Most of you have seen the movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” More on that in a moment. But for now, the word “wonderful” is most commonly understood by most people simply to mean “really great.” But the word “wonderful” actually means “filled with wonder.”
Who of us can understand the incredible mystery of our own life? And not merely considered in itself, but also how it interacts with the lives of others and the events of this world? Why are we here now? Why do we meet and know the people we do? How does our life affect others, not just in the obvious ways but also the hidden ways unknown to us?
Imagine that one day you stayed late at work one day rather than take the commuter bus. Your open seat caused two people to meet who later married, had three children, one of whom will discover the cure for cancer. This is something you will never know, but God does. Maybe another day you drove a little slower than the driver in back of you wished, but your slower pace meant that your irritated tailgater was not in an intersection at just the moment he would have been killed in a horrible accident had he kept his pace. I know you may think these to be trivial examples but consider the mystery of each moment and all the “alternate universes” that would result if even a small change took place in our actions!
Our lives are mysteriously intertwined. We have almost no idea how even the little things we do cause enormous ripples and chain reactions that affect dozens, hundreds or thousands of people from moment to moment. What if I never wrote this post and you never read it but instead were reading something else right now, (good, or bad). The possibilities are almost endless as to what might happen had I not written and you not read.
God has us here in this place at this time for a reason. We have some very particular purposes in his plan and he alone knows them all. Try for a moment to appreciate your dignity in this regard. You have a critical role in a cascade of events that ripple from your life and your place in God’s plan. No one can take that place and your role is critical to millions of subsequent transactions in God’s wonderful vision. Psalm 139 has this to say:
O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful. All my days were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Selected verses).
The movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” is an extended meditation on this topic and if, for some strange reason, you have not seen it then you know what you must do! The protagonist of the movie “George” seeks to end his life and wishes he had never been born but an angel from heaven takes him through the strange and sad “alternate universe” that would result had he never been here. It is a world of terrifying loss for many and George comes to discover the dignity and necessity of his life in God’s plan.
In God’s vision no one can be said to be unnecessary or of limited importance. We have absolutely no way of knowing that and given the intricacies of human interaction and the ripple effects thereof we are pretty foolish for thinking we have little importance. Rather, it seems we are quite essential.
Enjoy this summary of the Movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” and remember that “wonderful” means “filled with wonder (and awe).”
Here in the Northern Hemisphere the days are getting very short just now. And they’re going to get shorter. In Washington DC, where I live, it is dark by 5pm. On cloudy days it is almost dark by 4pm. My brothers both live further north, one in St. Paul the other in Seattle. It’s dark even earlier there. An old expression (probably by Yogi Berra) goes, “It’s getting late very early out there.”
Yes, indeed a great drama of light and darkness is unfolding before us. The light is giving way to darkness.
For us, who live in modern times of electricity, the drama is less obvious, little more than an annoyance as we switch on more lights. But think of those who lived not long before us, in a time before abundant electrical lights. Perhaps it was possible to huddle near a candle or fire, but in the end, the darkness put a real stop to most things. Neither work, nor reading, nor most forms of recreation could take place. Darkness was a significant factor.
Recently, in a widespread power outage, I was struck at just how really dark it was outside at night without the streetlights and lights from homes. Frankly it was hard to venture out. Bearings were quickly lost and I stumbled over simple things like a curb or fence post. We moderns just aren’t used to this.
Once I toured Luray Caverns in the nearby Shenandoah Mountains. At the bottom of the caverns hundreds of feet down they gathered us near the center of a large cave and shut off the lights. The darkness was overwhelming. It was almost a physical feeling. I felt a wave of slight panic sweep through me and was so relieved when the lights came back on. Is this what it is like to be blind? Light is very precious.
But here in a “deep and dark December,” the light continues to recede. The spiritual impact of this drama of light is brought into the Church. Our hymns turn to images of light. The darker it gets, the more candles we light on the Advent wreath. In the darkest moments of December our Advent wreath is at its brightest. And just when the days are shortest, the darkness is deepest, Christ is our light is born and the light begins to return.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it….The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. (John 1:5, 9)
December 21 and 22nd are the shortest, darkest days of the year. By December 23rd, the ancients noticed a slight return of the Light. Now the morning star heralds something new, something brighter.
People, look east. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.
December 24th in the deep center of the longest nights, Christ is born and on December 25th a new light shines. From then on, the days get longer.
Yes, a great drama of light is unfolding before us. It is Advent. It is time to recognize our need for the light and just how precious Jesus, the light of the world is. Ponder in these darkest days the beauty of the light.
Consider too the theme of light in many of the Advent songs we sing. Here are few excerpts, mostly from Old Latin Hymns:
From Veni, Veni, Emmanuel:
O come, thou Dayspring from on high,
And cheer us by thy drawing nigh:
Disperse the gloomy cloud of night
And death’s dark shadow put to flight
Rejoice, rejoice Emmanuel,
Shall come to thee O Israel.
From the German Hymn Wachet auf:
Wake, awake, for night is flying;
The watchmen on the heights are crying:
Awake, Jerusalem, at last!
Midnight hears the welcome voices
And at the thrilling cry rejoices;
Come forth, ye virgins, night is past;
The Bridegroom comes, awake;
Your lamps with gladness take;
Alleluia! And for His marriage feast prepare
For ye must go and meet Him there.
From Conditor Alme Siderum
Creator of the stars of night,
Thy people’s everlasting light
Oh Christ, thou savior of us all,
We pray thee hear us when we call
From Vox Clara ecce intonat:
Hark! a thrilling voice is sounding;
“Christ is nigh,” it seems to say,
“Cast away the works of darkness,
O ye children of the day.”
Wakened by the solemn warning
Let the earthbound soul arise;
Christ, her Sun, all ill dispelling,
Shines upon the morning skies.
From an Old German Hymn:
Rejoice, rejoice, believers, and let your lights appear.
The evening is advancing, and darker night is near.
The Bridegroom is arising, and soon He draweth nigh.
Up, pray, and watch, and wrestle: At midnight comes the cry.
See that your lamps are burning; replenish them with oil.
And wait for your salvation, the end of earthly toil.
The watchers on the mountain proclaim the Bridegroom near.
Go meet Him as He cometh, with alleluias clear.
From the Liturgy of St. James, 4th Century (Σιγησάτο παρα σὰρξ βροτεία):
Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the powers of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.
From Veni Redemptor Gentium:
Thy cradle here shall glitter bright,
And darkness breathe a newer light,
Where endless faith shall shine serene,
And twilight never intervene
Enjoy this Advent and watch for the Light, it will surely come
Today’s Solemn Feast of the Immaculate Conception is often mistakenly thought to refer to the conception of the Jesus in the womb of the Blessed Mother. It does not. Perhaps it does not help the confusion that the Gospel chosen for today’s feast is in fact the gospel of the Annunciation wherein Jesus is conceived in Mary’s womb by the power of the Holy Spirit. There is a reason this Gospel is chosen as we shall later see. However, the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception refers to Mary’s Conception in the womb of her mother Anne. The Dogma is stated as follows in the Papal Document Ineffabilis Deus issued by Pope Pius IX in 1854:
The Most holy Virgin Mary was, in the first moment of her conception, by a unique gift of grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of Mankind, preserved free from all stain of Original Sin (D 1641).
Note how carefully the Dogma is worded. Mary receives this gift from God on account of the merits of Jesus Christ. Hence we do not teach that Mary was not in need of the saving grace of Jesus Christ, for it is only by his merits that she is able to receive this gift.
Why does the Church Teach this? Perhaps we can look at it from three perspectives:
1. Fittingness– When we consider the fittingness of something we do not deny that God could have done things otherwise. We argue only that what he did makes sense and is in accord with what seems best. For example, Jesus could have chosen to appear on earth as a full grown man, never having been born, never having been a child or a carpenter. I was surely possible for God to have done this. He could have created a human nature for himself ex nihilo (from nothing). However it seems fitting that the Lord Jesus lived life as we do, having been conceived, born, raised, nurtured, come to manhood, labored, and finally ministered. So the Lord chose to have for himself a mother and, from this mother, to draw his humanity.
But what sort of humanity would he need to draw from her? It seems clear that the humanity he drew from her had to be sinless since Scripture says of Jesus: For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet was without sin. (Heb 4:15). And again, Which of you can accuse me of sin? (John 8:46). So the humanity that Christ drew from Mary was sinless. But Mary cannot give what she does not have. So it is fitting that God preserved her at her conception from the stain (macula) of Original Sin. Hence she is call Immacula (without stain).
Now one might argue that God could simply have done for Christ what he did for Mary and simply intervened at the moment of Christ’s conception and preserved him free of that stain, while leaving Mary with it. This is true, but less fitting. For if Christ did not take all of his humanity from Mary then incarnation becomes something of a charade, incomplete at best. Christ would have taken some of his humanity from Mary and some from…..where? Hence it is more fitting that Mary be preserved and that Christ’s sonship of Mary be full and her Maternity be full.
It is also fitting that Mary be preserved from Original Sin due to her status as the New Eve. Mary fulfils the text of Genesis 3:15: And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. So Mary is the woman, the new Eve, spoken of in this text. But the first Eve was created sinless. Hence it is fitting that the second Eve also be created sinless. In effect God is revisiting the orginal scenario wherein we were harmed by a man, a woman, and a tree. Hence God decrees that we would be restored in the same way: a man (Christ), a woman (Mary) and the tree of the cross. Hence Christ saves us by the wood of the Cross and his obedience. But, just as the original scenario also featured sinless woman who disobeyed, now another sinless woman would, this time, obey. It is thus fitting that Mary be sinless as the New Eve.
2. Faithfulness to Scripture – The Gospel chosen for today may confuse some for it is the gospel that refers to Christ’s conception. However it is chosen for the fact of what the Angel Gabriel says to Mary: And coming to her, he said, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you (Lk 1:28). There is a Greek word underlying the translation “full of grace” and the word is κεχαριτωμένη (kecharitomene). The meaning of this term is much disputed since it is a hapax legomenon(a word that only occurs once in the whole of Scripture). The great scholar, Greek speaker and Father of the Church Origen said of this word: The angel greeted Mary with a new address which I could not find anywhere else in scripture….This greeting was reserved for Mary alone (Hom 6.7 on Luke).
However, at the heart of the word is the Greek word χαριτόω (Charitoo) which means to show forth grace (charis), or in the passive to have grace shown. Kecharitomene is a perfect, passive, participle of charitoo and hence means endowed with grace (charis). But what does it mean to say it is a perfect participle? A participle is a word that has both the qualities of a adjective and a verb. The ‘perfect’ action of the participle is considered to have been completed before the time of the speaker. How long before is not a consideration, but the Greek verbal idea is that the action has already been completed. Perfected action must imply the past in relationship to the speaker. Thus, Gabriel in using the word, is confessing that Mary had already been graced. So, the most literal rendering of κεχαριτωμένη is “having been endowed with grace.” That is awkward in English however: “Hail! having been endowed with grace, the Lord is with thee!” 🙂 So the more standard and still literal way is “full of grace.” Attempts to render the word more vaguely as, “highly favored” do not respect the root word charitoo and charis which is almost always rendered as “grace” and not mere favor. The plain meaning of charis is grace.
Now, grammar aside, it would be strange for Gabriel to say to a woman who had Original Sin that she was full of grace. In no way can the word be implied to mean that she will one day be graced since it is a past participle. The action of her being made full of grace is past, though its effects are present now. So Gabriel is greeting her in this condition. Hence the text implies some prior action of God. Now, this does not ipso facto prove that the moment in the past where God acted was her conception. But, this seems the most fitting timing since Original Sin is contracted at that moment. Gabriel’s greeting only makes sense if Mary is free from Original Sin, for grace and Original Sin are not compatible
But the point remains that Catholic teaching on Mary’s freedom from Original Sin is most faithful to the Scriptural text here. The Angel’s greeting is significant and Catholic teaching best connects the dots, and takes the greeting at its word, respecting its plain meaning. Mary, having been made full of grace, is free from Original Sin.
3. Fathers of the Church– The Church Fathers did not use the term Immaculate Conception but they did teach on Mary’s holiness and sinlessness. Here are some quotes:
St. Ephrem, 3rd Century – Thou and thy Mother are the only ones who are totally beautiful in every respect; for in thee O Lord there is no spot and in thy Mother, no stain. (Carmina Nisibena, 27.8).
Hippolytus 3rd Century – The Lord was sinless, because in His humanity He was fashioned out of incorruptible wood, that is to say, out of the Virgin and the Holy Spirit (In Psalm 22; quoted by Theodoret, Dialogus 1; PG 10:610, 864-5)
St. Augustine 4th Century– All men must confess themselves as sinners except the Holy Virgin Mary, whom I desire for the sake of the honor of the Lord to leave entirely out of the question when the talk is of sin. For from Him we know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every particular was conferred upon her who had the merit to conceive and bear Him who undoubtedly had no sin.” (De Natura et gratia 36.42)
St. Ephrem, 3rd Century – Mary and Eve, two people without guilt, two simple people were identical. Later however, one became the cause of our death, the other the cause of our life (Opus Syr. II, 327)
Origen, 3rd Century – This Virgin Mother of the Only-begotten of God, is called Mary, worthy of God, immaculate of the immaculate, one of the one. (Homily 1)
St Ambrose – 4th Century – “Mary, a Virgin not only undefiled but a Virgin whom grace has made inviolate, free of every stain of sin.” (Sermon 22:30)
In the end, Mary receives this honor to be free of original sin for the sake of Christ. All the great Marian doctrines refer back to Christ. Mary too, as the perfect disciple, and Mother of the Church also prefigures the gifts that we will one day enjoy. For, in heaven, having been freed of all our sins and purified by the blood of Christ, we too will be rightfully called Immaculate (without stain). So Mary’s Feast is ours too by way of promise.
There is a beautiful text for today’s feast which says,
Tota pulchra es, Maria,
et macula originalis non est in te.
Vestimentum tuum candidum quasi nix, et facies tua sicut sol.
Tu gloria Jerusalem, tu laetitia Israel, tu honorificentia populi nostri.
Tota pulchra es, Maria.
You are all beautiful, Mary,
and the original stain [of sin] is not in you.
Your clothing is bright as snow, and your face is like the sun.
You are the glory of Jerusalem, you are the joy of Israel, you give honour to our people.
You are all beautiful, Mary.
How do you think of prayer? Is it another thing you “have to do” among many other things on your list? Or is prayer a time where you refrain from doing? Is prayer a requirement you regret or a rest that you relish? What is prayer for you?
The danger in answering questions like these is that we answer them the way they “should” be answered rather than answering in a simply honest way. But the fact is, many struggle with prayer and experience it with a lot of negativity: boredom, distraction, drudgery and so forth.
The fact is prayer is tough. We are very sensory by nature and used to seeing and hearing the one to whom we speak. To encounter God in silence and without sight is unfamiliar, jarring and challenging. Some use icons or pictures, some a prayer book, some pray before the Blessed Sacrament. But in the end, the eyes of the flesh cannot see, only the eyes of the heart, the eyes of faith. This is not only difficult, it is obnoxious to our flesh (i.e. sin nature) which demands to see and hear on its own terms. And the flesh wages war on the on our spirit (cf Gal 5:17) and like a fidgeting child protests all through prayer.
Of course the best way to address this problem is with honesty. Without honesty we don’t really have a spiritual life. A true journey to God requires that all the masks come off, all the little lies we like to tell our self, all the deceptions be set aside. Start with honesty.
Praying out of What is – When people tell me they have a hard time praying I say, “Then THAT is your prayer. Tell God how absolutely bored you are when you pray. Tell him that you would rather do just about anything than pray to him. Tell him that when it occurs to you that you should pray, or some crazy priest reminds you to pray, that your heart sinks and you put it off and put it off. Tell God you hate praying…..And do you know what you are doing as you tell him all this? You are praying!”
Yes, this is prayer.
“But father, but father, I can’t talk to God like that!” “Why not?” I say. God already knows that this is how you feel. It’s a pretty silly thing to sit in front of God wearing a mask that he can see right through: but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account(Heb 4:13). Five minutes of a prayer of honesty is better than two hours of a prayer of rhetoric and “stained glass” themes that we don’t really mean. Pray honestly, talk to God about what is really going on.
The Book of Psalms is the prayerbook of the Bible and it has God for its author. And notice how plain spoken the psalms are. Every emotion and experience are grist for the prayer mill: Joy, serenity, victory, thanksgiving, petition, anger, anger at God!, rage, vengefulness, disappointment, loss, grief, fear despair. It’s all there and more. There are even psalms that ask God to kill or harm my enemy: 69, 109, 137, even the beautiful 139 ends with the request that God slay the wicked. But these are feelings we honestly have from time to time and God wants us to talk to him about them. If the Book of psalms is a directive for prayer (and it is), then God wants us to speak to him about everything, even the darkest and most sinful of things. Prayer is conversation with God. But it has to be honest.
And something starts to happen when we become really honest in prayer. Little by little, it becomes more relevant to us and we even start to like it a bit. Now don’t tell your flesh that! But your soul starts to breathe, starts to exhale. When all the little self-imposed and unbiblical rules about prayer and the things we’re “not supposed to say to God” get set aside, the soul enjoys a freedom, and the honesty is refreshing.
And little by little, prayer is not so much another thing to do as it is a rest from all our doings. It is a time to rest, to exhale, to sigh, and to refreshed by the simple fact of being honest with someone who loves us and who we are growing to love. Some one who, Before ever a word is on our lips, knows it through and through (Psalm 139:4). Prayer is freedom to be honest, rest from the labor of wearing masks and the restless anxiety of what others think or expect, prayer is a sigh of truth, rest from the contradictory demands of an often phony world.
Consider this description of prayer from St. Anselm:
Insignificant man, escape from your everyday business for a short while, hide for a moment from your restless thoughts. Break off from your cares and troubles and be less concerned about your tasks and labors. Make a little time for God and rest a while in him. Enter into your mind’s inner chamber. Shut out everything but God and whatever helps you to seek him. And when you have shut the door, look for him, speak to God…. (Proslogion, Chapter 1).
Yes, speak to God. Be honest. Tell him what is really happening. If you need a good manual to assist, get a good Bible or copy of the psalms, one that gives a title or brief sentence describing the content of the psalm. Find one that suits you this particular day and read it, slowly. Before long, as the weeks and years tick by you’ll be speaking on your own, in psalm-like honesty. Some of us even grow silent over the years as words no longer seem necessary or even possible: cor ad cor loquitur (heart speaks to heart).
And when words seem difficult to come by, just sigh. St. Augustine says, This task [of prayer] is generally accomplished more through sighs than words, more through weeping than speech (Letter 130, to Proba). It may seem a strange thing, but sighing is very relaxing, and much is released from the soul by it. I have often thought of Gregorian chant as a musical sigh to God and it brings great peace. I am blessed to have a cavernous Church and to be able to read and sing Chant. Most evenings just before bed I go through the passage to the Church and sing (sigh) the proper antiphon to our Lady. This time of year it is the Alma Redemptoris Mater.
So pray. Pray honestly. If words are hard, sigh or just sit quietly. But pray, watch and wait for the Lord. It’s not work, it’s rest.
I have often thought of Gregorian chant as a musical sigh to God and it brings great peace. I am blessed to have a cavernous Church and to be able to read and sing Chant. Most evenings just before bed I go through the passage to the Church and sing (sigh) the proper antiphon to our Lady. This time of year it is the Alma Redemptoris Mater.
There is another old hymn that speaks of the delights of true and honest prayer. It is the old classic, Sweet Hour of Prayer and its lyrics are, in part:
Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
That calls me from a world of care,
And bids me at my Father’s throne
Make all my wants and wishes known.
In seasons of distress and grief,
My soul has often found relief,
And oft escaped the tempter’s snare,
By thy return, sweet hour of prayer!
Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
Thy wings shall my petition bear
To Him whose truth and faithfulness
Engage the waiting soul to bless.
And since He bids me seek His face,
Believe His Word and trust His grace,
I’ll cast on Him my every care,
And wait for thee, sweet hour of prayer!
Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
May I thy consolation share,
Till, from Mount Pisgah’s lofty height,
I view my home and take my flight.
This robe of flesh I’ll drop, and rise
To seize the everlasting prize,
And shout, while passing through the air,
“Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer!”
Today is the Feast of St. Nicholas. The real St. Nicholas was nothing close to the St. Nick (Santa Claus) of the modern age. He was a thin curmudgeonly man with a zeal for the Lord that caused flairs of anger. Compromise was unknown to him. The slow transformation of him into “Jolly ole’ Saint Nicholas is a remarkable recasting of him centuries in the making. Some years ago the Washington Post featured an article entitled Poles Apart: Nicholas of Myra; How a 4th-Century Bishop Achieved Fame 1,500 Years Later, With a Whole New Attitude.
Since I had to blog twice yesterday (due to the need to respond to the current Washington Post article on Clergy Sexual Abuse) I thought I might take a break and present excerpts from the article that detail the real St. Nicholas of Myra. It is a very engaging look at the cantankerous Saint who lived through some very tough times.
I am aware that hagiography (the study of the Saints) is sometimes more art than science. I cannot vouch for every detail in the article and would be interested if some of you intrepid hagiographers what to clarify, correct or add to the details given.
The Full Article (which details, somewhat thoroughly, St. Nicholas’ transition to Santa) can be read here: Poles Apart. I have also placed a PDF of the whole article which is more easily printed here: PDF – Poles Apart Nicholas and Nick
Enjoy this excerpt on the real St. Nicholas of Myra (aka Santa):
The year is 325. The place is Nicaea, a small town near the Black Sea in what is now Turkey. Thousands of priests, 318 bishops, two papal lieutenants and the Roman emperor Constantine are gathered to face a looming church crisis…..
One of the churchmen rises to speak. Arius, from the Egyptian city of Alexandria, tells the gathering that Jesus was not divine. He was just a prophet. Suddenly, a second man is on his feet, an obscure, cantankerous bishop named Nicholas. He approaches Arius, fist raised menacingly. There are gasps. Would he dare? He would. Fist strikes face. Arius goes down. He will have a shiner. Nick, meanwhile, is set upon by holy men. His robes are torn off. He is thrown into a dungeon.
Peer down through the bars. Behold the simmering zealot sitting there, scowling, defiant, imprisoned for his uncompromising piety. Recognize his sallow face? No? Well, no reason you should. But he knows you. He’s been to your house many times….
[O]n this holiday we examine the puzzling paradox of Santa Claus. On the one hand, we have the modern Santa, a porcine, jolly man who resides at the North Pole with a woman known only as Mrs. Claus. …
On the other hand, we have the ancient Santa. Saint Nicholas. Paintings show a thin man. He was spare of frame, flinty of eye, pugnacious of spirit. In the Middle Ages, he was known as a brawling saint. He had no particular sense of humor that we know of. He could be vengeful, wrathful, an embittered ex- con….No doubt, Saint Nick was a good man. A noble man. But a hard man.
Nicholas was born in Patara, a small town on the Mediterranean coast, 280 years after the birth of Christ. He became bishop of a small town in Asia Minor called Myra. Beyond that, details of his life are more legend than fact….He became a priest at 19, and bishop in his twenties….Diocletian ruled the Roman Empire; it was the early 300s, and…began the “Great Persecution.”…. Nicholas kept preaching Christianity, and was arrested and tortured for disobeying the new laws. He spent more than a decade in jail. Among his punishments, according to Saint Simeon’s 10th-century history, were starvation and thirst. That is how Santa got skinny…. Twelve years later, AD 312, ….Constantine triumphed. Across the empire, bishops and priests returned to work and Nicholas got out of jail. He tended to local business. He was not pleasant about it. At the time, Myra was a hotbed of Artemis-worship…Nicholas prayed for vengeance, and his prayers were answered. Artemis’s temple crumbled. ” …The priests who lived in Artemis’s temple ran in tears to the bishop. They appealed to his Christian mercy. They wanted their temple restored.….Nicholas was not moved. Prison had left him in no mood for compromise. “Go to Hell’s fire,” he is said to have said, “which has been lit for you by the Devil.”
The Time of Nick In his lifetime, Nicholas crusaded against official corruption and injustice, seeing both as an affront to God. Supposedly, his intervention — through fire-and-brimstone denunciations of corrupt officials — saved at least a half-dozen innocent men from the gallows or the chopping block. He was forgiven for punching Arius and rescued from the dungeon. In the end, his views on the Trinity were vindicated by the adoption of the Nicene Creed, which declares Christ divine. Saint Nick died on Dec. 6. The year could be 326 or 343 or 352, depending whose account you rely on. Why we know the day of the year, but not the year itself, will be explained forthwith…..
……Nicholas of Myra might not seem like the kind of person who relates to kids, and few acts attributed to him involve children. There are two, though neither is exactly the stuff of sugar plums and Christmas stockings. In one tale, widely told, Nicholas secretly delivers three bags of gold to a penniless father. The debtor dad uses the loot as dowries so his three girls do not have to become prostitutes….The second anecdote tells of the time a tavern owner robbed, murdered three children, hiding their remains in pickle barrels. …Fortunately, Saint Nicholas happened to walk through the tavern-keeper’s door….Soon, all three boys, were back home, reeking of pickle juice. What became of the shopkeeper is unrecorded…. By the Middle Ages, Nick had become the patron saint of children, and he had a new gig: gift-giving. Throughout Europe, the legend spread: He delivered trinkets to good kids and twigs to naughty ones. It was an uneasy transition — from curmudgeon to cuddle-bear. ….
🙂 As said above you can click on those links to read the full story of how St. Nicholas of Myra morphed into Santa Claus.
Here’s a Medieval Version of “Jolly old St. Nicholas.” The text is the Introit for the feast of St. Nicholas (Statuit ei Dominus) and translated says: The Lord made unto him a covenant of peace, and made him a prince, that the dignity of the priesthood should be to him forever.
The Washington Post has published a story this morning on the Sexual Abuse Scandal in the Roman Catholic Church. Why exactly they have chosen to do so at this time is not clear. There are no new allegations, no legal updates to report, no recent protests or accusations against the Archdiocese of Washington’s handling of this matter.
The Article, entitled After child abuse accusations, Catholic priests often simply vanish, seems to have as its purpose and focus the question of whether the Catholic Church is doing enough to “track” and control the behavior of former priests once they have been “defrocked” (i.e. laicized or removed from ministry). The question seems somewhat misplaced however since such functions of control, probation and registering sex offenders are the role of the State, not the Church. Never mind though, this article is going to be about the Church. Never mind that the Church has no legal standing or power to accomplish such tracking, control and legal disclosure. Yet it would seem according tot he article that she is still negligent. Exactly how the Church is to accomplish this task of tracking and controlling is not made clear by the reporters or others interviewed. At any rate this lack of monitoring seems to be the premise of the article. The article begins with this somewhat rhetorical observation:
[S]omething glaring is missing in this country: the accused priests. Although the vast majority were removed from ministry long ago – barred from celebrating Mass in public, administering the sacraments, wearing their clerical collars or presenting themselves as priests – church officials say they have no way to monitor where the men are now…..The Washington Post was able to identify 31 priests accused in the Washington area and locate nine who are still alive…..
The implication of course is that we are supposed to be monitoring. Again, how and on what legal basis or standing we are to do this is not stated.
The Article is further deficient in that it doesn’t discuss the breadth of what the Church has done to protect kids nor does show how much has been developed, including criminal background checks of all priests and lay staff who have any contact with youth. No mention is made of the reporting and accountability to third parties that all abuse prevention training is up to date and that all requirements are met yearly in terms of legally recognized abuse prevention programs. Neither does the Post article make clear that historical data and names of all accused priests have been made public. All the men mentioned in the article have been named publicly before by the Church. Further, it is the policy of the Archdiocese to immediately inform the local police of any charges of abuse, past or present. None of this is mentioned and the impression is allowed by the article that the Archdiocese is somewhat cavalier about men who are barred from ministry and child safety, which is not true.
As a priest, I am grieved and angry that any brother priest of mine harmed children, sexually abused them, or scandalized them in any way. Nothing could be further from the purpose of the priesthood and the Church than the exploitation of the innocent and vulnerable. There is simply no place in the priesthood for those who have done such things. I believe the Archdiocese of Washington has been very serious about finding those men who offended and, upon knowledge of any past abuse coming to light, has acted swiftly to remove them and report them to law enforcement. As a priest I am additionally grieved at how the horrible violation of trust by these abusers has affected the ability of the vast majority of priests who never offended to preach the Gospel and build trust with their people. I am no apologist for any abuser priest. Neither do I think that the Church has handled this matter well in the past. However, this Post Article says nothing about how seriously this Archdiocese has been about this problem for a long time now. This leaving out of the “rest of the story” is a serious deficiency of the article and a disservice to the Church, and to many people I love and respect who are very diligent in protecting the young. Susan Timony is the post just prior to this (http://blog.adw.org/2010/12/wounded-hearts/details) some of the significant measures we take to prevent abuse and also the pastoral care we extend to victims and their families.
But the ultimate deficiency in the Post article is the poor marksmanship of the authors who completely miss the target of what should concern us at this point. The data in this article goes a long way to show the deficiencies in our criminal justice system. If we are really serious about protecting young people from sexual abusers it is not obvious by looking at the lapses in incarceration, probation and community protection by the State.
I would like to look at an example from the article to illustrate this. The quote from the article is in bold italics black. My commentary is normal text red
The Case of Robert Petrella:
Robert J. Petrella has been accused by at least 25 men of molesting them when they were boys, church officials said. He has been convicted twice of abuse charges in Prince George’s County – in 1997 and 2002. Yet his name does not appear on any sex-offender registry He was prosecuted under the Maryland laws in effect at the time his crimes were committed, long before such registries existed, said Prince George’s Assistant State’s Attorney Renee Battle-Brooks:(This is bureaucratic gobbledygook. Robert Petrella has been in and out of jail twice since 1997. His absence from sex-offender registries is not a negligence on the part of the Church, this is negligence on the part of the State. Where is the outcry? Where are the demands for reform? Surely the Post will devote full attention to this terrible oversight in the law. The Post and many voices legitimately demanded immediate reform in the Church for our oversights and bad policies of the past. How about this dreadfully bad policy by the State of Maryland? Robert Petrella should be listed prominently in every sex-offender registry. He is a very serious offender. At least 25 men have accused him. This is a serious dereliction of duty on the part of the state).
The Washington Archdiocese, which removed Petrella from the ministry in1989 after two decades and seven parishes, defrocked him in 2002. Susan Gibbs, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said she isn’t sure where Petrella is, and his attorney, William Brennan, declined to comment.(Hmm…so it looks like the Post isn’t going to decry the State of Maryland and interview people who demand reform. Oh, I see, it’s back to the Church which is supposed to know his whereabouts and be doing…. what? Has the Post not missed the true target here? It is the State of Maryland and other States as well that need reform. The Church does not have the capacity to track whereabouts since she cannot demand reportage from US Citizens. We cannot force Petrella to where a ankle device or demand he check in every day. That is not in our power. The State however does have that power and I would recommend that the Post, if it is serious about protection, use a little journalistic pressure to agitate for change as they and others rightfully did of the Church in the past).
The person who has tracked the former priest most closely in recent years is [David] Fortwengler, who was an11-year-old altar boy at St. Columba when Petrella molested him in 1968. “I got that sick feeling in my stomach again,” Fortwengler said of learning that Petrella’s probation was coming to an end. Petrella, who did not respond to phone calls and letters, had gone unmonitored for long stretches before….. Petrella….didn’t face criminal charges until 1997. After being convicted of battery, he served one week in jail before persuading a Prince George’s judge to release him so he could care for his ill mother. (Pay attention folks. After being convicted of child molestation Petrella spent only one week in jail, one week. Now this is a serious miscarriage of justice by the State. Again, where is/was the outcry? Where are the demands for reform? Why did this go unreported at the time? Again, this is the State, not the Church that is going lite on offenders)
His release required him to be in a home detention program in Pennsylvania under supervised probation for three years. Yet it came out in court documents years later that probation authorities there were never supervising him…. (More incompetence and dereliction by the State. It seems well past time for the Post and others to demand a full investigation of such matters. A dangerous sexual predator was allowed to go free and unmonitored for years. Did he live near a school, a playground? How many others are going free and unmonitored? Why is the Post making this an article about the Catholic Church. Here again it seems that they are missing the mark, which is the States of Maryland and Pennsylvania, which have both the legal power and duty to protect citizens and have failed to do so. The Church does not have the ability to track people or the power to engage in probative practices. It really must be the State that does this).
In 2002, after Fortwengler and two more victims came forward with allegations, Petrella was arrested again and pleaded guilty to three counts of unnatural or perverted sex practices. This time, he served nine months(nine months? Is that all?)and was released on the probation that ended three years ago…. (out already?)Haunted by the idea of Petrella going unnoticed, Fortwengler located him in 2008 in the North Arlington, N.J., home where the former priest had grown up. He was living there with his mother (Is this the same mother who was so sick that he had to be released to care for her in 1997?), neighbors said. He sometimes took walks carrying a Bible and wore a clerical collar when he appeared for a neighborhood condolence call, they said. “In order to protect your children, the whereabouts of dangerous predators like Petrella must be disclosed,” read the flier Fortwengler took door to door. Since then, neighbors have kept a close eye on Petrella, Good for Mr. Fortwengler. However he shouldn’t have had to do this. Further, with all the weird protections Petrella seems to have, Mr. Fortwengler may well have opened himself to a lawsuit had Petrella chosen to do so. Just as the Church has no power or jurisdiction to engage in such practices, neither does Mr. Fortwengler. But again he should not have had to do this. Robert Petrella belongs on every list of registered sex offenders. Had this been the case, neighbors would have known.
Well, OK, you get the point. It is the State which should be the real target of our reporters here. But, strangely, they are silent in terms of pursuit of this angle of the Story. It remains the Catholic Church that is their target. Rather than call State Officials, our reporters called the Bishop’s Conference and the Archdiocese of Washington. They received the following and rather obvious replies:
Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the bishops conference, said there is only so much that can be done to keep track of accused priests once they are no longer connected with the Church. “There is a lot of concern, but there are limits to what we can do legally,” she said. “We have no authority over them. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.”
“Our authority over them ends when they’re laicized and no longer priests,” [Susan] Gibbs [Communications Director for the Archdiocese of Washington] said. “Even if they’re not laicized, they have the choice of walking away. They are adults. We’re not a police force. We don’t run prisons. We don’t have mechanisms in a legal sense for controlling them.” The legal system is much better positioned to offer ongoing scrutiny, she said. “That’s why it’s best if someone reports abuse immediately and that it’s brought to authorities, because then there’s a legal path to follow for investigating, proving and monitoring.”
Exactly, There are legal limits, and even legal liabilities involved when private citizens or organizations overstep their authority. Lawsuits, charges of harassment, defamation and so forth can result.
Three other ADW cases – Two former priests of the Archdiocese (Edward Hartel and Russell Dillard) are also mentioned in the article. Neither were convicted in court of the charges against them. They remain suspended from priestly ministry however for various reasons. In these cases the Church has been stricter than the State. The norms of the Church allow us to be very particular about who we allow to function in priestly ministry. However, to legally track and attempt to restrict the movement of former priests like these (who are free US Citizens and convicted of no crime in any US court) would surely involve legal liabilities. One final Archdiocesan Priest mentioned in the article is James Finan and he has freely submitted to supervision by Church authorities. Having met his legal obligations to the State he has lived in Church retirement homes for priests. He has not ministered as a priest or had any contact with parishes or children. But note, he is supervised as a free decision of his own. The Church could not insist legally on this, since he has rights as a US Citizen.
In the end, the Post has missed the proper target. Currently there are serious deficiencies in the criminal justice system that need investigation. The safety of children and minors is at stake when the State either through incompetence or legal complexities fails to give sentences that are commensurate with the crime, grants early release and/or allows sexual offenders to go unmonitored and unreported on sex offender registries.
The Church has rightfully been rebuked for our failings of the past. I know that this rebuke has had the salutary effect of reform in the way we handle these matters today. I think that on-going scrutiny is both necessary and helpful for the Church. However this Post article makes clear that significant reform is also necessary in the US criminal justice system. It is my hope that the Post will follow through with what it has uncovered and that other media and concerned parties will insist on reform in the State as well. Sadly, and for obvious reasons the Church herself cannot champion this call. I suspect that I will get more than a few comments here on the blog from those who will be quite angry with me and assert that I am trying to evade responsibility for our past failures. I am not, and hope I have stated that plainly. But the fact is, this problem is bigger than the Catholic Church. If we are really going to be serious about protecting children it’s time to widen the net of accountability.
The Gospel today presents some Practical Principles of Powerful Prophecy as we focus on the ministry of John the Baptist. All of us have been anointed as prophets by virtue of our baptism. Now, a prophet is not usually someone who foretells the future but, rather, someone who speaks for God, who announces the truth of the Lord to this world. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of this prophetic office in the following way:
[the baptized] must profess before men the faith they have received from God through the Church” and participate in the apostolic and missionary activity of the People of God. (CCC, 1270)
So, we have an obligation to evangelize and to be prophets in this world. But how can we do this effectively? What are the some of the essential ingredients? The ministry of St. John the Baptist in today’s Gospel provides four “Principles for Powerful Prophecy.” Let’s look at the elements that are displayed
1. The Poise Powerful Prophecy. Poise here refers to balance. The text says, John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” Note the content of John’s preaching is twofold. He first says, “Repent!” And then adds, “For the Kingdom of God is at hand.” Here is a balance to get right. The preacher and the prophet must speak frankly of sin and call people to repentance. But the prophet must also speak of the grace available to conquer that sin and the Good News that the Kingdom of Heaven is now open and available. Hence John the Baptist is willing and able to declare the reality of sin and the necessity of repenting from it. But he is also able to declare the availability of the Kingdom wherein one is able to find the grace to overcome sin.
Too many preachers, catechists and even parents lack this balance. In the past, some argue, that sermons were all fire and brimstone. Today it is too often, the steady diet “God is love” with little reference to the need to repent. This is one explanation of why our Churches have emptied in the past 40 years. This is because the good news only has relevance and significance if the bad news is first understood.
To illustrate, suppose you are looking at a newspaper and see a headline that announces a cure for a deadly disease has been found. But what if you have never heard of this disease and don’t even know you have it? It is not likely you will read the article, it will be only of passing interest. But, now suppose you know of this disease, and that you have it, and you know others who have it. Suddenly this headline jumps out, is very relevant, causes joy and is an article to read very carefully by you! Because you know very personally the bad news of the disease, the good news of the cure now means everything to you. It is the same with the Kingdom. We have to know the bad news of sin in a very personal and profound way if the Good News of Salvation is going to be appreciated. But in the Church we have lately soft-pedaled the bad news. Thus the Good News is irrelevant to people and the medicine of the cure is pointless. Why pray, receive sacraments or read scripture if everything is really fine? Why bother coming to Church for all that stuff? Hence our Churches have emptied, in part, due to a lack of the proper balance of repent and the Kingdom of God is at hand.
If we are going to be powerful and effective prophet we are going to have to be able to speak frankly to others about the reality of sin and balance it with the joyful announcement of the Kingdom with its grace and mercy now being available. Prophecy must be proper by having the right balance.
2. The Product of Powerful Prophecy. The text says, At that time Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins. Here is the desired product of powerful prophecy: repentance unto salvation for all who believe. St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians about this aspect of prophecy and preaching. He is aware that he grieved some of them due to a strong rebuke he gave the community (cf 1 Cor 5) but he is glad that it produced a godly sorrow which in turn produced repentance and holiness. He also distinguishes between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow:
Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while—yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation [at sin], what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done…..By all this we are encouraged. (2 Cor 7:8-13)
An old priest once told me, “Never think you have preached well unless the line to the confessional is long.” Good preaching, among other things produces repentance unto salvation. It may cause some to be mad or sad, but if it is proper prophecy, it will produce a godly sorrow and the madness and sadness gives way to gladness. Here is the expected product of proper preaching: repentance unto salvation.
3. The Purity of Powerful Prophecy. The text says: When [John] saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. John the Baptist had no fear of people’s opinion and would not compromise the message based on his audience. All the credentials of the temple leaders did not impress him. Neither did the status of the Jews as the chosen people cause him to soften his message. John had no fear of human opinion, no need for the good favor of others, especially the rich and powerful. Because of this his preaching had purity. He did not compromise the message out of fear or the need to flatter others. He spoke boldly, plainly and with love and desire for the ultimate salvation of all. If that called for strong medicine he was willing to do it.
The ancient martyrs went to their death proclaiming Christ but many of us moderns are afraid even of someone raising their eyebrows at us. Fear is a great enemy of powerful prophecy for by it many remain silent when they should speak. The fear of what other people may think causes many to compromise the truth and even sin against it. This sort of fear has to go if our prophecy is going to have the purity necessary to reach the goal.
4. The Person of Powerful Prophecy. The text says, I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. John’s audience and disciples were fascinated by him, and drawn by his charisma. But as they want to know more about him, John talks instead about Jesus. That’s the message, “Jesus, not me.” If we are going to be powerful prophets the message has got to be about Jesus, not about me and what I think. We are not out to win an argument and boost our own egos. We are not out to become famous. We are about Jesus Christ and his gospel, his message, his truth. John said of Jesus, “He must increase, I must decrease” (John 3:30). A prophet speaks for the Lord, not himself. A prophet announces God’s agenda not his own. A prophet is about Jesus.
Here then are four Principles of Powerful Prophecy. You are that prophet whom the Lord seeks. Some one was John the Baptist for you. Someone brought you to Christ. Thank God for that individual or those individuals. But you too are to be John the Baptist for others. Learn from John, apply his principles and make disciples for Jesus Christ.
This song says:
If I can help somebody, as I pass along,
If I can cheer somebody, with a word or song,
If I can show somebody, how they’re travelling wrong,
Then my living shall not be in vain.
In the past few days we have reviewed how a humanist group has misused Scripture in an Ad campaign designed to ridicule faith in God. In their human kindness they have chosen the Christmas season to do this. Their misuse of Scripture centers on pulling individual verses from the Bible and posting them out of context and apart from the wider Biblical tradition that often clarifies, balances or distinguishes them.
Pope Benedict recently spoke to this very problem in his Post Synodal Exhortation Verbum Domini. His main point is that individual verses of Scripture must be understood in relation to the whole of scripture, not isolated from it. I’d like to quote a couple sections of the exhortation so we can learn from the Pope an important lesson about Scriptural interpretation.
From letter to the deeper spirit and meaning of the text – In this first quote the Pope makes reference to the literal sense or meaning of a text. Literal here signifies what a text is saying in the literary sense, not necessarily that it should be understood without any symbolic or figurative meaning, not that it cannot have an analogical, allegorical, or spiritual meaning. The “literal” sense emphasizes what the text is saying, its sentence structure, its grammar, its basic message. However, understanding what the text is merely saying is not enough. We must move on to understand what the text means at a deeper and wider level than its mere literary meaning. The letter must give way to the deeper spiritual meaning. And here is where the Pope picks up:
In rediscovering the interplay between the different senses of Scripture it thus becomes essential to grasp the passage from letter to spirit…..This progression cannot take place with regard to an individual literary fragment unless it is seen in relation to the whole of Scripture. Indeed, the goal to which we are necessarily progressing is the one Word. There is an inner drama in this process…. Saint Paul lived this passage to the full in his own life. In his words: “ the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life ” (2 Cor 3:6), he expressed in radical terms the significance of this process of transcending the letter and coming to understand it only in terms of the whole…… We know that for Saint Augustine too this passage was at once dramatic and liberating; he came to believe the Scriptures – which at first sight struck him as so disjointed in themselves and in places so coarse – through the very process of transcending the letter which he learned from Saint Ambrose in typological interpretation, wherein the entire Old Testament is a path to Jesus Christ. For Saint Augustine, transcending the literal sense made the letter itself credible, and enabled him to find at last the answer to his deep inner restlessness and his thirst for truth. (Verbum Domini, 38)
Hence, to grasp the letter of a text (i.e., what is this text saying) is important because it lays out the data before us. But the next necessary step is to move from letter to spirit so that, by God’s grace and the instruction of the Church we are able to increasingly grasp what the text really means, not merely what it is saying. The Pope is clear to point out that movement from letter to spirit cannot happen if a text is isolated from the whole of Scripture.
But Scripture is not considered only in terms of the whole, but also in terms of its direction or goal. And this goal is Christ. Hence as St. Ambrose taught Augustine and we are reminded by Pope Benedict: the entire Old Testament is a path to Jesus Christ. Thus we look back to and interpret the Old Testament in the light of Christ. God dealt with ancient Israel in stages where he increasingly led them away from barbarity and incivility by the Law and prophets. In these Last Days he speaks to us through his Son and seeks to perfect us even further through his grace. So, each passage or verse of Scripture must be understood in relation to not only the whole of scripture but also its place in the “trajectory” of Scripture.
Thus, what our humanist friends did in the Ads we have discussed was an inauthentic use of scripture. It is not possible to simply yank a verse out of thin air then say, “See here! Look at what they believe.” Or “Look at what their holy book says!” For example, in quoting from 1 Samuel as they did wherein God seems to command genocide, or to quote Leviticus, that those guilty of homosexual acts are to be stoned to death, in doing this our humanist critics fail to see where these texts are on the trajectory of Scripture or how they relate to the whole of it. We have come a long way as God’s people from the time of such cruelties. God has led us in this manner. The committing of genocide is unthinkable today given where God has led us. And, although homosexual acts are still spoken of as sinful at every stage of revelation, the death penalty for sexual sins has been set aside by Jesus own example (e.g. John 8).
In this next passage the Pope emphasizes the ultimate unity of all Scripture in the Person of Jesus Christ. All the Scriptures find their ultimate unity and meaning in him. This is done is at least three ways. Continuity, wherein Jesus affirms and brings forward Old Testament teachings and understandings, deepening them and fulfilling their meaning in a fairly straight-forward way. Discontinuity, wherein Jesus fulfills Old Testament texts in a paradoxical way (especially by suffering and dying) and sets aside certain or replaces certain Old Testament practices or understandings (e.g. the antitheses of Matt 5, the canceling of dietary laws in Mk 7:19). And Fulfillment wherein he transposes ancient texts and practices to a higher thing (e.g. the passover meal now becomes the Eucharistic Banquet). The Pope writes:
In the passage from letter to spirit, we also learn, within the Church’s great tradition, to see the unity of all Scripture, grounded in the unity of God’s word, which challenges our life and constantly calls us to conversion. Here the words of Hugh of Saint Victor remain a sure guide: “ All divine Scripture is one book, and this one book is Christ, speaks of Christ and finds its fulfillment in Christ ”. Viewed in purely historical or literary terms, of course, the Bible is not a single book, but a collection of literary texts composed over the course of a thousand years or more, and its individual books are not easily seen to possess an interior unity; instead, we see clear inconsistencies between them…..which nonetheless are seen in their entirety as the one word of God addressed to us. This makes it clear that the person of Christ gives unity to all the “ Scriptures ” in relation to the one “ Word”….(Verbum Domini, 39).
Moreover, the New Testament itself claims to be consistent with the Old and proclaims that in the mystery of the life, death and resurrection of Christ the sacred Scriptures of the Jewish people have found their perfect fulfillment. It must be observed, however, that the concept of the fulfillment of the Scriptures is a complex one, since it has three dimensions: a basic aspect ofcontinuitywith the Old Testament revelation, an aspect of discontinuity and an aspect of fulfillment and transcendence. The mystery of Christ stands in continuity of intent with the sacrificial cult of the Old Testament, but it came to pass in a very different way, corresponding to a number of prophetic statements and thus reaching a perfection never previously obtained. …The paschal mystery of Christ is in complete conformity – albeit in a way that could not have been anticipated – with the prophecies and the foreshadowings of the Scriptures; yet it presents clear aspects of discontinuity with regard to the institutions of the Old Testament.Verbum Domini, 40).
Three essential keys to interpretation – Thus Scriptural interpretation for a Catholic must admit of a careful sophistication wherein an individual passage is seen in its relationship to three things:
The whole of Scripture
Its place on the overall trajectory of Scripture
Its relationship to the Person and Paschal mystery of Jesus Christ.
Surely too an appreciation of the genre and basic literary devices like hyperbole, metaphor, simile, analogy and so forth is also essential. Since the Scriptures are a Church Book, one would also never presume to read them apart from the beliving community or in opposition to the magisterium.
If we fail to do this we risk not only misinterpreting Scripture but also of getting stuck in some of the difficult or problematic texts of the Old Testament especially. We have seen in the first quote above how St. Augustine overcame his own difficulties in the regard by focusing on Christ and seeing everything in relation to him.
Help for the Dark Passages of Scripture – In the last two days one of the conversation threads has focused on the problematic texts of the Old Testament wherein God called for a “Ban” wherein every living human being, and every animal in a given town was to be killed. Texts like these shock us, and they should. But we must also remember they are very early in the trajectory of Sacred Scripture and such practices were discontinued by God as he led his people away from brutality and instructed them through the prophets to act with justice and learn of mercy. Here too the Pope comments on this “Dark Passages:”
In discussing the relationship between the Old and the New Testaments, the Synod also considered those passages in the Bible which, due to the violence and immorality they occasionally contain, prove obscure and difficult. Here it must be remembered first and foremost that biblical revelation is deeply rooted in history. God’s plan is manifested progressively and it is accomplished slowly, in successive stages and despite human resistance. God chose a people and patiently worked to guide and educate them. Revelation is suited to the cultural and moral level of distant times and thus describes facts and customs, such as cheating and trickery, and acts of violence and massacre, without explicitly denouncing the immorality of such things. This can be explained by the historical context, yet it can cause the modern reader to be taken aback….In the Old Testament, the preaching of the prophets vigorously challenged every kind of injustice and violence, whether collective or individual, and thus became God’s way of training his people in preparation for the Gospel. So it would a mistake to neglect those passages of Scripture that strike us as problematic. Rather, we should be aware that the correct interpretation of these passages requires a degree of expertise, acquired through a training that interprets the texts in their historical-literary context and within the Christian perspective which has as its ultimate hermeneutical key “ the Gospel and the new commandment of Jesus Christ brought about in the paschal mystery ”. (Verbum Domini 42)
Conclusion – And thus the Pope instructs us on the careful, nuanced and sophisticated care that Catholics must bring to Scriptural reading and understanding. Simple proof texting can have a place in setting forth teachings. But generally we ought to be careful of pulling out “one-liners” to illustrate complex theological teachings. The use of Scripture as a foundation of doctrinal teaching is proper and essential but we must be careful to be sure the passages are used authentically, in proper relation to the whole of scripture, its trajectory and ultimate relationship to Christ. Scripture has a sacred synergy which is not usually well served by a simplistic singling out of the Sacred text.
