September 30, 2011
My Pears
The other day I got into a conversation that reminded me of one of my early experiences of religious people.
Folks like to make fun of St. Augustine and the big deal he makes about stealing the pears in the Confessions, but I get it. I get how childhood experiences become ways into an understanding of the depth of the problem of sin.
I was in the first or second grade. Some earnest religious kid asked me if I was 'saved.' Partly curious and partly making fun of him I answered his question with another: "Saved from what?" The kid didn't have a ready answer.
When I think of having said what I said, it fills me with awe before the mystery of sin. For that from which I needed to be saved was with me always: I was a sad and anxious kid, and already at that age I felt--felt, not knew--that there was something very out of sorts with my particular being-in-the-world.
Sin is not just the unreality that robs us and our societies of the good that ought to be there, but it also clouds our minds and perverts our thinking so that we lose our sense of the most fundamental thing of all, our need for salvation. If we were well aware of our need for God and the deliverance that God wills to give us, we would immediately become filled with such devotion and missionary zeal as to become like the saints. Indeed this is what sanctity is; not that we should conform ourselves to some religious standard by agonistic effort at 'personal holiness,' but that we should surrender to the need and desire for God which is our own deepest identity.
Even for us who are baptized and have been delivered from the burden of the guilt our first parents earned for us by their sin, the injury left by original sin remains in us. All of the actual sins of our life have kept the wound festering. The whole rotten business makes it hard even to think straight about things, which is something that should teach us theology students a lot of humility.
Even in my unhappiness I could ask from what I needed to be saved. That's the mystery of sin in its deepest and most sinister.
This is not to say that the purpose of salvation is to make us feel better or to help us arrive at a better mental health situation. The purpose of salvation, at least as long as we remain in the Church on earth, is to get us free from carrying our own selves around as a burden so that we can give ourselves to each other in love, open and responsive to how God wants to make use of us for the salvation of others.
Folks like to make fun of St. Augustine and the big deal he makes about stealing the pears in the Confessions, but I get it. I get how childhood experiences become ways into an understanding of the depth of the problem of sin.
I was in the first or second grade. Some earnest religious kid asked me if I was 'saved.' Partly curious and partly making fun of him I answered his question with another: "Saved from what?" The kid didn't have a ready answer.
When I think of having said what I said, it fills me with awe before the mystery of sin. For that from which I needed to be saved was with me always: I was a sad and anxious kid, and already at that age I felt--felt, not knew--that there was something very out of sorts with my particular being-in-the-world.
Sin is not just the unreality that robs us and our societies of the good that ought to be there, but it also clouds our minds and perverts our thinking so that we lose our sense of the most fundamental thing of all, our need for salvation. If we were well aware of our need for God and the deliverance that God wills to give us, we would immediately become filled with such devotion and missionary zeal as to become like the saints. Indeed this is what sanctity is; not that we should conform ourselves to some religious standard by agonistic effort at 'personal holiness,' but that we should surrender to the need and desire for God which is our own deepest identity.
Even for us who are baptized and have been delivered from the burden of the guilt our first parents earned for us by their sin, the injury left by original sin remains in us. All of the actual sins of our life have kept the wound festering. The whole rotten business makes it hard even to think straight about things, which is something that should teach us theology students a lot of humility.
Even in my unhappiness I could ask from what I needed to be saved. That's the mystery of sin in its deepest and most sinister.
This is not to say that the purpose of salvation is to make us feel better or to help us arrive at a better mental health situation. The purpose of salvation, at least as long as we remain in the Church on earth, is to get us free from carrying our own selves around as a burden so that we can give ourselves to each other in love, open and responsive to how God wants to make use of us for the salvation of others.
September 29, 2011
Fat Free Roman Missal Rant
So I notice today that LTP has started to ship the new missal. Our new adventure in English-language worship comes another step closer. Will folks get used to saying, 'and with your spirit'? Will it help them pray? Will saying 'consubstantial' assist folks into the mystery of the Father and the Son better than 'one in being'? How long will it take priests to get used to saying 'dewfall' in their beloved Eucharistic Prayer II? How many boring arguments will have to be had about 'the many'?
I was thinking about these things as I ate my cereal this morning. That's when I noticed something fascinating on the kitchen counter: a carton of something called 'fat free half & half.' One of the brothers was putting some of it in his coffee. Isn't the idea of 'half & half' that it is something not quite as rich as cream but more so than plain milk? So what could it possibly mean that there is something called 'fat free half & half'? But there it is, right on the counter. And, apparently, whatever the referent of the utterance, 'fat free half & half' is supposed to be, the term carried enough meaning for somebody to buy it.
My point is that our problem is not just what words mean, but recovering the idea that they should have certain meanings at all. Therefore, for example, in addition to the question of whether it's better to say 'consubstantial' or 'one in being,' we need to be about recovering the assertion that the words matter because they refer to something in a specific way.
As one of my best teachers once said, we always have to remind ourselves that, in trying to talk about God, we are up against a grave challenge in a society that can say, "'Coke is life' and infinity [sic] is a car."
What we need to be careful of is the thinning out of language to the point that saying 'God is one and three' or 'Jesus Christ is one person of two natures hypostatically united' is the same sort of thing as saying 'fat free half & half.' The latter is a contradiction (which doesn't bother us because we have ceased to believe in truth and have, sometimes implicitly, accepted the relativism we have been taught) while the former is the best attempt of faithful and thoughtful Christians, helped by the Holy Spirit, to indicate the mysteries of revelation and the experience of salvation in human language.
Without truth, the mysteries of the Blessed Trinity and the Incarnation are the same sort of thing as the mystery of 'fat free half & half.' Without truth the new translation doesn't matter either, and both its defenders and detractors become those who argue from the meaningless tediums of taste and power.
I was thinking about these things as I ate my cereal this morning. That's when I noticed something fascinating on the kitchen counter: a carton of something called 'fat free half & half.' One of the brothers was putting some of it in his coffee. Isn't the idea of 'half & half' that it is something not quite as rich as cream but more so than plain milk? So what could it possibly mean that there is something called 'fat free half & half'? But there it is, right on the counter. And, apparently, whatever the referent of the utterance, 'fat free half & half' is supposed to be, the term carried enough meaning for somebody to buy it.
My point is that our problem is not just what words mean, but recovering the idea that they should have certain meanings at all. Therefore, for example, in addition to the question of whether it's better to say 'consubstantial' or 'one in being,' we need to be about recovering the assertion that the words matter because they refer to something in a specific way.
As one of my best teachers once said, we always have to remind ourselves that, in trying to talk about God, we are up against a grave challenge in a society that can say, "'Coke is life' and infinity [sic] is a car."
What we need to be careful of is the thinning out of language to the point that saying 'God is one and three' or 'Jesus Christ is one person of two natures hypostatically united' is the same sort of thing as saying 'fat free half & half.' The latter is a contradiction (which doesn't bother us because we have ceased to believe in truth and have, sometimes implicitly, accepted the relativism we have been taught) while the former is the best attempt of faithful and thoughtful Christians, helped by the Holy Spirit, to indicate the mysteries of revelation and the experience of salvation in human language.
Without truth, the mysteries of the Blessed Trinity and the Incarnation are the same sort of thing as the mystery of 'fat free half & half.' Without truth the new translation doesn't matter either, and both its defenders and detractors become those who argue from the meaningless tediums of taste and power.
September 28, 2011
Slow Posting
Posting has been a little slow lately, I know. The truth is that I'm a little preoccupied these days. The good news for the blog is that once I discern it all out, there should be some good material for posts. Until then I'm grateful for your prayers.
September 27, 2011
Taking Hold of the Garment of the Jew
Again we have the prophet Zechariah as the first reading for Mass:
"Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem and to implore the favor of the LORD. Thus says the LORD of hosts: in those days ten men of every nationality, speaking different tongues, shall take hold, yes, take hold of every Jew by the edge of his garment and say, 'Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.'" (8:22-23)
An image, this passage is, of Holy Communion.
Through the consent of Mary, the power of the Holy Spirit conceives the eternal Word of God as the human life of Jesus Christ, who is the Israel of God in person. By his Body broken open and his Blood poured out on the Cross, this divine humanity is offered to us as our saving nourishment in the Eucharist.
In approaching Holy Communion we desire to grasp the Jew by the edge of the garment of his humanity so that he may lead and carry our humanity to the destiny of the New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God both arriving and fulfilled in the Resurrection.
"Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem and to implore the favor of the LORD. Thus says the LORD of hosts: in those days ten men of every nationality, speaking different tongues, shall take hold, yes, take hold of every Jew by the edge of his garment and say, 'Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.'" (8:22-23)
An image, this passage is, of Holy Communion.
Through the consent of Mary, the power of the Holy Spirit conceives the eternal Word of God as the human life of Jesus Christ, who is the Israel of God in person. By his Body broken open and his Blood poured out on the Cross, this divine humanity is offered to us as our saving nourishment in the Eucharist.
In approaching Holy Communion we desire to grasp the Jew by the edge of the garment of his humanity so that he may lead and carry our humanity to the destiny of the New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God both arriving and fulfilled in the Resurrection.
September 26, 2011
A Picture of Salvation
In the first reading for Mass today, the prophet Zechariah presents an interesting picture of salvation:
"Thus says the LORD of hosts: Old men and old women, each with staff in hand because of old age, shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem. The city shall be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets." (Zechariah 8:4-5)
The city which has received the salvation God offers displays the following attributes:
"Thus says the LORD of hosts: Old men and old women, each with staff in hand because of old age, shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem. The city shall be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets." (Zechariah 8:4-5)
The city which has received the salvation God offers displays the following attributes:
- People mingle freely in public
- People grow to old age
- Old folks have the support they need ready at hand
- Children play freely and safely in public
September 24, 2011
Supernatural? Perhaps.
My all-time favorite movie quote: Bela Lugosi as Dr. Vitus Werdegast in The Black Cat (1934)
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