Solemnity of the Ascension

Fra Angelico's Noli Me Tangere

Readings: Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 46:2-3,6-9; Ephesians 1:17-23; Matthew 28:16-20

Some 40 days ago we heard how Mary Magdalene, on encountering the Risen Lord by His tomb, sought to cling on to Him, and Jesus told her: “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father” (John 20:17). Mary’s seeking to hold on to Christ is natural. She thought she had lost her Lord and did not know where to find Him, she does not wish to lose Him and be separated from Him again. It would be strange if we were to act differently in the same circumstances. And yet, the Solemnity of the Ascension is marked as one of the great feasts of the Church, it is a time for celebration. But, why? That the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us is clearly cause for great joy, but that He should no longer continue to live bodily among us . . . that seems harder to be happy about.

However, we have it on Christ’s own authority that His Ascension is good news for us. Earlier this week, we heard Jesus say to his disciples:

“Now I am going to the one who sent me.
Not one of you has asked, “Where are you going?”
You are sad at heart because I have told you this.
Still, I must tell you the truth:
It is for your own good that I am going,
because unless I go,
the Advocate will not come to you;
but if I do go,
I will send him to you.”
(John 16: 5-7)

So our sadness is understandable, and yet we should rejoice because Jesus Himself has told us that this His Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit is good news for us. And accordingly, next week we will celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit with great joy, The Solemnity of Pentecost. However, it is important that we don’t conceive of today’s Solemnity as marking some sort of Trinitarian trade-in, of thinking that Christ is now absent, but soon we will have the Holy Spirit instead so we’re not to worry. It’s much better news than that. God’s love overflows. The disciples understood this as is evidenced in Luke when he tells us that after He had blessed them, parted from them and been raised up to heaven, “they worshipped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple blessing God.” (24:50-53)

For Christ continues to be present to us. And again, we can say that on His authority, for at the end of Matthew’s Gospel He tells us:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”

So we have Jesus’ word that he will be with us always. We have not lost Him, He is with us still, but He has also given us the Holy Spirit and we have only to reflect on the great things the previously timid Apostles did after Pentecost to know what a great gift this is.

Yet, some might question whether this ‘being with us’ is just semantics; is it not just a nice way of saying, I’ll always be with you because I’ll always be in your memories? And our answer, as Catholics? An emphatic, No! His presence is real! Heaven is not some far off place, where God gazes upon us from great distance, occasionally meddling. We should not think that because Jesus is now in heaven at the right hand of Father, He is somehow shut off from us here on earth. The Church is the body of Christ and the sacraments are a place of genuine encounter with Christ. Truly, He is still with us.

Chapel of The Ascension, Mount of Olives

The disciples who went back to Jerusalem so joyfully, evidently understood this. They knew that Christ was now present to them in a new and powerful way. They could start to make out the trajectory of His life and see his ascent in its true context.

For Jesus’ ascent had begun earlier, it had also been his self-offering on the Cross on which he was raised up. This offering supplanted all the old sacrifices. The same ascent is described in the Letter to the Hebrews as Him going up, not to a sanctuary made by human hands, but to heaven itself, into the presence of God (9:24). This ascent into God’s presence leads via the Cross – it is the ascent toward “loving to the end” (cf John 13:1), which is the real mountain of God. The sacrifice had been offered on the Cross and its acceptance is shown in the Resurrection and Ascension.

And this mountain, to which He is ascended, is not some far off place, set apart from all other places. God’s presence is not spatial, for he is immaterial, and His Divine Presence is everywhere. So now Jesus is returned to his Father, and He is no longer geographically located in one place, but exercises His Divine Dominion over Creation, present to all and present everywhere. This trajectory is also the one which we must follow; it is our ultimate goal. Humanity was offered to God in Christ the Victim, who is now forever at the right hand of the Father and the path has been made for us to follow. The path well-trodden by the Saints.

The Ascension of Jesus Christ, a miniature from the Syrian Gospel, 6th century

So today we should rejoice. We should rejoice at Mass when we recall that Christ is present to us in His priests, in His Word in the readings, in our joint prayers and song, and most especially in the Eucharist. Christ is present and the Faith is a present to us, but it is both gift and task; we receive the gift of God’s inner closeness and then must carry out the joyful task of bearing witness to Jesus Christ as he commanded us.

Catholic Social Teaching: Marriage and the Family

Betrothal of St. Joseph and Our Lady

It is often declared that the family is the basic building block of society, yet according to the National Office of Statistics the divorce rate in the UK has more or less stabilized at around 1% of the married population divorcing every year with about 1/3 of all marriages ending by their 15th wedding anniversary. This inevitably has consequences for the environment in which children are raised and suggests that whilst the Christian vision of the family remains the social ‘norm’ in an ideological sense, in practice it is increasingly abnormal. Indeed, as Richard Conrad OP once pointed out in conversation, it may be the case that the Christian family is acquiring some of the ‘iconic’ value of eschatological sign that has traditionally been the sole preserve of celibate religious. 

If Christian marriage has indeed become a counter-cultural sign of the Kingdom of God in our world today, this should alert us to the danger of assuming that wider society will provide by a kind of cultural osmosis the moral and spiritual formation necessary to live out the Christian vision of family life. We should instead begin to take married life – and thus family life - more seriously as a vocation. The newly married couple are in some respects like a novice in a monastic community: they have entered into a new and very specific kind of community life. Like the novice, the newly married couple will need formation if they are to live this life well and help others, i.e. their children, to live it well. 

Against this backdrop it is perhaps unsurprising that our theological understanding of married life has undergone something of a transformation over the last one hundred years. For both Augustine and Aquinas, the primary good of marriage is the propagation of the human race, which is bound up with our natural desire to live. An explicit link, then, is made by these two theological giants between marriage and the family: marriage is for a family. The good of friendship, for example between husband and wife, or the fulfillment of both partners through living a married life well, are very much second order goods in their understanding. The Council of Trent maintained this distinction of primary and secondary ends although, interestingly, the two orders are reversed: where offspring was the primary end of marriage for Aquinas, Trent makes it a secondary reason to marry. Trent instead proposes what Aquinas considered the secondary goods of friendship, and fidelity, and growth in virtue and so on as the first reason for a person to marry. In the twentieth century this trend toward considering marriage as a good in itself developed even further: Vatican II, for example, did not particularly emphasize the instrumental goodness of marriage but rather chose to underline the intrinsic goodness of the married couple and family as a life-long community. Gaudium et Spes is keen to emphasise that the married couple and the family are a “community of love” (GS 48). The fruitfulness of marriage, then, is seen as the fulfillment of conjugal love (see GS 51) In this way the council hopes to present the family as continuous with marriage which of course has particular significance when we remember that marriage is a sacrament. 

The Holy Family in Nazareth

The sacramental bond between husband and wife conforms their relationship into a symbol or sign of Christ’s love for his Church. The normal characteristics of natural conjugal love therefore take on a new significance which purifies them, strengthens them, and elevates them into an expression of specifically Christian values (Familiaris Consortio 13). This makes marriage, according to John Paul II, the ‘natural setting in which the human person is introduced into the great family of the Church’ (FC 14). Married life, in this view, becomes a co-operation with God in creating persons: it is a sacred share in the divinely assigned mission to raise children for God. The family must therefore be a kind of school of love, that is to say a school of humanity through which the child can reach the fullness of life and love and live as a true friend of God and neighbour. 

This is indeed an inspiring vision, but at this point we must ask an embarrassing question: if the Holy Spirit works so profoundly through the sacrament of marriage and sanctifies the whole of family life, why is it that the Christian divorce rate, for example, is the same for Christians as society as a whole? Why is it that Christian families are often places of oppression and abuse? Or to borrow John Haldane’s comment in the Catholic herald: Why doesn’t the grace of God bear fruit in our lives? The simple answer, of course, is that we can resist grace and we do resist grace whenever (to varying extents) we reject God and (again to varying extents) worship instead what is not God. John Paul II’s reflections on marriage and family dwell extensively on Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve decided to put knowledge of good and evil ahead of the worship of God. Family life, both Christian and non-Christian, still bear the scars of this fall. The family, as Robert Ombres OP puts it, is ‘eroded from within’ when the common unity of the family is found in something other than God, something other than love.

St Augustine of Canterbury - 27 May

Growing up in Kent, in a Christian family, the story of how St Augustine brought Christianity back to England seems to have been genetically implanted in me. Today, I am happy that we celebrate the feast of St Augustine, the Apostle to the English, who died around this date in 604. But we should be neither nostalgic nor purely academic when we remember this great saint. Instead, I believe St Augustine provides us with a powerful example of Christian witness in difficult circumstances. Just as he brought Christianity from Rome to the pagan Anglo-Saxons, who had displaced Roman British Christianity, English Catholics today have the task of re-evangelising our drifting post-Christian culture in the early 21st century.

Saints Gregory and Augustine

And what exactly is Augustine's story, and how is it relevant to us? Although we call him Augustine of Canterbury, he was originally a Roman monk. His early life is obscure and he first comes to notice as a member of the Benedictine community established by St Gregory the Great on his own family estate on the Cælian hill. It is Gregory who takes the principal role in establishing the English mission. He seems to be personally concerned that, despite its remoteness, Britannia has been part of the Roman Empire and therefore deserves to be restored to the Catholic faith. He knows little, it seems, of the British church still surviving on the Celtic margins. But these Christians lack vital connections with the Apostolic See, celebrate Easter on a different day, and have made no effort to evangelise the Anglo-Saxons. As a result, the potential converts among the pagans will have to be won by a direct mission from Rome.

Augustine is Prior of his community and has shown himself an able superior. So, in 596, Gregory chooses him to lead a band of monks to bring the Gospel north. They are to convert the king of Kent, Ethelbert, whose wife Bertha is of Frankish origin and already a Christian; to preach for the conversion of the Kentish people; and to establish monasteries and schools. At this point, we see another side of Augustine's character. Not long after leaving Rome, he and his brethren begin to get cold feet and want to go home. 'For they were appalled at the idea of going to a barbarous, fierce and pagan nation, of whose very language they were ignorant', we are told by St Bede (HEGA 1.23). But Pope Gregory sends Augustine back on his way, urging him that 'it had been better not to undertake any high enterprise than to abandon it once begun' (Ep. VI, 50a). Augustine obeys.

Augustine preaching to Ethelbert

Their target, King Ethelbert, is a formidable man. As Bretwalda (overlord) over several Anglo-Saxon kings, his authority stretches as far north as the Humber, and he will reign in Kent for 56 years. No doubt, his wife exercises a certain influence over him which ensures a decent welcome to the missionaries. But Ethelbert is a god-fearing pagan and, superstitiously believing that Augustine might try magic on him, insists on meeting the monk in the open air. Such fears are disarmed by Augustine's prayerful and peaceable manner. The king remains cautious and does not immediately convert. But that meeting on the isle of Thanet results in his offering the missionaries provisions and property to establish themselves in his capital, Canterbury, and the freedom to preach to the people. Soon, the people are coming in droves to be baptised, inspired by the apostolic example of the fledgling Christian community. As Bede reports, the missionaries 'regarded worldly things as of little importance and accepted only the necessities of life from those whom they taught. They practised what they preached, and were willing to endure any hardship, and even to die for the truth which they proclaimed.' (HEGA 1.26) Compare this with the cowardly band that left Rome just a few months previously, and you begin to see the extraordinary grace of God at work in these men.

It reminds me of the early Dominican brethren who, six centuries later, would meet with similar success across Europe. The simplicity of their lives and their gospel zeal – these two attitudes can be seen in the pattern set by Augustine for the early English church, and both are relevant to us today. Of course, Augustine was not perfect. Some historical discussion, for instance, revolves around his meeting with the bishops of the old British church, in which he offended them by remaining seated, whereas they had been looking for a sign of his humility. His attitude was appropriate, perhaps, given his apostolic authority from Rome, but it was a regrettable diplomatic faux pas. Such initial tensions would then be sustained by wider political circumstances.

After his death, Augustine was quickly recognised as a saint and his cult developed at the shrine in his abbey in Canterbury. Sadly, that was destroyed in the Protestant Reformation, but happily a new national shrine of St Augustine has been established as recently as 2012, in a beautiful church by Pugin, not far from the spot where Augustine first landed.

Sancte Augustine, ora pro nobis.

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Historical Note

The Angles in Rome: the blonde hair hypothesis
(opus sectile in Westminster Cathedral)

Of course, I've left out the most famous episode in the Gregorian mission. Before becoming pope, Gregory saw some boys or youths of fair complexion being sold in the market. Hearing they were 'Angles', he is famously said to have replied, Non Angli, sed angeli. Not Angles, but angels! In fact, the accounts in Bede and in the Whitby Life of Gregory the Great record a whole series of witticisms. The line about angels was originally longer: 'they have angelic faces, and it is right that they should become joint-heirs with the angels in heaven'. (HEGA 2.1) Then, since their king was called Aelli, so 'Alleluia, God's praise must be heard there.' Finally, on being told that their tribe was called Deira, Gregory quipped, 'They shall flee from the wrath of God (de ira dei) to the faith.' (Whitby Life, ch. 9)

And, for bonus points, there is a little detail that often gets misreported. The boys or youths were not 'fair-haired', as many modern accounts say. The text in Bede certainly says they had fair skin (pueros...candidi corporis) but their hair he describes as 'remarkable heads of hair' or 'beautiful hair'. The Latin says capillorum...forma egregia – what we might call 'an impressive shock of hair'! Nothing there about being blonde.

Invitation to the Pentecost Vigil 2014

"Go to Oxford"

On this day when we commemorate the Translation of Our Holy Father St Dominic, we keep in our prayers the whole Dominican family. Let us pray especially for those being ordained to the priesthood, including five Polish Dominican brothers in Cracow.

The video above was made after the priestly ordination of Polish Dominican brothers last year. It is a moving testimony to the profound character of the holy priesthood, following in the steps of Christ in the way that St John and St Paul show us; and it shows a Christian community joyfully celebrating these men as they begin their new life of service.

In the homily, the bishop even refers to Oxford! He is making an important point about Dominican and priestly obedience, the readiness to go wherever we are sent. Gilbert de Fresnay OP and his twelve companions were sent to England by St Dominic himself presiding over the general chapter in Bologna in 1221. Gilbert and company were told, "Go to Oxford." And today, English Dominican friars at their Simple Profession are told to go to Oxford to take up their studies for the priesthood. But 'Oxford' could stand for any assignment. We need willing brothers and sisters who follow in Christ's footsteps wherever the needs of evangelisation may take them.

Let us give the final words to the bishop (from 4'24" in the video):

You worry where you will be assigned to, hmm? 

 […] Go where you want to, there already waits for you God’s word and the Sacraments. This is a more important reality than individual aspirations. 

Where would you want to go to, right? Go to Oxford. 

This is a reality that is more important than us, that cannot be fully described. You cannot encompass it or grasp it. That is why John is given the task of testimony, because what you can’t tell with words, you can show with your life. 

 [...] A book is a book and life is life. Faith is passed by life, when we take this book in our hands, we need the explanation, but also the experience. Explanation AND experience. There is no other way to convey the message. Explanation and experience.

May 2014: Walsingham, Nightfever, New Acolytes

We would like to share some pictures and news from events so far this May: Walsingham, Nightfever, and the institution of new Acolytes.

The annual Dominican Pilgrimage to Walsingham took place in glorious weather last Sunday, 18 May, gathering together friars, sisters, and laity from across the country. At Mass, we were warmly welcomed as always by Fr Alan Williams SM, the shrine administrator, who was recently appointed the next Bishop of Brentwood. The Dominican parish of the Holy Cross in Leicester provided the choir and servers, while Father David Rocks OP (the pilgrimage organiser) was called upon to preach. In his homily, he spoke of the special place that Walsingham has in our hearts, especially through our repeated pilgrimages to this Marian shrine, when we gather as a community to worship Christ and honour his blessed Mother. 

Dominican Sisters of St Joseph, from Lymington 

Preparing for the procession after Mass at the Catholic shrine

Our Lady of Walsingham

Praying the rosary and singing hymns along the way

Entering the small Norfolk village

Afterwards there was time to visit the churches in Walsingham and take some refreshment!
The pilgrimage finished with Vespers and Benediction in the Catholic parish church.

On Friday 16 May, the Priory of the Holy Spirit hosted the third Nightfever event in Oxford. The Oxford Nightfever events have all been run by the University Catholic Chaplaincy and held at Blackfriars. 

Nightfever, which has been mentioned on Godzdogz before, is an evening of gentle evangelisation, where Catholics invite people passing by to enter the church, light a candle, and even write down a prayer. The Blessed Sacrament is exposed for adoration, while musical accompaniment contributes to a very prayerful atmosphere.

 This time, over 300 people entered the church over the course of the evening. This included many families with children, who were well behaved and found themselves drawn into the prayerful atmosphere.

Finally, yesterday evening, on the solemnity of Anniversary of the Dedication of the Priory Church (20 May), four Dominican brothers were instituted as Acolytes by the Prior Provincial. Please pray for Br Toby Lees OP, Br Luke Doherty OP, Br Samuel Burke OP, and Br Jordan Scott OP, as they begin this important ministry at the altar.

Catholic Social Teaching: Right to Life

Christians are not the only ones who can claim ownership over the values that form the basis of the right to life. After all, it is enshrined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Art 3), “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person”. Such a declaration was written after the atrocities of the Second World War, where it was revealed Nazi Germany ran death camps for the routine and industrialised murder of millions who were opposed to the Nazi ideology, or happened to be Jewish or Roma gypsy. This is not to mention the millions who were killed for ideological reasons in Soviet nations in the 20^th century, who were either worked to death, murdered, or ‘disappeared’. There was a clear need to enshrine human rights into law. Through human history it is pretty obvious that we have an original sin as human beings. We always seem to have a tendency to descend into a state of barbarism. Destroying everything that has been built up often seems to be an easy option for humanity. Events in the 20^th century show us the atrocities that we are capable of, the denial of a fundamental right to life. Evil seems to spread where there is a lack of the good, no hope for the future, and where extreme poverty and food insecurity prevail. 

When it comes to the right to life, we have a framework in a liberal democracy which sets out the basic principle that we cannot exterminate populations, or murder any individual. Despite this universal declaration, we continue to see overt breaches of the most basic of human rights, the right to life. State-sanctioned murder in Africa and the Middle East is happening to this day, for reasons such as apostasy from Islam or refusing to renounce Christian beliefs. Flourishing in the poorest parts of the world, groups of fundamentalists deny innocent people of their lives in an ideological pursuit, or for the goal of conquest, money or power. The spread of evil worsens when there is no intervention by good people, and evil takes a grasp when there is seemingly no other choice for those who do evil deeds. Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was martyred during the El Salvador civil war, said “For the church, the many abuses of human life, liberty, and dignity are a heartfelt suffering. The church, entrusted with the earth’s glory, believes that in each person is the Creator’s image and that everyone who tramples it offends God. As holy defender of God’s rights and of his images, the church must cry out. It takes as spittle in its face, as lashes on its back, as the cross in its passion, all that human beings suffer, even though they be unbelievers. They suffer as God’s images. There is no dichotomy between man and God’s image. Whoever tortures a human being, whoever abuses a human being, whoever outrages a human being abuses God’s image, and the church takes as its own that cross, that martyrdom.”

Of course, there is the old trick of redefining what a human being actually is, to get around the universal declaration on human rights. A pervasive argument in Britain and developed nations today, is in the debate over abortion. At what point in a pregnancy does a human life begin? If we take the Catholic doctrine that life begins at the point of conception, then there is no termination or other biological intervention after a certain point that does not end up killing a new human life. Is the West, in its pursuit of liberty and emphasising the ‘choice’ of a pregnant woman over her quality of life, actually turning into a regime that is committing mass murder? It is understandable to see why the matter of abortion is so divisive. Our entire reasoning in Western thought is geared toward individual liberty, the right to choose how we live our lives and not be stifled with the supposed burden of a pregnancy. Pope Benedict XVI highlighted in Caritas in Veritate that Western society often portrays a paradigm of the ‘risk’ of becoming pregnant, the ‘risk’ of having children at an earlier age than we would want. But what we need is a paradigm shift to a more human way of looking at the whole area of the right to life, to shed a positive light on being a parent in less than ideal circumstances.

One argument that ‘pro-choice’ advocates make is that ‘pro-life’ is about protecting the unborn, but only until they are born. The pro-choice point here is that some activists in the political ‘pro-life movement’ lose interest after the point of birth in the human life, and are not interested in the welfare, health or education of the individual. To be for the right to life in a Catholic context in relation to abortion, means the ability of an expectant mother or couple, to fall back on their support mechanism which is the family, the wider Catholic community, and those providing welfare and other support for a new life that is brought into the world.

The pro-choice feminist writer, Germaine Greer once commented that the Cardinal Winning initiative in Glasgow was the first real alternative to abortion for pregnant women. The Cardinal Winning initiative helps women facing a crisis pregnancy, providing assistance to women and their families practically, financially, emotionally and spiritually. In England, the Life charity is a similar initiative. In her book The Whole Woman, Greer condemns the ‘victory’ of self-congratulating pro-choice lobbyists in securing the right of women to have abortions. She argues that women have won little and become enslaved by an abortion culture whose chief architects are "hyper fertile" men, politicians and corporate drug giants. In other words, a ‘choice’ is only possible if there are genuine alternatives. It’s just that in a Catholic context, the choice is an illusion. We can choose to do many things, like choosing to pay a sniper to kill off someone who makes my life difficult; but it is simply wrong and immoral, and is an evil act.

A warning from Pope Benedict XVI before his Papal visit to Britain in 2010 was that a dictatorship of relativism is creeping into Western society. Relativism is the belief that there is no such thing as a difference between good and evil, that there is no such thing as an absolute truth or valid argument. The 'dictatorship' is that in the public sphere we are no longer allowed to say anything that might offend anyone; Christians are pushed aside for claiming we have the truth on morals and what is wrong is always wrong. Isn't it said that the devil's greatest victory was to convince people that he does not exist?

Quodlibet: Why Eternity?

One Godzdogz reader recently sent in an email including many fascinating questions on the topic of Eternity, especially in terms of what the afterlife will be like. The questions ranged from heaven, perfection, theosis, and the beatific vision, to hell, annihilation, and our inability to run or hide from God. I'm happy to replicate my response here under the general question:

WHY ETERNITY?

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[...] I was going to write specific answers to each of your questions, but they are all so intimately connected that a single, extended response seems more appropriate. Also, I think you end up answering many of your own questions, not least because you show a good knowledge and appreciation of Catholic doctrine in this area. But I think if you applied this more consistently you would find that your remaining questions disappear. Not that you would have a full arsenal of answers, but you would see the true reach of our Faith and the limits of our knowledge. In the mystery of God’s being, we see a glimpse of our own final destination. All things come from God and all things return to God. That is a great mystery because God is a great mystery. But a mystery is not something about which nothing can be said – otherwise we should take Wittgenstein’s advice and remain silent! No, a mystery is something about which not everything can be known. More on this later.

What does eternity mean? Your questions reminded me of a recent spoof on the Onion: theoretical physicists meet R&B singers to debate the meaning of ‘forever’! Anyway, it is fashionable to distinguish between ‘eternity’ and ‘everlasting life’; the latter is a temporal succession of events that goes on forever, while eternity is thought to be non-temporal. But I think Boethius in the 5th century had a better definition: eternity is the ‘perfect possession of everlasting life all at once’ (interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio). That is, eternity is not atemporal but contains time within itself. This is particularly relevant when trying to understand how the eternal God can apparently squeeze himself into time at the Incarnation: God can enter time, not because it can contain him, but because he contains it.

Eternity will therefore be perfectly bearable for those who are received into it by God’s grace. Although Boethius’ term, ‘interminable’, has a pejorative sense in English, there is no possibility of being bored or somehow fed up with an eternal existence, for it happens ‘all at once’, so to speak. Neither will it be a static existence, on the other hand, since it is a possession of life, a fully dynamic existence, even when one has reached perfection. When we wonder what it might be like for a human being to enjoy eternity, in a state of existence somehow between stasis and temporal change, then we are only grappling with the problem that already confronts us when we think of God’s eternity. Aquinas defines God as pure act (actus purus), the fullness of being and perfection; and the very use of Aristotle’s term ‘act’ reveals the dynamic and living quality he is trying to express.

The Creation of Adam

I don’t know what theosis is, and I don’t believe anyone else does! Certainly we have to hold to some idea that “God became man, that we might be made God”, as Athanasius said (and many earlier Patristic writers say likewise). But in what sense we become united to God, or like God, after a while becomes pure speculation. At least, we can rule out that we become God in the strict sense of having the divine essence. Only God has (or rather, is) the divine essence; we all have creaturely essences; and between the two there is no commensurability. That is why the Church had to insist (against Eutyches and other monophysites) that there are two natures in Christ, divine and human, hypostatically united in one person. Of course, these dogmatic definitions are about ruling out mistakes rather than giving us a full explanation of the truth. We’re still dealing with the mystery of God, and even Aquinas is bold enough to say that we are joined to God as to an unknown (ei quasi ignoto coniungamur). Of course, this needs to be understood in the context of what we can say positively about God – as Thomas explains in the questions on the attributes of God (Summa Theologiae I.3-11) and on knowledge of and language about God (ST 1.12-13). (To follow this up, you could read Rudi te Velde, Aquinas on God, chaps. 3-4.) Moreover, God is revealed in Christ, especially in the Paschal mystery, and in the Resurrection appearances (on which Godzdogz did a series last year) we catch fleeting glimpses of Christ’s heavenly existence which is promised to the faithful.

The Creation, Monreale Cathedral

You speak of “loaned being”; yes, our being is a participation in God’s. This is the famous analogy of being (analogia entis) in Aquinas, standing in a venerable Platonic tradition. You suggest that nothingness hangs over us like the sword of Damocles; and yes, we can say, ‘There but for the grace of God go I…’ But to doubt God’s benevolent will to sustain our existence would be to lose faith in his merciful love. Our Lord is 'a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’ (Ex. 34:6 among others). We cannot demand our existence or sustenance from God, but neither should we doubt the extent of his goodwill towards us! Indeed, in prayer we should act like petulant children, insisting on getting our daily bread. And, putting the generosity of all human parents to shame, 'how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!’ (Mt 7:11) To add a more philosophical point, I think Aquinas is right (against Bonaventure and others) to understand creation as a single act which means both creating and sustaining. God doesn’t have to expend any extra ‘effort’, so to speak, to sustain the creation once it exists. This must be distinguished from deism. The creation runs its natural course only because God is creating it every moment of its existence. Creating and sustaining are a single act, viewed from God’s eternity.

You say you ‘simply wish not-to-be’. I’m sorry, but I struggle to see how this is rationally possible. On the emotional level, we can all sometimes wish things to end. But I suspect what we really desire is for this existence to change, to improve. It may be analogous to wanting rest at the end of a trying day; all you think about is blissful and unconscious sleep; but don’t you still look forward to a new day? Many people seem to face death ‘stoically’, while not expecting any afterlife, but don’t they still cling to some shadows of an ongoing existence – desiring to be remembered by loved ones, and to have their life’s work recognised and developed by others? For Aquinas it is almost axiomatic that being is a good: ‘existence is the most perfect of all things’, since existence is actuality (ST 1.4.1.ad 3). The word ‘perfect’ (being complete, most actual) itself attests to this bias in our language. That’s why I don’t think anyone can rationally wish for their own annihilation. Such a person is not using words properly. Of course we all do wish for irrational things, as St Paul said, 'For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.’ But our desires don’t give us carte blanche; that is what the Fall means, and our post-Christian culture so often rages against this basic fact.

Back to heaven. Though he is neither a mystic nor theologian, C. S. Lewis’s wonderful little book, The Great Divorce, is a highly imaginative approach to what the afterlife might entail. Things in heaven are more ‘solid', more real, than earthly realities, and the soul on the threshold between purgatory and heaven is hardly able to bear them. But after purgatory, everything in heaven will be enjoyable, all 'sweetness and light', to borrow Arnold’s phrase. We shall all enjoy heaven to the fullest extent that we are able. There is no bland equality in heaven; the saints all enjoy God according to their unique capacity, which God fills with his grace, with himself. When St Therese of Lisieux was bothered by the idea of degrees of glory in heaven, she discovered through the analogy of a tumbler and thimble full of water that the important thing is being full! Autistic people, then, will enjoy heaven as much as anyone else - i.e. to their full capacity - and in any case I rather suspect that many, if not all, our physical infirmities in this life will be healed in the next. This will not eradicate our unique humanity or personality, but will make us the best persons God made us to be.

Alpha and Omega

You are right that God is the ultimate reality we desire, even as we yearn for perfect things in this life. But once we enjoy God ‘face to face’ in heaven (cf. 1 Cor. 13:12 and Rev 22:4), there will be nothing more to satisfy us. In the light of what eternity means, there is no question of anything after we are fulfilled in God. And in the famous prayer of St Augustine, 'You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.’ That is, God is our perfect end, the Omega as well as the Alpha. I like your point about being with God from the beginning. Certainly God is with us all the time and he knew us before we were born: 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you’ (Jer. 1:5); and God 'knit me together in my mother’s womb’ (Ps. 139:13). More importantly, since God is eternal, he is actually changeless in himself; the only changes happen in us, which establish new relationships between us and God. (Aquinas uses the analogy of a fixed pillar: you can move from one side to the other and a new relationship will have been established, but the actual change is only in you, not the pillar.) In this way, God is eternally present to us in the same perfect way, but we can change in relation to him. We grow, we receive the sacraments, eventually we die, and by God’s mercy join him for eternity. All these changes happen in us, not in God. Not that God is passive in all this - on the contrary! He is pure act, creating us at every level and at every moment of our existence.

Well, I’ve written a lot already, so I shall leave it there. I could say more about heaven as the experience of ‘ecstasy’ (ek-stasis), a kind of ultimate buzz of which we would never tire. Or about the complementary images of heaven as an eternal rest – which I think is captured by the serenity of Donne’s Sermon XV: And into that gate they shall enter, and in that house they shall dwell, where there shall be no Cloud nor Sun, no darknesse nor dazling, but one equall light, no noyse nor silence, but one equall musick, no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession, no foes nor friends, but an equall communion and Identity, no ends nor beginnings; but one equall eternity. 

A heavenly vision: Van Eyck, The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb

There is, finally, the central Biblical image of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb (Rev. 19; cf Mt 19, Lk 14). That reminds us our best idea of heaven is of one big party – a bit like Catholic Heaven according to The Simpsons!

Please get back to me on any points which could be clearer or better developed, especially on any where you disagree with me!

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P.S. If you missed this a few months ago, Fr Richard Ounsworth OP recently gave a talk on the afterlife as part of the God Matters series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mwsf2FDUbM.

Catholic Social Teaching: Stewardship of Creation and the Enviroment

When the Catholic Church discusses environmental questions she often speaks about the Stewardship of Creation, God has put man over the word to govern it in his name. What this stewardship entails is fairly obvious: humanity should use the earth’s resources responsibly to facilitate the flourishing of peoples whilst respecting creation in light of its Creator.

The Dodo paid the price
for irresponsible stewardship.

But unpacking this basic common sense principle is like opening Pandora’s Box. Environmental questions aren’t all as simple as whether or not we should bother about saving tigers from extinction. Questions like ‘what is the acceptable impact of international food production upon the environment at local and global levels?’, are a bit more tricky. Indeed environmental question can appear fearsome. This can put many of us off giving much thought to the environment, besides, isn’t it all for eco-warriors and tree huggers? What does the environment really have to do with a Catholic’s journey to heaven? Perhaps if we see caring for the environment through a more personal lens, rather than in its literally global scale, we can come to appreciate the importance of being good stewards.

When we let people into our homes we do so with an expectation that they will behave a certain way. We expect people to keep their feet of the couch, to not break the fine china and leave things more or less as they found them; though it would be nice if they cleaned the dishes. When we look around us we should remember what the Psalmist says ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.’ (Psalm 24:1)

Not only does the world belong to God but it speaks to us about him. As St Paul said, the existence of God, his power and nature are clearly perceived in the things that have been made. (Romans 1:20)

Gregory XVI

However, the world doesn’t only communicate God’s existence and goodness; it also speaks of man’s relationship with the Almighty. In his 1832 encyclical Mirari Vos Pope Gregory XVI decried the moral and social decline of society and quoted the prophet Isaiah as saying: ‘the earth mourns and wastes away… infected by its inhabitants for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant.’ (Isaiah 24: 4-6) How we act towards God is, partly, reflected in how the world responds to our presence in it. This isn’t to say that all environmental change has miraculous causation; God grants us the dignity of letting the effects of our actions reflect the nature of our behaviour.

So, considering the environment pushes us to think about our Creator and about everything he has made. We see ourselves as not merely individual agents but as being intimately connected, through God, to all that is around us.

For Catholics environmental questions strike at the core of what it means to be a creature. By contemplating creation we are forced to examine where we place God place in our lives and in our societies. The respect owed to creation comes from the dignity of the one who made it, and thus, when Catholics think about the environment seriously they fall upon the core principle of Catholic Social Teaching:  that Jesus Christ is the Creator-King of all that is. As the Catechism puts it: ‘The beauty of creation reflects the infinite beauty of the Creator and ought to inspire the respect and submission of man's intellect and will.’ (CCC: 341)

Vocations Sunday: Testimony from Br Nicholas Crowe OP

Today is known as Good Shepherd Sunday, thanks to the Gospel reading from John 10, which means it is also a good time to pray for vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

If you want to find out more about such vocations in the UK today, have a look here:

http://www.ukvocation.org/hear-about-vocations

What's more, you can hear the personal testimony of our own Br Nicholas Crowe OP, recorded specially for the National Office for Vocation:

http://www.ukvocation.org/files/VS2014/testimony-br-nicholas.mp3

Catholic Social Teaching: Education

Education is one of the most important human rights. Given that one of its basic aims is the full development of the human person it has a huge significance especially for children. For them their first and primary teachers are always their parents and the family is the first school. Nevertheless education should also have a great priority in society to whom belong some rights and duties and whose role is to direct what is required for the common temporal goods. Its function is to promote education and to cooperate with parents. In this cooperation between parents and social institutions the rights of parents should be respected and institutions should create the conditions which would help in the personal development of each person. It cannot be only intellectual progress, because man needs integral education that respects also other aspects of human being's life: physical, social, cultural, moral and religious as well. Education cannot be only regarded as a way of the development knowledge, but also skills, habits, moral values and interpersonal communication. It seems to be extremaly important, because education has influence not only on people who are educated, but it makes a significant contribution as well as ensures future benefits to the community life.

Very essential statments about education can be found at the beginning of Declaration on Christian Education Gravissimum Educationis where we read: "All men of every race, condition and age, since they enjoy the dignity of a human being, have an inalienable right to an education that is in keeping with their ultimate goal, their ability, their sex, and the culture and tradition of their country, and also in harmony with their fraternal association with other peoples in the fostering of true unity and peace on earth. For a true education aims at the formation of the human person in the pursuit of his ultimate end and of the good of the societies of which, as man, he is a member, and in whose obligations, as an adult, he will share. Therefore children and young people must be helped, with the aid of the latest  advances in psychology and the arts and science of teaching, to develop harmoniuosly their physical, moral and intellectual endowments so that they may gradually acquire a mature sense of responsibility in striving endlessly to form their own lives properly and in pursuing true freedom as they surmount the vicissitudes of life with courage and constancy. Let them be given also, as they advance in years, a positive and prudent sexual education. Moreover they should be also so trained to take their part in social life that properly instructed in the necessary and opportune skills they can become actively involved in various community organizations, open to discourse with others and willing to do their best to promote the common good" (Gravissimum Educationis 1).

To the Church, in a special way, belongs the duty of educating, because she has the responsibility of announcing the Gospel of salavtion to all men. By this reason one of the most important educational tasks for the Church is the development of the knowledge and love of God. In this special vocation the Church preaches to people the complete perfection of the human person and she shapes their minds and hearts in the building of a world that is more human. The influence of the Church in the field of education is shown by many different types of Catholics schools, colleges and universities. They create a special atmosphere animated by the spirit of Gospel and charity to help youth develop their own personalities.

In the same document we can read: "In fulfilling its educational role, the Church, eager to employ all suitable aids, is concerned especially about those which are her very own. Foremost among these is catechetical instruction, which enlightens and strenghtens the faith, nourishes life according to the spirit of Christ, leads to intelligent and active participation in the liturgical mystery and gives motivation for apostolic activity. The Church esteems highly and seeks to penetrate and ennoble with her own spirit also other aids which belong to the general heritage of man and which are of great influence in forming souls and molding men, such as the media of communication, various groups for mental and physical development, youth associations, and, in particular, schools" (Gravissimum Educationis 4).

Blackfriars Overseas Aid Trust (BOAT) – AGM 2014

The Christian gospel is not just something which affects our personal and family lives. It also sends us out into the world to bring healing and hope. Charitable giving should be a central plank in our spiritual lives as a 'corporal work of mercy' (along with prayer and fasting). As Pope Francis never ceases to remind us, we are in solidarity with the poor; we cannot stand aloof and think that another person's suffering is not our problem. Of course, we cannot help everyone all the time, but we must do what we can.

Last Sunday, 4th May, we held the 2014 AGM of the Blackfriars Overseas Aid Trust – or BOAT, as everyone calls it. BOAT is the charity run by the 9:30 Family Mass congregation at Blackfriars, Oxford, and supports nearly 20 projects around the world. These projects cover many areas of need, including (a) healthcare, especially primary healthcare and preventive medicine; (b) welfare, especially for children, people with disabilities, refugees, and victims of war or poverty; and (c) education, with special attention given to practical skills, women's education, and basic education for children.

Some of the BOAT committee and 9:30 Family Mass congregation at the 2014 AGM

Our principles of giving require that we find projects where our small donations will go a long way, where the injection of financial support will lead to sustainable development, and where we have very good communication links. I think this emphasis on good communication is one of the best distinctive attributes of BOAT. The South African Dominican, Albert Nolan OP, once described four stages of development in our service of the poor. (These stages need not follow sequentially; they may strike us all at once!) We begin with compassion. We are then motivated to effect structural change, without indulging in our anger against 'the system'. Thirdly, we proceed with humility when we discover the poor are often more aware and more capable of the solutions than us, though we must avoid romanticising poverty. Finally, there is true solidarity, no longer seeing the poor and the oppressed as a separate class, but identifying with their problems, struggles, weaknesses and hopes. "Real solidarity", says Fr Nolan, "begins when it is no longer a matter of we and they."

At BOAT, we keep regular communication with our projects to ensure the money is spent wisely and productively. We receive reports and photographs, which we feed back to the congregation (see especially the display at the back of the church), and sometimes a BOAT member is even able to visit a project in person. A few projects happen to be run by Dominicans in their respective countries (Grenada, East Timor, etc.), but this is not a requirement. The BOAT committee are all volunteers and we keep costs to a minimum (just bank transfer fees and the printing of the annual report), so that a full 99% of our income goes straight to the people who are in need.

This recent AGM saw some changes in the composition of the committee. We are sad to see some members move on, but warmly welcome the new members, who bring their own distinctive talents and energy.

You can read more about BOAT here: http://www.bfriars.ox.ac.uk/priory/groups/boat/

Catholic Social Teaching: Health

“Sharing in the joys and hopes, sorrows and anxieties of the people of every age, the Church has constantly accompanied and sustained humanity in its struggle against pain and its commitment to improve health. At the same time, she has striven to reveal to mankind the meaning of suffering and the riches of the Redemption brought by Christ the Saviour.” (WDS 2000). Whilst in many countries the vast majority of healthcare is now provided by ‘secular’ institutions, the structures and pattern of Western medical and nursing care nonetheless remain imprinted by this legacy of centuries of Christian healthcare ministry.

A sustained theological treatment of health, suffering, and forms of healthcare composed a central feature of St. John Paul II’s Papal Magisterium. This was reflected particularly in his apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris (on the Christian Meaning of Suffering) and the establishment of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers (by the letter Dolentium Hominum), not to mention the Pope’s personal witness to the dignity of life and suffering reflected in his own personal illness and exemplary Christian death. From John Paul II’s reflections on the Catholic healthcare tradition, three clear and related themes can be discerned:

1. the duty of care for the sick is a matter of natural justice; 
2. that healthcare must take account of the transcendental meaning of suffering; and
3. that Christian theology implies a particular ‘theology of health’ that is not always compatible with secular approaches to treatment and care. 

As well as flowing from imitation of Our Lord Jesus Christ’s concern for the sick and suffering, the Christian healthcare ministry reflects natural human solidarity. Importantly, the adequate provision of properly dignified healthcare to all is a matter of natural justice: each person receives life as a precious gift from God; all human beings are created in the Image of God and possess an inalienable dignity, which is properly respected by the promotion and nurturing of health and by the alleviation of suffering. It is a solemn obligation placed on us by our natural constitution as social creatures—as well as by God’s positive law as revealed in the Holy Scriptures—to steward our resources so as to ensure proper care is available for all. This stewardship extends to include our intellectual resources, demanding that scientific endeavour be ordered toward the promotion of global human well-being, placing the cultural capital of the intellectual elite at the service of the poorest and most needy of our brothers and sisters.

Although the importance of the macroscopic policy-level cannot be overestimated, the heart of the Catholic tradition of healthcare is the uniquely blessed personal relationship between the sick person and their individual carers. This relationship between the sick and their carers, whether professional or non-professional, is a communion of persons coequal in dignity, and as such constitutes a shrine to the dignity of the human person: those who have care of the sick stand on God’s holy ground, invited to see the presence of God in the sick person and to reflect the love of God and the goodness of creation to the vulnerable. It is not that carers might be ‘ministering to angels unawares’, but that they are definitely ministering to particular human persons, irreducible in their uniqueness as a child of God. “Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed. Each of us is loved. Each of us is necessary.” (Benedict XVI).

The essentially personal nature of care gives it its definitive character. Despite the emphasis placed on ‘choice’ as a central principle of modern care, healthcare workers are not merchants of an arbitrary product, but find their ministry patterned by the object of their care (the holistic reality of the human person as divinely willed and cherished). Whilst all those involved in healthcare are entitled to just remuneration and proper legal protections, their role is not merely a job. Healthcare workers must remain ever mindful of the dignity of the gift and obligation of their vocation to be “guardians and servants of human life” (WDS, 1999). Christian approaches to healthcare resist the fragmentation of the human person that divides the ‘biological’ from the ‘emotional’ and ‘spiritual’: we care not for the ‘liver disease in bed three’, but for a person with a name. No person is reducible to a pathology.

“It is only in the mystery of the incarnate Word that the mystery of man takes on light” (GS §22): notwithstanding the natural obligation to care for the sick, the full meaning of sickness is comprehensible only in the Easter light shed by the resurrection; the incarnation and Paschal mystery is the “supreme and surest point of reference” that enables us to make sense of human sufferings (SD §31). Although suffering is never to be desired per se, and always to be alleviated when possible, Christ’s suffering bestows a certain relative dignity on human sufferings: by uniting their sufferings to Christ, the Christian’s suffering takes on a salvific value, the sickbed “becoming like a shrine where people participate in Christ's paschal mystery” (WDS §9). This does not mean that the Church is glad that people suffer, nor that that those wracked with the sorrows of suffering should simply put up with them:t he Church continues to look forward in certain hope to the new creation, in which suffering and pain will have no place. Suffering and pain remain a scandal, but cannot obliterate human dignity.

An authentically Christian approach to healthcare, however, must take account of this transcendental meaning of suffering. The Christian presence in healthcare is an essential witness to the dignity of Christ and a component of the New Evangelisation: confronted with suffering, illness and the possibility of death the human person is stripped of all false attachments, and forced to confront the reality of their situation. “Even the most heedless person is prompted [at the bed of a dying person] to wonder about his own life and its meaning, about the reason for evil, suffering and death.” For this reason, Christians must always be present to witness—occasionally by words—to the true value and meaning of human life.

As a result of this transcendental dimension, health per se does not become an ultimate end and absolute obligation. In a society in which there is a risk of making health an idol to which every other value is forced to be subservient, Christians are involved in the “promotion of a health worthy of the human being” (WDS 1999). A Christian understanding of health does not equate well-being with self-satisfaction or the exuberant vitality of youth, nor does it seek to preserve bodily life at all costs. Our duty to preserve bodily health is, therefore, not strictly absolute: the art of living well is also the art of dying well, and—when all reasonable life-preserving treatments are exhausted—each of us must (God-willing at length) make our final journey into the next life. Palliative care, ordered towards the alleviation of suffering, should bestow upon these hallowed final moments of life a quiet and peaceful dignity, in which the individual is cherished as a member of the Christian community.

Much Catholic Social Teaching related to healthcare stresses our relationship to others, but an essential feature of the Catholic tradition is its emphasis on self-care, including not only physical health (avoiding intemperate relationships with food, confronting addictions, taking regular exercises) but also emotional and psychological well-being (taking rest, observing the third commandment consolidating friendships, finding creative opportunities for recreation). Whilst Christ sought out the leper—the icon of exclusion and fear in his own day—we too must seek out the modern equivalent, those who hide themselves away, ashamed of their affliction. We must greet them with the Good New of Christ: in their weakness, they will strengthen the Church, that they are for us a blessing, for whom we thank God.