Credo 10 - ...the only Son of God...

Sometimes, people make the claim, ‘Jesus never said he was the Son of God’.

If we look at the witness to Jesus Christ, if we look at the gospels, it is true that in this record such a title is always claimed for Jesus, by others: whether it be by the gospel narrators, as at the beginning of Mark (1.1) or at many points in John (cf. 3.16; 20.31); by the angel Gabriel to Mary (Lk. 1.35); by demoniacs whom Jesus goes on to heal (Mt. 8.29); or by the Pharisees who seek to charge him with blasphemy (Jn. 10.33-39). Even the devil rebukes him with this title in his wilderness temptations (Mt. 4.1-6; Lk. 4.1-10).

The messianic title Jesus most often uses himself, referring to his ministry, is ‘Son of man’. We also hear the term ‘Son of David’. Jesus’s own words seem to circumvent the issue: not answering questions of his identity directly; speaking of himself in the third person. We feel like echoing the plea of the Jews in John’s gospel: ‘if you are the Christ, tell us plainly’ (Jn 10.24). Why is there this confusion?

We can mention two aspects here. First, it is essential to acknowledge the 1^st century milieu of the gospel witness. A coherent and agreed concept of the identity of the Messiah simply did not exist, there were many ideas. This is seen in passages from John where the Jews argue over Jesus’s identity: ‘again the Jews were divided because of these words’ (10.19). It is anachronistic to apply any systematic ‘Christology’ to Jewish thinking at this time let alone when viewed through our 2,000 year lens. So it is misleading to hang on to distinctions between the messianic titles found in the scriptures.

But secondly and most importantly, notwithstanding these disparate ideas about the Messiah, Jesus cannot give the Jews an answer to satisfy them because he reveals an entirely unthought-of situation to the world: the nature of God. Regardless of what ‘Son of man’ or ‘Son of God’ were taken to mean in first-century Palestine (or now for that matter) we believe Jesus is the Only Son of God in the new yet eternal meaning he teaches through the Incarnation. It is because of Jesus that we can affirm both the uniqueness of the One God and also believe in the Son of God. We learn that God is truly Father only because of the Son and by this God’s love for the world (Jn. 3.16). This mystery of the life of God, and that life shared with us, is expressed well by the introduction to the Lord’s Prayer during Mass: ‘Jesus taught us to call God our Father and so; we have the courage to say…’ He teaches us by his very being.

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Pentecost at the Priory of the Holy Spirit

"The wine of truth which Christ gives us to drink is also a wine of astonishment. What we preach, then, are not just truths about God. We preach a wine of truth which we have actually tasted ourselves, and have drunk with living faith and joy" - Paul Murray OP

Pentecost is a particularly festive time for us in Oxford as it is the feast day of the Priory. Each year we have a special dinner with our 'door-keepers': friends of the Priory who give of their time and energy to keep watch at the door, answering the telephone, receiving messages, helping those with enquiries about studies or the use of the library or who wish to speak with a priest.

The occasion is one of joy and laughter, and one can see in it a reflection of the joy of Pentecost described in Acts 2. It is a gathering of friends, many of whom have been associated with Blackfriars, Oxford far longer than the younger friars have been alive. It is a small gesture of thanks from the Community to those who help all year round with this service of door-keeping.

Below are some photos from this year's dinner which we wish to share with you:

"And just as those who hold their mouths to the fountain of wine become drunk or inebriated, likewise those who bring their desires, or hold their mouths, as it were, to the fountain of life and sweetness, become drunk [in the Spirit]" - St Thomas Aquinas



"The Father laughs at the Son and the Son at the Father, and the laughing brings forth pleasure, and the pleasure brings forth joy, and the joy brings forth love" - Meister Eckhart



"Laugh to your hearts' content, my dearest children... it is only right that you should laugh after breaking from the devil's thralldom, and bursting the shackles in which he held you fast these many years past. Laugh on, then, and be as merry as you please, my darling sons" - Blessed Jordan of Saxony

We wish all our readers a joy-filled Pentecost!

The extraordinary routine

Pentecost Sunday

Readings: Acts 2:1-11; Psalm 103; 1 Corinthians 12:3-7,12-13; John 20:19-23

Let us reflect briefly on the celebration of a normal mass. If you go to church regularly, you will find that some things I am about to describe will be familiar to you.

The faithful are gathered in the church. Most of them would have “their own” seats, the traditional chairs on which they would have sat since they started to go to mass in that church. Once I made the mistake of taking the seat of an old lady who was late that day. I did not know that this was her seat because it was the first time that I attended mass in that particular church. As she arrived shortly before the beginning of the liturgy, she stared at me rather shocked. Eventually, she took the seat next to me and whispered “young man, you are sitting on my seat, I’m afraid”.

As soon as the organ starts to play, the first baby begins to cry. The priest processes in. The Kyrie is sung by the choir, and you usually wake up again for the Hallelujah. One of the most frightful things of the liturgy can be the shaking hands before the “Lamb of God”. It is supposed to be a generous sign of peace. But it can be difficult, especially if you know you neighbour too much (or not at all). After the mass has ended, you go home with mixed feelings. Sometimes, the liturgy has touched you and revealed something important about God and your life. Sometimes, you are disappointed because you did not find the atmosphere of prayer you would have liked to find. Sometimes, mass is just routine.

The Pentecost scene of St John’s Gospel is very reminiscent of our celebration of the mass. Like us, so the disciples, are gathered in a confined room on the first day of the week. But the circumstances of the disciples were a bit different to ours. They had seen Jesus raising the dead to life, they had observed how he fulfilled the promises of the scriptures and with what boundless love he loved even outcasts. The disciples had entrusted their lives to this man. They had hoped that He was the Messiah and that He would bring a new aeon of peace. But just before we see them gathered in this way, the Romans had crucified Jesus, their brother, friend and master. He was put to death in the cruelest way imaginable.

And than, Jesus simply walks in. His hands and his side still bear the signs of the crucifixion. We can hardly imagine what the disciples felt in that moment. They saw the new aeon walking in, a time of peace and love, a time where death has no power. And Jesus tells them in what this new time consists: in forgiving, love and peace. “As the Father sent me, so am I sending you”.

We should note that the gathering of the disciples derives its sense from the things that happened in their lives before they congregated: the disciples had placed all their trust in Him.

With this background, we can adjust our view of the mass. When the priest processes in, we see Jesus coming into our midst, and with him the affirmation of our time as a time of peace and love. He charges us to be distributors of this peace. He gives us the Holy Spirit so that we can love with divine power. If we discover this power in our daily live, we discover the mass as an ever new treasure. Even though sometimes it continues to seem routine.

Credo 9 - ... Christ ...

To understand this word requires some knowledge of the history of the Jewish people and their understanding of God’s action.

The English word Christ is derived from the Latin Christus which corresponds to the New Testament Greek Christos meaning ‘anointed’. The New Testament Greek itself translates a Hebrew word masiah from which comes the English word messiah.

In the Old Testament the Israelite king is called masiah yhwh, ‘the anointed one of God’, because he is consecrated by an anointing on his ascendance to the throne. The king and the priests were anointed. For kings, the right of succession to the throne was assured by the ceremony of anointing, by a priest or by a prophet (as David was anointed by Samuel, see the illustration). The peculiar significance of this anointing was that the one anointed king became God’s chosen one, invested with his spirit and guarded by his special providence. The king was a leader who was divinely endowed to carry out the will of God. Others also could be ‘the anointed one of God’, such as patriarchs or even a pagan like Cyrus, King of the Persians (Isaiah 45:1).

When the kingdom of Israel was attacked and eventually devastated by its powerful neighbours, the appearance of a future king or ‘messiah’ whose rule would be glorious and secure was foretold by Isaiah (8 cent. BC), Jeremiah (7 cent. BC) and Ezekiel (6 cent. BC). This hope did not die; it was still alive at the time of Jesus. In the last century before Jesus, the hoped for saviour of the Jews who would restore the throne of David was called simply hammassiah, ‘the anointed one’, or in Greek ho Christos. At this time there were several different kinds of Jews, as there are several different kinds of Christians today, and there were correspondingly diverse expectations about what the ‘messiah’ would be. Some thought there would be ‘two messiahs’, a priestly one and a kingly one. Some thought he would be a symbolic figure presiding over an ideal socio-religious order. For some the ‘messiah’ had military and political overtones. For others it was more mythological and apocalyptic.

When the disciples of Jesus recognised him as the promised saviour, they proclaimed him as the ‘messiah’ or Christ (see Mark 8:29, Acts 5:42, 9:22). They seem to have thought he would establish an earthly kingdom, though Jesus himself was wary of giving them this idea. His own messiahship is paradoxical and strange. His crown is made of thorns. He enters Jerusalem in triumph but on a donkey, and he attacks the central institution of Jewish religion, the temple. He is anointed, not by a priest but by a woman who is socially a nobody, even a sinner (see Luke 7:36-50). He is the ‘king of kings', and he identifies himself with the low, the ignored, the outcast, the sinner, the victim of violence.

Christos was originally a descriptive term. However, when the Greek-speaking pagans began to become Christians, the Jewish notion of the Messiah meant little to them, and they understood Christos as though it were one of the saviour’s names. This may have been because it sounded practically the same as the personal name Chrestos which means ‘good, or kind’, as though Jesus’ name itself is goodness and kindness. This pagan lack of understanding of the meaning of Christos is why it is often found in the New Testament without the definite article ho, ‘the’, either alone or together with the name Jesus: hence 'Christ Jesus' and then the way in which he is best known, 'Jesus Christ'.

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Dominican Pilgrimage to Walsingham

On Sunday 20 May, Dominican friars and sisters, lay Dominicans and friends of the Order made a pilgrimage to the National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. Here are photos from that wonderful day of prayer and fraternity; click on them to enlarge:

"The Rosary is fundamentally nothing more than a specially arranged synthesis of Marian Devotions with a truly Trinitarian and Christological orientation. That is what makes it essential and irreplaceable as a genuine devotion to Mary" - Edward Schillebeeckx, O.P.

"O alone of all women, Mother and Virgin, Mother most happy, Virgin most pure, now we sinful as we are, come to see thee who are all pure, we salute thee, we honour thee as how we may with our humble offerings; may thy Son grant us, that imitating thy most holy manners, we also, by the grace of the Holy Ghost may deserve spiritually to conceive the Lord Jesus in our inmost soul, and once conceived never to lose him. Amen" - Walsingham pilgrims' prayer, believed to have been composed by Erasmus, c.1511

Oneness in the Trinity

Seventh Sunday of Easter

Readings: Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 96; Apocalypse 22:12-14,16-17,20; John 17:20-26

I was recently at an Ecumenical service marking the beginning of Christian Aid week. During the act of worship we addressed this prayer to God: ‘through Jesus, you created one Church. Although our liturgies may differ and our theologies vary, we are one in the body of Christ.’ True enough, but not on that account a position with which to be satisfied. It is perhaps more accurate, if less edifying, to say, ‘despite our differing beliefs, we are one…’

The work of ecumenism moves us towards the desired true and complete unity, and yet, on the other hand, the Baptised are already all one in Christ. How can we be one, if we believe different things, if we hold what seems to be a different faith?

The oneness granted through Christ goes beyond human fractions because it is a sharing in the one Spirit (1 Cor. 12.13). At the Last Supper, Jesus, who asks his Father to share their Spirit with the world, prays for unity: ‘may they all be one…’ but see in what way: 'Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you' (Jn 17.21).

Gods’ unity; God’s integrity is paramount. In Deuteronomy it is Israel’s defining statement of faith against the pagans: ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is ONE’ (Dt. 6.4). The prophet Isaiah hears God’s own affirmation: ‘Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, there is no other; by myself I swear it’ (Is. 45.22f).

But this oneness is not lonely; it is not self-serving but reciprocal. God’s cry ‘I am ONE’ (cf. Ex. 3.14) does not ring hollow in caverns of solitude. In the Father’s sending of his Son, God’s true loving oneness is revealed. In the words of Hans Urs von Balthasar, ‘in the existence of the obedient Son the mystery of the divine Trinity shines forth in its full brightness’. The Son is not obedient to himself but to another, through an eternal love which is the Spirit of God. And this could not be the absolutely free divine love, if the Son was not equal and one with the Father: ‘you are in me and I am in you’.

But the story does not stop at a testimony. He who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Rev. 22.20). God, the Three in One and One in Three, wishes us to be one with Him. This is behind God’s revelation of his divine life. Jesus the Word does not just manifest the glory of God, but makes it visible and brings us back with him to live in it. This is the oneness in the body of Christ for which Jesus prays: ‘I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in me may they be so completely one that the world will realise that is was you who sent me’ (Jn 17.22f).

Yet, with these last words we see that we cannot escape the call to ecumenism and the healing of the divided followers of Christ. These last words of Jesus disclose and establish the goal of Christian unity in this life. If we realise the source for our integrity in the body of Christ in the oneness of the Trinity, the journey towards complete, visible oneness will manifest God's love to the world.

The unity for which we seek must be grounded in this unfathomable oneness of the Trinity into which we have been brought, ‘so that our joy may be complete’ (1 Jn 1.4).

I am with you always

Ascension Thursday

Readings: Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 46; Ephesians 1:17-23 or Hebrews 9:24-28; 10:19-23; Luke 24:46-53

Pictures of the Ascension sometimes look faintly comic. All that is seen of Christ is a pair of feet dangling from the sky, while the apostles gaze upwards open-mouthed at the Lord who they know they will see no more in this world. These pictures should be a kind of challenge. If they are to be understood, an effort needs to be made to look beyond the dangling feet and the open mouths. Here, as so often in Christian symbolism, the meaning does not lie just on the surface, but somewhere behind and within the images. The meaning has to be discovered. We need to get past the picture language.

Many of the New Testament writers do not report the Ascension at all, though they take it for granted that it has happened. The writer who does describe the Ascension – St Luke - is very careful in the way he draws on Jewish symbolism to bring out the meaning of what has happened. The main point to grasp for St Luke is that the Ascension represents Jesus’s divine enthronement as King and Messiah. By means of the Ascension, Jesus enters his glory. In the Ascension Jesus rises forever into the heart of God. He is not just a man, then, he lives and reigns with and in God.

So what the Ascension represents is a transition in the disciples’ understanding about who Jesus is, and a transition in the way in which Jesus is present to them. Jesus is not just a historical figure, someone to be admired and remembered. He does not just belong to a particular moment of time. After the Ascension he is also known in a different way. He is to be recognised no more only ‘in a human way’ as St Paul puts it. He is to be recognised especially as the one who says ‘I am with you always, till the end of time’.

These are mysterious words. It is impossible completely to fathom them. But some of what they mean can be put quite simply. Christ is with us always, because he is to be the light by which we see. That is, we are to see the world in a new way because we see it through him. This new seeing is something that everyone has to learn. A lot of the time, religious behaviour pushes people in another direction. The temptation is to try to hold onto some kind of religious security, even to make Jesus into our Jesus. But if we live in the light, that will not be just an added feature of our daily life – one more item in our minds. That light will slowly but surely change our vision of the world.

To have faith in the ascended Christ, then, is to let your life be illumined by that divine light – eventually to see the meaning of Christ’s life in the midst of our life, of all life. This does not mean forgetting about the history of Christ. But it does mean that we no longer think about Jesus as someone completely outside us. Rather he is somehow among us, gradually setting us free, teaching us – insofar as we are able - to see the world with trust and hope and love. Prayer is the struggle to become more deeply in touch with this life that is gradually becoming real. That prayer will slowly make us live lives more like Christ, lives which are faithful to each other and to God.

If we want to see the meaning of ascension then, we are best off not looking at a pair of dangling feet. We’d be better to look at the lives of the saints. Think of Maximilian Kolbe and how the ascended Christ lived in his heart. Trusting in the living Christ, he could give his life for others. With faith in the loving reality behind all creation, even in a starvation bunker he could sing hymns of praise.