St. Peter Canisius Apostolate

 

 The Word of God is the Light of the World [28:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this episode, we continue our discussion of the opening of the Gospel of John (1.1-18). Topics under discussion include:

• That John 1.1-18 was an ancient Christian hymn.
• That the verses about John the Baptist were added as a polemic against a group that believed the Baptist was the “one who was to come.”
• How the Greek word for “word” (logos) provides us with the transition from Word of God to the Light of the World.
• That is through the “wound of ignorance” (as St. Thomas Aquinas calls it) that the world does not recognize the Light.
• How the Word of God enters a life filled with rejection and persecution.
• That becoming a child of God is the necessary requirement for entering the kingdom of God, and this is fulfilled in us through the sacrament of baptism.

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I’ve been wasting time working hard this morning trying to make this blog more functional to my readers who leave comments. Namely, I was looking for a text-rich editor plugin so you all can use bold, italics, and underline in your comments, and I was looking a means for you to subscribe to a comment thread, if you wanted.

Alas, I couldn’t find a text-rich plugin. [Update] I found a rich-text editor for the comments . . . but it comes with a whole lot of extra features. I don’t know if that’s going to be a problem. If you experience anything strange on your end, please let me know.

But I did find a plugin that would allow you to subscribe to comments. After you write your reply, there’s a nifty little box you can check if you want email notifications when a comment is made. For most, this feature is irrelevant. However, I get a lot of questions in the comment boxes, so I wanted to make it easy for those asking questions to know when their question has been addressed.

Of course, there’s no way to differientate between my answers from other comments. But at least you’ll know when a new comment has been posted.

From this post, I received the following question:

Suppose one goes through a period in life when he has absolutely no determination to do anything at all, even to pray, or do his duty of his state of life,(both of which he did very enthusiastically not so long ago) but only fear, confusion, and hesitancy fill his mind, what would you recommend one do during this period?

This is probably a stupid question, but I would really value your opinion on this. Thanks.

Here’s my answer:

I don’t think your question is stupid at all. On the contrary, I think it speaks to a very real spiritual state every one is tempted toward — even the greatest of saints — and many people fall into it. It’s call, in medieval terminology, acedia; in biblical terminology, it’s called lukewarmness; but today it’s probably better known as spiritual sloth. I can’t define it much better than you have.

So, what’s the remedy?

Provided that one hasn’t brought this state upon oneself through habitual mortal sin — if one has, the remedy is pretty clear: Confession, and a firm resolution not to sin again. If that’s not the case, read on:

1. Pray the St. Michael prayer every day, and pray the traditional prayer to your Guardian Angel. Why? Because “fear, confusion, and hesitancy” are emotions inspirited by the evil one.

2. Go to Confession on a regular basis — at least once a month, maybe even once a week, if possible, until this period of darkness passes — and confess the sin of lukewarmness. Everyone knows that through Confession our sins are forgiven, but not everyone knows that through Confession we are given the grace of fortitude to resist temptation. The only way out of this spiritual stupor is God’s grace.

3. Return to a simple prayer life: an Our Father, a Hail Mary, and a Glory Be, every day, preferably on your knees. In doing this, I’d recommend that you make the resolution to recall that God’s is present while you prayer.

4. While engaging in the duties of one’s state of life, recall the manual labor done by Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in Nazareth. In other words, unite your work to Christ. Make is a prayer. Soon, you’ll realize it’s spiritual dimension.

5. Read this post of mine. Though I’m not one to toot my own horn, based on some of the responses I’ve received to this post, I think it’ll help explain (in outline) what you might be going through. Why do I say that?

6. Read a book about a favorite saint.

7. Think often about your ultimate goal. Perhaps this post will help.

8. Perhaps you should consider changing your prayer life. Suppose, for example, your daily routine is to pray the Rosary in the morning and read a chapter of the Gospels in the evening. Perhaps praying Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours and reading a different book — Abandonment to Divine Providence, for example — would help.

9. Think often about the Passion of Christ. This doesn’t have to be systematic; you don’t need to pray the Stations of the Cross, or the Sorrowful Mysteries, to do this. Rather, throughout the day, when it occurres to you to do so, think about Our Lord’s Passion, and strive to gain strength from it. You might have to be creative to do this. For example, I heard a story of someone who, whenever she got to work (she was a cashier at a department store) she made a cross out of two paperclips — and whenever she noticed them, she said a short prayer. Little things like this work wonders.

10. Finally, remember that God desires a good will more than he desires anything else. Success, as we often define it, is irrelevant in the spiritual life. A good will and a steely determination are what’s most important. Easier said than done, I know.

Here’s the reading from Morning Prayer:

In everything you do, act without grumbling or arguing; prove yourselves innocent and straightforward, children of God beyond reproach in the midst of a twisted and depraved generation — among whom you shine like the stars in the sky. (Phil 2.14-15)

It has occurred to me repeatedly over the past year that it isn’t enough to know the faith, we must also live the faith. I must admit, that I’m guilty of not living the Gospel as well as I could.

So here’s my weekend question — not to be answered in the comment box (unless you want) — but to be pondered. I’m going to ask it in the second-person singular; be assurred, however, that I’m asking it of myself.

Here it is:

Have you embraced the all-encompasing nature of the Gospel, or are you guilty of hearing only those parts that appeal to you and turning a deaf ear to those that don’t? Simply, Is your “Yes” to Our Lord Jesus a “Yes” that penetrates every part of your life?

From Seeking Spiritual Direction by Fr. Thomas Dubay:

Most of us assume that world-class excellence in music, scholarship, or sports is due mainly to extraordinary talent, but studies of the question find that while talent does play a part, the chief factor is drive and determination. So it is with sanctity. Saints are not born saints. They do not have a superior human nature. They are as weak and wounded as the rest of us. The difference lies in their resolution. Men and women on fire do not simply admire holiness or merely wish it were so. They make up their minds to take the Lord at his word and with no dilution of his message. Am I as determined in my pursuit of God as the worldly are in seeking prestige and power, fame and fortune?

An excerpt from Cardinal Francis George’s address at the Synod of Bishops, as reported by Zenit:

“Scripture is the soul of liturgy even more than it is the heart of theology,” the president of the US bishops’ conference said. “With decreased participation in the Sunday liturgy, the faithful cut themselves off from contact with Scripture in the context of communal worship.

“Through steady attention to the Scriptures that shape the liturgical cycles and calendar, the believer opens himself to conversion and development in the life of grace.”

Cardinal George called regular attendance at Mass a “schooling in the obedience of faith.”

“A love of Scripture,” he continued, “feeds the desire to worship in spirit and in truth, and, in turn, our worship gives God the opportunity to transform us more profoundly into the image of Christ.”

The cardinal commented on the practice of “lectio divina,” which he called a form of prayer “so apt to purify one’s desires and bring one’s will into harmony with God’s will,” yet so “far from common even among those who regularly come to Church.”

He said that if pastors are attentive, “people will not fear confusion when they read and listen to the Bible. It will not be for them a grand puzzle but a path to the freedom that comes from personal surrender to God’s world, God’s mind, God’s will.

“If the power of God’s word in Holy Scripture is to be felt in the life and mission of the Church, pastors must attend to personal context as well as to inspired text.”

From a letter by Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (my emphasis and comments):

It seems to me that our Lord’s earnest desire to have his sacred heart honored in a special way is directed toward renewing the effects of redemption in our souls. [All forms of non-liturgical devotions are directed toward this end -- renewing the mystery of redemption within our hearts.] For the sacred heart is an inexhaustible fountain and its sole desire is to pour itself out into the hearts of the humble so as to free them and prepare them to lead lives according to his good pleasure.

From this divine heart three streams flow endlessly. The first is the stream of mercy for sinners; it pours into their hearts sentiments of contrition and repentance. The second is the stream of charity which helps all in need and especially aids those seeking perfection to find the means of surmounting their difficulties. From the third stream flow love and light for the benefit of his friends who have attained perfection; these he wishes to unite to himself so that they may share his knowledge and commandments and, in their individual ways, devote themselves wholly to advancing his glory. [In a way, these three "streams" follow the traditional three ways of the spiritual life: the way of purgation, the way of illumination, and the way of union. To enter the way of purgation, one needs contrition and repentance. To enter the way of illumination, one needs to seek perfection. Union with God, however, is a grace given by God to his closest friends who have long walked the narrow path of redemption.]

This divine heart is an abyss of all blessings, and into it the poor should submerge all their needs. It is an abyss of joy in which all of us can immerse our sorrows. It is an abyss of lowliness to counteract our foolishness, and abyss of mercy for the wretched, an abyss of love to meet our every need.

Therefore, you must unite yourselves to the heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, both at the beginning of your conversion in order to obtain proper dispositions, and as its end in order to make reparation. Are you making no progress in prayer? Then you need only offer God the prayer which the Savior has poured out for us in the sacrament of the altar. [The Holy Mass is the greatest prayer available to us!] Offer God her fervent love in reparation for your sluggishness. In the course of every activity pray as follows: “My God, I do this or I endure that in the heart of your Son and according to his holy counsels. I offer it to you in reparation for anything blameworthy or imperfect in my actions.” Continue to do this in every circumstance of life. And every time that some punishment, affliction or injustice comes your way, say to yourself: “Accept this as sent to you by the Sacred Heart of Jesus in order to unite yourself to him.”

But above all preserve peace of heart. This is more valuable than any treasure. [That's the goal; now the how-to.] In order to preserve it there is nothing more useful than renouncing your own will and substituting it for the will of the divine heart. [Complete abandonment to the will of God -- that is the path we must walk. So easy to say; so hard to do.] In this way his will can carry out for us whatever contributes to his glory, and we will be happy to be his subjects and to trust entirely to him.

From The Lord by Romano Guardini:

Revelation shows that the merely unitarian God found in post-Christian Judaism, in Islam, and throughout the modern consciousness does not exist. At the heart of that mystery which the Church expresses in her teaching of the trinity of person in the unity of life stands the God of Revelation. Here [in John 1.1-18] John seeks the root of Christ’s existence: in the second of the Most Holy Persons; the Word (Logos), in whom God the Speaker, reveals the fulness of his being. Speaker and Spoken, however, incline towards each other and are one in the love of the Holy Spirit. The Second “Countenace” of God, here called the Word, is also named Son, since he who speaks the Word is known as Father. In the Lord’s farewell address, the Holy Spirit is given the promising name of Consoler, Sustainer, for he will see to it that the brothers and sisters in Christ are not left orphans by his death. Through the Holy Spirit the Redeemer came to us, straight from the heart of the Heavenly Father.

In the Jesus and the Catholic Church Podcast, episodes 1-3, we’ll be talking quite a bit about the Word — one of the titles given to Jesus — and why the Word became flesh. I thought it would be good to spend the next few weeks taking a close look at what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about the theology of the Incarnation. That is to say, I want to spend the next few weeks talking about the meaning of the Incarnation, about why the Word became flesh. To do this, our focus will be on paragraphs 456-483 of the Catechism.

In paragraphs 456-460, the Catechism answers this question: “Why did the Word become flesh?” In other words: Why did the Son of God become a man?

Paragraph 456 gives us the answer that we find in the Nicene Creed: “For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven.” Simply put, the Word became flesh in order to save us.

But what does this salvation entail? Most people, I think, would say, “Yes, salvation means being saved from hell.” There’s no question that that is part of it. We learn more about hell from the lips of Christ himself in the four gospels than we do in the rest of the Old and New Testaments combined. But to define salvation only in this way emaciates both the teaching of Christ as well as the traditional Christian understanding of salvation.

Oddly, in paragraphs 456-460, the Catechism never defines salvation as being saved from hell. Instead, the Catechism, which expresses traditional Christian teaching in a new way, explains salvation not in a negative way (what we’re saved from), but, rather, it explains salvation in a positive way by telling us what it gives us.

Paragraph 457 tells us that the Word became flesh “in order to save us by reconciling us to God.” This is done by taking away our sins. To explain this truth, the Catechism quotes St. Gregory of Nyssa here: “Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again. We had lost possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us.” In other words, a fundamental truth of the mystery of salvation is that we are healed. The Word became flesh to take away our sins, and by taking away our sins he healed us. We are no longer at enmity with God; rather, we have be reconciled to the Father.

Paragraph 458 tells us that the Word became flesh “so that we might know God’s love.” Whereas 457 spoke of spiritual healing, 458 speaks of intellectual healing. Through human words, and by living a human life that culminates in his death and resurrection, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, reveals God’s infinite and merciful love. Quoting from both John 3.16 and 1 John 4.9, paragraph 458 tells us that God sent his Son into the world so that we might have life. Our intellect is healed by knowing that God’s infinite and merciful love expresses itself in the desire he has for us to share in his own very life.

In fact, paragraph 460 says as much, when it cites 2 Peter 1.4: The Word became flesh “to make us partakers of the divine nature.” What does it mean to be a partaker of the divine nature? In three different quotations, the Catechism shows what the traditional understanding of this biblical verse.

Going in historical order, the Catechism first cites St. Irenaeus (d. 202): “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.”

The Catechism then cites St. Athanasius (d. 373), who in a more emphatic way, says this: “For the Son of God became a man so that we might become God.”

Finally the Catechism cites St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), who says: “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”

It takes awhile to wrap one’s mind around this concept — that through the grace of God we become like God. Yet, that is the truth of the matter. When we are baptized, we receive the supernatural life of God within our souls, thus becoming true children of the Father. In the Holy Eucharist, we receive the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ, which nourishes the supernatural life of God within us. Both baptism and the Eucharist would not be possible had not the Son of God become man, for both through baptism and the Holy Eucharist we enter into communion with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (see Rom 6.1-12 for baptism, and 1 Cor 10.14-22 for the Eucharist).

Finally, in paragraph 459, we are told that the Word became flesh “to be our model of holiness.” Citing various passages of Scripture, we are reminded that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (Jn 14.6); that we are take his yoke upon our shoulders and learn from him (Mt 11.29); that God the Father commanded us to listen to him (Mk 9.7); and that we are to imitate his love (Jn 15.12). Simply put, we are to live as he lived.

Thus, when we pray in the Nicene Creed that “for us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven,” we must recall the Church’s understanding of salvation. It is not a negative understanding — it is not merely being saved from hell. Rather, it is immensely positive. Salvation for the Church means being reconciled with God, knowing that because of his love God wishes us to share in eternal life with him, and that God fills us with his own divine life in such a profound way that we become like him.

Yet, in all this heavy theology, there is a practical side: Part of our salvation depends up us — depends upon imitating Our Lord Jesus. Through his death and resurrection, he reconciled us to God; through his life and teaching, he reveals God’s infinite love; and through the sacraments, we become sharers of the divine nature. That’s what Our Lord does for us. All he asks of us is to be his disciple — to live as he lived.

And that is why the Word became flesh — to give us all the graces of salvation, and to teach us how to live a life worthy of this calling.

From Zenit. Note how often the Pope says that the Word of God is the ultimate reality. That’s the key to understanding what he’s saying.

The current economic crisis shows the importance of building our lives on the firm foundation of the Word, Benedict XVI affirmed on the first day of the synod of bishops.

The Pope said this today as he offered a meditation to the 244 synod fathers gathered for the first full day of the assembly on the word of God in the life and mission of the Church.

“We see it now in the fall of the great banks,” the Holy Father said. “This money disappears; it is nothing — and in the same way, all these things, which lack a true reality to depend on, and are elements of a second order. The word of God is the basis of everything, it is the true reality. And to be realists, we should count on this reality.”

“We should change our idea that matter, solid things, things we touch, are the most solid and secure reality,” the Pontiff continued. He noted how Jesus spoke of the two possibilities of building a house on the sand or on a firm rock. [See Matthew 7.24-27]

“He who builds only on things that are visible and tangible, on success, a career, money — he is building on sand,” he said. “Apparently these are the true realities, but one day they will pass away.”

Built on sand

The Bishop of Rome continued: “And in this way, all these things that do not have a true reality to count on. […] He who builds his house on these realities, on material things, on success, on everything that seems to be, builds on sand.

“Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality; it is stable like the heavens and more than the heavens. It is the reality. Therefore we should change our concept of realism. The realist is he who recognizes in the Word of God, in this reality apparently so fragile, the basis of everything.”

Archbishop Claudio Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, afterward told the press that the Pope had invited his listeners to see economy and finances as a “penultimate reality.”

“It is undeniable that other realities, when they are compared to the Word, reveal their limits,” he explained. “They are truly penultimate, but not the final truth.

“The heart of the topic that the Pope addressed is not the current economic situation, but the importance of the Word of God in the path of man. And from this light, other dimensions are like clouds that show their flimsiness.”