Ubi Petrus

In the waning hours of this great Solemnity I wanted to offer a couple of reflections.  The first comes via the fine series In Conversation with God by Fr. Francis Fernandez:

Right from the beginning of time God has been encouraging man to draw close to him.  The Incarnation is the culmination of this message.  Today’s feast celebrates the moment in history when Emmanuel, God with us, acquired his human realization.  From this moment on, the only-begotten Son would be a man like us.  And he would remain a human person forever.  The Incarnation was not a temporary condition.  Jesus Christ, the word made flesh, would be perfect God and perfect man to all eternity.  This is the great mystery we may well find overwhelming:  God in his infinite love has taken man seriously.  Due to his infinite love, God has given man the opportunity to respond to Christ, a full-fledged member of the human race.

“God in his infinite love has taken man seriously.”  God, despite His omnipotence, His omniscience, takes man very seriously.  We, despite all our limits, despite all our failings, are loved by God with a love we can only begin to imagine.  We are loved so much that He indeed took on humanity – not like a suit that is put on today and taken off after the day is over, but taken on completely right down to our very limitations.  I think very often it is easy to forget that Christ’s humanity is not just a historical fact but a present condition.  Christ is both God and man both now and for all eternity, and He did this not for his own glory but for love of the Father, for love of us, for our salvation.

A second thought that has come to me about this great Solemnity is the incredible trust Mary shows.  Nowhere from the time of the Annunciation through Christ’s earthly life did Mary get to see just how things were going to work out.  She had hints in the words of the angel and the Scriptures, and through her state of grace she may have had a clearer understanding of the situation than we could comprehend, but even that never impeded the need for her to trust in God even when there seemed a difficult path ahead.  So often we want an answer before we take the next step – and I am probably the greatest offender in this category – that we fail to see the repeated example of Our Mother, “Fiat.”  Let us walk, rather, in the strength and freedom of children of the Most High God, confident that He will always offer to us what is best and we have but to accept it in its own time.  The whole of creation hinged on Mary’s free response to the angel – God even now awaits our response.

I’m sure this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but sometimes it is the job of those given the ministry of preaching to shake us out of our comfort zones.  The world is getting ever more serious, and it is time the Church and her members start acting that way.

I don’t think there has been a time in recent memory where such a recollection has been more timely.

The Gospel reading for today’s Mass is, I think, one of the most popular across a wide spectrum of Christians.  It is a call to Confession, a reminder of the power of Christ to heal both mind and body and it helps us to remember the greatest evil in the world is sin and not any physical impairment no matter how terrible.  It is also a call for us as Christians to serve others – not just in the physical helps we offer to those in need but, as Christ did in this reading, also to help others spiritually as well.  It is a call to apostolate, a word not heard nearly often enough these days and a service so desperately needed by the Church and the world.  We are called not merely to try to get ourselves to Heaven, but to help our brothers and sisters attain to heaven as well.

The positive obligation of cooperating in good should lead every Christian to bring Christ’s message to every human activity – professional work included – in the best way he or she can.  The true Christian cannot simply avoid doing evil himself, being careless about the influence actions have on the behavior of others.  The friends of the paralytic do not limit themselves to not doing evil.  They act.  They help the sick man to get closer to Jesus.  The help him in his desire to get well by paving the way for our Lord’s miracle: Your sins are forgiven.

…

The Christian must cooperate in the common good by seeking and offering positive solutions to the perennial problems; he or she cannot limit himself or herself to simply not voting for a party or a programme which attacks Christian family values, or is against freedom in teaching, or favours legislation directed against life from its conception.  There must be a constant, deep doctrinal apostolate, free from false prudence, and not afraid of going against the stream in issues which are vital for society itself and upon which there is complete disorientation or else a partial truth that often causes more confusion.

— In Conversation with God, Fr. Francis Fernandez

I know there are arguments of safety and security against it, but if I had my way every Church would have its doors open to the public, if not quite as open as does this parish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ly0JgMQ_OQ

It’s been a long time, but I’ll write about that in a little while.  In the section of the Catechism we’re now starting we see the Church’s stand on the Scriptures brought into revealing light.  All too often it seems we’ll hear someone say that Catholics ignore the Scriptures in favor of human traditions.  Sadly – very, very sadly I would say – too many Catholics are entirely unfamiliar with the Sacred Page and believe this ages old tale.  Despite the fact that most Catholics couldn’t begin to hold a candle to Protestants in a chapter-and-verse argument if you look even the smallest bit under the covers that fact is not because the Church wants it that way but rather in spite of the Church’s constant call to greater familiarity with the Scriptures.  There will come a time when we’ll talk about just how much Scripture Catholics are exposed to, quite often without even knowing it, through weekly – and even moreso daily – Mass attendance, but for now our focus is on this small section of the Catechism.

What does the Church teach about the Scriptures?  If I had to boil it down to a short statement, I’d have to say CCC #107 encompasses almost all of it:

The inspired books teach the truth. “Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.” (DV 11)

You know, now that I think about it, that seems kind of clinical – accurate, but in a somewhat sterile way.  Perhaps this says it better, “In order to reveal himself to men, in the condescension of his goodness God speaks to them in human words” (CCC #101).  How much, the Church says, does God love us?  So much that He brings Himself down to our very level that we might know Him.  He does that which would seem impossible – He makes the Infinite conform to finite forms – God expresses Himself in words, culminating in the one single Word that is spoken of throughout Scripture, the Word of God Himself, Jesus Christ.

This last point is, perhaps, uniquely important.  As CCC #108 says so well, “the Christian faith is not a ‘religion of the book’.  Christianity is the religion of the ‘Word’ of God, a word which is ‘not a written and mute word, but the Word which is incarnate and living.’” (St. Bernard, S. missus est hom.)  The Scriptures must lead us to newfound knowledge of and love for Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit.  And that knowledge of and love for Christ will lead us to dive ever-deeper into the written Word God has deigned to leave for His people.  I rather enjoy that symmetry.

Today we see a paragraph from the Catechism that is to my mind perhaps the single most misunderstood quotation from Vatican II.  CCC #92 quotes from Lumen Gentium #12, which I quote below without the ellipses found in the Catechism as I find those words quite important in forming a proper understanding of the whole:

The entire body of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One, cannot err in matters of belief. They manifest this special property by means of the whole peoples’ supernatural discernment in matters of faith when “from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful” they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals. That discernment in matters of faith is aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth. It is exercised under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority, in faithful and respectful obedience to which the people of God accepts that which is not just the word of men but truly the word of God. Through it, the people of God adheres unwaveringly to the faith given once and for all to the saints, penetrates it more deeply with right thinking, and applies it more fully in its life.

The term in the second sentence “supernatural discernment in matters of faith” is frequently referred to in shorthand as the sensus fidei – you will frequently hear that term bandied about whenever someone is arguing that “the Vatican” has to get with the times and change its teachings to conform to what the majority believe.  Yet that understanding is completely undermined only two sentences later when that “[i]t is exercised under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority”, a.k.a. the Magisterium of the Church.  So when someone or even a group of someones demand the Church “update” its teachings, ask yourself only this:  is what they are asking really believed “from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful” or just a cadre of people who think they can bypass the Magisterium when it becomes inconvenient?

One other thing to ponder:  does it really “show universal agreement” on the topic, or only colloquial or even rather broad agreement?  Even broadly held beliefs when both not universal and held against the continued teachings of the Magisterium do not qualify for this categorization.  Remember that at one point the great majority of Christendom was under the sway of the Arian heresy – that did not make it right, that just made it powerful.  Power, despite all its attractiveness, can do nothing to make itself true.

I’ll admit it, I chuckled when I started reading this section.  There is simply so much packed into these paragraphs it verges on the comical to even attempt to make a single post about it.  I mean we start with explaining how Scripture and Tradition are a common source with distinct modes of transmission (CCC #80-82), touch briefly on the difference between big-T Tradition and little-t tradition (CCC #83), explain the Magisterium of the Church (CCC #85-87), and close with an explanation of Dogma (CCC #88-90).  So … yeah, just a bit of a broad set of topics to cover.  In fact so broad there’s simply no way I’m going to do it.  In the end, most all of this is boiled down beautifully in CCC #82:

As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, “does not derive her certainty about all revealed truthts from holy Scriptures alone.  Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.” (DV 9)

The Church, from the beginning, is entrusted with transmitting and interpreting the Good News.  We see examples of this throughout the New Testament but none so clear and concise as St. Paul’s plea to the Thessalonians in 2 Thes 2:15: “So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.”  “Hold to the traditions” – notice he does not say “read the Scriptures”, although clearly studying the Old Testament would have been an understood part of those traditions.  Notice also by whom these traditions were taught: “which you were taught by us” – the “us” in this case being St. Paul and his close companions, or as we might find it today the Bishops, Priests and Deacons.

Someone once told an analogy comparing ignoring the Magisterium of the Church in favor of individual interpretation of Scripture to performing surgery on yourself in lieu of utilizing the services of a doctor.  Yes, it might work – the result might be exactly what it should have been, and indeed if it is you will have learned quite a bit in the process.  But there are an untold number of ways it could go awry because, say, you mistook an artery for a muscle fiber.  Call me a coward, but when the One who is the author of all life gives a job to the Church, I’m going to defer to His decision on the matter.  The object is never to “turn your brain off” and just “pray, pay and obey” – no, it’s much, much harder; our job is to sentire cum ecclesia – to “think with the Church”.  Every word in that phrase is critical.  Engage your brain, wrestle with Revelation, but when you come up with an answer different from that of the Church don’t presume it’s because you are wiser than the Church and have thought of something she has not.  I for one am not about to get into a theological debate with St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Gregory the Great or any of a whole host of others.  But like I said, I’m a wimp.

Now we start getting into, as one of my friends on plurk put it, the “interesting stuff”.  Up to now we’ve been dealing with topics that are largely uncontested among Christians of most denominations – today that changes a little.  No, actually a lot.  But I get ahead of myself.

“God ‘desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’: (1 Tim 2:4) that is, of Christ Jesus.  Christ must be proclaimed to all nations and individuals, so that this revelation may reach to the ends of the earth” (CCC #74).  One thing we can all agree on is that if God wants something, He makes sure to create situations where whatever it is He wants can happen.  Christ commanded his Apostles to go out and preach the Good News to all the world, and immediately began what we know as the oral tradition in the Church.  The Apostles preached what they learned from Christ Himself and charged others with proclaiming that same truth of which they had become the stewards and guardians.  Only later did the Apostles set their teachings to writing as the necessity of doing so to ensure the continued continuity in proclaiming this Good News.

Many of our Protestant brethren who hold to a Sola Scriptura belief have issues dealing with what the above necessarily implies.  First, that there is an oral tradition parallel to and older than the written tradition.  The classic arguments against Sola Scriptura are well documented across the Internet and I’d rather not repeat them here in what could only be a diluted form.  The second issue many people simply cannot (or at least will not) admit is the clear creation of an institutional structure headed by the Apostles and charged with protecting and proclaiming the truths revealed by Christ as understood by the Apostles and the Church of which Christ is the head.  This is well recapitulated in CCC #77:

“In order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors.  They gave them ‘their own position of teaching authority.'”  (DV 7)  Indeed, “the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved in a continuous line of succession until the end of time.” (DV 8)

You can see in this just a hint of what a great gift to each of us is the Church.  Without it, and without its protection by the Holy Spirit, the teachings of Christ would have been corrupted to suit the desires of the day or even worse lost to time entirely.  It is by the beautiful gift of the Church that Christ has ensured His teachings continue on to our day and beyond and by the protection of the Holy Spirit that they remain intact and pure despite the pressures of potentates and challenges of critics.

My Diocese just this week celebrated the installation of her new Bishop, the tenth Bishop in her history.  It is at times like this that we as Catholics have a great opportunity to reflect on the wondrous gift we have and the miracle it is that she has survived.  Perhaps this would be a good time, if you are a Catholic, to look up the lineage of your Bishop and realize that they all can, through sometimes many twists and turns, trace it all the way back to the Apostles through one laying on of hands after another.