Begotten in the Only Begotten

I always appreciate when St. Irenaeus's Against Heresies comes up in the Office of Readings; it's one of a handful of books given me to read in theology that I think improved my understanding of Christianity in a basic way. The passage given for Pentecost begins this way:

When the Lord told his disciples to go and teach all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, he conferred on them the power of giving men new life in God.

Reflecting on that, I found myself, as I do sometimes, praying for all of those who have been my spiritual parents along the way.

My News and Coming Transitions

Within the last few weeks, new developments in my life have brought me into a new time of transition and reorientation. In a post a couple of weeks back I asked your prayers for the situation, and I have been grateful for the strength of that encouragement.

So here's the news: I have been asked to join the ministry of the Order's general secretariat at our general curia in Rome as an English-language secretary. This news came as a complete surprise. As I calmed down inside, however, and was able to start to think and pray about it, I became grateful and happy about this new possibility and direction in my religious life. My spiritual director confirmed these senses for me.

I don't, however, have to move until spring, towards the end of the school year.

As happy as I am about this new assignment, it left me in an awkward condition in my current assignment as a student at Boston College. I'm still in the beginning stages of the STD program there, and so this new assignment necessarily interrupts my studies in some way or other. Exactly how to craft this interruption into shape has been occupying my thoughts and reflection ever since I first got the call about the new assignment three weeks ago. After thinking various things through as best as I could: my own academic situation, the possibilities of the current moment before I move, my relationships with my teachers, and especially the whole history of my successes and--I confess--failures in obedience since I was first asked to apply to BC two years ago, it has been decided that I will take a leave of absence from the BC School of Theology & Ministry. The new assignment seems to have a probationary period of a year or so; applying for leave now could preserve the possibility of returning to BC if I don't work out.

With the time that will open up as I begin my leave and until I am supposed to move to Rome, I will seek further priestly work here in Boston.

Thank you for your prayers as I continue to try to be faithful in these transitions.

A Timely Word From Alvarus Pelagius

An email from Boston College alerts me that something called an 'unresolved balance' could impede my registration for the spring semester.

"[The students] contract debts and sometimes withdraw from the university without paying them, on which account they are excommunicated and do not care..."

(Alvarus Pelagius (ca. 1275-1349), De Planctu Ecclesiae, quoted from Brian Tierney, ed. Sources of Medieval History, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983), 297.)

Incomplete to Failing to Passing

The other day I got an email from the kind folks at the Boston College School of Theology & Ministry telling me that I wasn't registered for any classes and wondering whether I was still a student there. You see, I've never been able to figure out how to use the registration software, so at the beginning of these past two semesters I've gone to another nice lady in the school office (or as it seems to be called, the 'Service Center') and had her register me. But in order to get my scholarship money I have to be registered, so the person with whom I was emailing kindly enabled me in my incompetence and registered me from something called "TM 980," which is what you're in when you aren't in any actual courses anymore.

Following this email conversation I thought that the very fact of it perhaps meant I no longer had an 'F' in the Medieval Trinitarian theology seminar from last semester. And behold, when I checked my BC identity online, the F had been changed to a passing grade. So my grade in the course journeyed from an 'I' for incomplete at the end of the semester to an 'F' for 'administrative failure' on August 1 and then finally to a passing grade.

Of course in my vanity I enjoyed having an F in the course, at least for a little while, and even though it wasn't really an F. I had never had an F before. A couple of Ds along the way, but no F until now.

I got to reflecting on this as a metaphor for the spiritual life. We start out with the incomplete; without God there is something missing. Then, having let ourselves be found by God, we discover ourselves as a failure, unable to live up to the desire this new Presence works in our souls. And we live in the hope and prayer that this God who has come into our life is gently renovating our humanity so that in him we will become a passable human being. Perhaps with all of our resistances and hardness of heart we won't succeed in letting God make us into saints in this life, but in his mercy God has provided the searing joy of Purgatory as a mercy for those who need to continue this process after the end of earthly life. Either way, in the humanity of Christ our blessed incompleteness is offered salvation from the failing mess we tend to make of it, and that's what is meant by Christian hope.

Time to Find These Library Books

By accident, in trying to download a statement in which Boston College alleges that I owe $3,547 for the beloved privilege of continuing my current association with her, I discovered a link that displays a list of the books one has on loan from the various BC libraries. This will be very helpful in not forgetting to return them. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I have only ten outstanding loans:


Cur deus homo : atti del Congresso anselmiano internazionale, Roma, 21-23 maggio 1998 / a cura di Pa

The love of learning and the desire for God; a study of monastic culture. Translated by Catharine Mi

Magistri Alexandri de Hales Glossa in quatuor libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi, nunc demum reperta

Alexander of Hales' Theology of the Hypostatic Union

The city of God / translated by Marcus Dods ; with an introduction by Thomas Merton.

Doctoris irrefragabilis Alexandri de Hales Ordinis minorum Summa theologica iussu et auctoritate rmi

Proslogion / Anselm von Canterbury ; Untersuchungen lateinisch-deutsche Ausg. von P. Franciscus Sale

Monologion. Lateinisch-deutsche Ausgabe von P. Franciscus Salesius Schmitt.

Pourquoi Dieu s'est fait homme / Anselme de Cantorbéry ; texte latin ; introduction, bibliographie,

Decem opuscula ad theologiam mysticam spectantia / seraphici doctoris S. Bonaventurae ; in textu cor

Me at BC: An Examination of Conscience

Apparently, it's no secret that I'm not having an easy time with my interior consent to being at Boston College. On the one hand, it's been going very well; my professors have been helpful and very encouraging, I have found my fellow students to be interesting and friendly, and the libraries and their staffs have been great. But there's still a certain resistance inside; I notice it in little ways. For example, I find myself arranging my commute in ways that minimize my time on the campus and its buses. I take the long way so as to arrive at the edge of the campus where my class is held, and then leave the same way.

So what's going on with me? I've been trying to puzzle it out. Of course some it is the standard worry about Catholic colleges having given up on their Catholic identity. The mother of a prospective undergraduate recently told me about how she was totally turned off by the admissions office, which was, according to her, constantly apologizing for the Catholic nature of the school, and assuring her son that he was in no way expected to live a Catholic life while a student. Mom was horrified.

This sort of thing is old news. It concerns me, but I don't think it's quite the thing that gets to me. So I've been praying for some insight. Yesterday, while I was walking to the Chestnut Hill T station, I think my prayer was answered.

I'm a college convert. The immediate roots of my own conversion to Christianity and sacramental initiation in the Catholic Church were in the college campus, undergraduate life. And here's the trouble: I got to be a Christian, on the natural level, largely as a reaction against the experience of college. The atmosphere of material affluence was a real culture shock at the time. Yes, I had grown up with educational and cultural privilege, but without a sense or experience of the material wealth that seemed to surround me when I got to college. In the midst of it I used to think about the poor of the world or those suffering in the first war in Iraq (which was going on at the time), and I felt the sting of conscience and I began to desire a life of responsibility.

The consequence-free playground of alcohol, drugs, sex, and rock and roll soon seemed to be a false and empty liberation, especially as I became aware of its darker sides: poisonings, rapes, abortions.

Having become a metaphysical optimist through the course in Plato I took when I was still in high school, I was scandalized by a search for truth and devotion to learning that ignored or even denied the Truth Itself. Even philosophy fell short. In Philosophy 101 the professor consented, with triumphal glee, to the students' conclusion that there was no 'meaning of life,' but only 'meanings in life.' It wasn't good enough for me. I turned to religion.

From all this, then, it's easy to see how it was that I found in Catholic Christianity (and it's Franciscan expression) a suitable means for rejecting and reacting against my surroundings. I think this is the real reason I feel uncomfortable at BC; at the root of everything I've done with my adult life is an attempt to reject and find an alternative to the world of 'college.' So to be on the campus with all of the kids feels very wrong to me.

So, I beg the question. What in all this is important for me to own and protect, and what am I called to let go of? Surely I don't need to be determined by who I was when I was nineteen or twenty. On the other hand, though, I need to be true to myself. What should be kept, and what should be left? These questions must be the next, careful discernment.

Recent Dreams

I've been having a lot of dreams lately about not managing to get where I'm supposed to be going.

The troubles are varied. In one dream I forgot to respond to an attractive invitation because I got distracted. In another I missed an appointment because I didn't leave enough time for travel. Another time I couldn't even begin to get on my way because the vehicle I was supposed to drive was too complex and unwieldy, a huge RV full of different systems and gadgets. In the most recent dream on this theme, the street on which I was walking was blocked off because the buildings were on fire.

The images are very telling, but the question arises: what is this troublesome journey which I am either anxious about beginning, making, or being able to arrive at its destination? What increase in vigilance and mindfulness do I need to adopt? What do I need to let go of in order to be free to begin or continue? What old paths need to be re-routed that I might avoid the destructive forces, inside and out, that impede my steps?

The unwieldy vehicle is probably my own soul, and a warning to me that I need to care for myself better in these days full of new distractions and temptations to the dissipation of my internal attention. But I'm also worried that the unwieldy vehicle might be our province of the brothers which finds itself at a contentious moment and needs to find a way to step forward. The burning block of buildings is also full of possibilities. Probably it's one of the old paths of my prayer and interior habits that has become useless and even dangerous. New and less comfortable paths to God always need to be charted. This, after all, is the journey of faith at its dark and searing heart. But I also fear that the burning buildings might have something to do with BC; I walk the paths of that campus and I always remark on how robust, beautiful, and well-maintained the buildings are. (In contrast, of course, to the buildings of other Catholic institutions and parishes.) I worry that the vision of the dream might have been a glimpse into the actual, spiritual condition of BC. In the dream I remarked on two oddities of the scene: there were some firefighters, but they didn't seem to be doing anything, and there were people in the buildings, but they didn't seem to be trying to escape.

More importantly, though, what is the journey which so challenges me? Is it the STD program? Is it my place in the province and my obedience to the brothers, aware as I am aware of certain forces swirling about me, imagining particular outcomes to this course of study I have begun? Or is it something more fundamental and internal in my own interior journey with the Lord? Am I at one of those places in which I am straining to go to the next level of faith and trust, moments that always come with a lot of confusion and vertigo and grief at letting go of aspects of the false self I always thought were irreducible parts of "me" but which have to be jettisoned if I am to take another step into the Mystery?

Disconnect?

Being back in the archdiocese of Boston is interesting. When I last moved here, the scandals were just breaking. When I moved away, the closings and reconfigurations of parishes were in effect. From what I hear, Boston is still a church with her troubles. Mass attendance here is among the lowest in the country, I think I read somewhere. There will be further combining of parishes and more difficult decisions ahead, I'm sure. The 'What's wrong with church' conversation is a common one here. There isn't enough money, there aren't enough priests, the priests and seminarians we have aren't the right sort (I hear it said; I don't know if I agree), there are too many buildings in disrepair, and so on and on.

On the other hand, I couldn't help noticing the other day, during my first trip to Boston College, that it seems like an extraordinarily prosperous institution. A couple of impressive buildings had been built even since I was last using their library in 2005. Everything is clean and neat. Presumably this is because Boston College has capitalized on the administrative talent of some Catholic person or persons, combined with the tuition paid on behalf of lots of young people, many of whom I presume are Catholic, along with the gifts of older Catholics.

So it seems like there is some kind of disconnect in the prosperity of Catholic institutions around here. I don't want to diagnose; I'm just saying that I noticed.

Open Letter to Left-of-Center Catholics

This post is a response to a couple things I've read lately.

The first is this post from Jeff about the controversy over displaying crucifixes and icons in classrooms at Boston College. As usual, he is a faithful and thoughtful voice for moderation and against the polarizing forces of contemporary Catholicism. When it comes to those who object to displaying Christ crucified at an allegedly Catholic school (!) he writes, "Oh, give me a break! With moonbats like this around, no wonder we have SSPX wingnuts around... Is there anyone sane out there?" Though made in a colorful way, this is a very important point.

The second is this post from SFO Mom, expressing her frustration over the lack of seriousness or solemnity surrounding her child's preparation for the full sacramental initiation of Confirmation. I feel for her.

So here's my point to the alleged majority of faithful, dedicated and prayerful "left of center" Catholics: I will love you and revere you always because you have raised me, encouraged me, believed in me, and handed on the faith to me. But as long as we treat the deposit of faith and the gift of the sacraments casually, as long as we tolerate the environment of liturgical abuse that makes everyone their own pope, and as long as we give in to the secularizing forces that privatize and marginalize the truths of the faith, frustrated people will react by going just as far in the other direction, and they will find the demagogues you call "ultra conservative" or "far right" with great ease.

So if you love the accessibility and inclusion of the Mass of Paul VI and are worried about the remission of restrictions on the old Mass, then let's pray the Novus Ordo Missae together with the reverence that doesn't want to change its words or rubrics. Without the nonsense of liturgical abuses and 'making it up as we go along,' many fewer will seek stability and refuge in the Tridentine Mass. If you are worried about losing the "spirit of Vatican II" to so-called "traditionalist" forces, then let's read the documents of the Council again and pray about how we can put them into practice according to the "signs of the times." And I mean the signs of 2009, not those of 1971. And the so-called "crisis" that is behind my writing today is one of those signs that needs interpretation and action in the light of the Gospel.