Jesus Christ: Victor

"But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" ( 1 Cor. 15:57)

While I find this passage tremendously encouraging, I also find that it is easy to forget, especially when it seems that life is against me, when things clearly aren't going my way. At those times it becomes a challenge, even a provocation. Being mindful of this fact helps me to stay in front of whatever circumstances I may be facing, not defiantly, but humbly, knowing I rely on the One whose victory over sin and death is my victory. This is something of what it means to live in a new way, a sure sign of having been born again.

Earlier in the magnificent fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul writes, "I die daily" (v. 31). But he dies daily knowing, as the Lord taught, that, paradoxically, it is the only way to have eternal life. For Paul, dying daily is the hallmark of living eternal life now

"I don't know if you know who I am..."

You're not getting out of the '80s without some Phil Collins! So, In the Air Tonight is this Friday's Καθολικός διάκονος traditio. The scene on the Chicago El with Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay from the movie Risky Business did a lot for the popularity of the song. Risky Business being something like a far less innocent version of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

It's great that the original video is available. It reminds me of when MTV played music videos pretty much exclusively.

Christ's institution of the Eucharist

Another salient quote by His Beatitude Maximos IV from one of his interventions at the Second Vatican Council:

"Christ offered the first Eucharistic Sacrifice in a language which could be understood by all who heard him, namely, Aramaic. … Never could the idea have come to them [the Apostles] that in a Christian gathering the celebrant should read the texts of Holy Scripture, sing psalms, preach or break bread, and at the same time use a language different from that of the community gathered there … because this language [Latin] was spoken by the faithful of that time, Greek was abandoned in favor of Latin. … Why, then, should the Roman Church cease to apply the same principle today?"

"...compatible with the unity of faith and love"

His Beatitude, Maximos IV Melkite Patriarch 1947-1967

"We have, therefore, a twofold mission to accomplish within the Catholic Church. We must fight to ensure that Latinism and Catholicism are not synonymous, that Catholicism remains open to every culture, every spirit, and every form of organization compatible with the unity of faith and love. At the same time, by our example, we must enable the Orthodox Church to recognize that a union with the great Church of the West, with the See of Peter, can be achieved without being compelled to give up Orthodoxy or any of the spiritual treasures of the apostolic and patristic East, which is opened toward the future no less to the past"- Patriarch Maxios IV Sayegh during one his interventions at the Second Vatican Council. From the very first session, in which he refused to speak Latin, addressing the Sacred Assembly instead in French, and addressing their Beatitudes, the Patriarchs before the Cardinals of Holy Roman Church, more than anyone, he set the tone for the Council.

Giussani on knowing

Whether you know or not, you operate with an epistemology, which means nothing other than the way you approach the world, the way you interact with the world. Further, your epistemology arises from your metaphysics and results in your ethical/moral stance. In his book, The Religious Sense, Luigi Giussani argues for the need for a realist, as opposed to an idealist or skeptical, epistemology.

He does so by writing about three high school philosophy teachers, the first of whom is an idealist, the second a skeptic, the third a realist with enough of a phenomenological sensibility to be convincing. The inquiry is into what is that white, rectangular object lying on the desk (i.e., a notebook):

"We all have the impression that this is an object outside ourselves. This evidence is primary, original. But if I do not know it? It is as if it did not exist. You see, therefore, that knowledge is the encounter between human energy and a presence. It is an event where the energy of human knowledge is assimilated to the object. How do you produce such an assimilation? This is a fascinating question that we can only partially answer. We are certain, however, that knowledge is composed of two factors" (pg. 8).

"When in the Course of human events..."

On this fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, we also celebrate the founding of the United States of America, a truly unique country on the face of the earth and in human history, too. It was 4 July 1776 that the Continental Congress adopted what we now know as The Declaration of Independence, which announced the independence of the thirteen colonies from Great Britain. The rift was caused by many issues, which are pain-stakingly laid out in the Declaration, but they are all the result of the colonies having no representatives in the House of Commons to look out for and represent their interests. Interestingly, the great Edmund Burke was favorably disposed to allowing the American colonists to duly elect and send representatives to London. How different history would have been had King George III and his ministers heeded Burke's relatively modest proposal!

The Declaration of Independence is notable for its rather reasonable and measured tone, as opposed what came out of the disastrous French Revolution years later, though the reasons for the radicalism of the French Revolution arose from an entirely different set of historical circumstances.

At the heart of the Declaration are these words:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Two hundred and thirty-four years later the state of our union is still strong. As always there are questions and quandaries, excesses and corrections. These past ten years have been quite tumultuous, but that is indicative of a healthy democracy. I know it grieves many, but the fact that more citizens are paying attention to what their government does and are holding our leaders accountable is a good thing, not a bad thing. Besides, looking back over our history, including the Declaration of Independence's long list of grievances against King George III, when has politics ever been entirely civil?

I am proud to be a citizen of these United States. Moreover, I am humbled when I recognize how blessed I am. I am also more than a little troubled when I realize something Dr. Glenn Olsen puts his finger on in the first chapter of his new book, Turn to Transcendence, taking his cue from Alasdair MacIntyre, namely that "liberalism as a philosophy came to allow liberté (from libertas = unbounded or unrestricted) to trump all other values" (pg. 12). He is not discussing liberalism as opposed to conservativism, at least as these terms are understood in the contemporary context of U.S. politics. Rather, both liberalism and conservatism operate under this same premise. As a Christian, this puts me in mind of what St. Paul writes to the Galatians: "For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another" (5:13). This is also set forth in 1 Peter: "Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants" (2:16). Both these passages show us that liberty, unbounded/unrestricted freedom, freedom construed as an end in itself instead of a means to the end for which we are made, is not tenable on Christian grounds. As Pope John Paul II pointed out so often, freedom must be anchored in truth, the truth about the human person and the truth about the world we inhabit.

Borne of an authentic desire to really live

There are a lot of complaints about the so-called Catholic blogosphere. Heaven knows I have certainly voiced a few, which contradiction is not lost on me. At the end of the day, the Catholic blogosphere is no different from the Church, even from most parishes, which is where Church happens for virtually all of us. Catholic bloggers, at least the ones I know, are a pretty introspective bunch of people, maybe overly so at times (I know I am, as this post proves), worried about the effect our blogging efforts have, or even whether our efforts have any effect at all. Of course, the Catholic blogosphere is not monolithic, or even all that interconnected, with each person making her/his own contribution on matters of concern to them and that elicit a response. However, a lot of us are interconnected, not to the point of being organized, but just touching bases, airing matters of concern, trying to be accountable, etc. This is an indispensable thing for me because, like the Church at times, especially at the parish level, which is nothing new (read 1 Corinthians), the blogosphere can be a pretty rough and tumble place.

So, it is always nice to discover new and interesting on-line voices. This past week I did just that via a comment made on my homily last Sunday by the author of From the Pews. As with all writing, the blogger, Catholic or not, has to find his/her distinct voice, which is not a matter of creating a persona that has little or nothing to do with who you are, but a way of communicating something of yourself, which is the hallmark of both authentic communication and education.

A detail from Caravaggio's The Incredulity of St. Thomas

All of this is a fitting reflection for today's Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, the one known as Doubting Thomas, who said, upon hearing the other apostles tell of their encounter with the resurrected Lord, "Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe" (John 20:25). As we all know, the Lord showed Thomas the proofs he demanded eight days later. This shows that Thomas' initial doubt was not borne of a cynical skepticism, but of an authentic desire, not only to see and believe, but to follow, to live. St. Thomas' encounter with the Risen Lord gave his life, to borrow words from the Holy Father "a new horizon and a decisive direction" (Deus Caritas Est par. 1).

Indeed, encountering the Risen Christ can't but give one hope, which is the flower of faith-faith being knowledge, not mere belief, which reduction amounts to hoping against hope (i.e., wishing). Hope is certainty about our destiny, the point and purpose of our lives, showing us that "Christ does not save us from our humanity, but through it; he does not save us from the world, but came into the world, so that through him the world might be saved" (Pope Benedict XVI Christmas Urbi et Orbi 2006).

As far as I am concerned, insofar as one's blogging is in the service of the Gospel, which means it is borne from the same desire as Doubting Thomas' initial disbelief, which was perhaps the result of him thinking it too good to be true, then there is something of value. Who knows, it is maybe even the manifestation of a particular charism, a gift of the Holy Spirit? I believe that it is for this reason that after an initial period of decrying Catholic blogging, being suspicious of it, discerning its value, that even the Pontiff now actively encourages on-line efforts.