Future Heresies: A Thought Experiment

Future Heresies: A Thought Experiment

The following post will most likely interest very few people; but, well, it interests me. 

I have spent a great deal of time and energy studying the history of Christian and Catholic doctrine; and have even published a scholarly volume on the subject. There are a number of interesting facets or aspects of such a study: one, which is absolutely central to any serious contemporary Christian theology, may be called the theory of development, or more precisely theories of development, encompassing all the various attempts, from Antiquity to the present day, to understand theoretically the mix of continuity and change visible in Christian doctrine over time, its causes, and its results. These theories have spanned the entire range from naive to absurd to self-contradictory to insightful and back again; and to have a real theology, in any sense, it is necessary to operate on the basis of some such schema, if only implicitly: and to have a rational, explicit, truthful theology, it is necessary to have a rational, explicit, truthful theory of development.

However, that is not what I am going to be talking about in this post, at least not directly. Rather, what I have been trying to develop, based on my studies, here and elsewhere, is what I might call a theory of deformation, or perhaps (with a nod to Whip It) a theory of devolution.

This is, however, to put the matter somewhat dramatically, as well as somewhat polemically. The more basic truth is that Christianity as such, not to mention Catholicism, embodies a highly particular metaphysics, ethics, philosophy, ethics, history, and way of living, and that there are few, if any, things in human life that it does not in some way touch on or incorporate into its grand synthesis. 

For precisely this reason, however, Catholicism necessarily overlaps withareas of human life also dealt with by more human and secular and historical sciences and philosophies and cultures and politics. It not only covers the same ground as them, but frequently addresses the same concepts, even uses the same words. It typically does so, however, in very different ways, ways that are opaque, confusing, and often even offensive to many people, and which are therefore highly susceptible to being reinterpreted entirely in light of their more common usages.

To take only one instance, the use of the term nature in Catholic Christology necessarily overlaps to some limited extent with the uses made of this concept in science, philosophy, genetics, ethics, etc, of our own or indeed any historical society--but for all that, the concept of nature used in Catholic Christology is highly different than that used in any contemporary domain. To simply take the Christological sense of nature and insert into a discussion of, say, ecology would produce nonsense; while to take the contemporary ecological sense of nature and insert it into Christology might produce nonsense, but might also produce something a great deal more like a heresy.

This framing, however, is a bit more abstract than is necessary. I do not think, really, that most historical or contemporary heresies arise from mere confusion of the technical language of Catholicism with the technical language of contemporaneous science or philosophy. This has been, in the past, a common way of interpreting historical heresies; and it usually produces historiography (and heresiography) that is overly schematic and conceptually muddled. 

As a matter of fact, in most cases technical domains, so long as they remain technical and specific, remain to that extent open to broader domains of philosophy and metaphysics and theology, or more precisely subordinate to them in the sense that they deal with more particular matters that can and should and to an extent even must be integrated with broader domains: and to the extent this is true, engagements between technical domains and theology, so long as they are done skillfully, can produce positive fruit in both domains. 

Rather, what usually happens in regards to serious deformations of Catholic doctrine, I think, is quite a bit more subtle than this, and much harder to resolve simply with reference to mere definitions.

Most people do not study technical fields; but most people do live in societies, in communities, and in institutions. And these societies, communities, and institutions, explicitly or implicitly, run off of and embed and embody and incarnate particular views of the world, particular anthropologies, particular practical ethical goals and conceptions of the good. And it is these, in particular, that most directly and frequently clash with the overarching, holistic ethics and metaphysics of Catholicism; and which most frequently and impactfully lead to reinterpretations and deformations of Catholic belief and practice.

To take only one example, my scholarly book (AVAILABLE NOW!) focuses in part on the complex conceptual and practical clash between the implicit and explicit views of God, man, person, nature, equality, hierarchy, etc, found in the world of Late Imperial politics and Late Antique Christianity: and the various ways in which this led to radical reinterpretations of Imperial politics in terms of Christianity, and of Christianity in terms of Imperial politics. This is, of course, by no means a simplistic one-way affair, without ambiguity.

Still, if one accepts the basic framework above, it becomes clear that something like this has happened again and again in the history of the Catholic Church; and, considered soberly, to some degree must happen, in every age, place, institution, culture, and time. For, after all, the truth, even considered qua abstract and universal, must be concretely and particularly received and understood in every age, by every person: and for it to be understood, it must be related to existing stores of knowledge, culture, terminology, and so on. And if it is possible for this to be done well, in a way faithful to the essential meaning of Christian revelation, subordinating earthly knowledge to divine revelation, it is also possible, and intrinsically a great deal more likely, to be done badly.

And more interestingly, all this must happen here and now, and in the future: and must be, to some degree, predictable and understandable, even where said deformations are only implicit or only incipient. 

Here, then, is the ambitious and likely ludicrous "thought experiment" I wish to engage in this post: namely, to see if I can to some extent predict, to some extent extend, and to some extent make explicit the implicit deformations of core Catholic doctrines created by, or likely to be created by, our contemporary institutions and social systems. In so doing, I wish to be clear that I am using the term "heresy" only in a colloquial sense, as a helpful abstraction, and that I am in no way attempting to preempt Church authority, define a canonical crime, and/or accuse anyone of being a formal heretic deprived of divine grace and/or liable to ecclesiastical sanction. Similarly, in dealing with the below "heresies," I am in no way predicting, even theoretically, that anyone in particular will ever explicitly argue for the positions laid out below, let alone turn them into widespread theological or popular or religious movements. I am merely postulating that the following deformations of Catholic belief do exist or will exist, explicitly or implicitly, to vastly varying degrees, in the lives and thoughts and arguments of Catholics: and as such, will have, to vastly varying degrees, negative effects.

For my next blog post, most likely, I will be examining what I think are the emerging political principles likely to govern global and American politics over the next several decades. Before doing that, though, I wish to preserve the proper hierarchical order of things, and deal first with the higher domain of theology, before proceeding to lesser matters. 

Column 04/16/2023: Easter Ironies

Easter Ironies

One day, someone should make a book that simply goes through and lists all the jokes in the Bible. There are many of them, from the subtle to the gross, the large-scale to the fine-grained, the architectonic and metaphysical to the literally obscene. And they are sadly neglected.

I once read the story of a filmmaker who said that when approaching a story, the first thing he looked for was the jokes. This strikes me as fundamentally sound. After all, the main function of humor is to highlight the connections and relationships among things, events, characters; and it is in these relationships that a story most essentially consists. 

In the case of the Bible, the relationships are manifold and nearly infinite: for what are the Scriptures if not a written record of the act of Divine Revelation, by which God enters into relation with the totality of created and human reality, and then reconfigures that totality based on this new relation? 

As I write this, it is again the Easter season, and I have once more taken part in the central rites of the Church: the Triduum culminating in the great Easter Vigil. The Easter Vigil especially serves deliberately as a kind of summum of the whole liturgical year and hence of the history of Revelation, beginning with Genesis through Abraham and Moses to the Resurrection, a narrative encapsulated both in the long sequence of readings and in the rite of the Paschal Candle, as a new light is kindled in and out of the detritus of created being and spreads and illuminates and transforms all things.

This is without a doubt my favorite rite of the Church, and not merely because I entered the Church at such a vigil. It simply is the Revelation of God, arising in darkness to herald new life, the washing away of sins in Baptism, the anointing with Chrism in Confirmation, and the fulfillment of all mysteries in the Eucharist. Every year, and with every reenactment, I learn something new about this revelation, and it takes on new aspects, as I bring my own life and all that it contains, it's narratives and victories and defeats, once more within this one great Narrative.

Column 03/25/2023: The Trouble with (Modern) Physics: Lee Smolin's Time Reborn

In my last essay, I decided that I understood ancient Platonism. In this post, though, I will not pretend to understand modern physics. I will, however, say some things about a recent book from an eminent theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Lee Smolin (who also happens to be my uncle), that I recently read: Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe. 

Many of my posts on here are notable for their sheer cheek in tackling topics, but this one, as they say, takes the cake. If you happen to know about this topic, then please accept this humble disclaimer that I emphatically not a physicist, and take this as what it is: some hopefully interesting comments from a non-expert.

What is the Trouble?

Lee Smolin's task over the last decade or so has been to argue that (1) modern physics and cosmology has reached a crisis point that threatens the bases of the entire field, and (2) only a radical paradigm shift can save it. The former point was argued at most length in his previous book The Trouble with Physics, while Time Reborn attempts to provide a way forward and a sketch of the necessary paradigm shift: an effort that he has more recently followed up on with several other volumes along the same lines. 

This, I think, is the best sort of book to gain some measure of understanding of a field: not a textbook or popularization, both of which typically present caricatured versions of research from decades ago without interpretation or explanation, but a interpretation of a field by an acknowledged master with a clear and obvious angle. 

Of course, such interpretation of a whole field, especially a field as abstract and analytical as theoretical cosmology, cannot help but be philosophy.

I won't defend this claim, which would drive many physicists crazy, but I will, as stated above, comment on the book's conclusions and arguments from the perspective of someone well-versed in ancient and medieval philosophy.

Column 03/11/2023: The Trinitarian Controversy as the Culmination of Ancient Platonism

The Trinitarian Controversy as the Culmination of Ancient Platonism

Recently, while engaged in scholarly work, I suddenly had a moment of revelation where I felt, for the first time, that I understood ancient Platonism and how Christian Trinitarianism both arose out of and resolved the conflicts within it. It was frankly an incredible high, which has since faded into the common light of day, but I am now attempting to relive it by trying in labored fashion to express what I saw then.

What follows is best understood as "pseudo-scholarship": arising out of my academic research, but written quickly in a slapdash fashion without references, to sum up my own reflections on many, many hours of reading and research on these topics.

So: here goes.

Column 02/25/2023: Benedict XVI, 1927-2022

 Benedict XVI, 1927-2022

I have been meaning to write this essay since the death of Benedict XVI. I am just now getting to it.

Lots of light and heat have been released into the world by reactions to his death. Many people, inspired in most cases with much more genuine and personal emotion than my own, have written and spoken many things. With few exceptions, these have followed the trajectory of the generally-accepted understandings (and misunderstandings) of his life, and reactions thereto. 

I don't wish to add to these reactions. This is for a few reasons, mostly coming down to my own lack of personal stake. Benedict was the Pope when I became Catholic; but only for about a year and a half. I have a lot of respect and a certain degree of affection for this paralyzingly shy academic lover of classical music, cats, and Orange Fanta, but nothing like the personal devotion or hatred that inspire many others. Likewise, as a convert and a historian, my investment in the internal mass-media and ideological and cultural conflicts within contemporary Western Catholicism is more remote than most. 

I wanted to write something about Benedict XVI after his death, then, not to prove any particular ideological point or express any profound emotion, but simply to note and express my own recognition and cognizance of an enormous, epochal figure in the history of the Catholic Church.

Column 08/26/22: Hilary of Poitier's Argument For Human & Divine Equality

Hilary of Poitier's Argument For Human & Divine Equality

[I was a bit under the weather and very busy this week, so instead of taking the time and effort to flesh out one of my existing column ideas, I decided to just write up what I've been immediately thinking about lately. As it turns out, I've been thinking a lot about Hilary of Poitier's doctrine of equality.

Hilary of Poitiers is a Doctor of the Church of the 4th century AD, known mostly for his stand against Arian doctrine. He played a big role in my dissertation, and ever since then, I've been fascinated by his concept of (human and divine) equality, which he makes absolutely central to both his theology and anthropology. Since then, I've been working on a paper on the topic, and trying to puzzle out both his essential argument, and especially what his sources and influences might have been. I haven't solved the latter one quite yet, but I thought it might be helpful to try to flesh out and write out in my own words what I take to be his essential argument and definition of equality. 

(It's sad to think how many people in the modern world don't realize that the centrality of equality in Christianity and modernity ultimately traces back to 4th century Trinitarian theology in general and Hilary of Poitiers in particular!) 

The below, then, is based on Hilary's work, especially De Synodis, with a smattering of De Trinitate, Ad Constantium, and In Constantium; it includes a few quotations from De Synodis at key points. However, while I believe the main arguments and conclusions are Hilary's, it also includes my own attempt to think through the implications and possible additional arguments and defenses for his concepts. Probably no one will find this interesting, but I enjoyed writing it. Ora pro nobis!]

I. That All Human Persons Are Equal, and Are Defined by Relations of Equality

(1) Postulate: The fundamental, basic category of experience and philosophical reflection is res: that is, "a thing" or "a reality." 

(2) Postulate: res can only be spoken of and made the subjects of philosophical thought to the extent that they exist and are rationally comprehensible.

(3) Argument: "Essentia (=ὀυσία, essence), and natura (=φύσις, nature), and genus (=γένος, natural kind), and substantia (=ὑπόστασις, substance), are able to be predicated of every res whatsoever."

(4) Definition: "An essentia (=ὀυσία, essence), is a res which exists, or it is those things from which a res exists, especially a res which stably exists (subsistit=subsists) in that which is enduring. Most properly, however, a res is called essentia insofar as it always exists." (De synodis 12)

That is to say, essentia designates a thing, a reality, insofar as it truly exists, and therefore insofar as it endures stably and in an orderly and knowable fashion over time. In particular, it describes a res insofar as it is either actually capable of, or at least tends toward, perpetual, ongoing existence. All res that possess essentia therefore in some sense tend towards perpetual existence.

(5) Definition: "The res, therefore, is also a substantia, because it is necessary that the res which it is should stably exist (subsistit=subsists) in itself." (De synodis 12)

That is to say, substantia (=ὑπόστασις, substance) designates a thing, a reality, insofar as it stably exists in and of itself. In this sense, substantia is not strongly distinguished from essentia: both designate a res insofar as it exists stably in such a way as to tend toward perpetual existence, with essentia describing this in terms of being and substantia laying the emphasis on stability and enduringness and their containment within the res itself.

(6) Definition: "Whatever stably exists, without a doubt is enduring in its genus or natura or substantia. When, therefore, we speak of essentia in order to signify nature or natural kind or substance, we understand them as belonging to that res which always stably exists in all these things." (De synodis 12)

Genus, natura, and substantia, then, are all essentially aspects of essentia, ways of designating and further describing those aspects or elements of a res by which it is enabled to exist stably in a way tending toward perpetual existence.

(7) Context: From among these terms, focus in on natura (=φύσις, nature). The Greek φύσις is etymologically tied to concepts of "birth" or "origination," as well as to broader ideas of "growth," "life," "movement," "springing up" (a la plants), and so forth. Natura, however, is derived from the more limited Latin word nascor="to be born, to be produced, to be procreated."

In speaking of natura, then, Hilary specifically intends to zero in on the aspect of a res's continuing existence that are tied to origination in general and procreation in particular. 

(8): Argument: Among those aspects of essentia that allow a res to exist stably in a way tending toward perpetual existence, central to many of our experience is the fact that the res was itself procreated by a res of the same genus and natura, and it in turn possesses the capability of procreating another res of the same genus and natura. 

(8.1) This is especially important for res like animals or human beings existing in time, and so in at least some aspects impermanently. 

(8.2) For res such as these, without procreation, in a very short time there would be no animals or human beings in actual existence, and so by necessity human being and animal would not be rationally comprehensible or knowable res.

(8.3) Furthermore, without procreation, humans and animals would be fundamentally temporary and transitory res, not in any genuine way tending towards perpetual existence, and so not describeable in terms of concepts like essentia and substantia. These res would not, therefore, truly subsist, and therefore they would fail to exist and to rationally knowable in a fundamental sense.

(8.4) Procreation is therefore metaphysically essential to the existence of these res, and possibly of all res.

(9) Argument: The process of procreation consists of two necessary elements: two entities who are truly distinct, of which one originates the other, and also a single natura which endures through the process of procreation and is shared in toto by both entities.

(9.1) If the two entities were not truly distinct, there would be nothing to distinguish natura from the simple enduring existence of an entity in itself designated properly by substantia. 

(9.2) If the two entities were not truly distinct, then it would be logically impossible, as happens in our experience, for one of the entities to die and cease to exist, and the other to continue existing.

(9.3) Hence, if the two entities were not truly distinct, then procreation would be absolutely useless in ensuring the continuing existence of the res and its tending toward perpetual existence. 

(9.4) If, on the other hand, nothing endured or continued to exist through the process of procreation, then procreation would have no relevance for the essentia of the res, and the res would therefore fall afoul of (8) and no longer truly exist or be rationally comprehensible.

(9.5) That the natura is shared in toto by both entities follows self-evidently from the definition of the term (see 10 below).

(10): Definition: Natura designates precisely that aspect of a res which stably exists and endures through the process of procreation.

(11) Argument: Natura must include all substantial and essential and generic properties possessed both by the progenitor and the natural kind as a whole.

(11.1) We in fact find, in our experience, that the offspring of a particular member of a natural kind is of the same natural kind as its progenitor. The child of a human being is a human being, the offspring of a cat is a cat, the offspring of a horse is a horse, and so on.

(11.2) If natura in the offspring lacked any property essential to the progenitor's own existence as a substantia and essentia, then again, procreation would not in fact extend the stable, substantial existence of the res and, per (8), that res would lack substantial existence and not be rationally comprehensible.

(11.3) If natura in the offspring lacked any property essential to its existence as a member of the same natural kind as its progenitor, then that natural kind or genus would lack stable existence and fail to be comprehensible, also as per (8).

(12) Definition: A virtus is a "natural power," that is, a power essential to the substantial existence of a res and included among its essential properties.

(13) Argument: Per (11) and (12), natura also includes the totality of virtus or natural power.

(14) Definition: Equality (=aequalitas) designates the relationship between a progenitor and an offspring, such that the two are both truly distinct (see 9) and share one and the same natura (see 10) and so all essential and substantial properties.

(15) Argument: "Every child, according to natural birth, is the equality (=aequalitas) of its parent." (De synodis 73).

In other words, the relationship of equality is fully constitutive of the existence of both child and parent qua child and parent, such that both child and parent can and must be described and defined, at least qua child and parent, as subsistent (that is, enduring, existing, rationally comprehensible) relations.

(15.1) Given (11) above, the only thing essentially and substantially distinguishing offspring from parent is the relationship between the two, which per (14) is designated by equality.

(15.2) Given that equality involves the true distinction of the two participants (see 9), this relation is all that is necessary to distinguish the two terms of the relation.

(15.3) Given (15.1) and (15.2), the only thing essentially and substantially distinguishing child and parent is the relation of equality. It therefore essentially and substantially constitutes their relation as child and parent.

(15.4) Furthermore, given that the relationship of procreation is fundamentally a relationship of origination, by which one entity produces another, there is a fundamental sense in which that relation constitutes not only the existence of the child qua child, but the existence of the child simpliciter, which is to say, the existence of the child merely as a res.

(15.5) Likewise, given that for the progenitor procreation extends the stable, essential existence of their own res and grants it a substantiality and essentiality otherwise lacking, there is at least one sense in which the relation of equality also constitutes the existence of the parent, not merely qua parent, but qua substance, qua essence, and therefore qua existence in a fundamental sense.

(16) Conclusion: All human persons without exception are equal (=aequalis, ἴσος) to one another in the sense given in (14).

(16.1) All human persons participate in the process of procreation as defined in (9) either as offspring alone or as both offspring and progenitor, and therefore participate in the relation of equality in a constitutive way with at least some other persons.

(16.2) All human persons belong to the natural kind "human being," which is defineable and knowable only in light of the essentia and substantia and natura whose res exists stably and is known through the process of procreation, and therefore through the relation of equality.

(16.2) Per Scripture and Tradition and dogmatic teaching, all human persons without exception are descended from one original human being, and therefore are related to one another through the relation of procreation, and therefore are equal to one another.

Part Two: That This Equality Has Necessary Implications For Society and Politics

(1) Postulate: Societies consist of human persons.

(2) Postulate: Societies and institutions can be said to exist and subsist and therefore be rationally comprehensible only in a manner analogous to natural res.

(3) Postulate: All societies, including political societies, are formed out of entities that are themselves constituted to a large extent by their direct relations as offspring and progenitor, and therefore by the relationship of equality. 

(4) Postulate: Per I. above, all societies, including political societies, are formed out of entities that are equal to one another in essence, nature, and natural power (virtus).

(5) Argument: The existence of political, social, or religious offices, institutions, and societies as stably existing, rationally comprehensible entities is likewise necessarily dependent on relationships of equality.

(5.1) The constitutive relationship between child and parent is analogous to the          relationship between (political, social, or religious) predecessor and successor inasmuch as both extend the existence of the office, institution, and society over time in such a way as to give it (analogously) substantial, essential existence and make it rationally comprehensible. 

(5.2) Therefore, the existence of all political, social, or religious offices, institutions, and societies is dependent for existence, stability, and knowability on the equality of predecessors and successors. 

(5.3) Political, social, and religious societies are analogous to natural kinds. 

(5.4) Therefore, all political, social, and religious societies exist in a stable and comprehensible fashion only inasmuch as all members without exception share some (analogous) essence in common. 

(5.5) Hence, all political social, and religious societies exist and are rationally knowable only inasmuch as the members are equal to one another.

Part Three: That God is Defined by Equality Between the Persons of the Holy Trinity

(1) Postulate: God may be defined as a res that exists and subsists in the maximal way, such that he not only tends toward, but actually achieves, eternal, stable existence and total rational knowability.

(2) Postulate: Therefore, God may be defined as the only res for which res is absolutely synonymous with essentia and substantia.

(3) Postulate: Given (1) and (2), there is a direct relationship between God and the fundamental metaphysical categories ascribeable to all res, and therefore it is both possible and fruitful to reason about God by analogy from created beings and natural kinds, especially human persons. 

(4): Argument: Given the above, and given that as established in I. natura is fundamentally synonymous with essentia and substantia, and given that, as Hilary argues in I.3 above, natura, like essentia and substantia, is able to be predicated of every res whatsoever, it is reasonable that God be equated with natura also, and therefore be defined necessarily by a procreative relationship.

(5) Argument: In applying the terms Father and Son to God the Father and God the Son, the Scriptures and Tradition intend to assert that the necessarily concomitant sense of equality described in (I.14) is the defining feature of the relationship between Father and Son.

(5.1) God is incapable of deliberate deception, and aims fundamentally at the salvation of all human persons. 

(5.2) Given (5.1), God uses in their natural significations the essential words of the Sacraments necessary for salvation. 

(5.3) The confession of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit belongs to the necessary words and actions of the Sacrament of Baptism and therefore is necessary for salvation. 

(5.4) Therefore God in designating himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is using the terms "father" and "son" in their natural significations: that is, to designate fundamentally the relationship of natural equality. (See Ad Constantium)

(5.5) Moreover, the Scriptures (Philippians 2:6-11, John 5:18) in fact designate the relation between Father and Son by the term equal (=aequalis, ἴσος), and in Philippians connect this with being "in the form (=essentia, οὐσία) of God," while in John this is treated as the logical, natural consequence of Christ "calling God his Father." (See De Trinitate)

(6) Argument: If the Father and Son are in fact equal in even an analogous sense to that given of human persons in I., they are necessarily equal in a maximal, absolute sense, inapplicable to any other entities.

(6.1) Since Father and Son by procreation share a single natura that includes all essential properties, and since in God there is no distinction between res and essentia, the natura conveyed to Son by the Father in the process of procreation necessarily makes the Son God in the fullest possible sense. 

(6.2) Besides substantial and essential properties, all created res possess various accidental properties, which lead to differences among human persons that are not rooted in substance and essence. 

(6.3) God does not possess any accidental properties; hence, it is impossible for Father and Son to differ in any way whatsoever. 

(6.4) In particular, since virtus or natural power is an essential property, and since all accidental powers or accidental differences in the exercise of natural powers are excluded from the definition of God, it is impossible for Father and Son to differ in power.

(7) Argument: The Father cannot exist without the Son, and so cannot precede the Son in existence. 

(7.1) Given the analogy with human equality, it is reasonable to define the Son as the equality of the Father, and hence as constituted qua Son by his relationship with the Father; it is also reasonable to see the Father as constituted qua Father by his relation with the Son. 

(7.2) However, there is in Father and Son no possibility of distinction between essential existence, existence simpliciter, and existence qua Father and qua Son. Hence, both Father and Son are fully constituted as such by their relation. 

(7.3) Given (7.1) and (7.3), and even given (6.1) it is impossible for the Father to precede the Son in any way, and especially impossible and even inconceivable that he could precede the Son in the temporal sense in which human fathers precede sons. 

(7.4) Moreover, to be essentia in the sense ascribed to God is per (1) to actually exist eternally; therefore the Son actually exists eternally in the maximal possible sense; hence, the Father cannot precede him in existence.

(7) Conclusion: The Father and Son are truly distinct, possess one and the same substance, essence, and nature, are co-eternal with one another, do not differ in any way in essence, substance, nature, glory, power, or honor, and are absolutely equal and consubstantial (=ὁμοούσιος) to one another.

Lenten Meditation #7: The Joy of Christ Jesus Upon the Cross

"And now you yourself glorify me, Father, with yourself, in the glory which I had, with you, before the world existed." (John 17:5)

"And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice: 'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?' Which, translated, means: 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'" (Mark 15:34)

The mystery of the Christian Faith is the Paschal mystery, the mystery of the death and resurrection of God. This mystery itself contains many mysteries, mysteries concerned with the nature of God and of man, of Incarnation and redemption and sin and death and justice and suffering. Indeed, there is, in a true sense, nothing either of earth or of heaven that is not contained in this one mystery. When we eat the Body of the Lord, and drink his Blood, we make ourselves a participant in the union of all of God with all of creation: and this is the purpose of our existence, of all our lives, and all our desires, thoughts, words, and deeds.

Here, though, is one small part of this mystery that has for many years been perhaps the central object of my meditation: the joy of Christ Jesus upon the Cross.

On the Cross, Jesus knew and tasted all the sin and suffering and evil of all mankind, from the beginning of time to the end of it. On the Cross, Jesus knew and tasted betrayal by those closest to him, including all of us, the mockery of his enemies, who we are and have been, and the loss of his only beloved. On the Cross, Jesus knew and tasted abandonment by God, the subjection of his body and soul to suffering and helplessness and torment without any consolation.

Still, on the Cross, Jesus remained God, remained united to God in an unbreakable bond, the bond of the hypostatic union and of the Most Holy Trinity.

Many saints and doctors of the Church have taught that, because of the hypostatic union, Jesus knew and saw God not only in his divinity, but in his humanity as well; that is, that he experienced in his earthly life, from the moment of conception to the moment of death, the Beatific Vision of the essence of God that all of us, by the grace of God, will experience only in heaven. While all men know God only by Faith, that is, the man Jesus knew him by sight, as completely and as intimately as it is possible for the created to know the uncreated. He was Son, and knew his Father not only in his eternal divinity, but in his chosen humanity as well.

It is in this divine sight that Christ Jesus on this earth preached and healed, prayed and lived and suffered, rejoiced and wept, for the love of his Father and of us all. It is in this divine sight, likewise, that he suffered and died.

This, though, is a question that has vexed many doctors and many saints: how is it that Christ Jesus could, while seeing the essence of God, suffer all that he suffered in the Cross? How could Christ Jesus, while seeing the essence of God, experience abandonment by God? Perhaps, we must say, the suffering must have been lessened, or else the vision must have been lost.

Nevertheless, the greatest doctors and mystics of the Church have affirmed both, without contradiction: that Christ Jesus on the Cross saw God, experienced what we feebly call Heaven, the ineffable and eternal union with God--and that Christ Jesus on the Cross saw only death and torment, betrayal and abandonment, by man and by God. Saint Therese of Liseux, in her last days of torment, spoke of this mystery; so, too, did St. Edith Stein, in the last days before her martyrdom. Both affirmed the double mystery of Christ Jesus' union and abandonment upon the Cross; and so too have many others.

The key to this mystery, I am convinced, lies in the teachings of the mystics and theologians, concerning the transcendence and ineffability of the essence of God. As St. John of the Cross teaches, the essence of God which we know in heaven, and in the merest shadows even on earth, in itself cannot be seen or heard, tasted or touched; in itself, it infinitely transcends every capacity of the body, mind, and soul, made, as they are, for the knowledge of creatures; in itself, it bears no proportion to, and no resemblance to, any created thing or any created experience. It is for this reason that knowledge of God and union with him so often comes to us not as light but as darkness, a darkness into which we are plunged, blinding us and removing us far from all pleasure and pain, all sight and hearing and all understanding. To know God as he is is to transcend all things, to be taken entirely away from all things.

Still, in heaven, we will see not only the essence of God, but also his glory, and show that glory in ourselves; that is, we will see not only God himself, but the effects he has on creatures, the participation of creatures in him. This may be expressed, however feebly, by images of joy and light, of power and honor and wisdom. In the last day, we will be raised from the dead, and all creation will be remade in him, transformed into a most perfect participation in his supernatural grace and love. All the saints will be united in a single bond of charity, of mutual love and honor. None of this is God, but it is his glory.

Likewise, even on this earth, the knowledge of God often brings us peace, light, joy, healing, reconciliation, and many other good things--even, perhaps, experiences of God that transcend our nature. On earth, too, we know and see the glory of God.

Still, none of this is, in itself, the essence of God; none of it is what we seek. The sight of the essence of God is not itself joy, or peace, or healing, or light, or any of these things; it is something far greater, and far more good, than any of them. In Christ Jesus, this knowledge of God frequently overflowed in him, to bring joy, to bring peace, to bring healing, to show forth the glory of God made flesh; but all this glory could be taken away, and he would still remain God.

So it was, then, on the Cross; Christ Jesus did experience abandonment by God, not because he ceased to see God, but because that sight ceased to bring anything at all except itself. As St. Edith Stein expressed it, all sensible joy of the indestructible union was taken away, so that he saw and felt and experienced nothing but the absence of God. In himself, he knew truly all our suffering, all our sin, all our fear and pain and torment and betrayal and abandonment; and the sight of God's essence did not lessen this, but rather increased it. The one who knew God, the Son of God, God in human flesh, was abandoned by him totally to suffering and torment and death. He drank our cup to the dregs.

Still, there is one other thing that must be remembered, through all of this; that in the Cross of Christ, God was glorified far more perfectly than at any other time in the life of the Christ. In St. John's Gospel, in fact, the hour of the crucifixion is frequently expressed not as the hour of abandonment, but as the hour in which the Father glorifies the Son. How is this possible?

Deus caritas est: God is love, and we are all saved, not through pleasure or pain, not through joy or anguish, not through consolation or abandonment, but solely and only through love. The love of God that dwells within us is the Holy Spirit, God himself; and this love is glorified in all that we do and say and experience that is from that love and for it. As St. Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross both teach, as every mystic and doctor of the Church has taught, it is not any mystical experience that makes us holy, not even a mystical experience of the darkness of God: it is simply and solely the love of God that dwells in us, and works itself out through us.

If we understand this, we understand why the Cross of Christ was not only abandonment by God, but far more his glorification: for in it, and through it, the love of God has been revealed in all its fullness, has flowed out in all its fullness into the whole world, and into our hearts. Christ Jesus was abandoned by God, and suffered all things; yet this is, in truth, for those with eyes to see, the greatest glory of God and of Man: that God should, as Man, suffer abandonment by himself, that God should, as Man, die in torments and in agony, for the sake of his love.

Christ Jesus came into the world to reveal to us God as love; and this he did upon the Cross. On the Cross, the Son was, truly, glorified by the Father with the very same love which he has known in eternity, the divine love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons in one God.

In all our life on this earth, then, in both joy and suffering, consolation and abandonment, let us never fail to remember that Christ Jesus upon the Cross saw the Face of God, and revealed it to us; that he knew the essence of God, and was abandoned by God, and so glorified him.

There is no greater joy than the joy of Christ Jesus on the Cross.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, grant us, we pray, a true participation in that divine and eternal love which you glorified upon the Cross, so that in all our deeds, words, thoughts, joys, and sufferings, we may likewise, in you, glorify God. Grant that in all our experiences of abandonment by God, we may likewise possess him and glorify him, as you did; and grant that as we have suffered with you on the Cross, we may experience with you forever the joy of the Resurrection.

Amen.

Lenten Meditation #6: The Consolation of the Cross

"There was a vessel there full of vinegar, and putting a sponge soaked with vinegar onto a hyssop rod, they brought it to his mouth. When Jesus had accepted the vinegar, he said: 'It is consummated.'" (John 19: 28-9)

"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, because your embraces are sweeter than wine." (Song of Songs 1.1)

We should never allow ourselves to forget that the Cross is, fundamentally, an act of love, and that we are the intended recipient of that love.

Christ Jesus loves us; that is, he wills our happiness. The Cross is thus the means to our happiness, first and foremost and before all else.

Of course, this, like all love, requires something of us. The happiness which Christ desires to give us is himself, his own Divine Nature, which is the source and summit of all perfections and delights, infinitely transcending every created good. It is a good, too, that transcends also our own natures, and every capacity of our bodies and souls; and so to receive it, we must be transformed into something infinitely more than ourselves, must become God, so that we may know and possess God by means of himself.

The means to this happiness is the Cross of Love. The Cross of Christ Jesus is the perfect act of self-giving, of self-sacrifice, of that fiery and consuming charity that is God. It is not possible to come to God without the Cross, on which God himself died. Only be accepting it entirely can we be entirely transformed into Love, and so receive the gift of perfect and eternal happiness.

Still, it is good for us to remember that the Cross is God's love for us, not a love that comes from us. It is, in the end, neither our task nor our burden; it is the Lord's.

The only task, the only yoke, which God lays upon us is the acceptance of his love, which is the Cross. This is a light burden, and an easy yoke to bear.

We all desire love, to console and to heal and refresh and to delight in; and in comparison to the love of God, every earthly love is dust and ashes. It is a very sweet and delightful thing to be loved by God, infinitely sweeter than every sweetness of this earth.

The love of the Lord is strong wine, rich food, the embrace of lovers, the stillness of the starlight sky, the depths of the ocean. The Cross of the Lord is the Tree of Life, full of fruit good to look upon and to eat. It is fulfillment, peace, security, consolation, rest, not of a moment or a place or a part, but wholly and in eternity.

Here is but one sweetness of the Cross, one of the many consolations and pledges of love which the Lord, as our lover, offers to us; that for the sake of love, he has shared in all our sufferings and sins, drank the cup of our nothingness and misery to the very dregs.

We do not merely suffer because God calls us to something beyond us; we suffer because we are created things, nothingness sharing in existence; because we live in a material creation that is good but full of death, of many creatures indifferent to our good; because we are incomplete in ourselves, and full of desire for what we hope will complete us; and because we are ignorant, and imperfect, and so sin, choosing what harms others and ourselves, and suffering in ourselves the consequences of others' sin.

In all this we are very pitiable, but this is the consolation which the Lord, in the fullness of his love, offers to us through the Cross; that he, who suffers in himself nothing, should take pity on us, and make himself one of us, to share in our suffering; that he, who knew not sin, should make himself sin for us, should take on himself each and every one of our sins and our sufferings, desiring to know and share in intimately each and every one of our pains and disappointments, our errors and our failures and our wounds; that he should make our sufferings his, and his ours, and use them redeem the whole world.

All in us that is weakest and worst and most wounded, the Lord has made his own. There is nothing we need fear, there is nothing we need be ashamed of, since there is nothing in us that does not share in this consolation, this healing, this peace. Whatever it is we suffer, fear, are wounded by, it is the Lord's, and by it he has loved us.

Whatever burdens we bear, which are our own, are no longer ours, but the Lord's. It is he who shall bear them, in us, it is he who has borne them already on the Cross. Whatever evils come to us, they are not ours to suffer, but the Lord's. It is he who shall suffer them, with us, in love.

This is a great mystery, and very hard for us, weak as we are, to accept. Very often, indeed, we find it far easier to accept our own sufferings, which we know and possess intimately, than to accept the Lord's love, which comes from outside and leads to a happiness unknown to us, beyond all our control and knowledge. Alone, we gladly bear our own wounds, and it is difficult for us to allow the Lord to take them from us, and make them his own. It is difficult for us to be loved by the Lord.

To accept the Lord's love, to accept his gifts and consolations and blessings, to accept his Cross, is a difficult thing, possible only by his grace; and we ought to ask for it, always.

In all this, though, let us never allow ourselves to grow anxious, never fearful, never distrustful, in anything. The Lord has loved us, made himself small for us, died for us. He offers us himself, and with himself a thousand thousand consolations, ten thousand thousand graces. Allow him to reassure your heart, and he will do so. Allow him to give you himself, who is above and beyond every created thing, beyond all sight and hearing and knowledge, all pain and all pleasure, and every created thing: and he will do so.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, sweet lover of my soul, give to me the grace to accept from you all that you wish to give me; consolations, assurances, signs and means of your love, and in and through and beyond all these things the Cross of your love, and by it your own self.

Amen.

Lenten Meditation #5: The Trial of God

"Pilate said to him: 'You do not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you, and authority to crucify you?'" (John 19:10)

"Pilate, seeing that this was not advantageous, but rather a riot was happening, took water and, facing the crowd, washed his hands." (Matthew 27:24)

Pontius Pilate may be my favorite character in the Gospels. Most of the people we encounter in the Gospels are fairly similar to the Evangelists themselves: ordinary people, of no great status or significance or responsibility, transformed over time and with great difficulty by the grace of God into disciples of the truth. In this conflict of grace and nature, nature offers its share of difficulties, but little determined opposition. Peter may stammer and swear and shout and betray, but he loves Jesus nonetheless; blind men and lepers may disobey or lack faith or be confused, but in the end they want to be healed; the poor and the great of Israel may not understand what the Kingdom of God consists of, or like the one who preaches it very much, but they do want God's Kingdom to come.

Pilate, though, never shows any such desire for the Kingdom of God, or any particular respect for it; he is, after all, the representative of another kingdom. He represents nature not in its weakness and receptivity to grace, but in the fullness of its strength and pride.

Like very many of us, though, his part in human society, in the fallen order in opposition to grace, is in truth a very small and difficult one. Americans prize individual freedom and power over just about anything--yet in reality, almost no human being who has ever lived has ever actually been free and independent and strong in any remotely meaningful sense. Power and freedom resides in kingdoms, not in men; and most of us, most of the time, get whatever power and whatever freedom we have (or pretend we have) merely by consenting to be one small cog in a much larger machine. America is the leader of the free world; and I am a citizen of America. Rome is the head of the world; and I am the representative of Rome. 

Pilate's career, as we get it not only from the Gospels but also from the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus, was not a wildly successful or fortunate one; given charge of a backwater full of religious fanatics, he was undercut and opposed at every turn, his brutal and unsubtle tactics usually ending in failure and embarrassment for both Rome and himself. A long, miserable career, with plenty of dead bodies but very little glory, pursued more for the imagined proximity of success and power than any tangible presence thereof: if we do not, all of us, see much of ourselves in such a man, then we are hardly being very honest with ourselves. 

Still, in the end, Pilate receives his reward for all those years of fruitless toil: he gets to be the judge of God.

Let us take a moment to appreciate just what an extraordinary privilege, what an extraordinary gift, this really was, to Pilate and to ourselves. Is this not, truly, what he had always wanted, what all of us have always wanted, and fruitlessly sought, in so many labors?

For this is, in truth, the one thing pride, in its heart of hearts, most desperately desires: to be the one whose thought and word and will stands alone and unquestioned, entirely apart from and above all others. What bitterness, what resentment, we suffer, whenever any other human person, whenever any other reality, whenever even God himself, takes away from this blissful power, this all-encompassing freedom. At some time in our lives, another human person, whether by word or deed or merely by their existence, has stood as an obstacle to our will or our knowledge or our desire; at some time in our lives, another human person has even dared to set out their own thought and will and existence as equal to, or perhaps even more important than, our own; at some time in our lives, another human person has even dared to sit in judgment over our thoughts, over our wills, to tell us that this is good and that bad--or even had the audacity to command us, to demand that we submit our desires to their desires, our thoughts to their thoughts, our will to their will. At some point in our lives, faced with this intolerable reality, with this crushing and hateful presence, everything in us has risen up in rebellion, and and we have longed to see this other crushed, humiliated, annihilated, ceasing to exist or else subjected totally and beyond hope of recovery to our thoughts and desires, our will.

If this is true with another human person, is it not true a hundred, a thousand-fold with God himself? Is he not, after all, the one whose thought and will really does stand unquestioned and above all others, is he not the one who dared to create us with his will, to sustain us with that will, and even to redeem us by his love? Is he not the one who beyond all others claims the right to command us, who demands that we to submit our own thoughts and desires and wills, totally and beyond all hope of recovery, to his? Is he not the one, finally, who has dared to judge us, to declare this deed of ours good, and that evil? Is it not God that we have hated in every person whose existence and thoughts and will and judgment and commands we have hated, God we have longed to see crushed and humiliated and subjected to us totally? 

This, then, is the gift Pilate received, in recompense for a whole lifetime spent fruitlessly bending and submitting, flattering and scheming, murdering and torturing and toiling: to look into the face of God himself, and tell him that you are his judge.

To be the one--the one--to see God standing before you, in chains, to be the one to examine God, question him, parse his conduct, decide without question whether he is guilty or innocent, whether he has acted wrongly or rightly, whether he will live or die: this is, in truth, the perfect fulfillment of all our human pride.

Still, as the Gospel account shows, sitting in judgment over God is no easy task; and in doing it, Pilate's pride, like our own, hardly achieves a perfect victory. Pilate is in turn frightened, overawed, annoyed, overcome, even humiliated, by the Jewish priests, their crowds of supporters, and Christ himself. For Christ Jesus is not impressed at all by Pilate's power, his status, his accomplishments, or the vast human systems that underly all these things; nor is he any more impressed with ours. Christ claims to be Truth itself, utterly beyond and utterly indifferent to all power and all knowledge; and he demands that Pilate, and we, acknowledge him, submit ourselves to him, be judged by him, and be, cruellest of all, loved by him.

Against this divine calling, it is very difficult for any human being to remain strong in his own pride; yet Pilate succeeds nonetheless, and it is this that is his real triumph, his only success, as it is so often ours. "What is truth?" he asks, not a question at all, but a final declaration of indifference, of rejection, of Truth standing before him and offering himself to him. "God is innocent," he declares, as he nevertheless asks the priests and the crowd what their preference might happen to be on this matter; a gesture of the most superb indifference to justice, to truth, to each and every single person present. Finally, though, the most glorious moment of his triumph, and ours, comes at last: when he as presiding judge declares God guilty and hands him over to be scourged and mocked and tortured and humiliated and be utterly broken and die in agony; and in so doing washes his hands publicly in front of all his enemies, in front of the entire human race, and declares himself innocent.

Contemplate, if you will, the greatness of this human pride, his and ours! To wash our hands entirely of God and the priests and the people, guilt and innocent, truth and falsehood, life and death: is this not the greatest and most potent declaration of our independence, our freedom, the absoluteness of our own thoughts and our wills?

Perhaps God, who is innocent, is indeed being tortured to death and dying in agony under my orders, before my face; but what is truth? I am innocent of this man's blood.

In the face of God, the only real power of man is in indifference, in simple and final rejection of other persons, truth, and God. This choice of Pilate we have made, each one of us, and this same choice we make daily. We see good and evil, truth and falsehood, we see other human persons and ourselves, we see God: and we are indifferent to and reject them all.

Justice is violated before our eyes, the poor are oppressed and tormented and forgotten, the weak and the innocent are bought and sold, corrupted and led astray, God himself is insulted in his Church and his representatives, and we do nothing, perhaps indeed we even take delight in it, because it is so powerful, so free to be and to do such things.

Does not each and every single one of us daily take delight in such indifference, in such freedom? How many of the deeds we do are done, truly, for its sake? How many even of the deeds we claim to do for God are done, in truth, for the sake of pride, for the humiliation and subjection of other persons, and God himself, to our thoughts, our wills?

Pilate is not at all the most evil character in the Gospels, as Christ himself, not without pity, declared; he had less knowledge of God than others, and so less power to wound him in his heart. We, though, to the degree that we claim to, and truly do, know God and love him, are like Pilate and yet far, far worse than him in every way, whenever we imitate him in his indifference and pride.

Daily God is brought before us to be judged, in the guise of our neighbor, in the guise of the Church and her Pope and priests and bishops and teachings, in the guise of the poor and the weak and the sinful and the oppressed and each and every single one of our brothers and sisters. Let us, if we claim to be Christians, not act the part of Pilate; let us not crucify God in pride and indifference, but in humility and love let us acknowledge God in whatever guise he comes to us, submit our desires to his desires, our thoughts to his thoughts, our will to his will. Let us acknowledge him, and him alone, as the judge of every person, of every deed of others and ourselves, and submit ourselves and all things to his justice.

When we have laid aside all the glory of our earthly knowledge and strength, our status in every earthly system and every power that comes from it, every power to judge and to decide and to will: only then can we receive from Christ the Eternal Kingdom he would offer to us in his Cross. If we can accept this Cross, we will be blessed indeed, and will no more be forced to spend our lives standing in judgment over God, declaring him innocent or guilty, trying desperately and in vain to wash his blood from our hands. We will, rather, live in peace, sustained by his love, submitting to and seeking the justice he has declared, in and through his Church, to the whole world.

This, then, is the judgment: that only when every last shred of our pride has been utterly destroyed, only when we have become, like God, entirely truth and entirely love, can we enter into the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world, and delight in the fullness of joy forever.

Let us see to it, then.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, I acknowledge before you the greatness of my pride, and the great and willful indifference with which I have stood in judgment over you and my neighbor, and delighted in being free of you and your love. Grant, I beseech you, that I may truly repent of this pride, and truly and in all things submit my desires to your desires, my thoughts to your thoughts, my will to your will: first in your Church, her Pope and bishops and priests, then in all those set in authority over me by God, and lastly in each and every single one of my brothers and sisters, especially those who are most treated, like you, with indifference.

Amen.

Lenten Meditation #4: The Weakness of God

"And carrying the Cross for himself Jesus went out to the place called 'of the Skull,' which is called in Hebrew Golgotha." (John 19:17)

Third Station of the Cross: Jesus falls the first time.

Seventh Station of the Cross: Jesus falls the second time.

Ninth Station of the Cross: Jesus falls the third time.

"And they conscripted some passerby, Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, as he was coming from the countryside, to take up Jesus' Cross." (Mark 15:21)

We are human beings, and so we are weak.

This is not in the least an evil; for weakness and strength are both relative things, valueless except in relation to God or human beings or time or space or some other created thing. God is strong in relation to us, because in relation to him we are nothing at all, and exist at each moment only because he wills it; but in himself, in relation to himself, God is properly neither strong nor weak. The Father does not need strength to beget the Son or to exist in relation to him; nor does the Son need weakness to be loved by the Father and love him in return, and with him spirate the Holy Spirit.

In relation to God and others and ourselves, there are times when it is good for us to be strong; and times when it is good for us to be weak. Sometimes we must help; sometimes we must be helped. Sometimes we must direct; and sometimes we must be directed. Sometimes, and in some things, we must act as though we existed, to accept the gifts of being and goodness which God offers to us, and use them as he wishes, offering to God his own offerings; but in many other things, and in the most fundamental heart of our being, we must be very weak indeed, existing in relation to God very simply as what we truly are: that is, nothing at all. In this humility is the only possible hope of our union with God.

Likewise, the real relations we have to our neighbors, and the genuine love that arises in them, are made possible in this life as much by our weakness as our strength. To love is to submit our own desires and fears and wishes to the good of another; and to be loved is to accept this submission and this will in another, for our good. This is a task that requires, often, all of our strength to fulfill; yet without weakness, we would rarely if ever even attempt it. In our fallen state, strength all too often does little more than make us proud, secure in a false illusion of self-sufficiency, while weakness reveals to us our own dependency and relatedness, and opens us to love.

Still, we are creatures to whom God has given intellects, to know the good, and wills, to seek it; and it is terribly vexing for us to be weak, to be unable to do what we will. We have bodies, which require food and desire pleasure, and hearts that seek always to love and be loved; and it is painful for us to not have what we desire, or to possess what we fear. To be weak, for us, is very often to suffer: to suffer the lack of some things we would have, and the presence of others we would escape.

Certainly it pleases us to be strong; to be able to do what we will, to have what we desire, to avoid what we fear. Yet here is another burden, another gift of God: that through our very strength we soon grow weak and weary, our bodies wearing away, our minds slipping from us, until we must seek nonbeing again in rest and in sleep.

Then, too, however strong we may be in body or mind, the utter failure of all our strength awaits us all in death. In the end, whether we will it or no, our bodies will fail and not be renewed, our minds will break and be torn from us and not return, and we will fall back into the feeble dust from which we came.

The Athenians, in the brief moment of their power, declared that the strong do what they will, while the weak suffer what they must. In the end, all of us, strong or weak, do what we do not will, and suffer what we must.

In becoming man, then, God became for the first time weak--and also for the first time strong, as we know strength. Christ Jesus in the body was a strong man, who overturned the moneychangers' tables and wandered the earth with no place to call his home. Day and night, he toiled and preached and argued and fought for the sake of sinners. Day and night, he did as strong men do, and carried out his will, which was to do the will of the one who sent him, in all things and at every moment, for the salvation of the world.

Even in his Passion, Christ Jesus was, as a man, strong; strong in the will and the desire that drove him to take up the burden of the sins of the world, to fight and to suffer and to die for the sake of his beloved. Christ Jesus, as man, knew each one of us, and as man he willed to seek us out and to save us, even through the pain and torment of the Cross.

Still, if Christ was strong, he was also weak; weak as we are weak, in the created nothingness of his humanity and ours. As he became strong out of love for us, to save us, so too he became weak for our sakes, to love us and be loved by us. He was weak when he came into the world as an embryo in the body of his Mother and at her will, when he was born to her and carried by her and nursed at her breast, when he cried aloud in the night for her to come to him and receive him and love him. He was weak when he wept over Jerusalem, because he willed to heal it, and his beloved willed not; he was weak when he sweated blood in the garden, because he willed that cup of sin and death pass from him, and it did not pass, since his own divine will must be done. As he became strong for the sake of love, so too did he make himself terribly, dreadfully weak, as weak as us and far weaker, so that we might recognize his love for us, and love him in return.

In the fullness of his human strength, for the sake of his great love for us, Christ Jesus our Lord took on himself the burden of the Cross, the burden of all of our sin and shame and misery; and in the fullness of his human weakness, for the sake of his great love for us, he was not able to bear it.

Christ Jesus willed to bear the Cross, to carry it until the end, and yet his body failed, his mind slipped, and he fell three times into utter darkness. In the end, he required the help of a human person to carry it with and for him.

Let us recognize the mystery and the glory of what we are saying: God required the help of a human person to bear the Cross. He required our help.

For the sake of his love, God did not will that he alone should save us; he willed rather that we should love him and one another, and with him and through him carry the Cross of salvation to the end. We are saved not merely through and by Christ, but in him also through and by one another; even through and by ourselves. Christ Jesus, as God, could have made his human body and soul strong enough to bear the Cross until the end; he did not. For our sakes he made himself very weak, so that we might help him, as he helped and helps us in all things. So great was his love for us that he desired that he should need our help to bring his love to completion.

In and through the grace of God, in the power of his Spirit, we too are called to offer ourselves for the salvation of the world; and without our cooperation neither the world nor ourselves will be saved. This is the responsibility, the burden, the Cross, which Christ Jesus lays upon us all. He has given into our hearts his own Divine Love, laid upon our backs his own Cross, and asked us to bear it until the end. So great is his love for us that he wills that we possess his love as our own, and fulfill it in ourselves.

There is no intimacy with the Lord closer than this, no divinization more blessed than this, than that we should possess as our own the Love of God, and in our own works and prayers and sufferings and lives fulfill it.

Still, if we would bear the Cross of Christ, we cannot bear it in our own human strength; far from it. We can only bear it by acknowledging, and living in, our own absolute nothingness, our own absolute dependence on God and his grace. Only by our own human weakness can we be strong with the strength of God. Only the Divine Love of Christ can allow us to will the Cross, and bear it faithfully until the end; every other love is only a counterfeit, a deception, and will fail the moment it is put to the test.

If we would bear the Cross of Christ, we must bear it not in our own strength, but through the strength of Christ; and if we would love, finally, as Christ loves, we must do so not through our own weakness, but through the weakness of Christ.

This is the deepest and most blessed mystery of all: to bear in ourselves, in our own bodies and souls and minds and hearts, the weakness of God. When Christ Jesus fell to earth beneath the Cross, he was weak with a weakness that saves and has saved us all; when he cried out in agony nailed to that same Cross, he was weak with a weakness that has torn the veil and revealed to us the very inner life of God himself, the Eternal and unbreakable love of the Trinity.

The lives we live, and the Crosses we bear, are full of suffering, and of weakness, and of failure. We will, and do not do what we will. We desire, and do not have what we desire. We fear, and have what we fear. By all this, we are made weary, and waste away, and fall into darkness. Christ Jesus, too, for our sake, was weak in just this way, and fell to the earth beneath the weight of the Cross; and by this he redeemed us all from everlasting death.

Let us, then, run to offer to him upon the Cross all our weaknesses, all our failures, all our nothingness and helplessness and lack. He will receive it all as his own, for he has indeed claimed it for his own. By it, far more than by our own vain strength, he will unite us ever more deeply with his own helplessness, his own failure, his own nothingness and weakness on the Cross. By it, he will lead us into the fullness of his Love, the Love by which he himself exists as Father, Son, and Spirit, far beyond all our weakness and all our strength, forever.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, weak and fallen Savior, take pity on us, and give us always the strength to accept your love, so that in us and our weakness the mystery of your own divine weakness may be completed, for the salvation of all the world.

Amen.

Lenten Meditation #3: Stabat Mater

"By the Cross stood the mother of Jesus." (John 19:25)

There is a great paradox to be found in the Passion of Christ; that in suffering the sins of the world, Christ was alone, and yet not alone:

"Behold, the hour is coming, and has come, when you all scatter, each returning to what is his own, and leave me alone: and I am not alone, because my Father is with me." (John 16:32)

In a most important sense, Christ in his Passion suffered alone; for he alone could at once, as man, suffer for the sins of the world, and at the same time, as God, overcome them through the power of the Resurrection. Still, there is a far more terrible aloneness which Christ bore in his Passion; a loneliness and isolation that is the cruelest of all human evils, the most terrible of all human sufferings.

The greatest suffering of Christ in his Cross was his abandonment by those who were dear to him, those whom he loved; first his disciples, then all of us. They, and we, could not watch with him one hour; we, and they, would not drink of the cup of which Our Lord drank. For many reasons, fear and pride and greed and lust and, cruelest of all, simple indifference, we returned to what is our own, leaving the things of God, the things of Eternal Love, and leaving him all alone. As Saint Faustina Kowalska taught, all that we can call finally our own is our lack, our nothingness, our misery, and all that we choose to keep apart from God and his love: in other words, Hell. In his Passion, Christ was abandoned by the souls of the damned, whom he loved and for whom he died, yet who chose instead to return to what was their own, forever. This is, in some measure, the choice we make each and every time we commit a mortal sin.

In this sense, then, Christ in his passion was most profoundly and terribly alone--or rather, he was abandoned, betrayed: his Heart was broken. We all like sheep scattered, each to his own path, and left him alone.

There is and has been only one who did not share in the wandering common to our fallen condition; only one who faithfully followed the path laid out for her by God, not by her own knowledge or strength but entirely by his grace. This is the Immaculate Conception, the Mother of God, the only truly human person to have ever lived free from the stain of our inhumanity.

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception is usually, and naturally, connected to the conception and birth of Jesus: since it was indeed fitting that the woman who gave flesh to the Son of God, who bore him in her body and nursed him at her breast, should be, like the Ark of the Covenant, entirely pure and free of defilement. Still, it is well to remember that Christ was born to die; he took on created life in order to lay it down for us. In the same way, Mary was made pure by God not merely so that she might be pure for Christ's conception and birth, but far more so that she might be pure for his suffering and death. It was fitting that she be without sin in giving him flesh; but it was far more fitting that she be without sin in accompanying him to offer that flesh as a sacrifice.

That which Christ bore on his Cross could only be borne by one without sin. Christ was pure, and so saw sin as it is, and suffered it; we are corrupt, and so see sin as we wish it to be, and choose it. Mary, though, like Christ, was pure; and like Christ, and with him, she suffered to the end.

Imagine our life, then, as it truly is, as one long Passion, one long Way of the Cross. We are all set on the road towards the Cross, together with Christ; our love for him, and his for us, keeps us with him, and he with us, and unites us ever closer to him, and he with us, as we journey towards our common goal. Each and every sin of ours, though, is a straying from that path, an abandonment of Christ carrying and dying on the Cross, leaving him alone.

It is manifest, then, that only the Immaculate Conception, only the one entirely without sin, could truly follow and remain with Christ, in every part of his Passion, from the very first step to the very last, from the beginning to the consummation. This is the eternal glory of the Mother of God, that she most perfectly of all mankind loved God as man, as a human being, as her son, and loved him faithfully until the end. She alone did not leave him alone.

In and through Mary, though, we too can accompany Christ carrying in the Cross; we too can remain with him and not leave him alone. Inasmuch as we repent of our sins, inasmuch as we accept the Crosses that God lays upon us, in union with the Cross which Christ bears, inasmuch as we seek with all our heart and all our strength to follow after him, we follow in the path of Mary, and stand by his Cross, to console his heart. This is, in truth, the sum of our calling as human persons: to remain with Christ until the end.

Christ's heart was broken by our sins, by the terrible loneliness of his abandonment by us all. It was consoled, and is consoled, by each step we take to love him and to accept his love, as Mary did. As a mother accepts the smallest and clumsiest gesture of love by her child, so Christ accepts the smallest and clumsiest signs of our love. He requires no great deeds, no prideful and self-willed labors on his behalf; he desires only our presence with him, standing by the Cross with Mary, so that we may likewise stand by him in Eternity.

Here, though, is one of the most terrible things by which Christ's heart is broken, one of the most terrible and unspeakable of our many betrayals and abandonments; that we have not merely abandoned and forgotten Christ in himself, but also in those whom he loves. It is not Christ alone who is abandoned; it is not Christ alone who is alone, and forgotten. In each and every one of our brothers and sisters who suffers from loneliness, who has been betrayed or abandoned, who in any way and for any reason suffers alone, without consolation, Christ is once again made to be alone. And what do we do for these our brothers and sisters, what do we do for Christ abandoned and suffering before our eyes? Do we follow, accompany, remain, console, suffer with and for, until the end? Or do we scatter, each to what is our own, and leave Christ, once again, alone?

That even Christ, in the depths of his Passion, was not left alone, but that we have left all alone souls for whom he died: how can we hear this, and not tremble? By our indifference and lack of love, we have made his Passion vain.

Still, Christ is not mocked. Although a human person should be abandoned by all, although he should be entirely alone, yet there is one who is with him: Christ himself, who was abandoned and made to be alone for his sake. Let us never forget this, and let us pray to be made worthy to accept and to participate in this great love, which is for each and every one of us.

In and with and for each and every human person who is abandoned or betrayed or alone, who suffers without consolation, Christ is crucified alone: and Mary is with him. Let us not forget it.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, lonely and abandoned and forgotten by all, give to me the Immaculate Heart of Mary, so that I may no more leave you alone, but faithfully follow, with her, on the path of your Cross until the end.

Mary, Mother of God and my Mother, give me your heart, that in you I may be found worthy to accompany and console Christ crucified and alone in the hearts of my brothers and sisters.

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

Amen.

Lenten Meditation #2: The Coronation of the King

"The soldiers led him away into the courtyard, that is, the praetorium, and they called together the whole cohort. And they clad him in purple, and weaving together a crown of thorns, they set it upon him: and they began to salute him: 'Hail, King of the Jews!' And they were striking his head with a reed, and spitting on him, and falling on their knees they were worshiping him." (Mark 15:15-19)

Jesus Christ is king of the universe not because he is God, but because he is man. Inasmuch as he is God, Christ exists entirely apart from creation, neither needing it nor existing in any relationship with it commensurate to his nature. To God, creation is nothing--or rather, less than nothing. No created thing can in any way either add to or take away from what he is in himself.

God, to be sure, is the cause and end of creation, who created it and directs it according to his will, and in this sense he may be compared to a king. Still, in the fullest and most proper sense, the king is not the one who creates the people, nor even merely the one who directs it, but the one who represents it, who embodies it in himself. A king is a single human person who stands for all the other human persons that make up a people--in his one body and soul, he reflects and embodies and effects the unity of all the other human persons like him. A king, then, is not king by virtue of his unlikeness to his subjects, but by virtue of his likeness. No angel could be king of a nation of men, nor any man of a nation of bees.

In the truest sense, then, God is King of Creation in and through Christ, not in his divinity, but in his humanity. It is as created that God rules over the created; it is as created that Christ reflects and embodies and effects the unity of all creation in himself.  It is as man that Christ becomes King of Creation--but it is as God that he freely shares his own divine life with his subjects, raising them above nature, and uniting them with the eternal, perfect Divinity that is his birthright and inheritance. In and through Christ, the uncreated God is made King of Creation, and the created is made divine.

Like all human kingships, Christ's came into being in time and space and history, the realm of the created. Christ was born the heir of creation, but he had still to enter into his kingdom, to be anointed and crowned, to take his seat upon his throne.

Christ was born the Son of David; he was anointed with the Holy Spirit at his Baptism; but it was only in his Passion that he assumed his kingship in its fullness. It was in his Passion that Christ took on himself the rule of humanity and of creation, through his perfect sharing in its sins and wounds and sufferings and, finally, in the death that is the lot of all men and all creation. It was in his Passion that he received the emblems of his rule.

The Coronation of Christ, the King of the Universe, took place, then, in the Praetorium of the Roman guard, on a Friday in spring in Jerusalem. It was one of the many anonymous soldiers tasked with execution duty who clad the King in his royal garments, another who set on his head the Crown of all Creation, another who gave him his Scepter; and this whole cohort of soldiers and torturers were the very first to pay homage to the newly crowned King of time and space and matter.

This, then, is how the King of Creation was crowned, worshiped, recognized--as the lowest of all things, the mocked and despised and condemned. These are the infallible signs and means of his power: the Crown of Creation, a garland of thorns, twined in gleeful malice and forced onto his head, piercing it in place after place, drenching itself in his blood--the Scepter of Omnipotent Power, a reed hastily snatched up, beating his face again and again until unrecognizable. This is the true and fitting homage given to the Eternal King at his Coronation: utter mockery, unrestrained laughter, the contempt reserved only for that which is most hateful and most despised and overlooked and forgotten.

This, then, is the right by which Christ rules over all things: not that he is the strongest or the most beautiful, or the most recognized or admired or loved or trusted, but that he is the lowest and most shameful, weakest and most despised and forgotten and abused and mocked of all men. This is the right by which God would rule over us.

What gifts, then, would you offer to the King? Money, power, riches? All these are already his, and would have adorned him if he wished it. He did not wish it; he chose instead thorns and a reed and a soldier's cloak. Beautiful words, praises, the honor of your acknowledgment of him as Lord or God? Christ was crowned and worshiped by the utterly indifferent, who hated him--and you think he has need of your acknowledgment?

Christ valued the sincere mockery and contempt of the soldiers more than your proud and self-serving recognition. Whether you choose to acknowledge him or not, he remains King, and you, like the soldiers, will worship him in the end, willing or unwilling.

Christ was crowned in this way to show that there was only one thing that he truly desired, only one gift that you or any other human person or any other creature could truly offer him: yourself.

God became King of Creation not to gain gold or riches or honors or praises or the acknowledgment of men, but to save souls. For this reason, he took on himself all the mockery and shame and hatred and indifference of mankind, for this reason he made himself the lowest and least of all: so that in this way he might win the love of those who are weak and lowly, mocked and ashamed and hated, prideful and indifferent and condemned and sinners. You and I are all these things, and more; but for this reason, we ought to trust in God all the more.

Approach, therefore, the Throne of the King, the Cross. Recognize that God lowered himself to nothingness, to your nothingness, and even lower, so that you might love him. Recognize that for your sake God set himself beneath your feet, made himself powerless and despised and forgotten, so that you might remember him, and weep for your sins. Give him the only homage he desires: repentance from your sins, obedience to his commandments, trust in his love. Give him the only gift he desires: yourself.

It is only when you have given him yourself in its entirety, body and heart and mind and soul, ignorance and weakness and shame and sin, the utter nothingness of your created self, in total trust and abandonment and love, that his kingship will be truly fulfilled: for the true king reigns, not for his own benefit, but for the good of his subjects. For the eternal good of us, who are his subjects, the man Jesus was mocked and tortured and died in agony. For this reason he is, and always shall be, our Lord and King, and the King of all Creation. Let us worship him!

Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, King of Creation, you humbled yourself to be crowned and worshiped by sinners in indifference and hatred and mockery; grant that by your omnipotent power we might so humble ourselves as to worthily and sincerely offer our whole selves to you, and so receive the rewards of your eternal Kingdom.

Amen.

Lenten Meditation #1: "Then they spat in his face."

"Then they spat in his face." (Matthew 26:67)

There is a sacramental quality to the body that is unbreakable. We are complex creatures, with complex intentions and thoughts and willings, borne of our hearts and minds and souls--and we naturally express these things physically, through our bodies. There is nothing of our bodies, no action or feature or quality, that does not bear a meaning beyond the physical, that does not communicate. The most perfunctory hug is still as a gesture of affection: the touch of a stranger's handshake--a kiss on the cheek--the movement of a muscle in the face--all have their own proper meanings.

So let us consider, for a moment, what is expressed by the spittle on the face of Christ. Christ Jesus became man in order to inaugurate a system of Sacraments, or rather in order to be the one, eternal Sacrament of the love and mercy of God. His every gesture, his every word, indeed his entire being as man, spiritual and physical, was a communication, an expression, of the eternal Word and his love for each man and woman and child. All that he communicated, and all that he received, through the physical, through his body, was communicated and received also by God.

Thus the enormous significance of all that was done to Christ in his Passion, all that was done to and for Christ throughout his life. Christ came to earth to communicate his love physically, through the Sacraments of his body and life and actions--he also came to earth to suffer, in himself, all the sin and disorder and suffering of man. In this suffering, too, he worked out our salvation not only in soul, but in body as well. In his Passion, the sufferings of Christ's soul were signified and expressed and effected by the sufferings of his body. All that was done to the body of Christ by man was done also to the soul of Christ, and hence to God--all that has been done against God was suffered by Christ in his soul, effected and expressed in his body.

Christ did not merely suffer the sins of those who crucified him, or of his contemporaries--he suffered the sins and wounds and sufferings of each and every man who has ever existed or ever will exist, including each of us. He bore our sins in his soul and in and through his body, through all that he gave and received in the body. That which a few men did to Christ in his Passion, then, truly signified and expressed and effected that which has been done to Christ by us all. When Christ received the blows of the soldiers, in them he recognized and suffered the blows of us all.

Think, then, of the action of spitting in the face of Christ. This is, it would seem, a fairly universal gesture--one whose meaning and import strikes us immediately, across cultures and times and places. It is the physical embodiment of contempt.

Contempt, or despising, is not a sin that we think of, perhaps, very often. To define it, though, we have merely to look to the physical gesture, the physical sacrament, which very well both effects and reveals what it signifies.

When we spit, we cast out of our bodies, out of ourselves, something which we regard as superfluous, unnecessary, or even hateful to us. Our spit to us is both valueless and distasteful, not something we prefer to think of at all, a matter for disgust--and so we cast it from ourselves, usually without thought, into places equally valueless and disgusting.

When we spit upon another, then, we treat that person as an appropriate receptacle for our spitting, our casting out of what is valueless and distasteful. Our act of spitting is not intended to hurt, to cause pain, or even to harm. It is intended, rather, to humiliate, to lower, to disregard.

To spit in someone's face expresses this basic reality even more intensely. The face is the part of the body that shows forth the person, the unique, relational being, more clearly and more inescapably than any other. We both express and receive love through the face; when we recognize the face of someone we know, we recognize not merely a body or a mind, but something unique, irreplaceable, valuable, loved and loving, a you to our I. It is in the face we appear as we are, beings defined by relation, existing from and for love. To spit in someone's face, then, is to treat as valueless and disgusting not merely the body qua physical, but the person itself, the unique, relational being capable of love, with a name, a mind, a heart, a soul. It is to degrade and lower and crush not merely some person, but this person, you. I see your face--and I spit in it.

Imagine, then, spitting in the face of Christ. Here is the face of God, the face that embodies and makes effectual his love for each and every person, including you. Imagine the sorrow in his eyes as your spittle strikes the face of God. Imagine your spittle resting on that face, slimy and repulsive, dripping slowly down, in his eyes, his hair, his beard, covering up his features, obscuring, mocking, defiling.

You have taken that face, that love, and treated it as valueless, disgusting, as nothing. You have even taken pleasure in doing so--taken pleasure in the power, the superiority, the indifference, by which you so lowered, so degraded, God himself. You have seen yourself as you spat in the face of God, and have taken delight in what you saw.

Perhaps you think you have not done this, that you have not spit in the face of God, or in the face of any other man. You are mistaken.

We spit in the face of Christ, in the first place, each and every time we willingly despise another human person--whenever we treat another as valueless, disgusting, beneath us, whenever we choose to lower, to humiliate, to disregard. "That which you do the least of these, you do to me": strangers, waiters, sexual objects, political opponents, anonymous Internet trolls. In each and every person whose irreplaceable personhood, name, heart, soul, whom Christ loves and for whom he died, we have not acknowledged, we have despised and spat upon the face of Christ.

We spit in the face of Christ, likewise, when we treat his love for us, expressed in the Church and the Sacraments and in so many other things, as something valueless or distasteful or indifferent. It is difficult to accept the love of God, which requires us to submit ourselves to others, to deny our desires and inclinations and thoughts, and to accept and receive something far beyond our own knowledge or control. Far easier, then, to despise Christ and his Incarnation, and the means he uses to show us his love. Whether that is the teachings of the Church, or one's fellow Christian, or the Sacraments in which Christ offers himself to us, the blow is no less severe. It is most cruel of all when we reject and disregard Christ in the Eucharist, the most perfect sign of God's love, receiving him into our bodies without acknowledging him or giving ourselves to him or desiring to be obedient to him in all things, or perhaps not bothering to receive him at all.

I invite you, then, to contemplate once again the image of Christ, with your spittle on his face. He willingly bears our contempt, our indifference, for the sake of his love. He allows us to despise him and disregard him and humiliate him and lower him, and he takes on himself all those situations in which we ourselves have been despised and disregarded. This is the measure of God's love, that he permits us to treat him, in comparison to whom we are nothing and can have no value at all, as valueless, as nothing. He chooses to love us, although he does not need us, and he allows us to despise him, although we cannot exist apart from him.

This is the extent of God's love for us, and the effectual sign of its omnipotence in regard to us. All that Christ asks of us is that we acknowledge that love, and accept it, that we permit him to love us and save us from our sins. He has willingly borne, and will willingly bear, all in us that is most distasteful and disgusting and shameful, and he will give us in return his own immortal and incorruptable life. He bears our spittle in his face, and gives to us his own flesh and blood. Let us receive him, then, worthily, and love him in our neighbor.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, as in your Passion you willingly bore the spittle of our indifference and contempt, so grant us both to acknowledge and accept your great love for us and for all mankind, so that trusting in you and following you in all things, we may both love and honor you in all persons, and faithfully obey you in all things.

Amen.