In some older churches there is a discrete box in the sanctuary or the baptistery called the ambry or the Olea Sancta. Traditionally the Blessed Holy Oils (Chrism, Oil of the Sick, and Oil of the Catechumens) were stored in metal containers inside this locked and opaque box. In churches where these did not exist, the oils were stored in the sacristy either in a special box, or in the safe.
But recently, the practice has set up of many parishes visibly displaying the Holy Oils in glass containers, stored within wooden boxes and behind glass doors. (See photo at right). The glass is often a fancy cut or etched glass, and mirrors sometimes exist inside to create a look of reflected light. I have even seen a few with lights.
Of itself, I see no serious harm, and I suppose it is good to store the blessed oils in a dignified way. Some of the ambry boxes are rather classy, though perhaps a bit ostentatious. I am also unaware of any specific norms on the storage of the oils in the church, though perhaps you will correct me on this.
But the use of glass is both puzzling and problematic for me. Glass presents two practical problems and one theological pondering:
Glass can break. Now supposing one of the glass vessels falls, the usual result is that the entire contents of the blessed oil are lost, and the results are hard to clean. Broken glass mixed in with holy oils is a bad combination. The usual requirement of sacred vessels is that they be dignified, and not easily broken. For this reason, pottery and glass chalices have been excluded for years. The traditional metal vessels in which holy oils have been stored can be dropped, and though some of the contents may be spilled, usually not all is. And there is surely no glass mixed in the oil to cause difficulty in the clean up.
Security is compromised. The glass cabinets, often used in this approach, are easily broken into. While it seems unlikely that the oils themselves would be desirable to thieves, some of the ornate cut glass and crystal containers might be a target. Further, there are some who break into churches not to steal, but to vandalize. Glass cabinets with glass vials of oil can be a target for vandals (often youth) who enjoy smashing things.
Why do we need to “see” the oils? Here is my theological pondering. There is a long tradition of Eucharistic adoration, wherein “seeing” is an essential component. But of course, the Blessed Sacrament is the abiding presence of the Lord, and to “see” the sacred species is to see the Lord. But stored Holy Oils, though blessed, are not the Lord and they are not the Sacraments per se. The Sacrament is the sacred action of the proper celebrant making use of matter and form. So the Holy Oils are the matter of the sacrament, but they are not the Sacrament (Confirmation, Anointing of the Sick, Ordination) itself. Theologically, I wonder what we are saying in displaying the oils in glass, to be seen? And, is what we are saying correct, theologically? Further is it a practice that prudent and comprehensible in terms of Sacramental Theology.
I am asking these as real questions. I am not being merely rhetorical and I am interested in your thoughts. I am also interested in some of the practices you observe in your parishes. Further what does the practice of displaying the oils “to be seen” mean to you? How do you understand the purpose of this, if it is done in your parish?
Two final disclaimers. I do not question the use of an ambry or an olea sancta in a Church, even when it is prominently present. There does seem to be historical precedent for the storage of the Holy Oils in the main body of the Church, even in the Sanctuary, near the altar. But it is the current practice of displaying the oils in glass receptacles and boxes, with the intent that the oils themselves be seen, that I puzzle over.
The second disclaimer is that I am not proposing that this is a terrible abuse that must be stamped out. I am however, not without the concerns that I have already stated. But in the big scheme of things, I am not losing sleep over this. I am just puzzled and wondering if perhaps greater thought should be given to this practice.
I am grateful for your responses.
This video talks a bit about the Chrism Mass and, about half way through, also shows the rather wide variety of vessels that parishes present to store the Holy Oils, some metal, some glass or crystal.
Over the last twenty years I have come to deeply love the Wisdom of God. I love to study God’s Word, I love Catholic teaching, and I am thrilled to teach it. Right now I am both learning and teaching as my parishioners and I are viewing the video series Catholicism, by Fr. Robert Barron. Each week as we view and discuss another section, I find my heart on fire with joy and love before the beauty and magnificence of the Truth of the Faith.
I will say that there was a time in my life when I found faith and the things of faith boring and unconvincing. But, over the years the Lord has given me a new heart and mind so that Holy Wisdom and knowledge of the faith are the joy and treasure of my heart.
In the Wisdom tradition of the scriptures, Lady wisdom is portrayed as a beautiful woman:
Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed. (Proverbs 3:13-17)
For in her is a spirit intelligent, holy, unique, Manifold, subtle, agile, clear, unstained, certain, Never harmful, loving the good, keen, unhampered, beneficent, kindly, Firm, secure, tranquil, all-powerful, all-seeing, And pervading all spirits, though they be intelligent, pure and very subtle. For Wisdom is mobile beyond all motion and she penetrates and pervades all things by reason of her purity. For she is a breath of the might of God and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; therefore nothing defiled can enter into her. For she is the reflection of eternal light; the spotless mirror of the power of God, the image of his goodness. Although she is one, she can do all things, and she renews everything while herself perduring. Passing into holy souls from age to age she produces friends of God and prophets. For God loves nothing so much as the one who dwells with Wisdom. For she is fairer than the sun and surpasses every constellation of the stars. Compared to light, she is found more radiant; though night supplants light, wickedness does not prevail over Wisdom. (Wisdom 7:22-31)
I resolved to have her for my bride. I fell in love with her beauty….I therefore have determined to take her to share my life, knowing that she would be my counselor in prosperity and my comfort in cares and sorrows…When I go home, I shall take my ease with her, for nothing is bitter in her company…I went all ways seeking how to get her…realizing that unless God gave her to me I could never possess her. So with all my heart I entreated the Lord. (Wisdom 8: selected verses).
Well, you get the point. She is beautiful and desirable. And I have come to experience this in the depths of my soul.
But there remains the very strange reality that, given her beauty, I could ever have missed her. And there is the on-going mystery that so many miss, and under appreciate her glory, her beauty and the joy of her.
Most prefer things far less beautiful, less captivating. Maybe it is T.V. or any number of passing diversions, creature comforts, dime-store novels, sports games featuring men moving a bag full of air (a.k.a., the “ball”) up and down a designated field of play. Perhaps not evil in themselves, but how amazing that so much time is spent in them, while beautiful lady Wisdom, Holy Faith, sits home unadored and unattended to.
I thought of that when I saw the Ad in this video:
Crazy huh? Such a beautiful woman and he prefers I beer. I like beer but I love wisdom. How could this guy be so crazy? I want to say, “Look at her, she’s beautiful….I said look!” “Huh?” he says, “Oh pardon, me I need some chips to go with this beer.” And this, more often than not, is modern man, and woman too: walking right past beauty, dabbling in it at best, and preferring something less, like beer.
Perhaps too the intoxicating effect of beer might be included in this analysis for as Scripture says,
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for idols.… (Romans 1:21-23)
Yes, this Ad is a powerful picture of so many of us who too easily value passing things over the glory of God and the profound beauty of his wisdom. Perhaps we could title this Ad and the choice it illustrates as: Beer or the Bride? Or alternately, the Lager or the Lady (As in “Lady Wisdom”). Yes, here is our choice.
Smart and suddenly dumb – Given our passion for passing things of this world, it also manifests that we are far more articulate about things of this world than the things of God and his wisdom. It often happens that people are passionate and extremely knowledgeable about sports, knowing even very arcane details about players, strategies, and prognostications of odds-makers. Others are passionate about politics, knowing in detail, party positions and why the other guy is so wrong. Still others are powerfully intelligent about their field of work, having highly developed skills. When we want to be, we’re pretty smart.
But when it comes to the faith, to wisdom, all of a sudden many of the same people are back in second grade again, with little to say about the faith. Thought they know the front line of the football team by heart, the names of the four Gospels escape them. You’d better believe they can engage in fast talk and in depth conversation about any number of worldly issues. But when it comes to knowing the faith and how to apply it to matters in question, suddenly we’re searching for words.
I thought about that when I saw this ad:
Again look at the beautiful woman, lets call her “Sophia” (Wisdom). But the guy’s praising beer. And look how articulate he is. But when the lovely and gracious Sophia asks him to articulate his love for her, he’s searching for words. OK, so I want to say, “Dude: look her in the eye and tell her she’s gorgeous and say, ‘How do I love thee, let me count the ways.‘”
But this is us. Gorgeous Lady Wisdom is with us, and our mind and heart are on holiday.
Sorry ladies, I realize this discourse about “gorgeous Lady Wisdom” may appeal more to the men in the readership, but you get the analogy, powerfully displayed by these beer ads.
Doxology – I want to say again, I have come to love wisdom. I cannot boast of this, only say, “Thank you Lord. Thank you for a new mind and heart, for better priorities. Thank you. Now please Lord, deepen my love.”
Thank you too, dear reader, for I have come to know that many of you too have a growing love for Lady Wisdom, for the beauty of truth. May God grant us increase.
Allow me to begin with a parable. Every now and then I take a perfectly good paper clip and I untwist and reconfigure it for some purpose. Once I used untwisted paperclips to hang Christmas ornaments on the tree. Another time I untwisted and fashioned a paperclip into a hook to keep my file drawer from rolling open. Now if paperclips could see, or think and talk, they might be horrified and saddened to see a fellow paperclip so deformed. And perhaps I could try and explain that these “deformed” paperclips were actually not a disaster, they were quite useful and important to me in their “deformed” condition. But alas, the paperclips cannot understand this, they just “look” with sadness and horror on the deformed paperclips. After all how can you expect a paperclip to understand something other than clipping paper? They are just paperclips after all and can’t understand deeper things beyond the world they know, which is clipping paper.
I have often wondered if this isn’t something of the truth about us in our understanding of things such as disability, birth defects, and personal challenges of some of our fellow human family members. As we look upon the disabled, the handicapped, those who struggle with deformity, mental illness, profound and/or mild mental disability we are often moved to sadness and even horror. And we easily ask, “Why does God allow this?!” We quickly conclude that such people’s lives are unhappy or that they will never reach full potential.
And yet I wonder if we really know what we are talking about. Who of us can really say what our own purpose in God’s plan is, let alone anyone else’s? We are like paperclips in a drawer who know only one thing. Our minds are too small for us to ever understand the very special and significant role that even the most “impaired” in our world play. Perhaps in heaven we will realize what an indispensable and central role role they had in God’s plan and victory. Of all the paperclips in the drawer some of the most useful to me are the ones I twist and refashion.
A knowledge too high – I pray you will accept my humble example of a paperclip. I mean no disrespect to the human person in comparing us to paperclips. We are surely more precious and complicated and God does not glibly use us like paperclips. But my example must be humble to illustrate what is, for us, a knowledge too high to grasp: the knowledge of the dignity and essential purpose of every human being to God and his plan.
Our judgments in this matter cannot be much better than a paperclip in a drawer compared to God’s omniscient wisdom. If it is absurd for us to think a paperclip could understand our ways is it really much less absurd to think we can understand all God’s ways? And if we cannot understand his ways, why do we make judgments as to another person’s role, usefulness, beatitude or status?
We too easily look down on the poor, but scripture says we should look up to them and that God is especially close to the poor, the suffering, the brokenhearted and the humble. Scripture says he uses the lowly to humble the proud. And yet still we so easily look with pity on those we consider disadvantaged.
A Story – Over twenty years ago I worked for a year with the profoundly mentally disabled. They lay in beds and wheelchairs often with little muscle control. None of them could talk and only a few could engage in rudimentary communication. There was one man in his forties who had never emerged from the fetal position. He lay in a large crib his tiny, yet clearly adult body, curled up like a newborn babe. And on his face the most angelic smile that almost never diminished.
He had been baptized as an infant and to my knowledge could not have sinned. I looked with marvel each visit upon innocence and a beatific countenance. What an astonishing gift he was. And who knows, but God, why he was this way? But God DOES know and I think had very important reasons to permit this. There was something central and indispensable in this man’s existence. Some role only he could fill. Apparently I was not able to fill that role.
He was not disabled, he was differently abled, uniquely abled for something different than the ordinary. Looking upon him I had little doubt that he was directly in touch with God in a way that I never had been, for his radiant face infallibly conveyed that. With our human eyes we can be saddened even appalled. But we’ll understand it better by an by. One day, in the great by and by, we may well be surprised to learn that the most central and critical people in God’s plan were the most humble and often the most broken, and that we would never have made it without them.
This video depicts the paradox of disability that sometimes shines through to teach us that we do not see the whole picture. A child was born with significant defects but suddenly as he grew remarkable gifts showed forth. Just a little reminder from God, a glimpse of what God sees, that the disabled are to him differently and wonderfully abled. Meet Patrick Henry Hughes.
Most of us have certain things about our physical appearance that we hate, and can even obsess about. When I was in high school I was extremely skinny (130 lbs at 6 feet tall). My knees and elbows protruded, and I was embarrassed to be seen in shorts, or even short sleeved shirts. Generally I stayed covered up even when I ran or played sports. I used to wear tall socks to hide my boney legs and protruding knees.
Today I have the opposite problem, and it is my belly that protrudes, and I’m always looking for over sized shirts to hide the excess. The cassock also helps to hide a lot. 🙂
Another obsession, that I have largely been freed from, is the gap between my two front teeth. I used to be so embarrassed by it that I would tie them together with floss and try to get them to move together. But once I removed the floss they’d always move apart again.
I got both of these things from my father. He was stocky also had a gap between his teeth. He too was always trying to get the gap to go away and always trying to lose weight. But the fact is, he looked just like his father, as I look like just like my father; almost an exact replica. I can even wear the last set of eyeglasses my father wore before he died.
Pardon my personal reminiscences but it’s just a way of saying we all have things about our appearances that we wish we’re different.
I know that women generally have a lot more crosses in this area since there are so many expectations about what a woman should look like. The video at the bottom of the page says a lot about that. I have often been surprised how unhappy about their appearance some women I know are. These are women who I consider quite attractive.
But even as I puzzle over them feeling that way, I remember me and my obsession about the gap in my teeth. I remember a girl once told me she thought it was cute. And though I heard the words she said, they had no impact on me. I was just absolutely sure I looked goofy, and that everyone laughed at me behind my back. One friend told me he’d never really noticed the gap before, until I mentioned it. But still it remained my obsession for many years. It seemed no amount of contrary data would sway me from my conviction that the gap between my two front teeth, not even that big, really, made be look like a total goof.
Somewhere we lose touch with the fact that God knows us, loves us and has made us a certain way. Apparently God likes tall people, because he made a lot of them. He also likes short people, thin and fat people, Black, white brown, and everything in between, he’s made a lot of them all.
People talk today about self-esteem and the phrase, while not wrong, misses a step. For as the old saying reminds, “No one can give what he does not have. Hence self esteem requires that we have first experience esteem from others, and most ideally from God. Until and unless we have learned to experience God’s appreciation for us, and appreciation from others, it is pretty hard to to esteem ourselves properly. Either we go to the one extreme of obsessing on certain aspects, or we go to the other extreme of puffing our self up with phony pride and silly ostentation.
In a sense low self esteem about our physical appearance is usually a form of myopia, i.e. being “near” or “shortsighted.” For in it, we obsess on a few details but miss the whole picture. A false cure for low self esteem tries over look our flaws or insist they are not there. But the fact is, we all do have flaws, both physical, moral, spiritual and intellectual. But the key is to see something bigger.
Consider the painting at the upper right. It hangs in my rectory, and is of the Blessed Mother. Looking at the painting, many have said, she is beautiful. And so she is. But on closer inspection many of the details are amiss. The hands are out of proportion, almost grotesquely large. The eyes are “bugged out” and the ear is misplaced and underdeveloped by the painter. Yet, these details cannot spoil the fact that this is a beautiful painting of a beautiful woman, Mary, the Mother of God. When I point to the “flaws” most people tell me they didn’t notice.
Exactly! It is the near sightedness, the myopia of low self esteem to magnify the flaws we all have and miss the big picture which is most often quite acceptable, even beautiful. Truth be told, we’re all a mixed bag and there are flaws in us all.
Of course Satan would prefer us to sweat the small stuff of our physical appearance, and our flesh, cooperates quite nicely. And Satan gets double payment. For, in focusing on our physical, in a myopic way, we are not thinking as much of spiritual matters. And secondly, because we feel so lousy when comparing ourselves to the perfect standards of the usually computer enhanced, if not surgically altered, models and actors, we don’t feel as capable of any physical value, worth or excellence, let alone spiritual excellence.
Somewhere God is saying,I like you the way I made you. Become the man or woman I made you to be. Watch your health but don’t obsess with physical perfection. I didn’t make any two of you exactly alike and there’s a reason for that.
And to me I can hear God saying, You’ve become rotund alright, but it’s a sign that you have become more spiritually “well rounded.” Besides it keeps you humble, and pride is your worst enemy. And as for that gap in your teeth? I put it there. It is a sign of intelligence. You’re smart like your father was.
So, be of good cheer and don’t sweat the small stuff. Look to the bigger picture, count your gifts and blessings.
Here is a remarkable video of a young lady singing both parts of the same song in split screen. The words are a poignant expression of the pressure many women face to look beautiful and perfect. Consider some of the words:
I wish I could tie you up in my shoes, Make you feel unpretty too. I was told I was beautiful, but what does that mean to you…. My outsides are cool, my insides are blue. Every time I think I’m through, it’s because of you…
You can buy your hair if it won’t grow, You can fix your nose if he says so. You can buy all the make-up that mac can make, but if you can’t look inside you, find out who am I to be, in a position to make me feel so damn unpretty…
At the end of the day, I have myself to blame, Keep on trippin….
I have learned in all this that music is powerful beyond words, and often does what words alone can never do. I have often heard or read a Scripture, which may have had only marginal impact on me. And then the choir takes it up in song and it is pressed on my heart like never before, such that I can never forget it.
I have also learned with humility that I may preach boldly, but that it is often the choir’s sung response that makes the thought catch fire. I have learned to link what I preach to what is sung and work carefully with the choir and musicians. For while the spoken word my inform and even energize, the sung word strikes even deeper, engraving the word not only in the mind, but touching the deepest parts of the heart.
Music can often go where the word alone cannot. Beauty draw us to goodness and truth.
In my parish tonight our choir had its annual concert. 900+ in attendance, standing room only. There was a 20 piece orchestra and music that ranged from classical to Gospel, all religious in nature.
In tonight’s praise-filled concert, the congregation spent as much time on its feet in praise as seated and listening. Twice, they would not let the choir stop, and the refrain had to be taken up on both occasions, three times before the Spirit said, “It is well.” No one could leave Church tonight without the words and melodies of those songs alive: Great is thy faithfulness Oh God my Father….A change, A change has come over me….For every mountain you brought me over, for every trial, you’ve seen me though….I’ve got to say Thank you Lord!
In the concert a song was sung that, to some extent helps to illustrate how music can go where words cannot. The song stretches back to a scene in the movie, The Mission.
The scene is of a 17th Century Jesuit missionary priest, Father Gabriel, who goes deep into the rain forest seeking to win souls for Christ. He has heard that the indigenous people living there, though hostile to strangers, have a wonderful gift for music. Arriving near a settlement, he is aware that suspicious and fierce warriors lurking among the trees, likely intent on killing him, surround him. But Fr. Gabriel takes out his oboe and begins to play the melody that was the theme for the movie.I have included the scene in a video below.
As he plays the beautiful melody, the men emerge from the trees and begin to listen, now aware that no man who means them harm could play such a beautiful melody.
It is all a perfect illustration of the ancient insight that the beauty is powerfully related to truth and goodness. So Fr. Gabriel opened the door to truth by the beauty of music. And where his words would likely have had no impact, or be met with hostility, the beauty of the melody he played made most of them drop their weapons and open the door to him. Now they were ready to hear his words. But it was music, it was beauty, that opened the way.
In recent years the beautiful melody played by “Fr Gabriel” has been set to words and is now sung to new audiences who never saw the now old movie. The song in Italian is called Nella Fantasia and a quick summary of the translation is:
I my dream I see a place where all live in peace and in truth, and souls are always free, and fully human in the depth of their hearts.
Tonight in our concert the choir sing this beautiful piece, and I thought how, once a gain, it wasn’t just the words that had impact, it was the magnificent beauty of the melody. And, somehow the vision of the words was alive if, but for a moment, and the Kingdom of God shown through: that place of peace, truth, freedom and the human person fully alive.
Through beauty the vision, good and true, was shared in the depths of every soul present at the concert. For, in the end it is not a dream, it is the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven. The words may speak of a distant future, but the beauty of the music made it present now. Yes, the goodness and truth of the Kingdom were now, if but for a moment, expressed in the beauty of music and deepening the the commitment to follow the beauty, to goodness and truth.
Perhaps it was Fr. Gabriel playing his oboe all over again to us, hostile denizens of a cynical and jaded 21st Century. But the melody by its beauty rings true. And the beauty points to the truth and goodness of the vision and opens doors to the heart that mere words could never do. The cynical mind tell us it will never happen, but beauty tells us it will, and that it already does, for true beauty echoes from haeven.
And in a hushed Church, a word went forth, preceded by beauty, and for just a moment a dream, good and true, echoed in many hearts: In my dream I see a place where all live in peace and in truth, and souls are always free, and fully human in the depth of their hearts.
Music is powerful beyond words.
Here is the original scene from The Mission where Fr. Gabriel reaches the people through beauty (all but one).
And here is a version of the song based on the melody of Gabriel’s oboe. I regret I don’t have a recording of it by my own choir to share with you, but this video captures the beauty. Again the Words are in Italian and the basic translation is I my dream I see a place where all live in peace and in truth, and souls are always free, and fully human in the depth of their hearts
There are a number of Biblical texts that speak of being generous to the poor, for to do so will brings bountiful blessings. Or put negatively, if we are stingy we will come up short in our own blessings.
Just for a brief post today, consider the following verses, and then see a rather funny demonstration of these verses in a Fita Crackers Ad (from the Philippines).
Here is a promise from the Lord:
Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap (Lk 6:38).
But the text goes on to state a clear principle:
For the measure you measure to others, will be measured back to you.” (Lk 6:38)
And again comes the rule of returning proportion:
Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously (2 Cor 9:6)
And so the Lord the admonishes us
One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. (Prov 11:24)
And now a word from our sponsor that illustrates well the text: Who sows sparingly will reap sparingly. The Ad is “clever by half.”
I have often pondered how the Church has survived 2000 years. I have considered how long the Church could have survived without the promise of Christ that gates of Hell would not prevail, and without the Holy Spirit. I have concluded that we would have lasted about twenty minutes, max.
Yet here we are, a kind of miracle, so big, that no one notices. 2,000 years old, (longer if you ponder our Jewish roots). Empires and nations have risen and fallen during that time: The Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the great and expansive European nations with their widespread colonies: the British empire, the Spanish and French expansions and later contractions. It was once said, “The Sun never sets on the British Empire.” Now it does. And all Europe, as we know it, may be in the late autumn of its existence. Chinese dynasties have risen and fallen, more recently the Nazi and then Soviet regimes have come and gone. In the 7th Century the Muslims came on the scene, expanded, contracted and now, it would seem, are expanding again.
But through all this the Church has withstood. Sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker, but always, miraculously left standing, though all crumble around her. What other nation or organization can, as we do, trace its roots in an unbroken line of successors (Popes and bishops) back to its founder? It is true we have suffered some divisions within, some precarious moments, and it is true some have broken away from us. But the center has held, and the line is unbroken. Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia (where Peter is, there is the Church). The Church stands, while Empires, nations, movements, and fads have come and gone.
And this miracle shines forth despite significant human obstacles within her: often terrible scandals, poor preaching, bad example, abuse of power, poor priorities, disorganization, sweeping heresies, schisms, lack of faith, and just plain stupidity.
It is said that the Napoleon, threatening to destroy the Catholic Church, was scoffed at by the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris in these words, “Priests have been trying to destroy the Church for 1800 years and been unable!” Words sad, but at times true. Corruptio optime pessima (the Corruption of the best, is the worst). Yet here we still are.
An old hymn (though Protestant in origin) is true when applied to the Catholic Church:
Though with a scornful wonder
we see her sore oppressed,
by schisms rent asunder,
by heresies distressed,
yet saints their watch are keeping;
their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
shall be the morn of song.
Mid toil and tribulation,
and tumult of her war,
she waits the consummation
of peace forevermore;
till, with the vision glorious,
her longing eyes are blest,
and the great Church victorious
shall be the Church at rest.
Until that time, we shall endure and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against us. Though dismissed by many who predict our demise, it is a promise of Christ (Matt 16:18) and it has proved true despite many previous predictions of our demise.
This does not mean that the Church is not in need of purification and pruning. And we have and will continue to experience this. I am convinced that we are still in a time of pruning. The Lord has taken the tall and proud vine of the Church, so luxuriant, it seemed, fifty years and before in this land, and has pruned us, by allowing us to be tested. This is a time of purification. A time not yet complete. But, as I have remarked before, I experience the Church here in America to be in much better condition than the more terrible times of the 1970s and 1980s. The pruning may not yet be fully over, but there are signs of greater purity and intensity already in: fervent and orthodox younger clergy, fine and wonderful new religious, many new and superb lay movements, and many individual lay people powerfully dedicated, sober and clear about their faith and the need to be light, even to accepting a kind of martyrdom in this ever darkening world.
The Church is surely a miracle; one before our very eyes. The world, and even many of the faithful, may think we are on the ropes and ready to go down. But we will endure, by the promise of Christ. An old spiritual says, Get on board children, children, there’s room for many-a-more. Nations, cultures, empires, and ideologies, will come and go. But there’s one ship that’s going to make it through this old storm tossed world, and that is the Church. Get on board children, (and stay on board), there’s room for many-a-more.
Photo Credit: The Cardinal’s Portrait by Rosenthal – A wonderful diptych of sorts. On the canvas painted by the monk, we see an image of the Church as we want her to be. On the left is the all too human reality of the Church. Ah, but the Church endures, by God’s grace.
This video of the Church being (re)built in France inspired me to write this post. Enjoy the video as you see a sign of new life and a visual image of the church being (re)built.
There is a magnificent interview over at National Review Online of professor of philosophy at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Christopher Kaczor. He is the author of the new book The Ethics of Abortion: Women’s Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice (Available at Amazon HERE). The interview is conducted by Kathryn Jean Lopez, of National Review, and though she takes up the voice of a pro-“choice” advocate, she is not.
Professor Kaczor answers the most common questions and objects with great clarity. I would like to present a few excerpts of the lengthy interview here and encourage you to read the rest. I will excerpt it in the form of listing the question and the pertinent point he makes. And few minor remarks by me are in red. The Full article is here Pro-Life Aristotle
1. What right do you, a man, have to make such a case [against abortion]?
KACZOR: Legally speaking, everyone has a right to free speech, including speech about abortion….has the right and obligation to speak out in defense of the defenseless and in favor of a just social order. The question …seems to presuppose that abortion is simply and solely about women, but this is a false supposition. The majority of abortionists are men — more men than women describe themselves as “pro-choice” — and in the United States, men pay for abortions with their tax dollars. Aside from these considerations, every abortion involves the pregnant woman, the expectant father, the one who is aborted, and the society that allows it.
I would only add here that just under 50% of babies killed are male. I remember be “serenaded” at the last Pro-life march here in DC by pro-abortion counter demonstrators who I had witnessed to. They “sang” for me: “Hey, hey, ho, ho, pro-life men have got to go. Hey, hey, ho, ho, if you got pregnant then you’d know!” They also told me, that as a man, I had no right to speak on this issue and since I was a priest, I was even more disqualified. As you might guess, a few of them accused me of being a pedophile. Yes, yes, if you put yourself out there expect to get it with both barrels
2. No book [or law] will eradicate the fact that there are women who will feel the need to abort their unborn children and doctors who will provide the service. It was the case before it was legal and it will be after.
KACZOR: I think you are right that abortions took place prior to legalization and abortions would continue if abortion were made illegal. The same point can be made for theft, child abuse, and assault, which have always happened in human history and which will always happen. Indeed, if people never did the act in question, making a law about it would be superfluous.
Exactly and I would add that i think laws do influence some people not to do certain things. I know that one of the reasons I never tried drugs in High School was that I knew they were illegal and the risk associated with such use helped to deter me. Many say you cannot legislate morality. To certain extent I agree and don’t lots of unnecessary laws, but my own experience is that law both reflects and influences moral decision making.
3. What’s the least compelling argument supporters of legal abortion make?
KACZOR: “It is my body, it is my choice.” [Actually], in abortion, there are two bodies involved, the body of the pregnant woman and the body of the human being in utero. [They] can be of different blood types and different races, and it can happen that one of them dies and the other lives and vice versa. If there were only one body involved, then absurdities follow such as that a pregnant woman has two heads, four arms, and, if she is carrying a boy, also a penis. Further, “choice” is a euphemism disguising the reality. Everyone supports good choices that are just and promote human welfare. The question is whether abortion is such a choice. Great answer, and humorous to boot, showing the thoughtless absurdity of the slogan.
4. What’s different about your Book and your argument?
My argument is not faith-based, but rather based on reason and evidence. There is no appeal to theological authority; there are no Scripture citations to justify conclusions, and no premises that come from ecclesial authority. The case against abortion is made to all persons of good will, regardless of their faith or lack thereof. As a priest I usually have recourse to Scripture. But it is clear that we must also make use of Natural Law arguments based on natural reason.
5. Is it just to tell a [pregnant] teen she’s got to have a kid…?
Of course, no one should ever be forced to become pregnant, but a pregnant woman already “has a kid.” After pregnancy has begun, the question is not, “Do we force her to have a kid?” but rather “Will we support this expectant mother and her child?” People of good will should answer “yes.” A wonderful turning back of the the phrase “have a kid.”
6. What does Aristotle have to do with the poor mom who feels as if she has no alternatives when she realizes she is pregnant? The desperate teenager? The single professional who can’t both do her job and have this child?
KACZOR: I believe that everyone, including the poor mom, the desperate teenager, and the single professional, desires to find true happiness. I also believe that Aristotle, and even more fully Thomas Aquinas, showed that the way to true happiness consists in activity in accordance with virtue. There can be, therefore, no authentic happiness found in activity that is unjust.
I can think of one case in particular: a young student, not yet finished with her education, who found herself pregnant with a man she did not know well. With so many responsibilities, both to her extended family and to her studies, she felt desperate, alone, and trapped. It was truly an act of heroism for that woman to decide to place that child for adoption. I know the woman in the story very well. She is my birth mother. I feel such an enormous debt of gratitude to her….I don’t think there is any woman who in the long term regrets, even in the most difficult of circumstances, making the choice for life. But I know there are many thousands of women who still remember and mourn, even decades later, the date that their baby would have been born.
A moving and wonderful story of how making virtuous choices, even when difficult brings happiness.
7. Are there myths about abortion you’d like to use this book to shoot down?
[One] myth is that there is a debate about “when life begins.” In fact, informed parties, both those opposed to and those in favor of abortion, acknowledge that the human fetus is a living organism. Notice the phrase, informed parties. I have met more than a few uniformed people who still buy into the “tissue” argument or have been convinced of it by a Planned Parenthood official. Still, I am convinced that, deep down, everyone knows the child is alive and is a human being.
[Another] myth is that the debate is about whether the “fetus is a human being.” Informed participants in this discussion, regardless of their views about abortion, understand that the living organism within the woman is a member of the species homo sapiens…..The real question in the debate is: Should all human beings be respected and protected, or just some?
The debate about “personhood” is really the debate about who will be included in the human community, who will be respected, and who will receive legal protection. This debate goes back over the centuries, throughout which various classes of human beings were excluded from the human family. Those excluded tend to change over time but have been at various points Native Americans, Africans, Catholics in Protestant-dominated countries, Protestants in Catholic-dominated countries, non-Muslims, Jews, the handicapped, and women. Every single time we’ve said, this or that class of human beings does not merit protection and respect, I think we’ve made a terrible mistake. Today, I believe we’re making another terrible mistake in excluding from full protection and respect human beings prior to birth.
Yes, those who deny personhood or full legal recognition to the infant are in some pretty terrible company and heir to so pretty awful chapters in human history. Any quick look at history reveals how ugly it all is.
8. So what if a mother’s life is in danger? What if she has cancer? What if she will likely die if she is not treated? And what if when she is treated, the child might very well die?
KACZOR: Any legitimate medical procedure that is needed to save the woman’s life — whether or not she is pregnant — may be performed, so long as the death of the unborn child is not sought as a means or as an end. Of course, a pregnant woman may choose, if she wishes, to decline such interventions in order to preserve the life developing within her. These cases are governed by what is called the principle of double effect….So long as the death of the unborn child is not sought as a means or as an end, and the procedure is necessary in order to save the life of the mother, it may be done even if it brings about the bad effect of fetal death. In a similar way, the death of the mother may not be sought as an end or as a means, yet she may choose to accept her own death as a side effect of protecting the life of her child. Innocent human life is worthy of respect and protection, but in some tragic situations, life will be lost whatever is chosen.
Again, the key point with double effect, is intent. There can be no direct intent to harm the child in the womb. One may forsee the possible or even likely loss of the the child, but does not wish or intend it. Further, the death of the child cannot be means by which the woman is saved. The death of the child is only the regrettable side effect of a procedure that is critically necessary to save the mother.
The whole interview is wonderful and he even uses a Star Trek analogy at one point. Consider reading the article. I am interested in your comments. I also realize that the “double effect” scenario mentioned at the end is troubling and difficult for some who are not used to hearing it. But it is straight-forward Catholic moral theology. Nevertheless, I welcome questions about that and also that readers might also supply greater insight to that or any of the points made here.
