Seeing the Tragic Divorce Between Doctrine And Practice

On the feast day of St Augustine it seems what von Balthasar felt about a "divorce" within the church continues to separate many of us.

From Christology from Within: Spirituality and the Incarnation in Hans Urs von Balthasar by Mark McIntosh

As von Balthasar worked his way through the classics of Christian thought, the uneasy sensation settled over him that a tragic divorce had occurred between doctirne and practice, between theorlogy and spirituality... He struggled to understand what he saw as the fatal consequences of this separation - the desiccation of dogmatics and the self-absorption of spirituality... The separation has in von Balthasar's mind a more grievously concrete cause: an absence of men and women with the grace to unify theology and spirituality in their own lives.

(Can it be better explained than that?)

Von Balthasar sees the first real impetus for this separation in the church's need to challenge false teaching and schismatic tendencies, and therefore to demarcate the limits of authentic Christian faith.

"... he argues that philosophical ideas, norms, and methods became a rigid structure imposed upon the content of faith.  The result was an increasing isolation of dogmatic and mystical theology from one another, each becoming more inaccessible and unattractive to the practitioners of the other."

He is clearly far from assigning blame only to the scientific theologians.  The saints are more and more called to offer descriptions of their inner states and experiences; they are "required to describe the way in which they experienced God, and the accent is always on experience rather than on God.: for the nature of God is a subject for the theological specialist."  It is as if the taste of spiritually inclined persons becomes so subjective and rarified that the objective mysteries of Christianity only manage to obstruct their view.  The saints, therefore, "are not taken seriously in theology because they themselves did not venture to be theologically minded."

Von Balthasar sees this (the role of the saints) gift of openness and availability to the Word as first a gift of the church, but it often becomes manifest in a saint, whose soul has gazed so long and deeply on the light of God that it has come to hold within itself an almost inexhaustible store of light and love, and so can offer lasting force and sustenance.

In other words, mysticism which is not in some way in the service of the whole church's ever deeper appropriation and understanding of life in Christ is not an appropriate theological matrix.

...it is not experience of a union with God which represents the yardstick of perfection or the highest stage of ascent, but rather obedience, which can be quite as tightly bound to the experience of abandonment by God as to the experience of union with God.

Authentic Christianity spirituality is already communally oriented, for it is a spirituality ordered primarily to obedience, which always involves community.

Deo Gratias

First of all, a huge thank you for all of your prayers. I am home and happy to be so. The experience provided a few surprises. Dr. Choti at Johns Hopkins began my surgery nearly three hours later than expected last Wednesday, but all went well.

He routinely removed the gall bladder, what happens with all liver resectioning, no encroachment of CA there. The tumors were all removed. I provided him with a surprise, however. The CA had moved to the diaphragm. This never appeared on any CTscan or MRI, but makes sense of other symptoms; namely, the originating complaint of pain when laughing, running, yawning, etc. This being the case, the CA in the diaphragm was probably there since at least my father's birthday, February of 2009. Dr. Choti asked if I had had pain in my shoulder - a big "YES" - which is a key symptom of problems in the diaphragm. The tumors in the diaphgram, now, are gone.

So, the hidden CA in the diaphragm led us to the early diagnosis of CA in the liver while it was still quite operable AND the removal of the CA in the diaphragm which Choti says he successfully removed. I am breathing easy, the shoulder is not nearly as painful, and except for the usual pain of going through the muscle wall, I am not doing poorly at all.

On the other hand, I cannot do any exercise other than walking, I cannot drive while on Oxycodone pain medicine, and are under orders to "mend" for the next 3 weeks, after which I see Dr. Choti to strategize.

Again, thank you for your kind well wishes and prayers; keep them coming!

Longenecker - Penitence

Fr Dwight Longenecker posts on the Practical Power of Penitence:

I've always been befuddled by those who consider repentance to be a gloomy and unhealthy exercise because it seems to me that it is just the opposite. Admitting our sins and going to confession is actually one of the healthiest and happiest things we can do. Apart from the spiritual graces of the sacrament, here are the practical benefits:

• Penitence makes me realistic about myself. - As soon as I say, "Lord Jesus Christ Have Mercy on me a Sinner" all the self delusions fall away and I can begin to see myself as I really am.
• Penitence makes me relistic about other people. - Not only realistic, but compassionate. If I'm a struggling sinner, then so is everyone else. What's the saying, "Be kind, everyone is fighting a great battle."
• Penitence makes me realistic about God - If I'm a sinner and see myself clearly, then I suddenly see God clearly too. I cut through the sentimentality or the fear or whatever false image of God and should be able to see him as the loving and forgiving Father.
• Penitence makes me able to learn. - You can't learn anything if you think you know it all. You can learn to be righteous is you think you already are. Saying you're a sinner is the first step to enlightenment.
• Penitence makes me aware of my need for God - The cry "O Lord make haste to help me!" is the cry of a person in need. We can only be given what we need when we ask for what we need and we can only ask if we first realize we have a need.
• Penitence opens my heart - The hardened heart is a fearful thing, and no one who is truly penitent can have a hardened heart. Immediately we cry out in penitence we make a great soul jump forward. The opened heart is a heart that can sing.

More here.

Where can I hide from your spirit?

Gratefully ripped off .. um, highlighted and borrowed .. from Elizabeth Scalia's The Anchoress site. Romano Guardini on the Sacrament of Reconciliation:

To be seen by Him does not mean to be exposed to a merciless gaze, but to be enfolded in the deepest care. Human seeing often destroys the mystery of the other. God’s seeing creates it.

We can do nothing better than press on into the sight of God. The more deeply we understand what God is, the more fervently we shall want to be seen by him. We are seen by him whether we want to be or not. The difference is whether we try to elude his sight or strive to enter into it, understanding the meaning of his gaze, coming to terms with it, and desiring that His will be done.

We can do nothing better than place ourselves and all that we have in God’s sight: “Behold me!” Let us put away the fear that prevents us. Let us abandon the sloth, the pretense of independence, and the pride. “Look at the good! Look at the shortcomings! The ugly, the unjust, the evil, the wicked, everything – look at it, O God!”

Sometimes it is impossible to alter something or other. But let Him see it at any rate. Sometimes one cannot honestly repent. But let him see that we cannot yet repent. None of the shortcomings and evil in our lives are fatal so long as they confront his gaze. The very act of placing ourselves in his sight is the beginning of renewal. Everything is possible so long as we begin with God. But everything is in danger once we refuse to place ourselves and our lives in his sight.

Alter Christi

Athos Digs Out

Yeoman's Work

Dawn Eden Interview - Air Maria

An extremely thoughtful, valuable and timely discussion by Dawn Eden - author of Thrill of the Chaste - on Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body. Dawn sets the writing of TOTB in historical context in the Church, provides insights into the recent Christopher West controversy, and lends her own warm and intelligent perspective. Highly recommended here.

Cantalamessa - Priests Called to BE

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 4, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Priests must be servants of Christ, not in the sense that they do acts of service, but that their identity is that of a servant, says the preacher of the Pontifical Household.

Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa said this today during his first Advent reflection for Benedict XVI and members of the Roman Curia.

The Capuchin said that in this Year for Priests, he would dedicate both his Advent and Lent reflections to the topic of the priesthood, trying "if possible, to make our priestly heart vibrate on contact with some Word of God."

The preacher reflected on the priestly calling: "'Servants of Christ!' -- with the exclamation mark to indicate the greatness, dignity and beauty of this title. [...] We are not speaking here of practical and ministerial services, how to administer the word and the sacraments [...] in other words, we are not speaking of the service as act, but of service as state, as essential vocation and as identity of the priest and we speak of it in the same sense and with the same spirit of Paul who at the beginning of his letters always introduces himself thus: 'Paul, servant of Christ Jesus, apostle by vocation.'

"On the invisible passport of the priest, the one with which he presents himself every day in the presence of God and of his people, to the call 'profession,' one should be able to read: 'Servant of Jesus Christ.' All Christians of course are servants of Christ [...] but the ordained minister is so in a title and sense that is different and higher." More>>

Crises - Knox

An atmosphere of crisis takes people different ways. Some get so wrapped up in their work that they never look beyond the edge of their own cabbage-patch. Others think in continents, and are depressed, nowadays, by the exercise; what is the use of doing anything, when everything is going from bad to worse? The Christian ought to rise above both those temptations. His daily work, his common human duties, are a charge entrusted to him. He believes in the sacrament of the present moment; what might happen, what is likely to happen, he leaves in the hands of God.

- Monsignor Ronald Knox

Grace is Sufficient

The greatest temptations I face are self-pity, despair, the panic that robs the good of intellect. Your grace saves me from them, O Lord. It is sufficient.

Today grace taught me right before my chemotherapy treatment that I loathe it because I, too, was raised in a culture that disdains the body in a kind of Gnostic angelism. Walker Percy astutely observed that those caught in this plight make occasional attempts at re-entry by means of bestialism. I thank you, Lord, that you excised that temptation at my Confirmation.

Chemotherapy is a blessed reminder that the body is, is good - imago dei, and that I am no gnostic. Let the chemo always remind me, O Lord.

Proximity Alerts, Decisions, & Chivalry

I am convinced of a great many things, thanks to the overwhelming initiative of the grace of God. But two things stand in stark relief most specially. First, I am convinced that whereas we may be gifted with a fabulous gift of intelligence and reasoning, it will or will not be of any lasting use or benefit to the common good in direct correlation to its starting proximity to Christian faith and morals as taught and vouchsafed by the Catholic Church.

This means that if I happen to be born, raised, and given my first shove out of the "nest", so to speak, outside the sphere of influence of Christian faith and morality, that will nearly and most surely mean that these will not be of great import in my decision-making or actions. Therefore, this is likely to happen. If, on the other hand, I have been blessed to be born, raised, and catechized in or near the teachings of Catholic revealed truth, this is much more likely to happen.

The second thing I am convinced of is that a reversal, a "coming to oneself," can and may occur equally by God's grace (but not without our remorse and repentance). We Four Mass'keteers are living proof that men can be taken up, shaken by the scruff of our necks, and set on the right path by God's grace and the Sacrament of Reconciliation (is there a difference?).

But the former matter is borne out in today's contemporary western society in innumerable and tragic scenes, high and low, common and prestigious, pathetic and pathological.

Ours is the work of Marian chivalry; or, as T. S. Eliot observed, "prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action." God bless us all, and pray for the (on-going) conversion of sinners (that's all of us).

The Lenten Adventure

The Anchoress (Elizabeth Scalia) brings us a timely and highly beneficial primer on the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It is nearly Lent, you know. And for a truly nice find, check out Dawn Eden's re-discovered writings of Father Daniel Lord, S. J. Here is one entitled, I Don’t Like Lent.

Carroll - Prayer for Government

The Prayer at Valley Forge - Arnold Friberg

Many thanks to Father John Zuhlsdorf who posted this prayer composed by John Carroll, Archbishop of Baltimore, in 1791. He was the first bishop appointed for the United States in 1789 by Pope Pius VI. He was made the first archbishop when his see of Baltimore was elevated to the status of an archdiocese.

John was a cousin of Charles Carroll of Maryland, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

PRAYER FOR GOVERNMENT We pray, Thee O Almighty and Eternal God! Who through Jesus Christ hast revealed Thy glory to all nations, to preserve the works of Thy mercy, that Thy Church, being spread through the whole world, may continue with unchanging faith in the confession of Thy Name. We pray Thee, who alone art good and holy, to endow with heavenly knowledge, sincere zeal, and sanctity of life, our chief bishop, Pope N., the Vicar of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the government of his Church; our own bishop, N., all other bishops, prelates, and pastors of the Church; and especially those who are appointed to exercise amongst us the functions of the holy ministry, and conduct Thy people into the ways of salvation. We pray Thee O God of might, wisdom, and justice! Through whom authority is rightly administered, laws are enacted, and judgment decreed, assist with Thy Holy Spirit of counsel and fortitude the President of these United States, that his administration may be conducted in righteousness, and be eminently useful to Thy people over whom he presides; by encouraging due respect for virtue and religion; by a faithful execution of the laws in justice and mercy; and by restraining vice and immorality. Let the light of Thy divine wisdom direct the deliberations of Congress, and shine forth in all the proceedings and laws framed for our rule and government, so that they may tend to the preservation of peace, the promotion of national happiness, the increase of industry, sobriety, and useful knowledge; and may perpetuate to us the blessing of equal liberty. We pray for his excellency, the governor of this state , for the members of the assembly, for all judges, magistrates, and other officers who are appointed to guard our political welfare, that they may be enabled, by Thy powerful protection, to discharge the duties of their respective stations with honesty and ability. We recommend likewise, to Thy unbounded mercy, all our brethren and fellow citizens throughout the United States, that they may be blessed in the knowledge and sanctified in the observance of Thy most holy law; that they may be preserved in union, and in that peace which the world cannot give; and after enjoying the blessings of this life, be admitted to those which are eternal. Finally, we pray to Thee, O Lord of mercy, to remember the souls of Thy servants departed who are gone before us with the sign of faith and repose in the sleep of peace; the souls of our parents, relatives, and friends; of those who, when living, were members of this congregation, and particularly of such as are lately deceased; of all benefactors who, by their donations or legacies to this Church, witnessed their zeal for the decency of divine worship and proved their claim to our grateful and charitable remembrance. To these, O Lord, and to all that rest in Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, a place of refreshment, light, and everlasting peace, through the same Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Three Priests

But not necessarily the ones you think.

Angels - Messengers and Guardians

The Catholic Church teaches that we have guardian angels, even setting aside a day to honor them (October 2).

My personal favorite depiction is the one Pat Brady (and carried on by Don Wimmer) gave to Pasquale's guardian angel in the comic strip, Rose is Rose.

Above you see that Pasquale's guardian angel normally presents a facade similar to the appearance of Pasquale himself; until trouble presents itself. Then, the guardian angel assumes a masterful, powerful, awe-full persona.

Somehow I have come to picture the angels who announced good tidings of great joy to the shepherds, who surrounded the cave-stable that night in Bethlehem, to be the latter: the kind who would bring us mortals to our knees with their numinosity and glory.

Oh, and by the way: the strip above appeared on December 14, 2008: the feast day of St John of the Cross. And my birthday ... for future reference.

For All the Father Mulcahys

For all the priests whose work goes unthanked and unheralded, yet who unceasingly incarnate Our Lord for us in the work of eucharistic grace and blessing. [ht: Deacon Greg]

Fr. Benedict Groeschel on Spiritual Life (Audio)

More audio!

Fr. Benedict started embedding a spirituality series, "The Steps of the Spiritual Life," within his Sunday Night Live program. I think it's good. You can stream the first two episodes here:

Step 1

Step 2

Suffering & the God of Love

I thought this EWTN series with Fr. Robert Spitzer on suffering was very useful. Click for streamable or downloadable audio. 15 episodes.

True Faith Cannot Be Put Into Parentheses

Over at Chronicles Athos posted Cultural Dialogue linking an earlier NCR blog post by John L. Allen Jr. Here is a newer post on the same topic from Allen.

Allen says, "Put in sound-bite fashion, the pope’s line boils down to this: interreligious dialogue no, intercultural dialogue yes."

Please read his entire post, however I was struck by what Pope B16 says and then I read today's meditation of the day in the Magnificat and it seem to go right along with this idea that we cannot put our faith in parentheses as would be demanded in today's concepts of interreligious dialogue.

The Vigilance of Faith

We believe not in propositions but in the reality which is expressed by the propositions; we believe, not in a creed, but through a creed. The expression of divine reality in human words is necessarily inadequate; the understanding of the divine reality by the human mind is necessarily groping, and we may well make mistakes. It is possible to accept the formulas of the creeds and still to have a quite wrong idea of the nature of God and of his providence; it is possible to worship God and still to fall into a sort of practical idolatry. If you turn your religion into magic, if you expect an immediate and literal answer to all your prayers, if you expect the grace of God to do for you by miracle what only demands a little hard work, you are misunderstanding the faith. If you think of God in such a way as to project on to him the human emotions of jealousy, anger, spite, you are misunderstanding the faith. If you turn your worship into self-indulgence, your progress in virtue into self-glorification or spiritual valetudinarianism, your religion into a purely formal and external affair, your are misunderstanding your faith. If you allow yourself to accept the assumptions of a pagan environment as far as conduct is concerned, and keep your faith in abstraction from practical affairs, you are betraying it. And you are betraying it, too, if you think of it simply as something received from without, a static deposit, which you have only to accept and guard but without making it your own, without becoming it.

The truth is given us from without, yes; but it is something that we have to realize in actual experience: we have to translate the formulas of the creed into the stuff of life; we have to learn so to see the faith in all the everyday circumstances and events of life that it becomes not something we sometimes think of but something we always are.
- Father Gerald Vann, O.P.

Fr Z's 20-Tips

You've perhaps seen it before, you'll see it again, but here it is for your spiritual bullpen -- Father Z’s 20-tips to making a good confession.