catholicism 101 -- part 15

Catholicism 101

(The outline of this
series is taken from Father Vernon Staley’s book The Catholic Religion.)

Church of the Holy
Cross

June 8, 2008

Part 15

Christian Duty:  Christian Belief: The Three Great
Creeds: Concerning God:  The
Creator of Heaven and Earth:  The
Creation of Man

=---      We have discussed the hierarchy of the creation narrative before:  how the narrative moves upward along the chain of being:

o   “The hierarchy of creatures is expressed by the order of ‘six days,’ from the less perfect to the more perfect.  God loves all his creatures and takes  care of each one, even the sparrow.  Nevertheless, Jesus said:  ‘You are of more value than many sparrows,’ or again:  ‘Of how much more value is a man than a sheep!’” 
(CCC 342)

o   The crown jewel of the creation, on the sixth day, the very last thing God creates
is man:

§  “Man is the summit of the Creator’s work, as the inspired account expresses by clearly distinguishing the creation of man from that of the other
creatures.”  (CCC 343)

§ Genesis 1.26f:

·      Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

§  Man (male and female) is made in the image and likeness of God:

·     “Of all the visible creatures only man is ‘able to know and love his creator.’  He is ‘the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake,’ and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God’s own life.  It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity:” (CCC 356)

o   ‘What made you establish man in so great a dignity?  Certainly the incalculable love by which you have looked on your creature in yourself!  You are taken with love for her; for by love indeed you created her, by love you have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good’ (St. Catherine of Siena – 14^th century –  Dialogue 4, 13).

·      The image of God can be (and is) marred by sin, but it can never be fully effaced.

·      Being in the image of God means that the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, “who is not just something, but someone.  He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons.” 
(CCC 357)

o   Man is free, and he is free to love.  When we freely love, we actualize the image of God in which we are made, we inhabit it.  We are living in accord with our telos, with what we were made to be.

§  When we do this, when we love and serve God, when we willingly say “yes” to God, we are in a “state of grace” – there is a kind of harmonious and free interpenetration, or mutual giving, of God and man.

o   The Fall

§  At the very outset, mankind blew it.  He listened to that “seductive voice” (cf. last time), which out of envy and malice, deceived mankind.

·      This is the voice of “the serpent” or “the dragon” in Genesis, which says:

·      “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

·      The great irony is that we were “like God” from the beginning, because God made us that way.  When we try to go off and self-actualize apart from God, we get into trouble.  Because there’s no self to actualize apart from God.  He made us from nothing, and he made us to be in a free communion of love, a “state of grace”.

§  But the fall is the occasion for redemption.  Redemption, and not just redemption in the abstract, but a personal redeemer, is promised immediately, because God’s love for us is sovereign:

·     God makes a promise for the future, another woman, and another man, who will undo what was done in the fall, when the serpents head will be crushed definitively:

o   (The curse of the Serpent:) “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head…” (Gen. 3.15).

o   This is on the surface what is called a scriptural “etiology” – i.e. an explanation of where the scariness and venomness of serpents comes from, and why it is that people (and particularly women) are afraid of them.

o   The deeper reading of this text, though, is a prophecy of the redemption.  There will be a woman in the future at enmity with the ancient serpent, who will undo what Eve did; and there will be a man who will crush the head of the ancient serpent forever.

o   That woman will be Mary, who will willingly say “yes” to God, and who will therefore be called “full of grace” (and whom Jesus otherwise puzzlingly calls “woman” [or “Eve” in Hebrew] – cf. Jn. 2.4, and Jn. 19.26), and from her womb will come the Deliverer, who will “bruise the head” of the serpent, and restore the communion of God and man.  Thus we will see later that creation is not really completed until Jesus, the theanthropos, the God-man, who is raised from the dead and glorified on the eighth day, as a sign of the completion of God’s creative work in him.

david mills: transcending anglicanism

Catholics who keep up with Anglicanism may have observed that the whole thing seems to be visibly coming apart.

On the one hand, at June's rally of the world's conservative Anglicans in Jerusalem -- the Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON) -- over a thousand conservative leaders declared their willingness to work outside the official structure and indeed to intervene in the errant Western Anglican churches in defense of their marginalized and oppressed conservatives.

On the other, over 200 conservative bishops, mostly from Africa, simply refused to attend late July's Lambeth Conference, the decennial meeting of the world's Anglican bishops, because the bishops of the Episcopal Church -- who, by ordaining an openly fornicating homosexual bishop, had thumbed their noses at the rest of the world's Anglicans, and the Christian moral tradition to boot -- were seated with full voice and vote.

Of particular interest will be the fate of the small Anglo-Catholic party, the wing closest to Catholicism in doctrine and devotion, now found almost entirely in England and the English-speaking former colonies. It was once, in the 1920s and early 1930s, the most creative and effective party in Anglicanism, but has kept declining since.

Anglo-Catholicism covers a surprisingly wide range of self-definitions, from several varieties of "classical Anglicanism," usually marked by adherence to the older version of the Book of Common Prayer and to the attempt of 17th-century Anglicans to correct (slightly) the Protestantism of the previous century's break with the Catholic Church; to mainstream Anglo-Catholicism, by far the largest group, which favors the modern liturgy and tends to use the tagline "none must, all may, some should" in regard to disciplines like confession and belief in doctrines like the Assumption; to "Anglo-Papalism," a mostly English movement that hopes for corporate reunion with Rome and comes as close in practice as it can to Catholicism (these parishes in England often use the Roman rather than the Anglican rite, though this is entirely illegal).

Read on.

catholicism 101 -- part 14

Catholicism 101
(The outline of this series is taken from Father Vernon Staley’s book The Catholic Religion.)
Church of the Holy Cross
June 1, 2008

Part 14

Christian Duty: Christian Belief: The Three Great Creeds: Concerning God: God the Creator: “things… unseen.”

- The Creation of the Angels

• In the hierarchy of creation, the angels are at the top.
• Their existence, though often ignored these days, is clearly and repeatedly attested by Scripture and by sacred Tradition (i.e. the dogmatic teaching of the Church).
• The word “angel” (In Greek: ανγελοσ ) means “messenger”. But this is not their oldest name, as there were none (so far as we know) originally to whom the angels could be messengers. “Angel” is their office, not their nature. Their nature is Spirit. They are personal. They are immortal.
• In the book of Job, these beings are called “the sons of God”, and we get a little glimpse into their most ancient activity:
• “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements -- surely you know! / Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38.4-7).
• Matthew 25.31 the Lord says “When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him…” Thus Christ is the center of the angelic world. The angelic beings were created by him and for him. “They belong to him still more because he has made them messengers of his saving plan” (CCC 331):
• And the book of Hebrews calls them “ministering spirits” (“λειτουργικα πνευματα” = “liturgical spirits” or “spirits of worship”):
• “Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to serve, for the sake of those who are to obtain salvation?” (Heb. 1.14).
• From this passage we can see that the angelic activity is both Godward and manward oriented. I.e. they are beings whose activity involves the service and worship of God, and they act on behalf of humans, “those are to obtain salvation”.
• Angels are there at every stage of the way in the narrative of salvation. Scripture describes them at the creation of the world (Cf. Job, above), “announcing…salvation from afar or near and serving the accomplishment of the divine plan: they closed the earthly paradise; protected Lot; saved Hagar and her child; stayed Abraham’s hand; communicated the law by their ministry; led the People of God; announced births and callings; and assisted the prophets… Finally, the angel Gabriel announced the birth of the Precursor [J-Bap] and that of Jesus himself” (CCC 332).
• Likewise they are with Jesus at every stage of his earthly life, from our Lady’s conception, to the Lord’s ascension: “Their song of praise at the birth of Christ has not ceased resounding in the Church’s praise: ‘Glory to God in the highest!’ They protect Jesus in his infancy, serve him in the desert, strengthen him in his agony in the garden, when he could have been saved by them form the hands of his enemies as Israel had been. Again, it is the angels who ‘evangelize’ by proclaiming the Good News of Christ’s Incarnation and Resurrection [cf. Lk. 2.8-14, Mk. 16.5-7]. They will be present at Christ’s return, which they will announce, to serve at his judgment [cf. Acts 1.10-11; Mt. 13.41, 24.31; Lk. 12.8-9]” (CCC 333).
• The lives of humans intersect with those of angelic beings:
• The “Guardian Angels” – Jesus said: “See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 18.10).
• St. Basil the Great (lived in the 300’s): “Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life” (Adv. Eunomium III).
• Most of all, believers and angels stand together in their shared work of worship:
• In the Church’s liturgy we sing with the Angels the “thrice-holy hymn” (the Sanctus: Isaiah 6.3, Revelation 4.8), and the Gloria in excelsis (Luke 2.14), and so join them spiritually, cooperating with their doxological work.
• Angels are moral beings. That is to say, they are not robots, but they have free-will. They may choose to do good or to do evil. In this respect, they are like humans; they are “moral agents”.
• Scripture hints at their being ranks of angels, an angelic hierarchy. Tradition speaks of nine “choirs” of angelic beings, in descending order of greatness:
• Seraphim – Isaiah 6. 2, 6; Cherubim – Gen. 3.24, Psalm 18.10; Thrones – Colossians 1.16; Dominions – Colossians 1.16; Principalities – Colossians 1.16; Powers – Colossians 1.16; Virtues – Ephesians 1.21; Archangels – 1 Thessalonians 4.16, Jude 9; Angels – Hebrews 1.13, 1 Peter 3.22
  

- The Fallen Angels

• Like everything made by God, the Angelic beings were created good. But because they are also free beings, they had the ability to choose to turn away from God, to disobey.
• Some of them did choose to turn away from God. The Church has usually held that the sin of the angelic beings (that is, the ones who did in fact sin), was that they turned to pride: the angels who did so became what we call devils (from Greek “διαβαλλειν” which means “accuser” or “slanderer”) or demons (from Greek “δαεμονιον” which meant a spirit or lesser deity, though not necessarily a malevolent one).
• “The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing” (Fourth Lateran Council, 1215 AD).
• The “fall” of the evil angels consisted in their free choosing to radically and irrevocably reject God and his reign (CCC 392).
• The devil “has sinned from the beginning” and the Lord says: “He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8.44).
• When “the Seventy” return to Jesus rejoicing that “even the demons are subject to us in your name!” The Lord says “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10.18).
• St. John of Damascus says about the irrevocability of the rebellion of the evil angels: “There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death.”
• Scripture speaks of a chief of the fallen angels: Satan (a Hebrew word meaning “adversary” or “accuser”).
• Matthew 25.41: “…the devil and his angels….”
• Revelation 12.7: “…the dragon and his angels…”
• Luke 11.15: “…the prince of demons…”
• Evil angels likewise have a power of influence over the physical world and a power to lure humans away from God.
• “Behind the disobedience choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the Church’s Tradition see in this being a fallen angel,” namely Satan. (CCC 391.)
• “Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls ‘a murderer from the beginning’… ‘The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.’ [1 John 3.8] In its consequences the gravest of these works was the mendacious seduction that led man to disobey God.” (CCC 394) Jesus came to give life, and therefore to destroy the work of him who was “a murderer from the beginning”.
• It is important to remember though that Satan is not the opposite of God. He is a creature made by God, who rebelled against God, whose end, we know, is destruction and defeat. If Satan has a counterpart among good beings, it would probably be St. Michael the Archangel. But even St. Michael is more powerful than Satan, because the visionary of the Apocalypse shows Michael warring against Satan and winning:
• “Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world -- he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” (Revelation 12.7-9).
• “The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God’s reign” though he “may cause grave injuries – of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature – to each man and to society” (CCC 395). Yet the love of God is absolutely sovereign, and we know the end of the story.
  

on communion without baptism

Today, particularly in the Episcopal Church, many people advocate giving communion to anyone and everyone who present themselves at the altar rail. This position ignores the fact that in Christ, and in Christ alone, are we reconciled to God and to one another, because he alone is true God and true man, and he alone offered human nature to the Father as an acceptable sacrifice on the cross. The New Testament teaches clearly that we are incorporated into the Body of Christ, and so into his acceptable sacrifice, by being baptized. And being baptized, we come to be able to receive his Body, the Bread of Heaven, efficaciously. We are enabled by baptism to be nourished by the Eucharist. Apart from baptismal regeneration, receiving the Eucharist can have no effect, or even worse: it could bring us harm, as St. Paul warns (1 Corinthians 11.27-29).

St. Irenaeus of Lyons in his famous work Adversus Haereses ("Against Heresies"), written about the year 180 AD, says this:

The Holy Spirit came down on the Apostles that all nations might enter into life. And so they are gathered together to sing a hymn to God in all tongues. In this way the Holy Spirit brought the scattered peoples back to unity, and offered to the Father the first fruits of all nations. Indeed, just as without water no dough, not a single loaf, can be made of dry flour, so we who are many cannot become one in Christ without that water that comes from heaven. That is why our bodies receive by baptism that unity which leads to life incorruptible, and our souls receive the same unity through the Holy Spirit.