Year: 2024

Healing on the Sabbath: A Thought on the Mystery of Holy Saturday

Deacon Douglas McManaman

Christ heals on the sabbath. But isn’t the sabbath rest a symbol of eternity? We are in the 6th day, the day on which God created man in the image of himself (Gn 1, 26-31). In fact, all of human history is the 6th day, and the days prior to this day (days 1 to 5) represent the evolution of the universe and the world, leading up to the 6th day. When history comes to an end, when man’s work is done, we enter into the 7th day, the sabbath rest, or God’s rest (Heb 4, 10). But Jesus says: “My Father is still working, and I also am working” (Jn 5, 16-30). 

The Father is unchanging activity, and activity and rest coincide in God. He does not stop working on the sabbath, and neither does the Son. Even in eternity, of which the sabbath day is a symbol, God is unchanging activity (contemplation). He is still saviour, and his Son is saviour (Jesus: “Yahweh is salvation”), because whatever the Father does, the Son does: “The Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing” (Jn 5, 19). And so, the Son heals on the sabbath. Is not this a mirror reflection of what will continue in the eternal (aionios) sabbath? The Greek word ‘aionios’ does not mean eternal in the sense of ‘never ending’, but ‘other worldly’ (not this temporal world, but where God dwells), or ‘ages of ages’. In Christ, eternity is joined to the world of matter and time. 

But who needs healing on the aionios sabbath? The forsaken do. Just as in the time of Christ on earth, the sick, the lame, and the poor were regarded as forsaken by God, in the aionios sabbath, there are those who “rise to their condemnation” (Jn 5, 29), because they did not believe in the Son of Man. Are they not the object of the divine mercy? They are indeed because they are the object of his justice, and the divine justice has been revealed as mercy. Does God, who is unchanging, suddenly change after the 6th day? Divine chastisement (kolasis) must, if it be truly a chastisement, come to an end; it cannot be forever–no one prunes a plant forever, for there would be nothing left. Pruning (kolasis) takes place for the good of the plant. 

Jesus came not to condemn the world, but that the world may have life through him, but some will rise to their condemnation. This condemnation is not the final word, rather, life has the final word: “I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (Jn 5, 25). Holy Saturday is the realization of this promise. Christ descended into hell, as we profess in the creed (the word ‘dead’ was changed to ‘hell’ in the Roman liturgy). What does Christ do in hell? He is himself in hell, that is, he is “Jesus” (Yahweh is salvation); he is life. He does what he sees the Father doing–he proclaims the good news of salvation, and he freed all who were imprisoned therein: 

Death, unwilling to be defeated, is defeated; corruption is transformed; unconquerable passion is destroyed. While hell, diseased with excessive insatiability and never satisfied with the dead, is taught, even if against its will, that which it could not learn previously. For it not only ceases to claim those who are still to fall [in the future], but also sets free those already captured, being subjected to splendid devastation by the power of our Saviour.… Having preached to the spirits in hell, once disobedient, he came out as conqueror by resurrecting his temple like a beginning of our hope, and by showing to [our] nature the manner of the raising from the dead, and giving us along with it other blessings as well (Cyril of Alexandria, Fifth Festive Letter, 29–40 (SC 372, 284). Quoted in Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, Christ the Conqueror of Hell, p. 78).

Does God turn his back on anyone, even on those who reject him? Certainly not forever: “The Lord’s acts of mercy are not exhausted, his compassion is not spent; They are renewed each morning–great is your faithfulness… For the Lord does not reject forever (Lam 3, 22-23; 31).

Christ’s Redemption: An Explanation for Teachers

https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_407dchristredemptionforteachers.html

Deacon Douglas McManaman

The word ‘redemption’ comes from the verb ‘to redeem’, as in to buy back, to repurchase at a price. In the context of the Old Testament, redemption is the deliverance of Israel from Egyptian slavery. Christ is redeemer, and this means that just as through Moses, God delivered the covenant people of Israel from Egyptian slavery, Jesus delivered humanity from the slavery of sin and its consequences, namely death. What was the means of exchange through which he bought us back? His own blood, that is, his life. 

But what exactly does this mean? How does this work exactly? As a teacher, I was inclined to employ a “quantitative” or juridical model to explain this to adolescents, one that has its roots in St. Anselm. The reason is that the adolescent mind finds this easy to grasp, and making sense out of mystery is attractive to them. The basic idea is that sin creates an infinite debt, that is, a debt of infinite weight, and man, who is finite, cannot make up for a sin that is of infinite gravity or weight. Only God can do so. But God is not in debt–we are, and so it is up to man to make reparation for his sin, not God. But man cannot do so, because everything he offers is of finite value. Since man cannot make reparation, he simply cannot save himself. In short, our situation is hopeless. 

God, however, provides a solution. The second Person of the Trinity joins a human nature; Jesus is fully God and fully man, two natures, one Person. As man, he can go before the Father and offer a sacrifice of reparation on our behalf; as God the Son, his offering has infinite value and can cancel our debt.

This is an attractive way of explaining Christ’s redemption, because it “makes sense” out of what is otherwise profoundly mysterious. Although some of what is said within this model has some truth, it is, however, a deficient model. It is far too juridical, and mystery really cannot be explicated using such narrow terms without serious consequences.

It is indeed the case that man is a slave to sin. Just as we inherit talents and dispositions from our parents or distant relatives, not to mention trauma undergone by relatives three or so generations back, we also inherit negative proclivities and sinful dispositions. This is what is meant by the wound of Original Sin called concupiscence–an inclination to sin and self-seeking. What this underscores among other things is man’s profoundly social nature. Original Sin is an inherited addiction, a proclivity. The first parents of the human race made a radical decision to be their own god, sufficient unto themselves (symbolized in the image of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that stands independent and tall). We are the offspring of the first parents, and we are born into a concrete and universal situation they created. We are affected by their sin. We are born into a situation characterized by the loss of interior grace; for man was originally created in a state of grace, in the state of original justice (with the gift of bodily immortality, freedom from concupiscence, and a sense of the divine rooted in grace). We are not born “deified” by grace, and so we are deprived of the light of grace. We cannot free ourselves from that proclivity to sin and self-seeking, for it is a genuine slavery, and no slave can free himself or herself–otherwise it is not slavery. 

But God the Son drew close to us. He joined a human nature to himself and dwelt among us. The light entered into the darkness: 

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God (Jn 3, 17-21).

We crucified the Son of God. Christ is Light from Light, true God from true God, and so the light entered into the darkness of our death, injecting it with his light and life. He destroyed our death, making it a means to eternal life. In joining himself to a human nature, God the son joined himself to every man/woman, as it were. The Word (logos) is present at the deepest level of our being. This does not mean that we all exist in a state of sanctifying grace. Rather, he is there, and he offers us sufficient grace to move towards him, to allow him into our lives, to reign over our own mind and heart. His death was an offering to God the Father on our behalf, an act of religion, and his offering is an acceptable one, since it is a perfect offering, rooted in a perfect divine love for the Father and for us, who come from God. 

Some years ago my daughter, my wife and I went to Italy with a friend of ours, who is Italian. And he took us north, and south, and in the middle, and my daughter loved it, and she was focused primarily on shopping. I hated going into shops to look for purses or dresses, I just wanted to explore the narrow streets and old churches. It was hot, always watching out for pickpockets, not enough time to visit the places I wanted to visit, so for me it was a very unpleasant trip. The following year, however, I had the opportunity to go again, this time without my wife and daughter, just a priest friend of mine and a good friend who is also a teacher. His parents own an apartment in Rome, so we spent two weeks there. What I found fascinating upon reflection was that I spent so much time visiting the fashion district, Via Del Corso, clothing shops, looking for purses, etc. I was doing a lot of shopping for my daughter, to bring things back for her, and I was enjoying it. I wanted to visit the places that she loved. I started to love these places, because there was something of her that was left behind. I couldn’t care less about the Trevi Fountain or the Spanish Steps, but because she loved those places, I had a very real desire to visit them again, but only because I was looking to recapture her presence. These places were dear to her, so they became dear to me.

I think this is a useful illustration of a profound theological truth. As was said above, God the Son joined a human nature to himself (Christ is two natures, but one Person). God the Son enters into human suffering because he loves the Father, desires his glory above all, and since we belong to God, he loves us and will not allow us to suffer alone. And that is why when God the Father sees humanity, he sees his Son. He delights in the individual human person because Christ does. The Father loves us because the Son loves us. “The kingdom of heaven is among you” means that the redemptive presence of the Second Person of the Trinity permeates this world, through the power of the reconciling Spirit. 

We are redeemed by the Incarnation of the Son of God, by his entire life, which of course includes his death. God sees each one of us when he beholds his Son, and so the Son’s entire life and his offering of himself in the end redeems us, buys us back from darkness to light, from alienation from God to proximity to God in him, in Christ. And all of this was pure gift, pure grace. And so a better model for understanding something of our redemption is the story of Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus.

He came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town. Now a man there named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, was seeking to see who Jesus was; but he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way. When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” And he came down quickly and received him with joy. When they all saw this, they began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost” (Lk 19, 1-10).

Perhaps we can look at Zacchaeus as an image of humanity. He climbs the sycamore tree, as Adam (humanity) aspires to be more than what he is by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Jesus approaches Zacchaeus, not the other way around, and tells him to descend, for the Son of God descended and took the form of a slave, becoming obedient to death, death on a cross (Phil 2, 1-11). In Christ, we descend from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and embrace our status as “children”, dependent upon God. Christ was not invited into Zacchaeus’ home; rather, he invited himself. And the result was a complete change of heart in Zacchaeus (metanoia). He was redeemed, bought back from the slavery of sin, all as a result of the approach of Christ.

Without the Incarnation, the suffering, death and resurrection of the Son of God, we would still be in our sins, still in darkness, still slaves of sin. We simply cannot save ourselves. Christ is savior. He came to save. And the gospel is a message of salvation. That is redemption.

We are a kingdom of priests

Deacon Douglas McManaman
We are a kingdom of priests @ Where Peter Is

The Word is living, being, spirit, all verdant greening, all creativity. This Word manifests itself in every creature. St. Hildegard of Bingen

I’d like to begin this reflection on the royal priesthood of the faithful with Paul’s letter to the Colossians:

He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him (1, 15-16).

It is this last line in this text that is so important. All things were created for him, in view of him, for the sake of him. What this means is that everything finds its ultimate meaning in Christ, just as the meaning of anything is discovered in its final cause, its ultimate end. Christ is the ultimate meaning of creation, and since time is a part of creation, it follows that Christ is the ultimate meaning of history.

Christ is the Second Adam who sheds light on the very existence of the First Adam and his offspring (GS 22), revealing our original vocation. And what is that original vocation? The Epiphany sets us on a course to uncover it: a star led the Magi to the Christ child. This is fitting, because the cosmos exists through Christ and for Christ. The world that God created and sustains in existence, the cosmos in its entirety, is really an epiphany (manifestation). The created world manifests the divine; it speaks of God, of his divine generosity. It praises the beauty of God through its own proper beauty, and it speaks of the mind of God through its own order, inexhaustible intelligibility, and complexity. In Psalm 19, we read:

The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament proclaims the works of his hands. Day unto day pours forth speech; night unto night whispers knowledge. There is no speech, no words; their voice is not heard; A report goes forth through all the earth, their messages, to the ends of the world. He has pitched a tent there for the sun; which comes forth like a bridegroom from his bridal chamber, and like a hero joyfully runs its course. From one end of the heavens it comes forth; its course runs through to the other; nothing escapes its heat (2-7).

In the prologue of the gospel of John, we read that the Word was made flesh and “set up his tent” among us (Greek: eskenosen, “booths”, “tabernacles”). The sun, mentioned in the psalm, is really a hierophany, a manifestation of the divine; for the ultimate meaning of the sun and its entire movement from one end of the sky to the other, is the very life of Christ the bridegroom, who made his tent among us and who is the light of the world, the true light that enlightens every person who comes into the world (1, 9). The sun is an image of the Son, the Logos, as is everything in the cosmos. 

Everything in creation in some way (often hidden) announces, proclaims, speaks of the mystery of the Incarnation. Creation is language; it is full of words of the Word. More to the point, creation is a genuine liturgy, and like the liturgy of the new covenant it moves towards an end, which is communion, just as the six days of creation depict a movement towards the sabbath rest. The end of this liturgy of creation, of course, is communion with Christ.  

Just as a work of art is in many ways an epiphany of the artist, revealing much about the artist, creation in all its diversity and complexity manifests and praises God. And the content of this manifestation becomes increasingly Trinitarian the closer we look. For example, light proceeds from the sun, but the light by which we see the sun cannot itself be seen. Similarly, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, the second Person of the Trinity, but the third Person, like an invisible and formal sign, directs us immediately to the Son. As Sergei Bulgakov writes: “The hypostasis of the Spirit does not have its own Face, as it were, but is only the Face of the Son in His Glory….in the light of this Glory we can discern the glorified Face of the Logos-Christ, but not the proper Face of Glory itself” (The Comforter, translated by Boris Jakim, p. 188).

But there is more. In the first story of creation in Genesis, God says to man:

“Have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food” (1, 28-29).

In other words, God created the world as a banquet, to feed us. For the Jews, a meal is a source of communion with all those at table, because food is a source of life, and if we all partake of the same source from the same table, we become one life, one blood, one family. Thus, creation, which is given to man for food, is a source of communion with God. 

Whatever God created, He created through the utterance of His Word, but to speak words is to communicate, and to communicate is to enter into communion. We speak in order to bring about a communion with the person we are addressing. And of course, God speaks all things into being, and so creation in all its diversity are words of the Word, uttered in order to bring about communion, in this case, communion with God. 

Now a priest is one who offers sacrifice, in particular the sacrifice of thanksgiving. The word Eucharist is from the Greek eukharistia, which means “thanksgiving, gratitude”. Man’s task is to receive the food that is creation and give thanks for it, and we give thanks by blessing the giver. A blessing, however, is a benediction, and benediction, as the etymology of the word indicates, is the act of speaking well of something. God blesses each day of creation, for each day has its origin in a benediction: God said: “… Let there be …” God’s speaking is creative, effective, it brings into being, but what He brings into being blesses Him in return, that is, it speaks well of Him, as we see in the book of Daniel: “Sun and moon, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever. Stars of heaven, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever. Every shower and dew, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all forever. All you winds, bless the Lord…” (3, 62-65).

To bless is to receive what God gives, recognizing it for what it is, namely sheer gift. Of course, gratitude begins with such a recognition, and thanksgiving arises out of it. This recognition gives rise to a spirit of thanksgiving, or Eucharist. And since a priest is one who offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving, man was created to be a priest of creation–he was created to offer, to thank, to praise, to adore. We are to take what is given and raise it, lift it up to God, which involves a recognition of its origin. This raising up to God is benediction, blessing, a speaking well of…, and it is offered that it may become what God intended for it to become–namely, a means of communion with him. 

This priestly pattern is visible at every level of creation. The lowest level of the hierarchy of being in the physical universe is the level of non-living matter, but non-living matter is food for the level above it, which consists of living things, i.e., plants, which take non-living matter and consume it, but in consuming it, plant life raises it up through the power of nutrition and transforms it into living matter (this is what happens when we water plants). But brute animals eat plants, and through the process of metabolism change plant life into living animal tissue, a higher mode of life. It does this, however, by killing it first and then raising it up. In other words, plants must be sacrificed first, that is, reduced to non-living matter, in order to be lifted up to serve something higher. Man exercises dominion over the animal kingdom, raising it up to serve human needs in a number of ways, not always for food (dogs can pull sleds, horses can pull carriages, as well as providing meat). But, when animals become food for man, the animal must first be slaughtered. And so, the communion of a meal is once again preceded and made possible through a sacrifice, a dying. 

The rough details of this priesthood are there in the first two chapters of Genesis, in the command to creativity, to raise up creation to serve the needs of man, to cultivate the garden; moreover, we see it in the command to leave mother and father and cling to one another in the one flesh union of marriage. This “leaving” of mother and father receives its full significance in the paschal mystery, in Christ’s leaving of this world in order to go to the Father, as we read in the high priestly prayer of Christ (Jn 17, 1ff; Eph 5, 25-27). 

Man, who is set apart (consecrated) from the rest of material creation in so far as he is created in the image and likeness of God, is to take all that he is and has become, and all that he possesses, and offer it to God, in the service of God, in a spirit of thanksgiving or Eucharist. In doing so, he offers to God the entire order of creation, which he contains within himself. Thus, man is a mediator between the cosmos and God, joining the two. In the first creation story, God is depicted as building a “house” (time, place, foundation, furnishings, etc.), but to build is to take raw materials and give them a new and elevated form, as in the creation of a house or work of art. And so, creativity has a priestly character to it. It emulates God, for the artist is speaking, communicating what he sees, and he is trying to speak well of what sees and admires. Genuine creativity is benediction, or blessing. 

But the fall of man was a rejection of this priesthood. Adam chose to make himself his own god. As a result, he, including his offspring, the entire human race, gradually became deaf to the praises sung by creation; he no longer possessed the eyes and ears to understand the universe as an epiphany. And so, he no longer gave thanks. His life ceased to be Eucharistic; his life gradually ceased to be sacrificial. However, God made a covenant with Abraham, the father of Israel, in order to make her a holy nation, consecrated, that is, set apart from all others, a priestly people: “Now, if you obey me completely and keep my covenant, you will be my treasured possession among all peoples, though all the earth is mine. You will be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation” (Ex 19, 5-6). 

The Word was made flesh in order to restore the world to its status as God’s kingdom (house, palace, covenanted family). Christ, who is God, is everything that the human person longs for, his kingdom is everything that the great religions of the world are seeking – namely, God become man. And what man was and is called to be is right there in the image of the Magi, priests of Persia, who begin a procession from the east, who follow the lead of a star, which leads them right to Christ, and they do homage to Christ. We were created “through him and for him”, ultimately for Christ’s priesthood, which we enter through baptism. We were created to worship, to adore, to offer; homo adorans expresses man’s deepest nature.

If we were created through him and for him, then we were created to become Christ, which is what happens in an ordinary Mass. Every day is to be a sacrifice of thanksgiving, a constant lifting up of all we have and are to God, to receive what the Lord gives us and to offer it to him in thanksgiving. This lifting up of what we have includes the lifting up of our work, our labor, which takes place throughout the six-day workweek, and this labor is a “building up”, a raising up, which includes the raising of our children, which is fundamentally a lifting up and an act of “building”. Every moment of our lives, every day of the six-day workweek, is to be an imitation of God in the act of creating, the act of blessing, and so each day is a benediction that we carry out. We bless God in the work we do; for in both creation stories, work is revealed as holy; in short, the work week is a priestly existence. 

In baptism, this priestly identity, which is our deepest identity, is elevated and perfected, for we are anointed and thus made to participate in Christ’s priesthood: “He now anoints you with the chrism of salvation. As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet, and King, so may you live always as a member of his body, sharing everlasting life” (Rite of Baptism for Infants). Thus, we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own” (1 Pt 2, 9). In the book of Revelation, we read: “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, who has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father, to him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen” (1, 5). 

On the sabbath, we begin our procession as we leave the house and make our way to the altar. At the altar, we offer our sacrifices, our daily stresses and frustrations, all our efforts and the love behind that labor, and all this is represented in the bread and wine, which are universal signs of nourishment. They are food, the fruits of our labor, the matter of the earth. What the ordained ministerial priest does is he takes what we offer, that bread and wine, which is the fruit of our labor throughout the week, lifts it up on our behalf, and Christ, who is the priest at the altar, receives that bread and wine, the matter of creation, the food of creation that we have offered to him, and changes it into himself, his own body and blood, which in turn is the eternal sacrifice that the Son offers to the Father. And that is returned to us as food, but it is no longer bread and wine, but is precisely what the matter of this world is destined to become, namely the actual food of his body and blood: “For my body is real food”, he says, and “my blood real drink” (Jn 6, 55). The Eucharist is the completion of creation, and through it we are deified, united to the sacrificial offering of the Son to the Father, drawn into the intimate life of the Trinity. 

And so, the ordained priesthood is ultimately at the service of the royal priesthood of the faithful. He is indeed set apart, but this does not mean a literal ‘being taken out of the world’, that is, an escape from the world, which characterizes Clichtove’s image of the priesthood; rather, the priest is to be set apart in the depths of his charity and humility, and his willingness to follow Christ, who emptied himself and entered into human suffering. By this kenotic life, the ministerial priest calls the faithful to an ever-deeper self-understanding and appreciation of the significance of this anointing, that is, their priestly, prophetic and royal identity. 

St. Patrick’s Basilica: Opportunity Instead of Outrage: A Letter to an Outraged Friend

Deacon Douglas McManaman

Dear __________:  I read the article you sent, as well as a couple of others on the same event (the funeral for Cecilia Gentili at St Patrick’s Basilica, NY). The problem I have with these articles is that they are too easy. The one article you sent by a professor of biblical studies contains insults, and it ends with a “finger wagging” (“Desecrating the cathedral is not the only thing they should be ashamed of”). What conservative Catholic reader of that particular journal needs to be persuaded that what happened at the Basilica in New York was a bad thing? But no one I’ve encountered so far has regarded this event as an opportunity. Allow me to explain. The writing style of a number of these articles is very much like the typical conservative political pundit. Whenever I drive to the US and listen to talk radio, I’m always struck by how polarized American society is. Those on the political left utterly demonize those on the right, but an hour or so later the left are thoroughly demonized by the right on another station. That kind of polarization characterizes many of the conservative Catholic journals as of late, especially with regard to this funeral at St. Patrick’s. 

An effective pastoral approach is very different and requires more than the intellectual virtues to be successful; those who are so busy being offended, outraged, incensed, completely miss it. A good pastor would have to be quick on his feet, for one, and he’d have to see this as an opportunity, a tremendous opportunity. The Basilica was filled with adults who have the spiritual maturity level of children; they are a broken and messed up lot, and they are all together in one place, with a priest at the front. What an opportunity to proclaim Christ and him crucified and risen, and what that means for each one of us. It would require tremendous patience, like an experienced grade school teacher would have in dealing with an out of control class of grade two kids, but many of those writing on this issue can be compared to the university professor who finds himself in front of that grade two class–they’re at a loss. And tone is everything. Anger will ruin it, finger wagging would tune everyone out. One would have to have the ability to speak to them in a way that would connect with them, appeal to their reason which, despite appearances, they have not entirely lost. It’s not about affirming their lifestyle choices, but affirming them (the person), seeing them a certain way, very much like visiting a seriously ill mental health patient–you first have to see them from God’s point of view, that is, see in them a genuine goodness and be able to mirror that goodness to them. But not everyone, certainly not every pastor, is capable of seizing the moment in this way. The default position of many conservative writers is to counter with a moralizing outrage and not to regard this as an opportunity, that is, an opportunity to proclaim Christ, the crucified and risen one who loves each one of us as if there is only one of us.

Proclaiming Christ is not the same thing as moralizing—those who reduce the gospel to personal morality miss the mark as much as those who reduce the gospel to social justice. The gospel is the good news of the resurrection, that Christ has destroyed death and restored life. These people in the Basilica are searching for that which is going to bring them rest; the problem is they think they’re going to find it in the perfect orgasm. The response of a good pastor is not to confront them with a giant “No”, but to appeal to them and get them to hear you when you tell them that behind their “yes” is a much larger and better “YES”, that what they are searching for will never be found in an intimate sexual relationship, no matter what kind it is. Cecilia Gentili was a seeker, but one with a tank full of octane and no steering wheel. She was devoted to a cause, devoted to justice, however deficient and misinformed she might have been. What was she searching for? It should be obvious. What these people are searching for but are oblivious to is right there on the first page of Augustine’s Confessions: “O Lord, You created us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” There is no doubt that each person in that Church feels the emptiness of their lifestyle choices. We can respond by showing them the door and wagging our finger, or we can think of a way to proclaim Christ. But conservative Catholicism seems to have embraced a model characteristic of American politics, and many are stuck in a “culture warrior” mentality, and with that mentality, we cannot for the life of us proclaim Christ in a way that will win anyone over. There’s no doubt the Basilica was not treated as a sacred space, but you need faith to do that, and these people don’t have that faith, which is why it was so important to take advantage of the opportunity to proclaim Christ with zeal, wit, and a profound reverence for these broken people. There’s no need to convince the rest of us that this was a bad thing that happened, but what is the point of outrage? These articles are for the most part a matter of preaching to the choir. What do they accomplish in the end? Do they help us to know how to better respond to something like that in the future?  Hardly. Often it is just some academic flexing his intellectual muscles.

Fulton Sheen believes that the reason Paul did not have much success when he preached the Areopagus sermon is that he did not preach Christ crucified. The power is in the cross, not clever zingers and pointing out logical inconsistencies and ironies. The latter approach just keeps the world divided, but the cross changes hearts and lives. 

The Myth of the Ontological Superiority of the Priest

Deacon Douglas McManaman

Also published at Where Peter is: https://wherepeteris.com/the-myth-of-the-ontological-superiority-of-the-priest/

The priest is not an angel sent from heaven. He is a man, a member of the Church, a Christian. Remaining man and Christian, he begins to speak to you the word of God. This word is not his own. No, he comes to you because God has told him to proclaim God’s word. Perhaps he has not entirely understood it himself. Perhaps he adulterates it. Perhaps he falters and stammers. How else could he speak God’s Word, ordinary man that he is? But must not some one of us say something about God, about eternal life, about the majesty of grace in our sanctified being; must not some one of us speak of sin, the judgement and mercy of God?  
Karl Rahner

Anyone familiar with Pope Francis is aware that a recurring theme of his papacy is his challenge of clericalism in its varied forms—I.e., seminarians purchasing cassocks, lace, and birettas, even well before the day of ordination, the pastor as “little monster”, the dictatorial and know-it-all posture, treating the parish as his own little kingdom, the sanctuary as stage, little sense of the priestly and consecrated role of the laity, the elite clerical boys club, etc. I often wonder whether the necessary conditions are there for some clergy in particular to understand just what it is he is talking about. Some do, but there are more than a few who have no clue. 

It would be interesting indeed to study the rise of this particular phenomenon in the Latin West, to attempt to account for the factors that gave rise to it and that make it such a difficult disease to eradicate. But one idea that I do believe might very well be a factor in the institutionalization of clericalism is the notion that the priest is ontologically superior to the faithful. 

I am going to argue that the notion of priest as ontologically superior to the rest of the faithful is a myth. The word “ontological” refers to that branch of philosophy that studies being not insofar as it is physical, or psychological, or logical, etc., but being insofar as it exists. The principles of this science are essence and existence. An animal, such as a dog or a horse, is ontologically superior to a rosebush or a watermelon. The reason is that animals have superior faculties that plants lack. A human being is ontologically superior to a brute animal; for the human person is capable of an activity that transcends sense perception, namely intellectual activity. Moreover, an angel is ontologically superior to a human being, and of course God is ontologically perfect (His nature is to exist). 

Now, the argument for the ontological superiority of the priest is grounded in the principle that agere sequitur esse, that is, action follows upon being. Activity is the realization of a potentiality or power, and we only come to understand the nature of a thing through its activity, for a being acts according to its nature: plants grow and reproduce; animals enjoy the specific powers of external and internal sensation which plants lack; human beings possess all of these but they are able to think and choose freely. At ordination, a person is given the power to transubstantiate, that is, to change ordinary bread and wine into the substance of Christ’s body and blood, an act that is outside the natural capacity of a human being as such. Hence, it is argued that the priest is ontologically different from–and superior to, since it is a superior action–those who are not priests.

But this is not quite right. For it is Christ who transubstantiates, for the priest is acting in persona Christi, and for the same reason it is Christ who forgives sins, just as it is Christ, not the charismatic healer, who heals: “Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and make your bed.” He got up at once (Acts 9, 34; cf. Ps 44, 4-9). The priest remains ontologically a human being, of the same nature as every other human being. He is ordained to a specific end, marked for that end, but he is not ontologically different, much less superior. Acting in persona Christi does not render him ontologically superior to the faithful; for he depends entirely on Christ’s action. But an ontologically superior creature does not depend on any being in order to exercise his essentially superior faculty, like sense perception, imagination, or intelligence as in the case of man. As St. Thomas points out: “…the nature of an instrument as such is to be moved by another, but not to move itself” (ST, III, q. 63, a. 5, ad 2.). The priest depends on Christ as an instrument depends on the agent in order to carry out what it was recruited to carry out. In section 1551 of the Catechism, we read: 

This priesthood is ministerial. “That office . . . which the Lord committed to the pastors of his people, is in the strict sense of the term a service.” It is entirely related to Christ and to men. It depends entirely on Christ and on his unique priesthood; it has been instituted for the good of men and the communion of the Church. The sacrament of Holy Orders communicates a “sacred power” which is none other than that of Christ.

The language around the discussion of priesthood is instrumental and functional, and higher or lower function does not necessarily amount to ontological difference. In other words, although ontological difference implies an essentially different function, it does not follow that an essentially different function implies ontological difference (all a is b, but it does not follow that all b is a). For example, a human being can carry a heavy load and walk a number of miles down a long and winding road that requires familiarity with the terrain and an ability to reason by inference. However, he can also recruit a donkey to carry that same load for him and walk the same number of miles in the same direction, under the necessary guidance of his intelligence. The donkey does not thereby become ontologically superior to his fellow donkeys–he’s still a jackass. One could say that its actions are ennobled, for they require a faculty the animal lacks, namely the ability to inference, but properly speaking, its acts on the whole are the acts of the human being that owns, recruits, governs, and employs the donkey as an instrument. 

The charismatic healer does not know whether or how a miraculous healing has taken place, nor is she aware that she is the agent of such healing–because she isn’t the agent, but the instrument through whom Christ, the agent, heals. She simply believes that her prayer is being heard, but she cannot account for the healing. Similarly, the priest cannot in any way account for what we believe is happening on the altar (the changing of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ’s body and blood). He is not even aware that it has happened, because he is not the agent of the change; rather, he believes, like everyone else, that what he is distributing is in fact Christ’s body and blood. The artist knows precisely how to paint or sculpt; and she is aware of what is happening through her hands, for the work is unfolding through her own agency. But transubstantiation does not occur through the agency of the priest as such, but through the agency of Christ, just as my sins are forgiven not through the agency of the priest as such, but through Christ, whose visible instrument the priest is. The priest is no greater, ontologically speaking, than any other human being. That his unworthy hands are used by Christ is a sign of Christ’s humility, not the cleric’s supposed ontological superiority. 

It is Christ who is ontologically superior, because Christ is both human and divine, in one hypostasis, that is, one Person, the Person of God the Son. Jesus is not a human person, although he has a human nature; he is not two persons, but One, the Person of the Son. The ministerial priest is an instrument, Christ’s instrument, who in very specific situations acts not in his own person, but in the person of Christ (in persona Christi). Christ is both priest and victim in the Mass; not the ministerial priest. In other words, it is Christ who offers himself (Priest), and it is Christ who is offered (Victim). What takes place in the Mass is happening by virtue of the agency of Christ and through the instrumentality of the ministerial priest (CCC sec. 1548). 

The sacramental character conferred in Baptism and Confirmation does not “ontologically” change the baptized or the confirmand, rendering him or her ontologically superior to the unbaptized. The baptized are indeed changed, elevated, made children of God, because parent and child have the same nature, and a baptized child is filled with divine grace, which is a sharing in the divine nature. But, as Father Pieter Fransen writes: “grace sets our deepest humanity free, precisely because it restores our most authentic humanity to us and by this means humanizes us to an eminent degree” (Divine Grace and Man, 173). Later scholasticism began to give the sacramental character an ontological status, but no counsel has ever affirmed that theology. He writes:  

There is no common doctrine of the character in theology. The most restrictive definition makes it simply the impossibility of re-ordination, while the tendency to enhance it has produced a sort of complex metaphysical superstructure, due, as we think, to a very jejune theology of grace….The tendency in question has promoted a mythic theology of the priesthood which places it on a higher level of being than the rest of the faithful, a metaphysical clericalism which is responsible for barring the way to many reforms at the present time….The character is a “signum quoddam spiritale et indelebile; unde ea iterari non possunt” [a certain spiritual and indelible sign; hence they cannot be repeated] (DS 1609; cf. 1313; D 852, 695). But the scope of Trent’s definition is different from that of Florence, though the enunciation is the same. Trent was concerned above all with defending the reality of the ministry against certain reformers who wished to suppress the distinction between the community and the minister. But it would be an abuse of the text and a disregard of the intentions of the Council to take this definition as a dogmatic crystallization of scholastic speculation. (Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi. S.v. Orders and Ordination, p. 1146-1147).

The word Aquinas employs within this discussion is “deputed” (deputamur), which means to appoint, to delegate, which includes the conferral of a degree of authority. It is by these sacraments (Baptism, Confirmation, and Ordination) that a person is delegated, and they are given the power to carry out what they have been delegated to carry out. 

Aquinas writes: 

The sacraments of the New Law produce a character, in so far as by them we are deputed to the worship of God according to the rite of the Christian religion. …Now the worship of God consists either in receiving Divine gifts, or in bestowing them on others. And for both these purposes some power is needed; for to bestow something on others, active power is necessary; and in order to receive, we need a passive power. Consequently, a character signifies a certain spiritual power ordained unto things pertaining to the Divine worship (ST, III, q. 63. A. 2.).

This character, whether conferred in Baptism, Confirmation, or Holy Orders, is instrumental. As Aquinas writes: “… it must be observed that this spiritual power is instrumental of the virtue which is in the sacraments. For to have a sacramental character belongs to God’s ministers: and a minister is a kind of instrument, …” (ST, III, q. 63, a. 2). Those who are marked by the sacramental character (of Baptism, Confirmation, or Holy Orders) are marked as being ordained to some particular end, as “soldiers are marked with a character as being deputed to military service”. A soldier marked with a character as being deputed to military service is changed not ontologically, but accidentally. These characters are essentially participations in Christ’s Priesthood, and so the supernatural actions made possible by them arise not from the very being or nature of the baptized, confirmand, or ordained minister, but they flow from Christ Himself: Aquinas writes: 

…each of the faithful is deputed to receive, or to bestow on others, things pertaining to the worship of God. And this, properly speaking, is the purpose of the sacramental character. Now the whole rite of the Christian religion is derived from Christ’s priesthood. Consequently, it is clear that the sacramental character is specially the character of Christ, to whose character the faithful are likened by reason of the sacramental characters, which are nothing else than certain participations of Christ’s Priesthood, flowing from Christ Himself (ST, III, q. 63, a. 3).

Again, the principal agent of the instrumental power is not the official priest. If it were, he would indeed be ontologically different and thus superior: “But an instrumental power follows rather the condition of the principal agent: and consequently a character exists in the soul in an indelible manner, not from any perfection of its own, but from the perfection of Christ’s Priesthood, from which the character flows like an instrumental power” (ST, III, q. 63, a. 5, ad. 1). 

Those who hold that the priest is ontologically superior are careful to stress that the state of priesthood does not justify clericalism. The obvious question, however, is why not? Clericalism is its logical outcome, if it were true that the rite of ordination renders him ontologically superior. The notion is fraught with dangers on all sides. There is no justification for putting in the minds of young men studying for the priesthood the notion that upon their ordination they will be rendered ontologically special, especially if we do not wish to see a return of the old clericalism. The result cannot be anything but an intolerable Phariseeism so contrary to the movement of the spiritual life, which is always a movement towards a deeper recognition that “I am no better than anyone else”. To be fair, it is argued that “better” and “ontological superiority” are distinct and that the one does not imply the other–i.e., Mary is “better”, that is, holier than the angels, who are ontologically superior. But let us grant this for the sake of argument; that would mean that although a scandalously sinful priest is ontologically superior to Mary, she is superior in her very moral identity (character), for she possesses superior holiness, superior humility and charity, and a superior place in heaven. What, then, does ontological superiority mean in the end? That he is used by Christ to make present the sacrifice of the cross? But it is far from clear how this implies a superiority that is ontological as such, especially if ontologically he is a human being, but less humanized by virtue of his sinful lifestyle (i.e., a double life, a sexual predator, etc.). If it does not indicate essential superiority, nor existential superiority, nor moral and spiritual superiority, then what does it mean? The sacramental character means that he underwent the rite of ordination, an unrepeatable rite, and has become an instrument “set apart” for a specific end. The sacramental character means, as Cardinal Louis Billot pointed out, “the right to the actual graces proper to the sacrament” (Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi. S.v. Orders and Ordination, p.1147)  

The enduring nature of the sacramental character is interesting to consider. Aquinas writes: 

Although external worship does not last after this life, yet its end remains. Consequently, after this life the character remains, both in the good as adding to their glory, and in the wicked as increasing their shame: just as the character of the military service remains in the soldiers after the victory, as the boast of the conquerors, and the disgrace of the conquered (ST, III, q. 63, a. 5, ad. 3).

It is hard to conceive how something that renders a person ontologically superior can in the end be a source of shame, for the devil is not ashamed of his ontological superiority; but it would be a source of shame in that he is not at all ontologically superior to anyone, but was freely chosen by God for a highly noble service, given the actual graces and charisms to fulfill that end, of which he fell short.  

If Aquinas is correct, it would appear then that the sacramental character does not remain qua instrument; for it endures differently in the end than it does “on the way” to the end. On the way, it is an instrumental power dependent upon Christ the agent; afterwards, it endures as an identity, like the identity of a parent which can never be erased, or the identity of a soldier long after the war is over. 

In no other case does a being, ontologically determinate (human) act in the Person of some other ontologically superior being (the Person of the Son), such that it is the latter who is acting (is the agent), not the former. Appealing to agere sequitur esse to argue for superiority leaves too much out of the discussion. In that light, I believe it is safe to conclude that there is simply no reason not to jettison this rather dubious–not to mention dangerous–idea of an alleged clerical superiority. The line that should always be at the forefront of the mind of the cleric is John the Baptist’s “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3, 30).