A Non-Reductive (i.e. Relational) Anthropology

From “New Dynamics in Sexual Love”[1]


“If man is basically an animal, then an animal is basically a vegetable, or a plant-substance with vegetative powers for growth and reproduction. But the fact that animals grow and reproduce in common with plants does not warrant the assertion that animals are basically vegetative things or that the energy for an animal’s behavior is a plant energy. An animal’s walking, running, crawling, seeing and other acts of sensing are not expressions of a plant energy but of a new energy. This new energy assimilates or draws into itself the energy of vegetative life.

“Due to this phenomenon of assimilation, the very things that animals have in common with plants are basically different in animals than in plants. The animal is basically a sentient creature and not basically a vegetative creature. In a similar way, man, though he has powers in common with animals, is not basically an animal. In man, still another new energy, a mind-energy, assimilates and transforms the energy of animal life.

“Evidence of such assimilation of the lower into the higher appears already in the newborn child. On the first day of life his difference from the newborn of animals is striking. The latter are able to walk and run almost immediately. In most cases the characteristic animal-power of locomotion is ready to go at birth. But the newborn of man barely moves for months. If he is held erect with his feet touching a surface, his legs may begin a stepping motion. But because the child is unable to walk, he must mentally absorb his environment as the place where his walking will begin one day. He must discover his legs and feet. After pulling his feet toward his head, after feeling and biting his toes, he discovers that these belong to him and that they can be made to serve his purpose. Only after t he child’s legs and feet, as well as his environment, have been assimilated into his mental life is he able to begin his stumbling progress toward human locomotion. The walking of a baby is a human act with a mental foundation. From the very first this creature is not an animal.

Distinction between Training and Education:

“The well known experience of the Montessori schools have shown us that in a prepared environment children develop an affection for the materials they work with and have their inmost energy set free to assimilate movement and sense experiences into their own inscrutable purposes. Their growing toward maturity and loving union with the environment is not forced from without, as Freud would have it with his social pressures and sublimation, but by a spontaneous movement from within. This movement will depend on the degree and quality of freedom the child is given to be and to become himself. When the child’s mind is controlled and manipulated by adults, it is trained under social pressure. But mental training fails to release the inmost energy of the human mind. In fact, such a training forces the child to repress much of his true nature and to remain unconscious in his motivation. His sublimated behavior is willed behavior that does not benefit from his natural and spontaneous feelings. He is made to repress these feelings under the pressure of the superiority complex of adults and the ironic tyranny of loving parents. This tragedy of repression is the social sickness in man that Freud described well but did not interpret correctly, as his view of human nature is derived from sick, repressed man, not from man as he is when educated in freedom.

“Whether one approaches the subject form a philosophical or psychological point of view, the final conclusion is the same Training is an inadequate method of development man’s emotional and mental life, precisely because the human creature is not an animal! Education is based on respecting children as human beings, on giving them the freedom within a prepared and safe environment with an adult to act as a guide rather than a trainer. Only in education, never in training, are children allowed to be and to become with they really are: uniquely themselves. Only when affirmed by mature parents and educators, i.e. loved for being what they are, even for their ‘otherness,’ and allowed to assimilate spontaneously in their own tempo their whole being into their mental and spiritual life, only then will children find their unique identity and fulfilment, never to be plagued by an identity crisis in later life!”

Conrad Baars comments: “Theirs [the Joyces] is a much more profound philosophy than Freud’s expanded concept of sexuality. Although he intended it to be more than mere genitality, Freud and his followers never advanced beyond the view that the psychological eros in its genital functions formed the center of the human person’s sexual nature.

The Anthropology of Being Love (Relation)

“The Joyces, however, believe that contrary to ancient and even recent assumptions, genitality, as well as generation, is no longer to be considered the central value of our sexual nature. They believe the true center of the human person’s sexual nature to be something still more radical than these two sexual functions, namely: the persons’ power for actively being his or her sexuality without necessarily engaging his or her sexual functions. This is one way of saying that the original and most authentic meaning of genuine sexual freedom is the centering of the sexuality of man and woman in their capacity for being love without necessarily making love in a genital manner.

“This is another way of saying that the masculine and feminine aspects of human nature are not only or primarily physical and oriented toward sexual communication. Rather, they are also and primarily psychic and trans-psychic, i.e., oriented toward the being of all things. These masculine and feminine aspects serve the purpose of sexual communion, the revelation of what man and woman are, the being consciously aware of the goodness of the other, the process by whipchj they give the other to himself or herself, and the process by which they affirm each other.


The Joyces Again:

“The meeting of persons as beings – so necessary in the process of finding our identity and giving others theirs – is hindered severely if we place our primary value in the physical aspects of sexuality. To do so also leads to a grave misconstruction of the nature of sexual equality. Many women insist that the only difference between man and woman is a difference in anatomy, that sex is biological only. The only difference then left to man and woman – their physical difference – must be played to the hilt thereafter and exploited as a compensation for the lack of deeper difference and Complementarity. As a result, either women have become, more than ever, the play-objects of men, or both men and women have become slaves of the one sexual interaction they allow their nature to have. Women need to realize that the limitation of sexual difference to the human anatomy is not the way out of their ancient subservience to men, nor the way into the joyful freedom of friendship with man.

“It is very difficult for the human mind to sustain the notion of fundamental difference within fundamental equality. Through man and woman are equal they different in the very depths of their existence. Their more apparent anatomical differences are not mere accidentals or mere attachments to their common human nature; differences in the body are revelations of differences in the depths of their being. Since the human body is an expression of the human soul, an essential difference in any organ of the body is an expression of an essential difference in the whole being of the living person. If this is not true, the human body is not really untied with the human soul. The idea that the sex is biological only is a serious affront to the unity of the human person.

Hands and Intellect:

“Though the hands are not the organs in which man and woman differ most, their hands are revelations of the difference within equality that constitutes their true relationship. The hand may be described by its complementary acts of feeling and grasping. These physical acts are revelations of the deeper power by which man knows the existence and the natures of things in the world. The human intellect, in its complementary acts of feeling and grasping, is very much lie the human hand, and vice versa. In its intuitive act of perception, the intellect touches and feels the existence of things. In its act of abstracting, the intellect grasps the nature of things. Knowing that things exist and knowing what they are, are complementary acts of man’s spiritual hand, his intuitive-rational intellect.

“Even though man and woman both have hands with powers for feeling and grasping, it is apparent that their sexual difference extends to their hands. Generally, man has greater size and greater muscular strengths in his hand. He excels not only in the grasping power of his hand, but also in the grasping power of his intellect. This is why man was given dominion over the earth. Adam’s mental hand was able to grasp the essence of each creature individually, and his mind was so grasping strong that whatever he apprehended each creature to be, that was precisely its nature (Genesis 2, 19). But it was not good for Adam to be alone. It was not good for the master of the earth to be alone without another hand in his, keeping it flexible and open. Lest Adam forget that beings are good not only for their service to man, but primarily, and always, just because they exist, another hand was place in his. Grasping without feeling degenerates into exploitation.”

Baars Develops:

“The hand placed in his was that of a woman. Gentle and sensitive, it is oriented toward touching and feeling the existence of things, toward protectively taking hold of things. Her hand expresses the intuitive act of perception of her intellect. As intuition is knowledge of what is actually present, this intuitive knowing is without doubt the perfect form of knowing. Thinking, on the other hand, is knowledge of what is absent; the necessity for thinking is due to a failure of intuition.

“In our scientific age which expresses the power and the reason emphasized in man, it would be well for women to become aware of the crucial role they haveto play if humankind is to be saved from itself. The special sensitivity and intuitive intellection emphasized in woman is the source of the wisdom needed to modify man’s technical power before it degenerates into weakness. How man and woman are to experience sexual communion, their original and most fulfilling form of sexual relationship, one will learn frm reading and reading Mary and Robert Joyce’s revolutionary approach to marriage and celibacy.”[2]

[1] Robert E. and Mary Rosera Joyce, St. John’s University Press, Collegeville, MN 1970. See also “Let Us Be Born” Franciscan Herald Press (1970).
[2] Conrad Baars, M.D. “I Will Give Them a New Heart,” St. Pauls (2008) 156-161.

Remarks on "Emotional Immaturity in Priests" by Conrad Baars, M.D.

Let me preface these remarks of Dr. Baars by saying that the problem of “emotional immaturity” is not caused by celibacy in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church. In fact, according to Baars, “caelebs” or celibacy is a condition of maturity sine qua non for both married life and ministerial priesthood since celibacy is an anthropological state of self-mastery and self-possession necessary for the giving of self as gift, be it to God, be it to a spouse of the opposite sex. Concretely, he says “the person mature enough to commit to either the married or religious state of life must already have become a free, self-possessed, unique masculine or feminine celibate – for that is precisely what caelebs means: singular and alone!”[1] But to be able “singular and alone” in the sense of the achievement of autonomy, one must be affirmed by significant others. Appositely, Ratzinger asserted: “the root of man’s joy is the harmony he enjoys with himself. He lives in this affirmation. And only one who can accept himself can also accept the thou, can accept the world. The reason why an individual cannot accept the thou, cannot come to terms with him, is that he does not like his own I and, for that reason, cannot accept a thou.

“Something strange happens here. We have seen that the inability to accept one’s I leads to the inability to accept a thou. But how does on go about affirming, assenting to, one’s I? The answer may perhaps be unexpected: We cannot do so by our own efforts alone. Of ourselves, we cannot come to terms with ourselves. Our I becomes acceptable to us only if it has first become acceptable to another I. We can love ourselves only if we have first been loved by someone else. The life a mother gives to her child is not just physical life; she gives total life when she takes the child’s tears and turns them into smiles. It is only when life has been accepted and is perceived as accepted that it becomes also acceptable. Man is that strange creature that needs not just physical birth but also appreciation if he is to subsist…”[2]

Celibacy is not the cause of psychological immaturity. It is the condition of becoming psychologically mature. To be celibate is to be master of oneself. It is a condition of making the gift of self, since one cannot give what one does not have. One must possess self.

Benedict XVI explained celibacy in terms of the priestly tribe of Levi not being apportioned any part of the Promised Land. Their portion was to be the Lord Himself. As such, celibacy is superior to the sacrament of matrimony as already being the state of self-gift to God that matrimony is ramping up to. He said:

“The solely pragmatic reasons, the reference to greater availability, is not enough: such a greater availability of time could easily become also a form of egoism that saves a person from the sacrifices and efforts demanded by the reciprocal acceptance and forbearance in matrimony; thus, it could lead to a spiritual impoverishment or to hardening of the heart.

“The true foundation of celibacy can be contained in the phrase: Dominus pars - You are my land. It can only be theocentric. It cannot mean being deprived of love, but must mean letting oneself be consumed by passion for God and subsequently, thanks to a more intimate way of being with him, to serve men and women, too. Celibacy must be a witness to faith: faith in God materializes in that form of life which only has meaning if it is based on God.

“Basing one's life on him, renouncing marriage and the family, means that I accept and experience God as a reality and that I can therefore bring him to men and women. Our world, which has become totally positivistic, in which God appears at best as a hypothesis but not as a concrete reality, needs to rest on God in the most concrete and radical way possible.

“It needs a witness to God that lies in the decision to welcome God as a land where one finds one's own existence. For this reason, celibacy is so important today, in our contemporary world, even if its fulfilment in our age is constantly threatened and questioned.”[3]

Spousal love of husband and wife is a progressive development of self-gift that will find its full achievement in the Parousia. Hence, celibacy is not a cause of psychic deficiency but of psychic perfection. The deficiency is the lack of affirmation that impedes achieving the state of celibacy for both matrimony and for the Kingdom. In that light, consider these remarks of Conrad Baars:


“More often than not the priest comes from a ‘fine Catholic home,’ a strict one with little emotional love. Spurred on to develop his character, train his will, and grow intellectually, his emotional growth lags behind. Neither minor nor major seminary were capable of closing this ‘maturity gap’ through authentic affirmation, and trained[4] – the word is used deliberately – him to function without the benefit of the emotional life. The consequences of this unbalanced formation have been largely disastrous.

“In our clinical practices we have seen many priests with obvious identity problems. Priests who were uncertain in their attitude toward life, felt unloved, lonely and depressed, and whether they realized it or not, awkward in their interpersonal relationships. Psychosexual immaturity expressed in hetero-or homosexual activity was often encountered. Many experienced difficulties in matters of faith, or suffered from severe scrupulosity, while a growing number of them seriously considered leaving the priesthood. Virtually all of these priests were non-affirmed men, suffering from severe to moderate Emotional Deprivation Disorder, with or without associated obsessive-compulsive repressions, scrupulosity or chronic alcoholism.

“Happily, many of them responded to our therapy by gradually maturing emotionally, acquiring a feeling of personal worth and dignity, and becoming more sure of themselves in their interpersonal relationsh8ips. Their sexual problems gradually disappeared without analytic scrutiny. Their faith and religious sentiments also benefited from their growing emotional maturity, and in the course of a few years they became happy priests capable of bringing joy and happiness to those entrusted to their pastoral care.

“Other priest who had married after leaving the priesthood sought help because of sexual impotence, depressive states and psychological conflicts and difficulties with their spouses. At times, both of them would have been only too happy if their marriage could have been dissolved. This is not surprising because in a non-affirmed priest, the search for affirmation is likely to express itself in an intense and virtually irresistible desire for tactile contacts, the very first expression of affirmation meaningful to his undeveloped emotional life. In choosing a partner he is therefore bound to make a serious mistake both in his thinking and in his feelings, and he will enter marriage devoid of the emotional capacity to establish a mutually meaningful and satisfying relationship.

“Related to this is the fact that many former priests seems to have found their partner among women either much older or younger than they, suggesting the possibility that either they enter into a relationship with an older woman in the hope that their need for affirmation will be gratified, or they prefer a younger woman with whom they can relate more comfortably on an equal level of relative emotional immaturity.

“Our clinical observations over many years have convinced us that priests in general – and some to an extreme degree – possess an insufficiently developed or distorted emotional life, while at the same time they must be considered to belong to a group of men whom nature has endowed with superior intelligence and sensitivity. In some, the causes for their emotional underdevelopment go back to childhood and remain unrecognized during the seminary years. Others enjoyed a fairly normal childhood but became emotionally disturbed through misguided ascetical practices in the seminary. Whatever the causes, however, it is a fact that the majority of today’s priest with psychological trouble suffer from some degree of non-affirmation. A smaller, but not insignificant number of priests are seriously incapacitated by obsessive-compulisve repression. Many show the symptoms of both types of disorder, often combined, at least in North America with chronic alcoholism.

“These findings also explain why the Church as a whole finds herself in a crisis. Because of the preist’s special position as mediator between God and humankind, the effects of his non-affirmation on other peple will be far more radical and widespread than in the case of the non-affirmed single or married layperson. A priest without identity without a firm sense of self-worth, cannot reveal to others their personal worth. Because he cannot affirm, he cannot love others in a way whipch strengthens both them and the Church.

“Moreover, as a non-affirmed priests depends for his sense of personal worth on the people around him, he lives in constant anticipation of what they expect from him, is fearful of displeasinf them, afraid to assert himself or to defend the truths of his faith except on a purely intellectual level. Desirous of being loved by all, he may remain silent when it is his duty to point out the errors contained in other faiths, new schools of thought, popular movements or modern osystems of education. Instead of being a source of strength and jy to the people he chose to serve, the non-affirmed priest may be said to be at the mercy –whether for good or evil, - of all with whom he comes in contact.

“Priests who remain happy in their work possess an innate sensitive appreciation of the sense goods of this world under the ready directin of intellect and will, and likewise,. An emotional appreciation of spiritual goods. IN other words, they are able to direct themselves quite easily at the objectum prout substat rationi. This necessary capacity to deny themselves certain sense goods without becoming unhappy does not seem to have been given sufficient consideration in the selection of candidates for the priesthood. In priests so disposed, the need for concrete goods will increasingly give way to a growing delight in the spiritual, with and ensuing greater expansion of mind and spirit and an ever growing happiness.”[5]

[1] Conrad Baars, M.D. “I Will Give Them a New Heart,” St. Pauls (2008) 150.
[2] J. Ratzinger, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” Ignatius (1987) 79-80
[3] Benedict XVI, Address to the Roman Curia, December 22, 2006
[4] Baars borrows the distinction between “training” and education” from Robert and Mary Joyce whom he quotes from extensively later in the book. They say: “Training is an inadequate method of developing man’s emotional and mental life, precisely because the human creature is not an animal! Education is based on respecting children as human beings, on giving them the freedom within a prepared and safe environment with an adult to act as a guide rather than a trainer. Only in education, never in training, are children allowed to be and to become what they really are: uniquely themselves. Only when affirmed by mature parents and educators, i.e. loved for what they are [not for what they can do], even for their “otherness,” and allowed to assimilate spontaneously in their own tempo their whole being into their mental and spiritual life, only then will children find their unique identity and fulfillment, never to be plagued by an identity crisis in later life!” (158-159).
[5] Conrad Baars, op. cit. 16-19.

Musings on the Third Sunday of Advent

It’s hard not to just write this stuff right off. While doing the breviary for the 3d Sunday of Advent, one runs across the antiphon for the Benedictus of Morning Prayer: Ioannes autem cum audisset in vinculis opera Christi, mittens duos ex discipulis suis, ait illi: Tu es qui venturus es, an alium exspectamus? That is, “When John, being in chains, heard of the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples to ask him: “Are you he who is to come, or should we look for another?” (L. 7, 19). And the answer comes back from Christ: “Go and tell John what it is that you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is he who is not scandalized in me” (Lk. 7, 22-23).

The problem is that John cannot re-cognize the figure of Jesus Christ. He is looking for the sensibly extraordinary. He is not yet "blessed."

Blessed

The term “blessed” is interesting. Notice the contrast between Elizabeth’s greeting to Mary at the Visitation, “Blessed is she who believed” and Christ’s rejection of the shouted praise of the woman in the crowd cried out after hearing him speak: “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that gave you suck” (Lk. 11, 27). He rejected his mother’s “blessedness” because she is the womb that bore him and breasts that nursed him. He countered: “Yeah rather, blessed are those who hear the world of God and keep it” (Lk. 11, 28). Notice further that the apostle Thomas was not blessed precisely because he demanded to see the risen body of Christ and touch the wounds. He became blessed in martyrdom, but not in demanding proof that would satisfy his curiosity. Such is reminiscent of the devil’s tempting Christ to turn stones into bread and leap from the pinnacle of the temple where Scripture states that he would be saved by the angels. In like manner, the Jews shouted, “Come down from the Cross and we will believe” (Matt. 27, 42).

The point is that John is not blessed for proclaiming the Word of God, or for being shut up in prison. He is scandalized at Christ’s hiddenness. He wants extraordinary evidence of the truth that God Himself has become man. Some extraordinary evidence should be seen. There should be an imposition of justice where the good will be rewarded and the bad punished. It should be evident to all that God has entered the world and has become man. It is scandalous that it be hidden.

Yet the word that comes back is that God, indeed, is in the world and is actively acting: the blind see, “the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.” The difficulty is that this is not outstanding to the eye. It is not humanly extraordinary. It isn’t front page news, nor perhaps easily discerned. The “sign” that God has become man is the child in Bethlehem. “In other words, the sign for the shepherds is that they will meet, not with any sign, but simply the God who has become a child – and they will have to believe in the presence of God in this hiddenness. Their “sign” demands that they learn to discover God in the incognity in which he is hidden. Their “sign” demands that they recognize that God is not to be found in the comprehensible systems of this world but can only be found at times when we grow beyond them.

“Certainly, God has given a sign of himself in the greatness and power of the cosmos, from which we may dimly perceive something of the power of the Creator. But the real sign that he chose is hiddenness, from the wretched people of Israel to the child at Bethlehem to the man who died on the Cross with the words, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mt. 27, 46). This sign of hiddenness points us toward the fact that the reality y of truth and love, the actual reality of God, is not to be met within the world of quantities but can be found only if we rise above that into a new order. Pascal expressed this idea in his marvelous doctrine of the three orders. According to him, there is first of all the order of quantities – and that is enormous and infinite, the inexhaustible object of natural science. Beside that, the order of mind, the second great realm of reality, appears, on the basis of quantity, as simply nothing, since quantitatively it takes up no space whatever. And nonetheless, a single mind (Pascal mentions the mathematical mind of Archimedes as an example) – a single mind, as we were saying, is greater than the entire order of the quantitative cosmos; because mind, which has neither weight nor length nor breadth, is able to measure the entire cosmos. Yet above that, again, stands the order of love. That, too, is, in the first instance, simply nothing in the order of
Mind,’ of scientific intelligence, as represented by Archimedes, since it cannot be the object of scientific demonstration and itself contributes nothing to any such demonstration. And nonetheless, a single motion of love is infinitely greater than the entire order of ‘Mind,’ because only that represents what is a truly creative, life-giving, and saving power. God’s incognito is intended to leas us onward into this ‘nothing’ of truth and love, which is nevertheless in reality the true, single, and all embracing absolute, and that is why in this would he is the hidden One and cannot be found anywhere else but in hiddenness.

“It is Advent. All our answers remain fragmentary. The first thing we have to accept is, ever and again, this reality of an enduring Advent. If we do that, we shall begin to realize that the borderline between ‘before Christ’ and ‘after Christ’ does not run through historical time, in an outward sense, and cannot be drawn on any map; it runs through our own hearts. Insofar as we are living on a basis of selfishness, of egoism, then even today we are ‘before Christ.’ But in this time of Advent, let us ask the Lord to grant that we may live less and less ‘before Christ,’ and certainly not ‘after Christ,’ but truly with Christ and in Christ: with him who is indeed Christ yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13, 8).”[1]

And what imposes itself on the mind is the epistemological shift that must take place in all of us, culturally. Basically, what we see with our eyes, touch with our hands, smell with our noses, hear with our ears is not the really real. The really real is the self in the act of going out of itself. It cannot begin this metaphysical exodus without sensing the sensible, but one is in contact with what is really real – Being itself – only when we experience ourselves going out to donate (if we are masculine), or going out to receive (if we are feminine).

Recall from the Synod of October on the Word of God that Benedict gave the epistemology of a life time. It is a revolution of and in metaphysics. He proclaimed in the most apodictic terms that the meaning of reality is the Word of God. It is not the physical cosmos. That is an effect of the Word. “In the beginning was the Word” (Jn. 1, 1). He said: “It begins like this: 'In aeternum, Domine, verbum tuum constitutum est in caelo... firmasti terram, et permanet”. This refers to the solidity of the Word. It is solid, it is the true reality on which we must base our life. Let us remember the words of Jesus who continues the words of this Psalm: “Sky and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away”. Humanly speaking, the word, my human word, is almost nothing in reality, but a breath. As soon as it is pronounced, it disappears. It seems like nothing. But already the human word has incredible force. It is words that create history, it is words that form thoughts, the thoughts that create the word. It is the word that forms history, reality.”Even more, the Word of God is the foundation of everything, it is the true reality. And to be realistic, we must rely upon this reality. We must change our notion that matter, solid things, things we can touch, is the most solid, the most certain reality. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord speaks to us about the two possible foundations for building the house of one’s life: sand and rock. He who builds on sand only builds on visible and tangible things, on success, on career, on money. Apparently these are the true realities. But all this one day will vanish. We can see this now with the fall of two large banks: this money disappears, it is nothing. And thus all things, which seem to be the true realities we can count on, are only realities of a secondary order. Who builds his life on these realities, on matter, on success, on appearances, builds upon sand. Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality, it is as stable as the heavens and more than the heavens, it is reality. Therefore, we must change our concept of realism. The realist is he who recognizes the Word of God, in this apparently weak reality, as the foundation of all things. Realist is he who builds his life on this foundation, which is permanent. Thus the first verses of the Psalm invite us to discover what reality is and how to find the foundation of our life, how to build life.The following verse says: “Omnia serviunt tibi”. All things come from the Word, they are products of the Word. “In the beginning was the Word”. In the beginning the heavens spoke. And thus reality was born of the Word, it is “creatura Verbi”. All is created from the Word and all is called to serve the Word. This means that all of creation, in the end, is thought to create the meeting place between God and His creature, a place where the history of love between God and His creature can develop. “Omnia serviunt tibi”. The history of salvation is not a small event, on a poor planet, in the immensity of the universe. It is not a minimal thing, which happens by chance on a lost planet. It is the motivation for everything, the motivation for creation. Everything is created so that this story can exist, the encounter between God and His creature. In this sense, the history of salvation, Covenant, precedes creation.”[2]

The above is a revolution of the mind. It is an overturning of our entire reductive culture. And by “reductive,” I means turning everything into an object of our way of know that is conceptual. What I mean is that we have turned everything into an object of a concept. Ultimate, this is the meaning of “rationalism.” Hence, the meaning of “Being” is “substance” – that which stands in itself as an “individual.” Once, that is done, we leave out the person as that which is experienced continually, but is “hidden” from conceptual objectifying. I would suggest that the sway that “substance” has held in the West as the prius of metaphysics is due to the insistence that things are the way we conceptualize them. St. Thomas saw this clearly. That is, since we form a mental image, a medium between ourselves and the exterior reality, we tend to think that things are the way we abstract, categorize and mediate them to ourselves. Which is obviously not true, as we have seen in modern physics; the breakthrough to particle physics demanded that we enter into the experience as part of it rather than holding ourselves outside and conceptualizing it “at a distance.” The difference is experiential: there is the experience of the external and internal senses. But there is also an experience of the self as “Being” that is distinct from “consciousness.” This has been the great philosophical work of Karol Wojtyla. The self is not consciousness but real “being” that is experienced in the free, moral action.

This is what Ratzinger was talking about in “Introduction to Christianity” when he said “Therein lies concealed a revolution in man’s view of the world: the undivided sway of thinking in terms of substance is ended; relation is discovered as an equally valid primordial mode of reality. It becomes possible to surmount what we call today ‘objectifying thought;’ a new plane of being comes into view. It is probably true to say tha the task imposed on philosophy as a result of these facts is far from being completed – so much does modern thought depend on the possibilities thus disclosed, but for which it would be inconceivable” (132).

Therefore, the correction that Jesus makes to the question of John the Baptist implies all of the above. And much more. Some of which is the understanding that the Kingdom of God is already here in the Person of Christ, and will grow to its fullness in that we as persons become “other Christ.” We cannot see it with our eyes, but we are experiencing it now in the collapse of Marxism and now the selfishness of an abstract capitalism, If you want to see the critique John Paul II does of Capitalism, consider the following: “©an it perhaps be said that , after the failure of Communism, capitalism is the victorious social system, and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? Is this the model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World which are searching of the path to true economic and civil progress?

“The answer is obviously complex. If by ‘capitalism’ is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it should perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a ‘business economy,’ ‘market economy’ or simply ‘free economy.’ But if by ‘capitalism’ is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality and sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative.

“The Marxist solution has failed, but the realities of marginalization and exploitation remain in the world, especially the Third World, as does the reality of human alienation, especially in the more advanced countries. Against these phenomena the Church strongly raises her voice. Vast multitudes are still living in conditions of great material and moral poverty. The collapse of the Communist system in so many countries certainly removes an obstacle to facing these problems in an appropriate and realistic way, but it is not enough to bring about their solution. Indeed, there is a risk that a radical capitalistic ideology could spread which refuses even to consider these problems, in the a priorii belief that any attempt to solve them is doomed to failure, and which blindly entrusts their solution to the free development of market forces.”

And then John Paul II suggests the proposal of the Church. It offers no models. It points to the working person. “The integral development of the human person through work does not impede but rather promotes the greater productivity and efficiency of work itself, even though it may weaken consolidated power structures. A business cannot be considered only as a ‘society of capital goods;’ it is also a ‘society of persons’ in which people participate in different ways and with specific responsibilities, whether they supply the necessary capital for the company’s activities or take part in such activities through their labor. To achieve these goals there is still need for broad associated workers’ movement, directed toward the liberation and promotion of the whole person.”[3]

The point here is: It is not the objective economic system or the objective economic model that is the engine of a country or global world economy. It is the working person. It was most interesting to read in the Wall Street Journal of Wednesday December 10, 2008, B3: “It is not just a supply shock,’ Mr. Timmer said. ‘It is not just a reduction in demand, but it is the lack of availability of credit.’ Deutsche Bank, in a forecast issued this week was even more pessimistic. It said global growth would drop to 0.2 percent in 2009, with the United States, Europe, and Japan in recessions of roughly equal severity.

“China, which grew 11.9 percent in 2007, will slow to 7 percent next year, the bank projects, and 6.6 percent in 2010, when the rest of the world is slowly recovering. It’s not going to be the spark that reignites global demand,’ said Thomas Mayer, the chief European economist for deutsche Bank. ‘We’re almost in an air pocket, where we don’t have a new global driver of growth.”
The suggestion of both popes – John Paul II and Benedict XVI – is that the “driver of growth” is development of human culture – a culture of trust and confidence - by the development of the cult of the working Person, Jesus of Nazareth. But to see the face of that Person, there must be a “proclamation of the Kingdom” which, as the third luminous mystery of the Rosary bids, is a call to conversion, which is an interior revolution.

Broaden Reason

Let me go back. Benedict has been calling the Church to “broaden reason” from Regensburg, to two discourses to European professors, to the unpresented talk to the Roman University “La Sapienza.” I refer you back to those talks that I have posted in September or October. Everything above is on that theme of establishing the two levels of reason based on the two levels of experience: the sensible and the self in moral act. He is also calling for heavy work on the “natural law” which is not the law of nature, but the law of the self as experienced in the above. The world society cannot build now on a defunct Marxism and waning Capitalism. The ground has been scorched with Nihilism as we have seen last week in Mumbai. Something new has to be generated as the global truth on which global freedom find its direction. If not, freedom is lost. The response to the brutal nihilism of Mumbai, our own 9/11, Somalia pirating, the continuing middle East, etc. is the beginning of a conversion to the truth of the existential person in his giftedness of self in work. The restraint has to come from the self on the self. If not the restraint will be imposed from without in a new and yet more brutal (yet sutble) totalitarianism. Work must be gift to become a true and flourishing economy. The Japanese have simply made the world splendid gifts of automobiles, and their industry prospers because of the quality. The quality is the creativity of the self given who is prototypically Christ on the Cross. If it is driven solely for profit (self), it decays!

[1] J. Ratzinger, “What It Means to Be a Christian,” Ignatius (2006).37-40.
[2] Benedict’s Reflection at Synod on Word of God, "The Foundation of Everything, It Is the True Reality," Vatican City, October 7, 2008.
[3] John Paul II, Centesimus Annus , ##42.1, 42.2; 42,3; 43.1.

Clarifications of a Homily: December 8, 2008

As an antidote to possible misunderstandings of the homily last night (Monday, December 8, 2008 at Our Lady of Peace in New Providence), I offer the following.


The intent was to show the realism of the historical background into which the Incarnation of the Son of God took place. God did not drop as a meteor into human history and redeem it by an act outside of that very history. The Incarnation and the Redemption took place inside of human history by the Son of God taking a real human nature genealogically descending from Abraham (Matthew 1, 1-17) and ascending back to Adam (Luke 3, 23-38).

Concerning Matthew’s genealogy, Benedict XVI wrote: “St. Matthew the Evangelist begins his account of the Good News of Jesus Christ with the words: ‘The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.’ He searches out the human ancestors of this man Jesus and attempts to locate him in relation to the history of the race. He shows the human origins of this life which did not drop straight from heaven but grew on a tree with a long history and ultimately sprang from the two great roots named Abraham and David. Matthew is presenting Jesus the man, and for this reason his symbol as evangelist is the Son of Man.

“The New Testament begins with man, just as the Old Testament had begun with the incalculably mysterious soliloquy of the Creator: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ A man stands at the beginning of the New Testament…but as one who emerges from the history of mankind. In his genealogy Matthew carefully plots the transition from the long and bewildering history set down in the Old Testament to the new reality that has begun with Jesus Christ.”[1]


Concerning Luke’s genealogy, the pope wrote: “He [Luke] thus makes it clear that the community Jesus has established is not simply a new Israel, a people whom God gathers for himself in this world, but that the mission of Jesus embraces instead the whole of the human race. His mission is not aimed at salvation for one group, one set of people alone, but is directed to the whole race, the entire world. In Jesus Christ the creation of man first attains its true goal; in him the Creator’s conception of man finds its full expression; in him the beast that lurks in all of us is overcome for the first time, and the human in its fullness comes on the stage of history, for, as the second reading for the Dawn Mass of Christmas says: in Jesus ‘the loving kindness (philanthropia: love for mankind) of God our Savior appeared’ (Ti, 4).

“The face of Jesus Christ shows us clearly what God is, and it also makes visible what man is.”[2]


With the purpose of showing this historical realism, I presented and highlighted the sordid elements in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. I mentioned – perhaps too strenuously in trying to make the point – the presence of unjust favoritism (Judah over Joseph), cheating (Jacob over Esau), prostitution (Tamar, Rahab), adultery (King David), etc. The reason for making this point strenuously was to highlight Christ’s real humanity as taken from within that history. My ultimate purpose was to contrast this sinful darkness with the radical break from it that is the Immaculate Conception of our Lady. By a supernatural intervention in the sordidness of this historical ancestry, the mother of Jesus is without sin. The flesh comes to Jesus from within the genealogy, but not the sin. It stopped at our Lady who engendered Him by an act of love: fiat. Benedict XVI’s point is that man does not reach God by his own efforts but by God’s coming to man.

That supernatural intervention which was the break in the sinfulness of the genealogy was what I was after, but fear I did not get it across. Let me quote Benedict XVI who did get it across:

“The history of which Jesus becomes a part is a very ordinary history, marked by all the scandals and infamies to be found among human beings, all the advances and good beginnings, but also all the sinfulness and vileness – an utterly human history!

“The only four women named in the genealogy [Matthew] are all four of them witnesses to human sinfulness: Among them is Rahab the harlot who delivered Jericho into the hands of the migrating Israelites. Among them, too, is the wife of Uriah, the woman whom David got for himself through adultery and murder. Nor are the males in the genealogy any different. Neither Abraham nor Isaac or Jacob is an ideal human being; David certainly is not, nor is Solomon; and Manasseh, whose thrones are sticky with the blood of innocent victims. It is a somber history that leads to Jesus; it is not without its moments of light, its hopes, and advances, but on the whole it is a history of shabbiness, sin, and failure.

“We are tempted to ask: Is that the context into which the Son of God could be born? And the scriptures answer: Yes. But all this is a sign for us. It tells us that the incarnation of God does not result from an ascent on the part of the human race but from the descent of God. The ascent of man, the attempt to bring forth God by his own efforts and to attain the status of superman – this attempt failed wretchedly back in Paradise. The person who tries to become God by his own efforts, who highhandedly reaches for the stars, always ends up by destroying himself. Thus the wretched course of Israelite history is a sign for us: a sign that it is not through arrogance and self-exaltation that human beings are delivered, but through humility, self-surrender, and service.”

The point that Benedict wants to make is that we do not rise to God by our efforts alone, but rather God must make the first steps to stoop down to us and raise us up. The point is the radical necessity of the supernatural. He goes on to say (here and elsewhere) that “in Christianity the focus is not on great religious figures; Christianity represents rather the dethronement of religious figures. The thing that counts in Christianity is obedience, humility in the face of God’s word. ‘An infant, or an overdriven laborer, given faith, can take precedence before heroes of asceticism,’[3] because salvation does not come from man’s greatness but from God’s gracious mercy. This sign of God’s descent, the saving sign that is his self-humbling, should imprint this passage of the Gospel deep in our hearts once again. It should once again convert us into persons who do not shun a similar descent; persons who know that precisely in their descent and in the little services life asks of them they are on the way to Jesus Christ.”[4]

Consider what is at stake in the very meaning of God, man and religion here. Ratzinger has presented in his “Truth and Tolerance” that there are three basic forms of religion: Mysticism, Monotheism and Enlightenment. Mysticism is the experience of the self as absolute (Buddha, Confucius, Lao-tzu): “God” is passive/unhistorical; Monotheism (the Prophet) is the call of God to belief, i.e. to go out of self: God is active/historical; Enlightenment is rational knowledge as absolute.

In the monotheistic experience of receptivity in an active, Self-revealing God who speaks the Word that is Himself, there are no great religious figures. Their greatness depends on their humility and obedience to the intervention of the supernatural. Only God can engender God. In Judeo-christianity, there tend not to be great religious figures. Ratzinger notes that “If we set the principal actors in the convenant-event of Israel against the religious personalities of Asia, then first of all we feel remarkably uncomfortable. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, with all their wiles and tricks, with their ill-temper and their inclination to violence, seem at least quite mediocre and pathetic next to someone like Buddha, Confucius or Lao-tzu, but even such great prophetic characters as Hosea, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel are not entirely persuasive in such a comparison.”[5]

The point to be made is that history, as existential reality, is the context of the active revelation of God. God is the active One. His action is what we call “the supernatural.” We are capable of it only if He has acted first to empower us. This gives a clue to the nature of the human person. Man must be loved and affirmed (grace) before he is a subject capable of mastering self and self-possessive in order to make the gift of self that is the reception of the Word of the one God. This active reception is what we understand to be “faith.” Ratzinger says: “God seeks out man in the midst of his worldly and earthly connections and relationships: God, whom no one, not even the purest of men, can discover for himself, comes to man of his own volition and enters into relationship with him…. It is not primarily the discovery of some truth; rather, it the activity of God himself making history. Its meaning is, not that divine reality becomes visible to man, but that it makes the person who receives the revelation into an actor in divine history. For here, in contrast to mysticism, God is the one who acts, and it is he who brings salvation to man.”[6]


Ratzinger then quotes Danielou appositely and at length:

“Those who are saved are the inward-looking souls, whatever the religion they profess. For Christianity, they are the believers, whatever level of inwardness they may have achieved. A little child, an overworked workman, if they believe, stand at a higher level than the greatest ascetics. ‘We are not great religious personalities,’ Guardini once said; ‘we are servants of the Word.’ Christ himself had said that Saint John the Baptist might well be ‘the greatest among the children of men,’ but that ‘the least among the sons of the kingdom is greater than he’ (see Lk. 7, 28). It is possible for there to be great religious personalities in the world even outside of Christianity; it is indeed very possible for the greatest religious personalities to be found outside Christianity; but that means nothing; what counts is obedience to the Word of Christ.”[7]

[1] J. Ratzinger, “Dogma and Preaching,” Franciscan Herald Press (1985) 19.
[2] Ibid 22-23.
[3] Jean Danielou, “The Lord of History: Reflection on the Inner Meaning of History,” tr. By N. Abercrombie (Chicago, 1958) p. 113 – in full in footnote 7 below.
[4] J. Ratzinger, op. cit 21-22.
[5] J. Ratzinger, “Truth and Tolerance,” Ignatius (2004) 40-41.
[6] Ibid. 42.
[7] J. Ratzinger, op. cit 43.

The Immaculate Conception 2008

St. Anselm preached:

“The Creator has been blessed by creation… The whole universe was created by God, and God was born of Mary. God created all things and Mary gave birth to God… God, then, is the Father of the created world and Mary the mother of the re-created world. God is the Father by whom all things were given life and Mary the mother through whom all things were given new life.”

“God created all things and Mary gave birth to God”

God created all things good but they turned bad by sin. Sin entered into the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Matthew’s selection of the genealogy of Christ runs through 14 patriarchs, 14 Kings and 14 relatively unknown and apparently unimportant and forgettable people.

Abraham begot Isaac; and Isaac begot Jacob [less honest than Esau stealing his birthright]; and Jacob begot Judah [not the best of the brothers; Joseph was] and his brethren; and Judah begot Perez and Zerah of Tamar; and Perez begot Hezron; and Hezron begot Ram; and Ram begot Ammin'adab; and Amminadab begot Nahshon; and Nahshon begot Salmon; and Salmon begot Boaz of Rahab [prostitute]; and Boaz begot Obed of Ruth [non-Jewish Moabite]; and Obed begot Jesse; and Jesse begot David, the king. Notice that there are 5 women in the genealogy of Jesus Christ: Tamar (a non-Jew who disguised herself as a prostitute and seduced Judah); Rahab (a non-Jew who was a professional prostitute); Ruth (a non-Jew Moabite); Bathsheba (taken in adultery by David who had her husband killed); Our Lady.

There are then 14 generations of Kings: David engenders Solomon by adultery with Bathsheba, and from Solomon to Hezekiah and Josiah [good] all were idolaters, murderers, incompetent harem-serviced power seekers who ended being deported from the Promised Land to Exile and servitude in Babylon. They lost their freedom and the Temple as the visible presence of God among them.

After the Exile (700 B.C.), they are all unknown and undistinguished figures except two leading to Joseph the husband of Mary, of her was begotten Jesus, called the Christ.
Raymond Brown: “Matthew’s choice of Isaac over Ishmael, of Jacob over Esau, of Judah over Joseph is faithful to the Old Testament insight that God frequently does not choose the best of the noble or the saintly. In other words, Matthew is faithful to an insight about a God who is not controlled by human merit but manifests His own unpredictable graciousness…. Truly, this theology, at work in the choices among the patriarchs, is ‘the beginning story of Jesus Christ,’ since he will preach salvation to tax collectors and sinners, proclaim that they need a physician and not those who are already religious, and who will ultimately die for us ‘while we were still sinners ‘(Rom 5, 8). Matthew’s genealogy is telling us that the story of Jesus Christ contains as many sinners as saints and is written with the crooked lines of liars and betrayers and the immoral, and not only with straight lines.”[1]

and David, the king, begot Solomon of her that had been the wife of Uriah [adultery]; and Solomon begot Rehoboam [problematic from here on]; and Rehoboam begot Abijah; and Abijah begot Asa; and Asa begot Jehoshaphat; and Jehoshaphat begot Joram; and Joram begot Uzziah; and Uzziah begot Jotham; and Jotham begot Ahaz; and Ahaz begot Hezekiah; and Hezekiah begot Manasseh; and Manasseh begot Amon; and Amon begot Josiah; and Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon;
and after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begot Shealtiel; and Shealtiel begot Zerubbabel; and Zerubbabel begot Abiud; and Abiud begot Eliakim; and Eliakim begot Azor; and Azor begot Sadoc; and Sadoc begot Achim; and Achim begot Eliud; and Eliud begot Eleazar and Eleazar begot Matthan; and Matthan begot Jacob; and Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

Joseph

“‘How can Jesus be Joseph’s son if Joseph did not beget him?’ … Matthew gives the answer to the modern question when Joseph is told, ‘She is to bear a son and you are to name him Jesus.’ Judaism wrestled with the fact that it is easy to tell who is a child’s mother, but difficult to tell who is a child’s father. To establish paternity, it is not sufficient to ask the wife because she might lie about the father in order to avoid being accused of adultery. Rather, the husband should give testimony since most men are reluctant to acknowledge a child unless it is their own. The Mishnah to Baba Bathra (8,6), written some 200 years after Jesus’ birth, is lucidly clear. ‘If a man says, “This is my son,” he is to be believed.’ Josephs gives such an acknowledgment by naming the child; thus he becomes the legal father of Jesus. (This is a more correct descriptions than adoptive father or foster father). The identity of Jesus as Son of David is in God’s plan, but Joseph must give to that plan a cooperative obedience that befits a righteous man.”[2]

The Break

Suddenly: “Hail, full of grace” (Lk 1, 28). (Not, Hail Miryam [= Mary]). The new name of Our Lady is “full of grace” (kecharitomene). This is who she is. This is her “name.”

And what is grace? Grace is not a “thing.” Grace (charis) is the love of God Himself. Benedict XVI says that grace is not “a supernatural something we carry about in our soul. And since we perceive very little of it, or nothing at all, it has gradually become irrelevant to us, an empty word belonging to Christian jargon, which seems to have lost any relationship to the lived reality of our everyday life. In reality, grace is a relational term: it does not predicate something about an I, but something about a connection between I and Thou, between God and man. ‘Full of grace’ could therefore also be translated as ‘You are full of the Holy Spirit; your life is intimately connected with God’ … (G)race and love are identical but that love ‘is the Holy Spirit.’ Grace in the proper and deepest sense of the word is not some thing that comes from God; it is God himself… The gift of God is God – he who as the Holy Spirit is communion with us. ‘Full of grace’ therefore means, once again, that Mary is a wholly open human being, one who has opened herself entirely, one who has placed herself in God’s hands boldly, limitlessly, and without fear for her own fate. It means that she lives wholly by and in relation to God.”[3]

Hail, full of grace = Hail full of God, and therefore, Hail, full of self-gift.

Therefore, her humanity is not going to have the sins of the genealogy but the unsullied humanity that Eve had before the fall. Mary is the “New Ever” as affirmed as early as “Irenaeus (12-200), St. Justin Martyr (120-165) and Tertullian (160-240) and therefore as engenderer of the “New Man.”

Therefore, The Break of the Immaculate Conception: “Hail, “New Eve”!!!


Why is this? My conjecture: Because God wanted to become man and exercise humanity as His, a humanity that would not contradict His Personhood as God. He wanted to love to death, to give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the mute, life to the dead, the Gospel preached to the poor. He could not do that with a humanity turned back on itself, proud, self seeking, impure and in decay.

Also, He would need to grow and develop like all of his peers by affirmation. As man, Christ would need to be loved by a mother who would affirm him to human maturity. Affirmed persons: “Know who they are. They are certain of their identity. They love themselves unselfishly. They are open to all that is good and find joy in the same. They are able to affirm all of creation, and as affirmers of all beings are capable of making others happy and joyful, too. They are largely other-directed. They find joy in being and doing for others….”[4] Unaffirmed person: “were not made to know and feel their own goodness, worth and identity. They have been thrown back upon themselves by denial on the part of significant others in their life. They are like prisoners – locked in, lonely, and self-centered – waiting for someone to come and open the door of their prison, waiting to be opened to their own goodness and that of others. No measure of success in business, profession or otherwise can adequately compensate for their feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, uncertainty and insecurity…. They are literally driven to find someone who truly, unequivocally loves them. This is in marked contrast to affirmed individuals who look for someone with whom they can share their love, who can give love as well as receive…”[5]

Therefore, he created his Mother in His divine image without sin and filled with Love. She engenders His full humanity. He is not simply born the God-man and then the humanity develops miraculously. The God-man, “Son though he was, learned obedience from the things that he suffered” (Heb. 5, 8). He needed to be affirmed and commanded to develop into the perfect man affirmed and formed by this human, perfect woman. Who has said this better than

Fulton Sheen:

“Just suppose that you could have pre-existed your own mother, in much the same way that an artist pre-exists his painting. Furthermore, suppose that you had the infinite power to make your mother anything that you pleased, just as a great artist like Raphael has the power of realizing his artistic ideas. Suppose you had this double power, what kind of mother would you have made for yourself? Would you have made her of such a type that would make you blush because of her unwomanly and un-mother-like actions? Would you have made her exteriorly and interiorly of such a character as to make you ashamed or her, or would you have made her, so far as human beauty goes; the most beautiful woman in the world; and so far as beauty of the soul goes, one who would radiate every virtue, every manner of kindness and charity and loveliness; one who by the purity of her life and her mind and her heart would be an inspiration not only to you but even to your fellow men, so that all would look up to her as the very incarnation of what is best in motherhood?Now if you who are an imperfect being and who have not the most delicate conception of all that is fine in life would have wished for the loveliest of mothers, do you think that our Blessed Lord, who not only pre-existed His own mother but who had an infinite power to make her just what He chose, would in virtue of all the infinite delicacy of His spirit make her any less pure and loving and beautiful than you would have made your own mother? If you who hate selfishness would have made her selfless and you who hate ugliness would have made her beautiful, do you not think that the Son of God, who hates sin, would have made His own mother sinless and He who hates moral ugliness would have made her immaculately beautiful?"

This woman, whom He created, filled with the Love that God Himself, gives to Him all her DNA so that He could be the prototype of man, He, the New Adam.

THEN: The woman in the crowd: “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that gave you suck” (Lk. 11, 27).

Christ responds: “Yeah, rather blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it” (Lk. 11, 18). John Paul II asks: “Is Jesus thereby distancing himself from his mother according to the flesh?” He responds: “Is not Mary the first of ‘those who hear the word of God and do it’? And therefore does not the blessing uttered by Jesus in response to the woman in the crowd refer primarily to her?”[6]

By her “Yes,” (fiat), she was the cause of the full and perfect humanity of God in her. Filled with the God Who is Love, she “races” “with haste” over the obstacles of the mountains, to serve Elizabeth in her pregnancy.

Conclusion: Let Mary take you by the hand. You have not been created without original sin. You and I need her: the rosary, the ejaculations, the images in your rooms, the scapular about your necks – to help you say “Yes” in the “everything” of daily life.

“God created all things, and Mary gave birth to God.”

[1] Ratmond E. Brown, “Coming Christ in Advent” The Liturgical Press (1988) 20.
[2] Ibid 34.
[3] H. Urs von Balthasar, J. Ratzinger, “Mary, The Church at the Source,” Ignatius (2005) 67-68.
[4] Conrad Baars, “I Will Give Them a New Heart,” St. Pauls (2008) 190.
[5] Ibid 191.
[6] John Paul II, “Mother of the Redeemer,” #20.

"To Whom Much is Given: Surviving the Massacre in Mumbai: December 8, 2008: Peter O'Malley

Last Wednesday evening around 10 p.m., following a relaxing supper, my friend Eugene and I arrived at the check-out desk at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, as we have done together hundreds of times in our travels as New York investment bankers currently living in Hong Kong.

As I placed my bag on the table I heard a loud gunshot, which I recognized from my years living in South Africa to be the distinctive snap of an AK-47 assault rifle. Hearing another shot a second later, I looked at Eugene and said, “Run, that’s AK!”

We streaked away from the gunfire toward the nearest exit as the terrorists were entering the hotel lobby from various points. I smashed through the doors toward the pool area and ducked into some bushes as the gunfire grew in intensity. I realized Eugene did not make it out of the lobby.

Five or six people had arrived in the bushes before me, all now paralyzed in fear. From the sound of things I realized that a Columbine-like shooting spree was taking place inside, with gunmen walking around methodically executing people. Mind racing, I concluded that being bunched up in the bushes in the corner of the pool area was not safe.

Surveying the scene brought the dispiriting conclusion that we were trapped, surrounded by dozen foot-high walls on all sides. I scanned the walls and then scrambled for a finger or toehold, but found none. I did, however, spy an air conditioning duct about nine feet above me. I leaped and was able to knock a cover away. I jumped again and grabbed onto the unit, but as I tried to pull myself up, I fell, causing the folks in the bushes to hush me to be quiet.

A quick aspiration to the Holy Spirit — “Come, O Holy Spirit, fill the heart of thy faithful!” — and then another leap upward. This time I was able to grab on and pull myself up over the wall where I flipped onto a lean-to roof of the pool shed. I laid low and quiet, partially concealing myself with tree branches.

Breathless, I thought to email my colleagues in London and apprise them of our plight. “Urgent: This is not a joke. At Taj Hotel in Mumbai. Gunmen on loose. People killed. Call police.” Then I turned off my phone, thinking a ring could give away my position and bring on a quick and violent death.

The minutes passed, while screams and sounds of gunfire continued. I began to pray to St. Michael the Archangel: “St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.” I also prayed the first of many Rosaries to see my way through what had suddenly become the single most shocking and desperate experience of my life. I knew that if I was to get through this, it would be Our Lord’s doing.

An hour passed atop my poolside perch. The scene below was quieter now, but infinitely more creepy. Occasional bursts of gunfire would rip through the dark night, indicating that the evil men were still at their cruel business. At one stage, approaching the edge of panic, I prayed, “Thy will be done.” But then I hedged, adding, “I know your will be done, Lord, but I’m not gonna say that now because I fear that by doing so I will somehow be giving up. So here’s the deal: I will hand this situation over to Our Lady and let Her decide how to deal with it.”

Another hour passed. I spent the time spying the scene below, thinking, considering my next move, praying many more St. Michael prayers and Memorares, trying to keep my head clear. I also had to distract myself from my increasing need to go to the bathroom. But I wasn’t ready (yet) to possibly exchange my life for that relief.

Suddenly I noticed hotel busboys down below secreting people out of the pool area via a trap door on the deck. I decided — in hindsight with some regret — to join them. As I crawled to the edge to jump off, I realized the side of the shed from which I was jumping was about 25 feet off the ground. But I’d committed to the jump and only by some miracle was able to slow my momentum and claw onto the edge by my very fingertips. I stabilized myself but a moment later felt the shingles of the shed roof begin to crumble. So I grabbed for a nearby water pipe and somehow managed to inartfully shimmy my way down to the ground unhurt.

I joined the five or six people being ushered down into the hole, and followed them silently through a labyrinth of stairs and twists and turns that ultimately led out into the second floor business center of the hotel. We entered a room where about 70 other souls were huddled together in common terror. I immediately felt that this was not a good place to be: a very soft target with no command or control and no security on the four ingress/egress points. We were extremely vulnerable.

As the terrorists’ grenades, AKs and bombs periodically shook the walls and rattled our minds, I resumed my fervent — though distracted — prayers to Our Lady. With battery power (thankfully) remaining on my BlackBerry, I began praying the Glorious Mysteries with a friend in Mumbai via text, which proved a great comfort.

The scene around me was surreal. Some folks were drinking tea, seeming to ignore our plight. Others were crying and simmering just below the level of panic. My resolve was to keep my senses and continue praying for inner strength. It was possible this siege could last several days, so keeping my wits about me was imperative.


My eyes darted from one ingress point to another as I prayed. I recalled my high school football days when we’d doggedly practice vigilance in awaiting the snap, and quick response time in deciding which “hole to hit” in the activated offensive line. I readied myself thinking, “OK, if they enter through staircase A, I will head for Door B. If they enter through Door C, I will jump out Window D, etc.”

Thankfully, there was a bathroom in the business center. The one time I used it I found several men hiding in the stalls. I learned later through news articles that a number of them spent the entire 8-9 hours locked inside in those stalls.

As the hours passed, the mood inside the room remained tense but controlled. At one point the tiny red corner light on my Blackberry began to flutter. It was a colleague in my firm’s corporate security operation informing me that I should leave the premises immediately, as the terrorists were searching the hotel floor-by-floor looking for Americans and Brits to kill. I’m 6′4″ and an obvious Yank, particularly in a place like Bombay. Once spotted, I’d be a dead man for sure.
Just then a very loud bomb detonated and small arms fire rang out in one of the stairwells. I assumed the end was near.

I hurried off an email to my Mom and Dad, thanking them for my life and everything else they’d given me. Then I emailed my dear wife and sons: “Thank you, Celeste, for being my best friend and soul-mate. I love you!” I wracked my mind and heart for a few pearls of wisdom to leave my three small boys that would edify and sustain them in a life without their father. Asking the Holy Spirit for guidance, I explained to them that life was a gift, and that they should do their best to enjoy that gift. I urged them to take care of their mother, each other, and their community — and not to be afraid to discern their vocations. I counseled them to keep a daily prayer life and live the norms of piety we’d taught them. “Live life to the fullest, boys, and stay in a state of grace.”

My heartache (and heart-rate) increased as the AK fire drew closer. I approached the headwaiter and quietly asked him if I might slip out the back stairs, as my corporate security indicated I should leave the building immediately. The man assured me that we were secure, but the look on his face betrayed his fear and uncertainty. He then huddled with his two busboys while I positioned myself by the back stairs.

A moment later, the busboys announced that they would begin allowing some folks to slip out. This instantly created a mad rush toward the stairs. Though I was positioned near the doorway, a lovely Indian-accented chorus arose, saying, “Women and children first!” Ah, but of course! I gulped and stepped aside.

The women and children began exiting in groups of eight. After about a minute, men began cutting the line. After some dozen men had cut in front of me, at a point when most of the women had gotten out, I joined the outflow and was able to escape.

I am obviously very lucky — and very blessed. I learned later from our corporate security, who were monitoring my emails, that the business center was attacked by gunmen some five minutes after I was able to escape. I also learned that my friend Eugene had been shot in the lobby, but thankfully will make a full recovery. (Eugene told me the next day that I’d sprinted right past the terrorist who leveled his gun and shot him in the hip. Fortunately he was dragged into a security room, from which point he was able to escape the hotel a few minutes later.)
Colleagues and friends have asked how I feel after experiencing such a trauma. I tell them I am fine — shaken but fine. At the end of the day, I am convinced that “bona omnia fecit” (all works for the good). I will forever be inspired by the staff of The Taj, who were polite, courteous and courageous throughout the ordeal. They saved hundreds of lives, many sacrificing their own in doing so.

Agnostic and atheist friends have told me that they’d be a wreck if such a thing had happened to them. But my feeling is that the Lord, for some reason, put His protective hands around me. I had little to do with my deliverance; He was and is in control, and that is fine with me.
What good can come out of this dreadful experience? Hopefully a more widespread recognition that the power of prayer and an unshakeable faith in God’s loving plan can get us through anything. That is why I am offering this account to Catholic Exchange. I want others to pray and draw closer to Christ and His Mother, especially in these uncertain times.
Why God has allowed me to live on? I have no idea. But at this point, the thought that will not leave my mind is, “From him to whom much is given, much is expected.”

I pray that I can live up to His expectations.

December 3, 2008: "The Father"

“For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel” (1 Cor 4:15).


In Europe they celebrate the “name days” of one’s saint rather than birthdays. Today the Prelate of Opus Dei celebrates the “saint day/name day” of St. Francis Xavier. As Prelate of Opus Dei, his mission is principally charismatic as “Father,” and as such decisive for the ontological reality that is Opus Dei as “a little bit of the Church.”[1]


The meaning of “fatherhood” is derived from the revealed and theologically elaborated understanding of God the Father as the “Act of Engendering the Son.” God the Father is not a Substance or Individual Who performs an activity “accidental” to Him that is “engendering” the Son. His very “To Be” is the self-transcending action of engendering the Son. As the Pope said it years ago: “the First Person does not beget the son in the sense of the act of begetting coming on top of the finished Person; it is the act of begetting, of giving oneself, of streaming forth. It is identical with the act of giving. Only as this act is it person, and therefore it is not the giver but the act of giving…”[2] And then, of course, the revolutionary consequence of this: “Therein lies concealed a revolution in man’s view of the world: the undivided sway of thinking in terms of substance is ended; relation is discovered as an equally valid primordial mode of reality. It becomes possible to surmount what we call today ‘objectifying thought,’ a new plane of being comes into view.”[3]


This revealed theological insight has its experiential confirmation. The affirmation of love is intrinsic to becoming actualized as a person. Notice what Dr. Conrad Baars comments from clinical psychiatric experience: “Individuals who have been adequately affirmed during their developmental years by unselfishly loving, affectionate, mature parents and/or other significant persons can be said to have received the gift of themselves. They feel worthwhile, significant and lovable. They possess themselves as man or woman. They know who they are. They are certain of their identity. They love themselves unselfishly; They are open to all that is good and find joy in the same. They are able to affirm all of creation, and as affirmers of all beings are capable of making others happy and joyful, too. They are largely other-directed. They find joy in being and doing for others. They find joy in their loving relationship with their Creator. They can share and give of themselves, be a true friend to others, and feel at ease with persons of both sexes. They are capable of finding happiness in marriage or the freely chosen celibate state of life. They are free from psycho-pathological factors which hamper one’s free will and are therefore fully responsible – morally and legally – for their actions”[4].

And why is this? Benedict XVI wrote years ago: “But how does one go about affirming, assenting to, one’s I? The answer may perhaps be unexpected: We cannot do so by our own efforts alone. Of ourselves, we cannot come to terms with ourselves. Our I becomes acceptable to us only if it has first become acceptable to another I. We can love ourselves only if we have first been loved by someone else. The life a mother gives to her child is not just physical life; she gives total life when she takes the child’s tears and turns them into smiles. It is only when life has been accepted and is perceived as accepted that it becomes also acceptable. Man is that strange creature that needs not just physical birth but also appreciation if he is to subsist.”[5]


“For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel” (1 Cor 4:15).


As Paul engendered sons and daughters into particular Churches that are the universal Church – think of Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Thessalonians Colossians - , Saint Josemaria Escriva engendered Opus Dei as a little bit of the Church analogical to a particular Church with its Christifideles and hierarchical presbyterate both of whom are under the jurisdiction of the Prelate. The particular mission of Opus Dei is to be, as someone suggested to me recently, like DNA to the Church. Opus Dei is not a particular Church, but its physiognomy is “the basic aboriginal relationship obtaining in the Church between Christifideles – called to live out the requirements and implication of their baptism – and sacred ministers, who bring in besides, the ‘ministerial’ consequences of the sacrament of Order.”[6] Rodriguez continues: “So, what we find in Opus Dei, different yet complementing one another, are the two ecclesial forms of participating in Christ’s priesthood. We find both the ‘substantial’ priority of Opus Dei’s lay faithful, at whose service is the priestly ministry, and the ‘functional’ priority of the sacred ministry in whose head (the prelate) resides the sacra potestas that governs the prelature. The clergy’s ‘functional’ priority was described by the founder when he said that the ministerial priesthood ‘impregnates with its spirit our personal life and all our apostolic work.’”[7] In a word, the Work is a living “communio,” an “unum” made up of irreducibly different ways of exercising the one priesthood of Jesus Christ. I say “irreducibly” because layfaithful and minister are sacramentally different ways (Baptism and Orders) of exercising the mediation that is the “gift of self.” Again, I say “mediation” because the “I” of the self subdues the self, possesses “it” and makes the gift of it to God of the others (you can only give what you own. You must “own” yourself). But the destination of the gift is ontologically different. The laity make the self-gift in secular ordinary work and are oriented to the secular common good. The ministerial priest is at the service of the laity to enable them to live out their way of living the priesthood of Christ in the world. That is, the preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments and the instantiation of the Sacrifice of Calvary in the here and now, are the necessary affirmation to the laity to be able to master themselves as priests, own themselves and be able to make the gift. Hence, the laity are like Our Lady who engenders Christ and gives birth to Him – in themselves - at the center of the secular world. And since the Kingdom of God is the Person of the God-man,[8] Jesus Christ, by becoming Christ, the instantiate the Kingdom of God here and now! Their priority over the clergy is “substantial” for this reason.” The laity must “be” Christ. Their orientation is toward the world. The clergy must “give” Christ. Their orientation is not toward the world, but to the persons of the laity and other priests. Together, the form the “communio” that is the “unum” that is the Church as Body of the one Christ. If we may, the laity is the “Church of Mary,” and the hierarchical priesthood is the “Church of Peter,” the former being superior to the latter.[9]

All of this boils down to affirming the character of communio in the Church and the Work as a fermentation – or DNA – of this spirit. Basically, “communio” means that no member of an organism can stand on its own. It is an “unum” not a unity. A “unity” is an accidental connection of individuals that each stands on its own. An “unum” can only be made up of persons, each of whom cannot “subsist” as person without being engendered by love and giving self in love. The prototype is the Trinity, its immanent image is the Church and the family, its beneficiary the secular society.

St. Josemaria Escriva: “Father”

The reality and mission of St. Josemaria was not the order, unity, apostolic effectiveness of Opus Dei. It was its very existence. Rodriguez says: “what is decisive is neither his ‘jurisdiction’ nor their obedience. Rather, what truly defines Opus Dei’s prelate is his ‘fatherhood,’ his role as a pastor who is a father to all the prelature’s faithful. That is why in Opus Dei he is usually called ‘Father.’ The prelate’s role in the life of Opus Dei deeply configures the prelature. Therefore it is important to consider it when determining the ecclesial profile of the social arrangement lived therein…. We could say that, in Opus Dei, the image or dimension of the Church’s mystery that most stands out in its ecclesial experience is that of ‘family,’ the ‘Church as family of God.’”[10]

In a word, if the Prelate of Opus Dei were not “father” to the point of affirming each person, layman or priest, man or woman with the heart of Christ which is radical in love to the point of death, Opus Dei could not be “one,” and therefore could not persist in its particular mission to be a leaven for the entire Church who’s very identity is to be “Bride” to the Bridegroom.” Notice that the Church is a “person.” She is a woman. Benedict XVI wrote:

“…(T)he Church is not an apparatus, nor a social institution, nor one social institution among many others. It is a person. It is a woman. It is a Mother. It is alive. A Marian understanding of the Church is totally opposed to the concept of the Church as a bureaucracy or a simple organization. We cannot make the Church, we must be the Church. We are the Church, the Church is in us only to the extent that our faith more than action forges our being. Only by being Marian, can we become the Church. At its very beginning the Church was not made, but given birth. She existed in the soul of Mary from the moment she uttered her fiat. This is the most profound will of the Council: the Church should be awakened in our souls. Mary shows us the way.”[11]

As the Church “was not made, but given birth… [she] should be awakened in our souls.” So is with Opus Dei. And this is the mission of the Prelate. The shoes that he had to fill and fills them read thus:

“‘Father, you have to try to get some sleep. His answer was, “’if I slept, it would mean I don’t love you. It’s my affection that makes me lose sleep.’”[12]

“In dealing with his children he acted with complete trust and naturalness, with the naturalness of a father and a friend. He would address them affectionately as rogues, scoundrels, bandits, rascals, tugging at the depths of their hearts….

“Querido Quinito – Que Jesús se me guarde! ‘Who loves you more than the Father, you bandit? On this earth, no one. Is that clear…’?

“The Father strove vigilantly to be detached from everything in this world – from everything except his children, who were, as he put it, his ‘near occasion’ for stopping working, to spend time in a get-together with them. Then again, their affection for him, the delicate love with which they responded to his fatherly solicitude, helped him grow in his interior life, as he confided to them:

‘My heart attaches itself to my children – I don’t hide it, and I think you notice it – but it’s something that leads me to God. You drive me on to greater fidelity, and I always want to be more faithful, also for you…

‘When the Lord calls me into his presence, almost all of you – by the law of life – will still be here on earth. Remember then what the Father told you: I love you very much, very much but I I want you to be faithful. Don’t forget this: be faithful. I will still continue loving you when I’ve already left his world to go, by the infinite mercy of the Lord, to enjoy the Beatific Vision. You can be sure that I will then love you even more.’”[13]


After suffering in an Italian dental office [a wicked experience in my time in the 60’s], he returned home in pain and called his sons: [14]“I love you because you are children of God, because you have freely decided to be my children, because you are trying to be saints, because you are very faithful and “majos” – all of my children are. I love you with the same affection that your mothers do. I care about everything about you: your bodies and your souls, your virtues and your defects. My children, it gives ma a lot of joy to speak to you this way? When I see you out there, I won’t be able to do that, and I admit, at times I have to force myself not to get sentimental, not to leave you with the memory of tears, not to keep repeating to you that I love you so much, so much… For I love you with the same heart with which I love the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the Blessed Virgin; with the same heart with which I loved my mother and my father. I love you like all the mothers of the world put together – each of you equally, from the first to the last.
”

The Masculine Hand of the Father:

Escriva could not exercise true fatherhood without exercising the masculine hand. There is sin, evil, laziness, ignorance, stupidity, disobedience. To be a Father who loves means to stop evil As John Paul II said in his last writing: the only thing that stops evil, arrests it and destroys it is suffering for love. Conrad Baars writes: “It cannot be denied that there exist in this world many evils” which, “because they touch the moral core of the human being, require a good deal of personal courage, risk taking, dedication, conviction and determination. Yes, even a readiness to be hurt or even to die, and a readiness to hurt rather than merely relying on a government to provide protection from social evils from the cradle to the grave.”[15] It seems that this is one of the outstanding failures in the formation of persons in society today: the failure of men to exercise the firm hand of restraint to ward off evil, to point out, to correct, to say “No.” And this as a vital dimension of love.

Vazquez de Prada says: “it was an obligation of his to correct his children, in order t o bring them close to God. It was an operation of love. If he did not carry it out, that would mean, as he told his children, that ‘I don’t love either God or you.’ He correct whenever necessary without, without discriminating in regard to occupation, experience, age, or health. And he was untiring. He repeated and hammered home all kinds of principles and counsels, regarding orderliness, practice of the virtue of poverty, care in the little things, and the importance of not leaving things half done. If, for example, a job was waiting to be done, he would ask bout the preparations being made for it. Sometimes the person in charge of it would begin with the traditional crutch of excuses: But the ‘well, you see….,’ ‘I thought that…,’ and similar phrases were things the Father did not want to hear from his sons and daughters. And any time he did hear any such expression, he took advantage of the occasion to teach a lesson on how one should fulfill one’s particular duties: with initiative, with live, using all of one’s senses, following matters closely and putting practical effort into their execution. Obeying, he explained, does not consist in something mechanical, or in operating blindly, or in being rigid, like a cadaver, because ‘the dead we piously bury.’”[16]

[1] Pedro Rodriguez “The Place of Opus Dei in the Church,” Opus Dei in the Church, Scepter (1994) 1.
[2] J. Ratzinger, “Introduction to Christianity,” Ignatius (1990) 132.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Conrad Baars, M.D., “”I Will Give Them a New Heart,” St. Pauls (2008) 190.
[5] J. Ratzinger, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” Ignatius (1987) 79-80.
[6] Rodriguez, “The Place…,” op. cit. 38.
[7] Ibid.
[8] See Benedict XVI, “Jesus of Nazareth” Doubleday (2007) 49-57.
[9] John Paul II, “The Marian dimension of the Church is antecedent to that of the Petrine, without being in any way divided from it or being less complementary. Mary Immaculate precedes all others, including obviously Peter himself and the Apostles. This is so, not only because Peter and the Apostles, being born of the human race under the burden of sin, form part of the Church which is ‘holy from out of sinners,’ but also because their triple function has no other purpose except to form the church in line with the ideal of sanctity already programmed and prefigured in Mary. A contemporary theologian has rightly stated that Mary is ‘Queen of the Apostles without any pretensions to apostolic powers: she has other and greater powers (H. U. von Balthasar, Neue Klarstellungen). Address to the Cardinal and Prelates of the Roman Curie (December 22, 1987); L’OR, December 23, 1987.
[10] Rodriguez, “The Place of Opus Dei in the Church,” op. cit 56-57.
[11] J. Ratzinger, “The Ecclesiology of Vatican II,” Conclusion.
[12] Andres Vazquez de Prada, “The Founder of Opus Dei” III, Scepter (2005) 271.
[13] Ibid 272-273.
[14] Ibid 271.
[15] Baars, op. cit 166.
[16] Vázquez de Prada, op. cit 274-275