Blogito ergo sum! Actually, as N.T. Wright averred, "'Amor, ergo sum:' I am loved, therefore I am." Among other things, I am a Roman Catholic deacon. This is a public cyberspace in which I seek to foster Christian discipleship in the late modern milieu in the diakonia of koinonia and in the recognition that "the Eucharist is the only place of resistance to annihilation of the human subject."
Writing the other day in Great Britain's Catholic Herald newspaper, John Waters, as is his forte, focuses on what matters at a time when the focus by many in the Church is on what doesn't, what I call majoring in the minors. While hew writes specifically about Ireland, much of what he writes is transferable to other "advanced" Western countries, especially the U.S. and, I imagine, the Catholic Church in England, given how foundational the Irish were to the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church in both of these countries.
I think this, for example, finds some resonance in the U.S.:
The brand of Christianity purveyed by the Irish Church since the famines of the 1840s was rich in piety but poor in reason, which meant that in the end people regarded their priests more as a moral police force than the custodians of mystery in the world. Christ, at once the Chief of Police and yet manifestly incompatible with this moralism, became externalised and suffused in an aura of sentimentality
This not-so-old-school, but rather new and untenable form of Catholicism, mistaken by many as "that old-time religion," held sway among the largely Irish Catholics of England too. Morrissey wrote about how deeply about how distressfully off-putting this ultimately toxic form of religion, in the worst sense of the word, was for him in his Autobiography. His song "I Have Forgiven Jesus" is sort of about this. It's infantile, which is why it is easily outgrown and rejected.
I think permanent deacons, who have been described as clerics who largely live lay lives, can help overcome this. In fact, it would be ridiculous to argue that narrowing the breach between the Church and society in Western countries was one of the major reasons for restoring the renewed diaconate. I can't help but think Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin had this in mind when he established the diaconate in his diocese, and because he was the first bishop to so do, established it in Ireland. The Irish bishops sought and obtained permission from the Holy See to establish the diaconate as a permanent order on Emerald Isle in 2001, but Archbishop Martin ordained the first 8 deacons only in 2012.
The other day there was an article making the rounds on social media that posed the rhetorical question about whether reading Pater Tom (Merton) was dangerous for one's faith. The pre-determined conclusion was "Yes" and that reading him should either be avoided or done with great caution. One commentator even opined that Merton died when he did because God took him out- the Puritan god goes Catholic hunting? I would agree that reading Merton is dangerous, but not in the way the author of this puerile piece supposed. In my view, reading Merton poses just the kind of danger to which faith needs to be exposed.
In any case, perhaps with boring predictability, our Friday traditio is Morrissey singing "I Have Forgiven Jesus" from his brilliant 2005 "Who Put the 'M' in Manchester" concert. I have used this song before. Please forgive my repetition, which I don't see as being mindless.
Why did you give me
So much desire?
When there is nowhere I can go
To offload this desire
Despite the persistent efforts of many to by-pass, overlook, and/or ignore this fact, Christianity is a religion of paradox. For example, according to Christ, it is only those who forfeit their lives for the sake of the Gospel, that is, for love's sake, whose lives will be saved. Those who seek to save their own skin will lose their lives. In other words, the central paradox of the Christian faith can be stated as, the only way to live is by dying. The only way to witness to the Gospel is by selflessly laying down your life for love of God and neighbor. Not being ends in themselves, but means to ends, this is what practicing the disciplines of prayer, fasting, and alms-giving more intensley during this holy season is aimed at accomplishing. This is why to give witness is to be a martyr.
The only way beyond the Cross is through the Cross. You can't go over, around, or under it. This is why Jesus describes what it means to be his disciple thus: "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me" (Matt 16:24). Living a paradox requires a person to live a sort of tension. Another way to describe living a paradox is living a mystery.
Cutting to the chase, in today's Gospel it is the blind man who sees. He does not regain his sight after he washed off the saliva-infused clay in the waters of Siloam. He does not come to really see, or see things as they really are, until after he is tried, not once, but twice, and then thrown out. It was not until after he was tried, found wanting, and cast aside that Jesus "found" him"- "When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out," St. John tells us, "he found him and said, 'Do you believe in the Son of Man?' He answered and said, 'Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?' Jesus said to him, 'You have seen him, the one speaking with you is he.' He said, 'I do believe, Lord,' and he worshiped him" (John 9:35-38). When he says, "I do believe, Lord," is a sure sign he now sees.
After this, those who tried and cast out the man who was born blind also see Jesus; they behold him with their own eyes. Unlike the formerly blind man, who now truly sees because he "sees" who Jesus is, not only do they not believe, but they think Jesus is someone opposed to God because he breaks the Law by healing on the Sabbath. Jesus says to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin" (John 9:41a). In other words, if they had had no clues as to who Jesus is- their clue, as the formerly blind man had, in fact, taught them (something they rebuked him for trying to do), was his healing- they would have no culpability. They would have no culpability because it was not intuitively obvious to the casual observer who merely saw Jesus in passing that he was the Messiah, God's only begotten Son in the flesh, the Savior of world. Nonetheless, they insist that they can see and see things clearly, see things how they really are. It is their insistence that they could see despite being blind that caused their sin to remain. How do you heal a sick person who thinks he's well? How do you save someone who thinks she's saved?
In order to really see, we need to apprehend reality according to all the factors that together constitute it. God-made-man-for-us in the Incarnation of the Son of God is not just a factor that contributes to the make-up of reality, but, as Pope St. John Paul II insisted in the very first sentence of his fist encyclical, Redemptor hominis ("Redeemer of man"): "The Redeemer of man, Jesus Christ, is the center of the universe and of history." This is what it means to see.
One might say, in order to see you need to be blinded by the Light of Christ. Saul of Tarsus was blinded on the road to Damascus. It was not until after he arrived in Damascus and that faithful disciple, Ananias, laid hands on him that he regained his eyesight (Acts 9:17). In a reversal of what is presented in St. John's Gospel, it was only after Saul could see that he was washed- died, was buried, and rose with Christ- in and through the waters of baptism (Acts 9:18). It is only by amazing grace that you can live the Mystery of Christ. And the mystery of life in Christ is that Christ can live in you by the power of the Holy Spirit.
I feel a twinge, but just a twinge, of guilt for not posting anything this year in honor of the Solemnity of St. Joseph. Today is the second solemnity that falls during Lent: the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord. For those who like to do liturgical arithmetic, nine months from today the Church will celebrate the Lords' Nativity. For some reason, there seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding the nature of the Immaculate Conception, which Roman Catholics celebrate on 8 December, mistaking it for the Annunciation.
The Incarnation of the Son of God in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, who is also Mater Ecclesiae (i.e., Mother of the Church), means that, in addition to being "consubstantial," homoousios, one in being with the Father, Jesus, in his humanity, is also consubstantial with his mother and so with us. We call the Church's attempt to convey the mystery of Christ's full divinity and full humanity the hypostatic union. Of course, words, even poetry, which comes closest, always fall short of the mystery, which, by its nature eludes our secure grasp.
Yesterday I wrote about Heidegger's assertion that "historicity," that is, temporality, determines "the ground of [Da-sein's] being." Da-sein, again, is being capable of thinking about being. In his philosophy, Heidegger distinguishes between Sein (Being) and sein (being). Hence, Sein and sein refer to different aspects. Sein is Mystery that Da-sein can't help but ponder, whereas sein refers simply to the existence of some entity. One might say that in the Incarnation Sein and sein collided, creating a sort of metaphysical Big Bang. This collision has been described as "so earth-shattering that it enacts something akin to the psychoanalytic concept of trauma” on the world (Paul’s New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology 7). After the trauma inflicted by the Incarnation, Da-sein can never be the same.
Annunciation, by Matthew Whitney
In light of this, I think it can rightly be said that the Incarnation of the Son of God is the Mystery of mysteries. In an uncharacteristic manner, St. Paul points this out in an understated way: "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption" (Gal 4:4). If I am not mistaken, isn't this why we are to bow when, during our recitation of the Creed in the Eucharistic liturgy, we say the words, "and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man"?
In reading Guardini's reflection on the third Glorious Mystery of the Blessed Virgin's Most Holy Rosary- The Descent of the Holy Spirit- this morning, I was struck by these words:
The picture of Mary's later life serves as promise and security. It shows us that we must not take time too seriously, for if we have faith, eternity dwells in us (The Rosary of Our Lady 128)
Eternity can dwell in us because the mystery of life in Christ, only made possible by his Incarnation, is that Christ can dwell in you by the power of the Holy Spirit. As Michael Card, in his contemporary Christian song, "The Final Word," insightfully wrote: "And so the Light became alive and manna became Man/Eternity stepped into time so we could understand."
I think a fitting reflection for today's solemnity is one by Fr. Tomáš Halík from his book Patience with God:
The biosphere of Truth is mystery, inaccessible depths, and unreachable heights. Its homeland is the eschaton, the absolute future beyond the horizon of history - and its major role in the present is to be constantly in a state of opposition to our attempts to make absolutes out of some of our human attitudes, approaches, and opinions, which are limited by our own individual (not universal) experience
Nearly every Friday across most of the years I have blogged, I have posted and will continue to post what I call a traditio. Traditio, to remind both my readers, is a Latin noun that refers to the content of what is handed on. Tradere, by contrast, is a Latin verb denoting the act of handing on.
During Lent I have been dipping back into Heidegger’s seminal work, Sein und Zeit, which translates into English quite easily as Being and Time. What is great about dipping into this work is being able to dwell on what strikes me whenever I take a dip. Today I read the sixth section of the second part of Heidegger’s Introduction to Being and Time. He gave this section the title “The Task of a Destructuring of the History of Ontology.” In reading it, I was struck by his treatment of “tradition” that occurs in the course of his discussion on the “historicity” of Da-sein. In German "da" means "there" and "sein" means "being." Da-sein, to give a brief description, is a subject capable of considering its own subjectivity, or a being capable of thinking about being. The “tradition” Heidegger refers to in this section and throughout his work, through which he sought to recover the question of Being, is the Western metaphysical tradition. Heidegger held that this tradition had forgotten the question of Being, which, in his earlier lectures on metaphysics, he set forth as “Why are there beings rather no beings; something instead of nothing?” This question is clarified even further at end of the section of the Introduction to Being and Time under consideration: "What does being mean?"
After noting that the “historicity,” which I take to mean the inherent temporality hinting at the finitude of Da-sein, “can remain concealed from it,” he notes that Da-sein can “discover, preserve, and explicitly pursue tradition.” For Heidegger, “The discovery of tradition and the disclosure of what it ‘transmits’ [hands-on with regard to Being], and how it does this, can [and should, according to Heidegger] be undertaken as a task in its own right.”
Heidegger posited that because Da-sein is being-in-time, it “is determined by historicity.” Because Da-sein is being-in-time, “historicity” determines “the ground of its being.” So then, it is of necessity that Da-sein has a history. But history, or, more precisely, Da-sein’s historical memory, tends to forget. Just as, on Heidegger’s account, it forgot the question of Being, it forgets many other things too.
It is no great insight to point out that history usually conceals as much as it reveals. This is not just true with regard to the Western metaphysical tradition that Heidegger boldly and with some success sought to “destructure” by retrieving the question of Being, but with history in general. History, as it is handed-on, often consists of what might generously be called ironed out narratives, or simplifications that leave a lot out. Often what is left out, it might be argued, is not included because it is deemed unimportant. It is frequently the case, however, that things are left out, not because they are unimportant, but because they are inconvenient to the ideology being handed-on. This is not always conscious, even when the omission, which frequently and over time gives way to convenient additions and glosses, begins.
Take a story as well-known as Martin Luther’s initial presentation of his ninety-five theses. The narrative handed-on tells us that he made his objections to the sale of indulgences known by nailing them to the door of the church of the Holy Spirit in Wittenberg, Germany on 31 October 1517. It is this date we are commemorating this year as the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. But as Catholic Luther scholar, Erwin Iserloh, insisted way back 1961: the story is most likely a legend.
Iserloh noted that it was Philipp Melanchthon who first wrote about Luther’s bold hammering of his theses to the church door. But Melanchthon was not an eyewitness because he did not arrive in Wittenberg as a professor until the following year, 1518. Further, the story of nailing his theses to the church door did not appear for the first time until after Luther’s death. During his lifetime, Luther, who was quite dramatic in his speaking and writing, never made mention of having done this.
Luther’s theses were contained in a letter he wrote to his superiors on 31 October 1517. The title of Luther’s document was Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum. In it, he denounced the sale of indulgences. A disputatio was an invitation to dispute, or debate, a given subject. It’s easy to forget that Luther did not set out to create a schism in the church, or to become a heretic, but to clear up the misunderstandings that led to the gross abuse of indulgences. In response to the Augustinian friar and professor of Scripture’s proposed disputatio, the Catholic Church did not acquit itself very well. It was not until quite awhile later that Luther renounced his belief in indulgences altogether. Another example of “history’s forgetting” is set forth well by Gary L. Macy in his book The Hidden History of Women's Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West.
Where am I going with this? According to Heidegger in the section under consideration,
Da-sein grows into a customary interpretation of itself and grows up in that interpretation. It understands itself in terms of this interpretation at first, and within a certain range, constantly. This understanding discloses the possibilities of its being and regulates them. Its own past- and that always means that of its ‘generation’- does not follow after Da-sein but rather always already goes ahead of it
It is the awareness of this dynamic that allows Da-sein to interrogate and investigate the “customary interpretation” in which it has grown up, whether this is the metaphysical inheritance of the Hellenic/Roman/Christian West or the specific content of what is handed on as Christian tradition, which often depends heavily, too heavily some argue, on Greek and Roman thought. While the past, in a manner speaking, always beats Da-sein to the future, Da-sein’s ability to “better remember” the past can shape and form the future.
What is our traditio for this Friday in the Third Week of Lent? It’s James singing “Sit Down.”
Those who feel the breath of sadness
Sit down next to me
Those who find they're touched by madness
Sit down next to me
Those who find themselves ridiculous
Sit down next to me
Over the past month or so, I have been over-preparing for a lecture I am giving at a local parish tomorrow evening. The title of my presentation is "Diakonia and the Diaconate: Past, Present, and Future." The lecture, as you might imagine, is divided into three major sections: "The diaconate past"; "The diaconate present"; "The diaconate future". What is found below comes from the end of "The diaconate past" and beginning of the "The diaconate present" sections. It provides a very top-level overview of the history of the diaconate in the United States and the history of the order to which I belong in my own local church, the Diocese of Salt Lake City, which received 15 new deacons last month:
On 2 May 1968, shortly after Paul VI’s motu proprio [Sacrum diaconatus ordinem] paved the way for the establishment of the renewed diaconate, the bishops of the United States requested permission from the Holy See to establish the diaconate as a permanent order of ministry in this country. The justifications provided by the bishops for establishing the renewed diaconate in the U.S. were:
1. To complete the hierarchy of sacred orders and to enrich and strengthen the many and various diaconal ministries at work in the United States with the sacramental grace of the diaconate
2. To enlist a new group of devout and competent men in the active ministry of the Church
3. To aid in extending needed liturgical and charitable services to the faithful in both large urban and small rural communities
4. To provide an official and sacramental presence of the church in many areas of secular life, as well as in communities within large cities and sparsely settled regions where few or no priests are available
5. To provide an impetus and source for creative adaptations of diaconal ministries to the rapidly changing needs of our society
Newest deacons for the Diocese of Salt Lake City- Photo Intermountain Catholic
A little more than a year later, on 30 August 1968, the Holy See’s apostolic delegate to the United States informed the bishops that Pope Paul VI had granted their request.
In the Diocese of Salt Lake City, it was Bishop Joseph Lennox Federal, our sixth bishop, who established the permanent diaconate. He did this on 28 September 1974. Then-Father (later Monsignor) John Hedderman was in charge of forming our first deacons. He went on to serve as one of the early presidents of the National Diaconate Directors Association. On 26 December 1976, the Feast of St. Stephen, one of the seven men set apart by the apostles to serve the Christian community, who was martyred for his preaching, Bishop Federal, who was present at all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council, ordained the first deacons for the Diocese of Salt Lake City. In 1977, Bishop Federal ordained seven more men to the permanent diaconate. So, for the past forty-plus years, the permanent diaconate has thrived in our local church.
Diaconate present:
As of October 2016, there were 44,566 permanent deacons throughout the world. As of May 2015, there were approximately 18,500 permanent deacons in the United States. Of these about 14,600 were engaged in active ministry. Ninety-three percent of active deacons are currently married, while 4% of active deacons are widowed, and 3% have never married. After the ordination of our 15 newest deacons, permanent deacons now outnumber priests in the Diocese of Salt Lake City.
I preached today, but I am not posting my homily. In thinking about the readings for the Third Sunday of Lent, I am struck by thirst, hope, a well, and life-giving water.
Faith in Christ is your own deliverance from Egypt. This faith that St. Paul declares justifies, liberates you from sin and death. Sometimes, as with the Israelites of old, as you make your way through life's deserts, it is only natural to sometimes wonder, "Is the Lord with me or not?" What prompts this question are circumstances that suggest God may not be present, at least not in a way you expect or would like him to be.
In his book Patience with God, Fr. Tomáš Halík suggests that love happens when faith and hope have been obliterated. It's an interesting take and a fairly convincing one framed as it is in the life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux and rooted in St. Paul's discourse on the matter (1 Cor 13:1-13). While Halík provides a worthwhile discussion on the primacy of love, my own view remains a bit more synthetic. I agree that when a person learns to love perfectly s/he also knows perfectly and, therefore, faith and hope reach their destination as a person realizes her/his destiny.
I believe the question, "Is God with me or not?" ought to prompt two things. First, it ought to prompt one to call to mind what the Lord has already done for her, which includes how he did it. Second, it gives one the opportunity to become more mature in her faith. Maturity in faith enables us to use what is happening, even that which is unpleasant and causes suffering, for bringing about God's purposes in and through us. In light of today's readings, there seems to be an important sense in which the Dos Equis motto, "Stay thirsty," applies to faith.
Thirst, I think, easily relates to what St. Paul wrote to the Christians in ancient Rome in the passage that is our second reading. Hope is the aspiration for something not yet fully realized. What I believe distinguishes hope from wishing is trust. Trust can only be built through experience. This trust goes back to the fact that God did not free you in order to lead you into the desert to die. The experience of the ancient Israel is recapitulated in Jesus' forty days in the desert, where he was tempted. The apostle mentions the love of God being poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. God's love is life-giving water. It was created, sustains, and is now redeeming all that is. If hope is the flower of faith, then love is its ripe fruit.
God is mystery. As such God is unfathomable depth, the bottom of which you can never reach. But, as Luigi Giussani succinctly stated, human beings are a direct relationship with the Mystery. This is why the question "Why?" constitutes our humanity. It is the concrete manifestation of the fact we are made in God's image.
In Jesus, God, who is Mystery, became one of us. The Christian answer to the question posed in a song made popular by singer by Joan Osborne more than 20 years ago, "What if God was one of us?", is: "For us men [in the original Greek anthropos- neuter term for human being- in Greek the neuter is distinct from both the masculine and feminine, unlike English, in which it is identical to the masculine] and for our salvation, he came down from heaven and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man."
The life-giving water Jesus gives us is himself. He doesn't just want us to drink it, but to be immersed in the water, which refers to baptism and is a metaphor for the very life of God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For my money, the best definition of grace is God sharing divine life with us. Divine life is constituted by love. As Scripture conveys: "God is love" (1 John 4:8.16).
St. Teresa of Kolkata (a.k.a. Mother Teresa of Calcutta) took as her motto these words of Jesus: "I thirst." The Lord uttered these words as he hung on the cross (John 19:28). That Jesus thirsted for the Samaritan woman more than she thirsted for him is expressed well in the Preface for the Eucharistic Prayer for the Third Sunday in Lent:
When He asked the woman of Samaria for water to drink, Christ had already prepared for her the gift of faith. In His thirst to receive her faith He awakened in her heart the fire of Your love
Today is St. Patrick's Day. I always like to note that, in addition to being a deacon's son, Patrick was most likely a native Welsh speaker. As a young man he was captured and taken to Ireland as a slave. He escaped, became a priest, and went back to Ireland as a missionary. He is, without a doubt, a pan-Celtic saint. While St. Patrick's Day in the U.S. is a secular holiday largely consisting of the kind of excess that would make classic Celtic saints cringe, it is more of a religious observance in Ireland.
While I recognize it's probably a bit sanctimonious to say so, today I have been asking Venerable Matt Talbot to intercede for all who think and act as through the quintessence of being Irish, or any kind of Celt, is getting piss-pants drunk. If you drink, I have to say, no self-respecting Celt would drink something like Bud Light dyed green.
For what it's worth, today was a normal Lenten Friday for me, replete with abstinence, a good run, Stations of the Cross, the Sorrowful Mysteries of Our Lady's Rosary, soup and bread for supper with my parish. I did permit myself the indulgence of a Del Taco shrimp burrito for lunch. I also read Romano Guardini's short reflection on the first Sorrowful Mystery of the Blessed Virgin's Most Holy Rosary, which is Jesus' Prayer in the Garden. As I learned the Rosary, the spiritual fruit of this mystery is contrition for sin. It is a personal custom of some years now to pray the Act of Contrition after invoking each of the five Sorrowful Mysteries, just before the Our Father. What stuck with me from Guardini's reflection was this: "The hour of Gethsemane is inexhaustible. We must draw from it as much as our hearts can hold" (The Rosary of Our Lady 101).
Our tradito for this St. Patrick's Day is U2's "Bad" off their truly unforgettable album The Unforgettable Fire. Either this or a "A Sort of Homecoming" is my favorite song off this album. The Unforgettable Fire is my favorite U2 album, followed by All That You Can't Leave Behind. I picked a live version of "Bad" from their 1985 "Wide Awake in America" tour.
