Blog by-the-Sea

About St. Justin Martyr

June 1 is the feast day of St. Justin Martyr.   

Justinus, known to us as “St. Justin” or “Justin Martyr,” was born in Samaria around 114 A.D.   His parents were Greek pagans living among the Samarians.  Justin was educated in Alexandria and Ephesus, where he learned the works of the classical philosophers.  He became a Stoic, then a Pythagorean, and later a Platonist.  He encountered Christians while studying at Ephesus, where he learned about the Christian martyrs of his day.   

Justin was one of an emerging group of pagans who were converted to Christianity without prior contact with a synagogue.  One day, while walking along the seashore, he began to converse with an old Christian.  The old Christian told him about the thought of the Hebrew prophets and how they pointed to Jesus.  Justin later wrote, "Straightway a flame was kindled in my soul, and a love of the prophets and those who are friends of Christ possessed me."  After reflection, he was converted to Christianity at the age of 30.  He soon began to view Platonism as only partly true, and as a step toward the truth found in Christ.  He viewed Christianity as the "true philosophy," and thought it was consistent with Platonic thinking.   He engaged in debates with non-Christians, Jews and Greeks alike, using Greek philosophy to explain Christianity to the Greeks.  In so doing, he saw the heart of Christianity as God’s love for people revealed in the Bible and in Jesus Christ.

Justin is not known for extensive philosophical knowledge, or for clear reasoning, or even for being a great writer, although he was prolific.  Historian W.H.C. Frend describes Justin’s writing as “verbose, inconsistent, and not always convincing.”   Roberts, et al (The Ante-Nicene Fathers), concur in Victorian manner: “The writings of Justin are deficient in charms of style; and, for us, there is something the reverse of attractive in the forms of thought which he had learned from the philosophers.”  He saw Socrates as a Christian, and he saw Christ as a philosopher and also as God. 

However, Justin was an innovator of the finest sort.  Living in an era when Christians lived with the risk of being turned over to Roman persecutors by informants, and when they especially ran the risk of being killed by the Roman government on pagan feast days, he sought to show their persecutors the contradiction between their philosophical positions and their treatment of Christians.  He not only sought freedom of faith and an end to the persecutions; he also sought to present Christianity as the truest expression of the Greco-Roman values of the philosophers.

In so doing, he was the first person ever to do a lot of things that others later did better.  He is described by historian Henry Chadwick as “the first writer to think of the annals of humanity as a twofold story of sacred and profane history, with a nodal point in the coming of Christ.”  W.H.C. Frend wrote that Justin was “the first orthodox Christian to work out a systematic theology which attempted, not altogether successfully, to integrate millenarianism, the arguments for the truth of Christianity derived from philosophy, and Stoic and Platonic ideas of creation into a single Christian system.”.  He laid the groundwork for the Church’s communication with the Roman world in the face of Gnostic and Marcionite opposition.

Justin eventually opened a Christian school of philosophy in Ephesus during the reign of Antoninus Pius (131 to 161 A.D.)  He later opened such a school in Rome, founded on the pattern of the schools of the pagan philosophers.  There he encountered opposition from the Cynic philosopher Crescens.  Yet, the fact that his small school attracted opposition is indicative that a transition had occurred: There were now Christian intellectuals who drew enough attention to warrant a reply.

In ca. 150 to155 A.D., he wrote his first Apology (defense of Christianity) as a petition to Emperor Antoninus Pius.  He appealed primarily to the morality of Christianity, and gave accounts of the martyrdoms of Christians who had died before him.  Among these, Eusebius, in his History of the Church, singled out Justin's story of a woman who lived with a non-Christian husband prone to “drunken revels and vice of every kind.”  When she left him, he brought an accusation against her as a Christian.  In approximately 160 to 161 A.D., Justin wrote a second Apology addressed to the Roman Senate.   

Around 165 A.D., Justin was arrested and charged with practicing an unauthorized religion.  Placed on trial, he refused to renounce his faith.  He and six of his students were beheaded during the reign of Marcus Aurelius.  Remarkably, one of the students who died with him was a woman named Charito, and one was a slave named Euelpistus.

Some of the works once ascribed to Justin are no longer considered authentic.  However, the First and Second Apologies are widely accepted as authentic.  Justin’s revolutionary steps greatly influenced the thinking of those who followed him, including St. Clement of Alexandria and St. Irenaeus, both of whom followed Justin's early framework of apologetics in better intellectual style.

Bibliography:

Anonymous, “The Martyrdom of the Holy Martyrs Justin, Chariton, Charites, Paeon, and Liberianus, who Suffered at Rome”, translated by the Rev’d M. Dods, M.A., as contained in The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325, Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Bernard, Introduction to St. Justin Martyr: The First and Second Apologies

Chadwick, Henry, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition 

Chadwick, Henry, The Early Church

Daniélou, Jean, and Henri Marrou, The First Six Hundred Years

Eusebius, The History of the Church

Frend, W.H.C., The Rise of Christianity

Justin Martyr, The First and Second Apologies

Roberts, Alexander (editor) and translators, introduction and translators' notes to The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325, reprinted in Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Justin: "You are able to kill us, but not to hurt us."

"Reason dictates that those who are truly pious and philosophers should honor and love only the truth, declining to follow the opinions of the ancients, if they are worthless.  For not only does sound reason dictate that one should not follow those who do or teach unjust things, but the lover of truth should choose by all means, and even before his own life, even though death should remove him, to speak and do righteous things.  So you, then, since you are called pious and philosophers and guardians of justice and lovers of culture, listen in every way; and it will be shown if you are such.  For we have come into your company not to flatter you by this writing, nor please you by our address, but to ask that you give judgment, after an exact and searching inquiry, not moved by prejudice or by a wish to please superstitious people, nor by irrational impulse or long prevalent rumors, so as to give a decision which will prove to be against yourselves.  For we indeed reckon that no evil can be done to us, unless we are proved to be evildoers, or shown to be wicked.  You are able to kill us, but not to hurt us."

- Justin Martyr,First Apology (defense of Christianity to the Roman government), paragraph 2, ca. 150-155 A.D., translated from the Greek by Leslie William Barnard, Early Christian Writers Series, Paulist Press.

All Christians must feel committed to give this testimony

In his Wednesday weekly audience today, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on his just completed trip to Poland.  He offered his own summary of the most important places he visited, and the points to be made from each stage of the journey, his own reflections on the shrines he visited and the places important to the life of John Paul II.  Lastly, he offered more reflections on the deaths of 6 million people at Auschwitz and on his visit to the concentration camp.  ZENIT's translation of the weekly audience message includes the following:

"'Stand firm in the faith.' This is the instruction he has left the children of his beloved Poland, encouraging them to persevere in faithfulness to Christ and to the Church so that Europe and the world will never lack the contribution of her evangelical testimony. All Christians must feel committed to give this testimony so as to avoid that humanity of the third millennium might again know new horrors similar to those tragically evoked by the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau."

Here is a link to The Asia News story from earlier today and to the Vatican website's translation.    

The Pope at Auschwitz: Commentary and Reflections

Christopher Blosser has posted a wonderful commentary on the papal visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau this past Sunday, entitled Pope Benedict, Auschwitz, and the Nature of Anti-Semitism.

Sandro Magister's post-journey commentary also addressed the Pope's words at Auschwitz-Birkenau, in a post on www.chiesa entitled The Pope at Auschwitz: "They Wanted to Kill God."

For a round-up of the news coverage of the trip, see The American Papist's Great Poland Post of 2006.

The Evening of the Visitation

Go, roads, to the four quarters of our quiet distance,
While you, full moon, wise queen,
Begin your evening journey to the hills of heaven,
And travel no less stately in the summer sky
Than Mary, going to the house of Zachary.

The woods are silent with the sleep of doves,
The valleys with the sleep of streams,
And all our barns are happy with peace of cattle gone to rest.
Still wakeful, in the fields, the shocks of wheat
Preach and say prayers:
You sheaves, make all your evensongs as sweet as ours,
Whose summer world, all ready for the granary and barn,
Seems to have seen, this day,
Into the secret of the Lord's Nativity.

Now at the fall of night, you shocks,
Still bend your heads like kind and humble kings
The way you did this golden morning when you saw God's
Mother passing,
While all our windows fill and sweeten
With the mild vespers of the hay and barley.

You moon and rising stars, pour on our barns and houses
Your gentle benedictions.
Remind us how our Mother, with far subtler and more holy
influence,
Blesses our rooves and eaves,
Our shutters, lattices and sills,
Our doors, and floors, and stairs, and rooms, and bedrooms,
Smiling by night upon her sleeping children:
O gentle Mary! Our lovely Mother in heaven!

"The Evening of the Visitation," by Thomas Merton, from The Marian Library/University of Dayton - page on the Marian poetry of Thomas Merton.

Picture: "The Visitation," by Mariotto Albertinelli (1474-1515), from Chemin d'amour vers le père.

"But we do now receive a certain portion of His Spirit"

"But we do now receive a certain portion of His Spirit, tending towards perfection, and preparing us for incorruption, being little by little accustomed to receive and bear God; which also the apostle terms "an earnest," that is, a part of the honour which has been promised us by God, where he says in the Epistle to the Ephesians, "In which ye also, having heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation, believing in which we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance.”  This earnest, therefore, thus dwelling in us, renders us spiritual even now, and the mortal is swallowed up by immortality.  "For ye," he declares, "are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.”  This, however does not take place by a casting away of the flesh, but by the impartation of the Spirit. For those to whom he was writing were not without flesh, but they were those who had received the Spirit of God, "by which we cry, Abba, Father.”  If therefore, at the present time, having the earnest, we do cry, "Abba, Father," what shall it be when, on rising again, we behold Him face to face; when all the members shall burst out into a continuous hymn of triumph, glorifying Him who raised them from the dead, and gave the gift of eternal life? For if the earnest, gathering man into itself, does even now cause him to cry, "Abba, Father," what shall the complete grace of the Spirit effect, which shall be given to men by God? It will render us like unto Him, and accomplish the will of the Father; for it shall make man after the image and likeness of God."

- Irenaeus, Against Heresies (a Refutation and Subversion of Knowledge Falsely so Called), 180-185 A.D., Book V, Chapter VIII, paragraph 1, from The Early Church Fathers: Anti-Nicene Fathers, Vol I, from Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

Memorial Day Week-End Photos

There are some photos of the beach on Memorial Day Week-End posted near the bottom of the right sidebar.  I will leave them up for a week or two and then move a few to the "Pictures of the Sea" collection. 

St. Joan of Arc: "I love Him with my whole heart."

May 30 is the feast day of St. Joan of Arc.  To honor her memorial, here is an excerpt from the transcript of her trial, followed by reflections on the testimony:

When Jeanne was led in before us and the judges on this day, we, bishop, in our name and on behalf of the Vice-Inquisitor her judge with us, counseled her to attend to the advice and warnings which the lord archdeacon, professor of sacred theology, would address to her, as he was about to utter many things profitable for the salvation of her body and soul, to which she must agree, for if she did not she lay herself open to peril of body and soul: and we explained many things to the said Jeanne, according to the tenor of the memorandum below.

Then we the said judges required the lord archdeacon to proceed charitably to the said admonitions. In obedience to our order the lord archdeacon, beginning to teach and instruct the said Jeanne, explained to her that all faithful Christians were compelled and obliged to believe and hold firmly the Christian faith and its articles; and he warned and required her in a general admonition to correct and reform herself, her words and her deeds, in accordance with the advice of the venerable doctors and masters who were learned in divine, canon and civil law.

To this general monition Jeanne answered, "Read your book," meaning the scrip the lord archdeacon held in his hand, "and then I will answer you. I trust in God my creator for everything. I love Him with my whole heart."

And when she was asked if she had anything further to say in answer to this general monition, she answered: "I trust in my Judge. He is the King of Heaven and of earth."

- The Trial of Jeanne d'Arc, 1431, translated from the original minutes of the trial into Latin by Thomas de Courcelles (one of her judges) and Guillaume Manchonca (court notary),  ca. 1435, translated into English from the original Latin and French documents by W.P. Barrett, Gotham House, Inc., 1932

Reflections:

She did not really answer the questioner's instructions.  “Read that book, and I will answer you,” she said.

Yet, St. Joan answered the question Jesus had asked St. Peter when He walked with him after the resurrection: “Lovest thou me?”  Perhaps if Jesus had then asked Peter “Are you holier than these?” instead of “Lovest thou me more than these?” Peter would have said “No,” and would have never been heard from again.  If Jesus had asked him, “Do you believe everything I have taught you over the years,” Peter might have been unsure.  Jesus only asked Peter one thing, and He asked it three times, “Lovest thou me?”  Joan answered that question, “I love Him with my whole heart.”  That was the answer Jesus wanted from Peter, and the only answer He really sought from Peter at that point in time, when Peter was most discouraged with his own recent doubts, and that was the question Joan answered (although not the one she was asked) when she faced trial.

Do we always ask ourselves the right question about ourselves?  We need to pray for God to open our eyes to see His will.

“Lord, you know I love you,” Peter answered to the one question he was asked.  Jesus told him to feed His sheep.  Do we remember that love was the requirement Jesus wanted met by the man who would feed His sheep? 

Joan wanted Jesus to be her Judge.  Do we look forward to His reign in our own lives as a reign of love, grace and mercy by One who gave His life for us and rose again?  He who is Joan’s Judge is also our Judge and Peter’s Judge.  Faith matters, and orthodoxy matters, but the question Jesus asked when St. Peter was most discouraged was not “Believest thou all of this long list of things,” but rather “Lovest thou Me?” and on that one question turned all. 

Picture: St. Joan of Arc from La Mésange.

Love the One Good in Which Are All Goods, and It Suffices.

What goods and how great, belong to those who enjoy this good. --Joy is multiplied in the blessed from the blessedness and joy of others.

WHO shall enjoy this good? And what shall belong to him, and what shall not belong to him? At any rate, whatever he shall wish shall be his, and whatever he shall not wish shall not be his. For, these goods of body and soul will be such as eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither has the heart of man conceived (Isaiah Ixiv. 4; I Corinthians ii. 9).

Why, then, do you wander abroad, slight man, in your search for the goods of your soul and your body? Love the one good in which are all goods, and it suffices. Desire the simple good which is every good, and it is enough. For, what do you love, my flesh? What do you desire, my soul? There, there is whatever you love, whatever you desire.

If beauty delights you, there shall the righteous shine forth as the sun (Matthew xiii. 43) If swiftness or endurance, or freedom of body, which naught can withstand, delight you, they shall be as angels of God, --because it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body (I Corinthians xv. 44) --in power certainly, though not in nature. If it is a long and sound life that pleases you, there a healthful eternity is, and an eternal health. For the righteous shall live for ever (Wisdom v. 15), and the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord (Psalms xxxvii. 39) If it is satisfaction of hunger, they shall be satisfied when the glory of the Lord has appeared (Psalms xvii. 15). If it is quenching of thirst, they shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of your house (Psalms xxxvi. 8). If it is melody, there the choirs of angels sing forever, before God. If it is any not impure, but pure, pleasure, you shall make them drink of the river of your pleasures, 0 God (Psalms xxxvi. 8).

If it is wisdom that delights you, the very wisdom of God will reveal itself to them. If friendship, they shall love God more than themselves, and one another as themselves. And God shall love them more than they themselves; for they love him, and themselves, and one another, through him, and he, himself and them, through himself. If concord, they shall all have a single will.

- St. Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogium, Chapter XXV, 1063-1078, translated from the Latin by Sidney Norton Deane, B. A. reprinted by Internet Medieval Sources, part of the Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies, sources editor Paul Halsall of Fordham University.

The Final Hours of the Papal Visit to Poland

Asia News has posted an article on the Pope's visit to the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Birkanau, which includes an English translation of the Pope's words following that slow, prayerful walk through Auschwitz.  And, after a visit that began in rain on Thursday, and a day that began in clouds, everyone noticed the rainbow that appeared.  On the valley of the shadow of death, he said (from Asia News):

"At Auschwitz-Birkenau humanity walked through a "valley of darkness". And so, here in this place, I would like to end with a prayer of trust - with one of the Psalms of Israel which is also a prayer of Christians: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff - they comfort me ... I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long" (Ps 23:1-4, 6)."

The Vatican's English translations of all of the Pope's messages in Poland are now online here.  The same translation of the message given at Auschwitz, previously available from Asia News, is posted under the title "Prayer to Commemorate the VIctims of the Concentration Camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau (May 28, 2006)." 

Click here for AP photo from Yahoo slideshow:  The rainbow appears above the crowd as Pope Benedict XVI prays in front of the monument the camp's victims in Oswiecim, Poland.

Looking to Jesus Christ, We Find Life's Ultimate Meaning

Asia News has posted articles on Pope Benedict XVI's journey yesterday and today in Poland, as he continues to journey through the places that were important to Pope John Paul II, seeking a greater understanding of his predecessor whose presence he feels assisting him in his own papacy. 

In an article about yesterday's events in Poland is this quotation from the Holy Father's message at the Basilica of Divine Mercy in Lagiewniki:

"Speaking in the Basilica of Divine Mercy in the presence of hundreds of sick people and thousands of pilgrims gathered outside, he said: “On this occasion we encounter two mysteries: the mystery of human suffering and the mystery of Divine Mercy. At first sight these two mysteries seem to be opposed to one another. But when we study them more deeply in the light of faith, we find that they are placed in reciprocal harmony through the mystery of the Cross of Christ."

The same website also has An article on today's Mass at Blonie Park in Krakow.

The Vatican web page on the Apostolic Journey already has posted English translations of all of the Pope's messages in Poland through this morning's Mass.  The homily began with a Scripture arising from the Ascension:

“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up to heaven?” (Acts 1:11).

Within that homily (from the Vatican's English translation), he said:

"They looked up to heaven because they looked to Jesus Christ, the Crucified and Risen One, raised up on high.  We do not know whether at that precise moment they realized that a magnificent, infinite horizon was opening up before their eyes: the ultimate  goal of our earthly pilgrimage.  Perhaps they only realized this at Pentecost, in the light of the Holy Spirit.  But for us, at a distance of two thousand years, the meaning of that event is quite clear.  Here on earth, we are called to look up to heaven, to turn our minds and hearts to the inexpressible mystery of God.  We are called to look towards this divine reality, to which we have been directed from our creation.  For there we find life’s ultimate meaning."

In the same homily, his last major message planned for this journey, he offered a final explanation for the places he chose to visit, in preference over some sites that are more historically important for reasons wholly unrelated to his purpose for traveling to Poland:

"At the beginning of the second year of my Pontificate, I have felt a deep need to visit Poland and Kraków as a pilgrim in the footsteps of my predecessor.  I wanted to breathe the air of his homeland.  I wanted to see the land where he was born, where he grew up and undertook his tireless service to Christ and the universal Church.  I wanted especially to meet the living men and women of his country, to experience your faith, which gave him life and strength, and to know that you continue firm in that faith.  Here I wish to ask God to preserve that legacy of faith, hope and charity which John Paul II gave to the world, and to you in particular."

Later today, the Holy Father will visit Auschwitz, a visit that will be viewed as important because of the Holy Father's youth in wartime Germany, and which also evokes memories of Catholic saints canonized by Pope John Paul II, including the Carmelite St. Edith Stein.

Picture: Divine Mercy icon from the convent chapel in Lagiewniki, Poland.

Welcome to Catholics Planning a Visit to Southern California

However I was listed in a car insurance website's list of "French Language Pages" (here it is cached), gee thanks -- bit of a stretch though -- it reminded me that there will be bishops and others visiting Los Angeles a few weeks from now from elsewhere in the U.S. who may have a little bit of free time, and Catholics planning to spend part of their summer in southern California. 

Here are a few links for sites that might interest Catholics visiting southern California this summer.   I will probably add to it and move this post up as the summer goes on.

Memorial Day Week-End (May 27-29, 2006)

The San Diego Union-Tribune has a list of Memorial Day 2006 San Diego County events. 

May 29 at 9:00 a.m. -  Memorial Day Outdoor Mass at Mission San Luis Rey, Oceanside

Baseball Games - May 27 and 28 - Padres vs. Cardinals (think about it).  San Diego Petco Park.  Today's game will be on Fox at 1:05 p.m. Pacific.

All Summer 2006

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles

Mission San Luis Rey, Oceanside -- The latest newsletter says that from March 2005 to March 2006, visitors from all 50 states of the U.S. and 55 countries visited Mission San Luis Rey's museum.

Mission San Antonio de Pala, Pala Indian Reservation, San Diego County

Mission San Diego de Alcala, San Diego -- "California's first church"

J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.  The Getty's art collection includes some centuries old Catholic artwork.  For specific exhibits of interest, see the June and July calendars below.

Getty Villa, Malibu -- All summer, the Malibu Getty Villa will house the collection of Greek and Roman art, including approximately 44,000 Greek, Roman, and Etruscan objects, of which 1,200 will be on view.

Prince of Peace Abbey, Oceanside - a Franciscan abbey with a quiet chapel and an outdoor prayer walk.  Retreats can be arranged.

June 2006

All month - "The Cult of the Saints" exhibit at the Getty Museum, Los Angeles - The exhibition features art from ca. 476 to 1517 on the theme of the Cult of the Saints.  Also, Glassmaking in Antiquity.

4 June - 4:00 p.m., organ concert by Hector Olivera (an international concert organist, part of the Great Music on the Great Organs Concert Series) at First Congregational Church of Los Angeles

10 June - 6:00 p.m., Gospel Jubilee, Ford Amphitheatre, Los Angeles

14 June - noon, Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles, weekday organ recital with Etienne Walhain

19 June - Quiet Day, Mission San Luis Rey, Oceanside

23 June - Mozart's Mass in C Major (Coronation Mass) and Requiem Mass presented by the Mainly Mozart Festival at Catedral de Guadalupe, Segunda and Niños Heroes, Tijuana, Mexico

24 June - Mozart's Mass in C Major (Coronation Mass) and Requiem Mass presented by the Mainly Mozart Festival at Copley Symphony Hall, San Diego

25 June - Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles, 250th Mozart Anniversary Prayer Service and Concert (Coronation Mass with the Cathedral Choir)  

July 2006

1 to 16 July - "The Cult of the Saints" exhibit at the Getty Museum, Los Angeles - The exhibition features art from ca. 476 to 1517 on the theme of the Cult of the Saints, through July 16.  Also, Glassmaking in Antiquity through July 24.

14 July - "Art as Meditation", Summer Mondays with Mark Schroeder, ofm, at Mission San Luis Rey, Oceanside

15 July - Fiesta of the Bells, Mission San Diego de Alcala, San Diego -- food, games, music (old rock & roll and swing)

16 July (Sunday) - Fiesta of the Bells, Mission San Diego de Alcala, San Diego -- food, games, music (old rock & roll and swing), Noon - Anniversary Mass with Mission Choir, 3:00 p.m. Blessing of the Animals

17 July - Quiet Day, Mission San Luis Rey, Oceanside

19 July - 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm, Twilight Retreat on "Jesus the Christ as the Center of Family Life" with Mark Schroeder, ofm, and Joan and Dan Wiebe from Mesa, AZ,Mission San Luis Rey, Oceanside

20 July - The Lord of the Rings Symphony at Summer Pops, presented at Copley Symphony Hall with Howard Shores' music from the Lord of the Rings films

21 July - 7:00 p.m. Hamlet, presented by "Shakespeare by the Sea" in Polliwog Park, Manhattan Beach.   Check link for other times and locations.  For information on whether Shakespeare was Catholic, see the Catholic Encyclopedia, which mentions Hamlet's references to purgatory and the last sacraments.

24 July - "Art as Meditation", Summer Mondays with Mark Schroeder, ofm, at Mission San Luis Rey, Oceanside

31 July - "Art as Meditation", Summer Mondays with Mark Schroeder, ofm, at Mission San Luis Rey, Oceanside

August 2006

4 August - 7:00 p.m., one-hour guided tour of masterpieces of European sculpture from the 14th to 20th centuries at the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena.

5 August - 7:00 p.m., Hamlet, presented by "Shakespeare by the Sea" in Grant Howald Park, Newport Beach.   Check link for other times and locations.  For information on whether Shakespeare was Catholic, see the Catholic Encyclopedia, which mentions Hamlet's references to purgatory and the last sacraments. 

14 August - Summer Mondays, "The Book of Revelation: Apocalyptic Spirituality Revealed" with Tom Herbst, ofm, Mission San Luis Rey, Oceanside

16 - Twilight Retreat, 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., Mission San Luis Rey, Oceanside, "Is the Da Vinci Code 'Really Drivel?" with Tom Herbst, ofm (Tom Herbst teaches systematic theology at the Franciscan International Study Centre in Canterbury, England.)

18 August - 7:00 p.m., Concert: "Early Music Among Old Masters"  presented by  Musica Angelica on period instruments in the galleries of the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena (The museum website advises early arrival for this concert, as they may not be able to accommodate everyone who would like to attend). 

21 August - Quiet Day, Mission San Luis Rey, Oceanside

21 August - Summer Mondays, Mission San Luis Rey, "The Book of Revelation: Apocalyptic Spirituality Revealed" with Tom Herbst, ofm, Mission San Luis Rey

28  August - Summer Mondays, Mission San Luis Rey, "The Book of Revelation: Apocalyptic Spirituality Revealed" with Tom Herbst, ofm, Mission San Luis Rey

Saturday in Poland

AFP has an overview of the day, beginning with Pope Benedict's morning visit to Wadowice, the birthplace of Pope John Paul II, and his message in the Wadowice town square.  The story also gives a rundown of the day's busy list of planned activities, interspersed with planned stops for prayer at the shrine of Divine Mercy in Lagiewniki (which holds the relics of Saint Faustina and a painting of Jesus that is thought to be miraculous) and at Wawel Cathedral (where Pope John Paul II was once archbishop).  This evening, he will address young people in a field near Krakow.

CNN's report this morning, on the Holy Father's visits to Wadowice and Krakow, has more information about the Polish Catholics' wishes that John Paul II will quickly be beatified and canonized, and about Benedict XVI's support for those wishes during his tour of places important to the former pope's life. 

The Vatican English translations of each of the Pope's messages in Poland are collected on this Vatican web page.
 

Historical Foundations of a Frederick Faber Hymn

Faith of our fathers, living still
In spite of dungeon, fire, and sword,
O how our hearts beat high with joy
When-e'er we hear that glorious word!

Our fathers, chained in prisons dark
Were still in heart and conscience free;
And truly blest would be our fate
If we, like them, should die for thee.

Faith of our fathers! Mary's prayers
Shall win our country back to thee;
And through the truth that comes from God
England shall then indeed be free.

Faith of our fathers, we will love
Both friend and foe in all our strife,
And preach thee too as love knows how,
By kindly words and virtuous life.

- Frederick W. Faber, “Faith of Our Fathers” from Jesus and Mary; or Catholic Hymns for Singing and Reading, 1849

About Father Frederick Faber and "Faith of Our Fathers":

Frederick W. Faber was born in England, June 28, 1814.  His father is thought to have been a strictly Calvinist English clergyman.  Faber became an Anglican priest, during a time when many Anglican clergy were involved in the Catholic-leaning Oxford Movement.  Faber converted to Roman Catholicism three years after his ordination.  In so doing, he joined a number of other Oxford Movement Anglicans who either became Catholic (such as Cardinal John Henry Newman) or who pursued a more Anglo-Catholic form of Anglican worship.

The intensity of Father Faber's faith was recognized both within and outside of the Catholic Church. The Evangelical author A.W. Tozer wrote of Faber, "His love for the Person of Christ was so intense that it threatened to consume him.  It burned within him as a sweet and holy madness and flowed from his lips like molten gold." (A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God)

As a Catholic priest, Faber became known as "Father Wilfrid."  However, he regretted that the Catholics had no collection of hymns comparable to those he had found to be influential in Anglican churches.  He made it his life's mission to write hymns to promote Roman Catholicism.  He wrote 150 such hymns, including “Faith of our Fathers.”

Faber did not actually write "Faith of our Fathers" about the Church Fathers of the Early Church, about the "fathers" of Psalm 22:3-5, the "fathers" of Exodus 3, or the cloud of witnesses of Hebrews 12:1-2.  Rather, he wrote it about the Catholics who were killed during the reign of Henry VIII during the early days of the creation of the Church of England.  The verse about Mary's prayer has to do with his hope that England would eventually return to reunite with the Roman Catholic Church.

The refrain to the hymn, as it is now commonly sung, was added by James G. Walton for Watson’s arrangement of it, published in 1874 in Plain Song Music for the Holy Communion Office.  The third verse has been altered in several different texts, and the second verse often omitted.  The Protestant adaptation of the hymn offers the following verse in place of the third verse:

Faith of our fathers, God's great power
Shall win all nations unto thee,
And through the truth that comes from God
Mankind shall then indeed be free.

Not only are Protestants more familiar with an adaptation of the second verse, but there are one or two Irish adaptations sung in Catholic churches and other variations on the lyrics.

Reflections:

This is a hymn to keep in mind now as we may feel the Church under various new kinds of attacks ("Faith of our fathers, living still . . .").  Sometimes the hymn, with the Protestant second verse, is sung in U.S. churches with thoughts of our American "founding fathers", and it might turn up here and there this coming week-end as we celebrate Memorial Day.  Knowing something of the hymn's real history could be a conversation starter!

The poem, as given here, is as close as I could get to the original by drawing from sources online.  However, I have not had access to an actual 1849 edition of Father Faber's book Jesus and Mary, and thus cannot be sure that I have the hymn exactly as it was originally written.  If someone else has access to an actual 1849 edition of "Jesus and Mary", I would appreciate your sending me corrections.

Here are a few websites with information about the hymn:

Truth in History Ministries

Cyberhymnal midi file

Cybrerhymnal Bio

Variations

Adoremus Bulletin: What Happened to My Hymn?

Benedict in Poland: The Power of Faith

ZENIT has posted the Vatican translation of Pope Benedict XVI's message today to men and women religious, seminarians and representatives of ecclesial movements in Poland, including this:

"Faith is the gift, given to us in baptism, which makes our encounter with God possible. God is hidden in mystery; to claim to understand him would mean to want to confine him within our thinking and knowing and consequently to lose him irremediably. With faith, however, we can open up a way through concepts, even theological concepts, and can "touch" the living God. And God, once touched, immediately gives us his power. When we abandon ourselves to the living God, when in humility of mind we have recourse to him, a kind of hidden stream of divine life pervades us. How important it is to believe in the power of faith, in its capacity to establish a close bond with the living God!"

That message was given at the Polish national shrine of Jasna Gora.  While in Czestochowa, Pope Benedict also prayed before the Jasna Gora black madonna.

ZENIT also posted the Vatican's translation of the Holy Father's message to young people from a window of the archbishop's residence in Krakow, where he is staying.

Picture: Czestochowa Jasna Gora Black Madonna.

"Stand firm in your faith!"

The Vatican website already has posted an English translation of Pope Benedict XVI's homily at Mass today in Pilsudzki Square.  Here is an excerpt:

“Stand firm in your faith!”  We have just heard the words of Jesus:  “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor, to be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth” (Jn 14:15-17a).  With these words Jesus reveals the profound link between faith and the profession of Divine Truth, between faith and dedication to Jesus Christ in love, between faith and the practice of a life inspired by the commandments.  All three dimensions of faith are the fruit of the action of the Holy Spirit.  This action is manifested as an inner force that harmonizes the hearts of the disciples with the Heart of Christ and makes them capable of loving as he loved them.  Hence faith is a gift, but at the same time it is a task."

 

Sandro Magister on the New Curia

Sandro Magister, at www.chiesa, has posted a new article, The New Curia of Pope Benedict XVI Looks Toward Asia.   He introduces his article with this explanation:

"The new prefect of “Propaganda Fide” comes from India. And the new secretary of the congregation for the liturgy is from Sri Lanka. His first public address was the presentation of a book. And it was revealing"

In connection with discussion about Pope Benedict XVI's perspectives on Europe, Asia, Islam, and the liturgy, Magister pays particular attention to recent changes in the Roman Curia.  Among them, the new prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Cardinal Ivan Dias.  The article comments that "cardinal Dias, who has an excellent understanding of the Eastern religions, has never surrendered to that “relativism” of faiths that Ratzinger condemned in 2000 with the most important of his actions as the cardinal custodian of doctrine, the declaration 'Dominus Iesus.'" 

The new secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith Patabendige Don, marked the beginning of his new role with the presentation of the book Turning Towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer by Uwe Michael Lang, for which Pope Benedict XVI wrote the forward.  That book about the liturgy derives its name from the practice of turning toward the altar during the liturgy. 

Magister also included an English translation of Archbishop Ranjith's commentary on that book.

The Ascension

Abbot Joseph at Word Incarnate has a wonderful Reflection on the Ascension today.   The Pontificator has the wisdom of a reflection by St. Leo the Great.  Both have beautiful pictures of Ascension icons too.  Here is a portion of Abbot Joseph's good guidance:

"In the Old Testament, the high priest would enter the holy of holies with the blood of sacrificed animals as an offering for the atonement of the sins of the people. But now, Jesus, the High Priest of the New Covenant, as we read in Hebrews, enters the holy of holies in Heaven—the real one, not an earthly copy—offering his own shed blood for the forgiveness of our sins. He ever lives to intercede for us before the face of the Father, presenting to Him, until the consummation of the world and the end of time, his own perfect atoning sacrifice, which the Father receives and accepts as the new and everlasting covenant between God and man—the sacrificed body and blood of the Son of God made flesh."

Picture: Stained glass window of the Ascension from St. Augustine Parish, Montpelier, Vermont.

Benedict XVI Arrives in Poland

Pope Benedict XVI has arrived in Poland for his four-day Apostolic Journey to the land of Pope John Paul II.  His message upon arrival at the Warsaw Airport is online in several languages, from the Vatican, here (first Polish, then Italian, then English, on the same page).  In that address, he briefly listed the places he will visit and his reasons for going there, saying, for example:

"The loving gaze of Mary will accompany us as we join in seeking a deep and faithful relationship with Christ her Son. Then I shall travel to Kraków, and from there to Wadowice, Kalwaria, Łagiewniki and Wawel Cathedral. I am very much aware that these are the places that John Paul II most loved, for they were associated with his growth in faith and his pastoral ministry." 

The Vatican's page concerning the journey is here.  Amy Welborn and especially The American Papist have many more links.

The Yahoo! news page with an AP article on the Apostolic Journey has a photo slide show, a link to a video of the arrival, and links to news studies from the mainstream media.

The AP article (link above) has this quote from the Holy Father's meeting with Polish clergy, with a view to his planned visit to Auschwitz:

"In a meeting with Catholic clergy, Benedict noted that John Paul often exhorted the faithful to ask pardon for sins by Catholics through the centuries.

"Benedict endorsed this, but added a note of caution, saying 'we must guard against the arrogant claim of setting ourselves up to judge earlier generations who lived in different times and in different circumstances.'

"'Humble sincerity is needed in order not to deny the sins of the past, and at the same time not to indulge in facile accusations in absence of real evidence, or without regard for the different preconceptions of the time.'"

ZENIT has a complete English translation of that message to the clergy, given in Warsaw Cathedral, and the Vatican page on the Apostolic Journey has the Vatican official translation.  Here is another excerpt, this time from the ZENIT translation:

"The Church in Poland has already given many priests and religious sisters who serve not only the Polish diaspora but also, and sometimes in extremely difficult circumstances, the missions in Africa, Asia, Latin America and other regions. Do not forget these missionaries, my dear priests. The gift of many vocations, with which God has blessed your Church, must be received in a truly Catholic perspective. Polish priests, do not be afraid to leave your secure and familiar world, to go and serve in places where priests are lacking and where your generosity can bear abundant fruit."

This evening, the Pope gave an address to an ecumenical meeting at a Lutheran church in Warsaw.  ZENIT has also already posted a translation of that message here:

"Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him" (Revelation 1:7). The words of the Apocalypse remind us that we are all on a journey toward the definitive encounter with Christ, when he will reveal before our eyes the meaning of human history, whose center is the cross of his saving sacrifice. As a community of disciples, we are directed toward that encounter, filled with hope and trust that it will be for us the day of salvation, the day when all our longings are fulfilled, thanks to our readiness to let ourselves be guided by the mutual charity which his Spirit calls forth within us."

The Penitent Blogger: "Areopagite Idol"

A clever post today on A Penitent Blogger, timely for tonight's crowning of the new American Idol on TV: St. Paul's sermon at the Areopagus imagined as being critiqued by 3 judges whose comments are familiar ("kinda pitchy for me").  And yet it bore fruit.  Penitens concludes:

"An important point to remember is what underlies St. Paul's words to the Athenians: that even the most highly educated and intellectually gifted people may be, on some deep level, essentially ignorant of the true content of faith.

"We need to be careful, to develop all the insight we can, to seek the grace from God we need, and to be unafraid in speaking the truth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

Pause for Prayer

Clare Krishan, who has been my one most frequent commenter, and who is also a regular commenter elsewhere, is mentioned today by Amy Welborn's Open Book blog for several contributions, including a linke to the Pause for Prayer website and Pause for Prayer Blog of Sister Janet, who is the main English-speaking voiceover person for papal liturgies on television.  The blog is new.  I especially liked a posting she had called Digging Up the Past about the archeologists working around Rome, sometimes under difficult conditions.  And there is also this tribute to those about to be ordained.  I have added it to my "Insightful Blogs" list accordingly.

Also worthy of attention, Justin Nickelsen, who has been on a sort of hiatus from blogging, at Ressourcement: Restoration in Catholic Theology, since March, added a comment to his own March 24 post the other day apologizing for being too busy to blog (no apology necessary), and linking to his wife's blog, Coffee and Diapers.   Her blog, shared with 2 other Catholic mothers with young children, is about mothering.  While not on the subject matter of my list of links, it is refreshing.

St. Peter: A Journey Strewn with Suffering and Love

Asia News - Italy' article on Pope Benedict XVI's General Audience today.  In it, the Holy Father spoke of St. Peter again, this time commenting specifically on St. Peter's talk with Jesus in Capernaum after the miracle of the loaves and fishes (John 6)  and his talk with Jesus after the Resurrection, by the Sea of Tiberius (John 21).  The ZENIT translation of the entire message is here, and the Vatican translation is here.  Here is an excerpt from the earlier Asia News story:

"The school of faith is not a triumphal march, but a journey strewn with suffering and love, with trials and loyalty to be renewed every day. Peter had promised absolute loyalty, he knew the bitterness and humiliation of repudiation: the daredevil learned humility at a cost. Even Peter had to learn to be nothing! When finally, his mask fell and he understood the truth in his weak heart of a believing sinner, he burst into a liberating flood of tears. After this outburst, he was ready for his mission. This mission would be entrusted to him on a spring morning by the Risen Jesus. The meeting happened on the banks of the Sea of Tiberias."

Scriptural Foundations for a Charles Wesley Hymn

A Morning Hymn
by Charles Wesley

Christ, whose glory fills the skies,
Christ, the true, the only Light,
Sun of righteousness, arise!
Triumph o'er the shades of night:
Dayspring from on high, be near;
Daystar, in my heart, appear.

Dark and cheerless is the morn
Unaccompanied by Thee;
Joyless is the day's return.
Till Thy mercy's beams I see;
Till thy inward light impart,
Glad my eyes and warm my heart.

Visit then this soul of mine!
Pierce the gloom of sin and grief!
Fill me, Radiancy divine!
Scatter all my unbelief!
More and more Thyself display,
Shining to the perfect day!

- Charles Wesley, “A Morning Hymn” (Later known as "Christ, whose glory fills the skies"), first published 1740 in Charles Wesley and John Wesley, Psalms and Hymns

Scriptural Foundations for the Hymn:

Here are a few of the Scriptures incorporated into Charles Wesley's "A Morning Hymn":

"But for you who fear my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings." (Mal. 4:2 RSV)

"And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, . . .through the tender mercy of our God, when the day star shall dawn upon us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace."  (Luke 1:76, 78-79 RSV)

"And we have the prophetic word made more sure.  You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts."  (II Peter 1:19 RSV)

"But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.  The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not now over what they stumble." (Prov. 4:18-19 RSV)

About Charles Wesley and Hymn-writing:

In the course of his life, Charles Wesley wrote over 6,500 hymns, and was one of the most prolific of English poets.  Many of his hymns were originally compiled by both Charles and John Wesley for publication in 1740 in the book "Psalms and Hymns."  During those days, Charles was said to have written many of his hymns while riding a white pony through the streets of London.

Charles Wesley and his brother John Wesley co-founded a small society called the Oxford Methodists at Lincoln College, studying the New Testament in Greek, visiting prisoners and visiting the poor.   Charles was ordained as an Anglican priest and originally traveled the English countryside on horseback, giving open air evangelical sermons similarly to his brother. 

In 1756, Charles Wesley ended his travels through the countryside and settled in Bristol, reportedly because open air preaching was too greatly associated with the societies in conflict with the Church of England.  Although his name is closely linked with that of his brother, Charles Wesley's remaining contribution to the Methodist movement was primarily in their use of his hymns.  It is thought to be partly because of his influence that John Wesley never severed his ties with the Church of England; only after his death did the Methodists separate.  In 1771, Charles relocated to London.  He died there March 29, 1788.   

During his last days, Charles Wesley called for the priest at London's St. Marylebone Parish Church.  Charles reportedly said, "Sir, whatever the world may say of me, I have lived, and I die, a member of the Church of England.  I pray you to bury me in your churchyard."  He was buried in a corner of the churchyard, where a marker still identifies his grave.  Charles Wesley’s son was later organist of that church. 

Comments:

About 5 years ago, a Non-denominational Protestant friend I knew from a ski trip invited me to the singles groups at a couple of Non-denominational Protestant churches near here.  I had just moved to north San Diego County and thought it would be a good way to meet people.  He knew that I was, at that time, Anglican, and that I had no interest in becoming Non-denominational Protestant.  The groups were open to people from a wide variety of churches. 

The evening began with a performance by the church's Christian rock band.  At one point, the band's singer made a statement that he used to sing in a church choir that sang traditional hymns, but now he only sang Christian music.  His statement made clear that he did not consider traditional hymns or Christian classical music to be truly Christian, as was his band's rock music.  I looked over at the assistant pastor who was standing nearby, and the assistant pastor nodded approvingly at the young rock musician. 

Around that time, I heard of another Non-denominational Protestant church that would no longer have any songs more than 6 months old in its Sunday worship services.  Another church, I was told, did not want any songs more than 5 years old.  Their idea, as I understand it, was to make sure that they were communicating the Gospel in a manner that would attract the present generation. 

The unfortunate result is that in doing so, they cut off their congregation from their connection with Christians of the past and leave them without an understanding of how Scripture has been read and applied over the centuries.  That was a dangerous situation.  Since then, I have heard that more such churches have alternate worship services that use hymnals and traditional hymns.  Perhaps the incident I saw 5 years ago represented something that the congregation itself has realized was a mistake and has corrected.  I have had no reason to return.

Since then, I have sometimes challenged some of the people I have met from that sort of church to try to find all of the Scriptures that went into this Charles Wesley hymn.  Granted, Charles Wesley was Anglican, not Catholic.  But his reverent hymns are sung in Catholic churches, and we ought to have an answer for Christians who do not recognize the knowledge of Scripture and of God in such traditional church music. 

A lack of knowledge of real church history has been dangerous to the faith, as has been seen recently in public response to The Da Vinci Code and the Gospel of Judas.  The greater the understanding that Christians from past centuries had a real faith in the same Jesus we worship today, the less will likely be the fear of the Catholic Church in earlier centuries, and the better prepared we will collectively be to respond to misunderstandings about Church history when we encounter them in the world around us.

Picture:  Stained glass picture of the Ascension from the Catholic Community of St. Thomas Aquinas, Brooklyn, New York.  That parish is raising funds for the restoration of its 119-year old stained glass windows.  See the linked website if you wish to help them restore this window.

St. Augustine of Canterbury and the Re-Evangelization of Our Own Era

Christianity has long spread the Gospel by presenting Christ as the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophets, the fulfillment of Platonic philosophy, the fulfillment of that element of truth that can be found in other religions (see this earlier post on that point).  However, Christianity has long rejected any change to the basic Gospel message; it thus separates itself from paganism and from heresy, and also from the pluralism of our present age.

Pope/St. Gregory the Great illustrates this well in an incident used by Pope Benedict XVI (as Cardinal Ratzinger) in Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions (Ignatius Press, 2004), in a portion of the book not previously published as an essay.  The incident involved the evangelization of England by St. Augustine of Canterbury, whose feast day is later this week on May 27.

In 596, Pope/St. Gregory, who had been a monk, sent the monk Augustine (now known as St. Augustine of Canterbury) to evangelize the English.  England had fallen into the Dark Ages around the end of the life of St. Patrick of Ireland, and had nearly lost contact with Rome for about 100 years.  Gregory the Great had made Augustine Archbishop of the English and had sent him to renew the distant church.  Augustine reported miracles in England, which Gregory then concluded were given to help people's unbelief and to manifest holiness.  Augustine’s mission was successful, and the English Church was firmly established by 601.

The success of the mission, and its methods, are recorded in the letters of St. Gregory the Great, in the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England.  Pope Benedict XVI referenced two such letters in one of the essays published in Truth and Tolerance.  (I am taking the quoted letters from that book, and thus use the same translation of Pope/St. Gregory as was used there by Ignatius Press.  The second of those letters can be read in context online at Christian Classics Ethereal Library, as printed in the Ecclesiastical History of the Venerable Bede here).

In his first of two letters discussed by Benedict XVI, Pope/St.Gregory wrote to the English King Ethelbert:

"Therefore, my most illustrious son, carefully preserve the grace you have received from God….Inflame your noble zeal….Suppress the worship of idols; destroy their temples and altars. Uplift the virtues of your subjects by outstanding behavior and morality."

(Truth and Tolerance, pg. 228-229, quoting Pope/St. Gregory the Great, Ep. XI, 37.) 

One month later, Gregory sent a different message to a group of missionaries who had just departed for England, and to someone named Mellitus:

"But when, with the grace of almighty God, you reach our most reverend brother, Bishop Augustine, then tell him that I have been reflecting at length about one matter concerning the Englishmen. That is, one should by no means destroy the temples of this people’s idols: rather, simply destroy the idols to be found within them….When the people see that we are not destroying their temples, then they will nonetheless abandon their errors and will that much more joyfully turn to the knowledge and the worship of the true God in their accustomed places."

(Truth and Tolerance, pg. 229, quoting Pope/St. Gregory the Great, Ep. XI, 56.) 

Cardinal Ratzinger thus wrote:

"This shows what we call continuity in worship. The holy place remains holy, and the intentions and petitions of prayer, and the worship of the divine, which formerly took place, are taken up and transformed, given a new significance. . . . [The pagan gods] have been overthrown: the question of truth has itself deprived them of divinity and brought about their downfall.  Yet at the same time their truth has emerged that they were a reflection of divinity, a presentment of figures in which their hidden significance was purified and fulfilled."

(Truth and Tolerance, pg. 229)  The pagan gods, although false, are seen as "steps in the search for the true God and for his reflection in creation" and thus they "may become messengers of the one God."  The two letters can be viewed in the context of two "phases in the Christian relationship with 'pagan' religions" also discussed in that section of the book.  Cardinal Ratzinger saw the first letter as indicative of a phase of enlightenment, in which Christianity is placed on the side of philosophy and enlightenment, against divided truth.  In the second phase, "the connection with the religions and the limits of enlightenment emerge."  That section of the book concludes with the observation that, in I John 4:8 ("God is love"), truth and love are identical.  "This sentence -- if the whole of its demand is understood -- is the surest guarantee of tolerance, of an association with truth, whose only weapon is itself and, thereby, love."

Perhaps, in applying what Pope Benedict XVI then said of what was done in the sixth century to our present understanding of tolerance, in seeing truth and love as identical, we too work to find the right point of connection between truth and love in any given situation.  It seems to me that what Pope/St. Gregory initially would have done (the first letter) may have reflected the way the Church had dealt with Arians. However, what he did after further thought (the second letter) reflected the way the earlier Church had dealt with pagans.  What seemed at first essential to proclaim the enlightenment of truth, after one month's consideration, could be compromised -- not in that the truth was less important than it had been one month earlier but rather in that the situation in which the truth was to be proclaimed was better understood.  St. Augustine's proclamation of the Gospel included both a proclamation of the truth and an understanding of the existing situation as a step in the search for God, and the work of love and truth as one involved both.

In Truth and Tolerance, Cardinal Ratzinger explained that the evangelistic transformation shown in Pope/St. Gregory's second letter can be seen all over Rome, offering the Church of St. Mary Sopra Minerva as an example.   

Without suggesting that I might have some additional, equivalent point to make, here are a few more examples of the same thing.  This manner of evangelism is seen as early as St. Paul's sermon at the Areopagus, where he presented the God of the Bible as the "unknown god" in the thinking of the people to whom he was preaching (Acts 17:22-23).  St. Clement of Alexandria followed the same pattern in the second century. For evangelistic purposes, St. Clement had gained extensive knowledge about the writings of poets and philosophers.  W.H.C. Frend, in The Rise of Christianity, wrote of Clement that “he realized from what he read that his missionary task would be hopeless unless he was able to interpret Christian truth in terms which educated inquirers could accept.” He saw Plato and Aristotle as preparing the Greek people for the true message of the Gospel, just as the Old Testament had prepared the Hebrews. (Frend, pg. 370). St. Clement justified his use of philosophy and literature by the example of St. Paul, explaining that he too would become all things to all men that he might by any means save some (Henry Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition, pg. 35).

This understanding that Pope/St. Gregory the Great and St. Augustine of Canterbury showed to the culture of the sixth century English people should not be confused with treating their religious views as equal in truth in a pluralistic sense.  Therein lies the first phase, the emphasis on enlightenment and truth, without wavering from love.  Historians now commonly agree that early Christians were severely persecuted because they rejected Roman pluralism and were evangelistic. Cardinal Ratzinger discussed this in connection with the writing of St. Augustine of Hippo (Truth and Tolerance, pp. 165-170). Christianity “was not one religion among others but represented the victory of perception and knowledge over the world of religions.” (Id., at 170.) J. Patout Burns, Jr. recently made this point in Cyprian the Bishop, Routledge, 2002, about third century Carthage: “One of the imperial objectives seems to have been the elimination of the divisions of religious exclusivism.” (Burns, pg. 1). G.W. Clarke made a similar point concerning the persecutions of Carthage in his Introduction to The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage, Vol. I, pg. 24.

The challenge of our own era is to recognize that need to affirm both truth and love, both the truth of Christianity and a recognition of the value of other people's beliefs as steps on the way toward God, in application to the ever changing secular culture around.  It is also essential to recognize that some of the disagreements between Christians over how to respond to one situation or another arise, in fact, from seeing different phases of evangelism in the same conflicted situation.  One person sees a situation as Gregory did in his first letter, and the other sees the same situation as Gregory did in his second letter, and yet both views may be properly considered in seeking the will of God in both truth and love in a complicated and changing culture.  Where Pope/St. Gregory saw the same situation from both perspectives, one month apart, we should not be too surprised if the same difference of perspective exists between two Christians viewing the same situation at the same time now.

The ultimate objective now, as then, must be to find that point where God's will lies, expressing the unity of truth and love in proclaiming the Gospel message now.

The Church as We Are and Will Be

In these days, it is easy for most people to picture the Church as we are, in all our brokenness and division.  It is the brokenness that attracts the most media attention.  The fear of past secrets and the distrust of authority fuels interest i n "cover-up" stories.  Where there is greater knowledge of real history, it should be easier to picture the Church as we will be and as we (the Church) have been over the whole course of the Church's existence: the Church past, present, future, and global, a multitude of all nations, all languages, all ethnic groups, together standing before the Lamb Jesus.  Too little knowledge of Church history, and too great an emphasis on the newest and latest thing, have left Christianity, and Christians, vulnerable to attacks.  In this environment, it is helpful to picture the Church as we should be, and only sometimes are, looking unto Him and praising Him together surrounded by the Heavenly angels who praise Him too.

I do not mean that we should not respond to the present day's challenges, such as this past week's movie opening, and I do not mean that we should not present the timeless Gospel message in a manner that makes it most understandable to present day culture.  But we need to take a step back in worship and remember who we will be one day, and indeed who we really are, together with the saints of all time, praising His salvation as described in Revelation.  We may sing the ancient chants like “O Gladsome Light” and “Ubi Caritas”, with those who sang those chants as their newest hymns and with those who wrote the words.  And they may sing together with us the more recent hymns, and perhaps also music of centuries into the future not yet imagined. 

As Anglican William Law wrote in the 18th century, “Think upon this till your imagination has carried you above the clouds; till it has placed you amongst those heavenly beings, and made you long to bear a part in their eternal music.” 

Who would you want to stand next to you in that choir?  For most of us, there are people we loved in this life that we long to see in Heaven.  It may be parents or children or a spouse who died before us.  It may be someone we loved and let go or lost track of long ago and yet hope to see again although we were separated by circumstances in this life.  It may be old friends whose lives took different paths, and we lost touch with each other.  But we can also look forward to seeing some people we have never met in this life and will know very well in eternity, as we praise God together.  It may include people we know from the Bible whose lives have greatly influenced ours although we do not know what they look like, or authors whose books have touched us profoundly although they lived in a different century. 

Praising Christ in Heaven, would you long to hear the voice of St. Peter, who sang with Jesus in the Upper Room that night before they went out together to Gethsemane?  The Church has always been a singing Church, and will end in eternity a singing Church, not only speaking but also singing together with the Lord.   

The Gospels do not say whether Jesus and his disciples sang very well, but it does tell us that He sang with them at the end of the traditional Passover feast.  I can imagine that He might have sung well, because I think He must have sung often, praising God.  However, Jesus was both fully God and fully man, and He was tempted in all ways as we are but without sin.  Perhaps, then, he might not have been given a very good singing voice, or a very good ear for music, so that He would know that limitation on His ability to worship with others while He lived in this earth, and sang.  He might have had a voice that was strained from many days of preaching in the mountains, the plains, the synagogues, during His ministry on earth.  The texture of His voice might have shown the strain of those years, and yet I can only picture His voice as loving, face to face. 

Somewhere in that image, there is room to see the face of Christ on those who sing around us in our parishes, with great or challenged voices, and those whose taste in music might somewhat differ from my own.

Pictures:  (1) Ascension detail of the East Window of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, East Harling, U.K., and (2) the entire East Window of the same church (ca. 1463-1480).  The pictures can be seen in context, with more information about the church and the history of the windows, at the linked pages.

The Venerable Bede and the Church of the Ascension

The coming week will be a busy one, toward the end of the week, with the Pope's visit to Poland coinciding with the Feast of the Ascension.  Also falling at the same time are the memorials of the Venerable Bede on May 25 (the eighth century church historian who is known for his Ecclesiastical History of England, and St. Augustine of Canterbury on May 27 (the sixth century monk and missionary sent by Pope/St. Gregory the Great to be a bishop in England, whose church had almost completely lost ties with Rome as it fell into the Dark Ages more than 100 years earlier (see this earlier post about St. Patrick of Ireland for references to the earlier English Church as it had been in the fifth century).  I will try to do at least a couple of posts related to the Venerable Bede and St. Augustine of Canterbury earlier in the week.

In Book 5 of The Ecclesiastical History of England, the Venerable Bede (St. Bede) records some of the writings he attributes to the seventh century's St. Adamnan.  St. Adamnan, in turn, was recording descriptions that reportedly had been given to him by one Arculf, Bishop of Gaul, who had traveled to Jerusalem to see the holy places.  What Bede wrote, then, was his recording of St. Adamnan's transcription of Arculf's description of things that Arculf remembered having seen in a distant land that the English and Irish saints could only imagine.  They had no photographs, no television or movies, and few in England of the Dark Ages who had actually ever seen these places. 

The description thus is not offered as accurate history or as a fully accurate description of Jerusalem in the seventh century -- but rather as a description of how the English then imagined it, and of what they had been told by a traveler describing what he had seen in his pilgrimage, when he had seen the church built at the site of the Ascension.  In The Venerable Bede (Cistercian Publications), Benedicta Ward, SLG, comments that by inserting an abbreviated version of Adamnan's writings in his Ecclesiastical History, "Bede made sure that it would reach a wider audience than the original treatise added to Acts."  She also comments that it shows Bede's sense of "the continuity between the past and present that in a book concerned with contemporary holy places, he included also this physical account of ancient Palestine."

Bishop Arculf's account of the Church of the Ascension, is ostensibly based upon an account of a visit in the time frame of 670 to 680.  However, the original Church of the Ascension built in 392 was destroyed by Persians in the invasion of Jerusalem, in May, 614.  It was not fully rebuilt until the Crusades, and St. Adamnan was not born until 628.  Thus, if the description of Bishop Arculf's journey is from the time frame thought likely, he could not have visited the church in its original splendor, and he would have been there during the Muslim era. Christianity in the Holy Land in the early Muslim period is a subject about which fairly little is known. (See posts here and here, and the books cited in those posts for short biographies of saints who lived in the Holy Land in that era, and for links to good books about that era.)  However, some of the monasteries attacked, including the Great Laura of Mar Sabas, are known to have been inhabited by monks who returned a few months after the conquest, and there were periods of relative stability during that time.  It is certainly possible that a bishop from Gaul could have traveled to the holy places near Jerusalem in the time frame of 670 to 680 that seems likely based upon St. Bede, and could have seen the Church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives, although not that church in its original glory. 

It might also be considered that St. Bede's source could have drawn from an older journey than he was aware.  In comparison to St. Bede's description, there was a bishop of Anastasiopolis in Galatia Prima (not Gaul), who made three journeys to the Holy Land beginning in the second half of the sixth century and who had become a bishop by the time of his third visit.  That bishop, Theodore of Sykeon in Galatia, died in 613, and would have seen the places described by St. Adamnan not long before the Persian invasion.  Joseph Patrich mentions the journeys of Theodore of Sykeon, citing Vita Theodori Sykeoni, in his Sabas, Leader of Palestinian Monasticism (page 325).  I do not know whether there are any similarities in the journeys described by Bishop Arculf, included by St. Bede, and writings mentioning earlier pilgrims' journeys that would suggest a common source.

Here is the description from St. Adamnan's Bishop Arculf of Gaul, as relayed by the Venerable Bede:

CONCERNING the place of our Lord’s Ascension, the aforesaid author writes thus. "The Mount of Olives is equal in height to Mount Sion, but exceeds it in breadth and length; it bears few trees besides vines and olives, and is fruitful in wheat and barley, for the nature of that soil is not such as to yield thickets, but grass and flowers. On the very top of it, where our Lord ascended into heaven, is a large round church, having round about it three chapels with vaulted roofs. For the inner building could not be vaulted and roofed, by reason of the passage of our Lord’s Body; but it has an altar on the east side, sheltered by a narrow roof. In the midst of it are to be seen the last Footprints of our Lord, the place where He ascended being open to the sky; and though the earth is daily carried away by believers, yet still it remains, and retains the same appearance, being marked by the impression of the Feet. Round about these lies a brazen wheel, as high as a man’s neck, having an entrance from the west, with a great lamp hanging above it on a pulley and burning night and day. In the western part of the same church are eight windows; and as many lamps, hanging opposite to them by cords, shine through the glass as far as Jerusalem; and the light thereof is said to thrill the hearts of the beholders with a certain zeal and compunction. Every year, on the day of the Ascension of our Lord, when Mass is ended, a strong blast of wind is wont to come down, and to cast to the ground all that are in the church."

- The Venerable Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of England, Book V, Chapter XVII    

The Church of the Holy Ascension has been a mosque since the late twelfth century.  Here are links to a couple of websites that mention the site:

The Chapel of Ascension

Church of Eleona and Church of the Ascension

Pope Benedict XVI's Message to Canadian Bishops

ZENIT has posted the message that Pope Benedict XVI delivered in English yesterday to the bishops of Atlantic Canada, who were in Rome for their five-yearly visit.  In the message, he spoke of the difficulties of secularism, the importance of catechesis, the importance of sacraments and prayer, and the importance of vocation.  Here are two small portions of a very substantial message:

"Of notable importance are your Catechists. They have embraced with great courage the burning desire that was St. Paul's: "Deliver ... as of primary importance what I also received" (1 Corinthians 15:3). Teaching the faith cannot be reduced to a mere transmission of "things" or words or even a body of abstract truths. The Church's tradition is alive! It is the permanent actualization of the active presence of the Lord Jesus among his people, brought about by the Holy Spirit and expressed in the Church in every generation. . . .

"The parishes are therefore, rightly considered above all as houses and schools of communion. Consequently, the reorganization of parishes is essentially an exercise of spiritual renewal. This calls for a pastoral promotion of holiness, so that the faithful remain attentive to the will of God, from whom we share true life, becoming participants of the divine nature (cf. "Dei Verbum," no. 2).

"Such holiness, or such profound communion through Christ and in the Spirit, is affirmed among other things by an authentic pedagogy of prayer, by an introduction to the lives of the saints and to simple forms of spirituality that embellish and stimulate the life of the Church, by regular participation in the sacrament of reconciliation, and by a convincing catechesis on Sundays "the day of faith," "the day one cannot do without," "the day of Christian hope"(cf. "Dies Domini," nos. 29-30; 38)."

There is a Vatican transcript of the speech here.  However, as of the time of my adding the Vatican link to this post (Monday evening), that page is flawed.  (Two paragraphs are in French translation.)