St. Peter Canisius Apostolate

This week’s Jesus and the Catholic Church Podcast covered the Church’s teaching on the Angels. In the comment box, I received this question:

My question regarding angels is their depth of knowledge about us. I thought the angels are privy to every thought and memory we have from birth to death — except for the contents of our hearts (which is only known to God).  Am I to understand then that the angels will only know what’s revealed to them by us?

Let me see if I can first put the question in context. During the podcast, I read from In Conversation with God by Fr. Fernandez, who says that in order for our guardian angels to know what we need, we need to turn our minds toward them and ask. If that’s the case (this person asks) then what should I make of my previous understanding, namely, that the angels are privy to every thought and memory we’ve had from birth to death?

To answer this question, let me cite a few paragraphs from My Way of Life, which is an excellent summary of the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas by Fr. Farrell and Fr. Healy. They write:

About ourselves, the angels know all there is to be known from the post of an observer who needs no relief, misses nothing, forgets nothing. Beyond that, the angels, all of them, easily penetrate into the regions of our imagination and memory, areas about which the human observer can only guess; which means that our daydreams are not purely private affairs, they are shared by the whole angelic world, our sentimental journeys into the dear days of long ago are never solitary trips. We are not nearly so much alone as we imagine whatever the hour or the place. In relation to the friendly angels, this is to our infinite comfort, and often enough to our acute embarrassment; while it brings home clearly our weak defenses against the hostile horde of devils, the help unwittingly and constantly give to our bitter enemies, and our own desperate need for help from powers on a par with these enemies who so completely outmatch us.

The angels can introduce pictures into our imagination, they can reach into the storehouse of memory and parade the past before our mind’s eye; but there the great natural powers of the angelic world grind to a halt before the impregnable sovereignty of our intellect and our will. Not even the highest of the angels knows what a man is going to do next; the most gifted of the angels cannot know what I am thinking about at this moment. In this privacy of soul, we are the equals of the angels; this territory is inviolable to all but almighty God Himself. Such is the stature of man’s dignity. We are spiritual as well as physical; we are free; our intellect and will are not to be tampered with by any created force. So our thoughts, our deliberate desires, our loves are our own; for them we ourselves must take full credit or full blame. The angels can suggest through imagination and memory, they can coax, entice, threaten, or frighten through these avenues of our sense nature; but we are the ultimate masters in command of our lives.

The key to understanding this passage is to know that our soul has two basic levels. First, the lower level of memory and imagination, and second, the higher level where the intellect and will reside.

The angels both know what is going on in our memory and imagination, and they are able to influence that lower level of our soul by putting images into our head and/or reminding us of past experiences.

The angels, however, cannot enter into the higher level of our soul. They do not know what we are thinking, nor do they know our desires. They can discern what is happening in the higher level of our soul by watching our actions, listening to our conversations, and studying what’s going on in our memories and imaginations. But they can’t know it unless we tell them.

With this in mind, let’s turn to what Fr. Fernandez says in Volume 3 of In Conversation with God (p. 508) about our guardian angels:

In spite of the perfection associated with spiritual nature, the angels do not have divine power or wisdom. They cannot read the inside of our consciences, because they do not have unlimited knowledge. This is why it is necessary for us to let them know what we need of them at every moment. We do not need to use words, but it is necessary to direct ourselves to them with our mind, because their intelligence has the capacity to know what we explicitly imagine or think. Hence the frequent recommendation to foster a deep friendship with our own Guardian Angel.

If we allow for a basic difference of terminology, it seems that Fr. Ferrell and Fr. Fernandez are saying the same thing — namely, that the angels are unable to penetrate into our innermost self, into our intellect and our wills. They cannot, in a manner of speaking, read our minds or know our desires. The only way they can know what we are thinking or what we want is if we tell them.

Therefore, a fundamental requirement for having a relationship with our Guardian Angel is to speak to him about our thoughts and desires. Once he knows, he can help us in innumerable ways.

Given the statements made by various U.S. Bishops over the last month, it’s amazing to me that there is still confusion about whether a Catholic can, in good conscience, vote for a pro-choice candidate. Yet, confusion abounds. Without a doubt, the Evil One has great influence today, for he’s the only one able to keep Catholics confused on this issue.

If you’re wondering whether a Catholic can, in good conscience, vote for a pro-choice candidate — or if you know a Catholic (or any one of any religion, for that matter) who is confused about this issue — then I strongly recommend that you go — or direct your friend or relative to go –  to Fr. John Corapi’s website and watch his three-part talk (30 minutes in all) on why Catholics cannot vote for a pro-choice candidate.

HT: a word on the Word

1. The What and Why of Mortification by Fr. John Hardon. Short, sound, and basic. A great piece for anyone who feels called to enter the life of mortification, but is unsure what exactly to do. An example:

We can practice mortification by giving up some delicacy in food or drink or some pleasure that we could legitimately have. But we also practice mortification every time we patiently accept whatever trial or pain He sends us and every time we faithfully carry out whatever His mysterious providence commands of us. It is this second kind of mortification that Jesus had in mind when He told us that “anyone who loses his life for My sake, will find it” (Matthew 16:25).

2. Seeking Sanctification Through the Practice of Mortification by Fr. Roger J. Scheckel. A longer and far more detailed essay on the what and why of mortification. It seeks to show that mortificaiton is necessary if you want to be a saint. Necessary, yet not exactly fun, reading. An example:

The Christian must continually seek to crucify and put to death that dimension of our self that remains under the influence of the fallen state of the First Adam into which we are conceived and born. After our baptism, the imputed sin of our First Parents is washed from our life; however, a residue or stain of the Original Sin remains with us, what is known as concupiscence. The effects of this residue or stain are experienced primarily in our will, tending in the direction of a love of self rather than a love of God. This is what is meant by a “disordered will.” This disorder can be expressed through our external senses as well as the operations of our soul, e.g., the imagination, memory and intellect. Mortification seeks to address these manifestations of the “disordered will.”

Sacred Tradition expressed through the lives of the saints provides innumerable accounts of the necessity and importance of the practice of mortification. I would direct you to the lives of the saints listed below, although there are many more that could be included as well: Ss. Jerome, Francis of Assisi, Thomas More, Ignatius of Loyola, Catherine of Sienna, Teresa of Avila, John Mary Vianney, Therese of the Child Jesus, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, Jose Maria Escriva, and also Blesseds Junipero Serra, Matt Talbot, and Mother Teresa.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled, “Rule of Life.” In it, I talked about my own experience in creating a daily prayer schedule. It occurred to me that there might be some who want to develop a Rule of Life but are unsure what exactly to do or include.

To meet this need, I decided to provide some examples. I am not suggesting that one should say, “Oh, that one looks good; I’ll follow it.” The purpose of the examples is to give you an idea as to how your own Rule of Life might look.

If you don’t have a spiritual director and are looking to develop a Rule of Life, look for the common elements in these examples. Those spiritual exercises that have a ubiquitous nature indicate that they have a universal importance. If you build your spiritual life around these, you can’t go wrong.

What Pope John Paul II Suggests

Though I can’t remember where I read this — come to think of it, I might have heard it in a talk by Fr. Mitch Pacwa — Pope John Paul II recommended all Catholics do adopt the following spiritual exercises:

• Holy Mass (as often as possible)
• Regular Confession
• The Liturgy of the Hours
• The Rosary

The Marian Catechists

The Marian Catechists is one of Fr. John Hardon’s apostolate, and so the daily spiritual exercises of a consecrated Marian Catechists are those exercises he deemed most important for the average layperson.

• Morning Offering (daily)
• Mass and Holy Communion (daily)
• The Angelus (twice a day)
• The Rosary (5 decades)
• Sacrament of Confession (twice a month)
• Way of the Cross (daily)
• Spiritual Reading (15 minutes daily)
• Mental Prayer (15 minutes daily)
• Nightly Examination of Conscience with Act of Contrition

Opus Dei

I found this list from Scott Hahn’s Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Grace:

• Morning Offering
• Mental Prayer
• Mass
• Angelus
• Rosary
• Reading of the Gospel or some spiritual book
• Some small act of penance
• A short visit to the tabernacle
• Preces (the daily prayers of Opus Dei)
• Examination of conscience
• Three Hail Marys at bedtime
• The Sing of the Cross with holy water
• Weekly Confession
• Monthly Day of Reflection
• Yearly Retreat

A Basic Rule of Life

Here’s the basic Rule of Life outlined by Fr. Adolphe Tanquerey in The Spiritual Life. The section it’s under is entitled “The Exercises of Piety of Beginners”:

• Morning Prayers
• Night Prayers
• Mental Prayer
• Mass and Holy Communion (or Spiritual Communion, if unable to attend Mass)
• Offering our actions to God
• Spontaneous prayers throughout the day
• Spiritual Reading
• Rosary
• A short visit to the tabernacle (when able)
• Examination of conscience
• The particular examen
• Exhortation # 1: “Less prayers and more attention is preferable”
• Exhortation # 2: “A short attentive prayer is of greater worth than one lasting twice as long, and filled with more or less willful distractions”

A Catechist’s Rule of Life

Finally, here’s the basic Rule of Life that Sister Mary Michael Fox sketches in the most recent volume of The Sower Review.

• Holy Mass
• Liturgy of the Hours
• Daily reading from the Scriptures
• Daily reading from the Catechism of the Catholic Church
• Devotion to the Holy Spirit
• The Rosary

Though most of you probably don’t define yourself as a “catechist,” I included Sr. Mary Michael’s “Catechist’s Rule of Life” to show you that a Rule of Life can be molded to fit your particular vocation.

Once again, I didn’t put these lists up to (a) make you feel daunted, (b) to make you feel inferior, (c) to give you an impossible standard, or (d) to make you feel like you needed to pick one.

Rather, I put them up so that (a) you can see what a Rule of Life looks like, (b) to give you ideas on what you might want to include in yours, and (c) to motivate you to develop your own Rule of Life.

After having one for two months now, I can say that you need a Rule of Life more than you think you do. I promise.

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My favorite prayer to say after receiving Holy Communion is commonly known as the Prayer of St. Ignatius. That’s St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. There are various English translations; the one I pray goes like this:

Take, Lord, and receive all of my liberty: my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou has given all to me; to Thee, O Lord, I return it. All is Thine; dispose of it according to Your Will. Grant me your love and your grace, for these are sufficient to me.

The reason I like to pray this prayer after Holy Communion is because it’s the best response to what Our Lord Jesus has just given to us. In and through Holy Communion, he has given us himself: his body, blood, soul, and divinity. He has given us all that he is, and all that he has. He can give us nothing more than what he’s given us in and through Holy Communion.

For me, the only acceptable response to this complete self-giving of Our Lord to us is the complete self-giving of us to him. And that’s what the Prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola does.

We tell Our Lord to take all of our liberty — by which we give him all of our freedom. We give him our memory (that is, our thoughts), our understanding (that is, what we choose to learn), and our will (that is, our desires). When we give him these things, we give him all that we have and possess.

After we give Our Lord all that we are and have, we tell him to use us as he desires. This is another way of saying what we say in the “Our Father” — Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We are actively aligning our will — our wants, goals, desires, aspirations, ambitions, etc. — to the will of God. Whatever that might mean for us.

Then we tell Our Lord that all that we desire from him is his grace and love, which, if we think about it, we have already received in Holy Communion. So this great prayer of St. Ignatius ends with the recognition that we have received, in the Eucharist, the one thing necessary for our spiritual lives. Personally, I can’t think of a better prayer to say after receiving Holy Communion.

But I don’t think this is the only prayer that should be said after Holy Communion. That moment is, after all, the most intimate time with have with Our Lord; the prayers we say should be personal.

Therefore, I am interested in your Communion devotion. Not because I’m interested in your personal spiritual life, but, rather, because your approach to Christ in the Eucharist will help me approach him better.

The comment box is open . . . if you’re interested.

From This Tremendous Lover by Fr. Eugene Boylan:

Once a man has realized that God wills his happiness and that all that happens to him is ruled and regulated by God with infinite wisdom and power towards that end, and that all God asks of him to to co-operate with that loving will of His — then, that man has found the beginning of peace. And if he would be filled with that peace which is as a river, full, overflowing, rising up from the depth of his own heart, the peace which surpasseth all understanding, the peace which the world cannot give — let him devote himself to the pracice of abandonment to God’s will, always remembering that where God’s will is to be done or to be accepted, Jesus Christ is waiting to share our doing of it. He always does the things that please the Father.

Episode 004: “The Angels and Us” is up over at the new Jesus and the Catholic Church Podcast blog.

Remember, these podcasts will not be posted here at the St. Peter Canisius Apostolate. This means that you will need to update your subscription.

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From Great Means of Salvation and of Perfection by St. Alphonsus Liguori.

We must meditate in order to unit ourselves more completely to God. It is not so much good thoughts in the intellect as good acts of the will, or holy desires, that unite us to God; and such are the acts we perform in meditation — acts of humility, confidence, self-sacrifice, resignation and, especially, love, and repentance for our sins. Acts of love, says St. Teresa [of Avila], are those that keep the soul inflamed with holy love.

But the perfection of this love consists in making our will one with that of God . . . St. Teresa always says, “All that he who exercises himself in prayer should aim at is to conform himself to the divine will, and he may be assured that in this consists the highest perfection; he who best practices this will receive the greatest gifts from God and will make the greatest progress in the interior life.”

We must meditate in order to obtain from God the graces that are necessary to advance in the way of salvation, and especially to avoid sin, and to use the means which will lead us to perfection.

The best fruit which comes from meditation is the exercise of prayer. Almighty God, ordinarily speaking, does not give grace to any but those who pray.

A few comments.

1. The “holy desires” and “acts we perform in meditation” are technical phrases that mean “prayer.” It works like this. Suppose we are meditating on the Annunciation — when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would have a son. That episode in the life of Christ is a spiritual feast; it can feed our souls in many ways. Suppose we hone in on the words of Gabriel: “For with God nothing will be impossible.” Meditating on these words will lead us to all sorts of ideas — ideas that we need to express in prayer. Perhaps we are convicted that we don’t pray and act as if nothing is impossible for God. We take that conviction and turn it into prayer: “Lord, give me confidence in you.”

2. People often think that pray is nothing more than asking God to help us in different ways. But as St. Alphonsus reminds us, the ultimate goal of prayer is to unite our wills to God’s will. This is why the best sources for meditation are the Gospels. By meditating on the life of Christ, holy desires are formed into us, and we begin to pray to be more like Christ.

3. If we want grace, we must pray. This may sound quaint, but it is not. We need grace to avoid sin. We need grace to imitate Christ. We need grace to advance in holiness. We need grace to persevere to the end; this is called the grace of final perseverance — the grace necessary to remain true to God during the last moments of life. As Fr. John Hardon often said: Those who do not pray will not be saved.

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In the mid-sixth century, the Church had to face the lingering effects of Nestorianism, which, if we recall, said that Jesus had both two natures and two persons. Thus, the Second Council of Constantinople was held in 533. Paragraph 468 of the Catechism speaks of this Council:

After the Council of Chalcedon, some made of Christ’s human nature a kind of personal subject. Against them, the fifth ecumenical council, at Constantinople in 553, confessed that “there is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity.” Thus everything in Christ’s human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject, not only his miracles but also his sufferings and even his death: “He who was crucified in the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, is true God, Lord of glory, and one of the Holy Trinity.”

Because the human and divine natures were perfectly united by the person of the Son of God, we can properly say that everything Jesus Christ did on earth was done by the second person of the Holy Trinity. Thus, we can say that God was born, that God suffered and died, and that God rose from the dead.

In paragraph 469, the Catechism wraps up this section by stating the Church’s teaching about Jesus Christ:

The Church thus confesses that Jesus is inseparably true God and true man. He is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother:

“What he was, he remained and what he was not, he assumed”, sings the Roman Liturgy. And the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom proclaims and sings: “O only-begotten Son and Word of God, immortal being, you who deigned for our salvation to become incarnate of the holy Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, you who without change became man and were crucified, O Christ our God, you who by your death have crushed death, you who are one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit, save us!”

As a response to Nestorianism, a man named Eutyches (d. 454) ended up under-emphasizing Christ’s human nature to the point of nearly (but not quite) denying it. This teaching is known as the Monophysitism, which is a two-dollar word that means “one-nature” (mono, single + physis, nature). As paragraph 467 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

The Monophysites affirmed that the human nature had ceased to exist as such in Christ when the divine person of God’s Son assumed it. Faced with this heresy, the fourth ecumenical council, at Chalcedon in 451, confessed:

“Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; like us in all things but sin. He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, the Mother of God.

“We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.”

Just so we’re clear, note that the second two paragraphs from the Catechism are citations from the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

First, let’s note how Chalcedon speaks of the two natures of Christ: “the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; like us in all things but sin.”

The key word here is “consubstantial.” We know it better when it’s interpreted as “one-in-being.” This is what we say in the Nicene Creed when we profess that Jesus Christ is “one-in-being with the Father”; that is to say, Jesus Christ is God.

Chalcedon uses this word, which became a key to Catholic theology at the Council of Nicaea in 325, not only to tell us that Jesus is fully God, but also to say that Jesus is full man. To restate Chalcedon in language we are familiar with, it would read like this: “one-in-being with the Father as to his divinity and one-in-being with us as to his humanity.” This is the clearest definition that Christ is true God and true man ever made.

Then Chalcedon addresses the Monophysite heresy: “We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person and one hypostasis.”

Two points: First, Christ’s human and divine nature co-exist “without confusion, change, division, or separation,” and second, this perfectly harmonious unity between his human and divine nature is possible only because “they came together in one person,” the person of the Son of God.

To understand exactly what this means, we need to understand what “nature” and “person” means. Nature tells us what kind of actions are possible, but it is the person who does them. My human nature allows me to perform all sorts of actions, but it is I who do those actions. Nature tells us “what” a thing is, and “person” tells us who a thing is.

So the two natures of Christ — the two sources of operations he possessed, his divine nature and his human nature — came together in perfect harmony in the one person — the divine Who of the second person of the blessed Trinity, the eternal Son.

We’ll talk about the profound theological consequence of this teaching next time.

In paragraph 466, the Catechism speaks of the Nestorian heresy, a heresy important both in terms of the Church’s teaching on Christ as well as the Church’s teaching on Mary. Paragraph 466 says:

The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God’s Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed “that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man.” Christ’s humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb: “Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh.”

Nestorianism represents a development in Christological thinking. Whereas the early heresies we spoke of could be boiled down to either denying Christ’s humanity while accepting his divinity (Docetism), or vice-versa (Adoptionism and Arianism), Nestorianism accepted both Christ’s divinity and his humanity. In other words, Nestorius would have no problem saying that Jesus is true God and true man. If that’s the case, where did he go wrong?

While it’s true that Nestorius taught that Jesus had both a divine nature and a human nature, it is also true that Nestorius taught that Jesus has both a divine person and a human person. Recall paragraph 464; it said that some Christological heresies taught that Jesus was part God and part man, while others confused the relationship between Christ’s divine and human natures. Simply put, by saying that Jesus had two persons, Nestorianism confuses this relationship.

Due to the work of St. Cyril of Alexander, at the Council of Ephesus (431) the Church taught that Jesus has two natures, a human nature and a divine nature, but only person, that of the Son of God. In other words, we do not believe that the Son of God possessed a man, but, rather, that the Son of God became a man.

Why is this important? If Jesus had two persons, a divine and human person, then there would be questions as to which person was responsible for a particular action. Was it the divine person who suffered on the cross, or only the human person? So in saying that Jesus is only one person, the Church is also saying that whatever we see Jesus doing, we see God doing. Thus, God really walked the shores of Galilee; God really fed the multitudes; God really suffered and died for us; and God really rose from the dead.

It’s because we believe that Jesus Christ is one divine person that we believe that Mary is the Mother of God. If we say that God really walked the shores of Galilee, fed the multitude, suffered, died, and rose again, then we can also say that God was really born of a woman. And the woman who bore God in human form would consequently be called the Mother of God. Hence, Mary is truly the Mother of God.

This great truth about Mary says more about Jesus than it does about Mary. Protestants, in denying that Mary is the Mother of God, do so because they misunderstand both the historical context as well as the theological implications of the title. To say that Mary is the Mother of God is to preserve the teaching that in Jesus Christ there is one person, the person of the eternal Son of God, and two natures, human and divine.

Next up: Monophysitism

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In paragraph 465, the Catechism speaks of the first three great Christological heresies — Docetism, Adoptionism, and Arianism.

The first heresies denied not so much Christ’s divinity as his true humanity (Gnostic Docetism). From apostolic times the Christian faith has insisted on the true incarnation of God’s Son “come in the flesh.” But already in the third century, the Church in a council at Antioch had to affirm against Paul of Samosata that Jesus Christ is Son of God by nature and not by adoption. The first ecumenical council of Nicaea in 325 confessed in its Creed that the Son of God is “begotten, not made, of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father”, and condemned Arius, who had affirmed that the Son of God “came to be from things that were not” and that he was “from another substance” than that of the Father.

Now, I have to say that this paragraph can be a bit misleading if it is not read carefully. The opening sentence says that the first heresies denied Christ’s humanity, not his divinity. This is certainly true of Docetism, but it is not true of the other two heresies spoken of in this paragraph — Adoptionism and Arianism.

Docetism was a form of Gnosticism, and Gnosticism denied the goodness of material things. Since matter was inherently evil, the all-good God would not willing join himself to what is evil. Therefore, Docetism said that Christ only seemed to be a man; that is to say, he was human in appearance only, not in reality. Simply put, Docetism said that Christ is fully God, but only seemed to be a man.

After the Catechism speaks of Docetism, it turns to a heresy called “Adoptionism.” This heresy affirms that Jesus Christ is truly a man, but it denies that Jesus is God. Adoptionism denied that Jesus Christ is the natural Son of God and instead asserted that he is only the adoptive son of God. If we think in terms of natural and adoptive sonship in human terms — say, of a father who has both a biological son as well as a son he’s adopted — we can easily understand what Paul of Samosata was saying, namely, that at one point in time Jesus had no special relation to God, then at another point in time he had that special relationship to God. Orthodox Catholic teaching is that Jesus Christ is, from the moment of his conception, the true and natural Son of God. In short, that Jesus Christ is truly God.

Finally, the Catechism mentions perhaps the most influential heresy of the early Church — that of Arianism. Arianism also denied Christ’s divinity, but in a fundamentally different way than Adoptionism did. Arius, the founder of Arianism, believed that when St. Paul said that Jesus was the “firstborn son of all creation,” St. Paul meant that Jesus himself was the highest of all creatures, but still a creature. So Arianism believed that this pre-existence created son of God became man. Simply put, Arianism taught that Jesus was not fully God.

Strangely, Arianism did not teach that Jesus was fully man, either, for it denied that Jesus had a human soul. So for the 4th-century Arian, Jesus Christ was neither God nor man. If that was the case, then what exactly was he? I’m not sure I can answer that question.

At any rate, the next time you say the Nicene Creed during Mass, when you recite the following part: “…eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one-in-being with the Father…” remember that you are reciting the Church’s response to Arianism. Arius said that Jesus was not God, but the Church says that he is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.” Arius said that Jesus did not share the same nature as God, but he Church says that Jesus was “eternally begotten of the Father . . . and one-in-being with the Father.” And Arius said that Christ was created, but the Creed says that he “was begotten, not made.” Without a doubt, this is my favorite part of the Nicene Creed.

Now, as I noted before, there’s no such thing as a new heresy. So let’s ask a question: Are any of these three heresies — Docetism, Adoptionism, and Arianism — still with us today?

I’ve never met a Docetist; I’ve never met a person who claimed that Jesus was truly God but only seemed to be a man. I have met people, however, who refuse to limit Jesus’ human knowledge. One incident that comes to mind was when a person told me that Jesus could have spoken any language he wanted. This might look like Docetism on the surface, but to me it seems more like a form of Monophysitism (which we’ll get to in another post). At any rate, I think it’s safe to say Docetism is not with us today. Of course, that doesn’t mean it won’t be with us in the future.

On the other hand, Adoptionism seems to be alive and well — at least a modified version of it. I suspect that many people see Jesus as little more than a great ethical and spiritual figure, a Jewish version of the Buddha or Socrates. But what gave Jesus his profound insight was his deep relationship with God. Whether or not a person who holds this view would call himself an Adoptionist (he’d probably look at you funny if you told him he was one) is debatable. Also debatable is whether or not he is in fact a true Adoptionist. Still, anyone who places the Lord Jesus on the level of Socrates, Buddha, or Mohammed, and then claims that what makes Jesus different is that he obtained a deeper relationship with God is flirting with Adoptionism.

Arianism is also alive and well today, too, under the guise of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. If I’m not mistaken, the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus is, in his spiritual form, the archangel Michael, who is the greatest of God’s creatures. But don’t try to tell them that this part of their religion is nothing more than a rehashing of an old heresy. I did that once. The response? The Jehovah’s Witnesses told me Arius was correct.

Next time: Nestorianism.

I’ve spend the last two days setting up a separate URL for my podcast. Apparently, the non-podcast posts on this blog were causing various amounts of havoc with the different podcast feeds. Namely, my non-podcast posts were pushing my podcasts off the feed too quickly. This means that new listeners would not be able to download older podcasts without some difficulty.

To rectify this, I set up this blog: Jesus and the Catholic Church Podcast. The only thing I’m posting there are my podcasts. From here on out, I’m only going to post them there.

What does this mean for you? If you’re used to listening to my podcasts here, it means you’ll have to start listening to them there. Don’t worry, I plan to post here, letting everyone known when I have a new podcast up. (Every Sunday, I hope!)

If you listen to my podcast via a reader, then you’ll need to subscribe to the Jesus and the Catholic Church Podcast blog.

And if you subscribe via one of the podcasting feeds, such as iTunes, you’ll want to update that pronto, since I won’t be publishing podcasts here. Again, don’t fret, I won’t let you forget.

In this first post of five, we’re going to study paragraphs 464 to 469 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In these paragraphs, the Catechism sketches the errors made about Jesus Christ in the early Church.

Why would studying error be an important part of catechesis? The simple fact is that we often learn best from our mistakes. And since there’s no such thing as a new heresy, chances are that many of us, at one time or another, perhaps even now, think about Jesus Christ along the lines of one of these heresies. Once we see the mistake, the truth of the matter will become easier to both understand and accept.

That’s being said, let’s begin.

In paragraph 464, the Catechism tells us that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. It says:

The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man.

During the first centuries, the Church had to defend and clarify this truth of faith against the heresies that falsified it.

First, the Catechism sketches the two most basic mistakes one can make about Jesus Christ — namely, thinking that he is a kind of demi-god, half-god and half-man, or thinking that there was a kind of struggle between his human and divine natures.

Then the Catechism tells us the traditional and orthodox understanding: “He became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man.” This understanding came about vis-à-vis error and misunderstanding.

We’ll talk about these misunderstandings in the next four posts.