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.

pope: the spirit is silent guide toward unity

"It is the Spirit, in fact, who guides the Church in the way of all truth and unifies her in communion and in the works of ministry," the Holy Father said. "Unfortunately, the temptation to 'go it alone' persists.

"Some today portray their local community as somehow separate from the so-called institutional Church, by speaking of the former as flexible and open to the Spirit and the latter as rigid and devoid of the Spirit."

"Be watchful! Listen," he urged. "Through the dissonance and division of our world, can you hear the concordant voice of humanity? From the forlorn child in a Darfur camp, or a troubled teenager, or an anxious parent in any suburb, or perhaps even now from the depth of your own heart, there emerges the same human cry for recognition, for belonging, for unity."

The Pontiff reminded the young pilgrims that it is the Holy Spirit "who satisfies that essential human yearning to be one, to be immersed in communion, to be built up, to be led to truth."

"This is the Spirit’s role," he continued, "to bring Christ’s work to fulfillment. Enriched with the Spirit’s gifts, you will have the power to move beyond the piecemeal, the hollow utopia, the fleeting, to offer the consistency and certainty of Christian witness!"

From here.

sermon for pentecost 10 / trinity 9

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In today’s Gospel reading our Lord tells a parable about a sower, who sows good seed, and who has an enemy who then comes and sows weeds among the wheat. And when the grain comes up, the weeds come up with it. The landowners servants ask whether they ought to go and tear up the weeds. The landowner tells his servants to let the weeds and the wheat grow together “lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.” The master is concerned for the wheat: he does not want to endanger any of it. So he says: “Let both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”

The Lord does not leave us to guess at the interpretation of this parable. At the behest of the disciples, he gives us a point-by-point explanation: “He who sows the good seed is the Son of man; the field is the world, and the good seed means the sons of the kingdom; the weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. The Son of man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”

There is a kind of rudimentary theodicy in this parable. [A theodicy is an account of the existence of evil.] God has sown good seed. He has created the world and all that is in it, and he has said that it is all very good (Gen. 1.31). Yet even in this parable, we may discern a mysterious and personal malignant power, working secretly, behind the scenes of creation, to bring destruction and ruin. We can almost hear the whispering of the Serpent in the enemy creeping through the field by night, planting weeds while the world slumbers: “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat… your eyes will be opened….” (Gen. 3.4-5).

Surely we are like the sheaves of wheat, straining upward toward the sun, and watered by the dew. And an honest examination of conscience will disclose a million instances of the beguiling voice, seeking to cut us off from the sunlight, whispering in our ear: You don’t need to listen to the voice of the Lord, you have no need of his commandments, you don’t need to serve him, you don’t need to worship him, you don’t need to love him.

And we are individually sown among unique weeds because we are each susceptible to particular beguilings, and particular predispositions to deception. One will be tempted by power, tempted to dominate and control situations and people; another will be tempted by indulgence in food or drink; another will be tempted by greed and the desire for material gain; another will be tempted sexually, to live by a standard other than what has been taught in Scripture. We are each surrounded by inducements to sin that are peculiar to us, to our proclivities and backgrounds; but the form is always the same: You don’t need to listen to what God has said; you don’t need to honor and obey him; you don’t need to love him; you are different; you are exempt; seek fulfillment on your own. That is the substance of the Serpent’s words to Eve, and that is the substance of his words to each of us. We all live in the world, and we are all surrounded by weeds that seek to cut us off from the sunlight and from the dew. And this is how it will be until the close of the age, when “the Son of man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”

But what are we to do in the meantime? We are to do what every successful sheaf of wheat does: to strain upward toward the sun, which is Christ; to drink up the dew, which is his teaching, the catholic faith: we are to grow strong in the Lord and the power of his might, to shoulder out the causes of sin, and to close our ears to the enticements of the world, the flesh, and the devil, knowing that however they may strike our fancy, they lead only and inevitably to the furnace of fire where men weep and gnash their teeth. We are to live in the conviction that Christ has conquered, and that we have but to stand aside, to deny ourselves that the Lord of creation might break forth powerfully and unstoppably within us.

He has already won, we have only to get out of the way of his victory. Yet this is hard. It means self-denial. “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life” (Matt. 7.14). And this is why we must keep our eyes, our minds and our hearts, fixed resolutely on Jesus Christ – because he is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, by which we are saved. He alone has conquered, and in him alone is our salvation. Like sheaves of wheat straining ever upward toward the sun, we must look constantly to Jesus, to seek him, to sigh after him, to wait on him. And like watered plants, we must live by the doctrine of the Church, “by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4.4).

And though this is hard, we can stand in the conviction of St. Paul, who said in today’s reading from Romans: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

catholicism 101 -- part 13

Catholicism 101
(The outline of this series is taken from Father Vernon Staley’s book The Catholic Religion.)
Church of the Holy Cross
May 25, 2008
Part 13
Christian Duty: Christian Belief: The Three Great Creeds: Concerning God

• “…maker of heaven and earth.”

• If we go back in time, to the beginning: “In the beginning God…”

• God is first. He precedes all.

• From all eternity, unto endless ages of ages, God is there.

• Remember, though, that the eternity of God means preeminently that he exists outside of time – not that he exists forever “in both directions” (though it means that too).

• Last time we talked a little bit about God as eternally Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so it is.

• God cannot be eternally Father without eternally being Father of the Son. Likewise the Son cannot be eternally Son without being eternally Son of the Father. And the Holy Spirit is their mutual delight, their mutual love.

• This is the inner life of God – the “divine economy” – what we may licitly say about what God is like “inside”.

• The aseity of God means that he alone is self-sufficient, self-sourced.

• He is that greater than which nothing can be conceived.

• He is perfectly perfect (so to speak). He needs nothing to increase his perfection. He lacks nothing.

• Creation is therefore a mystery. It has baffled philosophers since the beginning of philosophy: why is there something rather than nothing?

• Our appeal to God’s eternity (i.e. his timelessness) take the contradiction out of the doctrine of creation, but not the mystery.

• There was never a time at which the created order was not. But “prior” to the beginning there was God alone.

• Why did God create? That’s the mystery.

• It seems we may say that God created, mysteriously, out of love – that before we existed, God loved us.

• It seems also that, because God is eternal, his act of creation is an eternal (timeless) act. There was never a time at which God did not create.

• It seems to be a part of his nature to create.

• So we might say he “owes it to himself” to create – i.e. in order to be who he is.

• In any event: God does create. And he creates “ex nihilo” – out of nothing.

• There was not some block of raw material from which God constructed the universe. There was nothing. And out of nothing God called something into being, by his word.

• “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.” (Heb. 11.3)

• Cf. Genesis 1: “And God said… and it was so.”

• Cf. Psalm 33.8-9: “Let all the earth fear the Lord; * let all who dwell in the world stand in awe of him. / For he spoke, and it came to pass; * he commanded and it stood fast.”

• This is why God as Creator is differentiated from all finite acts of creation. When we create something, we create it out of something. When God creates, he creates out of nothing.

• God creates as Trinity:

• Genesis 1.1-2 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

• John 1.1ff: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”

• Psalm 33.6: “By the word of the Lord [the Son] were the heavens made, * by the breath of his mouth [the Spirit] all the heavenly hosts.”

• The six days of creation need not be understood as six twenty-four hour periods (how could the day be measured before there was day and night?). Genesis is depicting the hierarchy of creation. Each stage of creation is succeeded by more perfect elements, until we reach the creation of men and women, the apex and pinnacle of God’s created work: finally, moral / spiritual creatures made in the image and likeness of God.

• You can believe in the Biblical account of creation and believe in Evolution.

• The Bible is not a science text. As a datum of communication, it has a different purpose: to disclose God. As such, Genesis is the story of God’s creation, of man’s relationship with God, and of the poisoning of that relationship by sin, and the beginning of God’s plan of redemption. It was not written by modern people obsessed with empiricism and scientific method and whatnot. It is as much (or more) poetry than history in the modern sense of that term.

• In creation we see God’s first language. God reveals himself in his act of creation, and in what he has created. The “analogiam creationis” – or the “analogiam entis”.