Remember...

Before the silver cord is snapped;

remember your Creator in the days of your youth.

Before the golden bowl is broken;

remember your Creator in the days of your youth.

Before the pitcher is broken at the fountain;

remember your Creator in the days of your youth.

Before the wheel is broken at the cistern;

remember your Creator in the days of your youth.

Before the dust returns to the earth as it was;

remember your Creator in the days of your youth.

Before the spirit returns to God who gave it;

remember your Creator in the days of your youth.

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.

Modern Times

A bit out of date, but I just spotted this:

One sometimes feels that the best thing that His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI could do for the United Kingdom would be to perform the rite of exorcism over it.

Grace and the Mysteries

Grace, by a secret instinct sets us at peace concerning our salvation and the intimate reconciliation in God of infinite justice, mercy, and sovereign liturgy. Grace, by this secret instinct, sets us thus at peace, because it is itself a real and formal participation in the divine nature, in God's intimate life in the very Deity, in which all the divine perfections are absolutely identified.

If we stress too much our analogical concepts of the divine attributes, we set up an obstacle to the contemplation of the revealed mysteries. The fact that these concepts are distinct from one another, like small squares of mosaic reproducing a human likeness, is why they harden the spiritual aspect of God for us. Wisdom, absolute liberty, mercy, and justice seem in some way to be distinct in God, and then His sovereignly free good pleasure appears in an arbitrary light, and not entirely penetrated by wisdom; mercy seems to restricted, and justice too rigid. But by faith illumined by the gifts of understanding and wisdom, we go beyond the literal meaning of the Gospel and imbibe the very spirit of God's Word. We instinctively feel, without seeing it, how all the divine perfections are identified in the Deity, that is superior to being, the one, the true, the intellect, and love. The Deity is superior to all perfections that are naturally susceptible of participation, these being contained in it formally and eminently without any admixture of imperfection. The Deity is not naturally susceptible of participation, either by angel or man. It is only by grace, which is essentially supernatural, that we are permitted to participate in the Deity, in God's intimate life, in as much as the latter is strictly divine. Thus it is that grace is instrumental in causing us mysteriously to reach, in the obscurity of faith, the summit where the divine attributes are identified. The spiritual aspect of God for us is no longer hardened. We do not see His countenance, but we instinctively feel it, and this secret instinctive feeling, in the supernatural abandonment of ourselves, gives us peace.

Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P. in “Predestination”

Oh Noes!

Last Pope Quote

Mining Benedict XVI's addresses certainly makes a blogger's life easier. Here's one to finish off with, giving an indication of the hard and painful road that may lie ahead of us in the UK.

I would say that a Church that seeks to be particularly attractive is already on the wrong path, because the Church does not work for her own ends, she does not work to increase numbers and thus power. The Church is at the service of another: she serves, not for herself, not to be a strong body, rather she serves to make the proclamation of Jesus Christ accessible...

From Cofton Park

The beatification mass today...

Beauty

I've been struck by the sheer aesthetic beauty of the Holy Father's addresses during his visit to the UK; not simply in the theologically and politically sophisticated speeches either. Here he speaks to schoolchildren:

Not only does God love us with a depth and an intensity that we can scarcely begin to comprehend, but he invites us to respond to that love. You all know what it is like when you meet someone interesting and attractive, and you want to be that person’s friend. You always hope they will find you interesting and attractive, and want to be your friend. God wants your friendship. And once you enter into friendship with God, everything in your life begins to change. As you come to know him better, you find you want to reflect something of his infinite goodness in your own life. You are attracted to the practice of virtue. You begin to see greed and selfishness and all the other sins for what they really are, destructive and dangerous tendencies that cause deep suffering and do great damage, and you want to avoid falling into that trap yourselves. You begin to feel compassion for people in difficulties and you are eager to do something to help them. You want to come to the aid of the poor and the hungry, you want to comfort the sorrowful, you want to be kind and generous. And once these things begin to matter to you, you are well on the way to becoming saints.

The Natural Law in the Public Forum

The central question at issue, then, is this: where is the ethical foundation for political choices to be found? The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. According to this understanding, the role of religion in political debate is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be known by non-believers – still less to propose concrete political solutions, which would lie altogether outside the competence of religion – but rather to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles. This "corrective" role of religion vis-à-vis reason is not always welcomed, though, partly because distorted forms of religion, such as sectarianism and fundamentalism, can be seen to create serious social problems themselves. And in their turn, these distortions of religion arise when insufficient attention is given to the purifying and structuring role of reason within religion. It is a two-way process. Without the corrective supplied by religion, though, reason too can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology, or applied in a partial way that fails to take full account of the dignity of the human person. Such misuse of reason, after all, was what gave rise to the slave trade in the first place and to many other social evils, not least the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. This is why I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.

Benedict XVI live at Westminster Hall.

From the Streets of Edinburgh

Sue & Martin went to see the Holy Father on Princes Street in Edinburgh today. Here's the world exclusive picture!

From Benedict XVI's First Speech in the UK

Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live. I also recall the regime’s attitude to Christian pastors and religious who spoke the truth in love, opposed the Nazis and paid for that opposition with their lives. As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a "reductive vision of the person and his destiny" (Caritas in Veritate, 29).

Benedict XVI

Oremus

Oremus pro pontifice nostro Benedicto.

Et ego dico tibi, quia tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram ædificabo Ecclesiam meam, et portæ inferi non prævalebunt adversus eam.

Perturbed by Predestination?

If these thoughts [being disturbed by the idea of predestination] come to the mind, and only useless efforts are made to dispel them, they must end in causing us to abandon ourselves completely to God, assured that it is infinitely better to leave our salvation in His hands than to rely on our own strength. Only by thus doing shall we find peace. The whole doctrine of the divine Master's secret is that we must adore Him and not claim to fathom Him. We must lose ourselves in this impenetrable height and depth of divine wisdom and plunge ourselves as if lost in His immense goodness, though expecting everything from Him, without however relaxing our efforts, which He demands from us for our salvation.

Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (quoted in “Predestination”, by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P.)

Predestination

"All that God does in time, He foresees and predestines from all eternity. He foresaw and predestined in detail all the means by which He had to inspire his followers with fidelity, obedience, and perseverance. That is what predestination means.

The benefit of this doctrine is to have us place our will and liberty in God's hands, asking Him to direct this will so that it may never stray from the right path, and thanking Him for all the good that it does and believing that He operates in it without weakening or destroying it, but on the contrary, elevating, strengthening, and granting it to make good use of itself, which is the most desirable of all good things.

We must not therefore, attribute the cause of salvation to him who wills or to him who runs, but to God who shows mercy. This means that neither their running nor their willing are the primary cause, and still less the only cause of their salvation; but this cause is the accompanying and preventing grace that gives them strength to continue until the end, and this grace does not act alone; for we must be faithful to it; and to accomplish this effect, it gives us the power to co-operate with it, so that we can say with St Paul: “Yet not I, but the grace of God with me”.

God is the author of all the good we do. It is He who brings it to completion, just as it is He who begins it. His Holy Spirit forms in our hearts the petitions He wishes to grant. He foresaw and predestined all that; for predestination is nothing else. In all this we must believe that no one perishes, no one is cast off as a reprobate, except through his own fault. If human reasoning finds a difficulty in this, and cannot reconcile all phases of this holy and inviolable doctrine, faith must continue to reconcile all things, at the same time waiting until God causes us to see everything in Him, the fountainhead.

The whole doctrine of predestination and grace may be summed up briefly in these words of the Prophet: “Destruction is thy own, O Israel; thy help is only in me. So it is. If we do not see the consistency in all this, it suffices for us that God knows, and we must humbly believe him. God's secret is his own."

Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (quoted in “Predestination”, by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P.)

Trinity in Aquinas

Oops. I seem to have disappeared for a couple of months; sorry about that!

Having completed the treatise on the One God over at the other place, I’ve been preparing to start on the Triune God. I found myself disappearing into a deep think about this as there were several metaphysical questions (and considerations of how the medievals approached these questions, and how these approaches differed from modern approaches etc. etc.) that I needed to get straight in my head. Something had to give, and it was this blog.

So, to get back underway here, let’s draw attention to Gilles Emery’s book “The Trinitarian Theology of St Thomas Aquinas” that has recently appeared in paperback. This seems to be the best introduction to the subject available in the English language. The hardback was prohibitively expensive, but this new edition is much more reasonable; highly recommended!

Jensen on St Thomas

I’ve been reading Steven Jensen’s new book “Good & Evil Actions: A journey through Saint Thomas Aquinas”.

It’s an excellent book, charting the technical difficulties involved in understanding the foundations of Aquinas’s moral theory and describing some of the various solutions to these difficulties that philosophers and theologians have arrived at in recent times. Here, as a taster, are a couple of paragraphs on how proportionalism misunderstands the notion of “the common good”.

Proportionalism can imagine that the common good justifies harming innocent human beings, then, only by a misperception, by supposing that the good is found not in sharing but in accumulating. To the contrary, the common good protects the innocent, for the common good is nothing other than sharing the good with these innocents. (Page 158).

Proportionalism imagines that we can act for the common good when we kill one person in order to save many others. In reality, by killing we do not act for the common good of any human community; we merely act for an aggregate of individuals. By subordinating one individual to others, we separate him and his good from the community, thereby rupturing the unity found in sharing the good. At most we create a new community, a community of our own, but we break up the community of shared goods that included the individual we kill. Although killing one person can produce a greater aggregate of individual goods, it inevitably does so by excluding a person from the shared good. Ultimately, by killing an innocent person we must be seeking some other good beside the common good. (Page 164).

Benedict XVI on St. Thomas Aquinas

The Holy Father gave a series of three talks about St Thomas at his General Audiences recently. The full text has now appeared in English translation on the Vatican website.

Part I
Part II
Part III

The Holy Father quotes his predecessor Paul VI as saying:

All of us who are faithful sons and daughters of the Church can and must be his disciples, at least to some extent!

We might also recall the words of Pius XI in Studiorum ducem:

We so heartily approve the magnificent tribute of praise bestowed upon this most divine genius that We consider that Thomas should be called not only the Angelic, but also the Common or Universal Doctor of the Church; for the Church has adopted his philosophy for her own, as innumerable documents of every kind attest.

Pro multis

How the words “pro vobis et pro multis” should be rendered appears to be one of the more controversial changes in the new English translation of the mass. Let's have a look at this.

At the consecration of the precious blood, we hear:

Ordinary form: Accipite et bibite ex eo omnes: hic est enim calix Sanguinis mei novi et aeterni testamenti, qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum. Hoc facite in meam commemorationem.

Current Translation: Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me

New Translation: Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me.

From the point of view of translation, this really is an easy one: if we inspect the Greek text of Matthew 26:28 (or Mark 14:24) the word used, “polloi”, means “the many” or “the multitude”. The Latin version reflects this and so, one might argue, should any further translation, especially if it is to respect the Latin text of the mass as a definitive prototype. Of course, one must note that “polloi” does not exclude the meaning “all”, but to translate it with a meaning that excludes “possibly not all” is to impose an interpretation.

The justification for the interpretation that would render “pro multis” as “for all” comes from texts such as 2 Cor 5:15 and 1 Tim 2:4, where it is affirmed that Christ died for all and that God’s will is that all should be saved. The question of the possibility of universal salvation has been argued about throughout the history of the Church. Although the idea has never been formally condemned, I don’t think that it is unfair to say that the more probable opinion is that it is incorrect considered as doctrine. However, there is a difference between believing that universal salvation is a fact and hoping that it may be true; in the catechism we read:

1821 We can therefore hope in the glory of heaven promised by God to those who love him and do his will. In every circumstance, each one of us should hope, with the grace of God, to persevere "to the end" and to obtain the joy of heaven, as God's eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ. In hope, the Church prays for "all men to be saved." She longs to be united with Christ, her Bridegroom, in the glory of heaven:

(c.f. 1058)

Of course, by simply quoting the words of scripture, the catechism leaves ambiguous how these words are to be understood. But it would at least appear on the face of it that the catechism is teaching that we are justified in hoping for universal salvation even if we may not believe it to be true.

In order to understand how the Tradition has understood this problem, we might turn to St Thomas. In question 19, Article 6 of the first part of the summa theologiae, we find the universal doctor considering the question of whether God’s will is always fulfilled. The very first objection to this position is:

Objection 1 It seems that the will of God is not always fulfilled. For the Apostle says (1 Timothy 2:4): "God will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." But this does not happen. Therefore the will of God is not always fulfilled.

After giving his answer that God’s will is always fulfilled, St. Thomas turns to answering this particular objection. The first two possibilities he offers may seem somewhat strained (but note that they are received in many parts of modern Christianity as true). The third, on the notion of antecedent and consequent will in Christ, seems to me to be much more convincing.

Reply to Objection 1: The words of the Apostle, "God will have all men to be saved," etc. can be understood in three ways.

First, by a restricted application, in which case they would mean, as Augustine says (De praed. sanct. i, 8: Enchiridion 103), "God wills all men to be saved that are saved, not because there is no man whom He does not wish saved, but because there is no man saved whose salvation He does not will."

Secondly, they can be understood as applying to every class of individuals, not to every individual of each class; in which case they mean that God wills some men of every class and condition to be saved, males and females, Jews and Gentiles, great and small, but not all of every condition.

Thirdly, according to Damascene (De Fide Orth. ii, 29), they are understood of the antecedent will of God; not of the consequent will. This distinction must not be taken as applying to the divine will itself, in which there is nothing antecedent nor consequent, but to the things willed.

To understand this we must consider that everything, in so far as it is good, is willed by God. A thing taken in its primary sense, and absolutely considered, may be good or evil, and yet when some additional circumstances are taken into account, by a consequent consideration may be changed into the contrary. Thus that a man should live is good; and that a man should be killed is evil, absolutely considered. But if in a particular case we add that a man is a murderer or dangerous to society, to kill him is a good; that he live is an evil. Hence it may be said of a just judge, that antecedently he wills all men to live; but consequently wills the murderer to be hanged. In the same way God antecedently wills all men to be saved, but consequently wills some to be damned, as His justice exacts. Nor do we will simply, what we will antecedently, but rather we will it in a qualified manner; for the will is directed to things as they are in themselves, and in themselves they exist under particular qualifications. Hence we will a thing simply inasmuch as we will it when all particular circumstances are considered; and this is what is meant by willing consequently. Thus it may be said that a just judge wills simply the hanging of a murderer, but in a qualified manner he would will him to live, to wit, inasmuch as he is a man. Such a qualified will may be called willingness rather than an absolute will. Thus it is clear that whatever God simply wills takes place; although what He wills antecedently may not take place.

If the third explanation, of antecedent and consequent will, appears a bit inaccessible, you may wish to refer to the commentary over at the other place.

So, the consequences of the words of scripture reproduced in the text of the mass are deep and profound. The new English translation’s rendering of “pro multis” as “for many” restores the natural meaning of the words in the Latin prototype (and in scripture) and hopefully will encourage catechesis on the meaning of this phrase and on the theology of God’s will for our salvation.

The Mystery of Faith

I thought I might start a little series looking at a few details of the new English translation of the mass. The current English translation has been widely attacked as being inaccurate as a translation and has been widely defended for being accessible. I’d like to concentrate here on the theological aspects of the old and the new translations. In particular, I’d like to highlight places where the theological symbolism of the Latin original is obscured by the old translation and revealed by the new. I will also consider whether there are places where the new translation may “obscure by accuracy” compared to the old translation.

I thought that I’d start with “the Mystery of Faith”, just after the consecration of the precious blood in the ordinary form. Even in the Latin, there was some controversy when the ordinary form first came out, as the words “mysterium fidei” were moved from their position in the words of consecration. Compare the Latin of the older extraordinary form and the newer ordinary form.

Extraordinary Form: Accipite et bibite ex eo omnes: hic est enim calix Sanguinis mei novi et aeterni testamenti: mysterium fidei: qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum. Haec quotiescumque feceritis in mei memoriam facietis.

Ordinary Form: Accipite et bibite ex eo omnes: hic est enim calix Sanguinis mei novi et aeterni testamenti, qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum. Hoc facite in meam commemorationem.

New Translation of the Ordinary Form: Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, (the mystery of faith) which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me.

I’ve inserted the phrase “the mystery of faith” in the translation of the ordinary form to indicate where it comes in the extraordinary form. Note that the Latin texts of the ordinary and extraordinary forms are the same apart from the final sentence and the moving of the mysterium fidei, so that the translation is good for both forms up until the final sentence.

The ordinary form continues (rubrics in red) with the new translation and with one of the choices of acclamation:

Calicem ostendit populo, deponit super patenam, et genuflexus adorat. Deinde dicit:
Mysterium fidei.

The Priest shows the chalice to the people, places it on the corporal, and genuflects in adoration. Then the Priest says:
The mystery of faith.

Et populus prosequitur, acclamans:
Quotiescumque manducamus panem hunc et calicem bibimus, mortem tuam annuntiamus, Domine, donec venias.

And the people continue, acclaiming:
When we eat this Bread and drink this Cup, we proclaim your death, O Lord, until you come again.

The structure here is that the priest makes a proclamation “the mystery of faith” to which the people respond in acclamation (which is made clear by the rubric). There’s a clear sense of the people approving and applauding the proclamation of the priest. We might also note that “and the people continue” for “et populus prosequitur” is a bit weak; “prosequitur” better rendered with a sense of following or accompanying.

However, when we look at the old translation we find

Let us proclaim the mystery of faith:

Memorial acclamation of the people

When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus, until you come in glory.

The fragment “let us proclaim” is an invention of the old translation, not found in nor implied by the Latin original. We might also note that it is also somewhat inconsistent with the following rubric! The effect is to totally lose the proclamation-acclamation, priest-people, head of Christ-body of Christ structure. In the Latin and in the new translation, the priest has simply made the proclamation to which the faithful join in acclamation; in the old translation, the priest is inviting a joint proclamation with the faithful as though he had not already done it.

The general effect of the old translation here appears to be a weakening of the theology of the priest acting “in Persona Christi Capitis” (in the Person of Christ the Head) and therefore a weakening of the theology of the Church as the Mystical body of Christ. As such, the new translation is a welcome improvement.

Cycling to Rome

I'm not, but some friends of ours are! Please consider sponsoring them on their pilgrimage as they are raising money for two very good causes. You can find more details on their Facebook page, but here's a quote:

Mary’s Meals provides a staple, daily meal in schools for children in some of the poorest countries in the world, thus fighting poverty through tackling malnutrition and encouraging education. The Cardinal Winning Pro-Life Initiative provides non-judgemental practical, spiritual and emotional support for mothers in the UK, struggling with crisis pregnancy and the prospect of bringing up a child alone.

You might like to look at the some of the intricate planning that's gone into this project by looking at their proposed route map.

Update: They've now got their own blog!

Another blog on the block

This looks like fun!

The Chant Café