My vocation: Patristics nerd

Lest anyone think that I've given up on God, Christianity or Theology, don't be fooled by this blog's inactivity. I still read dozens of other blogs, pray for those of you who I know personally, and continue to waste huge amounts of time and money on reading a variety of theological/ecclesiological/devotional bits and pieces.

In doing so, I have discovered my true vocation in life, a calling (if you will forgive the comic hyperbole) higher than marriage, the priesthood, public life or indeed anything else on God's green earth. I was born to be a Patristics nerd.

How do I know this? Today I received, fresh from the vast crypt of Blackwell's Oxford, a copy of Irenaeus's On the Apostolic Preaching. As I received my new reading matter, a gloriously geeky grin of delight spread across my face. Perhaps it's the minimalist icon on the front cover. Perhaps it's the classical aura second century literature. Perhaps it's the sheer eccentric joy of reading something "translated from the Armenian". Who knows?

At this point, I realised this is part of a growing trend, in fact I even own another book in the same Popular Patristics Series from the SVS Press, a series which I would recommend to any potential early-church anorak. Perhaps Calvin is right about the whole predestination malarkey. Obviously some of us are predestined to be Patristics nerds.

So there we have it. A Patristics nerd. Prententious? Probably. Edifying? Hopefully. Immense fun? Definitely.

How we receive communion

Once again, controversy in the Catholic blogosphere has roused me from the sleep of internet inactivity, and I reluctantly take up my keyboard. The much-debated issue of how one ought to receive the Sacrament, a particularly virulent argument in traditionalist Catholic circles, involves both the highest theological principles, and also the lowest forms of superstition and dogmatic narrow-mindedness.

First things first. I'm no namby-pamby Liberal. Neither am I a card-carrying Traditionalist (with a pointedly capital 'T'). I try to be simply orthodox when it comes to sacramental theology. Since, however, it is so easy to be misunderstood online, especially when dealing with issues which arouse odium theologicum of the most ignorant and bigoted nature. So let me make myself very clear:

The Church has ALWAYS, from the first century onwards, taught that Christ is objectively present in the Eucharistic elements. The host, the body of Christ, is given and received. It should be received with proper reverence.

I should also like to point out that there is nothing wrong with receiving 'on the tongue.' This has been a holy and venerable practice in the Latin Church for centuries, and I'm not for one minute suggesting that we reject it. Equally holy and beautiful is the Eastern Churches' practice of administering the Lamb, soaked in the precious blood, on a spoon.

Yet in recent years, it has become fashionable among some Catholics to criticse the practice of receiving communion 'in the hand'. There seem to be three main objections to this:

1. One might lose crumbs of the host in one's palm.
2. Only a priest's hands have been consecrated to hold the Sacrament.
3. It is a recent innovation.

Let me deal with each of these in turn:

1. Obviously, due care and attention must be given to the Sacrament. We must take care not to break it, lose it, drop it etc. However, it seems to me perfectly possible to avoid all of this. If one receives in the hand, in the middle of the palm, correct practice is to simply raise that palm (the left hand supporting the right hand, or vice versa) to the mouth, and consume the host without faffing around trying to pick up a morsel of bread in one's fingers. It's only then that the host breaks, or is dropped, or leaves crumbs behind.

2. I've heard this one a few times. A priests hands are consecrated that they might touch the Sacrament; ours are not. What nonsense! As some point both priests and laity swallow the Holy Eucharist, but I don't remember anyone anointing my mouth and digestive system, or any priest's for that matter. To suggest that only consecrated hands may touch the Sacrament is superstitious nonsense.

3. Many traditionalists can remember communion in the hand being forbidden in the past. It is therefore, an innovation, right? Wrong. Here's a quote from the Catechetical Lectures of the holy and orthodox St. Cyril of Jerusalem, writing in the fourth century:

When thou goest to receive communion go not with thy wrists extended, nor with thy fingers separated, but placing thy left hand as a throne for thy right, which is to receive so great a King, and in the hollow of the palm receive the body of Christ, saying, Amen.

If you prefer to receive communion on the tongue, so be it. If the Church decides to insist on communion on the tongue, so be it. It is a good and holy thing. Just please, oh please, stop portraying communion 'in the hand' as some kind of 'modernist' liturgical abuse!

Embertide approaching

Remember, remember
The three days of Ember;
Abolished, forgotten
Or not?

Pass my little rhyme and the link around to other blogs once you've read it :-)

Excellent Vocations Website

NYPRIEST.com

The priestly vocations website of the Archdiocese of New York is a brilliant example of how the Church can utilise modern technology to articulate it's most ancient of institutional graces. The above website shows how very far behind the English Church is in presenting the attractions of a vocation to the priesthood to young men.

Thank God!

Christ the Teacher

For good exam results!

St. Joseph of Cupertino,

Patron saint of exam candidates.

Assumption

It is truly meet to bless thee, O Theotokos, ever-blessed and most pure, and the Mother of our God. More honorable than the Cherubim, and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, without defilement thou gavest birth to God the Word. True Theotokos we magnify thee! - Hymn to the Virgin, Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom

Seven Things

That I rather like, as tagged by Madame Evangelista:

1. Travel. I just love to visit new places. To wander around an old town on the continent, without really going anywhere, poking my head through private doorways and stumbling upon a hidden gem is just about my favourite pastime in the whole world.
2. Choral music. Pretentious, moi? Whether it's Gregorian chant, medieval polyphony, that stirring first movement of Mozart's Requiem, the peaceful self-confidence of a Choral Evensong, or indeed just about anything that is not written by John Rutter - I just can't help but feel closer to God.
3. Foreign languages. Why would anybody in their right mind limit their stories, knowledge, personal capabilities, career opportunites, spirituality and even their sense of humour to the narrow anglo-saxon world?
4. A wide vocabulary. Ok, for all my enthusaism for foreign languages, English is phenomenally interesting. It's a language of such diverse origins! For the same essential concept we almost always have a choice between (at least) an anglo-saxon and a romance word: eg, luck/fortune, gift/donation. I include in this choice words that I enjoy for the simple pleasure of saying them: "tepid", "apophatic", "lexicon", "bumblebee", "trudge"...
5. Debate. I love a good empassioned argum... *ahem* scholarly discussion. Perhaps I've said enough... Of course not! Metaphysics is particularly good fun; but what does "fun" mean in this case???
6. Long chats over a coffee. Catching up with friends I haven't seen in months is always fun, but even better on a sunny day in town with a hot cup of coffee or a nice cold drink.
7. The smell of old churches. Right, I admit this one is odd, so bear with me. Never judge a book by it's cover, but feel free to judge a church by it's scent. After a good few centuries of pious devotion and hard-working care, the smell of wood polish, communion wine and insence so permeates the wooden furniture and stone masonry that the building iteself develops an atmosphere which testifies to the continuous fidelity of a community to the Divine service. Come on, you know you agree!

For the giggles.

Apologies for the lack of recent activity. Here's something to keep you amused in the absence of anything substantial:

A potential resource for Catholic schools?

Persecution

I read an article earlier today about the persecution of the Church in Russia under Stalin. Apparently, there were more martyrdoms in 20th Century Russia than during the persecutions of the Roman Empire; 17 million Orthodox and 3 million Catholics.

Since the beginning the Church has been persecuted. Christians have died for their faith for the Church's whole 2000 year existence. The 20th Century was no different. In Russia, Nazi Germany, Spain's "Red Terror", the Armenian genocide, the Istanbul Pogrom, during the Lebanese civil war, in Coptic Egypt, Kosovo and communist China.

This continues today. Radical Islamic governments and militias in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and many other nations have tortured and killed apostates from Islam to Christianity. The recent outbreak of "swine flu" in Mexico was used as an excuse by the Egyptian government to slaughter almost all the pigs in that country; all of which belonged to the destitute Coptic minority which rely on such livestock to survive. There are no signs whatsoever that our century will be any better for Christians than those previous.

What does this mean for us in the West?

1. Faith is precious. If we are strong enough, God willing, it is something worth enduring persecution for.
2. Martyrdom means "witnessing". Persecutions have always strengthened the Church.
3. We are the lucky ones. We have no excuses for our petty, day-to-day apostasies; not when Christians in Iraq risk their lives to get to Mass, or Chinese Christians risk prison for possessing a Bible at home.
4. We must strengthen our persecuted brethren. Financial aid, diplomatic pressure, humanitarian relief, and of course prayer are all things we should be contributing to the suffering Church.
5. Christianity in the West must not go out with a whimper. By watering down Christianity to make it easier for the secular West we do the persecuted Church a terrible injustice and we fundamentally weaken our position and integrity.
6. We must forgive. I loathe what Fundamentalist Muslims and Hindus often do to Christians in their country, but we shouldn't resent them for it. We must pray for our enemies. The very worst thing would be an anti-Muslim backlash in the Church.

Corpus Christi

I was lucky enough to be at the Cathedral today to celebrate Corpus Christi. The (rather diminished) choir sang Aquinas' exquisite texts for the feasts, to a variety of musical settings. The mass was ended with a short procession around the body of the Church and Benediction of the Sacrament.

There is something very humbling seeing a body of people kneel before a piece of bread. If it were anything other than what the Church teaches the Eucharist to be, then the whole exercise would have been the worst of blasphemies; and yet Jesus' stark and unbending words in the Gospels - "This is my body" - reassure me that we were not adoring mere bread.

The Latin origin of the word "sacrament" originally meant "pledge" or "oath". One of the reasons the Roman authorities were so suspicious, so I am told, of the Early Church is because Christians were observed to take "sacraments" as a group: to the Emperors this sounded like a revolutionary secret society! One can easily imagine the Roman establishment being fearful of Christians in the same way that the Papacy and Austria were fearful of the carbonari eighteen-hundred years later.

But a pledge is exactly what the Eucharist is. In John Wesley's Eucharistic hymn "Victim divine", of 1786, even an ardent Protestant observes that "Thou art to all already given... and shew thy real presence here." The joys of heaven which we will receive in the future are given to us in the consecrated elements in our here and now.

It is a privilege to observe this. As I'm not in communion with Rome (yet), it is moving to watch people return from the altar; some weep, others smile to themselves as if enjoying the company of an old friend, others simply whisper to the God they have received.

It is right and proper that there should be a day set aside to thank God for this great and life-giving mystery.

Adoremus in Aeternum

A suitably impressive procession attended by the Swiss Guard.

Today is Corpus Christi. Ignoring the liturgical vandalism which sees this medieval festival transferred to a Sunday we can nontheless enjoy a time of deep reflection on the nature of the Blessed Sacrament.



The Second Vatican Council admirably defined the Eucharist as the "source and summit of the Christian life." It is virtually impossible to overstate the importance of the Eucharist to Christians. "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." No real Christian could dare disobey such a direct command from Our Lord, given at such a significant point in the Gospels.

On Corpus Christi, we take time to pray before the Sacrament in the Tabernacle or the Mostrance, but it remains axiomatic that the Sacrament is to be received. The manner in which it is received is particularly interesting.

Nowadays the Host is received with the words "The body of Christ". A very simple statement which testifies to the objective presence of Christ in the elements. The Extraodinary Form of the Mass has the priest give the Host with the words "The body of Our Lord Jesus Christ keep your soul in eternal life." This is a more theologically interesting phrase, as it makes very clear the nature of the sacrament as a pledge of eternal life. St. Ignatius of Antioch spoke of the Eucharist being

"one bread, which is the medicine of immortality, the antidote against death which gives eternal life in Jesus Christ".

Cranmer's Communion service in the BCP goes even further, with bread being handed to the communicant with the words:

The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving.

The words "given for thee" and "died for thee" remind us of the intimate nature of the Eucharist. We are guests at a banquet, personally invited by the host (no pun intended!).

The Divine Liturgy celebrated in the full splendour of the ancient Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.

The personal nature of our reception of the Eucharist is further strengthened in the Byzantine rites employed both by the Orthodox Churches and by the Greek Catholics:

The servant of God N. partaketh of the holy precious body and blood of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, unto remission of his sins and unto everlasting life.

Speaking of the Eucharist in the East, it is perhaps useful to remember the Trinitarian nature of the Eucharist, with this quote from St. John Damascene:

"The Holy Spirit comes upon [the elements], and achieves things which surpass every word and thought..."

Just as through the Incarnation of the Word the Trinity was made intelligible to man, so through the Eucharist the Incarnate Word makes the life of the Trinity available for man to receive.

The Holy Spirit... achieves things which surpass every word and thought...

Late for Mass

As a Friday devotion I went to Mass at the Cathedral this lunchtime. Unfortunately I was more than a little bit late, arriving some ten minutes into the service, quietly taking a seat in the back pew. (See how Catholic I've become??) Anyway, a few months ago I'd have beat myself up about having been irreverent arriving late, but now I think I have a slightly more mature approach to these things. Yes, I know I should have taken more care to arrive on time, and of course I shall try to prevent it happening again. I was not overly disappointed with myself, however, because I think I'm finally coming to develop a really authentic sense of awe and reverence for the Eucharist. I knew I was late, and I knew that was a bad thing, but I was relieved and very happy to at least have been there in time to be in the presence of Christ himself.

As an interesting little aside, I did notice three women who didn't go up to receive Communion; perhaps one of them was the elusive Madame Evangelista? I wonder...

The Holy Spirit

The Christian Church has always maintained within its theology a balance (or, alternatively, a tension) between the Unity of God's essence and the Trinity of His persons. Christians profess to believe in one God in three persons. The Quicunque vult teaches that

...the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and
Trinity in Unity.

The dogma surrounding the Blessed Trinity, our thrice-holy God, has for millenia now been accepted as fundamental to Christian faith. We are very familiar with the co-equal Father and Son, the Father being the fons divinitas, the Son the incarnate Logos of the Father. Sadly, as is the often the case when a third person is involved with such a dynamic duo, the Holy Spirit often limps in at third place in the personal, popular theology of the average mainstream Christian layman. It is undeniable that traditionally in the Latin West there has often been a deficiency in popular perception of the Spirit in the Christian life.

The Holy Spirit is nonetheless a fundamental of our Faith. At the very beginning of everything it was the Spirit - ruach: breath or wind - of God which "swept over the face of the waters", a verse which, despite presenting an interesting little problem for the concept of creatio ex nihilo, offers a tantalisingly brief first Scriptural glimpse of God's third person.

We learn far more about the Spirit, however, from the Prophet Joel. A relatively minor Prophet, the second chapter of Joel (third in the Hebrew text) contains a wonderful prophecy of the work of the Spirit:

I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female slaves,
in those days,
I will pour out my spirit.

Joel 2:28-29

This is of course most clearly seen on the day of Pentecost, narrated in the Acts, with St. Luke making an explicit reference to God's words to Joel (Acts 2:17-18). The importance, indeed the very centrality, of the Holy Spirit to the Christian life is most clearly spelled out by Christ himself according to St. John:

Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.

John 3:5

As the Church approaches Pentecost I can see how my own appreciation of He "who with the Father and Son is worshipped and glorified" is sorely deficient. I'll be thinking about this for the next few days. If any of you have thoughts, comments, insights or corrections on this subject for me, please comment below.

Some late (but disturbing) news.

The head of a leading Catholic marriage agency has called for the Church to move towards a "sacrament of relationships" according to this Catholic Herald article.

Bede on the Ascension

At the Cathedral on Sunday we sang the following hymn. As this week we have celebrated the feasts of the Ascension and of St. Bede the Venerable, who wrote the words of this hymn, I thought it might be appropriate to share this with you all. It was sung to the tune of "Immortal, invisible".

New praises be given to Christ newly crowned,

who back to his heaven a new way hath found;

God's blessedness sharing before us he goes,

what mansions preparing, what endless repose!

His glory still praising on thrice-holy ground

the apostles stood gazing, his mother around;

with hearts that beat faster, with eyes full of love,

they watched while their Master ascended above.

'No star can disclose him' the bright angels said;

'Eternity knows him, your conquering head;

those high habitations he leaves not again,

till, judging all nations, on earth he shall reign.'

Thus spoke they and straightway, where legions defend

heaven's glittering gateway, their Lord did attend,

and cry, looking thither, 'Your portals let down

for him who rides hither in peace and renown.'

They asked, who keep sentry in that blessed town,

'Who thus claimeth entry, a king of renown?'

'The Lord of all valiance,' that herald replied,

'Who Satan's battalions laid low in their pride.'

Grant, Lord, that out longing may follow thee there,

on earth who are thronging thy temples with prayer;

and unto thee gather, Redeemer, thine own,

where thou with thy Father dost sit on the throne.

For ANYBODY who condones "waterboarding".

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/video/2008/hitchens_video200808

Condoms DO NOT work!

I haven't been posting for a while, for a variety of reasons, but I really MUST post this.

Condoms do not work. They simply cannot guarantee to prevent either pregnancy or infection 100% of the time. This has disastrous consequences.

A friend of one of my friends, a girl of 15 years of age, recently had sex with her boyfriend. They used a condom. They used it properly. They were not drunk. They believed they were being responsible and indeed did everything that modern medicine and education tell young persons to do. It tore during intercourse. It failed completely.

The sad thing is that she was so terrified upon discovering this, that the day after she took the 'morning-after pill', a chilling euphemism for what is essentially a chemical abortion. She did not even know whether she was pregnant or not.

YET THIS IS THE ACTION ADVISED IN SCHOOLS ALL ACROSS THE UK.

"DO WHAT YOU LIKE, AND CONDOMS WILL PREVENT CONSEQUENCES. IF IN DOUBT, ABORT."

Because society had so conditioned this poor girl - a charming, friendly, good natured girl -into believing that condoms were a secure license to unconstrained sexual activity, she felt free to do as she pleased without any risks. Secondly, our quick-fix society then pressures her into abortion, explicitly telling young girls that they must abort THE VERY NEXT DAY, in effect giving them less than 24 hours to make an actual LIFE OR DEATH DECISION!

This is sickening!

Why can nobody see the cataclysmic folly of this kind of thinking?

They're Back!!!

The Arians!!!!!

The precepts for Laity of the Arian Catholic Church

The following is the irreducible minimum of Arian Catholic practice...

Of Mass. To assist at Mass every Saturday (The Sabbath), the Seven Biblical Feasts and Holy Days of Obligation (or if unable to do so for legal or practical reasons, to follow the instructions advised by their Deacon, Presbyter or Bishop).

Of Confession. To examine their consciences regularly and to seek sacramental absolution when needed for mortal sin, and at Passover (Easter time) to make Confession in obedience to the Arian Catholic tradition.

Of Communion. To receive Holy Communion at least once a year, at Passover (Easter time). To make each and every act of Communion (especially when receiving more frequently) only after due and careful preparation.

Of Holy Law. To uphold the Holy Ten Commandments and the applicable Noahide, Levite and Kashrut Laws, as they are written in the books of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) and followed by Jesus the Messiah.

Of Marriage. To keep the Church’s law on marriage.

Of Fasting and Abstinence. To observe the periods of fasting according to the Arian Catholic tradition.

Of Almsgiving. To give Alms regularly and to assist the Church in finding funds to support its operations.

Botched Abortion in the States

From "The Buffalo News"

The Board of Medicine has revoked the license of a Florida doctor accused of medical malpractice in a botched abortion case in which a live baby was delivered, but ended up dead in a cardboard box.

The board on Friday found Dr. Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique in violation of Florida statutes by committing medical malpractice, delegating responsibility to unlicensed personnel, and failing to keep an accurate medical record. Renelique and his attorney declined to comment after the hearing.

The Department of Health said Renelique was scheduled to perform an abortion on a teenager who was 23 weeks pregnant in 2006. Sycloria Williams had been given drugs in advance to dilate her cervix.

According to the complaint, she gave birth at a Hialeah clinic after waiting hours for Renelique to arrive. The complaint said one of the clinic owners put the baby in a bag that was thrown away.

Police found the infant's decomposing remains a week later.

A medical examiner determined the cause of death was extreme prematurity, the complaint states.

At Friday's hearing, Renelique told the board of his life-long quest to be a doctor. He said there are generations of physicians in his family, and that he decided to follow the same path after seeing his father treat patients.

Renelique described saving a woman's life during the second year of his medical residency in Haiti. He later left his home country to work and train in the United States. It was never his intention to do abortions, he said.

"That was not part of my goals when I came to Florida," he said. "But I had to do it to survive."

During the board's questioning, Dr. Elizabeth D. Tucker, an obstetrician-gynecologist from Pensacola, asked Renelique about three different types of medical forceps. Renelique replied that he possessed each of the instruments.

After each question, Tucker also held up a metal instrument, different from the one she had named and inquired about. One of the tools was a metal rod with an arrow attached at the tip.

Tucker asked Renelique if he had that. He replied that he did.

"For the record, these are from my antique collection," she said later. "We don't use these in terminations."

Renelique's attorney, Joseph Harrison, later requested that his client view the instruments more closely, which the board allowed. Renelique said he had never seen or used the spear in his life.

Renelique said he had advised the patient to come in early as a precaution, and that when he was en route to the clinic, he was called to tend to another patient having an emergency.

He said the clinic staff members didn't tell him about the delivery when he arrived.

Harrison said Renelique expected the board to uphold the current restriction on his license, which prohibits him from performing abortions unless another physician is present. The Department of Health recommended that his license be suspended. But the board decided to revoke it instead which means he will not be able to practice medicine in Florida.

No criminal charges have been filed in the case, but the state attorney's office is investigating.

Discovery of 'Ancient' Cypriot Bible in Syraic

NICOSIA (Reuters Life!) – Authorities in northern Cyprus believe they have found an ancient version of the Bible written in Syriac, a dialect of the native language of Jesus.

The manuscript was found in a police raid on suspected antiquity smugglers. Turkish Cypriot police testified in a court hearing they believe the manuscript could be about 2,000 years old.

The manuscript carries excerpts of the Bible written in gold lettering on vellum and loosely strung together, photos provided to Reuters showed. One page carries a drawing of a tree, and another eight lines of Syriac script.

Experts were however divided over the provenance of the manuscript, and whether it was an original, which would render it priceless, or a fake.

Experts said the use of gold lettering on the manuscript was likely to date it later than 2,000 years.

"I'd suspect that it is most likely to be less than 1,000 years old," leading expert Peter Williams, Warden of Tyndale House, University of Cambridge told Reuters.

Turkish Cypriot authorities seized the relic last week and nine individuals are in custody pending further investigations. More individuals are being sought in connection with the find, they said.

Further investigations turned up a prayer statue and a stone carving of Jesus believed to be from a church in the Turkish held north, as well as dynamite.

The police have charged the detainees with smuggling antiquities, illegal excavations and the possession of explosives.

Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic - the native language of Jesus - once spoken across much of the Middle East and Central Asia. It is used wherever there are Syrian Christians and still survives in the Syrian Orthodox Church in India.

Aramaic is still used in religious rituals of Maronite Christians in Cyprus.

"One very likely source (of the manuscript) could be the Tur-Abdin area of Turkey, where there is still a Syriac speaking community," Charlotte Roueche, Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at King's College London told Reuters.

Stories regarding the antiquity of manuscripts is commonplace. One case would be the Yonan Codex, carbon dated to the 12th century which people tried to pass off as earlier.

After further scrutiny of photographs of the book, manuscripts specialist at the University of Cambridge library and Fellow of Wolfson College JF Coakley suggested that the book could have been written a good deal later.

"The Syriac writing seems to be in the East Syriac script with vowel points, and you do not find such manuscripts before about the 15th century.

"On the basis of the one photo...if I'm not mistaken some words at least seem to be in modern Syriac, a language that was not written down until the mid-19th century," he told Reuters.