Sunday 11 November 2018

"Thar she blows!" - The Surprising Spirit of Vatican II

Mass notes – Sunday, September 30, 2018 – 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.” Another Sunday, another mass, another homily. This Sunday our priest shows us photos of two similar looking churches, one Catholic and one Lutheran, and among other things he tells us, “Before Vatican II (that wonderful council!) we used to think those Lutherans across the street were missing out on something Sunday morning... Hopefully we’re not so arrogant now!”

Whereby we might conclude: The Lutherans were not/are not missing out on anything. But they were/are missing out on the Eucharist (not to mention four other sacraments). Therefore, in Father’s supposedly Vatican II-enlightened eyes, the Eucharist is nothing.

And yet Vatican II teaches that the Eucharist is the “source and summit (or fount and apex) of the whole Christian life” (Lumen gentium, 11) and that Lutherans are among those who “have not retained the proper reality of the Eucharistic mystery in its fullness” (Unitatis redintegratio, 22). So clearly, according to Vatican II, the Lutherans are missing out on something, something important – and thus, also clearly, so is Father.

What Father gave us was a fine example of the classic “liberal-progressive” (misleading labels, really) hermeneutic of pretending to embrace, advocate, champion Vatican II by warmly praising it, making oblique references to it, and ignoring what it actually says while saying stuff that really contradicts it.

Now Father also said they used to think that the Lutherans were pretty much “wasting their time” Sunday morning. By the lights of Vatican II, that would be going too far, and he could have called that arrogant (or something less judgmental – simply ignorant, perhaps, or ill-informed, or exaggerated), and should have left it at that. But instead he dropped in the clearly false and badly un-ecumenical remark that it’s arrogant even to think the Lutherans are missing out on anything. (Presumably he would think arrogant also anyone who thought he was missing out on anything?) But Father’s claim is clearly an example of false irenicism  in the earthier paraphrase of South Park's Cartman: “God-damn hippies!” – of which Vatican II says:

Nothing is so foreign to ecumenism as that false irenicism, in which the purity of Catholic doctrine suffers damage and its genuine and certain sense is obscured. (Unitatis redintegratio, 11)

Instead of showing concern for the “purity of Catholic doctrine” (anathema sit!), Father’s claim actually implied that the real teachings of Vatican II are arrogant, even while he pretended that he was just teaching us what those Vatican II teachings are.

This manner of preaching is hardly in the spirit of Vatican II (is it?), which teaches the great importance of priests speaking truthfully and accurately in the service of genuine ecumenism.

Sacred theology and other branches of knowledge, especially of a historical nature, must be taught with due regard for the ecumenical point of view, so that they may correspond more accurately with the truth of things. It is of great importance that future shepherds and priests should have mastered a theology that has been worked out accurately in this way, not polemically, especially in matters that concern the relations of separated brethren with the Catholic Church. For it is largely upon the formation of the priests that the necessary instruction and spiritual formation of the faithful and of religious depends. (Unitatis redintegratio, 10, emphasis added)

So Father seems to have ignored what Vatican II really says about our separated brethren, the Lutherans. He even seems to have forgotten about the importance of the Eucharist. His is a theology polemically worked out to oppose the very Church he is supposed to serve! (Is this an OFM thing? Or a Richard Rohr (OFM) thing? Father’s favorite(?) Franciscan guru writes, for example: “You do not create your True Self [full consciousness of True Self is salvation in Rohr’s thought], or earn it, or work up to it by any moral or ritual behavior whatsoever. It is all and forever mercy for all of us and all the time, and there are no exceptions.” So no wonder if Father doesn’t evince much regard for “ritual behavior” like the Eucharist.) But again, recalling my previous comments (see here), if one understands the mass to be just a kind of ‘community meal’ (one that’s certainly weirdly orchestrated and poorly catered) presided over by the priest, then naturally the priest or preacher or pastor and his sometimes idiosyncratic views may move to become the centre of attention, the central reality animating the community gathering, and it may become hard to see any value-added in the actual real sacramental presence of Christ in the Eucharist, or any loss if you were to go across the street to the Lutheran service. Really, if it’s all about the pastor, chances are the Lutheran pastor will be just as likeable as his Catholic counterpart (maybe more likeable! – and he’ll probably have a wife, who will probably also be lovely), his jokes will be just as funny (maybe funnier!), and the show he runs just as enjoyable (maybe more enjoyable!). At that point we’re into the free-market form of Church, of religious faith experience, which prevails among Protestants.


So in essence our (Catholic) priest shamelessly called anyone who actually believes and embraces the Catholic faith arrogant. (Note that this kind of thing doesn’t necessarily jive well with other rhetoric about “welcoming everyone.”) Now he didn’t actually say that, in those words. It’s just that that was an obvious logical implication of what he did say.  But to be fair, maybe he’s just not good at logic.

But that’s where many people might need to stop and consider in a way they may not have before: What is logic, anyway? What is it good for? Is it mostly an amusingly alien approach to thinking practiced principally by overly sophisticated, emotionally stunted philosophy professors, those ivory tower archetypes of Star Trek’s, pointy eared, strangely eye-browed, ever-amusing Mr. Spock? Or, is logic actually a basic tool of reason, something fundamental to being human, and to becoming a mature and indeed good human being? Well yes, that’s right, you guessed it: it’s the latter!

This fact about logic is well illustrated by Father’s preaching: because he is apparently not good at (or more likely, willfully ignores) logic, he is incapable of other forms of goodness: truthfulness, sincerity, honesty; and he is incapable of avoiding hypocrisy, incapable of effectively preaching the divine word, the logos who became flesh, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the faith of the Church.

[Objection: Is it that he is incapable of these things, or that he just doesn’t want them? Reply: Intellect and will never function in isolation. When someone vitiates his ability to reason well, he also vitiates his ability to want well; if you reject logic so as to render yourself incapable of knowing the good, you correspondingly render yourself incapable of willing the good.]

Now certainly this is true to some extent for all of us who are still sinners. All of us fall short of the glory of God. The problem with a priest who is more fundamentally a disciple of ‘Cosmic Christ’ (i.e., Richard Rohr), than of Jesus Christ, is that he can’t just be a regular Christian sinner, who knows he’s a sinner, who repents of his sins, and tries to sin no more. Why? Because he has really fundamentally rejected Christ, rejected reason and logic, and is instead actively attacking logic – as well as whichever large chunks of scripture and of things like the teachings of Vatican II he dislikes. He is being illogical, but not just being illogical; he is also actively advancing an ideological framework that undermines logic and castigates people who continue to respect and to strive to cultivate logic and respect for truth. He serves a crudely militant post-modernism. He accumulates a life experience that is essentially formed through the lens of his crude ideology, and then he deifies himself and his own experience as the consciousness (admittedly intermittent) of his own True God-self. He can’t distinguish greatness of soul from delusions of his own gnostical grandeur. And insofar as he continues to function as a Catholic priest and represent himself as a Christian, as a Catholic believer, he is unavoidably hard-pressed not to become a liar (about the teachings of Vatican II, for example) and a hypocrite (arrogantly calling those who disagree with him arrogant and immature, for example).

Now all this talk of logic, illogic, lies, and hypocrisy might strike some people as awfully drastic and perhaps melodramatic and overwrought. Which is to say, this kind of frank discussion of reality is apt to make people uncomfortable and fearful. “Help! Conflict! Negativity! Can’t we just look the other way and all get along? Wouldn’t that be the ‘mature’ thing to do? Can’t we just focus on the positives?” Accordingly, discussing this kind of thing is likely to elicit psychological defenses that will dampen one’s discomfort and fear, perhaps through scoffing rationalization, through dismissal of such immature and merciless perfectionism, or through anger or counter-attack. It might take a conscious effort, then, to serenely listen and ponder, in sincere openness and devotion to the truth, trusting that it has the power to set us free. And the truth can set us free.

But the problem is, if we have yet to come to know the truth, it’s often because we don’t love the truth, and if we don’t love the truth, if we are actually devoted to undermining truth and the way to truth (logos: the way, the truth, and the life), we are very likely to instead fear and hate and indeed bury the truth, including the truth about our own fear and hatred of the truth! For the word of God, the truth, is sharp, sharper than any two-edged sword, it pierces us, and accuses us of sins against our training (etc.). “I have not come to bring peace upon the earth but a sword!” Thus considered, it is no wonder, it’s actually quite understandable, that the truth so often elicits an allergic reaction, is so often hated and feared and dismissed as unfashionable, impolite, arrogant, irrelevant, antiquated, immature, unmerciful, a manifestation of False Self, etc. So while we should seek earnestly to love the truth ourselves, we can also see the grounds for cultivating a spirit of mercy towards those who want mercy instead of truth, who think that the way to be, say, merciful, or ecumenical, or humble, or mature, or loving, is to tell lies and to scorn logic.

Now it might come as a surprise to some people that a Catholic priest preaching at a Catholic mass is disparaging the Catholic faith and dismissing the faith of his parents, and grandparents, and the fathers and doctors and saints and popes of the Church throughout history, etc., and even his former self, as merely arrogant! So that seems pretty arrogant, and moreover hypocritical. Sure. But is it surprising?

That’s a trickier question, but – lo and behold – it seems Father maybe sort of saw it coming. Accordingly, a major theme of his preaching was about how surprising God always is. God is always surprising us! We should be surprised if we’re not surprised! So (sous-entendu?) if anything Father says surprises you (shocks, disgusts, scandalizes, bemuses, confuses you), that’s God speaking! Well. Maybe.

So yes, the Holy Spirit blows where he wills. And yes, we have all indelibly received the mark of the Holy Spirit in baptism, so that even darling baby Adolph Hitler received the anointing to become priest, prophet, and king. But, just because something was true for Eldad and Medad back in Moses’ day (the Spirit actually empowered them to prophesy – see the first reading for the day, Numbers 11), it won’t necessarily turn out to be true for You-dad, Me-too-dad, and every-dang-body else too! It’s also possible that someone could come along with another gospel, trying to pervert the gospel of Christ (see Galatians 1) – as well as the teachings of that most wonderful of Church councils, Vatican II. Right, Father? Of course!

As for the gospel (see Mark 9), there John asks Jesus if he should stop a man from casting out demons in Jesus’ name, since this man “was not following” with them. So on Father’s interpretation, it seems John was surprised that God would be working through this other guy who wasn’t in their group, hadn’t received any formal commission, etc. More plausibly, perhaps, John may have been surprised that this other guy would be acting in the name of Jesus without being a follower of Jesus. As Chrysostom comments:

It was not as moved by jealousy or ill-will [or merely by surprise, for that matter] that John hindered the one who was casting out demons; rather he wanted that all who invoked the name of the Lord should follow Christ, and should be one with his disciples [think “ut unum sint” (John 17) – clearly also what the Lord wanted]. But the Lord, through those who work miracles, even if they be unworthy, summons others to faith, and through this ineffable grace induces these others to become better; whence it continues: “But Jesus said to them, ‘Do not hinder him.’”
[Non autem zelo, seu invidia motus Ioannes prohibebat illum qui Daemones expellebat; sed volebat quod omnes qui nomen domini invocabant, sequerentur Christum, et essent cum discipulis unum. Sed dominus per hos qui miracula faciunt, licet sint indigni, alios provocat ad fidem, et ipsosmet per hanc ineffabilem gratiam inducit ut fiant meliores; unde sequitur Iesus autem ait: nolite prohibere eum.]  


In Father’s homily the forgotten part of the day’s gospel reading (surprise!) was: “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me” – and implied here: you are free to do so – “it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea!” Well! God knows best, but it looks to me like a guy who preaches that those who don’t have the Eucharist aren’t missing out on anything and calls those who think they are missing out arrogant, that guy looks like a good candidate for someone who might be putting a stumbling block before those who believe. And Father is free to believe Richard Rohr and think otherwise; but if we believe Jesus Christ in the gospel, he won’t be free to avoid facing the consequences, in comparison to which our loving Lord tells us to prefer our necks in a millstone at the bottom of the sea. Nice image! It might give one pause.

Thursday 4 October 2018

Stage center, Richard Rohr, OFM

Mass notes: Sunday, September 23, 2018 – 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This week I think I may have gained some important insight into the hermeneutical presuppositions (i.e., ideology) of the priest (and deacon) at our new parish. This is because he quite forthrightly based his preaching on the thought of Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, a New Mexico-(where else?)-based fellow with more than a few disciples, who has been described, probably quite aptly, as a new-age heretic. “Has anyone read his books?” Father asked the pew-sitters. Evidently some people had. “Yes? Yes? Good, good!” Well, hardly surprising, especially in our parish, which comes equipped, since 2015, with a Sacred Garden featuring a labyrinth – usually a good clue that some significant movers and shakers at the parish have moved ‘beyond’ the traditional apostolic Christian faith and on to some form of ‘alternative orthodoxy’ (as Rohr describes his own thought). And certainly Rohr’s books pair well with the scandalous fine collection of Sister Joan Chittister books displayed in the church lobby.

Father preached on Richard Rohr’s teaching about something like “the four stages of maturity of a spiritual (possibly Christian) community.” Given what he wanted to say, Father naturally took bits of the 2nd reading from James and from the gospel, Mark’s, as his points of departure: “Where there is envy and selfish ambition [contentio], there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. … Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from?” (James 3:16; 4:1) “Jesus asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. Jesus sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’” (Mark 9:33-35)

So, Father noted, James was writing to a dysfunctional Christian community; cue Richard Rohr and the four stages of development of maturity in community. I can’t remember exactly what they were – someday I’ll be less occupied with kids at mass and I’ll be able to take notes – but it was something like: (1) honeymoon (“I love these people!”); (2) disillusionment (“These people are selfish, disgusting sinners!”); (3) resignation (“I guess I still have to try to love these selfish, disgusting sinners (after all, technically I’m one of them)”); (4) finally just being kind and cool with everyone (“Just whatever, man, just be, it’s all good! Would you like some more soup?”). Well, something fairly amusing like that anyway. (Father's big on jokes and bonhomie, he's a good guy, not a ‘sourpuss,’ as they say.)

Father’s (Rohr’s) schema seemed a little vague, a little contrived, and perhaps with a hint of the insidious. It’s the kind of schema that is open to being subtly developed in a rather demagogical direction, to where the pew-sitters are encouraged to believe that it just would be ‘immature’ of them were they (1) too in love with their community (I don’t think this possibility is emphasized); or more importantly were they (2) to be critical of sin or challenge doctrinal error – the way that Jesus of Nazareth did.

So, next obvious question: Was Jesus of Nazareth (before he became Richard Rohr's resurrected ‘Cosmic Jesus’) spiritually ‘immature’? Presumably not, Father? But then hopefully you see what I mean when I say the schema seems vague, contrived, and perhaps insidious. Rohr – and presumably with him his adepts – seems to regard himself as mature (or rather, as the veritable icon of a “great advance in human maturity”), daring, great-souled; and subversive, certainly, but not insidious. But of course reality may not be quite what he thinks.

And in fact reality can’t be quite what he thinks, or rather it’s meaningless to talk about quite what he thinks reality is, because Rohr is (at least rhetorically) ‘through the looking glass,’ so to speak, and (claims that) he holds opposites together in the irresolvable tension of his own great soul – or at least that’s what he aims for and recommends to others. A few quotes to illustrate, first from Rohr’s Hope Against Darkness, a book allegedly about “the transforming vision of Saint Francis in an age of anxiety” (poor actual Saint Francis, his name is so abused!):

You could say that the greater opposites you can hold together, the greater soul you usually have. By temperament, most of us prefer one side to the other. Holding to one side or another frees us from the tension and anxiety. Only a few dare to hold the irresolvable tension in the middle. [A hint of “Hegel for Dummies” here perhaps?]

I’m seeing people of great faith today, people of the Big Truth, who love the church, but are no longer on bended knee before an idol. [For example, no longer kneeling for communion? As Rohr and (presumably following Rohr) our deacon say: when you receive communion, you are what you eat, and surely it’s a bit silly to go down on bended knee to worship yourself (your own (Richard Rohr’s own) ‘True Self)?] They don’t need to worship the institution; neither do they need to throw it out and react against it. [Of course it never once occurred to people before ‘today’ that these were not the only two options!] This is a great advance in human maturity. Only a few years ago it was always [yup, it was always!] either/or thinking: ‘If it isn’t perfect I’m leaving it.’ We are slowly discovering what many of us are calling ‘the Third Way,’ neither flight nor fight, but the way of compassionate knowing. [“The way of compassionate knowing”; i.e., the way of ‘passive’ aggression, of undermining the Church from within? – not, by the way, a strategy discovered “only a few years ago”!]

Then there’s this bit of “irresolvable tension,” i.e., doublespeak (‘Rohr’ is German for pipe or reed, by the way, and one naturally thinks of the Pied Piper in this connection, leading away first the rats, and then – alas! – the children):

Observing nature, we see that diversity is essential to balance, wholeness, and resilience. Ecosystems thrive when a variety of species of plants and animals nourish each other. Diverse environments are much stronger and less susceptible to pests and disease than mono-crop fields. The world is a relational system full of complex inter-dependence among very different creatures. If we want sustainable communities, we must always welcome the “other” [so what about pests and disease? or, say, sexual predators, heretics, charlatans? or “the world”? (see the day's reading from James, in the next verse of which (4:4) James tells us, “adulterers, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?”)  hmm... we might also welcome some nuance, eh Father?] and learn to see [see? not love?] our neighbor as ourselves. Without it, we do not have community at all, but just egoic enclaves. (taken from Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation website, here)

So diverse ecosystems are wonderful: sure, great! I’m all for that (although, being a practical person, I’m also not a big mono-crop hater). Therefore, we must always welcome the “other.” Why? So that we are strong and not susceptible to invasion by the ever-threatening “other other”! That is, for Rohr (tolle! lege! and by all means dispute if you see fit!), we must welcome the “other” in order to defend against the “pest and disease” that are represented by the traditional, apostolic, Biblical, creedal, magisterial teachings and practices of the Christian faith (yes, including the teachings of Vatican II), as well as against the first principles of philosophy and theology. At least, so it seems!


In saying these kinds of things, Rohr assumes – following the gnostical logic of his own ideology – that his own great soul is the very measure of reality and so, quite consistently, he can patronizingly, smugly, glibly dismiss the “False-Self”-ness of those who might presume to measure him up and find his thought wanting (MENE, MENE, TEKAL, UPHARSIN and all that). So Rohr is an unfortunate kind of guru for a Catholic priest or deacon to be following in his preaching. But it’s also not surprising that such characters should arise from time to time, and raise up disciples to follow them (this is the case of a bug in the Church which in a sense rises to the level of a feature), especially in the kind of narcissistic, clericalist, “self-enclosed circle” of community that Ratzinger warns against in The Spirit of the Liturgy, wherein an incautious priest may tend to be drawn, by the very setup of the physical, ‘incarnate’ space, to regard himself as the centre of attention and who thus feels responsible for sustaining the whole thing by his own overactive, poorly grounded creativity (see Spirit of the Liturgy, p. 80 and my previous related comments on Ratzinger’s thesis here).

Tuesday 2 October 2018

Mass notes: All about Uncle Ted?

Sunday, September 16, 2018 – 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

A whole homily about “Uncle Ted” Cardinal McCarrick and sexual abuse scandals in the Church? Is that really what my family and I need to hear about? I’m not saying ignore it, I’m not saying don’t address it, but isn’t the adversary perhaps quite happy that we’re so focused on this sensational news story and thereby distracted from worthier topics of contemplation? Oh well, I’m not in charge: Uncle Ted it is, but let’s not overdo it!

So yes, on this Sunday, visiting at another parish, we got to hear a bunch about “Uncle Ted” and related scandals. It was not very edifying, I thought, but in particular it seemed ironic that in his impassioned homily against abuse and abusers and protectors of abusers, the priest – following the Alberta bishops – elected to quote none other than Pope Francis in denouncing these evils. Heaven forbid that bishops and priests just go ahead and speak out against evil in their own voices, instead of needing to quote the pope!

At the climax of his homily the priest made the emphatic point: “Make no mistake: Jesus stands with the victims, not the abusers!” Oh? But didn’t Christ come to save sinners? Hurt people hurt people. Victims make new victims. Victimizers are/were themselves victims of abuse. So at what point, exactly, does Christ cease to “stand with” a sinner (with me, for example)? (Only) when my sins become a sensational news story? (Only) when they take on an overtly ‘political’ dimension?

Anyway, complications about the problem of evil, the perfection of God’s merciful love, etc., aside, we may well accept the rather banal point that Jesus does not stand with the abusers, at least in the sense that he warns them rather pointedly, “it would be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a great millstone around your neck” than to carry on as you do. But also we might note that Pope Francis – the guy the priest had just been quoting – actually has been standing with, defending, promoting the abusers (right up until it becomes overwhelmingly obvious in a given case of patronage that the political cost has become too heavy). And it’s very easy to condemn sexual abuse – it’s like when world leaders step up after an act of terrorism and reassuringly announce to the wondering world that they (still) unequivocally condemn such acts of non-state-sanctioned violence – but as Jonathan V. Last writes, there is a bigger picture:

The abuse itself is terrible, of course. We should say that out loud, because while the details are unspeakable they must be spoken of. Without the release of the Pennsylvania grand jury report, we would know much less about the evil inside the church. (It is also instructive to note that authorities within the church opposed the release of this report.) But individual priest-abusers aren’t catastrophic to the church in any structural way. Predators will always be among us. It is a human pathology from which not even priests are immune. But the remedy for predation is straightforward: Whenever and wherever such men are discovered, they should be rooted out and punished.

The institutional damage is done not by the abusers but by the structures that cover for them, excuse them, and advance them. Viewed in that way, the damage done to the Catholic church by Cardinal Wuerl—and every other bishop who knew about McCarrick and stayed silent [e.g., Pope Francis?!]—is several orders of magnitude greater than that done by McCarrick himself.

So at this point surely Pope Francis makes a rather poor choice as a go-to for quotes about standing against abuse and not sheltering and promoting abusers.

In order to tie his homily to the day’s gospel, the priest used Jesus’ admonition to Peter, “Get behind me Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as humans do.” The preacher claimed an analogy here between Peter and abusive clergy. But it seems to me that sexually abusive clergy are not thinking “as humans do” in the way Peter was; they are thinking as vicious, pathologically perverted humans do, that is, they are thinking in a way that is really inhuman. Peter was not doing this. The rejection of the cross is human. Even Christ prayed that this cup be taken from him, because he was human, he had a real human nature and human will, and to embrace the cross requires a grace-powered act of will to transcend the merely human, that which is naturally human, that is, that which, at a strictly natural human level, is good. Sexual predators of young men, by contrast, are not acting in a way that is properly human, naturally human, in accord with human nature, that is, in a way that is humanly good. Suggesting an equivalence here between Peter and the abusers confuses the important distinction between the natural and the supernatural good. Grace both heals wounded nature and elevates what it heals. Peter’s desire to save his friend, our Lord, from suffering and death was naturally good; Peter just did not yet understand and was not ready to embrace the greater, supernatural good which it was necessary for him to take into account. In contrast, McCarrick’s perverse desires and actions to corrupt young men and in the process to do grave damage to the Church are far from any kind of good, natural or supernatural.


The priest also quoted the morally and intellectually rather more impressive authority of Thomas Aquinas in his homily. He noted that justice, according to Aquinas, is “rendering to each his due” (something to that effect). Great! But then the priest also claimed, I guess on his own say-so, and without further ado: “And what we need is not retributive justice, but restorative justice!” Excuse me? So is the priest claiming that retribution is not anyone’s due? Sexual predators should only be ‘restored,’ not punished? But is that not the very disastrous policy that he had been railing on against: “don’t punish abusers; restore them to ministry in some other parish!”? So I wonder what he could have meant. Jesus, anyway, along with common sense and a host of other witnesses too numerous to list, seems to teach us that justice requires restitution, that retributive punishment is indeed what is due to criminals and sinners. Aquinas too clearly teaches that punishment is retributive, so if the priest, after quoting Aquinas on justice, has some other view, I think he owes his listeners an explanation. And before attempting that explanation he might do well to read some of the Ed Feser’s exceptionally lucid work on the subject (see here for example), so that he is aware of what it is he needs to respond to if he really wants to maintain his anti-retribution position.

Thursday 27 September 2018

Mass Notes: Ephphatha!

Sept 9, 2018—23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

For today’s mass our deacon preached on Jesus’ healing of a deaf and “speech-impedimented” (i.e., dumb) man.

First, he noted that the man who was healed is not named in the story, and that this was because he represents all of us, who are all deaf and (generally pretty) dumb, and need to “be opened” (“ephphatha!”). This claim might be surprising insofar as it seems to ignore and perhaps undermine the primary, historical sense of the text (is the deaf and dumb man merely representative?). I guess he probably read this interpretation in a book and ran with it, fair enough, but given that it clearly is an interpretation of the text and not something actually derivable from it, he might have done well to clearly present it as such.

Anyway, most of us actually can hear and speak, so obviously the deacon was talking about not the literal sense of the reading – again, to my recollection he pretty much ignored that – but one of its spiritual senses. And in itself that’s fine. Reading for a spiritual sense has always – since at least, say, Jesus? – been a standard Catholic way to read scripture. The standard, traditional distinction is four senses: the literal/historical sense plus three spiritual senses: the allegorical (connecting the Old and New Testaments), the moral (teaching us how to act and live), and the anagogical (teaching about the world to come).

If we turn to Thomas Aquinas’s Catena aurea (“Golden Chain” of patristic commentaries) for the day’s reading (see Lectio 4 for Mark ch.7), we can see plenty of examples of spiritual readings. Chrysostom talks about Christ’s use of his body – fingers and spittle – as indicating the divine power which followed from the union of his human body with his divine nature and as showing forth in Christ the true perfection of human nature that had been wounded in Adam and his descendants. Bede says that Christ looked up to heaven when healing the man to show that it is from above that the healing of all our infirmities is to be sought and that he sighed not because he, who is the giver of all things with the Father, needed to ask anything from the Father, but to give us an example of how to invoke divine aid. Chrysostom says he also sighed out of compassion for the miseries into which human nature has fallen. Bede says:

The one who is deaf and dumb is he who has neither ears for hearing the word of God, nor opens his mouth in order to speak them; for such as these it is necessary that those who speak already, and have learned to hear the divine utterance, bring them to the Lord to be healed.

And according to Jerome:

But the one who merits to be healed is always led apart, from turbulent thoughts, and disordered acts, and disordered conversation. And the fingers, which are put in his ears, are the words or gifts of the Spirit, of whom it is said: ‘the finger of God is here.’ And the spittle is the divine wisdom, which dissolves the fetters on the lips of the human race, so that it may say: ‘I believe in God the Father almighty’ and the rest. And looking up to heaven he sighed, that is, he taught us to sigh, and in heaven to set up the treasures of our hearts: since through sighs of inmost compunction the worthless joy of the flesh is purged.

Returning to our deacon’s preaching, he presented a somewhat different, more earth-focused interpretation of Jesus’ healing. He focused on the word “ephphatha” – “be opened” – and unfolded to the congregation what he took to be the real message of the reading: not so much, ask Christ to open our ears so that we can hear, and maybe even hear and take in and receive and accept the word of God, etc.; but rather be open to people, to all kinds of people, whatever they’re like, however different they are, whatever they think, however they live. Be open and welcoming to the world. Don’t criticize or speak negatively about anyone or anything. That’s the point, according to our deacon, that Mark was trying to make with this story about Jesus.

Unfortunately I think this interpretation fails three important tests: first, the consistency/hypocrisy test; second, the what-about-Jesus test; and then finally, the basic where-are-you-getting-this-from test.

First, it seems clear enough that the deacon was saying that it is wrong to be closed-minded, to not welcome everyone unconditionally. So he was criticizing and speaking negatively about certain people who are not properly open-minded and unconditionally welcoming. That is, he was enjoining others to do one thing while himself doing the opposite, which is a form of inconsistency called hypocrisy. (It also seemed an especially gross admonition to level at the congregation, given the big (elephant-in-the-room!) public scandal featured in the current news cycle involving misguided policies and decisions and long series of malicious acts of pressuring people not to speak out, negatively and critically, about sexually abusive clerics, etc.!) It’s necessary to understand the laws of contradiction and excluded middle here: When you say one thing, anything, you are implicitly negating its opposite. And even if you want to get clever and deny that you mean to affirm one thing and deny the opposite, and instead claim that you can and do affirm some proposition as well as its opposite, or without denying its opposite, as if there’s some middle way, then you’re still obviously denying and criticizing the claim that you can’t do that.

Second, Jesus obviously (tolle, lege!) spent lots of time criticizing people and speaking negatively about things. So our deacon used his opportunity to preach on the gospel to effectively condemn the Jesus of the gospels and substitute his own superior form of righteousness. Preachers do this pretty commonly and no doubt mostly unwittingly (or should I say, witlessly?), but still, it’s wrong.

And third, what the deacon said simply had no basis in any actual intelligent, open-minded, receptive reading of the gospel. He just used a word from the gospel, ‘open,’ and then said what he wanted to say. He ignored the text while pretending that he was explaining to us its meaning. If you’ve actually listened to the gospel, paid attention, and care about what it says, that’s just irritating – although again, he has the excuse that it’s a pretty common practice.

I could also mention that proclaiming a blanket condemnation of anyone who is critical or speaks negatively looks rather like the dirty trick of poisoning the well. [For an example of this trick being used against Jesus, see John 10:20: “Many of them said, He must be possessed; he is a madman; why do you listen to him?” For an example of a pope using this trick... do your own research!] Anyone who might have been inclined to be critical or speak negatively about the deacon’s claim (i.e., the blanket condemnation of criticism) would be automatically condemned according to the standard of that claim, regardless of his reasons and regardless of the legitimacy of his criticism. So the idea would be, “Don’t listen to that guy – he’s being critical!” To which the rejoinder would be, “Right, I’m being critical, and so are you; but unlike you I’m not claiming there’s something wrong with that, so I’m not being hypocritical.” And if we’re trying to be followers of Christ, Jesus criticized lots of people for lots of things, but it seems to me there’s no one he teed off on more than hypocrites (see especially Matthew 23), so hypocrisy should probably be high on our list of things to try to avoid.

Friday 21 September 2018

Mass Notes: Inside Out

Mass Notes for Sept 2, 2018 (22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time)

At this Sunday’s mass, the gospel reading was from Mark and the preaching focused on the following passage:

Then Jesus called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that [by] going in can defile them [sic], but the things that come out of a person are what defile them [sic].” Mark 7:14-15

So it’s really apparent, that the lectionary’s grammar’s errant. Anyway. In Greek and Latin:

14  κα προσκαλεσάμενος πάλιν τν χλον λεγεν ατος: κούσατέ μου πάντες κα σύνετε.  15  οδέν στιν ξωθεν το νθρώπου εσπορευόμενον ες ατν δύναται κοινσαι ατόν: λλ τ κ το νθρώπου κπορευόμενά στιν τ κοινοντα τν νθρωπον.

14 Et advocans iterum turbam, dicebat illis: “Audite me omnes, et intellegite. 15 Nihil est extra hominem introiens in eum, quod possit eum coinquinare, sed quæ de homine procedunt, illa sunt, quæ coinquinant hominem.”

So a better translation (certainly better grammar):

And again calling the crowd, he said to them: Listen to me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a man entering into him that can defile him (or make him common, bring him into common use), but what proceeds from a man, those things are what defile a man.”

The next verse, 16 – omitted in many editions – is perhaps worth mentioning: “If someone has ears for hearing, let him hear.” In other words, pay attention, think: the meaning here might not be obvious, as indeed it was not to Jesus’ disciples, as we can read in the ensuing passage.

Preaching on the passage above, Fr. D put up his gloss on the overhead, which read something like: “Holiness is not about what is outside, it’s about what is inside.” That, he assured us, is what Jesus was saying in the day’s gospel reading. But is that right?

He went on to apply his claim to liturgical postures – the rubrics, the red print in the missal. He talked about how the postures prescribed have changed from time to time – he reminisced about the battles of the 70’s – but assured us that it’s really not something to be concerned about: We should just do what we’re told to do and understand that it really doesn’t matter, because what matters is holiness and, again, “Holiness is not about what is outside, it’s about what is inside.”

But there are serious problems here. First, some questions about the liturgy: Is Father saying that there is no rhyme or reason behind the postures? that the postures don’t actually mean anything, aren’t meant by their nature to express anything? that in themselves they are meaningless and that by assuming them we are merely (supposed to be?) carrying out acts of blind obedience to arbitrarily prescribed ritual? That seemed to be what he was implying.

But are a man’s worship postures something that “enters into him,” or something that “proceeds from him”? In a sense they may be the former – they are received by him as prescriptions – but as enacted they are certainly also the latter, something proceeding from him. So are they really supposed to proceed from him merely as acts of blind obedience to the inscrutable, arbitrary prescriptions of whimsical liturgical legislators? I think not. I think such an attitude is in fact a corruption of the meaning of liturgy. And preaching so as to encourage an anti-intellectual, anti-understanding, nominalistic view of the liturgy may well be something that “proceeds from a man and defiles him [the preacher].” And when this preaching is received, it defiles also the understanding of those who receive it, as well as defiling their consequent participation in the liturgy, rendering it vain, empty, inert, mindless, heartless. I think that is the actual claim that Jesus is making in the gospel, about the scribes and Pharisees’ vain worship through observance of the precepts of men, while their hearts are far from God.

When Fr. D announced that Jesus was telling us that holiness is about what is inside, not about what is outside, it seems he failed to consider a very obvious question: So what is the relationship between what is inside and what is outside?

If we look at what Jesus actually says, it seems clear that Father’s simplistic dichotomy won’t do at all. Jesus is not talking about what is inside versus outside a man, he is talking about what enters a man – through his mouth – versus what proceeds from him. What really matters is what proceeds from him, Jesus says, or as the lectionary translates it, “things that come out of a person” – so Jesus says pretty much the opposite of what Father claimed! Of course what is inside the heart matters too, but it matters precisely in that it is from the evil thoughts of the heart that all kinds of evil come out: v.20: “what goes out (L. exit) of a man, that defiles him.” Jesus mentions (vv.22-23) fornication, theft, murder, etc. – and (ironically) also foolishness (ἀφροσύνη, stultitia), for example, the foolishness of saying “what’s inside matters and what’s outside doesn’t.”

Omitted from the lectionary reading are v.18-19: “Do you not understand that nothing outside a man entering into him can defile him? Because it does not enter into his heart…”

In Thomas Aquinas’s ‘golden chain’ (Catena aurea) collection of patristic commentaries on Mark’s gospel, he gives the following gloss:

It is said “into his heart,” that is, into the mind, which is the principal part of the soul, from which the whole life of man depends; wherefore it is according to it that it is necessary to esteem a man clean or defiled; and thus those things that do not enter into the mind cannot produce defilement. [And likewise, it would seem, those things that do not enter into the mind – like a sound understanding of the liturgy or of the scriptures – cannot produce holiness.] Foods, therefore, since they do not enter into the mind, by their nature cannot defile a man [or make him holy]; but the inordinate use of foods, which comes from disorderedness of the mind, pertains to a man’s defilement.


Finally, in regard to foolishness (stultitia), I think it worth noting the two interpretations Thomas lists. Foolishness is “injustice towards neighbor.” Or it is when someone “does not discern rightly about God: for it is opposed to wisdom, which is a grasp of divine things.” Now it’s not often (maybe ever!) you’ll hear preaching against foolishness – more often, perhaps, you’ll hear preaching that is foolishness – but it’s important to recognize that foolishness really is one of the things that we are required to avoid, by a concerted effort of the will. Indulging in it is unjust towards our neighbors and alienates us from God. It is one of the things that defile us from the inside out.

Friday 14 September 2018

New Parish – Liturgy as communal meal?

My family and I have been at our new parish in the Calgary diocese for around a month now and I guess the culture shock is starting to wear off. For the past couple of years we had been at a small parish in the Ottawa area where the pastor’s focus was on being a faithful priest and celebrating mass reverently and obediently. His homilies weren’t brilliant, sometimes rather ham-fisted, but he at least really did aim to humbly and frankly preach the truths of the Catholic faith. There was no music, which meant we didn’t have to put up with the usual, liturgically inappropriate music – bad Catholic hymns from the 70's or dumb contemporary protestant P&W pop songs – that is standard at most parishes, and instead there was a healthy amount of silence.

At our first mass at our new parish, by contrast, it felt like the priest was doing his best ‘priestly’ impression of Rockin’ Rob (or whatever his name was) the rodeo clown, whose groaner jokes and antics we’d semi-enjoyed the preceding afternoon at a local rodeo. Communion was reminiscent of the wild-cow milking – do they really need so many (extraordinary) ministers of (Holy) Communion? – and just prior to the conclusion of mass, advertisements are displayed on the overhead projectors while the priest unfailingly (so far!) wanders around in search of visitors, asking them “Where y’all from? Did you come to see our smoke? It’s not ours, y’ know, it’s from BC! YUK YUK!” He's a nice guy, as people say, but not my style, so adjust we must (or go in search of a less-convenient better-pastored parish? – ‘tis an option of course).

On a theological note, during our first mass the priest made some fuzzily heartwarming comments about the Eucharistic liturgy as the celebration of a ‘community/communal meal.’ I guess some people think that’s what Holy Communion is, or is supposed to be, even though it’s obviously not that. It seems to me that anybody who thinks it is that has clearly never been to a real community meal. At a real community meal you get a plate, you fill it, you probably also get a drink and a fork and a seat, often a second helping and dessert, and you mingle and chat while you enjoy your meal with your community. Holy Communion is just nothing like that.

In any case, the idea of the Eucharistic liturgy as a communal meal evidently has some currency. In his book The Spirit of the Liturgy (Ignatius, 2000 – see ch. 3), Joseph then-Cardinal Ratzinger argues that this common view is a fruit of the extremely prevalent post-Vatican II reorientation of the celebrating priest “toward the people” (versus populum), “in such a way that priest and people looked at each other and formed together the circle of the celebrating community.” Ratzinger notes that Vatican II itself says nothing about the priest “turning toward the people,” but also that this reordering of liturgical worship “brings with it a new idea of the essence of the liturgy – the liturgy as a communal meal.” He claims that the embrace of this view of the liturgy is based on a misunderstanding of its alleged historical precedents in the Roman liturgy and on an inaccurate view of what ancient communal meals, including the Last Supper, were actually like.

More importantly he notes that “the Eucharist that Christians celebrate really cannot be adequately described by the term ‘meal’” – a point which, as I claimed above, is obvious! “True, the Lord established the new reality of Christian worship within the framework of a Jewish (Passover) meal, but it was precisely this new reality [of Christian worship], not the meal as such, that he commanded us to repeat.”

Ratzinger then describes how the real significance of the Eucharistic liturgy became obscured and fell into oblivion, so that it is “the meal” which has become “the normative idea of liturgical celebration for Christians.” But if we get beyond this implausible normative idea, which priests and others still try to sell, the reality of what has happened with the priest’s “turn-to-the-people,” Ratzinger argues, is quite different:

“In reality what happened was that an unprecedented clericalization came on the scene. Now the priest – the ‘presider’, as they now prefer to call him – becomes the real point of reference for the whole liturgy. Everything depends on him. We have to see him, to respond to him, to be involved in what he is doing. His creativity sustains the whole thing. Not surprisingly, people try to reduce this newly created role by assigning all kinds of liturgical functions to different individuals and entrusting the ‘creative’ planning of the liturgy to groups of people who like to, and are supposed to, ‘make their own contribution’. Less and less is God in the picture. More and more important is what is done by the human beings who meet here and do not like to subject themselves to a ‘pre-determined pattern’. The turning of the priest toward the people has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. [Fittingly, our new parish also features a sacred garden with a (self-enclosed, circular) labyrinth!] In its outward form, it no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is closed in on itself.”

So says Ratzinger. Now to be fair, there’s more than one way for a group to become closed in on itself, but it strikes me, unfortunately, that liturgy is critically important, and that Ratzinger’s description here is all too accurate for many a parish.


To conclude, community meals are great. The Eucharist makes for a lousy community meal. But that's okay because, whatever your priest might say, that's not what the Eucharist essentially is or is essentially supposed to be anyway.

Monday 23 April 2018

Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart: Do you will only one thing?

What then must I do?
The listener's role in a devotional address

...
The talk asks you, then, or you ask yourself by means of the talk, what kind of life do you live, do you will only one thing, and what is this one thing? The talk does not expect that you will name off any goal that only pretends to be one thing. For it does not intend to address itself to anyone with whom it would not be able to deal seriously, for the reason that such a man has cut himself off from any earnest consideration of the occasion of the address. There is still another reason: a man can, to be sure, have an extremely different, yes, have a precisely opposite opinion from ours, and one can nevertheless deal earnestly with him if one assumes that finally there may be a point of agreement, a unity in some universal human sense, call it what you will. But if he is mad, then one cannot deal with him, for he shies away from just that final point, in which one at last may hope to find agreement with him. One can dispute with a man, dispute to the furthest limit, as long as one assumes, that in the end there is a point in common, an agreement in some universal human sense: in self-respect. But when, in his worldly strivings he sets out like a madman in a desperate attempt to despise himself, and in the face of this is brazen about it and lauds himself for his infamy, then one can undertake no disputing with him. For like a madman, and even more terribly, he shies away from this final thing (self-respect) in which one might at last hope to find agreement with him.

The talk assumes, then, that you will the Good and asks you now, what kind of life you live, whether or not you truthfully will only one thing. It does not ask inquisitively about your calling in life, about the number of workers you employ, or about how many you have under you in your office, or if you happen to be in the service of the state. No, the talk is not inquisitive. It asks you above all else, it asks you first and foremost, whether you really live in such a way that you are capable of answering that question, in such a way that the question truthfully exists for you. Because in order to be able earnestly to answer that serious question, a man must already have made a choice in life, he must have chosen the invisible, chosen that which is within. He must have lived so that he has hours and times in which he collects his mind, so that his life can win the transparency that is a condition for being able to put the question to himself and for being able to answer it -- if, of course, it is legitimate to demand that a man shall know whereof he speaks. To put such a question to the man that is so busy in his earthly work, and outside of this in joining the crowd in its noisemaking, would be folly that would lead only to fresh folly -- through the answer.

(Soren Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart Is To Will One Thing, trans. by Douglas V. Steere (Harper & Row, 1965), pp. 183-184.)