendencies which encourage us to return to our sinful ways.

One common image for sin is a shortcut through the woods that has become an alternative trail. We can stop using the shortcut, but it can take a very long time for a person to completely return to the habit of using the official path, especially if we have been regularly using the shortcut. When we run into trouble on the path, it is all too easy to take the shortcut again. The simplest way to stay on the path is not to use our power, but God’s. By returning again and again to the sacrament of confession, humbling ourselves before God, we walk no longer by our own limited power and weak will, but by God’s grace. (Trust not in your own strength!!! -Pr 3:5)

St. Peter received Jesus’s forgiveness and grace by the shores of the Sea of Tiberias. Knowing his own sinfulness as well as the love of God that overcame the shame and helplessness of those sins, St. Peter followed Jesus more closely. He also strengthened his brothers and sisters, bearing witness to the hope that can overcome our sins. We too are called to imitate St. Peter, witnessing to others the real hope of a genuine freedom that comes from scrubbing away the rust of our sins and following Jesus Christ ever more closely.” St. Peter, preferring Christ before all else, pray for us. Help us to do, to be similar, we beg, in His Most Holy Name. Amen.

Love,
Matthew

Sex as Summum Bonum?

“To think sex is repulsive is a failure of true chastity and a moral defect.” ( S.T., II, II, 142) -St Thomas Aquinas, OP

Is sex the “greatest good”?  Certainly, it is a great good.  WOOT!!  WOOT!!  Ask any healthy adult person!!  Amen.  And, a gift from God!!!  But, heresy, I know, is it the GREATEST good, the Summum Bonum?  Our bodies may tell us “HELL, YEAH!!!”  Any flavah!!!  Any kind!!  Sky’s the limit!!  It’s ALL for US, baby!!!  The kinkier the bettah!!!  The weirder the bettah!!!  Marquis de Sade, eat your….whatevah, OUT!!!!  ALL 4 US!!!  HAhahahahahaha!

It has a purpose?  A reason?  Not just fun?  It’s supposed to be used for something?  Crazy talk.  Crazy.  There’s a plan?  An intention?  A reason?  WutchU talkin’ ’bout, Willis?  WutchU talkin’ ‘BOUT?????

talkinboutwillis

Animals crave sex, food, warmth, comfort, security, safety, etc., ALL the “creature comforts”.  Of course, silly.  Wait…what?  Why are you asking such a ridiculous question, Matt?  Matt, you pull out some doozers, but this is a DOOSIE!!!!  Matt!!!  How DARE you question the ULTIMATE TRUTH!!!  This is what we LIVE for, Matt!!!  Take the keyboard AWAY from that man!!!  He really has LOST IT NOW!!!

But, even accepting the theory of evolution, or its future cousins, plainly, faith and reason, fides et ratio, is sex the GREATEST good?

“So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.”  -Gen 1:27

The Catholic Church is often maligned as HATING SEX!!!!!  I can assure you, NOTHING could be farther from the truth.  I come out of Moral Theology seminars at the St John Bosco Conference at Steubenville University shouting to every young person I meet, “The Catholic Church wants YOU to have AWESOME SEX!!!!”  It does!!!  It truly does.

But, (you knew that was coming, didn’t you?), it does NOT want you to be merely an animal.  You, as a human being, are MADE in the IMAGE & LIKENESS of G O D, H I M S E L F!!!!!!!  WOW!!!  WTF???? = Well, that’s fantastic!!!!  Wdtm??? = What does that mean???  Ah, the rub.  Now we’re getting somewhere, aren’t we?  Or, maybe you ARE just an animal???  I guess that’s up to you, but, last I heard, notwithstanding the cuteness of “all good doggies go to heaven”, a gentle answer for a child bereft of their favorite pet, not too many mentions of animals in Heaven??  🙁

So, if you DON’T want to go to Heaven, then go ahead, be an animal.  It’s NOT ALL GOOD.  🙁  But, if you DO want to go to Heaven, then, maybe, just maybe, that “IMAGE & LIKENESS” stuff has implications??  No matter HOW MUCH you gotta scratch that itch?  Maybe??

Can’t we just say “Thanks, God.  We’re outta here!!!” with that image & likeness stuff??  Can’t we?   Well,…no.  Darn!  You mean that stuff has implications?  Consequences?  Responsibilities?  Entanglements?  Requirements?  Such a great gift?  Really?  Really.

Summum bonum (Latin for the highest good) is an expression used in philosophy, to describe the ultimate importance, the singular and most ultimate end which human beings ought to pursue. The summum bonum is generally thought of as being an end in itself, and at the same time containing all other goods. In Christian philosophy, the highest good is usually defined as the life of the righteous, the life led in Communion with God and according to God’s precepts.

Saint Augustine states, clearly, God is the Summum Bonum in De natura boni (On the Nature of Good, written circa 399 AD). Augustine denies the positive existence of absolute evil, describing a world with God as the supreme good at the center, and defining different grades of evil as different stages of remoteness from that center.

Experience soon teaches that all desires cannot be satisfied, that they are conflicting, and that some goods must be foregone in order to secure others. Hence the necessity of weighing the relative value of goods, of classifying them, and of ascertaining which of them must be procured at the loss of others. The result is the division of goods into two great classes, the physical and the moral, happiness and virtue. Within either class it is comparatively easy to determine the relation of particular good things to one another, but it has proved far more difficult to fix the relative excellence of the two classes of virtue and happiness.

The only moral sexual act is natural marital relations open to life. But even if a married couple were to video tape their sexual acts for their own use, without distribution to third parties, such creation and use of pornographic material would not be moral. The marital act is inherently intimate and private, and should not be recorded for any purpose. The material itself is also morally disordered when the contents contain explicit depictions of unnatural sexual acts, or explicit depictions of any type of perverse sexuality. Such acts are inherently gravely contrary to God’s plan for sexuality in human life.”

http://www.catholicplanet.com/ebooks/the-immorality-of.pdf

“c) Marital chastity subordinates sexual pleasure to communion. The pleasurable sensations of sexual activity culminating in orgasm are in themselves a private and incommunicable experience.  Hence, to focus attention on this experience and strive to intensify it as much as possible tends to make the other person into a means, a “sex object.” So, the Church teaches that spouses should pursue sexual gratification only in subordination to marital love.168 Marital chastity, by making the marital good itself central, makes it possible for the experience of loving cooperation in one-flesh communion to predominate and enjoyable sensations to take their proper, subordinate place in marital intercourse. Thus subordinated, erotic pleasure no matter how intense, is morally good (see S.t., 2–2, q. 153, a. 2, ad 2).

The point is clarified by John Paul II’s teaching that a man can commit adultery in his heart by looking lustfully at his own wife. He does not mean spouses may not look at each other with erotic desire or with the intention of arousing desire in themselves and each other. To look lustfully instead means to reduce “the riches of the perennial call to the communion of persons, the riches of the deep attractiveness of masculinity and femininity, to mere satisfaction of the sexual ‘need’ of the body.” The person looked at in this way is made into a sex object. Hence: “Man can commit this adultery ‘in the heart’ also with regard to his own wife, if he treats her only as an object to satisfy instinct.” And a woman likewise can commit this adultery toward her own husband.169

d) If reason calls for abstinence, intercourse cannot express love. Even when it is not appropriate to engage in marital intercourse, people often are tempted and constrained to do so by sexual excitement and desire. Of itself, however, sexual drive does not express love; it is no more communicative than any other biological drive.

Outward behavior can express what is in one’s mind and heart only insofar as it is, not the result of a biological drive, but a free self-communication. Thus, if an uncontrollable nervous condition causes a man from time to time to blurt out “Omaha, Omaha!” everyone soon realizes that his “Omaha, Omaha!” is meaningless.

If his wife wants his agreement about anything important, she asks him to put it in writing. Likewise, to be expressive, sexual activity must be free, and to convey genuine love, it must tend to common benefit; unless freely chosen for the sake of common benefit, marital intercourse cannot express and nurture unselfish love.170

It follows that to be able to give oneself in marital intercourse so that the act means something, one needs self-control sufficient to be able to choose not to engage in intercourse when reason, considering all the relevant goods, calls for abstinence. At such times, love is expressed and fostered not by intercourse but by mutual support in abstaining cheerfully.

Consequently, marital love requires a husband and a wife to develop marital chastity, that is, to subordinate genital arousal and satisfaction to the reasonable claims of all the aspects of their common good as a married couple. By enabling the couple both to come together when appropriate and to abstain when appropriate, marital chastity empowers them to engage in sexual acts which truly embody love, rather than merely manifest an urge for inwardly focused, selfish self-satisfaction.171

http://www.twotlj.org/G-2-9-E.html

But wait, why not just give into our desires? Yeah! That’s the ticket. If so, in this case, the desires of the spirit, of the mind and will, become so disordered as to wholly pursue the desires of the flesh. But even here, the body is not satisfied, and there is no peace between body and soul. Look carefully, not just on the surface of social media, and you will hear what I mean. I promise. Aka, the noticeably ubiquitous “NO hook-ups!”

The wisdom of Scripture stands vindicated: letting the desires of our flesh take charge doesn’t lead to peace; rather, quite the opposite. But how can we find peace between body and soul?

Pope Benedict XVI analyzes this struggle in his encyclical Deus caritas est. He writes that society presents unfettered sexual love as “man’s great ‘yes’ to the body,” but this “contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive.” When we choose an excessive desire for bodily pleasure, we don’t liberate our bodies from their yearnings; rather, we turn them into “mere objects” that we try “to make both enjoyable and harmless.” This, the pope argues, actually limits our freedom, for then the body is no longer “an arena for the exercise of [our] freedom” but just another piece of matter that we try to control. Paradoxically, then, “the apparent exaltation of the body can quickly turn into a hatred of bodiliness.”

Even when we try to satiate our bodies’ desires, they still turn against us, and we remain turned against them. It can seem that there is no way out—whether we pursue the fullness of sanctity or of pleasure.

Use is the opposite of love.  How’s that for romantic?  Not bad, huh?  🙂

Love,
Matthew

The Heresy of Pelagiansim

Bad-Boys-of-Theology-Pelagius

rc_sproul
-by RC Sproul

“Grant what Thou commandest, and command what Thou dost desire.” This passage from the pen of Saint Augustine of Hippo was the teaching of the great theologian that provoked one of the most important controversies in the history of the church, and one that was roused to fury in the early years of the fifth century.

The provocation of this prayer stimulated a British monk by the name of Pelagius to react strenuously against its contents. When Pelagius came to Rome sometime in the first decade of the fifth century, he was appalled by the moral laxity he observed among professing Christians and even among the clergy. He attributed much of this malaise to the implications of the teaching of Saint Augustine, namely that righteousness could only be achieved by Christians with the special help of divine grace.

With respect to Augustine’s prayer, “Oh God, grant what Thou commandest, and command what Thou dost desire,” Pelagius had no problems with the second part. He believed that God’s highest attribute was indeed His righteousness, and from that righteousness He had the perfect right Himself to obligate His creatures to obey Him according to His law. It was the first part of the prayer that exercised Pelagius, in which Augustine asked God to grant what He commands. Pelagius reacted by saying that whatever God commands implies the ability of the one who receives the command to obey it. Man should not have to ask for grace in order to be obedient.

Now, this discussion broadened into further debates concerning the nature of Adam’s fall, the extent of corruption in our humanity that we describe under the rubric “original sin,” and the doctrine of baptism.

It was the position of Pelagius that Adam’s sin affected Adam and only Adam. That is to say, as a result of Adam’s transgression there was no change wrought in the constituent nature of the human race. Man was born in a state of righteousness, and as one created in the image of God, he was created immutably so. Even though it was possible for him to sin, it was not possible for him to lose his basic human nature, which was capable always and everywhere to be obedient. Pelagius went on to say that it is, even after the sin of Adam, possible for every human being to live a life of perfect righteousness and that, indeed, some have achieved such status.

Pelagius was not opposed to grace, only to the idea that grace was necessary for obedience. He maintained that grace facilitates obedience but is not a necessary prerequisite for obedience. There is no transfer of guilt from Adam to his progeny nor any change in human nature as a subsequence of the fall. The only negative impact Adam had on his progeny was that of setting a bad example, and if those who follow in the pathway of Adam imitate his disobedience, they will share in his guilt, Pelagius asserted, but only by being actually guilty themselves.

There can be no transfer or imputation of guilt from one man to another according to the teaching of Pelagius. On the other side, Augustine argued that the fall seriously impaired the moral ability of the human race. Indeed, the fall of Adam plunged all of humanity into the ruinous state of original sin. Original sin does not refer to the first sin of Adam and Eve, but refers to the consequences for the human race of that first sin. It refers to God’s judgment upon the whole human race by which He visits upon us the effects of Adam’s sin by the thoroughgoing corruption of all of his descendants. Paul develops this theme in the fifth chapter of his epistle to the Romans.

“For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing.” -Romans 7:19
or,
“I tried to be good, but I got bored.” 🙁 -t-shirt I own.

The key issue for Augustine in this controversy was the issue of fallen man’s moral ability — or lack thereof. Augustine argued that prior to the fall, Adam and Eve enjoyed a free will as well as moral liberty. The will is the faculty by which choices are made. Liberty refers to the ability to use that faculty to embrace the things of God.

After the fall, Augustine said the will, or the faculty, of choosing remained intact; that is, human beings are still free in the sense that they can choose what they want to choose. However, their choices are deeply influenced by the bondage of sin that holds them in a corrupt state. And as a result of that bondage to sin, the original liberty that Adam and Eve enjoyed before the fall was lost.

The only way that moral liberty could be restored would be through God’s supernatural work of grace in the soul. This renewal of liberty is what the Bible calls a “royal” liberty (James 2:8).

Therefore, the crux of the matter had to do with the issue of moral inability as the heart of original sin. The controversy yielded several church verdicts including the judgment of the church in a synod in the year 418, where the Council of Carthage condemned the teachings of Pelagius. The heretic was exiled to Constantinople in 429. And once again, Pelagianism was condemned by the church at the Council of Ephesus in 431. Throughout church history, again and again, unvarnished Pelagianism has been repudiated by Christian orthodoxy.

Even the Council of Trent, which teaches a form of semi-Pelagianism, in its first three canons — especially in the sixth chapter on justification — repeats the church’s ancient condemnation of the teaching of Pelagius that men can be righteous apart from grace. Even as recently as the modern Roman Catholic catechism, that condemnation is continued.

In our own day, the debate between Pelagianism and Augustinianism may be seen as the debate between humanism and Christianity. Humanism is a warmed-over variety of Pelagianism.

However, the struggle within the church now is between the Augustinian view and various forms of semi-Pelagianism, which seeks a middle ground between the views of Pelagius and Augustine.

Semi-Pelagianism teaches that grace is necessary to achieve righteousness, but that this grace is not imparted to the sinner unilaterally or sovereignly as is maintained by orthodox Christianity.

Rather, the semi-Pelagian argues that the individual makes the initial step of faith before that saving grace is given. Thus, God imparts the grace of faith in conjunction with the sinner’s work in seeking God. It seems a little mixing of grace and works-not-prompted-through-grace doesn’t worry the semi-Pelagian.

[Ed.  Catholicism holds ALL is grace.  The ability, the inclination to seek truth and grace is itself the fruit of God’s freely given grace.  Any good we do in this life is the fruit of God’s freely given grace, but it MUST be exercised.  It CANNOT be ignored or denied.  Faith, ALONE, is NOT sufficient.  This would be sinful, a sin of omission, as opposed to comission.]  It is our task, however, if we are to be faithful first to Scripture and then to the church’s ancient councils, to discern Augustine’s truth and defend it aright.”

Love,
Matthew

Irish Catholic Jansenism – #JOY is @#Heart of the Gospel!!!!!

OLPerpetualResponsibility

OLPerpetualResponsibility2

Jn 5:11

My mother, lovingly, and with the best of intentions for me, used to remind me, frequently, as a child, “The lightning is going to strike you, Mashew!!”  Ostensibly, to keep the straight and narrow.  And, “If my children lose their faith, I have failed as a mother!”  NO PRESSURE!!!

There is a severity in Irish Catholicism, cf joyless Irish nuns of discipline, i.e. Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, Lake Wobegon, MN.  Workhouses for Wayward Girls & Truant Boys, etc.  I thought the Irish were tough, until I met the Polish in Chicago!!  Jeesh!!!  Did anyone else notice how the Polish jokes just stopped dead cold after JPII’s election?  They did.

“…Why do they call this heartless place
Our Lady of Charity?

These bloodless brides of Jesus
If they had just once glimpsed their Groom
Then they’d know, and they’d drop the stones
Concealed behind their rosaries.
They wilt the grass they walk upon
They leech the light out of a room…”
-“Magdalene Laundries”, The Chieftains, Tears of Stone, 1999

Cornelius_Jansen_by_Evêque_d'Ypres_(1585-1638)
-Cornelius Jansen (1585–1638), professor at the Old University of Louvain, painting by by Evêque d’Ypres

The heresy of Jansenism is named after Cornelius Jansen, who was the Bishop of Ypres in the early 17th century. His main work, Augustinus, was published after his death. In this work, he claimed to have rediscovered the true teaching of St. Augustine concerning grace, which had been lost to the Church for centuries. Even though he was not strictly a heretic, his writings still caused great harm to the Church.

At that time, the Jesuits were heavily preaching on the mercy of God. This was seen by some as moral laxity. Also the debates with the Calvinists had an influence on Jansen’s thoughts. Without going into the details of the “five propositions from Jansen”, this heresy essentially taught that God’s saving grace is irresistible, though not given to everyone. According to Jansen, a person could neither accept or reject this grace due to his fallen nature. Although persons, who received it, were sure of salvation. Unfortunately not everyone received this saving grace. God decreed who was saved and who was lost. Jansen denied human free will and God’s desire to save everyone (1 Tim. 2:4). Even though the Jansenists hoped to combat the moral laxity of their time through moral rigorism, their denial of human free will and God’s mercy actually promoted moral despair or a carefree, frivolous life style, since personal actions had no effect on personal salvation. Due to the duplicity of its promoters, this heresy harmed the Church for over seventy years.

Summary of Catholic Teaching on Grace & Free Will:

1) The grace merited by Christ is necessary for us for all actions of piety and the exercise of every virtue and should be asked of from God.
2) With the help of grace, all the commandments of God are possible to obey, such that a chaste and holy Christian life without mortal sin is possible. Also, without this grace, we cannot do anything that is truly good, nor even persevere in good except by grace.
3) Grace prevents and aids our wills in such a way that we owe our salvation to God’s grace; if we do fall, it should be imputed to ourselves.
4) Grace strengthens and supplements our freedom, but in no way destroys it.
5) While maintaining the existence and freedom of the will, we should nevertheless remain in a posture of humility, remembering that our will is aided by grace in ways we don’t understand.

I have been trained as a catechist that the Truth, which the Church seeks, is often found in a middle course, a middle way between extremes. This is NOT splitting the difference!!! But, rather, a sincere search for and discovery of the Truth of God. The fact of the matter is, I have been trained, is that Truth happens to often be found in the moderation of extremes.

There are two known poles regarding the theological and metaphysical interplay of grace & free will, from a Roman Catholic perspective. The first, the heresy of Pelagianism, errs in assigning too great a role to free will and debasing God’s grace; the other, of course, is that of Calvinism, in which free will is negated and the operation of grace inflated to the point that we arrive at total (or double) predestination. These extremes are the Scylla and Charybdis of the theology of grace; a truly Catholic approach to this problem must sail skillfully between these two dangers, turning neither to the left nor to the right.

michael_moreland
-by Michael Moreland
May 26, 2015

“The big story coming out of the weekend was the Irish referendum on same-sex marriage, accompanied by barely concealed glee in some quarters at the humiliation of the Catholic Church. Here’s a hypothesis to ponder about the historical reach of theological ideas and the place of Catholicism in different cultures (not so much about the substance of the same-sex marriage debate itself), even if it might not hold up in every detail to scrutiny.

As Damian Thompson writing at the Spectator notes here, the influence of Catholicism in Ireland has waned for various reasons (most especially the sex abuse scandal), and one factor he mentions in passing is “the joyless quasi-Jansenist character of the Irish Church.” Indeed, while the Church’s influence across Europe has fallen, the collapse in those parts of Europe (or places missionized by Europeans) arguably influenced by Jansenism has been ferocious: the Low Countries (we think of Jansenism as primarily a French movement, but Cornelius Jansen himself was Dutch and Bishop of Ypres), France, Quebec, and Ireland. The place of the Church in the culture of those parts of European Catholicism less tinged by Jansenism has fared a bit better: Poland, Austria, Bavaria, Italy, and, most especially, Spain and Portugal and their former colonies in Latin America and the Philippines.

I am simplifying a great deal here, of course. There was, for example, a robust Jansenist movement in parts of modern-day Italy, and, more importantly, it is hard to say how much Jansenist influence there really was in Irish Catholicism (captured by the “quasi-” in Thompson’s essay). Because of English persecution, there were no seminaries in Ireland up through the end of the eighteenth century and so Irish clergy were often trained at Jansenist French seminaries, and there might have been some Jansenist influence in the early days at Maynooth, the Irish national seminary founded in 1795. But the scope of the actual influence of Jansenist ideas on folk Irish Catholicism is much harder to determine, as Thomas O’Connor notes in his 2007 entry on “Jansenism” in The Oxford Companion to Irish History (“The frequent claim that Irish Catholicism was Jansenist-influenced springs from the tendency to confuse Jansenism with mere moral rigorism.”). Jansenism was just one (perhaps small) factor among many contributing to Seán Ó Faoláin’s “dreary Eden.”

If there is something to this, though, we shouldn’t be surprised. Jansenism—with its hyper-Augustinianism, insistence on human depravity, confused doctrine of freedom and grace, other-worldliness, and moral rigorism—was theologically pernicious (condemned in Cum occasione by Pope Innocent X in 1653 and in Unigenitus dei filius by Pope Clement VI in 1713). A Catholic culture shaped by it distorts our understanding of the human person and society, and bad theological doctrines about God, human nature, and sin can wreak havoc even if the institutional forms of the Church endure for a time. Jansenism produced a towering genius in Blaise Pascal and a minor genius in Antoine Arnauld, but it was an unfortunate development in early modern Catholicism. As we think about how to build (or re-build, as it may be) Catholic culture, we would do well to remember that joy is at the heart of the gospel, and a Catholic culture drained of such joy by Jansenism or its cousins will, when the time comes, all too easily be swept away.”

Love & the JOY!!! of the Gospel,
Matthew