Category Archives: Ecclesiology

Liturgy, Saints

Holiness emptying the dishwasher

JB-Holiness-1-1280x768

In novitiate, as with classic religious life, day ends in choir w/Compline, aka Night Prayer, and the Nunc Dimittis:

-Luke 2:29-32

“Lord, now You let Your servant go in peace;
Your word has been fulfilled:
my own eyes have seen the salvation
which You have prepared in the sight of every people:
a light to reveal You to the nations
and the glory of Your people Israel.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.”

After the Salve is sung, we enter into holy silence. No talking, unless the building is on fire or medical emergency, until Morning Prayer, the first of which in choir is making the sign of the cross on one’s lips with your thumb. “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare Your praise!” -Ps 51:15. And, we do! 🙂

Our regular nightly chore after Compline, in holy silence, was to empty the many dishwashers. Yes, I said dishwashers, plural. As I recall, it was certainly more than two? Three? Four? I could call and ask St Gertrude’s, but…AWKWARD!!! Who is this strange man calling us wanting to know how many dishwashers we have? Yikes!!! You get the point, I trust, gentle reader.

Keeping eight twenty-something men, who ALL know their own unique best way to do ANYTHING from being chatty is tricky, no? All that was supposed to be heard was the quiet-as-possible clinkety-clank of many dishes and metal utensils, all in minimal light, being put back in cupboards or drawers, all while in full habit, too! The occasional whisper of “You’re doing it wrong!” could not be avoided night after night, for nine months, I experienced.

ambrose_arralde
-by Br Ambrose Arralde, OP

“St. Augustine enjoyed watching lizards catch flies. He also confessed that he would become quite distracted at the sight of a dog hot on a rabbit’s heels, or a spider entangling its prey (Confessions, 10.35.57). Although he blames himself for being enamored of these trifling spectacles, it is refreshing to see a more casual and intimate side to one of the greatest minds and saintliest bishops in history.

It is often easy to forget that the saints lived in the same world we live in—that they weren’t always performing miracles and pouring forth torrents of sublime teaching, but were sometimes zoned out at their desk or nodding off at inopportune moments. And yet for the saints there is something special even in these ordinary, daily occurrences with which the rest of us are well acquainted. For St. Augustine, the simplest sights were occasions to glorify God. “From them I proceed to praise You, the wonderful Creator and Disposer of all things,” he writes. St. Thérèse’s chapel naps provided her with ample material for meditating on God’s love and His saving work: “I know that children are just as dear to their parents whether they are asleep or awake and I know that doctors put their patients to sleep before they operate.”

When speaking about the Christian life, Pope Benedict XVI describes it as an “encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon” (Deus caritas est, §1). This is a point that must be stressed again and again against the dominant, skeptical worldview. Faith is not an escape from the real world, a way to cope with the absurdity and meaninglessness of existence. Rather, it is only by faith that we can be in touch precisely with the real world. We still live our human life, we see and experience the same things as everyone else, but nothing is the same. The stars are still balls of gas burning billions of miles away, but now they speak to us of One who is at the same time at the farthest limits of the universe, and closer than our inmost self:

I asked the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars [whether they are God]: ‘We are not,’ say they, ‘the God whom you seek…’ And I answered unto all these things which stand about the door of my flesh, ‘You have told me concerning my God, that you are not He; tell me something about Him.’ And with a loud voice they exclaimed, ‘He made us!’ (Confessions, 10.6.9)

The most common of actions, even going to bed and waking up in the morning, when done in the light of faith, can call to mind the saving events of the Paschal Mystery: “Lord, be with us throughout this night. When day comes may we rise from sleep to rejoice in the resurrection of Your Christ” (Closing Prayer, Compline, Sunday Night 1).

From the vantage point of this new horizon, may we consider nothing too ordinary to be of use for our spiritual life. In the spirit of Daniel 3, “All you lizards, bless the Lord; praise and exalt Him above all forever.””

Love,
Matthew

Chastity, Doctrine, Sin, Theology, Virtue

Sin? WTF? What’s that? Who cares? What’s the diff?

chastity

There’s a BIG diff. Holiness “integrates” the entire human person, as God intended, repairing the wounds of sin in that person and their community; and is achieved ONLY through His most merciful grace. Sin, the rebellion against God and His Holy Will, therefore, “disintegrates” the human person. We can see this now, here, in our lives through greed, lust, envy, pride, divorce, addiction, adultery, even atheism/agnosticism, heresy, and their counterparts all disintegrate the human person from what God intends. Praise His most holy name. Praise Him. Please, please pray for me in my struggles against my own temptations, that I might not be disintegrated in His sight. He has been so good to me! 🙂 1 Cor 9:27. Pray that I may turn from my sin, and LIVE!!!! 🙂

hyacinth_grubb
-by Br Hyacinth Grubb, OP

¨Bob is Bob,” and “Dan is Dan;” these statements are tautologically true. Yet we also say that “Bob isn’t himself today,” and this manner of speaking gets at something profound. We can, somehow, be more or less “ourselves.” But what does that mean, exactly?

It doesn’t mean that personhood changes or disappears, or that someone becomes someone else. Rather, it is a statement about wholeness, completeness, and integrity of life; or the lack of integrity and that absence of a proper order in life—being scattered, fragmented. And there is, ultimately, only one thing that can destroy integrity: sin.

Sin wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC, 1849)

Sin is not an offense against an arbitrary standard concocted by a devious divinity. It’s an offense against reason and truth. As such, its effects are not only external, breaking the divine and eternal law, but also internal. It wounds human nature by destroying the proper ordering of life, by twisting nature to perverted counterfeits of the good it seeks. Sin makes us less ourselves.

All sin and vice lead us to lose ourselves, but some kinds more than others. This depends not only on the gravity of the offense, but also on the role that each virtue and vice plays in human life. One virtue is particularly important, and particularly neglected in our era: that of chastity. Chastity is especially important not because Christians are obsessed with controlling a particular, and personal, aspect of people’s lives, but because it reflects and informs integrity and self-possession throughout all facets of life.

The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift … Charity is the form of all the virtues. Under its influence, chastity appears as a school of the gift of the person. Self-mastery is ordered to the gift of self. (CCC 2337, 2346) (Ed. Since when I was in novitiate and missioned to St John’s food pantry in Cincinnatti, where I heard the true, true maxim, oft since reheard, “You cannot give what you do not have!”)

The proper ordering of life is, ultimately, one of self-mastery and self-gift, for “man cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (Gaudium et Spes, 24). Chastity is a virtue exemplifying both self-mastery and self-gift. Self-mastery, since “the alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy” (CCC 2338). Self-gift, since “some profess virginity or consecrated celibacy which enables them to give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart in a remarkable manner,” and some profess vows “in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman” (CCC 2349, 2337). Chastity, thus, is worth our special concern.

In today’s age, in a culture of explicit and unbridled and almost unavoidable unchastity, sin has harmed each of us, distorted your integrity and mine, in a drastic way. It is no surprise that so many people are “not themselves” and are unable to gather the scattered fragments of life. It may tempt us to despair, but we are comforted by our Savior and the confidence that “where sin abounded, grace did more abound” (Rom. 5:20). It is by grace, purchased at great price, that sin is expelled, virtue gained, and our selves made whole.”

Love,
Matthew

Apologetics, Doctrine

Index of Forbidden Books: Just & Right

Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum_1

The Index Librorum Prohibitorum was a list of publications deemed heretical, anti-clerical or lascivious, and therefore banned by the Catholic Church.

The first official censorship had come in 1559 with the publication of the Index auctorum et librorum prohibitorum under the direction of Pope Paul IV. The Pauline index, as it became known, was the first in a long succession of papal indexes, forty-two in all. The purpose of these indexes was to guide censors in their decisions of what publications to authorize and which to disallow, for printers were not free to publish books without official permission.

Even today, Catholic publications of any kind, intending to speak on behalf of the Church and about Church teaching, and not just personal opinion, must bear in the front of the work the Nihil Obstat, literally, “nothing prevents”, is a certification by an official censor that a book is not objectionable on Catholic doctrinal or moral grounds. Also, the Imprimatur, “let it be printed”, is permission, granted by a bishop, that the work should be published.

It is MOST important to understand what these declarations are NOT. They do NOT endorse or validate or verify what is in the work, whatsoever. Rather, they are more of what is NOT in the work. They indicate no agreement with what is in the work, whatsoever. Amen. Feel me?

Faithful Catholics, while free to read anything today, will still inspect the work for these marks if engaging in official Church dialogue, or intending to rely on the work for catechesis or any other official Church business. Not discovering such, faithful Catholics will very likely refer to another work which does bear such marks of Church permission.

Fear not, gentle reader. This blog bears no such endorsements, therefore, if you are a faithful Catholic, you are under NO requirement to take my word for it, I checked. Since these rantings are purely mine, and I am NOT authorized to speak officially on behalf of the Church, Deo gratias, the Lord is kind and merciful, no?

Yet, I have tried to remain faithful, as my conscience and training as a catechist and student of the Church and His Gospel, dictates to me, which I ever try to bring into greater conformity and understanding of her, the Church’s, official teachings, through much prayer, reading, especially the Catechism, and conversations regarding such with faithful clerics and other informed Catholic laity. Deo gratias. I INTENTIONALLY include several very well formed and educated clerics on the distribution for this express purpose, and because I think they’re awesome, too. No complaints, yet? 🙂

School textbooks for Catholic schools must be vetted by the USCCB, known as the Conformity Review. Publishers, not being experts in Catholic doctrine or morals, are often requested or required to revise texts to more closely conform or reflect official teaching of the Church.

In January of 1562 the Council of Trent took up the issue of the Index and was deeply divided. The Pauline index had been seen by many as too controversial and excessively restrictive. After the opening speeches, the council appointed a commission to draft a new index. Although the council closed before the task of the commission was completed, the new Tridentine index was taken up by Pope Pius IV and published in 1564 by Paulus Manutius in Rome. This index constituted the most authoritative guide the church had yet published; its lists formed the basis of all subsequent indexes, while its rules were accepted as the guide for future censors and compilers.

The 20th and final edition appeared in 1948, and the Index was formally abolished on 14 June 1966 by Pope Paul VI.

The aim of the list was to protect the faith and morals of the faithful by preventing the reading of heretical and immoral books. Books thought to contain such errors included works by astronomers such as Johannes Kepler’s Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae, which was on the Index from 1621 to 1835, and by philosophers, like Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. The various editions of the Index also contained the rules of the Church relating to the reading, selling and pre-emptive censorship of books—editions and translations of the Bible that had not been approved by the Church could be banned.

Catholic canon law still recommends that works concerning sacred Scripture, theology, canon law, church history, and any writings which specially concern religion or morals, be submitted to the judgment of the local ordinary (the bishop). The local ordinary consults someone whom he considers competent to give a judgment and, if that person gives the nihil obstat (“nothing forbids”) the local ordinary grants the imprimatur (“let it be printed”). Members of religious institutes require the imprimi potest (it can be printed) of their major superior to publish books on matters of religion or morals.

Some of the scientific theories in works that were on early editions of the Index have long been routinely taught at Catholic universities worldwide; for example the general prohibition of books advocating heliocentrism was only removed from the Index in 1758, but already in 1742 two Franciscan mathematicians had published an edition of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica (1687) with commentaries and a preface stating that the work assumed heliocentrism and could not be explained without it. The burning at the stake of Giordano Bruno, whose entire works were placed on the Index in 1603, was because of teaching the heresy of pantheism, not for heliocentrism or other scientific views. Antonio Rosmini-Serbati, one of whose works was on the Index, was beatified in 2007. The developments since the abolition of the Index signify “the loss of relevance of the Index in the 21st century.”

A complete list of the authors and writings present in the successive editions of the Index is given in J. MartĂ­nez de Bujanda, “Index Librorum Prohibitorum, 1600–1966”. A list of the books that were on the Index can be found on the World Wide Web.

david_mills
-by David Mills

“It’s one of those “How could they?” facts of Catholic history that people assume shows how “medieval” the Church was — and is — and how secularism was such an improvement, especially if we get more of it. The Church abolished the Index of Prohibited Books 50 years ago this month, though she kept the idea that the bishops should guide their people’s reading and people shouldn’t read everything they wanted.

The Index is also one of those facts of Catholic history of which we’re expected to be ashamed. We’re supposed to cringe in embarrassment. The oppressive Church banned books and every good person knows that was bad bad bad, because no one has any right to tell anyone else what to read.

Let me put it this way: The Index is nothing to be ashamed of. We have no reason to be embarrassed.

No reason to be embarrassed

In this case, as in so many others, the Church was only doing what everyone does for good reasons, but the Church gets blamed for it. Nearly everyone else gets a pass. Sometimes the authorities try to protect people from themselves and protect everyone else from people doing dangerous things. I wrote about this last week in the English weekly The Catholic Herald.

The government puts a lot of effort into discouraging smoking. It bans heroin and cocaine. Very few people declare the government oppressive because it makes hard drugs illegal and chases down and punishes those who sell them. The idea of an index only sounds funny to us because we don’t think of ideas as dangerous. We recognize physical dangers but not intellectual ones.

And as I wrote, we have informal American indexes. Try to get your local library to put on its shelves The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a once infamous (and wicked) attack on the Jews. Any would-be academic who invoked Charles Murray’s book The Bell Curve, which claimed to find intellectual differences between races, will ruin his chances of getting a job in almost any university in America.

Even the Brooklyn Library, a bastion of liberal enlightenment, keeps Tintin in the Congo, an overtly racist work, in a back room behind a locked door. Schools and libraries purge books newly decided to be sexist, homophobic, etc. Publishers produce sanitized versions of books like Huckleberry Finn and many of the great and good approve.

I don’t blame them for this. They would, of course, sneer at the Church for creating the Index, and I do blame them for that. They shift the criterion. When they effectively ban a book, they’re rejecting dangerous error (or what they believe to be error), but when (50 years ago) the Church banned books she was oppressing the human mind and spirit. I do blame them for that.

But in trying to guide the people in their care, the Church’s critics were only doing what the Church was trying to do in creating the Index. Some people see things the rest of us don’t see. They see dangers we don’t see.

A rough and ready tool

An Index may have been a rough tool and one sometimes badly applied, but that’s only to say it’s a human instrument. Education and persuasion would ideally be better ways of dealing with bad ideas, but they don’t always work. People don’t hear the message, or they hear it and don’t listen, or they listen and don’t understand, or they understand and do it anyway. Some people use heroin and cocaine even when they know what the drugs will do to them.

If you think intellectual errors may be even more dangerous than heroin, you might try to ban them. I’m not saying the Index was the right response to the danger, but in the context it was a reasonable one, and one of which we shouldn’t be ashamed.

There’s a lesson here about the way the world thinks of the Church. A lot of the things the Church gets blamed for are things human institutions naturally do, and they don’t get blamed. The Church probably won’t do it perfectly, because she’s run by fallen and limited human beings, but that’s true of everyone else, too.

While criticizing sentimental businessmen, G.K. Chesterton noted that “Ideas are dangerous, but the man to whom they are least dangerous is the man of ideas. He is acquainted with ideas, and moves among them like a lion-tamer.” Some people tame lions and the rest of us don’t. Stuck in a lion’s cage, I would appreciate a lion-tamer’s guidance, even if he says “don’t” to something I want to do, like pet the nice kitty.”

FBI in Your Library

Love & truth. If it weren’t for ALL the Peace & Unity & Wisdom/Enlightenment our post-modern freedoms have brought us, I might doubt the wisdom of the Index? 😉  Just sayin’?
Matthew

Corpus Christi, Liturgy, Order of Preachers

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

Doctrine

“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

Doctrine, Grace, Heresy, Pelagianism

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

Liturgy, Saints, St Joseph

Te Joseph Celebrent

JOSEPH! to thee by hosts on high
and choirs of Christians, laud be paid!
saintly of life, -by purest tie
joined unto her, the glorious Maid.

When thou didst doubt thy wife’s repute,
and mark her great with motherhood,
the angel taught thee that her fruit
came from the Holy Ghost of God.

To clasp the Son, the Lord, was thine,
to share His flight to Egypt’s shore,
with tears, to seek in Salem’s shrine
Him lost, -with joy, to find once more.

Death brings to other Saints their rest;
through toil they win the victor’s place;
thou happier, like the Angels blest,
alive, hast seen God face to face.

Spare us, O Trinity most High!
grant that, with Joseph, we may gain
Thy starry realm, and ceaselessly
there raise to Thee our thankful strain.
Amen.

St Joseph, defend all fathers and husbands!!!  St Joseph, come to our aid!!! Strengthen our faith!!!

Love,
Matthew

Christology, Doctrine

Jesus is NOT your best buddy!!!

jesus_judge


–Rev Dwight Longenecker, Fr. Dwight Longenecker is an American who has spent most of his life living and working in England.
Fr Longenecker was brought up in an Evangelical Protestant home in Pennsylvania. After graduating from the Fundamentalist Protestant Bob Jones University with a degree in Speech and English, he went to study theology at Oxford University. He was eventually ordained as an Anglican priest and served as a curate, a school chaplain in Cambridge and a country parson on the Isle of Wight. Realizing that he and the Anglican Church were on divergent paths, in 1995 Fr. Dwight and his family were received into the Catholic Church. In December 2006 he was ordained as a Catholic priest under the special pastoral provision for married former Anglican clergy. He now serves as parish priest of Our Lady of the Rosary parish in Greenville, SC.

“I remember singing that sweet old gospel song, What a Friend We Have in Jesus, and I’m not denying that Jesus is our friend and brother, but there is something a bit disconcerting about being too comfortable, too familiar with Jesus. He might be the good shepherd and gentle Jesus, meek and mild, but He’s the shepherd is also the Judge and while He’s mild, there is also something wild about Him.

Aslan is not a tame lion and Christ the Tiger is not a cuddly kitten.

I’m not sure where in the New Testament it indicates that Jesus is our best buddy. When I read the gospels He certainly went to parties, was sociable and was very popular, but He is always treated either with extreme respect or with disdain and fear. Even with His apostles there is a distance. He loves people, but He doesn’t come across to me as full of bonhomie, high fives, fist bumps, and hearty slaps on the back. There is always something of the desert about Him.

Yet the predominant image of Jesus in our American Evangelical society is that of “friend and brother”. People are told they can have a ‘personal relationship with Jesus, and one gets the impression that this is of the same order as the sort of relationship you have with your best buddy from high school days. It’s almost Jesus the work colleague, or Jesus the team leader.

I’m sure that’s all well and good up to a point, but I doubt if it’s really a Scriptural image, nor is it an image that was popular throughout Church history. The closest we get to a chummy, up close and personal Jesus is the intimacy of Jesus the Good Shepherd, and certainly we Catholics love the tenderness of Jesus of the Sacred Heart.

The more dominant image in the New Testament is one of Jesus Christ glorified. The readings for the Ascension emphasize the ‘cosmic Christ’. He is the One under Whose feet God has put all things. He is the One Who has claimed dominion over all the spiritual forces in the heavenly places. He is the One through Whom all things exist, Who is in all and through all. In other words, He is Christ the King, Christ Pantocrator.

angeltrumpet

Furthermore, He is the judge of the living and the dead, before Whom every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

Why is this image so neglected today, and why has it never (in my experience) been emphasized within Protestantism? Is it just that we are democratic? We’re egalitarian and want Jesus to be ‘an ordinary guy’? Is it because we are uncomfortable with all the supernatural language associated with Him being over all the ‘thrones and principalities and powers and dominions’?

Or is it the fact that Jesus–the Dreadful Judge of the Last Day makes us a wee bit, well, nervous? To be nervous of that final judgment is not such a bad thing. In fact, the Book of Proverbs says “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The proper fear of the Lord is the humble acknowledgement that we are in the presence of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Jesus Christ is, after all, the second person of the Holy Trinity—the very Son of God, Light from Light, God from God, Begotten not made, One in Being with the Father, by Whom all things were made.

He loves me, and is my friend and brother, but He is first and foremost—as the apostles proclaim, “My Lord and My God.””

Love,
Matthew

Creed, Doctrine, Fathers of the Church, Gregory of Nyssa, Saints

The Creed: Credo in unum Deum & St Gregory of Nyssa, (335-395 AD), Father of the Church

gregory_of_nyssa

“This Creed is the treasure of our soul.” –St. Ambrose

Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem,
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty,
factorem cœli et terrae, visibilium omnium et invisibilium.
Creator of heaven and earth, of all things seen and unseen.
Et in unum Dominum, Jesum Christum,
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
Filium Dei unigenitum, et ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula.
the only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father;
Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero,
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God;
genitum non factum, consubstantialem Patri;
begotten, not made, one in being with the Father,
per quem omnia facta sunt.
through Him all things were made;
Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de cœlis.
For us men and for our salvation, He came down from Heaven.
Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est.
He was born of the Virgin Mary and became man:
Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato passus, et sepultus est,
For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate;  suffered, died, and was buried:
et resurrexit tertia die, secundum Scripturas,
And rose again on the third day:
et ascendit in cĂŚlum, sedet ad dexteram Patris.
He ascended into Heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father:
Et iterum venturus est cum gloria, iudicare vivos et mortuos,
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead:
cuius regni non erit finis;
His Kingdom will have no end;
Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem,
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life,
qui ex Patre Filioque procedit.
Who proceeds from the Father and the Son
Qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur;
Who, with the Father and the Son, is adored and glorified;
qui locutus est per prophetas.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam.
I believe in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church,
Confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum.
I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum,
I look forward to the Resurrection of the Dead,
et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen.
And the Life of the world to come. Amen.

“Gregory of Nyssa, both brilliant and holy, was recognized by his contemporaries and peers as a man who most perfectly embodied the Council of Constantinople—the council that produced the creed we call “Nicene” and recite every Sunday. The Emperor Theodosius decreed that communion with Gregory was a necessary condition of orthodoxy. As the council ended, the Fathers appointed Gregory to travel extensively promoting the formulas of the creed in places where controversies had arisen.

While in Constantinople, he complained about the condition of the city’s faith. It’s not that the people weren’t interested, he noted. In fact, they pursued their interest in theology with impressive ardor. Everyone seemed to know the Scriptures, and everyone seemed eager to interpret them. But their interpretations veered wildly because the people held themselves accountable to no authority. Gregory complained:

“Mere youths and tradesmen are off-hand dogmatists in theology. Servants, too, and slaves that have been flogged. . . are solemn with us and philosophical about things incomprehensible. . . . If you ask for change, someone philosophizes to you on the begotten and the unbegotten. If you ask the price of bread, you’re told the Father is greater and the Son inferior. If you ask if the bath is ready, someone answers that the Son was created from nothing.”

Gregory’s mission was to remedy this situation. His method was the creed.

His mission was needed and essential. If Jesus had wandered into the market and asked his haunting question, “But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15), He would have received many different answers. Most, it seems, would seem quite flattering if applied to mere mortals like you and me, but they would be wrong if applied to God incarnate. And wrong answers about Jesus all come with terrible implications: errors about God, about salvation, and about every dimension of human nature. Christ, after all, is the only One Who, the Second Vatican Council taught, “fully reveals man to man.”

Our times are not all that different from Gregory’s. If we go to the market, we may encounter many opinions about Jesus—one from the apocalyptic preacher on the street corner, and another from the leaflets left in the laundry, and still another from the tabloids on sale at the checkout line. Popular books treat Jesus as a guru, psychologist, Republican, Democrat.

In such a climate, what are we, in our turn, to do? Perhaps we should do the same as St. Gregory did, all those years ago. We should go forward, fortified by the creed.

If we don’t get the creed right, we don’t get Jesus right. And if we don’t get Him right, we don’t get anything right.”

—from Scott Hahn’s new book, “The Creed: Professing the Faith Through the Ages”

Love,
Matthew

Liturgy

Liturgy Wars?

Vatican-II-Inside-St-Peter-s-C-David-Lees

By John L. Allen Jr.
Editor May 21, 2016

“This week, a press release washed up in my in-box from the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), about a recent visit to their offices by a Vatican official. ICEL is a mixed commission of bishops’ conferences in countries where English is used in the liturgy, and its job is to translate texts for worship.

My finger was poised on the delete button, when it suddenly struck me just how remarkable it is that ICEL is no longer a hot potato. Not so long ago, at the peak of what came to be known as the “liturgy wars,” that definitely wasn’t the case.

The term “liturgy wars” refers to a series of battles over the sound, look and feel of Catholic worship in English, which crested in the 1990s and 2000s.

The battle lines broke between progressives in favor of a reformed, “Vatican II” style, reflecting modern sensibilities and new theological insights, and conservatives who felt the post-Vatican II overhaul of the liturgy gave too much away to secular modernity, often employing pretty-sounding ecumenical formulae dubious in terms of fidelity to both tradition and the actual Latin text.

Adding fuel to the fire were two other factors:

In part, liturgical controversies pivot on aesthetics – judgments about what’s poetic vs. pedantic, what’s artful vs. awful, what sounds or looks good. Since all that’s basically subjective, there’s just no way to make everyone happy.

Unlike other topics, where most people don’t consider themselves experts, everybody’s been to Mass, and so everybody has an opinion about how it ought to be done.

Incalculable hours were spent over two decades debating issues such as inclusive language, meaning if it’s okay to say “man” for “people,” or whether the Latin phrase pro multis in the Eucharistic prayer should be “for all” or “for many.” Countless conferences were held, essays written, blogs posted, and it seemed for a while the debate would never end.

ICEL was one of the battlegrounds, as control over its agenda and vision became part of the broader tensions.

All this culminated in the late 2000s with a new English translation of the Roman Missal, the collection of prayers and other texts used in the Mass. It featured a few signature transitions towards “sacred” language – “And with your spirit” in favor of “And also with you,” for instance, and “consubstantial with the Father” rather than “one in being.”

The new missal was implemented on the first Sunday of Advent in 2011, meaning this Fall will mark the five-year anniversary.

Where do we stand today? Although the liturgical front is less noisy, mostly because decisions were finally made, my own completely unscientific survey suggests opinions are basically as divided as before.

Here, for instance, is Jesuit Father James Martin, America’s most popular Catholic spiritual writer, on the new translation:

“I’m very sorry to say that, in my experience, many Catholics, priests included, find the language at various points clunky, unwieldy, inelegant, stilted, and even confusing,” Martin told me. “As a priest, I find it much harder to pray the Mass, and sometimes … I even have a hard time understanding what exactly I’m praying for.”

“And,” Martin added, “I’m speaking as someone who works with words for a living … It’s a source of great sadness for me.”

On the other hand, here’s Monsignor James Moroney, rector of St. John’s Seminary in Boston, a former chief of staff for the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Liturgy and an adviser to the Vatican’s Vox Clara commission:

“Despite the efforts of some to create widespread dissatisfaction with the new translation, its implementation has been far smoother than even its strongest proponents could have predicted,” he said in reply to my query.

“For the first time since the great experiment in vernacularization of the liturgy, we are actually praying the same thing as the Latin prayers. Considering the antiquity and universal usage of these prayers, these new translations are an effective sign and instrument of unity of a Church that prays what it believes across time and space,” Moroney said.

Monsignor Richard Hilgartner, also a veteran of the bishops’ conference and now president of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, said the transition in some ways has enriched the liturgical experience.

“Many parishes offered great catechesis, not only about the changes in texts but on the broader topic of the liturgy, and that has borne fruit as people learned more about what we do and why we do it when we celebrate the Mass,” he said.

Father Edward Beck, a contributor to both Crux and CNN, offered a less sanguine take.

“The prayers seem to address a distant, majestic God to the exclusion of a personal relationship,” Beck told me. “It almost sounds like a British royal wordsmith. It could use a bit more Brooklyn – in a grammatically correct way, of course.”

Beck also said there seems to be a strong “emphasis on sin, and bowing and scraping. I’m not sure the prayers are indicative enough of a God who calls us to loving service and freedom.”

If I asked 100 other people, I’d likely get 100 other opinions.

What’s the moral of the story? Maybe, it’s this: The “liturgy wars” may have gone quiet, but they’ve hardly gone away.

As long as Catholics take liturgy seriously – as long as we care about how we worship, because it shapes what we believe and who we are – we’ll never be done arguing over it. That may breed heartburn once in a while, but it’s the reflux of a deep passion.”

My response to John L. Allen, Editor-in-chief, Crux:

“I have been silent @Mass since Nov 2011.

I guess that’s what VII meant by “full & active participation”? I just can’t say that s***. It is beneath the dignity of Jesus. It is pompous, arrogant, & pharisaical. I believe I will die & happily be judged w/1998 on my lips alone.

As someone in technology, I valued the Mass as the one constant in my life. The Catholic Church has become a bad joke. When Boomers start dying, parishes will be sold left & right. But, the Church will get a good deal $$$$ It ALWAYS gets its money!!! Where are our saints today, FAHTHER???? ?”