Ubi Petrus

As I mentioned before, I’ve started going over the Didache series from the Midwest Theological Forum. I haven’t gotten as far as I’d like to have at this point, but thus far I can say the series is what I’d hoped it would be. Further, the books clearly are put together to survive the beating textbooks in the hands of students tend to take; the binding is tight, the cover sturdy and the pages thick enough to withstand accidental ripping. The text is also large enough to not cause eye strain when reading many pages at a sitting, and nearly every page has artwork to augment the text flow. Maybe it’s just that I like things over-engineered a little, but I’d say this is well done.

But, I’m not just making this entry to talk about book construction. In the first book in the series’ section on the Church there is a discussion of the Final Judgement; this is something we just don’t hear about much. Personally, I don’t think that’s a good thing. Certainly, Deus caritas est (the concept, not the encyclical) is important, but at a generic level it is not all-encompassing. Every once in a while we need to be reminded that there will come a time when we have to answer for what we have done, both the good and the bad. It is then that we will come to know for certain the answers to those nagging questions and our worries and fears will be answered. From the book:

At the general judgement, God’s majesty, wisdom, justice, and mercy will shine forth for all to see as Jesus Christ’s final victory on earth. We will see why God sometimes allows the good to suffer and the wicked to prosper. We will also see all the good and bad effects of humans’ actions. Souls will be reunited to their now immortal bodies in the resurrection. The bodies of the saints will be beautiful and luminous while the bodies of the damned will be hideous and dark. At this point Jesus will tell the good to come into the Kingdom of Heaven while sending the wicked into “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

Now, take that statement and line it up directly beside an image of Michelangelo’s Last Judgement from the Sistine Chapel (which I will post here when I can convince Gimp to give me what I want) where we see Jesus as the Just Judge with the Saints in Heaven, calling up the chosen people and casting down to Hell the damned. Is the everlasting life really that binary? To pull a quote from Father Corapi‘s introduction on his many videos, “at the end, forever, you and I will be in Heaven or Hell. Period.” It doesn’t get much more simple than that, now does it?

Update: This is the image they use in the book. Notice that it includes St. Bartholomew holding his flayed skin, reminding us of the lengths to which we can be called in our faith. Could you withstand that? Could I?

With a hat tip to Thomas at American Papist, two nice Benedict wallpapers from Ignatius Press. I’ve already made one my desktop background. I love the slightly mischievous look on his face in the second one.

Traipsing around the wonder that is the Catholic blogosphere yesterday I came upon Newman Reader with a good collection of his works, biographical information and more. The many works of John Henry Cardinal Newman are broken down into his Anglican and Catholic periods and include his major works as well as several sermons. For someone looking to embellish his or her Catholic understanding with some wisdom from this Catholic hero this is a good place to start. From his Catholic Encylopedia entry:

His biglietto speech, equal to the occasion in grace and wisdom, declared that he had been the life-long enemy of Liberalism, or “the doctrine that there is no truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another”, and that Christianity is “but a sentiment and a taste, not an objective fact, not miraculous.”

H/T to Mike Aquilina.

It’s possible you’ve seen this already, since Fr. Z knew about it already, but following a tip from one of the comments on his blog today I found a nice little resource for those interested in Latin. Basically it’s an online Latin dictionary with the added bonus that you can get the listing from the Lewis & Short Latin Dictionary by just a single click. From my little checking so far it’s pretty snappy and it found the random words I plugged in. This is something people like me who never took the opportunity to learn Latin when we were young really need.

In case you were wondering, I had the choice of French, Spanish and Latin in my high school; given the large Hispanic population in the neighboring town my mother thought it would be good to speak at least a little Spanish in case I ever needed it. I now regret not having another free period to have been able to take Latin as well. How could I ever have guessed as a 13-year-old non-religious person that I’d ever grow up to want to be fluent in Latin for the love of God and His Church? Mysterious are the ways…

Ratzinger finishes the book (yes, I’m finally done) with an Epilogue on the state of the Church after Vatican II. The Epilogue was written in 1975, ten years after the close of the Council, but much of what he writes is still very much valid today. Since this is a subject that seems on the tips of everyone’s tongue, I’ve extracted several tidbits from this Epilogue.

I must say, before I go on, this book is an absolute don’t-miss for anyone with a serious interest in their faith or even those who just want a better view into the thinking of the man who is now Pope Benedict XVI. There are sections of the book not for the faint-hearted neophyte, but if one can make his or her way through them the struggle is certainly worth it. I heartily recommend this as reading for anyone who wishes to sentire cum ecclesia. There I go again with that phrase… Anyway, on with the quotes (emphasis mine)!

…The return of the old prosperity in the sixties brought with it a similar change in thinking. The new wealth and the bad conscience that accompanied it fostered that remarkable mixture of liberalism and Marxist dogmatism that we have all experienced. We should not, therefore, exaggerate the part played by Vatican Council II in the most recent developments; Protestant Christianity underwent a similar crisis without any council, and political parties have also had to deal with a phenomenon of like origin. Nevertheless, the Council was one of the factors that shared in the development of world history. When an institution as deeply rooted in souls as is the Catholic Church is shaken to its very roots, the earthquake extends to all mankind.

…

The Council understood itself as a great examination of conscience by the Catholic Church; it wanted ultimately to be an act of penance, of conversion. This is apparent in the confessions of guilt, in the intensity of the self-accusations that were not only directed to the more sensitive areas, such as the Reformation and the trial of Galileo, but were also heightened into the concept of a Church that was sinful in a general and fundamental way and that feared as triumphalism whatever might be interpreted as satisfaction with what she had become or what she still was. Linked with this excruciating plumbing of her own depths was an almost painful willingness to take seriously the whole arsenal of complaints against the Church, to omit none of them. That implied as well a careful effort not to incur new guilt with respect to the other, to learn from him wherever possible and to seek to see only the good that was in him. Such a radical interpretation of the fundamental biblical call for conversion and love of neighbor led not only to uncertainty about the Church’s own identity, which is always being questioned, but especially to a deep rift in her relationship to her own history, which seemed to be everywhere sullied.[me: Someone tell me this doesn’t echo the exact state the Church finds herself in now, after the sex abuse scandal. As Father Corapi described it once, the Church finds herself like a boxer with a cut over the eye, and her opponent is relentlessly going after that wound, that perceived weakness. I consider a renewal of pride in what we are, in what the Church is, at our very core to be the primal step that must be taken, not unto triumphalism of a distorted sort, but to the willingness to acknowledge in word and deed that we are a part of the Mystical Body of Christ and the willingness to bring that light out from the bushel of shame it has been pushed under that it might again (and still) be the light that leads to the Light of the World.]

…

The real content of Christianity is not the discussion of its Christian content and of ways of realizing it: the content of Christianity is the community of word, sacrament and love of neighbor to which justice and truth bear a fundamental relationship. The dream of making one’s whole life a series of discussions, which, for a time, brought even our universities to the brink of paralysis, also exercised an influence on the Church under the label of the conciliar idea. If a council becomes the model of Christianity per se then the constant discussion of Christian themes comes to be considered the content of Christianity itself; but precisely there lies the failure to recognize the true meaning of Christianity. [me: I take this to suggest that dialogue is good, but dialog for its own sake cannot be presumed to take the place of the act of a valid, thorough Christian life.]

…

Whether or not the Council becomes a positive force in the history of the Church depends only indirectly on texts and organizations; the crucial question is whether there are individuals – saints – who, by their personal willingness, which cannot be forced, are ready to effect something new and living. the ultimate decision about the historical significance of Vatican Council II depends on whether or not there are individuals prepared to experience in themselves the drama of the separation of the wheat from the cockle and thus to give to the whole a singleness of meaning that it cannot gain from words alone.

I just got off the phone with the leader of our parish’s RCIA team. With any luck, and by God’s grace alone, I’ll be part of the team helping to lead folks into the fullness of communion with the Church founded by Christ, built on the Rock of Peter, centered on the Eucharist. I’ve always wanted to teach in this way, but I’m normally far too shy (although those who know me would suggest otherwise). In a way, I suddenly understand to some miniscule amount the pressure priests must feel in being responsible for guiding souls on their path. Contemplating that makes me even more nervous than before. Ora pro me!

Working from a tip from Amy, I received The Didache Series from the Midwest Theological Forum (yes, I’m told that’s run by Opus Dei) yesterday. From what I’ve been able to gather, this should definitely sate my desire to learn more about the Fathers and early foundations of our Catholic faith. At least for now. If I do my math correctly, it’s somewhere over 3,000 pages – that should keep me out of trouble for a while. I expect this should be a very enjoyable time, albeit one very long one. I mean, how bad can it be – have you ever seen a textbook with a ribbon page marker?

Now I really, truly need that bookshelf I’ve been meaning to build.

In other words: the reality that is the Church transcends any literary formulation of it. Of course, what she believes and lives can be, and is, contained in books. But it is not totally assimilated by these books. On the contrary, the books fulfill their function as books only when they point to the community in which the word is to be found. This living community cannot be replaced or surpassed by historical exegesis; it is inherently superior to any book. By its very nature, the word of faith presupposes the community that lives it, that is bound to it and that adheres to it in its very power to bind mankind. Just as revelation transcends literature, so it also transcends the limits of the pure scientism of historical reason. In this sense, it can be said that the inner nature of faith justifies the Church’s claim to be the primary interpreter of the word and that this claim cannot be abdicated in favor of enlightened reason without rendering questionable the very structure of faith as a possibility for mankind. Community of faith is the situs of understanding. It cannot be replaced by the science of history. (Principles of Catholic Theology, pp. 329-330)

By these words, Benedict condemns at least in some way several errors of our times. Among those that stood out to me were the concept of Sola Scriptura and an over-reliance on the historo-critical method (as in the infamous “search for the historical Jesus”). It is in reading things like this that I am reminded of my first inclination as a non-religious person way back when that the Catholic Church was the One True Church – simply, the 2,000 years of unbroken Tradition going directly back to the Apostles and Jesus himself. The Tradition that continues to unfold in front of me only reaffirms my first impressions. Deo gratias!

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