…the Siege of Jerusalem, the major event of the First Jewish-Roman War, entered its final phase: occupation and plundering. The Temple had been destroyed about a week earlier. (For once, the image that is above, which is the default image for my posts, is spot on. The Dome of the Rock/Al-Aqsa Mosque, the prominent gold roof atop the walls, is where the Temple used to be.) This had come after months of siege, which had reduced the city to absolute mayhem and despair, which included cannibalism.
It’s suspected that stones from the Temple were put into the Roman monument memorializing the event, the Arch of Titus.
In 878, Pope John VIII was busy crowning Louis the Stammerer as King of West Francia. Yep, that was his name. This was Louis’ second crowning, for some odd reason, as King of West Francia. He’d been crowned the previous year in October by the Archbishop of Rheims – Archbishop Hincmar. Presumably, when he succeeded his younger brother – Charles the Child – as King of Aquitaine, he was also crowned. Later on, King Louis the Stammerer, who was never emperor for some other odd reason, gave a few counties of his kingdom away to – Wilfred the Hairy. With his second wife, he had a child born after his death who was the eventual heir to the throne after his older brothers died: Charles the Simple.
In 1159, Pope Alexander III was elected, though he had to deal with an anti-pope (Victor IV – one of FOUR anti-popes during his reign) who for a while commanded the allegiance of most European kings. (Alexander wept openly at the news of Victor’s death and allegedly scolded the cardinals who were happy about it.) His papacy lasted just under 21 years. His reign oversaw the controversy around St. Thomas Beckett and King Henry II. He canonized Beckett, too.
This is an excellent film, despite some liberties begin taken with the history. The anathema scene is particularly good – starts around 1:27:33.
This was the second Englishman he canonized, the first having been Edward the Confessor. He also convened and led the Third Lateran Council, which settled on a canon that to this day regulates conclaves (2/3 majority votes). Alexander was quite interested in the missions as well, especially in Scandinavia and the Baltic region.
In 1630, the city of Boston was established. Go Red Sox.
In the Wild West of Northfield, Minnesota, on this day in 1876, Jesse James and his James-Younger Gang tried to rob a bank but were thwarted by heavily armed townsfolk. Yee-haw!
In 1901, the Boxer Rebellion ended in the Qing Dynasty (China).
On a cheerier note, 20 years later (1921), the Legion of Mary was founded in Dublin. Today it is the largest lay apostolate in the world. Maybe there is even a chapter at your local parish!
On the very same day, the first annual Miss America pageant began.
Moving to Africa, Desmond Tutu became the first black man to lead the Anglican Diocese of Cape Town in 1986. On the same day, the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was almost assassinated by Communists – 5 of his bodyguards died. Exactly ten years later in 1996, hip-hop phenom Tupac Shakur was shot. He died 6 days afterward.
In 2008, the US federal government took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, during the recession occasioned by the housing bubble caused by sub-prime mortgages. Here’s a great rundown of that whole catastrophe.
After two previous posts on this topic, I am about ready to wrap it up. My first post, my most popular ever, still retains its value. I did a follow up post responding to a critique, and there is a response to that post. Unfortunately, that second response was intellectually lazy, and, seemingly, just a cop-out which amounted to – “he made some straw men, but I won’t say how, it’s too hard.” Well… Okay then. Disappointing – and also revealing. Read for yourselves to judge and see if that’s really the case. I tried to be quite fair. Anyways, consider this my final word on the matter.
The problem of canonicity is probably the most basic problem for Sola Scriptura. That is, how do we know what books are Scripture in the first place? I submit that there are only 4 ways to answer this question, period.
Scripture is not a rule of faith, so it doesn’t matter (held by non-Christians)
One is bound to be personally wise/holy enough to know intuitively which texts are Scripture (held by nobody)
We have a fallible collection of infallible books (a deeply problematic pretzel of a position held by major Protestant scholar R. C. Sproul – again, how do we know that these books are infallible in the first place, and why would God leave some infallible texts outside our use and possibly allow some fallible texts to show up in what we call the Bible?)
There is an authority external to Scripture which determines what is Scripture and what is not, thus undermining the position that Scripture alone is the entire rule of faith, as if an authority can define what is contained in Scripture, it follows that it is a parallel teaching authority (held by Catholics, Orthodox, etc., and, ironically, in practice held by Martin Luther, who presumed to create his own canon, prompting Trent’s definition of the canon)
With regard to #4, one would struggle to explain how and why an authority external to Scripture would exist solely to define the canon and not also be able to interpret its contents without error. It just does not sound very much like the God of Christianity: “Here’s a book, good luck.” And here we go into the problem of anarchy, which I described in my first post… each is left to his own devices, with many people with contrary positions claiming the support of Scripture and even that they are being instructed from within by the Holy Spirit that “x” is true and not “y.” It’s like we’ve returned to the time of the Judges, when “there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own mind.”
That’s it. If anyone can show me how this point – just this one – falls apart, I will return to this topic. But that’s about all I have to say on it. For more, see here.
In case you missed it, there was a debate hosted recently by Catholic Answers between their head apologist Jimmy Akin and biblical skeptic Bart Ehrman. It is worth a watch.
I really noticed a pattern in Ehrman’s comments/critiques – which is a certain sort of myopia. Take the example of Luke “only saying Jesus appeared in Jerusalem” – of course that is not a contradiction with the other Resurrection accounts. It would be contradictory, or more contradictory, to say that Jesus “only appeared in Jerusalem.” It is a hermeneutic of suspicion to such an extent that it is truly baffling how Ehrman can be taken seriously by so many people. We can and should pray for him.
The Luke 24 verse they get into a tussle over is interesting but also easily explained by the “summation” style… “On the 21st of March in 1988, I was born in California. Then I was a lifeguard at the local pool. And I went to college in New York City.” We do not need to assume that all of these three things happened on March 21, 1988. Nor do we need to assume that everything that is happening in the second part of Luke 24 is all happening on the same day as the appearance after the two disciples’ return from Emmaus.
The Sea of Galilee is a very important symbol in the Gospels. Briefly, it stands for the possibility of life – with the Jordan River running southward to the Dead Sea (“not life”), close to which we find the Baptismal Site (hidden in the valley which is the lowest point on planet Earth). To the west is the Land of Promise, to the east are the Nations, especially Assyria and Persia. Canaan was also initially entered from the east bank, after the Exodus from Egypt. It should then be no surprise that the Word habitually enjoys hovering over the waters of Galilee – by natural means (like a boat) and by supernatural means (like without a boat!) – and exercising power over the life hiding in the darkness beneath.
In John’s Gospel, we find the strange and stirring encounter with the apostles by the shore of the Sea of Galilee after the Resurrection. There are many signs, but let’s focus today on just a few.
The first thing to note is that Greek has two words for “life” – bios (like “biology”), which means physical or bodily life, and zoe (like “zoology”), which means something more like a fulfillment of one’s purpose in possessing physical life, some kind of spiritual “living-ness.” When the Lord claims to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life, He uses the word “zoe,” not “bios.” (John 14:6)
The Sea of Galilee was and still is a real means of supporting physical life, but merely chasing after sustenance is not what human beings exist for. Mere bios is not worth the effort and eventually becomes futile – we need zoe. As it turns out, the same Lord Who controls the weather and fish in the Sea of Galilee is zoe itself. What is merely biologically alive can and ought to become spiritually alive as well in Christ. We see this symbolized by the fish in the Sea of Galilee.
The Lord has fish already cooking on the beach, though only just a few. As we know, the apostles will haul in a miraculous catch of 153 large fish – a clear sign of the Nations (of which there were reckoned to be 153). The Lord has caught several fish in Canaan during His public ministry – those He is already cooking, perhaps two, maybe symbolizing the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah? – but the main work will be done by the apostles and their successors. They will participate in His grace to help souls come to Him. This approach, after the initial work of “catching” by preaching, pulling souls out of the chaotic darkness of worldly waters, entails a threefold process of initiation and sanctification.
First, the fish are pulled up out of the water, dying to their old life, allowing their nature to be changed in view of something higher which awaits them. This is surely Baptism. Then, the fish are to be cooked in the fire, changing them even further, brightening them and filling them with heat and light. Of course, we can only think of Confirmation. At last, what all of this is for, on the biological level, the fish are consumed, by the Lord… Which is precisely the point of the Eucharist, namely, to be united with Christ in His very Flesh and Blood. (To be sure, that we are eating and drinking Him is no obstacle to Him consuming us as well, though in a different way.)
All of this corresponds rather neatly with the three great ages of the spiritual life as well. From the sea, we have the initial conversion, leaving behind mere biological cares without greater purpose, and even the beginning of purgation. From the fire, we have the continuation of purgation and the entry into illumination and purity. And at the meal, we have union.
Thus, in these few short verses, we see at a minimum a description of the entire mission of the Church, a catechesis on the Jews and Gentiles, a theology of the Sacraments of Initiation, and a fundamental outline of the basic pattern of the spiritual life.
For those who are outside of “Church-news world”, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (to oversimplify by some magnitudes – the “doctrine officials” for the Catholic Church) put out a statement not long ago stating that the Church cannot bless same-sex unions, which statement was approved by the Holy Father Pope Francis. This has triggered a number of reactions…
My favorite comment was from Orthodox Jew and conservative political commentator, Ben Shapiro, posting a reply to the AP’s headline on Twitter (March 15)… the line read: “In which we learn that the Catholic Church believes in Catholicism.” This is the most appropriate reaction – it is a “nothingburger,” insofar as there is nothing new here, as even pointed out by a certain archbishop of Chicago. What is newsworthy is that such a statement was made at all, precisely given the fact of its lack of novelty. The impetus, of course, was primarily the “Synodal Path” in Germany.
Other reactions, ranging from shock to anger to sadness to accusations of various types, I submit, should be understood in light of the foregoing. Unless one was truly unaware of the constant teaching of the Church on marriage, sexuality, and sacramentals, the problem likely lies elsewhere, probably deriving from a warped understanding of what the Church is.
The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ. When the Church truly teaches something regarding faith or morals, those data are to be definitively held as true – by the authority of God Himself, in Christ, through His Mystical Body. Surely, many people do not know that this is what the Church sees Herself as – they therefore wonder why the pope doesn’t just “update” Catholicism to suit the tastes of today’s Western progressive elites (or any other group). Such people could use a healthy dose of study on the topics of apostolic succession, papal infallibility, and basic Catholic ecclesiology. This would at least remove some of the surprise when the Church doesn’t “get with the times.” (For what it’s worth, St. Augustine noted similar criticisms of the Church in his own era, some 1,600 years ago.)
The Church is also not a club, or an ethnicity, or a “cultural heritage.” This was much the attitude of many of the Jews whom Our Lord dealt with in the pages of the Gospels. Being a “son of Abraham” in the flesh does not save a person anymore than having went to Catholic school, having been an altar server, having some kind of relationship with the local parish, etc., and yet this is unfortunately what “Catholicism” means to many people who consider themselves to be Catholic. The high priest Caiphas was not really a Jew, you see, or else he would have recognized the coming of the Christ which Judaism is all about.
What is more interesting than the uncatechized and unchurched masses of millennials and Gen-Z’ers having such a negative reaction to a direct reiteration of basic Catholic moral-sacramental teaching is a similar response from clergy. The cloud of priests and bishops trying to do “damage control” on the CDF’s statement are, unfortunately, a great starting point for considering the entrance into Holy Week. Minimizing the necessity of the need to suffer and deny oneself in order to do God’s will is not an admirable impulse in clerics, but it is not a new one either.
We turn to a small group of men gathered around the Lord one day in Caesarea Philippi. In that area, there was a very large rock, under which there was a cave with a spring gushing forth a little stream. This place (close to the Temple of Pan) was considered an entrance into the underworld, where the demons – or pagan deities, especially fertility “gods” – would come up from sometimes, especially in winter. All kinds of sexual perversion took place there in “worship” of these demons. This was all quite well-known.
“Who do others say that I am?” The answers were given – John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the other prophets – a report of empirical observations which anyone could make about what is going on in the world. “Who do you say that I am?” Peter gives his confession of faith: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Flesh and blood did not reveal this, as with the answer to the former question; rather, it was God Who taught it to the blessed soul of Simon bar-Jonah, who is henceforth finally to be known to all as Cephas, Peter, the Rock. The Gates of Hell – as symbolized by the source of the little spring in Caesarea Philippi – will not prevail against the Church, which will rest upon Peter’s public teaching and public ministry, which will bind and loose in the power of the Holy Spirit, unlike the squabbles between the Jewish schools of Hillel and Shammai that were raging at the time, over how to wash one’s hands, how to pick grapes, etc…
Then it all goes south – first metaphorically, then literally, back down toward Jerusalem. Christ begins to speak about the Cross… and we know that Peter, the newly appointed public representative of the Twelve and of the whole Church, immediately fails in his new role, albeit in a semi-private conversation. Peter’s failures continue all the way until the triple-denial of the Lord while in the courtyard, when he finally completes the trajectory of his hope for a worldly messiah who would solve the problems of the day by natural means. Perhaps many are still following this part of Peter, the weak and private side of his life and ministry. It is a hope which will disappoint – there is no Resurrection without death.
Luke gives us the following speech from Christ after Peter’s declaration of faith at Caesarea Philippi. “And He said to all: ‘If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of Me and of My words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes in His glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.'” (Luke 9:23-26)
The Cross awaited the Lord down in Jerusalem, and so too do crosses await for anyone who wishes to follow Him. He said this Himself: “Anyone who does not pick up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.” (Luke 14:27; Matthew 10:38) And those who counsel the would-be followers of the Lord to avoid their crosses do no better than Peter at Caesarea Philippi. It was the Devil speaking through Peter that day. We know this not only from the words of Christ’s rebuke (“Get behind Me, Satan!”), but also from the experience already had by the Lord in the desert… He was tempted by Satan to jump from the Temple and fly around Jerusalem to coerce belief in His power by an open miracle, as opposed to the signs He worked in hidden ways (in the chaos of a crowd, in the obscurity of a storm, etc.), before dying and rising. No – the Cross must be endured… no short cuts, no softening of the blows, and no way out. Those who climb over the fence instead of going through the gate are robbers and thieves. (John 10:1) Here, on the Cross, the desires of the body must be denied, even the desire for biological life itself. And yet in giving up biological life, a higher life is obtained. With this consideration we can begin to enter into the heart of the Paschal Mystery… This is what Holy Week is the platform for.
The rebukes that the disciples will receive after the Resurrection are accusations of not having understood the teaching of the Scriptures that “the Son of Man must suffer and so enter into His glory.” The disciples were not stupid – but something blocked their minds nonetheless. There is some kind of willful blindness, both in reading the Scriptures and even listening to the Lord directly. One is inclined to make a connection between the darkness of the minds of the Apostles before the Resurrection and the failure of “academically sophisticated” clergy who either cannot understand that unnatural sexual acts are horrible offenses against the Creator, cannot make the clear distinction between blessing a person and blessing a relationship which constitutes and is even centered upon a near occasion of sin (a distinction which the CDF document went out of its way to stress), or both.
All who wish to explain away or even merely compromise the clear teaching of the Church on any number of moral imperatives often take up where the Devil left off in the desert and where Peter left off at Caesarea Philippi. The Devil gave good arguments for taking an easier way – “Use your power to eat and to feed many forever, to appear openly without suffering, to make a compromise to gain everything in the world…” The Devil used argumentation based on Scripture. He was quite sophisticated and apparently reasonable. And yet he was and is a liar.
A road that is wide and easy is rarely the way through the Cross, even if that road is “synodal” or claims to be “merciful,” “accompanying,” “pastoral,” and so on. The gate to life is narrow and the road to life is hard. (Matthew 7:14) Christ alone is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. (John 14:6) Those who wish to be saved from everlasting death must enter into the Lord through His Cross, the new “doorpost and lintel,” marked with the Blood of the Lamb, the Blood of the New Covenant. (Exodus 12:7) It is a gate that is narrow – our many sins and attachments cannot fit through but must be left behind… and yet it is a wide gate as well, ready to welcome all, Jew and Gentile both. And the “burden” of virtuous living is an easy one to carry for those who love the Lord as a true friend. (Matthew 11:30) True pastors encourage souls to carry their crosses and help them to do so – one gets the idea today that the opposite is the case: that the role of the priest is to convince souls they do not need to carry crosses, at least not “moral crosses,” and to help them put those crosses down.
We must not be ashamed of our Friend, or His Word, or His Cross, even if we gain the whole world thereby. We must follow Him all the way to Golgotha – a place where the Lord alone satisfies and where Divine Love was shown even more than on Mount Tabor, in the Transfiguration which directly followed the failure of Peter at Caesarea Philippi. To be deprived of Tabor is frustrating… but to be deprived of Golgotha is the ultimate tragedy.
The time for protests, petitions, and pressers will soon be at an end. Eternity will not allow for “nuanced” debates, and all souls will be utterly helpless before their destinies, then sealed forever. In the end, the Church and Her Faith will prevail. She will identify the demons that have crept up from the underworld and roam the Earth, and She will confess the Deity and Lordship of the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, Who will have all subjected to Himself. (1 Corinthians 15:28) Today, then, is the day – “Repent, and believe in the Gospel!” You can carry the cross which the Lord Himself has handed to you – and it is the only way to true happiness in this life, and it is the only way to everlasting glory in the next.
A blessed Holy Week to all my readers, near and far.
Do you remember the Amazon Synod? Well, it seems it failed to give certain people what they wanted: widespread married priests in the Latin Church. Of all the many arguments made in both directions, one consideration in favor of the discipline deserves our full attention today.
It is not that of economics, though the problems of time and energy and money are real. “But the East does it, so why can’t we?” Well, never mind that they have been doing this a long time and have gotten used to it, but the real question is: why are there so few Eastern Catholics? It’s because their priests are typically not very free for mission work, for frequent mobility, for constant preaching and teaching… due to marriage. They cannot nearly as easily embrace the faithful as fathers, because they have a biological family. They are not as available in their ministries as celibates, even though they are certainly valuable ministries nonetheless.
It is not that of the eschatological sign of celibacy. Though this is certainly powerful – one knows that the Catholic priest is different, in part because of this. He is a counter-cultural symbol. And to “cave” on this is to give up a massive moral authority over a world which the Church seeks to convert, a world which, to reiterate, stands in need of missionaries who are not tied down by the demands of domestic life.
The reason of reasons is neither of these important things. Rather, it is contemplation.
I was reading up a bit just the other day on the Carthusians. You may have heard of them because of a famous documentary which took 21 years to make. Well, they do exist, and they are a nice starting point for the discussion. What exactly is the point of Carthusian life? What do they do all day? Why don’t they go preach and hear confessions or even at least allow for retreats in their monasteries? They walk into the mountains, live practically alone in a room for their entire lives, and don’t hardly even communicate with the outside world at all except when absolutely necessary.
The Order explains it bluntly: the only goal of Carthusian life is the contemplation of God.
After all, “Mary has chosen the better part, and it shall not be taken from her.” (Luke 10:42) Apostolic activity is good, and it is even necessary in a way, but it is not the best thing to do absolutely speaking, and it is not, ultimately, the most necessary thing to do either. The higher thing is to meet God face to face – the real “one thing necessary.”
We bracket here the question of apostolic life that comes from an “overflow” of contemplation… In fact, from my reading of Thomas, it seems the objectively highest vocation for him is to be a bishop freed from administration, living in a hermitage under religious vows, who occasionally comes into public to preach and administer the sacraments out of an abundance of mystical illumination from the depths of his prayer. Not exactly the norm – but the argument is strong. And its strength comes in part from his doctrine on the contemplative life, a doctrine which beautifully matches his teaching on the ascetical (“penitential”) life. Let’s dive in with Thomas on fasting. (And no – St. Thomas Aquinas was not “fat,” or at least not large from overeating. Stay tuned for a post on that in a few weeks.)
There are three purposes for fasting, and by extension, other ascetical practices. First, to do penance in reparation for sin. By taking on some small pains, we atone for what wrong we have done, thus alleviating some of our due punishment (greatly aided by the Church’s generosity in granting indulgences). Second, fasting is for cooling the passions. It is really difficult to be pining after a beautiful woman if you are really hungry. (And this is not the only good trick to help with chastity, as I’ve explored elsewhere.) Third, we fast to elevate our minds to God. The passions being cooled allows for the mind to be freed of preoccupation with the lower things and to move instead to higher things, such as meditation on the Passion, or a consideration of the meaning of our lives in the light of eternity, to examine our consciences clearly, to think on the love of God and the Mysteries of the Life of Christ… and simply to be attentive to God with an habitual, loving gaze, longing for Him and His Will, no matter how distasteful it may be to our lower appetites. This is the Wisdom which comes from the Cross, which is where perfect freedom was and is still. Christ, though physically tormented – and even physically trapped – manifested the highest degree of personal freedom on the Cross. By draining Himself of all earthly desires, He fully and completely accomplished an act of superabundant charity in accord with the Will of the Father Who had sent Him for this precise purpose. And, though physically trapped, we must remember that every moment was nonetheless chosen deliberately and without constraint; indeed, He could have come down if He had willed to. This is the pattern for growth in discipleship – to deny the lower self in favor of uniting the higher self with God, to do His Will for its own sake, and for its own sake alone. Contemplation is the highest part of our mind dwelling on the Almighty God, a quiet foretaste of the exhilarating enthrallment of Heaven.
Astute readers will notice an opening for the teaching of St. John of the Cross to sneak in. While John certainly is valuable in many ways, I would suggest that his specific teaching on the active purgation (“doing penance/fasting/deprivations,” especially in order to initiate the first passive purgation or “dark night of the senses”) is a bit too narrow or strict, even if rhetorically helpful when set alongside the more moderate approach of Thomas. In fact, Thomas seems to say precisely this, in a roundabout way, both in his teaching on the usefulness of marriage (which John seems to have been rather suspicious of, given his comment in Ascent of Mount Carmel that the married ought to be “perplexed” by the lack of a higher vocation) and in his critique of the Stoics, the Greek philosophical sect that disdained the enjoyment of any physical pleasures. We should recall that this was a very hot topic for Thomas, as the Albigensian heresy was not yet dead… This made it all the more necessary to stress the goodness of the physical world and its proper use, yes, even of physical pleasures.
However, despite his mockery of the Stoic doctrine – which he says nobody follows anyway, including the teachers of such things – Thomas insists on the usefulness of asceticism for the sake of better contemplation. This is a function not of physical pleasures being “bad,” nor of suffering or deprivation being “good” on their own, but because of the brokenness of human nature in the context of the body-soul composite. Physical pleasures drag the mind toward the things from which they derive, thus tending to drag the mind away from God, unless, as John rightly points out in Book I of Dark Night of the Soul, they are enjoyed precisely on account of elevating the mind to God, a point which St. Paul himself indicates should come through the mode of thanksgiving, in 1 Timothy 4:1-5: “We are expressly told by inspiration that, in later days, there will be some who abandon the faith, listening to false inspirations, and doctrines taught by the devils. They will be deceived by the pretensions of impostors, whose conscience is hardened as if by a searing-iron. Such teachers bid them abstain from marriage, and from certain kinds of food, although God has made these for the grateful enjoyment of those whom faith has enabled to recognize the truth. All is good that God has made, nothing is to be rejected; only we must be thankful to him when we partake of it, then it is hallowed for our use by God’s blessing and the prayer which brings it.”
But that much gratitude is difficult to keep up. In many cases, it is better to forego the pleasures entirely rather than count on having a perpetual habit of thanksgiving, which is certainly as laudable of a goal as it is an unreachable one, especially over a long period of time, wherein one becomes habituated to the use of pleasures, especially in marriage, and may even grow a bit entitled in spirit. Even barring this, one’s mind will nevertheless still be pulled down by the mere fact of the energy of the intellect and will being drained in the use of intense pleasures with any kind of frequency. It is not immoral, it is simply not ideal.
However, the flip side is that many do not have the gifts to give up certain pleasures in favor of contemplation – a point running somewhat contrary to the spirit of John’s teaching – and this attempt can even become the sin of presumption (against magnanimity by excess, not against hope by excess). The one whose mind is dragged down even more by the lack of certain licit pleasures, such as in marriage, after some attempt at getting above this struggle, is in fact better off resigning to weakness, at least for the time being. By a moderate use of these pleasures, he will free his mind more than he was able to without their use. The fixation will disappear, and he can move on with life, including in prayer, and perhaps later on he can go higher up if there is occasion, for instance, by a mutual agreement to live in perpetual continence with his spouse.
This brings us almost all the way to the point. It belongs to the priest especially to know God, and the things of God, and to judge well as an administrator and spiritual father. This requires the sharpest and freest of minds. This means, first of all, that priests should be doing a lot of fasting and other penances. It also means that they should be free of the weight of the pleasures of marriage, ideally freed from the married state altogether (which perhaps relates more to availability than to contemplation, though it still does free the mind of the activities proper to domestic concerns).
The capital vices (the “seven deadly sins”) each have “daughters” – these are other vices or sins which tend to flow from the capital vices. The capital vice of gluttony, opposed by abstinence (moderation in food and normal drink) and especially by fasting (which is an act of infused temperance properly speaking), has five daughters: unseemly joy, scurrility or foolish manners, loquaciousness, uncleanness/pollution, and dullness of mind as regards the understanding. This doesn’t mean that enjoying food is sinful, but even a lot of licit enjoyment of food will tend towards these unfortunate actions… The last one is especially pertinent, namely, dullness of mind as regards the understanding. The daughters of lust, we should note, are eight: blindness of mind, thoughtlessness, inconstancy, rashness, narcissism, hatred of God, love of this world, and hatred or despair of the world to come. Again, several of these relate directly to the well-functioning of the rational part of the soul with respect to contemplation… especially blindness of mind.
The dull and blind in mind have a hard time understanding spiritual things without a lot of help. Their attention is too focused on worldly pleasures – even licit ones – to be easily elevated to the world of the spirit.
Where are all the discussions about this, I wonder?
The great Carthusian dictum is true: “Stat crux dum volvitur orbis.” The Cross is still, while the world turns. If we want spiritual fathers who are “alter Christi,” “other Christs,” then conformity with the unchanging dynamic of the Cross, at least in a basic way, is of the utmost importance. As we see, the availability for ministry is only a part of the equation. What does one bring into his ministry without easy access to the deeper kind of contemplation which is generally only available to the celibate? The flesh must be brought into subjection – crucified, as it were – so that spiritual strength and power may lead the priest into the wisdom proper to his office as a teacher, judge, intercessor, and administrator. For, “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.” (1 Corinthians 1:23-25) Let the world have its misguided opinions about clerical celibacy – for they have such opinions about the Cross, too. And let the Church stand as still as the Cross, while the world continues to turn.
Here’s a one-minute Gospel reflection for you today.
We read the Parable of the Wedding Feast at Mass…
The one who shows up without a wedding garment is rejected in the following way:
“How did you get in here, my friend, without a wedding garment?” And the man was silent. Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot and throw him out into the dark, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.” For many are called, but few are chosen.
The Last Supper Discourses in John give us the great “turn” from servile fear to filial or reverential fear, acknowledged by Christ in the words (John 15:15), “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
We know that Judas is among them. Now watch (Matthew 26: 48-50):
Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him. Jesus replied, “Do what you came for, friend.”
Friend. Where is your wedding garment? How did you get in here? I can no longer even call you a servant. You do not know the gift of the Eucharist, you do not know my love, you do not know the Church. You have no virtue, no love for me. You have no wedding garment, you bring the world in with you instead of purity. Friend… The darkness and pain which you lead me to this terrible night, you yourself will experience forever. If only you had loved me… You have not learned what my Father has given me to teach. Friend… You will indeed taste the Eucharist, as your lips touch my sacred Blood pouring already from my face. But it is to your shame. You are not prepared for the Banquet… Friend… Friend…
Just as David wept for Absalom, so does Christ sorrow over every soul that is lost, even the most wicked. “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!” (2 Samuel 18:33)
He is always a Friend to us… Even if we are far from Him, He is always close to us.
In my License thesis (on socialism and how it is so very unlike Christian charity), I had a small section on the gifts of the resurrection. Why? Well, in the context of my essay I wanted to show how the various socialist action-items are not only fulfilled but surpassed in Heaven… instead of merely recovering Eden and its preternatural gifts, which we cannot do, we get something even better. I would suppose that not many people even know that there are such gifts in the resurrection; and I know for a fact that many people struggle with this seemingly strange doctrine in the first place, namely, that after we die, our flesh will in fact be reanimated when Christ returns to judge the living and the dead. So, in this post, I will go through a few points: first, the basic doctrine and its metaphysical fittingness; second, why this doctrine is so important and is actually much easier to believe than it appears; and third, a very short description of and reflection on the gifts of the resurrection.
The Article of Faith – gravely binding upon the conscience, to be believed by anyone taking the name of Christian – is stated in the Creed: “I believe . . . in the resurrection of the body.” This doctrine has extremely sound Scriptural foundations, in the Old Testament, in the Gospels, and in the Epistles, especially in the preaching of Paul (including in Acts). We will limit ourselves to mentioning only a few passages. First, the Vision of the Dry Bones in Ezekiel 37. Second, the dialogue of Christ with the Sadducees in Matthew 22. Third, Paul’s preaching in 1 Corinthians 15. This list could be multiplied… It is a clear doctrine of Sacred Scripture. This eschatological hope was implanted too in those true believing Jews from of old – as we see from the words of Martha in John 11:24 before her brother Lazarus is raised – and the doctrine was taught very firmly in the early Church by the Fathers. The doctrine means that when Christ returns to judge the living and the dead, the souls of the dead will receive their flesh again and have biological life, just like Jesus did – and just like those who rose with Him and appeared to people in the Holy City of Jerusalem. (We forget about that incident – we shouldn’t. Nobody would make this stuff up. See Matthew 27:52-53.)
The general resurrection makes sense of the reality of the human being. The immortality of the soul is demonstrable from natural reason; in short, the immaterial powers of the soul (the intellect and will) cannot come from the body and therefore cannot be destroyed by the body’s corruption. But we are more than souls, we are a body-soul composite. We are not souls trapped in bodies, ghosts condemned to dwell in a puppet-like mechanism until we finally escape… We most certainly do not become angels, which are beings who never had flesh and never will. No, we are really made from the dust of the Earth, as Genesis 2 teaches, and so the body is a good thing made by a Good God which is integral to what we are. The Manichaeans, the Albigensians, and the Buddhists are wrong. So, it seems appropriate that God would want to give us our bodies for eternity, seeing as He bothered to give them to us in the first place. Finally, we are what we eat – and if we are receiving the Lord in the Eucharist, which is Him in the Resurrection, well, we are united already with Him in this way. It is the “pledge of future glory” which the prayer “O Sacrum Convivium” speaks of…
So much for the doctrine. Why is it so easy to believe? First, God never lies and is never confused. Fair enough – to believe God is the fundamental aspect of faith – but what is there to help us “grip onto” this teaching? Well, the same God Who teaches it gave us the reassurance of it by His own Resurrection. He also raised up His dear Mother – who makes appearances, sometimes to large crowds, such as at Pontmain or Fatima.
On a theoretical level, it is “easier” to raise the dead than to create a new human. We have grown so familiar with the latter that it seems utterly boring, but the truth is that it is an utterly “strange” thing: the soul is made from nothing by an act of pure power, while blind matter is organized by a complex process into a body with the disposition to receive that soul. In short, God makes the new human when there was no human. At the resurrection, God makes something from something only; He takes the parts and puts them back together. He did it the first time without you existing at all, so why is it so hard for Him to do it when you already exist? It’s not. It’s “easier,” even, though all things are easy for God.
Finally, a short description and reflection on the gifts of the resurrection, which are derived from what we know of Christ’s glorified and risen Body. If God is going to raise up our bodies, certainly these strange and wonderful things are no difficulty at all for Him. First, immortality (or impassibility). This speaks for itself… We will no longer be subject to death or bodily corruption of any kind. Second, subtlety (or subtility). Just like Christ, Who appeared in the Upper Room when the doors were locked, our bodies will no longer be bound by physical barriers. Third, agility. Again, like Christ, we can appear here and there quickly. Fourth, clarity. Like the “pre-vision” of the Risen Christ in the Transfiguration, our bodies will be filled with light (like Moses’ face, which needed to be veiled – or like other saints who had such luminescence, which phenomenon makes sense of the “halo”).
We will be less like dust from which our bodies were made, more like air; closer to God, further from the ground from which we will rise. We will be powerful and glorious, not only in spirit but in body. Nothing will hold us back… nothing will contain the joy of our soul, not even the natural limitations of “normal” bodily life. Having surpassed mere “bios,” the life of the body, we will be living in full “zoe,” the life of the spirit, fully subjecting the body to that happiness and conformity with the Will of God in which we will find our constant delight and peace. We will be completely free in our total selves.
See Part 1 here – it is really hard to jump in without at least seeing Part 1 (Question 27).
We are looking now at Question 28. Article 1 regards the question of whether there are real relations in God (there are); Article 2 is about whether the relations are the Divine Essence (they are); Article 3 is on the distinction of the relations between each other (they are really distinct); Article 4 asks whether there are four relations, namely, paternity, filiation, spiration, and procession (there are only these four).
Article 1 has a clear opponent, as stated in the “sed contra”: Sabellianism. If there are not real relations in God, then there are only relations in our way of understanding God. That would mean God only “appears” as Father, or as Son, or as Holy Spirit, depending on how we encounter God, but that God is not actually these Three in reality. But what does it mean for there to be relations in God, Who is absolutely simple, with no parts whatsoever? This is the point of Article 1… it’s not a simple text, so let’s go through it carefully.
The first thing that is done is to describe what exactly “relation” is to begin with. Nerds will recall that relation is one of the 9 genera of accidents set forth in Aristotle’s Categories, the others being quantity, quality, habitus, time, location, situation, action, and passion. Relation is that which signifies regard to another. The stone has a relation with the Earth (or rather with bodies in general), which is its inclination to move towards the center. The son has a real relation to his father, but not to a tree, at least not in the same way (procession of the same nature – man from man… there is a kind of relation by position as well, or by action and passion, such as being on this side of a tree, or touching the tree, etc., but this kind of relation more “formal” than “accidental” – but we are getting ahead of ourselves). The man also has a relation to animality (that is, “animal-ness” as an idea, or as a genus), which is that he is a part of that genus. This is a logical relation, not a real relation, because the genus as such does not even exist really except in its individual instantiations, like in “this animal.” So it is something which the mind does – it pulls apart these ideas and compares them. This is quite unlike the man in relation to his father, or the stone in relation to the Earth – these are relations inherent in the things themselves, and thus they are real relations. The Persons have (or are) real relations because the Son and the Holy Spirit proceed from principles of the same nature (the Divine Essence), which is analogous to the man and his father who generated the other man who is his son (both are men). The Son is really from the Father, and the Holy Spirit is really from the Father and the Son. It’s not just a way of speaking.
The Objections are difficult, but worth a shot.
Objection 1 quotes Boethius’ De Trinitate (a strikingly short but rather dense text), where he seems to deny relation in God. Thomas makes a fine distinction developed out of the body of the answer (which, to be honest, seems to depart a bit from Aristotle… but I digress and am probably wrong anyway). Relation exists in God in a way that is not “inherently towards something else” (viz., creatures), but only denotes “regard to another,” viz., one Person with respect to another Person. This is unlike creatures in relation to God, and unlike mere logical relations which only exist in our way of thinking.
Objection 2 again quotes Boethius, saying that God’s relations are relations of “the same to the same,” but since “the same” is only a logical relation (because we have to create a mental image of a thing being related to itself in order to grasp the idea), it seems that only logical relations exist in God. Well, of course, Boethius himself is not looking to deny real relations in God, and Thomas distinguishes between that which is absolutely and numerically the same and that which is the same according to a genus or species. In this “genus,” God, there are three Persons, related in a certain sense like three men – there are three, but they are all “man,” which is one specific substance, or all “animal,” which is one generic substance. Of course, the difference with the Trinity is that there is only one God numerically (unlike with the three men who are three persons), so the comparison is only partial.
Objection 3 compares and contrasts God’s relation to creatures (which is only a logical relation, as God in no way depends on creatures and exists totally “apart” from them, perfectly subsistent in Himself) and the Father to the Son. The Father and the Son are of the same Divine Nature, unlike creation, so it is a real relation between Them.
Objection 4 is maybe the most interesting. If logical relations are those which only exist in the mind, and the Word is generated by the Divine Intellect, how is there anything but a logical relation? Well, logical relations exist by observation, not by procession. The intellect is real, that which comes from it is also real, so there is real relation between them, just like between a father and a son – or in this case, the Father and the Son.
The question posed by Article 2 sounds bizarre but is quite important for us to consider: are relations in God the same as His Essence? The short answer is, yes. We “adore the distinction of the Persons, and the Equality of Their Majesty,” as the Church’s liturgy teaches us.
The controversy that this Article takes on was all the rage at the time, if I recall correctly. Is the Father “paternal” because of the Son (viz., “Look! This Divine Person has a Son, so He has the quality of paternity from His Son!”), or is the Father “paternal” in Himself (viz. “Look! That is the Father! He must have a Son!”)? Gilbert de la Porrée said the former, Thomas says the latter; Gilbert later retracted his position at Rheims, as Thomas notes.
The Cathedral at Rheims.
There are two ways a relation can be predicated of something (meaning “said” of something). The first way is the way Gilbert exclusively considered… The dog bites the cat, so the dog is in a “biting” relation to the cat, and the cat is in a “bitten” relation to the dog; this is the most formal kind of relation, but it is not the real accident of relation. The accident of relation actually inheres in (or exists in) the subject, like the father’s paternity (“father-ness”) exists in him because of his real relation to his son (by a procession of the same nature – man from man). But God has no accidents in Himself due to His perfect simplicity, so whatever is predicated of God is the same as God, so what would normally be an accidental real relation would be an essential or substantial relation after the manner of an accidental relation. (Confused yet? Take a deep breath and buckle up.) So too, the way a father is related to his son is that of a procession of the same nature which inheres in the father and in the son with regard to each other, viz., a real relation inhering in the subject insofar as it regards another. However, unlike creatures, not only does God not have a real relation to whatever is not God, but God also does not change, and so His Persons are those specific unchanging Persons from all eternity, in all their distinct Personalities – the Father is Father always, and the Son is Son always. So paternity and filiation (“sonship”) do not “happen” but are eternal, therefore inherent to the Father and Son respectively, and therefore are not affixed or “assistant” as a result of some relation. (NB: I am going a bit beyond what Thomas says here.) In the end, the relations are therefore actually what God is Himself in His Persons, though not in His Essence when considered apart from the Persons. What this means is that to know the Divine relations (paternity, filiation, spiration, and procession) is to know the Divine Persons, which is to know the Divine Essence (though the Persons may be spoken of as such rather than as the Divine Essence “in general”), but to know the Divine Essence is insufficient for natural reason (without revelation) to know the relations and the Persons, because to know the Divine Essence from reason alone (without faith) is not to know that there are opposing terms within the Divine Essence (which are signified by the relations).
Objection 1 develops this last point about the Divine Essence and relations being spoken of independently; the relations are the Divine Essence, but they are not spoken of under the mode of substance, as this would imply a relation improper to Divine Simplicity, namely, one unlike a relation of the three men to each other in their nature as men in the relevant sense (identity), more like a stone in relation to the Earth.
Objection 2 sounds more complex than it really is. In creatures, relation exists within the creature, and the creature is more than the relation it possesses (the dog is more than its “biting-ness,” the father is more than the father of his son, the stone is more than its character of being drawn toward the Earth, etc.). In God, this is not so – the relation is the same as the Substance, which is God. But the descriptor “relation” does not exhaust the mystery of what God is – nor is “relation” even used in the normal way, as we have seen.
Objection 3 follows upon the preceding Objection and says that even though relation signifies in some real way what God is, this is not everything that God is (which would be a problem for His perfection, as it would mean God exists in relation to something else entirely, thus not being Self-subsistent and fully actual). God contains all perfections within Himself, as He is their source.
Onto Article 3, a short one which is taking on Sabellianism yet again. This might be one of if not the most important Articles in the entire Treatise. If the relations are all really the Divine Essence (God), wouldn’t they all actually be themselves the same? No, says Boethius, says Thomas, and says the Church. How?
The argument is simple. We have established that there are real relations in God, which have “regard to another.” We have established that the terms of these relations are opposed to one another by the logic of procession (the Intellect generates the Word, the Will spirates the Holy Spirit), which means that there is real relation, as already discussed in Question 27 and the last post in this series. To have real relations means to have opposing terms – a real “from where,” and a real “where to,” so to speak, as we see in processions, including interior processions (i.e. the thought I have of myself is not actually myself). The key is this: that which is really opposed necessarily implies a real distinction. Just as “left” is really distinct from “right,” so too is Intellect distinct from Word, and Will distinct from Love/Spirit/Gift (more on the Names of the Holy Spirit later). The terms are opposed, therefore they are really distinct, while still being contained within the same Substance, viz., God. There’s the Mystery: the fact that there is within this single and perfectly simple Substance, God, a collection of oppositions, thus allowing for real distinctions within God. Three Whos, One What.
The Objections are basically clarifications of this point, so we leave them aside, though they are worth a read.
We’re almost done. Article 4 is asking whether there are only four relations in God – paternity, filiation, spiration, and procession. This Article is curious in that it does not have a “sed contra” but only an opposing wrong answer proposed in the final Objection (5), which, unlike the first four Objections that propose more than four relations, instead argues that there are fewer.
There are only these four relations. Relation can be based either on quantity (like double and half) or based on an action/passion (doing/receiving action, like the dog biting the cat, or even like the human father generating his son who receives being from him). There is no quantity in the Divine Essence, as God is infinite Being. So, the relations must be action/passion. They are the acts of the interior processions, of course, which have already been described: the Intellect generating the Word, and the Will spirating the Holy Spirit. Now, the relations are described “from both ends” as it were – from the origin and the final term (the “beginning” and “end”). It’s clear with the Father and the Son: paternity and filiation. With the Holy Spirit, there is no “normal” vocabulary, so we designate the relation of the principle of the Holy Spirit (the Father and the Son) as “spiration” and the relation of the Holy Spirit to His principle as “procession.”
Objection 1 is worth a look. The argument is that the relation between a mind and its object is a real relation (as with the will and its object which it loves, so the following argument holds also for the Holy Spirit) because they are really different things. So it seems that there are more than four relations in God. But since God is knowing and loving God, the Divine Intellect and Will are the same as their objects (and therefore only logically distinct and logically related, like the way anything is “related to itself”). How then, can there be such diversity in these acts (knowing and loving) as to allow for real relations? Well, the Word is in a real relation by the opposition found in intelligible and interior procession, as described previously… The Word is that by which God understands Himself, which has the real relation, real opposition, and real distinction spoken of earlier, even though the Word is also the Divine Essence, the object of understanding. As described above, the key is the real distinction that is allowed for by the opposition of terms – intellect and word – which leads us to this strange but coherent “both/and” with the Word being both not the object of understanding but the concept by which the object is understood insofar as He is the Word, and as the object of understanding which is God Himself, the Divine Essence.
Objections 2 through 4 deal with some other errors about what counts as relation in God. Objection 5 is our last stop. Isn’t there only one relation between the Father and the Son, a paternal-filial relation? Just as there is one road between Athens and Thebes, it seems there is only this one relation between the Father and the Son. However, we already see the problem in the proposed name for this single relation (which is my own invention, mind you): there are two parts. The human son is not father to his own father, nor is the father son to his own son. While one takes a single road from Athens to Thebes and from Thebes to Athens, you go northwest and southeast respectively. You could say, however, that some things have this “absolute” mutual relation, perhaps like numbers, though we leave this discussion aside. The point is that to describe filiation is not to describe paternity, and this also applies to the spiration-procession relations which are between the Holy Spirit and the Father and the Son.
Whew. We made it. Next time, we finally answer the burning question: what exactly is a person anyway?
Today, a short meditation on the fulfillment of the Old Law and the Prophet Haggai… First, the text of the Gospel of Mark 5:25-34 (also found in Matthew and Luke):
25 Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. 26 She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” 29 Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 He looked all around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
It is a familiar passage, but there is more going on here than meets the eye; in this incident the Prophet Haggai has been “overcome,” or rather, the law which Haggai refers to has been usurped by a superior Legislator. Haggai was sent to encourage the Jews to rebuild the Temple, after they had returned from their exile in Babylon; there was reluctance to do the work out of a kind of spiritual lethargy. He has a short dialogue with the priests about sacrifice and law. Let’s see the text of Haggai 2:10-14
10 On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Haggai: 11 “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Ask the priests what the law says: 12 If someone carries consecrated meat in the fold of their garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, olive oil or other food, does it become consecrated?’” The priests answered, “No.” 13 Then Haggai said, “If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?” “Yes,” the priests replied, “it becomes defiled.” 14 Then Haggai said, “‘So it is with this people and this nation in my sight,’ declares the Lord. ‘Whatever they do and whatever they offer there is defiled.’”
Clearly, the Flesh of Christ is more sacred than “sacred flesh.” Some flesh is sacred by ritual – His Flesh is sacred by nature, and the “order of purity” is reversed.
When faith in Him is offered, and His clothing is touched from that motive, spiritual healing, or forgiveness, comes. What is it to touch His clothing now? It is that which “covers” His Sacred Flesh – that which mediates His Presence, namely, the Sacraments, which lead to the Eucharist, especially Confession. On the Cross, Christ’s side poured forth water and Blood – Baptism and the Eucharist – but He also had His cloak taken from Him. Unlike the veil of the Temple, torn from top to bottom, Christ’s cloak was woven from top to bottom: the one was destroyed by God, the other represents the Sacramental order which one must pass through to reach the Flesh of Christ aside from the waters of Baptism, an order disrespected by those concerned with possessions, with amusement, with going along with what the crowd is doing, despite being right next to the Crucified One – just like the soldiers who gambled for the garment, or even like the masses that pressed up against Christ for motives out of curiosity rather than faith. Simply touching the cloak is not enough, as the crowds and soldiers did; nor even does touching the Flesh suffice, as those who crucified Him did. It must be done in the right way to receive the cleansing power which comes from Him.
To make a good Eucharistic sacrifice, the priest must be clean – so too must we be clean to receive that Flesh, not only washed with Baptism, but also having touched the cloak of Christ in faith to be healed of our spiritual impurity. By entering “through” that “veil” into the New Temple, namely, into the Risen Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ, we can live with the same God Who once dwelt behind the curtain of the Temple, without going all the way to Jerusalem. Power flows forth from Him openly now, for all the nations. Unlike the impure inhabitants of Jerusalem, those who approach the Lord in faith and humility through the Sacraments will be living stones, built up into a spiritual temple, ready to offer sacrifices acceptable to the Father (1 Peter 2:5) – and others will even in a way be made pure through us, especially priests, by the very power of the One Whom we have encountered and share.
Christian Renaissance Movement 