Pentecost and Ordinary Time.

In February, I wrote a bit about the problem with Ordinary Time. In a New Liturgical Movement post from Friday, Father Guy Nicholls of the Birmingham Oratory addresses the same topic in the particular context of the relationship between Ordinary Time and the Feast of Pentecost:

The transition to Ordinary time on the Monday after Pentecost is disjunctive. It is not simply the return to Ordinary time per se that jars, since that must happen at some time anyway. No, the problem that several of your [NLM] correspondents share with me is the sense that the first green Monday after Pentecost has come from nowhere. In addition to the abruptness of this transition, the ferial days which now follow Pentecost belong to an entirely disconnected sequence that was broken off before Lent and so has no token of continuity with what has immediately preceded it. The transition was formerly more intelligible since the Octave of Pentecost came quietly to an end on Ember Saturday, emerging easily in First Vespers of Trinity Sunday, the beginning of a new week and season, and a feast, indeed, which celebrated and contemplated the mysteries which were fulfilled in the descent of the Holy Spirit "leading the Church into all truth."

What is the effective result of the loss of the Pentecost Octave?

First, it has the most unfortunate effect of reducing Pentecost to a mere end point. Because it is now simply a single day at the conclusion of Paschaltide from which all that follows is discontinuous, Ordinary Time does not seem to succeed Pentecost, but to supplant it. Thus Pentecost now seems only to look backwards to Easter of which it is the concluding celebration, rather than both back to Easter and forwards towards “green time” representing the post-Pentecostal life of the Church until the Second Coming.

Secondly, this rupture and discontinuity is further increased by the nomenclature of "Ordinary Time". While from the designation of "Time after Pentecost" alone the Church might have posited a relationship to that feast (albeit in a different way from "Time after Easter" to Easter Day itself), there was indeed a more than merely nominal connection. Of course Paschaltide is more organically and thematically linked to Easter than is the whole "post Pentecosten" period to Pentecost. Nevertheless the correspondence between Time after Pentecost on the one hand and the entire era of the Church, endowed with the Spirit and awaiting the Parousia on the other, was formerly more manifest in this long "green" period of the Church Year. This was especially clear both at the outset of the season with the Mystery-contemplative feasts of Trinity and Corpus Christi, and at the very end on account of its eschatological Sunday Gospels.

To read the rest, click here. AMDG.

In the second Adam the first is rescued.

I have lately been very silent on this blog, partly because of busyness and travel, but also because of a certain kind of writer's block. I do have a few posts in mind for the coming week, which I hope will compensate somewhat for my long silence. In the meantime, as Easter gives way to Pentecost on the Gregorian Calendar, here is an apposite paragraph that caught my eye this morning in a book that I've been reading, Oliver O'Donovan's Resurrection and Moral Order:

The meaning of the resurrection, as Saint Paul presents it, is that it is God's final and decisive word on the life of his creature, Adam. It is, in the first place, God's reversal of Adam's choice of sin and death: 'As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive' (1 Cor. 15:22). In the second place, and precisely because it is a reversal of Adam's decision to die, the resurrection of Christ is a new affirmation of God's first decision that Adam should live, an affirmation that goes beyond and transforms the initial gift of life: 'The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit' (15:45). The work of the Creator who made Adam, who brought into being an order of things in which humanity has a place, is affirmed once and for all by this conclusion. It might have been possible, we could say, before Christ rose from the dead, for someone to wonder whether creation was a lost cause. If the creature consistently acted to uncreate itself, and with itself to uncreate the rest of creation, did this not mean that God's handiwork was flawed beyond hope of repair? It might have been possible before Christ rose from the dead to answer in good faith, Yes. Before God raised Jesus from the dead, the hope that we call 'gnostic,' the hope for redemption from creation rather than for the redemption of creation, might have appeared to be the only possible hope. 'But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead . . .' (15:20). That fact rules out those other possibilities, for in the second Adam the first is rescued. The deviance of his will, its fateful leaning towards death, has not been allowed to uncreate what God created.

For more along these lines, you may want to pick up Resurrection and Moral Order. For more from me, check back on Monday, when I will hopefully have more to say. AMDG.

The universal kingdom has been revealed.

As I did last year, I would like to offer prayerful greetings to those who celebrate the Feast of the Resurrection today in conformity with the Julian Paschalion. At the time of posting, I hope that readers who celebrate Easter today are (a) in church, (b) feasting, or (c) enjoying a good rest after (a) and (b). To get into the spirit of the Feast of Feasts, here is another video from St. Elias.

As I usually do in posts marking Easter, I would like to end by once again sharing the Paschal Sermon of St. John Chrysostom:

Are there any who are devout and love God?
Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!

Are there any who are grateful servants?
Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Are there any weary with fasting?
Let them now receive their wages!

If any have toiled from the first hour,
let them receive their due reward.

If any have come after the third hour,
let them with gratitude join in the Feast!

And those who arrived after the sixth hour,
let them not doubt; for they too shall sustain no loss.

And if any have delayed until the ninth hour,
let them not hesitate; but let them come too.

And those who arrived only at the eleventh hour,
let them not be afraid by reason of their delay.

For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.
He gives rest to those who came at the eleventh hour,
as well as to those who toiled from the first.

To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows.
He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor.
The deed He honors and the intention He commends.

Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord!
First and last alike receive your reward.

Rich and poor, rejoice together!
Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!

You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,
rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!

Feast royally, for the calf is a fatted one.
Let no one go away hungry.

Partake, all, of the cup of faith.
Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!

Let no one grieve at his poverty,
for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again;
for forgiveness has risen from the grave.

Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed death by enduring it.

He destroyed Hades when He descended into it.
He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.

Isaiah foretold this when he said,
"You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.

It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.

It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.
Hell took a body, and discovered God.

It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.

O death, where is thy sting?
O Hades, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!

Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;
for Christ, having risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!

Christ is Risen! AMDG.

Paradise in a single moment.

Today is Good Friday according to the Julian Calendar, so here is the Exapostilarion from the Byzantine office of Matins for Great and Holy Friday - which is typically anticipated on the night of Holy Thursday - sung to Kievan chant at St. Elias Church in Brampton, Ontario. Here is the text in English:

The wise thief didst Thou make worthy of Paradise

In a single moment, O Lord,

By the wood of thy Cross.

Illumine me as well, and save me.

Earlier in the same service, one encounters the following antiphon, which neatly summarizes what Good Friday is all about:

Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon the Cross.

He who is King of the angels is arrayed in a crown of thorns.

He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery.

He who in Jordan set Adam free receives blows upon His face.

The Bridegroom of the Church is transfixed with nails.

The Son of the Virgin is pierced with a spear.

We venerate your Passion, O Christ.

Show us also your glorious Resurrection.

On his blog Glory to God for All Things, Father Stephen Freeman offers a reflection on the above words:

Its poetry is typical of the liturgical thought of the Fathers. The death of Christ is ironic – indeed – the whole of Christ’s ministry is ironic. Things are turned upside down. God becomes man so that man can become god – this is ironic beyond measure! But the Fathers also saw in this irony the hiddenness of the mystery of our salvation. A literal reading of the world – a straightforward approach to our salvation – would be expected and anticipated. There is nothing hidden within such an account. But the hiddenness of things is the nature of wisdom. Wisdom is for the one who seeks, the one who listens, the one who looks beyond the obvious.

And it is there that the Wisdom of God is revealed in all of its ironic glory: a King crowned with thorns; God wrapped in mockery and suspended from a tree! In our own lives this same wisdom continues. The way of life is found in the way of the Cross. He who loses his life saves it. The gospel commands can only be understood in this wise foolishness. Forgiving enemies is foolishness, yet is our only hope.

Prayers and good wishes for those who, like me, are spending the better part of today in church. AMDG.

The pope and the media.

In a piece published on Monday, veteran Vaticanista Sandro Magister takes note of a phenomenon that has been on my mind lately:

The popularity of Pope Francis is due to a large extent [to his] style of preaching and to the easy, widespread success of the concepts on which he insists the most - mercy, forgiveness, the poor, the "peripheries" - seen reflected in his actions and in his own person.

It is a popularity that acts as a screen for the other more inconvenient things that he does not neglect to say - for example, his frequent references to the devil - and that if said by others would unleash criticism, while for him they are forgiven.

In effect, the media have so far covered up with indulgent silence not only the references of the current pope to the devil, but also a whole series of other pronouncements on points of doctrine as controversial as they are essential.

. . .

On April 19, in his morning homily, he lashed out against the "great ideologists" who want to interpret Jesus in a purely human vein. He called them "intellectuals without talent, ethicists without goodness. And of beauty we will not speak, because they do not understand anything."

In this case as well, silence.

On April 22, in another morning homily, he said forcefully that Jesus is "the only gate" for entering into the Kingdom of God and "all the other paths are deceptive, they are not true, they are false."

With this he therefore reiterated that indispensable truth of the Catholic faith which recognizes in Jesus Christ the only savior of all. But when in August of 2000 John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger published precisely on this the declaration “Dominus Iesus," they were bitterly contested from inside and outside of the Church. While now that Pope Francis has said the same thing, everybody quiet.

On April 23, the feast of St. George, in the homily of the Mass with the cardinals in the Pauline Chapel, he said that "the Christian identity is a belonging to the Church, because to find Jesus outside of the Church is not possible."

And this time as well, silence. And yet the thesis according to which “extra Ecclesiam nulla salus," which he has reaffirmed, is almost always a herald of polemics. . .

To read the rest, click here. AMDG.

Guy Consolmagno on science and faith.

The British Jesuits' online journal Thinking Faith recently published the text of a talk given last month by Brother Guy Consolmagno, a Jesuit astronomer who works at the Vatican Observatory. (Guy has appeared on this blog a number of times before, notably here and here.) Speaking before an audience at the Mount Street Jesuit Centre in London, Brother Consolmagno had this to say about the place of belief (broadly considered) in scientific inquiry:

There are three religious beliefs that you have to accept on faith before you can be a scientist. You may not think of them as religious, but I can name religions that do not have these beliefs.

The first thing you must believe is that this universe actually exists. This may seem obvious; but if you believe, as some religions do, that 'everything is illusion,' then what is there for a scientist to study? If you were a solipsist, then being a scientist would be just wasting your time studying a figment of your imagination.

The second thing to believe is that the universe operates by regular laws. How can you go searching for the physical laws of the universe if you do not believe there are physical laws to be found? Today we have a thousand years of finding those laws and seeing how we can use them to make the telephones work; but who was the first person a thousand years ago to think that such laws exist, and that they could be discovered? Where did he or she get the faith to believe that there might be laws to be found?

. . .

And here is the third thing you have to believe as a scientist: you have to believe that the universe is good. We get that, again, from Genesis. If you think the universe is a morass of temptations, then you will be afraid to be too involved in it; you will want to meditate yourself to a higher level, perhaps. If you believe that, you are not going to want to be a scientist. But instead, we believe in a God who so loved the universe that He sent His only Son...

So why do people think that there is a conflict between science and religion? Too often the assumption is that science and religion are systems of epistemology, ways of knowing facts. Science gives me one set of facts, religion gives me another set of facts, and so surely there is going to be a time when the two systems conflict.

But that is not what science is at all, and not what religion is at all.

Later in the talk, Brother Consolmagno has some good things to say about the nature of faith:

Faith is not accepting a bunch of facts in the absence of evidence. It is making choices in the absence of all the facts… whether it is your choice of school, or job, who you will marry, where you will live. When you made those choices, there was no way you could know how it would turn out. That’s life, making choices in the absence of sufficient data. But you make these choices in the expectation that things will turn out well. That’s faith. Sometimes that expectation is going to be shattered, but you go ahead anyway; what else can you do?

These expectations based on faith occur in science all the time. When I choose what field of science to enter, I am assuming that it is going to be interesting down the line; if I knew what I was going to discover, I would not have to do the science. When I see an interesting problem to chew on, I have to guess what approach is going to be the most fruitful. How do I make that decision? Of all the different approaches that are possible I only have time to try one or two; how do I choose? It is a blind step into the unknown.

Science is not a big book of facts. Science is not about ‘proving’ anything. Science describes, but the descriptions are incomplete; we keep hoping that they get better. For that very reason you cannot use science to prove the existence of God (or no-God). But can science encourage us in our belief?

One trait of God I find is that He always gives us ‘plausible deniability.’ Every time you see His action in the universe, you can always come up with some way to explain it away if you want to. It could just be coincidence, or an illusion. You can never know for sure; that, of course, is why we need faith.

To read the rest, click here. AMDG.

The last of the Beguines.

I've been quite silent lately, largely because of end-of-semester stuff and the demands of an intensive two-week course that began after spring exams and finished yesterday. To break my silence, I would like to call your attention to a report from The Economist on the recent death of Marcella Pattyn, the last living member of a once-thriving religious community known as the Beguines. Who were the Beguines? The Economist offers a brief look at their origins and their place in European history:

At the heart of several cities in Belgium lies an unexpected treasure. A gate in a high brick wall creaks open, to reveal a cluster of small, whitewashed, steep-roofed houses round a church. Cobbled alleyways run between them and tiny lawns, thickly planted with flowers, grow in front of them. The cosiness, the neatness and the quiet suggest a hortus conclusus, a medieval metaphor both for virginal women and the walled garden of paradise.

Any veiled women seen there now, however, processing to Mass or tying up hollyhocks in their dark habits and white wimples, are ghosts. Marcella Pattyn was the last of them, ending a way of life that had endured for 800 years.

These places were not convents, but beguinages, and the women in them were not nuns, but Beguines. In these communities, which sprang up spontaneously in and around the cities of the Low Countries from the early 13th century, women led lives of prayer, chastity and service, but were not bound by vows. They could leave; they made their own rules, without male guidance; they were encouraged to study and read, and they were expected to earn their keep by working, especially in the booming cloth trade. They existed somewhere between the world and the cloister, in a state of autonomy which was highly unusual for medieval women and highly disturbing to medieval men.

Like many another vocation, the call of the last Beguine had its roots not in an explicit attraction to the charism of the institute that she entered but rather in very practical considerations. Born to Belgian parents in the Congo in 1920, from an early age Marcella Pattyn wanted to serve as a missionary sister in Africa but was unable to do so because of her poor eyesight. After another religious community turned her away on account of her near-blindness, Marcella became a Beguine at the age of 21 and remained one until her death two weeks ago at 92. I'll let The Economist pick up the story from there:

Contentedly, in the beguinage at Ghent from 1941 and at Courtrai from 1960, [Marcella] spent her days in tasks unaltered from the Middle Ages. She knitted baby clothes and wove at a hand loom, her basket of wool beside her chair, chatting and laughing with the other women. At lunchtime, like the others, she ate her own food from her own cupboard (identified by the feel of the carvings under her hands), neatly stocked with plates, jugs, coffee and jam. Cooking she was spared, ever since on the first occasion she had failed to see the milk boiling over, but she washed up with a will.

A good part of the time she prayed, all the prayers she could remember, but especially her rosary whose bright white beads she could almost see. Most usefully, since she was musical, she played the organ in chapel; and she cheered up the sick, as she nursed them, by serenading them on banjo and accordion. Almost her only concession to modernity was the motorised wheelchair in which she would career around the alleyways at Courtrai in her later years, wrapped in a thick knitted cape against the cold, her white stick dangerously levelled like a lance.

. . .

When she was known to be the last [of the Beguines], Juffrouw Marcella became famous. The mayor and aldermen of Courtrai visited her, called her a piece of world heritage, and gave her Beguine-shaped chocolates and champagne, which she downed eagerly. A statue of her, looking uncharacteristically uncertain, was cast in bronze for the beguinage.

The story of the Beguines, she confessed, was very sad, one of swift success and long decline. They had caught the medieval longing for apostolic simplicity, lay involvement and mysticism that also fired St Francis; but the male clergy, unable to control them, attacked them as heretics and burned some alive. With the Protestant Reformation the order almost vanished; with the French revolution their property was lost, and they struggled to recover. In the high Middle Ages a city like Ghent could count its Beguines in thousands. At Courtrai in 1960 Sister Marcella was one of only nine scattered among 40 neat white houses, sleeping in snowy linen in their narrow serge-curtained beds. And then there were none.

May her memory be eternal. AMDG.