It's the feast of St. John Chrysostom [or was, yesterday, when I started this], whose wonderful homilies and commentaries are collected here. At random I found a bit of 3rd century feminism [Referring to Ss. Pelagia & Ignatius]: The wrestlings are varied: The crown is one. The contests are manifold: The prize is the same. For in the case of the heathen contests, since the tasks are bodily, men alone are, with reason, admitted. But here, since the contest is wholly concerning the soul, the lists are open to each sex, for each kind the theatre is arranged. Neither do men alone disrobe, in order that the women may not take refuge in the weakness of their nature, and seem to have a plausible excuse, nor have women only quitted themselves like men, lest the race of men be put to shame; but on this side and on that many are proclaimed conquerors, and are crowned, in order that thou mayest learn by means of the exploits themselves that in Christ Jesus neither male nor female, neither sex, nor weakness of body, nor age, nor any such thing could be a hindrance to those who run in the course of religion...
Popery
We've only covered half the Austrian pilgrimage thus far. Here's the rest:
Vespers with clergy, religious & seminarians. This line popped out
Being a follower of Christ is full of risks, since we are constantly threatened by sin, lack of freedom and defection
because, coincidentally, I was just reading a homily of St. John C. arguing that the only injury that can be done a man is by himself.
The Kingdom of God is built up when God lives in us and we bring God into the world. You do so when you testify to a “meaning” rooted in God’s creative love and opposed to every kind of meaninglessness and despair. You stand alongside all those who are earnestly striving to discover this meaning, alongside all those who want to make something positive of their lives. By your prayer and intercession, you are the advocates of all who seek God, who are journeying towards God. You bear witness to a hope which, against every form of hopelessness, silent or spoken, points to the fidelity and the loving concern of God. Hence you are on the side of those who are crushed by misfortune and cannot break free of their burdens. You bear witness to that Love which gives itself for humanity and thus conquered death.The best part is what he says about living the evangelical counsels, which I'm tempted to quote in its entirety because it's all so good (and even better when we know something of the context of the Church in Austria in the last decade. It's good in itself, and that much richer when we understand the audience --this is what the Pope chose to say to these people). But I'll highlight just a bit of the section on celibacy:
Jesus loved others in the Father, starting from the Father – and thus he loved them in their true being, in their reality. Entering into these sentiments of Jesus Christ – in this total communion with the living God and in this completely pure communion with others, unreservedly at their disposition – this entering into the mind of Christ inspired in Paul a theology and a way of life consonant with Jesus’ words about celibacy for the Kingdom of heaven (cf. Mt 19:12). Priests and religious are not aloof from interpersonal relationships. Chastity, on the contrary, means – and this is where I wished to start – an intense relationship; it is, positively speaking, a relationship with the living Christ and, on the basis of that, with the Father. Consequently, by the vow of celibate chastity we do not consecrate ourselves to individualism or a life of isolation; instead, we solemnly promise to put completely and unreservedly at the service of God’s Kingdom – and thus at the service of others - the deep relationships of which we are capable and which we receive as a gift. In this way priests and religious become men and women of hope: staking everything on God and thus showing that God for them is something real, they open up a space for his presence – the presence of God’s Kingdom – in our world.He doesn't bring it up, but that's precisely why now would be a disastrous moment to do away with the discipline of priestly celibacy. Yes, it's a discipline and not a dogma, but in an age beset by materialism and the tyranny of the carnal, it might be the most important "sign" the Church presently offers. The Pope's discussion of obedience includes an anecdote from the life of Romano Guardini and ends on a personal note.
It is all summed up in the prayer of Saint Ignatius of Loyola – a prayer which always seems to me so overwhelming that I am almost afraid to say it, yet one which, for all its difficulty, we should always repeat: “Take O Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my entire will. All that I have and all that I possess you have given me: I surrender it all to you; it is all yours, dispose of it according to your will. Give me only your love and your grace; with these I will be rich enough and will desire nothing more."Pastors always talk about accompanying their flock along the path; you get the sense with B16 that's really how he sees it.
Next we move to the homily on Sunday at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, which the headlines summarized --accurately and yet not aptly-- as a call to go to Church on Sunday. Well...yes:
Sunday has been transformed in our Western societies into the week-end, into leisure time. Leisure time is something good and necessary, especially amid the mad rush of the modern world; each of us knows this. Yet if leisure time lacks an inner focus, an overall sense of direction, then ultimately it becomes wasted time that neither strengthens nor builds us up. Leisure time requires a focus – the encounter with him who is our origin and goal. My great predecessor in the see of Munich and Freising, Cardinal Faulhaber, once put it like this: Give the soul its Sunday, give Sunday its soul.But precisely what he was trying to teach was that this is not a matter of following a rule, more or less arbitrary, as they expressed it:
Because Sunday is ultimately about encountering the risen Christ in word and sacrament, its span extends through the whole of reality. The early Christians celebrated the first day of the week as the Lord’s day, because it was the day of the resurrection. Yet very soon, the Church also came to realize that the first day of the week is the day of the dawning of creation, the day on which God said: “Let there be light” (Gen 1:3). Therefore Sunday is also the Church’s weekly feast of creation – the feast of thanksgiving and joy over God’s creation. At a time when creation seems to be endangered in so many ways through human activity, we should consciously advert to this dimension of Sunday too. Then, for the early Church, the first day increasingly assimilated the traditional meaning of the seventh day, the Sabbath. We participate in God’s rest, which embraces all of humanity. Thus we sense on this day something of the freedom and equality of all God’s creatures.Notice a theme he does not address directly, but keeps coming up --that without God, there is no freedom, because the soul, the self, is squelched?
The Angelus began thus:
It was a particularly beautiful experience this morning to be abke to celebrate the Lord’s Day with all of you in such a dignified and solemn manner in the magnificent Cathedral of Saint Stephen. The celebration of the Eucharist, carried out with due dignity, helps us to realize the immense grandeur of God’s gift to us in the Holy Mass. In this way, we also draw near to each another and experience the joy of God. So I thank all those who, by their active contribution to the preparation of the liturgy or by their recollected participation in the sacred mysteries, created an atmosphere in which we truly felt God’s presence.Sandro Magister & Fr. Z. make much of this opening, rightly so, I think.
Next the Holy Father went to the Abbey of Heiligenkreuz, the oldest continuously active Cistercian monastery. Read this if you wish to know what the Divine Office is besides a big prayer book. He gives us a little clue here, too, what he's up to with the Motu Proprio that goes into effect today:
In all our efforts on behalf of the liturgy, the determining factor must always be our looking to God. We stand before God – he speaks to us and we speak to him. Whenever in our thinking we are only concerned about making the liturgy attractive, interesting and beautiful, the battle is already lost. Either it is Opus Dei, with God as its specific subject, or it is not.He begs them to pray accordingly:
The soul of prayer, ultimately, is the Holy Spirit. Whenever we pray, it is he who “helps us in our weakness, interceding for us with sighs too deep for words” (Rom 8:26). Trusting in these words of the Apostle Paul, I assure you, dear brothers and sisters, that prayer will produce in you the same effect which once led to the custom of calling priests and consecrated persons simply “spirituals” (Geistliche). Bishop Sailer of Regensburg once said that priests should be first and foremost spiritual persons. I would like to see a revival of the word “Geistliche”. More importantly, though, the content of that word should become a part of our lives: namely, that in following the Lord, we become, by the power of the Spirit, “spiritual” men and women.Austria (Österreich) is, in an old play on words, truly Klösterreich: a realm of monasteries and a land rich in monasteries. Your ancient abbeys whose origins and traditions date back many centuries are places where “God is put first”. Dear friends, make this priority given to God very apparent to people! As a spiritual oasis, a monastery reminds today’s world of the most important, and indeed, in the end, the only decisive thing: that there is an ultimate reason why life is worth living: God and his unfathomable love.
He closes with some words for the theologians, since there's a Pontifical Academy associated with the Abbey:
just as a liturgy which no longer looks to God is already in its death throes, so too a theology which no longer draws its life-breath from faith ceases to be theology; it ends up as a array of more or less loosely connected disciplines. But where theology is practised “on bent knee”, as Hans Urs von Balthasar[3] urged, it will prove fruitful for the Church in Austria and beyond.[snip]
A life devoted to following Christ calls for an integration of one’s entire personality. Neglect of the intellectual dimension can give rise all too easily to a kind of superficial piety nourished mostly by emotions and sentiments, which cannot be sustained over a lifetime. Neglect of the spiritual dimension, in turn, can create a rarified rationalism which, in its coldness and detachment, can never bring about an enthusiastic self-surrender to God. A life devoted to following Christ cannot be built on such one-sided foundations; half-measures leave a person unhappy and, consequently, also spiritually barren. Each vocation to the religious life or to the priesthood is a treasure so precious that those responsible for it should do everything possible to ensure a formation which promotes both fides et ratio – faith and reason, heart and mind.
I think this Pope wants Christians to try Christianity, as Chesterton would have had it.
- There's a lovely address to young volunteers, quite interesting as well, but I won't quote it for length's sake. I'll just note that members of "new movements" will feel he is talking to them, too.
- As mentioned above, it's Summorum Pontificum day, the feast of the Triumph of the Cross. Card. Castrillon de Hoyos discusses. NC Register's "Media Watch" is collecting link coverage.
- In China, the latest episcopal ordinand --the first post-"Letter to Chinese Catholics"-- is Pope-approved.
- Other "big news" is a clarification --in response to questions from the USCCB-- from CDF about nutrition and hydration for the sick & dying.
First question: Is the administration of food and water (whether by natural or artificial means) to a patient in a "vegetative state" morally obligatory except when they cannot be assimilated by the patient's body or cannot be administered to the patient without causing significant physical discomfort?
Response: Yes. The administration of food and water even by artificial means is, in principle, an ordinary and proportionate means of preserving life. It is therefore obligatory to the extent to which, and for as long as, it is shown to accomplish its proper finality, which is the hydration and nourishment of the patient. In this way suffering and death by starvation and dehydration are prevented.
Second question: When nutrition and hydration are being supplied by artificial means to a patient in a "permanent vegetative state", may they be discontinued when competent physicians judge with moral certainty that the patient will never recover consciousness?
Response: No. A patient in a "permanent vegetative state" is a person with fundamental human dignity and must, therefore, receive ordinary and proportionate care which includes, in principle, the administration of water and food even by artificial means.
So, Fred Thompson may not be sure about the Terri Schiavo case, but the Vatican is.
And finally: Fr. Tim thinks the Vatican recycling program goes too far.
