tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49431073219729539092024-03-04T23:04:48.315-06:00The restless heart of St. AugustineA blog devoted to understanding the teachings of St. Augustine and others influenced by him.Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.comBlogger66125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-54795264475948258582014-04-21T22:10:00.003-05:002014-04-21T22:22:07.649-05:00Christ is Risen! A brief commentary on St. Augustine's Sermon 228b<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOvJK44FLySXsKo7NhQRGKXk32hyVXlVJBnOVPHvGFpkWU3W1WNDfY9TIqkxyHDrilrBMCjixCU5RpjdxADWmUorss11YR9gIK6ETVbfuC1VNaxNOSGRb9iWcCQYuWiOV-YQznWbjEWS4/s1600/Ghent+Lamb+of+God.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOvJK44FLySXsKo7NhQRGKXk32hyVXlVJBnOVPHvGFpkWU3W1WNDfY9TIqkxyHDrilrBMCjixCU5RpjdxADWmUorss11YR9gIK6ETVbfuC1VNaxNOSGRb9iWcCQYuWiOV-YQznWbjEWS4/s1600/Ghent+Lamb+of+God.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jan Van Eyck's The Adoration of the Lamb of God</td></tr>
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Today I would like to offer a commentary on one of St. Augustine’s
sermons purported to have been given during the Resurrection of the Lord
perhaps prior to 411 AD. This would have placed the sermon between the first 16
years of his episcopate, and we place this cutoff point because it was at the
Council of Carthage in 411 AD that St. Marcellinus (a Roman official) and the
Catholic bishops exiled the Donatists from northern Africa and seized their
properties, which eliminated much of St. Augustine’s need to address questions
of the unity of the Church and Donatism. It is disputed by some scholars that
this sermon is a true sermon of St. Augustine, but some (like Edmund Hill OP,
whose work I’ve used before) believe it to be a true sermon and so I will
proceed anyway in presenting it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Lord grant me wisdom.
May we O Lord, who are but infants in Your ways, but beginners in the long
trial and journey which is love, be enlightened by Your holy servant St.
Augustine, and on reflecting on Your sacred majesty, come forever to adore You
as is just and necessary. Holy Savior truly I do believe, You are risen! Grant
pardon and mercy upon me, and help me take up my cross to follow You, that I
might rise with You on that fateful day. Grant this through Christ our Lord!</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><a href="http://david.heitzman.net/sermons227-229a.html#JUMPDEST_sermons.6.727tm">Sermon 228b: OnEaster Day to the People and the Infantes (newly baptized)</a></b></div>
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<b><i>Part 1</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
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You have all just now been born again of water and the
Spirit, (cf. John 3:5) and can see that food and drink upon this table of the
Lord's in a new light, and receive it with a fresh love and piety. So I am
obliged by the duty I have of giving you a sermon, and by the anxious care with
which I have given you birth, that Christ might be formed in you, (cf. Gal
4:19) to remind you infants[1] of what the meaning is of such a great and
divine sacrament, such a splendid and noble medicine, such a pure and simple
sacrifice, which is not offered now just in the one earthly city of Jerusalem,
nor in that tabernacle which was constructed by Moses, nor in the temple built
by Solomon. These were just shadows of things to come (Col 2:17; Heb 10:1). But
from the rising of the sun to its setting (Mal 1:11; Ps 113:3) it is offered as
the prophets foretold, and as a sacrifice of praise to God, according to the
grace of the New Testament. [2]<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[1] <i>Literally, ‘your infancies’, as if a title<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[2]<i> The author of this source
suggests that the age old secret of not discussing what the Eucharist is, until
after baptism is an anachronism by this point in north African Christianity,
wherein before it was rigorously held (or so we are told).</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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No longer is a victim sought from the flocks for a blood
sacrifice, nor is a sheep or a goat any more led to the divine altars, but now
the sacrifice of our time is the body and blood of the priest himself. About
him, indeed, it was foretold so long ago in the psalms, You are a priest for
ever according to the order of Melchizedek (Ps 110:4). While that Melchizedek,
priest of God Most High, offered bread and wine when he blessed our father
Abraham, we gather from reading about it in the book of Genesis. (cf. Gen
14:18-21)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>Commentary</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
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Here St. Augustine is giving a sermon to the newly baptized
catechumenates who are now allowed to fully participate in the Eucharist during
the Catholic liturgy. It is common in the patristic documents to see the Eucharist
referred to as “a splendid and noble medicine” as St. Ignatius of Antioch (cf.
Letter to the Ephesians Chapter 20, “…breaking one and the same bread, which is
the medicine of immortality, and the antidote to prevent us from dying, but
[which causes] that we should live for ever in Jesus Christ.”), and of course
as the great and divine Mystery (sacramentum literally means mystery in Latin).
Here we see the striking statements in that St. Augustine truly does call the
Eucharist the pure sacrifice of Christ Himself (as priest and victim) as
fulfilling the prophesy in Malachi 1:11, that from the rising of the sun to its
setting a pure sacrifice of praise would be offered to God. St. Augustine
states that according to the grace of the New Testament all sacrifices are
brought to null and triumphed by the sacrifice of Christ, yet it is again
present at the Eucharistic table through a mystery. This is a common phrase in
St. Augustine’s writing, “the grace of the New Testament”, lending itself
perhaps to the notion of a changing of order in God’s relationship to His
people (the Church) and to the world. Whereas before, in St. Augustine’s
theology, God ruled through the exterior (in essence, threats, condemnations,
law, earthly reward, etc.), now God relates to us through the interior, through
the movements of the Holy Spirit which writes His law in our hearts.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is quite stunning how closely the sermon is to the
current Roman liturgy (and the liturgy of that time), which is perhaps a
pedagogical move on the part of St. Augustine to his <i>infantes</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>Part 2</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
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So Christ our Lord, who offered by suffering for us what by
being born he had received from us, has become our high priest for ever, and
has given us the order of sacrifice which you can see, of his body that is to
say, and his blood. When his body, remember, was pierced by the lance, it
poured forth the water and the blood by which he cancelled our sins. Be mindful
of this grace as you work out your salvation, since it is God who is at work in
you, and approach with fear and trembling (cf Phil 2:12-13) to partake of this
altar. Recognize in the bread what hung on the cross, and in the cup what
flowed from his side.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
You see, those
old sacrifices of the people of God also represented in a variety of ways this
single one that was to come. Christ himself, I mean, was both a sheep, because
of his innocence and simplicity of soul, and a goat because of the likeness of
the flesh of sin (cf Rom 8:3). And whatever else was foretold in many and
diverse ways (cf Heb 1:1) in the sacrifices of the old covenant refers to this
single one which has been revealed in the new covenant.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>Commentary:</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
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Christ is offered in the Eucharist, it is clearly stated, “Recognize
in the bread what hung on the cross, and in the cup what flowed from His side.”
I find the second paragraph to be pregnant with meaning in that Christ is both
considered a sheep and a goat, a sheep in that He was innocent, and a goat
because as we remember in Numbers 28 of the male goat offered as a sin offering
to make atonement for one’s sins. And of course these sorts of references are
strewn throughout St. Paul’s letters to the Romans and Hebrews, wherein Christ is presented in such a
way, that Christ is made sin (a sin offering) in that having taken on the
likeness of sinful (came in the flesh, though had no sin) flesh He redeemed us
through His sacrifice and offering on the cross. In essence then, Christ offers
what we could not to God and supplies amply the gap between us and our God, all
according to the goal of our redemption.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Again St. Augustine reiterates that there is one sacrifice,
one alone, Christ’s but it is present everyday through a mystery in the
Eucharist.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>Part 3:<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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And therefore receive and eat the body of Christ, yes,
you that have become members of Christ in the body of Christ; receive and drink
the blood of Christ. In order not to be scattered and separated, eat what binds
you together; in order not to seem cheap in your own estimation, drink the
price that was paid for you. Just as this turns into you when you eat and drink
it, so you for your part turn into the body of Christ when you live devout and
obedient lives. He himself, you see, as his Passion drew near, while he was
keeping the Passover with his disciples, took bread and blessed it, and said,
This is my body which will be handed over for you (1 Cor 11:24). Likewise he
gave them the cup he had blessed and said, This is my blood of the new
covenant, which will be shed for many for the forgiveness of sins (Mt 26:28).[1]<o:p></o:p></div>
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You were able to
read or to hear this in the gospel before, but you were unaware that this Eucharist
is the Son. But now, your hearts sprinkled with a pure conscience, and your
bodies washed with pure water, (cf. Heb 10:22) approach him and be enlightened,
and your faces will not blush for shame (Ps 34:5). Because if you receive this
worthily, which means belonging to the new covenant by which you hope for an
eternal inheritance, and if you keep the new commandment to love one another,
then you have life in yourselves. You are then, after all, receiving that flesh
about which Life itself says, The bread which I shall give is my flesh for the
life of the world; and Unless people eat my flesh and drink my blood, they will
not have life in themselves (Jn 6:51. 53).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">[1]<i> The author believes that this is likely akin to the
Eucharistic formula of the north African churches at the time, as it is akin to
the Spanish Mozarabic churches’ formula, which is geographically very near to north
Africa. We know that the Mozarabic rite predates the Visigoth expansions, and
so likely this is an astute assumption.</i></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>Commentary:</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
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The first paragraph represents the canonical Augustinian
Eucharistic doctrine wherein the Eucharist becomes a paradox of eating.
Typically food becomes a part of us (we take its nutrients, absorb them, and
put them to use in our body) when we eat it, but for St. Augustine, when we
consume the Eucharist, we become what we just ate. That is we become a part of
Christ, and He brings us to Himself. Such is the canonical phrase, behold what
you are, behold what you receive, and become what you receive. We literally receive
Christ and with Him all that He has won for us.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the second paragraph, we see the Johannine and Pauline
admonitions, that we must receive Christ’s body worthily (free from blemish
that excommunicates [literally sends out from communion] us from the Church
[i.e. mortal sin]), and eat (St. John uses gnaw in John 6) of His flesh if we
desire immortal life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>Part 4:</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
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4. So then, having life in him, you will be in one flesh
with him. This sacrament, after all, doesn't present you with the body of
Christ in such a way as to divide you from it.[1] This, as the apostle reminds
us, was foretold in holy scripture: They shall be two in one flesh (Gn 2:24).
This, he says, is a great sacrament; but I mean in Christ and in the Church
(Eph 5:31-32). And in another place he says about this Eucharist itself, We,
though many, are one loaf, one body (1 Cor 10:17). So you are beginning to
receive what you have also begun to be, provided you do not receive unworthily;
else you would be eating and drinking judgment upon yourselves. That, you see,
is what he says: Any who eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord unworthily
will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But people should examine
themselves, and in this way eat of the bread and drink of the cup; for those
who eat and drink unworthily are eating and drinking judgment upon themselves
(1 Cor 11:27-29).<o:p></o:p></div>
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[1] <span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><i>St. Augustine is telling the infantes that when they consume the Body of Christ, they are not
rending it, destroying it, by eating it, and so not causing violence to Christ,
but rather he draws attention in the next sentence to how the consuming of the
Sacrament is likened to the consummation of a heavenly marriage. It is the sacrament
of the Bride and the Bridegroom, where the two come together, and become one
flesh. The Blessed Sacrament is always intimately tied to the Church, and the
Church is truly present in Christ, and so we receive Christ in the Eucharist, it
is true, but we also receive ourselves transfigured in and through Him from
Christ in the Eucharist. This is all if we receive justly.</i></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>Part 5:<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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You receive worthily, however, if you avoid the yeast of
bad doctrine, in order to be unleavened loaves of sincerity and truth (1 Cor
5:8); or if you keep hold of that yeast of charity, which the woman hid in
three measures of flour until the whole of it was leavened. (cf. Luke 13:21 and
Sermon 111, 2, last paragraph) This woman, you see, is the Wisdom of God, who
came through the virgin in mortal flesh, and who, having repaired the wide
world after the flood through the three sons of Noah, disseminated her gospel
throughout it, as in three measures until the whole should be leavened. This
“whole” is what is called holon in Greek where, if you keep the bond of peace,
(cf. Eph 4:3) you will be “in accord with the whole,” which in Greek is
catholon, from which the Church is called “Catholic.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>Commentary</i></b>:<o:p></o:p></div>
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So we see St. Augustine’s extraordinary articulation and
rhetorical skill in discussing bad yeast, and good yeast, which I have to admit,
was a bit artful. Finally, we see the reason for its attribution to prior to
411 AD, in that the sermon ends with a call to peace, a call to unity within
the Catholic Church over and against the Donatists. It’s not a strong enough
case to say it was prior to 411 AD.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><u>Conclusion<o:p></o:p></u></b></div>
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And so in the interest of brevity, let us pray that the Lord
will help us to continue to adore Him in the Most Blessed Sacrament. While I
admit I had some doubts on to the full depth of Augustinian Eucharistic theology
in light of the more easily seen Medieval Eucharistic doctrines, I think St.
Augustine was fully aware of the symbolism present throughout the Old and New
Testament that point to Christ being totally present in the Eucharist as priest,
victim, and medicine of immortality. It strikes me that St. Augustine perhaps
may not have preached this doctrine of the real presence and the Eucharist as
the really present sacrifice of Christ on Calvary due to perhaps his
congregation’s needs. Reading St. Augustine’s sermons shows that they are
sensitive to the congregation’s needs and the controversies at the time. I do
not personally know of any disputes in the north African provinces during this
time regarding the doctrine of the Eucharist. This is perhaps why we hear more
comments from St. Augustine regarding the Eucharist representing the Church
that we are to receive as present in the Body of Christ, as schism was ripe throughout
north Africa during the 3<sup>rd</sup>, 4<sup>th</sup>, and 5<sup>th</sup>
centuries.<o:p></o:p></div>
Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-11957654527099727842014-04-07T02:16:00.000-05:002014-04-07T02:20:33.812-05:00The Self-Effacement of Love, the Impotency of Despair, and Man's Destiny in Eternity<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhypcotFjY4Y1pXyZt4mccWGln8ECaRPcj2894tkRfo4av3rT-sjuXWWWwvTq3lmEN2c4Q3Aqq_j6HE8zSy2SiWmSXn5FIlKnJ749h8EmQR-fzdast2yLgF8L3Aa2TfI41njp-FRQUhQh0/s1600/BILD0077.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhypcotFjY4Y1pXyZt4mccWGln8ECaRPcj2894tkRfo4av3rT-sjuXWWWwvTq3lmEN2c4Q3Aqq_j6HE8zSy2SiWmSXn5FIlKnJ749h8EmQR-fzdast2yLgF8L3Aa2TfI41njp-FRQUhQh0/s400/BILD0077.JPG" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rose-window of Notre Dame in Paris</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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This is an ambitious post in that I want to lay the
groundwork for some very theoretical and abstract ideas of mine on the meaning
of love, the role of despair, and how this reflects the mystery of God. I aim to
investigate the image of God from how I have come to understand human love, and
hopefully reach upwards to reflect on God’s love for mankind. You must forgive
me first for the shallowness of my own soul and the inability with which I am able
to comprehend these topics. This post is not so much a form of philosophical
proof as an exposition and exploration of opinion, and perhaps in a certain
sense persuasion.</div>
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<i>God grant me faith. God grant me grace. God grant me hope. God, lay the foundation of my heart in love.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><u>Love is a form of
Self-Effacement</u></b></div>
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<b><i>Paradox of self-effacement<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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It is not difficult to imagine that love is a form of losing
one’s self from one’s self. Paradoxically, the self is itself a form of
relation between its own being and its own continuous propulsion in time, and
we might wonder under what form of illusion is it possible to cease to be one’s
self. An embodied self, clearly cannot cease to be itself, and we understand in
the Christian self that God’s greatest endowment to mankind was the creation of
self. This endowment itself is at once great gift, but as with all great gifts
it is just as well of tremendous worth and bears a great responsibility.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Nonetheless, the paradox by which we speak of a lover losing
himself in his beloved is the form by which that lover gives over himself to
his beloved in total gift. This is what we speak of by unconditional love, the
gift of all of one’s faculties, talents, desires, and self to the whim of the
beloved, for their pleasure and enjoyment. Let us accept, under the premise
that this is a Christian audience, that the gift is concerned with the utmost
good of the beloved, for nobody gives a great gift without the hope for a great
and positive effect on the receiver of the gift, and so that this gift is to
give in accordance with the Good. This gift is not merely the bodily pleasures,
but the transcendental things in life, or perhaps more aptly, that which makes
the beloved most fully alive (physically, emotionally, psychologically,
spiritually, etc.). <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>The self-effacement of one’s self is only possible with the possibility
of the return of the Other<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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If love is a form of self-gift and the greatest form of love
is to give one’s entire life and energy to the benefit of the one he loves,
then how is it that this person can continue to give and give and give when he
has sold himself over to his beloved? Human beings are not infinite and cannot
give without end; they require a return on what they give. Namely then, a
perfected love is that which has its return in a reciprocal manner. The beloved
who returns the gift of self from the lover must return her entirety to the
lover as a form of self-gift. In terms of quantity it does not seem that the lover
and beloved must be of the same capacity to give, ontologically speaking. Note,
here I conflate the act of giving of one’s self as an ontological act. I say
ontologically because love is a form of the communication of one’s being,
ideally in its entirety. If the ontological capacity for love is greater in the
lover than the beloved then we might question what happens if the lover gives
more than the beloved, but both give their all?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Simply stated, we spoke of love as giving in the fullest
sense and to which benefits the beloved in the utmost. It would be then too
much for the lover to ask more of the beloved than the beloved can give and so
a responsible love understands the capacity for love of each of the partners,
respects it, and nurtures that capacity in harmony so that each can grow and
flourish from each other’s love. Is it then possible, in a twisted sense, for a
lover to give too much love so as to, as we say colloquially, suffocate the
beloved with love? This too is possible, but in a true and responsible love,
each gives according to his means, and according to the right measure to allow,
shall we say, an organic growth in love and joy between the two lovers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>The reciprocal gift and return of love is the completion of man’s
nature, bliss<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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In this reciprocal gift and return each lover loses himself
in the other. The self has become effaced in gift, but has been returned as a
form of synthesis. Each self remains to be themselves, but in another sense,
augmented, they have each grown in love, and so the capacity to give of each
other increases. How can the ontological capacity to give one’s self increase
when the self always remains itself? We can speak of a growth of faculties in
the self, a new facet of the self which has grown out from the gift of the
other. It has grown out of the entire donation of the self to another, and the
acquired return of another self from another. This donation of the other has
created a new quality in the soul (in the being) of each who have loved each
other. If done according to the highest principles of virtue, and friendship
each one grows into a being more capable of gift, more capable of love. In the
action of love, the self has found a way to see itself in another and propagate
a mode of communication and ethics which builds itself up through thr mediation
of another.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>The destruction of love shows its self-effacing and dependent nature<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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So far we have spoken more of love as a form of
self-donation rather than self-effacement, but in the act of love, we might
take by analogy the words of Christ to His Father as the utmost model for what
dimension love in man’s nature takes on. “Not my will, but Yours, be done.”
(Luke 22:42). It is in this sense that the ego, the self, steps itself aside to
do that which pleases its beloved. If it is not clear that self-effacement and
self-donation is the principle mode by which the act of love is carried out,
then we can consider the mode by which when a love is disrupted or destroyed
there is a sensation of void and great loss present in the lover or the beloved
at this disruption.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the recurring echo of love and love’s return is interrupted,
the one who remains in love is left at a feeling of loss. Where did it all go
wrong? Where has my love gone, and where will it go? The lover sends out his
love to his beloved and his gift of everything is now received as a gift of
nothing, and so the lover self-effaces himself destructively, he receives
nothing in return for his self-donation but the terror of an emptiness, and
this emptiness is the fact that there is no return to his self-effacement by
which he can re-energize himself. He cannot form himself up from his act of
love any longer; there is no return to his act of love. To continue on in this
manner is to continually find one’s self in the predicament of an impotency.
The immediacy and the compulsion by which the lover desires to share and give
himself, with the entire phenomenon of gaining nothing in his act of love, but
only losing himself. How then can he lose himself if he is himself? In the
desire to lose himself in another he is in an essence desperately trying to
regain himself through the gift of his beloved, but in essence he is
consciously striving to throw himself away. It would seem he lives in a form of
paradox, maybe a man trapped between living and dying, or a man trapped between
the past and the future, but never in the present. This form of love is
self-destructive, and any love without the beloved who donates self in return
for the lover’s donation of self will always be short-sighted and
self-destructive.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>The Self-Destruction of Loving things below Human nature<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is for this reason that all serious love of things that
are not persons is self-destructive. To love a cup, for example, with the
ferocity and passion of loving a friend or a spouse is a form of lunacy. The
cup cannot return itself to me as a self-donation. Neither can a dog. A dog
does not have a consciousness or sense of self from which it could understand
how to tune into all of the needs of my person. By virtue of their natures,
they simply are not capable of serious love and love’s return. It is for this
reason that mortal sin is self-destructive and misplaced love. We shall speak
more on this in a later section. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Impotent and
Displaced Love is Despair<o:p></o:p></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I shall here, as before strive to speak from experience, as
well as from what I have reading <i>The
Sickness Unto Death </i>of Søren
Kierkegaard. Søren
Kierkegaard’s entire exposition comes from a reflection on the meaning of the
passage in the Gospel of John concerning the death of Jesus’ friend Lazarus.
Christ speaks to the disciples of his friend Lazarus by which it is revealed
that Lazarus is suffering a sickness that will eventually kill him, but Christ
who proclaims Himself the Resurrection and the Life tells the disciples that
this sickness is not unto death. Søren
Kierkegaard continues in his exposition to discuss what sort of sickness might
be unto death. If Christ is the Resurrection and the Life then to be deprived
of Christ is a form of negation to life, and though one might be alive, he
suffers a sort of terminal illness. Ultimately, this form of sickness, lacking
of Christ who is Life, can lead into a spiritual death which is the truer death
of a man. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This form of sickness is called despair. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>What is despair?<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Søren’s
thought despair is the ultimate form of self-displacement wherein an individual
loses himself to himself in the ultimate misunderstanding of his place in
Creation. Man is not fundamentally a being intended to be closed in on itself,
as St. Augustine says of the sinful man (<i>homo
curvatus in se</i>), but a being whose entirety is only found in its right
relation with God Himself. For Søren
man’s soul is the dialectic between the finite and the infinite, similar to how
Meister Eckhart writes of the human soul somewhere between finitude and
eternity, and how it is only through faith in God that he can find the
foundation of his being. In Søren’s
thought, right relation with God through right faith is the only means by which
man can he find the balance between partaking in the necessary aspects of life
(i.e duty, responsibility), and the hopeful longing aspects of human life (i.e.
the imagination, fantasy). Insofar as every man is imperfect in relation to
God, Søren argues,
every man suffers from despair (which is manifest in a variety of manners). The
Christian is fully aware of his failings in hope, faith, and love, but others
are sometimes unaware of the psychical trauma that comes from a disconnection
with God.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Despair in Catholic theology is traditionally seen as the
inverse of hope, by which we mean despair is that state of the soul by which a
person stops hoping in God’s mercy to save his soul. These can come about
through an intense and irrational fear, or a sort of growing complacency and
indifference through the hardening of the heart by mortal sin (called sloth in
the Catholic ascetic tradition).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, I believe that Søren is correct in many ways that despair is a form
of displacement of the true self, the self as seen and to be hoped for before
God. Thus, those who in this life and the next suffer from despair have chosen
in some part to displace themselves from their hearts’ truer destination,
ultimately a sharing in the inner life of God. It is from this approach that
they have become too heavily attached to a sinful object such that their heart
says, “My sin, or nothing.” When they cannot achieve their sin (as in this
life) they sense this frustration and live in the torment of being without the
object of their desire. To some this love is so great that they disillusion
themselves with valuing it even above their own entire being and existence.
However, this is the delusion that the human psyche undergoes, by which the
self begins to deride itself for not having achieved or acquired its object.
Had it achieved its object it would not want annihilation. He who is in despair
over his failure to acquire some object is then not one who truly desires
annihilation (an act which is impossible to contemplate) but simply desires
something very greatly which he cannot attain. The resolution then is to
realize the disproportionate and infantile desire which places itself over and
against the desired goal or object.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He who is in despair then seeks a form of self-effacement
when he cannot pour himself over his original intended goal. He values his object
in a form of self-effacement, for he esteems that without his desired object he
is already nothing. Despair is a misplaced self-effacement, a misplaced
throwing of one’s self at another (or object) without the expected return of
satisfaction and love. When man becomes curved in on himself through grave sin
he begins to desire to, in a way, consume himself, often times entirely in his
perverse self-indulgence, but he is impotent in doing so. He lives in a sort of
temporal Hell where his soul burns and yearns for something but cannot attain
it (or enjoy its attainment). It is similar to a yearning for a transcendence
that is frustrated and twisted towards vice, instead of virtue and peace.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To actively love without the return of love needed for the
human soul to grow is in a sense what despair is. The despair of the inability
to arrive at a pleasurable object (e.g. despair of not getting a brand new Ferrari)
is ultimately then a simple despair, but even had one come to attain his object
(e.g. a new promotion at one’s job to acquire the Ferrari) his love for the
object is poured out in a disproportionate end to his own capacities as a human
being. An object or title can never love us back and make us grow as human
beings, and especially not as Christians. Another form of despair then is more
worthy than this one by which a person’s inability to be loved by another
causes him to cling, sinfully, and obsessively to their memory or wishfully
trying to force the beloved’s love as a return for his own love. Ultimately
though it is known in Christian revelation that though human beings are social
creatures and their co-dependence is valuable to their survival there is
something more divine to man, exalted as mankind might be as the imago Dei
(image of God). Man is not complete in himself, and of himself, the imago Dei
is only completed in so far as it returns back to the prototype. This imago Dei
is all-consuming; man must truly become one with his source. He must become
like God to truly find himself. Anything short of this terminus in his destiny
ultimately betrays the fundamental essence of what it means to be human. Deep
in the human condition man desires to transcend himself and transcend all which
is about him. This is the entire drive behind science, technology, societal
pressures for achievement and status, hedonism, and any other form of human
life.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>Eternal Beatitude
and Eternal Despair<o:p></o:p></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Man is not enough for himself, that is why he seeks Other, but among
mankind he cannot find his terminus, he needs God<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This transcendence that man wants is impossible for him. Any
form of elevation that man can achieve of his own still leaves him to being
himself. He requires a union to an Other which while unilaterally apart from
him seeks to unite itself completely with him. This is the paradox of man’s
journey into eternity, impossible for man, but not for God. The Incarnation is
the true solution to the imago Dei. Some argue that the Incarnation would have
occurred even if man had not sinned. This is the Franciscan thesis, which I
hold to be a probable thesis, on account of the existential line of thought by
which man in the fabric of his being requires the entrance of the Absolute into
his very heart and soul. If the Incarnation is the abstract instance by which
one man can be saved from existential displacement in the universe, then the
Resurrection is the particular instance by which each and every single man,
woman, and child can be saved from existential despair and the smallest separation
from God.<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>The Misplaced act of Love in Mortal sin produces Eternal Despair<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One might ask if every soul desires transcendence through
union with God why do we sin against God in such a way that we rebel against
the very notion of His redemption? Every soul desires the Good abstractly, and
at its core that Good is God Himself, but in this abstraction people come to
love the Good through different particular means. They begin to love some
created thing more than the Creator who is at the foundation of the entire
ground of being. We share the image of God in that we are called to recognize
the good in all of Creation as God does, but oftentimes we misjudge how
much we ought to love a particular good.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>What effect does mortal sin have in the soul with respect to love,
despair, and God?<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mortal sin and enslavement to sin entails the continuous
powerlessness and despair to which one falls into a vicious cycle of sin which
confounds him. This it strikes me is the symptom of mortal sin and final
impenitence. The soul entrapped to mortal sin comes before God with the same
wistful despair, “My sin or nothing.” God in His wisdom recognizes that man is
incapable of truly willing oblivion, but in His justice He does not leave a man
to continue in sin nor to continue in that true interior deterioration that the
human soul undergoes in every act of sin. And so that man is left in despair.
He has said no to the face of God Himself and so he finds himself in the
despair of wanting his sin above anything else but unable to truly have it. However,
there is a deeper existential despair in the damned which in traditional
Catholic piety they become most aware of through their damnation. This is the
despair that arises from needing God, but being cut off from Him. No soul in
Hell truly wants oblivion, they all want to continue in sin, by which we
understand that they would consider themselves happy if they had their sinful
desires fulfilled, but God’s love cannot allow this. The damage done to the
soul through a continual vicious cycle of indulgence in sin is the continual
detriment of what a human being truly is meant to be, an image of God in virtue
and justice. God’s love is what gives man Hell. While at the forefront what
might appear to be a cruelty is rather the solution of Love.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The damned are shown the impotency of their love, the desire
for themselves to pour themselves out on their objects of desire was shown to
be a defect in their understanding of their true destiny as self-actualization
before God, i.e. theosis. They (impotently) efface themselves through despair,
an impotent form of love. Because man was made for love itself they strive to
love but cannot love because they have desired to cut themselves off completely
from Love. This is the fundamental torment of Hell, despair, by which all other
torments pale in comparison. In traditional Catholic literature this is
described by the combined terms of poena damni and poena sensus, the punishment
of the damned and the punishment of sense. The first describes the greatest
pain in proportion to the greatest existential need, the exclusion of the
damned from God and the beatific vision. The second describes the pain of the
senses by which the despair over each damned soul’s particular sinful desire is
felt.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Mystical Union with God, the self-effacement of the ego in the total
donation of self: The example of Christ’s kenosis and humility<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The entire destiny of man is then to be seen through the
example of Christ and not the example of Judas Iscariot. It was by God’s Love
that the Word was made flesh so that He who is life came to bring light to men;
a Light which could never know darkness. As St. Paul says we see in this life
through a glass dimly, our vision of what we are is incomplete, but in Christ
we have the Way, in Him we have the light to see, to realize, and to become
whole. It is curious indeed that God desired to show us the way to become whole
by first emptying Himself, taking the form of a servant, not desiring to take
advantage of His divinity. For our sake He desired to show us the way of
humility and love. Jesus Christ is the face of God, and God Himself who is Love
emptied Himself out, poured Himself forth onto His image to come to make them
whole. He has come to mankind who was made in His image to share His own being.
The Son is the perfect image of God the Father who is invisible, and yet the
image of an imageless being is an effacement. God sends His Son as perfect
image as self-effacement to show us how to return to Him; through the
self-effacement of love.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Jesus repeats to us unceasingly: the Father loves the Son
and gives Him both everything He has and, above all, everything He is. The
Father keeps nothing for Himself. He makes no reservation, and holds nothing
back. The Son is His perfect image because the Father has withheld nothing and
given everything to the Son. In the Father we find the infinite poverty of
giving. This poverty is shown above all by the fact that the Father imposes
absolutely nothing on His Son: The Father has effaced Himself to follow His
Child to be Himself. The Father begets the Son in complete respect and
freedom.” (Towards a Divine Poverty by a Carthusian, pg 175, The Wound of Love)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So then the Son saw it fit to be sent in like manner to
mankind humble, and pouring Himself out to His people, even to the last drop of
His blood. He was sent to withstand every evil that has ever occurred and to weigh
it upon His Sacred Heart. For the sake of mankind He made Himself lowly so as
to show us, this is how I AM. This is how God is. This is also what you are.
You are love, the image of God. The only means by which you can truly and
finally become what you have always meant to become is to be one with Me. If
you love Me, keep my commandments, and seek Me with all your heart. Christ is
practically saying to us in this, “I have not only come to give Myself to you,
but for you to do as I do to the Father, return yourselves to Me.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The Son, for His part, possesses nothing, which comes from
Himself. All that He has is completely received; everything comes from the
Father’s hands. In the Son we find the infinite poverty of receiving. His joy
is in knowing that He cannot rely on Himself, but He receives everything from
the limitless generosity of His Father. The Son is such a perfect image of the
Father that He is likewise incapable of keeping anything for Himself. It is
impossible for Him to turn in on Himself or to enjoy possessing anything
whatsoever: as the image of an infinite gift He is Himself infinite gift, and
in order to give the Father complete joy, He makes a total return to Him of all
that He is. To this limitless poverty of giving on the part of the Father, and
to the limitless poverty of the Son’s receiving this gift, corresponds the
boundless poverty of transparency on the part of the Spirit. He is able neither
to give nor to receive. He is simple communication, receiving everything from
the Father and the Son simultaneously, without holding on to anything. He is
neither source nor receptivity. He is simple transparency and the possibility
for the other two Persons to encounter each other fully. What the Father and
the Son have in common is nothing of themselves, but a third Person whose being
is perfect and complete in Himself just as theirs is.” (Ibid, pg 175-176)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That mystical union with which mankind is destined to have
with God mirrors the Trinitarian bond of love that God shares within Himself.
Naturally, as the image of God we ought to expect that we are designed in this
way to love God and return to Him, giving love for love, and growing in love
each and every day, until finally we are with Him in eternity. The entire human
self is no longer strung out selfishly or curved in itself, it bears the image
of Love Himself, he becomes the image of gift, and the fulfillment of his being
is to love and give. Only the Christian can give himself completely for
another, for it is only the Christian who truly has a fully formed self. And
this self is that being that is in communion with God.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
May God bring us close to Him and make us Christians worthy
of the promises of Christ. Let us catch hold of the lowliness of God.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-1792949336514637152014-03-06T01:56:00.000-06:002014-03-06T01:59:59.880-06:00Judgment, Fraternal Correction, and Modern Lexicon<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5_XNJHwFhhVBhXTNOo2nZzvsEZ5kSVHX3LXcVEQPTRbtmbnsrf5ENAk9Vtx33mYcfBvw1HfTGyKIQx0G4I8RJ91AGZWQlGFI2qz1GbD07Ih0j37EV1_anhGq06TBnH8WrMTIa9OmpgU0/s1600/saint-paul-preaching.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5_XNJHwFhhVBhXTNOo2nZzvsEZ5kSVHX3LXcVEQPTRbtmbnsrf5ENAk9Vtx33mYcfBvw1HfTGyKIQx0G4I8RJ91AGZWQlGFI2qz1GbD07Ih0j37EV1_anhGq06TBnH8WrMTIa9OmpgU0/s1600/saint-paul-preaching.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Icon of St. Paul preaching to the philosophers of Athens</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am coming back to write here at Cor-Inquietum (I know, the
misspelling on the URL, it hurts, I know, I know - ) as part of a Lenten
resolve to reflect more deeply on the Catholic faith, and life in the light of
the Lord, or rather the light of the Lord on life. In this post I would like to
briefly consider the modern lexical shift in the philosophy of judgment, from
one human being on to another, and then from God’s relationship as Judge to the
human soul. I will try and construct my brief meditations from the readings of
the Mass for Sunday March 2<sup>nd</sup>. These were Isaiah 49:14-15; Psalm 62:
2-3, 6-7, 8-9; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Matthew 6: 24-34. <i>It is with humility that we must approach the throne of the Lord,
though we do so with the renewed confidence that we can boldly approach the
Throne of Grace through the mediation of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of all
Creation. Humility because we cannot be presumptuous of God’s mercy as if it
were all from our merit, and confidence because it is on account of Christ’s
merit and God’s condescending love that we <u>know</u> we are loved
unconditionally.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Frequently here at the university I have noticed that it is
common parlance to use the phrase, “<i>Do
not judge me</i>”, when seeking a retraction or withholding of disapprobation
of one’s action or behavior. It is a catch-all phrase by which the speaker
desires to be left alone in his or her vice so that they may continue to enjoy
said vice without the sting of conscience. What follows is however, the
necessary assumption is that to judge another person is merely to disapprove of
their behavior. This represents a shallower interpretation of judgment,
approval, disapproval, and of the role of society to enact a form of <i>moral </i>development, a form development
that we can perhaps see as part of civic duty. And so, the idea of having a
moral code that stands outside of one’s self, i.e. not personal, but universal
in scope (dare I say catholic, little ‘c’?), as a model for others incurs the
statement of judgmental.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, there is a flip side, an inconsistency in the usage
of this word. Relativism is not quite in full swing, unless I push the
inconsistency, but rather the conformity to more inclusive (to the point of
coddling and stunted moral growth) moral systems based within a socially
liberal framework. That is, I can disapprove of people’s actions and qualify
them as stemming from malice and bad character if their actions are
fundamentally against some of the key issues within socially liberal elite
schools of thought (i.e. what he did was racially discriminatory therefore he
is an awful person, etc.). And so, in this context, one is considered to be
judgmental if one deems a pillar or element of the new cultural milieu to be
immoral or inappropriate. However, all of those deeds which in the new college
cultural orthodoxy have been determined as inappropriate are inappropriate and
so we should disapprove of others’ engagement in such activities. Ultimately,
the entire lexical usage of the phrases, “I judge”, stands in the place of a
social group enforcing a certain moral and ethical code upon the world outside.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I believe that it should be noted that the use of the term
judgment here at the University of Chicago, in its simplest setting does not
indicate a full belief in radical relativism where there is no ethical truth,
only action and freedom. I believe that there are few individuals on campus who
are willing to take relativism to its logical consequences, and who reject
societal pressures and authorities on the judgment of what one should do with
his own life. The ‘how ought one live’ of Socrates becomes fundamentally
individual in such a way in relativism, that it mutates the question, it is no
longer how <b>ought </b>one live, but the
devaluation of all ought’s into ‘how <b>will</b>
I live’. In relativism, there is no meter by which actions can be valued above
others with the exception of the personal metric, which is arbitrary and even
ambivalent to the material nature of man who must obey certain laws in his composition.
And so, I return to the thesis that for many students, the phrase of judgment
is means of placing moral and ethical values in an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ mentality
that excludes the views of others which are dangerous to the worldview of the host
cultural group. The lack of vocabulary for moral and ethical distinctions in
adjudication in common speech, I believe, lends itself easily to the whole sale
condemnation of groups whose actions are disapproved of, or seen as
discriminatory. As it strikes me, from my Christian background, the statements
are tied unfortunately to a more ancient meaning, that of condemnation of
character, rather than condemnation of action, behavior, or ideas.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Christian worldview is far different. One cannot
insomuch as condemn the being and identity of another human being because every
human being is considered to be willed and loved into existence by the grace of
God. Furthermore, it is already considered within the Christian framework that
God so loved the world, yes, all of its inhabitants, that He gave us His only
Son, that whosoever should believe in Him, should have life eternal. Judgment
in the Christian framework is the final determination of God, the decision of
what a person’s life was truly about, a statement about the whole movement of the
will and life of that person. This is what a judge is supposed to do, supposed
to separate the criminals, from the innocent, and so the Scriptures are rich in
simply describing how God brings justice to the wicked, and has mercy on those
who fear Him.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Whereas, the university students carry an added meaning in
the word judgment where they want to collectively, or individually, critique
and condemn a certain behavior so as to also imply a condemnation of character,
the Christian lexicon bares more fruit. We have an entire diversity of language
by which we can give approbation or disapprobation to behaviors, habits, and
actions, without an implied character assassination. We typically refer to this
as fraternal correction, the notion that Christians have the moral duty and
responsibility to help each other grow in virtue towards the truth, but that we
must do so out of love. This act of mercy stems from compassion and zeal, which
can manifest itself in a thunderous reminder of the pains of Hell or a tender
tap on the shoulder with a calm and tender suggestion.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I believe it will be helpful to construct a further analysis
of the Christian schema of judgment and fraternal correction from considering
the readings from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Mass
Readings on March 2<sup>nd</sup>, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">1 That is how we ought to be regarded, as Christ’s
servants, and stewards of God’s mysteries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">2 And this is what we look for in choosing a steward;
we must find one who is trustworthy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">3 Yet for myself, I make little account of your
scrutiny, or of any human tribunal; I am not even at pains to scrutinize my own
conduct.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">4 My conscience does not, in fact, reproach me; but
that is not where my justification lies; it is the Lord’s scrutiny I must
undergo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">5 You do ill, therefore, to pass judgment prematurely,
before the Lord’s coming; he will bring to light what is hidden in darkness,
and reveal the secrets of men’s hearts; then each of us will receive his due
award from God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"> (1<sup>st</sup>
letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 4, Verses 1-5)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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It
is relatively clear from the admonition of St. Paul that judgment is not his
domain nor duty. God sent him to preach the Gospel of repentance of sin and of
Christ crucified for the redemption of mankind. What St. Paul says here is
defiant, in somewhat a similar way as relativism seeks to deny all human
authority capable of any authentic or orthodox valuation of morality or ethics,
so too does St. Paul say the judgments of this world are nothing. To St. Paul
what matters is the judgment of God, Who is truly the Judge. This is the role
of Christ in the book of Revelations, and one that He alludes to in the
Gospels, as not coming here to judge in His first coming, but show compassion,
but at the second coming, that He will come to judge the living and the dead. St.
Paul must also be careful not even to clarify his own moral status before God,
acknowledging that his moral valuation of his own identity is ultimately
flawed, and incomplete. This is where the virtue of hope is exemplified through
the writing of St. Paul. Though we are all sinners, God still loves, God still
forgives.<o:p></o:p></div>
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One
might begin to ask, how is it that God forgives in likewise manner, if we do
not repent? It seems paradoxical that St. Paul is not allowed to judge himself,
yet that he can still understand when he sins. Further in the passage it is
clear that St. Paul desires to disapprove of the activities of the community of
Corinth, calling them rich and fat with honors, reviling them, letting them go
hungry, naked, thirsty, and abused. It is St. Paul after listing the sins of
the people of Corinth adds, “<i>I am not
writing this to shame you; you are my dearly loved children, and I would bring
you to a better mind. </i>(1 Cor 4:14)” As it is clear, one ought to be ashamed
of one’s sins, but St. Paul here adds the gentle approach to disapproval of
sin, further stating that he ultimately is not here to make statements of
character about who is a saint and who is of Satan, but rather he is here to
bring the Christians of Corinth to a better mind, to grow morally and to find
themselves walking in the Way of the Lord. St. Paul considers himself the father
of the community of Corinth, a title well deserved for his evangelizing, (cf.
verse 15), and as St. Paul is also our spiritual father, we would do well to
consider closely the closing of his act of fraternal correction to the
community of Corinth in this passage. “<i>Follow
my example, then, I entreat you, as I follow Christ’s."</i> (1 Cor 4:16)<o:p></o:p></div>
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The
final stage of fraternal correction is always to point back to Jesus Christ who
is the cosmic lawgiver. All moral development, must ultimately pass the
judgment of Him Who Is Judge. It is not for St. Paul to judge whether a person’s
actions are venial (forgivable in the strictest sense), or will be sins unto
death (be the cause of one’s ultimate damnation), but merely to see and draw
people to the example of Christ.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Often
this is where we fail, we become busy-bodies trying to correct the world of its
flawed ways and cursing the darkness. Sometimes we feel like are the only ones
who understand, the pure ones, and the rest of the world insane and filled with
evil. Sometimes we say, “God, have you forgotten us?” as Isaiah alludes to. Christ
speaks to us of the truth through the prophet Isaiah, and in His own person. “<i>Can a mother forget her infant, be without
tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never
forget you.</i>” (Isaiah 49:15) Jesus only adds to this in the Gospel of
Matthew, chapter 6, verses 25 to 34. Our lives are not our own and we are not
in charge of them, but rather it is God who has given all of the things in our
lives and made them available to us. “<i>Can
any one of you, for all of his anxiety, add a foot’s growth to his height?” </i>(cf.
verse 27)<o:p></o:p></div>
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I
am loathe to place one meaning on the Gospel, for its words are richest and hold
the deepest mysteries, but in the reflection on judgment and fraternal
correction. We must tend to the words of Jesus, to attend to the attainment of
the Kingdom of God in our own souls, and be wary of seeing a mote in our
neighbor’s eye, when we have a log in our own. Judgment is not our own to make
about the character of sinners, that is God’s prerogative. We follow Christ,
and we lead others to Him. That is why we disapprove of sin, for the love of
God, not for the exaltation of our own lives, nor to condemn others and move
them away from us.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Love
is like gravity, it only desires to pull us closer. And so, I come to my
conclusion that no one can judge. It is not appropriate in the Christian
world-view to ever say, “I judge”, for to do so would be pride, and
presumption. This does not mean I can stand idly by while people stray from God
and His plan for human moral development and fruition. Such would be a sin, and
ultimately would lead to my own condemnation. As we see from the Scriptures,
fraternal correction is mandatory if dangerous, but judgment is never allowed. I
wish that I could flesh out a more articulate methodology for expressing these
distinctions of judgment and disapproval within my university settings. Pray
for me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Lord if I have misspoken, forgive me my sin,
and when You look upon me, look not on my sins, but on the faith of Your
Church. I implore, O Lord, that when You look down upon us, that you see us
through the wounds of your Son, and recall the love by which you made us and
redeemed us. Lead us not into the condemnation of our brothers and sisters, but
into reconciliation with one another as we seek Your will in this world.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-52177186903940424112013-11-01T15:15:00.002-05:002013-11-04T22:03:42.148-06:00Holy Days of Obligation and Liturgical Realism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.blackfencatholic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/communion-of-saints.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.blackfencatholic.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/communion-of-saints.jpg" width="315" /></a></div>
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<i>O Lord grant me wisdom
and Your holy guidance in the path I walk. Grant that I, Your unworthy servant,
might speak well on Your behalf. In my speculation and contemplation grant that
I might stand by Your side and not be confounded with error.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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In this article I would like to speak on the topic of Holy
Days of Obligation within the Catholic Church and in separate dioceses of the
Catholic Church. What is the rationale behind Holy Days of Obligation besides
those which reside on the Lord’s day? How do we move forward in our own lives
as we strive to make our entire life a liturgy of praise and worship to God?<o:p></o:p></div>
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I draw from <a href="http://corinquietam.blogspot.com/2012/04/fr-cantalamesa-i-died-and-behold-i-am.html">Fr. Cantalemesa’s Good Friday address in 2012</a> in
which he makes the argument from the Fathers that the liturgy of the Body of
Christ calls forth what it celebrates so as to make the event of faith occur
ever more faithfully before the eyes of the Church. I am also drawing on the address
of <a href="http://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/assembly/1998-harare/together-on-the-way-official-report-of-the-eighth-assembly/together-on-the-way-2-the-theme-turn-to-god-rejoice-in-hope/22-anamnesis">his Eminence Anastasios, Archbishop of Tirana, Durres and All Albania tothe World Council of Churches in December of 1998.</a> The Crucifixion of Christ was
met with scorn and the people looked upon Him with scorn, when in fact the
truth of the entire event is joyous victory through tribulation, the turning of
the keys to the doors of Heaven for mankind. It is only in the liturgy of the
Church that we see the true fruit and reality of this liturgical event, that we
are allowed to magnify the glory of God as is just and fitting to every act of
His in history. This is the mystery of the <i>amnesis</i>,
the recollection and re-enterring or re-presenting of God’s saving acts in history
for the edification and salvation of souls in the current day.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is this mystery of <i>amnesis</i>
that defines the Body of Christ as it ventures out into the world through a journey
within itself. The members of the Body of Christ must refer themselves
constantly to Christ, the Head, to retain their identity. This is the singular
identity of Christianity in that it lives in a way through the present by the
re-calling of the past through the mystery of God’s grace. Christ’s Passion and
Resurrection are actually made present through the Body of Christ’s joint
liturgical action. This is the anchor of the spiritual life, the manner by
which the Christian must call himself back unto the Timeless One, who present
then, present now, and ever present guides a Christian to what he is to do in
the now and to come. “I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord; yea, I will
remember Thy wonders of old" (Psalm 77:11)<o:p></o:p></div>
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But this <i>amnesis</i>
is not a simple intellectual function as Anastasios writes, it is rather that
calling back of our identity to its most concrete form of existence: the
composition of our entire lives within the narrative and life of Christ. Our
identity before God. This action is more than a mere reflection, but something
which must subsume our entire identity, and this is done through the liturgy
where the mind, the body, and the soul are made to participate in coming ever
closer to God. Anastasios writes, “Thus,
anamnesis becomes an incessant dynamic turning to the Triune God, the source of
being; a grafting into Christ, a receiving of the Holy Spirit, an orientation
that gives meaning to our life and to our march within space and time. Through
the renewal of anamnesis the church maintains her vitality and truth."<o:p></o:p>
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Thus, is our vocation so stated is to become, perhaps we
could say, existentially incarnate with Christ in the Church, to live and be as
we ought to be. Thus quotes Fr. Cantalamesa regarding a 4<sup>th</sup> century
bishop’s paschal address, “For every man, the beginning of life is when Christ
was immolated for him. However, Christ is immolated for him at the moment he
recognizes the grace and becomes conscious of the life procured for him by that
immolation.” So too, then the life of the Church is renewed in every act by
which she gathers together her members to call forth Christ’s grace through the
celebration of His life and the life of all the Church.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This is the importance of All Saint’s Day, by which the
Church gathers together to call to mind the work of God in humanity. To edify
and call us back to the lives of all of the members of the Catholic Church, and
the means by which we see their lives as echoes in history that our own voices
might sing in harmony to their unending hymns of praise with God in Heaven. The
Church through her liturgy calls to mind all those who follow Christ, bringing
them forth in the fullness of charity that we might join them in life eternal. The
Church makes this day a Holy Day of Obligation by virtue of its importance to
our vocation as Christians. To call us back to our brothers and sisters long
gone who persevered and lived the life of Christ. God’s grace shines through
their lives, and the overabundance of His mercy pours forth from their hearts
that we might receive a trickle of His love from those He has called forth to
lead and guide His people.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And so, as our faith leads us onwards to new challenges in the
world, both abroad, personally, and most importantly spiritually, let us
remember that our lives are a form of <i>amnesis</i>.
We are always doing this or that in memory of Him who has liberated us. The
entire function of the Church’s liturgy is to integrate us into the timeless
mystery of God’s acts in the salvation of His people. He calls it forward
through the ministry of the priesthood (that we might participate in His
priesthood) for the good and salvation of the entire Body of Christ. The Church
literally brings forth the mysteries of the faith before our eyes in a manner
by which we worship and praise in a manner which the angels saw forth these
events in history. The angels saw what was coming in God’s plans and rejoiced,
whilst mankind saw only through a lens darkly. Let us then as we move forward,
worship and praise like the angels, that which is made present before us, God
and all of the mysteries of His salvation. <i>May
Christ show us the way to Him by His own example, so that He who is that
perfect sacrifice, made present and offered from the rising and setting of the
sun from East to West, might redeem us in His love.</i> <i>May the holy saints pray for us, now, and at the hour of our death.</i><o:p></o:p><br />
<i><br /></i>
<b>Addendum (November 2nd, 2013):</b><br />
As to those who contest that, say, the true day of Christ's birth is unknown I say that the Body of Christ's celebration of this Holy Mystery of the faith makes it present by virtue of its divine mission from God. The true dates are almost irrelevant in that the Church memorializes the event and calls it to the present by the ministry of the priesthood (par excellence, i.e. the decision of the bishops and the pope). This is what I mean by a liturgical realism, the Church does not simply remember an event in salvation history, but calls it to the present so that the congregation can experience the sacred mystery in the present.<br />
<br />
<b>Addendum 2 (November 4th, 2013):</b><br />
The Church is permitted in a sense to set Holy Days of Obligation according to a mandate of love. For example, a family often requires its members to eat together at a meal so that they might mutually care and know each other better, i.e. enjoy the benefit of each other's company. This is not to say that the family requires members to eat together all of the time, but according to an order of charity. All of the days of the liturgical calendar (which spans all days) are right and just to worship on, but there are particular days when the Body of Christ (the Church and family of God) has deemed it most beneficial for us to gather together upon. To ignore this call to love for God is ultimately seen as a mortal sin because it is the deliberate denial of gathering together to worship God together, just as it is a great insult to not eat dinner with one's family when the family urgently needs it or when the parents desire it very strongly. Each of these Holy Days of Obligation are days with which we come to re-call and re-live those events in salvation history which are most essential to our current salvation.</div>
</div>
Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-10255437454325553732013-09-26T00:13:00.000-05:002013-09-26T00:18:29.990-05:00What ought we expect of men considering the priesthood? <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGZ0ulvjSLTYX4cnpKFgMrmM7LCJfSh6pJgoi6oaRX_7Fe2ggrXJjF0hpkPCXRL3bBCaH3MgNC9W3y71DdmxF1tIz39ED70kbz5V31t8fZnRlyZDeM-MrcBzTwNojrd_hew4ORbuspvQM/s1600/Last+Supper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGZ0ulvjSLTYX4cnpKFgMrmM7LCJfSh6pJgoi6oaRX_7Fe2ggrXJjF0hpkPCXRL3bBCaH3MgNC9W3y71DdmxF1tIz39ED70kbz5V31t8fZnRlyZDeM-MrcBzTwNojrd_hew4ORbuspvQM/s320/Last+Supper.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">La Santa Cena by Juan de Juanes</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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A friend recently asked me what sorts of qualities I would
consider to be valuable in a priest, or what sort of things would lend a man
towards becoming a priest, so I thought I might right a post on this topic. <i>Lord, You are a priest forever, according to
the order of Melchizedech, grant us wisdom and an increase in vocations to the
priesthood.</i> At the outset I said to my friend he ought to be a man, a
father, and a follower of Christ. I am inclined to add to my brief comments and
of course state that he must be a pastor to the many sheep of the Church,
acknowledging that he is also a sheep before God. There is much more to be said
of the Catholic priesthood and I only have lightly tread into the deep theology
of the Church’s wisdom on the Sacrament of Holy Orders.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is a fearsome thing to become a priest or feel the desire
to become a priest, but for all those who feel God’s call forward to serve them
let them not say, “I do not know how to speak. I am too young!” (Jeremiah 1:6),
but rather understand with the entire heart to Jesus’ words, “take heart! I
have overcome the world." (John 16:33)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>A priest must be a
man<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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When I say that a priest must be a man, I am not simply
stating a matter of biology, but rather I mean to say that a priest must be a
man of virtue, responsibility, and thoughtfulness. For practical purposes the
priest is the chief representative of Jesus to the congregation, he is the
spokesman of the Church. His journey is not an easy one, for a Catholic priest,
as any other vocation, will face moments of uncertainty and loneliness for
which his faith must be strong enough to push him forward through his vocation.
He must exhibit dedication, patience, and wisdom. Surely all of these things
are expected of a virtuous and strong priest, but we must also recognize that
these things grow in time as one matures and strives forward, making mistakes
and trying to learn from them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In reality, however, to be a man is simple enough. In the
parable of the Mustard Seed, Jesus tells us: “…[If] you have faith the size of
a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and
it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.” (Matthew 17:20) A man can
be strong and do many amazing things, but it is only the man who puts his faith
in Christ who can move mountains, banish demons, and move Heaven and Earth to
do the will of God. This is a Christian reality, and not one singularly
attached to the priest.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>A priest must be a
father<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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There are some men who think that becoming a priest
precludes the joy of having children, but this is a narrowness of thought in
that the priest is the father of souls, he is not a father in a carnal way, but
rather is the one who gives birth to the soul in Christ. It is the priest who baptizes
the infant, the sinner, who places the sacred oils upon the head of all who are
to be anointed into the Body of Christ. The priest is the man who brings each
soul before God according to the ecclesial economy of salvation. It is the
priest who comes to bring the sacrifice of the Eucharist, acting in the manner
of Jesus Christ, who as St. John Chrysostom writes in his work On the
Priesthood, brings down the fire of the Holy Spirit upon the sacred offerings
and makes them into the Body and Blood of Christ. The priest brings down
spiritual food and provides for the welfare of the entire congregation, but he
does this not by his own power but by the promises and authority of Christ. The
priest is the father who counsels his sons and daughters when they have sinned
and gone against the will of God. He does so prudently, sometimes with
tenderness in the Sacrament of Penance, and sometimes through the vigorous
rebuke for those who create scandal and schism (Jude 22-23: “To some you must
give a hearing, and confute them; others you must pluck out of the fire, and
rescue them; …”). And as every father who bears children hopes to see, the
growth of each child unto spiritual maturity, as they undertake enter into Holy
Matrimony, religious life, Holy Orders, or virtuous lay celibacy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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One might object however that a priest is never intended to
be a father, as Jesus Himself rebukes, “Nor are you to call any man on earth
your father; you have but one Father, and He is in heaven.” (Matthew 23:9).
Which is a fair objection, but the fatherhood of the priesthood is not a
fatherhood over and against the will of God, for if it were, then the rebuke
would be apt as no man can serve two masters. The biological father of a child
participates also in God’s fatherhood in that he has participated in the act of
creation of a new being, but he himself is not the ultimate and final Creator
of that new being. The biological father is in a sense a true father, but in
relation to God, he is the steward of God’s child, and must recognize that his
prerogatives end where they contradict the will of God. Similarly, the priest
is a spiritual father who is in a sense the true father of a congregant of the
Catholic Church in that he baptizes in the name and will of God, but he too is
a steward of God’s child, whose singular focus is the spiritual maturity of his
spiritual child. His prerogatives end where they contradict the will of God.
Both fathers however are to imitate and mirror God Himself as is seen in the
parable of the Prodigal Son.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>A priest must be a
follower of Christ<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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It is clear that the priest must be a follower of Christ.
His entire life is to emulate the entire priesthood of Jesus, as his own
priesthood is the icon of Christ’s priesthood, in that his entire life is
derivative and referential to Christ’s priesthood. As before, the priest’s
priesthood is that participation in the sacrifice and service which Christ
offered to the entire Church. The priesthood is not an office of service to the
poor, it is not a post from which a man comes to speak his views on social
justice, nor a post where a man goes on to rant his personal views on matters
of Church doctrine. <i>The priesthood is not
an office of a <u>cause</u></i>. Many people in the world see the vocation as a
calling towards a cause, an abstract idea to which they dedicate themselves to
forwarding as part of their own passionate drive. The priesthood is not a
devotion to a cause, but to a person. Not simply a person, but a Person. The
priesthood is an office of devotion to Christ. All Christians are part of the
royal priesthood, they participate in the Kingship of Christ by becoming
coheirs with Him to an eternal inheritance. The priest however participates in
a more particular way where he is charged with the love of the entire Body of
Christ before him; all those congregants given to his care.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The priest’s central concern is Christ, it is not to be well
loved by the congregants to teach them doctrines which itch their ears, but to
truly be centered and directed to Christ. This does not exclude the needs of
the congregants, for truly in order to truly love Christ a Christian must love
his brother (“If a man boasts of loving God, while he hates his own brother, he
is a liar.” John 4:20). The priest must be above the trends of society and be
ready to proclaim the Gospel with his whole heart. This is a great difficulty,
one in overcoming the desire to be well-loved which is natural, but also
secondly to believe wholeheartedly the promises and word of God. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>A priest must love his
fellow man and allow himself to be a sheep to Christ</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That is why a priest must be the Good Shepherd, who walks
about the sheep to take care of them from wolves, or wolves in sheep’s
clothing. Moreover, the priest must be ready to meet all those who stand at the
horizon, the fringes, of the community, the Church community, reach out to
their hearts, and bring that soul forward that he might come to encounter
Christ and enter into Communion with God. This is especially true in modern
days in the confessional where souls wander into mortal and grave sins which
wreck the entire spiritual life and communion of the penitent. Is the priest
willing to spend hours, days, months, years, caring for one sheep? It was worth
it to Jesus to live His entire life and being for every single sheep. Can you
emulate the example of Christ? How many sheep have been lost for those of us
too timid and afraid to go far out into the wilderness, away from the confines
of our comfort, to save a single sheep? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the priest must also recognize that though he speaks as
one with authority, as Jesus does, that he too is a sheep. Let him not forget
that God will hold him accountable to his actions much the same as his
neighbor. The dignity of the priesthood is not even one shared with the angels
in Heaven, and so it is clearly a great responsibility. Let the man who wants
to become a priest recognize himself as a sheep to Christ, abandoning himself
to the love of God and gradually turn away from all worldly things to fall ever
so much in love with the good Lord. Let him too understand that the bishop has
lawful authority over a priest, that the priest might exhibit humility, which
is the foundation of love.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Conclusion<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For all those who are still afraid of the Catholic
priesthood and the sacrifices that one must undergo, understand the words of
holy St. John the Theologian, “Perfect love casts out all fear” (1 John 4:18). Let
your heart fall in love, and as any lover trusts his beloved with his whole
life, so then trust God with your own. Love is like gravity, it can be fearsome
how quickly one can fall, but sometimes the greatest feelings in love is when
you are free-falling with the one you love.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
That
might explain why free fall gives you an adrenaline rush in your stomach, just
as one feels butterflies in one’s stomach with one whom one loves. <i>Que Dios les bendiga.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-63717846356937541202013-06-22T12:20:00.000-05:002013-06-22T12:29:35.523-05:00Thoughts on the maxim: Know Thyself<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaw5EEMXBHV6zA7c-NDDAsPo94F1l3khLFxeUOnln_6g-0kc93Od7rPZcfTbIGM96CG_vBu5BGz2KBRfeD3QkOsisU2gcoAaWkS4KKeVxorMiQHj2Ca3DSuTT-ZWuGlIva9VWIUwra58Y/s1600/Christ+the+Light+of+the+World.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaw5EEMXBHV6zA7c-NDDAsPo94F1l3khLFxeUOnln_6g-0kc93Od7rPZcfTbIGM96CG_vBu5BGz2KBRfeD3QkOsisU2gcoAaWkS4KKeVxorMiQHj2Ca3DSuTT-ZWuGlIva9VWIUwra58Y/s200/Christ+the+Light+of+the+World.jpg" width="108" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christ the Light of the World <br />
by William Holman Hunt</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I've been on hiatus for quite some time and so I apologize
for my long withdrawal from blogging. However, I've come up with a few
categories that I’d like to talk about; namely, I have been struggling with a
post that hopes to address something I call the poverty of love and more fully
the Divine Poverty of Christ (or the Trinity, which is a far higher ideal).
This sort of grandiose essay has escaped me for far too long and my love falls
far too short to make any honest progress other than what amounts to straw and
hot air. In this topic I’d like to just ease back into blogging with the
question of whether a man (or woman) ought to strive to know himself very
thoroughly or whether it is better to profess a certain form of ignorance
surrounding one’s self. Or is there perhaps a dualism by which we ought to know
ourselves well in one way but not in another.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>That man should
strive to know himself:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It might be argued by some that man ought to more fully come
to know himself. After all, what does a man have most intimately if not his
very own self? It is one of the most intimate acts that a person can procure in
this life to look upon himself and wonder what am I? In fact, we consider it a
matter of personal responsibility to know yourself well enough, and to act in a
civil and proper manner with others understanding the various boundaries and
quirks that might make you undesirable in a social context. Society strives on
people knowing themselves well enough to work together effectively in whatever
manner is most effective for each group of persons working together.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is good for a person to find himself and to look to
improve whatever he finds himself that stands in the way of good moral
development and general human flourishing. And we say that it is even better
for a man to try and know himself as a way to find his place and purpose in the
cosmos. These sorts of existential questions are essential to what it is to be
human. Moreover, we know that as Christians it is our duty to know our limits
and where we stand with regards to temptations. We always strive to guard
ourselves from the temptations of Satan and his demons. Living by the maxim
-know thyself- then is one of the key ways of navigating life in a clear and
consistent manner. But it strikes me that this is in some way also deficient,
because man is not an island, nor is he some sort of statue that can be
contemplated by earthly means. Rather, man has within him the capacity to be
transformed according to the divine nature, and to understand himself, man must
turn upward towards God to become fully alive. This then, to know God, is
essential to knowing one’s self, and in this end, perhaps only in the final
beatific union with God can man fully know himself as he is to be known in his
totality, namely the way that God sees him.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>That man should not
say that he knows himself well:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It strikes me as the wiser thing to say that a man does not
know himself well, for we have from St. Paul the Apostle: “At present, we are
looking at a confused reflection in a mirror; then, we shall see face to face;
now, I have only glimpses of knowledge; then, I shall recognize God as He has
recognized me” (1 Corinthians 13:12). In the midst of this statement St. Paul
is writing his famous poem, shall we say, about the virtuosity and fulfillment
of true love. Love is patient, it is kind, self-sacrificing, never envious, and
always peaceful. The Apostle then digresses interestingly enough and begins to
speak of knowledge of God through miracles and prophecies, and how many of the
spiritual gifts we know and come to experience are simply a small foretaste of
the experience we will find in God at the end of our lives. This is perhaps the
truest beginning of our lives, the final return to God. At present we see God
only through the small moments where He reveals Himself to us, which color our
expectations of Him, and if we are not careful these moments leave us sometimes
chasing ideas of God rather than the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As
St. Paul continues then, he leaves us mysteriously with the statement that one
day we shall come to recognize and know God as He sees us. Let us more closely
examine the implications of this sentence.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is clear that God knows us infinitely more closely than
we even know ourselves in this present life. Such is the nature of omniscience,
but also the nature of a willed omniscience that is deeply and
characteristically attentive to the object of its creative love. If we are to
know God in the next life, as He knows us, this must mean that the magnitude by
which we do not know God in this very self-same life is comparable to the
magnitude by which a man does not even know himself. For man is the image of
God, and if the image of God that man holds in his mind is muddled and dim,
then so too will his image of himself be so muddled and confused. I do not
believe that knowledge of man and knowledge of God are two distinct realms that
share nothing in common. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let us try an example then. It is true that sin distorts the
world that we see, but we must also know that we are finite creatures for which
the entire way of the world is closed off to us in this life. It might be
claimed that our lack of full knowledge of our own humanity and our own
interior path for holiness is what causes us to fall. If so, we might say, with
Socrates, sin comes from a lack of knowledge. Not only a lack of knowledge of
the true wrong one commits to himself in sin, via the damage to one’s honor,
dignity, and integrity as a human being, but with this too, the misunderstanding
of what is truly just and proper for a man or a woman to strive to be. Each
deed we carry out and each action we arrive at irrevocably marks history and
marks out the very pathway by which we choose to continue to think and act. Every
habit has its echo in the mind and the soul. Virtue and vice are as much moral
as they are existential categories by which a person more fully comes to union
with God or alienates himself from his truest Home.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How could a man truly say that he knows himself then, in the
context of so much noise which occurs within a man’s heart? Do you truly know
what you desire and what you want in your life? Is your life defined to a
simple calculus by which the very fabric of who you are can be woven? Human
minds are not so easy to comprehend, nor can we say to know ourselves so well,
if we are truly honest with ourselves. God knows you better than you do. It is
as if a town is being built by many workers and each worker only sees a portion
of the town being built. But from the mountaintop over and above the town, a
man can see all that goes on within the town. So too does God see a man’s whole
soul, being, and life across space and time. A man only sees where he is very
dimly and only part of the work that God is bringing about in him. He cannot
measure out all of the consequences of his actions. Nor can he foretell the
very echoes with which his thoughts will later resonate with him in the coming
years or how once beautiful and cultivated ideas will wither away to the
recesses of forgotten memories. It is then paramount to know that the building
of our souls, of these towns, ought to be ordered, and we should strive to make
it the way that God wants it to be built, since only in this can we have a
truer peace and order in our lives.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>That a Christian man
ought to be humble and accept the will of Christ in him, rather than proclaim
himself to be well-known to himself as if he were a complete work:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It strikes me then, that the object of humility is a matter
of knowledge by which we compare ourselves to the Divine standard which we were
always intended for. It is in Christ that we see the fulfillment of the perfect
man, the One who submitted all things in His heart and mind to the will of His
Father with absolute simplicity. What is my knowledge of myself before the
knowledge of who I am before the Creator? It is indeed minute and small, but
also in what I do know I ought to be most careful.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There were many things in my life that I believed myself to
know well about myself. I thought I was very much in control of myself at one
point, with a clear and honest road to piety if I willed it to be so. That I
knew how to avoid the worst sins that I could imagine. But I did not know myself
so deeply as to see that sometimes fear, cowardice, a greedy love, desire for
affection, and many other incentives can grip a man’s heart so strongly and
firmly. I did not rely on the remedy to wake Christ up in my heart when a
tempest threatens to overtake my conscience and peace in God. One cannot rely
on what one thinks he knows of himself, for God will bring him low to show him,
“You are not a finished work, you do not fully know yourself if you are not in
Me.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For this is the truth of the Gospel, that a man is not most
fully alive unless He is alive in Christ. Or as St. Augustine writes, “I could
not exist therefore, my God, were it not for Your existence in me. Or would it
be truer to say that I could not exist unless I existed in You, of <i>whom are all things, by whom are all things,
in whom are all things?</i>” (St. Augustine, Confessions, Book 1, Chapter 2) It
is only through God that things contain their existence, their nature, their
essence, their very being. And because man was uniquely designed to not only
receive from God a very-being, but also turn back unto God to receive and give
from another super-added form of being which completes him. A man ought to turn
to God to know himself as he ought to actually be. But what is this turning
towards God if not the full disowning of one’s self to one’s self and the
handling of one’s self over to God? What great trust this requires! It is bold
to say, “I am not truly me until my love has given itself over to Him who made
me and makes me!” What is this self-disembowelment of one’s ego and sense of
self, other than a form of death itself! What a mystery this paradox of fully
becoming and truly loving myself as I ought, by handing myself over to Another
without fear or limit!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“With Christ I hang upon the cross, and yet I am alive; or
rather, not I; it is Christ that lives in me. True, I am living, here and now,
this mortal life; but my real life is the faith I have in the Son of God, who
loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:19-20)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Is it I who more fully is in God, or is it God who is more
fully in me? If I truly abandon myself to God’s will, is it more truly I who
am, or He who Is in me? Have I more fully come to know myself by abandoning
myself to Him and fearlessly daring to know and trust that this is what is
truly best for me?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>You have undergone death, and your life is
hidden away now with Christ in God. Christ is your life, and when He is made
manifest, you too will be made manifest in glory with Him” (Colossians 3:3-4)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What is it then
to have undergone death and to live again hidden away with Christ in God? It is
of note to Christians that we say that we must die to ourselves, that we might
be crucified with Christ, and have new life with Him in the fruits of the
Resurrection. These are all a reference to the progression of the spiritual
life. If I strive to honestly know myself then I must understand as a Christian
that in my life I must undergo death to my earthly passions as St. Paul writes
in Colossians 3:5. But not only that, but my entire schema of what I believe to
be good, better, and best, and of who I am, must give way to the work of the
Holy Spirit. It strikes me that when a person reaches a maturity in his faith
with God he learns to grow in faith by abandoning himself in humility, in
accordance with the very radical trust of Jesus Christ, to the will of God. To
abandon one’s self and aspirations and desires to the will of God is to undergo
a certain form of death. But this death is not a form of destruction. Though we
break one thing down, we build it up into something more beautiful and
complete. This form of death to one’s self is a birth into new life. A gift of
freedom by which man who endlessly toils upon the earth chasing after things
which perish and blow away into dust, is given a new hope in Jesus Christ to
live according to a manner worthy of eternal life, and to have a communion with
the Eternal by which he finds his home and rest from his finitude. The
Christian’s life is hidden away with Christ in God.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What does it mean
to be hidden away with Christ in God? This is to live the life of Christ ever
so dearly in one’s own life. To follow the entire model of His humble poverty,
by which He esteemed Himself a servant, and by which He loved all as the Father
saw each in His love. To constantly dote and hang on every word from God, and
to look longingly upwards. Let us look so longingly upwards towards the Lord
that our very hearts might seem to rise up to be seated with Christ at the
right hand of the Father. Let your love for God soar, that you might be a
bridge of self-giving love and generosity between God and mankind.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Conclusion<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In summary,
simply what I would like to say is that, in the Christian life it is right and
good that a person know himself. Introspection is a very important part of the
Christian life as introspection is critical for true prayer of the heart and
examination of conscience, but there is also a need to understand that in the
Christian life the self is not the source of all that the self is, nor all that
the self can be. Rather we must turn to God in all of our needs. We are to die
to ourselves and be hidden in Christ with God. And so it stands that a faithful
Christian aims to rest all things upon Christ, to ask to be taken as he is,
with the full hope of being taken up in glory on the day of the final
Resurrection. Not only glorified by a royal decree, but made a servant of God
and robed in the light of one’s own love for God. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For me, I know
that I cannot know all that there is to me. Can there be any true philosophy
that can explain to me how in all of the long years of my life I still do not
fully know who I am? Even so it is in this wonder of who I am that I hope to at
least strive for what I know I ought, and that is to strive to do the will of
God. Let us then make the daily intention to serve the good Lord.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Lord let me be humble so that I might not
confuse myself with knowing myself, but strive to ever confess Your Name in my
heart so as to find that home which grants me peace and rest. I cannot
reconcile myself to myself without Your presence, and I am ever restless
without You. Let Your presence reign in my life today, tomorrow, and for ever
and ever. Amen.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-13374514058679037452013-03-22T03:41:00.000-05:002013-05-04T16:49:44.694-05:00"Catch hold of God’s Lowliness", excerpt of St. Augustine's Sermon 117<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.morethings.com/god_and_country/jesus/jesus-christ-crucifixion-660.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://www.morethings.com/god_and_country/jesus/jesus-christ-crucifixion-660.jpg" width="220" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This excerpt comes from St. Augustine’s Sermon 117, which is
an anti-Arian sermon thought to have been written somewhere between 418 and 420
AD. The sermon in its entirety is an attempt to give a sermon on the relation between
the Father and the Son so as to show that the Son is both divine and human. St.
Augustine strives in the sermon to explain and come to a deeper understanding
of what it means for Christ to be human and divine, and what sort of
distinctions will be helpful to make in order to further penetrate into this
divine mystery. Near the end of the sermon, St. Augustine strives to make clear
that humility is the key to entering into God’s mystery, and humility as an entrance
into love, which as always is humility to enter into Love Himself.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Lord and Savior of all
mankind, come grant us Your Holy Spirit to guide us in the perfection of holy charity.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Excerpt:<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“What does He say Himself, after all, to the weak and
infirm, so that they may recover that kind of sight and to some extent at least
to or brush against the Word through which all things were made? ‘<i>Come to Me, all you who toil and are
overburdened, and I will refresh you. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me;
because I am meek and humble of heart</i>’ (Matthew 11:28-29). What is this
harangue that the master, the Son of God, the Wisdom of God through whom all
things were made, is addressing to us? He is calling the human race, and
saying, <i>Come to Me, all you who toil, and
learn of Me.</i> You were thinking, no doubt, that the Wisdom of God was going
to say, “Learn how I made the heavens and the stars; also, since in me all
things, even before they were made, had been numbered how in virtue of their
unchangeable ideas even the hairs of your head have been numbered. Is that the
sort of thing you were thinking she would say? No; but first this: <i>that I am meek and humble of heart.</i>”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“There is what you have got to get hold of, brothers and
sisters, and it’s certainly little enough. We are striving for great things;
let us lay hold of little things, and we shall be great. Do you wish to lay
hold of the loftiness of God? First catch hold of God’s lowliness. Deign to be
lowly, to be humble, because God has deigned to be lowly and humble on the same
account, yours, not His own. So catch hold of Christ’s humility, learn to be
humble, don’t be proud. Confess your infirmity, lie there patiently in the
presence of the doctor. When you have caught hold of His humility, you start
rising up with Him. Not as though He has to rise, insofar as He is the Word;
but it’s you, rather, who do so, so that He may be grasped by you more and more.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“At first your understanding was very shaky and hesitant;
later you come to understand with greater certainty and clarity. It’s not He
that is growing, but you that are making progress, and it’s as though He seems
to be rising up with you. That’s how it is, brothers and sisters. Trust God’s
instructions, and carry them out, and He will give muscle to your
understanding. Don’t be presumptuous, and as it were give knowledge priority
over God’s instruction, or you will remain full of hot air, instead of solid
understanding. Think of a tree; it first seeks out the lowest level, in order
to grow up ward; it fixes its roots in the lowly soil, in order to stretch out
its topmost branches to the sky. Can it reach upward from anywhere except its
humble roots? You, though, wish to comprehend the heights without charity; you
are challenging the winds without roots. That’s the way to come crashing down,
not to grow. With Christ dwelling in your hearts through faith, be rooted and
grounded in love, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Commentary:</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Theology is primarily a manner of being with God. It is
primarily the relational conversation between one’s soul and God. This does not
preclude the object of natural reason and natural reflection to which our soul
is helped along by the prodding of the Holy Spirit. Nor does this mean that
science nor philosophy nor any skill or experience stands apart from our
conversation with God, but rather all of these things augment and help our
understanding of God.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, conversation with God is very different from any
sort of knowledge we might aspire to attain through intensive study. St.
Augustine in trying to explain the mystery of the Incarnation and the mystery
of the Hypostatic Union tells us first. Do you wish to know God? Learn first
what Christ has said to us of Himself, <i>I
am meek and humble of heart</i> and to <i>take
My yoke upon yourselves and learn of Me.</i> We must remember God has revealed
His nature in the face and person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and that He has
revealed Himself as Love. Jesus’ character is meek and humble. If we should
ever aspire to know God we are told by Jesus that we must first take upon
ourselves His own yoke and character, to become meek and humble, and to rely
entirely upon Him.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is as if Christ were telling us, be patient, let all of
your being rest on Me and be refreshed for I am made entirely for you. What
comfort is it to mankind that God made Himself according to our need. But so it
might be said, “That is impious! We would rather say God made us for Himself,
that He constructed the very fabric of humanity so as to find a home in His
love!” So it might be said, but the opposite side of this is that Jesus became
incarnate for our need, God came down from Heaven to dwell among men for the
sake of man. We might add not for His own sake, but in some respect His love is
what compelled Him freely to join Himself to our lives at the very heart of
every man, woman and child.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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He came to show us the way home. That humanity finds itself
most human when it turns humbly to its source, God Himself, and learns to live
in charity. The situations of live toss us astray, and it is very clear that we
have very little control in our lives. Do not be shaken, but rather come to the
Physician, lay yourself on the table for Him to examine, and allow Him to lift
your burdens by relying on Him with faith and trust.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As we grow in faith and trust and as we speak more with God,
we will see ourselves change. Christ will become more and more to us, not as if
Christ’s humanity or divinity were changing or becoming ever more glorious, but
God’s grace is lifting us upwards so that we might have Christ fully live in
our hearts. To expect to come to know God without first acknowledging our
sinfulness, our faults, our imperfections, and the overwhelming need with which
even the most unknown parts of our soul and mind needs God’s presence is to
expect that a tall tree with shallow roots can survive a terrible storm. Even a
very small tree with deep roots can survive the storm, much more then let us
dedicate ourselves to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in all of our trials to
become more humble.<o:p></o:p></div>
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That in humility we might come to know God greater in our
hearts, and as we apply our minds to know Him and His creation that we might be
inspired with wisdom and understanding.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Let everything have its proper place and time, and let us
fully know that Christ always comes first, no matter where we are in our lives.
God invites us, saying come to Me, and in Me, you shall have all in all.<o:p></o:p></div>
Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-27288141978801426102013-03-15T16:20:00.000-05:002013-03-15T18:17:57.634-05:00Reflections on the Prodigal Son<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Pompeo_Batoni_003.jpg/250px-Pompeo_Batoni_003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Pompeo_Batoni_003.jpg/250px-Pompeo_Batoni_003.jpg" width="228" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Return of the Prodigal Son<br />
by Pompeo Batoni</td></tr>
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Last Sunday’s Gospel reading in the latin Catholic Church regarded
the parable of the prodigal son, a story at face value intended to show the
folly of the way of the Pharisees in view of the righteousness of God whose
mercy encompasses all of Creation. The reading which I will analyze will be
that of<a href="http://newadvent.org/bible/luk015.htm"> Luke 15, verses 11 to 32</a>. My hope is to express perhaps some of the
mystery behind God’s righteousness, His mercy, and the divine image which He
has placed in each one of us in the spark of human nature and human dignity. Please remember to read the Gospel before my own words!<br />
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<i>Most Holy Redeemer guide us!<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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See here for much better analyses of this story:</div>
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<a href="http://vimeo.com/20421293">A Philosophical Reading of the Prodigal Son</a> (video) [Very thorough and intellectual]</div>
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<o:p><a href="http://catholicdefense.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-fathers-two-sons-what-prodigal-son.html"> The Father’s Two Sons: What the Prodigal Son Tells us About Divine Sonship</a> (article) [Brief, brilliant, insightful, and the inspiration behind this post]</o:p></div>
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<b><i>Synopsis of the Parable<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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As the story begins there was a father with two sons. The
first (and younger) son asks that his inheritance be given to him early, at
which point the father divides their inheritance and gives each half of his
estate. The impulsiveness of the younger son drove him to travel to a far
country living in a wasteful way. A famine caught the younger son off guard and
he found himself working for a man in that foreign country who treated him
worse than the swine of that man’s farm.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The son realizes that his father treated his servants better
than as he lived now and strives to return to his father as a servant, begging
mercy, and declaring his sinfulness before his father and God. The father upon
the return of his son shows him all of his love and affection taking in a
dirty, hungry and lost child of his back into the embrace of his compassion.
The father welcomes him back as a beloved son despite his son’s overwhelming
shortcomings. The son is given a bright new robe, a ring on his hand, shoes on
his feet, and a calf is killed and cooked in celebration of the returning son.<o:p></o:p></div>
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All is not well in the family however, for the oldest
brother who claims to have worked as his father’s servant is bitter and angry
at this mercy and compassion, demanding justice and fairness. The brother is
enraged and refuses to dine with his father and brother. The son who has
received everything he has from his father, asks his father why he who was more
righteous and upright did not deserve to have all of the gifts given to the
prodigal son. The father’s reply is simply, you already have everything that I
possess. And there the story ends.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There are one and many means of interpreting this story, and
so, <i>Father, from whom all things proceed
and have life, look with kindness upon me, Your unworthy son, and grant me the
grace to write well of You.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<b>A broken family<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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It is clear from the outset that this story concerns the
intimacy and sacred communion of the family: two sons, and a father. But far
from the ideal of the family, Jesus presents us with the story of two sons who
cannot match their father’s generosity and love, and at the outset of the story
we begin to see that the three do not abide in a perfect reciprocate
relationship of love. The younger son goes forward to his father and asks for the
portion of his estate that he was set to inherit from his father.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This is in many ways an insult to his father. The young son
has not even wait for the death of his father, but instead his
relationship with his father is so distant that it is as if his own father were
dead to him. We are not told of the father’s immediate reaction, but only that
the younger sons demand sent the father to divide his belongings between both the
younger and the older son. The younger son promptly gathers all that he has of
his father and sets out to a far country, perhaps to make something of himself.
The youngest son, sending himself out from the love and communion of his
father, becomes trapped in riotous living, among other sinful ways of life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The youngest son returns, but the oldest son cannot accept
the return of his brother who is met by his father as soon as the father spots
his youngest son edging back to his estate at the horizon. The father’s love is
unbounded, but the oldest son does not even refer to his own father as father,
instead looking to him as master, and neither to his brother as brother, but
simply as other.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The righteous and oldest son does not truly partake
in a special communion and love in his family. In fact, we see that
his first reference to his father is one of debt (<span style="font-family: Times CY, Times New Roman, Times, serif;">the son refers to his relationship with his father solely as servant to master),</span> the same attitude that
the youngest son had taken towards his father. The youngest son looked to his
father and saw in him only an inheritance to take apart from the actual life of
his father. In the youngest brother’s mind, his father was only good for the
material goods that he had provided, while in the oldest brother’s mind, his
father again was somebody to respect, to honor, but only as the means to work
out his own debt to his father. For the oldest son, his livelihood comes from
the value of his service to his father, and he does not see beyond this fact.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Neither son sees his father as loving father with which
there is no debt, only gift and love. By definition a gift is given freely and
cannot be repaid. And it is only the youngest son who returns to his father
after squandering his first gift who finally learns of the father’s mercy. The
oldest son becomes calloused and cannot see that his father’s house, the
Kingdom of God, is entirely built on love based in truth. Neither does the
eldest son see the compassion with which God can transform any sinner into the
most dazzling saint. This eldest son does not comprehend that everything that
he has comes from his father, and that this is not a relationship of
commutative justice (i.e. you give me this service and I will provide you an
equal service in return), nor could it ever be. “What do you have that you have
not received?” (1 Corinthians 4:7)<o:p></o:p><br />
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So lies the tension of this family which underlies an important message that Jesus is striving to teach us about His Father and His Father’s Kingdom.</div>
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<b>Life with the Father <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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What are we to make of this parable of Jesus’ who is striving
to teach the Pharisees and the local people of His Father’s Kingdom? Who else
here is the father, but His own Father then, who lays down all that He can for
the good of His sons and daughters. And yet, in the Father’s unwavering and
prodigal love, many of us fall away from the family of His own love.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the spiritual life we know that the Father is the source
of our joy, of our peace, and of our ultimate comfort in this life. As St.
Augustine tells us, what do you possess, if you do not possess God, and our
holy father St. Augustine tells us that every heart is restless unless it finds
its return, its source, and its home in the dwelling place of the Father. The
youngest and eldest sons in the parable are like lukewarm Christian followers of the Father in that
though he “nominally” lives in the house of the Lord neither one of them is part of the family of the Lord. The youngest son might be like those of us who who simply fall away from our faith, though he does not lie about being apart from his Father's house. The eldest son is like those who continue to go to mass, do good deeds, but their hearts are not in the Father's house and they lie to themselves about the relationship that they have with God, looking to God as benefactor instead of Divine Spouse.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What is the standard then by which we can consider ourselves to live in the house of the Lord, not nominally, but as part of His family? The principal rubric is simple and it is told to us by St.
Paul in first Corinthians 13, that even if we delivered our body up for the
dead, prayed endlessly, and made prophecies, if we do not abide in love for
others and for God, we cannot be a part of God’s family. But this does not mean
that we are estranged from God if we fall away from Him. The Father provides for both the prodigal son
and the righteous one, despite their shortcomings, and readily meets each at
the horizon of His unabounding love. In the parable the father meets both of his sons, the youngest one at the horizon as he wanders back to him, and the eldest one at the fringes of his estate as the eldest son turns his back on the father and brother.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Our relationship to God is not one founded on debt it is pure grace and gift. If you
have seen the film Les Miserables (2013) this is the error that Javert the
inspector makes. He simply does his duty which is commendable and pursues justice relentlessly. But fulfillment
of duty’s reward is simply that, that natural virtue of the completion of one’s
duty, praiseworthy, but ultimately incomplete. God desires the heart. He
desires to draw us into His family, and without this love we too fall away from
the Father. Neither the youngest nor the oldest son could be in the presence of
the father on account of their lack of love, but it was not the father sending
them out, but their hardness of heart that pulled them apart from the communion
of love with their father. So too it is with our own sins that we leave the
Father’s house, but we are not lost, not quite at all!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Our Father meets us
at the fringes; at the horizon of our lives<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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It is in our weakness that we meet the tenderness of the
Father. At least this has been my own experience by which I have seen most
clearly my own Father’s mercy and compassion. In the story of the prodigal son,
we read of the youngest son when he decides to return to his father’s house
after so much misfortune and sin, “And he arose, and went on his way to his
father. But, while he was still a long away off, his father saw him, and took
pity on him; running up, he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him.”
(Luke 15:20)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Do we not see here that each of us is in some manner, shape,
and form deformed by our sins? In the prodigal son, the youngest son becomes so
destitute that he envies the goods that pigs are eating. So too then with us,
some of us become so entrapped in sin that things that are not good for men and
women to eat (or do) become desirable. This is the form of sin that deforms us,
and the further spiraling out of control that demons and the Devil try to capture
us in. The Devil often tries to tell us that our Father cannot still love us
and that we are unworthy of His love, as the youngest son believes that he
cannot return to his father’s house and possibly be worthy of his father’s love.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But no. The Father’s love is so prodigal, so vast, so infinite
that He meets us at the very fringes of our lives, of the moments when we least
expect Him. He meets us all when we are such a long way off from Him. Sometimes
in the gift of repentance and hearty tears, sometimes in the breathlessness of
an existential silence, in other times through the very face of His Son made
incarnate for us each Sunday, and of course in every other way possible. He
comes to us, in His majesty, lifting us up to Him, granting us His supreme affection,
throwing His compassionate arms about our broken hearts and souls. His love
reaches us even before our confession of repentance and as always His grace
precedes our conversion, as evidenced in the very next verse (verse 21) in the story where
the father’s loving embrace of his son precedes the youngest sons declaration of his contrition
and desire for reconciliation. The Father’s love is always made manifest to
draw us back to Him, and so much joy is there in Heaven over a repentant soul
that a celebration among all of the sons and daughters of God can hardly be
contained.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>A final Sacramental
reading<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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This celebration is not only in Heaven but also in the
Church as expressed corporately by the Church Militant who is the Body of
Christ. It is expressed entirely in her liturgy and in the profession of faith
through the expression of the Divine Mysteries. No sooner has the prodigal son
come back to his father and confessed his love for his father, that his father
clothes him in the brightest robe, grants on him a kingly ring in his hand,
shoes on his feet, and a great feast is made for each to enjoy as a community
of love.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This then is a figure for the spiritual life where
confession of faith is met by baptism, by which we were taken as dirty, naked,
and wretched, and yet given a home in the warmth of the most regal and
immaculate robes. In Baptism we put on Christ, and cleansed of our sins we are
called to a royal priesthood. This is the symbolism then of the ring given to
the young son, to be a part of the royal priesthood, but also to have at his
full disposal every gift and good of the estate. The ring would have been a
sign that the youngest son was able to command the servants of the estate and
that he was being restored back to his authoritative position on the estate. In
one respect then the ring represents Chrismation by which all of the gifts and
fruits of the Holy Spirit are made most available to us, making us resplendent
and rich in virtue. But again in a second way the ring represents a kingly in
the Kingdom of God this rulership is not authoritarian, but rather pastoral and
self-giving. The father is calling his son to the same sort of rulership and
tender nature that he regularly expresses to his sons and servants. This is why
in Confirmation we are said to be sent out as Apostles to be a light to the
world. Finally, then the feast is convened and it is very evident that is the
Holy Eucharist that is being implied here.<o:p></o:p></div>
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That most Blessed Sacrament is the feast of unity which
draws together the entirety of the holy sons and daughters of the Father. It is
the Son who is the entire Bond of Communion between man and God. This is why He
came and became Incarnate, not to condemn, but to show mercy and uplift mankind
from the misery of his sin upwards to partake in a heavenly and divine nature.
The Son’s sacrifice is absolutely the bridge between mankind’s prodigality and
sinfulness to his restoration into God’s family of love. As the liturgy says, “With
arms outstretched between heaven and earth, Jesus died interceding for us with
his Father.”<o:p></o:p><br />
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Happy and blessed are those in the Church who see the return of prodigal sons! "It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found." (Luke 15:32)</div>
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<b>Conclusion<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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I hope that my exposition here of some thoughts on the
prodigal son. I hope that it is clear that both the youngest and eldest son
commit the same sin against their father, by which they cannot entertain a
lively communion and bond of love with him. Their sin is that they take advantage
of their father’s generosity and do not enter into familial love with him, only
seeing him as some sort of dispenser of material good and benefit. The youngest
son completely disregards his father and takes everything he can from him while
the father is still giving, but in so doing he alienates himself from his
father’s loving house, sending himself out into wastefulness and great sin. The
eldest son completely disregards his father taking what he can from his father
after fulfilling a certain quota of “piety” and services for his father. The
eldest son only sees his father in so far as he can attain material benefit
through fulfilling his duty for his father. If his father were to die, the
eldest son would likely not be particularly sad but simply accumulate what
wealth he could from his duties. Neither one knows how to love their father,
but it is the son who lovingly is re-embraced by his father. The youngest son
having actualized his alienation from his father rather than clouding it in
false piety and half-hearted service as the eldest son does. And so it is
explained by Christ that He would rather have us hate Him than be lukewarm
towards Him.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is when we are completely honest with ourselves about our
sins and still make a deliberate attempt to return to our Father that we can be
reconciled, though it is always our Father who draws us to Himself. We cannot
clutter up our souls by pretending to be pious and loving when in actuality our
faith is more a philosophy than an entrance into the loving communion of God’s embrace.
To lie to ourselves about our relationship with God is to be like the eldest
son, when in fact it is the youngest son who is more worthy of his father’s
love at the end of the story.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Do not be afraid if you see such prodigality in your own
soul! Return to the Father’s love which is infinite in broadness and which
transforms sinners into saints. Become a man alive! Trust in God and keep Him
forever in your heart!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-20352982309044118042013-01-06T15:36:00.002-06:002013-01-06T15:39:35.198-06:00The History of Philosophy on St. Augustine's Confessions <div style="text-align: center;">
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Below is an apt summary of St. Augustine's story in the Confessions provided by Peter Adamson in the website, The History of Philosophy without any Gaps.<br />
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http://www.historyofphilosophy.net/augustine-confessions</div>
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Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-63682873944209639072012-11-24T16:40:00.000-06:002013-05-12T02:27:09.277-05:00Excerpts from St. Augustine’s Propositions on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans Part 1<div style="text-align: left;">
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I have not posted on this blog in a very long time and I do
not want to leave this blog when I know it spurred me on to lots of interesting
quotes from my patron saint, so I’ll try and post a bit now. Albeit you, dear
reader, will have to bear smaller posts, since school, career, and health
forbid me from writing more than just some tidbits here and there.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Below I’d like to post a few interesting tidbits from St.
Augustine’s Propositions on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans which was written
sometime during 394 AD and so about two or three years before the writing of “Miscellany
of Questions in Response to St. Simplicianus”. In this manner, these
propositions are a series of notes and writings from his conversations with the
other members of the clergy in his vicinity. At this time St. Augustine was a
priest for three years, and in the coming year he would succeed Valerius, the
bishop in Hippo-Regius, as the bishop of Hippo. This is one of the earliest writings we have in which St. Augustine directly addresses some of the questions in Romans. St. Augustine does address the Law and grace in his earlier anti-Manichean works, but here we see his maturing theology of grace. (I'll write more at another time)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><u>The Letter and the
Spirit:</u></b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Romans 2: 29 But he is
a Jew that is one inwardly and the circumcision is that of the heart, in the
spirit not in the letter: whose praise is not of men, but of God.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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St. Aug: “That is, the Law should be understood in a
spiritual, not literal, sense. This pertains especially to those who have
understood circumcision in a fleshly rather than spiritual way.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“<i>His praise
is not from men, but God</i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">’, </span>accords with Paul's statement, ‘<i>He who is a Jew inwardly.</i>’ ”<o:p></o:p></div>
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So to be a spiritual Jew is to be one in the interior, to
have the heart circumcised and to have grace poured into the heart so as to
live righteously.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><u>The Four Stages of
Man and the meaning of the Law under Grace:<o:p></o:p></u></b></div>
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Here is another excerpt that is a very long. I’ll provide a
brief summary and then the block of text.<o:p></o:p></div>
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St. Augustine is arguing as to what St. Paul means by there
shall be no flesh justified before God by the Law, on account of the Law bringing
knowledge of sin. He also expounds what is meant by the Law was given that sin
might abound. Also he explains what is meant by without the Law there was no
transgression.<o:p></o:p></div>
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St. Augustine reasons that St. Paul is not repudiating the
old Law in that it served a purpose but was not the fullness of God’s plan for
mankind. St. Augustine argues that there are four stages of man, that prior to
the Law, that under the Law, that under grace, and that finally in peace. The
first stage prior to the Law indicates a willingness to sin and lust and how
the soul does not struggle against sin because it simply becomes part of one’s
activity and habit. The Law was given to show us wickedness and what
righteousness was, and so it was good that God gave us the Law because it
showed us what was right to repudiate and what was good. However the Law did
not give mankind the capacity to carry it out perfectly, and so we realize that
we will evil and in that shame we do what we know we should not do. We are
pulled by sin instead of it simply being activity and so we become imprisoned
to carry out the desires we do not want to act on. Under grace the pull from
sin is removed and sin is cleansed. Nobody can fulfill the Law on his own
strength or his own account, but only in the grace of Jesus Christ. The Law,
writes St. Augustine, was intended to show the need for the Savior to pardon
sins and assist our struggling with sin. And so what once was an exterior
commandment against sin is transformed into an interior love for God which takes
away fear of sinning. When we desire to sin, grace pulls us and keeps us fixed
to God by love. Sin does not come from desire, but from action upon sinful
desires. St. Augustine writes that these desires come from the mortality of the
flesh, which comes from Adam’s Fall, and that this Fall leaves our bodies in a
fleshly state. The final stage of mankind is that of peace, in which at the
Resurrection our bodies and our souls will come to perfect unity in the adoration
of God. What was once a free unhindered will in Adam and Eve has become
corrupted by the Fall so as to not be able not to sin, but by the grace of God
it comes to be free again to do what is good and righteous.<o:p></o:p></div>
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"For no flesh will be justified before him by the Law,
for through the Law comes knowledge of sin" (3:20), and other such things
which, some think, must be intended as a reproach to the Law. Such statements must
be read with great care, so that the Apostle seems neither to condemn the Law
nor to take away man's free will. (2) Therefore, let us distinguish these four
stages of man: prior to the Law; under the Law; under grace; and in peace.
Prior to the Law, we pursue fleshly concupiscence; under the Law, we are pulled
by it; under grace, we neither pursue nor are pulled by it; in peace, there is
no concupiscence of the flesh. (3) Therefore prior to the Law we do not
struggle, because not only do we lust and sin, but we even assent to sin. Under
the Law we struggle but we are overcome. We admit that we do evil, and by that
admission, that we really do not want to do it, but because we still lack grace
we are overwhelmed. (4) In this stage we learn how low we lie, and when we want
to rise and yet we fall, we are the more gravely afflicted. (5) Whence Paul in
this letter says, "The Law was introduced that sin might abound' (5:20),
and at this point notes that, “through the Law comes knowledge of sin"
(3:20), but not the removal of sin, which comes through grace alone. (6) Therefore the Law
is good, for it forbids what ought to be forbidden and prescribes what ought to
be prescribed. But when anyone thinks that he can fulfill the Law by his own strength
and not through the grace of his Savior, this presumption does him no good.
Rather it so harms him that he is both seized by a stronger desire to sin, and
by his sins is made a transgressor. (7) For "where the Law is not, neither
is there trespass' (4:15). Therefore let the man lying low, when he realizes
that he cannot rise by himself, implore the aid of the Liberator. For then
comes grace, which pardons earlier sins and aids the struggling one, adds
charity to justice, and takes away fear. (8) When this happens, even though
certain fleshly desires fight against our spirit while we are in this life, to
lead us into sin, nonetheless our spirit resists them because it is fixed in
the grace and love of God, and ceases to sin. (9) For we sin not by having this
perverse desire but by consenting to it. Relevant here is what the same Apostle
says: "Do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies, so that you obey its
desires' (6:12). (10) Thus here he shows we still have desires but, by not
obeying them, that we do not allow sin to reign in us. But these desires arise
from the mortality of the flesh, which we bear from the first sin of the first
man, whence we are born fleshly. Thus they will not cease save at the
resurrection of the body, when we will have merited that transformation
promised to us. Then there will be perfect peace, when we have been established
in the fourth stage. (11) Perfect peace, since nothing will resist us who do
not resist God. This is what the Apostle says: "Indeed, the body is dead
because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. If then the
spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, he who raised Christ
Jesus from the dead will give life even to your mortal bodies also through his
spirit dwelling within you" (8:10-ll). (12) For free will existed
perfectly in the first man; we, however, prior to grace, do not have free will
so as not to sin, but only so much that we do not want to sin. But with grace,
not only do we want to act rightly, but we can; not by our own strength, but by
the help of the Liberator. And at the resurrection he will bring us that
perfect peace which follows from good will. (13) For "Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace to men of good will” (Luke 2:14)</div>
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<b><u>The Law is made
manifest under Grace by Righteousness<o:p></o:p></u></b></div>
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"Do we then cancel the Law by this faith? By no means!
Rather, we establish it" (3:31), that is, we affirm it. But how ought the
Law be affirmed, if not by righteousness? (2) ---a righteousness, moreover that
exists by faith, for those things which could not be fulfilled through the Law were
fulfilled through faith.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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And so writes St. Augustine that the Law is not made void by
faith, at least not in a strict sense, because the Law’s intention was to grant
a rule for righteousness which comes from faith and grace. In that perspective,
I think St. Augustine would agree that by faith we recognize that love fulfills
the Law. This is what I believe St. Paul means by the law of faith in Romans 3:27 where he says that we cannot boast of our righteousness because it comes by grace through faith and our righteousness is established through God's mercy and transformation of our hearts.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><u>Intermission</u></b></div>
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There’s plenty of other good nuggets in the Propositions but
I’ll end it here because I need to do some quantum mechanics homework <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span>.<o:p></o:p></div>
Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-10041125736527304652012-10-17T22:47:00.002-05:002012-10-17T22:47:43.175-05:00Apologies on Late Blog postsHello fellow bloggers and internet folks,<br />
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I apologize for my lack of blogging in the past month. I have been struggling with many things in my life this past month. I am having some social relationship problems and am struggling with my workload at the time. I ask you for your prayers and your due patience. My apologies to those who have wanted more blogging about St. Augustine in the coming days. I hope I can get at least one post out this month. Blogging will have to be greatly reduced. Please keep me in your prayers, my name is Steven.<br />
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May God bless each and every one of you.Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-15245745843405404172012-09-07T20:56:00.002-05:002012-09-07T21:36:19.490-05:00Meister Eckhart, Counsel 11 from Counsels on Discernment, what to do when God is far away from us<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image of Master Eckhart</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Hello there everybody,<br />
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I would like to post a post from Counsel 11 of Eckhart von Hochheim's (Miester [Master] Eckhart) Counsels on Discernment. Eckhart was a Dominican theologian of the 14th century who was brought up on heretical charges by the Franciscan-led Inquisition of the period. Some of his doctrines were regarded as heretical but according to the Catholic Church's decisions in 2010 he was not condemned in name and so may be read as an orthodox theologian, albeit I add, we ought to be cautious.<br />
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"<b>Counsel 11: What a man should do when God has hidden Himself and he seeks for Him in vain</b><br />
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</b> You ought also to know that a man with goodwill can never lose God. Rather, it sometimes seems to his feelings that he loses Him, and often he thinks that God has gone far away. What ought you to do then? Just what you did then you felt the greatest consolation. Learn to do the same when you are in the greatest sorrow, and under all the circumstances behave as you did then. There is no advice so good as to find God where one has left Him; so do now, when you cannot find Him, as you were doing when you had Him; and in that way you will find Him. But a good will never loses or seeks in vain for God. many people say: "We haev a good will," but they do not have God's will. They want to have their will, and they want to etach our Lord that He should be doing this and that. That is not a good will. We ought to seek from God what is His very dearest will."<br />
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This is quite excellent advice. Jesus taught us in the Lord's prayer to always pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven" teaching us to always seek the way of God above our own will and to open ourselves up to God. Master Eckhart continues,<br />
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"This is what God looks for in all things: that we surrender our will. When Saint Paul had done a lot of talking to our Lord, and our Lord had reasoned much with him, that produced nothing, until he surrendered his will and said: "Lord, what do you want me to do?" (Acts 9:6). Then our Lord showed him clearly what he ought to do. So, too, when the angel appeared to our Lady, nothing either she or he had to say would ever have made her the Mother of God, but as soon as she gave up her own will, at that moment she became a true mother of the everlasting Word and she conceived God immediately; He became her son by nature. Nor can anything be make a true man except giving up his will. Truly, without giving up our own will in all things, we never accomplish anything in God's sight. But if it were to progress so far that we gave up the whole of our will and had the courage to renounce everything, external and internal, for the love of God, then we would have accomplished all things, and not until then."<br />
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This is just as well a good reflection that it was not until Mary said let it be done according to God's will that she was taken up and overshadowed by the Holy Spirit whereby she conceived the Word everlasting made flesh.<br />
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"We find few people, whether they know it or not, who would not like this to be so for them: to experience great things, to have this way of living and this treasure. But all this is nothing in them except self-will. You ought to surrender yourself wholly to God in all things, and then do not trouble yourself about what He may do with His own. There are thousands of people, dead and in Heaven, who never truly and perfectly forsook their own wills. Only a perfect and true will could make one enter perfectly into God's will and be without a will of one's own; and whoever has more of this, he is more fully and more truly established in God. yes, one Hail Mary said when a man has abandoned himself is more profitable than to read the Psalms a thousand times over without that. Whit that, one pace forward would be better than to walk across the sea without it."<br />
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Indeed a will given over to God is better than one that is not given over to God but seeks to do good. Truly it is He who leads us as a lowly leaf is carried aloft by the breeze. So should our spirits remain in the Lord. It is controversial to say that there are some in Heaven who never truly and perfectly forsook their own wills, but perhaps Eckhart means to say that when they were alive they never learned this, surely all who go through Purgatory are perfected to love God with as much of their hearts as they did in this life (and more).<br />
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"The man who in this way had wholly gone out of himself with everything that he possessed would indeed be established wholly with God, so that if anyone wanted to move him, he would first have to move God. For he is wholly in God, and God is around him as my cap is around my head. If anyone wanted to seize hold of me, first he would have to seize hold of my coat. In the same way, if I want to drink, the drink must first pass over my tongue; in this way the drink gives its flavor. If the tongue is coated with bitterness, then truly, however sweet the wine itself may be, it must become bitter through the means by which it comes to me. In truth, if a man had completely abandoned everything that is his, he would be so surrounded by God that no created thing could move him unless it had first moved God. Whatever would reach him would first have to reach him by means of God. So it will find its savor from God, and will become godlike. However great a sorrow may be, if it comes by means of God, then God has suffered it first. Yes, by that truth which is God, however little a sorrow may be that comes upon a man, as he places it in God, be it some displeasure or contradiction, it moves God immeasurably more than the man; and if it is grievous for the man, it is more so for God. But God suffers it for the sake of some good thing that He has provided in it for you, and if you will suffer the sorrow that God suffers and that comes to you through Him, it will easily become godlike: contempt, it may be, just as respect; bitterness just as sweetness; the greatest darkness just as the brightest light. It takes all its savor from God, and it becomes godlike, for it forms itself wholly in His image, whatever comes to this man, for this is all his intention and nothing else has savor for him; and in this he accepts God in all bitterness, just as in the greatest sweetness"<br />
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Master Eckhart might seem confusing here, but what he is trying to say that the man who has abandoned himself to God cannot be moved by any of the temptations or evils of the world because anything that arouses the spirit of the man looking for God's will can only be aroused by something that God has given to His servant to enjoy. That is when we seek the will of God and we discern His will in a certain matter the thing that we are doing will be pure joy because we take our joy in only doing the will of God, which is Eckhart's definition of a good will. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God! Indeed those who humble themselves to become destitute in their desires begging only for the will of God are those who will receive God's will and kingdom! In fact all of the <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02371a.htm">Beatitudes</a> match this disposition. I take it that when God grieves first for our sorrows it is that Jesus as a man who took up our sins upon the cross unites Himself to each and every soul as the Man of Sorrow, experiencing the grief and sorrow for all of our mishaps, sins, and unfortunate occurrences.<br />
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"The light shines in darkness, and there man perceives it. What is the use to people of teaching or lights unless they use it? If they are in darkness or sorrow, they ought to see the light."<br />
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"Yes, the more that we possess ourselves, the less do we possess. The man who has gone out of what is his own could never fail to find God in anything he did. But if it happened that a man did or said something amiss, or engaged in matters that were wrong, then God, since He was in the undertaking at the beginning, must of necessity take this harm upon Him, too; but you must understand no circumstances abandon your undertaking because of this. We find an example of this in Saint Bernard and in many other saints. One can never in this life be wholly free from much mishaps. But because some weeds happen among the corn, one should not for that reason throw away the good corn. Indeed, if it were well with a man and he knew himself well with God, all such sorrows and mishaps would turn into his great profit. For to good men all things come to good, as Saint Paul says (Romans 8:28): and, as Saint Augustine says: Yes, even sins."<br />
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When Eckhart speaks about a man failing when He takes God's will as His own, is that God is hurt by His servant's fall though it is not on account of Him doing evil but permitting a fall to His servant so as to bring about a greater good. He permits a fall so as to increase our humility, our observance, heighten our love, or bring our heart to repentance regarding forgotten sins and faults.<br />
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Oh Lord liberate me of my sins, through me at Your mercy and will. May I abandon my ways and live in you. Make me anew You who takes all things unto Himself to renew and refresh. Fount of mercy and everlasting life grant Your grace and cast Your merciful gaze upon me, your unworthy servant. Take me by Thy Providence and lead me upon the Way.Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-5956969974712173612012-09-06T21:28:00.003-05:002012-09-10T22:04:47.629-05:00Shout out to blog followersHi blog followers!<br />
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According to my records I've got 3 blog followers and I'd like to make a shout out to you all. Thank you all for supporting my blog and coming to read it from time to time.<br />
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I'd just like to write something nice about y'all and perhaps get you all networked too just in case anybody wanted to talk.<br />
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1. "Pro una fides" who's blog is: <a href="http://prounafides.blogspot.com/">http://prounafides.blogspot.com/</a><br />
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From my correspondences with the young man who is running this blog, he is well-meaning and has good intentions. His blog is an apologetics blog, which means he has probably got a lot of energy. I used to be in Catholic apologetics at one time but grew tired from it because it was sapping my relationship with others and with God. Many blessings to you sir for taking up a much needed and tiring job.<br />
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2. "Jes" who's blog is: <a href="http://dayb4august.blogspot.com/">http://dayb4august.blogspot.com/</a><br />
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Me and "Jes" are personal friends and his blog is simply a personal blog and journal of sorts. He's taking it easy and I admire his efforts to try and write his thoughts down. I wish I had the fortitude to write reflections about my day constantly. Even when I spend hours alone with my thoughts the next day I wish I had better access to them. I've a memory that I wish was much better.<br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: inherit;">3. <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Simparanecromenus who's blog is: </span><a href="http://pravoslavnikatolik.blogspot.com/">http://pravoslavnikatolik.blogspot.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br />
</span> <span style="color: #333333;">I do not know Simparanecromenus as well as the other two, but joyfully his blog's name is Orthodox Catholic and it seems also to be a blog devoted to showcasing the writings of St. Augustine. I think his blog is probably far superior to my own in terms of beauty though it seems he doesn't have that many posts out yet. If I knew Serbian better I might spend more time on it. I did see once, his comment on another blog discussing talks about unity between the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches regarding the person and natures of Jesus. He is certainly a knowledgeable person I can tell. Perhaps one day we'll get to all talk a bit.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Moreover, I'd like to ask my 3 blog followers what they're interested in reading about from my blog. I've got a full plate on my hands this coming Fall quarter at college so I might not be able to post as much. Please let me know if there's something you'd love to hear or read about in the coming days, whether it be Augustinian or not.</span>Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-71866210047683444952012-09-02T16:52:00.002-05:002012-09-02T19:19:52.900-05:00St. Augustine brief quotes on Mary's Dormition and AssumptionHi there, I'd like to put up two quotes on the Our Lady's Dormition from St. Augustine. I found this from a certain Deacon on Facebook. I'm not sure if he was Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, or otherwise. But here they are!<br />
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"For being born of a mother who, although she conceived without being touched by man and always remained thus untouched, in virginity conceiving, in virginity bringing forth, in virginity dying, had nevertheless been espoused to a handicraftsman, He extinguished all the inflated pride of carnal nobility" (<a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1303.htm">On the Catechizing of the Uninstructed</a>)<br />
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This quote comes from a catechesis of St. Augustine's given to a certain Deogratias (perhaps the Deacon Deogratias at Carthage addressed in 406 AD by St. Augustine in his letters) on how to teach the Nicene Creed. St. Augustine goes into a large array of talks about the Catholic faith, affirming Mary's perpetual virginity, and dormition (her dying). It's thought by those at Augnet.org that this work was written in 403 AD. I've not yet read this document but it looks promising. Not to be confused with <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1307.htm">On the Creed: A sermon to Catechumens</a>.<br />
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The second quote comes from the <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1701008.htm">Tractates on the Gospel of John in the parts on John 2:1-4</a>.<br />
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St. Augustine goes to explain John 2:1-4 where the St. John under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit says that the mother of Jesus was present with Jesus at the wedding of Cana, but Jesus mysteriously calls Mary woman instead of mother. St. Augustine is able to provide multiple accounts where the Gospels speak of Mary as the mother of Jesus, but he is able to speak to the manner in which Jesus is man and God with great oratorial and exegetical skill. Anyway the phrase is here:<br />
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"There was there near the cross the mother of Jesus; and Jesus says to His mother, Woman, behold your son! And to the disciple, Behold your mother! He commends His mother to the care of the disciple; commends His mother, as about to die before her, and to rise again before her death."<br />
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Well. There you have it. St. Augustine who believed that Mary was totally sinless (said in On Grace and Nature, I believe) died prior to her Assumption into Heaven. Jesus did not have original sin but He died. So then the Virgin Mary who did not have original sin, fell asleep in the Lord, died, and was raised body and soul into Heaven by God.Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-39212556909090818262012-09-02T16:22:00.008-05:002013-06-03T07:32:34.616-05:00A sketch of a theological view of the Ave Maria (Hail Mary) prayer<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">14th century Byzantine Annunciation<br />
( <span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: start;">Evangelismos</span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: start;">) </i>icon</td></tr>
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This small exposition of mine was drawn up to help me to better reflect on how to teach the Hail Mary prayer, but it got a bit out of hand and there is certainly more content here than just a 4th grade level reflection, which I intended at the outset. All in all, much of my reflection echoes, I think, St. Thomas of Aquinas' reflection on the Hail Mary prayer which did not have the last part of the prayer we know today (<i>Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death</i>). You can find his reflection <a href="http://www.josephkenny.joyeurs.com/CDtexts/AveMaria.htm">here</a>.</div>
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The prayer Hail Mary is a centuries-old and traditional Catholic prayer that in some of its oldest forms is written without the clause, <i>Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.</i> In light of this, we should understand that the prayer itself comes from both the Holy Scriptures and from the light of Catholic Tradition. The full length of the prayer reads:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.</i></div>
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<b>Our Lady Queen of Angels, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, and blessed art thou amongst women<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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The prayer begins <i>Hail Mary, full of grace</i> <i>the Lord is with you, blessed art thou amongst women </i>taken nearly verbatim from Luke 1: 28, “<i>And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you: blessed are you among women.</i>” This was recited by the archangel St. Gabriel who came as a messenger from the Lord to come and ask Mary to become the mother of Jesus. First we note that St. Gabriel says, Hail! to our Lady, which is very curious indeed. In Psalm 8:5-6, the psalmist notes to us that mankind is made a little less than angels and questions why it is that God goes to such limits to talk to people who are so far below Him as opposed to angels who are much closer to God [1]. But here we see that St. Gabriel the archangel is proclaiming Hail to our Lady, showing that she had a place in God’s heart that was very special and that even he an angel was not superior to, or above, the Virgin Mary.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>“I am the Immaculate Conception”, Mary’s sinlessness, looking further into the first few phrases’ meaning<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Next we read how she was full of grace and that the Lord is with her. This is what it means then to be full of grace, which is to say that the Lord is always with us. Now the Lord is always with every person and yet not every person is full of grace, but to those who are holy God is with them in a special way. St. Paul writes in 1<sup>st</sup> Corinthians 3, that the bodies of true Christians are temples for the Holy Spirit. We ought to consider what kind of a temple the Virgin Mary’s body and soul must have been to not only have the Lord with her in her heart and soul, but soon later in her very body. Truly she was the most blessed women of all!<o:p></o:p></div>
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We can get yet further with this reading however, an archangel who was full of grace and the presence of God said with full justice Hail to our Lady and proclaimed her full of grace. You can just imagine St. Gabriel bowing with humility to a woman. What an awesome sight it must have been! However, this also points to the manner in which St. Gabriel was bowing to how much holier she was than even him, because St. John the Apostle tried to bow down to an angel in the Book of Revelations but the angel did not even think of bowing to St. John the Apostle. Mary was much holier than an angel and much holier than St. John the Apostle, but she was not proud of her accomplishment, recognizing that everything she had was from the Lord’s doing and not her own. That is why she says, “…<i>Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it done to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her.”<b> </b></i>(Luke 1: 38) and what is contained in the magnificat [2].<o:p></o:p></div>
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To be holier than an angel indicates to the Christian believer that Mary must have been sinless in all of her life, and pure from the moment of her existence. Before I go more into why we can know this from this instance I will say why an angel bowing to Mary shows that she is holier than him. An angel bowed in justice to Mary’s excellence, proclaiming Hail, and the reason why Mary is holier than the angel is on account of how many more tests Mary had to occur and succeeded than the angel. Now if both were made without sin and the angel only had to say one yes to God before going to Heaven, how much more is Mary holier than the angel who had to endure years and years of suffering patiently and saying yes to God in so many more instances before being called up into Heaven? In the traditional Catholic sense we can say that Mary merited a greater reward than the angel because she underwent more trials and was successful in her affirmation of the faith, and so that is why she is holier than the angel. Now the angel would not have bowed and said Hail if Mary had any sin in her, because angels do not sin, and sin takes us further away from God and so it wouldn’t be just or right for the angel to be honoring and bowing to someone farther away from God than him. The angel also has what’s called the beatific vision, meaning the vision of God Himself and through that he also knew what was going to happen in the future, and so if Mary had or would ever sin St. Gabriel would know that she was not pure. However, St. Gabriel saw no sin in her past or her future and recognizing her as the Queen of Angels he bowed and said Hail, full of grace, as if Mary’s name itself was not Mary but instead <i>you who should be addressed only as full of grace</i>. This is why in the visions of Lourdes [3] our Lady calls herself the Immaculate Conception, preserving the angel’s naming her as <i>full of grace</i>, indicating that her whole life was grace, just as the Immaculate Conception dogma shows that Mary is full of grace from conception until eternity. [4]<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b>The name of Mary and her pondering the response of St. Gabriel, continued search of the meaning of the first parts of the prayer<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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After St. Gabriel addressed Mary, Mary was troubled: <i>Luke 1:29</i>, “<i>Who having heard, was troubled at his saying and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be.</i>” Why was she troubled? She did not know why an angel was coming to visit her yet, perhaps, and blushed at the title that St. Gabriel gave her on account of her humility, perhaps. She pondered what sort of a salutation was given to her by the angel, and so she was given by the angel an opportunity to not only conceive the Son of God but to grow in grace, perhaps. That is just as St. Simeon prophecy of Mary and Jesus’ fate in Luke 2 was kept in her heart, this greeting by the angel was kept in her heart too in which she would reflect and thank the Lord for His works.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Then, the angel said “<i>30</i>…<i>Fear not, Mary, for you have found grace with God.” (Luke 1:30)<b><o:p></o:p></b></i></div>
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Now this is interesting because first the angel had called Mary by the name full of grace, but now noticing how humble Our Lady was he decides to calm her by calling her by her name Mary. Perhaps Mary was still growing in faith and holiness and so her response was sort of like saying, “We should wait to the end to proclaim me blessed because I still hope and rely totally on the Lord to lead me, not on my own sense of self-worth”, to which the angel affirms that this is the humblest way of replying when someone calls us holy, and then seeing that it was appropriate to then call Mary by her own name instead. The angel did not make a mistake however in calling Mary by the name, full of grace, but rather was giving her a small prophecy of her holiness, which as we saw she pondered in her heart, wondering what the Lord was telling her through the angel.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Blessed is the Fruit of Thy Womb, Jesus<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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The angel continues:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>31 Behold you shall conceive in your womb and shall bring forth a son: and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father: and he shall reign in the house of Jacob forever. 33 And of his kingdom there shall be no end.</i> (<i>Luke 1:31-33)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Next, St. Gabriel recognizing the holiness of Mary knows that she will always do the will of God and that she will conceive the Creator and Savior of the World. She shall bring forth a Son, named Jesus, or God saves, literally Him being God who saves. Jesus as we know is the Son of the Father, the Most High. His Kingdom shall have no end. Mary had freedom as we do to say yes or no to God’s wishes, but as we become holier and holier we recognize that we in fact lose our freedom when we commit evil, and instead begin to live in what St. Paul calls the bondage of sin [and guilt]. This is how St. Gabriel knew Mary would say yes to God, because she was so holy that saying no to God would have been unthinkable to her!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>“And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man?” (Luke 1:34)</i> Now reading this we shouldn’t think that Mary was like St. Zachariah who doubted an angel who came to him and said that he would have a son by St. Elizabeth because they were having problems having children. St. Zachariah could not speak for months as punishment for his doubt of the angel who came to him. Mary on the other hand is saying, How shall this be done to me, because I have not yet been with a man, not as if saying that what the angel is saying is crazy, but rather it is more enthusiastic, already willing to say yes to God but asking how it can be done. She jumped at the idea of conceiving the Son of God! She did not even doubt for a second, knowing that “<i>no word shall be impossible with God</i>” (Luke 1:37), as St. Elizabeth proclaims under the influence of the Holy Spirit later on when Mary visits her months later.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Next the angel replies, “<i>And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon you and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God.</i>” (Luke 1:35)<o:p></o:p></div>
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This is a very important verse. We hear from the Nicene Creed that the Son of God was made incarnate by the power of the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament whenever God showed His power He did so under cloud and shadow, and this was the sign of His ultimate Holiness and Sanctity. When Moses was on Mount Sinai speaking with God, we read, “<i>16</i> <i>And the glory of the Lord dwelt upon Sinai, covering it with a cloud six days: and the seventh day he called him out of the midst of the cloud. 17 And the sight of the glory of the Lord, was like a burning fire upon the top of the mount, in the eyes of the children of Israel. 18 And Moses entering into the midst of the cloud, went up into the mountain: And he was there forty days and forty nights.</i>” (Exodus 24:16-18) Just as well we read in the New Testament that when Jesus reveals His divinity in prayer, “<i>And there was a cloud overshadowing them. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying: This is my most beloved Son. Hear him.</i>” (Mark 9:6) . And finally we see that the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament which carried some of the manna from the desert, the Ten Commandments, and the staff of Aaron (the sign of the old priesthood) was covered by God’s glory in cloud and shadow: <i>18 At the commandment of the Lord they marched, and at his commandment they pitched the tabernacle. All the days that the cloud abode over the tabernacle, they remained in the same place: (Numbers 9:18)</i> The Holy Spirit lifted Mary into shadow and cloud, and as we see God makes use of the cloud and shadow to make known His glory and Power.<o:p></o:p></div>
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God’s glory and power always shows His holiness and Mary is taken up into the cloud and shadow for the express purpose of conceiving the Son of God. In the Old Testament the Ark of the Covenant receives similar cloud and shadow, and it holds the holiest items of Israel. The Ark of the Covenant guaranteed Israel’s victory in many battles. However, we see something new, that is Christ becoming flesh to become the conqueror of the entire world. And He chose to dwell in Mary, whose name is Full of Grace. In the Old Testament, God was very specific about how He wanted the Ark of the Covenant to be made, because it would bear His presence. Now Mary carries God in a totally new way. She carries Jesus who is the Son of the Father, and we should not be amazed that He prepared her with even greater care than the Ark of the Covenant. Her name was Full of Grace! Is there any better preparation than for God to saturate her life with His presence at every moment, even the moment of her conception!?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>This is the end of the original prayer, but our prayer continues</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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The original prayer seems to have ended with the reflection above, but the modern prayer continues: <i>Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Now we all understand that the saints pray for us, but Mary is the mother of God, because she is the mother of Jesus. On account of her holiness and closeness to God she has a special intercession before God. She is the holiest and most just of all creatures under God, and that is why God delights to have her intercession be more powerful than all of the saints and angels. Mary’s whole identity is wrapped in Jesus’ life and being, and that is how God intended it. That is why He delights to answer her prayers, because when we see that her intercession was successful we are being told by God, see my handmaiden, follow her example, become wrapped and consumed in My Son’s Flesh and Blood. Offer up your own body as a manner of offering like she did! See she followed, follow her, and become like Him! <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Notes:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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[1] Psalm 8: 5-6, “<b><i>5 What is man, that you are mindful of him? Or the son of man, that you visit him? 6 You have made him a little less than the angels, you have crowned him with glory and honour:”<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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[2] The magnificat is a traditional word used to convey the instance when the Virgin Mary prays and glorifies the Lord for the revelation that St. Elizabeth is given: Luke 1:46-55, <b><i>“46 And Mary saidMy soul does magnify the Lord. 47 And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour. 48 Because he has regarded the humility of his handmaid: for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. 49 Because he that is mighty has done great things to me: and holy is his name. 50 And his mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear him. 51 He has showed might in his arm: he has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. 52 He has put down the mighty from their seat and has exalted the humble. 53 He has filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he has sent empty away. 54 He has received Israel his servant, being mindful of his mercy. 55 As he spoke to our fathers: to Abraham and to his seed for ever.” <o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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[3] An apparition of the Virgin Mary in a small town, Lourdes, France. <o:p></o:p></div>
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See NewAdevent: <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09389b.htm">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09389b.htm</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"> </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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[4] St. Thomas of Aquinas in his Exposition on the Angelic Salutation (Expositio Salutationis angelicae) writing on the three parts of the original prayer says: “The Church adds the third part, that is, “Mary,” because the Angel did not say, “Hail, Mary,” but “Hail, full of grace.” But, as we shall see, this name, “Mary,” according to its meaning agrees with the words of the Angels.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Much of the teaching in this reflection is present in St. Thomas’ exposition, though the parts referring to the Immaculate Conception are denied by him to which I think his position weakens the extent to which an angel ought to salute Mary as above him in grace and honor.<o:p></o:p></div>
Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-35600213584979246442012-08-28T23:28:00.010-05:002012-08-28T23:49:05.802-05:00Augustine: The Decline of the Roman Empire<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://api.ning.com/files/tPDiT9Azgx9CO7UnjAco68LcBj9teVIOKwu7NUwCHxyJtMr93CTOEKf7t7ooiitqRoZbjHM2wifG0DNYe5NCugWo5v22o1hd/san_agustin_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://api.ning.com/files/tPDiT9Azgx9CO7UnjAco68LcBj9teVIOKwu7NUwCHxyJtMr93CTOEKf7t7ooiitqRoZbjHM2wifG0DNYe5NCugWo5v22o1hd/san_agustin_poster.jpg" width="141" /></a></div>Hi all you Augustinians out there! I thought I would write a brief post regarding a film that is being pushed around, called "Restless Heart" by Ignatius Press. It's a film about St. Augustine, which was directed by Christian Duguay, a Canadian director, who filmed the television movie, "Augustine: The Decline of the Roman Empire", for Italian television. It was filmed as a two part mini series and has been released with English and Spanish dub. The film was filmed in Tunisia, near Hippo-Regius, or so I read.<br />
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It's a great film. And I highly recommend it. It dramatizes some aspects of St. Augustine's life and stays pretty faithful to the autobiographical and historical information that we have, though perhaps there is some element of creativity. I'll try and write a full review of the film as I watch it again through Youtube.<br />
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<b>The film itself (in Spanish):</b><br />
Sorry the audio is a bit off on some of these films. The version I saw wasn't as distracting :-(.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>Augustine: The decline of the Roman Empire (part 1) [Spanish]</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ye8RozKc3FE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe> <b> </b>
<div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">This</div><div style="text-align: left;">is</div><div style="text-align: left;">filler</div><div style="text-align: left;">space</div><div style="text-align: left;">because</div><div style="text-align: left;">Blogger</div><div style="text-align: left;">is</div><div style="text-align: left;">weird</div></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Augustine: The Decline of the Roman Empire (part 2) [in Spanish]</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/102yZ8N0KI8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b> </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Movie Review:</b> <b> </b> [Coming soon!]</div><div style="text-align: left;"><b> </b></div>Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-59084349813602055082012-08-28T00:45:00.002-05:002013-05-12T02:31:01.120-05:00Why did St. Augustine write the Confessions and what does it tell us about him?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The intention of this article herein is to explore St. Augustine's purpose, motive, and desires in writing the thirteen books of his famous <i>Confessions</i>. Why write about his own life, his own sins, his own coming to grace, and what sort of a message is St. Augustine trying to make in his thirteen books? I will strive to explore what the events were in St. Augustine's life that might have spurred him on to write his <i>Confessions</i>, possible motives for why St. Augustine might have written this book, what sort of a book the <i>Confessions </i>is, and what the contents of St. Augustine's <i>Confessions</i> can tell us about him. The other half of this article will discuss another viewpoint on the <i>Confessions</i> and strive to look closely to what place <i>Confessions </i>has in Christian literature and in Christian piety.<br />
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<b><u>What was St. Augustine doing when he was writing his <i>Confessions</i><o:p></o:p></u></b></div>
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I’m writing this article as an exploration of St. Augustine’s possible motives for writing the spiritual classic, <i>The Confessions in Thirteen Books</i>, or more simply the <i>Confessions</i>. <i>Confessions </i>was begun around 397 AD and published near 401 AD, so about one or two years after St. Augustine had become a bishop, taking Valerius’ place as the bishop of Hippo. The article itself will cover what St. Augustine intended when he wrote the <i>Confessions</i>, what it meant in the context of his world and ministry as a bishop, where else we might find a prototype for the kind of work that he completed in the spiritual classic, what the book can teach us about St. Augustine and about the spiritual life, and finally a half of the document will go to answering some negative comments made by an Eastern Orthodox priest regarding St. Augustine's <i>Confessions</i> and its legacy in Western Christendom.<br />
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So to begin with I would like to provide more background to St. Augustine's <i>Confessions </i>by noting some of the works that St. Augustine was up to during the period between 397 AD and 401 AD when the work was being written,<i> </i>I will list them below. This list will helps set down what sort of works and interests St. Augustine had in mind before he began writing the <i>Confessions</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->[Just for reference] Conversion to Christianity and resting with friends at the Cassiciacum. There are various philosophical/religious documents that come out of this reflection (386 AD). <o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->Baptism by St. Ambrose, 387 AD<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“On the Catholic and the Manichaean Way of Life”, 387-388 AD, written as a lay person.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“On Genesis, Against the Manicheans”, 388-389 AD, written as a lay person.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“On True Religion”, 389-391 AD<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->St. Augustine is ordained as a priest in 391 AD<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“On the usefulness of believing”, 391 AD<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“On the two souls, against the Manicheans”, 392-393 AD<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis.” (unfinished), 393-394 AD<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“Commentary on Galatians” and “Unfinished Commentary on Romans”, 394-395 AD<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“On Continence” and “On Lying”, 395 AD, possibly written during his beginning his episcopacy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“On Christian Teaching” (396-420 AD) and “Exposition on the Psalms” (396-420 AD)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“Against the Basic Letter of the Manichees”, 397 AD, written as a bishop<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Against Faustus the Manichee” and “Against Felix the Manichee” (397-398 AD), written as a bishop<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“On the Nature of the Good” and “Against Secundinus the Manichee”, 399 AD<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“On the Trinity” (399 AD to 419 AD)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“On the work of Monks” (400 AD)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“On the Inquiries of Januarius” (400 AD) [Letters 54 and 55 regarding the Eucharistic fast]<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“On Baptism Against the Donatists” (400-401 AD)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“On the Good of Marriage” and “On Holy Virginity” (401 AD)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->“The Literal Interpretation of Genesis” (401-415 AD)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]-->Tremendous amounts of sermons and letters are completed just as well.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So as you can see, St. Augustine’s <i>Confessions</i> were written during a furor of activity as shepherd of the Catholics in Hippo. St. Augustine at the start of his priesthood and episcopacy seems to have focused very much on countering the Manicheans in his community or abroad in Africa, since he had belonged to the Manichean community for some ten years of his life. Much of those ten years of his life he had spent as a persecutor of Catholics, and it was a big surprise for many African Catholics to see such a person come to life by the grace of God. They would have doubted his sincerity. Another interesting thing in this period is that St. Augustine began a number of other works devoted to both the monks that he was an abbot over (On Lying, On the work of Monks, Commentary on Galatians, among some letters as well) and the laity whom he was charged with caring for (Homilies on the Sermon on the Mount [not listed], Exposition of the Psalms, works on the Eucharistic fast, works on marriage and virginity, various sermons and letters, etc.). Near the end of his completion of <i>Confessions</i> St. Augustine begins a series of larger works against the Donatists, but not to be confused or mislead here, St. Augustine had actually been writing letters to Donatist bishops since very near the beginning of his priesthood, trying to convince them to end their schism. It seems that St. Augustine’s attempt at completing his commentary on Genesis might also factor into how <i>Confessions </i>ends with a reflection on God’s work in Creation and on the soul.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>What is a Confession?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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In this brief segment before I try to dive into why St. Augustine wrote his <i>Confessions</i> I hope will try to bring to mind what it means in Latin to confess something. I admit that I do not know very much Latin, and so what I write will be what I can glean from the resources available to me. Confiteor is the Latin verb to confess, to acknowledge and profess something, to admit, to avow, or to own up to something, and so when St. Augustine writes his <i>Confessions</i> we must understand that it isn’t simply St. Augustine confessing all of his sins to us as if the center of <i>Confessions </i>is actually St. Augustine as a man, himself, but rather the work is actually both a confession of sins, but more truthfully it is an avowal and professing of the mercy of God and His Providence which took care of him in spite of himself. In many of the psalms as a friend of mine noted, use the verb confess to mean to praise God, such as psalm 9/10, “<b><i>Confitebor tibi, Domine, in toto corde meo</i>, “I will confess/praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart.”</b>. St. Augustine had spent thirty years of his life lost from God and his book is a manner of reflection on those thirty years wandering and how God saved him through those means. St. Augustine’s way was twisted by his own design, and God made it straight, slowly and painfully.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As the Catholic Encyclopedia writes, “The Confessions (towards A.D. 400) are, in the Biblical sense of the word confiteri, not an avowal or an account, but the praise of a soul that admires the action of God within itself.” (Portalié, E.(1907).Works of St. Augustine of Hippo. The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.</div>
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<b>Why did St. Augustine write <i>Confessions</i>?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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St. Augustine’s <i>Confessions </i>are so popular that if anybody has ever read anything of St. Augustine it is likely to be this book. But why did St. Augustine even write this book? How did he find the time to write an entire reflection of his life in the view of God’s condescending mercy and grace? There are several theories as to the purpose of <i>Confessions</i>, and it is especially popular in academic scholarship to understand and write about this book. I’ve already hinted at a few theories but I will put forth what some scholars believe to be some of the motivating factors for why St. Augustine wrote this book.<o:p></o:p></div>
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James Joseph O’Donnell a classics scholar at Georgetown University writes in his book, “Augustine, A New Biography” (2005, ISBN: ISBN 0-06-053537-7) that he believes that St. Augustine’s <i>Confessions</i> were not written really for any practical purpose that is oriented towards others, at least not primarily, but the book’s main address is towards God. He writes, “…human readers are not only disregarded, but seated in the balcony and ignored by the performer on stage…”. There is some merit to this opinion in that it follows very closely to the text in which St. Augustine in almost every page reflects and writes a question to God or writes his own speech towards God. Every reflection of his life is coupled with a reflection on God. His infancy (which he doesn’t remember but writes about) is coupled with reflections on the Psalms and with his thoughts about his own caprice and waywardness in that stage of life, his childhood is filled with remarks at missed opportunities and grief over his faithlessness to God in all of his childhood sins, regret fills his heart when he speaks about his fall from grace during his adolescence as he began sins of lust and avarice and deep pride, and simply every aspect of his life is then coupled with an earnest praise and yearning for God. St. Augustine writes in his Retractationes (Review of Books is a better translation than Retractions) written around 427 AD regarding his view of <i>Confessions </i>after reading it again: “The thirteen books of my Confessions, which praise the just and good God in all my evil and good ways, and stir up towards him the mind and feelings of men. As far as I am concerned, they had this effect on me when I wrote them, and they still do when I read them. What others think is their own business: I know at least that many of the brethren have enjoyed them and still do.” (Retractions II. 6, 1) Beyond this little else is said or corrected in his Retractationes on <i>Confessions</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It might be argued that St. Augustine’s words here in Retraction Book II remark that the book is written to stir up others to reflect on their own lives and the way that God has worked in their own life, but I think this is too simplistic of a reading. The book was written for his soul and for God it seems, as a way for spiritual reflection. To that effect the manner in which the saint read them repeatedly brought him a special appreciation for God’s love and mercy and just as well a feeling of repentance for his current failures. What others thought of his life was their own business says the seventy-three year old man. He is glad that others found use in his reflections, but I think the book remains primarily as a reflection for him. Remember, that in the Solliloquies that St. Augustine set out to know nothing but God and his soul, and <i>Confessions</i> is the outcome of such reflections which came only some five or six years after endeavoring and never quite completing Solliloquies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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However, we can state more reasons for why <i>Confessions</i> was written. Henry Chadwick, a certain scholar of ecclesiastical history, brought to attention the theory that <i>Confessions</i> was written as a way to convince many of the tumultuous ecclesiastic culture of Africa that his conversion was sincere. There is some merit to this theory as well, given that St. Augustine spent 10 years as a Manichean, much in the same way that St. Paul spent quite some time as a Pharisee hunting down and killing Christians. Looking to the works of St. Augustine you can see that St. Augustine’s earlier works were almost singularly focused on upending the Manicheans, perhaps as part of his desire to separate himself from the sect or more likely as a way of devoting himself to Christ. You can also see from his letters and later works that St. Augustine was working to end the Donatist schism and there is quite some work that he has actually put into this before his completion of <i>Confessions</i>. I suspect that a large push for <i>Confessions</i> was either Catholics who needed an answer to the Donatist jeering that their bishop was a grave sinner (remember the Donatists were in some part legalistic and did not forgive sins easily) or St. Augustine who did not have much credibility from the Donatists who did not know him.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I think there are some reasons however to place this reason as a secondary one. There are many, many scholars who find anti-Manichean and anti-Donatist themes and references present in <i>Confessions</i> and it does not surprise me at all that these are present, but one has to remember that St. Augustine was already building some renown as a faithful convert. By the time he was writing <i>Confessions</i> it had been about ten years since his baptism, but perhaps only one or two years as a known bishop. The African Catholic bishops may have been suspicious but in some respect St. Augustine’s speech at a council, De Fide et Symbolo (On the Faith and the Creed), regarding the orthodoxy of the Nicene Creed , made in 393 AD. The speech was well regarded by the large council of the African bishops. The African bishops even allowed St. Augustine as a priest to preach in Hippo in light of Valerius’ (the bishop at the time) very broken Latin. And so any pushback from Catholics to write the <i>Confessions</i> is I think unlikely, or indiscernible in modern times.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The way in which <i>Confessions </i>is written just as well doesn’t seem to be an apologetic meant to be circulated among those who are not Catholic either. The tome is simply too personal and more concerned with God’s majesty and mercy towards a very, very pitiable sinner for us to consider it to be a sort of response to Donatist and Manichean troublemakers. It’s possible that the humility (and feelings of personal humiliation at times) expressed throughout the book are a way to show the Donatists that he was once a sinner but now a changed man, but this sort of a view contorts the book as if it were intended for a Donatist audience that is never courted or really addressed in the book. What about the idea that <i>Confessions</i> is written in response to the Manicheans?<o:p></o:p></div>
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This idea that the book is written as a response to Manicheans might have some merit too since the last three books of St. Augustine’s Confessions go off on a tangent to explore some questions on Genesis. St. Augustine was also working on an exegesis and commentary on Genesis at the time, but I think the text itself works better as a reflection on God’s majesty, immensity, and glory in the act of not only Creation, but the renewed creation made in St. Augustine’s heart. He was looking for the truth of man’s heart, which only truly rests in the Lord and it would make some sense for his reflections on memory and on man’s creation in Genesis to fit in with his entire work on human anthropology as only being able to be solved in God’s love. Furthermore, we must recognize that St. Augustine was working on his De Trinitate (On the Trinity) and so reflections on what it means to be made in the divine image of God is a very important theme not only to that book, but to his own book. How was Augustine, the man, the sinner, made in the image of God? How was he restored? How is he being restored?<o:p></o:p></div>
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The last reason and motive perhaps was that St. Paulinus of Nola had been introduced to St. Augustine’s works from St. Alypius (St. Augustine’s beloved friend who became a Manichean with him and then a convert with him). It is suggested that St. Augustine’s response to St. Paulinus’ asking him for an account of his conversion and ascetical life was the <i>Confessions</i>. This has a good base to it and I think this would have likely been one of St. Augustine’s motivators to write <i>Confessions</i> but <i>Confessions</i> is never even addressed to Paulinus with a greeting of any sort which is common in works addressed to others, at least in typical Roman custom.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ultimately, I think the best conclusion is that <i>Confessions </i>is the combination of a reflection on his own soul with all of the flurry with which his episcopal life had brought upon him. He was reading the works of St. Paul very much and God’s mercy on sinners was an important theme that resonated with St. Augustine for the rest of his life. <i>Confessions </i>is more honestly about God than it is about St. Augustine, though it is written from his perspective and his honest emotions towards God, the ultimate goal of the books is for the reader to look up at God.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>What sort of a book is <i>The Confessions</i>?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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I’ve already talked about what sort of book <i>Confessions </i>is in terms of its intended direction, but there is something different about St. Augustine’s literature. When St. Augustine was at the Cassiciacum reflecting on how to become a Christian he deliberately invented a new genre called the Soliloquies. The Soliloquies, St. Augustine notes in his Retractationes was his attempt at a new genre of writing in which he dialogues with himself. The genre was more or less a failure, as you can tell by asking people on the street if they havve ever heard of St. Augustine’s Soliloquies It’s a good early read of St. Augustine’s thought and self-dialogue (yes, not a monologue) but it’s not a magnum opus (great work). There are not too many autobiographies in late antiquity, but there are a few examples of Christians who spent some time on their own writing about themselves. St. Paul in the New Testament writes about himself, but as a way to show his divine credentials, as it is, and to introduce himself as an authority within the early Church. He often has to tell people that though he was not an original Apostle he was called in a special way to be a special Apostle. St. Hilary of Poitiers and St. Cyprian who are of a similar time period to St. Augustine did spend some time working on autobiographical statements, but certainly nothing of the size and length of St. Augustine’s own work. Perhaps the only other model to look to is Marcus Aurelius, the anti-Christian emperor some two centuries earlier, and his <i>Meditations</i>. Though <i>Meditations</i> bears some similarity in self-reflection to <i>Confessions</i>, it’s not very wide in scope and consists of small snippets mainly, so it’s tough to see <i>Meditations</i> as any sort of a Roman framework for St. Augustine. It does not seem that there is even that much evidence that Marcus Aurelius’ <i>Meditations</i> was ever read by St. Augustine, though it’s possible that he was familiar with the work as an Imperial orator prior to his conversion. I've not yet found any documentation that can point with any certainty that St. Augustine is familiar with this text.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A friend hinted to me that we might look to St. Patrick of Ireland (ca. 387 AD to ca. 460 AD) who wrote his Confessions in which he calls to mind his life and mission in a letter. In St. Patrick’s Confessions however he defends himself from the charges against him which seem to regard extortion with regard to the Sacraments, or heterodox actions. However in this regard he also discusses his mission of converting thousands and baptizing thousands and creating convents, etc. Never having read St. Patrick’s Confessions I cannot say how much of a model it could be in comparison to St. Augustine’s Confessions, but St. Patrick’s Confessions would have come far after St. Augustine even began his Confessions, much less before St. Patrick even became a priest.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There are of yet other models for autobiographies such as St. Gregory the Theologian (St. Gregory of Nazanzius) who wrote <i>De Vita Sua</i> as an autobiographical poem reflecting on his long hardships in fighting for Trinitarian orthodoxy and against Arianism. St. Gregory was, similar to St. Augustine, trained as an orator. St. Augustine had some exposure to philosophy and was a grammarian for some time, but St. Gregory was actually trained in philosophy and likely had a better handle on Greek philosophy than St. Augustine, which is not to say that St. Augustine is not a good philosopher (read Against the Academics and On the Teacher for a good preview). It takes quite some time to write an autobiography and it is curious that St. Gregory wrote at the end of his life and St. Augustine near the age of fifty years of age, both seemed to want to reflect on all that God gave them especially in a life in which most people didn’t even reach past forty or fifty. I am not particularly aware if St. Augustine was familiar with St. Gregory of Nazanzius’ work, though I recall that he does sometimes cite the Cappadocian Fathers in his De Trinitate and in his works against Julian of Eclanum, but he gets them confused at times, meaning his resources in Africa to their works must have been limited. Even at that it is a question of whether St. Augustine would have known of autobiographies in the East at the time of writing <i>Confessions</i>. It ultimately seems like it’s unlikely that St. Augustine knew of this sort of an autobiography and more or less wrote <i>Confessions </i>for himself and for God rather than following any sort of framework. St. Augustine as an experience writer had already tried before to write texts from without any prior frameworks and so it’s no surprise how original <i>Confessions</i> seems in the Western Roman Empire even if it has some fore-runners in the Roman Empire as a whole. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>What sort of character does the book have and what does it reveal about St. Augustine?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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My final remarks on <i>Confessions</i> is that it’s a book about God and the way in which for each and every one of us He seems to stoop down so low in humility just to raise us up out of our sins. St. Augustine says that God doesn’t stoop, but raises us up, and perhaps that is what his work is about, this raising up of a sinner by the grace and glory of God. It isn’t a book primarily about St. Augustine or a philosophical text about the self as some scholars like to say, it is the personal account and testament to God’s work.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As scholar, John C. Cavadini (at the University of Notre Dame), wrote in an article (<a href="http://secure.pdcnet.org/C12573FE00333F63/file/4BB29640BBC792CE852573FE0053478C/$FILE/augstudies_2007_0038_0001_0127_0140.pdf">The Darkest Enigma: Reconsidering the Self inAugustine’s Thought</a>) in Augustinian Studies, that there is no aspect of St. Augustine’s writings in which he deals with a thing such as the ‘self’. He writes of an interior and an exterior man, but a concept of ‘self’ as we currently think of it is not to be found in St. Augustine’s writings. Cavidini argues that in St. Augustine there is no language of self, one because Latin does not contain the proper structure to talk about self at least in the way that English can, and secondly because for St. Augustine there is no stability in what he calls the interior and exterior man. There is no concreteness to which St. Augustine speaks of the self in this manner, but rather a self-awareness is not the awareness of a deep, self-contained being that is who we are, but rather the awareness of a disturbing and dark enigma. This mystery is the mystery of man in which when he dives deep within himself he sees an emptiness, a frailness, a brokenness that does not end with a looking upon one’s self but rather ends in the awareness of God and of the need to cling to Him for our perfection and fulfillment. I think there is a certain congeniality to this statement by Cavadini in that St. Augustine loves to quote in various of his works the phrase from St. Paul that “<b><i>We see now through a mirror in an enigma, but then it will be face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12)</i></b> especially in the De Trinitate (On the Trinity) where St. Augustine reflects on man being the Divine image (which is, I think a second reflection on his writings of the Confessions).<o:p></o:p></div>
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The article is very interesting to say the least, and only having browsed it I think it is accurate to say that for St. Augustine the interior (deepest parts of the soul and mind) and exterior man (the senses and body) are to be united by faith, hope, and charity into the life of Christ who is our one Mediator. So then as St. Augustine writes, "<i>For of all those who have been made and fashioned of the Father, through the Son, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, none are gods according to nature</i>” (On the Faith and the Creed, 393 AD). But rather we are made like God by grace and become like gods by participation and not by nature. And just the same, “<i>For we are not reconciled unto Him except through that love in virtue of which we are also called sons: as we are no more under fear, like servants, because love, when it is made perfect, casts out fear; and [as] we have received the spirit of liberty, wherein we cry, Abba, Father. And inasmuch as, being reconciled and called back into friendship through love, we shall be able to become acquainted with all the secret things of God, for this reason it is said of the Holy Spirit that He shall lead you into all truth.</i>” (Ibid) This is the true mission of the self, to become totally wrapped up into God, just as St. Paul tells us to clothe ourselves in Christ. You can see this constantly in St. Augustine’s <i>Confessions</i> as he references himself and his condition ever to God’s Providence and to his heart’s thirst for God. In St. Augustine’s <i>Confessions</i> the aim and desire is to know nothing but God and the soul, and even then to have one’s whole being consumed in the Divine Love, which without every heart will be restless.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Below will be reproduced the first chapter of St. Augustine’s <i>Confessions</i>:</div>
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<b>St. Augustine’s Confessions, Book 1, Chapter 1:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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“1. Great are You, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Your power, and of Your wisdom there is no end. And man, being a part of Your creation, desires to praise You, man, who bears about with him his mortality, the witness of his sin, even the witness that You resist the proud, — yet man, this part of Your creation, desires to praise You. You move us to delight in praising You; for You have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in You. Lord, teach me to know and understand which of these should be first, to call on You, or to praise You; and likewise to know You, or to call upon You. But who is there that calls upon You without knowing You? For he that knows You not may call upon You as other than You are. Or perhaps we call on You that we may know You. <b><i>But how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe without a preacher? (Romans 10:14</i></b>) And those who seek the Lord shall praise Him. For those who seek shall find Him, (<b><i>cf Matthew 7:7)</i></b> and those who find Him shall praise Him. Let me seek You, Lord, in calling on You, and call on You in believing in You; for You have been preached unto us. O Lord, my faith calls on You—that faith which You have imparted to me, which You have breathed into me through the incarnation of Your Son, through the ministry of Your preacher.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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The reference in the grasp to know God is always to put God before man, and one can note how much more St. Augustine is concerned with God acting upon him rather than him reaching out to know God within himself.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Answers to Fr. Sergei and Seraphim<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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I would like to end this reflection on St. Augustine’s <i>Confessions</i> to address some concerns that a certain Seraphim, a Catholic, asked me to write a response to. This entire article was written with the aim of addressing an article written by Fr. Sergei Sveshnikov, an Orthodox priest. I do not want to disparage Father Sergei’s reputation or call into question anything regarding his character, but I only want to defend my patron saint from what I think might be a somewhat ungenerous article regarding the saint’s work. I do not want to disparage Fr. Sergei in any way at all in this part of my article, and in fact I hope I can show due reverence to his holy priesthood. May the Lord preserve me from speaking ill of a priest. I believe that Fr. Sergei’s critique of St. Augustine in his essay, ‘Blessed Augustine’s View of Self’ is a misunderstanding of St. Augustine’s <i>Confessions </i>and I hope to serve my patron saint well in trying to put St. Augustine in a good light. I hope that Fr. Sergei does not take this article as an attack or as denigrating his ministry or academics, but rather I only hope to insist that we all move forward towards the truth which we all must love dearly. May St. Augustine intercede on our behalf to discover him as he would have wanted us to know him, an honest man willing to concede his faults but always to work hard to know and love God.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Fr. Sergei writes at the outset of his essay that he doesn’t want to make too much of a statement about St. Augustine’s influence in the East. From what I’ve read, St. Augustine’s reputation as a saint was honored in the Eastern Churches on account of his reputation as being a saint in the Western Churches. Most readings of St. Augustine in the Eastern Churches, from what I’ve read, were during polemical spats between the Eastern and Western Churches during times of schisms in which St. Augustine was consulted as a Latin Father who taught certain things that sounded peculiar to the East. St. Augustine’s De Trinitate was not translated in to Greek until the 13<sup>th</sup> century by Maximos Planoudes, but ultimately most of St. Augustine’s works were not read in the East, which is simply another story in and of itself.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Onwards in Father Sergei’s essay he makes a comment regarding F.J. Sheed, a translator of the <i>Confessions</i>, which roughly speaking comes to say that St. Augustine was the only light in the Western Church for seven hundred years while the Eastern Church had many lights. I think this is an unfortunate statement since we were once one holy Church. To denigrate the Western Church’s pre-schism saints is to denigrate the Church itself, or so it seems to me. There were many saints who are revered even in the Eastern traditions like St. Bede the Venerable (672 AD- 735 AD), St. Gregory the Dialogist (540 AD – 604 AD), St. Leo the Great (391 AD -461 AD), St. Ambrose of Milan (330 AD-397 AD), and perhaps others as well. I was dismayed to have read this statement in Fr. Sergei’s essay, but perhaps this is because of a lack of acquaintance with the Latin Church and the writings of St. Augustine at large. I wonder if I am misinterpreting Fr. Sergei here on this occasion, however.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Father Sergei continues in his essay to remark from a source titled Augustine (a biography) that St. Augustine was cut off from the consensus of the Fathers, I would argue that this isn’t a very good way to really place St. Augustine into his African Catholic context. After all, St. Augustine’s views were influenced very strongly by that of St. Ambrose of Milan and many bishops came out of St. Augustine’s monasteries, where he taught as an abbot. St. Ambrose himself was conversant with much of the Roman Empire, East and West, so we should expect that he formed St. Augustine well. To say that St. Augustine and those influenced by him were somehow opposed or out of touch with the other Catholic saints and teachers of the Patristic age is too simplistic, I feel. St. Augustine often in his earlier writings and even in his later ones calls believers to hold to the ‘rule of faith’ or to look to the ‘universal teachings of the Catholic Church’. One can see this in his “On the Faith and Creed” where he references both Latin and Greek modes of reference to the Trinity or in his two books “Response to Inquiries of Januarius” where St. Augustine discusses the Eucharistic fast and the tradition of Easter. St. Augustine just as well was relatively active in African counsels which would have put him in constant contact with many African bishops who would have had much contact with other bishops. We ought to know that not all of St. Augustine’s views were kept, and try as he might to keep as close to Scripture and the teachings within it, we know that on some parts of his teachings some were scandalized.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Fr. Sergei also writes Latin theology and ecclesiology tend to be individualistic as opposed to the conciliarity of the Eastern churches, and that this may be a reflection of Augustinian thought. I don’t think this is a fair analysis of St. Augustine’s thought, intention, or aim in his writing the Confessions, which is Fr. Sergei’s main text to analyze in this essay so as to put himself forward as the focus of the text. The story is the story of a soul looking upwards and acknowledging God in every step of his life. I hope this can be seen in my posting of the first chapter of Book 1 of St. Augustine’s <i>Confessions</i>. It is the same story that each of us ought to tell as well. Life with God is always personal, and the love of God as the Carthusian monks say is so strong that it is the sort of intensity of love that one thinks is intended only for our one soul alone, that is to say God loves us especially as His special creation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s not always true that autobiographies in the East or West were apologetic in nature, though this is often the case. This is a comment made by Fr. Sergei. Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations weren’t apologetic nor polemical but invitations to himself to reflect upon. As for the further comments that Book 1 of St. Augustine’s <i>Confessions</i> and the rest of the book is polemic or defensive in nature, that may or not be true, though it does go to some aim to show the errors of the Manicheans and philosophers, I do not think this still puts St. Augustine at the forefront or poster-boy of the <i>Confessions</i>. He is the one through which we get to see St. Augustine’s experience with God, and through this, to see God more in our own lives. This introspection of the self is not unique to Latin Romans, so it does not seem defensible that St. Augustine’s <i>Confessions</i> invented or intended the individualistic self that we see in Locke and Descartes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Fr. Sergei states further that the manner in which other saints talk about themselves only to offer a defense of themselves and then immediately deflect away from themselves so as to focus on Christ is not consistent with St. Augustine’s <i>Confessions</i>. He then claims, “St. Augustine’s work, on the other hand, not only contains much larger autobiographical sections, but arguably has the intent of capturing the readers’ attention and keeping it focused on the very persona of the famous Bishop.” St. Augustine’s <i>Confessions</i> follows his life so as to show and magnify the work of God despite his sinfulness and wicked ways. He did not write the <i>Confessions</i> as I argued above, primarily for other people, but for himself to reflect on God’s special love for him, despite him being a sinner.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Fr. Sergei comments next, Just as the Sacrament of Confession had developed into a deeply private rite by the time St. Augustine ascended to an Episcopal throne, his <em>Confessions</em>are to be read in private: in a study, a monastic cell, an eremitic comfort of one’s favorite arm-chair, or, as was Margaret Miles’ choice, in the tight bonds of “pleasure and luxury” at a Mediterranean resort:” This, to my knowledge, is quite wrong. The Sacrament of Penance as a private relation between priest and confessor was not always the case, and in fact the Sacrament of Penance which brought back sinners prevented from taking Communion (ex-communicated) often involved a public penance, at least for the greater sins. St. Augustine writes, “If his sin is not only grievous in itself, but involves scandal given to others, and if the bishop judges that it will be useful to the Church, let not the sinner refuse to do penance in the sight of many or even of the people at large, let him not resist, nor through shame add to his mortal wound a greater evil” (Sermon 151, n. 3) Typically these public penances would only be for the worst of sins, and not easily allowed a second time, though St. Augustine writes in letter 153 that it is permitted on the occasion of great contrition and sorrow. Private confessions seem to be a later adaptation, though of course ex-communication and prohibition from Communion in light of grave sins is still retained. As for the comment by Fr. Sergei that <i>Confessions</i> was meant to be read in private, I don’t frankly know if this is true, though it seems plausible..<o:p></o:p></div>
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The captivating nature of St. Augustine lies, I think, in his frankness and capacity to discuss the parts of his past that haunt him and the manner in which God’s Providence even made use of it. St. Augustine put his rhetoric to good work in the <i>Confessions</i>, but it ought to stand far from becoming an book of sheer joy as if it were a novel read for pleasure. Personally when I read <i>Confessions</i> I felt joy and sorrow in reading it. Joy that in the beautiful praises of God and sorrow both because of my own lack of such depth in contrition for sins and sorrow at the long and arduous journey with which St. Augustine had to suffer in order to find God.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Next Father Sergei discusses the sort of disenchantment with which saints realize their sinfulness as they come closer to play with fire as the Carthusian monk wrote in the essay Beyond the Absolute (see part 3 of my post here). The Eastern Orthodox, writes Fr. Sergei, are blessed with a spirituality that recognizes that the closer we are to God the closer we see the stains in our souls. The Catholic West, he writes, is not so blessed and sees in itself something to be glorified of, or to centralize the spiritual life upon the self in its holy accomplishments. This statement is somewhat surprising and is a bit controversial. Below is a statement by a Carthusian speaking about how the monk in the monastery finds his brother monks to be mundane, fraught with frailty, sin, and idiosyncrasies that seem incompatible with the image of saintliness:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>“A deeper insight into souls gradually allows us to discover that behind these disappointing exteriors [of the brother monks’ behavior] often lie real treasures of interior life, of generosity, and of an authentic search for God. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that these precious gems are often buried in unattractive dress. How could it be otherwise, face to face with the Absolute? Is this not the price of such dangerous proximity to fire? For it highlights all our faults, all our roughness of character and all the petty misery which in other circumstances would be swallowed up in the surrounding sea of trivialities. To wish to come face to face with the light of God is deliberately to consent to expose all our faults and pettiness to the hard light of day. These [faults] first become apparent to others, and then, as we become enlightened, to ourselves. We first discover mediocrity in others and afterwards, in ourselves. We first discover mediocrity in others and afterwards, in ourselves.”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Fr. Sergei, next, writes that St. Francis of Assisi had once said that he did not know of any sin that he did not “know of any sin that he had not paid for through confession and repentance” (Blessed Augustine’s View of the Self). While this is possible that St. Francis paid for every sin he knew with penance and confession, it ought to be known that he reportedly said, “If I had only once committed a small sin, I should have sufficient reason to weep as long as I live.” And in that manner we do know that St. Francis sinned, in fact mortally, in many areas of his life, especially in the manner in which he reports his fear and disgust when faced with a man afflicted by leprosy calling out to him for help. The shame of this event turned St. Francis’ life around. St. Francis reportedly said, according to a vision [of St. Alphonsus Liguori?], “'For dear saint, if one venial sin displeases God so much that a whole life spent in weeping for it would not be sufficient to make reparation for it, how great should be my grief, I, who have sinned so much?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Furthermore, Fr. Sergei quotes Ugolino, an excommunicated Franciscan known for his rigorist nature and party-spirit, writing about the Life of St. Francis, in an exaggerated manner in which St. Francis was turned into an alter Christus and into a light comparable to God. I think this is an exaggeration on the part of Ugolino (of whose work I have been able to browse through a curious twist of God’s Providence), and in another manner, as Seraphim relates St. Seraphim of Sarov similarly reflected a Taboric light during his life time. It is interesting perhaps to compare the holiness and lives of these two saints, both who embraced a radical poverty.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The other examples such as St. Therese of Lisieux might be explained as well, but I will not go on to explain all of the other examples, because the focus is on St. Augustine. St. Augustine was not presumptuous as Fr. Sergei might be implying of Western Spirituality. He died having the penitential psalms of David on his wall so that he might die praying them. A legend recounts that a sick person approached St. Augustine on his deathbed hoping to be healed, to which St. Augustine replied humbly that there was nothing in him to heal him and if there was that the saint would have healed himself. Nonetheless St. Augustine allowed the person to come forward and the person was healed. Presumptuousness is not the character of St. Augustine’s <i>Confessions</i> and there are numerous of his sermons that warn against having faith and many works and saying that our work is over and that we can die safely in God’s arms. The man prayed and was disturbed by many things in his own soul that he could not control. He was wracked by guilt by dreams of temptations and sorrowful for his having obtained these things, while accepting God’s will to put him in such areas.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Fr. Sergei writes next that autobiographies are unknown to the Eastern Orthodox or their saints. As Seraphim writes however that St. John of Kronstadt’s “My Life in Christ” is such an example of an autobiography and is not read as an attempt to usurp the Church’s prerogative of evaluating the life of a Christian only at the end of his life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It greatly disturbs me that Father Sergei would write that a saint of the Eastern and Western Churches is capable of being the Fore-Father of Spiritual Relativism. Such a person I believe St. John the Theologian would call an anti-christ. How is it that the Church could hold St. Augustine to be both a saint and an anti-christ? To me this is completely absurd. Surely there must be something else that Fr. Sergei meant to say here. The further comment that there are many ways to be Catholic is somewhat upsetting when Father means to oppose this to there being one way of being Orthodox. There is one Christ, there is One Way, One Life, and One Truth, and so it seems to me that there is one way of being a Christian, though perhaps different perspectives. We should respect that God has given different perspectives and means into the Life of God, and that He has made us all special with unique gifts so that we can each learn to practice humility and patience in the spiritual life.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It is perhaps interesting that Fr. Sergei wrote: “In the modern West it is not at all uncommon for people to be fascinated with their own lives and experiences, including (or, especially?) spiritual ones in just the same way as those who thought of themselves as “great” in any way have always been.” Contrary to this in fact, St. Augustine writes that he wrote this text for those who are too interested in the lives of others, and not enough in their own. The saint wrote that the <i>Confessions</i> is a means by which men and women can see a way to investigate their own lives with sorrow for our sins, and joy in the life of God. This is what St. Augustine says in Letter 231 to Darius regarding his <i>Confessions</i>, “Join me in praising Him to whom, and not to myself, I desire praise to be given." I know that this is the manner in which I have read <i>Confessions</i>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It is then puzzling when Fr. Sergei remarks that St. Augustine is a saint and that the <i>Confessions</i> is the book intended for St. Augustine and God, and nobody else. I agree that the book is intended primarily as a confession of praise and humility before God.<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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However the following paragraph remarks that St. Augustine was the only spiritual light of the West and despite <i>Confessions</i> being so individual-centered as Fr. Sergei claims, the Catholic West lost sight of an eremitic (the basis of words in English like hermit) life style from the Deserts Fathers of Egypt and Syria. This is polemical, and dismissive of the fact that St. Augustine was an abbot, and that St. John Cassian was read popularly for more than a millennia in the Catholic West. For those who do not know, St. John Cassian was in Syria and translated many of his talks with these monks into Latin. From St. John Cassian’s works come the inspiration for St. Benedict’s Rule, which was almost universally read in the West.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I agree with Fr. Sergei at the end that we must re-evaluate St. Augustine as a theologian, monastic abbot, bishop, and saint in order to move further with reconciling the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. What I however disagree with is that St. Augustine saw the self as a thing in which one can exalt or understand as complete unto itself. St. Augustine wrote in one of his commentaries on the Psalms (Ennarrations on the Psalms) that to love oneself first is ultimately to love ones’ self incompletely and in fact when we love ourselves first we are actually hating ourselves. He writes this because he means to say that to love ourselves truly we must love God first, even to the point of having some self-hatred about our faults. This is one of the paradoxes that St. Augustine loves very much and often uses in his writings. The soul is never complete in this life; “<b><i>We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face. Now I know I part; but then I shall know even as I am known</i></b>” (<b><i>1 Corinthians 13:12).</i></b> We see God’s love dimly and in the next life we shall see Him as He is and then we shall know Him even as we know ourselves. And yet this is the paradox, we do not even know ourselves very well in this life. What is the mystery of man? The Church has always answered that we cannot truly know or be ourselves unless we are first in Christ. The mystery of our identity and the mystery of God’s Self are intimately wrapped together, and that is why we are made in the Divine image so that the image could not be fully understood or meaningful without its source.<b><u> <o:p></o:p></u></b></div>
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I pray that Fr. Sergei re-evaluates his remarks considering a saint that we celebrate jointly, but more than that I pray that Fr. Sergei have a happy and holy priesthood. Though I do not know Fr. Sergei, I have a feeling that he is a good man and a good priest. I hope that he prays too for my own salvation, as I know I fall very short of ever deserving salvation. May God grant His mercy. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We must all embrace humility and prayer as our life’s vocation in the good hope that God will send us where He desires us to be. I did not write this article to become a polemicist and pray that the Lord joins our Churches in due time. May the Lord grant me as well to not have to address other persons in writing response articles, I only desire to be a scribe. I hope that I can be a scribe that can perhaps open others to God, but ultimately a scribe. I hope in my writings to let others increase in holiness, while I remain hidden, all the while praying that God might make me holy as I ought to be. I apologize if this article is seen as an ad-hominem attack on Fr. Sergei, who I am very sure is a man of God and who strives to do what is best for his flock. May we all find peace in the Lord and embrace His love as St. Augustine would direct us to do.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I will post my friend’s prayer below:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>“May God have mercy upon us for speaking against a priest of God, and may this priest of God forgive us for doing so. Blessed Virgin, Immaculate Queen of Heaven, look down from heaven and behold thy sons longing for the protection of thy maternal care. Grant us thy favor, and the favor of thy Son our Lord and God. Soften our wicked hearts to behold the sin which blinds us. Grant us to love thee more and more that we may love the Body which thou didst bring forth and which thou dost nurture now as always. Pray for our souls, gracious Mother, holy Maid, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ, the blessed fruit of thy womb. Forgive us, we pray, for the sins which we commit in crucifying that Body…forgive us, that by our sins in crucifying his Body—and dividing against our brethren--we cause thy sorrows to multiply. Forgive us, dear Mother, and bring us into the chamber of our God and King, presenting us with thy prayers before His most just judgment. We place our trust in thy most tender care and powerful intercession.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Through the intersessions of the Theotokos, Savior, save us!”</i></div>
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<b>Note:</b></div>
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Much of the work on St. Augustine's reasons for his Confessions comes from Augnet.org and a little bit of my own research. I hope that there are not too many typos involved in this essay.</div>
Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-69612855746672526052012-08-27T23:15:00.001-05:002012-09-02T16:57:20.186-05:00First Grade Catechism for Adults 1.01.04: Creation shows God’s love to us<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://media.web.britannica.com/eb-media/27/32027-004-F12952E1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="146" src="http://media.web.britannica.com/eb-media/27/32027-004-F12952E1.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Andes Mountains</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">All around us are countless mysteries in the world and many of them can, when we reflect on them in quiet show the beauty and mystery of God. Take for example, water. It’s a simple thing that we have all around us. Here in Chicago we’re blessed with Lake Michigan which provides much of our drinking supply. But liquid water in this solar system is exceedingly rare, and very rare indeed anywhere else in the universe. God has given us a miracle, the miracle of having nearly three quarters of the planet covered in liquid water from which we could live and thrive on. Even more spectacular and unlikely is it how everything in the universe was able to come together to become what it is today so that we could live and come to know God. There ought to be a wonder and awe about us when we consider all that God has made and put before us, even the smallest things like a pebble or an ant crawling on the ground can evoke in us some awe in how small it is and yet how incomprehensible it is to us in its essence. We can see the rock and measure the rock and know many things about the rock but isn’t there something about the rock that stands apart from us, something that perhaps calls us to reflect on the deeper mystery of the rock’s existence. Perhaps this is getting to philosophical, but the point is that God’s creation is full of mystery and we should be full of awe about it.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">No less then, does St. Augustine of Hippo, a Catholic bishop in the 4<sup>th</sup> and 5<sup>th</sup> century, remarks in his book <i>Confessions</i>: <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: .5in 463.5pt 6.5in;">“<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">These things I knew not at that time, and I loved these lower beauties, and I was sinking to the very depths; and I said to my friends, Do we love anything but the beautiful? What, then, is the beautiful? And what is beauty? What is it that allures and unites us to the things we love; for unless there were a grace and beauty in them, they could by no means attract us to them” (Book 4, Chapter 13)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; tab-stops: .5in 6.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-right: .5in; tab-stops: 0in 6.0in;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">only to later remark that all these things which possess beauty point us to the Lord:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: .5in 6.0in;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">“Too late did I love You, O Beauty, so ancient, and yet so new! Too late did I love You! For behold, You were within, and I without, and there did I seek You; I, unlovely, rushed heedlessly among the things of beauty You made. You were with me, but I was not with You. Those things kept me far from You, which, unless they were in You, were not. You called, and cried aloud, and forced open my deafness. You gleamed and shine, and chase away my blindness. You exhaled odors, and I drew in my breath and do pant after You. I tasted, and do hunger and thirst. You touched me, and I burned for Your peace.” (Book 10, Chapter 27)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .5in; tab-stops: .5in 6.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 0in 6.5in;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Sometimes like St. Augustine we can get lost in the little things in life and forget to praise God, but we should always remember that God has given us many of the wonderful things in life to enjoy and to use in order to come closer to God. He gives us food so that we can live and strive and continue to live together as brothers and sisters in peace in Christ, and He gives us sunlight to provide us a means of growing and living, among many other things.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 0in 6.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 0in 6.5in;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">All in all then, we are to reflect that the whole of God’s creation reflects His love for us and that He love us into existence simply for us to embrace His love<sup>1</sup>. Creation similarly reflects His Wisdom in that all things in the universe are well ordered and intelligible. Simply stated, this is why the study of science has been so successful, because our universe was made according to the Word of God, the Second Person of the Trinity in the unity of the Father and the Holy Spirit according to their Wisdom. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “Because God creates through wisdom, His creation is ordered: ‘You have arranged all things by measure and number and weight’ (Wisdom 11:20) The universe, created in and by the eternal Word, ‘the image of the invisible God,’ is destined for and addressed to man, himself, created in the ‘image of God’ and called to a personal relationship with God (Colossians 1:15, Genesis 1:26). Our human understanding which shares in the light of the divine intellect, can understand what God tells us by means of His creation, though not without great effort and only in a spirit of humility and respect before the Creator and His work (cf Ds 286; 455-463; 800; 1333; 3002)…” And so we understand that because Creation is ordered and in some measure orderly and even beautiful we can see, by the exercise of humility and kind thinking towards God that God Himself is good and beautiful.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 0in 6.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 0in 6.5in;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">In conclusion, there are many ways to see God’s goodness, strength, love, mercy, and wisdom through observation of creation, and a keen and humble heart will see when it is that God is leading us to see Him and His goodness through observations of what He has given to us in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; tab-stops: 0in 6.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;"><b><u>Notes:</u></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0px;"><span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;">1. English translation of the </span><i style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;">Catechism of the Catholic Church </i><span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;">for the United States of America copyright 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. –Libreria Editrice Vaticana.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: 76.5pt; text-indent: -.25in;"><br />
Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC 293, “Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth: ‘The world was made for the glory of God.’ (Dei Filius, can. Section 5: DS 3025) St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things ‘not to increase His glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it,’ (St. Bonaventure, In II Sent. I, 2, 2, 1.) for God has no other reason for creating than His love and goodness: ‘Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened His hand.’ (St. Thomas Aquinas, Sent 2. Prol.) …<o:p></o:p></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br />
CCC 294, “The glory of God consists in the realization of this manifestation and communication of His goodness, for which the world was created…”<br />
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<!--[endif]--></span>Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-33778524723457257882012-08-27T23:04:00.001-05:002012-09-02T16:56:53.868-05:00First Grade Catechism for Adults 1.01.03: God loved me from the foundation of the world<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://marshmk.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/footwash2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://marshmk.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/footwash2.jpg" width="232" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jesus washing the feet of the Apostles<br />
at the Last Supper.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">In St. Paul’s letter to St. Timothy, St. Paul writes that it is pleasing to God that we pray for everybody and that “<sup>3</sup>[this] is good and pleasing to God our savior, <sup>4</sup> who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:3-4)<sup>1</sup>. It is important to know that God loves every single creature that He has created, and He loves men and women, boys and girls, so much that He sent us His only begotten Son into the world to save us from our sins and that whoever lived faithfully by Him would have eternal life<sup>2</sup>. All of God’s plan for us is sometimes called the history or the plan of salvation. The Lord made us to share in his divine life, that is to be with Him in Heaven and share in the mystery of love between His own self and us. St. Peter in his second letter writes, “Through these, He has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.” (2<sup>nd</sup> Peter 1:4) He writes that God has given us many promises and blessings so as to approach Him and come to even share in God’s mysterious divine nature. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">The Lord loves every single one of us and He calls us all to go up to Heaven to love Him and be with Him. For some of us we are blessed with having a loving spouse whom we confide in and enjoy to love and receive love in return. St. Paul calls the love between two spouses a mysterious love which reflects Jesus’ love for the Church, which is His Mystical Body. In Ephesians 5, St. Paul talks about the relationship of a marriage and that of how Jesus loves the Church. In this manner of thinking if we look at how we love our most beloved ones and how much joy we receive when they love us back, we can only begin to reflect on how much God loves us and how much He waits for us to love Him in return.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">“<sup>3</sup> Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, <sup>4</sup> as He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before Him. In love <sup>5</sup> He destined us for adoption to Himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of His will, <sup>6</sup> for the praise of the glory of His grace that He granted us in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1: 3-6)<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">The Lord made us to love Him and chose us and created us simply to love Him in return. Our soul carries on beyond this life into the next, and the faithful live this life entirely in the hope that He will raise us up to Heaven to live in love with Him<sup>4</sup>. There will be some who refuse to love God and so unfortunately, because He has given us a responsibility of our own souls these persons will not be with God in eternity but rather where they left their hearts to be, apart from God<sup>5</sup>. And for some of us we will have to wait to have our love perfected towards God in Purgatory<sup>6</sup>. “When evening comes, you will be examined in love. Learn to love as God desires to be loved and abandon your own ways of acting.” (St. John of the Cross, Dichos de Luz y Amor (Sayings of Light and Love), #60)<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><b><u>Note:</u></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 24px;">1.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>All translations of the Bible, except those given from quotes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, are from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website: http://www.usccb.org/bible/books-of-the-bible/index.cfm, unless otherwise noted.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 24px;">2.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for the United States of America copyright 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. –Libreria Editrice Vaticana.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 24px;">Note that references to paragraphs of the Catechism of the Catholic Church are given as CCC #.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 24px;">3.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (John 3:16) Here it is written that whoever has faith in Jesus Christ will have eternal life, but we should not mistake this to mean as some Protestants do that faith without good works will be enough to please God. St. John tells us that if we do not truly know Christ if we do not honor His commandments (1 John 2:3-6, “3 The way we may be sure that we know him is to keep his commandments. 4 Whoever says, “I know Him,” but does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever keeps His word, the love of God is truly perfected in him. This is the way we may know that we are in union with Him: 6 whoever claims to abide in Him ought to live as He lived.”)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 24px;">4.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC 1023, “Those who die in God’s grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live for ever with Christ. They are like God for ever, for they ‘See Him as He is’ face to face (1 John 3:2; cf 1 Corinthians 13:12; Revelations 22:4)”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 24px;">5.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC 1033, “We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love Him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against Him, against our neighbor or against ourselves…To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from Him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 24px;">6.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC 1030, “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but [are] still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height: 24px;">CCC 1031, “The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the purification of the damned. (cf Council of Florence (1439): DS 1304; Council of Trent (1563): DS 1820; (1547): 1580; see also Benedict XII, Benedictus Deus (1336): DS 1000.) The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent…” </span></div><div style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
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Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-82907535732028566672012-08-27T22:52:00.001-05:002012-09-02T16:56:20.721-05:00First Grade Catechism for Adults 1.01.02: God made mankind in His image<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium/ecce-homo-dino-muradian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium/ecce-homo-dino-muradian.jpg" width="156" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The image of the invisible God"<br />
Colossians 1:15</td></tr>
</tbody></table>God tells us in Genesis 1:26, “Let Us make human beings in our image, after Our likeness.”<sup>1</sup> But we need to ask ourselves what does it mean to be made in the likeness and image of God? Usually when we talk about somebody being the image of somebody else we mean to say that they look like them. For example, a father might tell his wife that their newborn baby boy is the near perfect image of his wife or of himself. However, when we talk about people’s likeness to God we don’t mean to say that in the beginning when God made Adam and Eve that He made them so that they look like what He looks like. This is part of the reason why the Israelites were forbidden from making an image of God, and this is because nobody knew what God looked like, and so God wanted to protect them from confusing Him with images of Him which could never really reflect who He is. Isaiah asks in Isaiah 40: 18-19 who can make an image that looks like God and if anybody could it would not be God, or even look like him. And so we must identify what it means that God made us in His image.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b>Man made in the image of God<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">St. Paul wrote to the Colossians that, Jesus Christ “is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15)1 and further remarking on the power of Jesus who existed before all things and created all things. Now we know from our faith that Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Trinity and is God. We also know that at the Anunciation, Christ came down from Heaven and became incarnate, that is He became both man and God, without any detriment to being a man or to being God at the same time. What does it mean then that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God? How can you have an image of something that is invisible? The straightforward answer is that you can’t really have an image of something invisible, and so we must understand that when the St. Paul talks about Jesus being the image of the Father that St. Paul means that Jesus’ whole being and Person reflects the character of the Father. Jesus’ entire identity and being as the Son of God reflects the Father’s love and because the Father’s character of love is perfectly reflected in His image the Son, the Son cannot but give His love back to the Father. Traditionally, the love given back as Gift is identified as the Holy Spirit being within the communion and loving relationship of the Father and the Son. Man is made in the image of God in a similar way that Jesus is called the perfect image of the invisible God. This is at least some of the theological reflection from St. Augustine's, a 4th and 5th century Catholic bishop, book On the Trinity (De Trinitate)<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">And so as God made us in His image so that He could, “show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven.” (Baltimore Catechism of the Catholic Church, Lesson 1, Question 3: Why did God make us?)<sup>2</sup>. God created us to share in His divine life, and so to have the image of God is to be created to reflect the nature of God. In many ways we, as human beings reflect God’s own nature. We are intelligent in a similar way that God is all-knowing. We are born and grow in strength and power to do different things in the world just as God is all powerful and able to do everything that He wills to do. We are able to reflect on ourselves, just as the Father is able to beget the Son who is His perfect image. And so God’s divine image implanted on us shows us how we are like God in that He has given us many abilities. We are also similar to Him in that we can love, and the way in which we can reflect God’s image best is in living a holy life where people can see God’s work through us. St. Paul lived his life in such a holy way that he could say of himself that it was not him acting about the world to convert the nations but rather Christ in him<sup>3</sup>. Our own lives are to be lived by becoming more and more like Christ, so that we too can come to reflect God’s own image of goodness, love, mercy, and justice. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">To conclude, God made us into His divine image and chose us to be with Him since before the creation of the world. St. Paul writes: “<sup>3</sup> Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, <sup>4</sup> as He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before Him. In love <sup>5</sup> He destined us for adoption to Himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of His will, <sup>6</sup> for the praise of the glory of His grace that He granted us in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1: 3-6) The Lord has made us into His image so that we could reflect His goodness in the world and live a holy life without sin or anxiety. And so the divine image is naturally present within every human being as we all come to reflect God’s own being, and yet it is present in a more excellent way when we live our lives in a state of grace and friendship with God<sup>4</sup>. Those who bear the divine image in their hearts in this special way by being in a state of grace and friendship with God and with His Mystical Body, the Church, will ultimately be with Him in Heaven to love Him and enjoy His presence forever.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b style="line-height: 150%;"><u>Note:</u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">1. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">All translations of the Bible, except those given from quotes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, are from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website: </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/books-of-the-bible/index.cfm">http://www.usccb.org/bible/books-of-the-bible/index.cfm</a></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">, unless otherwise noted.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">2. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Baltimore Catechism is an older Catechism of the Catholic Church used in the United States. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website writes of the Baltimore Catechism: “Until the second half of the twentieth century, for millions of Catholics in the United States the word catechism meant the Baltimore Catechism, which originated at the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884 when the bishops of the United States decided to publish a national catechism.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Baltimore Catechism contained 421 questions and answers in thirty-seven chapters and gave unity to the teaching and understanding of the faith for millions of American Catholics.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Its impact was felt right up to the dawn of the Second Vatican Council in 1962.” (</span><a href="http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/catechism/</a><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">3. <span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;">“</span><sup style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;">20</sup><span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;"> yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.” (Galatians 2:20) Here St. Paul is saying that it is him who is going about to try and bring people to faith in Jesus and yet it is not entirely left up to him alone, but rather Jesus who goes with him and helps him to complete his mission. Our own lives are to be filled with God’s presence and to go where He asks us to go all the while understanding that we rely on God’s grace to help us every step of the way.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">4. </span><span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;">English translation of the </span><i style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;">Catechism of the Catholic Church </i><span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;">for the United States of America copyright 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. –Libreria Editrice Vaticana.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: .75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><br />
Catholic Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC 357 and 359, “<br />
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357: “Being in the image of God 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. And he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer Him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his stead.<br />
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359: “ ‘In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear.’ (Gaudium et Spes 22, Section 1) …” The rest of the breath-taking Gaudium et Spes 22 from the Second Vatican Council can be seen at: <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html">http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html</a>, and reveals even better than this article the relationship of man to God in mankind’s sharing in His divine image.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div>Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-10028698324918538142012-08-27T22:26:00.007-05:002013-11-10T10:01:45.687-06:00First Grade Catechism for Adults 1.01.01: God is the Creator who made all things good<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
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The Nicene Creed begins with “I believe in God” and as the Catechism of the Catholic Church<sup>1</sup> says this is the most fundamental part of the Apostles’ Creed. (CCC 199). “The whole Creed speaks of God, and when it also speaks of man and of the world it does so in relation to God.” (CCC 199) All of the articles of our faith depend on God, and so when we reflect on the teachings of the Catholic Church they all must fall fundamentally upon faith in God, and not simply any god, but the one God who Is and who has revealed Himself as the one true God.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>God’s Divine Name helps us understand His relationship to Creation<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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It is this God who we believe created the entire universe and the entire world. The immensity of God’s majesty is beyond what anybody can comprehend, and yet the Lord revealed His name to His people, specifically to Moses, at Mount Sinai:<o:p></o:p></div>
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Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you’, and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I Am has sent me to you’…this is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” (Exodus 3:13-15)<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 206) states that in the revealing of His mysterious name, YHWH (“I AM WHO I AM”), that God’s divine name is mysterious just as God is a mystery because He is beyond our comprehension. The divine name “is at once a name revealed and something like the refusal of a name, and hence it better expresses God as what He is- infinitely above everything that we can understand or say: He is the ‘hidden God,’ His name is ineffable and he is the God who make himself close to men. (cf Isaiah 45:15, Judges 13:18)” <o:p></o:p></div>
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God loved mankind and so He revealed His name as a way to show that He is infinitely above everything else that He has created. In the Old Testament, oftentimes to name a thing is to talk about the character or definition of a thing, and so when God revealed His name to the people of Israel He was telling them that He is, and that He is so much above everything else that the way He could express Himself is to show the majesty of His existence above every other thing He created. That He considered His creation enough to share something so vital as His own identity and mystery to mankind is the beginning of God’s love for His creation, specifically for mankind.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Psalm 102: 26-28, teach us in what manner God’s revelation of His name shows us how He relates to the world. The Psalm reads: “<sup>26</sup> Of old You laid the earth’s foundations; the heavens are the work of Your hands. <sup>27</sup> They perish, but You remain; they all wear out like a garment; Like clothing You change them and they are changed, <sup>28</sup> but You are the same, Your years have no end.” God created the universe and everything that exists in the world, but as He reveals to Moses, His divine name, I AM WHO AM, shows that God most properly is the one who exists and that everything else in the world exists and continues to exist because He remains to keep them there.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>God creates the universe:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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The Catholic Church holds that God created the entire universe and everything that is not God was made by God. St. John the Apostle writes in the Bible, “All things came to be through Him, <span style="line-height: 150%;">and without Him nothing came to be.” (John 1:3) Physicists have determined that the universe is almost 14 billion years old beginning in a Big Bang. Our faith leads us to understand that God made the universe and that when He created the universe He saw that it was all good (cf Genesis 1). He spoke and light formed, He spoke and the heavens and worlds were made. Though many make controversies about whether or not to take the words of Genesis literally as it appears that the universe was made in six days, the Catholic Church does not hold a view that requires us to believe that the universe was created in six twenty-four hour days. As St. Peter writes, “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day.” (2 Peter 3:8), indicating that the book of Genesis is mysterious and that what God is trying to reveal in Genesis is the manner in which God created all things and made them so that there was something good in them.</span></div>
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So too then we are called to become stewards of God’s creation, that is Genesis tells us that God has given us the entire universe to enjoy and care for. Just as He loved the universe into creation, making all things in some manner good and orderly, He made us to follow His example in loving each other and caring for His creatures by making us into His image (cf Genesis 1:25, 26)<sup>3</sup>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>The beauty of God’s Creation points to His goodness and His love for us<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Nothing in the universe and world that exists today needs to have been made except that God love them into existence. Proverbs 16:4 says, “The Lord has made all things for Himself” (Douay-Rheims translation) in which we should see that God made the universe to refer back to Him and that He made us to share in His life and love<sup>4</sup>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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St. Augustine of Hippo, a Catholic saint and bishop of the fourth and fifth century writes in one of a sermon given on Easter around 411 AD:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air, amply spread around everywhere, question the beauty of the sky, question the serried ranks of the stars, question the sun making the day glorious with its bright beams, question the moon tempering the darkness of the following night with its shining rays, question the animals that move in the waters, that amble about on dry land, that fly in the air; their souls hidden, their bodies evident; the visible bodies needing to be controlled, the invisible souls controlling them; question all these things. They all answer you, 'Here we are, look ; we're beautiful.'<o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Their beauty is their confession. Who made these beautiful changeable things, if not one who is beautiful and unchangeable?</span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">”<sup>5</sup><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">St. Augustine’s answer in his sermon is God, the creator of the universe, and he is tasking us to look at the beauty and the order of the entire world and to reflect on the love that God had to share it with us even before we had anything to give or offer to Him. And so in times of stillness, silence, and quiet contemplation of God sometimes we are given a glimpse of the extent of His beauty and love through reflecting on the beauty of the world around us. The world is a complicated place with many scientific laws and rules, and yet sometimes God comes to wake us up and says, “Don’t forget that I am here, and that I am calling you back to Me. Do not forget that I am the Way, the Life, and the Truth. Do not forget that all that you see before Me is given to you so that you can come to Me.”</span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><u>Note:</u></b></div>
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1. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">English translation of the </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Catechism of the Catholic Church </i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">for the United States of America copyright 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. –Libreria Editrice Vaticana.</span></div>
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Note that references to paragraphs of the Catechism of the Catholic Church are given as CCC #.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 150%;">2. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">All translations of the Bible, except those given from quotes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, are from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website: </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/books-of-the-bible/index.cfm">http://www.usccb.org/bible/books-of-the-bible/index.cfm</a></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">, unless otherwise noted.</span></div>
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God made every kind of wild animal, every kind of tame animal, and every kind of thing that crawls on the ground. God saw that it was good.<br />
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<sup>26</sup> Then God said: Let Us make human beings in our image, after Our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth.” (Genesis 1:25, 26)<o:p></o:p></div>
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4. <span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;">Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC 293, “Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth: ‘The world was made for the glory of God.’ (Dei Filius, can. Section 5: DS 3025) St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things ‘not to increase His glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it,’ (St. Bonaventure, In II Sent. I, 2, 2, 1.) for God has no other reason for creating than His love and goodness: ‘Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened His hand.’ (St. Thomas Aquinas, Sent 2. Prol.) …</span></div>
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CCC 294, “The glory of God consists in the realization of this manifestation and communication of His goodness, for which the world was created…”<br />
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<span style="line-height: 150%;">5.</span><span style="font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;">Source: </span><a href="http://www.vatican.va/spirit/documents/spirit_20000721_agostino_en.html" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.25in;">http://www.vatican.va/spirit/documents/spirit_20000721_agostino_en.html</a></div>
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Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-15613078135968556542012-08-27T22:21:00.000-05:002012-08-27T22:21:52.424-05:00Teaching the faith, in honor of St. MonicaI'm about to post some posts for a Catholic Catechism class at my local parish for first grade. The articles are not the work of the Catholic Church nor the parish and only reflect my personal views on the things that the Archdiocese of Chicago expects first graders to know. They are intended to be read by adults hoping to have a basis or scheme to teach their children about the Catholic faith.<br />
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May St. Monica who's feast is today teach us how to impress on our own children's hearts a seed of faith, hope, and love. We also pray that through her intercession that Christ brings us all closer to Him through a constant and inward conversion and confession of faith.<br />
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Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-63781954383436666822012-08-16T20:42:00.000-05:002012-08-16T20:42:24.579-05:00Letter 54: St. Augustine’s Reply to the Inquiries of Januarius (Book 1 of 2)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.maximusmg.com/clients/IP/RestlessHeartNewsroom06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.maximusmg.com/clients/IP/RestlessHeartNewsroom06.jpg" width="211" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Franco Nero as St. Augustine<br />
in Augustine: The Decline of<br />
the Roman Empire by Christian<br />
Duguay</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">This letter comes from St. Augustine’s fifth or sixth year of being a bishop in Hippo and it is written to a certain Januarius who is asking about how it is that a faithful Christian ought to fast before receiving the Eucharist. St. Augustine replies in two books, the first one significantly smaller than the last one, and these are recorded as letters 54 and 55. Letters 54 and 55 were written around 400 AD, and seem to not only be replying to Januarius’ questions but also partially a response to another writer whose writings disturbed Januarius. The first book will comment on the Eucharistic fast and its purpose, as well as an outline of God’s plan of salvation for all those in the Church. I hope that it will be an enlightening look into St. Augustine’s conception of the sacraments (Divine mysteries), and of the Most Blessed Sacrament.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b>Excerpts of the Letter:<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">[First a greeting and questioning of Januarius to tell him more specifically what he believes regarding the Eucharistic fast so that St. Augustine can approve or correct his views]<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“<i>In the first place, I want you to hold as the basic truth of this discussion that our Lord Jesus Christ, as He Himself said in the Gospel, has subjected us to His yoke and His burden, which are light. (cf Matthew 11:30) Therefore, He has laid on the society of His new people the obligation of sacraments, very few in number, very easy of observance, most sublime in their meaning, as, for example, baptism, hallowed by the name of the Trinity, Communion of His Body and His Blood, and whatever else is commended in the canonical writings, with the exception of those burdens found in the five books of Moses (the Pentateuch), which imposed on the ancient people a servitude in accord with their character and the prophetic times in which they lived. But, regarding those other observances which we keep and all the world keeps, and which do not derive from Scripture but from tradition, we are given to understand that they have been ordained or recommended to be kept by the Apostles themselves, or by plenary councils, whose authority is well founded in the Church. Such are the annual commemorations of the Lord’s Passion, Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven, the descent of the Holy Spirit from Heaven, and other such observances as are kept by the universal Church wherever it is found.</i>”<i><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This paragraph is useful for the context of the Catholic Church’s faith in the 4<sup>th</sup> and 5<sup>th</sup> century.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“<i>As to other customs, however, which differ according to country and locality, as the fact that some fast on Saturday, others do not; some receive daily the Body and Blood of the Lord, others receive it on certain days; in some places no day is omitted in the offerings of the Holy Sacrifice, in others it is offered only on Saturday and Sunday, or even only on Sunday; and other such differences as may be noted, there is freedom in all these matters, and there is no better rule for the earnest and prudent Christian than to act as he sees the Church act wherever he is staying. What is proved to be against neither faith nor morals is to be considered optional and is to be observed with due regard for the group in which he lives.”<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is a particularly helpful text as St. Augustine affirms that the Eucharist was a sacrificial offering of the Body and Blood of the Lord, practiced during many different days of the week (but always Sunday) and with many different fasting days which varied. The best position then is to observe the faith of the Church which one is in, so long as it does not disrupt the peace of the Mystical Body of Christ, that is disrupt the faith and morals of the Church.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">[St. Augustine notes the advice which St. Ambrose of Milan gave to St. Monica when she was disturbed that St. Ambrose’s church did not fast on Saturday. St. Monica did not know what to do, and for her sake, St. Augustine (though not yet Christian) sought to ask St. Ambrose what she should do. St. Ambrose answered that she should do what he did, that is follow the customs of the local church, that is, when in Rome fast on Saturday, and when in Milan do not fast on Saturday. This he said was best to avoid any scandal in any church. St. Augustine says that this advice is good on account of how many people who are weak in the faith often start scandals by these minor triflings. These scandals about things not in Scripture and not in the tradition of the universal Church, St. Augustine notes, are only detrimental to the Church and in nowise assist the building of the Body of Christ.]<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">”<i>Someone will say that the Eucharist is not to be received every day. You ask: ‘Why?’ ‘Because,’ he says, ‘those days are to be chosen on which a man lives with greater purity and self-restraint, so as to approach so great a sacrament worthily. “<b>For he that eateth…unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself.” (1 Corinthians 11:29)</b> [sic] Another, on the other hand, says: ‘Not at all, if the wound of sin and the onset of disease are so great that such remedies are to be postponed, then everyone should be debarred from the altar by the authority of the bishop, in order to do penance and to be reconciled by the same authority; for, this is to receive unworthily, if one receives at a time when he ought to do penance; but he should not deprive himself of Communion or restore it to himself at his own wish and will. But, if his sins are not so great that a man is judged fit for excommunication, he ought not to cut himself off from the daily remedy of the Lord’s Body.’ With good reason, perhaps, does someone break off the quarrel by exhorting them to remain, first of all, in the peace of Christ. Let each one do what he thinks he ought to do according to his faith and devotion. Let neither of them dishonor the Body and the Blood of the Lord, but vie with each other in honoring this life-giving sacrament. For, there was no quarrel between Zachaeus and the centurion, nor did one set himself above the other when one, rejoicing received the Lord into his house, and the other said: ‘<b>I am not worthy that Thous shouldst enter under my roof.’ (Matthew 8:8)</b> Both honored the Savior in diverse and even contrary manners both were weighed down with sins; both found mercy. There is force in the comparison of the manna: as among the ancient people it tasted to each one according to what he liked, so in the heart of each Christian is that sacrament by which the world is brought into subjection. This one honors Him by not daring to receive the sacrament daily, that one by not daring to let a day go by without receiving it. But, that Food is not to be despised, as the manna was not to be disliked. Thus, the Apostle says it is unworthily received by those who do not distinguish it from other food, and do not render it the veneration eminently due; therefore when he says: ‘<b>he eateth and drinketh judgment to himself,’ </b>he adds: ‘<b>not discerning the Body.’ (1 Corinthians 11:29)</b> This is very clear if all that passage of the first Epistle to the Corinthians is carefully read.”<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here we have a statement of faith that the Eucharist is not ordinary food and must be venerated. He who is the Bread from Heaven must not be despised and must be taken into each Christian’s heart so that the Eucharist may bring the world into subjection for him. We must discern the Body and Blood of Christ as the Eucharist unless we eat and drink judgment and condemnation to ourselves. This is the clear reading of 1<sup>st</sup> Corinthians that St. Augustine gives us. Likewise, customs as to how to receive the Eucharist worthily must be on account of how they see fit to truly honor Christ the most, discerning the holiness of such a life-giving sacrament. We are only removed from communion with Jesus in those instances where we are in grave sin, that is in St. Augustine’s times, worthy of excommunication (being sent out or away from Communion). The bishop discerns when the sinner has done adequate penance and been absolved of his sin to come back to take Communion.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">[There is a section on a hypothetical of one country having a Lenten fast that excludes Christians from bathing and from relaxing their fasts on the fifth day of the week (Friday), and about a visitor who doesn’t fast on that day when in the country. That visitor is trying to say that his customs are superior to another’s by not following that custom and his justification for such and such cannot come from the Scriptures or the traditions of the universal Church. Nor can he prove that these sorts of fasts are in particular of danger to morals. In that manner none should repudiate others’ fasting customs. There is then a comment on the hypothetical of a strange country offering two masses on Holy Thursday, where the custom is typically only one mass in the evening on Holy Thursday, then one ought not to complain because of the subtle difference in tradition.]<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Next St. Augustine tackles three questions:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What ought to be done on the Thursday of the last week of Lent? Is the Sacrifice to be offered in the morning and again after supper, because it is said, <b><i>“In like manner after He had supped,” (Luke 22:23)</i></b> or is one to remain fasting and offer it only after supper, or is one to fast and then to sup after the offering as we are used to doing?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">St. Augustine answers that if the authority of the Scriptures tell us a way to do this, we should obey it, and likewise if the custom is of the whole Catholic Church it is madness to even doubt that we should obey the Church. But the question belongs to neither of these cases. None of these methods of fasting is in particular greater in and of itself than another method.<br />
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“<i>We are not to think that the reason for the custom in many places of offering the Sacrifice on that day after the meal is because it is written: ‘<b>In like manner, the chalice also, after he had supped, saying,’ (Luke 22:20, 1 Corinthians 11:25)</b> for He could have called that supper their having now received the Body, in order thereafter to receive the Chalice. As to his saying elsewhere: ‘<b>When you come into one place, it is not now to eat the Lord’s Supper,” (1 Corinthians 11:20) </b>–calling the reception of the Eucharist the Lord’s Supper- that could rather induce men to offer or receive the Eucharist after the meal of the day, because it says in the Gospel: ‘<b>Jesus took bread and blessed.’ (Matthew 26:26)</b> even though he had said above: ‘<b>But when it was evening He sat down with the twelve… and whilst they were eating, eh said that one of you is about to betray me,’ (Matthew 26:20,21) </b>but afterwards He gave them the Sacrament. And it is quite clear that, when the disciples first received the Body, they did not receive it fasting.<br />
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Is the whole Church, then, to be unjustly blamed because the Sacrament is always received fasting? Form this time it has pleased the Holy Spirit that, in honor of so great a Sacrament, no other food should enter into the mouth of a Christian before the Lord’s Body; that custom, therefore, is observed throughout the world. If the Lord gave the Sacrament after the taking of food, that is no reason for the brethren to assemble to receive it after having dined or supped, or to mingle it with their own meals, as those did whom the Apostle rebuked and corrected. Our Savior commended the sublimity of that mystery with special emphasis, because He wished to impress this last gift on the hearts and memory of the disciples, whom He was about to leave to enter on His Passion. Therefore, He did not give directions on the manner of Its reception afterwards, in order to leave this sacred charge to the Apostles, through whom He was about to institute the Churches. If He had so ordained that the Sacrament would always be received after other food, no one, I believe would have changed the custom. But, when the Apostle, speaking of this Sacrament, says: ‘<b>Wherefore, my brethren when you come together to eat, wait for one another; if any man be hungry, let him eat at home, that you come not together unto judgment,’ </b>and straightway he subjoins: ‘<b>And the rest I will set in order when I come,</b>’ <b>(1 Corinthians 11:33, 34) </b>we are given to understand by this that it was too much for him to set forth in a letter the whole manner of proceeding to be observed by the universal Church, and that what he set in order personally is subject to no variation of custom.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">[Next St. Augustine asks about why it is that on Holy Thursday that Christians are permitted to eat before going to the liturgy done in the evening.]<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><i>A certain probable explanation has appealed to some: on one fixed day of the year, when the Lord held His Supper, it should be allowed to offer and receive the Body and the Blood of the Lord, after taking food, as a special form of commemoration. However, I think it came about more naturally, so that anyone who had been fasting might be able to assist at the offering of the Sacrifice after the meal which is taken at the ninth hour [3 pm]. But, we do not, for that reason, oblige anyone to sup before that Banquet of the Lord, nor do we venture either to hinder anyone from doing it. I think this custom originated because many or almost all persons in many places were in the habit of bathing on that day, and, because many were keeping the fast, the Sacrifice was offered in the morning for the benefit of those who would dine- since they could not stand bathing and fasting at the same time- but it was offered at evening for the sake of those who remained fasting.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">[St. Augustine takes to task the question about why certain people came to bathe in this way, and he says maybe because those who were to be baptized on Easter thought it to be foul to come to be baptized in the baptismal font without having bathed, and so they chose Holy Thursday to bathe. He also wonders perhaps that because of the foot washing [?, he says because the day was chosen for it, bathing] that they bathed and others joined them to commemorate their joy and expectation for their coming baptism.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">Finally St. Augustine retires to say that he has answered to the best of his abilities. And he will answer further questions at a later time. In Book 2, St. Augustine addresses questions of Januarius regarding the celebration of Easter.]<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Conclusion:<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">St. Augustine here calls the Most Blessed Sacrament to be a life-giving sacrament, that must be given proper veneration and discernment that It is the Body and Blood of the Lord. He states that this can plainly be seen by a simple reading of 1<sup>st</sup> Corinthians. Moreover, he writes that it is only proper to fast before receiving the Sacrament because no other food should enter the mouth of a Christian before the Body of the Lord. Questions as to how one ought to fast when in different cities and towns are answered simply by St. Augustine through the words of St. Ambrose, to do as the people do so as to not cause scandal. St. Augustine tells us that the Eucharistic fast and customs were not set down universally by the Apostles (which he notes in St. Paul’s comments) and that whatever they have in tradition (Apostolic or not) is good for that church. Furthermore, what is not against faith and morals is acceptable to practice, and no one who does not find an admonition from the universal Church’s faith <b><u>or</u></b> from the Scriptures ought to tell bishops or Christians to abandon their own church’s smaller traditions and customs. The Lord did not set down the custom for the celebration of the Eucharist at the Lord’s Supper, but rather they were set individually by the Apostles. Our Lord merely wanted to share Himself and His intimate Gift in a special and calm way for His friends and disciples. It is possible to interpret St. Augustine’s words here in a non-Catholic way, but I think the hints here are pointing far more towards a Catholic understanding of veneration of the Sacrament as the true Body and Blood of Christ. This is especially clear when one looks to the words of St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Augustine’s teacher, who speaks more clearly and strongly on the Eucharist as being Christ Himself Incarnated into the form of bread and wine.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The final note on following the precepts of a local church may help us to better appreciate the traditions that each church has carried in its heart, and offer us better respect towards our brothers and sisters in Christ who may have subtle and beautiful differences in the expression of their liturgy. May the Lord help us to be one with each other, trusting that the Lord will lead us in unity even in distinct expressions of the One True Faith.</div>Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-90253117664459558372012-08-13T20:10:00.002-05:002012-08-13T20:26:55.647-05:00José Pereira and Robert Fastiggi on Augustinian Spirituality during the Catholic Reformation, Part 2 of 2<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Fray_Luis_de_Leon_GTC.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Fray_Luis_de_Leon_GTC.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baroque Augustinian Fray. Luis de León</td></tr>
</tbody></table>The <a href="http://corinquietam.blogspot.com/2012/08/jose-pereira-and-robert-fastiggi-on.html">last post</a> concerned the writings of José Pereira and Robert Fastiggi on Augustinian spirituality during the Catholic Reformation. This post concerns a part of their writings where St. Augustine posits the degrees of the spiritual life, which is numbered at seven grades of progress, and are closely linked to the Beatitudes (which are eight though apparently two are grouped together to make seven main points). I am cautious about what is contained in this reading of St. Augustine's work since I've not yet read St. Augustine's sermons on the Sermon on the Mount, nor am I too familiar with St. Augustine's writings on spiritual progress. All the less however, I will post this forward in an attempt to bring a scholarly (and costly) work to the public. The work again is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Mystical-Theology-Catholic-Reformation/dp/076183513X">The Mystical Theology of the Catholic Reformation</a>. Which is about $48 on Amazon.<br />
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"<b>2. Degrees of Spiritual Life</b><br />
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</b> As we have seen, the Augustinians understand spiritual progress as the perfection of charity, understood as the fullness of justice. Complementary to this understanding is the model of spiritual progress based on the beatitudes of Christ's Sermon on the Mount (Mat. 5-7). For [St.] Augustine, the seven degrees into which the spiritual life is divisible corresponding to the seven beatitudes: those of the poor in spirit, the meek, the sorrowful, those yearning for justice, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers are understood as representations of seven degrees or stages of the spiritual life.<span style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">1 </span></span>Each beatitude has a corresponding quality with which it is associated. These qualities resemble, but do not exactly match, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are: the fear of God, docility [piety], knowledge, strength [fortitude], compassion [counsel/right judgment], understanding, and wisdom.<br />
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The poor in spirit represent the first stage of the spiritual life; it is associated with the Spirit's gift of the fear of God. They point to the need to repent, renounce pride, and to be clothed in humility, which is true poverty of spirit.<br />
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The meek express the second stage of the spiritual life; it is associated with the gift of docility [piety]. Obedience to the divine precepts manifests docility to the teaching of Holy Scripture. True docility is characterized by the quality of sweetness.<br />
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The sorrowful embody the third stage of the spiritual life; it is associated with the gift of knowledge. By studying the word of God, one attains the true knowledge of one's own misery. At this stage, one is still in conflict with one's barely extinguished passions. by recognizing the imperfection of one's love for things that are truly good, there is the experience of holy sadness. Thus, this stage of the spiritual ascent includes those who are sorrowful.<br />
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The fourth stage of the spiritual life, of those who yearn for justice [and are persecuted for the sake of righteousness] is associated with the gift of strength [fortitude]. Supported by divine assistance, such people are able to resist the world and experience a pure love for eternal goods. Through purification and attention to God, they are oriented towards contemplation.<br />
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The fifth stage, exemplified by the merciful, is associated with the gift of compassion [counsel], where one begins to be prepared directly for contemplation by purifying oneself from acts of negligence and light faults. The endless need for God's pardon inspires one to be merciful to obtain mercy for oneself. This desire for purification leads to an increase of love for one's neighbor and even to a love for one's enemies.<br />
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The sixth stage is manifested by the pure of heart; it is associated with the gift of understanding. Purity is achieved when one confidently directs one's sight to God alone. With all affection and attachments to false goods removed, one's heart becomes pure and one is prepared to see God.<br />
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The seventh and highest stage of the spiritual life, that of the peacemakers, is associated with the gift of wisdom. When their human intelligence now purified, they are able to possess the true Good, contemplate the divine perfections and to enjoy the fruit of contemplation that is peace."<br />
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<b>Conclusion:</b><br />
I'm not too aware of this schema in St. Augustine's writings, but then again I have not read his sermons on Christ's Sermon on the Mount, though it certainly sounds like a plausible Baroque Augustinian synthesis or at least a plausible synthesis of St. Augustine's thought. Certainly the restlessness and disquiet of the heart is a theme in St. Augustine's writings, and the manner in which that disquiet can only be filled by God.<br />
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<b>Note:</b><br />
1. "Usually, the beatitudes are numbered as eight rather than seven. In regard to the degrees of the spiritual life, however, those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness are included with those who yearn for justice. The relevant texts of [St.] Augustine are <i>De quantitate animae</i> and <i>De sermone Domini in monte.</i>"<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><sup><o:p></o:p></sup></div>Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4943107321972953909.post-39286075085277164882012-08-13T20:05:00.003-05:002012-08-13T20:27:13.411-05:00José Pereira and Robert Fastiggi on Augustinian Spirituality during the Catholic Reformation, Part 1 of 2<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://lclcarmen1bac.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/ciudades-patrimonio-salamanca-fray-luis-de-lec3b3n-en-el-patio-de-escuelas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://lclcarmen1bac.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/ciudades-patrimonio-salamanca-fray-luis-de-lec3b3n-en-el-patio-de-escuelas.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Luis de León, a Baroque Augustinian theologian</td></tr>
</tbody></table>This excerpt comes from Pereira and Fastiggi's book "<i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Mystical-Theology-Catholic-Reformation/dp/076183513X">The Mystical Theology of the Catholic Reformation: An Overview of Baroque Spirituality</a>"</i> published in 2006. The book is quite fascinating though it is a light read for a scholarly book, and from what it looks like it is a partial view into the mystical theology of the Catholic Reformation. There are quite a number of long lists of authors and their lives throughout the book which is a bit off-putting if you want to dive directly into the theme of the book, and even then the book seems a bit generic at times, though with sure nuggets of many Baroque authors' views on Catholic spirituality. The book covers an overview of Baroque thought first, including Baroque Scholasticism, Baroque modernity, Baroque Positive Theology, and Baroque Sacred Oratory. Following these sections are chapters that actually deal with the title's topic, spirituality. They include a chapter titled, "Unfolding of Baroque Spirituality", then followed by the Spirituality of the Monastic Orders (Benedictine, Cistercian, Carthusian), Spirituality of the Mendicant Friars (Franciscan, Dominican), Spirituality of the clerics Regular (Augustinian, Theatine, Barnabite), Spirituality of the Major Orders of the Baroque age (Jesuit, Oratorian), and the final sections deal with Carmelite Spirituality (Calced Carmelite, Discalced Carmelite, St. Teresa of Ávila, St. John of the Cross).<br />
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I'll just paste here a tidbit of what was written by these authors of Augustinian Spirituality in the Order of Saint Augustine (OSA) and the canon regulars (priests who took monastic vows). It will be helpful to know that OSA and the other Augustinian orders (like the Recollects) arose during the late Middle Ages, of which OSA still stands today.<br />
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"<b>1 Augustinian focus on Charity</b><br />
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</b> Augustinian spirituality, inspired by [St.] Augustine, understands the spiritual life as the perfection of charity, justice, and peace. While all schools of Catholic spirituality recognize charity as the essence of spiritual life, the Augustinian school gives preeminence to charity as the source of human justice before God. In this regard, classical Augustinian spirituality finds the source of human justice in not "faith alone," but in "charity alone." The intimate link between justice and charity is reflected in [St.] Augustine's words: <i>"Charitas ergo inchoata, inchoata justitia est: charitas provecta, provecta justitia est; charitas magna, magna justitia est"</i> (Therfore, intial charity is initial justice; developed charity is developed justice; great charity is great justice). (On Nature and Grace, c. 70, n. 84)<br />
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For [St.] Augustine, <i>virtus est charitas</i> (virtue is charity) and Christian perfection consists in the possession and increase of charity. Moreover, charity is a gift from God since it "<i><b>has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit" (Romans 5:5)</b>. </i>This focus on charity as a divine gift helps to explain why [St.] Augustine is upheld as "the Doctor of Grace."<br />
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Augustinian discourse on charity relates to its comprehensive nature, and to the conditions needed for God's grace to effectively produce charity in our souls.<br />
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Before all else, charity is the love of God for Himself as the sovereign Good. This love, in its purest form, is completely selfless since it recognizes the loving possession of God Himself as its only recompense (<i>nisi merces esset ipse qui amatur</i>) (Sermon 340, n.1). The Holy triinty is possessed by the blessed [in] heaven and the source of peace for us now. Our hearts will be restless until they rest in God (e<i>t inquietum est cor nostrom donec requiescat in Te</i>). (Confessions, Bk 1, Ch 1)<br />
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The love of self follows form the true love of God. Whoever would love himself and not God does not really love himself. Man cannot be his own sovereign good. Loving God attaches man to the Good that far transcends himself. This is why man actually serves himself by serving God, since he is reaching towards the source of his true happiness. As [St.] Augustine writes: "No one loves himself except by loving God" (<i>Nemo, nisi Deum diligendo, diligit seipsum</i>) (Letter 155, n. 15).<br />
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The love of neighbor also follows from the love of God. It is founded on the mystical [Body] of Christ, since Christ is the bond of charity between His members. As [St.] Augustine writes: "Therefore, when you love the members of Christ, you love Christ" (<i>Cum ergo membra Christi diligis Christum diligis</i>) (On the first epistle of St. John, tractate 10, n. 3). As the Head of the Mystical Body, Christ rejoices and suffers in all His members. Charity towards neighbor, therefore, is the primary means of establishing the unity of Christ on earth; and this charity cannot be limited simply to Christians. Christ has extended His Body over the entire earth, and those who are not Christian must be included in Christ's love. [St.] Augustine believes that "the fire of charity, in some manner, brings all together into one spirit" (<i>in unum spiritum quodammodo igne caritatis conflatum</i>) (On the Trinity, Bk 4, chapter 9). When one loves God, one also wishes others to love Him since loving God is the highest good of all humans. The practice of charity, therefore, seeks to unite all in the love of God, who is source of all love and goodness.<br />
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Because charity towards one's neighbor is an exercise of the love of God, it is also a means of purification that enables one to grow in divine love and grace. As [St.] Augustine writes: "By loving your neighbor, you purify the eye so that it may better see God" (<i>Diligendo proximum, purgas oculum ad videndum Deum</i>) (Sermons on the Gospel of John, tractate 17, n. 8). True charity towards one's neighbor is also active; it is a dynamic expression of interior grace in concrete deeds of love.<br />
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In [St.] Augustine's view, all the other virtues are rooted in charity, even the theological virtues of faith and hope. Acts are worthy of praise to the extent that they are inspired by charity, and only deeds that flow from charity serve the purpose of eternal life. The excellence of charity above all other virtues is explicitly affirmed in Scripture (<b>1 Corinthians 13:13</b>), and [St.] Augustine insists that nothing serves the purpose of the good unless it has charity (<i>non autem utitur bene, qui non habet caritatemm)</i>. (<i>Serm. Denis XIX, 11, 2-7</i> in <i>Miscellanea Agostiniana </i>(<i>Roma, </i>1931)<i>, </i>vol. 1, p 101)<br />
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This brings us to the topic of the conditions needed for the production of charity in the human soul. Augustinian spirituality is rooted in the recognition of charity as a supernatural gift of God. Thus, the doctrine of grace, so central to [St.] Augustine's theological system, is at the heart of his spirituality. Since spiritual perfection consists primarily in the perfection of charity, the movements of grace are always operative in the spiritual ascent. However, [St.] Augustine does not teach a purely passive spirituality, for "He who made you without you does not save you without you" (<i>Qui fecit te sine te non justificat te sine te</i>) (Sermon 169, II, 13). Thus, there is need for a number of conditions-chiefly five- for God's grace to effectively produce charity in our souls: prayer, humility, ascetical living, the imitation of Christ, and the practice of the evangelical counsels.<br />
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<i>Prayer</i> (condition 1) is not only a way of coming to know God; it is also a means by which our desires and affections are purified and our will becomes more perfectly united with the will of God. Since daily occupations distract us, it is important that there be specific times set aside for prayer. However, everyday actions can also be prayers if done out of love for God. The ultimate goal is to reach a contemplative state of mind where prayer can be continuous.<br />
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According to [St.] Augustine, <i>humility</i> (condition 2) is the only way to God. This virtue rises in us when we receive the grace to recognize our own weakness. We must come to understand who we are and the truth of our condition. We owe all to God's mercy. Christ is the great source of humility for He brought this virtue into the world and He communicates it to His members. Opposed to humility is pride, which is the source of the vices. In order to overcome vice and to be perfected in charity, humility is essential.<br />
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An <i>ascetical life</i> (condition 3) is likewise necessary for growth in charity. The Christian must undergo the spiritual combat, which consists in the effort to detach the heart from the love of temporal goods and the love of self. This enables the heart to love God above all things. This is the process of detachment, renunciation, and abnegation. Personal effort is required in this struggle against the spirit of the world, but progress can only be made because of divine grace.<br />
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Christ is the great model of abnegation. He is the great teacher of the ascetical path. As [St.] Augustine writes: "Christ has come to transform love." (Sermon 344, n. 1). This transformation of love is revealed in His infancy, His public life, and, most especially, on the cross. By contemplation the humility of the INcarnate Word in these special moments, the Christian is moved to a deeper love of God. Ultimately, life is lived in <i>imitation of Christ</i> (condition 4). The example of the Lord Jesus provides a remedy for the concupiscence of the flesh. His compassion, nobility, and chastity enable the soul to overcome temptations, and to live in peaceful harmony with God's will.<br />
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For those who wish to progress in the spiritual life, the <i>evangelical counsels </i>(condition 5) are especially recommended. Voluntary poverty, absolute continence, and religious obedience are important supports for the cultivation of charity. For [St.] Augustine, obedience is especially important since "obedience is in some way that mother of all the virtues" (<i>omnium virtutum quodam modo matrem esse obedientiam</i>) (On the good of marriage, c.24, n. 28). Poverty, chastity, and obedience form the heart of the monastic life. However, they are also necessary, in their own way, for those who are not monks or nuns. Thus, [St.] Augustine exhorts those who are married to practice periodic continence by mutual consent, and to young men and women he recommends the state of virginity."<br />
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<b>Conclusion:</b><br />
This analysis comes from the book, and I think it is a pretty good summary of St. Augustine's approach to the prayerful and faithful life, though I think there are some anachronisms here, such as making statements about St. Augustine's view of the supernatural and natural, which is a later theological notion, though I think he would agree with it, since there is a dichotomy between nature and grace. There is much emphasis in St. Augustine's theology regarding love and God's love as shown by His Incarnation. The poverty which the Lord took on by becoming man is important to St. Augustine in terms of his invocation to humility. Other than that I thought this was a good introduction to Augustinian spirituality.<br />
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There will be another post soon regarding the Augustinian view of the Beatitudes as guides for the spiritual life. These will be incorporated into a look at Baroquian Augustinian spirituality, which will follow these next two posts in perhaps another few months, or whenever I get to read them.Steven Rhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12601858164034778521noreply@blogger.com0