Category Archives: The Life of Jesus

Reading the Fine Print

Lent, Passion of Christ, Suffering, The Life of Jesus, , ,

Sentimentality, as was mentioned in a recent post, is a great enemy to the spiritual life.  The solution proposed was to read Scripture with an absolute literalism.  In particular, when St. Paul tells the Romans that we are God’s children now and have a right to an inheritance as sons, we should understand the magnitude of such a high calling and live accordingly.  We would, however, fail in our quest for living in the truth if we did not also realize that, while this gift is free, it is not cheap.  If we are to live like sons, then we will act like the Son.  All too often we interpret this to mean “being nice to other people,” “love your neighbor”, “defend the teachings of the Church” or any other one of a variety of (usually)comfortable outward manifestations of the Christian life.  But we should read the fine print of St. Paul’s great promise: “if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him” (Romans 8:17, emphasis added).

When reading fine print, it is always the preposition that matters.  We might be tempted to read the contingency as suffering for Christ, but St. Paul says we must suffer with Him.  That one word, with instead of for makes all the difference.  It makes all the difference because it forces us to move from the abstract to the real.  This move may feel like a gut punch from reality, but in reality, it is a liberation from fear.  Fear, as we talked about in a recent podcast, is always future- directed and thus fertile ground for anxiety or avoidance.  Suffering for Christ has an abstract quality about it in that causes our minds to wander, sometimes to the great sufferings of the martyrs or losing our jobs because of our faith or any other number of ways we might have to painfully witness to our faith.  We begin to wonder whether we will have what it takes when the moment comes or whether it is really all worth that. This causes on to hold back from God, but based only a hypothetical way, because, in truth, He isn’t asking for that thing.

Suffering with Christ has a now quality about it.  To suffer with someone implies that they are suffering currently and that what is required of me is to engage.  There may be fear of engagement, but I have come to a decision point.  There is nothing abstract about it, because it is real in the here and now.

An illustration might help make this clear.  When I consider the sufferings of someone close to me, I would do almost anything, endure almost anything, in order to participate in that suffering.  Tell me, as a parent, that I will have to suffer with my children, my mind goes everywhere.  Well not exactly, it usually goes to the “worst” thing I can possibly imagine.  In short, fear carves out its space and there is really no way to deal with it because there is always a chance that thing might happen.  It begins to affect how I act—I might be overly protective or draw back—but in order to manage the fear of the abstract, I must change my behavior.

Now tell me that my son has autism and no longer am I handcuffed by fear.  There is sorrow for sure, but once the decision is made to suffer with him the fear of suffering for him is gone.  In other words, once I am suffering with him, I am now willing to suffer for him as well.  His suffering becomes mine and I am on the constant quest to alleviate it.

Just as the both the duty and love of a father drives him to be willing to suffer with his son, St. Paul is really telling us that we must be willing to suffer with Christ in the same way.  Just as I feared suffering in the abstract for a loved one (and acted upon it), so too will I fear suffering for Christ in the abstract.  But give me a specific scenario and I will enter in.

Suffering With Christ

We should rightly question how is it that we can suffer with Christ, right here and now.  The days of His Passion are over.  He is both God and glorified man, incapable of suffering.  Sure, He can suffer in His Mystical Body, but that is to change the mode of St. Paul’s address.  He is speaking from our perspective not from Christ’s.  He is speaking about the sufferings of His Passion that we must enter into.  The key is to rightly see His Passion, not as some abstract event in the past, but as concrete and specific in the here and now.  To do this we will need to turn to the “abstract” St. Thomas Aquinas in order to lay the groundwork for this key spiritual practice.

When St. Thomas examines the sufferings of Our Lord during His Passion, he asks what at first seems to be a stupid question, that turns out to have great practical import.  He asks whether Christ endured all suffering during the Passion.  It is a relevant question because in order for Our Lord to give suffering redemptive value, He must first experience it.  And he must experience not in the abstract, but in the particular.  So how, for example, if Our Lord did not suffer burning, could burning have redemptive value?

St. Thomas points out that it would be impossible to experience all possible sufferings, especially since some are contraries.  One cannot both suffer having his ears removed and the cries of his loved ones for example.  Instead Our Lord suffered all classes of suffering.  First, He suffered at the hands of all kinds of people; men and women, rulers and commoners, His fellow Jews and seculars, His friends and His enemies.  Second, He suffered “from friends abandoning Him; in His reputation, from the blasphemies hurled at Him; in His honor and glory, from the mockeries and the insults heaped upon Him; in things, for He was despoiled of His garments; in His soul, from sadness, weariness, and fear; in His body, from wounds and scourgings.”  Finally, “ in His head He suffered from the crown of piercing thorns; in His hands and feet, from the fastening of the nails; on His face from the blows and spittle; and from the lashes over His entire body. Moreover, He suffered in all His bodily senses: in touch, by being scourged and nailed; in taste, by being given vinegar and gall to drink; in smell, by being fastened to the gibbet in a place reeking with the stench of corpses, ‘which is called Calvary’; in hearing, by being tormented with the cries of blasphemers and scorners; in sight, by beholding the tears of His Mother and of the disciple whom He loved” (ST III, q. 46, art. 5).

Why the Details Matter

This level of detail is important for two reasons.  First, because it should move us to love, realizing that Our Lord planned out His sufferings in a very specific manner.  There was no mere chance in even the slightest of His sufferings.  He knew each one of our very specific sufferings and sought to redeem them.  Secondly, and more relevant to the discussion at hand, is that by enumerating the categories we see how exactly we enter into Our Lord’s Passion right here and now.

Look at St. Thomas’ list again and think about your own personal sufferings in the past or presently.  Are there any that don’t fall into one of those categories?  This means that each of these is a personal gateway into His Passion here and now.  When we willingly embrace them as such, we are suffering with Christ.  He anticipated what you are going through and sanctified it and all that remains is to enter fully into it to receive the fruit of the Passion—sonship.  Big sufferings, little annoyances, all belong as long as we lovingly accept them as Christ did His Passion.   Where there is a will, there is the Way.

Do this enough and you know what happens?  The fear of suffering for Christ goes away.  We become like the Beloved Disciple at the foot of the Cross.  We have endured so much with Him, realized so much of the fruit of suffering that we trust His plan, grown to love Him so deeply, that we will suffer whatever comes.  He does not ask us to be masochists, but we will habitually choose those things which have more of the Cross in them because we know it brings us closer to Him.  Think of Simon of Cyrene and how close he was to Christ when he helped Him carry the cross.  That is us.

Now the wisdom of all the saints and their habit of meditating deeply on the Passion comes to light.  Each time we enter into the Passion in our prayer, we are in a very real sense anticipating our own role in it.  This Lent then let us resolve to meditate upon the Passion as one of our spiritual practices.  If the witness of the saints is any indication, then it will be a most fruitful Lent.

Did Jesus Ever Get the Flu?

Bioethics, Incarnation, The Life of Jesus, ,

With frigid temperatures gripping much of the country confining much of America to the indoors, flu season has fully blossomed.  In response, many are scrambling to get flu shots so as to build up an immunity to the virus before it hits them.  Setting aside the question of the effectiveness of flu shots in general, I would like to focus on immunity to the flu.  Specifically, to ask whether Our Lord was immune to the flu during His earthly sojourn.  Did Jesus get the flu?

While some of us who are theology geeks might consider it “cool” to speculate on these types of questions, they appear to have little additional spiritual value.  It could be grouped among the other useless musings of the medieval theologians; musings such as how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  It is hard to imagine, however, that Saint Thomas Aquinas would spend so much time on theoretical questions without them also having spiritual value as well (like he does for this particular question in ST III q.14).  Questions like this one have value because they put the right amount of flesh on the doctrine of the Incarnation.  We can get so stuck on the idea of the Incarnation, that we forget it is first and foremost a real event touching even down to our own time.  Exercises such as these help us to meet Our Lord in the flesh with the right proportion of familiarity and wonder.

Like Us?

Our initial reaction might be to say, Our Lord was human, “like us in all things but sin” (Heb 4:15) and so, while He may never have caught the flu specifically, He almost certainly got sick.  Being fully human would mean He was subject to all kinds of bodily limitations in His human nature, sickness included.

The problem with this hasty response is that “except sin” marks a rather broad exception.  Most of the time we take it to mean that He didn’t do anything wrong.  That is, of course, true, but it does not fully capture the broad scope of the effects of sin, especially personal sin.

To properly frame the issue, let us make what is an important, albeit often misunderstood distinction.  Death in man, because of his composition of matter and spirit, is natural.  It was only a privilege that God gave to Adam and Eve in their state of innocence that they were exempt from suffering and death.  Put another way, man is naturally mortal and it is only by a preternatural gift that the first man and woman could avoid it.  Being “like us in all things but sin” means that Christ took to Himself a passible nature that included a body that was subject to death and suffering. Being “like us in all things but sin” means that His suffering and death were a natural consequence of becoming human and not as a result of Original Sin.

To be absolutely clear the Son, when He took the passible human nature to Himself, was under no necessity to do so, but instead did it voluntarily.  He could just as easily have prevented suffering and death, but He chose to endure them for three reasons.  First, and foremost, He did so that He might make satisfaction for our sins.  The second was so that He might show Himself to be truly human.  His human nature was a sacrament of His divinity in that it was the sign that made visible the reality that He was the Son of God and thus Our Redeemer.  Finally, He did so as to leave us an example of heroic patience.  In short, He did so because it was necessary to complete His mission as Redeemer.

By focusing on the fact that Our Lord willed to suffer, rather than to be the passive victim that Original Sin turns us all into, we can move advance the ball down the field towards a definitive answer.  Our Lord suffered only insofar as it was necessary to make satisfaction for the common sin of human nature.  his was provided that the defects He was subject to did not interfere with His mission as Redeemer.

This helps us to understand why Our Lord experienced hunger, thirst and exhaustion.  In order to make satisfaction for the common sin Our Lord would have to voluntarily assume these common penalties that were imposed on mankind because of Original Sin.  St. John Damascene calls these natural, but not degrading affliction.  This also helps us to rule out a few things.

What Our Lord Didn’t Suffer

First, He did not suffer anything as a result of any hereditary defect.  His constitution was perfect and He was not even prone to certain illnesses.  Second, He would not have suffered any illnesses that would be an indirect result of personal sin—things such as heart disease, diabetes or liver disease.  In summary He did not take on particular sufferings that afflict particular men.

So then, what about the flu and other illnesses?  Since the flu is not a common punishment meted out to human nature in general, then Our Lord would not have suffered it.  One might immediately object that neither was scourging and being crowned with thorns.  Those sufferings were willed because they atoned for the common sins of mankind, especially as they relate to sorrow for our sins and unwillingness to do penance.  Each of the sufferings of His Passion makes these sins visible so to speak and thus cry out for our participation.  These sufferings were a part of His mission as Redeemer whereas the Flu and other such illnesses would have hampered His mission, rendering Him unable to carry out good works.

Our Lord, because His soul was filled with wisdom and grace, could not suffer as a result of failures on either count.  Our Lord, filled with wisdom, would have known how to avoid illness, even if He were subject to it.  Likewise, filled with grace in His humanity and able to heal the sick, He would not have been subject to sickness Himself.

A Truly Virgin Birth

Bible, Christmas, Mary, Scripture, The Life of Jesus, Theology, , ,

Sometimes familiarity can be a catalyst for myopia, especially when it comes to the mysteries of the faith.  Christmas is no exception in this regard and offers an excellent opportunity to expand our sights by fixing them on some of the not-so obvious mysteries hidden with of Our Lord’s nativity.

In his customary manner, St. Matthew ends his account of the birth of Our Lord with an Old Testament proof-text to show how the prophets spoke specifically about Jesus.  Quoting Isiah 7:14, the Evangelist says, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’” (Mt 1:24).  It is common for us to use this as Scriptural proof of the virgin birth of the Messiah, but unfortunately very little attention is paid to what this actually means.  More to the point, we often substitute our idea of the virginal birth with the idea of the virginal conception.  Both of course are true, but how is it that a virgin could give birth?

If we come at it from the perspective of the one who gave birth, clarity emerges.  For a belief in Our Lady’s perpetual virginity is really saying three things.  First, that she became pregnant with Our Lord without “knowing a man” (Lk 1:34).  Second, that Our Lady remained in this state after the birth of Our Lord.  These two are obvious, but it is the third that helps bring illumination—Our Lady remained a virgin “even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man” (CCC 499).  Or, as the Council of Ephesus puts it: “After giving birth, nature knows not a virgin: but grace enhances her fruitfulness, and effects her motherhood, while in no way does it injure her virginity.”

The Miracle of Christ’s Birth

In order to keep her virginity intact, Our Lord did not leave His Mother’s womb through the birth canal.  He would have been delivered in a miraculous manner, passing directly from her womb into the outside world.  Without getting overly bogged down in the biological details, we can still glean some particularly poignant aspects of the mystery.

As a first consequence of this, Tradition has always taught that Our Lady’s partus was completely devoid of pain.  This is more than an interesting fact, but carries with it a very deep corollary that Our Lord wished to establish from the beginning of His mission.  When Our Lord came into the world, He came to suffer so as to redeem us.  But He was unwilling to be the cause of any other unnecessary suffering.  As St. Thomas says, “But the mother’s pains in childbirth did not concern Christ, who came to atone for our sins. And therefore there was no need for His Mother to suffer in giving birth”(ST III, q. 35, a.6).  Our Lady would suffer because of her role as the New Eve, but only in the amount that was absolutely necessary.  Likewise, all those associated with Him (us) are guaranteed only to suffer when it is necessarily tied to His redemptive mission.  He did, and still does, refuse to “break the bruised reed or quench the smoldering wick” (Is 42:3).

Remaining on the more practical level, we can also see why this miraculous intervention might be necessary.  If Our Lady’s virginity remained physically intact, there can be no doubt as to the truth of the virginal conception.  This is also why it is reasonable to believe that Our Lady remained a virgin throughout her entire life.  While we do not get overly fixated on the biological details, the virginal birth is still a biological fact.

Virginity, properly understood though, is not just a biological fact.  It is a condition of the entire person and does not simply mean someone who has never had sex.  Our Lady is ever-virgin because she is all-pure, both body and soul.  Her body is as a sacrament revealing the state of her soul.  In order to affirm this Our Lord does not destroy the physical sign of her personal virginity.

As a point of clarification, we call it a miracle because it defies the laws of nature for a human body to pass under its own power from its mother’s womb.  This should be seen as distinct from Christ, while operating under the power of His resurrected body, had the power of subtlety, that is, the power to pass through physical objects.

The Miracle as a Sign

But we also refer to it as a miracle because, like all Christ’s miracles, it has great value as a sign.  The same infant that was wrapped in swaddling clothes, that is burial cloths, had just passed from the closed womb pointing to the time when He would pass from the tomb.

His birth also was to serve as a sign revealing the fullness of Our Lord’s person as true God and true man.  As St. Thomas says, “He mingled wondrous with lowly things. Wherefore, to show that His body was real, He was born of a woman. But in order to manifest His Godhead, He was born of a virgin, for ‘such a Birth befits a God,’ as Ambrose says in the Christmas hymn” (ST III, q28, art. 2, ad. 2).

The miracle also serves as a sign of our ultimate redemption.  Living in this post-lapsarian world, it is difficult to view creation as anything other than a closed system of corruption.  By passing through Our Lady’s womb, without leaving behind the natural traces of corruption, Our Lord was pointing ahead to the redemption of creation in the New Heavens and the New Earth where corruption is no longer possible.

Finally, Our Lord wanted to point each of us to the true joy of Christmas.  By taking something that is naturally painful and filling it with gladness, He was forever instituting Christmas as a day of great joy.  Merry Christmas everyone!

Science and the Immaculate Conception

Creed, Grace, Incarnation, Mary, The Life of Jesus, Theology, ,

One of the most common mistakes that Catholics make regards what is actually celebrated during this week’s feast of the Immaculate Conception.  The general consensus is that it is a feast marking the Immaculate Conception of Jesus.  They this feast with the Feast of the Annunciation which marks the miraculous manner in which the Word took flesh in the womb of the Immaculate Conception.  One thing they are not wrong about however is that, while the feast centers on the circumstances and consequences of Our Lady’s singular grace, the Feast, like all things pertaining to Our Lady really is about Christ.

The Council of Chalcedon in 451 was called in response to the Monophysite heresy.  This heresy believed that the two natures of Christ were united such that they really became one, that is, the human was fully absorbed by the divine rendering only a single nature. Its backers proposed the metaphor that the divine nature was like an ocean and His human nature like a drop of water totally lost in the divinity.  This may seem to be unnecessary theological hairsplitting until we follow through to its logical conclusions.  First, with no true humanity, He would only appear to be human like some sort of vision or hologram.  Second, and more importantly, it meant that the humanity of Christ could not be a separate source of activity from the divinity.  He could not really suffer and die as a man and any appearance of those things would be only that, an appearance.

The Council, with the approval of St. Leo the Great, was quick to reject any trace of this and reaffirmed that Christ ss true God and true man, “perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; ‘like us in all things but sin.’. He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, the Mother of God” (quoted in CCC 467).

The necessity of both powers of operation, human and divine, are necessary for Christ’s sacrifice to be efficacious.  Remove either power and atonement becomes a sham.  Mankind incurred a great debt, so great that only God could pay it.  Justice must be served for the moral order of the universe to be restored.  In mercy, God takes the debt as if it is His own.

Christology and the Immaculate Conception

What does all this have to do with the Immaculate Conception?  As true man, Christ was “born of a woman” (Gal 4:4).  That is self-evident, but it also means His mother was a true mother.  And like all mothers, she supplied to Him her flesh and it was her blood that coursed through His veins.  Put in a more scientific manner, it was her ovum that was fertilized and that ovum became the building block of the human nature that was assumed by the Person of the Son.  She was truly His mother and not merely a surrogate or a human incubator.

Furthermore, we are told that the Son of God come in the flesh is “like us in all things but sin” (Heb 4:15), that is, neither original nor actual sin touched Him.  The impossibility of actual sin we all intuitively grasp, but we may not think about the fact that the human nature He inherited must also be free from original sin and its effects.   Original sin is not sin committed, but “sin” inherited.  It is passed down from our parents.  Since Our Lord had only one human parent, and she was truly His Mother and no mere surrogate, the flesh that Mary passed down to Him had to be free from original sin and its effects.

We begin to now see the logic of the Immaculate Conception as an explanation for the purity of His blood offering and His freedom from Original Sin.  We have ruled out the possibility that by some miraculous intervention the ovum that was to become a part of Our Lord’s human nature was altered at the moment of Conception.  Mary would no longer be His true mother.  But we have not yet seen why Our Lady must be free from the stain of Original Sin from the moment of her conception.  Why could it not be that she was sanctified at some other time?

When Pope Pius IX declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, he commented on the fact that it was “wholly fitting that so wonderful a mother should be ever resplendent with the glory of most sublime holiness and so completely free from all taint of original sin.”  In other words, he thought it was not theologically necessary, only fitting.  But there may be a certain biological necessity that would help us to see why this dogma is true.

How Science Supports the Immaculate Conception

Thanks to advances in the field of human embryology, we know that the flesh of Our Lord (in Mary’s oocytes) was actually formed at her conception. Although He takes her flesh at the Annunciation, but the actual flesh He takes to Himself (in the oocyte that matured into an egg) was present in Mary at her beginning.  Just as she carried it around after His birth, Mary was, in a very real sense, carrying around the flesh of Our Lord from the moment of her conception.

For the more scientifically minded, we know that at the moment of conception, although obviously not fully formed, the human person is self-directed and thus needs no outside intervention to develop assuming the proper environment.  That means that even if oogenesis occurs at the meiosis I stage of development, everything that is to be used for the formation of those germ cells is already present.  We should make sure that we see development as a continuous process, begun in a definitive direction at conception, and not a series of independent stages.  The stages are simply mental constructs to help us understand the development itself.

Science then would help to confirm that the Immaculate Conception is necessary, even if theology can only describe its fittingness.  Science is a path not just to facts but to wonder, a sure path to the Truth.  The dust from the earth shattering landing of the Son of God has yet to settle, leaving traces of Him everywhere we look.  Science is no threat to our devotion but a means of increasing it.

This realization can also help to increase our devotion in another way.  According to Josephus, the great Jewish historian, the restoration of the Second Temple of Zerubbabel began in the year 19BC.  This is the same year that tradition also says Our Lady was born.  That is, at the same time that Herod set out to rebuild the Temple, God began construction on the true Temple.  The cornerstones of the Temple of Our Lord’s body were laid at the moment of Our Lady’s Conception, of that truth science confirms.

As Friday’s Feast Day comes around, we can be sure that there will be many Catholics confused as to who the Immaculate Conception refers to; thinking it refers to Jesus’ conception and not Our Lady’s.  But they are not entirely wrong—Our Lady, in whom the true Temple was made, carried around the building blocks with her from the moment of her own conception.

Our Lady, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

Filling in the Resurrection Accounts

Resurrection, The Life of Jesus, ,

The last couple of centuries have witnessed a great push both outside and inside the Church to mythologize Christianity. This is felt most keenly when it comes to the Resurrection of Our Lord. From positing that Our Lord did not actually die on the Cross (called the Swoon Theory), to mass hallucination, to “a spiritual resurrection in the hearts of the followers of Jesus,” each new “theory” offers a natural explanation to the central supernatural event in the history of mankind. Of course, it makes perfect sense. If you want to destroy Christianity, then you should start by destroying belief in the Resurrection itself. No less than St. Paul himself warned that downplaying the Resurrection of the Lord as the pivot of Christianity would lead to its eventual destruction; “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain” (1 Cor 15:17).

Given how long ago it occurred, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence supporting the Resurrection as a historical fact. I won’t attempt to add to what many other authors have already done in this area. Instead, what I would like to do in this post is to look at how we can avoid another pitfall, namely, over-spiritualizing the Resurrection.

In short, we often read the obviously incredible post-Resurrection appearances in such an ethereal manner that we divorce them from the overall Incarnation. Rather than seeing them as real, historical events, we view them in a spiritual fog. Rather than making the Resurrection more real, it becomes less.

Overcoming the Spiritual Fog

There is only one way around this trap and that is to ask, in faith, concrete questions of those accounts in order to add substance to what would otherwise be too sublime to be believed. Some questions, such as what were the teaching sessions of the Risen Lord and the Apostles like, are left to speculation. But there are others that have more flesh to them and can serve to strengthen both our faith and our hope.

One such question is what was the risen body of Jesus actually like? We know that it was a physical body—it could be touched and he ate, two things ghosts cannot do. We know it was the same body as the one that hung on the Cross; it bore the marks from the nails and the spear. After all, in order for it to be a true resurrection, it must be the same body. If it is not a new body, then it has been transformed in ways we almost certainly could not have anticipated. A true body does not vanish from sight (Lk 24:31).

There is a more personal reason why the question of the qualities of Our Lord’s risen state is important. Those who die in Christ, will have resurrected bodies patterned after His. By assuming human nature to Himself, the Son becomes the form of all human destiny for those who “put on Christ” in Baptism. In other words, by carefully examining Christ’s risen encounters, we can catch of glimpse of the destiny we are promised.

The Resurrected Body of Christ

Once properly motivated, we find that Christ wins for us resurrected bodies that have four qualities in addition to identity (same body) and integrity (complete body) mentioned above. The first is commonly referred to as subtlety. The resurrected body is a “spiritual body.” What this means, is that while a resurrected body is tangible, it is completely under the direction of the spirit. It is able to transcend the physical laws that normally govern us (such as two physical things cannot occupy the same place at the same time in the same way) simply by willing it. It simply takes an act of the will to pass from one side of a locked door or sealed tomb to the other.

Once rendered completely under the control of the soul, the body’s movement is different as well. Agility enables the person to traverse great physical distances with ease and speed simply by willing it. The movement may be very fast but it is still observable. Angels have a similar quality to their movement as far as its rapidity, but their movement is more like a quantum leap and would not be observable as a linear movement from point A to point B.
The other two qualities are somewhat commonsensical and appear within the Book of Revelation. The glorified body is impassible, that is, incapable of suffering. Lazarus’ body was resuscitated, Our Lord’s resurrected. Lazarus could still suffer, Our Lord would suffer no more. Our Lord appears to John as a “lamb as though slain, standing” (Rev 5:6) and “God will wipe away all tears” (Rev 21:4)

It also has the quality of clarity. Because the union of the human nature of Christ was in the Divine Person of the Son itself (we call this the Hypostatic Union), He enjoyed the vision of God from the moment of the creation of that human nature. This means He was always filled with beauty and radiance (what we commonly call the “light of glory”). His soul maintained this, while it miraculously remained hidden in His body except for the Transfiguration where He releases the governor on it. We do not see this quality exhibited during any of the pre-Ascension appearances because of its overwhelming nature. Instead John sees it when he encounters Our Lord in Chapter 1 (verses14-18) of the Book of Revelation.

Jesus, Shape-Shifter?

In a number of the post-Resurrection accounts described in the gospels, Jesus is not recognized by His followers. This does not mean that one of the qualities of the resurrected body is shape-shifting. Instead, St. Thomas articulates an important principle for understanding. He says:

“Divine things are revealed to men in various ways, according as they are variously disposed. For, those who have minds well disposed, perceive Divine things rightly, whereas those not so disposed perceive them with a certain confusion of doubt or error: ‘for, the sensual men perceiveth not those things that are of the Spirit of God,’ as is said in 1 Corinthians 2:14. Consequently, after His Resurrection Christ appeared in His own shape to some who were well disposed to belief, while He appeared in another shape to them who seemed to be already growing tepid in their faith” (ST III, q.55, art.4)

In short, faith adds not just intellectual clarity, but the ability to see divine acts rightly. Christ was clearly manifested to those who believed in the Resurrection. For those who were tepid or doubted, “this hindrance in their eyes was Satan’s doing, lest Jesus might be recognized. Hence Luke says (24:16) that ‘their eyes were held, that they should not know Him.’”(ST III, q.55, art. 4, obj. 2). Seeing was not necessarily believing, but believing was seeing. Our Lord was trying to instill faith and so he was willing to allow these hindrances to remain as long as He could use them to drive them into the hands of true faith. This is the faith of “credible witnesses” that will never be shaken, even to the point of martyrdom. He is building an edifice on these people and so greatly desires to strengthen their faith during the 40 days between Resurrection and Ascension.

Our Lord allows this pretense to happen because it brings the person to faith. Mary Magdalene did not yet believe Our Lord was truly risen when she encountered the Gardener. She simply wanted to know what happened to the body. But her act of love of Christ, allowed her faith to expand so that she saw Him truly when He spoke her name. The disciples on the Road to Emmaus also had very imperfect faith, but once they were instructed in the Messianic texts, that is in a practical Liturgy of the Word, that their faith began to expand. Once Our Lord performed the Liturgy of the Eucharist, they were completely disposed to see Him as Himself.

Even Peter was not immune to this principle as his faith began to waver. We are told that when John saw the burial cloths, “he saw and believed” (John 20:8). It is not surprise then that when Peter begins to lose faith and attempts to return to fishing, that it is John who first recognizes Our Lord on the shore. Once Peter’s eyes are opened, he rushes to have his “come to Jesus meeting” (John 21:1-8).

So What?

What follows from this reflection are two things. First, the devil did not give up when Our Lord overcame death. He did not brood, but wasted no time attacking believers. He is still at work, especially on the tepid by using those “scholars” who would discredit the truth of the Resurrection. We must see these attacks for what they really are and be ready to counter them in faith and in fact.

Second, the Liturgical time between Easter and the Ascension of the Lord is a time in which a great many graces are available to deepen our faith in the risen Lord. But the key is we must first believe so that we can understand. Believing is seeing. This only happens when we ask the probing questions, not in a spirit of doubt, but in a spirit of true faith. When we color inside the lines, the true picture emerges.

Which Will You Have, Barabbas or Jesus?

Politics, Relativism, The Life of Jesus, ,

As part of the celebration around Jewish Passover each year, one prisoner was granted amnesty each year.  During the Roman trial of Our Lord, Pilate in recognition of that tradition, put forward two candidates for the Passover Amnesty—Barabbas and Jesus of Nazareth.  While Barabbas was a relatively obscure revolutionary in his day, there is perhaps no “minor” character in all the Gospels that plays a more pivotal role than he.  He is also significant because he incarnates some of the traps that Christians can fall into when it comes to Our Lord.

The Political Trap

The first trap is to view everything through a political filter.  Pontius Pilate was like many Americans in our own day, only able to see through a political lens.  Pope Benedict XVI points out in his book on Holy Week that Barabbas was an infamous rebel whom Pontius Pilate feared.  Once Pilate realized that Jesus was not only innocent, but was also politically harmless, he sought a political solution to the problem.  He thought the trial could be ended and he could still have favor with the Jews by offering Jesus as a candidate for the Passover amnesty.  He assumed that the people would choose the innocent Jesus rather than the dangerous Barabbas.  This is why we see him repeatedly lobbying for Jesus’ innocence.  The problem with this of course was once Our Lord was put forward as a candidate for amnesty, guilt was assumed and Our Lord already condemned.

Frank Sheed reported that Pilate already had three major conflicts with the Jews prior to the incident with Jesus.  Two of these had been settled within Judea itself, with Pilate winning one and having to yield to the Jews in the other.  The third conflict had been sent to the Emperor Tiberius himself.  Pilate sought to avoid an appeal to Caesar at all costs.  His patron in Rome, Sejanus, had recently been executed in Rome.  That is why he sought two loopholes in order to avoid making a decision; sending Jesus to Herod the Tetrarch and by making an appeal to the crowd.  When these both fail, he chooses the politically expedient solution without any regard to innocence and truth—“I am personally opposed, but…”

Freedom is first and foremost a theological reality, that is “an exceptional sign of the divine image in man” (Gaudium et Spes, 17) and not a political one.  Our Lord may have been in chains, but “no one takes My life, I lay it down of my own accord.”  He was the freest man who ever walked the face of the earth.  Barabbas may have shed his chains and Pilate may have thought himself master of all in Jerusalem but both were chained to the whim of the crowd.  They both remind us that we are only truly free in one sense—we are always free to do that which is good.  But each time we run with the herd, that capacity within us shrinks to the point where we forget we have it.  Eventually we wonder “what is Truth?” Sooner or later we eventually run out of room to compromise and must either unconditionally surrender our freedom or declare “non possumus.”

The Theological Trap

The second trap is theological in character.  The name Barabbas literally means “Son of the Father.”  Matthew in his Gospel calls him a “notorious prisoner” (Mt 27:16), which is probably an indication that he was a leader of a political uprising.  In this way, the people are presented with two very different messianic figures, both “Sons of the Father”, who are accused of the same offense—rebellion against Roman rule.  It is clear which one Pilate prefers.  He prefers the nonviolent one whose “kingdom is not of this world” rather than the violent Barabbas.  The crowd and the Jewish authorities however, want a different kind of Messiah.   They do not want one that works through love and truth but instead one who promises political power based upon violent revolt.  They do not want the one who picks up His cross, but the one who would crucify.

John refers to Barabbas as a “robber.”  This term (lēstēs in Greek) was often a term used to describe those who stirred up rebellion and is the same term that Jesus uses to contrast the behavior of the Good Shepherd.     It is clear that John has in mind a concrete example of the people choosing a false shepherd in choosing Barabbas.

That we should not set up for ourselves false shepherds seems obvious but there is a subtle way that we do this that is not always easy to catch.  I once went to a book signing where the author who writes historical fiction spoke about the Founding Fathers.  She talked about how she loved Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin growing up until she found out they owned slaves and grew to completely loathe them.  She then went on to say how she now thought Alexander Hamilton was the greatest of all the Founding Fathers because of his abolitionism.  I was struck how she was unwilling to overlook Jefferson and Franklin’s moral failings and see the good that they did, but overlooked Hamilton’s many moral failings.

The point is not that support of slavery is a minor or major moral failing, but that there is a tendency to demonize or canonize a person based on how their position gibes with our own (or usually the politically correct one).  Jefferson and Franklin had serious moral failings, support of slavery among them, but they also had good ones too, the fruit of which we are still drawing today. Hamilton’s character was such that he saw slavery as the evil that it is, but his other moral failings (including great pride leading directly to his death) should render us slow to praise him as the greatest of the American Founders. Similarly Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy combined to helpd the civil rights cause more than any two men in US history, but both were serial adulterers.  The point is that we already have a Messiah, and none of those men are Him.  The minute we try to set up fallen men as the Messiah, we feel we must defend them and justify any flaws. There will always be a gravity towards crowning the latest hero as the Messiah. However when Christ remains the Messiah, we can see how these men were instrumental (or not) in bringing other men into His Kingdom. Only there does true greatness lay.

The Peace Trap

Finally, Barabbas reminds us that peace only comes where there is justice.  Pilate knew very well that justice demanded that Jesus be released and that Barabbas remain imprisoned. But he feared an uprising, a loss of peace.  In the end, it was a band aid as Jerusalem would eventually be destroyed.  Barabbas reminds us that we cannot peace by making a lie into a system (Jeremiah 6:14).

Peace, St. Thomas says, is the tranquility of order.  This means peace can only come about when our lives and our society are properly ordered.  This is not about “social justice” of which there will be none until we have this proper ordering.  First and foremost it means giving God His due.  Any society that does not put God first is absolutely doomed to fail.  Do we really believe this?  Rather than trying to blame the secularists for this, why don’t we as Catholics take responsibility for this and stop trying to smuggle Catholicism into society. We are mostly cowards worrying about hurt feelings rather than burning souls (our own included—“woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel”).

Barabbas or Jesus, which will you choose?

How Much Did Mary Know?

Mary, Scripture, The Life of Jesus, ,

One of the most popular Christmas songs this past year was Mary Did You Know.  While the lyrics of the song may not be theologically sound, the song asks a most important question for us to meditate upon on this Feast of the Annunciation: What did Mary know when she consented to the angel?

In asking whether Mary knows that the Son she was soon to deliver, would one day be her Deliverer, the lyrics gloss over the Immaculate Conception.  Through a singular grace, Our Lady was redeemed pre-emptively her Son from the Fall.  But the Immaculate Conception is also important in answering the question because of its effects.  Our Lady was untouched by Original Sin and any of its effects.  Ignorance, properly speaking, is a lack of knowledge of something that one should know and is an effect of the Fall.  Our Lady, immune to this effect, would have lived her life in what, Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange describes as, a “dark brightness, the darkness arising not from human error and ignorance, but from the very transcendence of the light itself.”  In other words, she would have known all things that were humanly knowable at the time about the mystery of the Messiah and the Incarnation.  Many of the Church Fathers thought she also was given a plentitude of infused knowledge that was directly related to the Incarnation.  Either way, she would have known more about the Mystery of the Messiah than the most learned of the Jewish scholars.  The rest would have remained in the darkness of faith.

How Mary Knew

For certain, Mary would have known all the prophecies of the Old Testament.  She would have known that the 70 weeks of years prophesied by Daniel were expiring in her day.  She would have understood that the Suffering Servant prophecies in Isaiah referred to the Messiah.  She would have known that the child she was to carry was both her Savior and her God.  There was no doubt in her mind as to the identity of the Child she was to conceive.  As Fulton Sheen says, “Mary’s mind was filled with the thought of Divinity in the stable.”

Rather than being surprised by the content of the message of the Angel at the Annunciation, instead she is surprised that St. Gabriel was speaking to her.  She did not know her mission prior to it being revealed, but once it is revealed to her she is fearful.  She is fearful because she knows what it means for her.  Like her husband Joseph, she believed in God’s Redemption through the Messiah, but because of her profound humility thought herself unfit to fulfill any role in it.  She knows her own nothingness and yet has no doubts that “nothing is impossible for God.”

Two Examples Among Many

We can point to two instances among many that show her specific knowledge of the mission of her Son.  The first is so subtle, that we can easily miss it.

When Our Lord is born, Mary wraps Him in swaddling clothing and lays Him in a manger.  At first glance this seems so common place that we even wonder why it was included in the account.  But then we realize that most mothers would not have placed their children in a hard manger with straw.  Instead, they would most certainly have kept the child comfortable by holding him.  But Our Lady knows her Son’s mission and that each and every act of suffering is redemptive.  There is never a time when He is not the Messiah, but there is a time when because of normal human limitations, He relies upon His Mother to complete His mission.  For her part Mary must always put the mission first, even though she could easily remedy His pain.  Her suffering at seeing Him suffer, not just on the Cross, but even in the manger, merited her the title of Our Lady of Sorrows.

The second “moment” is at Cana.  Here the connection with the Fall, Adam and Eve and redemption with the New Adam and the New Eve is made most explicit.  But notice that it is Mary who initiates Our Lord’s public ministry.  It is as if He once again asks her if she is willing to go with Him to His hour.  The Annunciation and the Miracle at Cana are inexorably linked.

Mary’s Freedom and Knowledge

There is also a more fitting reason Mary must have known what was to transpire.  The Angel Gabriel comes to Our Lady not with a demand, but with a request.  God has sent him because He seeks Mary’s cooperation.  He will not initiate salvation without her say-so.  It is God’s “dependence” on Mary and her unique role in His saving mission that has earned her the title of co-redemptrix.

Eve may have had no choice in becoming the mother of all the living, but the New Eve would have a choice.  God wanted a free cooperator.  The will as a blind faculty can only choose based on knowledge.  As knowledge grows, the freedom with which we act increases.  If Mary’s fiat was total, then her knowledge must have been as well.

God could have defeated sin in the beginning by limiting human freedom.  Given He chose the greater good of human freedom, why would He circumvent it when finally defeating sin?  Instead He secured salvation through a supreme act of human freedom. If Eve freely and with full knowledge cooperated in mankind’s downfall, then the New Eve would untie the knot freely and with full knowledge.

This is not to say that Mary did not need faith.  She did not know everything and she had to make an act of faith in order to jump from seeing that what God “does to me” (Lk 1:38) is really the thing that the “Almighty does for me” (Lk 1:49).   Nor was it all Mary—although it was a free act, she who was “full grace” cooperated fully with it.  Mary needed both faith and grace, but God did not want to pull the wool over her eyes.

“Mary, did you know?”  Yes, she most certainly did.

Catholics and the Seder Meal

Eucharist, Lent, Sacraments, The Life of Jesus, , , ,

In recent years, one of the more popular Lenten practices of Catholics has become to participate in Seder Meals.  Their popularity is driven mostly by a desire to express a solidarity with the Jewish people and to understand the Jewish roots of our Faith.  While it may seem harmless to participate in them, there are some serious reasons why Catholics might want to avoid them all together.

In an age where the morality of a given act is mainly subject to our intention, it is important to begin any discussion on whether Catholics should participate in Seder Meals with a fundamental principle.  St. Thomas puts the principle this way—“external worship should be in proportion to the internal worship” (ST I-II q.103, a.3).  What the Angelic Doctor means by this is that our external acts of worship must always reflect our internal beliefs.  If our act of worship does not reflect our internal beliefs then we are guilty of superstition, that is giving worship to God in, what St. Thomas calls, an “undue mode” or in giving worship to a false god.

Trapped in a dualistic mindset, many of us would think that our external acts are just that—external—and there is no harm done if you do not really mean them.  But intuitively we all seem to think otherwise, especially when we reflect on the witness of the Martyrs.  Many martyrs refused to offer a pinch of incense to the pagan gods because they knew this would be an act of worship, even if they may not have believed in what they were doing.  Likewise there are those who have been tempted to desecrate an image of Christ in order to avoid martyrdom.  All too often the tempters would simply say, “It’s just an image.  All that matters to you is what you believe.”  Those who desecrated the image were considered apostates regardless of what they may have believed.  Not having our exterior acts reflecting our interior beliefs is a form of lying.

The Seder Meal and What it Means to Participate

Returning to the topic at hand, namely Seder Meals, it is without a doubt a religious act.  Many of these are sponsored by different Jewish Synagogues or, when done “do it yourself” follow the existing Seder liturgy.  A Seder Meal is one of the primary means by which the Jewish people hand on their faith.  It also reflects an act in faith in the coming of the Messiah.

For a Christian, that is, one who has faith that the Messiah has come, to participate in a Seder Meal is a false declaration of faith.  It is, as St. Thomas said, an act of worship of God in an “undue mode.”  While our faith in the Christ with the Jewish people may be the same, that faith must be expressed in different ways.  The Jews reflect the faith of Abraham, that is the Messiah to come, through circumcision.  The Christian expresses his faith in the Messiah who has come when they share in His life and death in Baptism.

St. Thomas says that all of the legal ceremonies of the Old Law, including the Passover meal, have passed away because each found their fulfillment with the coming of Christ.  Each of the ceremonies of the Old Law expressed the expectation of the coming Messiah, those of the New Law reflect His having already come.  In the mind of Aquinas, to continue to participate in these ceremonies is a lie and constitutes, at least objectively speaking, a grave sin.  Regardless of what one believes, by participating in a Seder Meal, the Christian is professing through his actions that Christ is yet to come.

The ceremonies of the Old Law were mere “shadows” (Col 2:17) of the Sacraments to come.  The Seder is but a foreshadowing of the Mass.  Why would one participate in shadow when the real thing is available?  Catholics are already participating the True Seder Meal, the Mass.

What if I Just Want to Learn More About Our Roots?

What about those who only do so out of curiosity or as a learning exercise to help them better understand the Mass?  Certainly their intentions do not change the fact that it is objectively wrong to participate, but still it may change their culpability.  This approach is worth unpacking further for a different reason as well.

The problem with this approach is that it denies an important historical fact.  Those who have studied the Passover meal that Our Lord celebrated with the Apostles are quick to point out that it differs from the first Passover as described in the Book of Exodus and not just because Our Lord added the elements of fulfillment.  At the time of Our Lord only the Levitical priesthood existed and thus all sacrifices occurred within the Temple.  What did not change however was that the Passover was not just a meal but also a sacrifice.

Once the Temple was destroyed, Judaism underwent a profound change.  Prior to 70 AD, Judaism was much like Catholicism in that they had priests who lead the worship which was centered upon sacrifice.  After 70 AD it became much like Protestantism in that the emphasis was placed on worship without sacrifice.  Judaism today is not the same Judaism of Our Lord and the Apostles.

In short, the Seder Meal that Jesus participated in the first 32 years of His life is profoundly different from the Seder Meal as it is celebrated within Judaism today.  The key element, the sacrifice of the Lamb, is missing.  With the sacrificial character removed it now bears little resemblance to the Mass which retains its sacrificial meaning.  A Seder Meal, as it is celebrated today, has little value for the Christian for learning the roots of the faith.

Certainly studying (without participating) the Seder Meal as it was during the time of Our Lord has value for us as Christians.  Studying the type or the sign helps us to better understand the archetype or thing signified.  Rather than spending your time organizing or attending a Seder Meal, you would be better off studying Dr. Brant Pitre’s Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist or listen to Scott Hahn’s Fourth Cup.  Although there are more, I have found these two resources invaluable for deepening our understanding of the meaning of the Mass and its relation to the Jewish Passover Meal.

Encountering Jesus

Prayer, The Life of Jesus

Stunned silence—that is invariably the response when I ask what, at first glance, seems to be a softball for any Christian.  How do you know that Christ died, not just “for us”, but for you?  It is the classic head and heart problem.  The head can answer that Christ died for all of us and that includes me.  But only the heart can echo the confidence of St. Paul “I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me” (Gal 2:20, emphasis added).  All of the Church’s doctrine and dogma is meant to feed the head with truths that are then realized in the heart of the believer.  But it is this very specific truth upon which the entire edifice of faith rests.

When the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” time and eternity met.  Everything that the Son of God did during His earthly sojourn does not merely remain the past as a single historical event, but “participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times while being made present in them all” (CCC 1085).  Abstractly we can say that this means that the effects of the Cross and Resurrection are felt at all times (even those “prior” to the actual event).  We can move beyond the abstraction if reverse what is being said: at every moment during the Incarnation, all of history was present to the Son.

Sitting with this for a moment, something profoundly personal emerges.  If all moments of time were present to Him, then every moment of my life was present to Him.  In other words, there was not a single moment in time when I was not on Our Lord’s mind.  There was not a single moment of His life that He did not love me, not just affectively, but effectively.  At every moment He was actively working out my salvation for me and winning some very specific grace for me.

Now, I recognize that this may be very difficult to believe, not because it is unbelievable per se but because it is almost too good to be true.  That is why it helps to come at this truth from the darker side first.  Christ took on the burden of our sins during His Agony in the Garden.  The guilt of each and every sin of mankind was laid upon Him so that He could pay the price of our reconciliation.  While He saw each and every act of disobedience, there is a flip side of this as well; a side that Pope Pius XI points out in his encyclical on the Sacred Heart:

“For anyone who has great love of God, if he will look back through the tract of past time may dwell in meditation on Christ, and see Him laboring for man, sorrowing, suffering the greatest hardships, ‘for us men and for our salvation,’ well-nigh worn out with sadness, with anguish, nay ‘bruised for our sins,’ and healing us by His bruises… Now if, because of our sins also which were as yet in the future, but were foreseen, the soul of Christ became sorrowful unto death, it cannot be doubted that then, too, already He derived somewhat of solace from our reparation, which was likewise foreseen, when ‘there appeared to Him an angel from heaven’, in order that His Heart, oppressed with weariness and anguish, might find consolation. And so even now, in a wondrous yet true manner, we can and ought to console that Most Sacred Heart …” (Pope Pius XI, On Reparation to the Sacred Heart, 13).

More on the implications of this in a moment, but it reinforces the truth that what Christ did, He did very specifically for me.  How do I know this?  Because what I do now, effected Him then, both good and bad.  In other words, I know this because I was there with Him.  He willed to do what He did for me.  I can say that Christ would have still done what He did even if I was the only one who needed saving because in a very real sense, I am.  Each and every one of His acts is a personal act done for me.  It is not a single moment or act, but all of His moments and acts.

Conversion of Paul

Profound as this seems, this idea is not something new.  It has been part of the treasury of the Church and is summed up best by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical on the Mystical Body:

“[F]or hardly was He conceived in the womb of the Mother of God, when He began to enjoy the Beatific Vision, and in that vision all the members of His Mystical Body were continually and unceasingly present to Him, and He embraced them with His redeeming love. O marvelous condescension of divine love for us! O inestimable dispensation of boundless charity! In the crib, on the Cross, in the unending glory of the Father, Christ has all the members of the Church present before Him and united to Him in a much clearer and more loving manner than that of a mother who clasps her child to her breast, or than that with which a man knows and loves himself” (Mystici Corporis Christi, 75).

Certainly our hearts are stirred when we grasp this, but we can realize in our lives in two particular ways.

Once grasped this truth takes flesh in our prayer lives; changing them forever.  St. Ignatius taught his followers to use their imagination in developing a composition of place when meditating on the life of Christ.  The reason why this is such an effective means to entering into dialogue with Our Lord is because we were actually in those places with Our Lord.  It is left to us to discover why Our Lord had us there.  In essence, we enter into those moments with Our Lord and ask Him what He wanted to give to us for our particular situation.  This also explains why when we meditate on the same event in Our Lord’s life at two different times, our experience is vastly different each time.  He didn’t just have a single grace to give us, but a particular grace suited to the very time we would approach Him.  It also keeps us from merely offering exegesis on Scripture during our prayer, but breathing it all in.  We will be exhausted long before we exhaust all that Our Lord willed to give us by His actions.

The second way is particularly appropriate during this Year of Mercy.  In Dives in Misericordia, St. John Paul II says that it is possible for us to show mercy to Jesus Himself.  He is referring not just to the Scriptural Works of Mercy of Matthew 25, but also acts of love that relieve the sufferings of Christ (DM, 8).  This follows directly from Pius XI’s teaching on Reparation to the Sacred Heart quoted above.  The idea of reparation may seem mechanical and cold, but once we look on it as “mercy” on Jesus it becomes a richly personal activity.  Mercy means to take on the misery of your friend as if it is your own.  So, for example when we genuflect before Him in the Tabernacle, we alleviate the pain of the mockery during His Crowning with Thorns.  When we have a bad night’s sleep we can offer it to Him who had nowhere to lie His head.  The instances could be multiplied, but the point is that in “offering it up” we are not mechanically writing in some spiritual ledger but personally entering into the Incarnation.

Pope Francis throughout his pontificate has spoken of the necessity for Christians to foster a “Culture of Encounter” by which we step out of ourselves to encounter other people.  This encounter is founded upon a very real encounter first with Jesus Himself—a response to His encounter with each of us during the Incarnation..

The Circumstances of the Passion

The Life of Jesus

Even in the midst of Ordinary Time, all of the spiritual masters of the Church recommend that we create a spiritual rhythm to our prayer.  Obviously this pattern centers on the weekly feast of the Resurrection that we celebrate each Sunday.  In order to live the Sabbath to the fullest though, it is necessary to journey through Our Lord’s experience on Good Friday as well.  This is why Fridays have always been marked by contemplation of Our Lord’s Passion.  In one of her many encounters with Our Lord, St. Faustina records that Jesus was pleased “best by meditating on His sorrowful Passion and by such meditation much light falls upon my soul. He who wants to learn true humility should reflect upon the Passion of Jesus. I get a clear under-standing of many things that I could not comprehend before” (Diary, 267).  The clarity of understanding comes about by striving to fill in the concrete details of His sufferings.  As we do this, we are filled with a new awareness of the incredible depths of God’s love.  It takes merely an intellectual assent to say that Christ died on the Cross for each one of us.  But when we are forced to sit with the circumstances of just how that death came about, our hearts are engaged in a whole new way and filled with a desire to be nearer to Our Lord.

Before examining some of the specifics of Christ’s Passion, it is fitting to repeat a point that St. Thomas makes in his treaty on the Passion of Christ in the Summa Theologica (ST III, q.46, art 6).  One of the questions that he seeks to answer is whether the pain of Christ’s Passion was greater than all other pains.  He does this in order to help us to avoid the trap of seeing the Passion of Christ as somehow just an act of divine willpower.  What this leads to is the habit of somehow seeing Christ as somehow stoic in the face of His sufferings.  Instead it is meant to remind us that the Divine Son took to Himself a human nature so that He Who was by nature incapable of suffering, could suffer.

But this human nature was not one that was marred by the stain of Original Sin and thus capable of feeling pain and suffering in a way that the rest of us can hardly imagine.  Because His body suffered from no defects, He felt the wounding all the more.  His sense of touch and the constitution of His nervous system were also perfect and thus each wound would have been felt with a force we could only speculate upon.  The physical wounding would have been accompanied by an incredible sadness at being wounded through the hatred of those He loved.  Because His will was fixed on undergoing the Passion, He did nothing to mitigate the suffering.  He did not distract Himself or allow anything that would have numbed the pain.  Instead “He permitted each one of His powers to exercise its proper function,” as Damascene says.

Also, being keenly aware of how justice needed to be fulfilled, He would have embraced “the amount of pain proportionate to the magnitude of the fruit which resulted therefrom,” namely, that He might most perfectly accomplish His mission as the redeemer of men.

Given this, when we look at some of the individual circumstances surrounding the acts of the Passion then we should know that the pains we imagine are multiplied in Our Lord.  It bears mentioning as well that some of these will seem to contradict traditional iconography, but each of them does accord with experimental truth.  Interestingly enough the evidence found on the Shroud of Turin (a doctor in the 1950s named Pierre Barbet investigated this) also agrees with what we know both historically and experimentally making a forgery very unlikely.

Shroud of Turin

Crucifixion is perhaps history’s most brutal form of execution.  In the “fullness of time” Christ came to a Roman ruled Israel where Rome had perfected this practice they borrowed from Carthage.  It was not only the particular sufferings of being crucified, but the duration of the sufferings.  Crucifixion led to a very slow death.  Relatively speaking though, Christ’s death was rather quick.  So quick in fact that when Joseph of Arimathea goes to Pilate, the latter is surprised that Jesus that the man he condemned to death just three hours before is already dead (Mk 15:44).  This is not however because of Jesus somehow checking out early, but because of the depth of His sufferings prior to the Crucifixion.

Of the four evangelists, only Luke mentions the “agony” that Christ suffers in the Garden.  Being a doctor himself, he is very precise in how the agony manifested itself namely that “His sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground” (Lk 22:44).  Luke uses very specific medical terms, Jesus sweat (idros) become clots of blood (thromboi).  What St. Luke is describing has since come to be known as hematidrosis which is a medical condition by which the capillaries in the sweat glands rupture.  Given the surface area of the skin, this could have led to a great loss of blood, but even if it was localized it causes the skin to become very sensitive to pain.

Dr. Barbet also found that the wounds on the Shroud are consistent with someone who had been scourged.  The Shroud shows the markings of a man with more than one hundred wounds from scourging.  We should keep in mind that this would include only those that broke the skin so that actual bruises would not show up.  This means that he was scourged probably 200-300 times.  It also showed a man who was naked because the ones in the groin area are just as deep as anywhere else and had his hands bound overhead as there are none on the forearms.  Regardless of whether this is the actual burial shroud of Christ, this gives us an idea of what a typical scourging would have been like.

The further weakening of Christ occurred in the carrying of the Cross.  Historically speaking, a cross was made in two distinct pieces in order to make the process more streamlined.  The vertical piece (“stipes crucis”) was affixed to the ground and the horizontal was movable (“patibulum”). Most of the crosses were rather low for ease of attaching the two pieces and to allow for the wild beasts to attack the crucified.  Only in rare cases was the crucified lifted higher to be on display.  The condemned man then would not carry the entire cross but just the patibulum.  It was placed on the man’s shoulders and both arms outstretched and then bound by cords to the chest, arms and hands.

When Our Lord arrived at the crucifixion site, His arms would have been nailed to the Cross.  As Dr. Barbet pointed out, crucifixion in the palms is an impossibility.  They could not have held the weight and the hands would have torn.  Instead it was done with a nail in the bend of the wrist.  This would have been extremely painful because it would have injured the median nerve each arm.  Once the “patibulum was raised up and connected to the stipes, they would have nailed His feet as well, one foot over the other (if the Shroud is to be believed it would have been left over right rather than vice versa as most artists depict it).

Finally we come to the actual cause of death.  Asphyxia was always the cause of death in Crucifixion.  With the arms affixed spread out, cramping would begin to set in and the contracted muscles would make it impossible to exhale. The only relief would be to relieve the dragging on the arms by “standing” on the stipes.  This would bring about cramping and fatiguing in the legs and lead to a dragging on the arms again.  This back and forth would continue until He was too weak to stand.

While Our Lord would have been able to speak while He was standing, that would have been extremely difficult.  This ought to give us pause as to the profundity of the Seven Words spoken by Him, especially the last where He stands to say “it is finished “ and returns to the hanging position (bowing His head) and turns His spirit over to mankind (John 19:30).

In the third week of his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius invites the retreatant to meditate on the Passion of Our Lord.  Given the Ignatian reliance on the imagination, we can gain much fruit by allowing history and medical science to inform our reading of the Gospel accounts of the Passion.  St. Ignatius, pray for us!

Living the Mysteries

Incarnation, Prayer, The Life of Jesus

Two weeks after being elected as Pope, St. John Paul II gave the members of the Church a glimpse into one of his secrets to sanctity when he admitted that the “Rosary is my favorite prayer. A marvelous prayer! Marvelous in its simplicity and its depth.”  Its simplicity is marked by its humanity.  Unlike any other method of Christian prayer, it engages the entire person—hands, voice, imagination, memory, intellect and will.  Its depth is unparalleled because of its content—the Mysteries of the Life of Christ offered to us food for contemplation.  As Paul VI said, without contemplation “the Rosary is a body without a soul and its recitation is in danger of becoming a mechanical repetition of formulas and of going counter to the warning of Christ: “And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words” (Mt. 6:7)…” (Blessed Paul VI, Marialis Cultus, 47).  Unfortunately, for many of us who pray the Rosary regularly, this danger is ever-present.

Why do we refer to the events in which we contemplate as the Mysteries of the Rosary?  What exactly do we mean when we use the word “Mysteries” when referring to the events in the life of Christ?  Once we are able to grasp the meaning and implications of using this term, the Rosary comes alive and becomes a source of grace in the life of every Christian who prays it.

In his book titled Christ in His Mysteries, Blessed Columba Marmion defines mysteries as “human and visible signs of a divine and hidden reality.”  He uses “mysteries” in the plural to differentiate from the Mystery of the Incarnation as a whole in order to refer to the fact that in Christ’s life there were no mere events or circumstances.  Everything He did and said has eternal significance and dimension.

The truth that everything that the Word Made Flesh did during His earthly sojourn was charged with eternal meaning stems from the very nature of the Incarnation; time and eternity meet in each event in the life of Christ.  He may have been performing the simplest human action but it was always the Eternal, Unchanging God Who did it.  It may have been accomplished at a specific historic moment, but it is an act that reverberates through all times.  This means that although the historical duration of His actions are past, “they still influence us because each of the mysteries brings its own special grace for our salvation” (Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 165).

Because of this, Blessed Columba says that all of Christ’s mysteries are meant to become our mysteries.  Christ received the fullness of grace in His sacred humanity but it was not for Himself alone.  Instead it is for us—“of His fullness that we have all received grace upon grace”(John 1:16).    What he means is not just that we collectively receive graces from each of His mysteries, but individually.  The Catechism, quoting John Paul II’s Encyclical Redemptor Hominis, says that “All Christ’s riches ‘are for every individual and are everybody’s property” (CCC 521—emphasis added).  This means that I can say not just Christ came for us but echo St. Paul’s conviction that Christ “loved me and gave Himself up for me” Gal 2:20).

Fra Angelico--Crucifixion with Sts Dominic and Thomas

In order to take ownership of what Christ won for me, I have to come to the conviction Christ had me very specifically in mind when each of these events happened.  Cultivating this conviction is the key to applying the events of the Gospel to our lives and to praying the Mysteries of the Rosary well.

This is where it is helpful to look at some of the effects of the Incarnation.  Specifically, how could Jesus, a man in all things but sin, have had me in mind when He did something?  After all, He was, like all of us, constrained by time.  He did not have “time” to think of all people, at all times when He did something.  But this was no mere earthly man, but the “man come down from heaven” (John 6:46) whose soul was united to the Second Person of the Trinity. In Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer in John’s Gospel, He says that eternal life is that the blessed should know God.  When we speak of the beatific vision, what we mean is eternal union with God.  Christ’s soul had this from the moment of conception because it was more closely united to God than any other soul.  It was united in the Person.  This truth is more than mere theological musing, but has very specific consequences related to our discussion.  In Mystici Corporis Christi, Pope Pius XII says “[F]or hardly was He conceived in the womb of the Mother of God, when He began to enjoy the Beatific Vision, and in that vision all the members of His Mystical Body were continually and unceasingly present to Him, and He embraced them with His redeeming love. O marvelous condescension of divine love for us! O inestimable dispensation of boundless charity! In the crib, on the Cross, in the unending glory of the Father, Christ has all the members of the Church present before Him and united to Him in a much clearer and more loving manner than that of a mother who clasps her child to her breast, or than that with which a man knows and loves himself” (75).  I never ceased to leave His mind during His earthly life even as I never cease to leave it today.

This awareness that I was present to Christ when a specific event was occurring changes the very tenor of my prayer.  I am able to enter the event in the manner that He intended and participate it.  I may speak to Him about the specific grace that He won for me and ask Him to prepare me to receive it.  Without this, Christian meditation is always in danger of becoming merely pious sentiments or intellectual investigation instead of a Spirit-driven response to the Word made Flesh.

This is what make the Rosary such a powerful Christian prayer.  By contemplating the Joyful Mysteries, I am able to be present in the “Hidden Years” of Christ’s life when He wins the graces of everyday life for me.  By contemplating the Luminous Mysteries, I am able to be present in those moments when Christ sought to reveal Himself more fully to me.  By contemplating the Sorrowful Mysteries, I am able to be present in those moments of His sufferings offering Him consolation.  By contemplating the Glorious Mysteries, I am able to share now in the personal fruits of the Resurrection and Pentecost with Mary, the Queen Assumed into Heaven.  The point is that the Rosary grows in depth in proportion to our habit of placing ourselves within the specific mystery, knowing we were already there in Christ’s mind and that He has something very specific He intended to give us personally.

Very often art can teach us deep truths in ways that mere words cannot.  It seems that no artist captures this truth regarding our presence with Christ during His life than Blessed Giovanni of Fiesole, better known as Fra Angelico.  In many of his paintings that depict scenes from the life of Christ, he also includes a well-known saint alongside Him to reveal this deep truth.  May we too strive to take our rightful places in the life of Our Lord!

 

Jesus and the Terrible Twos

Mary, The Life of Jesus

Many a young mother and father’s aspirations for living a re-incarnation of the Holy Family has washed up on the shores of their child’s second birthday.  Something is in the birthday cake that turns them into little monsters—it is the beginning of the “Terrible Twos.”  As the child becomes more mobile, the world has opened up before them.  With greater access to their surroundings and a constant curiosity, defiance sets in.  Lacking adequate language skills to express themselves, they master the art of the dramatic tantrum.  Most parents comfort themselves with the idea that it is a normal developmental stage and will soon pass.  Some turn to the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph for help and understanding.  But can they really understand?  They were truly parents of Our Lord and they were truly a family, but did Jesus go through the “Terrible Twos?”

For the first five or six centuries of the Church, the Magisterium had to wrestle with the Person of Christ.  There was little question as to His divinity, but how He could also be fully human was something that needed to be hashed out.  The fruits of this discussion were borne in the ideas of the Hypostatic Union and the philosophical idea of a Person.

During the Council of Chalcedon (451), the Church declared that the two natures of Christ are joined “in one person and one hypostasis” where hypostasis simply means a single substance. The Church followed with the expression “hypostatic union” to express the belief that in Jesus Christ there are two perfect and real natures, divine and human.  The Eternal Son of God took to Himself a true human nature.

From this the Church was led to make the necessary distinction between person and nature.  It is necessary at the outset to make two important distinctions.  The first is between nature and person.  The nature that a rational being has decides what that being is and can do.  However it is the person that actually exists and does the action.  The nature is part of the person, but does not exist outside the person.  The nature may answer the question what, but it is the person that answers the question who.

Recall that because of the Hypostatic Union, Christ has two natures.  This means that He has two principles of action; Divine and human.  Because He is Divine, He could raise Lazarus from the dead.  Because He is human, He asked the woman at the well for a drink to quench His thirst.   However, it was always the Divine Second Person of the Trinity that performed these actions.

All of this is necessary because there is a new tendency to do away with the divinity of Christ.  In fact in his book on spiritual Christology called Behold the Pierced One , Pope Benedict XVI says that it is ultimately the attempt to cancel out the divinity of Christ that is most damaging to faith today.  He says that the linguistic change from the name “Christ” to the personal name “Jesus” in referring to Christ reveals a spiritual process with wide implications.  It is an attempt to get behind the Church’s confession of faith and reach the purely historical figure of Jesus.

With this (over) emphasis on Jesus’ humanity, we attempt to apply modern psychology and stages of development to Christ.  If He is fully man then He too had to go through a process of growth in human nature.  He had to grow physically, He had to learn to speak, and He had to experience things so as to learn new things.  All of this is true, but for Christ is means something entirely different.  Surely He is “like us in all things but sin.”  The problem in our thinking however is that Our Lord’s “but” is much bigger than we initially think.

The “but sin” that the author of the Letter to the Hebrews is referring to is not just personal sin (after all God is incapable of sin, even if He takes on human flesh) but the effects of sin—namely the Fall.  With the Fall came a darkening of the intellect (which we call ignorance), a weakening of the will and disintegration in the emotional life (or the heart).  This is one of the reasons why He was so desirous of leaving us the Eucharist.  It literally infuses His human nature to ours so that we are healed through this “medicine of immortality” through a share in His divinity.  If His human nature was in any way defective then it no longer serves as our medicine.

Baby Jesus walking on Water at Bathtime

To understand the question about Christ’s “Terrible Twos” we need to go a little deeper into His human nature.  Because the human nature of Christ is united to the Second Person of the Trinity, Christ always had the beatific vision. In Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer in John’s Gospel, He says that eternal life is that the blessed should know God.  This is what beatific vision is—eternal union with God.  Christ’s soul had this from the moment of conception because it was more closely united to God than any other soul.  It was only by a miracle that it did not also spill over into His body.  In fact He lets the “governor” off so to speak at the Transfiguration where the Apostles see the glorified humanity of Christ.  To have the beatific vision means that He knew all past, present and future things.

One might ask however why, when Christ is asked about the end of the world, He responded by saying that only the Father knows that?  What Aquinas says is that He means that it could not be known through human reason or the natural light of the created intellect but by this knowledge of vision.  This seems plausible since the saints in Heaven surely have this knowledge.  Augustine goes even further in commenting on Christ’s not knowing the end of the world that there are two types of divine knowledge.  Christ had communicable knowledge which is related to His mission as Redeemer and that which was noncommunicable.

Aristotle said that the human mind has the capacity to know all created things.  Aquinas picked up this theory and said that there are two ways in which we come to know anything; either by divine revelation (infused knowledge) or by acquired knowledge.  Bearing in mind that Christ had a perfect human nature, there would have been no ignorance in Him.  He would know all things that could be known by the human intellect.

If Christ knew all things, how could “He grow in knowledge and wisdom before God and man” (Lk 2:40)?  This is because he grew in acquired knowledge.  By “acquired knowledge” St. Thomas means that knowledge which proceeds from the combination of sense perception and the abstracting activity of the intellect that produces universal concepts and ideas.  For Christ to grow in knowledge would mean that what He learned by acquired knowledge, He already knew by infused knowledge.  It was not new content so much as it was new in the way He came to know it.  We do this ourselves anytime we formulate arguments for things that we already know to be true.

With all this serving as a foundation, we can finally answer the question.  Our Lady and St. Joseph never suffered through the “Terrible Twos” because Christ was incapable of it (as an aside, Our Lady would have no experience of the “Terrible Twos” because she too would not have gone through them).  Because Our Lord from the moment of His conception had perfect control over His heart, there would have been no temper tantrums.  Because He already knew all things He would not have been driven to curiosity.  He would not have been capable of defiance.  He would have seen His parents in their proper authoritative role and would have always obeyed them (more on this in a moment).

Does this also mean that Jesus came out of the womb talking?  Certainly it is possible, but I don’t think so.  In some respects talking depends on physical development as well as intellectual.  The intellectual development was always there but the physical would have occurred in the normal course of growing.  He learned to speak in a normal timeframe, although I would expect that it came all at once and not in fits and starts like we see in a “normal” child today.  Either way, I wouldn’t expect a papal pronouncement on this question any time soon.  But I think the principle is solid.  Anything that depended upon intellectual development would have been there at the moment of conception.  Anything requiring physical at the appropriate time.

The fact that He had the intellectual ability to communicate would also lend itself to the belief that He would have understood communication from the moment of His conception.  So while He could have felt some level of frustration at not being able to communicate by speaking with His parents, He would not have expressed that frustration beyond reason.

One objection might arise to what I said about Jesus always obeying His parents.  In fact one of the only episodes in Jesus’ childhood recorded in the Gospels gives the appearance of Him disobeying Mary and Joseph by remaining in the Temple after the rest of the caravan had left.  There is only one way to make sense of this and it is related to what I said earlier about Mary herself not having the capacity for the “Terrible Twos.”  Because Mary did not suffer from ignorance as an effect of Original Sin, then she should have known that Jesus was not in caravan.  The only way that she could not have known was if it related to His mission as Redeemer—which His rather veiled response tells her.  This is why Our Lady is surprised that He did what He did—she simply did not expect the “sword of sorrow” to pierce her so early on.