Holy Name Devotion

[NB. If you use this devotion, please let me know how it goes!]

A modified version of the Holy Name Litany. I’ve abbreviated the litany itself, added a few modified traditional prayers, changed the pronouns for individual prayer, and cleaned up the theology a bit. I always find litanies to be a bit “messy” in that they seem to be a bit scattered in their exclamations. For example, rather than starting with the creation of the universe and moving to the resurrection, they often mix up the historical elements with merely pious elements and throw in some affective adjectives. . .why not use the litany for catechesis and start at the beginning?

Holy Name Devotion (for individual use)

Blessed be the most holy Name of Jesus among the stars of heaven! Amen.
Blessed be the most holy Name of Jesus among the creatures of the earth! Amen.
Blessed be the most holy Name of Jesus always and forever! Amen.

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Prayer of Saint John Vianney

I love You, O my God, and my only desire is to love You until the last breath of my life.
I love You, O my infinitely lovable God, and I would rather die loving You, than live without loving You.
I love You, Lord and the only grace I ask is to love You eternally.
My God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love You, I want my heart to repeat it to You as often as I draw breath.

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The Anima Christi

Soul of Christ, sanctify me!
Body of Christ, save me!
Blood of Christ, inebriate me!
Water from Christ's side, wash me!
Passion of Christ, strengthen me!
O good Jesus, hear me:
Within Your wounds hide me.
Do not let me be separated from You.
From the malicious enemy defend me.
In the hour of my death call me
And urge me to come to you
That I may praise you with your saints
Forever and ever. Amen.

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Litany of the Holy Name

Jesus, splendor of the Blessed Trinity, brightness of eternal light,
Jesus, Word Made Flesh, Father of the world to come, mighty God,
Jesus, star of justice, Son of Blessed Mary, joy of the Angels,
Jesus, God of peace, author of life, good Shepherd.
Jesus, most powerful, most kind, most admirable,
Jesus, most patient, most obedient, meek and humble of heart,
Jesus, lover of chastity, lover of us all, model of virtue,
Jesus, zealous lover of souls, our refuge, father of the poor,
Jesus, treasure of the faithful, home for sinners,
Jesus, true light, eternal wisdom, ineffable beauty.
Jesus, infinite goodness, our truth, our way and our life,
Jesus, King of the Patriarchs, Master of the Apostles,
Jesus, teacher of the Evangelists, strength of the Martyrs,
Jesus, light of Confessors, purity of Virgins, crown of the Saints,
Jesus, priest, prophet, and preacher,
Jesus, abandoned, betrayed, and beaten,
Jesus, crucified on the cross,
Jesus, resurrected from the tomb,
Jesus, ascended to sit at the right hand of the Father,
Jesus, I AM HE WHO IS!

From your wrath, you spare me.
From the traps of the devil and his dark angels, protect me.
From the spirits of anger, greed, avarice, pride, envy, sloth, and lust, protect me.
From sin and everlasting death, protect me.
From the neglect of your inspirations, protect me.

By the mystery of your Incarnation, you show me my purpose.
By Your Birth, you make me a son of the Father.
By Your Nativity, you teach me to have the faith of a child.
By Your most divine Life, you make me a your disciple and prophet .
By Your most Holy Eucharist, you share with me your Body and Blood.
By Your agony and passion, you teach me how to suffer well.
By Your cross and dereliction, you make me a priest and a sacrifice.
By Your death and burial, you show me that I too will die.
By your Crucifixion, you teach me to die for my friends.
By Your Resurrection, you give me eternal life with you.
By Your Ascension, you bring me to your Throne.
By Your joys, you give me your joy and your peace.
By Your glory, you share with me your divine nature.

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on me.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on me.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, bring me your peace.

O Lord Jesus Christ, you have said, "Ask and you shall receive, seek, and you shall find, knock, and it shall be opened to you." Give to me, I beg you, the gift of your divine love, that I may ever love you with my whole heart, in word and deed, and never cease praising you.

The Holy Name Prayer

O Merciful Jesus, in your infancy you began your ministry as prophet and priest. You became my Savior by shedding your Precious Blood for me, and assuming for us all that Name which is above all names; I thank you for these revelations of your infinite love. I venerate your sacred Name with Gabriel, the angel who first announced your Name, Emmanuel, to the earth, and unite my affections to the tender love which the name “Jesus” has inflamed in the hearts of your Saints.

Animated with a firm faith in your unerring word, and strengthened with confidence in your mercy, I now humbly remind you of the promise you made, that where two or three assemble in your Name, you yourself would be in the midst of them. Jesus, come to me and the company of your saints and angels, for it is in your sacred Name that I am here; come into my heart, that I may be ruled by your holy spirit; in your mercy give to me, through your adorable Name, which is the joy of Heaven, the terror of Hell, the consolation of the suffering, and the solid ground of my unshakable confidence, all my holy needs.

Blessed Mother of our Redeemer! You suffer with your Son as he sheds his sacred blood and assumes for me the Name of Jesus, obtain for me, through his adorable Name, all my holy needs and the needs of those for whom I pray.

Pray, Blessed Mother, that your son's passionate love may imprint his sacred Name on my heart, that his Name may always be in my mind and always on my lips; that his Name may defend me from despair and be my refuge from all the temptations and trials of this life; and in the hour of my death, may his Name be my consolation and support. Amen.

(Best used before the Blessed Sacrament)

Mary, Co-Redemptrix?

Recent posts on Mary, Mother of God and Marian devotions have prompted questions about the proposed Marian dogma called “Mary, Co-Redemptrix.” Supporters of the proposed dogma frequently refer to this teaching as “the fifth Marian dogma.”

There is a lay led group that promotes the dogma rather vigorously, Vox Populi.

Definition of the proposed dogma

Mary is given many titles by the Church: Queen of Heaven, Mother of God, Mediatrix of All Graces. Supporters of the fifth Marian dogma are petitioning the Holy Father to add one more: Co-Redemptrix. What does this title mean? Simply put, the Holy Father is being asked to declare solemnly and infallibly that the Blessed Virgin Mary is a co-worker in the redemption of mankind through her initial assent to be the mother of God and through her suffering with Christ as he dies on the cross. Essentially, the title would specify Mary’s role as a human co-operator with Christ’s redeeming sacrifice for us.

The controversy around the dogma is rooted in the easy misunderstanding that the Holy Father is being asked to declare that Mary is our Redeemer on level equal to that of Christ. This is false. In Latin, the prefix “co” means “with” not “equal to.” In English, we use the prefix “co” to mean “with” but it has the connotation of “equal to.” This is not the case in Latin. Think of how we use the terms “Co-Chair” and “Co-Pilot.” We tend to think of the co-chair and the co-pilot was functionally equivalent to the chair and the pilot. Again, not the case in Latin.

Essentially, the fifth Marian dogma, if declared, would do nothing more than make explicit what Catholics already believe to be the case regarding Mary’s role in our salvation history. She cooperated with the Holy Spirit by assenting to be the Mother of God, “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word.” With this assent, Mary became the spiritual mother of the Church by giving birth to the Word Made Flesh, Jesus (CCC 964). In the same way, any person who assents to the teachings of Christ, is baptized, and lives a life directed to growing in holiness is said to be a cooperator with Christ in his/her own redemption. Since God will not force His grace on us, we are free to “work with” or “work against” His gifts to us. When we “work with” God’s plan for our redemption. we are properly called “co-redeemers” in our salvation.

How is Mary a co-redeemer in my salvation? Assuming Mary’s freedom to accept or reject Gabriel’s call to become the Mother of God, we can see that Mary’s assent made it possible for the second Person of the Blessed Trinity to become man—a step necessary in for the universal efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Without her consent, the Son would have not been incarnated. You might object here and say that Gabriel could have accepted her no and moved on to another woman with the same invitation. This is purely speculative, of course, but had he done so, any woman who said yes would be our spiritual mother and worthy of the title “Co-Redemptrix.”

In all of her titles, Mary is understood to be the perfected form of a human response to God’s invitation to live in union with Him in eternity (CCC 967-70). So, in every sense, we all participate in an imperfect way in all of Mary’s titles. We all mediate God’s grace to others—what are the corporeal works of mercy but our human use of divine gifts for the benefit of others? We all give birth to the Word made flesh—what is Eucharistic communion but the taking in of Christ so that we might become more and more the Word given flesh? We are all “co-operators” (operators with) God’s will for us when we assent to and make good use of His gifts for others (CCC 1996-2000).

Objections

There are basically two objections to the fifth Marian dogma. First, a declaration of the proposed dogma is unnecessary since Catholic theology already recognizes Mary’s unique role in God’s plan for human salvation. Second, the dogma is ecumenically dangerous in that it threatens good relations with other Christian ecclesial communities by seeming to elevate Mary to a level equal to that of Christ as sole Redeemer.

In my judgment, neither objection is substantial. The first objection is easily an argument for declaring the dogma and making explicit what is already implicit. By declaring the dogma, the Holy Father will open up an area of theological and philosophical research that is underdeveloped in Catholic theology, namely soteriology (theology of salvation). The Eastern Churches have a much more developed theology in this area in their focus on theosis as the explanatory process of our salvation; that is, the theology that explores how the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection bring the human person into a relationship with the Divine and make that person a sharer in the divine nature. Aquinas calls this process “deiformity,” how the person is formed in the divine (ST. I.12.5).

The second objection rests on the assumption that other ecclesial communities, mostly Protestant, will misunderstand the dogma. Two responses are appropriate here. First, the Church has never hesitated in teaching and preaching the truth of the faith out of a fear that the truth might be misunderstood by those not in communion with the Church. That we would flinch from speaking the truth because some might misunderstand simply means that we fear a negative response from our ecumenical partners. If the dogma is clearly defined to place Mary along side Christ as a cooperator in our redemption, there is no reason for anyone to find this objectionable.

Second, this objection might have more weight if our ecumenical partners hesitated themselves when tempted to act unilaterally in redefining the historical catholic faith. Our Anglican brothers and sisters have ordained women, sexually active homosexuals, blessed same-sex marriages, approved the use of artificial contraception and abortion, and generally made a mess of the faith out of a misguided sense of “reading the signs of the times.” In other words, they have never hesitated in adding to or subtracting from the historical faith when they felt doing so was necessary for their members. The objection that the proposed fifth Marian dogma will damage ecumenical relations seems somewhat dubious in the harsh light of the ecclesial reality dropped into our Catholic laps without our consultation. Why this sudden need for Protestant approval of Catholic teaching?

My guess is that this objection is really more about a certain sort of generational embarrassment with Marian dogma and devotion in general and rests on the need of some in the Church to please those they feel are more theologically sophisticated. How am I supposed to show my Catholic face at the next meeting of the American Academy of Religion when all of my more enlightened Protestant colleagues from Harvard and Yale know we silly Catholics have infallibly declared that Mary is Co-Redemptrix? How embarrassing! Such individuals are left with the choice of defending what appears to be another exercise of raw papal power and earning the pity of their more progressive betters or rejecting the dogma and winning the accolades of their more enlightened colleagues. Guess which one they choose over and over again.

Anglican Oxford scholar, The Rev'd Dr. John Macquarrie, gets it exactly right when he writes: "The matter [of Marian mediation] cannot be settled by pointing to the danger of exaggeration and abuse, or by appealing to isolated texts of scripture as the verse quoted above from 1 Timothy 2:5 or by the desire not to say anything that might offend one's partners in ecumenical dialogue. Unthinking enthusiasts may have elevated Mary's position to a virtual equality with Christ, but this aberration is not a necessary consequence of recognizing that there may be a truth striving for expression in words like Mediatrix and Co-redemptrix. All responsible theologians would agree that Mary's co-redemptive role is subordinate and auxiliary to the central role of Christ. But if she does have such a role, the more clearly we understand it, the better. And like other doctrines concerning Mary, it is not only saying something about her, but something more general about the Church as a whole, and even humanity as a whole."

To sum up, the proposed dogma, as written, does nothing more than make explicit what the Church already teaches about Mary’s role in human salvation history; that is, that by assenting to become the Mother of God, Mary cooperated with God’s invitation to live with Him in eternity by giving birth to His Word, Jesus, and suffering with Jesus while he died on the cross. Nothing more than all of us are called to do in virtue of our baptism (CCC 628).

Coming attractions

Coming up tomorrow (Jan 3):

My version of the Holy Name Litany

A post on the proposed Marian dogma, Mary as "Co-Redemptrix"

More reader questions. . .(add a few more while you can!)

On Devotional Practices (Updated 2.0)

My recent post requesting suggestions for a good devotion has prompted a number of readers to write with questions regarding the nature and practice of Catholic devotions.

In this post I want to offer a few definitions and clarify some points of theology.

What the Church teaches

On the question of devotional practices, the council Fathers of Vatican Two, in their document, Sacrosanctum concilium, teach: "The spiritual life, however, is not limited solely to participation in the Liturgy. The Christian is indeed called to pray with his brethren, but he must also enter into his chamber to pray to the Father, in secret; yet more, according to the teaching of the Apostle, he should pray without ceasing [. . .] Popular devotions of the Christian people are to be highly commended, provided they accord with the laws and norms of the Church, above all when they are ordered by the Apostolic See [. . .] But these devotions should be so drawn up that they harmonize with the liturgical seasons, accord with the Sacred Liturgy, are in some fashion derived from it, and lead the people to it, since, in fact, the Liturgy by its very nature far surpasses any of them" (SC 12-13).

Liturgical vs. devotional practice

"Liturgy" is used to describe the rites and rituals of the Church celebrated publicly for the good of the whole Church. The word means "public work." "Public" here does not simply mean "celebrated in front of others" but also "celebrated by, for, and with the people." Almost all liturgical celebrations are celebrations of one of the seven sacraments. Sometimes "liturgy" is used to mean "ritual."

"Devotional practice" is used to describe those prayers and practices recognized by the Church that are prayed and practiced privately or personally for the benefit of the individual or other intended individuals. Devotions prayed in public are still devotional rather than liturgical because they do not involve the Church as a whole.

One of the results of the liturgical renewal post Vatican Two was the trimming away of the excessive devotional practices that had accumulated in the Mass over time. Some saw this as a way of emphasizing the action of the Mass. Other saw it as a "de-sacralization" of the Mass. The debate tended to revolve around what counted as liturgical and what counted as devotional.

Regardless, the council Fathers wished devotional practices to continue. Their principle concern was that these practices "tie in" with the Church's larger liturgical celebrations by following the Church calendar. The Father teach us that our devotions must "in some fashion derive from [the Sacred Liturgy] and lead the people to [the Sacred Liturgy], since, in fact, the Liturgy by its very nature far surpasses any [devotional practice]." In other words, liturgical practices are to be given pride of place over devotional practices any time the two seem to be in competition.

For example, the "full, active, conscious participation" in the Mass should preclude you from praying the rosary while Mass is prayed. Think about this way: you would be a negligent outfielder if you played your Gameboy in the middle of a baseball game! There's nothing wrong with playing baseball. There's nothing wrong with playing a Gameboy. But if you are committed to playing on a team, you do not shirk your duties while playing on that team to play a private game of Tetris.

Devotional Practices

Any and all devotional practices should lead you to God through Christ. Many devotional practices are addressed to the Blessed Virgin Mother. There is nothing wrong with this as such. However, you must be careful! Any devotional practice that pretends to replace the proper role of Christ as our only mediator with the Father is idolatrous. Mary is the mediator of the Word Made Flesh insofar as she was and is the mother of God. As mother, she mediates the Word as we all do when we take on Christ at baptism. However, in no way can Mary ever be understood as our Redeemer. Though immaculately preserved from the ravages of original sin, Mary is a human being. Perfected in the assumption, she is nonetheless a creature and therefore incapable of dying for our sins. Mary was not and is not divine in any sense of the word.

Many Marian devotions call on the devotee to "consecrate" his/her heart to Mary. This is not a problem so long as the consecration is directed to Christ through Mary's intercession. Strictly speaking, such a consecration is wholly unnecessary. Christ is immediately available to anyone who calls on his name. You may consecrate your heart to Mary in order to obtain the Blessed Mother's assistance in living a life of holiness; however, read the consecration prayer very carefully. The end result of any such prayer must be the absolute acceptance of Christ as one's only Redeemer. Mary can be a means, never an end.

I've read some prayers that read "I give my whole self, body and soul, heart and mind to Mother Mary. . ." If the prayer ends there, you are in trouble. If the prayer goes on to read, ". . .so that she may give me to Christ, my savior," that's fine. The question is: why go through Mary? That's a devotional question. a question about your affective needs and preferences. Such a prayer is never necessary for your salvation.

The best way to understand devotional practices is to see them as "icing on the cake" or "gravy on the potatoes." A very good thing to have available but not strictly necessary for good spiritual nutrition. You can live a perfectly holy and healthy Catholic life without ever praying the rosary or attending Eucharistic adoration or consecrating your heart to Mary. You cannot be a healthy Catholic without the liturgy of the sacraments.

Now, I heartily recommend the rosary, Eucharistic adoration, and Marian consecrations. All are perfectly good things to do to foster holiness. But remember: your baptismal goal is to become Christ. He is your principal means and your ONLY end.

Update: NB. I am not attacking Marian devotions in this post. I am merely urging Catholics to keep Marian devotions (all devotions) in their proper place. No Catholic is required to offer Mary devotion as a matter of his/her salvation. Assent to the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, however, is not optional for Catholics. These dogmas are "definitive of the faith," that is, they are "de fide," of the deposit of faith and as such must be held by all the faithful.

Update 2.0: I should have mentioned this earlier. . .be very wary of any novena or litany that "guarantees" results. Devotions that make claims like "never known to fail" teach an incredibly magical notion of prayer. Litanies, novenas, rosaries are NOT magical spells that guarantee anything. They are prayers of praise and thanksgiving that help us to align ourselves with God's will for us and better prepare us to receive His gifts. I have seen too many "Novenas to the Big Toe of St Bubba: Guaranteed to Work!" booklets in Churches to know that this sort of thing is legion. You know what I'm talking about: "Pray this novena for nine days while walking counter clockwise around the Church nine times and put nine of these booklets in nine different Churches. . .and your wish will be granted!" This is superstitious nonsense and no Catholic who is serious about their prayer life will bother with it. Now, someone is going to leave a combox message telling me that they have prayed this sort of novena for the last hundred years and everything they have ever prayed for has been granted. Great! God gave you the blessings you asked for. The magical novena had nothing to do with it. You prayed according to God's will for you and received His blessings with thanksgiving. Give God the credit, not the magical novena.

Help Fr. Philip Pick a Devotion (UPDATED)

My students at the University of Dallas frequently heard me say, "I am orthodox but not very pious." By this I mean that I am "right believing" but not always as affectively aligned with God as I should be. This misalignment is most evident in the fact that I can rightly parse theology but often have difficulty reacting pastorally. Now, as I have written many, many times: "Truth is always pastoral!" Veritas in caritas. The veritas I can handle. The caritas is sometimes more of a problem.

My partial solution to this difficulty is to adopt a devotional practice that pushes me further into my affective relationship with God. So, I am resolved to start and persevere in a devotional practice that assists me in this.

I am familiar with all the common devotions: rosary, Eucharistic adoration, Sacred Heart, etc.

Tell me (and us) about a devotion you practice that might be a bit unusual but nonetheless spiritual beneficial.

It goes without saying (he says), that the practice should be consistent with Church teaching.

UPDATE: Wow. . .thanks for the outpouring of good suggestions and advice. . .I've decided to take a typically "Fr. Philip approach." I'm going to writing my own devotion! using traditional prayers. I'll post it when I'm done!

Mary, Mother of God

The Solemnity of the Mary, Mother of God, celebrates the decision taken at the Council of Ephesus (431) against the teaching of the Patriarch, Nestorius, who held that a human person could not be said to have given birth to God. The Patriarch of Alexander, Cyril, argued that Mary, as the chosen instrument of the Incarnation, conceived and gave birth to the Word, Jesus, fully human and fully divine, one person with two natures. Mary, then, is properly understood to be “Theotokos,” God-bearer.

Cyril wrote (in part) to Nestorius:

"And since the holy Virgin brought forth corporally God made one with flesh according to nature, for this reason we also call her Mother of God, not as if the nature of the Word had the beginning of its existence from the flesh.

For In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God, and he is the Maker of the ages, coeternal with the Father, and Creator of all; but, as we have already said, since he united to himself hypostatically human nature from her womb, also he subjected himself to birth as man, not as needing necessarily in his own nature birth in time and in these last times of the world, but in order that he might bless the beginning of our existence, and that that which sent the earthly bodies of our whole race to death, might lose its power for the future by his being born of a woman in the flesh. And this: In sorrow you shall bring forth children, being removed through him, he showed the truth of that spoken by the prophet, Strong death swallowed them up, and again God has wiped away every tear from off all faces. For this cause also we say that he attended, having been called, and also blessed, the marriage in Cana of Galilee, with his holy Apostles in accordance with the economy. We have been taught to hold these things by the holy Apostles and Evangelists, and all the God-inspired Scriptures, and in the true confessions of the blessed Fathers."

Cryril published twelve anathemas against Nestorius. Cyril's letters and his anathemas became the primary texts from which the council fathers drew up their canons for the council.

The first anathema reads: “If anyone will not confess that the Emmanuel is very God, and that therefore the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God (Θεοτόκος), inasmuch as in the flesh she bore the Word of God made flesh [as it is written, The Word was made flesh] let him be anathema.”

The fifth anathema reads: “If anyone shall dare to say that the Christ is a Theophorus [that is, God-bearing] man and not rather that he is very God, as an only Son through nature, because the Word was made flesh, and has a share in flesh and blood as we do: let him be anathema.”

As is the case with all Marian dogma and doctrine, we are immediately directed back to Christ as our Lord and Savior. No Marian dogma or doctrine is declared or defined in isolation from Christ. She is always understood to be an exemplar for the Church and a sign through which we come to a more perfect union with Christ. Though our Blessed Mother is rightly revered and venerated, she is never worshiped as if she were divine. She is rightly understood as the Mediatrix of All Graces in so far as she mediated, through her own body, the conception and birth of Christ, who is Grace Himself. In no sense are we to understand our Blessed Mother as the source of grace. Rather, she was and is a conduit through which we benefit from the only mediation between God and man, Christ. In her immaculate conception and assumption into heaven, our Blessed Mother is herself a beneficiary of Christ's grace. As such, she cannot be the source of our blessedness, our giftedness in Christ.

On Spiritual Directors

When looking for a good spiritual director, it is standard practice to interview the potential S.D. first. The idea is not to weed out those who are going to challenge you or disagree with you. The idea is find one who holds and practice the Catholic faith as taught by the Church and is able to actually help you grow in holiness.

Ask the following questions politely. There is no need to be offensive or defensive. You are not an Inquisitor. You are not hunting heresy. If it turns out that the potential S.D. is some kind of New Age kook, you are obligated to keep that assessment to yourself. The obligation to confidentiality binds both the director and the directee.

A few cautions up front:

1). Do not be impressed with S.D.'s who have credentials in spiritual direction. Most spiritual direction programs in the U.S. teach their students amateur forms of guru-ism and occult gibberish.

2). Do not be impressed by titles like "Father," "Sister," "Brother," or "Doctor." Anyone holding any of these titles can be dodgy.

3). Do not be impressed by celebrity or ecclesial status. Abbot Father Dr. Alred Boniface Schultz of the St. Labyrinth Benedominican Monastery, author of 46 books on meditation and a national speaker, can be as big a moonbat as anyone.

4). Do not be impressed by the potential S.D.'s personal piety, orthodox theology, solid publishing record with the best Catholic houses, or his/her reputation for brilliant spiritual direction. Every director/directee relationship is different. What works for you, might not work for me. And being a good S.D. takes more than unwavering allegiance to the magisterium.

5). Do not be impressed by a potential S.D.'s willingness, even eagerness, to take you on as a directee. In fact, I would interpret any sort of "salemanship" on the part of the S.D. as creepy and immediately disqualify him/her.

Questions (with the qualification that he/she may say, "'Nunya."):

--Tell me about your spiritual life, your daily spiritual routine, your prayer life.

--What are your strengths as a S.D.? Weaknesses?

--Tell me about your experience as a S.D. How many years? What sorts of directees?

--How would you describe your relationship to the Church? The local bishop? The Holy Father?

--What do you think of commonly used spiritual direction tools like the Ennegram, labrynith?

--What do you think of personal devotions like the rosary, novenas, etc.?

--What authors/books do you regularly read and recommend?

--Have you had any spiritual direction training? Where and what kind?

--What's your understanding of the sacraments, esp. Mass, confession, marriage?

--How do you understand the relationship btw God and creation?

--How do you understand holiness, goodness, morality, sin, etc.?

--Do you use fasting or other sorts of penance in your direction?

--My biggest spititual difficulty is X. How would begin to approach this problem?

--My greatest spiritual gift is X. How would you direct me to use this gift?

--Generally speaking, from what sources do you pull from for inspiration as a S.D.?

Keep in mind that you are being interviewed as well. I have turned down potential directees b/c I didn't have the particular gifts to deal with their challenges. I have also been "fired" as a S.D. for being too theologically orthodox and for being "too hard."

Do you want someone who will "kick butt and take names"?
Or someone who will be more of a gentle listener, a guide?
Or someone who will function as a teacher, a model?
Or someone who will sympathize but challenge nonetheless?
Or someone who maintains an emotional distance and directs you?
Or someone who will "get in there with you" and fight?
Or someone versatile enough to shift among these as needed?

You really have to know yourself before choosing a S.D. But you also have to be open to change and growth. I find it very difficult to get a good S.D. because I need a "kick butt and take names" kinda director. I need someone who can look me in the eye and tell me how full of crap I am. Not many of those around these days. . .sigh. . .

Guidelines for Faithful Catholic Reading (Updated)

Question. . .

1). Can you give me some guidelines about what books are OK for Catholics to read?

Sure, but first you have to decide where you are on your road to be perfected with God's grace. For someone who is intellectually and spiritually solid, that is, someone who thinks with the Church and believes with the Church, most anything is appropriate so long as you approach it with a strong critical eye. A Catholic who knows his/her faith well and holds to it tenaciously will not be easily dislodged from the Body. Now, I do not mean to say here that you must be a closed-mined anti-intellectual with your mind made-up already. What I mean to say is that your relationship with God through the Church is sufficiently strong that you "see" the world through your faith. Some tend to make their faith (or Church teachings) as just one more compartment of their lives that can be kept separate from their personal relationships, their politics, their jobs. This sort of compartmentalization gives us divorced/re-married, pro-abortion Catholic Republicans who work for Greenpeace and who see no contradictions in their lives yet wonder why they are unhappy!

If you are new to the faith, your situation is quite different and I would urge a different approach. So much of our faith is about just living day to day with the sacraments, in personal prayer and service. The more intellectual side of the faith is attractive b/c it allows a certain distance from the grubbiness of working on our perfection in grace. That's a trap. Our faith is about beliefs and works, knowing and doing, trusting and acting. For a new Catholic, I would suggest that you ground your first few years in the Church in three things: 1) frequent use of the sacraments (Mass, confession, etc.) and a prayerful devotion (rosary, etc.); 2) stick to the basics in your reading--the Catechism, a good "treasury of Catholic writing" type book, the Bible; and 3) do volunteer work consistent with our tradition (pro-life work, St Vincent de Paul Society, etc.). Your intellectual needs will arise out of these and give you a better direction for reading.

NB. If you have a copy of Richard McBrien's popular work, Catholicism, throw it away. It's useless for understanding the faith. I mention this book in particular because it is one that most new Catholics buy for instruction and is widely used in diocesan RCIA programs. Though he gets some things right, he has been admonished multiple times by the American bishops to revise the errors in this book, and he has steadfastly refused. Most of it is modernist nonsense and heresy.

General Guidelines for all Catholics

Catholics have nothing to fear from reading material that opposes the Church or attacks our faith. God is in control not us. The question for your reading choices is this: will this book help me to better cooperate with God's grace given through the Church to grow in perfection? If not, don't waste your time. If so, try it out.

Don't waste your time on most of the books in the Self-Help section of your bookstore. There is no such thing as "self-help" for Catholics. "Self-help" is just Pelagianism and gnosticism dressed up in pop-psychology. God helps us and we cooperate with that help.

Don't waste you time on most of the books in the Spirituality section of your bookstore. Most of these are New Age and neo-pagan garbage. The only good thing about these books is that they don't lie about their non-Christian origins and pretend to be helpful to Catholics. This section will likely include many books with Christ, christian, Catholic, etc. in the titles. Don't be fooled.

Don't waste your time on most of the books in the Christian Inspiration section of your bookstore. Most of these are fundamentalist Protestant or "community church" movement versions of Positive Thinking pseudo-theology or Purpose-Driven Life drivel. The fiction is mostly anti-Catholic nonsense from a fundie Prot perspective, i.e. the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon in the Book of Revelation blahblahblah.

In the bookstore, go to the Christian religion section and look for books published by Ignatius Press. These books are normally written for intelligent Catholics who are curious about growing with Christ in his Church and who want to do more than memorize the Catechism but aren't yet willing or able to put in the time and effort to delve full-time in the complicated academic world of Catholic theology. They well-written, solidly orthodox, challenging, but not high-brow theology. Now, having said all of that, let me add: Ignatius Press does publish some very, very high brow stuff. They publish Hans Urs von Balthazar. There are probably three people in the world who have read his stuff and understood it. One of them currently occupies the Chair of Peter. The other two teach at Oxford University and one of them has decided that von Balthazar is probably dangerous to the faith. But generally, Ignatius Press is the way to go.

UPDATE: from the comboxes I want to add two publishers:

TAN Books: mostly reprints of Catholic classics
Our Sunday Visitor: contemporary spirituality, theology of moderate difficulty

Spend some money on a good Catholic theological dictionary (O'Collins is good, so is Hardon). This can help you get a grasp of basic terms and usage. Also there are a number of "shorter catechisms" out there as well as catechisms written for adults.

Some new Catholics like to jump into the classical Catholic spiritual tradition (mostly writers like John of the Cross, Thomas a Kempis, Theresa of Avila). If you can read this stuff and it helps, go for it! Generally, I steer young Catholics and those new to the Church away from these texts because these mystics and saints are writing to and for monks, nuns, priests who have been at this perfection in grace thing for a long while. Many of my spiritual directees at U.D. were reading Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales. This is a classic Catholic work. It is also a dangerous book for those not ready to use it properly. And the proper way to use it is with an experienced spiritual director! A requirement, by the way, that the saint himself insists on. These classic texts require religious maturity and a deep discernment. They are NOT textbooks or DIY manuals.

Finally, for all Catholics, check everything you are reading against the Catechism. This sounds juvenile, I know. However, the Catechism, for all of its structural flaws and misplaced emphasises, is a distillation of 2,000 years of Catholic wisdom. Use the index to find specific topics. There are a number of searchable Catechisms on-line. There is a book titled A The Companion to the Catechism of the Catholic Church that contains the texts of all the footnotes in the Catechsim. Having this book handy can make your reading easier. You can read the CCC as a book, starting on page one and going to the end. It is a "one piece" book in that understanding page two requires that you understand page one. Using it as a reference book is OK, but don't expect to get fullsome answers 100% of the time. You will still have to think through most of your questions with a critical mind.

Cautions

If you are new to the faith and/or not sure of your spiritual maturity, I would caution you against the following:

--trying to read advanced works of theology/spirituality
--works of spirituality without a solidly orthodox spiritual director
--works that claim to combine Catholicism with some other spiritual tradition (New Agey junk)
--"self-help" books, even ones claiming to be Christian/Catholic
--avoid identity politics theologies: feminist, queer, black/latino, liberation, ecological theologies
--books of private revelations, "An angel came to me and told me that. . ." type books
--books that stress "spiritual warfare" or "apocalyptic" themes; "end times"
--purely "social justice" works, i.e., books that focus on good works alone
--books by self-anointed prophets and mystics
--books about a Catholic spirituality using the "new cosmologies," junk science, junk theology
--Merton's later works, i.e. his Buddhist writings & his peace/justice writing; early work is great
--anything by any of the following popular writers: Eckhart Tolle, Don Miguel Ruiz, Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, Jon Kabat-Zin, Anthony De Mello, Ken Wilber, Brian Swimme, Thomas Berry, Fritjof Capra, Elaine Pagels, Joan Chittister, Richard McBrien, Matthew Fox, and Richard Rohr. This is not a comprehensive list, just a mention of authors I've read and have found damaging.
--generally books published by Orbis Books, Paulist Press*, St Anthony Messenger Press, The Liturgical Press are dodgy though not always. . .just a caution.
--big caution: books about Ennegrams, centering prayer, yoga, angelic prayers, Buddhism
--basically anything that negatively challenges your faith too early in your growth

Let me also direct you to a recent post titled "Can Catholics Dabble in the New Age Practices?" Under section three ("Discernment") of this post you will find a fairly comprehensive set of questions designed to steer you clear of dangerous spiritual practices. To apply these questions to your reading habits, just replace "Does this practice. . .?" with "Does this book. . .?"

A (very) few recommendations:

Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity (adults, moderately advanced)
Joseph Ratzinger, God is Near Us: the Eucharist, the Heart of Life (adults)
Robert Barron, Thomas Aquinas: Spiritual Master (adults)
Pope Benedict XVI, The Church Fathers (adults)
Romano Cessario, Introduction to Moral Theology (adults)
Kenan Osborne, Sacramental Theology: A General Introduction (adults, advanced)
John O'Connor, The Catholic Prayer Book (general)
Servais Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics (advanced)
Servais Pinckaers, Morality: The Catholic View (adult)

Happy reading! If you have questions about a specific book or author, leave a comment and I will respond if I know anything about either.

*Paulist Press often gets it right: Thomas McDermott, Catherine of Siena: Spiritual Development in Her Life and Teaching, 2008.

Additions to the blog, OK to read?

Check out the new additions on the side-bar.

I've added links to three of my recently posted personal stories & links to a few of my fav posts from this blog.

I might get up the nerve to post links to my fav homilies! [Partially done. . .on-going revision]

Also, I've gotten a lot of questions these last few months about whether not This or That book is OK for Catholics to read. If you will post the title and author of the book in the combox, I can respond if I know anything about the book or the author.

Generally speaking, a Catholic strong in the apostolic faith and thinking with the magisterium, one who has a good critical sense (and sense of humor) can read just about anything. If you are new to the Church, be careful! There's a lot of junk out there pretending to be Catholic.

Another Dominican preacher blog

If you need a spiritual boost or a some wisdom to wrestle with, click over to Fr. Carmen Mele, OP's homily site and enjoy!

He calls his pieces "homilettes," but that only indicates their brevity in length not their depth in wisdom.

Tell him I sent you!

Homilies: Third & Fourth Sundays of Advent, Christmas Day

[NB. I have to apologize for getting these three homilies posted so late. Though they are here long after their proper liturgical time, I hope and pray you will find them helpful. As promised, I will be taking several days away from blogging as I get some school work done. Please continue to comment. I will to continue to post comments but not respond myself. Have a blessed New Year and keep those prayers coming!]

Gaudete Sunday: Is 61.1-2a, 10-11; 1 Thes 5.16-24; John1.6-8, 19-28
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS Domenico e Sisto, Roma


If, while flipping through the cable channels and surfing the web, reading the news and watching it, if you are not yet convinced that the Church is being called go “whole hog” as the Body of Christ, the Prophet, then I don’t think you are paying very careful attention to “the signs of the times.” More and more, as we resist the temptations to submit ourselves as believers in the Truth to the lowest common denominators of secular culture, more and more our resistance to assimilation and our insistence on our identity are seen as combative, strident, radical, even extremist. As the center moves left, those who stand their ground quickly fall out of the mainstream, becoming freaks in monkish isolation, denizens of an edging-fringe that seems only to cut itself, suicidally bent on being right no matter the costs. We do not need to rehearse recent attacks on the Church in detail—the BVM as Playboy model; the soon-to-be-released “Gay Bible;” Catholic hospitals performing abortions, to quickly name just a few—no details are necessary b/c we feel the pressure; we see it: the little loses in court over free speech and free exercise issues; the small nudges toward secular accommodation in how we govern our parishes; compromises with health care corporations when our Catholic hospitals are sold; anti-Christian faculty in our Catholic schools and colleges; attempts to secularize the culture even more by de-Christianizing Christmas; and on and on. If you don’t see it, feel it, taste it, hear it…well, you ain’t paying attention! And if you aren’t paying attention, how will you ever be a voice crying in the secular wilderness? How will you ever be a prophet crying out, “Make way for the coming of the Lord!”?

The Jewish priests from Jerusalem, hearing that a prophet has appeared in Bethany, proclaiming the coming of the Messiah, seek out this prophet to test him. They find John the Baptist preaching the advent of the Lord and ask him if he is the prophet, Elijah. He says, “No.” They press him. Who are you? He says in answer, quoting the prophet Isaiah, “I am the voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘make straight the way of the Lord…’” Now, we know that John is not among the more reputable characters in scripture. He’s, um, less than hygienic. Has some pretty strange dietary habits. Claims to baptize folks with water in the name of a coming Messiah. Is way too humble to be a real preacher or prophet. He’s an all-around dodgy fellow who comes out of the desert yelling about the Lord and flailing about with these out-dated morals, flinging accusations of malfeasance at public officials. Any of us might read about him on SpiritDaily, give an easy chuckle, and click over to the Drudge Report, forgetting all about him.

So, how are you going to be prophetic? How will pick up the prophetic slack and draw the noose of righteousness tighter around the neck of our deaf, dumb, and blind culture? Appearing out of the desert like John the Baptist will get you certified and hospitalized. We can no longer hear that voice crying out in the wilderness. Now, it seems, prophets need degrees, corporate sponsorship, a logo and tag line, maybe an entourage and a structured hairdo. Certainly they need stadium-sized pulpits, PR toadies, and one or two scandals to give them the appearance of being somewhat human. But these powdered, pampered, and perfumed frauds wouldn’t know a decent prophecy if it fell through their limo sunroof and scuffed their Ferragamo’s. They only sing the hymns our shopping mall religious culture demands to hear. Prophets never tell us what we want to hear. They never point to the horizon of your comfortable expectations and assure us that that break of the dawn is as easy as a credit card number and an internet connection.

John shows these priests and elders something that shakes them at the root. He points toward a horizon star-long and sky-wide. He tells them something they have long wanted to hear but feared to listen to. Rather, he shows them someone; tells them about someone; points toward someone, someone who will not only wash their need away but bring them to their human perfection in his own promised death, a death that begins right at the point where their worst sins meet his best mercies. John brings them Christ. And that’s the kind of prophet we must be. The kind that climbs and claws out of the desolate wasteland of Me-driven clamoring for more and more things to tip over into our bottomless black holes of need and show this world the joy of Christ!

Prophets see the future not as it will be but as it should be; or rather, as the Father promises it can be if we will but listen and act according to His truth. Our joy is not a glassy-eyed, blank grin of stupidity, or a fawning niceness to sweeten evil; nor is our joy a perpetual state of excitement or the search for the highs of liminal experience. Our joy, the joy we receive from Christ, is the exhilaration we know and feel because we know and feel the approaching fulfillment of his promise to come to us again and again, to return over and over every time we call, every time we need him. Even when we are fully prepared and willing to tip ourselves into the well of despair, especially when we are ready to surrender to the dark, our hope is in the name of the Lord. He is our rock bottom and our highest reach. And as his prophets we are charged with shouting—along with Isaiah, John the Baptist, Mother Mary—shouting out our YES to his gift of life. And not only that but making absolutely sure that our thundering yes bounces off the ears of anyone willing to hear and listen. If those who live with us and near us don’t see our joy, feel it, taste it, hear it…well, we ain’t shouting loud enough or clear enough! We aren’t doing enough.

So, how will you become a prophet of joy, crying out in this wilderness, “Make way for the coming of the Lord!”?


4th Sunday of Advent: 2 Sm 7:1-5, 8-14, 16; Rom 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS Domenico e Sisto, Roma


Unless Samuel Beckett is right, and we wait for Nothing when we wait on Godot, then when we wait, we wait in need. There is something or someone we do not know, something or someone we do not have; yet feel, yet know we must have; so, we wait. When we wait, we desire. Waiting is what the body does with unfilled desire. We sit here or walk there, or stand, leaning against someone stronger or more patient, perched right on the edge of bounding up in mock surprise to shout, “Finally!” Exasperated, or relieved in anger. You are here. Finally! I have you. But it is too soon yet to claim victory, to claim our prize for patient waiting. Unlike Estragon and his philosophical friend, Vladmir, both waiting for Godot, our advent clock has many more ticks and tocks before the final gift is dropped, before our longest longing is eased, and our waiting in hope is rewarded with the birth of the Word into the world. What we have to wait with today is Mary’s surrender, the end of her anticipation as she answers the archangel’s call to be the ark of the Lord, His tent in flesh: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” If and when, in our waiting and in our desiring, if and when we surrender, what happens?

This week of our long wait begins a headlong fall into the celebration of the birth of the Word into the world. In just one week, we sit up and notice one more time that hope is born for us; faith is pushed out from eternity and into our lives; love is gifted with a body, a mind, a soul for our sakes. In just one week, the one John the desert prophet promised arrives and begins his thirty-three year presence to those who have waited for centuries. But today, this last Sunday of our waiting, we party with the angels as they and we hear a young Jewish woman, confronted with a choice by the archangel Gabriel, we all hear her choose life—his, hers, ours, and the world’s. We all hear her choose to be the mother of God, the God- Bearer. “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Look! I serve the Lord. Let His will be for me as you say it is.

What would happen to your life if, every morning from now on, you awake up and say aloud, “I serve the Lord. Let His will be mine.” First, understand that this is a prayer of priestly sacrifice. All the elements of sacrifice are present in that one prayer: you are a priest offering yourself as victim to a loving God on the altar of your day. Second, once sacrificed with this prayer, this act of human will, you belong body and soul to He Who made you. He made you and his love holds you in being as His creation. Your prayer of sacrifice is an act of gratitude, of giving thanks. Third, if you will do His will you will expend your day in His service as His handmaid, his servant. Every thought you have, every act you do, every passion you feel has already been given over to the fulfillment of His will. Fourth, His will for all His servants is to love Him, love ourselves, and love our neighbors. We are able to love, that is, we are gifted with the capacity for love, to love in virtue of our creation by Love Himself. He loved us first so that we might love. Lastly, as His willing priests, our lives are made new again, reconstituted from the smallest cell out, gifted with the newest possible life available, the life of His Son. We are made Christ for others. We are the walking Word, the talking Word, the feeling, doing, working Word—priests forever now in an entirely sacrificial life of becoming perfectly His will in the flesh.

This young Jewish woman, given a choice by Gabriel, says YES to His will for her, and becomes the first Christian priest and prophet, the template from whom all of us as future priests and prophets will be pressed out. On the cross, dying for our sakes, the Lord himself follows his mother in saying yes. Abandoned by his friends, betrayed by one he loves, despairing, seemingly lost to pain and death, and believing himself to have been forsaken to his enemies, our Lord will cry out to His Father, “Yes! I will all that you will!” His life of perpetual sacrifice begins. This is what we long for. This is what we desire, what we need. Though we are constantly deflected and distracted in our priestly obligations to be love and to love others, we nonetheless know and feel the ineffable hollowness of a life that refuses to love, that wills not to be one for another.

Advent is one long Mass of Thanksgiving and Praise, a month-long prayer of rejoicing and sacrifice as we turn away from sin and toward our perfection in Christ. What must we do? Unclench your fist. Unlock your heart. Fling open wide your mind. Make straigth the path of the Lord to your very existence. Say YES! And join Christ at the altar as priest and victim. He is coming. He has come. He will come again. Wait. Need. Desire. And the flood of God as the Gift of Love Himself will overwhelm you and make you Christ.


Christmas Day: Is 52:7-10; Heb 1:1-6; Jn 1:1-18
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS Domenico e Sisto, Roma


God does Who He Is: Love. God is Love; therefore, He loves. The surest sign that we are given as a witness to this truth is the birth of His Word among us as a man.

Who is this Word given flesh in the body of our Mother?

Paul writes to the Hebrews that our Lord speaks to us through His Son, the Son whom He made His heir to all the things of heaven and earth, and through whom He brought the universe into being from nothing; the Son who is the shining radiance of His beauty and truth; the Son who is “the very imprint of His being;” the Son who sustains by his potent word all that he has been given.

Who is he?

John the apostle pulls back the veil and reveals to us that in the beginning, from the establishment of all that is from the void, the Word was, and that God’s Word was there with Him, and that this Word was God. John writes, “He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.”

Who is he for us now?

John the apostle pulls back the veil again and reveals to us again that in the beginning and even now, from the establishment of all that is from the void and even now, the Word Is, and that God’s Word is there with Him even now, and that this Word is God—then, now, always. John writes, “He [is] in the beginning with God. All things [come] to be through him, and without him nothing [comes] to be.”

God does Who He Is: Love. God is Love; therefore, He loves. The surest sign that we are given as a witness to this truth is the birth of His Word among us as a man. We have waited. Needed. Desired. We are turned toward the advent of his coming.

He is here.

John the apostle pulls back the veil and reveals to us that all that came to be and is, came to be and is through him and is life; and this life, his life, is the light of all peoples, all nations, all tribes, all races, all tongues; for all our needs, all our godly desires, all of weaknesses, all our triumphs, all our failures; for all of us who will hear and listen and act in love as priests and prophets of His Word; this light shines in the darkness of violence, hunger, poverty and oppression; this light shines in the decaying reek of injustice, death, disease, and suffering; this light shines in the blackest pits of our despair, self-loathing, anxiety, disobedience, and the murder of innocence; this light burns in the darkness and the darkness cannot extinguish it.

The glory of God, His eternal Word, becomes flesh and bone with the YES of a virgin; he is born and makes his home among us. If we will see, we will see his glory, the glory of the Father’s only Son, filled with His truth, beauty, and goodness; and not only will we see, but we will be illuminated, brightened, made to shine like the Son, sharing wholly and pure, made perfect in His divine life.

The Father sent His Spirit to Mary to give her the seed of His Word so that she could make for Him a son of flesh and bone—a man like one of us, to walk among us, to talk with us, to love us passionately and sacrificially to his death.

Today, he is born.

He makes those who will hear and listen, those who will look and see, he makes us his sisters and brothers, children of God, heirs to the Kingdom of heaven and the glory of God; of those who believe in his name, sacrifice as his priests, prophesy as his prophets, of us he makes “other Christs” so that we might live and teach and preach his Word, and live and die with Mary’s YES on our lips, rising again to His brilliance at the end of this age to live again in His light.

Today, from His boundless abundance “we have all received, grace in place of grace.” Today, he is born. Today, we are born again.

Four Defining Moments

Pope Benedict XII, Benedictus Deus (1336): "By this Constitution which is to remain in force for ever, we, with apostolic authority, define the following. . ." (On the Beatific Vision)

Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus (1854): "We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that [. . .] is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful." (On the Immaculate Conception)

Pope Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus (1950): ". . .by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma. . ." (On the Assumption of the Blessed Mother)

Pope John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdolatis (1994): ". . .I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." (On the Reserving Priestly Ordination to Men Alone)

NB. Two of these declarations were made before (1336 and 1854) the First Vatican Council defined papal infallibility in 1870. It is plausible to argue that the 1870 definition was a true definition, that is, a limitation of papal power to teach infallibly on doctrine. Before 1870, the Holy Father's authority to settle theological questions in this way was unclear.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas...

Buon Natale! Merry Christmas!

I will post three short homilies today (3rd, 4th Sundays of Advent, and Christmas) and then I'm going to take a blog break. I will still be checking comments but probably not replying, so be patient with any questions you might send my way.

I need to write a seminar paper, which will be posted on my recently much-neglected faith+science blog, suppl(e)mental.

Also, the license thesis needs to be sketched out.

Please be assured that I have received all the Mass intentions sent to me recently, and that I am dutifully fulfilling them.

Mail has been very slow this last week and will likely get much closer until well after the New Year. So, the likelihood of any books shot my way from the WISH LIST arriving anytime soon is close to nil. Regardless, as always, my gratitude is deep and abiding for every one sent!

If you have any topic requests for posts in the New Year, let me know. No promises! ;-)

Merry Christmas & Buon Natale!

Natural Theology at its best!

For those of you who are really into the academic study of natural theology, you cannot do better for excellent texts than to browse the lectures found on this site.

Check them out!

The Gifford Lectures

Answers to supporters of women's ordination (UPDATED)

I recently received an email from a young religious asking me to help him answer objections to the Church's infallible teaching that women cannot be ordained to the Catholic priesthood.

Here's my stab at it. . .

First, notice the origin and ground of the objections. All of them are based on one or more of the following mistakes:

a) Priesthood is about power
b) "Access" to the priesthood is about rights and justice
c) The "exclusion" of women from the priesthood denies humanity of women. . .
d) . . .and it denies their proper place as potential "Christs for others"
e) All exercises of Church authority are excluding
f) Tradition is always about male privilege
g) Women would make better priests because of their natural empathy and compassion
h) Jesus' exclusion of women from the priesthood was culturally based and therefore reformable
i) Scripture is silent on the nature of the priesthood b/c it is a third century invention of males
j). Women report feeling called to the ordained priesthood, therefore the Church ought to ordain them.

Let's answer (briefly) each in turn.

Priesthood is about power. No, it's not. Priesthood in the Catholic Church is about service. Do priests often mistake their office of service as a privilege in the use of power? Yup. But that's an abuse of the office and in no way changes the actual nature of the office. Men are ordered to Christ, Head of the Church, to serve his people as he did: sacrificially in leadership. When supporters of women's ordination (WO) claim that women must be allowed to share in the governance of the Church as priests, they mistake the office for a political one.

"Access" to the priesthood is about rights and justice. Wrong again. The only right a Catholic has as a Catholic in the Church is the right and duty to serve others. Justice is getting what one deserves. No one--not even men--"deserve" to be ordained, to serve as ordained priests. To claim that ordination is a right is bizarre given that men are called by God and confirmed by the Church to be priests. This use of democratic rhetoric is attractive but misplaced. You cannot be the subject of an injustice if you have no right to that which you have been denied. I am not being treated unjustly b/c I cannot vote for the next Italian presidential election.

The "exclusion" of women from the priesthood denies their humanity. In fact, the Church's teaching on ordination reaffirms the humanity of women by clearly laying out what it means to be human, male and female. To be fully human as a creature is to submit one's will to the will of our Creator and cooperate with His grace to achieve our perfection AS men and women; that is, I am perfected as a male creature. My mother is perfected as a female creature. Often this objection is rooted in a modernist notion that one's sex is socially constructed. We are MADE male and female by our Creator and not pieced together sexually by social forces.

The "exclusion of women from the priesthood denies their proper place as potential "Christs for others." This would be true if the only means of being Christs for others was to be a priest. Fortunately, our Lord had to foresight to make sure that there were other means of becoming the sons and daughters of the Father in His service for others. Ordination is one way that some men are called by God and confirmed by the Church to "work out" their salvation. No one is denied their perfection in Christ b/c they are not priests. All the baptized serve the Father by being priests, offering themselves in sacrifice for others.

All exercises of Church authority are excluding. Wrong. If an exercise of Church authority excludes, it does so in order to liberate through a declaration of the truth of the faith., thus including everyone in the knowledge of truth. To be excluded is not in and of itself an injustice or a violation of human dignity. There are many perfectly beautiful options open to all Christians to which I am excluded in virtue of my ordination, e.g. marriage and biological fatherhood. In the case of WO, the Church has used her authority to recognize a limit of her own power. In effect, the Church has recognized that she is excluded from considering the ordination of women.

Tradition is always about male privilege. Tradition has certainly been misused to prop up abusive practices that privilege males. That we have seen these abuses in no way changes the fact that Tradition is the handing on of a living faith, the "living faith of the dead." The faith of the Church never changes. It cannot change. Our understanding of the faith can and does change. However, WO is not a change in understanding but a radical revision of some of the most basic threads of the Christian narrative. To alter these threads does more than "open the priesthood," it unravels the faith whole clothe.

Women would make better priests. I concede this readily. But we have to be clear about what we mean by "better priests." The objection assumes that the vocation of the priest is simply about empathy and compassion. It's not. Sometimes what the priest must do is show firmness, rectitude, and unwavering direction. . .even if empathy and compassion seem to be set aside in doing so. If the only vocation of the priest were to be empathetic or compassionate, then women should be ordained. However, as we have seen in the Episcopal Church and the Church of England, women priests and bishops (at least for now) seem to be more inclined to the destruction of the living faith than its preservation. Each time a stone in the catholic faith has been removed by female clergy and their male supporters in these ecclesial communities, it has been removed on the grounds of justice, rights, empathy, and compassion--all understood in strictly secular terms. The results have been disastrous.

Jesus' "exclusion" of women from the priest was culturally based and therefore reformable. This objection assumes as true a number of false premises. First, it assumes that Jesus was not who he clearly said he was and is: God. God is not constrained by cultural prejudices. Second, it assumes that Jesus was disinclined to break social taboos. In fact, he broke any number of cultural taboos in teaching and preaching the Good News, causing a great deal of scandal. Why not break the taboo against women as priests/rabbis? Third, this objection also assumes that cultural change should guide Church teaching. Cultural change should and often does guide our understanding and application of the faith in the world, but the world is irrelevant when it comes to determining the content of our faith. A danger for WO supporters here is that the way they understand many of the Church's cherished social justice positions are undermined by this objection to the Church's teaching. If we can alter the faith to follow cultural change and ordain women, why can't we examine many of Jesus' legitimate justice teachings in the same light and alter them as well? Maybe our modern culture and social norms should be used to override the historical Christian concern for the poor. Surely, the recent collapse of the economy can be blamed in part on a misplaced concern for the poor and homeless.

Scripture is silent on the nature of the priesthood. This is a particularly odd objection for faithful Catholics to be making. It is largely a Reformation objection and ignores volumes of Patristic teaching on the origins and development of Christian priesthood. It is simply false to say that the Catholic priesthood is an third or fourth century invention. There are elements of the priesthood as it is enacted in the world that came about in later centuries, but the core nature of the priesthood was infallibly established at the Last Supper when Christ commissioned his apostles and friends as those who would lead the community in prayer and the breaking of the bread, to "do this in memory of me." He had every opportunity to include women in this moment, but he didn't. The key here is to understand that the Last Supper was a Passover meal, a family meal, one that reinforced the bonds of paternal authority in the ancient Jewish tradition. of liberation from slavery. Even with women present at a Jewish Passover, the men are commissioned to perform the rite. Does this mean that women are excluded from the liberation Moses brought and the Passover celebrates? Hardly.

Women feel called to the priesthood. In the paragraph directly below this one I note that all of the objections to the Church's teaching on WO are rooted in modernist, feminist ideology. This objection is a perfect example. What this objection assumes is that the call to priesthood is a subjective experience immediately deserving a positive response from the Church. What can be more modernist than the triumph of personal experience over objective truth. The truth of the matter is that the call to priesthood comes from God through the Church, who is the Body of Christ. To say that a particular person (male or female) receives a call outside the Church assumes that Christ speaks to a member of his Body from outside his Body. However, all calls to serve the Body come through the Church and are therefore verifiable by the Church. Most of us believe we are called to all sorts of vocations for which we do not have the requisite gifts or authentic vocation. I feel called to be a regularly published poet, yet my poetry is regularly rejected. The poetry community (i.e., the Church of Verse) regularly rejects my claims to being a poet. Years of personal experience, strong conviction, earnest effort, and multiple academic degrees cannot make up for the lack of consent by the poetry community to my alleged call. I can call myself a poet. I can rail against the perceived injustice of not being regularly published. I can even accuse my tormenters of bias, hatred, and lack of taste. I'm still not a poet. Think for a moment of the implications if the Church bowed to the "I feel called to priesthood" objection and answered these claims positively. On what grounds could we reject anyone from the ordained ministry? My application to be made a postulant for ordination in the Episcopal Church was rejected. Had the vestry of my parish not done their job of proper discernment and oversight, I would be an Episcopalian priest right now. Thank God they listened to the Holy Spirit!

It is important for faithful Catholics to understand how many of these objections are based on modernist, feminist theories of justice, gender, the social construction of reality, and postmodern identity politics. None of which have a place in the faith of good Catholics. All are deeply rooted in 19th and 20th century liberal democratic ideas about freedom, liberty, and rights. None of them pull from the tradition of the Church or her ancient philosophy and theology. None of them are scriptural or magisterial. I have yet to read a single objection to the Church's infallible teaching against WO that does not rely exclusively on ideas and argument entirely alien to our faith. The canonical objections I've read are little more than legalistic sophistry and grounded in a "hermeneutic of suspicion" that starts with an antagonistic attitude toward truth and quickly devolves into relativism and subjectivism--little more than minute loopholes.

Probably the best book on this subject was written by Sr. Sara Butler, MSBT, The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the Teaching of the Church, Sr. Sara started her life as a religious as a supporter of WO and has since looked carefully at the scriptural, tradition, magisterial, and archeological evidence for that position and changed her mind. This book does a much better job of defending the Church's teaching than I ever could, and I highly recommend it.

It is vitally important that women understand that the Church's lack of authority to ordain them to the priesthood is not based on the notion that they are inferior or damaged or in any way "less than men." Yes, some medieval theologians, including Thomas Aquinas, put forward certain metaphysical explanations for an all-male priesthood that few of us will applaud now. But these are merely explanations of any already existing teaching and their dubious nature in no way detracts from the truth of the faith. In other words, Aquinas, et al did not invent the all-male priesthood based on medieval notions of biology and metaphysics. They took up the question in light of the sacaramental theology then current and the already existing reality of the all-malle priesthood and attempted to explain the truth of the priesthood in the light they had. Demolishing Aquinas' argument for the all-male priesthood does not demolish the Church's infallible teaching against WO.

A note on the question of the infalliablity of Pope John Paul II's document, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. This 1994 document was issued by the Holy Father in order to settle forever the question of whether or not the Church has the authority to ordain women. Drawing on scripture, tradition, and centuries of papal magisterial teaching, he concluded that the Church does not have the power to ordain women. It is very important to understand that the Pope did not say that the Church will not ordain women or that the Church does not feel like ordaining women. He wrote: "I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women. . ." The Church CANNOT ordain women. The Church also cannot declare that Jesus is not the Savior. The Church cannot declare that Mary was not the mother of Jesus, etc. In other words, the failure of the Church to ordain women is not based on a lack of will or inclination or patriarchal prejudice. If every bishop in the Church, including the Pope, laid hands on a woman, performing the entire sacrament of ordination on her in St Peter's Bascilica in front of the College of Cardinal with their wild applauses, she would still be a laywoman. And she would be a laywoman if every Catholic in the world believed that she was a priest.

Is this teaching infallible? Yes, it is. The Pope wrote in full: "Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 22:32) I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful."

Now, some theologians claim that this teaching is not infallible. They want to make a fine distinction between the content of the teaching and this declaration of the teaching. They want to say that OS itself is not infallible; in other words, they want us to believe that the Pope's declaration that the teaching is infallible is not itself infallible. This is typical modernist sophistry and a confusion of terms. All the Pope did in this document is repeat an ancient truth: women cannot be ordained. This is not new. Imagine the Pope issuing a document tomorrow declaring that Jesus is the Messiah. Such a document would be pointless because the Church has always believed this. There is no need for an infallible teaching on the question. How odd would it be then for some theologians to assert that the document is not infallible when it asserts that the teaching that Jesus is the Messiah is infallible. Simply bizarre.

Reread the highlighted phrases above. Those are the words required for an infallible teaching. Period. OS as a document, OS per se does not have to be infallible, just as a document declaring Jesus as the Messiah would not have to be infallible. The content of the teaching is without error regardless of the magisterial/canonical status of the document. What the supporters of WO want us to believe is that the Pope is not interpreting the ancient teaching correctly. That he is merely repeating what has always been the case in the Church seems to be irrelevant to them. It seems odd to me that the Pope would issue this document "so that all doubt might be removed" and then have some claim that he did so in order to set the stage for future women's ordinations! We had a professor in my seminary who taught exactly that. Fortunately, none of us fell for the deception.

Fr. Joseph Fitzmeyer, quoting a supporter of WO, Rev. Herman Pottmeyer, "According to Pottmeyer, 'O.S. is an instance of ordinary (i.e., non-infallible) magisterium, declaring that the church’s unbroken tradition with regard to ordination is irreformable.' In saying this, he may be right, even though the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith subsequently explained that the doctrine about women’s ordination belongs to the deposit of faith and has been constantly held in the church’s tradition and infallibly set forth by the ordinary and universal magisterium." Fr. Fitzmeyer concludes his critique of Rev. Pottmeyer, "Pope John Paul II stated in O.S. that 'the church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women' (No. 4). He did not mean that 'he could not himself change tradition in this matter.' He spoke rather of Ecclesiam facultatem nullatenus habere. If it is so, that the church has no ability to change it, then the Pope cannot invite everyone to prayer and dialogue as he would summon 'a council to make a final decision.' If 'the church' cannot do it, then a council cannot do it, no matter what 'signs of the times' may be or what 'faithfulness to Jesus' might seem to call for in Pottmeyer’s estimation."

Best book on the history and theology of the Church's teaching authority: Magisterium: Teacher and Guardian of the Faith, Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ.

This link from the USCCB helps to clarify a number of issues.

NB. This post will be revised and updated.