Bless, O Lord, this creature beer, that Thou hast been pleased to bring forth from the sweetness of the grain: that it might be a salutary remedy for the human race: and grant by the invocation of Thy holy name, that, whosoever drinks of it may obtain health of body and a sure safeguard for the soul. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

And of course, the Latin:

Bene+dic, Domine, creaturam istam cerevisae, quam ex adipe frumenti producere dignatus es: ut sit remedium salutare humano generi: et praesta per invocationem nominis tui sancti, ut, quicumque ex ea biberint, sanitatem corporis, et animae tutelam percipiant. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen

From the Rituale Romanum (no 58)

(Translation by Fr. Ephraem Chifley, O.P.)

The Prince is a “handbook for gangsters.” – Bertrand Russell

He wrote The Prince after being tortured for suspected treason (via the strappado), bankrupted, and then exiled to his country home. Machiavelli records that after he would come home to his lonely country home, he would take off his “day clothes” covered in “mud and dust” and don his “court robes.” He would then walk around and relive his days in the courts. It was in this mindset that he complete The Prince in 1513. What he offered the world was politics as a practical science devoid of all compassion and morality.

The Prince

One of the men Machiavelli holds up for imitation is Cesare Borgia. In on of Borgia’s classic moves he places a subordinate – Messer Remirro de Orco – in charge of a territory and pushes him to oppresses the people under him. Stepping back from the scene, Borgia waits for his own man to oppress the people to just the right point – then he betrays him.

For this purpose he appointed Messer Remirro de Orco, a cruel and able man, to whom he gave the fullest authority. [...] And as he knew that the harshness of the past had engendered some amount of hatred, in order to purge the minds of the people and to win them over completely, he resolved to show that if any cruelty had taken place it was not by his orders, but through the harsh disposition of his minister. And having found the opportunity he had him cut in half and placed one morning in the public square at Cesena with a piece of wood and blood-stained knife by his side. The ferocity of this spectacle caused the people both satisfaction and amazement. (chp. 7)

Reviewing thus all the actions of the duke, I find nothing to blame, on the contrary, I feel bound, as I have done, to hold him up as an example to be imitated by all who by fortune and with the arms of others have risen to power. – Machiavelli

Thus it is clear that Machiavelli submit that the end (political power and security) justifies the means (no matter the depravity).

In Chapter 17, Machiavelli delivers him famous discourse on whether it is better to be Loved or to be Feared?

From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved more than feared, or feared more than loved. The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be wanting [...]

I conclude therefore, with regard to being feared and loved, that men love at their own free will, but fear at the will of the prince…

In Chapter 18, Machiavelli discusses how a Prince should be like a lion and a fox.

A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.

In the mode of being a fox, Machiavelli asserts that it is not important to have virtue, but rather it is important to make people think you are virtuous.

Thus it is well to seem merciful, faithful, humane, sincere, religious, and also to be so; but you must have the mind so disposed that when it is needful to be otherwise you may be able to change to the opposite qualities.

A prince must take great care that nothing does out of his mouth which is not full of the above-named five qualities, and, to see and hear him, he should seem to be all mercy, faith, integrity, humanity, and religion. And nothing is more necessary than to seem to have this last quality…

Paul Strathern on Machiavelli’s The Prince

It should be made clear that I read Paul Strathern’s philosophical summaries – Machiavelli in 90 Minutes, etc. – only to prepare myself for the idiocy of the modern liberal academic elite. Strathern will go out of his way to mock and slander Christianity, even to the embarrassment of his own work. It is important to note how Machiavelli’s work is treated and received by the modern culture we live in.

Here is Strathern on Machiavelli:

Machiavelli considered himself moral, even if his advice was not… Machiavelli’s book is advice to a prince on how to run a state. It is not a guide to personal morality… it is dealing with the qualities of leadership (53-4).

The welfare of the state is of secondary importance; the prime concern is that the prince continue his rule (59).

Ruling is not a matter of good and evil but a continuous struggle between forceful virtu (power) and the whims of fortuna (fortune) (61).

In his closing statements, the epitome of the modern view of politics and virtue (religion) shines forth.

Despite the nihilism of Machiavelli’s political philosophy, his Christian belief in God remained unquestioned. His philosophy is entirely consistent with Christ’s pronouncement ‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.’ The ruling of the state is unquestionably Caesar’s.

Benjamin Wiker on Machiavelli’s The Prince

Dr. Benjamin Wiker is a Roman Catholic ethicist who lists The Prince among the “Preliminary Screw-Ups” in his 10 Books That Screwed Up the World. Dr. Wiker’s views are as follows:

Machiavelli convinces the reader that great evils, unspeakable crimes, foul deeds are not only excusable but praiseworthy if they are done in the service of some good…. it should not surprise us that The Prince was a favorite book of the atheist V.I. Lenin for whom the glorious end of communism justified any brutality of means.

The lesson learned – or that should have been learned – by such epic destruction is this: once we allow ourselves to do evil so that some perceived good may follow, we allow ever greater evils for the sake of ever more questionable goods, until we consent to the greatest evils for the sake of mere trifles.

Machiavelli is the original ends-justifies-the-means philosopher. No act is so evil that some necessity or benefit cannot mitigate it.

What then is the relationship between Machiavelli and Catholicism?

For the Christian, no earthly necessity or benefit can be weighed against eternity. Committing an intrinsically evil act immediately separates us from the eternal good of heaven, whatever the benefit that might accrue to us in the here and now. No good we experience now can possibly out weigh having to suffer eternally in hell. Furthermore, as God is all-powerful, then no seeming necessity or benefit of an evil action in this life can really be necessary or beneficial to anyone from the perspective of eternity. To believe otherwise is only a temptation; in fact, the temptation.

What of Machiavelli has his supposed piety and Catholic faith?

Did he not just tell us how important it is to appear to be religious? Who informed us of the necessity, if one is to be a great prince, of being a great pretender and dissembler? Who contrives to be a greater prince – the temporal ruler of a piece of land, or the philosopher who seeks to inform all future princes, to found and entirely new philosophy?

And so we repeat: Machiavelli could not give advice to princes that would mean abandoning any notion of God, the immortal soul, and the afterlife if he himself had not already abandoned all three. This is why he can call evil good, and good evil.

Dr. Wiker concludes:

Machiavelli thereby initiates the great conflict between modern secularism and Christianity that largely defines the next five hundred years of Western history…

If one wants to see Machiavelli’s work in practice, the 20th century’s love affair with war and communist and fascist dictators who urged on the romance should be evidence enough.

Filed under: Philosophy ]]> http://theoaksofmamre.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/the-prince-two-views-on-machiavellis-classic/feed/ 5 HH Ambrose http://theoaksofmamre.wordpress.com/2010/05/22/dune-thoughts-on-frank-herberts-sci-fi-classic/ http://theoaksofmamre.wordpress.com/2010/05/22/dune-thoughts-on-frank-herberts-sci-fi-classic/#comments Sat, 22 May 2010 21:09:30 +0000 HH Ambrose http://theoaksofmamre.wordpress.com/?p=262 ]]> I recently finished reading Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic, Dune. On a preliminary note, I must say that I agree with Arthur C. Clarke’s assessment of the work:

Unique… I know of nothing comparable to it except The Lord of the Rings.

A comparison between Dune and the Lord of the Rings is in their unique literary focal points. The LOTR bypassed the traditional fairytale elements of fantasy literature and wrought a story of virtue and displayed a classic Catholic notion of good versus evil. Dune participated in a sci-fi literary movement called New Wave. The New Wave movement (1960s-1980s) looked to move past traditional science fiction and open itself up to experimentation. The New Wave began to incorporate taboo subjects into science fiction, like sexual activity and certain anthropological foci. A movement within the New Wave – more akin to Dune – was the shift in focus from “outer space” (seen as the traditional motifs in sci-fi) to the “inner-space,” which focused more on the societal aspects of sci-fi. Dune embodies this approach as it mainly focuses on the political, socio-economic, and religious movements and desires of people within Dune’s universe. Similarly to LOTR, the shift from battles and traditional sci-fi themes can leave the reader bored at times if the political and religious themes (in LOTR the underpinnings of virtue and evil) are not entertaining to the reader.

Thoughts

Political-Religion: Throughout many of the Muad’Dib’s sayings and illuminated by the Fremen way of life is the concept of a political-religion. A political-religion is a religion that has no separation between religious laws and laws of the state. Old Testament Judaism and Islam are both examples of political-religions, while Catholicism has always been a trans-political-religion. In today’s world Islam gives a good example of a particular byproduct of political religions: jihad. If there can be no separation between religion and the state, then infidels and other sects within Islam cannot be tolerated – thus the evidence of these frictions in terrorist attacks against the West and other Islamic groups. The inevitability of jihad is a major theme within Dune.

Fremen Religion: the religion of the Fremen appears to be an Islamic progeny (with its roots in Sunni Islam according to Dune) with a Catholic New Testament infrastructure. The messiah narrative of the Muad’Dib contains a savior, a strong mother figure (who becomes a mother to all), and death and resurrection (Water of Life three week trance). However the Islamic motifs eliminate most all comparisons between the Muad’Dib and Jesus Christ. The uncertainty in the beginning of the role of the Muad’Dib, the leader of a political-religion, and the jihad all resemble the Prophet Muhammad. In Appendix II: Religion of Dune, Herbert spells out the Orange Catholic Bible as a ecumenical combination of all religions into one – mainly Islam, Catholicism, and Buddhism. Rejected at first for its universalist method and outcome, “ninety generations later, the O.C. Bible and the Commentaries permeated the religious universe.” The Fremen and the Muad’Dib – examples in the Appendix II – adopted many of the O.C. Biblical concepts and sayings. It is important to note that Frank Herbert was a Catholic who eventually converted to Buddhism.

Baron Vladimir Harkonnen and The Prince: It does not take a trained eye to state that the Baron Harkonnen’s quest for power is Machiavellian in nature. However, what may go unnoticed is the direct lifting of Machiavelli’s The Prince into Herbert’s Dune. In Dune, the Baron abandons his nephew – the Count Rabban who rules Arrakis at the Baron’s bidding – but tells him that his spice quota must increase each year.

‘I know my nephew,’ the Baron said. ‘This would only make him oppress the population even more.’ ‘Of course he will!’ Hawat snapped. ‘You don’t want that stopped now! You merely want your own hands clean.’ (p. 368, 1984 hard. ed.)

The scheme is that the superior ruler pushes the subordinate to oppress the people, then the superior ruler comes in and disposes of the subordinate – automatically taking the role of the people’s liberator. Compare this scheme to Machiavelli’s account of Cesare Borgia:

For this purpose he appointed Messer Remirro de Orco, a cruel and able man, to whom he gave the fullest authority. [...] And as he knew that the harshness of the past had engendered some amount of hatred, in order to purge the minds of the people and to win them over completely, he resolved to show that if any cruelty had taken place it was not by his orders, but through the harsh disposition of his minister. And having found the opportunity he had him cut in half and placed one morning in the public square at Cesena with a piece of wood and blood-stained knife by his side. The ferocity of this spectacle caused the people both satisfaction and amazement. (The Prince, chp. 7)

The Others: Frank Herbert’s exploration into the “inner space” of Dune leaves the reader with a myriad of philosophical trails to follow: ecology, industry, eugenics, primacy of religion, primacy of logic, the relationship between myth and prophecy, the manipulation of religion (the Missionaria Protectiva), Providence and Time, etc.

Please feel free to share your views on Dune.

Enjoy.

“Sunday’s Coming” Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

The collection I’d like to highlight is Dore’s work concerning the history of the Crusades.

Enjoy.

Gustave Dore’s Crusade Collection.

His Excellency, Archbishop Dolan of NY on Immigration Reform

It’s a supreme paradox in our American culture — where every person unless a Native American, is a descendent of immigrants — that we seem to harbor an ingrained fear of “the other,” which, in our history, is usually the foreigner (immigrant), the Jew, the Catholic, or the black…

The United States Council of Catholic Bishops’ Denouncing Arizona’s Immigration Law

The U.S. Catholic bishops stand in solidarity with the bishops of Arizona in opposing this draconian law. We call upon the Administration to review its impact on civil rights and liberties.  We renew our call for the Administration and Congress to work in a bipartisan manner to enact comprehensive immigration reform as soon as possible…

Pope Benedict XVI’s Appeal for Migrants and Refugee Children

But immigrants themselves deserve compassion and consideration even if they have entered a country clandestinely, he said. “Bound up in all these considerations, the dignity and inalienable human rights of irregular migrants call for a new management strategy.”

The Faces of Immigrants – Cardinal Mahony of the Archdiocese of L.A.

Instead of being side-tracked by heated rhetoric and political posturing, all of us should take the time to open our minds and hearts to hear the actual stories of the immigrants themselves. Who are they? Why are they here? How is our current immigration system failing them? How do their experiences impact our local communities and our nation?

Please add any links that you find significant regarding Immigration.

Boethius asks in relation to providence, “I want to know whether thou deemest that there is anything such thing as chance at all, and, if so, what it is?”[1]

The personified Wisdom defines chance as “a result produced by random movement without any link of casual connection” and declares no such thing under this definition exists.[2] “What place can be left for random action, when God constraineth all things to order?”[3] For example, a hippo cannot materialize in the middle of a room isolated from all causality, because all things are subject to the order of causality and cannot appear ex nihilo. However, Philosophy does submit a type of chance according to the Aristotelian view: “Whenever something is done for the sake of a particular end, and for certain reasons some other result than that designed ensures, this is called chance.”[4] She gives the example of a man who tills a field and finds treasure; neither the man nor the man who hid the treasure desired that particular end, but the result is within causality and not ex nihilo.

Chance is defined: “as being an unexpected result flowing from a concurrence of causes where the several factors had some definite end,” and “the meeting and concurrence of these causes arises from that inevitable chain of order which, flowing from the fountainhead of Providence, disposes all things in their due time and place.”[5]

[2] Ibid. 108.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid. 108.

His Excellency, the Most Reverend Edward James Slattery celebrated the Ponitifical Solemn High Mass in honor of the Holy Father’s 5th Anniversary. The Sacrifice of the Mass was held at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C.

I cannot express the honor I hold for Bishop Slattery. It was under his guidance of the Diocese of Tulsa, Oklahoma that I began to experience the beauty of Catholicism.

As the Church and even the Holy Father deals with public criticism and scandal, Bishop Slattery delivered an excellent homily, one worthy of celebrating the anniversary of our great Pope Benedict XVI.

The Homily in its Entirety compliments of Fr. Z

Highlights

We have much to discuss – you and I… much to speak of on this glorious occasion when we gather together in the glare of the world’s scrutiny to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the ascension of Joseph Ratzinger to the throne of Peter…

From the enormous suffering of His Holiness these past months to the suffering of the Church’s most recent martyrs in India and Africa, welling up from the suffering of the poor and the dispossessed and the undocumented, and gathering tears from the victims of abuse and neglect, from women who have been deceived into believing that abortion was a simple medical procedure and thus have lost part of their soul to the greed of the abortionist, and now flowing with the heartache of those who suffer from cancer, diabetes, AIDS, or the emotional diseases of our age, it is the sufferings of our people that defines the culture of our modern secular age…

or those in the world, obedience is a burden and an imposition. It is the way by which the powerful force the powerless to do obeisance… For those whose lives are centered in Christ, obedience is that movement which the heart makes when it leaps in joy having once discovered the truth.

Especially:

Suffering then, yours, mine, the Pontiffs, is at the heart of personal holiness, because it is our sharing in the obedience of Jesus which reveals his glory. It is the means by which we are made witnesses of his suffering and sharers in the glory to come.

Do not be dismayed that there many in the Church have not yet grasped this point, and fewer still in the world will even consider it. You know this to be true and ten men who whisper the truth speak louder than a hundred million who lie.

If then someone asks of what we spoke today, tell them we spoke of the truth. If someone asks why it is you came to this Mass, say that it was so that you could be obedient with Christ. If someone asks about the homily, tell them it was about a mystery and if someone asks what I said of the present situation, tell them only that we must – all of us – become saints through what we suffer.

God bless Bishop Slattery.
God bless our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI.

The Need of Metaphysics in Christianity

Therefore Christ, the Second Adam, recapitulates humanity to God and therefore not only opens humanity to assent to God in faith and friendship, but irradiates the First Truth, which is the formal aspect and material object of faith. Yet Harnark demeans the Logos Jesus Christ into a humanitarian and submits a mathematical and empirical view of reality. Continuing his Regensburg address, the Holy Father highlights that “human questions about our origin and destiny, the questions raised by religion and ethics, then have no place” in this scientific view of reality, but must be “relegated to the realm of the subjective.”[1] The dehellenized faith can no longer be the assent of the believer to God by God, but rather the formal aspect of faith and the material object of faith collapse into the opinion of man’s will. Commenting, the Holy Father says, “In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and become a completely personal matter.”[2] The pride of man that the Incarnation could “cure by humility so great” is forgotten and the “subjective ‘conscience’” of man “becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical.”[3] The means and object of the dehellenized faith reject metaphysics and therefore God’s self-communication and Divine Pedagogy, which leaves it as a system of personal means and opined conclusions.

The third stage of dehellenization is multiculturalism. This concept submits that the adoption of the Logos by the early Catholic Church was simply an “initial inculturation” of the “simple message of the New Testament” with Greek culture.[4] In practice, this method would forbid concepts such as the Logos or even Western rationality to be impressed upon any form of African, Asian, or non-Western Christianity. The message of the New Testament would be subject to how cultures chose to incorporate the Gospel into their particular ethos. Multiculturalism reflects the attempts of the Reformers to extract a mythic “pure, primordial” faith from a biblical faith already inculcated by Greek culture.[5] The Holy Father illuminates the pseudo-historical view of multiculturalism, “The New Testament was written in Greek and bears the imprint of the Greek spirit, which had already come to maturity as the Old Testament developed.”[6] A key historical event is understanding the enculturation of Hebrew and Greek thought in later Hebrew literature. The Holy Father recounts how “biblical faith” had “encountered the best of Greek thought at a deep level, resulting in a mutual enrichment evident especially in the later wisdom literature.”[7] He also mentions that the Septuagint “is an independent textual witness” and an “important step in the history of revelation” that was “decisive for the birth and spread of Christianity.”[8] Subjecting metaphysics, history, and the formal aspect and material object of faith to the will of culture is not only historically inaccurate, but also produces a faith of collective opinions. Contrastively, St. Thomas Aquinas lays two requirements for faith. He first states that matters of faith “should be proposed to man” by God, because “this is necessary in order that man believe anything explicitly.”[9] Infallibility is strictly a metaphysical concept that allows the faithful to assent to God through objectively explicit truths. In light of its rejection of metaphysics, a dehellenized faith must delegate truth to the will of culture or the individual. Secondly, St. Thomas states that faith “is the assent of the believer to the things which are proposed to him.”[10] Proper assent then is dependent upon the correct propositions of faith, which is the First Truth. The assent is “the chief act of faith” and cannot be done apart from “God moving man inwardly by grace.”[11] Humanity assents to God by God’s grace. The Logos is not a simple Greek cultural concept, but is the universal self-communication of God and offer of friendship to all of humanity.

“Habits are known by their acts, and acts by their objects, faith being a habit, should be defined by its proper act in relation to its proper object.”[12] This is the Thomistic structure that is used to reveal why “faith is the substance of things to be hope for, the evidence of things that appear not,” is a valid description of authentic faith.[13] St. Thomas describes faith as “an act of the intellect determinate to one object by the will’s command.”[14] In relation to its proper object, faith “is related both to the object of the will, i.e. to the good and the end, and to the object of the intellect, i.e. to the true.”[15] The object of the will corresponds with the “substance of things to be hoped for,” because we hoped for the good and the end and began “the assent of faith, which contains virtually all things to be hoped for.”[16] The object of the intellect is related to the latter half of the verse, “evidence of things that appear not.” The intellect has as its object the true, therefore “the firm adhesion of the intellect to the non-apparent truth of the faith is called evidence here.”[17] It is here that we see clearly that the Catholic faith that does not attempt to divorce faith from metaphysics, the Logos, or Divine Pedagogy holds faith to be a virtue. A virtue is the “habit that is always the principle of a good act” and faith is the “habit of the mind” that “is a perfection of the intellect.”[18] The virtuous faith is deeply embedded in metaphysics as it moves the intellect to “infallibly tend to its object, which is the true” and moves the will to “be infallibly directed to the last end.”[19] The faith that is properly and infallibly directed toward the good and the true is called by Aquinas, “the living faith.”[20] Living faith, as it perfects the intellect, has itself a form that perfect faith itself. This form is not opinion nor subjectivity, but charity. The object of the will is the good or the end and the “Divine Good, is the proper object of charity,” therefore “charity is called the form of faith in so far as the act of faith is perfected and formed by charity.”[21] Therefore in the light of a dehellenized and anthropocentric faith, St. Thomas submits that “faith is a habit of the mind, whereby eternal life is begun in us, making the intellect assent to what is non-apparent.”[22] True faith is then a completely theocentric movement in which we move to God by God’s grace in His love.

The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI’s lecture at the University of Regensburg laid out the threefold dehellenization of Christianity. In response, St. Thomas Aquinas’ threefold structure of revelation – the Creator-Creation relationship, faith as an assent to God by God’s grace, and Jesus Christ as the fullness of revelation – revealed a faith dependent on metaphysics, and the Logos. The dehellenization of faith only produces a subjective anthropocentric faith that has human opinions as its formal aspect and material object. The faith of St. Thomas is a theocentric movement characterized by grace, love, and the assent to an objective First Truth.

[2] Ibid. 5

[3] Aquinas. Vol. IV., 2021

[4] Faith, Reason, and the University. 5

[5] Ibid. 4

[6] Ibid. 5

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid. 3

[9] Aquinas. Vol. III., 1195

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Aquinas. Vol. III., 1184

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid 1185

[18] Ibid. 1187, 1188

[19] Ibid. 1188

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid. 1184

The Need of Metaphysics in Christianity

It is not necessarily important what one believes, but only that he believes. This is the statement of the modern age. This is the collapse of the material object and formal aspect of faith into the opinion of the human will. On the 12^th of September 2006 at the University of Regensburg, Pope Benedict XVI outlined the dehellenization of Christianity: a rejection of metaphysics, the move toward historicism, and rise of multiculturalism. Metaphysics began its divorce from Christianity under the weight of the Reformers, after which Kant “carried this programme forward with a radicalism that the Reformers could never have foreseen.”[1] Kant “thus anchored faith exclusively in practical reason, denying it access to reality as a whole.”[2] Yet almost five-hundred years earlier, the Dominican St. Thomas Aquinas submitted his own threefold structure of revelation that was embedded deeply in the metaphysical: a Creation that reflected the Creator, a faith by which humanity assents to God by God, and the Lord Jesus Christ as the fullness of revelation. In both threefold structures, metaphysics is the lynchpin by which they stand or fall. The faith of the dehellenized Christian world thrive in the absence of the metaphysical, yet the Thomistic faith of Catholicism thrives within its structure. It is clear when the two systems have been juxtaposed that dehellenized faith of the fallen metaphysics is simply not a faith at all, but rather a conflicted gathering of human opinion.

In his lecture at Regensburg, the Holy Father brilliantly lays out the consequences of rejecting the metaphysical. Metaphysics[3] finds the origin of its Christian rejection in the Reformers’ rejection of Greek philosophy. In their rally cry of sola scriptura, the Reformers perceived Greek philosophy to be an “alien system of thought” that had been wrongly pressed upon Sacred Scripture.[4] In the attempt to extract the mythic “pure, primordial form” of biblical faith from Greek philosophy, Scripture was inadvertently torn from its original context.[5] A major causality of this unnatural extraction was the Christian cornerstone concept of the Logos. St. John begins his Gospel, “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God… all things were made though him.”[6] The Holy Father teaches that the “Logos means both reason and word – a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason.”[7] The concept of the Logos allowed the Church to affirm that “there exists a real analogy” between God and humanity, because “God has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf.”[8] The intimate self-communication of the Logos with humanity further reveals the Creator-Creation relationship between God – Being-itself – and Creation or Being. Not only is this relationship the first pillar in St. Thomas’ threefold structure of Divine revelation, but it “characterizes the interior structure of nearly all the basic concepts in St. Thomas’ philosophy of Being.”[9] Therefore if knowledge can be known, even if it is partial or can only be articulated in the negative, then metaphysics can be established as humanity may know things-in-themselves.[10] The Holy Father uses Islam to reveal a contrastive stance to further the Catholic understanding of the Logos. According to the Holy Father, Islam teaches that, “God’s transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God.”[11] There is no concept of the self-communication of the Logos, but rather God’s “will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.”[12] Therefore when the Reformers attempted to dehellenize Christianity they inadvertently devalued the concept of the Logos and began to deconstruct metaphysics. Keeping in mind Islam’s innate absence of a Logos teaching, it is no wonder that Calvinism and Reformed theology, in their rejection of Greek philosophy, inadvertently adopted Islamic-like teachings on God’s absolute transcendence.

If faith could no longer trust in God’s self-communication, then faith could no longer trust in its own history. By Kant “anchoring faith exclusively in practical reason,” he aided in the downfall of metaphysics and the rise of a strict “mathematical and empirical” lens.[13] The product of viewing history in this manner is commonly referred to as historicism. Considering historicism’s foundational rejection of metaphysics, any Divine narrative of history and the Divine Pedagogy are stripped down by an anthropocentric scientific critique of history. Implicitly, “by its very nature this method excludes the question of God.”[14] This second stage of dehellenization has “Adolf von Harnack as its outstanding representative.”[15] Harnack continues the assault against Jesus Christ as the Logos and submits Jesus as “the father of a humanitarian moral message,” who “put an end to worship in favour of morality.”[16] The influence of Kant again appears here as Harnack places the emphasis on moral action and echoes the Kantian statement that “divine worship” had rendered “great masses of people useless to the world.”[17] Jesus the humanitarian would have no need of worship, as the rejection of metaphysics and Jesus in the “harmony of modern reason” would strip Christ of his “divinity” and even from the “triune God.”[18] Harnack’s historicism and degradation of Christ stands in direct opposition to St. Thomas’ tertiary pillar of revelation: Christ as the fullness of revelation.

St. John states that the “Logos became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.”[19] St. Thomas articulates that the implicit fullness of Christ’s revelation has explicitly been developing through history.[20] The Incarnation of the Logos was an historical event that gives objective meaning to human history and continues the Divine Pedagogy and God’s self-communication to humanity. Christ the Incarnate Logos was the “first and chief teacher of spiritual doctrine and faith.”[21] According to St. Thomas “every cognitive habit includes two things:” the “material object” and the “formal aspect.”[22] St. Thomas considers faith to be “a habit of the mind” willing the intellect to believe, therefore since it is a “cognitive habit” it must have a material object and formal aspect. The formal aspect of faith “is nothing else than the First Truth” or God, because humanity cannot “assent to anything, except because it is revealed by God.”[23] The material object of faith is also the First Truth, because “nothing comes under faith except in relation to God.”[24] Therefore the object of faith is all that is in relation to God and the means by which we assent to the object is all that has been revealed by God. Therefore, humanity assents to God by God. The Incarnation of Logos, Jesus Christ as the self-communication of God and fullness of revelation, made possible man’s assent by the New Covenant “because, just as the principal intention of human law is to create friendship between man and man; so the chief intention of the Divine law is to establish man in friendship with God.”[25]

[2] Ibid.

[3] Metaphysics: In this paper, metaphysics will be used in an Aristotelian and certainly in a Thomistic sense as “that portion of philosophy which treats of the most general and fundamental principles underlying all reality and all knowledge,” or rather the study of reality and God through reason alone. In using the term in this manner it will be implied that metaphysic can be known, at least in partial. Therefore in saying a “rejection of metaphysics” is either to submit a true rejection of metaphysics or an affirmation that the metaphysical is subjective, as will be shown continually in this paper.

[4] Faith, Reason, and the University. 4

[5] Ibid.

[6] Gospel according to St. John 1:1, 3a

[7] Faith, Reason, and the University. 4

[8] Ibid.

[9] Josef Pieper. The Silence of St. Thomas (Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press, 1999), 48

[10] Thomas Aquinas. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Summa Theologica. Vol. I (NY: Benzinger, 1948) ,61

[11] Faith, Reason, and the University. 3

[12] Ibid. 2

[13] Ibid. 4, 5

[14] Ibid. 5

[15] Ibid. 4

[16] Ibid.

[17] Immanuel Kant. Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (NYC: Harper and Brothers, 1960), 94, 121

[18] Faith, Reason, and the University. 4

[19] St. John 1:14

[20] Thomas Aquinas. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Summa Theologica. Vol. III (NY: Benzinger, 1948), 1168

[21] Thomas Aquinas. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Summa Theologica. Vol. IV (NY: Benzinger, 1948), 2063

[22] Aquinas, Vol. III, 1163

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Thomas Aquinas. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Summa Theologica. Vol. II (NY: Benzinger, 1948), 1032

1. The Missions of the Trinity – Part I
2. The Missions of the Trinity – Part II

He is not just the Gift and Love between the Father and Son, but He is the “supreme gift and the fountainhead of all other gifts” in relationship to humanity.[1] We “could not speak of an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon creatures” if the Holy Spirit were not “an outpouring of the divine love and the divine life.”[2] The Holy Spirit is the “infinite love pledge” poured out upon humanity as the “supreme gift and grace.”[3] In relation to creatures, the Gift and Love of the Trinity – the Holy Spirit – is not only “divine grace,” but is the Gratia Increata.[4] Grace and the Holy Spirit are the means by which humanity is brought up into Trinitarian love. Sanctifying grace is that grace which “disposes the soul to possess the divine person,” yet sanctifying grace is given with the Holy Spirit.[5] The Holy Spirit and sanctifying grace are distinct from one another, but they are intertwined in the real mission to bring humanity into Trinitarian love.

“The real mission of the divine persons to the souls of rational creatures” conceptually unfolds in two parts: the initial impression and expression and the habitum et habens.[6] In the first real mission, the Holy Spirit “impresses” upon the creature “a seal” of the “divine and hypostatic character of the person.”[7] The impression made by the Holy Spirit is not “merely a gift,” but “the divine person himself is sent into the creature.”[8] However, the divine person “who is sent,” cannot “separate Himself from the person who sends Him, since both are absolutely one in their being, their substance, and their activity.”[9] Therefore, within this “torrent of divine love,” the “supernatural likeness of God,” the “eternal splendor of the Father,” and the image of the “Son of God” is “imprinted in our soul.”[10] In this the whole Trinity pours into the creature causing him to be “reborn,” as “God’s Son Himself” comes into the creature as the “seal of the creature’s likeness to God.”[11] It may be clearly posited that the Holy Spirit’s mission acts as a conduit for the Son’s mission. Humanity moves from its natural relationship with God as Creator – Creation, to God begetting humanity “according to the image of His only begotten Son, and has predestined us to be made conformable to Him.”[12] Humanity is adopted by “way of love, of gift, of liberality” and these have the Holy Spirit as their exemplar.[13] The Holy Spirit as the Gift and Love of the Trinity becomes the “all perfect and innermost fruit of the self-communicating divine love,” which ushers in our adoption, sanctifying grace, and Trinitarian love.[14]

The second real mission of the Trinity is the Habitum et Habens. If the first mission is the initial impression and rebirth, then the second mission is where “the divine persons become present to the rational creature as the object of a living, intimate possession and enjoyment.”[15] The Divine Persons are not in us to be utilized by us, but rather to be “delighted in” through “knowledge and love.”[16] The delight that we enjoy from the Divine Persons is “imperfect,” but is nonetheless a “true and actual presence” within us.[17] This true and actual presence is highlighted in the donum hypostaticum of the Holy Spirit; that is the “prototype of the communication of divine love poured upon” humanity and communication of the “supernatural graces” to humanity.[18] Most of all, this hypostatic gift conveys to us the “substantial nature” of God and its “hypostatic outpouring.”[19] The same Love and Gift that is between the Father and the Son is within us “in its inner essence and with its inner effusion.”[20] The proper sense of the Divine Persons may only be seen in relative opposition in relation to their origin; therefore since the Holy Spirit is properly the Gift and Love of the Trinity, it is proper to Him to be the outpouring of love onto humanity as the Paraclete and Comforter.[21] The Son is also present in our souls as the Imago Dei to which we conform.[22] The Holy Spirit is the conductor for the adoptive mission of Christ and Christ is the person whom the Father sends the Holy Spirit through.[23] Both processions “constitute but a single organic whole” as they play equal and inseparable roles in communicating the divine nature to humanity.[24]

The two missions are only distinguishable conceptually as the “Holy Spirit is poured into our hearts, only that we may thereby embrace the pledge of God’s love.”[25] The Holy Spirit is the “prototype, object, and stimulus of our love,” and Christ is the “prototype, object, and motive of our supernatural knowledge.”[26] The Trinity “is the root from which arises the order of things called forth by this communication.”[27] Christ and the Holy Spirit pour into the creature and bring with them the Image, Love, and Holiness of the Father. The Divine Persons demonstrate Cicumincessio, “the mutual penetration of the several persons, one of them cannot enter into union with unless the others, too, enter into union with us.”[28] The substance of the Trinity comes to dwell in man and bring man up into Trinitarian love. Cicumincessio demonstrates how the processions and missions eventually reveal that the “Trinity terminates in the Triunity.”[29]

The entire Trinity pours into humanity and grants him sanctifying grace, that he may grow and participating in the Trinity itself. The unbegotten Father, the Son who “irradiates the splendor of the Father,” and the Holy Spirit who is the Pledge of Love in the Trinity are substantially present within man. Humanity has nothing else it can do but praise the Triune God and be delighted in His grace.

[1] Ibid., 107.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid. 110

[4] “The Uncreated Grace,” Scheeben, 110.

[5] Q. 43 A. 3

[6] “Possessed and Being Possessed,” Scheeben, 158.

[7] Ibid., 155.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid., 149.

[10] Ibid., 156.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid., 141.

[13] Ibid., 143.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid., 158.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Ibid., 159.

[18] Ibid., 161.

[19] Ibid., 162

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid., 163

[22] Ibid.

[23] Q. 36 A. 3

[24] Scheeben, 144.

[25] Ibid., 174.

[26] Ibid., 174-5.

[27] Ibid. 142, 174.

[28] Ibid., 178.

[29] Ibid., 179.

1. The Missions of the Trinity – Part I
2. The Missions of the Trinity – Part II

Trinitarian love and life is poured into humanity in order that humanity may pour its life and love into the Trinity. Each of the Persons of the Trinity is in relation to one another, and that relation reflects the mission and relationship they have with humanity. It is in understanding the Trinity and its missions that humanity may understand the ultimate meaning of the missions. The knowledge of the missions of the Trinity is illuminated by an understanding of the processions and Persons of the Trinity. It is this knowledge that reveals that the purpose of the missions and of humanity is to be brought up into and to be delighted in Trinitarian love.

“A mission,” states the German theologian Matthias Scheeben, “can be predicated only of those divine persons who proceed from another person; for he who is sent must be deputed by another.”[1] The persons of the Trinity must therefore be distinguished in order that the ultimate end of the Sender and Sent may be discovered. A person is an “individual substance of a rational nature,” and that “individual itself is undivided, but is distinct from others.”[2] Therefore two people are distinguished by their individual substances, yet the Trinity is three persons with one substance. The distinguishing characteristic then of the Triune Persons is in their relative oppositions in relation to their origin.[3] It is from this distinction that the processions and missions of the Trinity find their distinction and purpose.

A proper name can be distinguished based upon the Persons’ relation to their origin. The First Person bears the name Father for his “paternity” in being that from which the other two Persons proceed, and “He is not from another” thus bearing the “property of innascibility” or being “unbegotten.”[4] The eternally begotten Son then proceeds from the unbegotten Father. Procession carries the implicit notion of movement, especially from internal to external. In the Trinity, however, God cannot proceed externally from God, therefore “there must be an inward procession corresponding to the act remaining within the agent” – thus God proceeds from God to God.[5] The procession of the Son or Word from the unbegotten Father may be called a generation.[6] All living beings display a twofold generation: the first is the change from “non-existence to existence” or rather potentiality to actuality and the second is the “origin of a living being from a conjoined living principle” or simply, “birth.”[7] In God there is no motion, because there is no potential. In the pure actuality of God, the Son generates only in regards to the latter notion of generation or rather the Son is born without a movement from potentiality to actuality. The Son or the Word is generated “by way of intelligible action,” because “by way of similitude” the Word proceeds “as the concept of the intellect is a likeness of the object conceived.” The key to understanding this statement is that “in God the act of understanding and His existence are the same” and therefore the intellect and the thought conceived would exist in the “same nature” within God.[8] Thus, Word is the proper name of the Second Person as “it signifies an emanation of the intellect” being “begotten immaterially.” Son is also proper for he is the “same nature” and Image of the Father.[9]

The Holy Spirit is paramount in understanding the missions of the Trinity, as He is the conduit for the mission of the Son and the overall communication of Trinitarian love. The Holy Spirit is the second and final procession from the Father. While the Word is an operation of the intellect of God, the Holy Spirit is an operation of the will.[10] In the relative opposition according to their origin, the Son bears the Imago Dei as an object conceived in the divine intellect, yet the Holy Spirit as an operation of the will has a “certain inclination to the thing willed” – since the processions of God are internal, the thing willed is God (willed between the Father and the Son), therefore it is a “procession of love” and the “object loved is in the lover.”[11] The Father and the Son (the object of one another) love each other in two ways: essentially and notionally. The essential love is that the Father and Son are of one essence, and love by that same essence.[12] The notional love between the Father and Son “means nothing else than to spirate love,” which is similar to how “a tree flowers with the flower, although the flower is not the tree’s form, but it is the effect proceeding from the form.”[13] Therefore the Holy Spirit embodies and is the Love between the Father and the Son. It is in the Holy Spirit as the Love between the Divine Persons that the name Gift can be seen as proper to the Third Person. Aristotle states that a “gift is properly an unreturnable giving,” which due to its intention is characterized by a “gratuitous donation.”[14] Gifts are given in gratuitousness to those we “wish well,” therefore what is actually first given is “the love whereby we wish” well.[15] It stands then that the Holy Spirit who is the Love between the Father and the Son is also the Gift, as love is the “first gift.”[16] It is the Holy Spirit as the Gift and Love of the Trinity that is key in understanding the communication to and drawing up of humanity into the Trinitarian life.

The processions within the life of the Trinity communicate the properties of how the missions of the Divine Persons will bring humanity up into Divine life and love. St. Augustine states that the Holy Spirit, “exiit non quomodo natus, sed quomodo datus.”[17]

[2] Aquinas, Thomas. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Summa Theologica. Vol. I (NY: Benzinger, 1948) Q. 29 A. 4

[3] Ibid.

[4] Q. 33 A. 2, 4

[5] Q. 27 A 1

[6] Q. 27 A. 2

[7] Ibid.

[8] Q. 14 A. 4

[9] Q. 34 A. 2; Q. 35 A. 2

[10] Q. 27 A. 3

[11] Ibid.

[12] Q. 37 A. 2

[13] Ibid.

[14] Q. 38 A. 2

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] The Holy Spirit does not proceed by birth, but by being given (gift); Scheeben, 106.

All 7 Misconceptions should be read as one whole:

1. We Should Only Pray to God
2. The Saints are Dead
3. God Alone is Omnipresent and Omniscient
4. The Saints are a Mix Between Paganism and Christianity
5. Patron Saints are the “gods” of Things
6. Christ Never Told Us to Pray to the Saints
7. Christ Alone is Our Mediator

1. We Should Only Pray to God

The Argument: Prayers of the faithful must only be given to God.

There are two immediate Protestant responses when Communion of the Saints is mentioned: (1) Prayers go only to God and (2) the Saints are dead. The former states that prayers may only go to God – as prayers are requests to the Divine Being. Therefore, if anyone prays to anything else, he is admitting there is more than one true God.

The Answer: It is a semantic argument – pray has a wider use.

Catholicism uses the term pray in a Shakespearean sense:

Pray you now, forget and forgive. – King Lear, Act 4 – Scene 7

Thus a prayer is a request. We pray to the Saints not as we pray to God. We pray to God to ask him for his grace and aid. We pray or request the Saints for their intercession, their prayers to God. Hence the standard invocation: Saint Ambrose, pray for us. Praying to a Saint is no different than asking the Saint to pray for you.

2. The Saints are Dead

The Skull of Saint Wenceslas, 935 A.D

The Argument: Communication to any Saint is in direct violation of Holy Scripture.

Deuteronomy 18:10-11

Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you.

Even if “praying” is simply asking the Saint to pray to God for us, the Saint cannot because the Saint is dead.

The Answer: The answer is very simple: the Saints are not dead.

The first time Scripture reveals this truth to us is in the narrative of Moses and the Burning Bush.

Exodus 3:6

Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

Notice that God did not say, “I was the God of your father…” but He said “I am the God of your father…” Thus Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob must still exist. Many might find this interpretation weak and unconvincing, but those well read in Scripture will find the interpretation familiar to them. It is the interpretation of Christ:

Luke 20:37

But in the account of the bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.

Christ reveals to us that those who die in fidelity to God are not dead; God is “not the God of the dead, but of the living” and to God “all are alive.” Yet, Christ does not comment on what the Saints are doing. They may be alive in God awaiting the bodily resurrection, but what are they doing?

Revelation 6:9-11

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.

Even a minimalist reading of this passage must admit that the Martyrs are alive in heaven and are praying to God concerning earthly matters. Another narrative that is key to understanding the vitality of the Saints is Mt. Tabor:

Matthew 17:1-4

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.

Once again we see very clearly that the dead in God are not only alive, but participatory in earthly matters.

3. God alone is Omnipresent and Omniscient

The Trinity

The Argument: The Saints are just people, they could not hear nor respond to the millions of prayers for their intercession.

I’ve heard this argument in several different formats, but it usually devolves into a joke about Saints having to have a spiritual answering machine. The gist of the argument is that Saints – as finite human beings – would not be able to either (1) hear our prayers or (2) they could not hear all the prayers directed to them. God alone is omnipresent and omniscient.

The Answer: Scripture depicts the inhabitants of heaven as cognitive of earthly matters.

As this should be clear by the Scriptures given above, those in heaven are aware of what happens on earth. It is foolish to attempt to try and grant them an omniscient status, because there is no need as God is the epicenter and vitality of the entire Communion of the Saints. Those of use on earth are the Church Militant and we perceive the world through our bodily senses in a darkened manner. Those in heaven are the Church Triumphant who are awaiting the bodily resurrection. They are a soul who is experiencing the Beatific Vision: they do not have a concept of God as we do, but rather they see God. Thus, the Blessed Virgin and the Saints participate in the glory of God and pray for those of us still on earth waging the Good Fight, as we are the Church Militant.

There are however a few more verses revealing that the Saints are cognizant of earthly matters and that they can hear our prayers:

Hebrews 12:1

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

Revelation 5:8

And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

Unfortunately the passage in Hebrews is generally taken metaphorically, but in the context of the whole of Scripture there appears no reason to do so. The verse from Hebrews is best read in context with chapter 11 and all of chapter 12. The passage in Revelation is one of many that shows the “prayers of the saints” – presumably those still on earth – as bowls of incense being brought up before the angels, the creatures, the martyrs, the Lamb, and God the Father. Once again, God is the epicenter and vitality for the Communion of the Saints.

4. The Saints Are a Mix Between Paganism and Christianity

The Argument: Catholicism added the concept of praying to the saints to Christianity to lure pagans into the faith via a quasi-pantheon.

The argument most popularly is constructed to say that somewhere in the 5th century the Catholic Church invented the notion of praying to the Saints. The reason the Church invented this practice was to lure pagans into the faith by creating a Christian practice that would appease their pantheistic culture.

The Answer: (1) It was a budding Jewish practice before Christ (2) New Testament Scripture supports it (3) the Early Church practiced it.

Judas Maccabeus led the Maccabean Revolt (167-160 BC) against the Greeks; those events are recorded in I & II Maccabees. One battle that Judas fought was actually against Jews that had succumbed to paganism. While a long pericope, I think it is paramount in understanding what types of intercessory prayer the Jews were practicing even before the coming of our Lord:

II Maccabees 12:39-45

On the following day, since the task had now become urgent, Judas and his men went to gather up the bodies of the slain and bury them with their kinsmen in their ancestral tombs. But under the tunic of each of the dead they found amulets sacred to the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jews to wear. So it was clear to all that this was why these men had been slain. They all therefore praised the ways of the Lord, the just judge who brings to light the things that are hidden.Turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out. The noble Judas warned the soldiers to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen. He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view; for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin.

The above passage reveals a greater insight into the Communion of the Saints: the relationship between Church Militant, Church Triumphant, and Church Suffering. Those of us on earth are intimately connected to those in heaven and those in purgatory. We are connected because we are the Body of Christ and that connection is not disolved at death. If we believe in the resurrection then we have a moral duty to pray for the dead (Suffering), just as those in heaven (Triumphant) pray for those on earth (Militant).

There is also a highly debated prayer of St. Paul in his second epistle to Timothy where it appears that he is praying on behalf of the dead:

II Timothy 1:16-18; 4:19

May the Lord grant mercy to the family of Onesiphorus because he often gave me new heart and was not ashamed of my chains. But when he came to Rome, he promptly searched for me and found me. May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day. And you know very well the services he rendered in Ephesus.

Greet Prisca and Aquila and the family of Onesiphorus.

While this passage in vague, it should be pointed out that Onesiphorus is spoken of in the past tense in St. Paul’s prayer and then a distinction is made at the end of St. Paul’s letter between the living Prisca and Aquila and the family of Onesiphorus. Since St. Paul speaks of him in the past tense and then sends his greetings to his family, this verse has traditionally been seen as a prayer for the dead. All the other above mentioned New Testament verses should be considered when debating the historical origins of Communion of the Saints.

There are a myriad of Early Church examples, but here we will take a few:

The Sub Tuum Praesidum - AD 250

Beneath your compassion, We take refuge, O Mother of God: do not despise our petitions in time of trouble: but rescue us from dangers, only pure, only blessed one.

San Sebastiano ad Catacumbas are the catacombs that many of the Early Church (AD 258) faithful and martyrs carved prayers to Saint Peter and Saint Paul into the walls. Also, there is a letter from St. Jerome entitled Against Vigilantius, where St. Jerome argues for the veneration of relics and Communion of the Saints.

5. The Patron Saints are the “gods” of things.

The Argument: The designation of individual Saints over certain acts or objects is an act of paganism.

As Poseidon is the god of the sea, so St. Ambrose is the god (sub-god) of students, bees, and Milan, Italy (among other things). These Saints have “special control” over these aspects and Catholics pray to them to enact this control.

The Answer: Patronage is a mark of Charity and Community.

If I am going through a divorce and I want some people to pray for me, is it not wise for me to seek prayer from those who understand my situation? Yes, we seek prayer from those whom we know have wisdom and experience in that area of life. The patronage of the Saints illuminates their wisdom and experience. I pray to St. Jude for God’s grace in impossible situations, because his experience with impossible causes has given him a wisdom on how to pray in that situation.

Outside of common sense, there is another reason for the patronage of the Saints. It high lights the thing(s) that they have a particular love for or rather their love for whatever served as the instruments of their sanctification. Our experiences in this life are opportunities to grow in charity and become Christ-like. Thus, St. Ambrose is the patron of students – as he fought the good fight to instruct St. Augustine – and of bees – due to a legend about him in his youth.

6. Christ Never Told Us to Pray to the Saints

The Argument: Nowhere in the Gospels does Christ preach about Communion of the Saints.

The Answer: (1) It is an argument of silence (2) Christ showed us Communion of the Saints

Arguments of silence are always a matter of great discernment and in the Christian religion they are quite dangerous. Most noticeably wrong with arguments of silence regarding Christ is that he never speaks out against homosexuality or abortion (yes, they had abortion). While Christ never spoke of Communion of the Saints explicitly, he does show us the Communion of the Saints:

Matthew 17:1-6

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified.

It is here that Christ is glorified and the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant are together in Christ. The passage reveals to us that the glory of Christ is at the center of the Communion of the Saints and it is the vitality of Christ by which it operates. All those in the Body of Christ are alive in God. As my protestant professor at my undergraduate used to say, “If you don’t believe in Communion of the Saints, you don’t understand the Resurrection of Christ.”

7. We Have One Mediator: Jesus Christ

The Argument: Why pray to the Saints when I can pray to Jesus?

As Jesus Christ is our one and only mediator, the Catholic practice of Communion of the Saints is either (1) completely unnecessary or (2) idolatrous. Why pray to the Saints when I can pray to Jesus?

The Answer: Catholics – like Protestants – have one mediator, but many intercessors.

G.K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy stated that he found it intriguing that people were even willing to contradict themselves to submit a complaint or charge of heresy against the Catholic Church. If the statement were true, that we shouldn’t pray to the Saints because we have one mediator in Christ, then Protestants and Catholics could never ask each other to pray for them. There must be a distinction between mediator and intercessor. Having a Catholic Saint pray for you is no different than asking your neighbor to pray for you. We are all the Body of Christ and he is our one and only mediator.

The beautiful aspect of the Communion of the Saints is that we are never separated from the Church. The Saints are always present. Therefore even in our most intimate moments we can come before God in the power of community.

Saint Ambrose, pray for us.

Blessed Nicholas Garlick, pray for us.

Father Marcello Pellegrino Ernetti

A story for conspiracy theorists…

Father Marcello Pellegrino Ernetti (1925-1994) was a Roman Catholic Benedictine priest who was a linguistic, a biblical scholar, an exorcist, and a specialist in archaic music: primarily pre-Christian and “pre-polyphonic” music.

In the middle of the 20th century, Father Ernetti and Father Agostino Gemelli were working at the Catholic University of Milan together. While they were attempting to filter harmonics out of Gregorian chants, they heard the voice of Father Gemelli’s late father on the wire recorder they were using. The event apparently sparked an interest in Father Ernetti regarding the possibility of visible and audible energies being imprinted into objects.

In the 1950s, Father Ernetti was joined by Nobel Laureate Enrico Femi and Wernher von Braun among others (10 other anonymous scientists) to experiment with the idea of embedded energies. In the 1960s Father Ernetti admitted that the team had created a machine capable of “time viewing,” called the Chronovisor. The machine apparently worked by extracting the visible and audible embedded energies from the surrounding environment. The Chronovisor could extract certain strata of energies and then recreate them visibly and audibly for the viewer. The embedded energy was said to be electromagnetic radiation and sound waves deposited by people and events into the environment.

"The Chronovisor's Christ"

Fr. Ernetti claimed to have viewed the lost Greek tragic play, Thyestes (169 BC) and he claimed to have witnessed Christ’s death on the cross. Fr. Ernetti reported his findings to the Italian newspaper La Domenica del Corriere, whose article featured a picture of Christ that was mistakenly thought to be proof of Fr. Ernetti’s claim.

On his deathbed Fr. Ernetti supposedly recanted the entire story, claiming that the play was written by him and that the photo was simply of a crucifix. The family member who apparently heard the confession remained anonymous, while several alleged that the confession was forced or fictional. Those who hold Fr. Ernetti and the Chronovisor to be legitimate claim that Fr. Ernetti was an incredibly respected man in his fields of study and that the photo was a media mistake from the beginning.

Father Francois Brune who claimed Fr. Ernetti’s deathbed confession document to be fraudulent, also claimed in 2003 that Fr. Ernetti had told him the real truth of the Chronovisor. In 1994, shortly before his death, Fr. Ernetti told Fr. Brune that he and the remaining living scientists who worked on the Chronovisor had just attended a secret meeting at the Vatican. Fr. Ernetti told him that the Chronovisor had been dismantled at that time.

Others however hold that the machine was not dismantled and still exists within the Vatican’s Secret Archives.

Here are some of the excerpts from Fr. Francois Brune’s famous 2003 interview:

“And what exactly became of the Chronovisor?”

“I saw Ernetti for the last time a few months before his death in 1994. He told me that they had just had a meeting in the Vatican with the last living scientists who had collaborated on its construction. There had been four cardinals and other scientists, and he told me that they had discussed all that they knew. The unfortunate thing was that Ernetti would only divulge the name of scientists once they were already dead.”

“What do you mean that they told him everything? Wasn’t the Vatican already well informed about the Chronovisor?”

“You see, as far as I know, the Chronovisor had been dismantled. But Ernetti didn’t have much trust in the Vatican. Already some years before he had told me that he had deposited his plans with a notary in both Switzerland and Japan.”

“Let’s talk about something else, Father Brune,” I asked. “You might know that the first time the Chronovisor was referred to in the press was in 1972. And that then, the first news about it was accompanied by a supposed photo of Jesus Christ obtained by this machine…”

“It was a fake photo, of course.”

“Please tell me about it.”

“It’s simple. Some people who worked on the Chronovisor said that the machine couldn’t take close-ups, only general ones. With nowhere near as much detail as in that photo. It wasn’t possible to obtain an image that was so precise.”

“But did they use the Chronovisor to see the Passion of Christ?”

“Yes.”

“In what year did they do that?”

“I think it was before 1960.”

“And that close-up image of Jesus?”

“It was taken from the most famous crucifix of Collevallenza. When it was published, they used it to attack Father Ernetti, accusing him of fraud. But Ernetti had already informed me that it wasn’t from the Chronovisor, just as he’d told a reporter from the magazineMás Allá a few years before...”

[...]

At last the moment of truth had arrived. The moment when I asked Brune if, in addition to his priest-to-priest conversations with Ernetti, he had been allowed to see films or photographs from the Chronovisor. Brune was categorical.

“No,” he asserted. “Ernetti told me that he hadn’t kept any of it. He was urged by his superiors not to speak a word about it. And he suffered a lot due to this, because he never had the occasion to explain his discoveries to Science.

“But when I interviewed Ernetti in 1993, he told me that it had been Pope Pius XII who had prohibited him from speaking about it.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Do you have any idea why he was prohibited from doing so?”

“Brune shrugged his shoulders at my naivete.

“Well…” he hesitated. “Ernetti showed his recordings to the Pope as well as the President of Italy, Mussolini. And also to other scientists and cardinals, and their unanimous conclusion was that it was dangerous for humanity. I know that there exists an American science fiction novel that imagines what would happen if they discovered such an apparatus, and what the consequences would be for humanity. Because there wouldn’t be any secrets, whether scientific, political, economic, or any private lives. Everything would be transparent.”

“But if the Vatican had this apparatus, wouldn’t they ever use it?”

“It’s possible. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you any further.”

Sources

The full 2003 interview with Fr. Brune.

Father Marcello Pellegrino Ernetti

Father Ernetti’s Chronovisor : The Creation and Disappearance of the World’s First Time Machine

Filed under: History ]]> http://theoaksofmamre.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/the-chronovisor-the-vaticans-time-machine/feed/ 0 HH Ambrose vaticano_02-tm DomenicadellaCorriere72_02 http://theoaksofmamre.wordpress.com/2010/03/07/the-existential-argument-for-god/ http://theoaksofmamre.wordpress.com/2010/03/07/the-existential-argument-for-god/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:07:09 +0000 HH Ambrose http://theoaksofmamre.wordpress.com/?p=147 ]]> The Existential Argument for God
On Being and Essence (De Ente et Essentia) by St. Thomas Aquinas

1. Thomistic Vocabulary
2. The Intellectus Essentiae Argument
3. The Existential Argument for God

Pure Being:

St. Thomas lays out the characteristics of a “pure being”:

Now granted that there is a reality that is pure being, so that being itself is subsistent, this being would not receive the addition of a difference, because then it would not be being alone but being with the addition of a form. Much less would it receive the addition of matter, because then it would not be subsistent, but material being. It follows that there can be only one reality that is identical with its being. In everything else, then, its being must be other than its quiddity, nature, or form. That is why the being of the intelligences must be in addition to their form; as has been said, an intelligence is form and being.

In gist, if anything was added to a being of pure act, it would be limiting and a limiting of act creates potential. Essence limits being. In example, the essence of a horse would limit the being of the horse to the limitations of what a horse is, the quiddity of the horse. Thus Essence to being is as potency to act. Thus a Pure Being would have to have an essence identical to its being – ergo, the Pure Being would be a being of Pure Act, completely unlimited. The Pure Being could be the only one, because nothing could be outside Being-itself, if anything was outside Being-itself, it would then cease to be pure being – for it would be able to have a difference (an addition), which creates potential and reveals itself to be affected by something. Thus, Pure Being must be pure act without any potential and therefore without the possibility of an addition (for nothing can be outside Pure Being, Being-itself).

The Existential Argument

St. Thomas then submits an existential argument for God:

Now being itself cannot be caused by the form or quiddity of a thing (by ‘caused’ I mean by an efficient cause), because that thing would then be its own cause and it would bring itself into being, which is impossible. It follows that everything whose being is distinct from its nature must have being from another… there must be a reality that is the cause of being for all other things, because it is pure being, as has been said.

1. The Source – St. Thomas states that since the essence of a thing and the being of a thing are distinct, an essence cannot cause its own being. The essence or quiddity of a Tree, simply the “whatness” of the Tree cannot cause itself to exist or give itself being. Therefore there must be a being whose essence and being are identical, a being who simply “is” or rather who is Being-itself. You cannot have an infinite regress, something cannot come from nothing, and something cannot cause itself to exist. There must be a Source of being.
2. The Gift of Being - Since there can only be one Pure Being, Being-itself whose essence and being are identical, then everything else must have a distinction between their essence and their being. If the essence of the Tree is distinct from the being of the tree, and the tree cannot cause its own being, then something must give the gift of being to the tree. The giver of being would be Being-itself, the one and only Pure Being. Thus God is the source of being, Being-itself and grants being to essence.

1. Thomistic Vocabulary
2. The Intellectus Essentiae Argument
3. The Existential Argument for God

The Intellectus Essentiae argument attempts to state that there is a real distinction between Essence and Existence (Being).

Here is how St. Thomas states the argument:

Everything that does not belong to the concept of an essence or quiddity comes to it from outside it and enters into composition with the essence, because no essence can be understood without its parts. Now, every essence or quiddity can be understood without knowing anything about its being.

St. Thomas Aquinas lays down the general rule that if something does not belong to the essence, it must come from outside the essence. Thus, if it can be seen that Being is distinct from Essence, then Being must come from outside the Essence. For St. Thomas, this appears to proved by the fact an essence can be comprehended without any knowledge of the things being.

St. Thomas gives the following proof:

I can know, for instance, what a man or a phoenix is and still be ignorant whether it has being in reality. From this it is clear that being is other than essence or quiddity, unless perhaps there is a reality whose quiddity is being.

Phoenix, Aberdeen Bestiary

St. Thomas is making the statement that one can comprehend the essence of something without any regard to if the thing actually exists. The man represents the Essence of a Real Principle, one can comprehend the essence of a man regardless of whether that man exists or not. The phoenix represents the Essence of a Potential Principle, yet even though the phoenix is in potential, we can still comprehend its essence. The ability to comprehend the essence of the phoenix is demonstrable by the fact I can make a distinction between a phoenix and a unicorn – both potential beings, whose essence is only found in the mind. Though the phoenix is in potency and only has essence in the mind, it still has matter and form, therefore it has intelligibility and may be distinguished.

At the foundation of the Intellectus Essentiae argument is the Individual Essence.

The Individual Essence can be found (1) in the Mind and (2) in the thing. If I see a tree, then there is the essence of the tree in the tree itself, but in my comprehension of the tree, its essence now has being in my mind. If the essence can be found in the thing and in my mind simultaneously, then neither can be equal to existence, to being. Ergo, being must come from outside the essence and St. Thomas uses the Intellectus Essentiae argument to lay the foundation for the nature of God being understood as Pure Being and the Existential Argument for God.

1. Thomistic Vocabulary
2. The Intellectus Essentiae Argument
3. The Existential Argument for God

Essence – it is the “whatness” of a thing, or rather the “quiddity” (Latin: Quid – what); answers the question “what is it?” – the essential parts of a material essence are form and matter.
Nature – nature and essence are almost synonymous save the fact that nature implies the proper operation of the thing
Substance: a subject of being, a proper recipient of being
Accidents: an articulation of the subject, which has its existence in the subject

Form – actualizes matter
Matter – receives its being from Form; cannot exist without Form
Essential Parts – Form and Matter are the “essential” parts of essence, because they provide the “generic intelligibility of material essence or quiddity.”

A Coffee Cup

What is the quiddity of the thing? A cup, more particularly a coffee cup. Its nature or proper operation would be to contain coffee for consumption. The substance of the cup is best seen in distinction to its accidents – the cup is white, however the “whiteness” could not exist without the cup, the “whiteness” is an accident that articulates the the proper recipient of being, the cup. The matter is presumably ceramic and the form is a cup. The form of the cup is said to actualize the ceramic matter, because matter cannot exist without some type of form. Form and matter provide the intelligibility of the essence, hence the ceramic matter and form of the cup provide for us the intelligibility of the thing’s essence, a coffee cup.

Essence may be considered in a few different manners:

Absolute Essence – according to its proper meaning; the proper definition of the definitive notes of the essence; the absolute essence is abstracted from every being, but in such a way that it prescinds from no one of them; and it is the essence considered in this way that we attribute to all individuals. Overall, it is simply the definitive notes of the essence, yet it does not have being in itself. For example, the absolute essence of man is “rational animal” – this definition is abstracted from all human beings, but it does not prescind from any particular one.

Individual Essence – essence has being in two ways (1) essence in the mind (2) essence in the thing itself. The coffee cup has an essence, the essence in the thing, yet as I comprehend the coffee cup, the essence of the coffee cup has being in my mind. Thus the essence has two copula that reveal both beings: it is in the mind and it is in the thing itself.

Accidents of the Essence in the Mind: Genus and Species
Accidents of the Essence in the Thing: the individuating factors; the cup is white.

These definitions lay the foundation for the Intellectus Essentiae argument, which is turn is the foundation for the Existential Argument for God.

I am posting this conversation for two reasons (1) to display what is and what is not a fruitful theological conversation (2) to maybe clarify and spawn discussion over a few common misconceptions regarding the Catholic Church.

Here is the conversation best I can remember:

Baptist: So why do you believe in salvation by works?

Little do the Protestants know, we Catholics are actually building a Deathstar and Deathstar spelled backwards in Hebrew multiplied by 666 spells "Whore of Babylon," "The Nazis," & "Obama" at the same time.

Me: Sir, Catholics believe in salvation by grace.

Baptist: Thats not what your catechism says. I believe like Martin Luther, “Salvation by faith alone.”

Me: I actually don’t know any Christian group that believes in salvation by works alone. Sir, do you know what Martin Luther’s analogy was for grace? He believed that we were a pile of dung out in a field and Christ was the first snow fall that covered us up. We remained both saint and sinner. Luther believed that even asking Christ to save you was an act, thus he taught that we were elected, or rather he taught in Predestination.

Baptist: It doesn’t matter what Luther thought, I believe in salvation by grace.

Me: So do we, sir.

It was at this point I realized two things:

1. Sophistry – a style of argument that generally cares more about appearing to win the argument than actually discovering truth. It mainly relies on quips and barbs and most characteristically will bring up new points and arguments before one is able to corner their previous train of thought. The man I was arguing with was the epitome of this style, as I think many theological and political conversations today are.
2. The setting for this argument was inside a tanning salon (Amy was tanning…), that apparently this man owned. We were having this debate in front of several employees and awaiting customers. It was now that I realized my goal was not to change the mind of the man I was talking with – who could by God alone – but to present Catholicism in a good light to the many silent witnesses listening in. Charity is the number one mark of those who participate in Christ and theological conversation should be conducted in a charitable manner.

Me: I believe Scripture is very clear that we enter into salvation by grace.

Baptist: You don’t believe in Scripture. You believe in the Pope. The Pope can say something equal or greater to Jesus Christ. That is blasphemy.

Me: Sir, actually the Pope cannot overrule Christ. Christ was the Son of David, our King. The Pope is simply the Vicar of that Kingdom. He simply protects and unifies the faith.

Baptist: He says things that are greater all the time.

Me: Like?

Baptist: He says that you cannot eat meat on Fridays and that the priests cannot marry. Paul says that any man who tells you that you cannot eat meat or cannot marry is a demon. A demon!

Seriously, how can this man be that bad?

Me: Lets look at the context of what Paul is saying. The meat he said they could not ban was meat offerred to idols. It was a choice of the individual. Therefore its not abstaining from meat that is bad, but rather Paul is making a statement of intent and context. Not eating meat in remembrance of Christ sacrifice would not be banned under St Paul’s logic.

Baptist: Any man who tells you that you cannot eat meat or marry is a demon. That is what the Bible says.

Me: I’m not sure exactly what you are referring to, but -

Baptist: Paul tells us the rules for a deacon and a bishop and he says that they should have good families. Therefore if you ban families you are a demon according to St Paul.

Me: Sir, do you realize that the Roman Catholic Church is not the Catholic Church? There are also Eastern Catholics.

Baptist: You mean the Orthodox.

Me: No, I mean Eastern Catholics. They are churches that developed in the East and are in communion with the Pope of Rome. The Pope is the Patriarch of the West and the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, but he is also the head of the entire Catholic Church. The Eastern Catholic priests are allowed to marry. The Roman Catholic priests are not allowed to marry. It is a pastoral judgment, not a theological one.

Baptist: He is a demon. It is unnatural.

Me: Listen, St. Paul said he wished everyone was like him and abstained from marriage and dedicated their to Christ and the Gospel. The Roman Catholic Church made the pastoral choice that their priests would follow this guideline. The Eastern Catholics however do allow their priests to marry.

Baptist: Do you believe that Mary was perfect?

Me: Yes, I believe in the Immaculate Conception.

Baptist: No, I’m talking about Mary, not Christ.

Me: Sir, this is a common Protestant mistake, the Immaculate Conception refers to Mary’s conception, not Christ’s. I promise.

Baptist: Do you know the law of Perfection? A perfect thing must come from a perfect thing, therefore Mary could not have been perfect.

Me: Doesn’t that mean she would have to be perfect?

Baptist: No, Mary could have been a prostitue. It did not matter. She simply carried Christ and gave birth to him, thats all.

Me: Sir, what makes a person human?

Baptist: They pass through the birth canal.

Me: So abortion is ok?

Baptist: No! I guess it is the sperm uniting with the egg, but there wasn’t any sperm – there was the Holy Spirit.

Me: So why could the egg be stained with sin and then a perfect thing come from it? If Christ was truly human he had to be born as a human, which means he pulled his flesh from Mary. He was Mary’s Son. He looked like Mary. Christ had to come from a clean vessel, this is why she is referred to as the New Ark.

Baptist: Well if Mary had to be perfect, then her parents would have to be perfect, and on and on.

Ave Maria, gratia plena dominus tecum.

Me: Oh yes, the argument of infinite regress. I don’t believe so, to say that is to say that God couldn’t step in and act. He was creating a New Adam and a New Eve to recapitulate humanity. Christ and Mary were both perfect, but they differed in their perfection. Christ is perfect because he is God and thus he had to come from a clean vessel. Mary is perfect like the Ark was, God made it perfect and Holy.

Baptist: Did Mary have to repent?

Me: Mary was still in need of a savior. She was perfect because of God, not on her own. She still owed her salvation to God.

Baptist: Mary could have been a prostitute. The only reason Christ was born of a virgin was so that no man could claim Christ as his. Plus, Mary’s sin does not matter. Sin only passes through the male, not the female.

Me: The females are stained with sin as well.

Baptist: No, only the males pass on sin. Thats why he had to have a virgin birth.

Me: Sir, thats a myth. Where does it say that in the Bible? If women are fallen creatures as well, stained by sin, then they pass their stained flesh on to their children. Creation has fallen.

Baptist: Catholics don’t believe in the Bible anyway. Christ came and died and the curtain in the temple was torn in two. And you know what you Catholics did? You went right ahead and made another altar and another tabernacle. And you know what else? You called it “the sacrifice of the mass.” You are killing Christ again. That is blasphemy.

Me: Sir, why do you believe in the Bible?

Baptist: Because of all the prophecy that came true.

Me: Ok, but what about all the sections that don’t deal with prophecy directly. Why do you believe in Scripture as a whole? Why do you believe these books are the New Testament.

Baptist: Because it is the Word of God.

Me: True, but who selected it as the Word of God? It was a Catholic Council inspired by the Holy Spirit with the Pope and all the bishops. They got together and selected what was and what was not in the Bible. There were over 75 possible works they could have included.

Baptist: Well, I believe you could add or take away books. It does not matter.

Me: So you don’t believe Scripture is inspired as a whole?

Baptist: I believe that the truth of Christ is all that matters. It wasn’t up to the Catholics.

Me: So you don’t hold that Council to be infallible? Scripture could change? What do you think about the nature of Christ or the Trinity? Both of these ideas were implicit in Scripture, but were dogmatically laid out at Catholic Councils.

Baptist: I think the Trinity is a terrible way to express God. All it is is the idea of finite beings attempting to express an infinite being. Let me ask you something, do you believe that Christ and the Holy Spirit are the same person?

Me: No, I don’t believe they are the same person.

Baptist: See, so many Catholics don’t know that Christ is God.

Me: What? No. I believe in the Trinity, but I don’t believe Christ and the Holy Spirit are the same person. The Trinity is three persons of one substance.

Baptist: The Trinity is a terrible way to express God.

Thanks Seventh Day Adventists.

Me: I actually think it is quite beautiful. Lets go back to your statement about the curtain in the temple being ripped. The Curtain was ripped as an act of mercy. The sacrifice of the Mass is not debunking that mercy, but embracing it.

Baptist: Killing God again is blasphemy.

Me: We do not “kill God again,” we are participating in his sacrifice that was once and for all. Listen, the Jews had the Passover and then Christ established a new feast where his body is the bread and his blood is the wine. We celebrate his sacrifice at the mass.

Baptist: Do you actually think it is the real body of Christ?

Me: Yes, I do. I think we become one body with Christ, our Salvation.

Baptist: That is blasphemy. I don’t think communion has anything to do with salvation.

Me: What does John 6 say?

Baptist: I don’t know.

Me: Christ tells us that unless we eat his body and drink his blood, there is no life in us. How can something that places Christ’s life inside us not having anything to do with salvation?

Baptist: Do you know that the New Testament never says we are to have priests?

Me: It never says the word Trinity either. I don’t think its wise to -

Baptist: You know when all these priest were found out to be gay or child molesters, I was not surprised. I was raised Catholic. They were all weird. All priests are homosexuals, thats why they don’t marry.

Amy: We really need to go.

Me: Listen sir, I’ll end on this. This entire conversation has not been about the differences in Protestantism and Catholicism. This entire conversation has been about what is Catholicism and what you think Catholicism is. You haven’t said one thing that is actually in line with Church teaching. Listen, I bet you like reading Catholic books to prove Catholics wrong, right?

Baptist: I go to Catechism classes all the time and they throw me out. You know why? Because they know I speak the truth.

Me: Sir, I think they may throw you out because you don’t listen and you are rude [I've smoothed this conversation out immensely, in reality I rarely spoke a complete sentence without him either trying to or just interrupting me].

Baptist: They believe their priests are perfect. You cannot disagree with a priest.

Me: Um, listen sir. Do me a favor, will you? Pick up a book by Scott Hahn. He use to be Protestant and now he is Catholic. He argues for Catholicism from Scripture.

Baptist: You cannot do that, its against your Catechism.

Me: Sir, I hope you have a good night, we both believe in a God of mercy, maybe you’ll come full circle.

Later that night I could not sleep. I only thought about how someone can be so terribly wrong about something so beautiful and righteous. I spent time that night praying for him and in retrospect I believe this event is intimately tied into the Scrutinies – the period of spiritual testing during the 40 days of Lent before one enters the Catholic Church.

The Oratory, Ave Maria University

"Ven. Nicholas Garlick saying Mass in Padley Chapel"

Nicholas was born c. 1555 in Dinting, Derbyshire, England and matriculated into Worcester College, Oxford in 1575. Only six months after his matriculation he left Oxford. His departure is probably due to the Oath of Supremacy: An act originally implemented by King Henry VIII (1534), then repealed by Queen Mary I, and then reestablished by Queen Elizabeth I (1559) demanded that all English subjects involved in political or ecclesial structures pledge that the English Monarch was the Supreme head of the Church of England. Those who refused – like St. Sir Thomas Moore – were accused of treason.

After he left Oxford he moved to Tideswell, England. At Oxford he had been described as “well seen in Poetry, Rhetoric, and Philosophy,” and at Tideswell he taught as their schoolmaster “with great love, credit, and no small profit to his scholars.” Over a six to seven year career he had three students become Catholic priests – one named Christopher Buxton who became a martyr and another priest – Eric Bradshaw – who witnessed his teacher’s martyrdom and became the President of the English Benedictine Congregation.

On June 22nd, 1581, Nicholas Garlick entered the English College Catholic Seminary located in Rheims, France. He was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1582 and left France to do missionary work in Anglican England in 1583. In 1585 he was banished from England along with seventy-two other Catholic priests. He arrived back in Rheims, France in October 17th, 1585 – he remained for two days before returning to England.

Fr. Nicohlas Garlick (left) Fr. Robert Ludlam (right)

After over two and half years of ministry, Fr. Nicholas Garlick and his friend Fr. Robert Ludlam were arrested at Padley Hall in Grindleford, England on July, 12th, 1588. Fr. Garlick and Ludlam were brought to Derby (DAR-bee) Gaol (aka Prison) and were imprisoned with fellow priest Fr. Richard Simpson – a priest that was apparently dabbling with the thought of becoming Protestant. On July 23rd, 1588 all three priests were accused of “seducing” the subjects of Queen Elizabeth I. Fr. Nicholas Garlick who acted as a spokesman for the group, responded:

I have not come to seduce, but to induce men to the Catholic faith. For this end have I come to the country, and for this will I work as long as I live.

In the end, the three priests were found guilty and condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Their punishment was thus:

That you and each of you be carried to the place from whence you came, and from thence be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, and be there severally hanged, but cut down while you are alive; that your privy members be cut off; that your bowels be taken out and burnt before your faces; that your heads be severed from your bodies; that your bodies be divided into four quarters, and that your quarters be at the Queen’s disposal; and the Lord have mercy on your souls.

In response, Fr. Nicholas Garlick said:

I thought that Cain would never be satisfied till he had the blood of his brother Abel

The Arrest of Fr. Garlick and Ludlam

On July 24th, 1588 the three priest were brought out for execution along with a woman convicted of murder whom they had reconciled to the Catholic faith the night before. On the way there a member in the crowd reminded Fr. Garlick that they had gone hunting together, Fr. Garlick replied:

True, but now I am to shoot off such a shot as I never shot in all my life.

When they arrived at the place of execution the cauldron was not ready yet, so Fr. Garlick took the opportunity to preach to the gathered crowd. Fr. Simpson was first to be hanged and quartered, but he show hesitancy and in fear his friend’s courage would fail, Fr. Garlick ran up before Fr. Simpson. He went before the ladder, kissed it, and embraced his martyrdom with joy. Fr. Simpson went next and Fr. Ludlam after him. It is recorded that both Fr. Garlick and Ludlam had joy in their death and that Fr. Ludlam smiled with joy during not only his execution, but also Fr. Garlick’s.

All three of the priests were declared venerable in 1888 and then were beatified by Pope John Paul II as members of the eighty-five martyrs of England and Wales.

Blessed Nicholas Garlick, pray for us.

Sources

Catholic Encyclopedia Online: Nicholas Garlick

A Pilgram’s Guide to Padley by Garrett Sweeny

Padely Chapel and Padley Martyrs by F.M. Hayward

Forgotten Shrines by Dom Bene Camm

Yet, before we dismiss this method – that we all know people have tried – we must acknowledge the one of the greatest saints in history implemented this method: Saint Augustine.

Saint Augustine

In Book Eight of Confession, St. Augustine records how he wandered into a garden racked with anguish in whether or not he could conquer his disordered desires – mainly lust – in order to enter the Catholic Church and live a chaste life. He states:

So sick was I, so tortured, as I reviled myself more bitterly than ever, churning and chafing in my chains, not broken free of them entirely… your fierce pity wielding the double whip of fear and shame to prevent my relapse… my inner self was urging me: Now is the time! Now! With those words I was moving to a resolution, I was almost there – but was not there.

In opposition to his inner self was the voice of his disorder, his lust:

My entrenched lusts, plucking me back by my fleshly clothing, whispering low: Can you cast us off? And: From this moment, never more to be with us! And: From this moment, never to do to this, not ever, or to do this! What they specified by this and this, keep far from me, God – what sordid, what disgraceful things they spelled out for me.

As St Augustine was wreathed in pain and indecision, he heard a small child’s voice in the garden sing, Lift! Look! and the Saint not doubting that it was by divine prompting that I should open the book and read what first I hit on. In other words, the Saint hears a small child sing and interprets this as open the writings of St Paul and read the first verse that presents itself; he read:

Give up indulgence and drunkenness, give up lust and obscenity, give up strife and rivalries, and clothe yourself in Jesus Christ the Lord, leaving no further allowance for fleshly desires

After reading the words of St Paul, Augustine states, this very instant I finished that sentence, light was flooding into my heart with assurance, and all my shadowy reluctance evanesced. After this experience Augustine decides to convert and be baptized into the Catholic Church under the Bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose.

Is Saint Augustine’s experience and method legitimate?

Yes. For two reasons:

1. It was not a random attempt at discovering God’s truth, but rather it was an act prompted by “divine prompting.” St Augustine’s experience is not a statement on human method, but rather a product cultivated by the Holy Spirit and the Saint being in-tuned with the harmony of that divine cultivation.
2. The MOST IMPORTANT aspect of the legitimacy of the Saint’s experience is what follows after the garden narrative. In book Nine of the Confessions, St Augustine presents his subjective individualistic experience to the objective sacramental community – the Catholic Church. He does not allow his personal experience to form his Christianity, but rather presents his subjective experience to the objective Church – this is the canon for all individual experiences within Christianity. In this manner, the individual cannot be led astray by subjective notions, but rather may find wisdom and confidence in allowing their personal experiences to be judged by two-thousand years of an objective Christ handed down by the Apostles.

In conclusion, it is paramount to illuminate that St Augustine does not consider his subjective experience his salvation, but rather he must submit himself to sacramental objectivity – Baptism and the Catholic Church.

“To become a fervent seeker after truth, though not yet receiving any of your sacraments.”

“Manicheans, it is true, roused me to harsh and stinging anger, but I soon relapsed into pity for them, as ignorant of your sacraments, your medications – the cure, had they not raved senselessly against it, that would have made them well.”

“Though that faith left me no comfort on the subject of my former sins, not yet forgiven me in baptism.”

“I sent a letter to your spokesperson, the Holy Ambrose… what readings would make me more ready and qualified to receive so great a grace.”

“Alypius had decided to be reborn to you with me.”

“Together we were baptized, and misgivings about our past were assuaged.”

* All quotations are extracted from Confessions trans. by Gary Wills – the translation is par, but at times fails to distinguish between women themselves and the disorder of lust as St Augustine’s primary issue.

Filed under: Theology ]]> http://theoaksofmamre.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/st-augustine-the-garden-is-flipping-open-the-bible-a-legitimate-method-to-find-gods-will/feed/ 1 HH Ambrose Saint Augustine Open Bible