“Sanctifying grace implies a real transformation of the soul. Recall that most of the Protestant Reformers denied that a real transformation takes place. They said God doesn’t actually wipe away our sins. Our souls don’t become spotless and holy in themselves. Instead, they remain corrupted, sinful, full of sin. God merely throws a cloak (of snow over dung) over them and treats them as if they were spotless, knowing all the while that they’re not.
But that isn’t the Catholic view. We believe souls really are cleansed by an infusion of the supernatural life. Paul speaks of us as “a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17), “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:24). Of course, we’re still subject to temptations to sin; we still suffer the effects of Adam’s Fall in that sense (what theologians call “concupiscence”); but God removes the guilt from our souls. We may still have a tendency to sin, but God has removed the sins we have, much like a mother might wash the dirt off of a child who has a tendency to get dirty again.
Our souls don’t become something other than souls when God cleanses them and pours his grace into them (what the Bible refers to as “infused” [“poured”] grace, cf. Acts 10:45, Rom. 5:5 Titus 3:5–7); they don’t cease to be what they were before. When grace elevates nature, our intellects are given the new power of faith, something they don’t have at the merely natural level. Our wills are given the new powers of hope and charity, things also absent at the merely natural level.”
Dr. Benedict Nguyen is the new Diocese of Venice Director of Communications and Office of Worship. He began his position on June 30 and comes from the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisc.
“Let’s do some distinguishing here. It’s very interesting the great Aristotle says when we are defining things, we are really distinguishing things. We really want to see how things are distinguished from other things. What makes it itself? So let’s distinguish a little bit here. Philosophy and the term we use called “sciences”. Philosophy, coming again from two Greek words, philos, sophas, lover of wisdom, or love of wisdom. Philos, love, and sophos or sophia, wisdom. In philosophy, we study the truths based on natural revelation, studying true bits of information based on what is naturally revealed. Now what do we mean by “naturally revealed?”
In our Catholic tradition, we believe that there are two ways that God makes Himself known. The first way is through what we call the “book of nature”, what God has created. We see this immediately in Romans 1 when St. Paul says ever since the beginning of time, they know the Creator by the things that He has created (-cf Rm 1:20), I paraphrase. That means that natural things that are created, how God puts the world out, that’s part of reality; those things that are in relation to Him, such as the sunrise, such as the science, such as our reason, our philosophy, our logic. All these things that are naturally created by God, we pursue those, so that we know God exists, that He is there, and that we know about God. Not that He’s not love, that He’s all-powerful, almighty. Yes, I will say the incarnation of these things as well. These things are natural revelation, things that we see in the world. The Psalms tell us the heavens declare the glory of God (-cf Ps 19:1). The glory, the nature of God, part of his word, part of his nature, we discern from the things that are around us.
The source of philosophy, what we would call science, is natural revelation, what God has created. Reason alone can bring us to that. Reason has a certain methodology. The methodology of each reason is logic, logical principles. The Greeks understood that, even without divine revelation, even without Jesus Christ, they were able to understand if this then this then this, the syllogism. These things that we work out logically in our brains, these things came from reason alone. That’s the methodology. In empiricism, or what we would call in the modern world scientific method, by testing something and getting results, and retesting and doing it again, that methodology that we find in “science” is a way of pursuing God.
One of the worst and most tragic things that I think that has happened particularly to modern education is that we compartmentalize these things as if they were not related. So your religion department, your theological department is compartmentalized from your science department, compartmentalized from your English and history department, compartmentalize from the physical education. All of these things are compartmentalized. The way we Catholic Christians would look at it is that we would say, “No, these are one subject. The subject is God.” We are going to do it in all these different ways. In the science class, in this biology class, we seek God in seeing how organisms function. In this astronomy class, we seek God by seeing how stars and these things live out their function. In our history class, we seek God by seeing his hand through the events of human history. And our theology class – we’ll get to that in a little bit – we seek God in a different way. Reason alone in natural revelation, in philosophy is the methodology, but that methodology still it is the pursuit of truth, still is the pursuit of goodness, still is the pursuit of beauty, the transcendentals, and yes, that is the pursuit of God; philosophy, the sciences, based on what God has revealed. The book of nature, the book that God has laid out for us to read, and to decipher, and to understand, and to seek to understand that on reason alone man coming to a knowledge of God.
The world is wonderful. Science is wonderful. Philosophy is wonderful. Why? Because we’re trying to figure out God. We’re trying to pursue God in the things that He has made. Paul certainly understood this in Romans 1:20. That’s why the natural law of tradition comes in and says, “Well, wait a minute. If there are things in our nature, certain meanings and certain things that we understand about God, it must also be built in nature certain ways to act in response to that.” So just like we would respond to Jesus’ teaching, just like we would respond to what we would call supernatural revelation, we also respond to natural revelation in the way things are put together.
An example: My tongue was designed for various purposes. From the nature of the tongue, we know that it is meant to convey truth. When I use my tongue not to convey truth, we fail at honoring nature by doing what God has created is supposed to be meant for. That’s why we call it a lie. That’s why we call it a sin, because it goes against nature. It goes against natural revelation. It goes against what God has revealed to us to be so, so that we can pursue Him.
For example: natural revelation would be understanding that God is all-powerful using reason alone. Aristotle came to the conclusion that not only does God exist – even if he didn’t call Him God, as we know God, but he knew that a supreme being must exist, and that supreme being must also be almighty because of the nature. There’s certainly philosophical proof of that. That would be a natural revelation. There would be no way that Aristotle could fully grasp that God is a Trinity from reason alone. Certainly we have reasonable explanations, but at the end of the day those explanations can only reflect that God is a Trinity, and not prove that God is a Trinity. I certainly think the philosophical reason to show that it doesn’t go against reason, but that God is a Trinity is simply a fact that is revealed to us, hence we call these things mysteries. Not that they contradict reason, but that they go beyond reason. Now those who are not Christians, when they hear something like “beyond reason”, they think it’s a copout for us. It certainly isn’t. If something went against reason that would be a cop out for us. That would be us trying to say, “No, I know that this isn’t reasonable. I know this isn’t true, but we’re just going to except it anyway.” That is not the faith. That is not Christian. That’s not Catholicism. That is not God.
Contradictions do not exist in our faith. Things that go beyond reason certainly do, and they happen all the time. I’ll give you an example. A person who was very atheist at the time was talking to me. He said, “I can’t except your notion of mystery.” We were talking about this very thing. I said, “I can’t except contradiction either, but mysteries of my faith aren’t contradictions.” I said, “You know what? You accept mysteries as well. There are things that go beyond reason that you accept.” He said, “Can you give me an example?” And I said, “Yes. The number system.”
Who was ever counted the end of the number system? But yet we accept the number system. It is a mystery. It doesn’t contradict reason. It’s perfectly logical that numbers go on and on and on and on. But certainly it would contradict reason if we had two ones, or two twos, or whatever. But that a number system – a number line goes on and on – that’s perfectly logical, but beyond reason. Can we prove that numbers never end? The answer is there’s no mathematician that can prove numbers never end. Because of that, we still accept that numbers are infinite. It would be silly for a mathematician, an atheist mathematician, to say, “No, I don’t accept the infinity of numbers because I can’t prove it. I can’t prove that numbers never end, so therefore I don’t accept that.” Nobody would say that. All mathematicians accept that numbers never end, but yet they can’t prove it. It goes beyond reason; it goes beyond the scientific methodology. Supernatural revelation is when God comes and He reveals to us things that go beyond our reason, things that we would not have come up with, or that we would have so much trouble coming up with, we would have never gotten there.
That God is a Trinity, that Jesus Christ, the 33-year-old Jewish man who walked on the earth 2000 years ago was both a man, fully man and fully God, goes beyond our understanding. That God is full of justice and full of mercy at the same time goes beyond reason. Not against it, but beyond it. That all the truths of our faith are contained in the person of Jesus Christ. All of these mysteries of our faith, the mystery of eschatology, the mystery of Jesus Christ, the mystery of the Trinity, the mystery of the Holy Spirit. These are mysteries. These are beautiful mysteries. In the Catholic tradition, mysterium, in the Greek, it’s translated as sacramentum, as well. The sacraments, for us, are mysteries. Not contradictions, but mysteries that go beyond reasons that were revealed to us. As a matter of fact, in the eastern churches, both Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches, they refer to the sacraments as the divine mysteries. Understanding that these things go beyond reason and not against them.
Theology takes both natural revelation and supernatural revelation. Both the things that have been created, and the things that have been revealed to us. Reason plus faith, Fides et Ratio. We accept natural revelation through reason and empiricism, scientific discovery, rational explanation, philosophy. Theology takes all that, presumes all that, and it’s top of that as well, the faith aspect. Faith here is not blind. Faith here is not shrugging our shoulders and saying, “Oh, well.” Faith here is accepting something based on the authority of someone else. Whereas the natural revelation, we accept the truth based on our scientific methodology, our proof, our reasoning it out. Faith, supernatural revelation, is accepted based on the authority of someone else. Now, at first that sounds like a copout. “Oh, it’s not reasonable.” Well, no, it is reasonable; it just goes beyond our reason. When it goes beyond our reason, we have to ask why, and the why is because we rely on the authority of someone else. That’s faith. Faith is not just throwing up your shoulders and accepting something that is untrue. Faith is accepting something as true because the person who has revealed it to us, the person who has said to us, “this is so,” they are credible.
I’ll give you an example. I have never seen China. I have never done an experiment to prove that China is there. I accept that China is there based on the credibility of the people who make movies, of people who make maps, of people who make books and photography/topography and things like that. I accept that it’s true. I have never done a scientific experiment to make sure that China is there. The only way I can do that is to actually go there. That would be natural revelation. That would be logic and empiricism. If I got on the plane and went to China. If, on the other hand, my teacher told me, “Yeah, there’s a place called China.” And I see photography, I see all these things, and I don’t doubt that these are fake; I believe that China is there. It’s pretty well established that China is there because these are credible sources.
What if that credible source was Jesus Christ – the God-man? What if that credible source was God, Himself? That supernatural revelation that has been revealed to us is credible then because God must be based on logic, all good, all-powerful, cannot deceive nor be deceived. If that’s the case, then what we have, the revelation that we have of God, is credible. So it goes back again to Jesus Christ and His revelation, if He’s crazy, He’s not credible – “aut Deus, aut malus homo”. If He’s a liar, He’s not credible. But if He is the Lord, He is credible. This revelation must be taken then because His credibility is there. So St. Anselm, in the High Middle Ages, in the 1200’s defined theology as “faith seeking understanding” – “fides quarens intellectum”. Faith accepting things on somebody else’s authority, but then now we’re driving that, and going after that to see the reasons for it. That is theology. Philosophy, natural revelation, reason and empiricism, and that theology taking all of that, not going against that, not going instead of that, assuming all of that, adding to it the credibility of Jesus Christ, the credibility of God, we accept on His credibility. Now that thing, that truth that we have accepted on that, we start to work out. That working out is theology. It’s the science of theology.”
Until the mid-19th century, what we call “science” today, was known as “natural philosophy”.
The academic study of languages is informative and educative. The practical learning of languages is necessary when living in the culture where it is used. It is important to recall, in comparison, in terms of vocabulary, English is like a pint glass, Hebrew is like a shot glass, a more ancient language logically more limited, and Greek is like a pitcher, or so I have been told. I think this is important to remember as we tease apart terms, and all rationality is about defining one’s terms.
Dr. Benedict Nguyen is the new Diocese of Venice Director of Communications and Office of Worship. He began his position on June 30 and comes from the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisc.
“What is theology? If we talk about spiritual theology, before we can dive into that, we have to see what is theology. So the etymology of the word – which is the place, the root of the word – comes from two Greek words. “Theos” meaning God. “Logos” meaning a whole host of things. If you take a Greek lexicon – and for us academic nerds we call Greek, for some reason, a lexicon as opposed to a dictionary – really, it’s such a generic – if you take a Greek lexicon, and you look up the word logos, and if it’s a good lexicon, you’ll see that the entry for logos goes on for column after column after column, sometimes even pages. The word logos is so rich in meaning, it means logic. Logic. A logic. You know that logic itself comes from logos. So it’s science, a reason, a body of knowledge.
But we also know that John in his gospel starts with Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος (logos), “In the beginning was the Word”-Jn 1:1. So, yes, it is the study of God that if you think logos, the word itself, and start to unpack its meaning you’ll see that theology is so much more than just an academic study; so much more that just a body of knowledge. That you can see that God is so much more than some type of mathematical formula. St. Thomas puts it this way: the study of God and all things in relation to God. So it’s not just this fact about God, that fact about God. So when we speak about theology, it has to be more than just a body of knowledge. It has to be more than just facts about God. In other words, in our Christian tradition, which we’ll see if we follow this to a logical conclusion about logos, if we follow it through to that, we can see very clearly that you cannot be truly a theologian if you are not a theist, a Christian, a believer in that. You would have to qualify that word theology, such and such theology, such and such theology. We in our Christian Catholic tradition, we would have to say “No!”,theology is the entirety of truth, in the relation to God.
That’s what St. Thomas says theology is. It’s not just a bunch of tidbits of information. How we view theology is what we see everything in relation to God. So I always tell my students, if someone were to ask me, “Why are you Catholic? Why are you Christian?” My response would have to be “Because I accept everything that is real. Anything that is real, I accept that.” That entirety of knowledge, that entirety of truth starting from the existence of God all the way down to minutiae of scientific experimentation, and things like that. Is it true? Yes. And if it is, then that entire thing is what we would call theology, or what we would call Christianity, and what I would call Catholicism because those questions have to be there.
Does God exist? If you say yes, that separates you from the atheists and agnostics, those who don’t believe in God. We would accept that it’s true, but they must accept something that they hold not to be true. It is a contradiction. So with that then, do you accept that it’s a Trinity, that there are three persons in one God? I’d say yes. The Muslim and the Jew would say no. We’d part ways. We’d really go and go and going all the way to these truths, all of these truths that are laid out, that is the theology. That is the “theos logos”. That is this something that we study that is not just tidbits of information, but is ALL things in relation to God.
What is theology then? We’re distinguishing out between philosophy and theology. Theology is the study of supernatural truth. Theology is the study of God and pursuing God via not just natural revelation, but also supernatural revelation. What do we mean by this? Natural revelation is the things that God has created. Natural revelation – I’m sorry, yeah, natural revelation is the things God has created. The world, science, things like that. Supernatural revelation is those things that God simply has revealed to us. Supernatural revelation is usually those things that we could never have come up with on our own. Things are at least very difficult to come up with on our own; that we would need help in order to grasp, and to know, and to understand.”
SING, my tongue, the Savior’s glory;
tell His triumph far and wide;
tell aloud the famous story
of His body crucified;
how upon the cross a victim,
vanquishing in death, He died.
Eating of the tree forbidden,
man had sunk in Satan’s snare,
when our pitying Creator did
this second tree prepare;
destined, many ages later,
that first evil to repair.
Such the order God appointed
when for sin He would atone;
to the serpent thus opposing
schemes yet deeper than his own;
thence the remedy procuring,
whence the fatal wound had come.
So when now at length the fullness
of the sacred time drew nigh,
then the Son, the world’s Creator,
left his Father’s throne on high;
from a virgin’s womb appearing,
clothed in our mortality.
All within a lowly manger,
lo, a tender babe He lies!
see his gentle Virgin Mother
lull to sleep his infant cries!
while the limbs of God incarnate
round with swathing bands she ties.
THUS did Christ to perfect manhood
in our mortal flesh attain:
then of His free choice He goeth
to a death of bitter pain;
and as a lamb, upon the altar of the cross,
for us is slain.
Lo, with gall His thirst He quenches!
see the thorns upon His brow!
nails His tender flesh are rending!
see His side is opened now!
whence, to cleanse the whole creation,
streams of blood and water flow.
FAITHFUL Cross!
above all other,
one and only noble Tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
none in fruit thy peers may be;
sweetest wood and sweetest iron!
Sweetest Weight is hung on thee!
Lofty tree, bend down thy branches,
to embrace thy sacred load;
oh, relax the native tension
of that all too rigid wood;
gently, gently bear the members
of thy dying King and God.
Tree, which solely wast found worthy
the world’s Victim to sustain.
harbor from the raging tempest!
ark, that saved the world again!
Tree, with sacred blood anointed
of the Lamb for sinners slain.
Blessing, honor, everlasting,
to the immortal Deity;
to the Father, Son, and Spirit,
equal praises ever be;
glory through the earth and heaven
to Trinity in Unity. Amen.
Vexilla Regis was written by Venantius Fortunatus (530-609 AD) and is considered one of the greatest hymns of the liturgy. Fortunatus wrote it in honor of the arrival of a large relic of the True Cross which had been sent to Queen Radegunda by the Emperor Justin II and his Empress Sophia. Queen Radegunda had retired to a convent she had built near Poitiers and was seeking out relics for the church there. To help celebrate the arrival of the relic, the Queen asked Fortunatus to write a hymn for the procession of the relic to the church.
The hymn has, thus, a strong connection with the Cross and is fittingly sung at Vespers from Passion Sunday to Holy Thursday and on the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross. The hymn was also formerly sung on Good Friday when the Blessed Sacrament is taken from the repository to the altar.
Abroad the royal banners fly,
The mystic Cross refulgent glows:
Where He, in Flesh, flesh Who made,
Upon the Tree of pain is laid.
Behold! The nails with anguish fierce,
His outstretched arms and vitals pierce:
Here our redemption to obtain,
The Mighty Sacrifice is slain.
Here the fell spear His wounded side
With ruthless onset opened wide:
To wash us in that cleansing flood,
Thence mingled Water flowed, and Blood.
Fulfilled is all that David told
In true prophetic song, of old:
Unto the nations, lo! saith he,
Our God hath reignèd from the Tree.
O Tree! In radiant beauty bright!
With regal purple meetly dight!
Thou chosen stem! divinely graced,
Which hath those Holy Limbs embraced!
How blest thine arms, beyond compare,
Which Earth’s Eternal Ransom bare!
That Balance where His Body laid,
The spoil of vanquished Hell outweighed.
Fragrant aromatics are thrown,
sweetest nectar is sown,
Dearest fruit of tree!
Be my noble victory!
Hail wondrous Altar! Victim hail!
Thy Glorious Passion shall avail!
Where death Life’s very Self endured,
Yet life by that same Death secured.
O Cross! all hail! sole hope, abide
With us now in this Passion-tide:
New grace in pious hearts implant,
And pardon to the guilty grant!
Thee, mighty Trinity! One God!
Let every living creature laud;
Whom by the Cross Thou dost deliver,
O guide and govern now and ever! Amen.
Translation from “The Psalter of Sarum”: London 1852.
The theory goes like this: Just a few centuries after Christ’s death, around the time the Roman Empire converted to Christianity, the true Faith suffered a catastrophic falling-away. The simple truths of the gospel became so obscured by worldliness and pagan idolatry—kicking off the Dark Ages of Catholicism—that Christianity required a complete reboot.
This idea of a “Great Apostasy” is one of the cornerstones of American Protestantism, along with Mormonism, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and even Islam. Countless millions today profess a faith built on the assumption that the early Church quickly became broken beyond repair, requiring some new prophet or reformer to restore the “pure” teaching of Jesus and the apostles.
This theory is popular… but it’s also fiction. Here are excerpts from an interview with author Rod Bennett.
Q: What is the Great Apostasy?
A. It’s one of the cornerstones of American religion, actually—the notion that the original Church founded by Jesus and his apostles went bust somewhere along the line and had to be restored by some latter-day prophet or reformer. Most of our Christian denominations here in the Unites States teach the idea in one form or another, though, significantly, they usually disagree completely on which “Second Founder” ought to be followed.
Usually they date the collapse to the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine in A.D. 313 and his subsequent adoption of Christianity for the whole Roman Empire. In doing this, he transformed the Christian Church (or so the story goes) from a simple body of pure, New Testament believers into the state religion of the Roman Empire. This made Church membership socially advantageous for the first time, which brought in a vast flood of half-converted pagans who were admitted with minimal fuss by a mere external act of baptism. And this, in turn, subverted the original Faith so seriously that a Dark Age of idolatry and superstition was the result, a “great falling away” so serious that it required, in the end, a complete “reboot” from heaven.
Q: Where did the notion of the Great Apostasy find its beginnings?
A. Well, if you think about it, any group that has a short historical pedigree—founded, as most of our denominations have been, within the last few centuries of Christianity’s very long timeline—will be driven to the idea eventually. If you find that your church was founded in the twentieth century (or the nineteenth or the sixteenth) and teaches things no one was teaching in the fourteenth, the tenth, or the fifth century, then you’re going to have to account for that fact somehow. And the most common solution has been to offer a “conspiracy theory” of some kind: this idea that the early Church actually did teach Jehovah’s Witness or Seventh-day Adventism or Unitarianism or what have you, but the “powers that be” hushed the original version up—burned their books, forced them underground, and so forth. The whole “Da Vinci Code” phenomenon from a few years back was based on the same idea.
Q: Are there differences in the ways that Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, and Protestants view the Great Apostasy?
A. Many Protestant groups would try to differentiate their view by holding that the original Church didn’t actually become apostate but was simply obscured for a thousand years or so, leaving a “remnant” of true believers hiding somewhere in secret, waiting to reemerge. They often tell their members (without any evidence to back up the assertion) that the true Christians had been there, alright, thinking and worshipping just as we do here at our church today, only the authorities of the day doctored up the records so that no trace of their existence has been left behind. Or, occasionally, fundamentalist groups will send inquirers to shabby, disreputable sects like the Montanists and the Albigenses as examples of God’s true remnant. These, oddly, always turn out to be weird Gnostic sects whose real doctrine (as far as we can reconstruct it) was as divergent from their own as any other brand of “dark ages” Christianity.
Another set of voices, on the other hand, more moderate in tone, sometimes takes the opposite tack, directing us to examples of genuine Christianity lingering within the mainstream of Dark Ages religion. Ambrose, Augustine, Thomas à Kempis, even Francis of Assisi are sometimes cited as “crypto-Evangelicals”—genuine Spirit-filled Christians struggling to survive amidst the general wreck of the Church, and secretly on the outs somehow with the authorities of their day.
Q: What is wrong with the popular notions that most people believe about the “Dark Ages”?
A. Mostly, they’re just historical nonsense. If the term is used strictly—which it almost never is—to refer to the chaotic period following the collapse of Roman rule in Western Europe (the Eastern Empire continued to thrive for another thousand years), then the phrase Dark Ages can have some limited meaning. But most of the time it’s just a ghost story spun almost purely out of the imaginations of anti-Catholic (and often just plain old anti-Christian) historians of the so-called “Enlightenment” of the eighteenth century.
Q. Early on in your book you refer to the “Ghetto Church”—can you explain what you mean?
A. Central to most “Great Apostasy” theories is the notion that the underground Church prior to Constantine—during the late 200s and early 300s A.D., that is—retained the innocence and purity of Bible times but lost these qualities when the Christian faith was legalized. But in reality, the Church was not underground at all during that period. The catacombs had been left far behind by then; Christians of the mid to late third century had no need to hide their faith, and they did not hide it. The Church owned property during this period and built churches on it. And though still on the books, all of the laws against Christianity were routinely winked at during those years, and the Church was a well-known, well-recognized segment of Roman society. For these reasons, I’ve compared the Roman Christian population of the third century to the Jews in Europe prior to World War II: living in their own enclaves, close to their places of worship; talking, dressing, thinking, believing differently than their neighbors . . . and disliked precisely because of their ubiquity—and their growing influence. This is what I mean by “the Ghetto Church.”
This Church, incidentally, wasn’t, alas, very pure or innocent, either. The records show that it had nearly as much doctrinal impurity as it did after Christianity was legalized—and much greater moral laxity.
Q. As revered as Constantine is in Church history, he did, in fact, seem to behave like so many politicians in the modern day, constantly changing his stance. Do you have any sense as to where his heart really was in regard to the Church? Was there a true faith there, or did he just see the Church as a means to an end?
A. Well, there’s lots of evidence that Constantine considered himself a Christian, at any rate. He immediately outlawed many of the worst atrocities of the arena—death by lions, for instance—and Eusebius tells us that he did so much testifying in his own palace that the members of his court found it wearisome. But there’s also no question that he believed the change would be beneficial to his Empire. Here’s an analogy that I used in the book: “Imagine, for instance, a man who falls genuinely in love with a goodhearted, beautiful, and very rich woman. Exactly what role will her wealth play—in his own mind and in the suspicions of others—as he decides whether or not to take her as his wife? Does he himself even know? Or will he not always be accused of mercenary motives, not only by unsympathetic outsiders but even, at times, by his own uncertain conscience? Constantine’s situation was very much like this. Yes, he found the Christian Church to be uniquely useful toward achieving his goals, as the leaven of Christianity will always be useful to the health of a society. Does that prove that this was his only—or even his primary—reason for getting involved with her? How could we ever know, if even the Emperor himself might not have been entirely sure?”
“The Catholic parish of St. Joseph’s — now run by the Dominican Order — worships in the oldest Catholic church building in Manhattan. Built in 1833, it served the community of Greenwich Village before there was Central Park, the Empire State building or even the subway. Far from being a museum or mere relic of the past, the parish today ministers to college students and professionals — those who have been in New York their whole lives, and those visiting just for the weekend. Each Mass is filled with women and men of different backgrounds and nationalities.
Dorothy Day prayed here. There is a soup kitchen that serves hundreds each week. A parish elementary school is right next door.
St. Joseph’s is also neighbor to the famous Stonewall Inn and has served the spiritual needs of its visitors as well. But in the face of the latest same-sex marriage ruling, the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church on marriage has frustrated activists who want religious organizations to either bring their teachings into accord with the newest cause or to be limited from full civic participation, and thus punish long-serving institutions that will not submit to their demands.
After the Obergefell decision, Time magazine writer Mark Oppenheimer was quick to declare that the state should “abolish, or greatly diminish” property tax exemptions for churches that “dissent from settled public policy on matters of race or sexuality.”
Punishing “dissent” seems a strange new role for the American government. In the mid-twentieth century, the Catholic church was a leading advocate against anti-miscegenation laws. The church was able to take a stand contrary to the state on marriage and not be penalized for it, a position now almost unquestionably supported by Americans. And despite the confidence of those like Oppenheimer, the dissenters aren’t even a minority in the more recent marriage controversy. Most Americans favor religious liberty, and a plurality oppose Obergefell.
Allowing conscientious objection is an acknowledgment that the state does not have all the answers. The state has an obligation to make laws, but the state has no obligation to be correct. The independent voices that critique the state make the state better, and should not be silenced. Lose churches, lose the independent voices that prevent the state from having an absolute say in complicated moral matters.
In addition to the alternative moral voice that the church provides, the Catholic church is one of the leading charitable institutions in the country. But this matters little to a militant ideological movement that, intending to prevent discrimination, has prevented churches from doing certain charitable activities and seeks to “ostracize” them even more. The first wave has been the shutting down of decades-old Catholic adoption services around the country, including in the Archdiocese of Washington. The next wave, hinted at by Justice Samuel Alito and Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, will be universities and educational institutions — including the many Catholic schools for the underprivileged. And after that will be the places of worship themselves.
Oppenheimer identifies the real problem with dissolving tax exemptions, too, though in a dismissive and historically illiterate manner. Churches in important locations will be penalized for the simple reason of where they were built. “If it’s important to the people of Fifth Avenue to have a synagogue like Emanu-El or an Episcopal church like St. Thomas in their midst, they should pay full freight for it.” Parishes like St. Dominic’s in Washington or St. Joseph’s in Greenwich Village could be added to this list. But they were built for everyone, rich and poor, and their work should not be penalized because property values have skyrocketed as decades have gone by. Removing the tax-exempt status of churches simply adds an additional tax to regular churchgoers, and most of the congregations at these historical places of worship couldn’t sustain the property taxes for more than a few months. If they can’t foot the bill, local places of worship will simply have to close, and with them the community services they provide.
Losing a local church would be damaging to its worshippers and the community at large, but even still, the resilience of the faithful can overcome the limitations of property loss and a lack of governmental support. That said, it is in the state’s best interest to protect those voices that at the moment respectfully oppose its laws. By prohibiting faith-based conscientious objection, institutions will be limited in their ability to speak independently without fear of punishment, and some of the largest charities in America will be shuttered. Churches have defended and served the American people both spiritually and materially for hundreds of years. Now it’s time to defend the church.”
-by Jeffrey Tucker, a convert from Southern Baptist to Roman Catholicism.
“It is puzzling what happened to the Reproaches on Good Friday, an essential part of the Roman Rite for ages, but all-but-vanished today. At least since the 9th century, they had been sung during the veneration of the cross: “My people, what have I done to you?” Or in Latin: “Popule meus, quid feci tibi?”
My copy of the missallete, which is the template that most choirs use to sing on Good Friday, contains no mention of the Reproaches at all. We instead are instructed to sing a song written in 1976 (with a chorus that sounds a bit like the theme to Gilligan’s Island) or to sing “other appropriate songs.”
The GIRM contains no instructions on the matter, but I’ve yet to discover evidence that the Reproaches have been abolished or are even optional.
The Reproaches are still in the Graduale Romanum. Many things appear in this book that are rarely used so perhaps that is understandable. However, the Reproaches are also printed larger than life in the Sacramentary itself, taking up three full pages with music. So let no one say that it was the 1970 Missal that caused them to disappear.
I gather that most celebrants skip over these pages since the music is for the choir to sing, not the priest. In some ways, it is a puzzle as to why they appear in the Sacramentary at all since this book doesn’t print other chants that are exclusive to the choir, such as the Offertory proper at every Mass.
But, as I say, there is no mention of their existence in my missalette at all. And let’s face it: if it is not in this fly-away book, it will not happen. That’s how much influence these publications wield. These private companies can wipe out whole swaths of the Roman Rite just by declining to print things. After 10 or 20 years, no one remembers that it was ever sung.
It seems Orwellian in some way, but I actually think it is a reflection of the chaotic system of: 1) endless numbers of choices over what to do at liturgy, 2) the lack of rubrical specificity in the ordinary form, 3) the way the parts of the Mass are sprawled out over so many books, 4) the remarkable and pervasive ignorance concerning the role of the choir at Mass, and 5) the way that the Missalettes are targeted for use by the people and tend to be inattentive to the parts that belong exclusively to either the celebrant or the choir.
In this thicket, some things gets lost.
The Reproaches are an important part of Good Friday because they highlight the essential injustice of the Crucifixion, the culpability of humanity in this action, and the role of sin in those times and our times in bringing this about. We are given remarkable gifts by God, and the signs are all around us, and yet we do not show gratitude. Rather, we turn our backs on God and deny God due reverence in our lives and in our worship.
The narrative of the Reproaches is presented as a historical epic but it is impossible to hear them and not think of the universal ethical and theological implications. When we leave them out, we are refusing to let the Christ of all history speak to us, saying perhaps what we do not want to hear but we must hear.”
“Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, His mother: “This Child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul, too.” -Luke 2:34-35
And with “Woman behold your son.” And, “Son, behold your Mother.” cf Jn 19:26-27, Mary became our mother, and the mother of the Church.
Good Friday is a day of mourning, remembering Christ’s death, and so is not typically a day of songs and hymns. During the Veneration of the Cross, the following Antiphon and verses known as “The Reproaches” (Improperia) are sung. Individual parts are indicated by no. 1 (first choir) and no. 2 (second choir); parts sung by both choirs together are indicated by nos. 1 and 2.
The Reproaches (Improperia)
Antiphon 1 and 2:
We worship You, Lord,
we venerate Your cross,
we praise Your resurrection.
1: Through the cross
You brought joy to the world.
1: (Psalm 66:2)
May God be gracious and bless us;
and let His face shed its light upon us.
Repeat Antiphon by 1 and 2:
The Reproaches:
I.
1 and 2: My people, what have I done to you
How have I offended you? Answer me!
1: I led you out of Egypt,
from slavery to freedom,
but you led your Savior to the cross.
2: My people, what have I done to you?
How have I offended you? Answer me!
1: Holy is God!
2: Holy and strong!
1: Holy immortal One, have mercy on us!
1 and 2: For forty years I led you
safely through the desert.
I fed you with manna from heaven,
and brought you to a land of plenty; but you led your Savior to the cross.
1: Holy is God!
2: Holy and strong!
1: Holy immortal One, have mercy on us!
1 and 2: What more could I have done for you.
I planted you as my fairest vine,
but you yielded only bitterness:
when I was thirsty you gave Me vinegar to drink,
and you pierced your Savior with a lance.
1: Holy is God!
2: Holy and strong!
1: Holy immortal One, have mercy on us!
II.
1: For your sake I scourged your captors
and their firstborn sons,
but you brought your scourges down on me.
2: My people, what have I done to you?
How have I offended you? Answer me!
1: I led you from slavery to freedom
and drowned your captors in the sea,
but you handed me over to your high priests.
2: My people, what have I done to you?
How have I offended you? Answer me!
1: I opened the sea before you,
but you opened my side with a spear.
2: My people, what have I done to you?
How have I offended you? Answer me!
1: I led you on your way in a pillar of cloud,
but you led me to Pilate’s court.
2: My people, what have I done to you?
How have I offended you? Answer me!
1: I bore you up with manna in the desert,
but you struck me down and scourged me.
2: My people, what have I done to you?
How have I offended you? Answer me!
1: I gave you saving water from the rock,
but you gave me gall and vinegar to drink.
2: My people, what have I done to you?
How have I offended you? Answer me!
1: For you I struck down the kings of Canaan.
but you struck my head with a reed.
2: My people, what have I done to you?
How have I offended you? Answer me!
1: I gave you a royal scepter,
but you gave me a crown of thorns.
2: My people, what have I done to you?
How have I offended you? Answer me!
1: I raised you to the height of majesty,
but you have raised me high on a cross.
2: My people, what have I done to you?
How have I offended you? Answer me!
“When the people of Israel complained against God during their wandering in the desert, God sent saraph serpents among them. It was not until Moses, at the Lord’s command, raised a serpent on a pole that all who looked upon it were cured (Num 21:6-9). The Church Fathers saw in this a prefigurement of Christ’s mounting on the cross, a promise that future generations would be saved by considering His passion and contemplating its instrument, the cross.
From this belief arose both the practice of concentrating on a crucifix when praying and today’s feast, the Exaltation of the Cross, which honors the cross’ instrumental role in the salvation of the world. Yet, if Christ’s crucifixion occurred during the Feast of Passover in the springtime, why does the Church celebrate His cross on September 14, roughly five months later? To discover the answer, one must look to the earliest centuries of Christianity.
The hostility of Jewish leaders and the persecution of Roman authorities made it difficult for Christians to frequent places associated with the life of Christ. Moreover, the province of Judea was thrust into turmoil by three revolts against Roman authority in the century following Christ’s ascension (Jerusalem was razed in 70 AD and rebuilt as a Roman city in 135 AD). Nevertheless, the Christians of the Holy Land strove to preserve orally their knowledge of the locations associated with Christ’s life. Their efforts would bear fruit two centuries later.
Born of humble parentage in the middle of the third century in Asia Minor, St. Helena married an ambitious Roman soldier named Constantius and bore him a son, Constantine, in 272 AD. Though Constantius, who eventually became emperor, cast aside his wife for a more advantageous match, his son nevertheless remained faithful to her. When Constantine himself became the first Christian emperor of Rome, he honored his mother with the title of ‘Augusta’ and converted her to Christianity. The saint took to her new religion zealously, impressing her contemporaries with her abundant virtue.
When Constantine conquered the eastern half of the Roman Empire in 323 AD, at long last, Christians in the Holy Land could worship openly. In thanksgiving for his successes, the emperor ordered a number of churches be built with public funds at Christian sites throughout the Levant.
Despite being well into her seventies, St. Helena burned with a desire to walk the ground her Savior’s feet had trodden. Shortly after the Council of Nicaea, she set out on a pilgrimage to pray for her son and grandchildren, visiting numerous churches and bishops along the way and generously aiding the needy. However, she found that some holy places had been forgotten, while others were occupied by pagan temples to discourage worship. In Jerusalem, the site of the Lord’s burial had been itself buried under a mound of earth and surmounted by a temple to Venus; St. Helena ordered the temple razed, the earth removed, and a monumental church erected on the site.
The cross, too, had been hidden by the Jews, cast into a ditch or well and covered over. Moved by the Holy Spirit, St. Helena had sought it during her pilgrimage. Upon reaching Jerusalem, she prayed that the cross might not remain hidden and, lo and behold, three crosses were found among the rubble heaped over Holy Sepulchre.
Identifying the True Cross by its inscription, St. Helena rejoiced and sent the nails to her son, one for his crown and another for his bridle, a reminder, according to St. Ambrose, that rulers must be mindful of Christ and, by His grace, curb their appetites. St. Helena and St. Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, confirmed the identity of the cross by laying it alongside the body of a dying man, who miraculously recovered.
St. Helena died shortly after returning to Rome at the age of eighty. The church she ordered constructed over the Holy Sepulchre was completed in 335 AD and dedicated on September 14, when the cross was brought outside for the veneration of the faithful. St. Helena’s discovery of the cross and the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre have been celebrated jointly from the fourth century onward.
Medieval and Renaissance depictions of religious events are often, at first glance, puzzling: Christ is shown teaching not on the shore of Galilee but along the coast of Geneva, with its mountains and gothic spires; the martyrs tormented not by Roman centurions but Italian condottierri. Surely the artists knew better! In fact, most of them did. Yet they wished to impress upon their viewers that sacred history is not mythology: the gospels and the lives of the saints describe real events that happened to real people, as real as the windmills of Holland or the towns of the Rhineland.
Similarly, today’s feast and the life of St. Helena remind us of the fullness of Christ’s Incarnation: the Lord is not merely a tale told to children, nor simply a concept bandied about by theologians. Rather, in partaking of our humanity, He shared in our particularity. He lived not once upon a time, but at that time; not somewhere, but there; and He suffered, not in the abstract, but concretely, upon a cross, the fragments of which the faithful can venerate to this day. St. Helena, pray for us that we may never forget the historicity of Christ.”
Love,
Matthew
Summa Catechetica, "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam." – St Anselm, "“Si comprehendus, non est Deus.” -St Augustine, "Let your religion be less of a theory, and more of a love affair." -G.K. Chesterton, “When we pray we speak to God; but when we read, God speaks to us.” -St Jerome, "As the reading of bad books fills the mind with worldly and poisonous sentiments; so, on the other hand, the reading of pious works fills the soul with holy thoughts and good desires." -St. Alphonsus Liguori, "And above all, be on your guard not to want to get anything done by force, because God has given free will to everyone and wants to force no one, but only proposes, invites and counsels." –St. Angela Merici, “Yet such are the pity and compassion of this Lord of ours, so desirous is He that we should seek Him and enjoy His company, that in one way or another He never ceases calling us to Him . . . God here speaks to souls through words uttered by pious people, by sermons or good books, and in many other such ways.” —St. Teresa of Avila, "I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men and women who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, and who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity… I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism, and where lie the main inconsistencies and absurdities of the Protestant theory.” -St. John Henry Newman, “Duties of Catholics Towards the Protestant View,” Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England, "We cannot always have access to a spiritual Father for counsel in our actions and in our doubts, but reading will abundantly supply his place by giving us directions to escape the illusions of the devil and of our own self-love, and at the same time to submit to the divine will.” —St. Alphonsus Ligouri, "The harm that comes to souls from the lack of reading holy books makes me shudder . . . What power spiritual reading has to lead to a change of course, and to make even worldly people enter into the way of perfection." –St. Padre Pio, "Screens may grab our attention, but books change our lives!" – Word on Fire, "Don't neglect your spiritual reading. Reading has made many saints!" -St Josemaría Escrivá, "Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you." —St. Jerome, from his Letter 22 to Eustochium, "Encounter, not confrontation; attraction, not promotion; dialogue, not debate." -cf Pope Francis, "God here speaks to souls through…good books“ – St Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, "You will not see anyone who is really striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading. And as to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed by his progress.” -St Athanasius, "To convert someone, go and take them by the hand and guide them." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP. 1 saint ruins ALL the cynicism in Hell & on Earth. “When we pray we talk to God; when we read God talks to us…All spiritual growth comes from reading and reflection.” -St Isidore of Seville, “Also in some meditations today I earnestly asked our Lord to watch over my compositions that they might do me no harm through the enmity or imprudence of any man or my own; that He would have them as His own and employ or not employ them as He should see fit. And this I believe is heard.” -GM Hopkins, SJ, "Only God knows the good that can come about by reading one good Catholic book." — St. John Bosco, "Why don't you try explaining it to them?" – cf St Peter Canisius, SJ, Doctor of the Church, Doctor of the Catechism, "Already I was coming to appreciate that often apologetics consists of offering theological eye glasses of varying prescriptions to an inquirer. Only one prescription will give him clear sight; all the others will give him at best indistinct sight. What you want him to see—some particular truth of the Faith—will remain fuzzy to him until you come across theological eye glasses that precisely compensate for his particular defect of vision." -Karl Keating, "The more perfectly we know God, the more perfectly we love Him." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP, ST, I-II,67,6 ad 3, “But always when I was without a book, my soul would at once become disturbed, and my thoughts wandered." —St. Teresa of Avila, "Let those who think I have said too little and those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough thank God with me." –St. Augustine, "Without good books and spiritual reading, it will be morally impossible to save our souls." —St. Alphonsus Liguori "Never read books you aren't sure about. . . even supposing that these bad books are very well written from a literary point of view. Let me ask you this: Would you drink something you knew was poisoned just because it was offered to you in a golden cup?" -St. John Bosco " To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer." —St. Thomas Aquinas, OP. "Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us. Both are good when both are possible. Otherwise, prayer is better than reading." –St. Isidore of Seville “The aid of spiritual books is for you a necessity.… You, who are in the midst of battle, must protect yourself with the buckler of holy thoughts drawn from good books.” -St. John Chrysostom
