Per Christum

Even though I mostly enjoy the interviews on American Public Media’s Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippet, the series is usually a little fuzzy-wuzzy and left-of-center for my taste. Hey, it’s public radio, not EWTN…what do you expect?

That’s why I was pleasantly surprised to see both this topic and interviewee on the show:

The Jaroslav Pelikan on “The Need for Creeds”

Audio of the interview (mp3, 53:27)

Episode webpage

The interview with the late theologian and late-in-life convert to the Orthodox Church from Lutheranism was recorded in 2003. He died on May 13, 2006.

Here’s a transcript of an excerpt I found particularly quotable:

Tippet: So, what is it about Christianity that has needed creeds?

Pelikan: Well, what it is about religious faith that needs creed is that religious faith in general, prayer addressed to “to whom it may concern”, sentiment about some transcendent dimension otherwise undefined does not have any staying power. It’s OK to have that at ten o’clock on a Sunday morning when you’re out with your friends somewhere, but in the darkest hours of life you gotta believe something specific. And that specification is the task of the creed. Because, much as some people may not like it, to believe one thing is also to disbelieve another.

Tippet: *curtly* Huh.

Pelikan: To say yes is also to say no.

I have resolved to try to post at least one of the new saints or beati daily.

Too often Catholics begin to think of saints as something in the past… Mention “the saints” and Catholic imaginations immediately go to images of statues staring at the ceiling or icons that depict other-worldly virtue in a highly symbolic fashion. To be quite clear, there is nothing, in and of itself, wrong with that sort of imagery. Nothing at all.

But I fear too many people have a disconnect between those sorts of images and the reality that saints are real, as real as you and I are. They are, in fact, as alive as you and I are. Actually, more so still!

During the Pontificate of the Venerable John Paul the Great, well over a thousand such souls were raised to the dignity of the altar. More than a few of them, had they not suffered martyrdom, would be the same age as many of the kindly grandparents we interact with daily. I really want to highlight some of these friendly God-loving souls daily (many of whom we have photographs of, some we have in color, some we have on film!) to show that sanctity is not in the past. It is difficult but not impossible. Still having love and respect and prayers with the ones that went before our modern time, I want to put some emphasis on those who were among us on this side of the vale of tears in the last 100 years when possible. Sanctity is not something “from the old days”. It is real. It is possible. It is for today.

Really when you get to know some of these souls, I imagine a good number of them were not aware in the least that they would be named saints one day. They were humble people who just begged the grace to be faithful and made it priority #1.

(Conversely as Father Isaac Mary Relyea tells us, “If you think you’re holy, that is the first sign you’re not!”)

So given this rich, rich tapestry of sanctity found even into the modern era, I want to bring some focus on these souls for personal inspiration, and also to help other Catholics develop friendship with these powerful friends of God who have already gone before us. They love God, they love us. We love God, we love them.

For a time I had thought about starting a secondary blog with a focus just on underscoring these noble souls. As I thought more about that, however, I came to realize that I rather preferred interspersing them into the sometimes somewhat eclectic posts of PC. Just as they are very real and among us still today, I wanted to keep them in the mix of our posts and our cyber-life here. I invite my 13 other blog contributors to do the same as they see fit. Please share the saints that give you friendship and share their stories with us here.

As my pastor reminds our small flock, even when there are not a lot of people in the pews, our church is always full with the angels and saints who happily join us whenever we partake in the divine and mystical worship.

And note please that the graphic on this post is the painting “The Saints” by Fra Angelico. Fra Angelico (having been beatified by our last Holy Father) is on his way to being recognized as being in the company of the saints himself.

I just found a huge collection of Patristic (Church Father) works in mostly Greek and some English. It is truly an excellent and extensive collection. I haven’t taken a Greek class in a few years, but I think it would be fun (yet probably rather difficult) to try to read some of the texts with my old Greek textbooks, grammars, and dictionaries close by. I present these for your perusal (and I mean that in the true sense of the word perusal).

Thanks to Mike Aquilina for posting about this!

News of the Dea blogger Meg recently commented on a previous Per Christum post I made about Ash Wednesday. I visited her blog, and found out that she is participating in our Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan, which includes the Epistle to Diognetus. Let me welcome her to the blog.

Over at her blog, she made a post that asks an interesting question: Is the Epistle to Diognetus Anti-Semitic? She quotes from the letter:

From the translation available at New Advent:

their scrupulosity concerning meats, and their superstition as respects the Sabbaths, and their boasting about circumcision, and their fancies about fasting and the new moons, which are utterly ridiculous and unworthy of notice

Actually, this next line made me laugh:

And to glory in the circumcision of the flesh as a proof of election, and as if, on account of it, they were specially beloved by God,—how is it not a subject of ridicule?

What, did this guy not read the Torah? At ALL!?…

I’m really okay with reading this — it’s history, all part of the bad and good that makes up the Church. But I’m feeling a bit concerned about the catechumens in my RCIA class. This was handed out to anyone who wanted it. I sure hope none of them read this and conclude that anti-semitism is okay in the Roman Catholic Church.

Tomorrow I read more of Diognetus. Let’s hope it gets better.

Some Catholics over the years have been genuine anti-semites, and encouraged hatred and mistreatment of Jews, and this is inexcusable, and a stain on our past. There are even some Catholic bloggers on the web whom I believe are truly anti-semitic, or at least dangerously close, and at least one of our contributors attempted to call one such blogger to task for this. However, I have read this letter many times (in a more modern, but copyrighted, translation), and I never thought of it as anti-semitic. I am sure there is a fine line between strongly opposing Judaism and its practices, and opposing actual Jews. The early Christians did strongly oppose Judaism, but they did accept the Old Testament, including the Torah. However, they almost universally interpreted it allegorically, not literally, and likely many of them thought a literal interpretation of it was wrong. I am not an expert in Jewish-Christian relations over the years, but I suspect that Jews wrote nasty things about Christians too during this time, since these two faiths were in competition (not that two wrongs make a right, of course, but it does provide a context for this less-than-polite discourse). If anti-semitism is defined broadly as to include opposition to Judaism, the New Testament may even be considered anti-semitic (and some do consider it as such). I have heard Catholics called “anti-semitic” simply for saying that Judaism is wrong, so I think it is important to define exactly what anti-semitism is. I am interested in what all of you think about it, and I think we must begin by defining our terms.

One thing we must keep in mind as well: The Church Fathers are not infallible. Catholics do not use their writings as infallible proof-texts, which is good, because sometimes they wrote things that were not so charitable or even correct. Thus, the Fathers are not beyond correction, so we have no need to somehow sanitize the words of author of this letter to Diognetus in order to defend Catholicism.

What do you think?

Pope Leo the Great on Lent:

Relying, therefore, dearly-beloved, on these arms, let us enter actively and fearlessly on the contest set before us: so that in this fasting struggle we may not rest satisfied with only this end, that we should think abstinence from food alone desirable. For it is not enough that the substance of our flesh should be reduced, if the strength of the soul be not also developed. When the outer man is somewhat subdued, let the inner man be somewhat refreshed; and when bodily excess is denied to our flesh, let our mind be invigorated by spiritual delights. Let every Christian scrutinise himself, and earth severely into his inmost heart: let him see that no discord cling there, no wrong desire be harboured. Let chasteness drive incontinence far away; let the light of truth dispel the shades of deception; let the swellings of pride subside; let wrath yield to reason; let the darts of ill-treatment be shattered, and the chidings of the tongue be bridled; let thoughts of revenge fall through, and injuries be given over to oblivion. In fine, let “every plant which the heavenly Father hath not planted be removed by the roots.” For then only are the seeds of virtue well nourished in us, when every foreign germ is uprooted from the field of wheat. If any one, therefore, has been fired by the desire for vengeance against another, so that he has given him up to prison or bound him with chains, let him make haste to forgive not only the innocent, but also one who seems worthy of punishment, that he may with confidence make use of the clause in the Lord’s prayer and say, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” Which petition the Lord marks with peculiar emphasis, as if the efficacy of the whole rested on this condition, by saying, “For if ye forgive men their sins, your Father which is in heaven also will forgive you: but if ye forgive not men, neither will your Father forgive you your Sins.”

Pope St. Leo the Great, Sermon XXXIX: On Lent I

But there are three things which most belong to religious actions, namely prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, in the exercising of which while every time is accepted, yet that ought to be more zealously observed, which we have received as hallowed by tradition from the apostles: even as this tenth month brings round again to us the opportunity when according to the ancient practice we may give more diligent heed to those three things of which I have spoken. For by prayer we seek to propitiate God, by fasting we extinguish the lusts of the flesh, by alms we redeem our sins: and at the same time God’s image is throughout renewed in us, if we are always ready to praise Him, unfailingly intent on our purification and unceasingly active in cherishing our neighbour. This threefold round of duty, dearly beloved, brings all other virtues into action: it attains to God’s image and likeness and unites us inseparably with the Holy Spirit. Because in prayer faith remains steadfast, in fastings life remains innocent, in almsgiving the mind remains kind. On Wednesday and Friday therefore let us fast: and on Saturday let us keep vigil with the most blessed Apostle Peter, who will deign to aid our supplications and fast and alms with his own prayers through our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Ghost lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen…

From Sermon XII: On the Fast of the Tenth Month I

And while all seasons are opportune for this duty, beloved, yet this present season is specially suitable and appropriate, at which our holy fathers, being Divinely inspired, sanctioned the Fast of [December], that when all the ingathering of the crops was complete, we might dedicate to God our reasonable service of abstinence, and each might remember so to use his abundance as to be more abstinent in himself and more open-handed towards the poor. For forgiveness of sins is most efficaciously prayed for with almsgiving and fasting, and supplications that are winged by such aids mount swiftly to God’s ears…

Pope Leo the Great, From Sermon XVI: On the Fast of the Tenth Month