The narrow path of wisdom and wonder

I read a post this morning in which the author, who I gather is something of a post-Christian Christian, writes about taking an apophatic approach to God as if nobody in the past 2,000+ years has ever conceived of such an approach. What does "apophatic" mean? Simply stated, an apophatic spirituality, as it were, is one that seeks God by way of negation. Some of our standard ways of talking about God are apophatic. For instance, when we say, "God is infinite," we're saying something negative about God. The prefix in is a negative one, meaning something like "without finitude." To say that "God is infinite" is to say that God is not bound by space. We say this now with knowing the universe, or space is expanding.

What I appreciate about post-Christian Christians, however, is their rejection of pious platitudes and smug certainties that comprise much popular Christian discourse, especially on social media. But many post-Christian Christians tend towards another kind of smugness, which I can only describe as "I've got it figured out by not having it figured out." Understood as something like, "The more I learn, the less I know," I have no problem with it. I certainly find this approach more attractive than its opposite. Very often implied in this kind of assertion is the belief that nothing can be figured out. In other words, such an approach can be too skeptical. I use "too skeptical" because I think we need to develop and maintain a healthy skepticism.

What the skepticism often exhibited by adherents to the school of "I've got it figured out by not having it figured out" has in common with the smug certainty of having it all figured out, is that its adherents labor under a confining set of preconceptions. In short, it is foolish to insist that there is no discoverable wisdom and perhaps even more foolish to think yourself possessed of it, especially in toto. To think you have it all greased is a sure sign you've reduced the Mystery to your own measure.

Loch and awe? Loch Awe in Scotland

The human existential condition is one of tension. This is why Christian orthodoxy primarily consists of maintaining the tension between two seemingly disparate things. At a fundamental level, the best example of this is one and three, as in one God in three divine persons; each person distinct from the other and yet together are one God, not three. The next most fundamental example would be one in two, as in one person in two natures, one human and one divine.

Something that appears to be self-contradictory but is understandable in a way that is not is called a paradox. Because it has to do with the Mystery of God-made-man-for-us, Christianity is inescapably a religion of paradox. It seems to me the central paradox of Christianity, existentially-speaking, is dying in order to live forever. Dying in order to live requires a rather heavy dose of apophaticism.

It is critically important to never lose one's capacity for wonder. Wonder is maintained by not smugly giving into skepticism on one hand and not settling for smug certainty on the other. Put in very bad poetic terms: the path of wonder that leads to wisdom winds between the Scylla of skepticism and the Charybdis of smug certainty.

Since I was too busy to post a Friday traditio yesterday, I am posting "The Eternal" by Joy Division:

Stood by the gate at the foot of the garden,
Watching them pass like clouds in the sky,
Try to cry out in the heat of the moment,
Possessed by a fury that burns from inside

Make an Appoinment with God*

Below are four basic points about prayer.

Being a Christian means being a person who prays.

In his book The Art of Praying, Romano Guardini, whose cause for sainthood will formally begin in Munich this December, averred that prayer is as important for the spiritual life of a Christian as breathing is for the biological life of every human being. If you can’t breathe, you die.

Prayer includes both speaking and listening.

I strongly believe it is as important to talk to God at least as much as you talk about God. If it’s important to talk to God at least as much as you talk about God, then it is as important to listen to God at least as much as you talk to God.

Prayer takes time.

Sure, we can and should pray “on-the-fly,” but we need to set aside time each day to spend with God. In a very short book, Appointment with God, published thirty years ago, Fr. Michael Scanlan, T.O.R. urged all Christians to make a daily appointment with God. Making time each day for God is what it means to practice prayer as a discipline.

I run across far too many people who insist that it isn’t possible to have a personal relationship with God. Relationships cannot even begin, let alone grow, if those involved don’t spend time together.

Prayer is important.

People who believe it isn’t possible to have a personal relationship with God tend to make God an intellectual problem, a mental construct, or an indifferent, benevolent, perhaps even malevolent force in the universe, depending on how things are going today. All of these are attempts, even if some are highly complex and sophisticated ones, to reduce God to human measure.

In baptism, God called you by name. God also called you by name when your baptismal identity was confirmed. Grace refers to God – Father, Son, and Spirit – sharing divine life with you. God is love (1 John 4:8.16). In short, God knows you and wants to be known by you.

In Christ, the Word became flesh. After his Ascension, specifically on the first Christian Pentecost, the Lord sent his Spirit in order to remain present not just among us, but in us and by taking up his dwelling in us to make himself present to others through us.

The English word “spirit,” as in “the Holy Spirit,” is a translation of the Greek word pneuma. Pneuma means breath. Prayer is the breath of Christian life. This is why each and very Christian needs to become a pray-er.

*This post originally appeared on The Boy Monk blog. It is expanded to include links to the books and reference to Guardini's cause for sainthood.

Lessons from the Lectionary: You are Christ's

Readings: Isa 45:1.4-6; Ps 96:1.3-5.7-10. 1 Thess 1:1-5b; Matt 22:15-21

The way the Order of Readings for Mass, more popularly known as "the Lectionary," is designed for Sundays in Ordinary Time (note that is Sundays in, not of, Ordinary Time) is that we read in a semi-continuous manner from the Synoptic Gospel on which we focus during any given year of the three-year cycle. This year being Year A, we focus on St. Matthew's Gospel. On Sundays in Ordinary Time, the Old Testament reading is chosen to harmonize with the Gospel.

In case you're curious, for the New Testament readings for Sundays in Ordinary Time, we read through the Letters of the New Testament also in a semi-continuous manner. Last week ended four consecutive weeks during which we read from St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians. Reading from Philippians came on the heels of reading from the Apostle's Letter to the Romans for 12 weeks. These twelve weeks were interrupted by the Feast of the Transfiguration on 6 August. During Year A, we are slated to read from Romans for sixteen consecutive weeks (Sundays 9-24 in Ordinary Time). This is always interrupted by Trinity Sunday and Corpus Christi. In addition to the Transfiguration falling on Sunday this year (it is a fixed feast, celebrated on 6 August- it trumps the Sunday in Ordinary Time on years it falls on a Sunday), there was no Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time this year because the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which ends Christmas for Roman Catholics in the U.S., fell on a Monday. We celebrated Trinity and Corpus Christi on what were the Tenth and Eleventh Sundays in Ordinary Time. This accounts for why 12 rather than 16. We will read from 1 Thessalonians from now through the Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, the penultimate Sunday of the liturgical year. Each liturgical year ends with The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.

While there was some effort made to harmonize the New Testament readings with the Old Testament and Gospel readings for Sundays in Ordinary Time, the main focus is on reading through the New Testament letters of St. Paul, St. James, and the Letter to the Hebrews in a semi-continuous manner. We read in a similar way from 1 Peter, 1 John, and Revelation during the Sundays of Easter in Years, A, B, & C respectively.

Okay, that's what you get when your faithful blogger spends a month preparing a class on the Lectionary for the Deacon Candidates of his diocese.

Without a doubt rendering to God what is God's is more difficult than rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's. How so? Well, in the end, nothing belongs to Caesar and everything belongs to God. This is made clear in our first reading. Our first reading is taken from the section of the Book of Isaiah known as Deutero-Isaiah. The Book of Isaiah, as we possess it now, consists of three books from the same prophetic school. These three books are cleverly referred to as First, Second, and Third Isaiah. More impressively, we call them Proto-, Deutero-, and Trito-Isaiah. Proto-Isaiah, which consists of words from Isaiah ben-Amoz, the prophet Isaiah himself, consists of the first thirty-nine chapters of the book and date from before the Babylonian exile of Israel. This exile spanned from ~597-538 B.C. Deutero-Isaiah, in the prophetic "school" of Isaiah, consists of chapters 40-55 and was likely written during the exile, but towards its end. Trito-Isaiah (chapters 56-66) are post-exilic, dating from after this exile.

Our first reading for today sits comfortably in Deutero-Isaiah. Cyrus the Great, the king of an expansive empire, is the ruler referred to in today's reading as God's "anointed," which means Messiah. Cyrus is the only non-Jew in the Bible referred to as God's anointed. By all accounts, judged by the standards of the ancient Near East, he was a benevolent ruler. What this reading, when harmonized with today's Gospel, is meant to show us is that God works his design even through those, like Cyrus, who do not know him. Those who do not know God do not worship him or seek to self-consciously follow his commandments. Stated more succinctly, Cyrus (and Caesar) is subject to God whether they acknowledge God or not. This reading ends with the statement, made by God through his prophet: "I am the LORD, there is no other" (Isa 45:6). Or, as our responsorial Psalm puts it: "For all the gods of the nations are things of nought" (Ps 96).

I think our New Testament reading from St. Paul's First Letter to the Thessalonians can be harmonized with our reading from Isaiah, our Psalm, and the Gospel. Further, I believe it can be harmonized in a way that is most relevant to us now. Our point of departure is rendering to God what is God's. As much as everything belonging to God, everyone belongs to God. A Christian is a person who not only understands she belongs to God, but who willingly acknowledges this and submits herself to God out of love for God, which extends to love of neighbor. In our first reading, the prophet tells us Israel was chosen by God. The Church, which, according St. Paul and her own self-understanding, is the new and true Israel, is chosen by God. This is what the Apostle meant when he wrote: "knowing, brothers and sisters loved by God, how you were chosen" (1 Thess 1:4).

St. Paul reminded the Church in ancient Thessaloniki that the Gospel is not mere words or even conviction, but come in power and in the Holy Spirit. In other words, the Gospel is spread by witness, not by words. Another word for witness is martyr.

Rendering to God what is God's means giving ourselves to God for service to others in imitation of Christ regardless of circumstances or consequences. When we talk about participating in Mass we tend to focus on what we receive, which is nothing less than Christ himself whole and entire- body, blood, soul, and divinity. as we like to phrase it. We need to also be attuned to what we give in return- ourselves whole and entire- body, blood, soul, and humanity. In Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Father takes our nothingness and makes it a powerful force- the force of love, which is neither a force of violence nor of political coercion.

Some early Christians who chose to be brutally martyred rather than put a pinch of incense on coals as an act of worship to the emperor understood well what the Lord taught in today's Gospel: Jesus is Lord, not Caesar. As the Apostle wrote in his First Letter to the Corinthians, which is the only one of his letters we read during each of the years of the Sunday lectionary cycle:

So let no one boast about human beings, for everything belongs to you, Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or the present or the future: all belong to you, and you to Christ, and Christ to God (1 Cor. 3:21-23)

"Don't turn your back now I'm talking to you"

As I mention quite frequently, traditionally (and for many of us contemporaneously) Friday is a day of penance for Christians. Morning Prayer for Friday, regardless of which week of psalter (Weeks I-IV), begins with Psalm 51, known as the Miserere. The Psalm begins-

Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness.
In your compassion blot out my offense.
O wash me more and more from my guilt
and cleanse me from my sin

I don't really have anything to add about Harvey Weinstein. I really don't want to weigh on the many inconsequential dramas that rage these days. I do want to say a word about the #MeToo campaign in light of today being a day of penance. As James Simpson wrote in his article "Men: Women Spoke Up. How Will We Respond?"- "As a man, I am responsible for this. At worst, I have actively engaged in this behavior, and at best I have stood passively by as I watched it happen." I have stood by or remained silent when I should've stood up and stepped in. To my shame, I have objectified and demeaned women.

Sadly, hostility towards women seems as prevalent now as it's ever been, at least since I've been socially aware. Our Lord Jesus Christ was revolutionary in how he related to women and how he included them.

I find something that priest and theologian Addison Hodges Hart noted very disheartening:

What I have found curious is how many self-identifying "conservative" (and even "Christian") men have reacted negatively to the #MeToo testimonies. Now that popular culture is reacting against our pornified, licentious, and abusive society, shouldn't there be some gratification on their part in knowing that the pendulum is swinging in another, possibly better direction? But there is, in too many instances, a knee-jerk reaction to anything perceived as "liberal" or -- and here's the real deal -- in opposition to hyper-masculine phoniness and "male privilege" (a phrase that rankles males who have apparently never quite achieved genuine adult manhood)

I have seen that this week first-hand. It bothers me and I have not let it go unchallenged. The response we need, my brothers in Christ, is not more sentimental pseudo-chivalrous nonsense, which itself is rather sexist. Let's face it, how can we offer to protect women when men are who they need protection against? As Catholic writer Rebecca Bratten-Weiss put it: it's like a mafia protection racket. Sounds about right to me.

If you're serious, start by reading this: "Men, you want to treat women better? Here's a list to start with."

Our Friday traditio is Patti Smith singing "Pissing in a River." It isn't particularly related to the theme of this post. But Patti is such a great artist. She is so comfortable in her own skin.

As Addision further noted: "There's nothing wrong with admitting complicity and practicing repentance." Since this week, the Twenty-eight in Ordinary Time, we are in Week IV, our reading for Evening Prayer was Romans 8:1-2: "There is no condemnation now for those who are in Christ Jesus. The law of the spirit, the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, had freed you from the law of sin and death."

Year A Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isa 25:6-10a; Ps 23:1-6; Phil 4:12-14.19-20; Matt 22:1-14

If God promised us a banquet then why does it seem we so often experience famine? In light of today’s readings, we can discern two reasons for this. First, based on our reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, it is rooted in the fact that this life is incomplete. The second reason arises from the refusal to accept, or perhaps even realize, this fact and so refuse what God so graciously gives us, which is nothing less than himself, nothing less than hope.

Writing to the Church in Philippi, St. Paul, who at that time was a prisoner, either in Rome, Ephesus, or Caesarea, told them he had “learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry” (Phil 4:12). Judging by this passage, the secret of living a life not tied to material wealth or ease of circumstances, is trusting God completely to supply “whatever you need, in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:19).

In this passage, Paul described what can only be verified in reality through experience, something that can’t be systematized, something to which many saints bore witness: in Christ, you can experience a famine as a feast. Traditionally, fasting, one of the core spiritual disciplines taught to us by the Lord himself, a discipline that has practically vanished among Christians in wealthy countries, was practiced to help Christians experience this for themselves.

Our reading from Philippians chapter four skips from verse 14 to verse 19. In verses 15-18 the Apostle lauded the Church in Philippi for coming to his aid during his imprisonment. While he thanked them for their help, he was primarily grateful for how their charity toward him accrued to their account and not to his. Remember, he was fine going without. Because he was the one who brought them the Gospel, he referred to their charity towards him and towards each other his as “full payment” (Phil 4:18). The aid they sent to Paul was brought to him by a man named Epaphroditus. In receiving what Epaphroditus brought, he received “a ‘fragrant aroma,’ an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God” (Phil 4:18).

I don’t think I am going too far out on a limb to state that what Paul found so pleasing about the aid the Church in Philippi sent him was that they sent it at great sacrifice to themselves. He was moved by their willingness to go without in order to help someone in need. Whenever we do this, it is a fragrant aroma, a sacrifice acceptable to God.

Turning to our Gospel, it is important whenever Jesus begins a parable with the words “The kingdom of heaven is like,” or, as in our reading today, “The kingdom of God may be likened to,” we need to pay close attention. We also need to attend to the context.

As with last week’s Gospel, the Parable of the Vineyard, the Parable of the Wedding Banquet is addressed to the elders and chief priests. We must also keep in mind that Matthew’s Gospel was written in and for a largely, but likely not exclusively, Jewish Christian community, what can rightly be referred to as a Christian synagogue.

Adoration of the Lamb: Ghent Altar Piece, by Jan Van Eyck, between 1425-1429

Like the Parable of the Vineyard, the Parable of the Wedding Banquet is an allegory. God the Father is the King. His son for whom the wedding feast is thrown is Jesus. His servants, once again, are the prophets.

The invited guests are the Israelites, God’s chosen people. The Church, which is comprised of people from everywhere, Jews and Gentiles alike, are those whom the servants are sent forth to round up when the invited guests were too busy to come to the banquet and so were vanquished by the king.

By no means is it pushing things too far to extend this parable from Israel to the Church, which St. Paul conceived of as the new and true Israel. The banquet is nothing other than the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. Who is the bride? Christ’s Bride is the Church. Without a bride there can be no wedding. In the end, the Church, Christ’s Bride, to mix metaphors, is comprised not of those who were invited to the banquet, but those who come.

Every week Christ issues you an invitation to the banquet of the Eucharist. Our participation in Mass, at least to some extent, is a participation in the feast to come, but, living as we do between the already and the not-yet, it is not a full participation, but an anticipation.

What about the guy not wearing a wedding garment? Pope St. Gregory the Great, in a sermon on this passage, likened the wedding garment to the white garment we received when we were baptized. We are presented the garment with the exhortation to bring it unstained into the kingdom of heaven. Given our propensity to sin, how do we do keep our white garment unstained? The truth of the matter is, we can’t do it on our own. We need God’s help. The help God gives us we call grace. In fact, we can only perform the works of charity for which St. Paul commended the Philippians because of God’s grace. How do we receive the grace we need? We receive God’s grace through the sacraments. Hence, going to confession regularly and participating in Mass frequently are not just important, but necessary.

If you are too busy doing other things to accept God’s gracious invitation now, what makes you think that, unlike those in the parable, you will be ready when the Bridegroom returns? This prompts the question; how did Paul receive the strength from God he needed to live the often-difficult circumstances his apostolic ministry caused him to face?

Mass connects the already of God’s kingdom to the not-yet we live each day, especially those difficult circumstances that constitute our crosses. Participating in Mass allows us to face up to the incompleteness of this life and to experience the goodness God has in store for those who love him enough to accept his invitation, which goodness is described so beautifully in our reading from Isaiah and in Psalm 23, our responsorial today.

“Mass” comes from the Latin word missa as found in the words of the Latin dismissal, said at the end of the liturgy: Ite, missa est (“Go, the dismissal is made, or, more colloquially, “Go, you’re dismissed”). At the end of Mass, you are dismissed, sent forth, to make Christ, not only known, but present wherever you go and in whatever circumstances you find yourself.

We receive the strength we need from God to live our circumstances by gathering together for Eucharist, which means “to give thanks.” We are strengthened by our fellowship, our listening to God’s word, and receiving Christ together in Holy Communion. It is our participation in Mass that makes our sacrificial service outside of Mass a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice to God and allows us to be Christ’s co-workers in the redemption of the world. It is how we live the already in the not-yet. It gives us hope, especially when we are tempted to despair. Christ is our hope.

"Save me from tomorrow"

Last night I found myself stranded somewhere between amusement and frustration - a place I find myself often these days (daze?). As a result of finding myself in this weird place, I posted on Facebook: "I think it is important to live one's life in such a way that one is spring-loaded to lose one's shit when there is any news with which one disagrees either from the realm of the sacred or secular.

"I am pretty sure such an existential stance flows directly from the writings of the desert fathers."

Every day the world keeps turning, history keeps happening. Understandably this generates a lot of fear for a lot of people. It occurred to me, yet again, that Jesus is either the Lord of the here and now or he is not Lord at all. At one point in St. Luke's Gospel, Jesus asked: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" (Luke 18:8)

Faith and hope go together. I find it useful to think about hope as the flower of faith and charity as their fruit. My point here is, without hope there is no faith. Faith overcomes fear by means of hope. Though he wrote it with reference to the fear generated by the death of the first generation of Christians in ancient Thessaloniki, whose passing caused the surviving Christians there to question whether the Lord was going to return, I think St. Paul words apply to our current predicament: we should "not grieve like the rest, who have no hope" (1 Thes 4:13).

Our Friday traditio is World Party's "Ship of Fools."

To wit: we're not saved from tomorrow, or today, or yesterday, but we're saved through each day.

More on Luther and the Holy See

Whose work informs my views on Luther, his theses and Cardinal Cajetan? Well, that of many scholars both Protestant and Catholic. Most recently, Dr Seymour House, who teaches at Mount Angel Seminary in Oregon, introduced me to the work of Fr. Jared Wicks, SJ. Fr. Wicks's doctoral dissertation, directed by none other than one Joseph Ratzinger, was on Luther. Published back in the 1980s, it was revolutionary for Catholic Reformation scholarship. Here's the best thing I could find on Fr. Wicks to pass along on short notice: "An Interview with Jared Wicks, S.J., Catholic scholar of Luther."

As far as Martin Luther and Cardinal Thomas Cajetan- they encountered each other from 12-18 October 1518 in Augsburg, Germany. Cajetan was sent on a mission: to get the troublesome Augustinian to recant what had been deemed heretical in his 95 Theses and his other public pronouncements, particularly his Sermon on Indulgences and Grace, up until that time. This was not an academic disputatio, but an inquisition. Luther approached it as such, which is to say ready to fight.

Suffice it to say, when it comes to Luther, theological reasoning did not win the day, which was hardly surprising given the politics and the sorry state of the Church at the time. To state that Leo X's interpretation of Luther's teaching as set forth in 41 condemned theses in Exsurge Domine leave something to be desired is merely to re-state a widely held scholarly view. While Exsurge dealt with more of Luther's teachings than those found in his 95 theses, it is not controversial to assert that the bull did not do a good job in of capturing Luther's theological concerns and so did not adequately deal with them. This, in turn, calls into question at least some of the grounds on which he was condemned as a heretic.

Prior to his 95 Theses, Luther had published nothing. This was not usual for professors of the day. The printing press was still relatively new and the printing business would only find its economic footing as the result of Martin Luther's prolific efforts and his deep involvement in the layout and publication of his works. While printers made a lot of money off Luther's writings, as an author he did not.

Between the publication of his theses and his encounter with Cardinal Cajetan, Luther had only published his Sermon on Indulgences and Grace in March 1518. Between October 1518 and the promulgation of Exsurge Domine there was only the disputation in Leipzig at which Luther spoke.

I suppose an example is in order. So, below are the first two of Luther's 95 theses:

When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, "Repent" (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance

This word cannot be understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, that is, confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy

Luther preaching in Wittenberg

In Exurge Domine, Pope Leo X clearly had no problem with thesis 1. Keeping in mind Luther was first and foremost a Bible scholar, who knew Koine Greek and was highly proficient in Hebrew, his assertions in both theses likely seemed reasonable not only to him but some other Catholic theologians of the day as well. But at the very beginning of his Sermon on Indulgences and Grace, Luther, a Biblical humanist who took his cue from St. Bernard of Clairvaux (a must read for anyone who wants to grasp Luther's Catholicism is Franz Posset's Pater Bernhardus: Martin Luther and Bernard of Clairvaux), took the scholastics to task when he stated:

First, you should know that some new teachers, such as the Master of Sentences, St. Thomas [Aquinas], and their disciples, divide [the Sacrament of] Penance into three parts: contrition, confession, and satisfaction. And, although this distinction and opinion of theirs is scarcely or not at all to be found based in Holy Scripture or in the ancient holy Christian teachers, nevertheless we will pass over this for now and speak using their categories

This is what likely led to this condemnation, the fifth one, found in Exsurge Domine:

That there are three parts to penance: contrition, confession, and satisfaction, has no foundation in Sacred Scripture nor in the ancient sacred Christian doctors

In his work On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, published in October 1520, not only after the promulgation of Exsurge, but after the 60 days the bull gave him to recant, along with Baptism and Eucharist, Luther affirmed Penance as a sacrament. Now, Luther's view as to how the sacrament is efficacious in light of his Sermon certainly prompts questions. But to assert that penance conceived of as contrition, confession, and satisfaction is not scriptural or even all that traditional is not necessarily to deny these elements are consistent with revelation. In fact, Luther did not deny the first two at all. He unequivocally held that one should be sorry for one's sins and confess them. The issue, therefore, became that of satisfaction. Luther's problem with satisfaction arose from how indulgences were sold. Indulgences were marketed as doing away with the need for satisfaction. It is fair to say he also had a problem with how satisfaction was conceived of by the schoolmen: performing good works in order to be forgiven.

By focusing on the importance of contrition for sin, Luther held that being truly sorry for one's sins led one to do good works, that is, pray, fast, and give alms. Here is what Luther said in his Sermon:

No one can defend the position with any passage from Scripture that God’s righteousness desires or demands any punishment or satisfaction from sinners except for their heartfelt and true contrition or conversion alone—with the condition that from that moment on they bear the cross of Christ and practice the aforementioned works (but not as imposed by anyone)

For this Bible scholar, what else could Jesus's call to metanoia mean except to be sorry for one's sins, to have a change of mind and heart, to be contrite and be converted? In essence, what Luther's attempted reform was about was the conversion of Christians, the interior movement of the Spirit as opposed to merely external observances.

It must be admitted that Luther's temperament after Augsburg and Leipzig was such that when challenged he was prone to take his positions to their extremes. One can see this in his disputation with Erasmus concerning Christian freedom.

One might also explore Luther's condemnation in Exsurge (condemnation 2) on the ground that he held infants, after Baptism, still suffered the effects of original sin in light of the Catholic Church's teaching on concupiscence, which also seeks to explain why Christians continue to sin after Baptism.

With that, apart from my remarks for my presentation in November on What the Catholic Church Learned from the Reformation, I have done my due diligence as a Catholic blogger to observe the 500th anniversary of the publication of Luther's 95 Theses.