Tag Archives: John Henry Newman

On Signs and Wonders

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Once when Our Lord was coming into Capharnaum, He was approach by an official there asking Him to come and heal his son.  Jesus tells him, “unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe” (John 4:49).  One might be tempted to read this as a rebuke, but it is clear from the fact that Jesus did heal his son that He was instructing His followers that miracles are an essential element for the spreading of the Faith.  Miracles are one of the Motives of Credibility (CCC 156) by which the act of faith is deemed reasonable and thus we should expect to find them everywhere the gospel is preached.  Our age is unique in that we no longer wonder at signs, but instead assume there is some, perhaps hitherto unknown, natural explanation for everything we experience.  Immersed in such a culture, Catholics give little thought to the miraculous and the role that they might play in the conversion of many in our world.

What Are Miracles?

Miracles are, according to St. John Henry Newman, “irregularities in the economy of nature, but with a moral end…Thus while they are exceptions to the laws of one system, they may coincide with those of another.”  What he means by this is not that they are mere exceptions to the physical order, but that they belong properly to Divine Providence and that God uses them with some regularity for a “moral end.”  This “moral end” highlights the fact that they are signs that God uses for the very specific purpose of drawing people to the central saving mission of Christ.  It is meant to be a divine stamp of approval that the message of the gospel is true.  Furthermore, although we use the term colloquially for anything that causes us to wonder (like the “miracle of life”), St Thomas says that a true miracle is one that has a cause that is hidden from everyone and can only be attributed to God Himself.

In his Oath Against Modernism, Pope St. Pius X taught that it was necessary to “accept and acknowledge the external proofs of revelation, that is, divine acts and especially miracles and prophecies as the surest signs of the divine origin of the Christian religion and I hold that these same proofs are well adapted to the understanding of all eras and all men, even of this time.”  Modernism has infected the Church so that many people think miracles were simply the effect of a primitive culture in which people were superstitious and did not understand the laws of nature. Belief in miracles, far from depending on ignorance of the laws of nature, requires knowledge.  You cannot deem something extraordinary if you do not know what is ordinary.  They were well aware that water does not directly become wine and that dead people don’t merely walk out of their tombs when commanded. 

It is this Modernist infection that has caused many “theologians” and preachers to explain away the miracles of Jesus with some natural explanation. The problem with this is that if Jesus did not perform miracles then His followers can’t do likewise in His name.  The power embedded in the gospel message is gone.   

Miracles and Free Will

Often Christians will reject the idea that God uses miracles because it appears to impede a person’s free will.  This is obviously not true when we look at examples of the gospels.  For example, many people saw the three hours of darkness that preceded the Crucifixion, but presumably only the Centurion believed.  That is because the act of belief is not in the miracle per se, but the consequences of the miracle.  The Centurion cooperated with the grace to believe that “this truly is the Son of God” while the others simply accepted the fact that they had experienced something unexplainable.  A similar thing happens when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.  The Jews were unwilling to accept the consequence of the miracle (Jesus was Who He said He was) and instead wanted to kill Him and Lazarus both.  The point is that each miracle has a grace of belief attached to it that not everyone will cooperate with.

Somewhat tangentially, the example of the three hours of darkness serves as a good example of rejecting the miraculous.  Most people would say that it was merely an eclipse.  The problem of course with that is that an eclipse normally lasts for about 8 minutes and not three hours.  Furthermore, the Jewish Passover always occurs with a full moon (Lev. 23:5), and it is astronomically impossible to have an eclipse at such a time. Christ must have hung on the Cross in almost complete darkness and everyone around must have known that something was going on.

After Our Lord cursed the fig tree, He told the Apostles “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will ” (Mk 11:22-24).  He expects His followers not only to believe in His miracles but to believe that they will do “greater works than these” (John 14:12).  He cautions them that the only true obstacle is doubt and so it is important that we come to expect the miraculous to occur.

On Liberty of Conscience

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The character of evil, in imitation of its greatest champion, is such that it is ever on the prowl looking to devour the freedom of each man.  One of the means by which such freedom is protected is liberty of conscience.  This natural right of conscience protects each man from having to act in such a way that he is forced to participate in something that he knows to be evil.  As the prevailing culture moves further and further from its Christian roots, the protection by law of the rights of conscience becomes increasingly important.  Therefore, it is worth examining more thoroughly in order bring into relief why it is so vital.

The Character of Conscience

First, we must clear up some of the popular misconceptions about conscience.  It is not a thing like the proverbial angel on the shoulder, but a mode of judgement.  More specifically it is a judgment of practical reason that is linked to the power of man to do what is right and shun what is evil within the concrete circumstances of human life.  Since it is a power of practical reason, it depends upon a knowledge of the principles that lead to genuine human thriving even if it is only concerned with applying those principles.  It is then the power of man to link truth with goodness. 

Conscience, even if it issues commands to the will, is not an act of the will.  Therefore, we must always keep conscience from becoming synonymous with self-will.  Most people treat conscience as if it were freedom to do whatever they want rather than being beholden to the truth.  It carries about with it a certain obstinacy of “sticking to your guns” no matter what.  Therefore, authority is quick to use its power to command actions in conformity with cultural norms.  This is nothing more than Power attempting to replace conscience. 

Conscience protection is the Catholic’s last line of defense against the growing power of the State.  The next step is to cross over into the field of martyrdom.  So we must fight vehemently to keep it in place.  The necessary principles for this defense were laid out quite articulately over a century ago by St. John Henry Newman.  In a letter to the Duke of Norfolk, the saint gives us a defense of the Supremacy of Conscience that fits with a true and Catholic understanding of conscience and its inviolability.

Conscience and Character

Newman notes that all men are by nature bound to observe the natural law.  Our apprehension of this Divine Law occurs within the realm of conscience.  Even “though it may suffer refraction in passing into the intellectual medium of each, it is not therefore so affected as to lose its character of being the Divine Law, but still has, as such, the prerogative of commanding obedience.”  Steeped within Catholic tradition, Newman views conscience as the voice of God and not merely the creation of man.  It may be more or less heard correctly by each man, but it still remains what he calls the “aboriginal Vicar of Christ.”

Based upon the fact that conscience is properly viewed as the voice of God, the Fourth Lateran Council said: “He who acts against his conscience loses his soul.”  To act against conscience is to act against God.  Despite the fact that God has implanted this voice of conscience commanding us to do good and avoid evil, the ear of the intellect needs to be trained and given its “due formation.”  This formation must come through reason enlightened by Divine Faith because the latter was given to purify the former.  To fail to form the conscience properly constitutes a great evil, perhaps one of the greatest because it chooses to deny conscience its rightful dignity.

A man has a right to something because he has a corresponding duty.  The right of conscience flows from his obligation to obey it.  But this obligation does not flow from a need to be true to oneself, but to obey God.  As Newman puts it, if conscience is the voice of the Moral Governor then the rights of conscience are really the rights of the Creator and the duties toward Him.  “Conscience,” Newman says, “has rights because it has duties”. This ultimately is what makes freedom of conscience so important and why we must protect it at all costs.  St. Thomas More is the model in this regard.  He was a martyr because he obeyed the dictates of God mediated through His conscience.

As religious liberty goes into decline, conscience protection becomes more and more important.  Pope Leo XIII called it true liberty, the liberty of the sons of God that shows that “the dignity of man and is stronger than all violence or wrong.” (Libertas, 30).  When all the power of the State bears down upon a single man and he still refuses to join in evil, it shows that man is bigger than the State and shows that he is made for God. Leo XIII calls it “the kind of liberty the Apostles claimed for themselves with intrepid constancy, which the apologists of Christianity confirmed by their writings, and which the martyrs in vast numbers consecrated by their blood. And deservedly so; for this Christian liberty bears witness to the absolute and most just dominion of God over man, and to the chief and supreme duty of man toward God” (Libertas, 30).

The Argument from Conscience

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In his book, Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, St. John Henry Newman gives account of what might be described as a philosophy of faith.  He thought logical proofs for things like the existence of God, even when sound, were unconvincing for many people because they failed to garner the right kind of belief or assent.  In Newman’s thought, assent to a proposition or a set of propositions can be of two types: notional and real.  Notional assent was a simple assent to a proposition or set of propositions as true.  Real assent takes those same propositions and moves them from the head to the heart so that it becomes concrete and personal.  A man patterns his life around a real belief while a notional belief only remains in the back of his mind.  When it comes to questions of facts, notional assent is often sufficient.  But when it comes to important questions, such as the existence of God, an assent “following upon acts of inference, and other purely intellectual exercises” is never a sufficient impetus to conversion.  Instead Newman thinks that only real assent can act as a means of paving the way for the invasion of grace. 

In Newman’s mind, it is very difficult for all but the most erudite of philosophers to give real assent to the logical, deductive, metaphysical proofs of someone like St. Thomas and his Five Ways.  These proofs are not defective in any way, in fact they are quite the contrary, having stood the test of time by offering certain proof of the existence of God.  Instead Newman thinks real assent can only be given when a person’s experience leads them to a real encounter with God.  For Newman this means turning to inductive proofs that leads one to the probable conclusion that God exists.  Newman thinks he found a universal subjective experience that proves the existence of God in moral obligation.

Conscience as a Universal Experience

Newman’s Argument from Conscience as it has most often been called is one of the most effective arguments for the existence of God.  This is because it builds upon a universal experience.  We all judge our own actions according to whether they are right or wrong.  Once this judgement is made, we experience an obligation to do what is right and avoid what is wrong.  We do not always judge correctly, but we cannot avoid judging.  Likewise, the experience of guilt always accompanies when we don’t choose according to our judgement. 

Stepping outside of ourselves and looking at the universality of this experience we must admit that it is rather strange, especially considering that we appear to be both judge and judged.  We speak of conscience as a voice (or an echo of a voice) that is both imperative and constraining and it is like no other dictate in our experience.  Who, in judging himself, would ever declare guilt unless the voice of conscience somehow connects us to someone beyond ourselves?  When we look in the world, we find no source for this voice (more on this in a moment) and so Newman thinks that “If, as is the case, we feel responsibility, are ashamed, are frightened, at transgressing the voice of conscience, this implies that there is One to whom we are responsible, before whom we are ashamed, whose claims upon us we fear.”  Conscience then, according to Newman, is “a connecting principle between the creature and his Creator.”

Freud would tether us to a this-worldly explanation to keep us from leaping from conscience to God.  He explains guilt as “tension between the ego and the superego.”  The superego is something akin to conscience but it contains only faint echoes of human authorities, especially in our formative years.  This mechanistic explanation of guilt however does not explain the absoluteness with which the dictates of conscience are felt.  Rather than seeming like a transgression of a merely human authority, guilt is experienced as a breaking with the Absolute.  We feel guilty because we know we are guilty.

Why the Argument Works

Recalling to mind the context in which Newman presents the argument, we can see why it might be so convincing.  Conscience as the “aboriginal vicar of Christ” presents God not merely as a Voice out there, but One Who is close to me.  To grasp this though we must move from the notion of conscience as a source of guilt to conscience as spurring us on towards what is truly good.  It is not just the voice of Judge, but of a Father, that desires our well-being in everything.  If we but listen to its voice, conscience no longer acts like a referee keeping us from breaking rules but a coach teaching us to excel in the game of life.  As Newman puts it, “the gift of conscience raises a desire for what it does not itself fully supply. It inspires in them the idea of authoritative guidance, of a divine law; and the desire of possessing it in its fulness, not in mere fragmentary portions or indirect suggestion. It creates in them a thirst, an impatience, for the knowledge of that Unseen Lord, and Governor, and Judge, who as yet speaks to them only secretly, who whispers in their hearts, who tells them something, but not nearly so much as they wish and as they need” (Sermons preached on Various Occasions, Dispositions for Faith).

Presented then in this light, Newman’s Argument from Conscience paves the way not just for notional assent, but real assent.  As the person begins to listen more and more to his conscience, even if poorly formed at first, he develops a taste for the good.  That desire for the Good manifests itself in desiring only what is truly good and the soul begins to look for the moral maps that God provides through the Church.  Judging correctly more and more often, especially as they open themselves up to grace as a gift from the God Who has speaks to them louder and louder through an informed conscience.  The Argument from Conscience truly paves the way for conversion.   

Keeping Your Hands Off

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It has been alleged that in the early years of his revolution, Martin Luther was in the practice of celebrating “Mass” by omitting the words of consecration while still elevating the bread and chalice.  This was done so that those gathered would not realize that Luther was doing something novel.  His act of deceit reveals not only his own lack of faith in Transubstantiation, but the power of the signs that surround the Sacrament.  He knew that if he were to eliminate the sign completely, he would quickly be branded as a heretic and his revolution would be dead on arrival.  But if he could make small, subtle changes, it would be much easier to eliminate faith in the Eucharist.  Applying this law of anti-Sacramental gradualism the Protestant Revolutionaries also introduced the practice of distributing Communion in the hand as a subtle attack not only against the Real Presence but also the ministerial priesthood.  Wise as serpents, they knew that to attack these foundational beliefs head-on was reformational suicide, but if they changed the practice, toppling belief would be easier.

This lesson in ecclesiastical history is instructive because it relates to one of, if not the biggest, crisis facing the Church today—a diminishment in belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  Through a certain Protestantization, namely Communion in the hand, a back door into the Tabernacle has cleared a path for the removal of Christ from the Eucharist.  It is only by reintroducing this practice that we can hope to reverse the rising tide of unbelief.

How We Got Here

For at least a millennium and a half, the Eucharist was always and everywhere received on the tongue.  In 650 we find the Synod of Rouen issuing condemning Communion in the hand as an abuse revealing that at the very least it was common practice at the time to receive It on the tongue.  This remained the norm until just after the Second Vatican Council.  After because the Council Fathers never made mention of altering the practice.  Instead the false “Spirit of Vatican II” that grew out of the yeast of ambiguity and loopholes, found permission in Pope Paul VI’s 1969 instruction Memoriale Domini.  Despite the declaration that “This method[Communion on the tongue] of distributing holy communion must be retained, taking the present situation of the Church in the entire world into account, not merely because it has many centuries of-tradition behind it, but especially because it expresses the faithful’s reverence for the Eucharist”, the Pope left a loophole for those who had “special circumstances” to introduce or continue the practice.  Granting a loophole enabled the principle of anti-Sacramental gradualism to infect the entire Church.

What We Can Do About It

Unlike the great need to change the orientation of the Priest during Mass through the re-introduction of ad Orientem masses, the laity can do something about this directly by receiving only on the tongue.  By receiving on the tongue, rather than in the hand, the faithful witness directly to the Real Presence of Christ.  How this is so we will discuss presently.

When a family sits down for a meal, platters are set out and each person is served food on their plate.  From their plate they then feed themselves.  A similar thing happens in Mass when the “minister” serves the Host to each person and they then feed themselves.  This is all fine and good if the Host were simple food.  But if the Host is not ordinary food, then how we eat Him ought to reveal this.  By receiving the Host in a manner that is wholly unique to anything else that is eaten, namely on the tongue, the believer is testifying to the truth that it is no ordinary food, but instead Jesus Christ Himself.  In fact we would be killing two birds with one stone by also obscuring the “family meal” interpretation of the Eucharist that has persisted over the last half century.

The use of scare quotes around the word minister above anticipates another important aspect of the practice.  Just as the Protestant Reformers used Communion in the hand to diminish belief in the ministerial priesthood, a similar fascination with the priesthood of all believers has allowed this practice to thrive.  By receiving the Host directly from the hands of a Priest, the same Priest whose hands were consecrated so that he could touch the Eucharist, testimony is given to the sacredness of the Host.  Just as Mary Magdalene was chastised for touching the Body of Christ after His Resurrection, while the Ordained Apostle Thomas was not, the laity should avoid touching the Eucharist.  This, again, would not only have the positive effect of reducing the number of (Extra?)Ordinary Ministers of the Eucharist, but will also help to avoid even the smalles particle of the Eucharist (of which Jesus is truly present) from being dropped or desecrated.  One way to insure that doesn’t happen is to limit the number of touches.

Older is Better?

It is worth dealing with what amounts to the most common objection, namely that it was the ancient practice of the Church to receive Communion in the hand. 

There are a number of theologians which have addressed this question and it is not entirely clear that there was a universality in the reception of Communion.  To dive into this question historically however misses the point.  Because the Church is a historical reality governed by the Holy Spirit, we should have no desire to “go back” because doctrine, being living and active, develops.  As the understanding of the Deposit of Faith deepens, practice, especially liturgical practice, adapts to reflect that.  For example, the understanding of Confession, especially its power to remove sin, was not something that the Early Church had a firm grasp on.  That it forgave sins was never in question, but how and when was not understood.  Could this be done only once or many times?  If only once then you would want to save it, or even better save Baptism until there was an emergency or until you were about to die.  If many times, then how could you prevent its abuse?  From within this setting, Public Confession was widely practiced. 

The point is that as doctrine developed public Confession went away.  To have any desire to go back to public Confession would be to try to erase all of that development.  So unless the “older is better” crowd are willing to go back to that practice, then they should not desire to do something similar with the Eucharist. All that we now know about the Real Presence of the Eucharist can’t be put back in the storehouse of the Deposit of Faith.  The practice reflects this understanding as we have shown above.  Orthopraxy goes hand in hand, or perhaps hand to tongue, with orthodoxy. 

In short, antiquarianism is really innovation and ultimately degradation.  This is a point that St. John Henry Newman made in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.  Using a false analogy, the antiquarians reason that just as a spring is clearest at its font, so too divine Revelation.  But Newman gone to great lengths to show that development admits of growth in clarity as it moves from the source.  As Pope Pius XII cautioned, we should not favor something just because it has “the flavor of antiquity. More recent liturgical rites are also worthy of reverence and respect, because they too have been introduced under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, who is with the Church in all ages even to the consummation of the world . . .the desire to restore everything indiscriminately to its ancient condition is neither wise nor praiseworthy.”((Pius XII Mediator Dei).  Communion in the hand ultimately then is a corruption and needs to be stopped immediately.

Saint John Henry Newman and Chastity

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In the days leading up to now St. John Henry Newman’s beatification in 2010, NPR’s All Things Considered turned its consideration towards the question as to whether the Cardinal may in fact have been gay.  Never one to miss the opportunity to promote the LGBT agenda, Fr. James Martin retweeted the article on the eve of Newman’s canonization saying, “This doesn’t imply that the man who will become a saint tomorrow ever broke his promise of celibacy. And we may never know for sure. But his relationship with Ambrose St. John is worthy of attention. It isn’t a slur to suggest that Newman may have been gay.”  Although no one in the Church hierarchy is likely to correct Fr. Martin, it is both a slur and manifestly false to suggest that the saint may have been gay.  A comment such as this is not only disingenuous, but reveals the lavender glasses that color everything that Fr. Martin says and reveals his animus for true Catholic teaching.  In the 2010 NPR piece, Fr. Martin was interviewed and offered that, “It is church teaching that a gay person can be holy, and a gay person can be a saint.  And it’s only a matter of time before the church recognizes one publicly.”  This reveals a serious flaw in his thinking and shows why he is ultimately unfit to minister to those people who struggle with same sex attraction. 

The Saints and Heroic Virtue

The second step in the process of canonization is to be declared Venerable.  This declaration, which, in Newman’s case, occurred in 1991, declares that the man exercised all of the virtues, both theological and natural to a heroic degree.  The point of such an examination is to show how deeply grace had penetrated the man’s life enabling him to practice the moral virtues with ease and the theological virtues eminently.  Among these natural virtues, chastity plays a key role meaning that, in Newman’s case, the Church has declared that he practiced chastity to a heroic degree.  And herein lies the problem with Fr. Martin’s hypothesis, both regarding the new saint and any canonized saint in the future: you cannot exercise chastity to a heroic degree and also be gay.

This may seem rather harsh, until we examine the nature of virtue in general.  The role of virtue in the moral life is to habitually order our faculties towards their proper end.  These powers of the soul “train” the lower faculties to respond in accord with right reason.  The man who struggles with disordered anger, or what we would call the vice of anger, by developing the virtue of meekness not only is able to keep himself from angry outbursts, but actually so governs his feelings of anger that it is only felt when it is reasonable to do so.  A similar thing can be said about all of our other vices or disordered inclinations including Same-Sex Attraction.  Just as meekness roots out any disordered anger, chastity roots out all disordered manifestations of our sexual faculties and orders them towards their proper ends.  The man who is truly chaste would no longer experience SSA.    

Notice that I did not perform any of the usual moral hairsplitting that many people make regarding this topic between homosexual activity and the vice of SSA.  While this may have some value in assessing personal culpability, it has no place when it comes to the virtue of chastity.  To employ such a distinction, such as Fr. Martin does in this case only serves to muddy the moral waters making chastity harder, not easier.  It all stems from an error in thinking that chastity and celibacy are the same thing.  But they are most certainly distinct.  Celibacy has to do with restraining the exterior actions.  Chastity has to do with properly ordering interior inclinations.  A man may be celibate without being chaste, but an unmarried man cannot be chaste without also being celibate.  Fr. Martin seems to suggest that St. John Henry Newman fell into the former category—celibate without being chaste.  To suggest that a canonized saint wasn’t chaste is a slur, especially given that the Church has declared him to be a man of heroic chastity.

Deep down, Fr. Martin knows all this.  This is his motivation for trying to change the designation of SSA from disordered to differently ordered.  If it is merely that there is a different ordering, then the chaste person could in fact experience SSA.  But if it is disordered then it will be rooted out as the person grows in chastity.  There is no reason why a person who struggles with SSA (or to use Fr. Martin’s designation of gay) couldn’t become a Saint someday, but it will only happen after they have removed that vice (and all the others) from their lives.  In fact, there may already be some Saint that had this difficulty at some point, but to suggest that we might someday have a gay saint is like saying that we already have a fornicating Saint in St. Augustine.  St. Augustine is a Saint because he became chaste and rooted out all the sexual vices he had in his soul. 

Blinded by the Lavender Light

All of this reveals why Fr. Martin is ill-suited to minister to those who have SSA.  All he can see is gay.  In examining the life of John Henry Newman, it is quite obvious that he deeply loved Fr. Ambrose St. John.  But it is only someone who sees all things in a lavender light that would mistake the love of friendship with erotic love.  The aforementioned St. Augustine, on losing a friend said:

I was amazed that other mortals went on living when he was dead whom I had loved as though he would never die, and still more amazed that I could go on living myself when he was dead – I, who had been like another self to him. It was well said that a friend is half one’s own soul. I felt that my soul and his had been but one soul in two bodies, and I shrank from life with loathing because I could not bear to be only half alive; and perhaps I was so afraid of death because I did not want the whole of him to die, whom I had love so dearly.

This seems very similar to what Newman said at the loss of his friend “I have always thought no bereavement was equal to that of a husband’s or a wife’s but I feel it difficult to believe that anyone’s sorrow can be greater than mine.”  Would Fr. Martin have us believe that St. Augustine was gay or bisexual?  Or is it, that he is fundamentally incapable of acknowledging that there is a proper, non-sexual love between same sex persons in friendship?  One of the ways in which chastity is increased in the person with SSA is to acknowledge that to the extent that his love for the other person is real, it is really a disordered love of friendship.  Once this is realized the person is able to develop a healthy and ordered love for the other person.  What makes Fr. Martin unsuited then to help these people is that he would not admit to the true love of friendship.  Otherwise he would not make such a stupid comment about St. John Henry Newman, but put him forward as an example of how those with SSA might purify their love for a person of the same sex through authentic friendship. 

Led into All Truth

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The digital age is nothing if not cacophonic.  We are inundated with words to the point that, in order to be heard over the din, hyperbole becomes the norm.  Our Lord and the Apostles, on the other hand, were neither cacophonic nor hyperbolic.  When He said something, the Word made Flesh was economical and precise in what He said and what He meant.  That is why when He promises the Apostles that the Holy Spirit “guide you to all truth” (John 16:13), he really means all truth.  The Apostles would be given full and perfect knowledge of God’s Revelation so that the Barque of Peter would never be steered off course.

One might be justified if his initial reaction to such a statement, even if true, is to conclude that, in the end, it has no practical bearing.  But as we shall see it is an especially important point that has practical implications.  So important in fact that when St. Irenæus, the second-degree disciple of the Apostle John through St. Polycarp, wrote his treatise Against Heresies, he included a proof of it in order to refute the Gnostics who claimed to have hidden knowledge.  Irenæus tells the would-be heretics that “after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge…”(St. Irenæus, Against Heresies, III-I, emphasis added).

The Amen of the Church

We look to early Church Fathers such as Irenæus  because they tell us how Divine Revelation was received.  God speaks and the people, in receiving His message, say “Amen”.  If someone like Irenæus interpreted Jesus’ words during His farewell discourse literally, then we can rest assured that it is the authentic interpretation.  This becomes even more obvious when we consider that it has to be true or else the Deposit of Faith will eventually decay.  And this is why he wrote what and when he did.  The Gnostics professed that the Apostles merely got the ball rolling and that men (especially men like them) would come along and add to it: “For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed perfect knowledge, as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles” (ibid).  If the Apostles did not have full and perfect knowledge then it necessarily allows for addition to it the deposit of faith, the position that Irenæus found “unlawful”. 

The practical implication that follows from this is the absolute necessity for the development of doctrine and the authoritative Church.  Development is not the same thing as addition, as we have discussed previously, but a result of the Word of God being living and active.  But the distinction between development and addition necessitates the presence of an authoritative Church.  But just because the Apostles had full and complete knowledge, it does not mean that they articulated all of it.  To grasp this we can turn to the Apostle of Development, Blessed John Henry Newman.

Newman on the Full Knowledge of the Apostles

Like Irenæus, Newman also took Our Lord at His word.  But he was more interested in how that could be, than that it could be.  In his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (EDCD), Newman concludes that “Thus, the holy Apostles would without words know all the truths concerning the high doctrines of theology, which controversialists after them have piously and charitably reduced to formula, and developed through argument. Thus, St. Justin or St. Irenæus might be without any digested ideas of Purgatory or Original Sin, yet have an intense feeling, which they had not defined or located, both of the fault of our first nature and the responsibilities of our nature regenerate…Thus St. Athanasius himself is more powerful in statement and exposition than in proof; while in Bellarmine we find the whole series of doctrines carefully drawn out, duly adjusted with one another, and exactly analyzed one by one.” (Blessed John Henry Newman, EDCD, Ch.5, Section 4).

The knowledge “without words” meant that the “Apostles had the fullness of revealed knowledge, a fullness which they could as little realize to themselves, as the human mind, as such, can have all its thoughts present before it at once.  They are elicited according to occasion.  A man of genius cannot go about with his genius in his hand: in an Apostle’s mind great part of his knowledge if from the nature of case latent or implicit…”

In essence, the Apostles were infused with all knowledge of divine Revelation.  It was always in their mind.  But the communication of knowledge on a human level is always deficient.  No word necessarily encompasses a complete idea.  Development allows the idea to be looked at from multiple angles so that it can be fully articulated.  Instead then of fully articulating what they knew, they were guided by the Holy Spirit to have all of their knowledge spread implicitly.  It would then unfold over time, under the divine authority bestowed upon the Church.

Newman gives a good example when he asks whether St. Paul would have known about the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.  While he might not have initially grasped what the term Immaculate Conception meant, “if he had been asked whether our Lady had the grace of the Spirit anticipating all sin whatever, including Adam’s imputed sin I think he would have replied in the affirmative.”  The explication may have been foreign but as soon as he knew what you meant he would have found it among the deposit of faith that he was given.

The practical implication then is that either way, the Protestant argument against the Church’s authority fails and ultimately is self-defeating.  If they take a reductive, rather than a literal meaning of Christ’s words, namely that the Apostles did not know all things, then there is no reason why the deposit of faith must be closed or must be included solely in the Bible.  In fact, if this is true then an authoritative Church is absolutely necessary as the guardian of divine revelation.  Likewise, if the Apostles did know all things and did not communicate them explicitly, then there must be an authoritative Church that guides the articulation of that knowledge.  There is a third option, namely that the Apostles were simply bragging about what they were given and were unwilling to hand it on, although that leads to an absurd conclusion.  Either way then, the existence of an authoritative Church is implicit in Christ’s promise that the Apostles would be led to all truth by the Holy Spirit.

On Adding to Scripture

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The great 19th Century Catholic convert from Anglicanism, Blessed John Henry Newman, once pronounced that “to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.”  The Beati was describing his own path to the Catholic Church based on historical study.  But his point was not just that once you study the Church Fathers you will necessarily turn to Catholicism, but that there is an “utter incongruity between Protestantism and historical Christianity.”  He thought the “safest truth” in the centuries old debate between Catholic and Protestants is that “the Christianity of history is not Protestantism.”  A “safe truth” because the sola scriptura of Protestantism is, in principle, a rejection of history (which is just another word for Tradition) in favor of the Bible alone.  Protestantism turned Christians into a “people of the Book.”

Of course, Protestants will counter that this is the only way to protect against the corruption of God’s saving words.  Catholics have added to these words, something that is explicitly condemned in Scripture (Rev 22:18).  For Newman and for Catholics as a whole, they would plead guilty as charged.  Otherwise Scripture is doomed to become a dead letter.  But if it is “living and active” then to be living means, according to Newman, “to change, and to change often.”  In other words, Newman is not only defending what Catholics call “the development of doctrine” but is saying it is an absolutely necessary component of Christianity.

To come to this conclusion, Newman looks at the nature of ideas and the human mind.  Ideas when they pass before different human minds are considered under different aspects.  These different minds will draw different truths from these ideas.  So for an idea like “the sky is blue” two different minds may run along the tracks of different trains of thought and come to two different, though equally true, doctrines.  One may turn to the “color” of the sea and conclude that water is merely reflecting the sky.  Another may turn to the composition of the atmosphere and conclude that it filters light such that it turns the black of space into blue.  Living ideas, that is, ideas that are constantly “carried forward into the public throng” will constantly have new lights shed upon it.  Relevant to the point at hand, if Scripture presents ideas, and these ideas are living in the sense that they are consumed by public minds then you should expect that there be development.

A Bridge Too Far?

That last statement might seem like a bridge too far until we observe the behavior of Catholic and Protestant alike.  They argue about interpretation.  Neither side says “the Bible says this” and leaves it at that.  They argue about the meaning of what the Bible says.  The Biblical ideas meet two separate minds and two separate doctrines emerge.  It is inevitable.  In other words, if you even begin to argue about the interpretation of Scripture then you are already admitting the principle of development.  This is why I said that without development Scripture becomes a dead letter.  It simply says something like “Christ was born in Bethlehem” and says only that thing, not allowing us to draw any conclusions.  Scripture becomes collection of “God facts” of which we simply intellectually assent and then summarily ignore. 

Otherwise, once the ideas of Scripture pass before our minds, we will make judgments upon them and thus develop them in our minds.  Or, as Newman says, “it is characteristic of our minds to be ever engaged in passing judgment on the things which come before them. No sooner do we learn that we judge; we allow nothing to stand by itself.”  It is human nature for ideas to have consequences.  Divine ideas, spoken to man, are no different in this regard. 

All of us have had the experience of encountering a certain passage of Scripture and each time that we do realizing completely different things.  That is because no single term can exhaust all the contents of an idea.  This is especially true of God Who has the power to use an economy of words to convey more content than mere human words can.  As St. Justin Martyr said of Christ, “His sayings were short and concise; for He was not rhetorician but His word was the power of God.” 

Moving from Implicit to Explicit

Take for example Hebrews 11:6, what St. Thomas calls the credibilia—”But without faith it is impossible to please him, for anyone who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”  In this one sentence all Christian doctrine is contained implicitly.  Everything we believe, all that is in Scripture and Tradition, is connected to this waiting to be made explicit.

It is this movement from explicit to implicit that is described by the theory of the development of doctrine.  In truth Scripture leaves many important and vital questions unanswered.  In other words, Scripture is not wholly explicit.  There are always further implicit truths contained in every explication.  Newman uses the example of the fact that Baptism is necessary for the forgiveness of sins.  But what happens to those who sin after Baptism?  If that question is to be answered then there must be either additional revelation or development.  Our Lord Himself came to fulfill and not abolish the law and the prophets implying a rate of gradual growth in doctrine.  At what point can we say that growth ceased?  At Pentecost, at the Council of Jerusalem, on Patmos with John the Apostle, at Chalcedon when the Biblical Canon was closed, at Wittenberg, or what?

The development of doctrine itself is a biblical principle.  Christianity is not some esoteric philosophy but instead a historical religion.  The Bible itself reveals a plan of progressive revelation.  As an illustration Newman points to the seemingly unimportant meeting between Abraham and Melchizedek and the importance placed upon the ancient priest and his sacrifice of bread and wine in the Letter to the Hebrews.  Does this development cease in that letter or does it continue to progress down to our own day in the doctrine of the Eucharist? 

Once we establish that development is necessary then there is a strong antecedent argument in favor of an authority checking those developments.  To give Revelation without securing it against corruption is not to really have given it at all.  This is his argument in favor of the authority of the Catholic Church as the guardian and preserver of Revelation.  St. Paul and St. John show that heretics, like ravenous wolves, were active in the Church.  As the ideas of Scripture develop over time we should expect more heresies, not less, than the Apostles did. How can Revelation be protected without further doctrinal development, development that not only condemns but clarifies?  The moment you admit the development of doctrine, you must admit an authoritative Church. 

The question then, is not whether there will be development, but how to decipher between authentic development and corruption.  A living Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, is the only possibility for doing this.  After all, revelation that has been corrupted is not revelation at all.  It is lost to history.  And this is why Newman thought that Protestantism suffered not only from being unhistorical, but also untrue.

Nothing New Under the Sun

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A mega-church pastor in Atlanta named Andy Stanley has written an article in Relevant magazine asking why Christians persist in protecting monuments to the Ten Commandments when, in truth, they no longer apply to us.  Although keeping up with the ramblings of various mega-church pastors could be a full-time job, this particular article merits attention because it is demonstrative of heresies in general and how they seem to persist, especially when believers are cut off from the preservative protection of the Catholic Church.

A native of Sinope in modern day Turkey, Marcion was a shipbuilder who rejected the Old Testament.  He desired to strip Christianity of anything Jewish and any connection to the Old Testament.  In his view, Christ came to undo the work of the Creator.  He even went so far as to produce his own set of Scriptures, removing the Old Testament along with any references to the Old Testament in the New Testament and any suggestions that we would be judged by God.  Within the plan of Divine Providence, Marcion of course moved the Church along by encouraging her to make explicit the role of the Old Testament in the life of the Church.

The Law and Historical Christianity

Pastor Stanley and the second century ship builder are, in a very real sense, kindred spirits.  For truly, there is “nothing new under the sun” when it comes to heresies.  They are simply recycled throughout the ages.  That is why Blessed John Henry Newman’s maxim rings true—“to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.”  Pastor Stanley’s error is not just theological but historical.  He claims that “the blended model began as early as the second century when church leaders essentially kidnapped the Jewish Scriptures and claimed them as their own.”  This is simply rehashing what Marcion said and he interprets the Church’s clarification as “kidnapping” the Jewish Scriptures.  In other words, he is saying that Marcion was right. 

Interestingly enough, many German Lutherans became Marcions under the Nazi regime for obvious reasons.  To be clear, Pastor Stanley is not suggesting anything like this (he does in fact condemn it).  But his doctrine necessarily leads to that no matter how unwittingly he proposes it.  This is the nature of heresies, they always lead to a dead, and sometimes even deadly, end.  Given enough time, what is implicit will always be made explicit.

The Law and the New Covenant

That is why it is instructive to cut off his error at its roots, especially because it is a common one.  In essence, his thesis comes at the end of his essay—“While Jesus was foreshadowed in the old covenant, he did not come to extend it. He came to fulfill it, put a bow on it, and establish something entirely new.”  The error really comes in equating the Old Covenant with the Law.  There was not a single “Old Covenant” but instead God made a series of covenants with man, beginning with Adam and ending with David, all of which culminated in the New Covenant that is sealed in Christ’s blood.  Nowhere in Scripture does it suggest that Jesus was “establishing something entirely new.”  The new wine and new wineskins are like the old wine and wineskins, even if they are new. 

The question, and it was one that the early Church had to wrestle with (c.f. Acts 10-20), was what role the Jewish law would play in this New Covenant.  That it was to play a role was clear when Our Lord said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17-18).  For Pastor Stanley and many like him Jesus came precisely to destroy the Law.

St. Augustine in his famous treatise on the Sermon on the Mount said that to “not abolish the law but to fulfill it” can be taken in two ways, both of which are applicable to Christ’s words.  First to fulfill means to add what is lacking.  Augustine says, “he who adds what is lacking does not surely destroy what he finds, but rather confirms it by perfecting it.”  For Pastor Stanley, addition comes by way of subtraction.  You need only one commandment—“love one another as I have love you”— but he would have this commandment demolish the foundation of the Law rather than building on it.  No wonder he calls out Chick-fil-A for closing in observance of the Sabbath.  His one commandment says nothing of loving God, a commandment that surely requires more than keeping the Sabbath sacred but most certainly not its exclusion.

Christ also fulfilled the Law by doing everything that was in it.  He did this not just to show it was possible, but to make it possible for us as well.  In Christ, the impossible becomes possible.  Ethics becomes ethos as the Divine Stonemason moves the law from the stone of Sinai to the stone of our hearts.  The Ten Commandments cease mere laws, but prophesies.  Christians “shall keep the Sabbath” and “shall not kill, lie or steal.”

As further proof that Christ does not want to abolish the law, He devotes much of His Sermon on the Mount to how it will be fulfilled.  He does this by precisely using the Ten Commandments as the model.  “Moses said, but I say to you…”  So clearly He has no intention of abolishing the Ten Commandments.  But what about all the other Old Testament precepts?  Some of them, particularly the ceremonial aspects will find their fulfillment in the rites of the New Covenant.  Other precepts, especially some of the moral ones will remain in place.  Still, if we examine the issue honestly, there is still not enough guidance.  This reveals the larger error that Pastor Stanley makes and, unfortunately, many other Christians with him .

The aforementioned quote of Newman is really an indictment that Protestantism is not the Christianity of history.  Sola Scriptura necessitates that view because they are rejected a historical explication of Christian dogma in favor of one based solely on the Bible.  The problem with this however is that it is a dead Christianity because much of the Bible only makes Revelation implicit.  Which aspects of the Mosaic Law are binding and which are not is never explicitly told to the Biblical reader.  Instead what is implicit in Christ’s words must be made explicit.  This explication must happen under the guidance of the Church, led by the Holy Spirit “who guides us to all truth” through the Church.  Once a Protestant turns to the Church Fathers and sees the unbroken line of belief to what the Apostles taught, errors such as Pastor Stanley’s are never made.  Christ did not make something entirely new, he added the necessary ingredients to Judaism to make it Catholic.  But if you reject the Catholic Church outright then you necessarily will think He must have started something new.

Being closing we would be remiss in neglecting Pastor Stanley’s fundamental question as to why Christians should insist on the presence of monuments of the Ten Commandments instead of the Sermon on the Mount.  Perhaps Pastor Stanley’s suggestion is a little self-serving in that he is looking for a place to actually read and study it.  But in theory there is no particular reason why we could not use the Sermon on the Mount instead, although it is, admittedly, a little long.  But the Ten Commandments, especially in a post-Christian culture can be very effective for the same reason that God gave them first.  The law was given so that the people became aware of their inability to keep it and would cry out to God for redemption.  Sometimes the bad news is just as effective as the good news.

How Do You Talk to an Angel?

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When the Son of God came down from heaven and became the Son of Mary, He did not come alone.  He brought many of His friends, the angels, with Him.  Throughout His earthly sojourn we find the angels playing a pivotal role.  Whether it be in glorifying God at His birth, ministering to Him in the desert, strengthening Him in the Garden or joyfully announcing His resurrection, the angels were His constant companions.  He did this not because He “needed” their help, but because we do.  He wanted to reveal to us just how vital angels are to our eternal well-being.  It seems fitting then that we take an opportunity to reflect on our relationship with them.

In a very real sense we were made for friendship with the angels.  Any time that Our Lord mentions the eternal reward He is promising, He always mentions the angels in the same breath (c.f. Luke 12:8-9, Mt 25:31-46).  But this friendship begins now; the angels are “all ministering spirits sent to serve, for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14).  But this community with the angels can remain entirely abstract unless we have a means to communicate with them.

Talking with the Angels

Our side of the communication is rather straightforward.  We can invoke the angels and speak to them directly, knowing that they hear us.  How we invoke them however is also important.  We should never invoke an angel by name.  The Church has cautioned the Faithful about this and in recent times the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has spoken against the habit of asking your Guardian Angel his name:

“The practice of assigning names to the Holy Angels should be discouraged, except in the cases of Gabriel, Raphael and Michael whose names are contained in Holy Scripture.” Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, 216

This can be a dangerous spiritual practice as you have no assurance that the name you have discerned is not, rather than your Guardian Angel, a demon.  Once you repeat the demon’s name, you are inviting him and giving him a certain power over you.  In fact, because the Church, whose authority binds even those in heaven, has spoken definitively you can be sure that the name you “hear” is either the result of an over-active imagination (hopefully) or the name of a demon.  It is most assuredly not the name of your obedient Guardian Angel.  Better simply to address him as “Guardian Angel.”  The only exception to this rule are the names of the angels revealed in Scripture—Michael, Gabriel and Raphael.

Of equal greater interest to us is how the angels communicate with us.  To answer this question we must first look at how it is that man receives any communication.  When words are spoken to us or read by us, the words themselves are merely symbols that are meant to invoke concepts.  We hear or see the words and then we form images (or phantasms as St. Thomas calls them) in our imagination, supplement those images with other images from our memory, and abstract the concepts from the images with our intellect.

A similar thing would obviously happen if an angel was to audibly speak to us (either by gathering matter together to make a body) or by simply moving air to make sound waves that form the spoken words or even writing us a message.  But this would not be the normal way in which they would communicate with us.  The angels’ normal mode of communication, that is when one angel communicates with another, is to simply place the idea they want to convey in the mind of the other angel.  They do this because of the manner in which angels naturally come to know things—the infusion of ideas directly into their minds.

There is a principle of with Scholastic philosophy that “whatever is received, is received according to the mode of the receiver.”  What this means is that when angels communicate with us, they use not their mode of receiving communication, but ours.  They do not infuse ideas directly into our minds, but instead they move our imagination and memory with certain images that will set off a chain of thought.  The angels, especially our own personal guardian angel, know us well enough to know what images it will take to move our intellects in a certain direction.

A Hidden Corollary

This is, by the way, is why we have difficulty knowing that the angels have communicated with us.  We would tend, because it is so “natural” for our imaginations to actively provide images that come out of nowhere, to think it was just the result of our own thinking.  But there is an important corollary to this as well.  The fallen angels retained this power to move the material faculties of the imagination and memory and thus they too can set us off on a train of thought of their design.  Again, this is why we do not always know whether a particular temptation comes from us or from a demon.

In the information age, we spend a lot of time and resources making sure our personal data is secure.  We would not want hackers to get access to highly sensitive material.  The demons are like hackers.  They can easily hack into our memory and imagination and pull up particular memories or images to tempt us with.  This means we must constantly guard against putting any images there ourselves that could be used against us.  Many men report being able to remember a single pornographic image from 20 years ago and this is part of the reason why.

But we are not left unprotected.  Our Guardian Angel, whose main role is to protect us from the demonic invaders can guard our imagination and memory.  We should regularly seek their help so that the moment one of these images arises, we turn it over to them.  As this habit grows, we will reflexively turn them over and the demonic will seek another means of attacking us.

In a sermon he wrote for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, Blessed John Henry Newman articulated one of the dangers of an “educated age” such as our is that we take little account of the angels.  When all thoughts are explained as simply the result of the firing of various synapses we can ignore that our friends the angels are still there and desiring to communicate with us.  Let us not fall into this sin of the educated age and rely ever greater on our heavenly ministers.

Who’s Afraid of a Little Sin?

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With the smoke still rising from the second great war, Pope Pius XII surveyed the moral landscape and declared that “the greatest sin today is that men have lost the sense of sin.” This theme, a loss of the sense of sin, has been a recurring one highlighted by each of the subsequent six pontificates.  In many ways it represents one of the greatest challenges to the Christian in the modern world.  Most of us still believe in sin, but living in the midst of a culture that laughs at any mention in it, we fail to see the ugliness of even the “smallest” sin.  The thought of achieving our freedom and conquering sin is nice, but not something we truly desire.  And so we simply live a stagnant life by merely avoiding the big sins, or at least that is how we reason.  After all, how could we grasp the gravity of sin when it is all around us?  Does a fish know that it is wet?  So how could we even hope to avoid the little sins and climb the heights of holiness?

When we examine the question more deeply we realize that the problem is hardly unique, even if it is more acute in our age.  Preaching a Lenten homily 175 years ago, Blessed John Henry Newman asked pretty much the same question:

“As time goes on, and Easter draws nearer, we are called upon not only to mourn over our sins, but especially over the various sufferings which Christ our Lord and Savior underwent on account of them. Why is it, my brethren, that we have so little feeling on the matter as we commonly have? Why is it that we are used to let the season come and go just like any other season, not thinking more of Christ than at other times, or, at least, not feeling more? Am I not right in saying that this is the case? and if so, have I not cause for asking why it is the case? We are not moved when we hear of the bitter passion of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, for us. We neither bewail our sins which caused it, nor have any sympathy with it.” (Parochial and Plain Sermons, Volume 6, Sermon 4).

The Blessed convert hints at the reason in the framing of the question.  We do not recognize the seriousness of our sins because the Passion of Christ, not just the entire event, but the whipping, the scourging, the being dragged in chains, the carrying of the cross, the falling , the crown of thorns, the nails, and the suffocation, leaves no lasting impression on us.  We might as well be watching a movie.  Disturbing perhaps to think about, but quickly left aside as we move on with life.  It is not that we are uncaring, it is just way too abstract.  And why is this?  Newman again responds saying “For this one reason, my brethren, if I must express my meaning in one word, because you so little meditate. You do not meditate, and therefore you are not impressed” (ibid.).

Why Meditation on the Passion Saves Us

Newman is really reiterating something that all the saints have said.  Meditation upon the passion of Christ is necessary for both our salvation and our perseverance in the quest for it.  Echoing s similar theme, a contemporary of Newman’s, Blessed Columba Marmion said that he was “convinced that outside the Sacraments and liturgical acts, there is no practice more useful to our souls than the Way of the Cross made with devotion.  It is sovereign supernatural efficacy” (Christ and His Mysteries, p.309).

Why would Blessed Marmion make such a profound statement?  Because he realized that the Passion and Death of Christ is an eternal event and that it has lost none of its power to heal and transform us. In his words, “When we contemplate the sufferings of Jesus He grants us, according to the measure of our faith, the grace to practice the virtues He revealed during those sacred hours…When Christ lived on earth there emanated from His divine Person an all-powerful strength…Something analogous happens when we put ourselves into contact with Jesus by faith.  Christ surely bestowed special graces on those who with love, followed Him on the road to Golgotha or were present at His immolation.  He still maintains that power now.”

Faith enables us to participate in the Passion of Christ simply by bringing it before us in meditation.  It gives us the opportunity to draw directly from its specific, and very personal fruits.  At the root of discipleship is Christ’s command, “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me”().  And only by meditating on His Passion can we know what that cross looks like or to have the power to pick it up.  “Follow me” is meant literally by walking right behind Him during His own Passion, something that can only be done by putting ourselves there.

Two Examples

Scripture offers us two contrasting visions of disciples who did and did not meditate upon the Passion of Christ that serve as a caution and a model respectively.

The three-fold denial of St. Peter is well known.  His disavowal of Christ is one of the things that make him very relatable to all of us.  Because we can easily relate to him, we can also fall prey to his blind spot.  Why, exactly, did St. Peter abandon Our Lord?  In short it was an unwillingness to meditate upon the Passion.

Throughout Our Lord’s public ministry the theme of His Passion and Death was always looming in the background, even if it was shrouded in mystery.  He announced it to the Apostles three times (no coincidence) and each time it was denied by Peter.  We should not be surprised that his unwillingness to sit with the mystery of the cross then led to his fall.  It was his willingness to relive the Passion in his mind and his own share in it that gave St. Peter the grace of final perseverance (c.f. Jn 21).

Our Lady on the other hand is the ultimate model of meditation upon the Passion.  Each of the three times it was presented to her in Sacred Scripture, rather than denying it or allowing it to become abstract, “she kept these words in her heart.”  This habit of sitting with the mystery of Christ’s Passion enabled her to assimilate that same spirit and to walk with Jesus on the road to Calvary.  It was this habit, in other words, that won for her the grace of perseverance.  It is for this reason that she can serve as both a model and a guide in our own personal meditation of the Passion of Christ.  It is also one of the ways in which she intercedes for us to obtain the grace of final perseverance.

After one of her many encounters with Mercy Incarnate, St. Faustina reflected that Jesus was pleased “best by [her] 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 habitual meditation upon Our Lord’s Passion is a constant among all the saints and will become a source of unlimited spiritual growth for the rest of us as well.  When we intimately come to know the sufferings our sins cause we will no longer find them desirable, transforming not only ourselves but everyone around us relegating the “loss of a sense of sin” to the past.

The Media and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

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“If it bleeds, it leads.”  If there is a single maxim that guides the main stream media in their reporting, then it is this.  The principle itself is based on a simple calculation: the more carnage, death and human depravity in a story, the higher it appears in the reporting hierarchy.  We, of course, are all quick to condemn the media for this.  But not so quick that we don’t watch it first.  The main stream media is a business, a big business at that, and guided by the law of supply of demand.  It is all based on ratings and with so many ways to monitor what we are watching, they know exactly how much is consumed.  In other words, they lead with the blood because we watch it.  The more we watch, the more we get.  Inundated by it, we feel powerless to keep from watching.  We watch while covering one eye.  But like all things we feel powerless to avoid, it is illuminating to ask why we do it.

Rather than strictly psychological, the answer is more theological in nature.  Its genesis is found, well, in Genesis.  Returning to “the beginning” of mankind, we find man and woman in Eden made in the image and likeness of God.  In His likeness, Adam and Eve are practically unlimited, able to eat from every tree in the Garden except one.  Unlike God, they have a single limitation; they cannot eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Their test then will be whether they are willing to accept this limitation or not.  The Serpent, the inventor of “if it bleeds, it leads,” leads with “You shall not die” and tells the story of how Adam and Eve can be like God if they will simply take from the tree and eat.

The Knowledge of Good and Evil

Even if the tree itself is symbolic, the limitation itself is real.  In order to understand our bloodlust we must first understand exactly what the tree represents.  Adam and Eve attempted to know evil without experiencing it.  That is, they tried to know it from the outside without participating in it from the inside.  This capacity of knowing evil while not experiencing it is something that only God can do.  Only God is all holy and can be unstained by it.  As Blessed John Henry Newman puts it,

“You see it is said, ‘man is become as one of Us, to know good and evil,’ because God does know evil as well as good. This is His wonderful incommunicable attribute; and man sought to share in what God was, but he could not without ceasing to be what God was also, holy and perfect. It is the incommunicable attribute of God to know evil without experiencing it. But man, when he would be as God, could only attain the shadow of a likeness which as yet he had not, by losing the substance which he had already. He shared in God’s knowledge by losing His image. God knows evil and is pure from it—man plunged into evil and so knew it.” (Parochial and Plain Sermons, Ignorance of Evil).

This is also the sin of Lot’s wife when she is turned to a pillar of salt.  Overcome by the curiosity to know the evil of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah without being touched by it, she quickly finds out that to know it, is to share in it.  But Scripture is most clear on this when we examine the accounts of Our Lord’s Agony in the Garden.  It is the God-Man and only He Who can know evil without actually participating in it.  So great is the protest of His human nature that He sweats blood.

One might rightly ask at this point how it is that merely watching “bad news” has anything to do with the knowledge of good and evil.  It is in seeing this particular aspect of it that we can begin to separate ourselves from it.  Why is simply hearing about “bad news” not enough and why do we crave the details?  Why are we unsatisfied with a report such as“13 people were killed in an attack today” but have to know how it happened (video even if it contains the “graphic material” is especially wanted), who the perpetrators were, what their motivations were, etc.?  It is because what we learned theologically is proven empirically (or else it wouldn’t be the main part of the consumer news cycle).  In short, it shows we cannot just know about evil, we want to know it like Adam knows Eve, that is experience it fully.

What the Tree Offers Us

This doesn’t mean we want to pull the trigger but just don’t have the courage.  For most of us its meaning is more subtle than that. It means we want to experience the pleasure attached to the evil even if we do not actually commit the act.  It is what the Church calls the glamor of evil, the primal curiosity that brings pleasure from evil acts.  We can call it virtual reality evil—all of the thrills with none of the bills.  It is what keeps us from looking away at bad car accidents, watching Youtube videos of accidents, going to the movies to see the latest “psychological thriller” and the reason why serial killers gain celebrity.  The Devil really is in the details.

The illicit pleasure is not the only effect or really even the worst.  This habit of dwelling on depravity is soul deadening.  It causes us to view evil through a carnage calculator that relativizes it against the last one or against the greatest acts of reported slaughter.  We slowly become immune to evil and see it solely for its entertainment value.  I once saw a lady drive into a storefront and no one went to help her even though there were 20-30 bystanders each with his phone in hand recording the accident.  Not only does it make us slow to love, but also suspicious and fearful of our neighbor.  When bad news gets significantly more play time than good news, we become masters of suspicion and avoid other people, assuming the worst of them.

Returning to man’s Retake in the Garden of Gethsemane we find the strength to overcome the ubiquity of bad news.  Our Lord was the one who “resisted sin to the point of shedding His blood” (c.f. Hebrews 12:4) not just to show us His divine power put to win for us the grace to remain pure of heart amidst so much evil.  We should become cautious and discerning viewers of the news, even sites and channels we would consider reputable.  Avoid getting drug into the details and focus only on headlines.  All too often there is nothing we can do personally to combat a particular evil and so knowing the details is simply curiosity rearing its ugly head.  Get in the habit of asking yourself why you need to know anything more and you will quickly realize that you don’t.

When St. Paul wrote the Christians in Philippi he knew they too were living in a culture where evil had been glamorized he had what is the most practical of advice, “whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things” (Phil 4:8).  We would do well to focus on these things as well, turning away from the bad news so that we can more fully embrace the Good News.