All posts by techdecisions

Moral, Social Justice

“…it has to cost me something, so that it can change me…”

When I was a Dominican novice, ever so briefly, my weekly ministry was to work in the food pantry at St John’s Social Service Center in Cincinnatti, OH.  (I “thought” the prison would be much “cooler”, but this was a blessed lesson in obedience to my novice master, Fr. Ambrose Eckinger, OP, a barber in secular life and a talented musician.)  I learned many real lessons about real poverty and dismissed many misconceptions and biases I possessed.

Within the same block was a beautiful salon and haven for the homeless.  They could take a shower, something I think we all take too much for granted.  What joy.  What pleasure.  What heaven.  Table stakes for social interaction.  Have their hair cut.  Have their clothes washed.  Receive mail.  Make and receive phone calls.  Find that job, the quick unthinking, unfeeling, dismissive retort of many.  “There, but for the grace of God…”  Ps 103:2.

On the glass front door was an etching of just a foot (Jesus) and the head of a woman bathing the foot with her tears and drying them with her long tresses.(Luke 7:36-50)  This Lent, let’s all bathe His feet and dry them with our hair.  To borrow, I know they won’t mind, a Jesuit prayer practice, let’s all, especially me, REALLY PRAY THAT, imagine actually doing that, being the penitent woman, man, husband, wife, brother, sister, mother, father, etc. this Lent.

Vatican Homeless Showers

Vatican Homeless Showers

Vatican Homeless Showers

Vatican Homeless Showers

Homeless person sleeps outside Vatican press office near St. Peter's Square

A view of the public restrooms just off St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Friday, Feb. 6, 2015. Rome’s homeless are about to get some TLC. The Vatican is finishing renovations on public restrooms just off St. Peter’s Square that will include three showers and a barber shop for the homeless. Each “homeless pilgrim” as Vatican Radio called the clients Friday, will receive a kit including a towel, change of underwear, soap, deodorant, toothpaste, razor and shaving cream. The showers will be open every day but Wednesday, when the piazza is full for the pope’s general audience. Haircuts are available Mondays.

UPDATE:

“Vatican prepares to open showers, barber shop for homeless

-by Nicole Winfield, AP News
Feb 6, 2015

VATICAN CITY (AP) – Rome’s homeless are about to get some TLC.

The Vatican said Friday it had finished renovations on public restrooms just off St. Peter’s Square that will include three showers and a free barber shop for the city’s neediest.

Each “homeless pilgrim,” as the Vatican called the clients, will receive a kit including a towel, change of underwear, soap, deodorant, toothpaste, razor and shaving cream. The showers will be open every day but Wednesday, when the piazza is full for the pope’s general audience. Haircuts will be available Mondays.

Barbers volunteering on their days off – Rome’s barber shops are closed Mondays – as well as students from a local beauty school will be donating their time, as well as some sisters from religious orders and other volunteers.

The bathrooms were made with high-tech, easy-to-clean materials to ensure proper hygiene, the Vatican said in a statement. The walls are grey, with white washbasins and a high-tech looking barber chair.

Francis’ chief alms-giver, Monsignor Konrad Krajewski, has said the project is needed since homeless people are often shunned for their appearance and smell. The initiative is being funded by donations and sales of papal parchments sold by Krajewski’s office.

Francis has stepped up the role of the Vatican “elmosiniere” as part of his insistence that the church look out for the poorest. In addition to small acts of charity, Krajewski’s office handed out 400 sleeping bags to the homeless over Christmas, distributed 1,600 phone cards to new migrants on the island of Lampedusa, and this past week gave away some 300 umbrellas that had been left behind at the Vatican Museums to help the homeless cope with days of heavy rain in the capital.”

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photo_2

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/11/28/pope-francis-charity-office/3776499/

“I told him, ‘Eminence, this isn’t being an almoner. You might be able to sleep at night, but being an almoner has to cost you. Two euros is nothing for you. Take this poor person, bring him to your big apartment1 that has three bathrooms, let him take a shower – and your bathroom will stink for three days – and while he’s showering make him a coffee and serve it to him, and maybe give him your sweater…”

(1I always urge caution & prudence when dealing with those whose needs exceed our abilities, which is frequent.  The heart of charity is a beautiful thing; however, I strongly believe making professional services aware of the person’s plight and location is a far more loving and prudent thing than acting naively out of love.  I lost a dear friend, Lynn, in a tragic crime, where all she tried to do was help.  These are issues/circumstances beyond the layperson’s ability/competence and often result in the gravest of dangers.  Mt 10:16)

(Giving an Apostolic Blessing, from the papal almoner, for very special occasions, a wedding, an anniversary, etc. was always par for the course for McCormicks.  It was completely usual to go into a McCormick home and see the Apostolic Blessing hanging on the wall, framed, in a  place of honor, as it would be in any Catholic home, along with a framed picture of the Kennedy brothers, Jack & Bobby, (more highly regarded than actual saints) and the Holy Father.  Par for the course.  Par.)

Blessed Advent.

Love,
Matthew

Theology

Purgatory


-please click on the image for greater detail

(Editor’s note:  it is helpful to recall in the Old Testament, when trying to understand the doctrine of Purgatory, I have found, for mortals to look upon the Beatific Vision (God) was certain and instantaneous death.  Recall in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” Indy’s, scriptural student that he was, instructions to Marian, “Don’t look at it, Marian!  Don’t look at it!”  AVERT YOUR EYES!!!!  Wise and successful student.  Indy and Marian live.  The Nazis, whom, with effrontery, dare look upon even a glimmer of the Divine glory?…not so much.  We must prepare.  We must be prepared.  We must cooperate with His infinite grace and mercy, not because our efforts are necessary or even helpful, but out of sheer joy and the most profound gratitude.  What other response could we possibly have?  How horrific to ignore, be indifferent to such a Gift?)


– by Br Raphael Forbing, OP

“In John Lennon’s “Imagine”, the artist invites us into a utopian paradise where the elimination of religion and politics—the two things men seem to fight about most—has finally ended all competition and dissension on earth. Once government and religion are removed from the equation, Lennon seems to suggest, peace and love are all that will remain. Of course, this imagined utopia is an implicit denial that God is the true source of all peace and love. Lennon fails to see that, in a world without God, the life of man is meaningless; he is not lovable in himself, but only because he is created and loved by God.

Far from depicting a heavenly utopia, Lennon’s song is actually closer to a description of Purgatory, the place of purification after death. Purgatory is neither Hell nor Heaven, and as in Lennon’s utopia, there are no countries, no killing, and no dying there. The souls in Purgatory are even all living for the eternal “today” of everlasting life and peace in the presence of God. That may be the end of the similarity, yet much more can be said about Purgatory, which has fascinated the Christian imagination for centuries, even millennia.

Scripture tells us little about Purgatory aside from a few key references to its existence. Even the Catechism devotes only three paragraphs to the topic. The most imaginative description we have of Purgatory is probably that made by Dante Alighieri in his Purgatorio, the second “volume” of his trilogy, La Divina Commedia. While Dante’s depiction of Purgatory is not a doctrinal statement, it can help the doctrine of Purgatory come alive for us and spur us on to pray for our deceased loved ones. Before glancing at Dante’s text, it is worth noting the most substantial paragraph on Purgatory from the Catechism:

“The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent . . . As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire . . . we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come. (CCC 1031)”

With the doctrine of the Church in mind, we can take a glance at Dante’s imaginative Purgatory. After escaping Hell, Dante and his companion Virgil arrive on the shore of “ante-Purgatory,” where souls who delayed repentance in life must wait for a period of time before they begin their purification. An angel then transports those ready for Purgatory’s penances to the shores of “Mount Purgatory,” which ascends to the lowest realm of Heaven. Mount Purgatory is made up of seven terraces. Each terrace represents one of the seven deadly sins, and each of these has its own unique form of penance. The souls there slowly labor under their penances and are purified of their sin. For instance, those who were envious and “lusted with their eyes” after the goods of others, have their eyelids sewn shut with an iron thread, as they weep profusely for their sins. Voices call out examples of envy, perhaps adding to the sorrow of the penitents, who weep all the more at such vile offenses committed against such a good and loving God.

While the true destiny of man is to live in the beatific vision of God without suffering, the guilt of our sin, though forgiven, still deserves punishment. If, in the course of our life here on earth, we do not make sufficient penance for our sins, we must endure the punishment that awaits us in Purgatory, whatever that may look like. Thanks to God’s good Providence, we can choose our penances while we are alive to lessen our own stay in Purgatory, and we can also offer prayers and penances for the souls in Purgatory to lessen the punishment they must endure. Upon their arrival in Heaven, they in turn offer prayers with the saints to God on our behalf.

John Lennon may not have esteemed the good of religion, but for Christians, true religion is the source of lasting peace.”

Blessed Advent.  Lower profile than Lent as a penitential season, Advent has many parallels.

Both Advent and Lent are penitential seasons, which does seem strange because Lent has a feeling of sorrow whereas Advent does not. Both are penitential in the sense that we are preparing ourselves. Advent is a season of preparation with a feeling of hope, the hope that comes from the birth of the Savior. Lent is a season of preparation with a feeling of sorrow, sorrow for our sins for which our Savior suffered and died.

“During Advent, the faithful are admonished to prepare themselves worthily to celebrate the anniversary of the Lord’s coming into the world as the incarnate God of love, thus to make their souls fitting abodes for the Redeemer coming in Holy Communion and through grace, and thereby to make themselves ready for His final coming as judge, at death and at the end of the world.” – “On Christian Hope”, Pope Benedict XVI, Nov 30, 2007.

Let us “Prepare the way of the Lord, for He comes!”  For all souls in purgatory, we pray, eternal rest grant unto them, may the perpetual light shine upon them, may they rest in peace.  Make haste, O Lord, to welcome into your love and joy our departed loved ones.  Make haste, O Lord, to welcome us, too, when, at the hour of our own death, we shall see You as You are, in glory; where we shall spend eternity in praise and thanksgiving to You!

Love,
Matthew

Ambrose of Milan, December, Doctors of the Church, Fathers of the Church, Saints

Dec 7 – St Ambrose, (340-397 AD) – Governor of Milan, Bishop, Confessor, Doctor, & Father of the Church, “The Honey-tongued Doctor”

St. Ambrose

Saint Ambrose’s life testifies to the fact that everything can change in a moment’s notice, and that God has greater plans for us than we could ever fathom for ourselves. Aurelius Ambrosius was born into Roman nobility and proceeded to receive an excellent education. By the age of 33 Ambrose was living the life every Roman dreamed of.  He was a successful lawyer and the governor of Milan. Suddenly and without warning everything would change.

In about 374 A.D. the bishop of Milan, Auxentius, died. This was a major problem because at this time Milan was full of Catholics and Arians.  Arianism was a terrible heresy which swept the early Church.  Arius (250-336 AD) was a priest in Alexandria, Egypt. He developed an exegesis of Proverbs 8:22-31 et seq, the passage beginning “The Lord created me at the beginning of His work, the first of His acts of old.” The passage is referring to Wisdom. Arius derived from this the notion that Christ, who is often identified as Wisdom in Proverbs, is a created creature. This is the same belief held by modern Arians, whom we know as Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Arius was apparently quite a charismatic character, although his description does not quite match up to the trouble that he caused. He was born in Libya, but raised in Antioch. A contemporary, Epyphonius, described him as tall and grave, with a winning personality. He always walked about barefoot, and led an ascetic life. Despite what appears to be an unassuming personality, Arius fervently marketed his teaching. Throughout the controversy, the world was treated to Arians singing popular ditties relating their theology. One writer of the period complained that it was impossible to go to the market without having to listen to such songs, and engaging in theological dispute with the butcher, the fruit vendor and the bath attendant.  St Jerome, of prior note, lamented “The whole world woke and groaned to find itself Arian.”

The dispute tore the Christian world apart, especially in the East. In reaction, the Emperor Constantine the Great (who was born in England by the way) in 325 AD convened a great council of bishops to address the controversy. Meeting in Nicaea, 318 bishops deliberated and debated the issue. Among them was the bishop of Alexandria, named Alexander, and his young deacon, Athanasius (St Athanasius, of prior note). This council would later be recognized as the first Ecumenical Council, one of seven which would produce the dogmatic statements that are so important in Holy Tradition. The bishops produced what we now know as the Nicene Creed.

From this simple, albeit misguided, exegesis, the entire world was thrown into upheaval, which lasted for most of the fourth century.  If, as the logic goes, Christ is a creature, then He is not Divine.  Careful what you misinterpret in Scripture.  Therefore, the Incarnation did not happen and we are NOT saved.  Arians believed that Christ was not divine, and the former bishop of Milan was an Arian.

After the bishop’s death, a huge riot proceeded in the cathedral of Milan and it seemed that bloodshed was imminent. Ambrose came on the scene and gave a powerful speech for peace which resulted in the crowd’s decision that Ambrose, a catechumen who was yet to be baptized, ought to be the new bishop. St. Amborse resisted as much as he could, but he eventually gave up because he knew that he had to accept in order to keep the peace. St. Ambrose was then baptized and ordained all in the same day.

St. Ambrose then began his career as a bishop, preacher, and negotiator. Saint Ambrose sold all of his possessions and gave them to the poor and the church. He preached passionately against the Arian heresy and was educated in theology by St. Simplician. When the emperor died, the Empress Justina, an Arian, became regent for her four year old son. Maximus, a former Roman soldier, realized the emperor’s death might weaken the empire enough for his army to conquer it. Justina begged Ambrose to negotiate with him. In spite of the fact that she was his enemy, Ambrose went on a diplomatic mission that convinced Maximus not to invade.  Ambrose convinced Maximus and his armies not to invade on numerous occasions.

Here is a favorite St. Ambrose quote which certainly points to the kind of man he was:  “It is a better thing to save souls for the Lord than to save treasures. He Who sent forth His apostles without gold had not need of gold to form His Church. The Church possesses gold, not to hoard, but to scatter abroad and come to the aid of the unfortunate.”  “That which cannot be bought with gold, does not take its value from gold.”

In thanks?, Empress Justina demanded Ambrose to surrender one of the Churches of Milan to the Arians, Ambrose declared, “If you demand my person, I am ready to submit: carry me to prison or to death, I will not resist; but I will never betray the church of Christ. I will not call upon the people to succour me; I will die at the foot of the altar rather than desert it. The tumult of the people I will not encourage: but God alone can appease it.”  Imperial soldiers surrounded the basilica.  In the face of arms and soldiers, Ambrose said, “My only arms are my tears. I will never depart willingly but I won’t resist by force.”

In order to calm the frightened people, Ambrose taught them to sing hymns he had composed. He split the congregation in two in order to alternate verses of the hymns. This is our first record of communal singing in church.  The music of praise and prayer seeped out through the walls of the basilica and into the hearts of the soldiers. Soon the soldiers outside joined in the singing. They did enter the church, but to pray.  The siege ended.  Ambrose’s preaching also brought eastern Emperor Theodosius to do public penance for his sins.

Ambrose was careful never to say or do anything to start violence. When Catholics seized an Arian priest and were going to put him to death, Ambrose intervened in the name of peace and prayed God suffer no blood to be shed. He sent out priests and deacons to rescue his Arian enemy.

Saint Ambrose was unsurprisingly famous for selling gold vessels of the Church in order to tend to the poor and free captives of neighboring barbarians. St. Ambrose also baptized and preached to Saint Augustine of Hippo, of prior note.

The title “Honey-tongued Doctor” was initially bestowed on Ambrose because of his speaking and preaching ability; this led to the use of a beehive and bees in his iconography, symbols which also indicate wisdom. This led to his association with bees, beekeepers, chandlers, wax refiners, etc.

st. Ambrose body

-the remains of St Ambrose (in white vestments), Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio, Milan, Italy.

emperor-theodosius-forbidden-by-st-ambrose-to-enter-milan-cathedral-1620.jpg!Blog

-detail from the painting ‘Emperor Theodosius Forbidden by Saint Ambrose To Enter Milan Cathedral’, Sir Anthony van Dyck, 1619-20, oil on canvas, National Gallery, London, England, 149 cm x 113 cm

saint-ambrose-of-milan-01

-painting of Saint Ambrose of Milan, Vatican Museum

“No one heals himself by wounding another.” – Saint Ambrose

“Our own evil inclinations are far more dangerous than any external enemies.” – Saint Ambrose

“Know, O beautiful soul, that you are the image of God. Know that you are the glory of God.” -St. Ambrose of Milan

“But if these beings, angels, guard you, they do so because they have been summoned by your prayers.” – Saint Ambrose

“He took what is mine in order that He might impart to me what is His. He took it not to overturn it but to fill it.”
–St. Ambrose

“Not only for every idle word but for every idle silence must man render an account.” – St. Ambrose

“Where Peter is, there is the Church. Where the Church is, there is Jesus Christ. Where Jesus Christ is, there is eternal salvation.”
-St Ambrose

“He took what is mine in order that He might impart to me what is His. He took it not to overturn it but to fill it.”
–St. Ambrose

“The Church of the Lord is built upon the rock of the apostles among so many dangers in the world; it therefore remains unmoved. The Church’s foundation is unshakable and firm against assaults of the raging sea. Waves lash at the Church but do not shatter it. Although the elements of this world constantly beat upon the Church with crashing sounds, the Church possesses the safest harbor of salvation for all in distress.

There is a stream which flows down on God’s saints like a torrent. There is also a rushing river giving joy to the heart that is at peace and makes for peace.

He who reads much and understands much, receives his fill. He who is full, refreshes others. So Scripture says: “If the clouds are full, they will pour rain upon the earth.”

Therefore, let your words be rivers, clean and limpid, so that you may charm the ears of people. And by the grace of your words win them over to follow your leadership. Solomon says: “The weapons of the understanding are the lips of the wise”; and in another place he says: “Let your lips be bound with wisdom.” That is, let the meaning of your words shine forth, let understanding blaze out. Let no word escape your lips in vain or be uttered without depth of meaning.” – from a letter by Saint Ambrose

“There is also a certain water which we put into the basin of our soul, water from the fleece and from the Book of Judges; water, too, from the Book of Psalms. It is the water of the message from heaven. Let, then, this water, O Lord Jesus, come into my soul, into my flesh, that through the moisture of this rain the valleys of our minds and the fields of our hearts may grow green. May the drops from Thee come upon me, shedding forth grace and immortality.” –St. Ambrose, “To the Emperor Gratian,” in Ambrose: Select Works and Letters,” eds. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.), 95.

“To avoid dissensions we should be ever on our guard, more especially with those who drive us to argue with them, with those who vex and irritate us, and who say things likely to excite us to anger. When we find ourselves in company with quarrelsome, eccentric individuals, people who openly and unblushingly say the most shocking things, difficult to put up with, we should take refuge in silence, and the wisest plan is not to reply to people whose behavior is so preposterous. Those who insult us and treat us contumeliously are anxious for a spiteful and sarcastic reply: the silence we then affect disheartens them, and they cannot avoid showing their vexation; they do all they can to provoke us and to elicit a reply, but the best way to baffle them is to say nothing, refuse to argue with them, and to leave them to chew the cud of their hasty anger. This method of bringing down their pride disarms them, and shows them plainly that we slight and despise them.” – Saint Ambrose, Offices

“O God, I who presume to invoke Thy Holy Name, stand in the presence of Thy Divine Majesty: have mercy upon me, a man: a sinner smeared by the foulness of inherent impurity; forgive the unworthy priest in whose hand this oblation is seen offered: Spare O Lord one polluted by sins: in faults the foremost, in comparison to all others, and do not enter into judgment with Thy servant, for no one living is justified in Thy sight. It is true that we are weighed down in the faults and desires of our flesh: remember, O Lord, that we are flesh and there is no other source of help than Thee. Yeah, in Thy sight not even those in Heaven are much more cleansed than we earthly humans, of whom, as the Prophet said of all our righteous acts: we are in comparison as unworthy as a menstrual rag. O Jesus Christ, let us live. O Thou Who dost not will the death of a sinner: grant forgiveness unto us whom Thou hast established in flesh, so that by penitential acts we may come to enjoy eternal life in the Heavens, through our Lord Jesus Christ Who reigneth with Thee and the Holy Spirit throughout all ages of ages. Amen. ”
-From the Lorrha (“Stowe”) Missal used by Churches of Ireland, Scotland, Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, and northern Italy.  Translated and Rubricated by Priest Kristopher Dowling, S.S.B.

“Lord, teach me to seek You, and reveal Yourself to me when I seek You. For I cannot seek You unless You first teach me, nor find You unless You first reveal Yourself to me. Let me seek You in longing and long for You in seeking. Let me find You in love, and love You in finding.”
-St Ambrose of Milan, Bishop, Writer, Doctor of the Church

“Lord Jesus Christ, I approach Your banquet table in fear and trembling, for I am a sinner, and dare not rely on my own worth but only on Your goodness and mercy. I am defiled by many sins in body and soul, and by my unguarded thoughts and words.

Gracious God of majesty and awe, I seek Your protection, I look for Your healing. Poor troubled sinner that I am, I appeal to You, the fountain of all mercy. I cannot bear Your judgment, but I trust in Your salvation. Lord, I show my wounds to You and uncover my shame before You. I know my sins are many and great, and they fill me with fear, but I hope in Your mercies, for they cannot be numbered.

Lord Jesus Christ, eternal king, God and man, crucified for mankind, look upon me with mercy and hear my prayer, for I trust in You. Have mercy on me, full of sorrow and sin, for the depth of Your compassion never ends.

Praise to You, saving sacrifice, offered on the wood of the cross for me and for all mankind. Praise to the noble and precious blood, flowing from the wounds of my crucified Lord Jesus Christ and washing away the sins of the whole world. Remember, Lord, Your creature, whom You have redeemed with Your blood. I repent my sins, and I long to put right what I have done. Merciful Father, take away all my offenses and sins; purify me in body and soul, and make me worthy to taste the holy of holies.

May Your body and blood, which I intend to receive, although I am unworthy, be for me the remission of my sins, the washing away of my guilt, the end of my evil thoughts, and the rebirth of my better instincts. May it incite me to do the works pleasing to You and profitable to my health in body and soul, and be a firm defense against the wiles of my enemies.”
-Saint Ambrose of Milan, Prayer before Holy Communion

In “On the Mysteries” (De Mysteriis) [English], Chapter 2, St. Ambrose wrote,

“After this the Holy of holies was opened to you, you entered the sanctuary of regeneration; recall what you were asked, and remember what you answered. You renounced the devil and his works, the world with its luxury and pleasures. That utterance of yours is preserved not in the tombs of the dead, but in the book of the living.”

“Post haec reserata tibi sunt sancta sanctorum, ingressus es regenerationis sacrarium: repete quid interrogatus sis, recognosce quid responderis. Renuntiasti diabolo et operibus ejus, mundo et luxuriae ejus ac voluptatibus. Tenetur vox tua, non in tumulo mortuorum, sed in libro viventium.”

“Let the Word of God come; let it enter the church; let it become a consuming fire, that it may burn the hay and stubble, and consume whatever is worldly; there is heavy lead of iniquity in many; let it be molten by divine fire; let the gold and silver vessels be made better, in order that understanding and speech, refined by the heat of suffering, may begin to be more precious.”
–St. Ambrose

“This bread is bread before the words of the Sacrament. But when the words of Christ come to it, it is the body of Christ … Before the words of Christ it is a cup full of wine and water. When the words of Christ become operative, the blood which has redeemed the people is caused to be there.”
–St. Ambrose

“Christ Himself is our mouth through which we speak to the Father, our eye through which we see the Father, our right hand through which we offer to the Father. Without His intercession neither we nor all the saints have anything with God.”
–St. Ambrose

“I will glory not because I am righteous, but because I am redeemed; I will glory not because I am free from sins, but because my sins are forgiven me. I will not glory because I have done good nor because someone has done good to me, but because Christ is my advocate with the Father and because the blood of Christ has been shed for me.”
–St. Ambrose

“Let the Word of God come; let it enter the church; let it become a consuming fire, that it may burn the hay and stubble, and consume whatever is worldly; there is heavy lead of iniquity in many; let it be molten by divine fire; let the gold and silver vessels be made better, in order that understanding and speech, refined by the heat of suffering, may begin to be more precious.”
–St. Ambrose

“Let anger be guarded against. But if it cannot be averted, let it be kept within bounds. For indignation is a terrible incentive to sin. It disorders the mind to such an extent as to leave no room for reason. The first thing, therefore, to aim at, if possible, is to make tranquility of character our natural disposition by constant practice, by desire for better things, by fixed determination.”
—St. Ambrose

“Open wide your door to the One Who comes. Open your soul, throw open the depths of your heart to see the riches of simplicity, the treasures of peace, the sweetness of grace. Open your heart and run to meet the Sun of eternal light that illuminates all men.”
-St. Ambrose

Love,
Matthew

Ecclesiology

Survival Guide for Thinking Catholics – Ten tips from Rev. Tom Reese, S.J.


-St Thomas Aquinas by Sandro Botticelli (1444-1510), please click on the image for greater detail

“Thinking Catholic is not an oxymoron.”  -MP McCormick

Born out of conscience, which St Thomas Aquinas says is inviolable, erring or not, Summa Theologiae Ia, q. 79, a. 13 – “Whether conscience is a power?” Aquinas’ treatment on natural law can also be found in ST I-II, q. 92 + ff.

“For Aquinas, every conscience binds, even an erring one. This means that if there is something that you believe you cannot do (after having taken care to form your conscience as well as you can), even if the Church commands it, then you cannot do it without committing a sin. Likewise, if there is something you believe you must do, even if the Church forbids it, then you must do it or else commit a sin. The command of one’s conscience to do or not do something against what the Church directs has to be pretty strong in order to fit what Aquinas is talking about.”-Joseph M. Magee, Ph.D.

In the Regan lecture delivered on April 26, 2006 cosponsored by the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education, Reese outlined his strategies for Catholics who think, question, doubt, debate, and disagree. Here are those strategies in a nutshell:

1. Understand what the Church is actually saying. Is your question the result of a misunderstanding or a true disagreement?

2. Our understanding should be inspired by sympathy, not sarcasm and cynicism. Whatever a person says should be interpreted in the best possible light, which is one of the things St. Ignatius says in his spiritual exercises. If we disagree, we should disagree as friends in the Lord, not as opposing armies of fanatics.

3. You have to do your homework. The issues that face the church today are complex and not solvable through sound bites. As Catholics, we do not believe it is sufficient simply to listen to the Pope and ignore scripture, but nor do we believe it is sufficient to simply read the scriptures in isolation from the believing community. For us, conscience is important—but it must be an informed conscience.

4. We are a believing community with 2,000 years of tradition and history. We need to know our history—our triumphs and our failures, our saints and our sinners. A study of history helps us take the long view. Things have been worse, things can get better. For example, prior to the 20th century, a Catholic understanding of the Bible appeared to be in conflict with science. Today, contemporary biblical scholarship not only has eliminated this conflict, but helped us to better understand the Bible. Imagine what is going to be the situation 100 years from now as people look back on our time. How many of our theological debates and doubts will seem as silly as those caused among Christians when they discovered that the Earth revolved around the sun and not vice versa?

5. It is important to distinguish between law and doctrine. If you are a conservative and want a return to the pre Vatican II liturgy, don’t let anyone tell you that you are a heretic. If you are a liberal and believe that married men should be ordained, don’t let anyone tell you that you are a heretic. The question of married priests, the question of Latin in the liturgy, these are not doctrinal issues. These are matters of canon law and liturgical law. Laws have changed over time, laws can change again.

6. Understand the level of authority of a doctrinal position with which you disagree. Popes have only made two infallible declarations since Vatican I, the time when the infallibility of the Pope was defined: on the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception. Some people tend to give all Vatican statements a definitive or infallible status, and that is just not the case.  Today we see that even longstanding teachings of the church can sometimes change. The church now teaches that capital punishment is wrong, whereas for centuries it had no problem with it; in fact, popes executed people in the papal states. Likewise, the Church is rethinking its position on limbo. Most theologians now believe that unbaptized children go to heaven. This is not what I learned in the Baltimore catechism.

7. Know how to interpret the words in doctrinal statements. Catholics in the last generation have learned from scripture scholars that it is a mistake to understand the bible in a fundamentalist way. It is important to study the historical and cultural context of the writing, the literary style, and the audience to which it was addressed. The same is true of doctrinal statements. When a Vatican document says that homosexuals are intrinsically “disordered,” we tend to think of this as a psychological description, whereas the authors meant it as a philosophical description. You may still disagree, but it is important to understand what you are disagreeing with.

8. Sometimes the Church uses words that are open to multiple interpretations as a way of covering over differences and maintaining unity. This was certainly done at the second Vatican council. Paul VI wanted documents approved by what amounted to almost unanimity. Compromise and ambiguity were important to gain conservative votes. Problems arise today when this historical fact is ignored and conservatives go back and give unambiguous interpretations to words and phrases that were purposely ambiguous at the time.

9. In my parents’ day there were only two options when facing questions about your faith: “Accept what the Church says or leave.” This is more an Irish or Northern European response than a Catholic response. Certainly this is not the way Italians and Africans live their faith. Italians pick and choose just like the classic cafeteria Catholics in the United States. The only difference is Italians don’t question the Church’s authority publicly; they simply ignore it and do what they want. The response is much more cultural than theological.

10. We need to recognize there will always be disagreements in the Church because there have always been disagreements in the Church. The Acts of the Apostles discloses that Paul disagreed with Peter at the council of Jerusalem. What I find so delightful in this story is that the disagreement was resolved through a compromise: Gentiles would not have to be circumcised, but they would have to refrain from blood sacrifice to idols (no longer a problem) and from adultery (still somewhat of a problem).

In the Catholic Church, we believe that an informed conscience is our highest authority. We also believe in the importance of humility. One must pray not simply for the conversion of ones’ opponents, but for the conversion of oneself. Despite their weakness and sinfulness, Christians have faith in the word of God that shows them the way. Christians have hope, based on Christ’s victory over sin and death and his promise of the spirit. And Christians have love, that inspires them to forgiveness and companionship at the Lord’s table. Any survival strategy for thinking Catholics must be based on the virtues of faith, hope, and love.

Love,
Matthew

December, Saints

Dec 5 – Bl Niels Stensen, (1638-1686), Bishop, Vicar Apostolic of Nordic Missions – Father of Geology, Anatomist, Neuroscientist

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In the mid-seventeenth century there was an anxious young man who wrote in his journal, “I pray Thee, O God, take this plague from me and free my soul from all distraction.  To work on one thing alone and to make myself familiar with the tables of medicines, alone.”  Well, we are lucky, and luckily for generations of biologists, anatomists, neuroscientists, geologists, paleontologists, that prayer went unanswered and the young man continued chasing his wandering interests.  The author of that prayer, Niels Stensen, also known by his Latin name, Nicolas Steno, or Nicolaus Stenonis.

He made unprecedented discoveries in anatomy and then some of the most important principles of modern geology.  This was at a time when everyone believed that fossils grew inside of rocks spontaneously and that lowly animals emerged spontaneously from decaying matter.  It was incredible.  Nicolas Steno, born on New Year’s Day in 1638.  His father was a goldsmith and a court jeweler.  He was a Lutheran, born in Copenhagen during the Thirty Years War.  He was a frail and sickly young boy and actually contracted an illness that kept him indoors for three years as a youngster and when he recovered from that, his father died at age seven.  His mother remarried but her new husband died just a year later and so he went to live with an older half-sister and her husband.

It was at this time that the plague was sweeping across Copenhagen and indeed Europe.  At times there were sixty funerals in a day.  At age fifteen he lost many of his friends.  He never owned a home and in his life seldom lived in one place for very long and rarely enjoyed a steady income.  He agonized over the fate of his own soul.  All of this perhaps because of this relatively unstable and uncertain childhood and adolescence that he underwent.  He did have some surrogate fathers.  The first of these was Oley Borch, an alchemist, with whom he studied solid particles suspended in liquid.

Stensen really wanted to study mathematics but figured out that being a doctor would be more practical.  So, he went to the University of Copenhagen to study medicine.  At this time he spoke five different languages.  What a savant, he was conversant they say in Greek and Hebrew.  He wrote a manuscript called “Chaos” in 1659 actually in Latin, where he recorded observations examining the grains of sand, snowflakes, and essentially rejected Aristotelian elements of earth, fire, air, and water.

It was at this time that the University in Copenhagen closed its doors.  Denmark was at war with Sweden.  Thomas Bartholin, who was Denmark’s’ leading anatomist at that point in time was his next mentor, and he probably learned some of his dissection techniques from Bartholin, or he could have simply inherited manual dexterity from his father, a goldsmith.  He began to travel throughout Germany and France.  Eventually moving to the bustling multi-cultural city of Amsterdam.

While he was going through France he would meet with the literati and the intellectual elite educators at various universities.  One physician said that he used to impress the high society with dissections of horse eyes.  You could imagine that that is a pretty rare trick at parties.  This French physician said that “He made us see everything there is to see in the construction of the eye, without putting the eye, the scissors, or his one other small instrument anywhere but in his one hand, which he kept constantly exposed to the gathered company, almost as if he was a magician with sleight of hand.”

Eventually, he moved back to Amsterdam and a bustling multi-cultural city he saw; he saw the commerce and he respected the religious freedom there.  He stayed with a physician named Gerard Blaze and it was with Blaze that while dissecting a sheep’s head he, almost accidentally, discovered the parotid duct, which carries his name even today, Stensen’s duct, which is opposite the second to the last molar in the upper jaw.  He noted by passing a probe there that the parotid duct emptied there into the mouth.

In 1662 he published a report on anatomical observations of glands, describing all the glands in the head.  In Paris, only a few years later he delved into studying muscles, realizing that muscles worked through contractions of the muscle fibers.  Not by ballooning of them, which was commonly believed at the time.  He was one of the first to discover that the heart is actually a muscle pumping blood to the body, not pumping or transferring heat.  He met various philosophers in Holland.  He disputed Descartes.  He moved onto the French Academy of Sciences.  Throughout his travels in France he began to discuss the Catholic faith with friends there.

In 1665 he published a treatise on the anatomy of the brain that was delivered in flawless French, it was said, and in it he had key finds about the anatomy of the brain.  His dissection techniques were meticulous.  In this treatise he said that one could not hope to understand the functions of the various parts of the brain until we can get better dissection techniques.  So, in 1666, on the feast of Corpus Christi on June twenty-four, Stensen was in Levorno, Italy, and he witnessed a Corpus Christi Eucharistic procession.  He said, “When I saw the host being carried in a procession through the streets, the following thoughts welled up inside me.  Either this host is a normal piece of bread, and so those who have accorded such honor are fools, or the host really does contain the body of Christ and so why don’t I too honor it?”

He began to study the Bible and the oldest Christian writings in the morning and geology in the afternoon.  He moved to Florence to Academia Dolce Mento, he was called there by the Medicis and by the intellectual curiosity of the Medici.  The Medicis had brought together the Academia Dolce Mento: scientists really studying science.  They were funded.  Stensen had no knowledge of something like this being in France, where the rulers really had no interest in devoting an immense amount of money, simply for the pursuit of art and science as the Medici did in Florence, Italy.

It was here where he met an elderly nun, Maria Flaviomaneiro, they began to pray the Angelus together daily.  She talked to him about the Catholic view of the Virgin Mary and the Annunciation.  They were all brought there by the Medici brothers, Ferdinando and his brother, Leopoldo.

In October of 1666, a great white shark washed up on the shores of Levorno and Stensen went to dissect it and noted thirteen rows of teeth, and these teeth resembled, what, up to this time, had been called glossopetrae, or tongue stones, why were they called that?  Well, these were tiny little rocks found that seemed to fall from the sky, they appeared after rain storms and they even occurred in mountains and they looked as if they were serpents teeth or serpents tongues, and there is a story of Saint Paul that while he was shipwrecked in Malta, had either turned the serpents to stone, or somehow the tongues became stone, but Steno said they looked like sharks’ teeth.  Now he wasn’t the first to correctly identify sharks teeth. He didn’t even state it with certainty, but his published illustrations left no doubt and he talked about how can sharks’ teeth appear in the mountains?  He started to put two and two together and came to the conclusion that a great sea covered these mountains at one point in time.

In November of 1667, he was received into the Catholic Church on All Souls Day.  He tells the story of walking down the street and hearing someone yell, “‘Go not on the side that you are about to go, sir. Go on the other side.’  That voice struck me, because I was just mediating on religion.”

Neither he nor others could really explain why he would suddenly convert, logical arguments just weren’t enough. This was something that touched him deep inside.  Stensen would then convert many in his lifetime.  He never pressed anyone to convert, but convinced them with arguments and reason.  He stressed that faith was a gift and he denounced forced conversions.  He always left converts take the last steps themselves.

In Stensen’s time, scholars had debated the origins of fossils. They did have resemblance to living organisms.  Could they have belonged to organisms that had become extinct?  Well, the concept of extinction didn’t exist at this time.  The explanation was that they were likely deposited by Noah’s flood, or, that the fossils themselves grew spontaneously inside rocks.  So, you could imagine that shell fossils found under a shoreline didn’t stretch the limits of credulity, but, when you find ocean mollusks on mountaintops, that certainly did.  How could a flood deposit these there?  He realized what seems obvious today; fossils result from once living organisms.  He noted that trees bent around rocks, but fossils didn’t.  So, the fossils had to be there first, as a part of the rock.  He wrote a manuscript on the geology of Tuscany in 1669 called “De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento”, or simply, De solido, and came up with Steno’s Principles, or Stensen’s Principles, which are even studied today by geology students.  The principle of super-position in stating that the sentiment levels are deposited in sequence with the oldest layers on the bottom.

In the midst of his conversion to Catholicism, Stensen received an ironic summons from Frederick III to return to Denmark, which of course was not a Catholic country.  So, he spent the next twenty months on a journey of nearly four thousand miles, reaching Amsterdam when he received word that Frederick III was dead and he was off the hook.  No update on life status on Facebook in those days.  On the road to Denmark he had seen some of Europe’s geological wonders, the Alps, Mount Vesuvius, and others.  He got to know Gottfried Leibniz, who was best remembered for his dispute with Isaac Newton over the invention of calculus.  Leibniz was so convinced that Stensen must keep working after he became a priest, that he searched diligently for any writings that he might have left behind.

But, in the last phase of his life, Stensen changed course again.  Stensen reached Copenhagen but at the time since he heard the king died, he missed Florence and he wanted to go back to Florence and permission was granted so that he could tutor a young Medici prince.  He said “Whenever I tried to repay God’s goodness towards me, not that I would ever be in a position to do so, the debt seemed so huge that I was filled with the desire to give him the best that I could in the best possible way.”  So, in 1675 he took a vow of poverty and became a priest.  He hoped for a simple life of pastoral duties, but the church summoned him to Rome and made him a Bishop in 1677.  His new assignment was in northern Europe converting Protestants to Catholicism in Germany, Norway, and Denmark; a tough, tough assignment.

So, he went to Hanover and in Hanover the clergy were spread incredibly thin. They were eager to have him come, however, and even more eager to have him come was Leibniz, the philosopher and mathematician he met earlier.  Leibniz deplored Steno’s decision to leave science and he said that he went from being a great physicist to a mediocre theologian.  Stensen was frustrated by the bureaucracy and corruption in the church and the indifference of the laity.  He sought solace by taking vows of poverty and self-denial to ever increasing extremes. He even asked Rome to release him from his vows as Bishop.  He sold his Bishop’s ring and crucifix to give money to the poor.  Doing this you might imagine he made enemies of the wealthy parishioners and the upper ranks of clergy.  He fled again. This time to Hamburg.  More and more ascetic he became.  A friend said “I found him there without a house, without a servant, devoid of all of life’s comforts, lean, pale and emaciated.  He slept sitting in a chair, a bed of straw on the floor. He fasted four days a week on bread and water and dressed like a pauper, performing his pastoral duties, bare foot.”

On November 21, 1686 he had intense abdominal pain that continued.  Two days later he collapsed and he was carried to bed with a swollen belly.  At the end he asked those around him who were praying to change from the prayers of the sick to the prayers of the dying.  He called his own death.  He said, “To my usual ailment, colic, it seems now that the stone has been added, not a drop of urine comes. I believe that it has imbedded itself in the fold of the bladder”, a kidney stone, “and this will be the cause of my death.”  Shortly before 7AM on November 26, 1686 he died at the age of forty-eight.  His self-denial taking its ultimate toll.  According to an inventory, his clothing and personal furnishings consisted of a wretched black garment, an old tunic, an old cloak, two sack cloth shirts, some small handkerchiefs and a nightcap.  The funeral was delayed nearly two weeks for lack of proper clothing to dress the corpse.  He ultimately did make it back to Florence however in May of 1687 when the corpse was loaded on a ship bound for San Lorenzo, where he was buried in the Medici church in Florence, Italy.

Three hundred years after his death, Danish pilgrims petitioned Pius XI for canonization.   In 1953 his coffin was opened and a skeleton was found, minus the head, in bishop’s robes and crozier, the body was processed and buried in a chapel with the name, the Capella Stenoyana.  A miracle for beatification was announced.  The spontaneous recovery of a cancer patient and he was beatified on October 23rd, the exact day Bishop Usher had chosen for the creation of the world.  He was beatified by Pope John Paul II 1988.  What a radical change of life.  In the latter years Steno cared more about saving souls than studying rock strata.  Yet, he never renounced his scientific work.  He said “One sins against the majesty of God by being unwilling to look into nature’s own works and contenting one’s self with reading others.  In this way, one forms and creates for one’s self, various fanciful notions and thus does not only not enjoy the pleasure of looking into God’s wonders, but also wastes time that should be spent on necessities and to the benefits of one’s neighbors and states many things which are unworthy of God.”  Stensen’s coat of arms as a Bishop, a cross and a heart and as a testament to his anatomical dissections, the heart is larger on the left.  Impact craters on Mars and the Moon are named in his honor.

ASTENO

-Google doodle of 11 Jan 2012 in honor of Bl Niels Stensen.

 

Love,
Matthew
Albert the Great, Doctors of the Church, November, Saints

Nov 15 – St Albert the Great, OP – Doctor of the Church, Doctor Universalis, “The Teacher of Everything”

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BrHumbertKilanowski
– by Br Humbert Kilanowski, OP, (Br. Humbert Kilanowski entered the Order of Preachers in 2010. He earned a doctorate in mathematics from The Ohio State University and did his undergraduate studies at Case Western Reserve University.)

“Before I entered the Dominican Order, I taught an introductory statistics class at a small college founded by Dominican Sisters in my hometown. Since the school was too small to have distinct departments for each scientific field, all of them, including mathematics, were housed in St. Albert Hall, a building named for today’s patron saint. A fitting attribution—for the thirteenth-century German Dominican friar was an expert not only in philosophy and theology, but also in several natural sciences: constructing an early greenhouse, discovering the chemical element arsenic, and developing experimental methods that would later become standard in modern science. For his integration of scientific domains and the newly-rediscovered philosophy of Aristotle with the study of divine revelation in theology, Saint Albert the Great is fittingly honored as the Doctor Universalis, the “teacher of everything.”

In today’s academic climate, however, a “teacher of everything” is hard to find. Departments and disciplines have become so specialized that lectures given on one topic are often barely understood by others in the same department, and whole conferences and journals are devoted to the narrowest of subfields. In learning to be an expert in one area, other fields are ignored, to the point that scholars in the sciences can deem theological claims to be either over their heads or not worth their attention. Without a unifying vision of all knowledge, one may even reach the conclusion that science and theology contradict each other, as seen in the debates between random evolution and intelligent design, for example. How can a seeker of truth resolve this dilemma?

One scholar, the evolutionary biologist and agnostic Stephen Jay Gould (d. 2002), proposed a solution: that of “non-overlapping magisteria.” In this model, which he described in a 1997 article, both science and religion have separate domains over which each has competency, and neither one impinges on the other. As he writes:

The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for starters, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty). To cite the arch clichés, we get the age of rocks, and religion retains the rock of ages; we study how the heavens go, and they determine how to go to heaven.

The separation of domains of teaching authority, or “magisteria” as Gould appropriates the word, seems attractive; Christians believe that God created the human race directly in His image and likeness on theological grounds, for example, and biologists hold that humanity came to be through a long evolutionary process of many random mutations on scientific grounds. The dignity of the human race as being in the image of God is primarily a moral statement, while the origin of the species is a theory based on empirical data, and the two explanations seem to fall into disparate domains.

Yet, the various magisteria do, in fact, inevitably overlap. Another evolutionary biologist, the outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins, replies:

It is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science’s turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims.

In other words, if God is held to be the Creator of the universe, then He has a direct effect on all that exists (namely, He bestows existence on it), and everything studied in science, or art, or history, can be considered in relation to God. While Dawkins’ analysis limps in asserting that claims of existence are scientific, for many things exist that are not subject to natural science, he properly identifies that theology does exert an influence on science.

To investigate how these bodies of knowledge overlap and interact with each other, it helps to examine the work of St. Albert’s most prominent student, St. Thomas Aquinas, OP. He explains that theology “has no concern to prove the principles of other sciences, but only to judge of them” (ST, I, 1, 6, ad 1), and that it “can in a sense depend upon the philosophical sciences, not as though it stood in need of them, but only in order to make its teaching clearer” (ST, I, 1, 5, ad 2). To continue with the example, theology tells biology that it cannot exclude divine activity in forming the human race (especially with regard to the immaterial soul by which we reason and choose freely), while biology provides the details of how the human body was formed from the earth. Both fields, taken together, give a fuller and more robust understanding of what is to be known. By considering the relationship of theology to the other sciences, we can see how each field of study aims at the same truth according to its own method.

In this, we should follow the example of St. Albert the Great, who saw in everything that he studied the God who made it and to whom it is ultimately ordered. Surely, as Pope Leo XIII remarked, “Truth cannot contradict truth”; hence, let us join the “teacher of everything” by allowing everything we study to lead us to the contemplation of God, the Supreme Truth.”

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“I adore You, O Precious Blood of Jesus, flower of creation, fruit of virginity, ineffable instrument of the Holy Spirit, and I rejoice at the thought that You came from the drop of virginal blood on which eternal Love impressed its movement; You were assumed by the Word and deified in His person.

I am overcome with emotion when I think of Your passing from the Blessed Virgin’s heart into the heart of the Word, and, being vivified by the breath of the Divinity, becoming adorable because You became the Blood of God.

I adore You enclosed in the veins of Jesus, preserved in His humanity like the manna in the golden urn, the memorial of the eternal Redemption which He accomplished during the days of His earthly life.

I adore You, Blood of the new, eternal Testament, flowing from the veins of Jesus in Gethsemane, from the flesh torn by scourges in the Praetorium, from His pierced hands and feet and from His opened side on Golgotha. I adore You in the Sacraments, in the Eucharist, where I know You are substantially present….

I place my trust in You, O adorable Blood, our Redemption, our regeneration. Fall, drop by drop, into the hearts that have wandered from You and soften their hardness.

O adorable Blood of Jesus, wash our stains, save us from the anger of the avenging angel. Irrigate the Church; make her fruitful with Apostles and miracle-workers, enrich her with souls that are holy, pure and radiant with divine beauty.  Amen.”
-St Albert the Great, OP

“He who enters into the secret place of his own soul passes beyond himself, and does in very truth ascend to God. Banish, therefore, from thy heart the distractions of earth and turn thine eyes to spiritual joys, that thou mayest learn at last to repose in the light of the contemplation of God.”
–St. Albert the Great

“Now there’s no one who approaches God with a true and upright heart who isn’t tested by hardships and temptations. So in all these temptations see to it that even if you feel them, you don’t consent to them. Instead, bear them patiently and calmly with humility and long suffering.”
—St. Albert the Great

Love,
Matthew

Heresy, Theology

Heresy, Truth, and the Order of Preachers

-by Br Bonaventure Chapman, OP  (Br. Bonaventure Chapman entered the Order of Preachers in 2010. He received an M.Th. in Applied Theology from Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University, where he studied for the Anglican priesthood.)

“If you ask a Dominican to compare the success of the Order of Preachers to that of the Society of Jesus, you may be treated to the following jocular comment: “Well, the Dominicans were founded to defeat the Albigensian heresy and the Jesuits were founded to defeat the Protestant Reformation. How many Albigensians do you see running around today?”

As a convert and student of the Reformation I have always found this comment a bit ironic. And not because of the obvious historical fact that, at least according to Luther, we Dominicans got the whole “late unpleasantness” started with the preaching of Johann Teztel, O.P., and his famous ditty: “As soon as a coin in the coffer rings / a soul from purgatory springs.” This fact alone should incline any Jesuit enthusiast to retort to the Dominican heckler, “You started it! Clean up your own mess!”

But, and I always fear giving Jesuits anti-Dominican ammunition, it is a lesser known although more crucial figure of the Reformation that proves the joke’s irony. For if there were a Time magazine of the Reformation, and if it were in the habit of recognizing a “Man of the Reformation,” it’s almost certain that this honor would go to an ex-Dominican friar named Martin Bucer.

Bucer was a Reformation force; he had his hand in almost every strand of Protestant development. Born in Schlettstadt, Germany, in 1491, he joined the Order of Preachers at age sixteen and was ordained to the priesthood in 1516. He taught at the Dominican studium until 1521, when he left the Order to begin his career as a reformer. He moved to Strasbourg, leading the reformation in that city. Bucer was a theological polymath. He was conditioned, according to Ian Hazlett, “by an extraordinary coalescence of humanist, Erasmian, Aristotelian, Thomist, Neoplatonist, Augustinian, Lutheran, and biblical influences.” This vast learning, owed to his Dominican education and formation, allowed him to be the “Elder Statesman” for the major branches of the Reformation: Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anglican.

Bucer was with Luther from the beginning, encountering him at the Disputation of Heidelberg in 1518 and undergoing a religious conversion based upon this encounter. He continued to play a key role in Lutheran theological development through his work with Philip Melanchthon and his various failed attempts at union between Luther and Zwingli. In Strasbourg, Bucer mentored the young John Calvin during a time when, as Bernard Cottret writes, “Calvin became ‘Calvin.’” This young French Reformer took what he learned from Bucer and went back to Geneva to found the center of Reformed Protestantism, one of the most famous—or infamous—cities in Western civilization.

Just in case the Continent wasn’t enough, Bucer moved to England during the trials and travails of the Reformation there in the 1550s. He was a key advisor to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, and the English Reformer happily looked to the man of Strasbourg for theological and political counsel. While Strasbourg itself did not live up to its aspirations as the Rome of the Reformation, Bucer asserted a quasi-papal influence around the globe during the Reformation, and a significant reason for his power was, without a doubt, his training as a Friar Preacher.

So what can we learn from this less-edifying episode in the history of the Dominican Order? Two things, I think. First, while Dominican involvement in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation was by no means all negative (think of Cardinal Cajetan and Pope Pius V, as well as all those delightfully Thomistic decrees from Trent!), Martin Bucer is a reminder that the greater the climb, the greater the potential fall. St. Thomas argues that, because of his greater excellence and thus greater temptation to pride, it is understandable that it was the highest of the angels—not some pipsqueak angel!—who fell from grace (see ST Ia. q. 63, a. 7). The devil is no idiot, but expansive erudition is no infallible guard against sin, or even against heresy or schism.

Secondly, and more positively for poor Bucer, while his great learning allowed him to be so influential during those years, his campaign was always one of reunion with the Church, not absolute separation. Before Trent he was at the forefront of all dialogues and colloquies between the Catholic Church and the Protestant traditions; he urged troubled Catholics not to leave the Church but to attempt reform within, and he even accorded a primacy of honor to the pope. His was not the radical withdrawal of Zwingli, of the older Luther, or of Calvin, and, when members of these more separatist groups challenged his commitment to the Reformation, he chided them by saying: “It is all very well for those supping wine and beer in cozy bars to rubbish those who slave away at these controversies and struggles.” Perhaps his residual Romanism and drive for reunion was due to his solid scholastic theology in the Dominican studium.

There may not be any Albigensians running around these days, but there are still plenty of separated brethren of the various Protestant communities, and in large part due to this former Dominican. And if Bucer’s Dominican heritage allowed him to influence all the strands of Protestantism, so too can this same Dominican tradition allow us not just to engage with his ecclesial heirs, but to achieve the reunion of all Christians in Christ’s Church.”

(c) The University of Edinburgh Fine Art Collection; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
(c) The University of Edinburgh Fine Art Collection; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

-oil on panel, The University of Edinburgh Fine Art Collection, circa 1650-1689

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths” (2 Tim. 4:3–4)

Love,
Matthew

November, Theology

Nov 2 – All Souls, Prayer for the Attainment of Heaven

“Through sin, death entered the world.” (cf Rm 5:12)

“Sin directs the heart of the wicked man;
his eyes are closed to the fear of God.
For he lives with the delusion:
his guilt will not be known and hated.
Empty and false are the words of his mouth;
he has ceased to be wise and do good.
On his bed he hatches plots;
he sets out on a wicked way;
he does not reject evil.”

-Psalm 36: 1-5

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-by Br Raphael Forbing, OP

“Sin directs the heart of a wicked man,” reads Psalm 36. We spend our lives struggling to master our passions and avoid temptations, yet we fall time and time again. Though every sin is an offense against God’s perfect goodness, some of our failures are more serious than others. The Catholic tradition generally divides actual sins (those committed by our own free will) into two categories: mortal (grave sin) and venial (less serious sin).

Mortal sins are offenses that concern grave matter, and are made with full knowledge and deliberate consent. Baptism removes both the guilt and the punishment due to original sin, as well as all personal sin in baptism received after infancy. The grave personal sins we commit after baptism, however, incur both guilt (responsibility for sin) and punishment (the exercise of Divine justice). These sins entirely remove God’s grace in the soul, and “mortally wound” the supernatural love that grace creates in our souls. Venial sins, though they do not kill the life of grace as mortal sin does, yet damage the life of grace and charity in our souls as though inflicting a flesh wound. God offers to forgive even the darkest of sins, and seeks not only to restore the life of grace in our souls, but also to make it richer than before. It is Christ alone who restores this life in us, though He does it through the ministry of the priesthood.”

Prayer for the Attainment of Heaven

O God of all consolation, You who see in us nothing but your own gifts, I entreat You to give me, at the close of this life, knowledge of the First Truth and enjoyment of Your divine majesty.

Most generous Rewarder, give to my body also the beauty of lightsomeness, responsiveness of flesh to spirit, a quick readiness and delicacy, and the gift of unconquerable strength.

And add to these an overflow of riches, a spate of delights, a confluence of all good things, so that I may rejoice in Your consolation above me, in a place of lowliness below me, in glorification of body and soul within me, in delight of friends and angels all around me.

Most merciful Father, being with You may my mind attain the enlightenment of wisdom, my desire, the fulfillment of its longing, my courage the praise of triumph.

For where you are is avoidance of all danger, plentitude of dwelling places, harmony of wills.

Where You are is the pleasantness of spring, the radiance of summer, the fecundity of autumn, and the repast of winter.

Give, Lord God, life without death, joy without sorrow, that place where reigns sovereign freedom, free security, secure tranquility, delightful happiness, happy eternity, eternal blessedness, the vision of truth and praise, O God.

Amen.

-St Thomas Aquinas, OP (1225-1274 AD)

Love,
Matthew

Blessed Feast of All Souls!!!  
Happy Celtic New Year!!!! 

Liturgy, The Professed

What’s Wrong with Catholic Preaching?

“What’s Wrong With Catholic Preaching?”
by Fr. Charles E. Bouchard, O.P., Prior Provincial
Dominican Province of St. Albert the Great
Remarks delivered at the Minneapolis Club, November 17, 2011

The famous Southern Catholic novelist Flannery O’Connor says that after a relative converted to Catholicism (which would have been unusual in the American south in the 1950s), many people were aghast. They wondered why on earth anyone would do such a thing. “Well,” the relative said, “the preaching was so bad I figured there must be something else to keep folks coming back.”

Unfortunately, Catholic preaching still falls far short of what it could be. Too often it fails to inspire, uplift and console; it fails to answer the real questions people bring. Sometimes, it fails to interpret – or even to mention – the Scriptures.

There are a number of reasons for this.

Preaching is hard. If you didn’t know better, you might think preaching is a 10 minute ramble about your latest hunting trip, your vacation, your favorite TV show or anything else that happened to cross your mind as you entered the sacristy (Garrison Keillor once mentioned a pastor who “just kept talking till he found something worthwhile to say”). In fact, preaching is an art and a highly disciplined process of interpretation. It starts with the Scriptural text, and through prayer and study brings that text to life in a persuasive message for a particular group.

The first step in this process is to understand what the biblical word meant in its original time and place. This requires knowledge of biblical languages, culture and history. Then the preacher has to figure out what the word means today, for this group of people. Finally, the preacher has to ask the “so what?” question. If this is God’s word and if it is true, then what difference does it make? Who does it compel me to be? What does it compel me to do?

One of the biggest challenges is to bring the word to the actual world in which they find themselves to answer the questions that people really have. I remember being at mass once during the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal. The preacher read the Gospel, and then made a comment about Monica Lewinsky. All of us thought he was going to preach on it, to help us make sense of this mess, to help us see it in light of the Scriptures. Instead, he moved on to a completely different topic. He had missed a “preachable moment” – a chance to let the Scriptures speak to what was on everyone’s mind, to help us see a way through the darkness. There was a palpable feeling of disappointment. We felt cheated.

For Catholics preaching is even more complicated because it usually takes place during the Eucharist. So in addition to understanding and interpreting the Scriptures, the preacher must also put them in the context of this great act of thanksgiving, and relate it to the liturgical season.

Good preaching takes time. I was shocked when a homiletics professor told me that the preacher should spend one hour of preparation for each minute of a homily. I have come to believe this is true. Yet who has the time? It is no secret that our priests are stretched too thin. Our congregant-to-clergy ratio is much higher. A large Catholic parish might have two or possibly three priests. A large Protestant “mega-Church” might have 7 or 9 full time pastors It’s not hard to see why Protestant preaching is better. Yet despite the demands on their time, Catholic preaching could be much better if priests allocated their time as though preaching were their top priority. Study after study shows that’s exactly what parishioners want them to do.

The talent pool is too small. In the Christian tradition, ministry requires at least two things: gift and office. This means that anyone who wants to minister must first give evidence of the gifts of the Spirit that would make this ministry effective (remember St. Paul’s enumeration of various gifts, all of which are necessary for the Body of the Church?). But these gifts also need to be authorized, or ordered, for the sake of the community. In the Catholic Church we call this ordination. Unfortunately, office and gift do not always go together. You can have the office of priesthood without the requisite gifts (think of a validly ordained priest who can’t speak in public). Or you can have the gifts without the office – think of a woman who is a highly skilled preacher but can’t be ordained.

When I was president of our graduate theology school, we provided preaching education for hundreds of seminarians, priests, lay people and sisters. We saw great talent for preaching in each group, but only the priests were allowed to preach on Sunday morning. There is no reason the Church cannot widen the pool of preachers by finding ways to authorize or “ordain” others who have specific gifts to do so. Failure to do so is an offense to the Gifts that have so obviously been given.

Preaching is overwhelmed by our sacramental life. If you ask a hundred people what is most distinctive about Catholicism, most of them will respond “the mass,” or “the sacraments.” Indeed, this is what Flannery O’Connor’s cousin referred to as “something else.” Yet for us, it cannot be one or the other. We need a vital sacramental life AND we need excellent preaching. For without preaching, how would we know what these sacraments are? They would become mere magic. Preaching helps us understand the mysteries we celebrate and prepares us to be fully open to sacramental grace.

Preaching is a two-way street. It’s easy to blame the preacher for a bad homily, but the congregation has a role to play as well. Good preachers don’t preach “in general.” They preach to a specific congregation before them whose needs, hopes and fears they attempt to address. But congregations are not passive receptacles. They have an active role in receiving, nurturing, pondering and even challenging the word they have received.

Congregations must uphold their end of the bargain by preparation – reading and praying with the Scriptures before they are preached and asking, “What does this passage mean? What does it say to me? How does it speak to what I just read in the news?” They must challenge their preachers, ask them questions and above all, let them know that they are paying attention. When priests know that parishioners are listening, they will devote more time to their preparation.

Catholic preaching may not be as good as it could be, but if all of us – preachers and hearers of the Word alike – assume our respective roles, we can together make excellent preaching the lifeblood of the Church.

Love,
Matthew
October, Saints, Scripture

Oct 18 – St Luke & The Yoke of Love, “If you would be my disciples…”

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-by Br Bonaventure Chapman, OP

“Doctors are prominent in my family’s lineage: my great-grandfather was a doctor, my grandfather was a doctor, my uncle is a doctor, and my brother is carrying on the tradition in the youngest generation. So naturally St. Luke, the “beloved physician,” has always attracted me. Except for his symbol, that is. An ox? Really? As compared with Mark’s lion, Matthew’s angel, or John’s eagle, Luke’s ox seems a consolation prize, as if he showed up late when the Holy Spirit was doling out emblems. Who would want to be associated with an ox?

These symbols of the evangelists are rooted in the Scriptures. Just to take two examples, in Ezekiel 1:1–14 they show up as the different faces of four living creatures sent to the prophet. And in Revelation 4:5–11 they are the four living creatures singing the Trisagion (“Holy, Holy, Holy”). The first ascription to the four evangelists seems to come from St. Ireneaus (ca. 120–202) in Against Heresies. There he gives the reason for St. Luke’s ox:

[The Gospel] according to Luke, taking up [Christ’s] priestly character, commenced with Zacharias the priest offering sacrifice to God. For now was made ready the fatted calf, about to be immolated for the finding again of the younger son. (3.11.8)

St. Augustine follows this identification saying that “Luke is intended under the figure of the calf, in reference to the pre-eminent sacrifice made by the priest.” The ox (or calf) signifies the priestly and sacrificial character of Christ in St. Luke’s account. This has never quite satisfied me. Surely St. John’s account emphasizes the sacrificial aspect of Christ with his title of “Lamb of God.” And St. Mark’s account is one long Passion narrative. Not to mention the temple scenes in St. Matthew. Is there any other reason that the ox might be fitting for St. Luke?

Well, what do you think of when you hear “ox”? After “big, dirty animal,” I think of a yoke. Oxen don’t just sit in the field; they are yoked together and put to work. An ox without a yoke is like an angel without wings—it just doesn’t seem right. And a yoke isn’t for one; like the disciples sent two by two, oxen work together. An eagle, lion, or angel can be by himself, but oxen are meant to be together.

And what is this yoke? St. Thomas, another saint associated with the ox, comments on Matthew 11:29: “Take, therefore, my yoke, namely, the gospel lessons. And he says yoke because just as a yoke fastens and joins the necks of oxen, so the doctrine of the Gospel fastens the people to its yoke.” The yoke of sin has been replaced, through the sacrifice of Christ, with the yoke of forgiveness and new life. And while this yoke of Christ will bring suffering in this life, it is still light and easy because, according to St. Thomas, it is a yoke of love:

“All who desire to lead a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Tim 3:12). But [these persecutions] are not burdensome, because they are seasoned with the condiment of love; for when a person loves someone, it is not a burden to suffer anything for him. Hence love makes easy all difficult and impossible things. Therefore, if one loves Christ properly, nothing is difficult for him; consequently, the New Law does not impose a burden. (Commentary on St. Matthew’s Gospel 11.3)

There is something utterly fitting about this ox-yoke symbolism for St. Luke, who was St. Paul’s traveling companion and “beloved physician.” Being yoked to St. Paul must not have been easy, with all the ship-wrecks and persecutions and whatnot, but St. Luke’s love of his dear friend is found in the careful account we have of St. Paul in the Acts of the Apostles. The ox might not be as noble as an eagle, as regal as a lion, or as splendid as an angel; but an ox is a symbol of love and a shared mission, St. Paul and St. Luke sowing and plowing the field of the Lord’s harvest.”

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-“The Evangelists St Luke & St Mark”, by Matthias Strom, 1635, oil on canvas

Love,
Matthew