Showing posts with label charity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label charity. Show all posts

Sunday, July 25, 2021

Pope Francis Evoked a Lot of Responses to This



And a Latin understanding of sacrifice and spirituality...



Shalom World

Saturday, July 03, 2021

Spot the Flaw



The purported link between charity (a supernatural infused virtue) and civil law. That the observance and execution of law should be motivated by charity is unquestionable; whether this can be legislated by a human authority is the dubious part, and this applies to ecclesial law as well. What matters for human law is the justice of the external action that is commanded (or prohibited).

Sunday, March 28, 2021

What Christian Shouldn't Give Himself "Totally" to God?



Love of God is first for all Christians -- love of others is subordinate to, and motivated by, this love of God. Can the monk says that he loves God alone? No -- even the monk must love the rest of the Church and mankind, even if he lives apart from them. And unless he is a hermit, he doesn't live apart from others, though the amount of time he spends with others is limited. So "totally" is the wrong way to describe this sort of calling. It would be more accurate to say that the monk lives alone for God. ("Living only for God" would be inaccurate, too.) Even religious must be careful of pride and any sense of Christian elitism.

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Love for Christ

Friday, October 16, 2020

I Love, Therefore I Am

Thursday, September 03, 2020

St. Maximos on the Love of God

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

A Severe Lacuna

No discussion of the schisms affecting the Church in the first millenium and after. (First between the Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian Churches and those with the Church of the East, and then the schism between the Chalcedonian Churches of "East" and "West.") The discussion of the Protestants is very much slanted towards a Latin pov.

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

The Mystical Body of Christ

First Things: A Wafer-Thin Practice by Hans Boersma

De Lubac was troubled by a Eucharistic individualism that he believed had shaped the mindset of many of his Catholic contemporaries. Convinced as they were that the body of Christ in the Eucharist was the true body (corpus verum), all that seemed to matter was to partake. Once the miraculous medicine of immortality had been ingested, one might as well turn back down the aisle and walk out of church, for the one and only reason for going to Mass had now been performed. De Lubac was agitated, rightly I think, with the individualism—yes, the selfish consumerism and greed—in this Eucharistic spirituality.

I don't know if "the selfish consumerism and greed" is de Lubac's own judgment or Boersma's. It seems to go too far -- I think there were poorly catechized Roman Catholics who were taught to be concerned with subjective certitude regarding their salvation and limited salvation to receiving the sacraments, rather than a fuller participation in the Mystery of Christ.
De Lubac countered the gnostic demon at work. He asked his readers to think about what it means to eat the body (the Eucharist) as a body (the church), pointing out the close link between embodiment and community. Turning to 1 Corinthians 10:16–17 (“The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread”), de Lubac pointed out that for Saint Paul, participation (koinōnia, communion) of the body of Christ (the Eucharist) turns us into the body of Christ (the church).

All this talk of the “body of Christ” is no mere metaphor. Saint Augustine, in his famous Sermon 227, writes about the Eucharist: “If you have received worthily, you are what you have received, for the Apostle says: ‘The bread is one; we though many, are one body.’” The African bishop seems to suggest that believers, by partaking of communion, are transubstantiated (well, changed) into the body of Christ. When we eat Christ, we become Christ.
Hence the allusion in the title of this post to de Lubac's Corpus Mysticum.

The Christian tradition has typically treated body and body (Eucharist and church) as mutually dependent. On the one hand, the Eucharist makes the church. This seems to be the Pauline logic of 1 Corinthians 10 and of Augustine in Sermon 227. On the other hand, the church makes the Eucharist: We offer up our gifts—our entire lives—in Christ on the altar. Body and body depend on each other. Neither can go it alone. The reason is simple: The two are one flesh (Eph. 5:31).
The ministers of the church, presbyters and episkopoi, do have an instrumental role in making Christ sacramentally present. But I have doubts as to whether we participate in the sacrifice in that manner, by offering ourselves in union with Christ. But this seems to be the typical Latin view of sacrifice and our participation in the Eucharist.


This essay is written by Boersma in connection with televised Masses during COVID-19 lockdowns. I am reminded of the question I posed in this post, whether it is possible to have a Eucharistic liturgy with pre-sanctified Gifts only. (Not the same as Boersma's thought experiment of having a virtual consecration done by a presbyter through long-distance communication.) If it is possible, would such a Eucharistic service that is done by teleconferencing be contrary to piety or to true liturgical participation? (People would receive the Divine Gifts at home and then have a internet teleconference in which a presbyter would lead them to some sort of communion service, one featuring an act of Thanksgiving.) I would think that it isn't true liturgical participation.

As for the original question I raised - if we take the Act of Thanksgiving in the abstract, it might seem that it is possible to have a Eucharistic liturgy of pre-sanctified Gifts only. But when the Act of Thanksgiving is tied to the Anamnesis of God's saving acts, including the salvation who is Christ, maybe it is not possible to separate the Thanksgiving from the Consecration of the Gifts at the same time.

Or maybe it is. I will have to think about it some more. I don't think that such a "Eucharistic" communion service has any historical precedent.


Related:
A Eucharistic Church by Avery Dulles
Eucharistic Ecclesiology of Henri de Lubac  by Fr. Manuel-Alfredo Razo-Canales

Friday, May 01, 2020

Adam DeVille Reviews Eros Crucified

Routledge

CWR Dispatch:The Idolatry of Eros and the Corporeality of God by Dr. Adam A. J. DeVille
Matthew Clemente’s Eros Crucified is philosophy of religion done by a young scholar in such a way as to give one great hope for the future not just of the discipline, but of Catholic letters and intellectual culture more generally.

Some thoughts:

DeVille writes:

One popular, and often dreaded, buzzword in the academy today is “intersectionality,” which is just a newer version of the idea Newman first demonstrated so winsomely: “all knowledge forms one whole.” Clemente, a young Catholic philosopher of religion at Boston College, lives Newman’s method in this book (without mentioning him). Clemente ranges freely across theology and philosophy, refusing to allow them to be forcibly separated via an act of what Paul Ricoeur famously called “controlled schizophrenia.” But Clemente’s point, and method, is not merely reflective of current academic preoccupations to bring things together. It is, in fact, the only method on offer to human thinkers, who cannot (and must not) be bamboozled into seeing the world as divisible, the end result of which is the creation of some “private” sphere labelled the “secular” from which God has been exiled into some other sealed sphere called “religion.” In philosophizing in this way, Clemente is reflecting some of the best insights of recent philosophers including Charles Taylor and one of Clemente’s mentors, the philosopher (and Greek Orthodox priest) John Panteleimon Manoussakis.

Is Clemente's book really philosophy of religion, as opposed to Christian theology? For an unbeliever who reasons accordingly, it might be philosophy of religion. But for a Christian who thinks thus? It is theology, even if the author's academic degree is in philosophy.

Clemente wants us to think about the corporeality of God and its nakedly erotic self-giving in the Eucharist (“this is my body”) as well as its implications for us as human beings in our quotidian living, desiring, and dying, our lovemaking and birth-giving. (Clemente’s one-and-a-half-page conclusion, a meditation on watching and waiting with his wife give birth to their first son, packs in more biblical theology than a year’s worth of homilies from your average preacher.) Clemente writes with verve and a wide sweep of philosophy and theology, ancient and modern. All this learning, including considerable insights from psychoanalytic thought, is rendered in a way that is at once lively and serious.
Might there be some truth in Freud's writings? Perhaps. Would it be better to rely upon sound philosophical psychology which is open to the insights of Christians with rich interior knowledge and wisdom? I would think so. But doesn't it depend on one's audience? What if one is reaching out to those who have been influenced by Freud? How many of those are left?

One does not have a conversation with the dead who can no longer answer for themselves, but with the living, and this is true even in the scholastic method. So how many committed Freudians are there who need an apologia of Christianity or of Christ?

Then there is the question of whether Freud's reasoning and not just his claims can be captured well in essay form... This does raise a question of what the best way of transmitting reasoning through the written word. Something for theologians and philosophers to consider, even if they reject the manualist approach.

Saturday, April 04, 2020

Eastern Christian Books: The Crucifixion of Eros: An Interview with Matthew Clemente

Eastern Christian Books: The Crucifixion of Eros: An Interview with Matthew Clemente

It is no secret that Christianity has throughout its history neglected the feminine, feared it, suppressed it, relegated it to the realm of the irrational and untrue. But if we’re being honest, we must admit that the Christ we meet in the Gospels is not a particularly masculine figure. A savior who comes not in power but in weakness, who preaches mercy instead of justice, forgiveness in place of revenge, who measures his wealth not by how much he can possess but how much he can give away, who shows us how to inhabit our vulnerability and be honest about our frailty, whose love is abandonment—that is not a very manly savior. 

What is the agenda here? Why is the interpretive lens being applied to Christian teaching and for what purpose? There is plenty that raises red flags, but I'm not going to catalog them here yet.

For comparison (or contrast?)...
The Redemption of Eros: Philosophical Reflections on Benedict XVI’s First Encyclical by D. C. Schindler

Deus Caritas Est:
According to Friedrich Nietzsche, Christianity had poisoned eros, which for its part, while not completely succumbing, gradually degenerated into vice.[1] Here the German philosopher was expressing a widely-held perception: doesn't the Church, with all her commandments and prohibitions, turn to bitterness the most precious thing in life? Doesn't she blow the whistle just when the joy which is the Creator's gift offers us a happiness which is itself a certain foretaste of the Divine?
See also MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI FOR LENT 2007

Perhaps Clemente would say that his view complements Benedict XVI's. I have doubts about his philosophical and historical premises.

Friday, November 01, 2019

The Idolatry of Human Niceness Masquerading as Mercy

First Things: Why Biden Was Denied Communion by Edward Peters

CNA/CWR: Cardinal Dolan on Biden communion denial: ‘I wouldn’t do it’
“If only saints could receive Holy Communion, we wouldn’t have anybody at Mass, including myself, alright?” Dolan said.

Friday, September 20, 2019

Thursday, April 18, 2019

Thursday, April 04, 2019

Mother Maria

Pravmir: Mother Maria: Love Without End
IRENE ARCHOS
"No amount of thought will ever result in any greater formulation than the three words, 'Love one another,' so long as it is love to ...

Friday, March 15, 2019

Using All One's Faculties

First Things: Memorization and Repentance by Hans Boersma

Thursday, February 21, 2019

The Procession of the Holy Spirit

Orthodox Council of Blachernae 1285:

3. To the same, who say that the Father is, through the Son, the cause of the Spirit, and who cannot conceive the Father as the cause of the hypostasis of the Spirit — giving it existence and being — except through the Son; thus according to them the Son is united to the Father as joint-cause and contributor to the Spirit's existence. This, they say, is supported by the phrase of Saint John of Damascus, "the Father is the projector through the Son of the manifesting Spirit." John of Damascus, De fide orthodoxa, in Kotter, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos II, 36 PG 94.849B): "He Himself [the Father], then, is mind, the depth of reason, begetter of the Word, and, through the Word, projector of the manifesting Spirit." This, however, can never mean what they say, inasmuch as it clearly denotes the manifestation — through the intermediary of the Son — of the Spirit, whose existence is from the Father. For the same John of Damascus would not have said — in the exact same chapter — that the only cause in the Trinity is God the Father, thus denying, by the use of the word "only," the causative principle to the remaining two hypostases. John of Damascus, De fide orthodoxa, in Kotter, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos II, 36 PG 94.849B) Nor would he have, again, said elsewhere, "and we speak, likewise, of the Holy Spirit as the 'Spirit of the Son,' yet we do not speak of the Spirit as from the Son." Ibid., 30 PG 94-832B). For both of these views to be true is impossible. To those who have not accepted the interpretation given to these testimonia by the Fathers, but, on the contrary, perceive them in a manner altogether forbidden by them, we pronounce the above recorded resolution and judgment, we cut them off from the membership of the Orthodox, and we banish them from the flock of the Church of God.

4. To the same, who affirm that the Paraclete, which is from the Frather, has its existence through the Son and from the Son, and who again propose as proof the phrase "the Spirit exists through the Son and from the Son." In certain texts [of the Fathers], the phrase denotes the Spirit's shining forth and manifestation. Indeed, the very Paraclete shines form and is manifest eternally through the Son, in the same way that light shines forth and is manifest through the intermediary of the sun's rays; it further denotes the bestowing, giving, and sending of the Spirit to us. It does not, however, mean that it subsists through the Son and from the Son, and that it receives its being through Him and from Him. For this would mean that the Spirit has the Son as cause and source (exactly as it has the Father), not to say that it has its cause and source more so from the Son than from the Father; for it is said that that from which existence is derived likewise is believed to enrich the source and to be the cause of being. To those who believe and say such things, we pronounce the above resolution and judgment, we cut them off from the membership of the Orthodox, and we banish them from the flock of the Church of God.

Greek and Latin Traditions on the Holy Spirit

General Audience of John Paul II, 29 July 1998 - The Holy Spirit as Source of Communion


Exposition of the Tomus of Faith Against Beccus
From Aristeides Papadakis: Crisis in Byzantium: The Filioque Controversy in the Patriarchate of Gregory II of Cyprus (1283-1289)


If the Holy Spirit gives us life as sons of God and gives life to Christ as man, can it be said that He has the same role with respect to the Son as well? (Is this the thesis of Weinandy?)

Or is the life of the Father and Son together a Divine Hypostasis?

Wipf and Stock

Thursday, November 01, 2018

Hebrews 12:29 For our God is a consuming fire.

Some reject the idea of hell as a fiery punishment, maintaining that hell is primary a spiritual state, the sinner's own rejection of God (and thus the beatitude that consists of communion with Him). If God is all-loving and good, then why would He need to inflict an additional punishment to this misery that the unrepentant sinner will experience? But if we accept that there is a sensible component to the Divine glory and love that we can experience, and that those who are in beatitude will experience this as a pleasant sensation (the warmth of the sun, to which the warmth of feeling loved by another is compared), then conversely, those who are in hell because they have turned away from God, might they not they also experience the warmth of this Divine Love as something painful, as they have rejected it? Hellfire then would not be a separate punishment, but the sensible consequence of their rejection of God, an unquenchable fire because the sinner has rejected it and the transformation that it would bring to him.

As for purgatory, even if purgatory will end on the Last Day with the resurrection of all who have died, followed by Judgment, perhaps the soul too will somehow experience the Divine Love as a "fire" as a part the purgation process, the removal of any lingering imperfections, which are burned off, while he is heated and transformed in the Divine Love.

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

How Much of This is St. Augustine, How Much is Just Latin Theology?

Orthodoxy, worship, and Saint Augustine by Matthew Tsakanikas, STD
Doctrine exists for worship and not simply for itself. Doctrine apart from worship is barren.

Does this escape "functional Unitarianism"?