Becoming holy

In my reflection on today's readings I mentioned the three-fold movement of salvation: redemption, justification, and sanctification. Today I was directed to a post on a blog I had not read in far too long: Glory to God for All Things, by Fr. Stephen Freeman, an Orthodox priest. His post "Christianity in a Plain Brown Wrapper" is what drew my attention this afternoon. In this post Fr Stephen seeks to correct an imbalance that has persisted among Western and Westernized Christians for far too long, namely that in the threefold movement justification is what really matters, rendering sanctification optional. I very much agree with his assessment that it is never enough merely to believe.

Fr Stephen correctly points out that "Nineteenth century revival movements and theology emphasized a single experience that was associated with salvation. Those who concerned themselves with what came later, described growth in the Christian life as 'sanctification,' and tended to imply that it was optional." He is correct, sanctification is not "subsequent" to "salvation." I take him here use "salvation" to express the idea that once you've freely accepted Christ's redemptive sacrifice ("I believe"), which is freely offered (i.e., justification) then you are simply saved, it's a done deal. The epigraph he uses for the post is most fitting for expressing what needs to be conveyed: "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor 3:18).

He next notes "Being saved, in the pages of the New Testament, means the whole of our life with God. And the purpose of the whole of our life with God is to be transformed into the image of Christ from glory to glory. Anything else is simply not the Christian faith." In other words, being transformed into the image of Christ is what it means to be saved. This transformation is what connects the already to the not-yet. Anything short of this is not salvation. This deals effectively with the most prevalent view of salvation among those who claim the name "Evangelical" Christians, which Fr Stephen sums up: "Thus we live in this world as one-time, once-and-for-all conversionists, and hope to simply wake up as saints in the life to come."

It is easy to infer an honest and fair critique of an all-too prevalent Roman Catholic view of Purgatory from what Fr Stephen sees as defective in various views of salvation: "Many Christians recognize that a transformation is supposed to occur within a believer, but have adopted a model that postpones that change until after death." The inferred (and fair) criticism of this view, which does not accurately express the Catholic Church's teaching, is the view that we'll work it all out after we die, no need to strive in the present life.

"The fullness of the Christian gospel, as found within Scripture and the Orthodox tradition, is radically committed to the transformation in this life of the believer." To wit: sanctification is not optional and, while distinguishable from justification, it is inextricably bound up with it. Perhaps one way of expressing this is that justification is the beginning of sanctification. The way of sanctification is the way of grace. We are saved by grace! It is really here that Fr Stephen's article truly begins. I have merely touched on the preliminaries.

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

I have always been greatly moved by Jesus' comparison of His being lifted up on the Cross with the bronze serpent God told Moses to mount on the pole, which image God used to save those Israelites who were perishing as a result of being bitten by poisonous snakes in the desert. The parallel is so obvious: just as the Israelites were beset by poisonous serpents, we are daily beset with them too. Perhaps not actual serpents, but ones that are not merely as deadly, but ultimately more deadly than those that fell upon Israel in the desert. We are often beset sins that not only kill the body, but the soul, resulting in eternal death. To think that this is not a possibility is to be greatly deceived and to live in denial of reality.

The good news is truly good news, which is why Christians call sharing this good news "evangelization." The good news is just what St Paul, likely quoting an early Christian hymn, sets forth for us in our reading this Sunday from his Letter to the Philippians: "he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross" (Phil 2:8). It is because Jesus humbled Himself for my sake and for yours that the Father "greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name" (Phil 2:9). This is conveyed beautifully and simply in our Gospel for this glorious feast: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:16-17).

In light of the connection the Lord made between His being lifted up on the Cross and the bronze serpent Moses lifted up, let's extend our Gospel reading one verse further: "Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God" (John 3:18). Faith is our response to God's initiative towards us. God's initiative towards is Jesus Christ. Hence, we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Can you muster enough faith to just look?

Christ on the Cross, by Heinrich Bloch, 1870

Christ died to redeem everyone, but not everyone will be redeemed because not everyone will receive the gift of salvation God offers through Christ. One indication of this can be found in the words of consecration during the Eucharistic Prayer, which words remain consistent throughout Eucharistic Prayers I-IV:

This is the chalice of my Blood,
the Blood of the new and eternal covenant,
which will be poured out for you and for many (emboldening and italics added)
for the forgiveness of sins...

Redemption is an objective fact, without it not one person would be saved. It is true that some will be saved extraordinarily, that is, not necessarily by coming to conscious faith in Christ and being baptized, but by responding in faith to what God reveals to them, living in accord with the law written in their hearts, seeking to order their lives to truth as an act of love, the result of which is usually beautiful. Bl Teresa of Calcutta urged us to make of our lives something beautiful for God. We are justified by faith, by our response to the gift God offers us. Once we respond in faith, then we are on the road to sanctification, to being made holy, to being fully conformed to the image of Christ. This is nothing other than the fundamental good news, the kerygma, the basic message of Christianity.

The road to sanctification, to what the author of the Letter to the Hebrews calls our "sabbath rest," is often a twisting, winding path over hills and through valleys, even the valley of the shadow of death. When we are beset by sin along the way we need not despair. In such peril all we need to do is to look to Christ on the Cross. Among other things, this means availing ourselves of the grace offered through Him by the power of the Holy Spirit. The most efficacious means of receiving God's grace are the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Penance.

As Paul Tripp observed in a tweet not long ago, "Yes, you are called to worship God above all else. No, God will not reject you in that moment when an idol grips your heart." This is the assurance God gives us through the Cross of Christ. This is why we can say, "We adore you O Christ and we bless you. Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world."

During the week following tomorrow's feast we have the opportunity, though not the obligation, to observe "Holyrood" Embering. What are Ember Days? See my post "Whitsun Embering: Observing Pentecost Ember Week."

Sacramental marriage and the absence of faith revisited

In two earlier posts I wrote about the upcoming Extraordinary Synod on the Family. In both I wrote about faith and the Sacrament of Matrimony, about whether or not it matters that when a man and a woman celebrate this sacrament in the Church they both have faith, at least enough faith to enter into this sacramental way of living, intending to do what the Church intends couples who are married to do, or whether they merely have a lovely day at Church and are married with quite a different mindset. The question about lack of sufficient, evident, or minimal faith at the time of marriage as a potential grounds for an annulment was first broached by Pope Benedict XVI in his final annual speech as Supreme Pontiff to the Roman Rota on 26 January 2013. Pope Benedict began that speech in a rather straightforward manner:

I would like to reflect in particular on several aspects of the relationship between faith and marriage, noting that the current crisis of faith, which is affecting various parts of the world, brings with it a crisis of the conjugal society with the whole burden of suffering and hardship that this entails, also for the offspring. We can take as a starting point the linguistic root that the Latin terms fides and foedus have in common. Foedus is a word with which the Code of Canon Law designates the natural reality of matrimony as an irrevocable covenant between a man and a woman (cf. can. 1055 § 1). Mutual entrustment is in fact the indispensable basis for any pact or covenant.

At the theological level, the relationship between faith and marriage acquires an even deeper meaning. Indeed, although the spousal bond is a natural reality, it has been raised by Christ to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized (cf. ibid.).

The indissoluble pact between a man and a woman does not, for the purposes of the sacrament, require of those engaged to be married, their personal faith; what it does require, as a necessary minimal condition, is the intention to do what the Church does. However, if it is important not to confuse the problem of the intention with that of the personal faith of those contracting marriage, it is nonetheless impossible to separate them completely

In early July I mentioned this in an interview I did for an article (see "A Few More Thoughts on the Instrumentum Laboris"). Later in July, after reading excerpts from Cardinal Müller's lengthy interview on marriage, which will soon be published by Ignatius Press with the title The Hope of the Family: A Dialogue with Cardinal Gerhard Müller, I wrote about it again. This post sparked a lively and largely charitable discussion (see "The validity of marriage and presence or absence of faith").

Earlier this week I received the most recent issue of Communio. This issue is dedicated to Marriage: Theological and Pastoral Considerations in advance of the Extraordinary Synod. The first piece I read in this issue was Cardinal Scola's "Marriage and the Family: Between Anthropology and the Eucharist" (you can read the article for free here). My point in drawing attention to this particular article is that towards the end of it Cardinal Scola takes up the issue of faith and the validity of marriage in a section entitled "Faith and the sacrament of matrimony":

Among the questions requiring further examination we should mention the relation between faith and the sacrament of matrimony, which Benedict XVI addressed several times, including at the end of his pontificate [the footnote here directs the reader to the speech I linked to above]. Indeed, the relevance of faith to the validity of the sacrament is one of the topics that the current cultural situation, especially in the West, compels us to weigh very carefully. Today, at least in certain contexts, it cannot be taken for granted that spouses who celebrate a wedding intend “to do what the Church intends to do.” A lack of faith could lead nowadays to the exclusion of the very goods of marriage. Although it is impossible to pass final judgment on a person’s faith, we cannot deny the necessity of a minimum of faith, without which the sacrament of matrimony is invalid [all italicized words in original]

An interesting parallel to this is something I read a few weeks ago in Hans Urs Von Balthasar's recently translated Who Is a Christian? (also published by Ignatius Press) that touched on a related matter- infant baptism. In one of the short chapters that comprise Part I of this work, entitled "The Burden of the Dead," Balthasar commented on the need to reform or even do away with old, useless, and unnecessary structures and practices in the wake of the Council (this book was originally published in German in 1983): "Let us not shrink from naming the most questionable of these... I refer to infant baptism" (18).

The preempting of the proud, once-in-a-lifetime decision for God on behalf of one still in a state of unawareness; the awakening to the use of reason and the capacity to make choices, only to find oneself faced with an already accomplished fact that one must either ratify or not - what a problem this is! And, indeed, still more so today, when the popular traditions, the sociological embedding within a generally accepted Christianity, are dwindling or have, indeed, in many cases already completely disappeared

In some comments he made in a documentary film released several ago, Diarmuid Martin, archbishop of Dublin, Ireland, highlighted the issue about which Balthasar wrote, when he said, "It requires maturity on those people who want their children to become members of the church community and maturity on those people who say 'I don't believe in God and I really shouldn't be hanging on to the vestiges of faith when I don't really believe in it'" (see "Archbishop Martin on acting in accord with conscience"). As Catholics, we, too, acknowledge that God has no grandchildren.

To broach such questions is not not legalistic, or an attempt to impose legalistic criteria. On the contrary, faith constitutes the cornerstone of Christianity, not just ecclesial faith, but personal faith in Christ. Even as Catholics we believe that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus. So much of what we do presumes personal faith, which, in turn, has an ecclesial dimension. It is important never to lose sight of the fact that, being a theological virtue, faith is a gift from God. But it is a gift offered to all. So, faith entails a choice, a choice to receive the gift, the acceptance of which justifies us and puts on the road to sanctification.

"You say that I am blessed because of this"

Only because 14 September falls on Sunday this year, the Church celebrates the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on a Sunday. It is a fixed feast and so is observed on 14 September every year. One way of telling the importance of a feast such as this is the fact that it "trumps" Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. This means that next week we are free to observe the autumn Ember days on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.

The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is an ancient Christian observance and marking St Helena's discovery of the true Cross while in Jerusalem in the early fourth century. It was on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem that sometime in the mid-to-late fourth century that the dramatic conversion of St Mary of Egypt happened. Her liturgical memorial is observed on 1 April, which I find fitting. The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross did not become a Western observance until the seventh century. An indication of how ancient is this celebration is that Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, and Lutherans all observe on the same. After all, what binds Christians more closely together than the Cross of Christ? As St Paul wrote in his First Letter to the Corinthians:

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Cor 1:18)

So, in light of the fact that a few weeks ago I preached on Jesus' teaching about the necessity for anyone who would follow Him to take to die to self, live for others for His sake as the way to take up the Cross and the fact that this Sunday, 14 September, we'll celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, our Friday traditio is Audrey Assad's song "Carry Me" off her amazing The House You're Building album. I know, subtle, huh?

And we all falter
'cause we are broken
We're all just tryin' to
turn the shadows into light

Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Looking at the Proper for tomorrow's liturgy, I am deeply moved by the first option for the Prayer Over the Offerings:

May the humanity of your Only Begotten Son
come, O Lord, to our aid,
and he, who at his birth from the Blessed Virgin
did not diminish but consecrated her integrity,
by taking from us now our wicked deeds
make our oblation acceptable to you.
Through Christ our Lord

Birth of the Virgin, by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1661

May the Lord, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, make your oblation, that is, your life today, acceptable to God, the Father. I urge everyone who reads this to do two things:

1) Pray the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary

2) Pray at least one Memoraré

If there were a third "thing," I'd urge you to attend Mass.

Hail Holy Queen, Mother of mercy.
Hail our life, our sweetness, and our hope.
To thee do we come, poor, banished children of Eve
To thee do we send our sighs, mourning, and weeping in this valley of tears...

Love, truth, and correcting each other

Our readings for this Twenty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A, prompt us to ask ourselves, "What do I owe and to whom to do I owe it?" In this day and age, at least in what we call advanced Western countries, most of us owe money. I know I do, more than I should, truth be told. As brothers and sisters in Christ, don't we owe each other the truth for love of God and one another? Even though this is one of those things that makes all of us a bit (maybe a lot) uneasy, it is important. So important that our Lord Himself addressed it in a very head-on way.

St Paul was not shy about issuing corrections when he saw they were needed. He viewed issuing such corrections as a necessary part of his apostolic and pastoral duties. It was a duty he exercised out of love for those receiving correction and out of love for Christ's Body. We need to clearly understand that our readings today pertain only to corrections among members of Christ's Body, the Church, who are our brothers and sisters by virtue of our common baptism and on-going communion with each other.

It is far too easy when we are having a problem with a priest, a deacon, a fellow parishioner, or a group within our community, to tell everyone else except the person, or group of people, with whom we are having the difficulty. Not only is this passive-aggressive, it often takes the form of rumor-mongering. Anyone who has been in the Church for awhile and who has been deeply involved in the Church's life has probably been both a perpetrator and a victim of these things. I know I have. Jesus' words today inform us that our first gambit when we feel the need to issue a correction is most assuredly not to fire off a letter to the bishop!

Far too often we think of pastoral ministry only in terms of comforting people. Of course, we should comfort people always and often, as often as hurting, grieving people need it. But sometimes a situation arises that requires us to challenge someone by means of a correction, by telling them the truth. These situations occur more often than we'd like to admit. How many of these do we just let pass, hoping it will magically disappear, or somehow fix itself?

In the vast majority of instances to effectively challenge someone, to lovingly correct another, first requires that we have the kind of relationship with that person that makes them open to receiving our correction. Stated simply, they must know that we love them before we seek to correct them.

Several years ago I had a situation arise that required me to remove someone from a position of leadership for many reasons, foremost among which were a sorely apparent lack of leadership and some fairly significant integrity issues. In reality, I should not have let the situation persist as long as I did. Without going into great detail, after his dismissal I was left feeling unsettled because it did not go down well. In fact, it made him very angry and he directed his anger towards me. In thinking about it and praying over it for several days afterwards I developed a threefold criteria to use in similar situations:

1) Am I doing the right thing?

Assuming it is the right thing to do,
2) Am I doing it for the right reason (How's my heart? Are there traces of pettiness, vindictiveness, etc.)?

If "Yes" is the answer to the previous two questions,
3) Did I do it in the right way (The "right way" being honestly and gently)?

My failure in the above situation was that I did it in the wrong way. It was the right thing. I was doing it for the right reasons. Because I was fearful about how he would receive the news, I did it in the way I believed would spare me his anger. Well, I blew it and it still didn't spare me what I feared. I was simply trying to avoid conflict in a scenario in which it was probably inevitable.

Once in awhile circumstances arise that call for immediate and unambiguous correction. For the priest, the deacon, the lay leader, we should be fostering the kind of relationships, living with the kind of integrity, and bringing things to the Lord in prayer so that it softens the blow for even these kinds of situations. As St Paul exhorted: "Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law... Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law" (Rom 13:8.10)

A wise teacher, mentor, and friend once told me, "If you're too busy to pray, you're too busy." While this is true for life in general, the context for this statement was a discussion about pastoral ministry. Someone engaged in pastoral ministry simply must pray and pray often. If you don't, sooner rather than later you will be rendered practically useless. St Francis de Sales was a most practical pastor. Proof of his practicality is this advice: "Every one of us needs half an hour of prayer a day, except when we are busy-then we need an hour." Fairly frequent confession doesn't hurt either.

Truly loving another means to love his/her destiny. As Pope Benedict XVI used to note with some frequency, without truth there can be no love. Nonetheless, it is completely possible and often the case that we speak the truth without love. Not speaking the truth and speaking the truth without love are equally ineffective and inherently uncharitable.

Hopefully we see the huge challenge God's word sets before us. I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that ever since the situation I shared above that my conduct has been completely flawless. To cite just one example, a year or two after that I had to make a similar decision, but for very different reasons. Again, I blew it in the same way for the same petty reason. The difference? Once I realized I blew it, I met with the person one-on-one, told him that, while I was confident I made the correct decision, I handled it poorly and asked him to forgive me. He was most gracious and forgave me. We are friends to this day. It was also one more lesson for me on the dangers of underestimating the love of my brothers and sisters in Christ.

In the words of a Phil Keaggy song (it is a cover of a Van Morrison song) I cherish deeply, "When Will I Ever Learn?"

Contemplate Jesus Christ crucified

This is my first post for the month of September! For what it's worth, I intended differently. I am beginning to really see and feel the benefit of less is more when it comes to blogging. I don't mind divulging that I currently find life a bit exhausting.

In one his often amazing daily homilies, which he delivers during the daily Mass he celebrates at the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta at the Vatican, Pope Francis yesterday said, “the privileged place for an encounter with Christ are our sins. If a Christian is incapable of seeing his sins and his salvation in the blood of Christ, he has only gone half-way. He is a tepid Christian."

By Matthias Grunewald

I am privileged to teach the faith to a lot of people. In discussing the Sacrament of Penance, it is always worth noting that confession is not where we go to admit defeat, but where we go to claim our victory, won for us by our magnificent Savior.

Our Friday traditio, off their album Redemption Songs, is Jars of Clay (a personal favorite) singing the hymn "O Come and Mourn With Me Awhile," which is fitting fare for a penitential day.

O break, O break hard heart of mine
My weak self-love and guilty pride
His Pilate and His Judas were
Jesus our Lord is Crucified

Another hymn covered on Redemption Songs is "Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder," which features these beautiful words:

Let us love and sing and wonder
Let us praise the Savior's name
He has hushed the law's loud thunder
He has quenched Mount Sinai's flame
He has washed us with His blood

Don't forget the week after next are the fall Ember Days (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday), after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which falls on a Sunday this year and trumps the Twenty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time