Thursday, December 30, 2010

Kalends of January -- Solemnity of Mary Mother of God

In our fourth-year Christology class, we're just now looking at the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451). One of the things then disputed was the title of Theotokos ("God-bearer, Mother of God") for Mary. The devotional life of the Church embraced it from of old, but could it really be defended?

To some, it seemed theologically dangerous on two counts. It could be taken to imply too small a distinction between Son and Father, as if Mary was the mother of God the Father, not of (or perhaps in addition to) God the Son (this is "Sabellianism" or "Modalism"). And, it could be taken to imply that the Uncreated was not entirely so (this opened the door again to several kinds of Gnosticism).

Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, equivocated, and tried to compromise with the artificial title "Christotokos." But this merely begged the question: was Christ truly God, or not? The great Cyril of Alexandria smashed this half-hearted idea with much vigor, insisting that, if Christ is truly God, then Mary must be called God's mother.

The Council of Ephesus, following Cyril, said this: "For in the first place no common man was born of the holy Virgin, and then the Word thus descended upon him [contra Arianism and Adoptionism]; but being united from the womb itself, he is said to have endured a generation in the flesh in order to appropriate the producing of his own body. [This language would be clarified more at Chalcedon.] Thus [the holy Fathers] did not hesitate to speak of the holy Virgin as the Mother of God (Theotokos)."

When we celebrate the Solemnity of the Theotokos every Octave of the Nativity, we are celebrating not only the special graces and providential Motherhood of our Blessed Mother, and the heaven-opening fidelity of her "Fiat mihi," but also reaffirming our core belief in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, true God eternally begotten of the Father, and true Man born of the Virgin. The very possibility of our salvation comes from his "condescending," in the womb of His holy mother, to take on Himself our weak and fallen human nature. Mary's son is God's Son: one divine person, to whom also is joined the complete human nature, body and soul, taken from Mary in the manner in which all of us take our human nature from our parents.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

May God's most generous blessings and consolations, by the intercession of Mary the Virgin Mother of God, fulfill your every need and desire in the coming new year of grace, the 2011th of our Lord's Incarnation.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Verbum Domini 5

We continue with our reading of Verbum Domini. We've been concentrating on what the Holy Father is saying about our encounter with the Word (Jesus Christ) in different ways, and our response to this encounter (namely, ongoing conversion). Paragraph 15 introduces the Holy Spirit's role in this dynamic of encounter and conversion:

In fact there can be no authentic understanding of Christian revelation apart from the activity of the Paraclete. (15)

Note the compelling summary of the Holy Spirit's activity throughout the New Testament which follows. For Christ Himself, for the disciples and Mary, for Paul and the earliest Christians, the Holy Spirit is always present and active. So too for us.

The word of God is thus expressed in human words thanks to the working of the Holy Spirit. The missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit are inseparable and constitute a single economy of salvation. (15)

This means that:

...without the efficacious working of the “Spirit of Truth” (Jn 14:16), the words of the Lord cannot be understood.... Just as the word of God comes to us in the body of Christ, in his Eucharistic body and in the body of the Scriptures, through the working of the Holy Spirit, so too it can only be truly received and understood through that same Spirit. (16)

Pope Benedict notes that this same unity also works liturgically. Firstly, we need the present action of the Holy Spirit in order to hear, receive, and respond to the proclamation of the Word in the readings and homily. From there, this unity of Spirit and Son is the very essence of "Tradition:"

Indeed, since God “so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (Jn 3:16), the divine word, spoken in time, is bestowed and “consigned” to the Church in a definitive way, so that the proclamation of salvation can be communicated effectively in every time and place. (17)

The root of all ministry in the Church, whether priestly, diaconal, or lay, is our fidelity to the real and compelling communion of Spirit and Son in the one economy of salvation. What the Son does and commands us to do, the Spirit likewise does and supports. We cannot follow Christ coherently without the following of the Holy Spirit. (As a tangent, this is why the argument about "spiritual but not religious" is always wrong-headed; it divides the grace of the Son from the grace of the Spirit, into two separate economies of salvation.) But what has the Son commanded us to do?

Jesus Christ himself “commanded the Apostles to preach the Gospel – promised beforehand by the prophets, fulfilled in his own person and promulgated by his own lips – to all as the source of all saving truth and moral law, communicating God’s gifts to them. This was faithfully carried out; it was carried out by the Apostles who handed on, by oral preaching, by their example, by their ordinances, what they themselves had received – whether from the lips of Christ, from his way of life and his works, or by coming to know it through the prompting of the Holy Spirit...” (17, quoting Dei Verbum 7)

This "all" is all-encompassing of the life of the Church. It is the whole of Tradition. It includes the full panoply of Word, Sacrament, and Charity, and all of our charisms and states of life. Notice especially here the implication of unity of communion with the bishops as successors of the Apostles, and of course with the Successor of Peter as head of that College. Apart from that communion, there is no full and comprehensive fulfillment of Christ's command to preach, baptize, and "do this," but only bits and pieces of that single diakonia.

This communion is not the thrust of his development here, but worth our noticing more closely, certainly. This is where he wants to go from here:

Ultimately, it is the living Tradition of the Church which makes us adequately understand sacred Scripture as the word of God. (17)

And, lest we be overwhelmed by such a demanding expectation, the heart of that statement is here:

...sacred Scripture presents itself to us, in the variety of its many forms and content, as a single reality. Indeed, “through all the words of sacred Scripture, God speaks only one single word... (18)

Scripture, despite its complexity of form and content and composition, and no matter what kind of theory one uses to approach it, must always conform to this overarching truth: its meaning is always one, never plural (though that one meaning can of course have many parts, and many different applications). And that one meaning is always the person of Jesus Christ.

In short, by the work of the Holy Spirit and under the guidance of the magisterium, the Church hands on to every generation all that has been revealed in Christ. The Church lives in the certainty that her Lord, who spoke in the past, continues today to communicate his word in her living Tradition and in sacred Scripture. Indeed, the word of God is given to us in sacred Scripture as an inspired testimony to revelation; together with the Church’s living Tradition, it constitutes the supreme rule of faith... (18, citing Dei Verbum 21).

Friday, December 24, 2010

Merry Christmas!

To all my brothers and friends in the deacon community in the Diocese of Sioux City, and to all readers of this blog, I offer my most sincere prayers and good wishes for a most joyful and faithful Christmas season! May the Light of the World, born on this night in humble poverty, "the same consubstantial with us in our humanity, alike in all things but sin," shine His holy Light into and through all of our hearts, minds, and souls, so that His Good News may ever be preached in this world.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Homily - Gaudete Sunday

“Rejoice in the Lord always! I say again, rejoice! The Lord is near.” These words of St. Paul give us the name for today, “Gaudete Sunday.” Now halfway through Advent, the Lord is very near to us indeed. The joy of His arrival already fills us.

What is this joy which the Church offers us today? It is sharing in God’s own life, just as He became man to share fully in our human life. It is the gift of grace, and the foretaste of Heaven.

St. John the Baptist in his mother’s womb felt this deep joy. When Mary brought the Incarnate Savior into Elizabeth’s house, John leapt for joy. This joy sustained him throughout his life, drove him into the desert as a prophet, and gave him such courage and words of power. This joy attracted “the whole of Jerusalem, and all of Judea,” to hear his preaching. And when he saw Jesus on Jordan’s bank, this joy burst out from his lips in a great shout, “Behold the Lamb of God!” which we still hear at every Mass.

We need to be open to this same joy. Each of us, like St. John, has witnessed the great works of Christ. We have not only seen and heard these miracles in Scripture, but have received them in the sacraments. In our baptism, Christ turned our blindness into spiritual sight, and our deafness into hearing His voice. In the sacrament of Penance, lepers are cleansed, and even those thoroughly dead in sin are raised to life. By receiving the Holy Eucharist, the lame walk. And at every liturgy of the Church, the poor have the Gospel proclaimed to them.

We are given this joy especially in the Mass and the sacraments, so that it can sustain us in daily life, just as it sustained St. John the Baptist. We may not be called to live in the desert and eat locusts, but we are called to live with generosity, simplicity, and self-sacrifice. We are called to live for others; and even to accept suffering and trials as purifying us for union with Christ. The birth of Christ in us is possible only with divine grace and joy we receive from Scripture and the Church’s sacraments.

We are also given this grace and joy, so that we can reveal Christ as King to those around us. We are called to let others see how we follow Christ as our Lord and King. By their adoration of the infant Jesus, the shepherds and the Magi both did this. But since today is also the great feast of our Lady of Guadalupe, let’s take our Blessed Mother as our example in this. In this life, Mary gave us a perfect example of joyful obedience to her Son. Appearing to us now from her throne in Heaven, Mary continues to point only to Him. Look at her image in our shrine, so beautifully bedecked with roses today. When our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to Saint Juan Diego in 1531, she invited an entire continent to follow Christ. She used her appearance, and the miraculous roses, and the miraculous Tilma, to show that she and her Son are closer to us even than we are to ourselves.

The Church offers us such joy today, in preparation for Christ’s birth. He is coming soon; will we be ready? Perhaps those of us who are here today will be ready. What about our family and friends and neighbors who aren’t here? The body of the Church is incomplete without them, and Christ longs to be their King also. Will we see them here at Mass on Christmas, adoring Him? May God give us the grace through our joy to invite them to know and to love our Lord Jesus Christ.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Verbum Domini 4

Our encounter with Jesus Christ is itself dynamic, a process of growth in faith and holiness. Even when there are dramatic moments of great conversion, these must be integrated into our hearts and lives. The Gospels give us this pattern, both in themselves, and (one might add) in how they are used liturgically:

Reading the Gospel accounts, we see how Jesus’ own humanity appears in all its uniqueness precisely with regard to the word of God. In his perfect humanity he does the will of the Father at all times; Jesus hears his voice and obeys it with his entire being; he knows the Father and he keeps his word (cf. Jn 8:55); he speaks to us of what the Father has told him (cf. Jn 12:50); “I have given them the words which you gave me” (Jn 17:8). Jesus thus shows that he is the divine Logos which is given to us, but at the same time the new Adam, the true man, who unfailingly does not his own will but that of the Father. He “increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man” (Lk 2:52). In a perfect way, he hears, embodies and communicates to us the word of God (cf. Lk 5:1). (12)

Just as preparatory revelation leads to the definitive revelation of Christ, so too the Gospels reveal Christ to us progressively, from His Incarnation and birth, to His preaching and miracles, to His Passion and Resurrection. This paschal mystery is the pinnacle of Christ's own mission:

Jesus’ mission is ultimately fulfilled in the paschal mystery: here we find ourselves before the “word of the cross” (1 Cor 1:18). The word is muted; it becomes mortal silence, for it has “spoken” exhaustively, holding back nothing of what it had to tell us.... In this great mystery Jesus is revealed as the word of the new and everlasting covenant: divine freedom and human freedom have definitively met in his crucified flesh... (12)

Further, just as He Himself illumines the whole of creation, just so His Passion illumines for us the whole of His life:

In the most luminous mystery of the resurrection, this silence of the word is shown in its authentic and definitive meaning. Christ, the incarnate, crucified and risen Word of God, is Lord of all things; he is the victor, the Pantocrator, and so all things are gathered up forever in him (cf. Eph 1:10). Christ is thus “the light of the world” (Jn 8:12), the light which “shines in the darkness” (Jn 1:5) and which the darkness has not overcome (cf. Jn 1:5). (12)

Since "Human salvation is the reason underlying everything" (9), Easter is the definitive statement (Word) of that meaning. The early Fathers sometimes described the significance of Easter as the "fulcrum" of all time. Pope Benedict is making a similar claim here, morally rather than chronologically:

...Christ’s victory over death took place through the creative power of the word of God. This divine power brings hope and joy: this, in a word, is the liberating content of the paschal revelation. At Easter, God reveals himself and the power of the trinitarian love which shatters the baneful powers of evil and death. (13)

Only perfect love fulfills perfectly our inherent longing for communion.

Because Easter has this overarching clarity and depth of meaning for all the rest of creation, it must be accepted as definitive revelation. Since Jesus truly is God Himself, what more of God could He reveal? What greater obedience or victory could He enact? Therefore the Church has taught since the beginning that revelation is complete ("perfected") in Christ:

Indeed, as the Fathers noted during the Synod, the “uniqueness of Christianity is manifested in the event which is Jesus Christ, the culmination of revelation, the fulfilment of God’s promises and the mediator of the encounter between man and God. He who ‘has made God known’ (Jn 1:18) is the one, definitive word given to mankind” (14; he also here cites St. Paul, Dei Verbum, and St. John of the Cross).

Very briefly, the exhortation then draws out the implications of this fact for eschatological truth (the Lord we meet after death is the same Lord we already meet and love - or not - in this life) and for private revelations (increase faith and devotion, and sometimes have a prophetic character, but don't add anything to Scripture or Tradition), before turning to the Holy Spirit's role.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Verbum Domini 3

In the first nine paragraphs, Pope Benedict has established the Word, Jesus Christ the Son of God, as the root and the meaning ("Logos") of all physical creation, spiritual reality, and salvation history. "Human salvation is the reason underlying everything." (9) This divine foundation puts the dynamic of perfect love at the center of everything; nothing can possibly exist, even sin, apart from a defining relationship with "God who Speaks."

In paragraph 10, he begins working down to the level of the individual:

Those who know God’s word also know fully the significance of each creature... those who build their lives on his word build in a truly sound and lasting way. (10)

This is of course not a novel idea for followers of Christ. The parable of the house built on rock (on The Rock) versus one built on sand will come to mind, for example. In the same way, no created thing is solid and "real" enough to be that foundation stone:

Possessions, pleasure and power show themselves sooner or later to be incapable of fulfilling the deepest yearnings of the human heart. (10)

This brings into this discussion the interior dynamic of continuing conversion and the action of grace; that is, the encounter with and desire for perfect love. As we grow in faith and holiness, we see more and more clearly how things of this world, even when they are good and even as we inevitably use them daily, cannot be the end, the "root and meaning" of our lives. We dig deeper to find and make more central the Rock which is Christ, because only perfect love fulfills perfectly the longing of our hearts. (Cue St. Augustine's famous quote from the Confessions, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O Lord.") This longing brings us face to face with Jesus Christ:

Here the word finds expression not primarily in discourse, concepts or rules. Here we are set before the very person of Jesus. His unique and singular history is the definitive word which God speaks to humanity. We can see, then, why “being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a definitive direction” (11, citing his own Deus Caritas Est, 1).

The bits and pieces of preparatory revelation, embedded everywhere in creation (as how could they not be?), all point to the definitive revelation of God the Son, Jesus Christ. Only the darkness of sin prevents us from seeing this clearly from the beginning. The fundamental encounter is precisely "illumination:" Christ who is "lumen gentium" literally "in-lumen-ates" us, dispelling the darkness of sin from our spiritual senses. And given a taste of transcendent and perfect love, we long for more:

The constant renewal of this encounter and this awareness fills the hearts of believers with amazement at God’s initiative, which human beings, with our own reason and imagination, could never have dreamt of. (11)

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Verbum Domini 2

After the introduction, the first big section of Verbum Domini is called "God Who Speaks." Pope Benedict insists pretty strongly that those foundations he's already sketched out have very important concomitants.

...we would not yet sufficiently grasp the message of the Prologue of Saint John if we stopped at the fact that God enters into loving communion with us. In reality, the Word of God, through whom “all things were made”(Jn 1:3) and who “became flesh” (Jn 1:14), is the same Word who is “in the beginning” (Jn 1:1). If we realize that this is an allusion to the beginning of the book of Genesis (cf. Gen 1:1), we find ourselves faced with a beginning which is absolute and which speaks to us of the inner life of God. The Johannine Prologue makes us realize that the Logos is truly eternal, and from eternity is himself God. (VD, 6)

The absoluteness of the beginning of all that is made, and of the utter lack of beginning of the one who makes all things, are the great truths that define our horizon as creatures. "Jesus is God" is the great truth that defines our spiritual nature. Together, this truth grounds us in a reality of tangible love and purpose:

Created in the image and likeness of the God who is love, we can thus understand ourselves only in accepting the Word and in docility to the work of the Holy Spirit. In the light of the revelation made by God’s Word, the enigma of the human condition is definitively clarified. (6)

This kind of grounding cuts through all the esoteric angst of modernity, and gives us the means to unite our ordinary human suffering to Christ's. This kind of humility frees us to love:

For us, this proclamation is a word of freedom. Scripture tells us that everything that exists does not exist by chance but is willed by God and part of his plan, at whose center is the invitation to partake, in Christ, in the divine life. (8)

All the layers of Christ's own shape and nature, from His own "real, true, and substantial presence" in the Blessed Sacrament, to the other sacraments, the Church, Scripture and Tradition, our experience and interior illumination, and all the way down to the coherent reasonableness of other creatures -- all these layers make up this invitation "to partake... in the divine life." You might notice both that this is the "concentric model" of participation from Lumen Gentium, which we discussed recently; and also that this is the reverse of St. Hilarius's "ascent" from the basic rationality of creatures to the Creator. Neither of these similarities is accidental, as the quotes in #8 from Psalms, St. Bonaventure, and Dei Verbum make plain.

Given all this, the first two sentences in #9 are a whopper:

Reality, then is born of the word, as creatura Verbi, and everything is called to serve the word. Creation is the setting in which the entire history of the love between God and his creation develops; hence human salvation is the reason underlying everything. (9)

Every creature - angels, men, animals, trees, rocks and dirt - every creature is a creature "of the Word." The whole of creation, all of time and space, is therefore "the setting... of the love between God and his creation...". But in all that immense and wondrous creation, only we humans can respond freely to this gift of love. "Hence human salvation is the reason underlying everything." The whole of salvation exists, not just for us to use, but for us to use as means of responding to divine love. Everything about us and our culture and society is therefore, at root, profoundly Biblical (= Christological). And of course, if we say that, we can't avoid saying further that:

Jesus Christ then gives mankind the new law, the law of the Gospel, which takes up and eminently fulfils the natural law, setting us free from the law of sin... (9)

Friday, November 12, 2010

Verbum Domini, Introduction

You may have noticed that the Post-Synodal Exhortation, “Verbum Domini,” on the Word of God, was published yesterday. You should all find time to read it in the coming weeks. I keep harping on the deacon as “herald of the Gospel,” (believe what you read, preach what you believe, and practice what you preach; or, in the Extraordinary Form, Receive the power of reading the Gospels in the Church, as much for the living as for the dead) and therefore on our service as being shaped in a special way by the proclamation of the Good News. Pope Benedict is giving the same message to the whole Church in this document. It needs to shape our study of Scripture, of theology, of pastoral care, of liturgy, and of preaching.

This is a quick look at the document, with my first impressions. I'll go section by section, to make it manageable. Pope Benedict starts with the basics. The Church has received the Good News from Christ, the Word of God Incarnate, and an unchanging mission to proclaim it:

…we find ourselves before the mystery of God, who has made himself known through the gift of his word. This word, which abides forever, entered into time. God spoke his eternal Word humanly; his Word “ became flesh ” (Jn 1:14). This is the good news. This is the proclamation which has come down the centuries to us today. (Verbum Domini, 1)

So the Word is at the heart of everything the Church does (“Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”), like a “wellspring”:

In this way I wish to point out certain fundamental approaches to a rediscovery of God’s word in the life of the Church as a wellspring of constant renewal. At the same time I express my hope that the word will be ever more fully at the heart of every ecclesial activity. (1)

I don’t think this point can be stressed enough.

Pope Benedict goes on to remind us that this Word is not just an object of faith, but a gift, a person, and a communion of us with Him:

Called to communion with God and among ourselves, we must proclaim this gift. From this kerygmatic standpoint, the synodal assembly was a testimony, before the Church and before the world, to the immense beauty of encountering the word of God in the communion of the Church. For this reason I encourage all the faithful to renew their personal and communal encounter with Christ, the word of life made visible, and to become his heralds, so that the gift of divine life – communion – can spread ever more fully throughout the world. Indeed, sharing in the life of God, a Trinity of love, is complete joy (cf. 1 Jn 1:4). And it is the Church’s gift and unescapable duty to communicate that joy, born of an encounter with the person of Christ, the Word of God in our midst. (2)

If we meet and know Jesus by receiving the kerygma in the Gospel, our reception of Him as gift brings “complete joy,” and a burning desire to share that complete union with others. Our love for Him needs to be infectious, the more so since it is precisely the absence of Christ which makes modern life seem so difficult to bear:

There is no greater priority than this: to enable the people of our time once more to encounter God, the God who speaks to us and shares his love so that we might have life in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10). (2)

(These are still the basics.) Growing in union with Christ is our purpose as human creatures. This is why God made each of us. We can’t fulfill that end without a personal encounter with the Word.

This next move is totally characteristic of Benedict’s ministry as Holy Father. As the Church has grappled more and more concretely with the modern world over the last 125 years or so, the necessary mode of the centrality of this personal encounter with Christ the Word has become more and more clear. (In the past, the encounter was often through poverty and asceticism, for example; but only in certain contexts through the Word in Scripture directly.) The foundation of his idea of a “hermeneutic of continuity” is the unchanging nature of this encounter, now being deployed by the Church in ways both old and new, to make it more available to people in this age:

Beginning with the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII, we can say that there has been a crescendo of interventions aimed at an increased awareness of the importance of the word of God and the study of the Bible in the life of the Church, culminating in the Second Vatican Council and specifically in the promulgation of the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum. The latter represented a milestone in the Church’s history… Everyone is aware of the great impulse which the Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum gave to the revival of interest in the word of God in the life of the Church… By celebrating this Synod, the Church, conscious of her continuing journey under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, felt called to further reflection on the theme of God’s word, in order to review the implementation of the Council’s directives, and to confront the new challenges which the present time sets before Christian believers. (3)

This 2008 Synod, then, and this document which is its fruit (guided by the Holy Spirit), is part of that trajectory of continuity of living faith, and of the same goal of bringing the personal encounter with Christ the Word to the front of the Church’s activities in the world, for evangelization and the salvation of souls.

This last point in the Introduction I’d like to note connects with my talk on St. Hilarius from a couple of weeks ago, at our Fall Day of Reflection. St. Hilarius used the Prologue of the Gospel of John as the foundation for his development of a Trinitarian theology, and for his spirituality as I described. Pope Benedict does the same thing here, and draws the same conclusion St. Hilary did: our whole spiritual life needs to “lean on the bosom of Christ, like St. John:”

I would like to present and develop the labours of the Synod by making constant reference to the Prologue of John’s Gospel (Jn 1:1-18), which makes known to us the basis of our life: the Word… May John, who “ saw and believed ” (cf. Jn 20:8) also help us to lean on the breast of Christ (cf. Jn 13:25), the source of the blood and water (cf. Jn 19:34) which are symbols of the Church’s sacraments.(5)

Monday, October 25, 2010

Norms of justice

In today's Office of Readings, we find this passage from Wisdom (expressing the rejection of God by the unrepentant):

But let our strength be our norm of justice;
for weakness proves itself useless.
Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us;
he sets himself against our doings,
reproaches us for transgressions of the law
and charges us with violations of our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God
and styles himself a child of the Lord.
To us he is the censure of our thoughts;
merely to see him is a hardship for us,
because his life is not like other men's,
and different are his ways.

The just one in this passage is of course Jesus Christ; but since we belong to Him, what is said about Him should also be said in some sense about us. Our lives should be different enough from the lives of those who don't belong to Him to be noticed, to be a reproach - a positive witness to His love and truth, and an implicit invitation to conversion. If strength is the norm of justice for those who don't belong to Christ, how can it be the norm of justice for those of us who do? Of course, it isn't supposed to be. The whole paradox of the Cross, of the truth that "when I am weak, then I am strong," is supposed to be our norm.

I think this applies to our witness as families in a special way. To be weak as a family doesn't mean to be a doormat; it means to be humble in our submission to the demands of that vocation. As husbands, in particular, those of us who are or hope to become deacons are called to subordinate our own needs to those of our wife and children; and to the extent that is reasonably and prudently compatible with that priority, to subordinate our needs to those of our neighbor, also. In other words, we are to choose to love, to "prefer the good of the other, even to our own good." This is how we show that Christ is indeed our Lord; and that marriage is indeed a very special and fundamental form of service, not something that feeds and strengthens our baser appetites in "socially acceptable" ways.

When Joe asked us this past Saturday to consider the point of view of those who support the legality of SSM, I jumped on that idea -- the idea, I say, not the people who hold it -- as hard and as strong as I could. I hope it was clear from the discussion and what followed, that I did this, not because I don't want to consider the idea, but because I have considered it, and I know and believe that this idea requires precisely that rejection of God expounded in this passage of Wisdom. I grant that many, perhaps even most or all, of the people who support the legality of SSM do not see this implication, that they don't intend to reject God, and that their desire for justice is real. But nevertheless these ideas are incompatible with each other.

So, simply in respect of our vocation as husbands and fathers, not to mention our vocation as deacons, we cannot afford the confusion -- clear to the eyes of faith, if not to worldly eyes -- of mistaking our strength, our own idolatrous norm of justice, for God's will. It is always a mistake to believe that weakness proves itself useless, for this is fundamentally a rejection of the Cross. And our weakness here needs to be a daily, joyful commitment, in prayer and action, that "not my will, but Yours, be done."

Friday, October 15, 2010

The utility of Philosophy

Ignatius Insight interviews Stanley Grove, a Catholic Neo-Scholastic physicist at Wyoming Catholic College, about philosophy in general, and Hawkings' most recent book in particular. Two LOL quotes:

If medieval man was wrong to anchor his ontological significance to his perception of being at the center of the world, how much more foolish are the moderns who base their claims of human insignificance on our being nowhere in particular?

And,

Professor Hawking’s recent effusions are so wanting in insight that one suspects a mind coming undone.

The whole thing is worth a read.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Inquiry Night Schedule (updated)

Here is the schedule for Inquiry Nights this year:

Tuesday, Oct 12, 7:00 pm, St. Joseph's, Milford
Thursday, Oct 14, 7:00 pm, Cathedral, Sioux City
Tuesday, Oct 19, 6:30 pm, Holy Trinity, Fort Dodge (Corpus Christi center)
Tuesday, Oct 26, 7:00 pm, St. Lawrence, Carroll

Update: Holy Spirit parish's "family room" on the 26th, not at St. Lawrence.

My thanks to all the pastors who have agreed to host these inquiry meetings. Any of our current deacons, candidates, or aspirants, including wives, are also welcome to come to one or more of these meetings and help answer questions, talk about their own experience in formation and as a deacon (or wife), and so forth.

Most importantly, if you know good men who have expressed some interest in the diaconate, or who you think may be called to a diaconal vocation by God, give them the information and encourage them to attend one of these meetings. And as always, they can contact me at any time.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Homily - Respect Life Sunday

Here's the homily I preached at the Cathedral this weekend:

On this Respect Life Sunday, I invite you to consider how many ways the devil tempts us to devalue human life. We probably think first of truly grave evils, like abortion and euthanasia; and rightly so. These are diabolical things. The devil certainly uses fear or anger or despair as weapons to keep a mother from loving the new life in her womb. He uses greed or even misplaced compassion to prevent the terminally ill, and their families, from choosing to love the suffering Christ shares with them.

But the devil also works in more subtle ways. Every day, he tries to convince us that other goods, other divine gifts, are more valuable than a human life. If we think like this, that the ends justify the means, we won’t easily recognize some of our own sins. We will be unprofitable servants, unable to ask God to forgive our much smaller attacks on the dignity of life, such as taking God’s name in vain, cursing at the driver who cuts us off, or taking our loved ones for granted.

Since this is Respect Life Sunday, let’s think about this more deeply. First of all, let’s hold firmly to the truth that the divine gift of life is a fundamental good. Consider that God cannot give us any other good, even the greatest possible good of final salvation, unless He’s already given us life in this world. This is why we say that each human life is sacred. From the moment of conception, each person is unique and irreplaceable in God’s love, and in His plan of salvation.

But, if life itself were not a great gift, then it would be right to sacrifice precious lives for these other goods, both literally and metaphorically. Not only would the appalling crimes of abortion, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research be justified. But also, in the same way, to justify the means is to justify many other crimes against human dignity. Respect for the sanctity of human life is slowly eroded, until eventually, it has no value at all. In the end, this diabolical lie always leads, not only to murder and slavery, but also to every kind of callous and hard-hearted contempt for others every day.

In our first reading, the prophet Habakkuk denounces these consequences – both the great and the small – as intolerable violence. This denunciation is God’s own word, which God gives to Habakkuk for Israel, and for the whole world. From the beginning, God wills life and hope together. Violence against human dignity therefore attacks not only life, but also hope.

But without hope, what becomes of our faith? If other gifts were more valuable than life, would God become man for us? If our lives were such paltry and contemptible things, would God be willing to die for us? The more we believe this lie, the less we can believe in the Incarnation or the Cross or the Resurrection. If we disregard the sanctity of life, we reject both hope and faith.

We heard the echo of this confusion in our responsorial psalm. Psalm 95 says, “Do not grow stubborn, as your fathers did in the wilderness, when at Meriba and Massah they challenged me and provoked me, although they had seen all of my works.” The greatest of all God’s works in the Old Testament – namely, the Passover in Egypt, and the parting of the Red Sea – happened only three days before the Israelites reached Meriba. Only three days!! And already they were grumbling about what they had left behind.

But God responds to His people’s sins with generous grace. At Meriba, He gave Moses the miracle of using a piece of wood to freshen the salt water for them to drink. This foreshadows the Cross. At Massah, He first provided quail and manna. This foreshadows the Eucharist. He also brought forth water from solid rock. This foreshadows baptism. Every time we turn against God, He calls us back to hope and faith.

In the light of faith, no lie can hide. We know that life is good, even given the reality of sin and suffering. We know that life is a divine gift, and that we must treasure this gift by treating every human being with the same respect, regardless of their age, their productivity, or the functioning of their mind. From natural conception to natural death, God wills only our good, and provides all the good things of His creation to strengthen and nourish us. And spiritually, we know that God wills not the death of the sinner, and provides us in His Church every means of grace, and every opportunity to repent of our sins, so that we may receive the eternal life He wants to give us.

To have strong faith, then, means both to know and love Jesus Christ, and to live publicly according to His promises. We are still imperfect, still sinners in this life, but we come to this Holy Mass to become more perfect, to receive His healing. We want to give ourselves more fully to Christ, and to help satisfy His thirst for souls. We hope and believe in the power of grace to overcome our sins. We trust that following Jesus with living faith will make our lives, and the lives of others, more joyful. We believe enough to act for that longed-for perfection.

Acting for that perfection means respecting the dignity and sanctity of every human life – not only on the most grievous and urgent issues of our day, but also on the daily sins of anger, spite, and contempt. When we succumb to temptation in little things, we make ourselves less trustworthy in great things. Therefore we seek forgiveness and conversion. We strive to respect life even in little ways, so that we can change the world’s more fundamental disrespect for life.

In the second reading, St. Paul tells us not to believe like cowards. He says, “Do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord…; but bear your share of hardship for the Gospel with the strength that comes from God.” Our Lord Jesus Christ entrusted His testimony to sinners and tax collectors. We don’t have to be perfect in order to stand with Him in defense of life and dignity. He takes us as we are, and He heals us with His grace.

But we do have to have courage. It takes courage, for example, to join 40 Days for Life, or Right to Life, or even in private to pray the Rosary for an end to abortion. It takes courage to refuse that extra dose of morphine, which might end a loved one’s suffering a few days before God wills it. It takes courage to unite our suffering with the suffering of Christ crucified. But it also takes courage to ask our neighbor for forgiveness when we’ve wronged them. It takes great courage to go to Confession, and ask God to forgive us.

Fidelity to the Gospel will cost us in this life. But listen to Moses and Habakkuk and Paul, and to all the saints, who say: “Christ has already paid that cost for us!” This is the strength of our faith. This is why we can hope, despite suffering and death, and even despite our own sins. This is why we have the courage to imagine a world without the intolerable violence of abortion or euthanasia; and the still greater courage to imagine ourselves without sin. “For what is seen is still distant, it will appear in the end and will not lie. If it delays, hope for it. What is coming is coming, and it will not be late.”

Friday, September 24, 2010

"I'm a Christian, kill me too!!"

In 258, when Bishop Cyprian was arrested and tried for being a Christian, his sentencing in the marketplace of the great city of Carthage was witnessed by many thousands of citizens, including no doubt many hundreds of his flock. (We have the court stenographer's record of the trial.) As the soldiers led him away in chains to be executed, dozens and dozens of Christians started chasing them down the road, shouting, "I'm a Christian, kill me too!!" In fear of what might happen if they killed so many, the soldiers beat them and chased them off before martyring the great bishop.

This is not only exemplary faith, of course, but also the fruit of how that faith was lived out. Christians at that time knew they faced the possibility of martyrdom, both literal and figurative. The world was overtly, violently hostile to Christ, far more so than today's anti-Christian sentiment. They were therefore taught in their catechesis and in sermons to prepare for it. They were taught that love for God, Christian virtue, meant being so attached already to what is promised for the next life, that persecution and struggle in this life cannot injure it. They took literally what St. Paul says, "What can separate us from the love of God?" Nothing, certainly, in this life!

The technical name for that attitude was detachment - Greek, "apotasso," Latin, "renuntiatio."

What do we renounce today? What part of the world are we sacrificing, knowingly, in order to belong to Christ?

My own participation in this year's 40 Days for Life campaign and kickoff has brought this question forcefully to mind this week. What is the depth of my love for these poor? Would I be there for those innocent little ones, if the police were ready to drag me off to a severe beating, imprisonment, exile, or even death? Would I still run after them and their mothers -- so often lied to, scared, and compelled by others into such a "choice" -- crying with more perfect charity, "I'm a Christian, kill me too!!" Can I have such love in my heart, even when our pro-life speech and witness is protected, not persecuted?

Few of us will ever have to answer that question in fact. But all of us should be preparing for it.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Homily - 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, and Catechetical Sunday

I found this homily difficult to write, because the theme of Catechetical Sunday (marriage) doesn't really fit the readings. Still, it certainly wasn't as bad as this...

The prophet Amos rebukes those who lie and cheat in the marketplace. But, more than their lying and cheating, his real target is their attitude about God. They say, “When will the new moon be over…, that we may sell our grain, and the Sabbath, that we may display the wheat?” For these people, God’s law is important, but less important than their money and their greed. They’re going through the motions of obeying God’s law, but they don’t love God. This is why they are impatient for the Sabbath to end, so they can get back to doing their important business!
This attitude, this kind of sin, is all too familiar. Our society approves and rewards such sinners as being “more tolerant.” They show up at the Temple, but they do not let their faith affect how they act in the “real world.” The way such people behave in the marketplace, is also how they conduct their politics, and their family life -- and even their worship. This is not tolerance, but idolatry: they treat God as only one good among many, and God’s law as only one rule among many.
Too many people still think such an attitude is acceptable and practical, since it’s merely what everyone else is doing. But for God, and for faith, it is not nearly good enough. The prophet Amos cries out with God’s righteous anger against being treated so lightly.
Jesus tells us that we “cannot serve two masters.” God is not one good among many. He is the only good. If we want or need other goods than God, it is only so that these created goods can bring us closer to Him. And God’s law is not one rule among many. It is our only rule. If we follow other laws, it is only because these too have their source in God’s law. We cannot love both God and the world.
Jesus tells us that, if we are not trustworthy in small things, we cannot expect to be trusted with great things. The sacrament of marriage is one of those “great things” for which we hope to be trusted. And because this vocation is so important, the devil works very hard to keep husbands and wives from being trustworthy with the small, daily aspects of married life.
How do those who are called to married life prove trustworthy in little things, each and every day? How do we let our faith affect our family, so as to be worthy of God’s trust with the great thing, our sanctification through married life?
The Church clearly teaches the minimum, the letter of God’s law for marriage. Adultery, fornication, contraception, pornography -- these are all grave moral evils. At a minimum, don’t do them. Let me say that again: chastity is the least we can do for God. The devil tries to convince us that chastity is too hard for us. He whispers that we have a right to be unchaste, at least in our thoughts and desires, if not with our actual bodies. But God says that chastity, even in our thoughts and desires, is not too hard for us to live up to. And He gives us the grace to do so.
But this “least,” Amos has said, is not enough. We must do more than just the minimum.
Our shared spiritual life in the home is a critical part of that “more.” The devil wants your marriage to fail, because its success is part of what gets you to Heaven. Therefore prayer is crucial to a healthy marriage. Husbands and wives strengthen their marriage when they pray together. Parents both teach and testify to their faith when they teach their children to pray. Meals together, without distractions like television or computers, form us humanly and socially; and they become spiritually intimate with family prayer. Even perfectly ordinary and common moments, like getting into or out of your car, can be simple and effective times to pray, and can build in us the habit of praying constantly.
Sharing prayer in these ways is not hard, but it does take commitment. There are always going to be interruptions of our prayer time, and temptations not to pray. Don’t give up. Keep praying. No matter what we may be doing physically, like mowing the grass or folding laundry, we can always recite an Our Father or a Hail Mary mentally.
Another major portion of doing more than the minimum is healing our attitude. Our mutual obedience to each other and to God should be willing, and prompt, and cheerful. A husband’s gratitude to his wife, for example, might be expressed by not complaining about her to his buddies. Likewise, a wife’s humility might mean not nagging her husband.
Our prompt and cheerful mutual obedience also entails a prompt and cheerful readiness to forgive. No matter how good our marriage or family life might be, all of us will sometimes need both to ask for and to offer forgiveness. A healthy attitude and an active prayer life will make both the asking, and the giving, easier.
How we live in the home is how we will live in the world. If our faith permeates every part of our family life, it will also shape our conduct in worship of God, and in the marketplace, and in politics. Only the healthy and active faith nourished in the home will survive the trials of the world and the hatred of the devil.
Finally, today we mark Catechetical Sunday. Every parent is a catechist, and we pray that all parents will have the courage and grace to pass on their living faith to their children. But also, volunteering to be a catechist in the Church requires very deep faith, and can even represent heroic courage. It is a further gift of time, patience, and faith. Every Church catechist makes sacrifices to help other families pass on the flame of our faith. You also show us how to serve God alone, with faith and love. As we mark Catechetical Sunday today, I offer special thanks and prayers to all the members of our parish who live out their faith in this way.

Friday, September 3, 2010

3 September - Pope Saint Gregory the Great

On loving God in the active life – wisdom from Pope Saint Gregory the Great

Before he was chosen as Pope, Saint Gregory was a monk (under the Rule of Saint Benedict), and a deacon (yea, go deacons!!). He had a monastic contemplative life, based around his monastic schedule – Liturgy of the Hours, lectio divina, meditative prayer, and silence of tongue, mind, and opinion. When he became Pope, he complained bitterly about the loss of this schedule and this spiritual routine. He feared greatly the damage this lack of contemplation could do to him, and through him to the souls in his care.

But in the course of his pontificate, Saint Gregory came to understand another path of contemplative prayer, suitable for those in the active life. Here in very schematic form are the six steps he sketches out on this path.

1. The pursuit of natural virtue in one’s duties in the world. The four cardinal virtues – prudence, fortitude, justice, and temperance – are part of the natural law, and we know about them, and what makes them good, from our ordinary experience in this world. No one in the active life can deny that to pursue these virtues is a good thing in itself. Those who strive for these virtues are “better” people, and they are more admired and respected, in general. The more systematic and self-disciplined the pursuit of these virtues, the more admirable the person.

2. Humility. Saint Benedict says that humility is the root of all virtue, and the self-disciplined pursuit of even natural virtues tends to humility. But humility creates in us the capacity to love the other more than one loves oneself. Humility perfects natural virtue, and, if we’re looking in that direction, leads us to Christ.

3. Obedience. Obedience is another fruit of growing in natural virtue. “Obedience” here doesn’t mean taking orders from someone else; it means choosing to put the good of someone else reasonably high in our priorities. For example, husbands and wives practice this obedience to each other daily, when they choose to do household chores out of love. Employees practice this obedience when they choose honesty rather than lying or stealing from their employer. And so forth. In a larger sense, what we’re doing when we obey in this way is choosing the good more effectively. We’re submitting ourselves more wholeheartedly to the demands of that vision of the good, through the practice of natural virtue perfected in humility. Already at this level there is a degree of joy which draws us further along this active path. As the saying goes, "Virtue is its own reward."

4. Unity and peace, then, are the practical fruit of natural virtue, humility, and obedience in one’s state in life. It is the lack or the imperfection of virtue that separates us from each other, and that breaks our peace with each other, for example in anger. But, looked at from the other direction, unity and peace are also the means of encountering the true unity and true peace of the Mystical Body of Christ. That is, natural unity and peace are the historical expression of supernatural unity and peace in Christ. So again, natural virtue leads us to Christ. The more our growth in virtue orients us to the good of others, the harder it is to maintain a vision of the good separate from the good which is Christ.

5. In the Church, the submission of one’s judgment to the reign of Christ is purified. The fruit of unity and peace in the Church, the mystical Body, is an encounter with Christ the Head. We therefore begin to apply the humility and obedience to the Church, also. We come to love God’s providential will in the Church. We submit ourselves more and more to her wisdom in doctrine; we look more and more to her moral guidance in daily matters; we find increasing happiness in fulfilling her precepts. The joy of loving Christ, and of loving like Christ, begins to make our attraction to merely created goods less compelling.

6. Loving the Church, we can finally envision love for God Himself as perfect Love. We find, in the depths of our most basic motive for meeting our duties in the active life, the eye of our heart gazing upon God’s divinity. To put it simply, we live the divine praises.


The attractive object of contemplation for those in the active life -- what draws our attention and our attraction out of the created order and toward God -- is, then, the providential will of God. By learning to love the will of God, starting at the most general level of natural virtue and working “up” to the most personal level of my vocation and what God wills me to do, right now, today, in order to serve in that vocation, we come to love God Himself – which is, of course, what we are created and baptized for.

I stress that following this path doesn’t happen automatically. We still sin. Even without sinning, we choose contradictory and retrograde goods every day. God doesn’t deprive us of the good of our will. We must choose to love him, at every moment. But what this path showed to Saint Gregory was that he need not regret leaving the monastery. It is possible to be a perfect imitator of the perfect love of Christ, even in the midst of active life in the world – in the world, that is, but not of the world. This path, finally, is one of interior conversion -- a different path of interior conversion than the monastic vocation, but that’s precisely why we who aren’t monks need it.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

25 August - Excursus on Saint Louis IX of France

25 August, the memorial of St. Louis IX of France. St. Louis (1215-1270) was a contemporary of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure, and, as a king, one of the better examples of medieval ideas of law and justice in practice. A short excursus into his life will perhaps help put some flesh to the ideas of law we’re getting from the Summa.

His mother, Blanche of Castile, one of the many grandchildren of the great Eleanor of Aquitaine, was worthy of her parentage. She was a very forceful person, an excellent organizer and administrator, and fierce in defending her family. When, in 1215-16 (remember the Magna Carta?), the English barons in revolt against King John offered the throne of England to Louis VIII, she organized the army and navy for the invasion of England to receive it, but in a land battle and a naval battle, the English forces loyal to John and his son Henry defeated them. She put down rebellions of French barons, and later defeated an English invasion of France in 1230. (The “English” and “French” barons tended to hold lands on both sides of the Channel; and the kings tended to be barons of each other, also, so the politics were rather convoluted; hence all the mutual “invasions” until the end of the Hundred Years War.) She protected and expanded the power of the French kings against the other great dukes and kings of England, France, and Germany. She was also a great papist in the various ecclesial politics of the day. She was, no surprise, chosen to be her son’s regent when Louis VIII died in 1226, and she continued to guide and support her son vigorously after his majority and marriage in 1234. She was regent again when St. Louis was crusading in Egypt, 1248-50.

St. Louis emulated these same qualities. He was politically astute and vigorous. But, he did not pursue royal power merely for the sake of accumulating more power. He was intent on using that power for the purposes everyone agreed he had it: to protect the poor and the Church against the abuses of the powerful; to govern with justice; to maintain peace as far as possible. He used diplomacy as much as he could, but he didn’t shy away from using force when necessary. He notably avoided a couple of “wars,” in France and in Sicily, that he could have pursued (and that someone like his grandfather, Philippe Auguste, would not have hesitated to pursue). He was not a great legislator, but he respected the laws and customs of his day, and extended the reach and the reliability of royal courts of justice. He himself sat as judge regularly, and his “king’s justice” was available even to the poorest peasants.

His own faith and devotion were very strong. As was the norm then, he used his power to curb abuses within the Church, and to fight against the Albigensian heresy (the “Albigensian crusade”). He built the fabulous Sainte Chappelle in Paris (pictures just don’t do it justice), and funded Robert of Sorbonne in founded the university that bears his name (originally as a theology school). His personal library numbered in the hundreds of books, and was one of the great collections of the day. He also pursued two extensive Crusades in Egypt, to defend the Holy Land by securing its approaches from the south. These were understood as wars of self-defense for Christendom. Both were ultimately unsuccessful.

If you read the Office of Readings this morning, you might have noted these ideas in the letter to his son which is the second reading for today. Faith comes first; from faith comes justice and right; and the king rules best when he serves as God’s instrument for the common good. “My dearest son, my first instruction to you is that you should love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your strength. Without this there is no salvation…. If the Lord has permitted you some trial, bear it willingly and with gratitude…. Listen to the divine office with pleasure and devotion…. Be kindhearted to the poor, the unfortunate, and the afflicted. Give them as much help and consolation as you can…. Be just to your subjects, swaying neither to right nor to left, but holding the line of justice. Always side with the poor rather than with the rich, until you are certain of the truth. See that all your subjects live in justice and peace…. Work to remove all sin from your land, particularly blasphemies and heresies.”

That core definition of justice as “remove all sin from your land” is the point where faith fundamentally shaped politics. This goal is not mere human justice, a crude measure of “approximately fair;” the absence of sin is the only true justice there can be. Of course, if Christ is the unique Savior, then the absence of sin can only be achieved by the conversion of everyone, and therefore, quite unlike today, the medieval standard of justice judged the use of the state’s coercive power to defend and support orthodoxy to be not only licit, but even required. As we mentioned in class last time, it was not until the Reformation, Counter-reformation, and the devastations of the Wars of Religion and the 30-Years’ War that this idea really changed. Basically, before then, the consequences of not using the coercive power of the state in this way were thought to be worse than using it; but afterwards, the costs of using it became obviously higher than the costs of not using it.

Aside from these kinds of historical differences, St. Louis was justly renowned for being a strong king, but not abusing his power; regulating his royal courts for the rule of law, and being accessible himself as a judge, even to the very poor; leading with diplomacy, resorting to war only when necessary; self-restraint in his governing; patronizing the arts, learning, and so on; supporting the clergy while curbing abuses; and loving the Church and the poor. These are the sorts of actions which St. Thomas is implying in his definition of law as a rational, objective, and universal “rule and measure” of acts, enacted and promulgated by the sovereign and accepted as legitimate, for the common good.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Moral Theology 3 - Aquinas on Law cont'd: Qu. 90, art 4

Aquinas finishes his qu. 90, on the nature or essence of law, with Article 4: “Whether promulgation is essential to a law?”

As usual, wrong answer first: “It seems promulgation is not essential to a law,” because:

Objection 1: natural law binds without formal promulgation;
Objection 2: law binds or obliges not only those to whom it is promulgated, but also others;
Objection 3: some of those others are future persons who will be subject to the law, but promulgation takes place only in the present.

On the contrary, from Gratian’s (“The Jurist”) Decretals (a major compilation of canon law in the 12th cent.), “laws are established when they are promulgated.”

Given what he’s said about the rational (and therefore objective and universal) nature of law, it follows that laws that remain unpromulgated can’t be objective, and therefore can’t be law. Gratian is correct, in other words. If law is a “rule and measure,” Aquinas argues, then it must be applied in some way in order to regulate and measure. The promulgation is the application of the yardstick to the situation. Without the promulgation, the yardstick is only leaning in the corner, not doing anything.

Aquinas goes on to note that promulgation is not only functionally necessary for law, it’s also part of the nature/essence/definition. He puts all these four articles together thus:

Law is nothing other than “an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated.” That is, law is rational, implying also objective and universal; law is properly made by the sovereign, not by private interests; law is for the common good, implying that partisan laws are unjust, along with various forms of discriminatory laws; and law must be promulgated.

From this, his replies to the objections are fairly obvious.

Again, remember that his use of terms can be a bit different than ours, especially in things like “common good.”

Discussion: What do you think about this definition of law? Does it work today? If not, what would be a better definition? Do the laws we make at national, state, and local levels generally aim at this standard? If not, why not? What are the implications here for what we call “checks and balances”?

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Moral Theology 2 - Aquinas on Law cont'd: Qu. 90, art 2-3

II-Ie.90.2: Whether law is always something directed to the common good?

Having offered in Article 1 a definition of law as a rational, objective “rule and measure of acts” which operates on the will to regulate and form, Aquinas now turns in Article 2 to another fundamental question. As usual, he starts with the wrong answer: “It would seem that the law is not always directed to the common good as to its end.”

Objection 1, from the difference between individual goods and the common good: concrete laws aim at some individual good, but not at the common good per se.

Objection 2, from the same, but with reference to the human actor: concrete human actions regulated by laws aim at particular goods, not the common good per se.

Objection 3, from authority: “Isidore [St. Isidore of Seville] says (Etym. v, 3): ‘If the law is based on reason, whatever is based on reason will be a law.’ But reason is the foundation not only of what is ordained to the common good, but also of that which is directed private good.” Therefore law might aim at either private or common good, and therefore not always the common good.

You might predict already that this difference between the private and the common good is going to be part of the answer as well. Specifically, how are they related? Is it possible to aim at the private good, without also implying a contribution to the common good? Modern notions of “the common good” and “the private good” generally allow that implication to be absent. But, remember that he’s not working with a modern definition of the “private good,” which opposes the private good of individuals against each other. He’s not Hobbes or Rousseau, positing a “zero-sum game.” To be good, even the private good must exclude real harm of others, and be compatible, not in competition, with the private good of others. The appearance of competition or exclusion comes rather from human imperfection and sin, than from the imperfection of law as such.

And indeed, this is the argument he deploys. Individual goods are related to the common good as parts to the whole, or as imperfect to perfect. Because individual laws aim at individual goods specifically as part of the common good, law as a whole must aim at the totality of individual goods, which is the common good.

He continues in Article 3 with the same thrust: Whether the reason of any man is competent to make laws? In other words, how is law in its nature related to the individual?

Wrong answer first: “It seems the reason of any man is competent to make laws.”

Objection 1, from Paul: Gentiles don’t have the OT Law, so they are “a law unto themselves.” (Rom 2:14). He means this generally, and so man’s reason can make laws.

Objection 2, from Aristotle: the intention of lawmaking is to lead men to virtue (by forming good habits and inhibiting the formation of vices), which (at least in a natural sense) any person can in theory do for another.

Objection 3, from analogy: the governor of a state makes laws for a state; the head of a household makes laws for the household in the same way.

These objections are pretty forceful. For us in the modern world, the analogy argument is particularly potent, because who wouldn’t agree with the basic justice of a “rule of law” and accountability of the lawmakers to their subjects? And to have that kind of basic structure of justice, you need the human competence to make law. You assume it, in fact, because without it the whole modern project of classical liberalism (democracy, no legally-privileged aristocracy, parliamentary rule, religious freedom, personal freedom for the sake of the common good, and so on) just falls apart.

So how does Aquinas respond to these objections? He starts with his “on the contrary,” another interesting quote from the same Isidore: “A law is an ordinance of the people [the sovereign], whereby something is sanctioned by the Elders [the governing elite, whether they form a class or not] together with the Commonalty [the citizen-voters].” In other words, a law must be accepted to be law; it must be agreed to, as part of the shared vision of the common good and how to get there.

This is a fundamental point, even to the objections. Even if you argue for a basic human competence to make laws, you’re still presuming that this understanding of law includes its legitimacy, along with its rationality and its goodness.

But what this means, he argues in his “I answer that,” is that the only “person” competent to make legitimate (and therefore just) laws is the sovereign. And the sovereign is not a human person at all, but a “body politic.” Even in the case of monarchy, when the sovereign is reduced to one in the person of the king, one still distinguishes between the king as a person, and the king as sovereign. (This is why the power of monarchical kingship can in fact be shared, as by Diocletian, or as by crowning an heir even before the king’s death, for example in order to prevent a civil war.) This was a basic point of medieval political theory, and its echoes in our familiar system of representative democracy surprise us only in the antiquity of their origins.

In saying, then, that any man’s reason is not competent to make laws, Aquinas is not saying that only God may make laws – he’ll get to the relationship between human and divine law in qu. 91 – but rather that laws made by just any man are necessarily arbitrary, rather than sovereign and legitimate; and if they are arbitrary, then they are neither rational, nor aimed at the common good, and therefore not truly law at all.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Moral Theology 1 - Aquinas on Law

Starting your reading of the Summa Theologica with this question (II-Ie.90.1, if you’re keeping score) is not a terribly painful place to begin. His first question on the law is: “Whether law is something pertaining to reason?” In other words, is there something inherently rational and objective about the law, or is it arbitrary, or is it merely self-referential?

Remember, here, Plato’s insistence that justice (we’ll come back to how justice relates to law) can’t only be the limited, somewhat erratic, merely human kind of justice we strive for at our best – much less the “might makes right” kind of justice so often actually acted on. Remember also the status of “Law” in the Scriptures, as revealed by God for a certain end. This is the foundational heritage Aquinas receives, and he has no interest at all in changing it. What he’s trying to do is define it, using an Aristotelian language and framework.

First, the objections: “It seems that law is not something pertaining to reason.” (This is the wrong answer, but he tries to establish it first, as I explained about his method in class.)

Objection 1, from St. Paul: “I see another law in my members, etc.” He takes this quite literally: if law is “in” the members, it can’t be inherently rational, since reason is not anything “in” any bodily organ.

Objection 2, from the nature of reason: reason is composed of power, habit, and act (he’s taking this from Aristotle, of course). But law is not any of power, habit, or act, for the reasons he lists. So it’s not inherently related to reason.

Objection 3, from the nature of law: law moves its subjects to right action, that is to say, in their will. Therefore law pertains to will, not to reason.

None of these objections, probably, will strike us as particularly forceful or concrete. Frankly, I think he’s fishing for objections here, because, given what he’s already established all through the first part and most of the first-of-the-second part, it should be pretty obvious that law, taken as an ideal or type, is derived from the Logos, therefore it is indeed something pertaining to reason. Indeed, his “on the contrary” doesn’t even need to cite a more authoritative source than the Summa itself! But he’s trying to be completely consistent in his method, so he proceeds as usual.

In fact, Objection 2 is not that weak a counter-argument. If the nature of reason does not overlap with the nature of law at all, then how can they pertain to each other in any way? But of course, the rebuttal is also fairly self-evident: law acts on the subject through reason’s power (law limits it), habit (law forms it), and act (law regulates it).

His “I answer that” always introduces the meat of the argument. “Law is a rule and measure of acts, whereby man is induced to act or is restrained from acting…” with respect to some end (toward a good, away from an evil). But the nature of man is reason, and the end of man is toward perfect reason (he doesn’t say so here, but of course we know this is the Logos). So reason itself is the fundamental “rule and measure” of all man’s acts; therefore law, as part of that “rule and measure,” pertains to reason.

Then he replies to the objections. To objection 1, he distinguishes the literal “in” versus the metaphorical “in.” To objection 2, he rebuts as above, laying out with considerable precision exactly what parts of the rational faculties are involved, and how. This is pretty meaty, itself. To objection 3, he notes the rational nature of the will itself.

So we conclude, then, not only that the law pertains to reason, but also have an idea of how it pertains. It is referential to the Logos; that is, law is, in its own nature, divine, and we know it by means of “natural law” and “revealed law,” exactly parallel to “natural revelation” and “special revelation” of other aspects of the divine Will and Persons. Law is non-arbitrary, therefore, and has an objective content that can be known. (He’ll get into that much more in question 91.) Law acts on the will of the subject, both directing (“Hey, there, Will, you should eat vegetables before dessert.”) and limiting (“Will, if you grab that cookie, you’ll get 5 lashes!”).

Ultimately, all of this hangs on his definitions of what reason is (the Logos, and its reflections in the created world, both personally, in my reason, and impersonally, in the intelligibility of stuff), and what law is ("a rule and measure of acts"). His definition of reason is pretty secure. But do you agree with his definition of law? What other definitions are possible, and do they still lead to the same conclusion, or to a different one?

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Fr. Barron on why we believe in God

This is relevant to what we've been thinking about revelation. It's also relevant to the Philosophy you second years are about to have, and to Christology later in the year for the 4th-years. It rests on an idea of natural theology, which is, I would repeat, an eminently reasonable assumption.



Maniple wave to Aggie Catholics.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr

"[T]he wicked persecutor’s wrath was vented on Laurentius the deacon, who was pre-eminent not only in the performance of the sacred rites, but also in the management of the church’s property, promising himself double spoil from one man’s capture: for if he forced him to surrender the sacred treasures, he would also drive him out of the pale of true religion. And so this man, so greedy of money and such a foe to the truth, arms himself with double weapon: with avarice to plunder the gold; with impiety to carry off Christ. He demands of the guileless guardian of the sanctuary that the church wealth on which his greedy mind was set should be brought to him. But the holy deacon showed him where he had them stored, by pointing to the many troops of poor saints, in the feeding and clothing of whom he had a store of riches which he could not lose, and which were the more entirely safe that the money had been spent on so holy a cause. The baffled plunderer, therefore, frets, and blazing out into hatred of a religion, which had put riches to such a use… "(Pope St. Leo the Great, Sermon 85, 2-3).

St. Lawrence witnessed with his death what he lived with his life: that boundless love for our Lord Jesus Christ which chooses the good of others above one's own good. St. Leo instructs us with the antithesis between the prefect, "so greedy of money and such a foe of the truth," and St. Lawrence, "pre-eminent in the sacred rites and in managing the Church's property," -- managed not by conserving material goods, but by transforming material goods into imperishable heavenly goods.

Last Sunday we heard the Gospel, "Where your treasure is, there is your heart." St. Lawrence makes the choice for Christ, for the Church, for virtue in serving "in the diaconia of liturgy, word, and charity." We make the same choice in thousands of little ways. How we make those choices, though they seem unimportant, shapes how we can make the Big Choice, when push comes to shove. That "Big Choice" we may have to face only once or twice in a lifetime. But if we're not practicing for it with the daily choices, we won't make it well.

May God give us the grace to grow daily in serving Him and His little ones.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Models of Revelation 14

We’re still in Ch 9, on Dulles’s idea of “symbolic mediation.” Dulles argues that revelation occurs primarily in symbols – special kinds of signs that become deeply embedded in Tradition, that carry multiple, powerful layers of meaning, and that ultimately become definitive for that Tradition. I have agreed with much of what Dulles is arguing here about how symbols work in Tradition and in carrying the content of revelation symbolically. But I have argued in rebuttal that the primary (as in original and bedrock) form of revelation needs to be something more than a symbol. The Tradition cannot take a single, coherent direction only from a multi-valent symbol. I have suggested that historical fact, direct propositional revelation, direct ritual or liturgical revelation, and symbolic revelation all coincide to establish the baseline of meaning, from which further symbols take their meanings. The two most critical of these nexus are Exodus, and the Incarnation and Passion of Christ.

Having seen how his symbols work in reference to the propositional model, he works through the other four in the same way. I believe my rejoinder holds up in each case: symbols cannot define themselves, ultimately; something more must be given to be definitive, to establish the Tradition.

In reference to the historical model, Dulles takes the historical events themselves as symbols. “Just as a literary text discloses to the literate reader a meaning which is really there, so a revelatory sign-event, to the religiously disposed observer, can convey a divine meaning that truly belongs to the event” (p. 146). Dulles briefly addresses the two problems of subjectivity – that is, maintaining a fixed meaning in the sign-event if it can’t be accurately expressed propositionally, but only narratively – and of distinguishing in history special divine causation (an “act of God”), and therefore dealing with miracles.

In reference to the experiential model, the symbols must mediate the experience of divine presence, and shape the revealed meaning of that presence. “[T]he experience of grace cannot be rightly interpreted, or recognized for what it is, without the help of symbols derived from the known world through sensory experience” (149). The mystical experience also emphasizes the “gap” between symbol and divine reality.

In reference to the dialectical model, the Word itself is taken as the predominant symbol. There is a risk here of taking Christ only as “a” symbol, rather than as unique Savior. Here, Dulles must in fact take my position on his argument, to avoid this: “The word, as the sign [broad sense, not narrow “symbol”] which articulates meaning, is a necessary complement to revelation through any other kind of symbol. The grosser symbolism of nature, deed, or artifact [including ritual], potent though it may be, is too ambiguous to be the sole mediator of revealed religion. The symbol becomes revelation only when interpreted…. For public revelation, moreover, there must be external words, capable of being heard or seen. Such attesting words are necessarily symbolic, for otherwise they could not be conducive to a salvific union with the divine.” (p. 152).

Dulles and I would seem to disagree on the priority of this last sentence. For him, as I understand his argument, the symbols are primary, and the words are human words being used as further, derived symbols to reveal divine truth. I would argue in contrast that the Word, the Logos, is primary to the use of words as symbols.

Finally, in reference to the new consciousness model, symbols do shape and affect our experience, but Dulles insists on the objectiveness of the symbols’ meaning. He also distinguishes (for the first time, here) between primary symbols that carry objective revealed meaning, and “mutable secondary symbols” (153-4; he those symbols such as those in art or liturgy – though he doesn’t here, as I wish he had, note that some of those liturgical symbols are in fact primary) which are more flexible over time.

At this point in my analysis of his argument, I add a second objection. In his desire to retrieve what he sees as the benefits of the different models, he does not distinguish adequately between the giving of the symbol, and our reception and response to it.

The giving of the symbol (if revelation is indeed in the form of symbols) must be accompanied with defining, irreducible propositional, historical, and probably liturgical elements, just like I have argued in reference to Exodus and the Incarnation and Passion. But, the giving of the symbols does not first and foremost involve our inner experience, dialectical submission, or conversion (“new awareness”). These are not the form of revelation, but our response to revelation. What is true in these models is true about our reception of revelation, not about revelation per se. Dulles does yeoman work to show the continuity between 1 and 2 as giving revelation, and 3, 4, and 5 as receiving it. My insistence on the primacy of a Logical nexus of word, sign, and act helps us to separate out these two modes from each other.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Models of Revelation - Excursus on Faith and Reason

One of the greatest strengths of the "traditional" view of theology (Patristic and Scholastic) is how the category of knowing which is "faith" is intrinsically related to the category of knowing which is "reason." This is the gist of the famous line that theology means "faith seeking understanding." All truth leads to Truth, therefore, and Truth must necessarily be one and universal.

These ideas about truth, knowledge, and so forth are not merely unprovable assumptions, for which other (equally valid because equally unprovable) assumptions might be substituted. Rather, they rest on a long tradition of observation, analysis, testing of hypothesis, and synthesis. They are proven, at least at the level of plausibility and self-coherence. They have stood the test of time (despite the contempt that modernity's irrationality holds them in). They are, in effect, conclusions of "natural theology."

Take, for example, the problem of defining "life" in "living" objects, as opposed to non-living objects. Reason tells us that the stuff is the same - the same elements of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen, merely arranged differently here than there. Reason tells us, however, that there is clearly something different between living and non-living things. If you've ever seen a person or an animal die, you know that the difference is clearly visible, but not clearly quantifiable. Metaphors like "the light in the eyes" must be employed. In fact, reason tells us that the difference between living and non-living is not really a question of the arrangement of stuff (atoms, molecules) at all. It's something different.

In other words, experience, observation, and reason clearly "prove" the existence of something non-material. Its effects are observable; it itself is not directly observable. In terms of living objects, this non-material element can be called "soul." It expresses the vitality, motion, and ultimately rationality of different kinds of living things. But it can never be reduced only to material properties.

Coming at the problem from the angle of faith works essentially the same, but in reverse. The same observations about the material world, and the visible effects of the spiritual world therein, describe different kinds of relationships with God. Here "soul" is not a property or set of properties related to the observable differences in categories of objects, but defining spiritual realities that separate those same categories of objects in how that relate to God.

But these two aspects of the idea of "soul," from reason and from faith, are not to be seen as unrelated to each other. Together, they tell us more about "soul" than simply the juxtaposition of the two ways of knowing.

But for this to be true, that spiritual knowledge must be expressible in the form of a proposition (or more likely, a set of propositions). Even if the set of propositions is not complete in an absolute sense, it still must be relatively complete (relative to the extent of our ability to know at all), and accurate to the same extent. If this is not true, then "faith" knowledge is not related to "reason" knowledge, since the rules of logic (that is, propositional relationships) don't work there.

This is the heart of the propositional model in Dulles's schema. Of the five, only this model holds the intrinsic relationship of faith-knowledge and reason-knowledge; that is, that revelation is ultimately reasonable in itself. The historical model, and Dulles's theory of symbolic mediation, hold an extrinsic relationship between faith and reason. This can, in practice, be fairly close to the intrinsic relationship, but it's not really the same idea. At root, the existential, dialectic, and transcendent models all separate faith and reason from each other in modernist ways; this is why they are less successful at grasping revelation.

This is why I insisted in the previous post that there must be some non-ambiguous "rule" - an act, a word, or a symbol; or a combination of these, as in Exodus and the Passion - at the bedrock of revelation, prior to the mediation of the symbol(s). This "rule" must be expressible (to the extent of human knowing) as complete and accurate propositions. Even if the propositions are derived, and not taken as the primary content of the revelation itself, still the propositions are equal to the revelation in its relationship to the faith community: the propositions carry the revelation. I mean this concretely, not abstractly, because the propositions are not simply abstract, but concretely embedded in the liturgical life of the community (Passover and Mass, etc.). They are still explicit, however: they are acts, words, and symbols expressible as propositions. Therefore the meaning is not ambiguous and subject to change, and not derived from human sources, but given by God.

It is precisely in the knowing by both faith and reason that the certitude of revelation exceeds that of science (reason alone) or of individual inspiration (faith alone). It is precisely in the being carried by Tradition that the meaning remains stable and non-arbitrary. And it is precisely in the "faith seeking understanding" that we accept the invitation into God's own life, which is what revelation really is.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Models of Revelation 13

In the second half of Chapter 9, Dulles is testing three Christian symbols – light, the Cross, and the Eucharist – to see how they work in each of the five models he’s described. He quickly encounters some difficulties.

Propositional Model – “To theologians who view revelation as propositional, the symbolic approach seems to imperil the truth of revelation. The danger is not altogether imaginary” (141). In this counter-argument, a symbol’s absence of fixed meaning makes it unsuited for revealing objective, universal, unchanging Truth. Dulles cites one Gordon Clark on the example of the Cross (142), showing how the absence of fixed meaning denudes the Cross of the power to reveal. Dulles responds by noting how the symbol of the Cross needs to be re-expressed, through metaphor and simile, into propositions. These propositions “explicate” the symbol of the Cross in order to limit its ambiguity. “But the propositional explication, to the extent that it achieves literalness, leaves out things tacitly perceived through the symbol…” (143). However, Dulles again avoids the critical question of priority in meaning (in other words, of authority in interpretation of the symbol). Does the limitation of ambiguity by re-expressing into propositions, come before or after the symbol itself? In other words, do the limits inhere in the symbol, or must they be supplied? If the former, how is this a supernatural revelation? If the latter, whence do they come?

Dulles seems to argue for inherence: “Because of the cognitive content implicit in the originative symbols, revelatory symbolism is able not only to “give rise to thought” but also to shape the thought it arouses” (144). But then he equivocates: “Yet the influence travels in both directions. Doctrine enriches the meaning of symbols…. As the process of doctrinal development goes on, the Church tests new proposals through its grasp of the total symbol-system…” (144). He appeals to Tradition, in the form of “participation in the community of faith,” to limit the pliability of symbols’ meanings. “Interpreted against the background of the symbols and of Christian life, certain conceptual formulations can be put forward as bearing the authority of revelation” (145).

What he means, I think, is that the symbol is primary. In the ways in which the symbol is received by the community, its meaning becomes much more firmly fixed. Eventually, some of those meanings are clarified to the point of propositional formulation as dogma or doctrine. These formulations in turn operate on other symbols in the same limiting or specifying fashion, and can even become symbols themselves. The accumulation of symbols with fixed, received meanings by the community comprises Tradition.

The advantage of this argument is that it clearly relates the Christian community, in its origins, with its Jewish roots. Christianity begins, not in a vacuum, but within an existing revelatory tradition. However, I think Dulles makes a mistake, overstating the power of Tradition to define itself. His argument just pushes the problem of certainty and authority further backwards in time. If that ground cannot ultimately be found, then the peril to the truth of revelation remains. That is, if the tradition is built up in the very-distant past purely in reference to human culture (in this case, ancient Israel’s human culture) or human choices of possible meaning, can it be said with certainty, with the “authority of revelation,” that that tradition “got it right” with respect to its symbols? Why could they not have been (or now be) interpreted differently, even contradictorily?

Somewhere behind that tradition of traditions, I would argue, there must be a solid, unambiguous, revelation – either a proposition, or an event, or a symbol-with-only-one-possible-meaning – to provide the authority for tradition to accumulate upon.

Now, for ancient Israel, that was Exodus: the event as a whole, including as distinct items of revelation the propositional revelations – “I am who am;” the Ten Commandments; the terms of the Covenant with Moses – and the liturgical rituals of the Passover. These were not treated as primary symbols, but rather as secondary symbols. That is, their nature and usefulness as symbols derived from their unambiguous, divine, no-other-way-to-explain-it-as-it-actually-happened authority, and not the other way around. It’s only given this bedrock for the tradition, that other symbols can come to function in the manner Dulles describes here.

For Christians, the Passion-and-Resurrection of Christ functions in exactly the same way. The event, including its distinct propositional and liturgical revelations, is primary to all symbols. Christian symbols take it as their referent; it is definitive for the Tradition, and for the symbols in that Tradition. Only with this (now double) bedrock as primary revelation and authority, can other symbols (including the Cross) come to function in the way Dulles argues.