BUILDING YOUR MARRIAGE: SOME THOUGHTS FROM ST. PAUL

Building Your Marriage: Some thoughts from St. Paul

These verses of Scripture from St. Paul are commonly used in Christian marriage ceremonies. They speak of the relationship between a husband and his wife. As beautiful as they are, they are also very misunderstood and misinterpreted. Look closely and see their wisdom for your marriage. In Ephesians 5,21 to 33 Paul writes:

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

“In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church – for we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as her loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

Comment              There are four important points here. First, Christ loves us so much that he wants to marry us. He call us his bride, and he uses marriage as a picture of his relationship to the church and to each one of us as his followers. He personally washes his church. Second, there is the “S” word – submission. Submission does not imply inferiority. God made Eve out of the side of Adam, to be bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh – his equal – his companion. To say that submission somehow implies inferiority is to say that Jesus, when he submitted to the Father, was somehow inferior to the Father. Submission does not imply inferiority in any way. It is a voluntary reliance on another in perfect trust. In fact, the Apostle Paul says that we are all to submit to each other. Wives to submit to husbands, husbands to wives, and both to Christ.

Third, husbands are to be the leaders of the family, the pastors at home. And men are to love their wives as Christ loves the church, and even died for her.

And finally, just as Jesus prepares his bride, the church, for the day when she will be presented in heaven, without spot or wrinkle, so husbands, as leaders, as to prepare their wives to stand before God one day. Leadership at home is primarily a spiritual responsibility.

the conjugal love of Christian spouses is one of the specifics of the divine salvific reality. That is, marriage is the specific venue of the reconciling ministry of Christ. Christian marriage is inserted into the sphere of redemption. The fundamental economy of Christianity, the fruitful unity of Christ and his church is realised anew in every Christian marriage. Since a symbol not only points to but also effects (brings about) the reality, we may say that Christ, as it were, is waiting for Christian spouses to love one another in order that through them he could express his love for the church. Christ is “enabled” by spousal love to act upon the world. By their love, married partners place the sign of Christ’s love for the church. Christian marriage is the specific venue of Christ’s action of restoring harmony in the world and creation.

THAT VITAL ANALOGY OF BEING

That Vital Analogy of Being

THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2017

It’s the little things in the ritual that often strike me during the celebration of the Mass each day. One of those little things that focus my attention is that little drop of water that is commingled with the wine in the chalice at the offertory. Every time I perform that ritual act, it reminds me of two things.

First, that each of us is like a small drop of being that has been inserted into the infinite being of God, like the tiniest of creatures swimming in a boundless ocean that supports our very existence. Of course, like all analogies related to God, the differences are much greater than the likenesses. For instance, the ocean did not create the fish that swim in it, even if it provides their sustenance. God both creates us and sustains our being as we live and move and have our being in God and from God, as Paul taught the Athenian philosophers.

While there is a vast, vast difference quantitatively between the tiniest of sea creatures and the ocean itself, however, one cannot really speak of a quantitative difference between our being and God’s being. The notion of quantity simply doesn’t apply here. That’s exactly what we mean by speaking of the analogy of being with reference to God and ourselves.

The very word applies only analogously to creatures with reference to God. Certainly, there is a likeness or there would be no analogy at all. But God’s being is so transcendent to our own, so utterly unique, that we can barely speak of it at all. And yet that tiny likeness, the almost nothingness of our own being in comparison, is still the basis of the true dignity that belongs to all creatures, and above all to those creatures who have been made in his very image and likeness. If we abandon that analogy, all is truly lost.

Clinging to this analogy has been a difficult task for Christian philosophers and theologians through the ages. It can easily be denied or distorted. One way in which it has been misunderstood or denied historically is to think of that little fish as not simply swimming in the ocean of being, but of being absorbed in the ocean, of having no real being of its own but simply being one reality with the ocean itself.

This is the tendency of the mysticism of the East, where man is destined to be or become undifferentiated from the whole of being, the mystery of pantheism. It’s really quite beautiful in its way, but in the end it strips the individual being of any real dignity, including God Himself. That erroneous natural theology is still with us in a large part of the world.

Another denial of the analogy is prevalent today in much of our Western world, including, according to Hillaire Belloc, the last of the great Christian heresies, in the form of Islam. Our post-Christian Western civilization has deliberately suppressed the analogy of being and replaced it with a univocal notion of being that makes it all but impossible to believe in God. If all being is univocal, and thus reduced to our kind of being, then the transcendent God of classical theism simply cannot exist. That’s the conclusion of much of Western philosophy today, and it has radically transformed our society and culture.

And then there’s the other rejection of the analogy of being found in the second largest religion in the world, Islam, which may be the largest religion in the not-too-distant future. Islam stresses the utter discontinuity of being, the absolute otherness of God.

This can be understood as an equivocal notion of being, though I doubt that many Islamic scholars have thought deeply about the question. Such considerations disappeared with the destruction of the great Islamic institutions of higher learning at the hands of their own extremists in the late Middle Ages, men who saw an absolute dichotomy between faith and reason. That dichotomy is itself a result of an equivocal notion of being.

It’s hard to say which of these two denials of the analogy of being, the univocal version or the equivocal version do the most damage. In both cases, there’s a tremendous cost in terms of the denigration of human dignity and devaluing of the individual person.

In the West, it has resulted in the relentless termination of the lives of millions of innocent human beings in the womb, and that story is far from ending. First it was the dignity and value of the individual unborn child that was compromised. Now we are moving on to the denial of the value and dignity of the individual life of the aged, or the handicapped, or whatever person who poses a burden for another individual or for society as a whole.

The resurgence of a militant form of Islam likewise poses a very serious threat in the Western world, in which only those who totally submit to the absolute will of Allah, as dictated through the sacred books of Islam, are afforded the “dignity” of a safe space, of no longer being subject to being killed for the glory of Allah. It’s really not much of a dignity in comparison to the notion of human dignity developed in the Western Christian tradition. Man is really nothing in himself in comparison to the absolute being of God.

Today we Catholics and other believing Christians find ourselves living between the bookends of these two great denials of that all-important notion of the analogy of being developed by St. Thomas and other great theologians of the Middle Ages. And more precisely we are caught in between these two forms of the equivocal notion of being in our own Western world, radical godless individualism and radical voluntaristic theism. Ideas truly do have consequences of the most serious and practical kind. And this does not bode well for our future.

AMORIS LAETITIAE - ONE YEAR ON

Amoris Laetitia: Year One

TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 2017

The request for a Papal Audience by the four Cardinals who submitted the five dubia on Amoris Laetitia to Pope Francis in September 2016 is an encouraging sign for everyone dismayed by the doctrinal confusion that the Church is currently experiencing. Cardinals Caffara, Brandmüller, Burke, and Meisner have acted with fortitude and filial deference in asking Pope Francis to put an end to this situation fraught with danger for the Church.

They wrote in their April 25, 2017 letter: “Despite the fact that the Prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith has repeatedly declared that the doctrine of the Church has not changed, numerous statements have appeared from individual Bishops, Cardinals, and even Episcopal Conferences, approving what the Magisterium of the Church has never approved. Not only access to the Holy Eucharist for those who objectively and publicly live in a situation of grave sin, and intend to remain in it, but also a conception of moral conscience contrary to the Tradition of the Church.”

Pope Francis never responded to the dubia letter, and so far has not responded to this second letter seeking an opportunity to speak with him about these grave concerns.

The first letter sent by the Cardinals to Pope Francis, dated September 19, 2016, stated: “Following the publication of your Apostolic Exhortation ‘Amoris Laetitia,’ theologians and scholars have proposed interpretations that are not only divergent, but also conflicting, above all in regard to Chapter VIII. Moreover, the media have emphasized this dispute, thereby provoking uncertainty, confusion, and disorientation among many of the faithful.”

The escalation of the crisis in the intervening months is clear. The Cardinals note in their second letter that it is no longer simply “theologians and scholars” but now “Bishops, Cardinals and even Episcopal Conferences” that are saying things that contradict the Magisterium of the Church, and this despite the repeated statements by Pope Francis’ own Prefect of the Congregation of the Faith, Cardinal Müller, that the doctrine of the Church has not changed.

What are we to make of Year One of the Amoris Laetitia era? We have had: papal silence on the dubia; papal approval of a draft statement by a group of Argentine bishops of the Rio de la Plata region that opens the door to the reception of Holy Communion by divorced and civilly remarried Catholics; affirmations by Cardinal Müller that Holy Communion cannot be given to those living in a state of adultery; the publication by the pope’s own newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, of the statement by the Bishops of Malta that couples in invalid second marriages can receive Holy Communion if they at are at peace in their conscience with that decision; the reaffirmation by the Bishops of Poland that the teaching and discipline enunciated by St. John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio have not changed, and that only those civilly remarried couples who live as brother and sister may be admitted to Holy Communion; the Archbishop of Philadelphia saying the same thing; while the bishops of Belgium and Germany agree with the bishops of Malta and Rio del La Plata, Argentina.

This is the current unholy mess. As the four Cardinals lament: “And so it is happening – how painful it is to see this! – that what is sin in Poland is good in Germany, that what is prohibited in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia is permitted in Malta.”

There cannot be a divided truth about the indissoluble nature of marriage, or the nature of mortal sin or the nature of human freedom and responsibility for one’s freely chosen acts. The truth is one and must be defended from errors and misinterpretations.

Geographically different doctrine within the same Catholic Church is not simply bizarre. It is impossible. If such is found to be the case, then we are dealing with error in one place and true doctrine in another. It is not that hard to tell which is which.

In an explanatory note accompanying the dubia, the Cardinals prophetically identified what would be at stake if Amoris Laetitia did, by the express intent of Pope Francis, change the Church’s discipline concerning the non-admission to Holy Communion of those living in an adulterous union:

It would seem that admitting to communion those of the faithful who are separated or divorced from their rightful spouse and who have entered a new union in which they live with someone else as if they were husband and wife would mean for the Church to teach by her practice one of the following affirmations about marriage, human sexuality, and the nature of the sacraments:

— A divorce does not dissolve the marriage bond, and the partners to the new union are not married. However, people who are not married can under certain circumstances legitimately engage in acts of sexual intimacy.

— A divorce dissolves the marriage bond. People who are not married cannot legitimately engage in sexual acts. The divorced and remarried are legitimate spouses and their sexual acts are lawful marital acts.

The logic here is airtight. If either of these alternatives is in fact what Amoris Laetitia intends, then it is Amoris Laetitia that needs to be revised. If Pope Francis did not intend either of these alternatives, then it is reasonable to ask him to clarify this as chaos and division spread, thus putting an end to the further growth of beliefs and practices contrary to the doctrine of the Faith.

The lay faithful ask to be confirmed in the Faith of the Church, and pastors of souls, especially parish priests, ask to be freed from what the Cardinals call in their second letter a “situation of confusion and disorientation.” These are holy desires. It cannot be in anyone’s true interest to leave matters where they now stand.

HOLINESS EACH DAY

Struggling to dedicate your life to God? Try these simple holy habits.

Life is busy. We are constantly tugged and pulled by various obligations — family, work, and community.

It never seems to end and when we go to Mass on Sunday, we are reminded of our own failure to live each day under God’s inspiration. We forget to pray and life never stops to let us catch up.

What should we do to keep it from passing us by?

Here are five simple tips that can help the weary soul reclaim each day and dedicate it to God.

Holiness is much easier to attain if we stop putting so much pressure on ourselves and simply open up our heart in little ways each day.

1. Pray immediately after waking up

Saint Josemaria Escriva called this the “heroic minute” and wrote in The Way, “Many good Christians develop the habit of giving their first thought of the day to God. The ‘heroic minute’ follows: it facilitates the Morning Offering and getting the day off to a good start. The heroic minute. It is the time fixed for getting up. Without hesitation: a supernatural reflection and … up. The heroic minute: here you have a mortification that strengthens your will and does no harm to your body. If, with God’s help, you conquer yourself, you will be well ahead for the rest of the day. It’s so discouraging to find oneself beaten at the first skirmish.”

It is an extremely simple way to start your day off on the right foot, but also one of the hardest.

 Start your day off right: Don’t hit that snooze button!

2. Schedule five minutes to pray during the day

Again, nothing earth shattering, but something that we too often forget. The important part about this is to schedule time for prayer. It can be five minutes, 15 minutes or even 30 minutes. Whatever it is, the key is to block off that time in your daily schedule and not let anything touch it. This can be done at work or at home (or on the road). Schedule it and make it a recurring event every day.

Read more: How 15 Minutes of Prayer Can Change Your Life

3. Pray the “Jesus Prayer”: "Jesus, Son of God, son of Mary, have mercy on me, a sinner."

Another way to incorporate God into your everyday life is to recite the short “Jesus Prayer.” The Catechism describes this ancient prayer like this: “This simple invocation of faith developed in the tradition of prayer under many forms in East and West. The most usual formulation, transmitted by the spiritual writers of the Sinai, Syria, and Mt. Athos, is the invocation, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners.’ It combines the Christological hymn of Philippians 2:6-11 with the cry of the publican and the blind men begging for light. By it the heart is opened to human wretchedness and the Savior’s mercy” (CCC 2667).

Saying this prayer over and over again is a great way to meditate on the beauty and mercy of God. It hardly takes a few seconds to say, but packs a great spiritual punch!

Praying the Jesus Prayer: Mercy with every breath

4. Carry a rosary with you wherever you go

You don’t even have to pray the rosary, just carry one in your pocket or purse. This might seem odd, but it can be a source of inspiration or consolation throughout the day. You might reach into your pocket to get your keys and pull out a rosary instead. Or you might be rummaging through your purse and find your rosary. It is a simple reminder of God and may serve as a reminder to pray at a moment you need God the most.

Rosaries were the first “fidget spinners”!

5. Pray before going to bed

If you started off the day with God, the only way to end it is with God. Prayers at bedtime don’t have to be complex, but should generally revolve around thanksgiving. Be thankful for what God has given you this day and make a resolution to do better tomorrow. Many of the saints practiced different variations of this bedtime ritual and all greatly benefited from it.

JOY OF CHRISTIAN LIFE

Joy of Christian Life
 Periods of sadness, depression and doubts can enter the life of even the most devout Christian. We see many examples of this in the Bible. Job wished he had never been born (Job 3:11). David prayed to be taken away to a place where he would not have to deal with reality (Psalm 55:6-8). Elijah, even after defeating 450 prophets of Baal with fire called down from heaven (1 Kings 18:16-46), fled into the desert and asked God to take his life (1 Kings 19:3-5).

So how can we overcome these periods of joylessness? We can see how these same people overcame their bouts of depression. Job said that, if we pray and remember our blessings, God will restore us to joy and righteousness (Job 33:26). David wrote that the study of God's Word can bring us joy (Psalm 19:8). David also realized that he needed to praise God even in the midst of despair (Psalm 42:5). In Elijah's case, God let him rest for a time and then sent a man, Elisha, to help him (1 Kings 19:19-21). We also need friends that we can share our hurts and pains with (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12). It may be helpful to share our feelings with a fellow Christian. We may be surprised to find that he or she has struggled with some of the same things that we are going through.

Most importantly, it is certain that dwelling on ourselves, our problems, our hurts, and especially our pasts will never produce true spiritual joy. Joy is not found in materialism, it is not found in psychotherapy, and it most certainly is not found in obsession with ourselves. It is found in Christ. We who belong to the Lord “glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh” (Philippians 3:3). To know Christ is to come to have a true sense of ourselves, and true spiritual insight, making it impossible to glory in ourselves, in our wisdom, strength, riches, or goodness, but in Christ—in His wisdom and strength, in His riches and goodness, and in His person only. If we remain in Him, immerse ourselves in His Word, and seek to know Him more intimately, our “joy will be full” (John 15:1-11).

Finally, remember that it is only through God's Holy Spirit that we can find true joy (Psalm 51:11-12; Galatians 5:22; 1 Thessalonians 1:6). We can do nothing apart from the power of God (2 Corinthians 12:10, 13:4). Indeed, the harder we try to be joyful through our own efforts, the more miserable we can become. Rest in the Lord's arms (Matthew 11:28-30) and seek His face through prayer and Scripture. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13).

Blessed John Henry Newman always insisted that the Christian vocation was one of light and joy. “Gloom is no Christian temper; that repentance is not real which has no love in it; that self-chastisement is not acceptable which is not sweetened by faith and cheerfulness. We must live in sunshine, even when we sorrow; we must live in God’s presence; we must not shut ourselves up in our own hearts, even when we are reckoning up our past sins.” This last phrase recalls Newman’s other words: “We rise by self-abasement.” They indicate that his was no easy optimism, for Newman was alive to the bright and dark side of human nature. “Left to itself, human nature tends to death and utter apostasy from God, however plausible it may look externally.” These are sternly realistic words, and not those of a man who would glibly scatter words about light and joy as a child might fling tinsel for the excitement of the glitter.

GIFT OF PRIESTLY CELIBACY

          The Gift of Priestly Celibacy

In the film The Nun’s Story, produced in the late 1950s, just before the vocation crisis that has so struck the Church in the last 50 years, the postulants enter the chapter room to be received into the religious community.

Mother Superior gives them a talk about the demands of the religious life. The original script read: “Chastity is against nature.” The priest who was the technical adviser objected that it was not against nature, but above nature. He could only convince the producers to alter the script to say that “in a sense” it is a life against nature.

The debate over the unnatural character of virginity and chastity also characterizes the debate over priestly celibacy, which has taken place in the Church for the last 50 years. In the years after the Second Vatican Council, many priests who left the priesthood sympathized with one who said: “Without a woman, I am only half a man.”

The traditional discipline of the Latin Church requiring priestly celibacy has been disputed in the long history of the Church, but perhaps never more than since the Council (1962-1965).

Indeed, Pope Blessed Paul VI took up the question specifically in an encyclical whose 50th anniversary is this year, Sacerdotalis Caelibatus (The Celibacy of the Priest), which was proclaimed June 24, 1967.

The questions and answers of Paul VI were made more complete in the teaching of Pope St. John Paul II, but sadly have come up recently for another new debate. Clarification is needed, then, as to why the Latin Church requires celibacy, and while it is not a doctrine, it is certainly a long-standing Church tradition and discipline for a reason.

The two great arguments against the continuance of the requirement for priestly celibacy are that it exacerbates the vocation crisis and is against nature. As to the first, this argument is a red herring. The Church has never had sufficient clergy to staff its parishes, even in those Eastern Churches that allow married clergy.

Pope Paul basically dispatches the first contrary argument back in 1967 by saying: “We are not easily led to believe that the abolition of ecclesiastical celibacy would considerably increase the number of priestly vocations. The contemporary experience of those Churches and ecclesial communities which allow their ministers to marry seems to prove the contrary” (49).

He also observes the lack of catechesis and understanding of the role of grace in salvation and relation to nature as a further cause. One could also add today that, in former times, Catholics had very large families. Today in Western culture, at least, this is not normally the case. Thus even the pool of possible candidates for the priesthood is greatly diminished.

The second argument is a more difficult one.

Some consider the practice of celibacy to be a denigration in some way of marriage and sexuality. This would lead to a life in which a man denies his legitimate nature.

Since the Church has always been clear that neither is evil and that both are good, this would also suggest that a man who embraces celibacy would be less masculine or less integrated than one who married. Many also think that the celibate priest becomes so removed from the world that he cannot understand the problems of married couples or help them. This is a pastoral argument.

Finally, in some Church quarters, the teaching on the nature of the Eucharist has become so compromised that it is looked upon as a mere dramatic re-enactment of the Last Supper. A married man could certainly do this as well as a celibate one, so why require celibacy?

Further complicating the matter is the traditional interpretation of the history of celibate clergy. This history normally states that priests could be either married or celibate from the time of the apostles, although celibacy was recommended, and in the ninth century the Latin Church decided to make celibacy mandatory because of the sexual promiscuity of the clergy. The actual history is a bit different.

Though it is true that from the time of the apostles priests could be married or celibate, once a priest was ordained he and his wife had to make a promise of perpetual continence. They had to renounce marital relations.

In 692, in the Quinsext Council of Trullo, a local council, the Eastern Church at Constantinople decided to forgo this requirement and allow married priests to have relations with their wives, though they sought to make a nod to the previous practice in several ways.

First, a priest who had relations with his wife could not celebrate the Eucharist the day after, which put an end to daily Eucharist in the Eastern Church. Also, since bishops have the fullness of the priestly character, only priests who were celibate could become bishops, which is contrary to the normal discipline in which religious should be bishops by way of exception.

The Latin Church in the ninth century made celibacy mandatory to preserve the morals of the clergy and to save the wives of priests from having to renounce relations. What was the connection between the renunciation of marriage and the celebration of the Eucharist?

As Paul VI observed, it is many layered. The most important reason to encourage celibacy is that it expresses the complete identification of the human priest with Christ, who himself was not married and had no children of his body. This identification is important because the primary priest at each Mass is Christ. The ministerial priest celebrates in persona Christ capitis (in the person of Christ), not in his own person.

In the celebration of the other sacraments, the personality of the priest enters. In fact, the word “I” is used to express this personal participation. “I baptize you,” “I absolve you,” and “I anoint you” are used in the other sacraments.

But in the Mass, the priest merely repeats the words of Christ. He does not act in the person of the name on his passport, but only in the person of Christ because of the mystery of transubstantiation. The miraculous change of the bread and wine in the Eucharist demands this complete identification, which includes all his powers.

This change is the miracle of miracles.

Since it is a heavenly mystery of grace (the risen body of the Savior becomes present on the altar), the ego of the human priest must disappear and be self-completely absorbed in the Person of Jesus. This includes the powers of the soul that revolve around sexuality.

This is not because there is some judgment made that the body and sexuality are in any sense evil, but as Pope Paul pointed out, it is related to the words of Christ that in heaven: “They neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matthew 22:30).

Nor does this involve a renunciation of masculinity or fatherhood. Rather, the priest embraces spousal love with all that entails for the whole body of Christ, which is especially manifested in his care of souls. He must be more masculine in defending all his people from error and sin.

This calls for him to address these weaknesses also in himself. This also demands great maturity and proper human formation. It is interesting that a famous 19th-century German psychiatrist, Richard Kraft-Ebing, hardly a friend of the Catholic Church, once observed: “The fact that the Catholic Church enjoins celibacy upon its priests, in order to emancipate them from sensuality and preserve them entirely for the purpose of their calling, is an example of a discerning psychological knowledge of mankind” (Psychopathia Sexualis, 14), though he also observed that they lost the elevating effect of marriage and love.

For Paul VI and the Church in general, the discipline of celibacy, though not absolutely necessary for orders, is a marvelous and most-fitting expression of the plunging of the priestly soul into the mystery of Christ, and so could not in any sense be unnatural. It is in every sense above nature.

The priest’s heart “gives the priest a limitless horizon, deepens and gives breadth to his sense of responsibility — the mark of mature personality — and inculcates in him, as a sign of a higher and greater fatherhood, a generosity and refinement of heart which offer a superlative enrichment” (56).

HEARING THE VOICE OF JESUS

The pope’s homily on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

VATICAN CITY — To hear the Lord’s voice, we have to become little, Pope Francis said on Friday, as the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The pope’s words came during his homily at Holy Mass in the Chapel of his residence at Santa Marta.

Reflecting on today’s First Reading from Deuteronomy (7:6-11) — in which Moses tells the people that God has chosen them “to be a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth” — Pope Francis that on this feast of the Sacred Heart, God “gives us the grace of celebrating with joy the great mysteries of our salvation, of His love for us.”

The pope reflected on two particular words from today’s First Reading: chosen and littleness.

Chosen

Regarding the first, the pope said it is not we who have “chosen Him” but rather God who has made himself “our prisoner”:

“He has bound himself to our lives; he cannot leave. He played hard! And he remains faithful in this attitude. We have been chosen for love and this is our identity. ‘I have chosen this religion; I have chosen …’: no, you did not choose. He is the One who has chosen you. He has called you and bound himself to you. And this is our faith. If we do not believe this, then we do not understand the message of Christ; we do not understand the Gospel.”

Littleness

Regarding the second word — littleness — Pope Francis recalled how Moses specified that the Lord had set his love upon the people of Israel and chose them because they were “the fewest (smallest) of all peoples.” (Deut. 7: 6-7):

“He fell in love with our littleness, and that is why he has chosen us. He chooses the little: not the great ones, but the little ones. And he revealed himself to the little ones: ‘You have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes’ (Mt 11:25). He reveals himself to those who are little. If you want to understand something of the mystery of Jesus, lower yourself, make yourself small. Recognize that you are nothing. And he does not only reveal himself to little ones, but he calls the little ones: ‘Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ You who are the littlest — through suffering, through weariness … He chooses the little ones; he reveals himself to little ones, he calls the little ones. But does He not call the great ones? His heart is open, but the the great ones cannot hear his voice because they are too full of themselves. To hear the voice of the Lord, you have to become small.”

Thus do we arrive at the mystery of the Heart of Christ, which is not, as “some say” a “little image” for the devout, Pope Francis said. The pierced Heart of Christ is “the heart of revelation, the heart of our faith because He became little; he chose this way.” In other words, he continued, the Lord humbled and emptied himself “even unto death” on the Cross. It was a “choosing of littleness so that they glory of God might be manifest,” he said.

From the pierced Heart of Christ Crucified, “blood and water” came forth. “This is the mystery of Christ,” which we celebrate today, the pope explained: a “heart that loves, that chooses, that is faithful,” and that “bind himself to us, reveals himself to the little ones, calls the little ones, makes himself little”:

“We believe in God, yes, yes, and in Jesus, yes … ‘Is Jesus God?’ — ‘Yes’. But this is the mystery. This is the manifestation. This is the glory of God. Faithfulness in choosing, in binding himself and in littleness even for himself: becoming small, emptying himself. The problem of faith is the heart and core of our lives: we can be very, very virtuous but with little or no faith. We must begin here, with the mystery of Jesus Christ who has saved us by his faithfulness.”

Pope Francis concluded, praying that the Lord might grant us the grace of celebrating, on this Solemnity of the Heart of Christ, “the great act, the great work of salvation, the great work of Redemption.”

WHY PRIESTS ARE MEN

Why Priests Are Men

priests

It’s very common in our culture today for people to think that much of what we Catholics believe is behind the times and out of touch with the modern world. Most often, these sorts of accusations are leveled against the Church’s moral teachings (particularly in the area of sexuality), but that is not always the case. For example, most people see no reason why the priesthood should be reserved to men; they think that the Church’s refusal to ordain women is nothing more than a relic of the Dark Ages or a remnant of a patriarchal and superstitious culture that has no place in the twenty-first century. However, I would like to suggest that there is actually a good reason why women can’t be priests. Contrary to popular belief, there is, in fact, a real logic behind reserving the priesthood to men.

The Male Apostles

The most common explanation for this practice is that the Apostles, the first priests, were all men. Jesus could have very easily chosen female Apostles if he had wanted to, so it seems clear that he wanted the priesthood to be reserved for men. As a result, since the Church has no authority to go against the wishes of Jesus Christ, she also has no authority to ordain women.

While this is a good argument, it’s not exactly what I am going for here. It’s an argument from authority, so it simply tells us that women cannot be priests without explaining why this is so. However, I want something deeper; I want to give the inner logic of the teaching. Simply put, I want to find what it is about the priesthood that makes it appropriate for men rather than women.

More Than a Function

To understand why only men should be priests, we first need to understand that a priest’s role is not simply functional. In other words, priests don’t simply do certain things; they don’t simply perform certain functions. Rather, they are also supposed to be something: they are sacramental symbols of Jesus Christ himself, able to act in His person (in persona Christi). When a priest says the words of consecration over the bread and wine at Mass, he’s acting in the person of Jesus saying those very same words; when a priest says the words of absolution in confession, he’s acting in the person of Jesus offering God’s forgiveness to us.

Consequently, when the Church says that women cannot be priests, she is not saying that men can do certain things better than women. For example, she is not saying that men are better than women at running parishes or giving homilies. Rather, the argument is simply that women cannot be what a priest is supposed to be. Women cannot be sacramental symbols of Jesus the same way that men can.

The Man Jesus

Along these lines, you’ll often hear people say that since Jesus is a man, only men can symbolize him. This argument is on the right track, but it needs some nuancing. We need to explain why maleness is essential for symbolizing Jesus but other physical characteristics are not. For example, Jesus was Jewish, so why can non-Jews be priests?

To understand why Jesus’ sex is so important, we need to look at the Eucharist. When a priest celebrates Mass, he doesn’t just symbolize Jesus in general. Rather, he symbolizes Jesus precisely in his role in the Eucharist, and in this sacrament, Jesus is present to us as the bridegroom of the Church. In other words, he is present to us as our husband, and if there is one thing that only men can symbolize, it is a husband.

This may seem like a strange idea, so we need to unpack it a bit. In the Old Testament, God is often said to be the bridegroom of his people Israel. For example, the prophet Isaiah tells us:

“For your Maker is your husband,

the Lord of hosts is his name;

and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,

the God of the whole earth he is called.

For the Lord has called you

like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit,

like a wife of youth when she is cast off,

says your God.” (Isaiah 54:5-6)

Our Bridegroom

Similarly, when we get to the New Testament, we see the same kind of imagery. For example, St. Paul tells husbands to “love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25), and then he explicitly tells us that Jesus and the Church have a marital relationship (Ephesians 5:31-32). In fact, St. Paul in this passage goes beyond anything the Old Testament says about God’s love for his people. He isn’t simply saying that Jesus’ love for the Church is like marriage; he is actually saying that Jesus’ love for us is the model that marriage is based on. Just as he tells us earlier in the letter that human fatherhood is based on God the Father (Ephesians 3:14-15), so too is he now telling us that marriage is based on Jesus’ relationship with the Church.

When he says that Jesus and the Church have a marital relationship (Ephesians 5:31-32), he quotes Genesis 2:24, a verse from the story of Adam and Eve that explains that the deep compatibility between Adam and Eve, between man and woman, is the reason for marriage. However, unexpectedly, St. Paul tells us that this verse is actually “in reference to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:32). While it obviously refers to human marriage, it also has a deeper, spiritual meaning: it’s about the loving union of Jesus and his Church. In other words, that union is the deeper, primary reality, and marriage is an image of it. That’s why he presents Jesus as a model of how husbands should treat their wives. Marriage is a living representation of the love between Jesus and the Church, so husbands should love their wives just as Jesus loves the Church.

Jesus’ Marital Act

Once we understand that Jesus is our bridegroom, we then need to look at why the Mass in particular is marital. Actually, we already saw this in our previous section. St. Paul told husbands to love their wives “as Christ…gave himself up for” the Church, a clear reference to his death on the cross. In other words, by dying for our sins, Jesus gave us the perfect example of how husbands should love their wives (and, of course, vice versa), so his death was in fact a marital act. Now, the Mass is a re-presentation of Calvary, a memorial of the cross; it makes Jesus’ death present to us here and now and enables us to receive its saving benefits. Consequently, since the cross is marital, so is the Mass.

In fact, we can even take this imagery one step further. At Mass, we receive the Eucharist and unite ourselves physically to Jesus, just like a man and a woman do in the marital embrace. The role of the Eucharist in our spiritual lives is similar to the role of conjugal relations in the life of a married couple: they both create a real physical bond. As a result, the Mass is in fact very marital. It’s one of the times in the life of the Church when Jesus’ role as our bridegroom comes most to the forefront.

Sacramental Symbolism

From all this, it’s clear that women can’t symbolize Jesus during Mass the way men can. Only men can symbolize his marital relationship with the Church; only men can represent Jesus as our bridegroom. However, this may seem rather abstract. While the argument makes sense from a purely logical point of view, it may not appear all that important. Why does it matter that priests symbolize Jesus specifically in his role as our bridegroom?

In a nutshell, it matters because symbolism is an essential element of the sacraments. They are not simply opportunities to receive grace; rather, they’re also opportunities to experience God in a physical way. We need to experience God in a way that is suited to our nature, and since we’re physical creatures, we have to experience him physically. The symbolism of the sacraments is a key part of this physicality. It allows us to experience God through our sense of sight, so it’s very important that the symbolism of the sacraments not be obscured.

More specifically, the symbolism of the male priesthood is important because the marital analogy is an essential element of our faith. Whenever we see a priest consecrating the Eucharist, we should be reminded that Jesus loves us so much that the best analogy for his love in the human world is marriage. Nothing else captures the closeness and intimacy that he wants with us, so it’s important that we be reminded of it again and again. The priesthood is an important way that Jesus teaches us about his love for us, so it’s important that priests reflect that love properly.

The Other Sacraments

When we think about it this way, we can see that the symbolism of the male-only priesthood actually extends to the other sacraments as well. While the marital nature of our relationship with Jesus may not come to the forefront in those other sacraments the way it does in the Eucharist, it never goes away entirely. If he is our bridegroom in the Eucharist, then he’s our bridegroom all the time. Just like a husband and wife do not stop being married when they do things that aren’t specifically marital (like going grocery shopping or hanging out with friends), so too does Jesus remain our bridegroom even after Mass is over. He’s always our bridegroom, so when priests symbolize him in other sacraments, like confession and anointing of the sick, they are also symbolizing him as our bridegroom, even if that aspect of our relationship with him is not front and center in those sacraments.

Conclusion

From all this, we can see that reserving the priesthood to men is not at all a relic of the Dark Ages or a remnant of a patriarchal and superstitious culture. There’s actually some pretty solid reasoning behind it. Priests symbolize Jesus precisely in his role as the bridegroom of the Church, and only men can do that. As a result, even though women can run parishes and give homilies just as well as men, the one thing they cannot do, the role of Jesus that they cannot symbolize, makes all the difference.

BIG BANG, MICHELENGELO, AND CREATION

Big Bang, Michelangelo, and Creation 

 Science is truly Catholic, and all true scientific studies are of God, because science explains the mechanisms by which God ordered creation. The universe is governed by mathematical laws and the laws of physics and chemistry that give those who study these disciplines incredible awe at the infinite complexity and wonder of God. Biology and Geology look at the earth, the universe, and living things, and help humans to understand exactly how much exacting care went into creating the world. However, scientists are not omniscient, and there are many “theories,” which are ideas that are widely accepted, but cannot or have not yet been absolutely proven. Evolution is a theory. It is critical to understand that theories are not or cannot be proven absolutely, which is why they are called theories and not laws. However, they can be worthy of belief insofar as they do not deny the Creator or the teachings of his Church. The Big Bang theory, in particular, is perfectly compatible with Scripture and Church teaching, and is a beautiful explanation of what may have happened directly after God willed the universe into being. While not the only theory of the creation of the universe, it is widely accepted in the scientific community and shows the majesty and divine order of Creation.

The theory states that the universe began with a tiny dense point, after which matter began to expand and organize into the stars, planets, and solar systems of the universe. Interestingly, it was a Belgian priest named Georges Lemaitre who first proposed this theory. He reasoned that the universe is expanding continuously, in direct contradiction to Albert Einstein’s belief at the time that the universe was at rest, according to the Vatican Observatory Foundation (VOF). Lemaitre believed that since the universe is expanding, it must first have been much smaller, going back to a dense point of origin. The VOF states that at first the term “Big Bang Theory” was used in derision by other scientists who discounted Fr. Lemaitre’s ideas. However, further study supported Fr. Lemaitre’s ideas and scientists began changing their minds. Einstein ended up calling the Big Bang Theory “the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened.”

National Geographic states that the Big Bang, “allowed all the universe’s known matter and energy-even space and time themselves-to spring from some ancient and unknown type of energy.” This statement is extremely important. This “ancient and unknown…energy” is God Himself.

The Catholic Church has some clearly defined teachings on creation and the origin of the universe. In a most basic summation, God created all things, and at some point in creation history, there were a primordial man and woman with immortal souls, who sinned, losing the state of original innocence, and were subjected thereby to death. God did not abandon them, however, but promised to send the Redeemer. The Book of Genesis has beautiful imagery, but does not have to be taken literally by the faithful. When it stated that God created the earth in six days, resting on the seventh, it may not necessarily mean seven twenty-four hour periods, but rather, indeterminate ages of time. This would be compatible with an “old earth” theory, such as the Big Bang. Pope Pius XII counseled the Church in his encyclical, Humani Generis, that although not everything in Genesis may be literally understood, it was in fact inspired divinely, so it must be respected and revered when being discussed in light of scientific theories.

In that spirit of reverence for the book of Genesis, Pope St. John Paul II wrote in his Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences: On Evolution, that scholars “serve the truth.” He further recommended that theologians have an up to date knowledge of the most recent scientific developments! Both popes made the clear point that truth is unified-that true science is always compatible with the author of all truth, God. Some scientists may individually be atheists, but scientific disciplines themselves are of God. Pope Francis confirmed this in speaking to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, “The Big Bang, which today we hold to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of the divine creator but, rather, requires it.” The Big Bang Theory is truly Catholic-proposed by Fr. Lemaitre and affirmed by our Pope today.

Fr. Lemaitre proposed his theories in the 1920’s, but centuries before, some prophetic frescoes were painted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Michelangelo would have had no knowledge of modern scientific thought, but he painted God the Father as directing the motions of the planets, in effect painting the Big Bang centuries before it was known to man. In his painting of God creating the sun and moon, God’s hands are outstretched, pointed. God’s face is stern and commanding, directing the placement of the lights of heaven. It is just so that he can be imagined willing the universe into existence, the celestial bodies of the heavens obeying his commands as they expanded and became ordered into the stars and planets. Understanding the Sistine paintings in the light of scientific thought brings a new dimension to prayer life, and unites art and science, which both have their foundation in God the Creator.

BIBLE HITS NEW HIGH

BIBLE HITS NEW HIGH

                                                   Yi, Lipo and Wa – spoken by more than a million people in China – are just three of the 61 languages that gained their first partial Bible translations during 2016, along with Tatar and Udmurt for use in Russia, and Cree and Inupiaq for Canada, according to the latest Global Scripture Access Report from the Swindon-based United Bible Societies (UBS).

Last year’s 61 new translations brought all or parts of the Bible to an estimated 428 million people for the first time, including tribes in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Uganda and Zambia, as well as six separate ethnic groups in India and seven in Myanmar.

The UBS report said that complete Bibles are now available in 648 languages. However, with an estimated 6,880 “living languages” worldwide, much work remains before “everyone can access the full Bible in the language of their choice”.

Although 285 million people globally are visually impaired, including 40 million who are blind, only 44 languages have a full Bible in Braille to date, usually running to 40 bulky volumes.

Founded in 1946, UBS has 146 member societies, working in more than 200 countries and territories.

-          From THE TABLET

London 6^th. May 2017

HOLY TRINITY, FAITH AND BELIEF IN

Faith, Belief, and the Trinity

SUNDAY, JUNE 11, 2017

Oblate Father Ronald Rolheiser is among the most respected and prolific writers on Christian spirituality. Though I have never met him, I have profited from his keen insights and captivating stories. In particular, I am indebted to two of his books: The Holy Longing (which I used with undergraduates) and Sacred Fire: A Vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity.

However, a recent article of his, “When Does Faith Disappear?,” left me uneasy. It appears to reflect a trend in theology and spirituality (the two, of course, are inseparable) that is well meaning, but ultimately misleading.

It begins with alarming statistics. Not only has there been a precipitous decline in recent decades in the number of people who go to church regularly. There has been “an equally unprecedented spike in the number of people who claim to have lost their faith completely.” The latter add to the swelling ranks of so-called “Nones,” people without any religious affiliation. In the United States and Canada, “Nones” now comprise over 30 percent of the population!

But have many of them really lost their faith? Rolheiser offers a distinction that has become widespread in contemporary Catholic theology: he distinguishes “faith” and “beliefs.” He asks provocatively: “is ceasing to believe in something the same thing as losing one’s faith?” And responds, equally provocatively, “not necessarily.”

To unpack this assertion, Rolheiser turns to what is traditionally called the “apophatic” dimension of Christian theology and spirituality. He rightly declares: “God is beyond all conceptualization, beyond all imaginings, beyond being pictured and beyond being captured in any adequate way by language.”

In many ways, this recovery of the “apophatic” recalls what the Fathers of the Church and Thomas Aquinas affirmed. Recall Saint Augustine’s si comprehendis, non est Deus – “if you [presume to] grasp, it is not God.” A salutary rebuke to a too rationalistic appeal to propositions, as though they adequately circumscribed the content of faith. Karl Rahner’s insistence on the “mystagogic” nature of dogmatic statements was, therefore, a welcome counter to neo-scholastic overreaching (whatever else may be said of his work).

Santa Trinità by Masaccio, 1425 [Santa Maria Novella, Florence]

But I suggest the pendulum has now swung far in the opposite direction. We risk an equally unsatisfactory spurning of propositions. The danger is what I term “an empty apophaticism.” “Faith” with no distinctive and discernible content. This, unfortunately, abets the “I’m spiritual, but not religious” posture. Propositions can never fully articulate the Mystery, but they can point us in the direction where true Mystery lies and provide insight into its character.

Saint Paul insists that “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Cor 2:9). That’s “apophatic.” But he immediately adds “these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.” (1Cor 2:10)

Revelation is the rub! Christian faith is the loving response to God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ. Revelation perforce comes to expression in propositions, articles of belief: “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.” (1 Cor 15:3-5)

Statements of belief articulate the “cataphatic” dimension of revelation, its positive content. Without this dimension, Christian faith is empty and void. As Louis Dupré writes: “If we can assert nothing about God, then we can say nothing to God – and that marks the end of religion.”

I agree with Father Rolheiser that “many articles within our Christian creed. . .are images and words that point us towards something we cannot imagine because it is beyond imagination.” They are “mystagogic.” But pastors are called to be “mystagogues:” to probe wisely and reverently the Mystery of the faith. They are commissioned, according to their ability, to rekindle the religious imagination, to embrace the via pulchritudinis – the way of beauty – extolled by Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium. They ponder, with their people, the great truths of the faith, calling upon poets and artists for assistance.

An example: Rolheiser asks, “How can God, who is one, be three? This isn’t mathematics, it’s mystery, something that cannot be imaginatively circumscribed.” Yes, certainly. But ought it not be imaginatively evoked? As John Donne put it:

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I might rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break blow, burn, and make me new.

We might then suggest, conceptually now, but still imaginatively, that the “three-personed God” bespeaks the fullness of personhood, the fullness of life-giving relations. That we, made in the image of this God, are not yet fully what God intends us to be. That we are called to grow, through grace, more and more into God’s likeness, to become sharers in the very life of the three-personed God.

The completed created likeness of the Trinity is the communion of saints: relationships redeemed and transfigured.

Dante is the supreme poet of the Catholic Tradition, the paladin of the Catholic imagination. The terza rima of the Divine Comedy attunes our every movement to the rhythm of Trinitarian life. And the deifying vision to which he and we are destined is the vision of the Triune God.

But such vision is never individualistic; it is fully personal and transpires only in communion. As Dante, draws close to his journey’s culmination, he sees more and more clearly that relationships, founded and transformed in Love, truly mirror the blessed Trinity. Not celestial mathematics; but wondrous mystery.

Because Christian faith is, of its essence, Trinitarian, there can be no dichotomy between faith and belief. Christian faith is not formless; its “logic” is Trinitarian. Indeed, the primacy of the cataphatic dimension in Christian theology and spirituality is on full display each time we begin our prayer by signing ourselves: “In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

© 2017