Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Integralism
Soft-back version of 'Integralism: a manual of political philosophy' now available for pre-order in the US, priced $31. https://t.co/pZ466ZSHfU
— Fr Thomas Crean OP (@crean_fr) April 13, 2020
Monday, April 20, 2020
English Translation of the Vermeule Interview in Le Grand Continent
MOJ: Common-Good Constitutionalism Interview (English Translation)
This is what happens when Catholic intellectuals don't critically examine their own starting premises. They need to be called out on it, even if it doesn't lead to their opening their minds, because the rhetoric isn't for their benefit but for the benefit of the uneducated who know they are not educated.
This is what happens when Catholic intellectuals don't critically examine their own starting premises. They need to be called out on it, even if it doesn't lead to their opening their minds, because the rhetoric isn't for their benefit but for the benefit of the uneducated who know they are not educated.
Paul Airiau , "Louis Bouyer, du centre à la marge?"
A chapter from Liturgie et société, edited by Bruno Dumons, Vincent Petit, Christian Sorrel
Sunday, April 19, 2020
An Interview with Adrian Vermeule
Le Grand Continent: Adrian Vermeule : « L’échelle géographique d’un programme de bien commun devra être celle de l’État administratif » (via MOJ)
Unfortunately it is available only for subscribers.
It is clear from the title though that he is a proponent of a centralized national government and a statist.
Unfortunately it is available only for subscribers.
It is clear from the title though that he is a proponent of a centralized national government and a statist.
Jesse Billett: An Anglican Liturgist Reflects on Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Reunion
His presentation reminded me of the sad events of Church history. In the past some Latin polemicists have faulted the heresy, or laxity, or even their rebelliousness with respect to Rome of Eastern Christians for their being conquered by Muslims. What if the chastisement was not for these reasons but for failures in charity, first in the relations between the Byzantine Christians and the non-Chalcedonian Christians (or Orthodox)? And later, there were failures in charity by those ruling the Eastern Roman, or "Byzantine," Empire and possibly even those holding authority in the Byzantine churches...
An Icon of the Divine Mercy
Silverstream Priory has it on this page -- I don't think is an icon belonging to the community as the photo has been used elsewhere.
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Holy Pascha - The Resurrection of Christ
I thought the Byzantine liturgy in English was very well done in this video... one of the few times I didn't think it sounded strange to my American ears.
Here's another:
A Latin Papacy
Sandro Magister: Francis, the Pope Who Does Politics Firsthand. The Analysis of a Church Historian
Sandro Magister publishes an essay by Roberto Pertici, "Primacy of the Spiritual or Primacy of the Political?"
Pertici probably is correct with making such a distinction, but is Pope Francis really exercising his office in a way with which his Renaissance predecessors would disagree?
Sandro Magister publishes an essay by Roberto Pertici, "Primacy of the Spiritual or Primacy of the Political?"
Pertici probably is correct with making such a distinction, but is Pope Francis really exercising his office in a way with which his Renaissance predecessors would disagree?
Valeurs Actuelles Interview with Cardinal Sarah
Sandro Magister has the links: Celibacy, Amazon, Germany. Cardinal Sarah Returns To the Field
Friday, April 17, 2020
A Time to Strengthen One's Personal Prayer Life
“Make Thine House a Church” by Reader Andreas Moran
How Do We Live “The Church at Home”? by Fr Bassam Nassif
How Do We Live “The Church at Home”? by Fr Bassam Nassif
Thursday, April 16, 2020
Hans Urs von Balthasar
Church Life Journal: Easter: We Walked Where There Was No Path by Hans Urs von Balthasar
The world’s ultimate destiny—as nature and as the history of mankind—is summed up both really and symbolically in the historical destiny of the man Jesus Christ. Ecce homo: behold man! Behold life destined for death! That is his destination; thither his destiny draws him, to a profound abyss of oblivion. And the shadow cast by this end covers everything with horror and chill, confusing all the threads of reason. But with the Resurrection from the dead, of whom the man Jesus Christ is the firstfruits, man comes forth from God, new, eternal. On the other side of death he begins his immortal life. And thanks to the death on the Cross on the part of the one man Jesus Christ, who was God’s Son, expiating sin and death’s doom on behalf of all, this eternal Resurrection life reflects a brilliant light onto the whole of our doomed existence. “Death, where is thy sting, where is thy victory?” Death is still there, and yet it has been superseded. The Cross is there but has turned into Easter. All the questions that guilty existence is bound to ask are still there, and yet “whenever our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything”.
Part of the Latin Resistance?
Archbishop Viganò's original revelations and criticisms may be valid; I suppose from a Latin theological point of view regarding the papacy, this concern may be justified as well. But at this point does he really have much else to say that would not cause his reputation to be diminished?
The Remnant: Viganò on 2020 Pontifical Yearbook: Did Pope Francis abandon the title 'Vicar of Christ'? by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
The Remnant: Viganò on 2020 Pontifical Yearbook: Did Pope Francis abandon the title 'Vicar of Christ'? by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
James Ceaser Responds to Vermeule
Law and Liberty: Adrian Vermeule’s Sixteenth-Century Constitutionalism by James Ceaser
Ad Multos Annos!
CNA/CWR: Benedict XVI celebrates his 93rd birthday during coronavirus lockdown
Vatican Foundation Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI
Vatican Foundation Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
Eastern Christian Books: Islamic Prophethood Understood Thomistically?
Eastern Christian Books: Islamic Prophethood Understood Thomistically?
UND Press: Muhammad Reconsidered: A Christian Perspective on Islamic Prophecy by Anna Bonta Moreland
How can one ask whether someone is a prophet without first asking whether his message is true? How else is a prophet to be judged?
From the publisher's description:
How does she do this without embracing some form of religious relativism, with indifference as a possible consequence?
And what could a "theology of religious pluralism" possibly mean, except some claims about how non-Christian traditions can nonetheless contain some elements of truth in them? Christians are not followers of a "Book" or a people of a "Book" or of a "Tradition." Christians are those who have been incorporated into Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
UND Press: Muhammad Reconsidered: A Christian Perspective on Islamic Prophecy by Anna Bonta Moreland
How can one ask whether someone is a prophet without first asking whether his message is true? How else is a prophet to be judged?
From the publisher's description:
Anna Bonta Moreland calls for a retrieval of Thomistic thought on prophecy to view Muhammad within a Christian theology of revelation, without either appropriating the prophet as an unwitting Christian or reducing both Christianity and Islam to a common denominator. This historical recovery leads to a more sophisticated understanding of Islam, one that honors the integrity of the Catholic tradition and, through that integrity, argues for the possibility in principle of Muhammad as a religious prophet.
How does she do this without embracing some form of religious relativism, with indifference as a possible consequence?
Moreland sets the stage for this inquiry through an intertextual reading of the key Vatican II documents on Islam and on Christian revelation. She then uses Aquinas's treatment of prophecy to address the case of whether Muhammad is a prophet in Christian terms. The book examines the work of several Christian theologians, including W. Montgomery Watt, Hans Küng, Kenneth Cragg, David Kerr, and Jacques Jomier, O.P., and then draws upon the practice of analogical reasoning in the theology of religious pluralism to show that a term in one religion—in this case “prophecy”—can have purchase in another religious tradition. Muhammad Reconsidered not only is a constructive contribution to Catholic theology but also has enormous potential to help scholars reframe and comprehend Christian-Muslim relations.Using Vatican II document on Islam (Nostra Aetate) when any positive claims about Islam are by their very nature not infallible as they do not have anything to do with Divine Revelation is typical of a Latin mindset, whether the purpose is to uphold the Latin tradition or to deviate from it. What sort of "Christian-Muslim relations" are possible if Christians do not recognize the message of Muhammad as being an authentic divine revelation?
And what could a "theology of religious pluralism" possibly mean, except some claims about how non-Christian traditions can nonetheless contain some elements of truth in them? Christians are not followers of a "Book" or a people of a "Book" or of a "Tradition." Christians are those who have been incorporated into Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Eastern Christian Books: St Thomas Christians in India
Eastern Christian Books: St Thomas Christians in India
Augsburg Press: St. Thomas and India: Recent Research by K. S. Mathew, Joseph Chacko Chennattuserry, and Antony Bungalowparambil
Augsburg Press: St. Thomas and India: Recent Research by K. S. Mathew, Joseph Chacko Chennattuserry, and Antony Bungalowparambil
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
Will He Retire Soon?
CWR Dispatch: ‘The culture wars are real,’ Cardinal Pell says in new interview
“There is a systematic attempt to remove the Judeo-Christian legal foundations [on for example] marriage, life, gender, sex.”
Sandro Magister: The Easter of Cardinal Pell. With Comments From Ruini and Müller
“There is a systematic attempt to remove the Judeo-Christian legal foundations [on for example] marriage, life, gender, sex.”
Sandro Magister: The Easter of Cardinal Pell. With Comments From Ruini and Müller
Latins Should Return to the Ancient Practice
NLM
That it was the universal custom and observed by all Apostolic Churches is sufficient reason for its restoration in the patriarchate of Rome. (The rationale, I believe, was the same as well.)
That there is great confusion about the very essence of the Mass and the meaning of the ministerial priesthood may be gleaned from newspaper articles that interview priests who are now at loose ends because they have no congregation to engage. Having been led to define priesthood as a relation with the people when it is a relation with Christ first and foremost, on behalf of the people, they search in vain, or at least with great difficulty, for an intrinsic and transcendent meaning to the offering of due worship to the Most Holy Trinity, such as animated centuries of so-called “private Masses,” which the Magisterium of the Church encouraged right through Benedict XVI (see my article “The Church encourages priests to say Masses, even without the faithful”).
Has any Latin progressive admitted the force of the psychologically or "subjective" or "phenomenological" arguments against versus populum? Or are they "pro-science" only when it agrees with their opinions?
If ever there was a reductio ad absurdum for the versus populum stance, this, the final outcome of the closed-circle mentality, would be it. If the church in which this priest is standing happened to have a tabernacle behind the altar, the inversion would be complete: a priest praying towards pieces of paper with faces, instead of praying towards the God who dwells with His people as their Head, their King, and their Shepherd, in Person—the Son of God whose bloody sacrifice on the Cross, sacramentally enacted upon the altar, is the reason Mass is said at all, for the profit of the living and the dead, wherever they may be.This objectification of the reserved Eucharistic species in the tabernacle, that was not the rationale of the early Church but it is the dominant within second millennium Latin liturgical piety.
Seeing this photo brought home to me once again the wisdom of the tradition in having the Epistle chanted eastwards and the Gospel chanted northwards: in this way the position of the reader is dictated by theological and symbolic ideas that lead to no weirdness when implemented in an empty church, unlike the scenario depicted above.
Latin customs. For the readings, should the focus be on the reader? The direction in which the reader is facing? What image will help a "viewer" attend to the readings? An image of Christ? Or an image of the specific aspect of the Mystery being remembered?
Related: Eastern Christian Books: Orthodox Liturgy Phenomenologically Understood
Fordham UP: Welcoming Finitude: Toward a Phenomenology of Orthodox Liturgy by Christina M. Gschwandtner
The Eastern Tradition of Married Priesthood, True Light Podcast Episode 10
An interview with Adam DeVille
Shifting Definitions of Masculinity with Respect to the Presbyterate
Written by a feminist so it may not be agenda-free, but it is unlikely that the historical facts are in error.
UPenn: The Manly Priest: Clerical Celibacy, Masculinity, and Reform in England and Normandy, 1066-1300 by Jennifer D. Thibodeaux
(a review)
See also: Negotiating Clerical Identities: Priests, Monks and Masculinity in the Middle Ages (Palgrave).
UPenn: The Manly Priest: Clerical Celibacy, Masculinity, and Reform in England and Normandy, 1066-1300 by Jennifer D. Thibodeaux
(a review)
See also: Negotiating Clerical Identities: Priests, Monks and Masculinity in the Middle Ages (Palgrave).
Thomas Behr, Social Justice and Subsidiarity
Social Justice and Subsidiarity: Luigi Taparelli and the Origins of Modern Catholic Social Thought
CWR Dispatch: Recovering the historical roots, true meaning of “social justice” by Gerald J. Russello
A review of Thomas Behr’s Social Justice and Subsidiarity, which explores the work of Luigi Taparelli, a Catholic thinker who advocated an approach to politics based in Thomistic natural law argument.
Related: Historian Explores Origins of Modern Catholic Social Thought
CWR Dispatch: Recovering the historical roots, true meaning of “social justice” by Gerald J. Russello
A review of Thomas Behr’s Social Justice and Subsidiarity, which explores the work of Luigi Taparelli, a Catholic thinker who advocated an approach to politics based in Thomistic natural law argument.
The Catholic understanding of rights is different because it is based in a different understanding of the person. We do have rights from our nature as human beings, but Catholic thought sees rights as ordered to higher goods. Our entitlement to exercise our rights is bound not just by our historical circumstances and those of our particular society, but also by conscience and “the clarity and utility of a chosen action in relation to the pursuit of the highest good. … The more directly related it is to the highest good, the stronger the claim of right. That is why certain rights are ‘inalienable’ – they are ineluctable requirements of order, of the orientation of the intellect to truth, and of the striving of persons within society for the ultimate good.”In other words, we have rights in order to do something, not simply to exercise those rights in whatever way we subjectively may wish and desire.
Related: Historian Explores Origins of Modern Catholic Social Thought
Monday, April 13, 2020
Deification of Man in Christianity
Deification of Man in Christianity by Marcelle Bartolo-Abela (his website?)
Apostolate of the Divine Heart (12 Mar 2014)
ISBN: 978-0615809465
Review in Catholic Medical Quarterly.
Available from Amazon.
Apostolate of the Divine Heart (12 Mar 2014)
ISBN: 978-0615809465
Review in Catholic Medical Quarterly.
Available from Amazon.
Written by a Latin
Rorate Caeli: The Realism of the Resurrection by Father Richard Gennaro Cipolla
But we must remember this: the purpose of his Real Presence in the Eucharist is not only for Holy Communion. We have forgotten that what Jesus did at the Last Supper and what he told his disciples to do—in “memory” of me (that word memory is too weak a word in English to convey what it deeply means)—is the same act as the Sacrifice of the Cross. Holy Thursday and Good Friday commemorate the same act—the saving act of God—in two different ways: one sacramental, one in time and space. It is the offering of the Son to the Father for the forgiveness of sins in the Mass that is the heart of the matter, which then allows us to approach the altar to receive his true Body and Blood. In the Traditional Roman Mass, the bell rings after the priest receives the Sacred Species, for this marks the completion of the Sacrifice. Then comes the invitation to the people to receive Holy Communion.It makes me ask whether an Oriental Orthodox or Assyrian Christian would write something like this?
A Response to COVID-19?
First Things: A Time for Cornerstones
Architecture responds to human needs and aspirations. Throughout history, times of plague and catastrophe have called for serious responses in the form of churches and sacred art.
The "iconoclasm" that passes itself for "noble simplicity" would probably recoil at such suggestions.
It is possible for there to be variety of artistic expression even within the same liturgical rite, but might it be said that the issue for the patriarchate of Rome is that there are few universally agreed upon standards for the use of iconography, art, and space for church design or modification? Moreoever, the norms of urban and suburban temples in mass population centers probably needs to be questioned as well.
Architecture responds to human needs and aspirations. Throughout history, times of plague and catastrophe have called for serious responses in the form of churches and sacred art.
The "iconoclasm" that passes itself for "noble simplicity" would probably recoil at such suggestions.
It is possible for there to be variety of artistic expression even within the same liturgical rite, but might it be said that the issue for the patriarchate of Rome is that there are few universally agreed upon standards for the use of iconography, art, and space for church design or modification? Moreoever, the norms of urban and suburban temples in mass population centers probably needs to be questioned as well.
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Well... No.
CWR Dispatch: “They Killed Him”: Deicide and Holy Saturday by Dr. Leroy Huizenga
Why Holy Saturday started to hit me differently a few years ago
Penal substitutionary atonement is not true at all, and worst of the satisfaction explanations of atonement.
Forget the Theotokos, the beloved disciple, the remaining apostles who fled and were in hiding, St. Mary Magdalene, Pilate's wife, Joseph of Arimathea, the women of Jerusalem crying in the streets... and probably there were many others as well. The whole entire world at that point in time, afterwards, and before, stood guilty of deicide? That is a bit of an exaggeration which might comport with certain tendencies in Western Christianity to pile on shame and create unnecessary guilt, but it isn't healthy. Is there any collective guilt because all of humanity is guilty of the crucifixion of Christ? Maybe some were guilty of indifference, others of fear, and so on. But not everyone else is guilty of killing or murdering Christ.
Now, one can say that we caused Christ to die, but not as an efficient cause but as a sort of final cause, in so far as Christ died (and chose to die) for us and our salvation. That is true. But that is not the same as having agency in killing Him.
Who isn't guilty of the sin of pride or disordered love? Only our Lord and the Theotokos are probably exempt from that one, and maybe St. John the Forerunner. With those exceptions, all are guilty of some sin worthy of death as a consequence (or a penalty, if you prefer). But that sin isn't necessarily the murder of Christ.
Who is guilty of killing God? Strictly speaking, maybe no one, as (the Son of) God, as divine, cannot be killed. The communication of idioms in this instance may be a bit tricky. Did those guilty of killing Christ believe He was God? It seems noi. They may have been culpable in rejecting the gift of belief that Christ is God, or culpable in denying that He was the Messiah. Does that make their sin formally "deicide"? I don't think so, even if it could be argued that their sin was materially "deicide." Were they guilty of murdering a man innocent of any crimes against Roman law? Yes.
I don't see any awareness of non-Latin soteriology and theories of atonement in this essay, and I don't think anyone with such an awareness would have written something like this. This seems like the product of a Western Christian, and reveals what is problematic in certain strands of popular Western Christianity.
Why Holy Saturday started to hit me differently a few years ago
Many Christians in modernity, I think, have a conception of the crucifixion restricted to a legal version of penal substitutionary atonement: Our problem is guilt, for which God must punish us, but loving us and desiring to forgive us, God punishes Christ in our place.
True enough as far as it goes, but when compared to classical soteriologies, whether Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant, it doesn’t go very far.
Penal substitutionary atonement is not true at all, and worst of the satisfaction explanations of atonement.
The cross isn’t just a component in the economy of our salvation, something God needed to do to Christ to acquit us. The cross also reveals the hatred of the human race towards God. They killed him: God comes into the World in Jesus Christ, and Jew and Gentile conspire to cooperate in killing God for reasons of convenience.
The World stands guilty of deicide.
And so on Holy Saturday I feel generally sick to my stomach. The one man who could have helped us, we hammered him to a cross. And that means two things: Deep down, I’m capable of murder and I’m liable to being murdered. We mustn’t deceive ourselves about our capacity for sin, and that of others.
Most people have a theologia gloriae, a theology of glory in which we bypass the cross as we affirm ourselves and affirm God for affirming us in a circle of moral therapeutic deist bilge. True theology, as Luther so rightly and so often stressed, is a theologia crucis, a theology of the cross in which God’s murderers are saved by God through the very instrument of His murder. Our salvation cannot consist in self-improvement; our salvation consists in our own crucifixion.
Forget the Theotokos, the beloved disciple, the remaining apostles who fled and were in hiding, St. Mary Magdalene, Pilate's wife, Joseph of Arimathea, the women of Jerusalem crying in the streets... and probably there were many others as well. The whole entire world at that point in time, afterwards, and before, stood guilty of deicide? That is a bit of an exaggeration which might comport with certain tendencies in Western Christianity to pile on shame and create unnecessary guilt, but it isn't healthy. Is there any collective guilt because all of humanity is guilty of the crucifixion of Christ? Maybe some were guilty of indifference, others of fear, and so on. But not everyone else is guilty of killing or murdering Christ.
Now, one can say that we caused Christ to die, but not as an efficient cause but as a sort of final cause, in so far as Christ died (and chose to die) for us and our salvation. That is true. But that is not the same as having agency in killing Him.
Who isn't guilty of the sin of pride or disordered love? Only our Lord and the Theotokos are probably exempt from that one, and maybe St. John the Forerunner. With those exceptions, all are guilty of some sin worthy of death as a consequence (or a penalty, if you prefer). But that sin isn't necessarily the murder of Christ.
Who is guilty of killing God? Strictly speaking, maybe no one, as (the Son of) God, as divine, cannot be killed. The communication of idioms in this instance may be a bit tricky. Did those guilty of killing Christ believe He was God? It seems noi. They may have been culpable in rejecting the gift of belief that Christ is God, or culpable in denying that He was the Messiah. Does that make their sin formally "deicide"? I don't think so, even if it could be argued that their sin was materially "deicide." Were they guilty of murdering a man innocent of any crimes against Roman law? Yes.
I don't see any awareness of non-Latin soteriology and theories of atonement in this essay, and I don't think anyone with such an awareness would have written something like this. This seems like the product of a Western Christian, and reveals what is problematic in certain strands of popular Western Christianity.
A Long Essay for Holy Saturday
CWR: This Holy Saturday: Social Distancing, Solitude, Healing by Brad Bursa, Ph.D.
Msgr. Luigi Giussani claims that “the only condition for being truly and faithfully religious…is to live always the real intensely.”i This line stays with me in these solitary days, when “the real” has become surreal. [...]
The author uses "death as isolation" as the first explanatory key, basing it on the writings of Joseph Ratzinger.
The second explanatory principle is the definition of Person within the Trinity as "relation":
Would Byzantine Christians have any difficulty with using the Divine relations to enhance theological anthropology? I don't know.
Msgr. Luigi Giussani claims that “the only condition for being truly and faithfully religious…is to live always the real intensely.”i This line stays with me in these solitary days, when “the real” has become surreal. [...]
The author uses "death as isolation" as the first explanatory key, basing it on the writings of Joseph Ratzinger.
Following the Judeo-Christian tradition, Ratzinger does not view death in a one-sided manner, as if it were only an experience of bodily corruption that marks the end of one’s physical life. Instead, “death is present as the nothingness of an empty existence which ends up in a mere semblance of living.”v Ratzinger says, “Death is absolute loneliness…the loneliness into which love can no longer advance is — hell.”
The second explanatory principle is the definition of Person within the Trinity as "relation":
In God, in the Trinity, person is pure relativity, of being turned toward the other. The concept of person does not refer to substance, but to relationality. God’s substance is one, and person, as the “pure relativity of being turned toward the other” does not lie on the level of substance, but on the “level of dialogical reality.” Thus, Ratzinger concludes that relation is recognized as a third fundamental category “between substance and accident.”xvii Therefore, in and through Christian faith, theology manifests “the Christian newness of the personalistic idea in all its sharpness and clarity,” for “it was faith that gave birth to this idea of pure act, of pure relativity…it was faith that thereby brought the personal phenomenon into view.”xviii
Ratzinger argues that the early developments in Trinitarian understanding offer profound insight in the area of anthropology as well. For the human being to be made in God’s “image and likeness,” must, in some way mean that the human being is a personal being. In other words, the human being is “not a substance that closes itself in itself, but the phenomenon of complete relativity, which is, of course, realized in its entirety only in the one who is God, but which indicates the direction of all personal being.”xix The human being exists as a personal being, precisely because the human being is a spiritual being. God takes the basic material of earth and forms the human being, but human being only enters into existence after God breathes into the formed earth the breath of life. Now, “the divine reality enters in,” for “in the human being heaven and earth touch one another….the human being is directly related to God.”xx Based upon what has been developed in the area of Trinitarian theology, to be in God’s image, according to Ratzinger, “implies relationality,” setting “the human being in motion toward the totally Other”….“it means the capacity for relationship…the human capacity for God.”xxi To be in God’s image means to be personal, it means the human being has the capacity for a personal relationship with God and to exist as a personal being, as a social being, in relation to others human beings.Is sociability a participation in the Divine? Can we say that primates participate in the Divine? Yes, but it may be foreign to some of us. All of His creation participates in God in its own way.
Would Byzantine Christians have any difficulty with using the Divine relations to enhance theological anthropology? I don't know.
Friday, April 10, 2020
Charles Taylor on Solidarity and Fairness
Church Life Journal
This is how the source of the deep cracks in modern capitalist societies presents itself. There are two contexts that justify our deeds; we can define them as the “democratic” and the “capitalist.” To be honest, we cannot reject either one. We cannot reject the democratic context, because it has become a central, inseparable element of our vision of legitimacy. We also cannot reject the capitalist context, because we have long ago passed the stage where we would be satisfied with a stagnant economy. Thus, we have to come to terms with them both. The first context is a great source of solidarity. When we manage to awaken and activate the feeling of our common citizenship we are capable of acting in often surprising ways by authentically devoting ourselves to others or in the name of the common good. This is especially apparent during times of war or during movements of national liberation—in a certain sense the Polish Solidarity movement was an important instance of such a movement. The second context demands that we put solidarity to the side and agree to bend or even break the rules of reciprocity in the name of effectiveness, which, it is apparent, we cannot renounce.
These are the two contradictory principles -both are illusionary and the illusions of "democracy" and "greater wealth" are used by the oligarchy to provide a cover of legitimacy. Does Taylor realize this, or has he drunk the Kool-aid as well? Being subject to the same state is insufficient to create "solidarity" and Taylor fails to recognize "civic nationalism" cannot overcome substantial differences in group identity or culture. Comparing Canada (or the U.S.) to a rather homogeneous ethnic state like Poland is comparing apples and oranges.
Solidarity is a solution but Taylor has no adequate means to promoting it because he doesn't acknowledge real divisions. Moreover, the state itself is opposed to solidarity and will not permit any true solidarity (as opposed to companionship in subjugation) to exist because solidarity is a threat to its power and existence.
When Does Divine Adoption Take Place?
In an otherwise decent piece from last year about Christ and the Beatitudes, making use of the works of Fr. Jacques Philippe, Jared Staudt writes in The goal of Lent: Conformity to Christ:
"Traditional" Latin praxis forces him to write this, because of the separation of Baptism from Confirmation, so that Latin infants are not "baptized by water and Spirit" on the one same occasion, but at different points in their life, if at all. This despite the clear testimony of St. Paul that it is the by the Spirit, whom we have received [through the laying on of hands by the Apostles or their successors or by the ministering of blessed oil], that we are able to cry, 'Abba! Father!'" (Romans 8:15; cf. Galatians 4:4-7). Even if we say our adoption as sons of God begins with water Baptism, can we say it is completed without Confirmation? No. Does anyone wish to ponder what the [spiritual] consequences are for incomplete Christian initiation?
When do Protestants receive the Spirit of God, if they do not have the sacrament of "Confirmation"? And how do they know they have received the Spirit by the laying of hands if the one who is laying on hands simply claims he has received this power from God or from someone else? How do we know that they have the authority and power to pass the gift of the Holy Spirit, if they cannot show that they have received this authority from the Apostles?
Latins should not be seeking this dubious gift from Pentecostals or those imitating Pentecostals -- they should be receiving the sacrament of Confirmation. (And if they have doubts about the efficacy of the first time they received it because they were not properly subjectively prepared for it, should they ask for a conditional administering of the sacrament?)
We are called to become Christ, embracing the adopted sonship bestowed on us at Baptism and entering into the love of the Father. Jesus offers us his own grace and virtues and calls us to live and love like him in the world.
"Traditional" Latin praxis forces him to write this, because of the separation of Baptism from Confirmation, so that Latin infants are not "baptized by water and Spirit" on the one same occasion, but at different points in their life, if at all. This despite the clear testimony of St. Paul that it is the by the Spirit, whom we have received [through the laying on of hands by the Apostles or their successors or by the ministering of blessed oil], that we are able to cry, 'Abba! Father!'" (Romans 8:15; cf. Galatians 4:4-7). Even if we say our adoption as sons of God begins with water Baptism, can we say it is completed without Confirmation? No. Does anyone wish to ponder what the [spiritual] consequences are for incomplete Christian initiation?
When do Protestants receive the Spirit of God, if they do not have the sacrament of "Confirmation"? And how do they know they have received the Spirit by the laying of hands if the one who is laying on hands simply claims he has received this power from God or from someone else? How do we know that they have the authority and power to pass the gift of the Holy Spirit, if they cannot show that they have received this authority from the Apostles?
Latins should not be seeking this dubious gift from Pentecostals or those imitating Pentecostals -- they should be receiving the sacrament of Confirmation. (And if they have doubts about the efficacy of the first time they received it because they were not properly subjectively prepared for it, should they ask for a conditional administering of the sacrament?)
The Weeping of Christ
One more follow up to this post. I definitely need to become more familiar with the writings of St. Maximos, so I can't write a response to his writings on this topic.
What of the difference between Christ and the mourners for Lazarus? Did the mourners, including Lazarus' sisters Mary and Martha, sin when they experienced grief, wept, and spoke and acted while in that condition, or was their sadness blameworthy?
It may be objected that Christ does not have any reason to weep for Lazarus as such, because of the knowledge that He possesses. He knows that Lazarus is not lost forever (but temporarily in Hades?). He knows that He will raise Lazarus from the dead (as a prefigurement of His own resurrection), and that Lazarus will be redeemed.
Is death an evil, something to be sad about, even if "everything will be ok in the end"? Even if we believe in the Resurrection of the righteous, when we grieve and weep for those who have passed away, is that a sin, a mark of imperfection or some sort? Can and did Christ feel sadness because someone has died, despite everything that He will do to remedy death? Christ knows as God that He saves; would it be objectionable to claim that Christ knows as man what he will do to redeem mankind ?
Does not Christ also know as man that He himself will be raised from the death on the third day? How could he make that prediction to His apostles if He did not know? And yet he nonetheless suffers in the garden before He is betrayed by Judas, and He has fear of death. How can such an emotion be justifiable (or sinless) if He knows that He will be triumphant over death? (And I know that St. Maximos at least does not claim that our Lord sinned in fearing His Passion and His Death, though St. Maximos has his way of explaining it, something along the lines of His fear not affecting or swaying His will.)
It would seem that even for Christ, knowledge that Death does not have the last word, etc. does not exclude the possibility of associating emotions relating to death as an evil. So could it not be reasonable, then, for someone to be sad that a friend has death? And if it is reasonable, is it therefore sinless? And if sinless, could we not say that Christ did experience sadness that Lazarus had died, and not just out of compassion for the suffering of those who still live, not just sympathy, but a true sympathy, a suffering with others?
As I stated before, I hardly know the writings of St. Maximos, so I don't know if these objections are answered or deal with by him. I don't know if he (or St. Cyril of Alexandria) makes a mistake of applying a priori reasoning about human passion on Christ or the Theotokos. Perhaps the mourning of Martha and Mary was "imperfect," as their sadness lead to them being tempted to have doubts about Christ or to experience other disordered movements in the soul. We have their words at least to claim as evidence of this at least.
Is self-love bad? Disordered self-love that is so because of a rejection of God? Yes. But does that mean that everything that is done through disordered self-love is evil in itself? Is any passion associated with something perceived as evil necessarily blameworthy or sinful? Or only that which is motivated or left unchecked by disordered self-love? And would not passion motivated by a rightly-ordered love that is one with the Divine Agape be not blameworthy but praiseworthy? (If it is indeed possible to be righteous and yet experience the passions associated with evil or loss.) It seems that St. Maximos or St. Cyril of Alexandria might accept these distinctions, but need confirmation.
What of the difference between Christ and the mourners for Lazarus? Did the mourners, including Lazarus' sisters Mary and Martha, sin when they experienced grief, wept, and spoke and acted while in that condition, or was their sadness blameworthy?
It may be objected that Christ does not have any reason to weep for Lazarus as such, because of the knowledge that He possesses. He knows that Lazarus is not lost forever (but temporarily in Hades?). He knows that He will raise Lazarus from the dead (as a prefigurement of His own resurrection), and that Lazarus will be redeemed.
Is death an evil, something to be sad about, even if "everything will be ok in the end"? Even if we believe in the Resurrection of the righteous, when we grieve and weep for those who have passed away, is that a sin, a mark of imperfection or some sort? Can and did Christ feel sadness because someone has died, despite everything that He will do to remedy death? Christ knows as God that He saves; would it be objectionable to claim that Christ knows as man what he will do to redeem mankind ?
Does not Christ also know as man that He himself will be raised from the death on the third day? How could he make that prediction to His apostles if He did not know? And yet he nonetheless suffers in the garden before He is betrayed by Judas, and He has fear of death. How can such an emotion be justifiable (or sinless) if He knows that He will be triumphant over death? (And I know that St. Maximos at least does not claim that our Lord sinned in fearing His Passion and His Death, though St. Maximos has his way of explaining it, something along the lines of His fear not affecting or swaying His will.)
It would seem that even for Christ, knowledge that Death does not have the last word, etc. does not exclude the possibility of associating emotions relating to death as an evil. So could it not be reasonable, then, for someone to be sad that a friend has death? And if it is reasonable, is it therefore sinless? And if sinless, could we not say that Christ did experience sadness that Lazarus had died, and not just out of compassion for the suffering of those who still live, not just sympathy, but a true sympathy, a suffering with others?
As I stated before, I hardly know the writings of St. Maximos, so I don't know if these objections are answered or deal with by him. I don't know if he (or St. Cyril of Alexandria) makes a mistake of applying a priori reasoning about human passion on Christ or the Theotokos. Perhaps the mourning of Martha and Mary was "imperfect," as their sadness lead to them being tempted to have doubts about Christ or to experience other disordered movements in the soul. We have their words at least to claim as evidence of this at least.
Is self-love bad? Disordered self-love that is so because of a rejection of God? Yes. But does that mean that everything that is done through disordered self-love is evil in itself? Is any passion associated with something perceived as evil necessarily blameworthy or sinful? Or only that which is motivated or left unchecked by disordered self-love? And would not passion motivated by a rightly-ordered love that is one with the Divine Agape be not blameworthy but praiseworthy? (If it is indeed possible to be righteous and yet experience the passions associated with evil or loss.) It seems that St. Maximos or St. Cyril of Alexandria might accept these distinctions, but need confirmation.
Thursday, April 09, 2020
A Latin Perspective
First Things: Go to the Altar by Jane Stannus
1 Peter 2:9 in Greek and Latin (Nova Vulgata).
Priest: sacerdos. Priesthood: sacerdotium.
It is standard for the same word to be used for both Greek terms in English and in Latin.
I don't know when the Latin sacerdos first began to be used to translate for the Greek hiereus and prebyteros. Is this true of all of the languages (especially European) in use in the patriarchate of Rome? It is the case that the English word priest is derived from the Latin presbyter, a borrowing by Jerome from presbyteros. Somewhere along the line, ecclesiastical Latin came to prefer sacerdos over Jerome's presbyter? Even though this goes against its normative translation of Holy Scripture?
wiktionary
wikipedia
From Google:
And a related blog post by "Hadley Rectory": The Etymology of English "Priest"
So for these languages (and French, but not necessarily the other Romance languages?) that the word used to translated presybter/presbyteros (and referring to that Holy Order) was also used to translate hiereus, rather than the word for hiereus being used to translate presbyteros as in Latin.
Denzinger (in Latin)
Renewal? Is that the same as "repeated"? I think Latins in general prefer a word like "re-presented." It is clear that she does not mean repeated from the second and third paragraph. As for "offering it up," how far does this go back in popular Latin piety?
The question is, in sacrifice do we "give" anything to God in thanksgiving, other than the thanksgiving?
The cassocked one answered seriously, “A priest is one who primarily offers sacrifice.”I'll have to see if there are any dogmatic statements by Latin churches before Trent. From the Concil of Trent, Session XXIII:
CHAPTER I.Only now do I understand the implications of what my friend said many years ago, regarding the confusion that arises from having the same word translate ἱερεύς and πρεσβύτερος.
On the institution of the Priesthood of the New Law.
Sacrifice and priesthood are, by the ordinance of God, in such wise conjoined, as that both have existed in every law. Whereas, therefore, in the New Testament, the Catholic Church has received, from the institution of Christ, the holy visible sacrifice of the Eucharist; it must needs also be confessed, that there is, in that Church, a new, visible, and external priesthood, into which the old has been translated. And the sacred Scriptures show, and the tradition of the Catholic Church has always taught, that this priesthood was instituted by the same Lord our Saviour, and that to the apostles, and their successors in the priesthood, was the power delivered of consecrating, offering, and administering His Body and Blood, as also of forgiving and of retaining sins.
1 Peter 2:9 in Greek and Latin (Nova Vulgata).
Priest: sacerdos. Priesthood: sacerdotium.
It is standard for the same word to be used for both Greek terms in English and in Latin.
I don't know when the Latin sacerdos first began to be used to translate for the Greek hiereus and prebyteros. Is this true of all of the languages (especially European) in use in the patriarchate of Rome? It is the case that the English word priest is derived from the Latin presbyter, a borrowing by Jerome from presbyteros. Somewhere along the line, ecclesiastical Latin came to prefer sacerdos over Jerome's presbyter? Even though this goes against its normative translation of Holy Scripture?
wiktionary
wikipedia
From Google:
Origin
And a related blog post by "Hadley Rectory": The Etymology of English "Priest"
So for these languages (and French, but not necessarily the other Romance languages?) that the word used to translated presybter/presbyteros (and referring to that Holy Order) was also used to translate hiereus, rather than the word for hiereus being used to translate presbyteros as in Latin.
Denzinger (in Latin)
Let us continue with the First Things essay:
“Yes, He offered Himself for us on Calvary nearly two thousand years ago. However, in order for us to come into contact with the merits of His sacrifice, the priest renews it in an unbloody way each day.”Merit. What Christ merited in His sacrifice are the benefits which are given to us by God. A Tridentine view, derived from Aquinas? (How dominant was this opinion about Christ's merits among the schoolmen?) Does merit imply some sort of exchange or return? Not necessarily but it does entail God giving something on condition of some requirement being satisfied. Can Latin "merit" be harmonized with the soteriology of the early Church? In a somewhat roundabout way, a way that needlessly complicates our understanding of the Divine Agape.
Writing for Rorate Caeli on March 24, Father Richard Cipolla suggested that Catholics’ greatest anxiety at this time of locked churches isn’t missing Mass per se, but rather missing an opportunity to receive Communion, overlooking, he fears, the true nature and importance of the Mass itself. This time of waiting and deprivation offers an excellent opportunity to consider the enormous significance of each Mass—with or without communion of the faithful.
Why is the Mass so important? Well, quite simply, the Mass is the sum and substance of our religion. It is the jewel that blazes at the very heart of Christianity, the unbloody renewal of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, carried out continuously in every time and place until the end of the world. It is the heart of our Christian lives, for to be a Christian, as one of the greatest missionaries of the 20th century said, is to be one “who offers himself as a victim on the altar with Our Lord.”
To assist at Mass is not merely to attend a commemoration or a memorial of an event that happened long ago. The holy sacrifice is an action that happens now, in the present. The priest, acting in persona Christi, approaches the altar—not a table, for this event is not reducible to a meal—to perform the sacrifice, accomplished in consecrating the bread and wine. When the priest pronounces the words of consecration, Saint Gregory Nazianzus tells us, he “sunders with unbloody cut the Body and the Blood of the Lord, using his voice as a sword.” The faithful assisting at Mass unite their hearts to the priest and unite their lives and sufferings to the Victim, that all may be offered to God together.
Renewal? Is that the same as "repeated"? I think Latins in general prefer a word like "re-presented." It is clear that she does not mean repeated from the second and third paragraph. As for "offering it up," how far does this go back in popular Latin piety?
Can the Mass be properly and efficaciously accomplished in the absence of the faithful? A group of progressives recently argued on blog Pray Tell that it cannot. Questioning the theological basis for Mass without a congregation, they claim that the Second Vatican Council changed the liturgy into a communal and public action of the baptized, which the priest can’t accomplish without them.Has the act of sacrifice been separated from the Sacrament and its reception by the faithful, so that without the latter, it doesn't matter as it is the former that is more important?
But they’re wrong. Vatican II said nothing about private Masses. Rather, we ought to look to Session 22 of the Council of Trent. As we consider the locked doors of our churches in this time of crisis, we can take comfort from one fact: Christ is both priest and sacrifice, and therefore a valid Mass is always efficacious, meaning that it always accomplishes the ends for which it is offered. Its efficacy is not determined by the presence of the faithful; the sacrifice of the Mass, Ott tells us, is the sacrifice of the Church, and in that sense is never “private.” Nor are the faithful needed to offer the sacrifice since it is Christ Himself who offers it through His priest.
The efficacy of the Mass was so beautifully explained to me by the priest who kindly permitted me to publish the story about the construction worker that it’s worth reproducing his words here:
“The holy Mass,” he said, “is the supreme act of religion that renders to God what is due to Him: adoration, thanksgiving, and propitiation for sin, after which we can then present to Him our petitions.
“Our Lord Jesus Christ perpetuates this supreme act Himself throughout the ages, through the ministry of His priests upon our holy altars. He abases Himself in perfect adoration before the Godhead, acknowledging our utter dependence upon Him. The most perfect praise of the excellence of God above all wells up from His Sacred Heart.
“He offers nothing less than His own Sacred Body and Precious Blood, united to His Soul and Divinity, as the perfect gift of thanksgiving in the Eucharist… by which we render to God fitting and perfect gratitude for all of His goodness and mercy towards us.
“He likewise perpetuates the offering of His Sacred Body and Precious Blood in propitiation for sin. In and through the same sacrifice, Jesus presents our petitions (for we utterly depend on Him for all things)…
The question is, in sacrifice do we "give" anything to God in thanksgiving, other than the thanksgiving?
Wednesday, April 08, 2020
Fr. Blankenhorn on Spiritual Communion
The Exodus took Israel through a long period of profound physical penance and spiritual purification: the two seem to be inseparable in the spiritual life. The desert became the only way for Israel to reach the Promised Land, and by God’s saving will, the people could only traverse this barren place by turning to the Lord each day for manna and quail. Israel had to learn radical trust in God, to recognize her utter dependence on him for everything: the direction of travel, the way to order the community’s life, and, of course, the reception of sufficient food and water.
Related:
Updated (4/9):
An essay touching upon the same topic, but much shorter. Still, it refers to the same two sources, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.
St. Augustine's Journey to Easter by C. C. Pecknold
Yet it is precisely in this exile that we must find our way to Calvary this year. We may be weary pilgrims, spiritually gaunt for so much sacramental fasting, but we are still pilgrims who must press our lips to the Cross. We cannot enter into the Paschal Triduum through Skype or Zoom. So what are we to do, we poor banished children of pandemic?
St. Thomas Aquinas gives us a hint: “the reality of the sacrament can be had through the very desire of receiving the sacrament.” He makes a distinction here between the signum and the res—the sacrament and the reality that the sacrament communicates. It is a distinction that goes back to St. Augustine.
There is at least one objection to this in the combox, concluding that if it is true, it renders going to Church superfluous. (Actually, it would render receiving the Sacraments superfluous.) I would think that desire is not enough -- one needs to ask God for the gift of life and trust in His goodness and mercy.
Αἰτεῖτε καὶ δοθήσεται ὑμῖν. -- Matthew 7:7 (cf. Luke 11:9)
A Latin View?
First Things: Embracing the Kind of Redeemer God Appointed by George Weigel
What is the Greek for "intercedes" here? ἐντυγχάνειν
Who intercedes? Only Jesus as man? Or the Son of God, in the loving conversation with the Father? The Word of God, who creates anew?
What does God find "loathsome" or "hateful"? Not sin. But the consequences of sin, the ways in which His creation has been damaged or marred because of sin? God does not want suffering.
"There the Son, giving himself without reservation to the Father’s plan of redemption, took the world’s evil upon himself and immolated it in perfect self-sacrifice to the divine will." Here is something akin to the obedience which St. Augustine and Joseph Ratzinger would emphasize as being integral to the sacrifice of Christ. Does such a view find parallels in the East, whether Greek or Syriac? There is definitely scriptural warrant for this, for example St. Paul, Hebrews 5:8-10, Romans 5:19. And this is probably the primary way in which the satisfaction of Christ should be understood, as it is His obedience or "righteousness" which enables us to be obedient or "righteous."
My question is whether this obedience is the main or even the first part of how we should understand the sacrifice of Christ.
Animals feel pain, John Paul noted, but only men and women suffer. So suffering, even great physical suffering, has an inner or spiritual character; suffering touches our souls, not just our nervous systems. That is why the Bible is “a great book about suffering” (in John Paul’s striking phrase). And while the Scriptures contain many accounts of profound suffering, the Bible also teaches that “love . . . is the fullest source of the answer to the question of the meaning of suffering.” That was the truth to which Isaiah prophetically pointed in the “Suffering Servant” songs. To grasp that truth fully, however, humanity needed more than images or arguments; a demonstration was required.
That demonstration, Salvifici Doloris teaches, was what God ordained “in the cross of Jesus Christ.”
There the Son, giving himself without reservation to the Father’s plan of redemption, took the world’s evil upon himself and immolated it in perfect self-sacrifice to the divine will. On the cross, theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote, the Son freely bore “all that the Father finds loathsome,” and did so in order to “clear out all the refuse of the world’s sins by burning it in the fire of suffering love.” At Calvary, the divine wrath at the world’s wickedness coincides with the divine mercy, determined to heal all that evil has broken or disfigured. On Calvary, the purifying fire of divine love reaches into history and transforms everything in this world that seems to stand against love, including suffering and death.
To embrace the cross is to embrace the logic of salvation as God has established that logic, not as we might design things. God’s “demonstration” does not end on Good Friday, however. It continues through Holy Saturday until the full meaning of “redemption” is revealed on Easter.
There, in the Risen Lord who manifests what Benedict XVI called an “evolutionary leap”—a new and supercharged mode of human life—we encounter the supreme demonstration of the divine logic of redemption. There, in the “Lamb . . . [who] had been slain” (Revelation 5:6) but who is now gloriously, radiantly alive, we meet God’s triumph over death itself and over all that is death-dealing in the world. There, we meet the redeemer God ordained.
Jesus . . . has become a high priest forever. . . . For all eternity he lives and intercedes for us . . . there is no limit to his power to save all who come to God through him (First Responsory, Office of Readings for Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent, from Hebrews 6:19–20, 7:24–25).
What is the Greek for "intercedes" here? ἐντυγχάνειν
Who intercedes? Only Jesus as man? Or the Son of God, in the loving conversation with the Father? The Word of God, who creates anew?
What does God find "loathsome" or "hateful"? Not sin. But the consequences of sin, the ways in which His creation has been damaged or marred because of sin? God does not want suffering.
"There the Son, giving himself without reservation to the Father’s plan of redemption, took the world’s evil upon himself and immolated it in perfect self-sacrifice to the divine will." Here is something akin to the obedience which St. Augustine and Joseph Ratzinger would emphasize as being integral to the sacrifice of Christ. Does such a view find parallels in the East, whether Greek or Syriac? There is definitely scriptural warrant for this, for example St. Paul, Hebrews 5:8-10, Romans 5:19. And this is probably the primary way in which the satisfaction of Christ should be understood, as it is His obedience or "righteousness" which enables us to be obedient or "righteous."
My question is whether this obedience is the main or even the first part of how we should understand the sacrifice of Christ.
Time to Pick a New Theme
Though I'd like to keep it blue if possible. Unfortunately it doesn't look like there are many new pre-made templates on Blogger. How long will Google continue maintaining Blogger?
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