It's the end of the world as we know it, how do you feel?

Well not quite yet and we don't know when. Our first reading:

Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire, leaving them neither root nor branch, says the LORD of hosts. But for you who fear my name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays (Mal 3:19-20a)

From our Gospel for this Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, close to the Solemnity of Christ the King, we contemplate the end of the world and Jesus Christ coming "again in glory to judge the living and dead," a core Christian belief. But in our Gospel reading for today, the Lord tells us, "See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time has come.’ Do not follow them!" (Luke 21:8).

"Before all this happens, however, they will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name (Luke 21:12)...You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives" (Luke 21:17-19).

"To offer me solutions is to offer me alternatives and I decline!"

I can't help but wonder how many homilies this Sunday will seek to divert attention from this mystery of faith, rather than help us enter more fully into it. My guess is, quite a few.

Purgatory: are Roman Catholics losing our religion?

While I am not really prepared to write extensively about Indulgences, which still exist (during his pontificate Benedict XVI sought to revive the practice of obtaining indulgences according to the manner in which they were reformed after the Second Vatican Council), in light of this passage from Lumen Gentium, "if any abuses, excesses or defects have crept in here or there, to do what is in their power to remove or correct them, and to restore all things to a fuller praise of Christ and of God" (par. 51), it is important to note that, at least early on, Martin Luther did not oppose Indulgences in principle.

In writing a short treatise on the theology of Indulgences, which he addressed to Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz and Magdeburg on the fateful day, 31 October 1517, the still-Augustianian friar noted:

Although indulgences are the very merits of Christ and of His saints and so should be treated with all reverence, they have in fact nonetheless become a shocking exercise of greed. For who actually seeks the salvation of souls through indulgences, and not instead money for his coffers? This is evident from the way indulgences are preached. For the commissioners and preachers do nothing but extol indulgences and incite the people to contribute. You hear no one instructing the people about what indulgences are, or about how much they grant, or about the purpose they serve. Instead, all you hear is how much one must contribute. The people are always left in ignorance, so that they come to think that by gaining indulgences they are at once saved

The promulgation of a revised and reformed Enchiridion Indulgentiarum with the Apostolic Constitution Indulgentiarum Doctrina: Whereby the Revision of Sacred Indulgences is Promulgated, given 1 January 1967, represents just one of many ways that the Second Vatican Council completes the Catholic Church's response to the Protestant schism, which response began with the Council of Trent, which, in addition to responding, reforming, and clarifying, was also forced to react in various ways. In this Apostolic Constitution, Pope Paul VI, before proceeding to his reform, buttresses Tradition:

It is a divinely revealed truth that sins bring punishments inflicted by God's sanctity and justice. These must be expiated either on this earth through the sorrows, miseries and calamities of this life and above all through death, or else in the life beyond through fire and torments or "purifying" punishments. Therefore it has always been the conviction of the faithful that the paths of evil are fraught with many stumbling blocks and bring adversities, bitterness and harm to those who follow them.

These punishments are imposed by the just and merciful judgment of God for the purification of souls, the defense of the sanctity of the moral order and the restoration of the glory of God to its full majesty. Every sin in fact causes a perturbation in the universal order established by God in His ineffable wisdom and infinite charity, and the destruction of immense values with respect to the sinner himself and to the human community. Christians throughout history have always regarded sin not only as a transgression of divine law but also—though not always in a direct and evident way—as contempt for or disregard of the friendship between God and man, just as they have regarded it as a real and unfathomable offense against God and indeed an ungrateful rejection of the love of God shown us through Jesus Christ, who called his disciples friends and not servants... (par 2)

...That punishment or the vestiges of sin may remain to be expiated or cleansed and that they in fact frequently do even after the remission of guilt is clearly demonstrated by the doctrine on purgatory. In purgatory, in fact, the souls of those "who died in the charity of God and truly repentant, but before satisfying with worthy fruits of penance for sins committed and for omissions are cleansed after death with purgatorial punishments. This is also clearly evidenced in the liturgical prayers with which the Christian community admitted to Holy Communion has addressed God since most ancient times: "that we, who are justly subjected to afflictions because of our sins, may be mercifully set free from them for the glory of thy name (par 3)

More on Purgatory

The "Yes that makes it possible for us to receive God's mercy," as then-Cardinal Ratzinger noted in the extensive quote I posted last evening, is no easy thing, it cannot be glib, or half-hearted acquiescence. Of course, the model for the "Yes" we must say is the fiat, or "Yes," uttered by the Blessed Virgin Mary to the Archangel Gabriel: "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38). The "crucial decision" we make by saying "Yes," as then-Cardinal Ratzinger observed, is "oppressed and suppressed on all sides." I take that to mean from without and from within. He nonetheless focuses on the opposition from within, our self-absorption, our self-centeredness, what he calls our "egoism."

Through Jesus Christ's saving sacrifice and the ministry of the Church through the priest, the eternal punishment, namely hell, that our sins merit, is done away with in the Sacrament of Penance. However, the temporal punishment is not. So, we do penance in this life, offer up our pains and suffering, as well as engage in penitential practices (i.e., willingly deprive ourselves of good things, like meat on Fridays- to pick just one example) in order detach ourselves from things and thus strengthen ourselves for when temptation comes knocking and to lessen the intensity of our purgatorial experience or avoid Purgatory altogether. It is not our aim "to avoid Purgatory," but to be with God in heaven. Penitential acts are how we make satisfaction for our sins, without which we cannot attain heaven.

Purgatory is a dogma of the Catholic faith. It is not something that can be wished away. We ignore this fundamental truth at our own peril. It is through acts of penance that the "egoism," which is probably our biggest obstacle to sanctification, invoked by then-Cardinal Ratzinger, is confronted, challenged, and, by our cooperation with God's grace, given us especially through the sacraments, eventually overcome by living the circumstances of our lives united to Christ.

An Angel Frees the Souls of Purgatory, by Ludovico Carracci, 1610

The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, invoking the Second Council of Nicea, the Council of Florence, and the Council of Trent in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, decreed: "This Sacred Council accepts with great devotion this venerable faith of our ancestors regarding this vital fellowship with our brethren who are in heavenly glory or who having died are still being purified; and it proposes again the decrees of the Second Council of Nicea, the Council of Florence and the Council of Trent. And at the same time, in conformity with our own pastoral interests, we urge all concerned, if any abuses, excesses or defects have crept in here or there, to do what is in their power to remove or correct them, and to restore all things to a fuller praise of Christ and of God" (par. 51).

To cite just one of the three references made by the fathers of the Second Vatican Council, from the Council of Florence: "If they have died repentant for their sins and having love of God, but have not made satisfaction for things they have done or omitted by fruits worthy of penance, then their souls, after death, are cleansed by the punishment of Purgatory."

In the second section of her "Treatise on Purgatory," St. Catherine of Genoa wrote:

There is no peace to be compared with that of the souls in purgatory, save that of the saints in paradise, and this peace is ever augmented by the inflowing of God into these souls, which increases in proportion as the impediments to it are removed. The rust of sin is the impediment, and this the fire continually consumes, so that the soul in this state is continually opening itself to admit the divine communication.

As a covered surface can never reflect the sun, not through any defect in that orb, but simply from the resistance offered by the covering, so, if the covering be gradually removed, the surface will by little and little be opened to the sun and will more and more reflect his light. So it is with the rust of sin, which is the covering of the soul

The point is that we are to cooperate with God's work in this life so as to remove the "rust of sin" as much as possible so that we, to use St. Paul's words to the Philippians, "shine like lights in the world" (Phil 2:15), living lives ordered towards our supernatural end.

I would also refer you, dear reader, to sections 45-48 of Pope Benedict XVI's second encyclical letter, Spe salvi for more on Purgatory. In these sections Pope Benedict sought to give an understanding of Purgatory in light of more recent theology.

"Yes that makes it possible for us to receive God’s mercy"

St. Teresa interceding for souls in Purgatory

Today, anyone who questions theology about Purgatory will be hard put to find an answer. The Bible seems silent on the subject. But, in that case, what ground can Tradition offer for speaking about it? That is why the subject is avoided. But, on the other hand, can we possibly imagine a Church in which the deceased are not prayerfully remembered? We might reply that the self-evident certainty with which the prayer of all ages has always included the deceased is itself a living expression of a deeper knowledge, peculiar to the Faith, that the interrelationship of human beings with and for one another does not end with death but is precisely that which death cannot destroy. But can we not express this knowledge more concretely? It seems clear today that the fire of the judgment of which the Bible speaks is not a form of punishment beyond the grave but rather the Lord himself, whom we encounter at the moment of judgment. But if we consider the matter clearly, just what does that mean? It means that when we come face to face with the Lord in judgment all the “straw and hay” of our life will be consumed and nothing will be left but that which is truly lasting. It means that we are transformed by our encounter with Christ into what we really should and could be. The crucial decision for us is, then, that Yes that makes it possible for us to receive God’s mercy. But this crucial decision is so oppressed and suppressed on all sides that it is only with difficulty that it peers through the latticework of the egoism that we are unable to shed. The encounter with the Lord is the transformation, the fire, that fashions us into the unsullied being that can be the vessel of eternal joy. Joseph Ratzinger (1992). Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year (M. F. McCarthy & L. Krauth, Trans., I. Grassl, Ed.) (pp. 360–361). San Francisco: Ignatius Press

"We were born before the wind"

Van Morrison singing "Into the Mystic" is our Friday traditio

And when that fog horn blows I will be coming home
And when the fog horn blows I want to hear it
I don't have to fear it

This version of this song positively crackles with the requisite Celtic spirit. A song of longing, a song of the wanderer longing for home, a song of love.

St Martin of Tours: "a man words cannot describe"

Today is the Feast of St. Martin of Tours, Armistice Day (the day World War I ended), Veteran's Day, and my birthday. I think of today in that order (it is also the birthday of Fyodor Dostoevsky; yesterday marked the birthday of Martin Luther, who was named in honor of the great Bishop of Tours). Of course, St. Martin was a soldier who had a profound conversion, which made him a servant of Christ, thus a servant of peace. He went on to become the bishop of Tours in what is now modern day France. While his cultus has shrunk dramatically, for a long time he was a highly revered saint, along the lines of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. It is fitting that Armistice Day and Veteran's Day (as a combat veteran today is a day I pray for peace in an especially fervent manner) are observed on his feast. It is the Feast of St. Martin that makes today far more than a secular observance.

St. Martin lived in the fourth century (316-397). Living to be 80-plus years-old in Europe at that time was a rare occurrence. Martin was consecrated Bishop of Tours in 371 and served until his death. Sulpicius Severus, a Christian writer and chronicler who lived in the fourth century and into the fifth, wrote a biography of St. Martin. Sulpicius' moving account of St. Martin's death is the second reading for today's Office of Readings in the Church's Liturgy of the Hours. You can hear a lovely song dedicated to St. Martin of Tours here.

In his old age, when he knew he was dying and had not long to live, St. Martin, upon being informed that the clergy in the town of Candes, which was in his diocese, were fighting, despite his age and illness, he went to reconcile them and to restore peace. While he was at Candes, but after he had restored peace, his health took a turn for the worse and he died.

As he lay dying his spiritual children, according Sulpicius, implored him, saying, "Father, why are you deserting us? Who will care for us when you are gone? Savage wolves will attack your flock, and who will save us from their bite when our shepherd is struck down? We know you long to be with Christ, but your reward is certain and will not be any less for being delayed. You will do better to show pity for us, rather than forsake us."

(Above is El Greco's painting of the famous incident in which St. Martin of Tours, while still a soldier, using his sword to cut his cloak in two in order to give half to a freezing beggar, who was wearing only rags in the depth of winter.)

Upon hearing their pleas "he broke into tears, for he was a man in whom the compassion of our Lord was continually revealed. Turning to our Lord, he made this reply to their pleading: 'Lord, if your people still need me, I am ready for the task; your will be done.'" Martin, as he is remembered, "was a man words cannot describe. Death could not defeat him nor toil dismay him. He was quite without a preference of his own; he neither feared to die nor refused to live. With eyes and hands always raised to heaven he never withdrew his unconquered spirit from prayer." He is said to have caught a glimpse of the devil on his deathbed. His response was to rebuke Satan firmly, saying, "Why do you stand there, you bloodthirsty brute? Murderer, you will not have me for your prey. Abraham is welcoming me into his embrace."

It was reported last week, in Great Britain's Daily Mail, that the World War I diaries of a British soldier, a certain Harry Drinkwater, were discovered. I was struck by the disjunctive nature of his entry for Easter Sunday, 23 April 1916, which I think shows the effect of war on a person's humanity:

Easter Sunday. A beautifully sunny [rest] day. I’m writing in a field beside a brook — I can easily imagine myself back in England.

We’re all struck with the strangeness of things; one week in Hell and the next in comparative bliss.

Harry was also helping to dig deep shafts that branched out towards the enemy lines. The idea was to lay explosive charges beneath German trenches - but as the Germans were doing likewise, the mining teams often tried to blow each other up halfway across

St. Martin is the Patron Saint of beggars, reformed alcoholics, soldiers, tailors, and (oddly enough, in that lovely Catholic manner) also of wine-growers.

Sanctus Martinus Turonensis, ora pro nobis.

Jesus on the resurrection

Our Gospel reading for this Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year C), taken from the twentieth chapter of St. Luke's Gospel (20:27-38), puts Jesus in dialogue with the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection of the body (So, they were sad, you see!- old joke). The Sadducees invoke what is known as "the law of the levirate," which called for an unmarried man to marry the widow of his brother.

It was on 11 November 1981 (the day I turned 16), during his weekly General Audience, which audiences in our day feature a short papal catechesis, that Bl. Pope John Paul II (Pope St. John Paul II after April 2014) delivered the sixty-fourth (of 129) installment of what has come to be known as his Theology of the Body, which takes this same text, and its parallel passages in the other synoptic Gospels (Matt 22:24-30 and Mark 12:18-27), as his starting point.

So, for your edification this week, below is the catechesis in its entirety. It is the English text, which I found on the EWTN website, originally published in L'Osservatore Romano, the official international newspaper of the Holy See, Weekly Edition in English 16 November 1981, page 3.

There is no English translation on the Holy See's official website. I have not compared this translation with the undoubtedly more accurate one produced in Michael Waldstein's book, which is indispensable for any English-speaking person who is serious about Theology of Body, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body. I am also posting the whole thing to show something that I feel I must point out quite often: Theology of the Body is not primarily about sex!

GENERAL AUDIENCE OF WEDNESDAY, 11 NOVEMBER

1. After a rather long pause, today we will resume the meditations which have been going on for some time, which we have called reflections on the theology of the body.

In continuing, it is opportune to go back to the words of the Gospel in which Christ referred to the resurrection. These words are of fundamental importance for understanding marriage in the Christian sense and also the renunciation of conjugal life for the kingdom of heaven.

The complex casuistry of the Old Testament in the field of marriage not only drove the Pharisees to go to Christ to pose to him the problem of the indissolubility of marriage (cf. Mt 19:3-9; Mk 10:2-12). Another time, it also drove the Sadducees to question him about the so-called levirate law. This conversation is harmoniously reported by the synoptic Gospels (cf. Mt 22:24-30; Mk 12:18-27; Lk 20:27-40). Although all three accounts are almost identical, we note some differences, slight, but at the same time significant. Since the conversation is reported in three versions, those of Matthew, Mark and Luke, a deeper analysis is necessary, since it contains elements which have an essential significance for the theology of the body.

The Resurrection of Christ, by Paolo_Veronese, ca. 1570)

Christ refutes belief of Sadducees

2. The revelation of this dimension of the body, stupendous in its content—and yet connected with the Gospel reread as a whole and in depth—emerges in the conversation with the Sadducees, "who say that there is no resurrection" (Mt 22:23). They had come to Christ to set before him an argument which in their judgment confirmed the soundness of their position. This argument was to contradict "the hypothesis of the resurrection." The Sadducees' argument is the following: "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the wife, and raise up children for his brother" (Mk 12:19). The Sadducees were referring here to the so-called levirate law (cf. Dt 25:5-10). Drawing upon the prescription of this ancient law, they presented the following case: "There were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and when he died, he left no children. The second took her, and died, leaving no children, and the third likewise, and the seven left no children. Last of all the woman also died. In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife" (Mk 12:20-23).

Wisdom and power of God himself

3. Christ's answer is one of the answer-keys of the Gospel, in which there is revealed—precisely starting from purely human arguments and in contrast with them—another dimension of the question, that is, the one that corresponds to the wisdom and power of God himself. Similarly, the case had arisen of the tax coin with Caesar's image and of the correct relationship between what is divine and what is human (Caesar's) in the sphere of authority (cf. Mt 22:15-22). This time Jesus replied as follows: "Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven" (Mk 12:24-25). This is the fundamental reply to the case, that is, to the problem it contains. Knowing the thoughts of the Sadducees, and realizing their real intentions, Christ subsequently took up again the problem of the possibility of resurrection, denied by the Sadducees themselves: "As for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, 'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not a God of the dead, but of the living" (Mk 12:26-27). As we can see, Christ quoted the same Moses to whom the Sadducees had referred, and ended with the affirmation: "You are quite wrong" (Mk 12:27).

Another affirmation

4. Christ repeats this conclusive affirmation even a second time. In fact, he said it the first time at the beginning of his explanation. Then he said: "You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God" (Mt 22:29). We read in Mark: "Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?" (12:24). In Luke's version (20:27-36), on the contrary, Christ's same answer is without polemical tones, without that, "You are quite wrong." On the other hand, he proclaimed the same thing since in his answer he introduced some elements which are not found either in Matthew or in Mark. Here is the text: "Jesus said to them, 'The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection'" (Lk 20:34-36). With regard to the possibility of resurrection, Luke—like the other two synoptics—refers to Moses, that is, to the passage in Exodus 3:2-6. This passage narrates that the great legislator of the old covenant had heard from the bush, which "was burning, yet not consumed," the following words: "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" (Ex 3:6). In the same place, when Moses had asked God's name, he had heard the answer: "I am who am" (Ex 3:14).

In this way, therefore, speaking of the future resurrection of the body, Christ refers to the power of the living God. We will have to consider this subject in greater detail later.