Public Orthodoxy: The Church without the Eucharist Is No Longer the Church
A (telephone) conversation with Metropolitan of Pergamon John Zizioulas (March 23, 2020)
(also published here)
"I don’t agree with the Divine Liturgy being transmitted by television. I’m confined to my home and will not be able to attend Liturgy. However, I will not turn the television on in order to watch the Liturgy. I consider that an expression of impiety. It is impious for someone to sit and watch the Liturgy."
Related:
Eucharistic Living without the Eucharist by Nicholas Denysenko
Do the Sacraments Prevent Illness? A Survey of Liturgical Sources by Rev. Dr. Nicholas Denysenko
No Danger of Disease from Holy Communion, Scientific Studies Say by Fr. Joseph Gleason
Sunday, March 29, 2020
"Transubstantiation" in the Byzantine Tradition?
Eclectic Orthodoxy: Transubstantiation: Maybe Dositheos Got It Right by the Very Rev. Christiaan Kappes, S.L.D., Ph.L., Ph.D.
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Binitarian?
Fr. Hunwicke: OLD MASS: NEW DECREES: Prefaces (1) and OLD MASS NEW DECREES: PREFACES (2)
From the second part:
Setting aside the question of the prefaces -- Will the prayers of the Roman rite ever develop to the point that the Holy Spirit is included? One cannot force a patriarchate to "properly receive" the teachings of an Ecumenical Council, but can one oppose such a development in the name of "tradition" which is really just ideological conservatism?
From the second part:
DISCUSSION.
In my unhumble opinion, the sensible and real choices are either to argue
(1) that the CDF should be asked to reconsider the matter of the Advent and Pre-Lent Prefaces; or
(2) that the Roman Rite, with its severely and primitive binitarian instincts, does not favour the imposition of a Trinitarian character on most of the Sundays of the year, so we should go back to the pre-1759 situation and use simply the Common Preface on Sundays through Advent and Pre-Lent; or
(3) that Sunday is by nature Trinitarian; as long ago as the pre-Gregorian exemplar which Moelcaich the scribe of the Stowe Missal copied, the preface has had a Trinitarian character ... rather as it does in the Byzantine Rite. So ... back to Clement XIII.
Setting aside the question of the prefaces -- Will the prayers of the Roman rite ever develop to the point that the Holy Spirit is included? One cannot force a patriarchate to "properly receive" the teachings of an Ecumenical Council, but can one oppose such a development in the name of "tradition" which is really just ideological conservatism?
Fr Maximos Constans on the Spiritual Life
Eclectic Orthodoxy: Archimandrite Maximos Constas on the Spiritual Life
Part 1: Discoursing on the Passions
Part 4: The Buried Seed
Part 6: Taking Custody of our Thoughts
John Cavidini on Co-Responsibility
Church Life Journal: Co-Responsibility: An Antidote to Clericalizing the Laity? by John Cavadini
An attempt at a solution to clericalism.
1 Peter 2:4-5 RSV CE
1 Peter 2:9 RSV CE
Πρὸς ὃν προσερχόμενοι , λίθον ζῶντα, ὑπὸ ἀνθρώπων μὲν ἀποδεδοκιμασμένον, παρὰ δὲ Θεῷ ἐκλεκτὸν ἔντιμον, καὶ αὐτοὶ ὡς λίθοι ζῶντες, οἰκοδομεῖσθε οἶκος πνευματικὸς εἰς ἱεράτευμα ἅγιον, ἀνενέγκαι πνευματικὰς θυσίας εὐπροσδέκτους [τῷ] Θεῷ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.
Ὑμεῖς δὲ γένος ἐκλεκτόν, βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα, ἔθνος ἅγιον, λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν, ὅπως τὰς ἀρετὰς ἐξαγγείλητε τοῦ ἐκ σκότους ὑμᾶς καλέσαντος, εἰς τὸ θαυμαστὸν αὐτοῦ φῶς....
The definition of priesthood, it would seem, is tied to sacrifice. Thus the popular might be that the baptized faithful offer spiritual sacrifices while the ordained priests/bishops offer Christ in the Eucharist (in which the baptized faithful also participate). Lumen Gentium §10, cited in this article, can be read as an elaboration of this basic distinction. But how is sacrifice to be understood? What if sacrifice instead is tied to declaring "the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" as a part of the thanksgiving integral to sacrifice, so that this is not to be considered "evangelization" as Benedict XVI and Cavidini are interpreting the words of St. Peter, but rather an elaboration of what it is to be a a priest, remembering the saving works of God and giving thanks to God whether in the assembly of the ekklesia or in private prayers to God?
If this objection holds, does it affect Cavidini's conclusions? Not necessarily. The conclusions may be dependent upon a distinction between the roles (or functions) of the episcopate/presbyterate and that of the Christian laity (as Latins have traditionally used the term), but they may hold even if we have to tweak the distinction only slightly.
However, I do think it is a mistake to link evangelization to the royal priesthood of the Christian faithful, as if it were the main function of that priesthood, rather than thanksgiving. Cavidini writes later:
Lay people do have their own sphere of action, the political arrangement where they are to be found. There some may be leaders of others. (Hence "traditional" notions of leadership are incompatible with feminism, though most American academics support it or at least outwardly do so.) But it should also be stated that with respect to the life of the local Church (whether one think of the local Church as the grouping of parishes, or the parish as a manifestation of the local Church), the Christian laity also have a leadership role. While the presbyterate/episcopate have authority as teachers and oversight over certain activities touching upon "faith and morals," there are likely limits to the authority they have with respect to the latter. Oversight may entail only the power of approval or sanctioning an activity, and not necessarily leadership.The limits to the authority of the presbyterate/episcopate with respect to the life of the Church need to be explored further.
An attempt at a solution to clericalism.
One of the fruits of the Diocese of Rome’s heightened attention to the pastoral work of the parishes, he says, was that it:
Helped to develop in the parishes, religious communities, associations and movements a consciousness of belonging to the one People of God which, as the Apostle Peter said, God made his own: “that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him”(1 Pt 2: 9).
To cite this verse is to invoke the People of God as a royal priesthood, with each member sharing, on the basis of his or her baptism, in the priesthood of Christ: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” The theology of co-responsibility begins by invoking Vatican II’s rediscovery of the priesthood of the baptized, the mystery of the People of God as a royal priesthood, with each member ordered towards the prophetic, royal and priestly vocation to “declare the wonderful deeds of him who called [us] out of darkness into his marvelous light,” that is, to mission, to evangelization. [emphasis mine]
1 Peter 2:4-5 RSV CE
4 Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious; 5 and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 2:9 RSV CE
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,[a] that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.The Greek:
Πρὸς ὃν προσερχόμενοι , λίθον ζῶντα, ὑπὸ ἀνθρώπων μὲν ἀποδεδοκιμασμένον, παρὰ δὲ Θεῷ ἐκλεκτὸν ἔντιμον, καὶ αὐτοὶ ὡς λίθοι ζῶντες, οἰκοδομεῖσθε οἶκος πνευματικὸς εἰς ἱεράτευμα ἅγιον, ἀνενέγκαι πνευματικὰς θυσίας εὐπροσδέκτους [τῷ] Θεῷ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.
Ὑμεῖς δὲ γένος ἐκλεκτόν, βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα, ἔθνος ἅγιον, λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν, ὅπως τὰς ἀρετὰς ἐξαγγείλητε τοῦ ἐκ σκότους ὑμᾶς καλέσαντος, εἰς τὸ θαυμαστὸν αὐτοῦ φῶς....
The definition of priesthood, it would seem, is tied to sacrifice. Thus the popular might be that the baptized faithful offer spiritual sacrifices while the ordained priests/bishops offer Christ in the Eucharist (in which the baptized faithful also participate). Lumen Gentium §10, cited in this article, can be read as an elaboration of this basic distinction. But how is sacrifice to be understood? What if sacrifice instead is tied to declaring "the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" as a part of the thanksgiving integral to sacrifice, so that this is not to be considered "evangelization" as Benedict XVI and Cavidini are interpreting the words of St. Peter, but rather an elaboration of what it is to be a a priest, remembering the saving works of God and giving thanks to God whether in the assembly of the ekklesia or in private prayers to God?
If this objection holds, does it affect Cavidini's conclusions? Not necessarily. The conclusions may be dependent upon a distinction between the roles (or functions) of the episcopate/presbyterate and that of the Christian laity (as Latins have traditionally used the term), but they may hold even if we have to tweak the distinction only slightly.
In other words, the ordained ministry is not ordered towards itself, but rather it is the priestly people towards which the ordained priesthood is ordered, and that priesthood retains its fundamental character as the share in Christ’s priesthood, which constitutes the Church. On the other hand, when the baptized exercise their royal priesthood in evangelization, it is not just to spread knowledge of the Word of God dislocated from its ecclesial home, for then it is not really a priesthood, since the communion of the Church is communion in Christ’s sacrifice. Evangelization is intended to bring people to the encounter with the Risen Lord which is incorporation into the Eucharistic body through configuration to Christ’s sacrifice.
The priesthood of the baptized, as a priesthood, flows from the one sacrifice of Christ and its exercise is thus intrinsically ordered towards it. That means it cannot be exercised fully apart from the ministry of the ordained, nor is it truly exercised if it tends toward the rupture of communion instead of towards building communion. This would include evangelizing activity that rejected the authoritative teaching of the magisterium, or undertaken in defiance of legitimate hierarchical authority. At the same time, it does not mean permission is necessary: “there is no need of a supplementary mandate from the hierarchy” to exercise the duty to proclaim Christ which comes “by virtue of the grace of baptism” (Torrell, 130). The two priesthoods are mutually inter-related, and thus we have co-responsibility for the being and acting of the Church.
However, I do think it is a mistake to link evangelization to the royal priesthood of the Christian faithful, as if it were the main function of that priesthood, rather than thanksgiving. Cavidini writes later:
The royal priesthood remains primary as the end towards which the ministerial priesthood is ordered: “The Christian minister is not defined uniquely in relation to the Eucharistic body, but also, by this very fact, to its mystical Body, of which he is put in charge at his own level of responsibility” (ibid.). On the other hand, the exercise of the baptismal priesthood is always to promote the spiritual sacrifice to which all people are called, and thus is ordered towards the communion of the Church, effected only through the sacramental ministry of priests. Torrell points out that “The Eucharist is presented not only as the center of the whole sacramental organism, but also as ‘the source and apex of all the work of preaching the gospel,’” as we have seen. “What this means,” he comments later, “is that evangelization is not only ‘launched’ from the celebration of Eucharistic worship, whence it has its fecundity, but that it ‘lands’ there, because it is only by the Eucharist that the full insertion of believers into the Body of Christ is achieved” (ibid. 181).As this stands, if there is no further elaboration about what spiritual sacrifice means, it is mostly unobjectionable.
This is another way of saying that a priest whose priestly ministry is obviously and visibly ordered toward the building up of the leadership of the laity in the mission and acting of the Church, and not necessarily towards running it, administering it, organizing it, and supervising it and subordinating it to its own ministry. It also means recognizing it (cf. Nichols, 154).
It is probably uncontroversial say that Dorothy Day was thea leader of the Catholic Worker movement in the United States, if not the leader. (Fr. Peter Maurin could be considered the other, until his death.) It is also probably uncontroversial to say that she was some sort of feminist, even if she wasn't a suffragette and did not call herself a feminist. An appropriate example of "lay leadership" or co-responsibility, or a politically correct one?Such an ordained ministry implies its co-responsible complement, too. The true exercise of the baptismal priesthood is not free lancing independent of the ecclesial community or its communion in the Eucharist for which it is dependent on the ordained minister. Nor is it exercised independent of the authoritative teaching of those in apostolic succession. There is no true exercise of the baptismal priesthood independent of leadership proper to Holy Orders. The two kinds of leadership are co-responsibly related. We can see models of this in some of the heroic leaders leading up to the Council. Dorothy Day, for instance, led a whole new movement in evangelization, completely on her own initiative. Her partnerships with various priests, and Fr. Pacifique Roy, were studies in co-responsibility for the mission and being of the Church,[5] for she centered her movement’s life around the Eucharist and thus the ordained priesthood, and, though she did not ask Cardinal Spellman for permission to operate, she never defied him on matters pertaining to his teaching and pastoral authority, and fostered, rather than broke, communion.A Church in which the center of gravity has, as it were, shifted, in which the co-responsible leadership of those exercising the priesthood of the baptized was the norm, would be a Church we seem not to have really imagined yet. We have since Vatican II operated with a mindset that has not absorbed its major insights in ecclesiology because, I think, we have decided to analyze the call for lay participation as a call for increased "power" of the laity but in a structure that is essentially intact, one that is excessively clericalized and thus ironically secularized, reduced thereby to a power structure conceived independently of its ordering towards a “mystery of communion.”
Lay people do have their own sphere of action, the political arrangement where they are to be found. There some may be leaders of others. (Hence "traditional" notions of leadership are incompatible with feminism, though most American academics support it or at least outwardly do so.) But it should also be stated that with respect to the life of the local Church (whether one think of the local Church as the grouping of parishes, or the parish as a manifestation of the local Church), the Christian laity also have a leadership role. While the presbyterate/episcopate have authority as teachers and oversight over certain activities touching upon "faith and morals," there are likely limits to the authority they have with respect to the latter. Oversight may entail only the power of approval or sanctioning an activity, and not necessarily leadership.The limits to the authority of the presbyterate/episcopate with respect to the life of the Church need to be explored further.
Is von Balthasar an Universalist?
Latin traditionalists hold his universalism against von Balthasar and Ressourcement in general. Have Thomists moved beyond that?
CWR Dispatch: Did Hans Urs von Balthasar teach that everyone will certainly be saved? by Mark Brumley
Whatever Balthasar’s position is, and whether or not it is correct, it isn’t universalism.
CWR Dispatch: Did Hans Urs von Balthasar teach that everyone will certainly be saved? by Mark Brumley
Whatever Balthasar’s position is, and whether or not it is correct, it isn’t universalism.
Friday, March 27, 2020
Greeks Pushing for Deaconesses
Public Orthodoxy: Deaconesses: An Orthodox Institution Untheologically Blocked by Petros Vassiliadis
Should we call this Modernism? It certainly is a questionable take on the interpretation of Scripture.
The necessity of an immediate restoration of the order of deaconesses, the history of the decision to hold the symposium at this particular moment, as well as its expectations, were presented at the opening session. The first and primary reason for convening the symposium was to encourage the traditional access of women to the sacramental “diaconal” priesthood. Unlike the general issue and demand for women ordination into episcopacy and the “hierurgic” priesthood, the symposium aimed at highlighting the diaconal character of the Christian faith, and not the redistribution of power within the Church. As Prof. Dn. John Chryssavgis underlined, we should perceive and practice “the diaconal ministry not as a stepping-stone to the priesthood or episcopate, but as a symbol of the vocation of every Christian (male and female) to serve. It is (he is convinced) today more than ever before, harder to be a deacon in the Orthodox Church than it is to be a priest or a bishop. Unfortunately, centuries of hardened clericalism, ecclesiastical illiteracy, and blatant disregard for the diaconate have rendered it almost impossible for people in our church—clergy and laity—to appreciate how the diaconate should inform every aspect of pastoral leadership and church ministry.…If we do not understand the diaconia, we cannot understand the other ranks of priesthood…even the role of the laity in the Church…The authentic image of the Church that we should be seeking—in our minds as in our ministry—is that of a dinner table, not that of a corporate ladder. The Church is not a pyramid, where all attention and authority are turned toward the summit. Instead, we should imagine the Church as a sacrament, where the primary and essential focus is the celebration of the Eucharist.”Chryssavgis is making the "diaconate" the model for understanding Christian service, though Christian service is not fully explained here, nor how it is different from the life of agape. Often in English translations of Matthew 20:28 and Mark 10:45 there is an interpolation of "others" which is not present in the Greek, so that it reads "[the Son of Man came...] to serve others." This is not warranted by the Greek original. Whom does the Son serve? Not us, but God, the Father. Is the "diaconate" a kind of service to God? Yes. Are Christians to be servants of God? Yes. Does that mean the diaconate does not need to be reformed? No. But do we need to restore the order of deaconesses? To me it does not seem obvious that this is necessary, except perhaps in female religious communities.
Except for extreme cases, Orthodox women are never entrusted, as in the Early Church, with leading roles in the Church’s ministry, the only exception being—especially in the East—the order of deaconesses. The gender ambivalence of ritual is revealed by the dichotomy between theology and practice. While the Orthodox liturgy includes female saint veneration and reputes the Theotokos as “more honorable than the Cherubim, and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim”—that is above the world of the celestial beings—down on earth women are excluded from joining the superior clergy to the rank of deaconesses.
The Old Testament, of course, exemplifies patriarchal bias in many ways, notably in the metaphor of woman coming out of man (Gen 1:22). It is inescapable, however, that this was corrected in the New Testament, by the explicit Pauline statement that “when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman” (Gal 4:4). God becoming incarnate “from a woman” is a reversal of woman “coming out of man.”
Should we call this Modernism? It certainly is a questionable take on the interpretation of Scripture.
A Latin Suggestion
CNA/CWR: Can’t go to confession during coronavirus? Consider an ‘act of perfect contrition’
If it arises from "a love by which God is loved above all else," is that not charity? If one already has charity back, infused by God, then what need for sacramental confession, except to fulfill an obligation or to ease one's misgivings about not going to confession when he should or to "make sure" that one has been forgiven? After all, a mortal sin destroys charity; charity is completely removed from someone who has committed a moral sin. It cannot be restored by the sinner's own power, but by God alone.
I don't think Latins would disagree that an act of perfect contrition, if such a thing exists in relation to a sinner who seeks the sacrament of confession but it is unavailable, can be only a gift from God and cannot be presumed, and it is not identical to attrition or regret or human repentance.
See this Latin explanation: Soteriology: Implicit Perfect Contrition.
Instead of speaking of a sinner's contrition or attrition and attempting to define such things, should we focus instead on the sinner being moved by the Holy Spirit and cooperating with the Holy Spirit? That may leave the pastoral question of what we are to do if we are repentant after committing a mortal sin, but I think that presuming that we have perfect contrition is too much. Would it not be better to encourage the sinner to avail himself of confession when it becomes available and to trust in the mercy of God? After all, even according to Latin moral theologians, the sinner cannot have moral certainty that his perfect contrition is truly perfect contrition, and he should seek confession. Theological speculation about perfect contrition cannot substitute for the moral certainty a sinner needs when he is judging himself and his own acts.
Father Pius Pietrzyk, OP, chair of pastoral studies at St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park, California, told CNA that “perfect contrition” is sorrow for one's sins based upon love for God, which includes the firm resolution not to commit them any more.
When contrition arises from “a love by which God is loved above all else, contrition is called ‘perfect,’” the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches.
The catechism explains that perfect contrition “remits venial sins; it also obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to have recourse to sacramental confession as soon as possible.”
Imperfect contrition, also known as attrition— sorrow for one’s sins based upon fear of the punishment of Hell— is sufficient for a priest to absolve you in the confessional, but not enough to obtain the forgiveness of mortal sin without sacramental confession to a priest, the catechism explains.
If it arises from "a love by which God is loved above all else," is that not charity? If one already has charity back, infused by God, then what need for sacramental confession, except to fulfill an obligation or to ease one's misgivings about not going to confession when he should or to "make sure" that one has been forgiven? After all, a mortal sin destroys charity; charity is completely removed from someone who has committed a moral sin. It cannot be restored by the sinner's own power, but by God alone.
I don't think Latins would disagree that an act of perfect contrition, if such a thing exists in relation to a sinner who seeks the sacrament of confession but it is unavailable, can be only a gift from God and cannot be presumed, and it is not identical to attrition or regret or human repentance.
See this Latin explanation: Soteriology: Implicit Perfect Contrition.
Instead of speaking of a sinner's contrition or attrition and attempting to define such things, should we focus instead on the sinner being moved by the Holy Spirit and cooperating with the Holy Spirit? That may leave the pastoral question of what we are to do if we are repentant after committing a mortal sin, but I think that presuming that we have perfect contrition is too much. Would it not be better to encourage the sinner to avail himself of confession when it becomes available and to trust in the mercy of God? After all, even according to Latin moral theologians, the sinner cannot have moral certainty that his perfect contrition is truly perfect contrition, and he should seek confession. Theological speculation about perfect contrition cannot substitute for the moral certainty a sinner needs when he is judging himself and his own acts.
Reconstructing Democracy
First Things: Two Cheers for Charles Taylor and Friends by Carl R. Trueman
Reconstructing Democracy: How Citizens Are Building from the Ground Up by Charles Taylor, Patrizia Nanz, and Madeleine Beaubien Taylor
Taylor holds on to leftists delusions about the conditions/requirements of communal life. Academics need to get out into the real world.
Reconstructing Democracy: How Citizens Are Building from the Ground Up by Charles Taylor, Patrizia Nanz, and Madeleine Beaubien Taylor
Taylor holds on to leftists delusions about the conditions/requirements of communal life. Academics need to get out into the real world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)