St. Peter Canisius Apostolate

From his Catechetical Instruction on the Apostles’ Creed, St. Thomas Aquinas writes:

There are four motives which have led men to believe in a number of gods.

(1) The dullness of the human intellect. Dull men, not capable of going beyond sensible things, did not believe anything existed except physical bodies. Hence, they held that the world is disposed and ruled by those bodies which to them seemed most beautiful and most valuable in this world. And, accordingly, to things such as the sun, the moon and the stars, they attributed and gave a divine worship. Such men are like to one who, going to a royal court to see the king, believes that whoever is sumptuously dressed or of official position is the king! “They have imagined either the sun and moon or the circle of the stars . . . to be the gods that rule the world. With whose beauty, if they being delighted, took them to be gods”(Wisdom 13.2-3).

(2) The second motive was human adulation. Some men, wishing to fawn upon kings and rulers, obey and subject themselves to them and show them honor which is due to God alone. After the death of these rulers, sometimes men make them gods, and sometimes this is done even whilst they are living. “That every nation may know that Nabuchodonosor is god of the earth, and besides him there is no other”(Judith 5.29).

(3) The human affection for sons and relatives was a third motive. Some, because of the excessive love which they had for their family, caused statues of them to be erected after their death, and gradually a divine honor was attached to these statues (cf. Wisdom 14.15-21). “For men serving either their affections or their kings, gave the incommunicable Name to stones and wood” (Wisdom 14.21).

(4) The last motive is the malice of the devil. The devil wished from the beginning to be equal to God, and thus he said: “I will ascend above the height of the clouds. I will be like the Most High” (Isa 14.14). The devil still entertains this desire. His entire purpose is to bring about that man adore him and offer sacrifices to him; not that he takes delight in a dog or cat that is offered to him, he does relish the fact that thereby irreverence is shown to God. Thus, he spoke to Christ: “All these will I give Thee, if falling down Thou wilt adore me (Matt 4.9). For this reason those demons who entered into idols said that they would be venerated as gods. “All the gods of the Gentiles are demons” (Ps 65.5). “The things which the heathens sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God” (1 Cor 10.20).

What I find interesting is his complete reliance on Scripture. Every motive has a biblical basis. Nowadays, we tend to approach polytheism solely from an academic viewpoint; it’s something that we’d discuss in a history of religion course. Yet, the question must be asked: Is there anything in this part of St. Thomas’s explanation of the Creed that might have a practical bearing on us? Let’s see.

The first form of polytheism is, oddly enough, an active force today. It doesn’t call itself a religion, nor does it claim that the sun, moon, and stars are gods. In fact, it’s proponents are atheists and therefore deny the supernatural in any form. But those who deny God’s existence because the problem of the irreducible complexity of the universe has seemingly been answered by the theory of natural selection are following the same path of the ancient pagans. They cannot fathom anything other than what they see; and if it cannot be proved or deduced by the scientific method, then it’s existence must be deemed highly improbable.

The second form of polytheism is no longer with us in the West. We do not worship our leaders as gods. Yet, note the motive St. Thomas gives — human adulation. Growing up, I had many idols: Randy Rhoades and Stephen King were probably my two biggest. I would have given anything to be like them. But it didn’t end in high school. I often wonder if the reason I went into theology was because I wanted to be like Scott Hahn rather than wanting to do the will of Christ. At any rate, here’s the question: How many of us can honestly say that the person we admire more than any one else — the one person we not only long to be like, but actively seek to imitate in all things — is Jesus Christ?

Once again, the kind of polytheism that St. Thomas is speaking of is no longer with us in the West. But once again, the motive is alive and well: Human affection for relatives. And though we may not worship our deceased kin as gods, how many of us, from the fear of upsetting a parent, a sibling, or a cousin, have refrained from speaking the truth about Our Lord Jesus and his Church when it needed to be spoken? This is different, I think, than the timidity we often experience when we know we should speak but are afraid of a confrontation. One is caused by a lack of courage; the other is caused because we don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. Not that we should speak without regard for another. Prudence is required. But is it prudence that keeps us from speaking?

The last form of polytheism is what we’d call Satanism. Though I’ve never met a Satanist, I know that people have. And I know that some who were caught up in the occult were able to escape and have told their stories. On a practical level, I suppose this last form should remind us that the devil exists, and that he is active in the most unimaginable ways.

These are my ideas, of course. St. Thomas himself concludes this section by offering his own thoughts how people may believe in many gods. I’ll put the key sentence in bold.

Although all this is terrible to contemplate, yet at times there are any who fall into these above-mentioned four causes. Not by their words and hearts, but by their actions, they show that they believe in many gods. Thus, those who believe that the celestial bodies influence the will of man and regulate their affairs by astrology, really make the heavenly bodies gods, and subject themselves to them. Be not afraid of the signs of heaven which the heathens fear. For the laws of the people are vain” (Jer 10.2-3). In the same category are all those who obey temporal rulers more than God, in that which they ought not; such actually set these up as gods. “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5.29). So also those who love their sons and kinsfolk more than God show by their actions that they believe in many gods; as likewise do those who love food more than God: “Whose god is their belly” (Phil 3.19). Moreover, all who take part in magic or in incantations believe that the demons are gods, because they seek from the devil that which God alone can give, such as revealing the future or discovering hidden things. We must, therefore, believe that there is but one God.

From Fr. John Hardon’s History and Theology of Grace:

St. Thomas’s analysis of the structure of the Pater Noster leans heavily on Augustine and emphasizes theological intimations that might otherwise be overlooked. Since prayer is an interpretation of our desires, he says, we should pray for those things which are proper for us to desire. In the Lord’s Prayer, we are asking of God everything that may lawfully be ambitioned. It is therefore not only a catalogue of petitions but also a corrective for the affections.

In other words, if we’re unsure whether we have a proper Christian outlook, we should spend some time meditating on the “Our Father.”

A month ago, I had my first meeting with my first spiritual director in many years. He encouraged me to spend one month coming up with a rule of life — a schedule I’d more or less follow each day. I say “more or less” because as any lay person knows (as well as any busy parish priest), some days it’s just impossible to follow the rule (or schedule) one has set up. In fact, though I had known about a rule of life before meeting with my spiritual director, I had resisted the idea. The days are just too varied for a layperson to have a rule of life, are they not?

I expressed this objection to my spiritual director, of course, and he still strongly encouraged me to develop a rule of prayer.

“The first thing you need to do,” he said, “is to schedule your prayer around events, not the clock. That way, it doesn’t matter if you wake up at 6:30 on weekdays but 7:45 on weekends. If you’re committed to praying the Rosary in the mornings, for example, you pray it when you wake up, whether it’s 6:30 or 7:45.”

“Also,” he continued, “your rule of prayer must fit within your normal life. You cannot write a rule of prayer without writing a rule of life. When you do homeschool? When do you work on the apostolate? When do you read and study? When do you spend time with your wife? All of that needs to be scheduled.”

Now, the first bit of advice — writing a disciple of prayer according to events rather than the clock — made a lot of sense to me. But the second bit of advice — scheduling everything — seemed a bit overboard.

But he encouraged me to spend a month working on it.

“It’s not something you can do in a week,” he said. “You write it. You try to live it. You modify it. And you repeat until you get something that’s workable.

“Then comes the hard part,” he added, “and that’s following it.”

So for the past month I’ve been working on this rule of prayer, and just last week it all came together. Here are some of the things — other than asking for the help of the Holy Spirit — that helped me in developing this schedule.

1. Morning, Noon, and Night. You’ll want to try to schedule prayer times in morning, afternoon, evening, and night. Why? Because there will be days you’ll have to miss one of your prayer times. You’ll have a doctor’s appointment one morning, perhaps, or a date with your spouse one evening. So if you don’t have multiple prayer times, there could be a day (or days) that you don’t pray at all.

On the other hand, these prayer times cannot be long, because most days you will be able to prayer morning, noon, evening, and night. If you allot a half-hour to each prayer time, you’ll soon get burdened out.

Thus, you need to be committed to fine-tuning your proposed schedule until it fits your life.

2. Stick to the essentials. As wonderful as some devotions are, my spiritual director encouraged me to stick to the essentials — namely, the Liturgy of the Hours, daily Mass (when possible), the Rosary, spiritual reading, and mental prayer. At first, all of this seemed immensely ridiculous. How was I ever going to find the time to do all of this? But what I’ve discovered this past month is that the reason these prayers and spiritual exercises are the bread and butter of the spiritual life is because, once they become part of your life, they function in the way that meals do. In other words, they actively contribute to the rhythm of one’s daily life.

Of course, you have to remember Point One. Just because the Liturgy of the Hours has Morning Prayer, three mid-day prayers, Evening Prayer, Night Prayer, and the Office of Readings does not mean you have to pray them all. I know a person who says only the Office and Readings, Morning Prayer, and Night Prayer because it’s too hard for him to say the three midday prayers and Evening Prayer. You might be different. You might be able to say only the three midday prayers and Evening Prayer.

This leads me to my next point.

3. Don’t forget your state of life. “You have to remember,” my spiritual director said, “that you’re a 34-year-old married man with four small children whom you’re homeschooling. You’re also running an on-line apostolate, teaching catechesis at your parish. So whatever rule of life you come up with, it must take into account those things as well.”

This bit of advice perhaps helped me most of all. With a few precise words, my spiritual director outlined my basic roles in life: husband, father, homeschooler, and catechist. I knew from my days reading and rereading Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that the only way one can come up with good goals is to first consider one’s roles. The same is true, I’ve found, when developing a rule of life. If you don’t pencil in time to fulfill the roles you have, you can’t develop a disciplined prayer life.

For example, after a month of trying not to schedule time with my wife — I mean, having a set time to spend with my wife seems a bit rigid, don’t you think? — I found that I wasn’t giving her the attention she deserved, and thereby neglecting one of my duties. The same was true with regards to reading. I firmly believe that anyone who devotes him or herself to teaching, whatever the field, must be committed to reading and studying in the field on a regular basis. But it wasn’t until I decided that I was going to turn off the computer at nights and spend the time reading that I was finally able to incorporate this much needed discipline into my life.

So if you’re interested in a rule of prayer, don’t forget to think long and hard about all of the roles you have, and remember to incorporate those into your daily schedule.

4. Basic weekends. After a month, I finally accepted the fact that I could only write a detailed rule of life for what happens Monday through Friday. On weekends, the only thing that matters is keeping, to the best of my ability, the times I slotted for prayer. In other words, I don’t worry about working on the apostolate or reading theology in the evenings. If I have the time to do so, great! But weekends can be chaotic, as any parent knows, and so I only worry about doing the basics.

5. Give yourself a month. My spiritual director was right — you need about a month to develop a rule of life. Regardless of how good it looks on paper, the litmus-test is living it. If you’re not able to live it, then it’s no good.

After a month of work, I’ve finally come up with a schedule I can keep on most days. This is a great relief. But, of course, as my spiritual said, now comes the hard part — living it.

Like this post? Subscribe to the St. Peter Canisius Apostolate

From a writing by Saint Vincent de Paul (my emphases and comments):

Even though the poor are often rough and unrefined, we must not judge them from external appearances nor from the mental gifts they seem to have received. On the contrary, if you consider the poor in the light of faith, then you will observe that they are taking the place of the Son of God who chose to be poor. Although in his passion he almost lost the appearance of a man and was considered a fool by the Gentiles and a stumbling block by the Jews, he showed them that his mission was to preach to the poor: “He sent me to preach the good news to the poor.” We also ought to have this same spirit and imitate Christ’s actions, that is, we must take care of the poor, console them, help them, support their cause. [Note what St. Vincent does in this paragraph. He gives two reasons for serving the poor. First, to serve the poor is to serve Christ, and second, to serve the poor is to imitate Christ.]

Since Christ willed to be born poor [remember that being God, Christ could have willed to be born in any time under any circumstance -- a son of a wealthy king, for example], he chose for himself disciples who were poor. He made himself the servant of the poor and shared their poverty. He went so far as to say that he would consider every deed which either helps or harms the poor as done for or against himself. [cf., Matt 25.31-46] Since God surely loves the poor, he also loves those who love the poor. For when one person holds another dear, he also includes in his affection anyone who loves or serves the one he loves. That is why we hope that God will love us for the sake of the poor. So when we visit the poor and needy, we try to be understanding where they are concerned. We sympathize with them so fully that we can echo Paul’s words: “I have become all things to all men.” Therefore, we must try to be stirred by our neighbor’s worries and distress. We must beg God to pour into our hearts sentiments of pity and compassion and to fill them again and again with these dispositions.

It is our duty to prefer the service of the poor to everything else and to offer such service as quickly as possible. [St. Vincent is probably addressing the members of his order, not the Christian community at large.] If a needy person requires medicine or other help during prayer time, do whatever has to be done with peace of mind. Offer the deed to God as your prayer. [That's the key -- to transform service into prayer by offering it to God.] Do not become upset or feel guilty because you interrupted your prayer to serve the poor. God is not neglected if you leave him for such service. One of God’s works is merely interrupted so that another can be carried out. So when you leave prayer to serve some poor person, remember that this very service is performed for God. Charity is certainly great than any rule. Moreover, all rules must lead to charity. [Because St. Vincent is addressing those of his order who follow a set rule of life, his point is this: Do not let the letter of the law destroy the spirit of charity. This is true for everyone who seeks to live a disciplined life.] Since she is a noble mistress, we must do whatever she commands. With renewed devotion, then, we must serve the poor, especially outcasts and beggars. They have been given to us as our masters and patrons.

From his Catechetical Instruction on the Apostles’ Creed, St. Thomas Aquinas writes:

We must, therefore, firmly believe that God governs and regulates not only all nature, but also the actions of men. “And they said: The Lord shall not see; neither shall the God of Jacob understand. Understand, ye senseless among the people, and, you fools, be wise at last. He that planted the ear, shall He not hear, He that formed the eye, doth He not consider? . . . The Lord knoweth the thoughts of men” (Psalm 93.7-11). God sees all things, both our thoughts and the hidden desires of our will. Thus, the necessity of doing good is especially imposed on man since all his thoughts, words and actions are known in the sight of God: “All things are naked and open to His eyes” (Heb 4.13).

This is the final paragraph in which St. Thomas treats the relationship between human freedom and divine providence. You can read the previous two posts here and here. He sums up his thought nicely in the first sentence: “We must, therefore, firmly believe that God governs and regulates not only all nature, but also the actions of men.”

Since we’re at the end of this long and challenging discussion, I’ll leave you to go back and reread earlier posts and encourage you to reflect on what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about divine providence in nos. 302-314.

When I was an undergraduate, I had to give a presentation on Edward Schillebeeckx’s Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God. Schillebeeckx is one of those theologians who went off the deep end in the post-Vatican II era. But back in the late 50’s and early 60’s, when Christ the Sacrament was written and published, he was one of the young lights of Catholic theology — along with Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger.

At any rate, I was assigned to present the first chapter of Christ the Sacrament. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the book, it’s one of the best works on sacramental theology that I know of. The general thesis is this: The only way we can be saved is to have a real encounter with God. Thus, Christ became man so that we might have that encounter. But since Christ is risen and has ascended into heaven, he is no longer present on earth. So how do we have this encounter with God? Namely, through the sacraments. It was my job to explain this in some detail.

During my presentation, in trying to explain that Jesus Christ was the sacrament of God — that is to say, that Jesus Christ was a sensible and tangible reality of God’s salvific presence in the world — I said that every proper human action that Christ did was done by God. Every gesture of kindness — every smile, every wink, every extended hand welcoming a person into his friendship — was an expression of God’s infinite kindness.

Unfortunately, my professor didn’t like this. At the end of my presentation, she said that to understand how Christ is the sacrament of God we must focus on the Paschal Mystery — the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ. “We can’t get caught up into thinking about all the small and insignificant gestures,” she said (or something like it).

Looking back, she had a point. I had strayed from Schillebeeckx’s main point in Chapter One of Christ the Sacrament. I was too young to understand that she wanted an academic presentation, not a spiritual meditation. But her words stayed with me. They created a kind of wall between myself and the gospels. For, you see, back then I was desperately seeking the approval of my professors. That’s what young students do who want to go on to graduate studies and eventually teach on the university level. Being a good student, I learned the lesson well: The narrative of Christ’s life are an object of study, not an object of devotion.

This wall stood erected for years, and it finally fell when I began reading the In Conversation with God books by Fr. Francis Fernandez. It would be impossible to cite all the different places where Fr. Fernandez, in his simple yet profound way, explains, as I once tried to, that every proper human action performed by Christ was performed by God, and therefore reveals the utter transcendent and incomprehensible God. Yet, I want to cite one paragraph:

Mercy is proper to God, according to St. Thomas Aquinas. Mercy had its most perfect manifestation in Jesus Christ. Especially through his life-style and through his actions, Jesus revealed that love is present in the world in which we live — an effective love, a love that addresses itself to man and embraces everything that makes up his humanity. This love makes itself particularly noticed in contact with suffering, injustice, and poverty — in contact with the whole “human condition,” which in various ways manifests man’s limitation and frailty, both physical and moral. The Gospels should inspire in us to rely on the merciful Heart of Jesus in our every physical and moral petition. He awaits our loving please.

I particularly like this phrase: “Especially through his life-style and through his actions, Jesus revealed that love is present in the world in which we live.” Christ’s life-style and actions – through these he revealed God’s infinite mercy and love. If we are in Christ, then our live-style and our actions have the ability, if we are willing, to reveal to others the mercy and love of Jesus Christ.

From a treatise On the Ascent of the Mind to God by Saint Robert Bellarmine (my emphases and comments):

Sweet Lord, you are meek [i.e., gentle] and merciful. Who would not give himself wholeheartedly to your service, if he began to taste even a little of your fatherly rule? [In other words, a true understanding of God is necessary for true devotion; right doctrine is prior to right morality.] What command, Lord, do you give your servants? “Take my yoke upon you,” you say. And what is this yoke of yours like? “My yoke,” you say, “is easy and my burden light.” Who would not be glad to bear a yoke that does not press hard but caresses? Who would not be glad for a burden that does not weigh heavy but refreshes? And so you were right to add: “And you will find rest for your souls.” And what is this yoke of yours that does not weary, but gives rest? It is, of course, that first and greatest commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God will all your heart.” What is easier, sweeter, more pleasant, than to love goodness, beauty, and love, the fullness of which you are, O Lord, my God?

Is it not true that you promise those who keep your commandments a reward more desirable than great wealth and sweeter than honey? You promise a more abundant reward, for as your apostle James says: “The Lord has prepared a crown of life for those who love him.” What is this crown of life? It is surely a greater good than we can conceive of or desire, as Saint Paul says, quoting Isaiah: “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it so much as dawned on man what God has prepared for those who love him.” [As I watched the Olympics, I thought of St. Paul’s comparison of the spiritual life to the athlete. All these Olympians ordered every part of their life for the sake of winning a gold medal. How many Catholics can honestly say that we order every part of our life for the sake of winning the “crown of life”? How often do we think of heaven? How much do we desire it? Is it our goal, the center of our life, the treasure of our hearts?]

Truly then the recompense is great for those who keep your commandments. That first and greatest commandment helps the man who obeys, not the God who commands. In addition, the other commandments of God perfect the man who obeys them. [Obtaining heaven has more to do with us becoming the kind of creature that can enter heaven that it has with not displeasing God. If we focus too much on not displeasing God, the effect is that we begin to see God more as an uncompromising taskmaster than our loving Father, Savior, and Sanctifier.] They provide him with what he needs. They instruct and enlighten him and make him good and blessed. If you are wise, then, know that you have been created for the glory of God and your own eternal salvation. This is your goal; this is the center of your life; this is the treasure of your heart. If you reach this goal, you will find happiness. If you fail to reach it, you will find misery.

May you consider truly good whatever leads to your goal and truly evil whatever makes you fall away from it. Prosperity and adversity, wealth and poverty, health and sickness, honors and humiliations, life and death, in the mind of the wise man, are not be sought for their own sake, nor avoided for their own sake. But if they contribute to the glory of God and your eternal happiness, then they are good and should be sought. If they detract from this, they are evil and must be avoided. [St. Robert reminds us that all of things should be seen from the perspective of God's glory and our eternal happiness. Of course, the only way to know which things will aid us and which will hinder us is through ardent and constant prayer.]

From his Catechetical Instruction on the Apostles’ Creed, St. Thomas Aquinas writes:

There are those, however, who believe that God rules and sustains all things of nature, and nevertheless do not believe God is the overseer of the acts of man; hence they believe that human acts do not come under God’s providence. They reason thus because they see in this world how the good are afflicted and how the evil enjoy good things, so that Divine Providence seems to disregard human affairs. Hence the words of Job are offered to apply to this view: “He doth not consider our things; and He walketh about the poles of heaven” (Job 22.14). But this is indeed absurd. It is just as though a person who is ignorant of medicine should see a doctor give water to one patient and wine to another. He would believe that this is mere chance, since he does not understand the science of medicine which for good reasons prescribes for one wine and for another water. So is it with God. For God in His just and wise Providence knows what is good and necessary for men; and hence He afflicts some who are good and allows certain wicked men to prosper. But he is foolish indeed who believes this is due to chance, because he does not know the causes and method of God’s dealing with men. “I wish that God might speak with thee, and would open His lips to thee, that He might show thee the secrets of wisdom, and that His law is manifold: and thou mightest understand that He exacteth much less of thee than thy iniquity deserveth” (Job 11.5-6).

Without a doubt, this passage touches upon one of the most difficult areas in all of theology and Catholic doctrine — the relationship between God’s divine providence and human actions. There are two errors we must avoid: first, we must avoid the error that denies human freedom, and second, we must avoid the error that denies that human actions fall outside of God’s governance of the world. The way of truth and sanity is the middle way — the way that says that humans have free will and that these free human acts fall within the domain of divine providence.

There are various ways we can try to make sense of this mystery of mysteries. I’ve found a couple of ideas very helpful. The first idea is that we do not have as much freedom as we think we do. Consider the following: I did not choose my parents, the economical and social situation in which I was raise, the year of my birth, my genetic code, the people I met and befriended, my gifts and talents, etc. A hard look at my life tells me that many of the key factors that went into shaping me were out of my control. My own freedom exists within these determined factors. Once I saw this, the relationship between God’s providence and my own freedom was a bit easier to grasp. God has put me on a path that I did not choose, but I am completely free how I am going to walk down this path.

Another idea that helped me was the Church’s idea of freedom. When we speak of freedom, we often mean the natural freedom all humans have to choose this or that, A or not-A; or we mean the political freedoms granted us by the state. But for the Church, true human freedom is the freedom to choose the good and avoid the evil; it is the freedom to serve God and not deny God; the freedom to engage in holy acts and not sinful ones. Vatican II called this kind of freedom authentic freedom. Therefore, God can never deny us of our freedom because God will never deny us the ability to choose good and avoid evil. It is his perfect will that we all become holy, and we become holy by doing good and avoiding evil In other words, if God does not allow us to sin, he only takes away the natural freedom we have to choose this or that, A or not-A. But he hasn’t taken away our authentic freedom to do a holy act rather than a sinful one. In fact, could we not say that he’s given us the ability to act more freely by giving us more power to choose good and avoid evil?

I am not saying that God denies us what I’ve called our natural freedom. But I am saying that the Church’s teaching of authentic freedom — the freedom to choose good and avoid evil — has helped me understand how we can make sense of the relationship between human freedom and God’s providence. And of course, in the end, we must cooperate with the grace God has given us if it is to bear any fruit.

Finally, I want to note that St. Thomas himself does not attempt to answer in this passage how human freedom and God’s providence works together. He simply asserts it. After asserting it, he moves on to how God gives what is necessary to all men. What is necessary to all men is the grace we need to be saved. Therefore, nothing happens to us by chance. Whatever I may experience — sickness or health, good times or bad, joy and sorrow — I experience because God knows it is necessary for my salvation.

On Monday, September 8, the Church celebrated the birth of Mary. In honor of the one through whom “the salvation of the world has been revealed to all believers,” I decided to take this week’s passage from Proper of Saints. More specifically, it comes from a discourse by Saint Andrew of Crete.

Like before, my emphases and comments.

*

The fulfillment of the law is Christ himself, who does not so much lead us away from the letter as to lift us up to its spirit. [What a nice interpretation of the first part of Sermon on the Mount, during which Christ says, "You have heard it said ... but I say to you ..." We are not to kill, of course, but Our Lord commands us not to be angry; we are not to commit adultery, of course, but Our Lord commands us not even to lust. The spirit of the law teaches us how to become truly holy.] For the law’s consummation was this, that the very lawgiver accomplished his work and changed the letter into spirit, summing everything up in himself and, though subject to the law, living by grace. He subordinated the law, yet harmoniously united grace with it, not confusing the distinctive characteristics of the one with the other but effecting the transition in a way most fitting for God. He changed whatever was burdensome, servile and oppressive into what is light and liberating, so that we should be enslaved no longer “under the elemental spirits of the world,” as the Apostle says, nor held fast as bondservants under the letter of the law.

This is the highest, all-embracing benefit that Christ has bestowed on us. This is the revelation of the mystery, this is the emptying out of the divine nature, the union of God and man, and the deification of the manhood that was assumed. [Notice the incarnational theme here. Just as humankind was deified when the Son of God took on human flesh, the law was "spirit-fied" when Our Lord fulfilled the law by the power of grace.] This radiant and manifest coming of God to men most certainly needed a joyful prelude to introduce the great gift of salvation to us. The present festival [St. Andrew of Crete died around 720], the birth of the Mother of God, is the prelude [even in the 8th century, Mary was seen as the one who leads us to Christ], while the final act is the foreordained union of the Word with flesh. Today the Virgin is born, tended and formed, and prepared for her role as Mother of God [Mary's vocation was known from the moment of her birth; indeed, as the next phrase implies, from all the ages], who is the universal King of the ages.

Justly then do we celebrate this mystery since it signifies for us a double grace. We are led toward the truth, and we are led away from our condition of slavery to the letter of the law. [Note St. Andrew's theology of the human person, how we are caught between two poles, either as slaves to the law or free in the truth.] How can this be? Darkness yields before the coming of light, and grace exchanges legalism for freedom. But midway between the two stands today’s mystery, at the frontier where types and symbols give way to reality, and the old is replaced by the new. [Because Mary is the mediatrix of all grace -- that is, because through her the fullness of grace himself, Jesus Christ, came into the world -- the birth of Mary is the transition between the Old and New Testaments.]

Therefore, let all creation sign and dance and unite to make worthy contribution to the celebration of this day. [This whole paragraph speaks of the elevation of the natural order by grace.] Let there be one common festival for saints in heaven and men on earth. [The communion of saints.] Let everything, mundane things and those above, join in festive celebration. Today this created world is raised to the dignity of a holy place for him who made all things. [In the Ark of the Covenant, the ancient Hebrews placed the 10 Commandments, the Rod of Aaron, and some of the manna -- all symbols of the Messiah, but not the reality. Mary is the true Ark of the Covenant, for in her the reality dwelt, for Christ is the Word of God, the Great High Priest, and the true Bread from Heaven.] The creature is newly prepared to be a divine dwelling place for the Creator.

From his Catechetical Instruction on the Apostles’ Creed, St. Thomas Aquinas writes:

Among all the truths which the faithful must believe, this is the first — that there is one God. We must see that God means the ruler and provider of all things. He, therefore, believes in God who believes that everything in this world is governed and provided for by Him. He who would believe that all things come into being by chance does not believe that there is a God. No one is so foolish as to deny that all nature, which operates with a certain definite time and order, is subject to the rule and foresight and an orderly arrangement of someone. We see how the sun, the moon, and the stars, and all natural things follow a determined course, which would be impossible if they were merely products of chance. Hence, as is spoken of in the Psalm, he is indeed foolish who does not believe in God: “The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God”(Psalm 14.1).

It is tempting to read this passage as St. Thomas’ “endorsement” of Intelligent Design. We must remember that St. Thomas was a proponent that academic disciplines should be divided because each has a methodology that is proper to them. He was also a proponent of the hierarchy of the sciences; that is to say, he believed that some academic disciplines held an elevated position by their very nature and therefore could and should use the finding of the lower subject to advance themselves. The highest of all academic subjects is theology, and a close second is philosophy. So Aquinas would say that whereas the biologist should teach only biology in his classroom, the philosopher and theologian could use the findings of biology for to clarify and make arguments for their own positions.

Now we do see that St. Thomas believes that studying the world leads one to the conclusion that God not only created the world, but also governs the world. Of course, 13-century science is rather primitive when compared to modern science, but it was more advanced than many people think. From my limited reading on the subject, it seems to me that we can say that the seeds of modern science were planted in the 13th century by two men — St. Albert the Great and his student, St. Thomas Aquinas. Both of these men believed in a relative autonomy of the world; that is, they believed that God governs the universe by placing laws in the fabric of nature, and that these laws can be studied apart for any direct appeal to God’s power.

That being said, it is interesting how St. Thomas defines a believer in God: “He . . . believes in God who believes that everything in this world is governed and provided for by Him.” This statement is a flat rejection of the notion of God as the Great Clockmaker — the one who sets things in motion but is no longer active in the universe. Even though St. Thomas believed in the relative autonomy of the world — that God indeed gave laws to the world — he still maintains that to believe in God one must also believe that God actively governs the world.

How is this possible? How can one believe that God actively governs the world while simultaneously believing that God placed laws into the fabric of nature?

The answer lies in St. Thomas’ understanding of God’s creative power. Thomas taught — and the Church herself teaches — that all things are continually held in existence by God’s creative power. To state negatively, if God were to pull back from any piece of existence, that piece would cease to exist. Therefore, everything that happens — from the rotation of the planets to the death of a deer, from a monk kneeling in prayer to a man committing adultery against his wife — is possible only because God’s creative presence holds those things in existence, thereby making their actions possible. This is the basis of St. Thomas’ teaching that to believe in God means to believe not only that God created all things, but that God also governs all things.

But we must ask another question: How does God’s creative power in all things translate into God’s governance of all things?

To answer this question fully would take a considerable amount of time. But the heart of the answer is this: God governs all things by his will. God’s will is that all men be saved. That’s what is called his perfect will. In order to achieve this end, God either directly wills something to happen or permits it to happen because he knows that more people will be saved than if it did not happen.As the authors of Radio Replies says:

We must distinguish between God’s positive will, and His permissive will. He positively wills all the good that happens. Suffering He permits to occur, and this only when he foresees that good can result from it. He positively wills that I should be holy. If He foresees that I will make use of good health to sin and to lose my soul, He may mercifully permit my health to be ruined, and thus lead me to Him where He would otherwise lose me. ¹

So at the heart of God’s governance of the world is our salvation. This is why St. Thomas teaches that to believe in God means to believe “that everything in this world is governed and provided for by Him.” God provides for our salvation by governing the world.

Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 7. Christ indeed always associates the Church with Himself in this great work wherein God is perfectly glorified and men are sanctified. The Church is His beloved Bride who calls to her Lord, and through Him offers worship to the Eternal Father.

Rightly, then, the liturgy is considered as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. In the liturgy the sanctification of the man is signified by signs perceptible to the senses, and is effected in a way which corresponds with each of these signs; in the liturgy the whole public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and His members.

From this it follows that every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the priest and of His Body which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others; no other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree.

In Part 8, we saw how Christ is present in the Church’s liturgy. Here the Council gives us the theological conclusion to Christ’s presence in the liturgy.

Because Christ is present in various ways in the liturgy, the liturgy itself is the work of Christ. Let us take as an example the Holy Mass. Christ is present in the proclamation of the Scriptures. He is present in the priest; through the priest Christ offers himself to the Father. He is also present in a special way in the consecrated Eucharistic species that is offered to the Father — for in the Eucharist Christ offers himself. Finally, he is present in the congregation who participates in the Mass; that is to say, Christ is present in the members of his mystical body.

One can legitimately ask: What part of the Holy Mass falls outside of Christ’s care? The obvious answer is that no part of the Mass falls outside of Christ’s care. It’s for this reason that the Church calls the liturgy the greatest work of Christ, for through the liturgy Christ offers that perfect praise and worship of the Father.

However, the liturgy is not the only work of Christ and the Church. As the Second Vatican Council explained:

Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 9. The sacred liturgy does not exhaust the entire activity of the Church. Before men can come to the liturgy they must be called to faith and to conversion: “How then are they to call upon him in whom they have not yet believed? But how are they to believe him whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear if no one preaches? And how are men to preach unless they be sent?” (Rom. 10:14-15).

Therefore the Church announces the good tidings of salvation to those who do not believe, so that all men may know the true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, and may be converted from their ways, doing penance. To believers also the Church must ever preach faith and penance, she must prepare them for the sacraments, teach them to observe all that Christ has commanded, and invite them to all the works of charity, piety, and the apostolate. For all these works make it clear that Christ’s faithful, though not of this world, are to be the light of the world and to glorify the Father before men.

The first paragraph of Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 9 is pretty simple to understand: Evangelization and missionary work is absolutely necessary to bring people to the great gift the liturgy.

More difficult to understand — or accept — is the second paragraph because it places more demands upon us. Note how the Council highlights “believers.” The Church is calling us . . .

1. to a deeper faith;
2. to do penance;
3. to a better understanding of the liturgy and the sacraments;
4. to observe all that Christ has commanded;
5. to engage in works of charity;
6. to engage in works of piety;
7. to engage in the apostolate;
8. and to remember that we are to be a light to the world; that is to say, through our actions we are to teach others about Christ.

Spiritual writers often say that we need to attend Mass and receive Holy Communion with a “proper disposition.” I used think that this phrase meant nothing more than a general desire to be holy. But now I’m not so sure. Perhaps a fuller, more concrete understanding of a “proper disposition” can be found in this list. Do we approach Holy Mass with a desire for a deeper faith, for a spirit of penance, for a better understanding of the Church’s teaching, for a longing to observe all of Christ’s commands, and so forth? Perhaps we need to rewrite this list in the form of a liturgical self-examination — something we can reflect upon weekly or biweekly to ensure that we truly are approaching Holy Mass and the Sacrament of Confession with a proper disposition.

(My emphases and comments.)

From a homily by St. John Chrysostom:

Would you like me to list also the paths of repentance? They are numerous and quite varied, and all lead to heaven.

A first path of repentance is the condemnation of your own sins. “Be the first to admit your sins and you will be justified.” For this reason, too, the prophet wrote: “I said, I will accuse myself of my sins to the Lord, and you forgave the wickedness of my heart.” Therefore, you too should condemn your own sins; that will be enough reason for the Lord to forgive you, for a man who condemns his own sin is slower to commit them again. Rouse your conscience to accuse you within your own house, lest it become your accuser for the judgment seat of the Lord. [Notice how St. John tells us to "rouse" our conscience. Our conscience needs to be directed; it needs to be informed so that it can do its job.]

That, then, is one very good path of repentance. Another and no less valuable one is to put out of our minds the harm done to us by our enemies, in order to master our anger, and to forgive our fellow servants’ sins against us. Then our own sins against the Lord will be forgiven us. Thus you have another way to atone for son: “For if you forgive your debtors, your heavenly Father will forgive you.” [This statement from Our Lord Jesus places our salvation in our own hands. It's a frightening thought, isn't it, that God will forgive us with the same forgiveness we show others.]

Do you want to know of a third path? It consists of prayer that is fervent, careful, and comes from the heart.

If you want to hear of a fourth, I will mention almsgiving, whose power is great and far-reaching.

If, moreover, a man lives a modest, humble life, that, no less than the other things I have mentioned, takes sin away. Proof of this is that the tax collector who had no good deeds to mention, but offered his humility instead and was relieved of a heavy burden of sins. [I've slowly become convinced that living a humble life is absolutely essential not only to being a good Christian, but also for effective evangelization.]

Thus I have shown you five paths of repentance: condemnation of your own sins, forgiveness of our neighbor’s sings against us, prayer, almsgiving, and humility.

Do not be idle, then, but walk daily in all these paths; they are easy, and you cannot plead your poverty. [Nothing outside of us stops us from performing these spiritual exercises; the only thing that stops us is our interior dispositions.] For, though you live out your life amid great need, you can always set aside your wrath, be humble, pray diligently, and condemn your own sins; poverty is no hindrance. Poverty is not an obstacle to our carrying out the Lord’s bidding, even when it comes to that path of repentance which involves giving money (almsgiving, I mean). The widow proved that when she put her two mites into the box! [The deep truth of Christianity is that God does not judge us by how much we do, but by how we do it. Little else matters except having a good will -- that is, a will that seeks to conform itself with the will of God.]

Now that we have learned how to heal these wounds of ours, let us apply the cures. [Knowing is one thing; doing is something else entirely.] Then, when we have regained genuine health, we can approach the holy table [i.e., the Eucharist] with confidence, go glorious to meet Christ, the king of glory, and attain the eternal blessings through the grace, mercy, and kindness of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

From his Catechetical Instruction on the Apostles’ Creed, St. Thomas Aquinas writes:

Then, again, if one were willing to believe only those things which one knows with certitude, one could not live in this world. How could one live unless one believed others? How could one know that this man is one’s own father? Therefore, it is necessary that one believe others in matters which one cannot know perfectly for oneself. But no one is so worthy of belief as is God, and hence they who do not believe the words of faith are not wise, but foolish and proud. As the Apostle says: “He is proud, knowing nothing” (1 Tim 4.4). And also: “I know whom I have believed; and I am certain” (2 Tim 1.12). And it is written: “Ye who fear the Lord, believe Him and your reward shall not be made void”(Ecclus 2.8). Finally, one can say also that God proves the truth of the things which faith teaches. Thus, if a king sends letters signed with his seal, no one would dare to say that those letters did not represent the will of the king. In like manner, everything that the Saints believed and handed down to us concerning the faith of Christ is signed with the seal of God. This seal consists of those works which no mere creature could accomplish; they are the miracles by which Christ confirmed the sayings of the apostles and of the Saints.

In historical context, St. Thomas is addressing the philosopher who believes through the natural light of human reason that God exists but does not believe what God has said. Though it may not be obvious at first, St. Thomas’ argument for why we should believe in divine revelation is quite simple: we believe God has revealed himself because of the miracles Christ did through the apostles and saints.

Of course, the natural response to this kind of talk is to question the validity the stories themselves. One of the most fascinating aspects of St. Thomas’ genius is how he answers this question:

If, however, you would say that no one has witnessed these miracles, I would reply in this manner. It is a fact that the entire world worshiped idols and that the faith of Christ was persecuted, as the histories of the pagans also testify. But now all are turned to Christ — wise men and noble and rich — converted by the words of the poor and simple preachers of Christ. Now, this fact was either a miracle or it was not. If it is miraculous, you have what you asked for, a visible fact; if it is not, then there could not be a greater miracle than that the whole world should have been converted without miracles. And we need go no further. We are more certain, therefore, in believing the things of faith than those things which can be seen, because God’s knowledge never deceives us, but the visible sense of man is often in error.

The genius of this passage is that St. Thomas doesn’t even try to prove the validity of miracles. He knows that it’s not only a futile but also an impossible task. Either one will believe or one will not believe. But what one cannot do is deny fact; and the fact is that a group of twelve disparate men from a marginal province in the Roman Empire founded the Church of Christ that spread, despite all odds, throughout the known world and transformed the face of western civilization. If that’s not a miracle, then I (and St. Thomas) don’t know what is.

This month, I want to recommend to you Christ in the Psalms by Patrick Henry Reardon (see sidebar for link). In 300 pages, Fr. Reardon offers a short meditation on each of the 150 psalms. He draws from the collected wisdom the Church Fathers of both East and West, and, as the title suggests, he makes a point of showing how Jesus Christ stands at the center of each psalm. Fr. Reardon shows that to pray the psalms is to enter into the mind, heart, and soul of Christ — indeed, to pray with Christ. As Fr. Reardon says in his reflection on Psalm 7:

The humanism of the Psalter is a humanism rooted in the Incarnation. The Psalter is not human merely because it speaks for man in general, but because it speaks for Christ. The underlying voice of the Psalms is not simply “man,” but the Man. To enter into the prayer of this book is not merely to share the sentiments of King David, or Asaph, or one of the other inspired poets. Indeed, in a theological sense the voices of these men are secondary, hardly more important than our own. the foundational voice of the Psalms, the underlying bass line of its harmony is, rather, the voice of Jesus Christ, the only Mediator between God and man. The correct theological principle for praying the psalms is the Hypostatic Union, the ontological and irreversible coalescence of the human and the divine, “the synthesis achieved by God, which carried the name of Jesus Christ” (Hans Urs von Balthasar).

It is not surprising, then, that we will on occasion come across certain sentiments in the Psalms that are difficult to appropriate as our own. It does not take me long to discover that some of the lines of the Psalter are impossible to pray in my own person. There are cases in which my own “voice” is inadequate to express the sense of the psalm itself.

Psalm 7 provides an early example of the phenomenon. How many of us would feel comfortable claiming for ourselves the moral innocence expressed in this psalm? This is the prayer of someone whose hands are clean and mind undefiled, a man whose conscience finds nothing for which to reproach him. The voice of the psalm is His of whom St. Peter wrote that He “committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth” (2 Pet. 1.22).

For those who want to better understand the psalms used during the Mass, who pray the psalms in their everyday prayers, or who pray Liturgy of the Hours, Christ in the Psalsm is required reading. Fr. Reardon will open to you the meaning of these ancient hymns, which will in turn allow you to enter into deeper union with Jesus Christ.

Not that it’s a big deal, but I thought I’d write a short post about my sidebars.

1. After playing with different formats, I finally decided not to use either the “Recent Post” or “Popular Post” list, but, rather, the “Random Post” list. Because 99% of my posts have nothing to do with current events, I want readers to have a quick and easy way to get to older posts without have to root around in the so-called “Table of Contents.”

2. WordPress offers an Amazon Showcase feature, which I think is pretty cool. At first, I decided to highlight the books I’m reading. But after six weeks of that, I finally decided that wasn’t the best use of the space. Then I decided to list the “Five Books Every Catholic Should Read.” This took the focus off of me, which is good, but the downside is that there is nothing new for a regular reader. So beginning this month, I’m going to use the space to feature a book recommendation. Since I wrote this post about a week before it was published, if you don’t see anything that looks like a “Book of the Month” on my sidebar, don’t worry — it’ll be up soon.