Monday, March 28, 2011
Insight into the Parameters of World History: Conversion to Christ
The world will not end until the conversion of the Jews. But the Jews will no convert until the full number of the Gentiles has converted to Christ. One can know this in a passing way. But reading “Jesus of Nazareth” II drove it home for me. Benedict XVI lays down the parameters of world history and removes it from an “objectified” order and places it in the reality of the Subject: the Person of Christ. World history must be understood in terms of Jesus Christ as Person. I copy: “A superficial reading or hearing of Jesus’ eschatological discourse would give the impression that Jesus linked the end of Jerusalem chronologically to the end of the world, especially when we read in Matthew: ‘Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened…; then will appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven…’ (24, 29-30). This direct chronological connection between the end of Jerusalem and the end of the whole world seems to be further confirmed when we come across these words a few verses later ‘Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place…’ (24, 34). “On first glance, it seems that Luke was the only one to downplay this connection. In his account we read ‘They will fall by the edge of the sword, and he be led captive among all nations; and Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled’ (21, 24). Between the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world, ‘the times of the Gentiles’ are here inserted. Luke has been accused of thereby shifting the temporal axis of the Gospels and of Jesus’ original message, recasting the end of time as the intermediate time and, thus, inventing the time of the Church as a new phase of salvation history. But if we look closely, we find that these ‘times of the Gentiles’ are also foretold, in different terms and at a different point, in the versions of Jesus’ discourse recounted by Matthew and Mark. “Matthew quotes the following saying of Jesus: ‘And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come’ (24, 14). And in Mark we read: ‘The gospel must first be preached tro all nations’ (13, 10)…. “From the content, it is clear that all three Synoptic Gospels recognize a time of the Gentiles: the end of time can come only when the Gospel has been brought to all peoples. The time of the Gentiles – the time of the Church made up of all the peoples of the world – is not an invention of Saint Luke: it is the common patrimony of all the Gospels…. “The restlessness with which Paul journeyed to the nations, so as to bring the message to all and, if possible, to fulfill the mission within his own lifetime – this restlessness can only be explained if one is aware of the historical and eschatological significance of his exclamation: ‘Necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!’ (1Cor. 9, 16). “In this sense, the urgency of evangelization in the apostolic era was predicated not so much on the necessity for each individual to acquire knowledge of the Gospel in order to attain salvation, but rather on this grand conception of history: if the world was to arrive at its destiny, the Gospel had to be brought to all nations. At many stages in history, this sense of urgency has been markedly attenuated, but it has always revived, generating new dynamism for evangelization…. “Here I should like to recall the advice given by Bernard of Clairvaux to his pupil Pope Eugene III on this matter. He reminds the Pope that his duty of care extends not only to Christians, but: ‘You also have obligations toward unbelievers, whether Jew, Greek, or Gentile’ (De Considerations III/1,2). Then he immediately corrects himself and observes more accurately: ‘Granted, with regard to the Jews, time excuses you; for them a determined point in time has been fixed, which cannot be anticipated. The full number of the Gentiles must come in first. But what do you say about these Gentiles?... Why did it seem good to the Fathers… to suspend the word of faith while unbelief was obdurate? Why do we suppose the word that runs swiftly stopped short?’ (De Consideratione III/1.3). “Hildegard Brem comments on this passage as follows: ‘In the light of Romans 11, 25, the Church must not concern her self with the conversion of the Jews, since she must wait for the time fixed for this by God, “until the full number of the Gentiles come in” (Rom. 11, 25). On the contrary, the Jews themselves are a living homily to which the Church must draw attention, since they call to mind the Lord’s suffering (cf. Ep. 363)…’ (quoted in Samtliche Werke, p. 834). “The prophecy of the time of the Gentiles and the corresponding mission is a core element of Jesus’ eschatological message. The special mission to evangelize the Gentiles, which Paul received from the risen Lord, is firmly anchored in the message given by Jesus to his disciples before his Passion. The time of the Gentiles – ‘the time of the Church’ – which, as we have seen, is proclaimed in all the Gospels, constitutes an essential element of Jesus’ eschatological message.”[1] [1] Benedict XVI, “Jesus of Nazareth,” Ignatius (2011)
86th Anniversary of the Ordination of St. Josemaria Escriva
The key dimension of Opus Dei is the character of "priestly soul and lay mentality." The meaning of "priestly soul" is the change in understanding the meaning of man from "individual substance of a rational nature" to "self-gift" - meaning what the Magisterium means by: "man, the only earthly being God has willed for itself, finds self by the sincere gift of self" (Gaudium et spes #24). Instead of understanding man as a rational being standing in self, the Church understand man in the light of Christ. But the ontological architecture of Jesus Christ is to mediate between Himself and the Father via His human nature. But this is the meaning of priesthood. Priesthood means mediation. Instead of mediating between the people and the Father, Christ is that mediation in Himself insofar as He God-man. And since we have been made in the image of Christ "before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1, 4), and have been baptized inito His very Being, then the architecture of His Being is the meaning of our anthropology. Hence, as He is priest in His ontological set-up, so we are priests having been set up in His. Hence, the meaning of "priestly soul." We mediators of very existence by beginning again and again to make the gift of ourselves to Him in the exercise of ordinary secular worlk and family life. We are a work-in-progress becoming " priests of our own existence" (Escriva: Christ is Passing By #96). The lay mentality is the result of the freedom of mastering self by the "I" on the occasion of any work. The lay mentality is the formation of one's conscience according to the metaphysical dimensions of who one is as imaging God. But the priestly act of subduing/mastering self which yields self-possession and therefore the capacity to make the gift of self, is the dynamic of personagenesis. I become what I do. I define myself. And I know myself in the experience of the self-gift (if I make it), and, since I am image of God, I become conscious of who I am in that experience. And, of course, I then become conscious of God insofar as I image Him. Butnish the good metal with a whetstone, and the sun is reflected brilliantly off it. This is the true apologetic of the "new evangelization" to know God experientially.
“Priesthood” – on the Occasion of the Ordination of St. Josemaria Escriva on March 25, 1925. We have already seen the anthropological dynamic of priesthood on Ash Wednesday, March 1, 2006. Let’s repeat that dynamic fleshing it out further. Mediation in the Old Testament: The Scapegoat: In the Old Testament until Jesus Christ, priesthood meant mediation. The scapegoat was loaded with the sins of the Israelites and sent out into the desert. “When he has completed the atonement rite for the sanctuary, the meeting tent and the altar, Aaron shall bring forward the live goat. Laying both hands on its head, he shall confess over it all the sinful faults and transgressions of the Israelites, and so put them on the goat’s head. He shall then have it led into the desert by an attendant. Since the goat is to carry off their iniquities to an isolated region, it must be sent away into the desert.”[1] The mediator par excellence in the Old Testament is Moses (Exodus 34 and Deuteronomy) “who, as messenger of the word, stands between God and the people, between the cloud on the mountain and the people in the desert at the foot of the mountain, who are concerned only with their own needs..”[2] Ratzinger says that “The fact that the law has need of mediator is here an indication of its inadequacy. In the New Covenant, God acts alone: he himself fulfills the promise; there is no need for mediator. …I am reminded of Kafka’s “The Trial,” in which an accused person is referred to one intermediary after another and so realizes with increasing hopelessness the unapproachability and inaccessibility of the real judges – of the incomprehensible power in the background, which he cannot approach because he must always deal with intermediaries.”[3] St. Paul: Shows the Transition From Old to New Testament: Extrinsic Intermediary (Moses) to Intrinsic Anthropology (Christ, the New Moses): “(T)he priests always used to enter into the first tabernacle to perform the sacred rites; but it the second tabernacle the high priest alone entered once a year, not without blood, which he offered for his own and the people’s sins of ignorance. The Holy Spirit signified by this that the way into the Holies was not yet thrown open while the first tabernacle was still standing. This first tabernacle is a figure of the present time, inasmuch as gift and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the worshipper in conscience, since they refer only to food and drink and various ablutions and bodily regulations imposed until a time of reformation.” “But when Christ appeared as high priest of the good things to come, he entered once for all through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made by hands (that is, not of this creation), nor again by virtue of blood of goats and calves, but by virtue of his own blood, into the Holies, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkles ashes of a heifer sanctify the unclean unto the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the Holy Spirit offered himself unblemished unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”[4] “And this is why he is mediator of a new covenant…” Christ’s Priesthood is Intrinsic Anthropology: Josef Ratzinger explains that St. Paul regards the Jewish religion as promulgated by angels. They are intermediaries, just as Moses is human mediator. The distinctiveness of Christianity does not consist in the denial of mediation, but in the Son becoming the Mediator – but in a new and unheard of way. Explicitly, Paul refers to Christ as Mediator in Heb. 8, 6: “But now he has obtained a superior ministry, in proportion as he is mediator of a superior covenant…;” Heb. 9, 16: “And this is why he is mediator of a new covenant..;” Heb. 12, 24: “Jesus, mediator of a new covenant, and to a sprinkling of blood which speaks better than Abel.” Ratzinger asks: “What do these texts intend when they apply to Jesus the concept of mediator?”[5] He responds: “The gist of the Epistle to the Hebrews can be expressed briefly as follows: the whole cult of the Old Testament remained in the realm of σάρξ (flesh), that is, of the reality of this world; it did not extend to the properly divine realm, the realm of πνεϋμα. To that extent, it did not exceed the order of images (Heb. 10, 1) and never arrived at reality itself. The whole cult was, as it were, unable to pierce the barrier of images; it could represent, but it could not bring to perfection. Only Christ who have himself on the Cross by dying the real death of a condemned person, has no need of images. He does not rend a metaphorical veil in order to enter a metaphorical Holy of Holies; he rends the real curtain, the σαρξ, the dividing barrier that constrains our earthly existence, and passes through it to the other world to stand before the divine majesty of the living God. For the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, this realism of the Cross is the essential answer to the shadow-cult of the Old Covenant; it is a real priesthood and a real mediation with God. The first epistle to Timothy explains the word `mediator’ by adding: `Who sacrificed himself as a ransom for all;’ it, too, sees a close relationship between mediator and Cross, between mediator and priesthood.” Christ: “The True and only Real Priest:” “We have now reached the crucial statement: the epistle to the Hebrews understands its theology of Christ as mediator as a theology of the priesthood. That Christ is, in the full sense of the word, the mediator who rent the curtain of creaturehood, the boundary of this world, and stood before God himself means, at the same time, that he is the true and only real priest. In the epistle to the Hebrews, the concepts of priest and mediator are ultimately inseparable.” The two (2) characteristics of Christ’s mediation are therefore: 1) exclusivity: “It is exclusive because it is inclusive.”[6] Christ’s is the only mediation between creature and God “because He is able to include all things in Himself, because his mediation is valid for all times and for all places. Its uniqueness lies in its universality, and its universality is the source of its uniqueness.”[7] 2) realism: “which transcends that of all other mediations, which are but processes within the image-world of creatures. Hence the realism of the Cross is the real foundation of Christ’s mediation.”[8] Sacramental Insertion: Baptism and Orders Adam as Priest: “From the beginning,” before the original sin, Adam was priest. Adam was never in a state of “pure nature.” This point is the burden of the two works of Henri de Lubac “Augustinianism and Modern Theology”[9] and “The Mystery of the Supernatural.”[10] It is also the burden of Benedict XVI’s “Deus Charitas Est” where eros tends not to some “natural” end in correspondence to its “nature,” but to the supernatural reality of the vision of God as a person made in the image and likeness of God. When related to by a covenant of obedience to till the garden and name the animals, Adam obeyed. And in obeying, exercised the priestly anthropology of self-governance, self-determination and self-gift. These are the stages of intrinsic self-mediation that is priesthood, “from the beginning.” Adam was the priest of creation making an offering of the world as his possession – his flesh, through work - to God. Adam sinned by disobedience and lost the priestly act of self mediator, and therefore, cosmic mediator. God re-enters the scene calling man to obedience, now of the self-gift of faith. The super-eminent restoration of the human person to priesthood takes place in God Himself becoming man, mastering the self of the humanity of the man Jesus of Nazareth – now laden as the scapegoat with all the sins of all men of all time (2 Cor. 5, 21) – and destroying them in the radical obedience to death, willed by the Father. As Jesus Christ is “the true and only real Priest,” we are baptized and ordained into that one “exclusive” and “unique” priesthood in ways that are essential and irreducibly different. The priesthood of the layman and minister are not different priesthoods, but the way of insertion and sharing in it are different. The layman is mediator and relational to the world (the Church of Mary[11]) while the minister is in the service of the laity (Church of Peter[12]) to activate their distinct sharing in Christ’s priesthood. But the large concept here is that sacramentally, we – men and women - have entered into the anthropology of the intrinsic mediation, and therefore, priesthood of Christ Himself. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is that Action of Christ the Priest making the total divine gift of Himself to the Father as God-man. That priestly action that is offered to us in the Mass must become our action – in the street by our participation of Mass and receiving the Eucharist. It is the death-event of self-gift. Benedict said privately, “To speak of the Eucharist as the community meal is to cheapen it, for its price was the death of Christ. And as for the joy it heralds, it presupposes that we have entered into this mystery of death. Eucharist is ordered to eschatology, and hence it is at the heart or the theology of the Cross. This is why the Church holds fast to the sacrificial character of the Mass.”[13] The Mass of St. Josemaria Escriva: “When I was sixty five years old, I made marvelous discovery. I love to celebrate Holy Mass, but yesterday it cost me tremendous effort. What a struggle! I saw that the Mass is truly Opus Dei, work, as it was a work for Jesus Christ His first Mass: the Cross. I saw that the office of the priest, the celebration of the Holy Mass, is a labor to confect the Eucharist; that one experiences pain, and joy, and tiredness. I felt in my flesh the exhaustion of a divine work. “It also cost Christ effort. His most holy humanity resisted opening its arms on the Cross, with the gesture of the eternal Priest. It never cost me so much the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice as this day when I felt that also the Mass is Opus Dei. It made me very happy, but I was undone.” Celebrated “in the Street” After finishing the original buildings of Opus Dei in Rome in 1960, a person passing through Rome asked St. Josemaria: - “Father, of all the chapels in this house, which do you like most?” - “!!La Calle!!” (the street) - “I like all the chapels of this house. But… I like the street more. It’s not simply a nice phrase to say the `our cell is the street.’ And you, Pile, my son, and so many sons and daughters more, you will have to make the prayer many times in the street. And you can do tons of good… Although, whenever we can, we do it in a church or in a chapel: before the Lord, who is really present in the tabernacle.”[14] Priestly Soul, Lay Mentality: “Priests of Our Own Existence” “We have been constituted priests of our own existence to perform each one of our actions in a spirit of obedience to the will of God” (Christ is Passing By. N. 96) Since the anthropology of the human person is as image of God (and not ‘pure nature”), and Christ is the prototypical image of God as God-man (Col. 1, 15), then, it is impossible to be fully human without the full exercise of priesthood. To be man is to be priest. Hence, the founder of Opus Dei enjoined his sons and daughters to have what he called a “priestly soul” and fully “lay mentality.” Priestly soul is mastery of self. Lay mentality is freedom to dominate self to be gift and with the consequent peace and joy that results from it – because then the self has achieved the state of imaging the Son as pure relation to the Father. And, as seen above in the post on March 1 (Ash Wednesday), the freedom of self mastery is the attitude that Paul VI declared to be “secularity.” This is the profound reason why a religious state of life, celibacy, or the taking of vows is not necessary for identity with Christ which is holiness. Rather, holiness is achieved in living out the Christological anthropology of self-mastery, self-gift on the occasion and development of ordinary secular work and family relations. The world, then, becomes the place, occasion and object in the most ordinary and trivial things of this priestly anthropology that mediates between self and God. Ultimately, we are priests and executives of priesthood in our own secular and domestic existence insofar as we serve. In fact, we create the true secularity of the world by this exercise of freedom in service. As John Paul II wrote: “It is not by chance that the Gospel of John contains no account of the institution of the Eucharist, but instead relates the `washing of feet’ (cf. Jn. 13, 1-20): by bending down to wash the feet of his disciples, Jesus explains the meaning of the Eucharist unequivocally.”[15] St. Josemaria said: “I want all of my children, both priests and laymen, to engrave firmly in your minds and hearts something that cannot be considered in any way merely external but which is, on the contrary, the hinge and the foundation of our divine vocation. “In everything and always we must have – both priests and laymen – truly priestly soul and fully lay mentality, so that we understand and exercise in our personal life that liberty which we enjoy in the setting of the Church and in temporal things, considering ourselves at the same time citizens of the city of God (cf. Eph. 2, 19) and of the city of man.”[16] The Priestly Soul is the Lay Mentality “We have been called by God to do Opus Dei on earth, being each one Opus Dei. For that reason, if the work of Opus Dei is eminently lay and, at the same time, the priesthood informs everything with its spirit; if the work of the layman and that of the priest complement one another and mutually make one another more effective, it is a requirement of our vocation that in all the faithful of the Work there is manifested also this intimate union between the two elements, in such a way that each one of us has a truly priestly soul and a fully lay mentality.” “Without forgetting that the sacrament of Orders differs essentially from the sacraments of Baptism and of Confirmation [in the way they share in Christ’s priesthood], and that the power of Order is of divine origin [“hierarchy” = holy origin – the sacramental imposing of hands from the Apostles down to us], all the faithful of the Work can and should have priestly soul. What virtues do good priests live which you should not also live, dearest daughters and sons, as a requirement of the divine vocation, of your calling to Opus Dei?” The Priestly Soul of Women Alvaro del Portillo: “All of us, therefore, need to have a priestly soul: this applies equally to priests and laity – including, of course, women. How our Father kept on insisting with his daughters on this point! Even on the last day of his earthly life he reminded you once again that you have a priestly soul. There is no doubt that it was God’s will that our Father should mention it to you on the very morning of his passing to heaven, jjust as it was his will that the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross should be born in one of your Centers one 14th of February. Don’t you see in all these circumstances a sign of divine Providence that you should engrave on your hearts this fundamental feature of our spirit? Look at the Blessed Virgin, whom the Church invokes as Mediatrix of all graces and Mother of priests. Contemplate her at the foot of the Cross, fully identified with her Son. What greater example can there be of a priestly soul in a woman? “A priestly soul involves having the same sentiments as Christ the Priest. It means seeking to fulfill God’s will at every moment, offering our entire life to God the Father, in union with Christ, in order to co-redeem with him, thanks to the action of the Holy Spirit. We must be determined to spend our entire lives in this priestly manner, and to `offer our existence and all our actions to God every day.’ All the works of men take place on a sort of altar; and each one of you, in that union of contemplative souls which makes up your day, in some way says `his Mass,’ which lasts for twenty-four hours, until the following Mass, which lasts another twenty-four hours, and so on until the end of our lives.” When the Sacrifice of Calvary is renewed, Christ offers himself on the altar together with the members of his Mystical Body. There it is that all our works take on eternal value. It is the sublime moment when the priestly soul can pour itself forth in floods of adoration, of thanksgiving, of atonement and of petition, and give itself over entirely to God the Father, in union with the Sacrifice of Christ, while within itself it renews `our’ Mass, Jesus.”[17] [1] Leviticus 16, 20-22. [2] J Ratzinger, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” Ignatius (1987) 276. [3] Ibid. 270. [4] St. Paul, Heb. 9, 18-20. [5] J. Ratzinger, “Principles…, “ op. cit. 270. [6] Ibid. 271. [7] Ibid. [8] Ibid. [9] Herder and Herder (1969) [10] Herder and Herder (1967). [11] Cfi. John Paul II, “Mulieris Dignitatem,” ftn. 55. [12] Ibid. [13] J. Ratzinger, “Feast of Faith,” Ignatius (1986) 65. [14] Pilar Urbano, “Él Hombre de Villa Tevere,” Plaza y Janes, Editores S.A. (1994) 186. [15] John Paul II, “Mane Nobiscum Domine” #28. [16] Josemaria Escriva, Letter, 2-II-1945, no. 1. [17] Alvaro del Portillo, Letter, Jan. 9, 1993 7-8.
* * * * * * *
Why did Escriva become a priest? He himself asked: "Why am I becoming a preist? during his seminary years in Zaragoza.
The deepest answer may be found in the meditation he gave the night before his 50th anniversary in 1975. He began it: "Adauge nobis fidem!:" "Fifty years have bone by, and I am still like a faltering child. I am just beginning, beginning again, as I do every day in my interior life. And so it will be to the end of my days: always beginning anew. Our Lord wants it that way, so that none of us may ever have any reason for feeling proud or vain. We should be waiting upon him, upon his words: our ear attentive, our will alert and ready to follow his divine inspirations."
Notice what faith is. It is the same as Benedict XVI wrote sumarizing his thesis of 1956: "The word [revelation] refers to the act in which God shows himself, not to the objectified result of this act. And because this is so, the receiving subject is always also a part of the concept of 'revelation.' Where there is no one to perceive 'revelation,' no re-vel-ation has occurred, because no veil has been removed. Buy definitnion revelation requires a someone who apprehends it."
We can grasp this truth more easily when we consider that the sky in itself is not blue. Rather, the light of the sun refracts through and from the atmosphere at a wave length that is received by the eye such that it appears blue. So also, there is no revelation of God until there is a receptor of that revelation who can receive and reflect Him.
Escriva became a priest in order to receive and reflect the will of God to found Opus Dei. The present Prelate of Opus Dei - Bishop Javier Echevarria - said as much in his letter for March 2011: "The founding of the Word was the answer to the question , why am I becoming a priest?" Consider that without the ministerial priesthood, the layman cannot exercise the priesthood that he has shared in by and through Baptism. Without the ministerial priesthood the Mass cannot be lived, the Word cannot be heard and sins cannot be forgiven. Although the priesthood of the laity has a "substantially priority" over the ministerial priesthood - as the Church of Mary takes precedence over the Church of Peter (John Paul II, "Dignity and Vocation of Women" ftn. 55) - nevertheless, the ministerial priesthood has a "functional priority" over the common priesthood of the faithfull. Escriva once said: "In Opus Dei we're all equal. There's only a practical difference: priests are more bound to place their hearts on the floor like a carpet, so that their brothers and sisters may tread softly" ("The Place of Opus Dei in the Church" in Opus Dei in the Church Scepter (1994) 38).
(The below is too good not to repeat for this anniversary)
“Priesthood” – on the Occasion of the Ordination of St. Josemaria Escriva on March 25, 1925. We have already seen the anthropological dynamic of priesthood on Ash Wednesday, March 1, 2006. Let’s repeat that dynamic fleshing it out further. Mediation in the Old Testament: The Scapegoat: In the Old Testament until Jesus Christ, priesthood meant mediation. The scapegoat was loaded with the sins of the Israelites and sent out into the desert. “When he has completed the atonement rite for the sanctuary, the meeting tent and the altar, Aaron shall bring forward the live goat. Laying both hands on its head, he shall confess over it all the sinful faults and transgressions of the Israelites, and so put them on the goat’s head. He shall then have it led into the desert by an attendant. Since the goat is to carry off their iniquities to an isolated region, it must be sent away into the desert.”[1] The mediator par excellence in the Old Testament is Moses (Exodus 34 and Deuteronomy) “who, as messenger of the word, stands between God and the people, between the cloud on the mountain and the people in the desert at the foot of the mountain, who are concerned only with their own needs..”[2] Ratzinger says that “The fact that the law has need of mediator is here an indication of its inadequacy. In the New Covenant, God acts alone: he himself fulfills the promise; there is no need for mediator. …I am reminded of Kafka’s “The Trial,” in which an accused person is referred to one intermediary after another and so realizes with increasing hopelessness the unapproachability and inaccessibility of the real judges – of the incomprehensible power in the background, which he cannot approach because he must always deal with intermediaries.”[3] St. Paul: Shows the Transition From Old to New Testament: Extrinsic Intermediary (Moses) to Intrinsic Anthropology (Christ, the New Moses): “(T)he priests always used to enter into the first tabernacle to perform the sacred rites; but it the second tabernacle the high priest alone entered once a year, not without blood, which he offered for his own and the people’s sins of ignorance. The Holy Spirit signified by this that the way into the Holies was not yet thrown open while the first tabernacle was still standing. This first tabernacle is a figure of the present time, inasmuch as gift and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the worshipper in conscience, since they refer only to food and drink and various ablutions and bodily regulations imposed until a time of reformation.” “But when Christ appeared as high priest of the good things to come, he entered once for all through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made by hands (that is, not of this creation), nor again by virtue of blood of goats and calves, but by virtue of his own blood, into the Holies, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkles ashes of a heifer sanctify the unclean unto the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the Holy Spirit offered himself unblemished unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”[4] “And this is why he is mediator of a new covenant…” Christ’s Priesthood is Intrinsic Anthropology: Josef Ratzinger explains that St. Paul regards the Jewish religion as promulgated by angels. They are intermediaries, just as Moses is human mediator. The distinctiveness of Christianity does not consist in the denial of mediation, but in the Son becoming the Mediator – but in a new and unheard of way. Explicitly, Paul refers to Christ as Mediator in Heb. 8, 6: “But now he has obtained a superior ministry, in proportion as he is mediator of a superior covenant…;” Heb. 9, 16: “And this is why he is mediator of a new covenant..;” Heb. 12, 24: “Jesus, mediator of a new covenant, and to a sprinkling of blood which speaks better than Abel.” Ratzinger asks: “What do these texts intend when they apply to Jesus the concept of mediator?”[5] He responds: “The gist of the Epistle to the Hebrews can be expressed briefly as follows: the whole cult of the Old Testament remained in the realm of σάρξ (flesh), that is, of the reality of this world; it did not extend to the properly divine realm, the realm of πνεϋμα. To that extent, it did not exceed the order of images (Heb. 10, 1) and never arrived at reality itself. The whole cult was, as it were, unable to pierce the barrier of images; it could represent, but it could not bring to perfection. Only Christ who have himself on the Cross by dying the real death of a condemned person, has no need of images. He does not rend a metaphorical veil in order to enter a metaphorical Holy of Holies; he rends the real curtain, the σαρξ, the dividing barrier that constrains our earthly existence, and passes through it to the other world to stand before the divine majesty of the living God. For the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, this realism of the Cross is the essential answer to the shadow-cult of the Old Covenant; it is a real priesthood and a real mediation with God. The first epistle to Timothy explains the word `mediator’ by adding: `Who sacrificed himself as a ransom for all;’ it, too, sees a close relationship between mediator and Cross, between mediator and priesthood.” Christ: “The True and only Real Priest:” “We have now reached the crucial statement: the epistle to the Hebrews understands its theology of Christ as mediator as a theology of the priesthood. That Christ is, in the full sense of the word, the mediator who rent the curtain of creaturehood, the boundary of this world, and stood before God himself means, at the same time, that he is the true and only real priest. In the epistle to the Hebrews, the concepts of priest and mediator are ultimately inseparable.” The two (2) characteristics of Christ’s mediation are therefore: 1) exclusivity: “It is exclusive because it is inclusive.”[6] Christ’s is the only mediation between creature and God “because He is able to include all things in Himself, because his mediation is valid for all times and for all places. Its uniqueness lies in its universality, and its universality is the source of its uniqueness.”[7] 2) realism: “which transcends that of all other mediations, which are but processes within the image-world of creatures. Hence the realism of the Cross is the real foundation of Christ’s mediation.”[8] Sacramental Insertion: Baptism and Orders Adam as Priest: “From the beginning,” before the original sin, Adam was priest. Adam was never in a state of “pure nature.” This point is the burden of the two works of Henri de Lubac “Augustinianism and Modern Theology”[9] and “The Mystery of the Supernatural.”[10] It is also the burden of Benedict XVI’s “Deus Charitas Est” where eros tends not to some “natural” end in correspondence to its “nature,” but to the supernatural reality of the vision of God as a person made in the image and likeness of God. When related to by a covenant of obedience to till the garden and name the animals, Adam obeyed. And in obeying, exercised the priestly anthropology of self-governance, self-determination and self-gift. These are the stages of intrinsic self-mediation that is priesthood, “from the beginning.” Adam was the priest of creation making an offering of the world as his possession – his flesh, through work - to God. Adam sinned by disobedience and lost the priestly act of self mediator, and therefore, cosmic mediator. God re-enters the scene calling man to obedience, now of the self-gift of faith. The super-eminent restoration of the human person to priesthood takes place in God Himself becoming man, mastering the self of the humanity of the man Jesus of Nazareth – now laden as the scapegoat with all the sins of all men of all time (2 Cor. 5, 21) – and destroying them in the radical obedience to death, willed by the Father. As Jesus Christ is “the true and only real Priest,” we are baptized and ordained into that one “exclusive” and “unique” priesthood in ways that are essential and irreducibly different. The priesthood of the layman and minister are not different priesthoods, but the way of insertion and sharing in it are different. The layman is mediator and relational to the world (the Church of Mary[11]) while the minister is in the service of the laity (Church of Peter[12]) to activate their distinct sharing in Christ’s priesthood. But the large concept here is that sacramentally, we – men and women - have entered into the anthropology of the intrinsic mediation, and therefore, priesthood of Christ Himself. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is that Action of Christ the Priest making the total divine gift of Himself to the Father as God-man. That priestly action that is offered to us in the Mass must become our action – in the street by our participation of Mass and receiving the Eucharist. It is the death-event of self-gift. Benedict said privately, “To speak of the Eucharist as the community meal is to cheapen it, for its price was the death of Christ. And as for the joy it heralds, it presupposes that we have entered into this mystery of death. Eucharist is ordered to eschatology, and hence it is at the heart or the theology of the Cross. This is why the Church holds fast to the sacrificial character of the Mass.”[13] The Mass of St. Josemaria Escriva: “When I was sixty five years old, I made marvelous discovery. I love to celebrate Holy Mass, but yesterday it cost me tremendous effort. What a struggle! I saw that the Mass is truly Opus Dei, work, as it was a work for Jesus Christ His first Mass: the Cross. I saw that the office of the priest, the celebration of the Holy Mass, is a labor to confect the Eucharist; that one experiences pain, and joy, and tiredness. I felt in my flesh the exhaustion of a divine work. “It also cost Christ effort. His most holy humanity resisted opening its arms on the Cross, with the gesture of the eternal Priest. It never cost me so much the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice as this day when I felt that also the Mass is Opus Dei. It made me very happy, but I was undone.” Celebrated “in the Street” After finishing the original buildings of Opus Dei in Rome in 1960, a person passing through Rome asked St. Josemaria: - “Father, of all the chapels in this house, which do you like most?” - “!!La Calle!!” (the street) - “I like all the chapels of this house. But… I like the street more. It’s not simply a nice phrase to say the `our cell is the street.’ And you, Pile, my son, and so many sons and daughters more, you will have to make the prayer many times in the street. And you can do tons of good… Although, whenever we can, we do it in a church or in a chapel: before the Lord, who is really present in the tabernacle.”[14] Priestly Soul, Lay Mentality: “Priests of Our Own Existence” “We have been constituted priests of our own existence to perform each one of our actions in a spirit of obedience to the will of God” (Christ is Passing By. N. 96) Since the anthropology of the human person is as image of God (and not ‘pure nature”), and Christ is the prototypical image of God as God-man (Col. 1, 15), then, it is impossible to be fully human without the full exercise of priesthood. To be man is to be priest. Hence, the founder of Opus Dei enjoined his sons and daughters to have what he called a “priestly soul” and fully “lay mentality.” Priestly soul is mastery of self. Lay mentality is freedom to dominate self to be gift and with the consequent peace and joy that results from it – because then the self has achieved the state of imaging the Son as pure relation to the Father. And, as seen above in the post on March 1 (Ash Wednesday), the freedom of self mastery is the attitude that Paul VI declared to be “secularity.” This is the profound reason why a religious state of life, celibacy, or the taking of vows is not necessary for identity with Christ which is holiness. Rather, holiness is achieved in living out the Christological anthropology of self-mastery, self-gift on the occasion and development of ordinary secular work and family relations. The world, then, becomes the place, occasion and object in the most ordinary and trivial things of this priestly anthropology that mediates between self and God. Ultimately, we are priests and executives of priesthood in our own secular and domestic existence insofar as we serve. In fact, we create the true secularity of the world by this exercise of freedom in service. As John Paul II wrote: “It is not by chance that the Gospel of John contains no account of the institution of the Eucharist, but instead relates the `washing of feet’ (cf. Jn. 13, 1-20): by bending down to wash the feet of his disciples, Jesus explains the meaning of the Eucharist unequivocally.”[15] St. Josemaria said: “I want all of my children, both priests and laymen, to engrave firmly in your minds and hearts something that cannot be considered in any way merely external but which is, on the contrary, the hinge and the foundation of our divine vocation. “In everything and always we must have – both priests and laymen – truly priestly soul and fully lay mentality, so that we understand and exercise in our personal life that liberty which we enjoy in the setting of the Church and in temporal things, considering ourselves at the same time citizens of the city of God (cf. Eph. 2, 19) and of the city of man.”[16] The Priestly Soul is the Lay Mentality “We have been called by God to do Opus Dei on earth, being each one Opus Dei. For that reason, if the work of Opus Dei is eminently lay and, at the same time, the priesthood informs everything with its spirit; if the work of the layman and that of the priest complement one another and mutually make one another more effective, it is a requirement of our vocation that in all the faithful of the Work there is manifested also this intimate union between the two elements, in such a way that each one of us has a truly priestly soul and a fully lay mentality.” “Without forgetting that the sacrament of Orders differs essentially from the sacraments of Baptism and of Confirmation [in the way they share in Christ’s priesthood], and that the power of Order is of divine origin [“hierarchy” = holy origin – the sacramental imposing of hands from the Apostles down to us], all the faithful of the Work can and should have priestly soul. What virtues do good priests live which you should not also live, dearest daughters and sons, as a requirement of the divine vocation, of your calling to Opus Dei?” The Priestly Soul of Women Alvaro del Portillo: “All of us, therefore, need to have a priestly soul: this applies equally to priests and laity – including, of course, women. How our Father kept on insisting with his daughters on this point! Even on the last day of his earthly life he reminded you once again that you have a priestly soul. There is no doubt that it was God’s will that our Father should mention it to you on the very morning of his passing to heaven, jjust as it was his will that the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross should be born in one of your Centers one 14th of February. Don’t you see in all these circumstances a sign of divine Providence that you should engrave on your hearts this fundamental feature of our spirit? Look at the Blessed Virgin, whom the Church invokes as Mediatrix of all graces and Mother of priests. Contemplate her at the foot of the Cross, fully identified with her Son. What greater example can there be of a priestly soul in a woman? “A priestly soul involves having the same sentiments as Christ the Priest. It means seeking to fulfill God’s will at every moment, offering our entire life to God the Father, in union with Christ, in order to co-redeem with him, thanks to the action of the Holy Spirit. We must be determined to spend our entire lives in this priestly manner, and to `offer our existence and all our actions to God every day.’ All the works of men take place on a sort of altar; and each one of you, in that union of contemplative souls which makes up your day, in some way says `his Mass,’ which lasts for twenty-four hours, until the following Mass, which lasts another twenty-four hours, and so on until the end of our lives.” When the Sacrifice of Calvary is renewed, Christ offers himself on the altar together with the members of his Mystical Body. There it is that all our works take on eternal value. It is the sublime moment when the priestly soul can pour itself forth in floods of adoration, of thanksgiving, of atonement and of petition, and give itself over entirely to God the Father, in union with the Sacrifice of Christ, while within itself it renews `our’ Mass, Jesus.”[17] [1] Leviticus 16, 20-22. [2] J Ratzinger, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” Ignatius (1987) 276. [3] Ibid. 270. [4] St. Paul, Heb. 9, 18-20. [5] J. Ratzinger, “Principles…, “ op. cit. 270. [6] Ibid. 271. [7] Ibid. [8] Ibid. [9] Herder and Herder (1969) [10] Herder and Herder (1967). [11] Cfi. John Paul II, “Mulieris Dignitatem,” ftn. 55. [12] Ibid. [13] J. Ratzinger, “Feast of Faith,” Ignatius (1986) 65. [14] Pilar Urbano, “Él Hombre de Villa Tevere,” Plaza y Janes, Editores S.A. (1994) 186. [15] John Paul II, “Mane Nobiscum Domine” #28. [16] Josemaria Escriva, Letter, 2-II-1945, no. 1. [17] Alvaro del Portillo, Letter, Jan. 9, 1993 7-8.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Annunciation: God Becomes man -Supreme Ontological Density
Benedict XVI’s Insight: It has to be done again: now. “At a certain point, they said to the Lord: ‘Behold, your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside.’ Indicating the people gathered around him, he said ‘He who does the will of my Father is mother, brother, and sister to me.’ In saying this, he also transmitted the mission of maternity to us, so that we might, as it were, give God a new chance to be born in our time, too. The birth of God was one of the major themes for the Church Fathers. They said that God was born once in Bethlehem, but that there is also a very significant and profound way in which he must be born again in every new generation, and it is to this, they thought, that every Christian is called.”[1]
With this, Benedict is echoing the commentary of Augustine in his Sermon 25 that was delivered on the feast of the Presentation of Mary commemorating the dedication of the church of Saint Mary built in Jerusalem near the site of the Temple.
Augustine comments on the Gospel passage: “a woman in the crowd raised her voice… ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!’ (Lk. 11, 27), which Jesus responded to with: ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it’ (Lk. 11, 28):
“Stretching out his hand over his disciples, the Lord Christ declared: Here are my mother and my brothers; anyone who does the will of my Father who sent me is my brother and sister and my mother. I would urge you to ponder these words. Did the Virgin Mary, who believed by faith and conceived by faith, who was the chosen one from whom our Savior was born among men, who was created by Christ before Christ was created in her – did she not do the will of the Father? Indeed the blessed Mary certainly did the Father’s will, and so it was for her a greater thing to have been Christ’s disciple than to have been his mother, and she was more blessed in her discipleship than in her motherhood. Hers was the happiness of first bearing in her womb him whom she would obey as her master.
Now listen and see if the words of Scripture do not agree with what I have said. The Lord was passing by and crowds were following him. His miracles gave proof of divine power. and a woman cried out: Happy is the womb that bore you, blessed is that womb! But the Lord, not wishing people to seek happiness in a purely physical relationship, replied: More blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it. Mary heard God’s word and kept it, and so she is blessed. She kept God’s truth in her mind, a nobler thing than carrying his body in her womb. The truth and the body were both Christ: he was kept in Mary’s mind insofar as he is truth, he was carried in her womb insofar as he is man; but what is kept in the mind is of a higher order than what is carried in the womb.
The Virgin Mary is both holy and blessed, and yet the Church is greater than she. Mary is a part of the Church, a member of the Church, a holy, an eminent – the most eminent – member, but still only a member of the entire body. The body undoubtedly is greater than she, one of its members. This body has the Lord for its head, and head and body together make up the whole Christ. In other words, our head is divine – our head is God.
”Now, beloved, give me your whole attention, for you also are members of Christ; you also are the body of Christ. Consider how you yourselves can be among those of whom the Lord said: Here are my mother and my brothers. Do you wonder how you can be the mother of Christ? He himself said: Whoever hears and fulfils the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and my sister and my mother. As for our being the brothers and sisters of Christ, we can understand this because although there is only one inheritance and Christ is the only Son, his mercy would not allow him to remain alone. It was his wish that we too should be heirs of the Father, and co-heirs with himself.
“Now having said that all of you are brothers of Christ, shall I not dare to call you his mother? Much less would I dare to deny his own words. Tell me how Mary became the mother of Christ, if it was not by giving birth to the members of Christ? You, to whom I am speaking, are the members of Christ. Of whom were you born? “Of Mother Church”, I hear the reply of your hearts. You became sons of this mother at your baptism, you came to birth then as members of Christ. Now you in your turn must draw to the font of baptism as many as you possibly can. You became sons when you were born there yourselves, and now by bringing others to birth in the same way, you have it in your power to become the mothers of Christ.”
We Give Christ Our Humanity by Hearing the Word of God and Doing It in Daily Living: Living Obedience in Our State of Life!
Mary made the gift of herself and said “Yes.” By saying “Yes” she opened herself as receptive of the Word of God-Person, and in so doing, she gives Him the whole of her humanity. Specifically, she gives the egg which is genetically her very self. The seed of the Word becomes implanted there and assumes her humanity – which is ours – into His divine Person and becomes the man, Jesus Christ.
What takes place is the following in the words of then Joseph Ratzinger: “it is no longer a merely external word but is saturated with the experience of a life, translated into human terms; now it can be translated, in turn, into the lives of others. Thus Mary becomes a model for the Church’s mission, i.e., that of being a dwelling place for the Word, preserving it and keeping it safe in times of confusion, protecting it, as it were, from the elements. Hence she is also the interpretation of the parable of the seed sowed in good soil and yielding fruit a hundredfold. She is not the thin surface earth which cannot accommodate roots; she is not the barren earth which the sparrows have pecked bare; nor is she overgrown by the weeds of affluence that inhibit new growth. She is a human being with depth. She lets the word sink deep into her. So the process of fruitful transformation can take place in a twofold direction: she saturates the word with her life, as it were, putting the sap and energy of her life at the Word’s disposal; but as a result, conversely, her life is permeated, enriched and deepened by the energies of the Word, which gives everything its meaning. First of all it is she who digests the Word, so to speak, transmuting it; but in doing so she herself, with her life, is in turn transmuted into the Word. Her life becomes word and meaning. That is how the gospel is handed on in the Church; indeed, it is how all spiritual and intellectual growth and maturity are handed on from one person to another and within humanity as a whole. It is the only way in which men and mankind can acquire depth and maturity. In other words, it is the only way to progress.
“This brings us back to our earlier questions. Today, by progress we generally mean the growth in the scope of technology and the increate in the gross national product. When we say progress, quite simply, we think of ‘having’ more.”[2]
In the office of readings for January 1 from St. Athanasius’ letter to Epictetum (5-9), Athenasius quotes St. Paul” “The Word took to himself the sons of Abraham, and so had to be like his brothers in all things. He had then to take a body like ours. This explains the fact of Mary’s presence: she is to provide him with a body of his own, to be offered for our sake. Scripture records her giving birth, and says: She wrapped him in swaddling clothes. Her breasts, which fed him, were called blessed. Sacrifice was offered because the child was her firstborn. Gabriel used careful and prudent language when he announced his birth. He did not speak of ‘what well be born in you to avoid the impression that a body would be introduced into her womb from outside; he spoke of ‘what will be born from you,’ so that we might know by faith that her child originated within her and from her.
“By taking our nature and offering it in sacrifice, the Word was to destroy it completely and then invest it with his own nature, and so prompt the Apostle to say: This corruptible body must put on incorruption; this mortal body must put on immortality.
“This was not done in outward show only, as some have imagined. This is not so. Our Savior truly became man, and from this has followed the salvation of man as a whole. Our salvation is in no way fictitious, nor does it apply only to the body. The salvation of the whole man, that is, of soul and body, has really been achieved in the Word himself.
“What was born of Mary was therefore human by nature, in accordance with the inspired Scriptures, and the body of the Lord was a true body: It was a true body because it was the same as ours. Mary, you see, is our sister, for we are all born from Adam…
“[As a result], man’s body has acquired something great through its communion and union with the Word. From being mortal it has been made immortal; though it was a living body it has become a spiritual [i.e. relational] one; though it was made from the earth it has passed through the gates of heaven.
“Even when the Word takes a body from Mary, the Trinity remains a Trinity, with neither increase nor decrease. It is for ever perfect. In the Trinity we acknowledge one Godhead, and thus one God, the Father of the Word, is proclaimed in the Church.”[3]
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Anniversary of Death of D. Alvaro del Portillo
March 23, 1994
Álvaro del Portillo was born in Madrid on March 11, 1914. "On July 7, 1935, while still an engineering student," Cardinal Ruini recalled in his address, "he asked for admission to Opus Dei. During the tragic events of the Spanish Civil War, he was the person who provided the most assistance to the Founder. On June 25, 1944, he was ordained a priest, one of the first three priests of Opus Dei.""In 1946 he moved to Rome, where he carried out various tasks in service of the Holy See," Cardinal Ruini continued. "He was a Consultor to various dicasteries, as well as Secretary of the Second Vatican Council Commission that drafted the decree Presbyterorum Ordinis. In 1975, after St. Josemaría’s death, he was called to succeed him as head of Opus Dei."Don Álvaro died in Rome on March 23, 1994, just after returning from a trip to the Holy Land. John Paul II, who had ordained him as a bishop in 1991, went that afternoon to the chapel of repose in the Prelatic Church of Opus Dei, dedicated to Our Lady of Peace. His body now lies in repose in the crypt of that same church in Rome.
Visit of John Paul II:
Álvaro del Portillo was born in Madrid on March 11, 1914. "On July 7, 1935, while still an engineering student," Cardinal Ruini recalled in his address, "he asked for admission to Opus Dei. During the tragic events of the Spanish Civil War, he was the person who provided the most assistance to the Founder. On June 25, 1944, he was ordained a priest, one of the first three priests of Opus Dei.""In 1946 he moved to Rome, where he carried out various tasks in service of the Holy See," Cardinal Ruini continued. "He was a Consultor to various dicasteries, as well as Secretary of the Second Vatican Council Commission that drafted the decree Presbyterorum Ordinis. In 1975, after St. Josemaría’s death, he was called to succeed him as head of Opus Dei."Don Álvaro died in Rome on March 23, 1994, just after returning from a trip to the Holy Land. John Paul II, who had ordained him as a bishop in 1991, went that afternoon to the chapel of repose in the Prelatic Church of Opus Dei, dedicated to Our Lady of Peace. His body now lies in repose in the crypt of that same church in Rome.
Visit of John Paul II:
At 6, 15 p.m. on the afternoon of March 23, 1994, John Paul II arrived at 73 Viale Bruno Buozzi, and descended to the oratory of Our Lady of Peace. Upon entering he said in Italian: “Sia lodato Gesu Cristo!” (Praised by Jesus Christ). All responded the same.
The Pope then knelt down on a predieu with a red stole and remained kneeling in prayer for some ten minutes in the midst of an impressive silence.
He was then invited by the Prelate to pray the response for the dead, but he preferred to intone the Salve and pray three Glory be to the Father’s. He then pronounced the invocations Requiem aeternum dona ei, Domine and Requiescat in pace. He was offered the hyssop and he sprinkled the body of D. Alvaro with holy water. Afterwards, he knelt down and prayed for a short time more. Before leaving the chapel, he blessed all those present.
The Prelate reminded the Pope of the profound love of D. Alvaro for the Church and the Pope for whom he always offered the Mass, and concretely the Mass of yesterday morning that he celebrated in the Cenacle of Jerusalem. Then, he thanked the Holy Father in the name of the Work for his coming to pray. The Pope, in Italian, answered that he considered a duty: “Si doveva, si doveva…
Then the Pope asked the Father what time D. Alvaro had celebrated Mass in the Cenacle. He calculated the number of hours that passed between the last Mass precisely there and the moment of death. The answer was seventeen (17) [perhaps the time between the Last Supper and the Crucifixion].
Notable: Alvaro del Portillo pronounced that the Second Vatican Council “had assimilated and promulgated as common doctrine for all Christians the substantial lines of the charism of Opus Dei.”[1]
[1] Cfr. Romana et Matriten., Beatificationis et Canonizationis Servi Dei Iosephmaria Escriva de Balaguer, Positio super vita et virtutibus, Summarium, no. 964.
Monday, March 21, 2011
What Do We Mean By Becoming "Ipse Christus" (Christ Himself)?
Jesus Christ, as God-man, is the prototype of the human person. Although divine, the human person has been made in His image and likeness. We are all “sons in the Son.”[1] As Prototype of the image, He is the meaning of human person. What we mean by "person" is the act of engendering the Son, and the act of glorifying the Father. We mean constitutive relationality. There is nothing in our sense experience that is constitutive relation. But we can experience it in spousal love. Our ontological constitution "images" it. Therefore, when we are totally "for" the other (that is the language of death), then we have reached the prototype of who we are. And that is Christ.
The mysterious part of this is that we all become who we uniquely are by becoming Christ. And this because we become Christ (as total self-gift) by the free act of self determination, precisely to become self-gift. To be totally "for" the other must be the unique act that I alone am capable of. This act is decisive in the ontological determination of who I am. But in the act of achieving it, I become Christ. And so, I am most who I am as unique individual when I am totally for the other - Christ.
This is what I take "Ipse Christus" to be as announced in Eph 1, 4: "Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world... He predestined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ as his sons..." We are sons of the Father insofar as we become Christ Himself.
We have an impossible time grasping this because of the ordinary way of under standing things, i.e. through sensation and abstraction. Unavoidably, we impose our epistemological way of knowing on the world such that we presume that things are the way we categorize them by abstraction. We demand a metaphysics of "substance" and can't handle being pure relation - which we demand that it be "accident." But this is why Christ is perfectly present in the world in front of us, right before our eyes. We just can't "see" Him. We can - and must - experience Him subjectively. Since "like is known by like," we can begin to recognize Him - "see" Him - if we become like Him. When incarnating, the divine Person Who is Relation, shows Himself to be prayer (see Ratzinger's "Behold the Pierced One" Thesis 1-3 [Ignatius (1986]). As relation, He reveals Himself as prayer in the Incarnation. If we become pryer, we become Christ.
In passing, keep in mind that the success of particle physics involved a like kind of epistemological turnaround. Heisenberg and associates had to move from an objectifying (abstractive) epistemology to enter into sensed reality subjectively in order to experience it with full realism.
[1] “In the Letter to the Ephesians we find a beautiful exposition of the divine plan of salvation, when Paul says that in Christ God desired to recapitulate everything (cf. Eph 1: 23). Christ is the epitome of all things, he takes everything upon himself and guides us to God. And thus he involves us in a movement of descent and ascent, inviting us to share in his humility, that is, in his love for neighbour, in order also to share in his glorification, becoming with him sons in the Son;” Benedict XVI, October 22, 2008.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
The Eschatology of the Last Things
The Eschatology of the Last Things – “Entirely a Doctrine of Salvation”[1]
“God is the ‘last thing’ of the creature. Gained, he is heaven, lost, he is hell; examining, he is judgment; purifying, he is purgatory. He it is to whom finite being dies, and through whom it rises to him, in him. This he is, however, as he presents himself to the world, that is, in his Son, Jesus Christ, who is the revelation of God and, therefore, the whole essence of the last things. In this way, eschatology is, almost more even than any other locus theologicus, entirely a doctrine of salvation. This is, as we shall see, absolutely central.”
[1] H. U. Von Balthasar, “Explorations in Theology” 1. The Word Made Flesh, 260.
“God is the ‘last thing’ of the creature. Gained, he is heaven, lost, he is hell; examining, he is judgment; purifying, he is purgatory. He it is to whom finite being dies, and through whom it rises to him, in him. This he is, however, as he presents himself to the world, that is, in his Son, Jesus Christ, who is the revelation of God and, therefore, the whole essence of the last things. In this way, eschatology is, almost more even than any other locus theologicus, entirely a doctrine of salvation. This is, as we shall see, absolutely central.”
[1] H. U. Von Balthasar, “Explorations in Theology” 1. The Word Made Flesh, 260.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Lent - Keep Re-adjusting Your Perception of the Real
1) We assume what we see with our senses and hold in our hand is real. We take a stand on who we are and what is real by what we see and judge by sight and touch.
- The problem with this is that reality is not necessarily the way we perceive it. We see things the way we are, not the way things are in themselves. Add to that, because of sin, “Man’s capacity to know the truth is also darkened, and his will to submit to it is weakened” (Veritatis Splendor #1).
- Karol Wojtyla added to that this phenomenological adjustment: “Man’s experience of anything outside of himself is always associated with the experience foe himself, and he never experiences anything external without having at the same time the experience of himself.”[1]
2) Since God cannot be seen and held by our senses, when confronting Christ, the temptation of the Demon takes the form: “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread” (Mt. 4, 3). Benedict writes: “Mockery and temptation blend into each other here: Christ is being challenged to establish his credibility by offering evidence for his claims. This demand for proof is a constantly recurring theme in the story of Jesus’ life: again and again he is reproached for having failed to prove himself sufficiently, for having hitherto failed to work that great miracle that will remove all ambiguity and very contradiction, so as to make it indisputably clear for everyone who and what he is or I not.”[2]
The Taunt: “If you exist, God,” we say, “then you’lll just have to show yourself. You’ll have to part the clouds that conceal you and give us the clarity that we deserve. If you, Christ, are really the Son of God, and not just another one of the enlightened individuals who keep appearing in the course of history, then you’ll just have to prove it more clearly than you are doing now. And if the Church is really supposed to be yours, you’ll have to make that much more obvious than it is at present.”[3]
3) Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami: Give us visual confirmation that the perceived world as we understand and live it is fragile. They help us re-adjust the meaning of sensation: Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away” (Mt. 24, 35).
Everything has been created by the Word. And the Word has become flesh. This demands a continuous conversion of perception on our part.
Therefore, Razinger’s “Introduction to Christianity” (Ignatius 1990) 25):
“Belief signifies the decision that at the very core of human existence there is a point which cannot be nourished and supported on the visible and tangible, which encounters and comes into contact with what cannot be seen and finds that it is a necessity for its own existence.
“Such an attitude is certainly to be attained only by what the language of the Bible calls ‘reversal,’ ‘conversion.’ Man’s natural centre of gravity draws him to the visible, to what he can take in his hand and hold as his own. He has to turn round inwardly in order to see how badly he is neglecting his own interests by letting himself be drawn along in this way by his natural center of gravity. He must turn round to recognize how blind he is if he trusts only what he sees with his eyes. Without this change of direction, without tis resistance to the natural center of gravity, there can be no belief. Indeed belief is the con-version in which man discovers that he is following an illusion if he devotes himself only to the tangible. This is at the same time the fundamental reason why belief is not demonstrable it is an about-turn; only he who tours about is receptive to it; and because our center of gravity does not cease to incline us in another direction it remains a turn that is new every day; only in a life-long conversion can we become aware of what is means to say ‘I believe.’”
Hence, faith is converting from sight to hearing. By hearing we are put in contact with the realism of the Person of Christ.
4) Lent is living Baptism as sacrament of faith – i.e. conversion to the Person of Christ as having taken our sins as His own. This is the Baptism of Christ – the beginning of assuming our sins as His own and destroying them in His love, to death on the Cross. That is why Christ calls His Passion and death “Baptism.”
5) Therefore, Lent is the ongoing re-adjustment of our perceptions of what is real and consequently lowering ourselves to abandonment to Christ. This is realism.
6) Don’t Judge: To be a realist, lower self not to judge the others who have indeed done evil, and indeed, done evil to ourselves. The reality is that they have been loved and forgiven by Christ. He has taken their injustice as His own. This is the meaning of His Baptism (the Cross). He assumes their sin as His own and pays for it in His own Blood and death. He does not enter into the presence of His Father with the blood of bulls and goats, but with His own Blood (that is ours). It was infected with our sin and pride and He has taken it as His own and turned it into obedience and divinization. Therefore, we must not judge others as guilty of injustice when they have been loved, forgiven and healed by Christ in His own Blood.
When the Demon accuses us before Christ of having been sinful, prideful and unjust, His response is: “I’ll take care of that myself. What else?”
Consider what the perfection that is asked of us consists in: To have our sun shine on the good and the bad and our rain to fall on the just and the unjust. That is, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5, 44). We are asked to do the humanly impossible - but now possible: “Love your enemy.”
[1] K. Wojtyla, “The Acting Person,” Reidel (1979) 3.
[2] J. Ratzinger, “Jesus of Nazareth” (1), Doubleday (2007) 30.
[3] Ibid 30-31.
- The problem with this is that reality is not necessarily the way we perceive it. We see things the way we are, not the way things are in themselves. Add to that, because of sin, “Man’s capacity to know the truth is also darkened, and his will to submit to it is weakened” (Veritatis Splendor #1).
- Karol Wojtyla added to that this phenomenological adjustment: “Man’s experience of anything outside of himself is always associated with the experience foe himself, and he never experiences anything external without having at the same time the experience of himself.”[1]
2) Since God cannot be seen and held by our senses, when confronting Christ, the temptation of the Demon takes the form: “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread” (Mt. 4, 3). Benedict writes: “Mockery and temptation blend into each other here: Christ is being challenged to establish his credibility by offering evidence for his claims. This demand for proof is a constantly recurring theme in the story of Jesus’ life: again and again he is reproached for having failed to prove himself sufficiently, for having hitherto failed to work that great miracle that will remove all ambiguity and very contradiction, so as to make it indisputably clear for everyone who and what he is or I not.”[2]
The Taunt: “If you exist, God,” we say, “then you’lll just have to show yourself. You’ll have to part the clouds that conceal you and give us the clarity that we deserve. If you, Christ, are really the Son of God, and not just another one of the enlightened individuals who keep appearing in the course of history, then you’ll just have to prove it more clearly than you are doing now. And if the Church is really supposed to be yours, you’ll have to make that much more obvious than it is at present.”[3]
3) Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami: Give us visual confirmation that the perceived world as we understand and live it is fragile. They help us re-adjust the meaning of sensation: Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away” (Mt. 24, 35).
Everything has been created by the Word. And the Word has become flesh. This demands a continuous conversion of perception on our part.
Therefore, Razinger’s “Introduction to Christianity” (Ignatius 1990) 25):
“Belief signifies the decision that at the very core of human existence there is a point which cannot be nourished and supported on the visible and tangible, which encounters and comes into contact with what cannot be seen and finds that it is a necessity for its own existence.
“Such an attitude is certainly to be attained only by what the language of the Bible calls ‘reversal,’ ‘conversion.’ Man’s natural centre of gravity draws him to the visible, to what he can take in his hand and hold as his own. He has to turn round inwardly in order to see how badly he is neglecting his own interests by letting himself be drawn along in this way by his natural center of gravity. He must turn round to recognize how blind he is if he trusts only what he sees with his eyes. Without this change of direction, without tis resistance to the natural center of gravity, there can be no belief. Indeed belief is the con-version in which man discovers that he is following an illusion if he devotes himself only to the tangible. This is at the same time the fundamental reason why belief is not demonstrable it is an about-turn; only he who tours about is receptive to it; and because our center of gravity does not cease to incline us in another direction it remains a turn that is new every day; only in a life-long conversion can we become aware of what is means to say ‘I believe.’”
Hence, faith is converting from sight to hearing. By hearing we are put in contact with the realism of the Person of Christ.
4) Lent is living Baptism as sacrament of faith – i.e. conversion to the Person of Christ as having taken our sins as His own. This is the Baptism of Christ – the beginning of assuming our sins as His own and destroying them in His love, to death on the Cross. That is why Christ calls His Passion and death “Baptism.”
5) Therefore, Lent is the ongoing re-adjustment of our perceptions of what is real and consequently lowering ourselves to abandonment to Christ. This is realism.
6) Don’t Judge: To be a realist, lower self not to judge the others who have indeed done evil, and indeed, done evil to ourselves. The reality is that they have been loved and forgiven by Christ. He has taken their injustice as His own. This is the meaning of His Baptism (the Cross). He assumes their sin as His own and pays for it in His own Blood and death. He does not enter into the presence of His Father with the blood of bulls and goats, but with His own Blood (that is ours). It was infected with our sin and pride and He has taken it as His own and turned it into obedience and divinization. Therefore, we must not judge others as guilty of injustice when they have been loved, forgiven and healed by Christ in His own Blood.
When the Demon accuses us before Christ of having been sinful, prideful and unjust, His response is: “I’ll take care of that myself. What else?”
Consider what the perfection that is asked of us consists in: To have our sun shine on the good and the bad and our rain to fall on the just and the unjust. That is, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5, 44). We are asked to do the humanly impossible - but now possible: “Love your enemy.”
[1] K. Wojtyla, “The Acting Person,” Reidel (1979) 3.
[2] J. Ratzinger, “Jesus of Nazareth” (1), Doubleday (2007) 30.
[3] Ibid 30-31.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Joseph Ratzinger Re-Thinks Anselm's Theology of Redemption
To most of us, Lent, as entering into the Cross of Christ, takes the appearance of a “mechanism of injured and restored right.” We are the protagonists making compensation to God for the debit of our sins and the Cross is a credit. It is a case of God giving us a credit that we can use in making reparation. It becomes a problem of divine justice and we as protagonists making retribution. The problem is that "it still is all about us."
Consider the following of then-Joseph Ratzinger:
“Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033-1109) had been concerned to deduce the work of Christ by a train of necessary reasons (rationibus necessariis) and thus to show irrefutably that this work had to happen in the precise way in which it in fact did. His argument may be roughly summarized like this: by man’s sin, which was aimed against God, the order of justice was infinitely damaged and God infinitely offended. Behind this is the idea that the measure of the offence is determined by the status of the offended party; if I offend a beggar the consequences are not the same as they would be if I offended a head of state. The importance of the offence varies according to the addressee. Since God is infinite the offence to him implicit in humanity’s sin is also infinitely important. The right thus damaged must be restored, because God is a God order and justice; indeed, he is justice itself. But the measure of the offence demands infinite reparation, which man is not capable of making. He can offend infinitely – his capacity extends that far – but he cannot produce an infinite reparation; what he, as a finite being, gives will always be only finite. His powers of destruction extend further than his capacity to reconstruct. Thus between all the reparations that man may attempt and the greatness of his guilt there remains an infinite gulf which he can never bridge. Any gesture of expiation can only demonstrate his powerlessness to close the infinite gulf which he himself opened up.
“Is order to be destroyed for ever, then, and man to remain eternally imprisoned in the abyss of his guilt? At this point Anselm hits on the figure of Christ. His answer runs thus: God himself removes the injustice; not (as he could) by a simple amnesty, which cannot after all overcome from inside what has happened, but by the infinite Being’s himself becoming man and then as a man – who thus belongs to the race of the offenders yet possesses the power, denied to man, of infinite reparation – making the required expiation. Thus the redemption takes place entirely through grace and at the same time entirely as restoration of the right. Anselm thought he had thereby given a compelling answer to the difficult question of `Cur Deus homo,’ the wherefore of the incarnation and the cross. His view has put a decisive stamp on the second millennium of Western Christendom, which takes it for granted that Christ had to die on the cross in order to make good the infinite offence which had been committed and in this way to restore the damaged order of things.
“Now it cannot be denied that this theory takes account of crucial biblical and human perceptions; anyone who studies it with a little patience will have no difficulty in seeing this. To that extent it will always command respect as an attempt to synthesize the individual elements in the biblical evidence in one great all0embracing system. Is not hard to see that in spite of all the philosophical and juridical terminology employed, the guiding thread remains that truth which the Bible expresses in the little word `For,’ in which it makes clear that we as men live not only directly from God but from one another, and in the last analysis from the One who lived for all. And who could fail to see that thus in the schematization of the `satisfaction’ theory the breath of the biblical idea of election remains clear, the idea that makes election not a privilege of the elected but the call to live for others? It is the call to that `For’ in which man confidently lets himself fall, ceases to cling to himself and ventures on the leap away from himself into the infinite, the leap through which alone he can come to himself. But even if all this is admitted it cannot be denied on the other hand that the perfectly logical divine-cum-human legal system erected by Anselm distorts the perspectives and with its rigid logic can make the image of God appear in a sinister light. We shall have to go into this in detail when we come to talk about the meaning of the cross. For the time being it will suffice to say that things immediately look different when, in place of the division of Jesus into work and person, it becomes clear that with Jesus Christ it is not a question of a piece of work separate from himself, of a feat which God must demand because he himself is under and an obligation to the concept of order; that with him it is not a question… of having, but of being human. And how different things look further on when one picks up the Pauline key, which teaches us to understand Christ as the `last man (’έσχατος Άδάμ: 1 Cor. 15, 45) - the final man, who takes man into his future, which consists of his being not just man but one with God.”[1]
The Cross and Atonement: The New (intrinsic) Priesthood of Jesus Christ.
“What position is really occupied by the cross within faith in Jesus as the Christ… As we have already established, the universal Christian consciousness in this matter is extensively influenced by a much coarsened version of St. Anselm’s theology of atonement, the main lines of which we have considered in another context. To many Christians, and especially to those who only know the faith from a fair distance, it looks as if the cross is to be understood as part of a mechanism of injured and restored right. It is the form, so it seems, in which the infinitely offended righteousness of God was propitiated again by means of an infinite expiation. It thus appears to people as the expression of an attitude which insists on a precise balance between debit and credit; at the same time one gets the feeling that this balance is based on a fiction. One gives first secretly with the left hand what one takes back again ceremonially with the right. The `infinite expiation’ on which God seems to insist thus moves into a doubly sinister light. Many devotional texts actually force one to think that Christian faith in the cross visualizes a God whose unrelenting righteousness demanded a human sacrifice, the sacrifice of his own Son, sinister wrath makes the message of love incredible.
“This picture is as false as it is widespread. In the Bible the cross does not appear as part of a mechanism of injured right; on the contrary, in the Bible the cross is quite the reverse: it is the expression of the radical nature of the love which gives itself completely, of the process in which one is what one does, and does what one is; it is the expression of a life that is completely being for others. To anyone who looks more closely, the scriptural theology of the cross represents a real revolution as compared with the notions of expiation and redemption entertained by non-Christian religions, though it certainly cannot be denied that in the later Christian consciousness this revolution was largely neutralized and its whole scope seldom recognized. In other world religions expiation usually means the restoration of the damaged relationship with God by means of expiatory actions on the part of men. Almost all religions center round the problem of expiation; they arise out of man’s knowledge of his guilt before God and signify the attempt to remove this feeling of guilt, to surmount the guilt through conciliatory actions offered up to God. The expiatory activity by which men hope to conciliate the divinity and to put him in a gracious mood stands at the heart of the history of religion.
“In the New Testament the situation is almost completely reversed. It is not man who goes to God with a compensatory gift, but God who comes to man, in order to give to him. He restores disturbed right on the initiative of his own power to love, by making unjust man just again, the dead living again, through his own creative mercy. His righteousness to grace; it is active righteousness, which sets crooked man right, that is, bends him straight, makes him right. Here we stand before the twist which Christianity put into the history of religion. The New Testament does not say that men conciliate God, as we really ought to expect, since after all it is they who have failed, not God. It says on the contrary that `God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself’ (2 Cor. 5, 19). This is truly something new, something unheard of – the starting-point of Christian existence and the center of New Testament theology of the cross: God does not wait until the guilty come to be reconciled; he goes to meet them and reconciles them. Here we can see the true direction of the incarnation, of the Cross.
“Accordingly, in the New Testament the Cross appears primarily as a movement from above to below. It does not stand there as the work of expiation which mankind offers to the wrathful God, but as the expression of that foolish love of God’s which gives itself away to the point of humiliation in order thus to save man; it is his approach to us, not the other way about. With this twist in the idea of expiation, and thus in the whole axis of religion, worship too, man’s whole existence, acquires in Christianity a new direction. Worship follows in Christianity first of all in thankful acceptance of the divine deed of salvation. The essential form of Christian worship is therefore rightly called `Eucharistia,’ thanksgiving. In this form of worship human achievements are not placed before God; on the contrary, it consists in man’s letting himself be endowed with gifts; we do not glorify God by supposedly giving to him out of our resources – as if they were not his already! – but by letting ourselves be endowed with his own gifts and thus recognizing him as the only Lord. We worship him by dropping the fiction of a realm in which we could face him as independent business partners, whereas in truth we can only exist at all in him and from him. Christian sacrifice does not consist in a giving of what God would to have without us but in our becoming totally receptive and letting ourselves be completely taken over by him. Letting God act on us – that is Christian sacrifice.”[2]
[1] J. Ratzinger, “Introduction to Christianity,” op. cit. 172-174.
[2] J. Ratzinger, “Introduction…” op. cit. 213-215.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Birthday of Alvaro del Portillo - March 11, 1914
Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the Pope’s [John Paul II’s) vicar for the diocese of Rome, closed the diocesan process of Bishop Álvaro del Portillo's cause of canonization.
June 26, 2008
The ceremony took place in Rome’s Lateran Palace on June 26, the liturgical memorial of St. Josemaría Escrivá, whose first successor as head of Opus Dei was Bishop Álvaro del Portillo Bishop Javier Echevarría, the current Prelate, was present at the ceremony, along with many faithful of the Prelature and friends of Bishop del Portillo, who lived in Rome for almost fifty years, from 1946 until his death in 1994.Cardinal Ruini explained that "Bishop Echevarría, although he had been recognized by the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints as the competent Bishop to investigate his predecessor’s cause, out of a refined and rigorous sense of justice, desired that I appoint a Tribunal of the Vicariate to receive his deposition and that of some of the other witnesses."
Cardinal Ruini: "Don Álvaro was an example of fidelity in following the spirit of sanctification in work and ordinary life."
"I was happy to accede to his request" he continued, "in virtue of which I am present here today to formally close the investigative process and transmit the documents to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, since, as is well known, the diocesan tribunals are only fact-gathering bodies, and the only judicial body is the Congregation."Cardinal Ruini’s remarks included some personal recollections: "I will never forget the affection Don Álvaro showed when he came to visit me at the Vicariate. He always gave witness to his dedication to Christ."Bishop Álvaro del Portillo’s process of canonization was opened on March 5, 2004, and has been carried out in its first phase in two tribunals, one of the Vicariate of Rome and the other of the Prelature of Opus Dei.
The second tribunal has not yet completed its work. Some witnesses have also given testimony to tribunals in their own dioceses, in accord with established judicial procedures.Álvaro del Portillo was born in Madrid on March 11, 1914. "On July 7, 1935, while still an engineering student," Cardinal Ruini recalled in his address, "he asked for admission to Opus Dei. During the tragic events of the Spanish Civil War, he was the person who provided the most assistance to the Founder. On June 25, 1944, he was ordained a priest, one of the first three priests of Opus Dei.""In 1946 he moved to Rome, where he carried out various tasks in service of the Holy See," Cardinal Ruini continued. "He was a Consultor to various dicasteries, as well as Secretary of the Second Vatican Council Commission that drafted the decree Presbyterorum Ordinis. In 1975, after St. Josemaría’s death, he was called to succeed him as head of Opus Dei."Don Álvaro died in Rome on March 23, 1994, just after returning from a trip to the Holy Land. John Paul II, who had ordained him as a bishop in 1991, went that afternoon to the chapel of repose in the Prelatic Church of Opus Dei, dedicated to Our Lady of Peace. His body now lies in repose in the crypt of that same church in Rome.
Cardinal Ruini said that Bishop Álvaro del Portillo was "an example of fidelity in following the spirit of sanctification in work and ordinary life," a spirit he learned directly from St. Josemaría. The Cardinal concluded by asking our Lady that Don Álvaro’s example be a stimulus to "spread love for God and neighbor to many other people."For his part, Bishop Javier Echevarría, Don Álvaro’s successor as Prelate of Opus Dei, said that this "is only a first step, but a step that fills us with joy, because we see in our beloved Don Álvaro an integral man, an authentic Christian, a good shepherd, a most faithful son of St. Josemaría."Msgr. Flavio Capucci, postulator of the cause, recalled that back in 1978, when the process of St. Josemaría began, Msgr. Álvaro del Portillo had insisted that, in asking the Pope to open the cause of its Founder, Opus Dei was not seeking its own glory, but that of the Church. "Today," Capucci said, "we echo these words with our whole heart."The next stage of the process, once the tribunal of the Prelature concludes its sessions, will be the drawing up of the positio, which is a biography of the Servant of God that shows how he lived the Christian virtues in an heroic manner.The positio is then sent by the postulator of the cause to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints to be studied and decided upon.
The Figure of Alvaro del Portillo in Opus Dei and the Church, particularly Vatican II:
St. Josemaria concerning future Prelates/Fathers: “You must love those who come afterwards more than me: unite yourselves to them, love them humanly and supernaturally, obey them, consummate in unum (Jn. 17, 23)….
And now with reference to D. Alvaro in particular: “My son, you have to love him now… I love him since he was a youth and I prayed to the Lord for him. Since I have begun [the foundation], the only thing I have done is form my sons not to be necessary. You have to love him [Alvaro] now as I love him…
“Right now, from this moment on! From now on you have to pray for him and love him much.”
From a Letter from the Prelate November 28, 1995: “Since 26 June the Work has been going through a stage which Don Alvaro always referred to as the stage of continuity, the stage of fidelity to the spirit and the norms received from our Father. We are called to assimilate them fully, to make them flesh of our flesh, and so fulfill, in the service of the Church and of souls, the mission God has given us – a mission which in no way distinguishes us from the rest of the lay faithful or the diocesan clergy….
“Our Father used to call him saxum. He realized very early on that God had placed this son at his side to be a firm support, and to be the one who would eventually succeed him as head of Opus Dei. Blessed [Saint] Josemaria always kept him close at hand, making sure he became thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the Work, and he gradually prepared him for his future mission. That was how all of us, all the other children of God in Opus Dei, understood it. All of us, even the oldest members, treated him in our normal family style but with a special reverence and respect. This showed our awareness that we were dealing with a brother of ours who at the time was our Father’s most stalwart support, and who we thought would eventually succeed him, whenever God so decided.
“Therefore, when the Electors unanimously chose him on 15 September 1975 to be our Founder’s successor, Don Alvaro was able to comment on the election with that very simple expression: the Electors ‘have voted unanimously, not for Alvaro del Portillo, but once again for the Father. While he said this out of humility, to avoid standing out himself, it was really a profound truth. It made clear what a great man he was, and the special authority with which he took up his new role as Pastor and Father of the family of Opus Dei. He was so close to our Founder’s prayer, thoughts and efforts in his task of founding the Work, that not only could he lend him invaluable support over forty long years, but also, after being elected as his successor, he could act as the clear and certain echo and continuation of our Father during a decisive stage in the Work. He was well prepared to set in motion and direct the new stage then beginning, ‘the stage of continuity in fidelity’ as he stressed from the very first moment, bearing in himself our Father’s authority, which continued uninterrupted.
“His great authority, stemming from his closeness to our Founder, filled the Work wit joy and peace during the especially delicate years that followed our Founder’s death. This authority of his allowed him to carry out, with a firm, sure hand, a very important charge left by our Father: the culmination of the canonical path of Opus Dei. This came about through the pontifical establishment of Opus Dei as a personal Prelature in the Church on 28 November 1982. To him there also fell the task – a very pleasant one, but one requiring a great deal of dedication and sacrifice – of urging forward our Father’s process of beatification. This was accomplished ten years after the establishment of the Prelature, on that unforgettable day, 17 May 1992.
“Opus Dei’s establishment as a personal Prelature ensures – as regards its institutional and juridical aspects – the ecclesial identity of the Work founded on 2 October 1928. Our Father’s beatification reaffirms, in an existential and practical way, the holiness of the path our Father walked and proclaimed. In a certain sense, these two events are especially linked to the Work’s foundational stage, and they give Don Álvaro’s paternal and pastoral role as our Father’s first successor a very special quality” – “unrepeatable.”
It is worth commenting here that the “authority” that St. Josemaria exercised derived from his charism of love for each of us. “Authority” comes from “author” as progenitor of life. St. Josemaria engendered sons and daughters by loving them. And by so loving, he made them capable of forming the “communio” that is the family of Opus Dei. The gift of self that is constitutive of forming a communio originated in the love of the Father. Hence, Escriva wanted the words “genuit filios et filias” engraved on his tomb. Rather, making the same point, they engraved, “El Padre.” This charism of “Father” is apostolically oriented toward all the bishops of the Church in the relation to their dioceses.
Opus Dei is “a little bit of the Church.” Pedro Rodriguez commented that the relationship between the two sacramental (and therefore, ontological) insertions (giving “character”) into the one priesthood of Christ – Baptism (lay faithful) and Orders (ministerial hierarchy) – is the “aboriginal” one that obtained in the early Church. It antedated the clericalization of the Church that took place after Constantine’s conversion. Opus Dei and the Second Vatican Council have marked the death-knell of that clericalization. That aboriginal relationship is the service that the ministerial priesthood gives to the layfaithful in sacraments, Word and Eucharistic Sacrifice, and the need to be served that is the perennial situation of the laity. The union of the two, ministers acting in the Person of the Bridegroom, and lay faithful receptive as the Bride form the one-flesh union in the Eucharist and in the communio of the family of the Work.
Anniversary of Death of Alvaro del Portillo – March 23, 2006
Foundational Charism:
“In order to serve the Church in Opus Dei, everything must always be understood, and carried out, taking as its starting point our Father’s foundational charism. This charism, which was a gratuitous supernatural reality, endures in the Work, endowing it with well defined characteristics. The Holy Spirit didn’t place it in our Father’s soul merely with a view to his personal response to God, but so that it would give shape for centuries to come to the Work our Lord was entrusting to him. This charism cannot become, therefore, a mere historical reference taking us back to the past. It is, through God’s mercy, a living and effective reality in Opus Dei, a power, a grace, from which we all ought to draw nourishment and which we all have the duty of guarding and passing on…. We are, and always will be, living `in our Father’s time,’” said Alvaro del Portillo.[1]
Stage of Fidelity:
“Since 26 June 1975 the Work has been going through a stage which Don Alvaro always referred to as the stage of continuity, the stage of fidelity to the spirit and the norms received from our Father. We are called to assimilate them fully, to make them flesh of our flesh, and so fulfill, in the service of the Church and of souls, the mission God has given us – a mission which in no way distinguishes us from the rest of the lay faithful or the diocesan clergy.
“I shouldn’t continue without speaking to you a little more about Don Alvaro, our Father’s most faithful son and successor, a good and faithful servant, who on 23 March 1994 entered into the joy of his Master. All of us indeed have witnessed his holiness and his fatherly watchfulness. We have seen how he dedicated all his energies to guiding his daughters and sons at every moment along the path of burning love for Christ and of self-giving, in the apostolic task our Founder left clearly marked out – carved in stone, let me say once again.
“But the considerations I am putting before you in this Letter require me now to refer not directly to Don Alvaro’s saintly response, but the significance in the overall history of the Work of what he did while he was our Pastor and Father. Our Father used to call him saxum. He realized very early on that God had placed this son at his side to be a firm support, and to be the one who would eventually succeed him as head of Opus Dei. St. Josemaria always dept him close at hand, making sure he became thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the Work, and he gradually prepared him for his future mission. That was how al of us, all the other children of God in Opus Dei, understood it. All of us, even the oldest members, treated him in our normal family style but with a special reverence and respect…
“Therefore, when the Electors unanimously chose him on 15 September 1975 to be our Founder’s successor, Don Alvaro was able to comment on the election with that very simple expression: the Electors `have voted unanimously, not for Alvaro del Portillo, but once again for the Father.’ While he said this out of humility, to avoid standing out himself, it was really a profound truth. It made clear what a great man he was, and the special authority with which he took up his new role as Pastor and Father of the family of Opus Dei…. He was well prepared to set in motion and direct the new stage then beginning, `the state of continuity in fidelity’ as he stressed from the very first moment, bearing in himself our Father’s authority which continued uninterrupted.”
Domestic Tasks of D. Alvaro:
a. “the culmination of the canonical path of Opus Dei” as “the pontifical establishment of Opus Dei as a personal Prelature in the Church on 28 November 1982.”
b.“urging forward our Father’s process of beatification. This was accomplished ten years after the establishment of the Prelature on… 17 may 1992.”
Prior Tasks at the Second Vatican Counciil:
· May 2, 1959: named Consultor of the congregation of the Council;
· August 10, 1959: named President of the VII internal Commission De laicatu catholico;
· Named member of the pre-preparatory Commission on the states of perfection;
· August 12 elected member of the III Commission of the Congregation of the Council encharged to study the so-called peculiaria nostrae aetatis apostolatus media.
· October 4, 1962: named conciliar “Peritus.”
· November 4, 1962: named “Peritus” of the Commission for the Discipline of the Clergy and Christian People;
· November 8, 1962: named Secretary of this organism
· Named Consultor of the Commissions for the Bishops and the regime of the dioceses, the Religious and the Discipline of the Faith.
· September 29 – December of 1963: during the Second Session of the Council, the Commission for the Discipline of the Clergy and the Christian People, of which D. Alvaro was Secretary, was encharged to synthesize into a single conciliar decree (to become “Presbyterorum Ordinis). He had to coordinate the work of the members of the Commission which became a conciliar text of a single chapter subdivided into 10 parts.
“To some extent, it as Don Alvaro’s decision that a text be drafted. He argued persuasively that the priesthood was so important in the Church that it well deserved a decree of its own, rather than just a handful of propositions with a concluding message (a suggestion made at some point in the proceedings).
“The drafting of the decree was very hard work, especially because of all the tension there was at that time over the issue of priestly celibacy. That conflict, in fact, got so bad that Pope Paul himself had to intervene. Also, the commission had to reach conclusions regarding the spirituality of priests. One of its decisions was to defend centuries-old traditions against those who regarded them as mere pietism. It discussed the presence of the priest in the world, and why he needed a good formation in the basic human virtues in order to serve the men and women of his time. But it also warned that priests should not adopt lay lifestyles, much less take on commitments of a partisan political nature. Finally, it asserted the freedom to join associations which in one way or another could help them achieve personal sanctification in the carrying out of their priestly ministry.”[2]
“Not a week had gone by after the close of the Council when Cardinal Ciriaci, president of the commission of which Don Alvaro had been secretary, sent him a note expressing heartfelt gratitude and congratulations for the happy conclusion of a great achievement.” The note said: “You steered to a safe harbor your decree, which is by no means the least important of the decrees and constitutions of the Council.” The vote on the document was 2390 to 4, a nearly unanimous approval after thorough debate, on December 7, 1965. Ciriaci said: (History would regard this decree as) “a fresh, and practically unanimous, confirmation by the Second Vatican Council of ecclesiastical celibacy and the exalted mission of the priesthood.” Pope Paul VI said: “I am well aware of the extent to which this is a result of your prudent, tenacious, and courteous efforts. Without failing to respect the freedom of others to have and to express their own opinions, you never swerved from the track of fidelity to the great principles of priestly spirituality.”[3]
Icon of Alvaro del Portillo’s Fidelity to the Charism of St. Josemaria:
On June 27, 1975, with St. Josemaria lying in state in the oratory of Our Lady of Peace in Rome, Alvaro del Portillo got up from where he was praying. He approached the body of St. Josemaria, knelt down at his head, bent over and touched his forehead to the forehead of St. Josemaria. He remained in that position for some long seconds. Then, he got up, removed three red roses from a stem and deposited them at the feet of the saint pronouncing the phrase of St. Paul: Quam speciosi pedes evangelizantium pacem, evangelizantium bona!
Death of Alvaro del Portillo: At 6, 15 p.m. on the afternoon of March 23, 1994, John Paul II arrived at 173 Viale Bruno Buozzi, and descended to the oratory of Our Lady of Peace. Upon entering he said in Italian: “Sia lodato Gesu Cristo!” (Praised by Jesus Christ). All responded the same.
The Pope then knelt down on a predieu with a red stole and remained kneeling in prayer for some ten minutes in the midst of an impressive silence.
He was then invited by the Prelate to pray the response for the dead, but he preferred to intone the Salve and pray three Glory be to the Father’s. He then pronounced the invocations Requiem aeternum dona ei, Domine and Requiescat in pace. He was offered the hyssop and he sprinkled the body of D. Alvaro with holy water. Afterwards, he knelt down and prayed for a short time more. Before leaving the chapel, he blessed all those present.
The Prelate reminded the Pope of the profound love of D. Alvaro for the Church and the Pope for whom he always offered the Mass, and concretely the Mass of yesterday morning that he celebrated in the Cenacle of Jerusalem. Then, he thanked the Holy Father in the name of the Work for his coming to pray. The Pope, in Italian, answered that he considered a duty: “Si doveva, si doveva…
Then the Pope asked the Father what time D. Alvaro had celebrated Mass in the Cenacle. He calculated the number of hours that passed between the last Mass precisely there and the moment of death. The answer was seventeen (17).
Conclusion:
Opus Dei and the Church: Alvaro del Portillo pronounced that the Second Vatican Council “had assimilated and promulgated as common doctrine for all Christians the substantial lines of the charism of Opus Dei.”[4]
[1] Letter from the Prelate, November 28, 1995.
[2] Salvador Bernal, “Alvaro del Portillo,” Scepter (1996) 130-131.
[3] Ibid. 126-128.
[4] Cfr. Romana et Matriten., Beatificationis et Canonizationis Servi Dei Iosephmaria Escriva de Balaguer, Positio super vita et virtutibus, Summarium, no. 964.
June 26, 2008
The ceremony took place in Rome’s Lateran Palace on June 26, the liturgical memorial of St. Josemaría Escrivá, whose first successor as head of Opus Dei was Bishop Álvaro del Portillo Bishop Javier Echevarría, the current Prelate, was present at the ceremony, along with many faithful of the Prelature and friends of Bishop del Portillo, who lived in Rome for almost fifty years, from 1946 until his death in 1994.Cardinal Ruini explained that "Bishop Echevarría, although he had been recognized by the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints as the competent Bishop to investigate his predecessor’s cause, out of a refined and rigorous sense of justice, desired that I appoint a Tribunal of the Vicariate to receive his deposition and that of some of the other witnesses."
Cardinal Ruini: "Don Álvaro was an example of fidelity in following the spirit of sanctification in work and ordinary life."
"I was happy to accede to his request" he continued, "in virtue of which I am present here today to formally close the investigative process and transmit the documents to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, since, as is well known, the diocesan tribunals are only fact-gathering bodies, and the only judicial body is the Congregation."Cardinal Ruini’s remarks included some personal recollections: "I will never forget the affection Don Álvaro showed when he came to visit me at the Vicariate. He always gave witness to his dedication to Christ."Bishop Álvaro del Portillo’s process of canonization was opened on March 5, 2004, and has been carried out in its first phase in two tribunals, one of the Vicariate of Rome and the other of the Prelature of Opus Dei.
The second tribunal has not yet completed its work. Some witnesses have also given testimony to tribunals in their own dioceses, in accord with established judicial procedures.Álvaro del Portillo was born in Madrid on March 11, 1914. "On July 7, 1935, while still an engineering student," Cardinal Ruini recalled in his address, "he asked for admission to Opus Dei. During the tragic events of the Spanish Civil War, he was the person who provided the most assistance to the Founder. On June 25, 1944, he was ordained a priest, one of the first three priests of Opus Dei.""In 1946 he moved to Rome, where he carried out various tasks in service of the Holy See," Cardinal Ruini continued. "He was a Consultor to various dicasteries, as well as Secretary of the Second Vatican Council Commission that drafted the decree Presbyterorum Ordinis. In 1975, after St. Josemaría’s death, he was called to succeed him as head of Opus Dei."Don Álvaro died in Rome on March 23, 1994, just after returning from a trip to the Holy Land. John Paul II, who had ordained him as a bishop in 1991, went that afternoon to the chapel of repose in the Prelatic Church of Opus Dei, dedicated to Our Lady of Peace. His body now lies in repose in the crypt of that same church in Rome.
Cardinal Ruini said that Bishop Álvaro del Portillo was "an example of fidelity in following the spirit of sanctification in work and ordinary life," a spirit he learned directly from St. Josemaría. The Cardinal concluded by asking our Lady that Don Álvaro’s example be a stimulus to "spread love for God and neighbor to many other people."For his part, Bishop Javier Echevarría, Don Álvaro’s successor as Prelate of Opus Dei, said that this "is only a first step, but a step that fills us with joy, because we see in our beloved Don Álvaro an integral man, an authentic Christian, a good shepherd, a most faithful son of St. Josemaría."Msgr. Flavio Capucci, postulator of the cause, recalled that back in 1978, when the process of St. Josemaría began, Msgr. Álvaro del Portillo had insisted that, in asking the Pope to open the cause of its Founder, Opus Dei was not seeking its own glory, but that of the Church. "Today," Capucci said, "we echo these words with our whole heart."The next stage of the process, once the tribunal of the Prelature concludes its sessions, will be the drawing up of the positio, which is a biography of the Servant of God that shows how he lived the Christian virtues in an heroic manner.The positio is then sent by the postulator of the cause to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints to be studied and decided upon.
The Figure of Alvaro del Portillo in Opus Dei and the Church, particularly Vatican II:
St. Josemaria concerning future Prelates/Fathers: “You must love those who come afterwards more than me: unite yourselves to them, love them humanly and supernaturally, obey them, consummate in unum (Jn. 17, 23)….
And now with reference to D. Alvaro in particular: “My son, you have to love him now… I love him since he was a youth and I prayed to the Lord for him. Since I have begun [the foundation], the only thing I have done is form my sons not to be necessary. You have to love him [Alvaro] now as I love him…
“Right now, from this moment on! From now on you have to pray for him and love him much.”
From a Letter from the Prelate November 28, 1995: “Since 26 June the Work has been going through a stage which Don Alvaro always referred to as the stage of continuity, the stage of fidelity to the spirit and the norms received from our Father. We are called to assimilate them fully, to make them flesh of our flesh, and so fulfill, in the service of the Church and of souls, the mission God has given us – a mission which in no way distinguishes us from the rest of the lay faithful or the diocesan clergy….
“Our Father used to call him saxum. He realized very early on that God had placed this son at his side to be a firm support, and to be the one who would eventually succeed him as head of Opus Dei. Blessed [Saint] Josemaria always kept him close at hand, making sure he became thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the Work, and he gradually prepared him for his future mission. That was how all of us, all the other children of God in Opus Dei, understood it. All of us, even the oldest members, treated him in our normal family style but with a special reverence and respect. This showed our awareness that we were dealing with a brother of ours who at the time was our Father’s most stalwart support, and who we thought would eventually succeed him, whenever God so decided.
“Therefore, when the Electors unanimously chose him on 15 September 1975 to be our Founder’s successor, Don Alvaro was able to comment on the election with that very simple expression: the Electors ‘have voted unanimously, not for Alvaro del Portillo, but once again for the Father. While he said this out of humility, to avoid standing out himself, it was really a profound truth. It made clear what a great man he was, and the special authority with which he took up his new role as Pastor and Father of the family of Opus Dei. He was so close to our Founder’s prayer, thoughts and efforts in his task of founding the Work, that not only could he lend him invaluable support over forty long years, but also, after being elected as his successor, he could act as the clear and certain echo and continuation of our Father during a decisive stage in the Work. He was well prepared to set in motion and direct the new stage then beginning, ‘the stage of continuity in fidelity’ as he stressed from the very first moment, bearing in himself our Father’s authority, which continued uninterrupted.
“His great authority, stemming from his closeness to our Founder, filled the Work wit joy and peace during the especially delicate years that followed our Founder’s death. This authority of his allowed him to carry out, with a firm, sure hand, a very important charge left by our Father: the culmination of the canonical path of Opus Dei. This came about through the pontifical establishment of Opus Dei as a personal Prelature in the Church on 28 November 1982. To him there also fell the task – a very pleasant one, but one requiring a great deal of dedication and sacrifice – of urging forward our Father’s process of beatification. This was accomplished ten years after the establishment of the Prelature, on that unforgettable day, 17 May 1992.
“Opus Dei’s establishment as a personal Prelature ensures – as regards its institutional and juridical aspects – the ecclesial identity of the Work founded on 2 October 1928. Our Father’s beatification reaffirms, in an existential and practical way, the holiness of the path our Father walked and proclaimed. In a certain sense, these two events are especially linked to the Work’s foundational stage, and they give Don Álvaro’s paternal and pastoral role as our Father’s first successor a very special quality” – “unrepeatable.”
It is worth commenting here that the “authority” that St. Josemaria exercised derived from his charism of love for each of us. “Authority” comes from “author” as progenitor of life. St. Josemaria engendered sons and daughters by loving them. And by so loving, he made them capable of forming the “communio” that is the family of Opus Dei. The gift of self that is constitutive of forming a communio originated in the love of the Father. Hence, Escriva wanted the words “genuit filios et filias” engraved on his tomb. Rather, making the same point, they engraved, “El Padre.” This charism of “Father” is apostolically oriented toward all the bishops of the Church in the relation to their dioceses.
Opus Dei is “a little bit of the Church.” Pedro Rodriguez commented that the relationship between the two sacramental (and therefore, ontological) insertions (giving “character”) into the one priesthood of Christ – Baptism (lay faithful) and Orders (ministerial hierarchy) – is the “aboriginal” one that obtained in the early Church. It antedated the clericalization of the Church that took place after Constantine’s conversion. Opus Dei and the Second Vatican Council have marked the death-knell of that clericalization. That aboriginal relationship is the service that the ministerial priesthood gives to the layfaithful in sacraments, Word and Eucharistic Sacrifice, and the need to be served that is the perennial situation of the laity. The union of the two, ministers acting in the Person of the Bridegroom, and lay faithful receptive as the Bride form the one-flesh union in the Eucharist and in the communio of the family of the Work.
Anniversary of Death of Alvaro del Portillo – March 23, 2006
Foundational Charism:
“In order to serve the Church in Opus Dei, everything must always be understood, and carried out, taking as its starting point our Father’s foundational charism. This charism, which was a gratuitous supernatural reality, endures in the Work, endowing it with well defined characteristics. The Holy Spirit didn’t place it in our Father’s soul merely with a view to his personal response to God, but so that it would give shape for centuries to come to the Work our Lord was entrusting to him. This charism cannot become, therefore, a mere historical reference taking us back to the past. It is, through God’s mercy, a living and effective reality in Opus Dei, a power, a grace, from which we all ought to draw nourishment and which we all have the duty of guarding and passing on…. We are, and always will be, living `in our Father’s time,’” said Alvaro del Portillo.[1]
Stage of Fidelity:
“Since 26 June 1975 the Work has been going through a stage which Don Alvaro always referred to as the stage of continuity, the stage of fidelity to the spirit and the norms received from our Father. We are called to assimilate them fully, to make them flesh of our flesh, and so fulfill, in the service of the Church and of souls, the mission God has given us – a mission which in no way distinguishes us from the rest of the lay faithful or the diocesan clergy.
“I shouldn’t continue without speaking to you a little more about Don Alvaro, our Father’s most faithful son and successor, a good and faithful servant, who on 23 March 1994 entered into the joy of his Master. All of us indeed have witnessed his holiness and his fatherly watchfulness. We have seen how he dedicated all his energies to guiding his daughters and sons at every moment along the path of burning love for Christ and of self-giving, in the apostolic task our Founder left clearly marked out – carved in stone, let me say once again.
“But the considerations I am putting before you in this Letter require me now to refer not directly to Don Alvaro’s saintly response, but the significance in the overall history of the Work of what he did while he was our Pastor and Father. Our Father used to call him saxum. He realized very early on that God had placed this son at his side to be a firm support, and to be the one who would eventually succeed him as head of Opus Dei. St. Josemaria always dept him close at hand, making sure he became thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the Work, and he gradually prepared him for his future mission. That was how al of us, all the other children of God in Opus Dei, understood it. All of us, even the oldest members, treated him in our normal family style but with a special reverence and respect…
“Therefore, when the Electors unanimously chose him on 15 September 1975 to be our Founder’s successor, Don Alvaro was able to comment on the election with that very simple expression: the Electors `have voted unanimously, not for Alvaro del Portillo, but once again for the Father.’ While he said this out of humility, to avoid standing out himself, it was really a profound truth. It made clear what a great man he was, and the special authority with which he took up his new role as Pastor and Father of the family of Opus Dei…. He was well prepared to set in motion and direct the new stage then beginning, `the state of continuity in fidelity’ as he stressed from the very first moment, bearing in himself our Father’s authority which continued uninterrupted.”
Domestic Tasks of D. Alvaro:
a. “the culmination of the canonical path of Opus Dei” as “the pontifical establishment of Opus Dei as a personal Prelature in the Church on 28 November 1982.”
b.“urging forward our Father’s process of beatification. This was accomplished ten years after the establishment of the Prelature on… 17 may 1992.”
Prior Tasks at the Second Vatican Counciil:
· May 2, 1959: named Consultor of the congregation of the Council;
· August 10, 1959: named President of the VII internal Commission De laicatu catholico;
· Named member of the pre-preparatory Commission on the states of perfection;
· August 12 elected member of the III Commission of the Congregation of the Council encharged to study the so-called peculiaria nostrae aetatis apostolatus media.
· October 4, 1962: named conciliar “Peritus.”
· November 4, 1962: named “Peritus” of the Commission for the Discipline of the Clergy and Christian People;
· November 8, 1962: named Secretary of this organism
· Named Consultor of the Commissions for the Bishops and the regime of the dioceses, the Religious and the Discipline of the Faith.
· September 29 – December of 1963: during the Second Session of the Council, the Commission for the Discipline of the Clergy and the Christian People, of which D. Alvaro was Secretary, was encharged to synthesize into a single conciliar decree (to become “Presbyterorum Ordinis). He had to coordinate the work of the members of the Commission which became a conciliar text of a single chapter subdivided into 10 parts.
“To some extent, it as Don Alvaro’s decision that a text be drafted. He argued persuasively that the priesthood was so important in the Church that it well deserved a decree of its own, rather than just a handful of propositions with a concluding message (a suggestion made at some point in the proceedings).
“The drafting of the decree was very hard work, especially because of all the tension there was at that time over the issue of priestly celibacy. That conflict, in fact, got so bad that Pope Paul himself had to intervene. Also, the commission had to reach conclusions regarding the spirituality of priests. One of its decisions was to defend centuries-old traditions against those who regarded them as mere pietism. It discussed the presence of the priest in the world, and why he needed a good formation in the basic human virtues in order to serve the men and women of his time. But it also warned that priests should not adopt lay lifestyles, much less take on commitments of a partisan political nature. Finally, it asserted the freedom to join associations which in one way or another could help them achieve personal sanctification in the carrying out of their priestly ministry.”[2]
“Not a week had gone by after the close of the Council when Cardinal Ciriaci, president of the commission of which Don Alvaro had been secretary, sent him a note expressing heartfelt gratitude and congratulations for the happy conclusion of a great achievement.” The note said: “You steered to a safe harbor your decree, which is by no means the least important of the decrees and constitutions of the Council.” The vote on the document was 2390 to 4, a nearly unanimous approval after thorough debate, on December 7, 1965. Ciriaci said: (History would regard this decree as) “a fresh, and practically unanimous, confirmation by the Second Vatican Council of ecclesiastical celibacy and the exalted mission of the priesthood.” Pope Paul VI said: “I am well aware of the extent to which this is a result of your prudent, tenacious, and courteous efforts. Without failing to respect the freedom of others to have and to express their own opinions, you never swerved from the track of fidelity to the great principles of priestly spirituality.”[3]
Icon of Alvaro del Portillo’s Fidelity to the Charism of St. Josemaria:
On June 27, 1975, with St. Josemaria lying in state in the oratory of Our Lady of Peace in Rome, Alvaro del Portillo got up from where he was praying. He approached the body of St. Josemaria, knelt down at his head, bent over and touched his forehead to the forehead of St. Josemaria. He remained in that position for some long seconds. Then, he got up, removed three red roses from a stem and deposited them at the feet of the saint pronouncing the phrase of St. Paul: Quam speciosi pedes evangelizantium pacem, evangelizantium bona!
Death of Alvaro del Portillo: At 6, 15 p.m. on the afternoon of March 23, 1994, John Paul II arrived at 173 Viale Bruno Buozzi, and descended to the oratory of Our Lady of Peace. Upon entering he said in Italian: “Sia lodato Gesu Cristo!” (Praised by Jesus Christ). All responded the same.
The Pope then knelt down on a predieu with a red stole and remained kneeling in prayer for some ten minutes in the midst of an impressive silence.
He was then invited by the Prelate to pray the response for the dead, but he preferred to intone the Salve and pray three Glory be to the Father’s. He then pronounced the invocations Requiem aeternum dona ei, Domine and Requiescat in pace. He was offered the hyssop and he sprinkled the body of D. Alvaro with holy water. Afterwards, he knelt down and prayed for a short time more. Before leaving the chapel, he blessed all those present.
The Prelate reminded the Pope of the profound love of D. Alvaro for the Church and the Pope for whom he always offered the Mass, and concretely the Mass of yesterday morning that he celebrated in the Cenacle of Jerusalem. Then, he thanked the Holy Father in the name of the Work for his coming to pray. The Pope, in Italian, answered that he considered a duty: “Si doveva, si doveva…
Then the Pope asked the Father what time D. Alvaro had celebrated Mass in the Cenacle. He calculated the number of hours that passed between the last Mass precisely there and the moment of death. The answer was seventeen (17).
Conclusion:
Opus Dei and the Church: Alvaro del Portillo pronounced that the Second Vatican Council “had assimilated and promulgated as common doctrine for all Christians the substantial lines of the charism of Opus Dei.”[4]
[1] Letter from the Prelate, November 28, 1995.
[2] Salvador Bernal, “Alvaro del Portillo,” Scepter (1996) 130-131.
[3] Ibid. 126-128.
[4] Cfr. Romana et Matriten., Beatificationis et Canonizationis Servi Dei Iosephmaria Escriva de Balaguer, Positio super vita et virtutibus, Summarium, no. 964.
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