Since "A Brief History of Time" was published Stephan Hawking has declared that there is no need for God the Creator. His most recent comments reaffirm this opinion. The law of gravity shows that "spontaneous creation" is possible. As an additional indication that a personal Creator is absurd he points to the discovery of extrasolar planets. Mankind's place in the Universe is not unique or special.
And where did the law of gravity or, as he put it in Brief History, the properties of zero come from? The complete scientific view of the physical universe today is not the collection of either observed mass or dark mass but space and time itself.
In other words, to return to a Biblical metaphor, energy and mass are contained within the "bowl" of space-time. When Hawking and other physicists say that the universe is the result of the law of gravity or string theory "branes" colliding they are incorrectly referring only to the contents of the bowl. Experiments do seem to show "virtual" particles arising in a vacuum. But a man-made vacuum cannot eliminate the very structure of Space. Space-time is a thing. It may be a property of this thing to perhaps "spark" a particle.
A critic correctly said that Hawking did not answer the question of why anything exists and continued on to state this was a matter of faith. I beg to differ. It is a matter of empirical physical scientists not being properly trained in classical philosophy. Hawking sees "spontaneous creation" within the container of space-time. He fails to ask the question again, "What is the cause of space-time?". Aristotle was not a man of religious faith. At this point he simply has the necessary scientific humility to say that there must be an "uncaused cause".
And those extrasolar planets? How great God is!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Night and Sunrise
As the moon begged
the life-giving water closer,
they were yet sleeping
and I was wondering:
If night never was,
would we ever see
the sky of other suns?
The boat gently sways
in the cradle of the sea
as we see the edge
of the sun; again
our planet has turned
untold times in uncounted
circles around this star,
which rotates with the wheel
of a galaxy curving the universe
in the Thought of God,
Who stands on shore cooking
fish for his brothers' morning.
(John 21:1-14)
As the moon begged
the life-giving water closer,
they were yet sleeping
and I was wondering:
If night never was,
would we ever see
the sky of other suns?
The boat gently sways
in the cradle of the sea
as we see the edge
of the sun; again
our planet has turned
untold times in uncounted
circles around this star,
which rotates with the wheel
of a galaxy curving the universe
in the Thought of God,
Who stands on shore cooking
fish for his brothers' morning.
(John 21:1-14)
Concerning Traditionalists
As I write this, I pray that God will allow me to speak with fraternal charity. I ask that you pray the same.
There is so much to touch upon that I must use the walking stick of chronology, public and personal, to help me. Be patient as I often seem to wander.
In 1956 the Sacred Congregation of Rites allowed English to be used in certain ceremonies during Holy Week. Additionally, the U.S. Bishops received permission to have English as predominant in the administration of the sacraments. (Living Our Faith, Book Three, 1958, p. 120) At the same time in 1958 the same Sacred Congregation authorized the Latin Dialogue Mass. (My first communion missal) Let it be remembered that the faithful had no response in a low Mass before this. (Recently two newly ordained Latin rite priests wanted to learn more of the Mass in Latin. Attending Mass they knelt on kneelers in the sanctuary and recited the responses. The priest after Mass told them they were not really allowed to recite any response!) Also well before 1958 the Eastern Churches, such as my own Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, changed from traditional liturgical languages to the vernacular.
Archbishop Lefebrve in Europe and Fr. Gommar De Pauw in America were the first two dissenters from the implementation of the recommendations of the Second Vatican Council. Yet they had both accepted in 1958 the election of Pope John XXIII, a man devoted since childhood to the Rosary and the Priesthood. Read “The Journal of a Soul”. Both accepted the Pope's calling of the Council. Both attended the Council and were officials of that Council. Both accepted the election of Pope Paul VI and continued their official presence at all sessions of the Council. Both by their acts are witnesses on behalf of the legitimacy of the Popes and council after 1958.
Padre Pio, Sister Lucy of Fatima and Mother Theresa of Calcutta also accepted and supported the Magisterium of the Church during and after this same time. And, please, no evil detraction, malicious gossip or baseless conspiracy fairytales will hide the historical fact that these above mentioned five refute by their official acts the people who want to make 1958 the end of the papacy or magesterium.
So what did happened as a result of Vatican II? The word “reaction” is key. In a response to a comment on the previous post I did not show that the actual teaching of the Council caused any real problem. I stated that the reaction to the Council by some was to invent a false zeitgeist to cover their overthrowing of Church discipline. Let me propose a
case of proper spiritual direction and wrongful results: Imagine a priest who is the spiritual director of a younger cleric in 1935. The young priest seems exhausted mentally and scrupulously confesses in Penance the smallest incidents. The confessor-director while dispensing penance and absolution in administering the sacrament also gives pastoral advice to his young penitent. He tells him to remember that Tanquerey said that “done for the love of God to recreate was love”. (The Spiritual Life; Tanquerey; 1930; p.175.) “Go out and go to a ballgame with some friends. Have a beer and a hot dog! I hear those Yankees are coming to town! [Remember St. Paul's advice to Timothy about a little wine for the stomach.] Now lets pretend that a few days later Fr. Confessor happens to meet Fr. Young Cleric at the same baseball game. Hello! How are you! But he notices that the younger man looks flushed after finishing his (perhaps literally) first beer and is ordering another. Fr. Confessor had assumed in Confession that the young cleric had been as socially mature as himself at that age. Fr. Confessor is conflicted. He cannot bring up Confession. He hesitates to interfer and throw his charge into confusion and greater moral compulsion. The young cleric turns out to be much more immature than the older man could have imagined and is prone to alcoholism. Does this outcome make the original administration of Penance invalid? Does it show that Tanquerey in 1930 was a heretic? Of course not. What it shows is that good spiritual direction was not capable of being followed by one so mentally immature.
Even as a relatively untrained adolescent in the late sixties and early seventies I could not accept Fr. De Pauw's original contention that a previous Pope had taken the keys of St. Peter away from his successors and frozen (even the adding of St. Joseph to the Canon before Vatican II was a crime against God some traditionalists claim!) the Latin liturgy for all of history. In fact this notion was so lacking in credibility that it was used by some to try and silence those who were struggling for better vernacular translations.
Now back to the Magisterium. The Magisterium of the Catholic Church is the office or function in the Body of Christ of Teacher. This office is held by the successors of St. Peter and the Apostles. While ( as explained implicitly by the previous post on the local churches) an individual magister might become a heretic, indefectibility means that the whole office of Magisterium cannot defect. Yet this is the direct statement of one of these Traditionalist sectarians. You might as well say, for instance, that the sacrament of Matrimony in 1938 up and left the Body of Christ. If you really believe that the Church founded by Christ cannot fail, you cannot state that any integral part of the Church has defected. Where Peter is, there is the Church. Ubi Petrus, ibi ecclesia, ibi Deus. The original founders of Traditionalism knew where Peter was and they all obeyed his call to Council.
[A personal example of how the documents of the Council said one thing boldly and the ignorant and the rebellious made up a fairytale (idol in fact) to suit themselves: my local pastor wrote in the Sunday church bulletin that using the terms “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture” was a “pre-Vatican II” idea. I responded to this egregious comment with a letter asking him if the entire Counciliar document “Constitution on Divine Revelation”, which offers a wonderful teaching on nothing but the relation of Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture, was also “pre-Vatican II”. He, of course, had no answer.]
In the mid 1970's I was sitting in the seminary library of St. Joseph's Dunwoodie. A layman was using the facility and we struck up a conversation. He was the cardiac surgeon Dr. Rama Coomaraswamy. He invited me to his family home in Connecticut. I learned of his conversion from Brahmanism to the Catholic Church. He was deeply concerned about spiritual life. Unfortunately, brahmans are trained to strictly preserve every word of a human tradition. When the vernacular Mass was introduced, Coomaraswamy was offended and became a Traditionalist. But he was also a friend of Mother Theresa. He had written her of his problems with the new rite and she had sent back a letter which I read. She included a response from an Indian Catholic priest to all of his objections. Coomaraswamy did not accept this answer. Thinking about this afterwards gave me the basic insight that has guided my understanding of sectarian Traditionalism since. Arguing with a Traditionalist about Sacred Tradition is essentially the same as arguing with a “bible Christian” about Scripture. If you use either source of Revelation in your conversation it is to no avail – they both will counter with their own citations. The Protestant and the Neo-protestant Traditionalist both reject the authority of a living Magisterium. For the faithful Catholic, it is the Magisterium that preserves and interprets equally Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. At that time I composed a letter to Coomaraswamy but, to my lasting regret, never sent it. I thought: If he won't listen to Mother Theresa and her priest, why would he he listen to a mere seminarian? I learned about 25 years later that Dr. Coomaraswamy became a noted writer for one of the Traditionalist sects.
In our concrete situation I would say that all this means that a Catholic cannot usurp jurisdiction and pass sentence of heresy on the teaching of the Popes and Fathers of the Council. They cannot declare, “ Our objective reading (according to us, of course) of the missal of Pius VI clearly shows that no one is allowed to change the Latin rite”. You may substitute any of their unjust findings for the above. What we may say is, “I accept your authority to call for the use of the vernacular in the Latin Rite but the way you put this into practice was too rushed and authoritarian. You then let the spirit of liturgical renewal become an excuse for wholesale abandonment of discipline.” It took the entire Papacy of John Paul II to begin restoring respect for public order in the churches.
A last personal note. In my twenties I really did not take the documents of Vatican II all that seriously. They seemed to me a collection of well-meaning flowery sermons. But as I came to a greater appreciation for the Catholic understanding of Scripture as a result of attacks I have returned to these documents and grown in appreciation. Yes, error has no rights. People do. We must not be tempted by Satan to try to force people to violate their religious conscience. The need for this simple reminder from Vatican II was seen throughot the religious wars, the threat against Jews of exile if they did not convert in Spain, etc.. Unlike Moslems, we Catholics are not called to construct a society which is a prison for members of other faiths. As to our brothers and sisters in Christian baptism, just yelling at them about their errors will not go far. Perhaps we should read Pope Pius XII's “Mystical Body” more carefully. To be a member of the Mystical Body we must be baptized and not deliberately reject the faith or any teaching of the Church or be excommunicated. This may be a problem for the likes of Luther or Calvin but not for those who received sacramental baptism, baptism of desire or blood and who, like Traditionalists, because of an invincibly erroneous conscience have not deliberately and openly separated themselves from the faith of the Nicene Creed. Respect for religious liberty ( in the actual Counciliar documented context of always preaching the need for the full Catholic Faith) and ecumenical respect for assemblies of Christians ( in the same Vatican II documented context) is exactly what our times call for. The Holy Spirit in these documents has prepared the Catholic people for the greatest battle of the 21st Century: the growing attack of the worshippers of Secular Dehumanism. He wants us to be like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He calls us to true martyrdom – not making martyrs of others.
Again, I may seem to have been drawn into an argument of particulars with the Traditionalists. But this article is really addressed to those having to deal with these poor, hurt and understandably at times scandalized fellow Christians. Do not argue this or that document. The Church's Magisterium is the inspired guide to Sacred Tradition. Keep praying that they will be struck like Saul on the road to Damacus and realize this.
There is so much to touch upon that I must use the walking stick of chronology, public and personal, to help me. Be patient as I often seem to wander.
In 1956 the Sacred Congregation of Rites allowed English to be used in certain ceremonies during Holy Week. Additionally, the U.S. Bishops received permission to have English as predominant in the administration of the sacraments. (Living Our Faith, Book Three, 1958, p. 120) At the same time in 1958 the same Sacred Congregation authorized the Latin Dialogue Mass. (My first communion missal) Let it be remembered that the faithful had no response in a low Mass before this. (Recently two newly ordained Latin rite priests wanted to learn more of the Mass in Latin. Attending Mass they knelt on kneelers in the sanctuary and recited the responses. The priest after Mass told them they were not really allowed to recite any response!) Also well before 1958 the Eastern Churches, such as my own Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, changed from traditional liturgical languages to the vernacular.
Archbishop Lefebrve in Europe and Fr. Gommar De Pauw in America were the first two dissenters from the implementation of the recommendations of the Second Vatican Council. Yet they had both accepted in 1958 the election of Pope John XXIII, a man devoted since childhood to the Rosary and the Priesthood. Read “The Journal of a Soul”. Both accepted the Pope's calling of the Council. Both attended the Council and were officials of that Council. Both accepted the election of Pope Paul VI and continued their official presence at all sessions of the Council. Both by their acts are witnesses on behalf of the legitimacy of the Popes and council after 1958.
Padre Pio, Sister Lucy of Fatima and Mother Theresa of Calcutta also accepted and supported the Magisterium of the Church during and after this same time. And, please, no evil detraction, malicious gossip or baseless conspiracy fairytales will hide the historical fact that these above mentioned five refute by their official acts the people who want to make 1958 the end of the papacy or magesterium.
So what did happened as a result of Vatican II? The word “reaction” is key. In a response to a comment on the previous post I did not show that the actual teaching of the Council caused any real problem. I stated that the reaction to the Council by some was to invent a false zeitgeist to cover their overthrowing of Church discipline. Let me propose a
case of proper spiritual direction and wrongful results: Imagine a priest who is the spiritual director of a younger cleric in 1935. The young priest seems exhausted mentally and scrupulously confesses in Penance the smallest incidents. The confessor-director while dispensing penance and absolution in administering the sacrament also gives pastoral advice to his young penitent. He tells him to remember that Tanquerey said that “done for the love of God to recreate was love”. (The Spiritual Life; Tanquerey; 1930; p.175.) “Go out and go to a ballgame with some friends. Have a beer and a hot dog! I hear those Yankees are coming to town! [Remember St. Paul's advice to Timothy about a little wine for the stomach.] Now lets pretend that a few days later Fr. Confessor happens to meet Fr. Young Cleric at the same baseball game. Hello! How are you! But he notices that the younger man looks flushed after finishing his (perhaps literally) first beer and is ordering another. Fr. Confessor had assumed in Confession that the young cleric had been as socially mature as himself at that age. Fr. Confessor is conflicted. He cannot bring up Confession. He hesitates to interfer and throw his charge into confusion and greater moral compulsion. The young cleric turns out to be much more immature than the older man could have imagined and is prone to alcoholism. Does this outcome make the original administration of Penance invalid? Does it show that Tanquerey in 1930 was a heretic? Of course not. What it shows is that good spiritual direction was not capable of being followed by one so mentally immature.
Even as a relatively untrained adolescent in the late sixties and early seventies I could not accept Fr. De Pauw's original contention that a previous Pope had taken the keys of St. Peter away from his successors and frozen (even the adding of St. Joseph to the Canon before Vatican II was a crime against God some traditionalists claim!) the Latin liturgy for all of history. In fact this notion was so lacking in credibility that it was used by some to try and silence those who were struggling for better vernacular translations.
Now back to the Magisterium. The Magisterium of the Catholic Church is the office or function in the Body of Christ of Teacher. This office is held by the successors of St. Peter and the Apostles. While ( as explained implicitly by the previous post on the local churches) an individual magister might become a heretic, indefectibility means that the whole office of Magisterium cannot defect. Yet this is the direct statement of one of these Traditionalist sectarians. You might as well say, for instance, that the sacrament of Matrimony in 1938 up and left the Body of Christ. If you really believe that the Church founded by Christ cannot fail, you cannot state that any integral part of the Church has defected. Where Peter is, there is the Church. Ubi Petrus, ibi ecclesia, ibi Deus. The original founders of Traditionalism knew where Peter was and they all obeyed his call to Council.
[A personal example of how the documents of the Council said one thing boldly and the ignorant and the rebellious made up a fairytale (idol in fact) to suit themselves: my local pastor wrote in the Sunday church bulletin that using the terms “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture” was a “pre-Vatican II” idea. I responded to this egregious comment with a letter asking him if the entire Counciliar document “Constitution on Divine Revelation”, which offers a wonderful teaching on nothing but the relation of Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture, was also “pre-Vatican II”. He, of course, had no answer.]
In the mid 1970's I was sitting in the seminary library of St. Joseph's Dunwoodie. A layman was using the facility and we struck up a conversation. He was the cardiac surgeon Dr. Rama Coomaraswamy. He invited me to his family home in Connecticut. I learned of his conversion from Brahmanism to the Catholic Church. He was deeply concerned about spiritual life. Unfortunately, brahmans are trained to strictly preserve every word of a human tradition. When the vernacular Mass was introduced, Coomaraswamy was offended and became a Traditionalist. But he was also a friend of Mother Theresa. He had written her of his problems with the new rite and she had sent back a letter which I read. She included a response from an Indian Catholic priest to all of his objections. Coomaraswamy did not accept this answer. Thinking about this afterwards gave me the basic insight that has guided my understanding of sectarian Traditionalism since. Arguing with a Traditionalist about Sacred Tradition is essentially the same as arguing with a “bible Christian” about Scripture. If you use either source of Revelation in your conversation it is to no avail – they both will counter with their own citations. The Protestant and the Neo-protestant Traditionalist both reject the authority of a living Magisterium. For the faithful Catholic, it is the Magisterium that preserves and interprets equally Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. At that time I composed a letter to Coomaraswamy but, to my lasting regret, never sent it. I thought: If he won't listen to Mother Theresa and her priest, why would he he listen to a mere seminarian? I learned about 25 years later that Dr. Coomaraswamy became a noted writer for one of the Traditionalist sects.
In our concrete situation I would say that all this means that a Catholic cannot usurp jurisdiction and pass sentence of heresy on the teaching of the Popes and Fathers of the Council. They cannot declare, “ Our objective reading (according to us, of course) of the missal of Pius VI clearly shows that no one is allowed to change the Latin rite”. You may substitute any of their unjust findings for the above. What we may say is, “I accept your authority to call for the use of the vernacular in the Latin Rite but the way you put this into practice was too rushed and authoritarian. You then let the spirit of liturgical renewal become an excuse for wholesale abandonment of discipline.” It took the entire Papacy of John Paul II to begin restoring respect for public order in the churches.
A last personal note. In my twenties I really did not take the documents of Vatican II all that seriously. They seemed to me a collection of well-meaning flowery sermons. But as I came to a greater appreciation for the Catholic understanding of Scripture as a result of attacks I have returned to these documents and grown in appreciation. Yes, error has no rights. People do. We must not be tempted by Satan to try to force people to violate their religious conscience. The need for this simple reminder from Vatican II was seen throughot the religious wars, the threat against Jews of exile if they did not convert in Spain, etc.. Unlike Moslems, we Catholics are not called to construct a society which is a prison for members of other faiths. As to our brothers and sisters in Christian baptism, just yelling at them about their errors will not go far. Perhaps we should read Pope Pius XII's “Mystical Body” more carefully. To be a member of the Mystical Body we must be baptized and not deliberately reject the faith or any teaching of the Church or be excommunicated. This may be a problem for the likes of Luther or Calvin but not for those who received sacramental baptism, baptism of desire or blood and who, like Traditionalists, because of an invincibly erroneous conscience have not deliberately and openly separated themselves from the faith of the Nicene Creed. Respect for religious liberty ( in the actual Counciliar documented context of always preaching the need for the full Catholic Faith) and ecumenical respect for assemblies of Christians ( in the same Vatican II documented context) is exactly what our times call for. The Holy Spirit in these documents has prepared the Catholic people for the greatest battle of the 21st Century: the growing attack of the worshippers of Secular Dehumanism. He wants us to be like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He calls us to true martyrdom – not making martyrs of others.
Again, I may seem to have been drawn into an argument of particulars with the Traditionalists. But this article is really addressed to those having to deal with these poor, hurt and understandably at times scandalized fellow Christians. Do not argue this or that document. The Church's Magisterium is the inspired guide to Sacred Tradition. Keep praying that they will be struck like Saul on the road to Damacus and realize this.
Friday, May 7, 2010
The Golden Lampstands
The Golden Lampstands
ONE: The Apocalypse or Book of Revelation shows us the proper way to view the churches and the Church. Our Lord Jesus reveals hinself as intimately aware of the detailed virtues and faults of the seven local churches listed in the early chapters (Apoc. 1:17-3:22). He acknowledges their good but chastises them for their evils. He encourages them to be steadfast in virtue and to promptly repent from sin.
So we have a complete picture of the local assemblies or churches of His people being good but also containing serious evil that must be immediately addressed. Yet in this same book of Scripture we have the description of the Church as the woman glorified by the sun, the moon and the stars (ch. 12) and as the spotless Bride (ch. 21).
TWO: In St. John's first vision in the Apocalypse (ch. 1) Jesus is standing amid seven gold lampstands holding seven stars in his hand. The Scripture itself explains that the golden lampstands are the seven churches to whom the revelation is addressed and the stars are their angels.
Before the Book of Revelation we encounter the exact same Greek word for “lampstand” in Mark 4:21, Matthew 5:15, and (twice!) in Luke 8:16 and 11:33. Each usage concerns revealing – revealing good deeds or someone's goodness. While the Gospel of John does not seem to use the word for lampstand, the whole gospel speaks about light versus darkness: John 1:4-5 and 3:19 are important examples. In John the wicked love darkness to hide their evil deeds.
THREE: Jesus is within the lampstands. He is the light, the local churches display the light. Our Lord in the passages mentioned above says that we do not have a lamp to hide it but to put it on a stand for light. The Apocalypse is clearly using this imagery with the churches and our Lord. And please note: these “ecclesias” are not random slices of the Christian people located in some civic population center. Their identity should be seen as it is examplified in the rest of the New Testament – centered around the bishop and presbyters.
FOUR: Jesus speaks to the seven churches and details how they have responded to grace and how they have fallen to temptation. He reveals their spiritual condition – all are golden lampstands with angels in Heaven but they also obscure the light by falsehood, sin and mediocrity. Jesus says: “But because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth.”(Rev. 3:16).
FIVE: Is it not extraordinary to our ordinary idea of the Church and the New Testament to realize that Sacred Scripture ends with Jesus' criticism of the various local churches? There is a tendency in churchmen with Holy Orders to attempt to hide their human limitations, mistakes, errors in administering the sacraments, pastoral bad judgment and sins by only emphasizing the holiness of the Church universal and our faithful obligation to love her and reverance her deacons, priests and bishops.
Every deacon, priest, bishop and pope is a sinner. They can be terrible sinners. They are often more in need of repentance and the sacraments than others in different callings. Does that imply a lessening of respect for them and their office? No – it means that we try to love and honor them as we would a parent. We honor our origin in the Church by honoring those we call “father”. But we honor the Church by following our Catholic moral and doctrinal training as officially given and interpreted by the Magesterium. We dishonor the Church when we passively go along with “pastoral” activity contrary to that training.
SIX: Enlightened by the Catholic Faith we can clearly see the development by the Church of her understanding of doctrine. As a case in point, simply read the Acts of the Apostles on the question of admitting and how to admit gentiles. But in viewing the wonderful increase in faith and numbers what is sometimes obscured is what was mentioned in FIVE – the human mistakes and sins of even New Testament Christians. During the gospels, did the Apostles understand and accept all that Jesus did and said? Throughout the Acts, did not the Church realize the fuller implications of Christ's redeeming act
(Acts 10:34 – 11:26; 15:1-29)? Was there not fraud (Acts 5:1-11)? Was there not jealousy (6:1-2)? Clerical ambition (8:17-24)? Disagreement and division between saints (15:36-41)? Fear about churchmen abusing authority (20:28-35)? Is not every epistle concerned with some falsehood, disorder or sin in individuals and the local church?
SEVEN: Yet, in spite of sin, there is the New Jerusalem, the Bride of Christ (Acts 21:2). We individual sinners and groups of sinners assembled in local churches can attempt to hide the light under a bushel basket but the Body of Christ, the Church, participates in the sinless glory of her head.
“The light shines on in darkness, a darkness that did not overcome it.” John 1:5
Post Script on Today's Scandals
See above.
ONE: The Apocalypse or Book of Revelation shows us the proper way to view the churches and the Church. Our Lord Jesus reveals hinself as intimately aware of the detailed virtues and faults of the seven local churches listed in the early chapters (Apoc. 1:17-3:22). He acknowledges their good but chastises them for their evils. He encourages them to be steadfast in virtue and to promptly repent from sin.
So we have a complete picture of the local assemblies or churches of His people being good but also containing serious evil that must be immediately addressed. Yet in this same book of Scripture we have the description of the Church as the woman glorified by the sun, the moon and the stars (ch. 12) and as the spotless Bride (ch. 21).
TWO: In St. John's first vision in the Apocalypse (ch. 1) Jesus is standing amid seven gold lampstands holding seven stars in his hand. The Scripture itself explains that the golden lampstands are the seven churches to whom the revelation is addressed and the stars are their angels.
Before the Book of Revelation we encounter the exact same Greek word for “lampstand” in Mark 4:21, Matthew 5:15, and (twice!) in Luke 8:16 and 11:33. Each usage concerns revealing – revealing good deeds or someone's goodness. While the Gospel of John does not seem to use the word for lampstand, the whole gospel speaks about light versus darkness: John 1:4-5 and 3:19 are important examples. In John the wicked love darkness to hide their evil deeds.
THREE: Jesus is within the lampstands. He is the light, the local churches display the light. Our Lord in the passages mentioned above says that we do not have a lamp to hide it but to put it on a stand for light. The Apocalypse is clearly using this imagery with the churches and our Lord. And please note: these “ecclesias” are not random slices of the Christian people located in some civic population center. Their identity should be seen as it is examplified in the rest of the New Testament – centered around the bishop and presbyters.
FOUR: Jesus speaks to the seven churches and details how they have responded to grace and how they have fallen to temptation. He reveals their spiritual condition – all are golden lampstands with angels in Heaven but they also obscure the light by falsehood, sin and mediocrity. Jesus says: “But because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth.”(Rev. 3:16).
FIVE: Is it not extraordinary to our ordinary idea of the Church and the New Testament to realize that Sacred Scripture ends with Jesus' criticism of the various local churches? There is a tendency in churchmen with Holy Orders to attempt to hide their human limitations, mistakes, errors in administering the sacraments, pastoral bad judgment and sins by only emphasizing the holiness of the Church universal and our faithful obligation to love her and reverance her deacons, priests and bishops.
Every deacon, priest, bishop and pope is a sinner. They can be terrible sinners. They are often more in need of repentance and the sacraments than others in different callings. Does that imply a lessening of respect for them and their office? No – it means that we try to love and honor them as we would a parent. We honor our origin in the Church by honoring those we call “father”. But we honor the Church by following our Catholic moral and doctrinal training as officially given and interpreted by the Magesterium. We dishonor the Church when we passively go along with “pastoral” activity contrary to that training.
SIX: Enlightened by the Catholic Faith we can clearly see the development by the Church of her understanding of doctrine. As a case in point, simply read the Acts of the Apostles on the question of admitting and how to admit gentiles. But in viewing the wonderful increase in faith and numbers what is sometimes obscured is what was mentioned in FIVE – the human mistakes and sins of even New Testament Christians. During the gospels, did the Apostles understand and accept all that Jesus did and said? Throughout the Acts, did not the Church realize the fuller implications of Christ's redeeming act
(Acts 10:34 – 11:26; 15:1-29)? Was there not fraud (Acts 5:1-11)? Was there not jealousy (6:1-2)? Clerical ambition (8:17-24)? Disagreement and division between saints (15:36-41)? Fear about churchmen abusing authority (20:28-35)? Is not every epistle concerned with some falsehood, disorder or sin in individuals and the local church?
SEVEN: Yet, in spite of sin, there is the New Jerusalem, the Bride of Christ (Acts 21:2). We individual sinners and groups of sinners assembled in local churches can attempt to hide the light under a bushel basket but the Body of Christ, the Church, participates in the sinless glory of her head.
“The light shines on in darkness, a darkness that did not overcome it.” John 1:5
Post Script on Today's Scandals
See above.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Exploring Our Understanding of the Resurrected Life
Exploring Our Understanding of the Resurrected Life
The “our” in the title refers to two themes in this article: the Church's understanding and our own personal comprehension. As the Church meditates on the Word of God, Jesus Christ, and develops a deeper understanding of the mysteries, we in turn listen to this deveoloped doctrine and deepen our spiritual life.
Christology and Eschatology
You can have an intimate knowledge of the heart and mind of a person you love but still find it difficult to describe him to someone else. The Church during the first centuries would struggle to find the words to describe Jesus, especially to refute false statements about her Beloved. We see a summary of those words in the ancient Apostle's Creed and the Christian-defining Nicene Creed. Jesus is true God and true Man. It is of first importance that we accept true doctrine about Christ, Christology. It is also important to have true doctrine about the Last Things, Eschatology.
Early Christians were instinctively moved by faith to reject opinions about Christ that belittled or impinged his true humanity or divinity. A similar theological situation in my opinion may exist today concerning our Christian belief in the nature of the resurrected life. We know that the people of God under the Old Testament grew in their understanding of life after death – from a vague image of a shadow in Sheol (hell) to the resurrection of the flesh. This later understanding is especially made clear in the scene of Jesus with Martha and Mary at the raising of Lazarus. We also see from St. Paul's letters to his churches that people were caught up in imagining what the resurrected life would be like.
We Christians have continued to meditate on this life. The struggle is between exaggerating either the physical or spiritual condition of the resurrected ones.
Yet, today, while there is a great body of Sacred Tradition and Scripture concerning the resurrection, most Christians must rely on the creedal formulae “I believe in...the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.” (Apostle's) and “I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” (Nicene). Again, in my personal opinion the Church would benefit today from a definitive expression on the true physical condition of the resurrected body and the true dominion of the resurrected soul. Real human flesh under the power of a real human soul in heavenly union with God. Aside from this Catholic development I also think our personal spiritual progress is indicated by our idea of the “life of the world to come”.
Heaven
Pope John Paul II issued a very short ( a few small paragraphs) teaching about “heaven”. He stated simply that heaven is not a place but a state of being. It is the state of being in complete union with God. We, of course, should fully assent to this teaching. When a pope teaches that there is no salvation outside of the Church, we should also fully assent to that teaching as well. But both teachings must be received in the full context of all of Sacred Tradition and Scripture. True, to be “in heaven” is to be in union with God. However, our notion of a “state of being”, pardon the pun, can be amorphous. Being alive, being human, being Christian are states of being but ones that take place and need moment. It is not that the Holy Spirit, providing for the indefectibility of the Church, did not prevent an erroneous teaching by these Popes. It is that these statements can only be understood correctly surrounded by all of Catholic Tradition. In other words, they would be perhaps inadequate and misleading if taken out of that context. If I were there with Pope John Paul II, I might simply have remarked to him, “And the Resurrection?”.
Turning to John Paul II's great project, “Catechism of the Catholic Church”, we learn that it is essential that Man has a body and the dignity of the body (#364 – 366). We learn of the reality of Christ's risen body (#643 – 647). But we also learn that the risen body is “not limited by space and time” (645) and “beyond time and space” (646). The risen share, though as creatures always, the sovereignty of God over the world or universe. This clearly is shown in #645 when declaring that our Lord may appear at any time and in any guise. The point is that any state of being for a creature with a dimensional body will always require “place” even when that time and place is at the will of the gloriously risen one. We will not rise from the dead and our bodies evaporate or “ghostify” as we enter a catatonic ecstatic eternal state of being. Jesus did not ascend to the Father never to appear again. We not only believe in his resurrection and ascension but in “his coming again in glory”.
The Resurrection of Body and Soul
Do you think the Holy Spirit inspired the gospel words of Jesus in Luke 24:36-43 only as a teaching story? Jesus demonstrated that he was not just a spirit. Even earlier than this post-Resurrection appearance our Lord gave the starting knowledge of what the resurrected life would be like. The synoptic accounts in Mt. 22:23-33, Mark 12:18-27 and Luke 20:27-36 detail his response to the Sadducees' rejection of resurrection of the body.
We can picture the Sadducee group. Barely able to suppress their grins, they approach this country “rabbi” with a delicious satire of the popular belief in the resurrection of the flesh. Surely he will make us laugh at his bumbling attempt to reconcile the ridiculous!
With calm authority Jesus wipes the smirk from their faces. You err, he tells them. Your very question is an error because you know neither the power of God nor the Scripture. God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the living. Those who rise will not marry because they live like the angels.
Their life is founded on the abilities or law of the Spirit and is not dependent on the physical. They will not die, they are sons of the resurrection.
If we think about this passage carefully we will hear our Lord not only rebuke the Sadducees' sophisicated increduality about the resurrection of the dead but also his rebuttal of a naïve literalism about the event. We also err if we believe that the resurrection is simply a glorious resuscitation of the life in the Garden of Eden. We will not be running around sorting out spouses and third cousins.
It will be important to return frequently, however, to the Luke 24 passage I mentioned briefly at the start of this section. Jesus ate food. ( And perhaps also in John 21 though that is not perfectly clear – he certainly is protrayed by the inspired evangelist as cooking!) Jesus, risen and no longer dependent on food, eats. Is this done just to prove his bodily resurrection or is it an action that hints at the life of the resurrected? We will return again to this subject.
Our Spiritual Stage of Growth
A person's concept of life after our mortal death seems to be indicative of their spiritual development. Let me give two real descriptions of “heaven” I've heard from two people who may represent opposite ends of the spectrum. One good fellow is very religious in his conversation and is constantly available to others for concrete advice and prayer. When he speaks about heaven he describes becoming so united to God that we become God. He imagines a total union of love that we never achieve with God or neighbor in this life. When asked about our Catholic faith in the resurrection he is really not interested. For this person, body and place are simply besides the point. We will be united to God, the source of all good. Nothing else has value. Toward the other end of the spectrum, another friend describes a lovely cottage in a cozy country setting. In that cottage he can be a master carpenter building beautiful furniture. He is imagining the peace, personal serenity and skill that we want in this life but, again, never achieve.
Both pictures of heaven ssek the fulfillment of the heart. So, is the spiritual focus on the Beatific Vision much closer to the mark? Perhaps – but the second one includes the created universe and the neighbor that the furniture is being built for. What happens to our Lord's risen Body in the first vision? To our blessed Mother and the angels and saints? To the “new heavens” and “new earth” spoken of in Revelation? As it is necessary to keep in balance our Christological beliefs in the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ, such a balance is necessary for our view of the resurrected life. We must acknowledge, in our idea of this life to come, God as center and yet the real goodness of creation and the dignity of our intellect, free will and body. Personally I go along with another friend who says every time he imagines our heavenly life, his ideas soon deflate or “go squish”. We simply do not have the ability to see the resurrected life.
A Suggested Comparison
An effective way to proportion the relationship between our lives now and our resurrected life is to compare the unborn child to the adult man or woman. Look at the developing of the unborn but especially at the point where soon they will be born into the world. They are comfortable and seemingly secure in their mother's womb. Yet they are unseeing in an environment of extreme limits. While warmly enveloped they may feel the satisfaction of sucking their thumb. We may imagine them knowing something of “the other than self” by awareness of the bodily processes of the mother – heart beat, blood circulation, digestion, outside sounds and bumps and voices.
Yet what do these unborn children really know of the “born” world? Compare a healthy unborn baby to the fully grown healthy adult. The adult lives in a world that is almost literally infinitely larger. The adult has light versus constant shadow. He has the vision of others. His movement is again infinitely greater – just think of the vast difference between a young athlete and the same person in the womb. Beyond the physical, an adult has a mental and emotional world that defies the comparison. From others he has learned language, community, skills, love. Further, as adults we “sense” the spiritual mysteries as an unborn child would have a vague, undefined perception of the greater outside world. We who believe in the life that comes after the death of this body should realize that we are like an unborn child. The resurrected world will indeed be seeded from this one but more gloriously expanded. As St. Paul remeinds us, faith does not hope in what is seen. Again, we truly have no adequate idea of the glory of our risen life.
While it is true that we cannot know the glory of the risen world, something of the full growth can really be seen in the seed just as we relate the newly conceived baby to the born adult. We can catch perhaps a glimpse of our resurrected life in the Alpha of our Lord's resurrection – Jesus rose from the dead in a glorified body and ascended to the Father in that glorified body. But that body did not then evaporate. Remember that the Church teaches that even in his natural span of life Jesus had what we call the beatific vision. Yet the Scripture clearly shows us that Jesus lived like us in all things except sin. The Godly vision of the risen Just will not make the redeemed physical universe disappear – our world will end by transformation as, caterpiller to butterfly, the child is transformed into the adult, as Mary's body was transformed at the Assumption. We will not be left lying down on a blank planetary sphere in a physical catatonic state while our spirits enjoy a solely spiritual communion of the angels and saints. We will move, see, communicate and love God and neighbor in a way beyond what we can now. When we strain to imagine it, we use our limited womb-like experience and fail. But this unborn baby expecting merely a larger womb-world of warm comfortable bath water will be wonderfully surprised.
St. Thomas Aquinas in Summa Contra Gentiles
In the last book, book 4, of the Summa Contra Gentiles, St. Thomas Aquinas examines questions concerning the resurrection. In chapter 83 he denies eating and sexual union for the resurrected life. As far as I personally can understand the subject, I find his explanation of our Lord's statement about marriage and the resurrection to be reasonable. On the other hand, Thomas has an “awkward” (the way Aquinas himself describes ideas that are incomplete, inadequate or self-contradictory) stance on why Christ ate after the Resurrection. St. Thomas starts with the premise: “For, when the corruptible life is taken away, those things must be taken away which serve the corruptible life.” (SCG 83:2) Eating and marriage serve only to preserve human life. Since we will be immortal, no such activity would be necessary. St. Thomas says that even in their innocence the first humans, “Adam” and “Eve”, were imperfect because the human race was not yet multiplied as God commanded. Aquinas certainly seems to imply that God intended a specific number of people – when achieved marriage ceases to have any point. I think it is spiritually wise to accept our Lord's words and see that a union of two people, that ends in death, with the purpose of producing the fruit of increased charity and, hopefully, children will pass away as obsolete. But eating? Why “must” all the seemingly unnecessary disappear? Will conversation disappear? Will play disappear? Will art disapear? Music? And how about my friend who wants to make beautiful tables and chairs at which to share this “unnecessary” physical act of communal eating?
As mentioned, Thomas likes to speak of concepts as “awkward”. While Thomas acknowledges that Jesus ate after his Resurrection (Luke 24), he goes on to say that Christ was only doing this to prove the reality of his resurrection: “Hence, that food of His was not changed into flesh, but returned to the prior material state. But there will be no such reason for eating in the general resurrection.” (SCG 83:19)
Yes, The One who can enter a locked room and offer his wounds to the Apostle Thomas demonstrates that the Risen body is in control of the physical. Yes, and we will not have to prove to others that we are truly risen. What is not mentioned, however, is communion. Both meals and the marital act have a supreme value for humans above “the brutes” of being the occasion of possible growth in community. (The difference is that many can share in a meal for mutual physical, social and even spiritual nourishment while the marital act specificly joins husband and wife for a limited union directed at the possible fruit of that union – emotional and spiritual growth and children.) St. Thomas Aquinas states “only the occupation of the contemplative life will persist in the resurrection”. (SCG 83:24) As I have opined, Aquinas' vision of the heavenly or resurrected life relects his own spiritual life – granted, a very advanced spiritual condition. Yet I must ask, does the risen contemplative have a mouth and talk? Have legs and walk with his brothers and sisters? Does he have eyes and admire the awe-inspiring beauty of the redeemed and now transformed universe? No marriage, no eating, only contemplation – a super monastery? I liken such a view of our risen relationship to God to those who realize the sun is the center of the planets and the fuel of life yet would await the consumption of all in a super-nova. Like Jesus showing his Wounds and eating, it was all a pretense.
Here is the basic question. The soul is perfected in heavenly union with God, the ultimate act of contemplation. But why have a risen, glorified body? As a mere static platform for that contemplation floating in a pre-Copernican ether? In defense of Aquinas his following chapter 84 is a strong confirmation of the reality of the risen body and our Lord's words in Luke 24: 39 - “...for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see me to have”.
It is clear from Genesis, from our Lord's Baptism in the Jordan, and from the groaning of creation cited by St. Paul (Rom 8:18-25) that the physical universe is good, made sacred by the Incarnation and awaiting final transformation. Think again about our Catholic teaching not only on the Resurrection of Christ but also the Assumption body and soul of Mary. Ultimately, the greatest case against an excessively spiritualistic view of our experience of the heavenly life is simply love of neighbor. “...one who has no love for the brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20) Jesus is clear that the love of neighbor and self are simultaneous with the love of God. But, someone may object, in heaven we will have direct spiritual communion between God, our self and our neighbor. I repeat the response, why have a risen body? No, in the risen life the “planets” will not be absorbed into the sun. Again to be fair to Aquinas, his subsequent chapters declare that the body will be perfected by the blessed soul and share in the sovereignty of God. To repeat myself, as was said in the comparison to the unborn child, we cannot imagine our resurrected life but we can live in hope.
In the end, the greatest weight must be given this consideration: the Flesh of Christ that suffered scourging and crucifixion must in justice share in his Victory.
Suggested Readings in Scripture about the Resurrected Life
All Scripture and Tradition can only be understood within the Church, the Body of Christ.
Psalm 16:10-11
Daniel 12
Mt. 22:23-33
Mark !2: 18-27
Luke 20:27-38; 24:36-43
John 20:19-29; 21: 1-14
Rom. 8:18-25
1 Cor. 15:35-58 (Body transformed: “Not all of us shall fall asleep, but all of us are to be changed...”
1 Thess. 4:13-18 (Unlike Protestant rapture fantasies, this re-affirms 1 Cor. 15)
Phil. 3:17-21
Rev. 21:1-3
The “our” in the title refers to two themes in this article: the Church's understanding and our own personal comprehension. As the Church meditates on the Word of God, Jesus Christ, and develops a deeper understanding of the mysteries, we in turn listen to this deveoloped doctrine and deepen our spiritual life.
Christology and Eschatology
You can have an intimate knowledge of the heart and mind of a person you love but still find it difficult to describe him to someone else. The Church during the first centuries would struggle to find the words to describe Jesus, especially to refute false statements about her Beloved. We see a summary of those words in the ancient Apostle's Creed and the Christian-defining Nicene Creed. Jesus is true God and true Man. It is of first importance that we accept true doctrine about Christ, Christology. It is also important to have true doctrine about the Last Things, Eschatology.
Early Christians were instinctively moved by faith to reject opinions about Christ that belittled or impinged his true humanity or divinity. A similar theological situation in my opinion may exist today concerning our Christian belief in the nature of the resurrected life. We know that the people of God under the Old Testament grew in their understanding of life after death – from a vague image of a shadow in Sheol (hell) to the resurrection of the flesh. This later understanding is especially made clear in the scene of Jesus with Martha and Mary at the raising of Lazarus. We also see from St. Paul's letters to his churches that people were caught up in imagining what the resurrected life would be like.
We Christians have continued to meditate on this life. The struggle is between exaggerating either the physical or spiritual condition of the resurrected ones.
Yet, today, while there is a great body of Sacred Tradition and Scripture concerning the resurrection, most Christians must rely on the creedal formulae “I believe in...the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.” (Apostle's) and “I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” (Nicene). Again, in my personal opinion the Church would benefit today from a definitive expression on the true physical condition of the resurrected body and the true dominion of the resurrected soul. Real human flesh under the power of a real human soul in heavenly union with God. Aside from this Catholic development I also think our personal spiritual progress is indicated by our idea of the “life of the world to come”.
Heaven
Pope John Paul II issued a very short ( a few small paragraphs) teaching about “heaven”. He stated simply that heaven is not a place but a state of being. It is the state of being in complete union with God. We, of course, should fully assent to this teaching. When a pope teaches that there is no salvation outside of the Church, we should also fully assent to that teaching as well. But both teachings must be received in the full context of all of Sacred Tradition and Scripture. True, to be “in heaven” is to be in union with God. However, our notion of a “state of being”, pardon the pun, can be amorphous. Being alive, being human, being Christian are states of being but ones that take place and need moment. It is not that the Holy Spirit, providing for the indefectibility of the Church, did not prevent an erroneous teaching by these Popes. It is that these statements can only be understood correctly surrounded by all of Catholic Tradition. In other words, they would be perhaps inadequate and misleading if taken out of that context. If I were there with Pope John Paul II, I might simply have remarked to him, “And the Resurrection?”.
Turning to John Paul II's great project, “Catechism of the Catholic Church”, we learn that it is essential that Man has a body and the dignity of the body (#364 – 366). We learn of the reality of Christ's risen body (#643 – 647). But we also learn that the risen body is “not limited by space and time” (645) and “beyond time and space” (646). The risen share, though as creatures always, the sovereignty of God over the world or universe. This clearly is shown in #645 when declaring that our Lord may appear at any time and in any guise. The point is that any state of being for a creature with a dimensional body will always require “place” even when that time and place is at the will of the gloriously risen one. We will not rise from the dead and our bodies evaporate or “ghostify” as we enter a catatonic ecstatic eternal state of being. Jesus did not ascend to the Father never to appear again. We not only believe in his resurrection and ascension but in “his coming again in glory”.
The Resurrection of Body and Soul
Do you think the Holy Spirit inspired the gospel words of Jesus in Luke 24:36-43 only as a teaching story? Jesus demonstrated that he was not just a spirit. Even earlier than this post-Resurrection appearance our Lord gave the starting knowledge of what the resurrected life would be like. The synoptic accounts in Mt. 22:23-33, Mark 12:18-27 and Luke 20:27-36 detail his response to the Sadducees' rejection of resurrection of the body.
We can picture the Sadducee group. Barely able to suppress their grins, they approach this country “rabbi” with a delicious satire of the popular belief in the resurrection of the flesh. Surely he will make us laugh at his bumbling attempt to reconcile the ridiculous!
With calm authority Jesus wipes the smirk from their faces. You err, he tells them. Your very question is an error because you know neither the power of God nor the Scripture. God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the living. Those who rise will not marry because they live like the angels.
Their life is founded on the abilities or law of the Spirit and is not dependent on the physical. They will not die, they are sons of the resurrection.
If we think about this passage carefully we will hear our Lord not only rebuke the Sadducees' sophisicated increduality about the resurrection of the dead but also his rebuttal of a naïve literalism about the event. We also err if we believe that the resurrection is simply a glorious resuscitation of the life in the Garden of Eden. We will not be running around sorting out spouses and third cousins.
It will be important to return frequently, however, to the Luke 24 passage I mentioned briefly at the start of this section. Jesus ate food. ( And perhaps also in John 21 though that is not perfectly clear – he certainly is protrayed by the inspired evangelist as cooking!) Jesus, risen and no longer dependent on food, eats. Is this done just to prove his bodily resurrection or is it an action that hints at the life of the resurrected? We will return again to this subject.
Our Spiritual Stage of Growth
A person's concept of life after our mortal death seems to be indicative of their spiritual development. Let me give two real descriptions of “heaven” I've heard from two people who may represent opposite ends of the spectrum. One good fellow is very religious in his conversation and is constantly available to others for concrete advice and prayer. When he speaks about heaven he describes becoming so united to God that we become God. He imagines a total union of love that we never achieve with God or neighbor in this life. When asked about our Catholic faith in the resurrection he is really not interested. For this person, body and place are simply besides the point. We will be united to God, the source of all good. Nothing else has value. Toward the other end of the spectrum, another friend describes a lovely cottage in a cozy country setting. In that cottage he can be a master carpenter building beautiful furniture. He is imagining the peace, personal serenity and skill that we want in this life but, again, never achieve.
Both pictures of heaven ssek the fulfillment of the heart. So, is the spiritual focus on the Beatific Vision much closer to the mark? Perhaps – but the second one includes the created universe and the neighbor that the furniture is being built for. What happens to our Lord's risen Body in the first vision? To our blessed Mother and the angels and saints? To the “new heavens” and “new earth” spoken of in Revelation? As it is necessary to keep in balance our Christological beliefs in the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ, such a balance is necessary for our view of the resurrected life. We must acknowledge, in our idea of this life to come, God as center and yet the real goodness of creation and the dignity of our intellect, free will and body. Personally I go along with another friend who says every time he imagines our heavenly life, his ideas soon deflate or “go squish”. We simply do not have the ability to see the resurrected life.
A Suggested Comparison
An effective way to proportion the relationship between our lives now and our resurrected life is to compare the unborn child to the adult man or woman. Look at the developing of the unborn but especially at the point where soon they will be born into the world. They are comfortable and seemingly secure in their mother's womb. Yet they are unseeing in an environment of extreme limits. While warmly enveloped they may feel the satisfaction of sucking their thumb. We may imagine them knowing something of “the other than self” by awareness of the bodily processes of the mother – heart beat, blood circulation, digestion, outside sounds and bumps and voices.
Yet what do these unborn children really know of the “born” world? Compare a healthy unborn baby to the fully grown healthy adult. The adult lives in a world that is almost literally infinitely larger. The adult has light versus constant shadow. He has the vision of others. His movement is again infinitely greater – just think of the vast difference between a young athlete and the same person in the womb. Beyond the physical, an adult has a mental and emotional world that defies the comparison. From others he has learned language, community, skills, love. Further, as adults we “sense” the spiritual mysteries as an unborn child would have a vague, undefined perception of the greater outside world. We who believe in the life that comes after the death of this body should realize that we are like an unborn child. The resurrected world will indeed be seeded from this one but more gloriously expanded. As St. Paul remeinds us, faith does not hope in what is seen. Again, we truly have no adequate idea of the glory of our risen life.
While it is true that we cannot know the glory of the risen world, something of the full growth can really be seen in the seed just as we relate the newly conceived baby to the born adult. We can catch perhaps a glimpse of our resurrected life in the Alpha of our Lord's resurrection – Jesus rose from the dead in a glorified body and ascended to the Father in that glorified body. But that body did not then evaporate. Remember that the Church teaches that even in his natural span of life Jesus had what we call the beatific vision. Yet the Scripture clearly shows us that Jesus lived like us in all things except sin. The Godly vision of the risen Just will not make the redeemed physical universe disappear – our world will end by transformation as, caterpiller to butterfly, the child is transformed into the adult, as Mary's body was transformed at the Assumption. We will not be left lying down on a blank planetary sphere in a physical catatonic state while our spirits enjoy a solely spiritual communion of the angels and saints. We will move, see, communicate and love God and neighbor in a way beyond what we can now. When we strain to imagine it, we use our limited womb-like experience and fail. But this unborn baby expecting merely a larger womb-world of warm comfortable bath water will be wonderfully surprised.
St. Thomas Aquinas in Summa Contra Gentiles
In the last book, book 4, of the Summa Contra Gentiles, St. Thomas Aquinas examines questions concerning the resurrection. In chapter 83 he denies eating and sexual union for the resurrected life. As far as I personally can understand the subject, I find his explanation of our Lord's statement about marriage and the resurrection to be reasonable. On the other hand, Thomas has an “awkward” (the way Aquinas himself describes ideas that are incomplete, inadequate or self-contradictory) stance on why Christ ate after the Resurrection. St. Thomas starts with the premise: “For, when the corruptible life is taken away, those things must be taken away which serve the corruptible life.” (SCG 83:2) Eating and marriage serve only to preserve human life. Since we will be immortal, no such activity would be necessary. St. Thomas says that even in their innocence the first humans, “Adam” and “Eve”, were imperfect because the human race was not yet multiplied as God commanded. Aquinas certainly seems to imply that God intended a specific number of people – when achieved marriage ceases to have any point. I think it is spiritually wise to accept our Lord's words and see that a union of two people, that ends in death, with the purpose of producing the fruit of increased charity and, hopefully, children will pass away as obsolete. But eating? Why “must” all the seemingly unnecessary disappear? Will conversation disappear? Will play disappear? Will art disapear? Music? And how about my friend who wants to make beautiful tables and chairs at which to share this “unnecessary” physical act of communal eating?
As mentioned, Thomas likes to speak of concepts as “awkward”. While Thomas acknowledges that Jesus ate after his Resurrection (Luke 24), he goes on to say that Christ was only doing this to prove the reality of his resurrection: “Hence, that food of His was not changed into flesh, but returned to the prior material state. But there will be no such reason for eating in the general resurrection.” (SCG 83:19)
Yes, The One who can enter a locked room and offer his wounds to the Apostle Thomas demonstrates that the Risen body is in control of the physical. Yes, and we will not have to prove to others that we are truly risen. What is not mentioned, however, is communion. Both meals and the marital act have a supreme value for humans above “the brutes” of being the occasion of possible growth in community. (The difference is that many can share in a meal for mutual physical, social and even spiritual nourishment while the marital act specificly joins husband and wife for a limited union directed at the possible fruit of that union – emotional and spiritual growth and children.) St. Thomas Aquinas states “only the occupation of the contemplative life will persist in the resurrection”. (SCG 83:24) As I have opined, Aquinas' vision of the heavenly or resurrected life relects his own spiritual life – granted, a very advanced spiritual condition. Yet I must ask, does the risen contemplative have a mouth and talk? Have legs and walk with his brothers and sisters? Does he have eyes and admire the awe-inspiring beauty of the redeemed and now transformed universe? No marriage, no eating, only contemplation – a super monastery? I liken such a view of our risen relationship to God to those who realize the sun is the center of the planets and the fuel of life yet would await the consumption of all in a super-nova. Like Jesus showing his Wounds and eating, it was all a pretense.
Here is the basic question. The soul is perfected in heavenly union with God, the ultimate act of contemplation. But why have a risen, glorified body? As a mere static platform for that contemplation floating in a pre-Copernican ether? In defense of Aquinas his following chapter 84 is a strong confirmation of the reality of the risen body and our Lord's words in Luke 24: 39 - “...for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see me to have”.
It is clear from Genesis, from our Lord's Baptism in the Jordan, and from the groaning of creation cited by St. Paul (Rom 8:18-25) that the physical universe is good, made sacred by the Incarnation and awaiting final transformation. Think again about our Catholic teaching not only on the Resurrection of Christ but also the Assumption body and soul of Mary. Ultimately, the greatest case against an excessively spiritualistic view of our experience of the heavenly life is simply love of neighbor. “...one who has no love for the brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20) Jesus is clear that the love of neighbor and self are simultaneous with the love of God. But, someone may object, in heaven we will have direct spiritual communion between God, our self and our neighbor. I repeat the response, why have a risen body? No, in the risen life the “planets” will not be absorbed into the sun. Again to be fair to Aquinas, his subsequent chapters declare that the body will be perfected by the blessed soul and share in the sovereignty of God. To repeat myself, as was said in the comparison to the unborn child, we cannot imagine our resurrected life but we can live in hope.
In the end, the greatest weight must be given this consideration: the Flesh of Christ that suffered scourging and crucifixion must in justice share in his Victory.
Suggested Readings in Scripture about the Resurrected Life
All Scripture and Tradition can only be understood within the Church, the Body of Christ.
Psalm 16:10-11
Daniel 12
Mt. 22:23-33
Mark !2: 18-27
Luke 20:27-38; 24:36-43
John 20:19-29; 21: 1-14
Rom. 8:18-25
1 Cor. 15:35-58 (Body transformed: “Not all of us shall fall asleep, but all of us are to be changed...”
1 Thess. 4:13-18 (Unlike Protestant rapture fantasies, this re-affirms 1 Cor. 15)
Phil. 3:17-21
Rev. 21:1-3
Monday, January 25, 2010
Sweet Words, Strong Words
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God; and the Word was God.”
John 1:1
“In like manner, of course, it was manifestly suitable that, even in the human generation of the Word of God, some spiritual property of the generation of a word should shine out. Now, a word as it proceeds from a speaker – whether conceived within or expressed without – brings no corruption to the speaker; rather, the word marks the plenitude of perfection in the speaker. It was in harmony with this that in His human generation the Word of God should be so conceived and born that the wholeness of His Mother was not impaired. And this, too, is clear: It became the Word of God, by whom all things are established and by whom all things are preserved in His wholeness, to be born so as to preserve His Mother's wholeness in every way. Therefore, suitably this generation was from a virgin.”
St. Thomas Aquinas
Summa Contra Gentiles, IV, ch. 45
“But in like manner the Spirit also helps our weakness. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself pleads for us with unutterable groanings. And he who searches the hearts knows what the Spirit desires, that he pleads for the saints according to God.”
Romans 8:26-27
Novices in the spiritual life often receive spiritually sweet experiences. Later their inner selves can suffer bitterness (Rev. 10). For now let us just consider the wonderful sweetness of the words of the Hail Mary.
God speaks:
Hail – Remember the joy when you greet someone whose mere presence lifts your spirits. Imagine, you are allowed to greet the loving Mother of God! Immediately, without distraction, she attends to
you. She listens to your mind and heart.
Mary – In every human language this name is feminine and beautiful. Ave Maria. “Mary” calls to mind the great blue-green oceans and forests. Mother Mary.
Full – Overflowing with life,
of
Grace – the life of God. How sweet to our sense and thoughts when someone is brimming over with life and goodness.
The Lord – Almighty God, our Creator, our existence, our glory...
is
with thee. – God is with Mary. Mary on earth has entered the Kingdom of Heaven already. When we are with Mary in this sacred prayer we are beginning contemplation, we are in Heaven.
Blessed art thou – Full of grace , again, but in the aspect of the overbrimming benefits God gives as the result of His Life of grace.
among women – not only the new Eve but, just as “man” should be understood generically, the queen of all mankind in Christ.
And blessed – The source of goodness is the sweet baby born with the cooperation of
is the fruit - the heart,mind and body of Mary, flowering under the light of the Holy Spirit in her
of thy womb, - innermost being. The Mother contains her child and yet is contained within Him
Jesus – There is no sweeter or stronger word than “Jesus”.
The Church resonds:
Holy Mary, - She shares the glorious holiness of God as we, too, her children are called to share.
Mother of God, - Isaiah 49:15
- Theotokos
- by Baptism, our mother.
Pray - How good it feels when we ask someone to pray for us who we know is prayerful and whose
prayers are powerful. At Cana Jesus tells his mother that it is not time. She simply turns to the
waiters ( and us) and says "Listen to him".
for us sinners - O happy fault! We come to a merciful mother and our sins make her more eager to
cleanse, discipline and teach us. And not just those whose clothes are dirty by venial
sins but grave sinners are embraced by the Mother of the Shepherd.
Now - At this moment, in these circumstances Mary will aid us.
and at the hour - And, no matter what kind of death we suffer, she stands
of our death. with us by our cross.
Amen.
John 1:1
“In like manner, of course, it was manifestly suitable that, even in the human generation of the Word of God, some spiritual property of the generation of a word should shine out. Now, a word as it proceeds from a speaker – whether conceived within or expressed without – brings no corruption to the speaker; rather, the word marks the plenitude of perfection in the speaker. It was in harmony with this that in His human generation the Word of God should be so conceived and born that the wholeness of His Mother was not impaired. And this, too, is clear: It became the Word of God, by whom all things are established and by whom all things are preserved in His wholeness, to be born so as to preserve His Mother's wholeness in every way. Therefore, suitably this generation was from a virgin.”
St. Thomas Aquinas
Summa Contra Gentiles, IV, ch. 45
“But in like manner the Spirit also helps our weakness. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself pleads for us with unutterable groanings. And he who searches the hearts knows what the Spirit desires, that he pleads for the saints according to God.”
Romans 8:26-27
Novices in the spiritual life often receive spiritually sweet experiences. Later their inner selves can suffer bitterness (Rev. 10). For now let us just consider the wonderful sweetness of the words of the Hail Mary.
God speaks:
Hail – Remember the joy when you greet someone whose mere presence lifts your spirits. Imagine, you are allowed to greet the loving Mother of God! Immediately, without distraction, she attends to
you. She listens to your mind and heart.
Mary – In every human language this name is feminine and beautiful. Ave Maria. “Mary” calls to mind the great blue-green oceans and forests. Mother Mary.
Full – Overflowing with life,
of
Grace – the life of God. How sweet to our sense and thoughts when someone is brimming over with life and goodness.
The Lord – Almighty God, our Creator, our existence, our glory...
is
with thee. – God is with Mary. Mary on earth has entered the Kingdom of Heaven already. When we are with Mary in this sacred prayer we are beginning contemplation, we are in Heaven.
Blessed art thou – Full of grace , again, but in the aspect of the overbrimming benefits God gives as the result of His Life of grace.
among women – not only the new Eve but, just as “man” should be understood generically, the queen of all mankind in Christ.
And blessed – The source of goodness is the sweet baby born with the cooperation of
is the fruit - the heart,mind and body of Mary, flowering under the light of the Holy Spirit in her
of thy womb, - innermost being. The Mother contains her child and yet is contained within Him
Jesus – There is no sweeter or stronger word than “Jesus”.
The Church resonds:
Holy Mary, - She shares the glorious holiness of God as we, too, her children are called to share.
Mother of God, - Isaiah 49:15
- Theotokos
- by Baptism, our mother.
Pray - How good it feels when we ask someone to pray for us who we know is prayerful and whose
prayers are powerful. At Cana Jesus tells his mother that it is not time. She simply turns to the
waiters ( and us) and says "Listen to him".
for us sinners - O happy fault! We come to a merciful mother and our sins make her more eager to
cleanse, discipline and teach us. And not just those whose clothes are dirty by venial
sins but grave sinners are embraced by the Mother of the Shepherd.
Now - At this moment, in these circumstances Mary will aid us.
and at the hour - And, no matter what kind of death we suffer, she stands
of our death. with us by our cross.
Amen.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Memories of the Nativity In Scripture
The Purpose and an Axiom
The purpose of this article is to propose keys found in the gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke supporting the credibility of their birth narratives and, in doing so, illumine a Catholic understanding of those passages.
First, lets us look briefly at St. Luke’s introduction to his gospel (Luke 1:1-4). St. Luke states clearly that he will adhere to the sources of Revelation. His intention is to gather and hand on from both “eyewitnesses” and “ministers of the word”. That is, both the historical memories of the events of salvation and the Church’s reflection on those events in the preaching of the apostolic generation. St. Luke feels obligated to pass on only what he, who we believe is an inspired author, thinks is trustworthy. Because of the early date of the composition of the Synoptic gospels, these traditions were not a novelty but must extend to the first Christians. The reliability of these memories and preached reflections? It is not impossibly difficult for people to gather and remember a correct outline of shared events yet to present and reflect on that history from the diversity of human viewpoints. This is the axiom that underlies all history - to deny it is to lose all history.
The gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke share common material and thus are called the Synoptic gospels. There is an interesting academic puzzle involving these gospels called the Synoptic Problem. The material that Matthew has that is not also in Mark is not found in Luke and, similarly, the material that Luke has that is not in Mark is not in Matthew. This is very evident in their accounts of the infancy of our Lord. In light of our above-stated historical axiom there is no real Synoptic “problem” but simply the diverse views of an important event. When an important event happens we tend to consult several sources to build the most complete account of the event. Perhaps the term “problem” really indicates that some students of the Scripture just have too much time on their hands. The real problem arises when someone claims that there are contradictions, for example, between the differing Birth narratives found in Matthew and Luke that suggest these stories are only based on the spiritual imagination of Christians. To answer this claim let us restate the axiom: Given any set of people, their reports of a shared experience can vary in detail and even accuracy but be correct in at least broad outline. Ask any mentally competent mother and father about the day their child was born. Their memories must be different but will agree on essential facts. Then ask the father to describe his memories to one person and the mother to another. In turn these two individuals must again describe or write accounts of that birth day which will be entirely separate but not uncomplimentary or contradictory.
There is another factor when studying the Bible other than the historical minimum offered above. It is a factor that I wanted to bring up only at the end of this article but which should be mentioned now considering our adolescent age of skepticism: faith.
The Bible can only be understood fully with faith. We believe that the teachings of the Catholic Church are based on Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture and are contained or, at least, not contradicted by either source. Therefore the events of salvation and the preaching about those events contained in Scripture are divinely guaranteed as to the Revelation God wills to make. In other words, there are no errors concerning the divine matters of faith and morals when considered in their full context. Neither Scripture nor Sacred Tradition is guaranteed concerning non-essential (non-essential to the Divine message) facts of astronomy, geography, biology or even history. More on faith and context will follow the discussion below.
Key Verses We Consider in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke
Let us now consider specifics in Matthew and Luke that may be helpful. We focus sharply on a single phrase in a single verse, even a single preposition, in Luke. In Luke
Turn now to key verses in Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus: 2:7 and
Complimentary Traditions
So, to imitate Matthew in our own poor fashion, I repeat that Luke is dealing with forty days while Matthew can reasonably be seen as writing about events at least months later. In any “calculation” there is generous room to reconcile, dare I say, synchronize the peaceful domestic religious tapestry of St. Luke with the dangerous secular circumstances of St. Matthew. The gospel of St. Matthew presents traditions about the birth of Jesus that can be described as derived from the natural fatherly concerns of Joseph. The main concern that fills the mind of a man with a young family? Protect and provide. The Joseph-father memories are shown in protecting Mary’s reputation (Mt.
St. Luke’s gospel gives us the memories and tradition of a joyful young mother. What is first and most important in her memory is not outside forces (Joseph took care of that) but the joy and wonder of domestic occasions: learning she would be a mother, the visit to her cousin Elizabeth, the birth of her cousin’s son, the birth of her son Jesus, the shepherds, the circumcision, her ritual purification and presentation of her first born son, what people remarked about her baby and herself, and, years later, the finding in the temple.
Why so many Joseph and Mary traditions in the
Faith
The true key to Scripture is faith. We cannot understand Scripture with the doubting question of Zechariah (Luke
The Church documents (Divino Afflante Spiritu of Pius XII and the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation of the Second Vatican Council) do not endorse suspending faith as a prerequisite to the scientific study of Scripture. {Note: Since the first writing of this article Pope Benedict XVI has spoken in confirmation of this theme: http://www.zenit.org/article-27344?l=english }
The study of Sacred Scripture as well as Sacred Tradition depends on faith in the entirety of Revelation. Ultimately this is faith in Jesus, the Word of God (the gospel of
Since Christ is the Revelation of God, the real context of Scripture is the body of Christ, the Church. All members who can should read and study the Word of God but only those apostolic members whose function it is to shepherd the Church can give authoritative interpretation. The Catholic approach to Scripture should be the via media, the middle way. There are those who take a naïve literalistic approach to each word in the library known as the Bible. (While this article seeks to restore balance away from the overly-critical, the “or” phrase of Luke can also demonstrate that the author did not dictate a transcript of history as spurious non-scriptural writings purport to have.) Others, who dominate today, view the Bible as an interesting example of culture and myth which they as modern critical thinkers can better understand than anyone else. Both of these stances towards Scripture are wrong. We must have a critical sense of history and literature at the disposal of an enlightening faith. Mary at the Annunciation: her question is derived from realistic knowledge, her acceptance on real trust.
But how does this apply to a naturalistic synchronization of the Birth narratives in the gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke? It is intended as a counter-balance to the approach to the Bible that discounts the historicity of events. If one’s starting premise in approaching the Scripture is that only the empirical is reasonable, then this a priori prejudice spreads to even the understanding of ordinary events. In other words, since miracles reported assigned to the birth of Jesus are mere cultural expressions, even the reported outline of historical events is dubious. These Zechariahs, who have made the pre-judgment that miracles are doubtful, would reduce us all to dumbness in response to Scripture.
Once again, consider Mary’s response to the angelic message: “How can this be since I do not know man?”. Mary was “deeply troubled” by the angel’s words. God’s word to us is often difficult to understand. The full discipline of science depends on both the empirical and the logical, not just the empirical. Mary’s question is logical based on the empirical facts of life. But she is not just an empirical object in a merely physical world. She has a hope-producing and therefore an enlivening and enlightening faith. Once she is told that she would be a mother not in the empirical way but through the miracle of the Holy Spirit, she accepts and our salvation is assured. As Jesus often said to those whom he healed – “Go, your faith has saved you”.
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