faith

A Reflection on Co-Inherence

(Written version of a homily for the 6th Sunday of Easter)

Deacon Douglas McManaman

I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 

Perichoresis (peri: ‘around’; choreo: ‘to go’) is a Greek theological term first employed by St. Gregory of Nazianzus and St. John of Damascus. It describes the complete mutual indwelling (the “divine dance”) of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the three Persons of the Trinity. What this means is that all three Persons of the Trinity exist entirely in one another; the Son exists entirely in the Father and entirely in the Holy Spirit, and the Father exists entirely in the Son and entirely in the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit exists entirely in the Father and in the Son.  

But, you and I have been made partakers of this perichoresis, because as Jesus said: “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (Jn 14, 20). If you are in him and he is in you, and he is in the Father and in the Holy Spirit, then you are in the Father and in the Holy Spirit, and the Father is in you and the Holy Spirit is in you. In other words, the entire Trinity dwells within you. 

But we can take this further. If both you and I are in Christ and all that this implies (the Trinitarian life within us), then you and I are in one another. There is, with us, a mutual indwelling or co-inherence. This means that what happens to me affects you, and what happens to you affects me. And so, even the most secret sin that I commit will affect everyone, and conversely, the most secret work of charity will also affect everyone positively, without them necessarily knowing it. I am not some isolated individual with my own private existence; rather, I dwell within you and you in me, because we are both in him, who is in the Father (and the Father is in him). This is what holy communion means; when we receive communion, we enter into a very profound communion with one another.

Paul, however, takes this further and says that “we are individually parts of one another” (Rom 12, 5). Now, the more I get a handle on the weight of this point, the more I will hesitate to do something that will diminish me (sin), because if I am diminished, you are diminished, and if I love you, I do not want to diminish you. If I am indifferent to you, however, I don’t care that I diminish you by my sinful choices. And, the converse is also true. As I grow closer to God through charity (divine friendship), I take you along with me, because you and I are individually parts of one another. That is precisely why Paul says: “If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy” (1 Cor 12, 26). 

Consider some of the implications of this principle. First, the good that you do in secret is actually very public, not in terms of knowledge–because what you do is done in secret–, but the unknown and unacknowledged good that you do moves the world forward and builds up the Church in ways that are beyond your ken. That few people know about what you do makes no difference in the end. The whole Christ knows. The converse is also the case; the evil that I do in secret, the lying, or little acts of unkindness, greed, selfishness, etc., are actually public, once again not in terms of knowledge, because they are done in secret, but even when no one is looking, they diminish every one, because we co-inhere in one another. And although they are done in secret, they will eventually be known throughout the entire mystical body; for Jesus himself says: “For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible, and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light” (Lk 8, 17). Further on in the same gospel, he says: “There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed on the housetops” (Lk 12, 2-3). 

In the second reading, Peter says: “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God” (1 Pt 3, 17-18). But when we suffer for doing good, we, like Christ, suffer for one another. The reason is that we exist in one another. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul says: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6, 2). This is the law of Christ, that my suffering in the Person of Christ has the specific quality of bringing relief to another. Because we are parts of one another, we actually do bear one another’s burdens. What this means is that my suffering, which is a burden to me,  has the specific quality of bringing relief to another. Think of what it means to carry another’s burden. We lighten their load, so to speak. Recall what it is like to suffer alone, only to have someone come along and acknowledge your suffering, actually feel the sorrow you feel, to some degree at least. When this occurs, you feel your burden getting lighter and easier to carry, while the one who listens to you actually feels heavier and feels greater sorrow. Victims of injustice do not feel so alone when somebody finally listens to them, acknowledges the injustice and shares in their anger. 

Life in the community of Christ’s body is very much a zero sum game, a series of trade offs, as it were. It would not be that way if my life was closed off from yours and vice versa, if we were merely two private individuals existing side by side without any mutual indwelling or co-inherence. 

And so, a person might wonder at times: “Why is this happening to me?” “Why am I suffering like this?” Of course, I don’t have the specific answer to that question, but only a general one. Such a person might very well be relieving another of his burden, because he/she exists in Christ, and Christ suffered, the righteous for the unrighteous, and this person is sharing in Christ’s life. And others in that same mystical body have carried my burden throughout my life, so that I could enjoy momentary relief from suffering, and I don’t know who they are.

So, although your suffering might seem pointless, useless, meaningless, you will be delighted to discover in the fullness of God’s kingdom that you were actually carrying someone else’s burden and providing them with much needed  relief. That is why as chaplains we pray that God join the sufferings of this patient to the sufferings of Christ, for the sake of someone else. We share in Christ’s redeeming work when we suffer, and this suffering is precisely a matter of carrying one another’s burdens. Our suffering is never pointless. 

And there is one other very important implication here, and that is none of us are saved except through one another. Christ has made you and I participants in the salvation of the world. We can think of the joy that will be ours when we discover that our struggles, difficulties, and sufferings that were part of the life in Christ that we chose, were a real factor in the salvation of so many people, and think too of the the joy of knowing how the difficulties, burdens, struggles and sufferings of this person and that person were a factor in your salvation and my salvation.

Thoughts on Romantic Love, Sexuality and Matrimony

Written version of a talk given on April 30th, 2026, at St. Lawrence the Martyr Church, Toronto, Ontario.

Deacon Douglas McManaman

A significant problem today is that the vast majority of people see morality as a collection of do’s and don’ts: “I can’t do this, I can’t do that”. I believe that very early on in my teaching career I made the mistake of teaching morality like that, that is, issue centered, and so we looked at all those actions that the Church forbids. At the end of the semester, one student asked me: “Sir, what can we do?” I felt great frustration at the question, and after a bit of honest reflection, I realized that my anger would be better directed at myself, for his question revealed to me the mistake I’d made in focusing primarily on actions that were not permitted. My approach was fundamentally negative. 

But morality is about the good life, and the morally good life is the secret to happiness and emotional well-being. That’s the central insight of the School of Positive Psychology (Martin Seligman), a school of thought that goes all the way back to Aristotle, who said that happiness is activity in accordance with perfect virtue. And Catholic teaching on sexual ethics is not bad news at all; it is in fact really good news. It is not about restrictions primarily, but about freedom and the development of morally noble character.

Some Theology of Romantic Love

I’d like to begin with a few points about romantic love, what the Greeks called eros love. This typically refers to the experience of falling in love. Now this is an interesting experience, and I am quite convinced that the experience of “falling in love” has been misunderstood for centuries—once again, given a negative spin. I believe that Scott Peck’s treatment of romantic love in his book The Road Less Travelled is, although very insightful in so many ways, fundamentally negative.[1] I believe a more positive and theological approach is more helpful to couples. For this, I turn to Charles Williams and his analysis of romantic love in the writings of Dante.

First, allow me to distinguish between a false romantic love and genuine romantic love. False romantic love is really little more than the experience of being infatuated with another person, but genuine romantic love is something holy. We are all familiar with pseudo romantic love, and this involves a person who is fundamentally immature. Such a person is overcome by a passion for someone. He or she is obsessed, as it were, and cannot think of anything other than the person he or she is obsessed with. It is in fact a disordered love of self, the kind of love that amounts to: “I love you for what you do for me”.

We can compare this to a passionate love for certain foods. We might say I love pastries, or cake, or whatever. However, I love this pastry for what it does for me; it tastes good. But as Aquinas points out, we don’t destroy what we love, but we destroy food when we eat it. So, it’s not really the food that we love–otherwise we wouldn’t destroy it. It is ourselves that we love. And there’s nothing wrong with self-love per se. But it can become disordered, for object loved can become the center of our lives, in which case we become the center of our lives. 

Self-love becomes a serious problem when the object of this love is another human being: I love you for what you do for me; you make me feel good; you pay attention to me, you make me feel desirable, etc. When our love for a person is reduced to this kind of love, it is nothing more than a disordered love of self. For those who are psychologically immature, this is typically what their love amounts to. And this love is blind, and it is not long lasting. Eventually a person becomes disillusioned, for this pseudo romantic love was a passion that skewed the way he/she saw the world; it is as though they were under a spell of some kind. In some ways, it is like the seed in the parable of the Sower that falls on rocky ground and springs up quickly, but withers and dies as soon as the sun comes out, because it has no roots. This person loved religion because it was new and exciting, but it was rooted in the self, and so when life became difficult an account of that religious experience, the person moved on to something else. 

But genuine romantic love is a genuine love of the other in which the beloved is loved for his or her sake. This kind of love presupposes a person who is, to a certain degree at least, psychologically and morally mature. It is not a love that blinds, but is eye opening. it is a selfless love, a holy love that gives rise to the most important virtues, which are charity and humility. 

Charity is a theological virtue, it is the intimate love of God under the aspect of friendship, and humility involves a profound sense of one’s lowliness or littleness–but a joyful sense of one’s lowliness, because one sees oneself in the light of a reality that is larger than the self. The other with whom I am in love is not me, and this person is always more than what I currently know him or her to be. The lover begins to see the beloved as a mystery. That is why we feel our littleness next to this larger love. In other words, genuine romantic love is holy; it is an experience of the sacred. In many theological circles, romantic love has been misunderstood because it is a love that involves the sexual, but for centuries, we had a tendency to look upon the sexual as a kind of necessary evil, [2] something low or base, probably as a result of the influence of a dualism that regarded the body as kind of prison of the soul–the theologians of the Patristic era were very much under the influence of this school of thought. But genuine romantic love is an experience of the sacred, as I will try to explain. 

I am going to agree with Charles Williams, who interprets Dante’s work on Romantic love, and argue that in romantic love, the one who has fallen in love sees the beloved as God sees the beloved. But this can only happen if God gives the one who is in love (the lover) a sharing in the way He sees the beloved. And so, this is a grace; it is an illumination. And that is why in the experience of falling in love, the one in love is very much preoccupied with the beloved, thinks of the beloved a great deal more than he or she otherwise would. There is a sense in which the lover begins to see everything in light of the beloved. I believe the reason for this is that God himself loves each one of us as if there is only one of us, and a person in love has been given a partial sharing in that love for a particular person. St. Augustine writes:  

O You Omnipotent Good, you care for every one of us as if you care for him only, and so for all as if they were but one! [3] 

If God loves you as if you alone exist, then that means that everything in this universe exists for you, to serve you. It is as if God created the world and all its creatures to serve you and you alone. Now, I don’t see you like that, and you don’t see me like that, but God does. And if you and I could come to see that for only an instant, we’d be overcome with an unimaginable joy. 

Now, in genuine romantic love, God gives a person the grace of a partial sharing in that vision of the other with whom he has fallen in love, or with whom she has fallen in love, and that is the cause of the unique experience of being in love. And it is an extraordinarily joyful experience, because one is no longer the center of one’s life. One is now on the periphery, so to speak, or the circumference of a circle, and God is in the center. The lover has been displaced, which is a new experience. However, the beloved also occupies the center in a certain way. In other words, God calls the lover to himself through loving the beloved. The beloved does not compete with God, but the beloved is seen in God, as I will try to explain more fully. And that’s why the genuine experience of being in love begets charity and humility:

Dante writes of his love for Beatrice:

Let me say that whenever she appeared anywhere, the hope of her wondrous greeting emptied me of all enmity and kindled instead a flame of charity that inspired me to forgive whoever had offended me. My face was veiled in humility, and were someone to ask me anything just then, my only reply would have been “Love.” And when she was about to greet me, a spirit of Love, destroying all my other sensory spirits, would drive out my feeble spirits of sight, saying, “Go and honor your lady,” and then he’d take their place. Anyone wishing to know Love only had to look at the trembling in my eyes. And when her most gracious greeting reached me, it’s not that Love intervened to veil its unbearable beatitude from me, but rather, abundant sweetness made him such that my body, which was completely in his command, moved like some heavy, lifeless object. Thus it is manifestly apparent that my beatitude, which often filled me to overflowing, resided in her greeting.[4]

Now commenting on this text, Charles Williams writes: 

The sight of Beatrice filled him with the fire of charity and clothed him with humility; he became—and for a moment he knew it—an entire goodwill. Neither of these great virtues is gained by considering oneself; and the apparition of this glory, living and moving in Florence, precisely frees him from the consideration of himself. Love is greater than he: his soul was right when it exclaimed: ‘A stronger than I dominates me’ and trembled, and his brain was right when it said: ‘Behold your blessedness’, and even his flesh when it said: ‘O misery, how I shall be shaken’, … This love certainly does not exclude the physical reactions; his body, he says, was so oppressed by it, as by a surfeit of sweetness, that it felt heavy and lifeless; her greeting was too much for him; … [5] 

And so, in genuine romantic love, one sees the other as God sees the other–at least partially–, and one gives attention to the other in a way that approaches the way God gives you and me his attention, and of course you and I have God’s undivided attention at every instant of our lives–although he does not have our undivided attention at every moment.  

And so, we see the beloved in his or her perfection, in his or her glory, because God sees us “with rose colored glasses”, so to speak. He sees us not merely as we are today in all our imperfection and flaws, but as we are in our perfection, as He intends for us to be. He sees you and me in our completeness, for God is not subject to the passing of time and so He is not limited to the moment, to the here and now. 

Now, the beloved with whom you are in love does not at this time exist in that state of perfection. He or she has not achieved that glorified state, and so the experience of falling in love makes possible an experience of disappointment. The reality is that this person is imperfect, and we see their imperfection against the backdrop of that original divine vision. This is very much like the transfiguration. Peter, James, and John were taken up the mountain and Jesus was transfigured before them, appearing with Moses and Elijah. Peter said: “It is wonderful (kalon) for us to be here”. The Greek word used here is kalon, which is a word very hard to translate in English; it is from the Greek word kaleo, which means ‘attractive’, and it is used in the context of the philosophical discussion of art and the nature of beauty. What is beautiful ‘attracts’ or ‘draws’ us to itself. It is probably better translated as “It is beautiful for us to be here”. For Peter, James, and John, the transfiguration was an experience of divine beauty. And of course, Peter wants the experience to continue indefinitely: ‘Let us build three tents: one for you, for Moses, and for Elijah’. Then suddenly they were overshadowed by a cloud and a voice was heard: ‘This is my beloved Son. Listen to him’. They fell on their faces, and then Jesus touched them and told them to get up, do not be afraid, and they saw only Jesus. They were back to this non-glorious state of reality, so to speak. The transfiguration was an experience given to them to strengthen them for the coming passion and death of Christ. 

The experience of genuine romantic love is given as a preparation for the difficulties that lie ahead, so that both will be strengthened for the life of love to which they may be called; for love is difficult, love is sacrifice, it is a way of the cross. It is a constant dying and rising. The couple are called to face one another–which happens when they join their right hands–and direct their lives to helping one another achieve that perfection, that glory, that is beheld partially in the experience of falling in love.  

And the primary purpose of each of the spouses in the marriage is to help the other see himself or herself as God sees him or her. If I’ve been given a partial sharing in the way God sees my spouse, then I have to be sure never to forget that and love her in that light, help her to see herself as God sees her, to build her up on the basis of that insight, and to remain faithful to her until that end has been achieved. The knowledge and the memory of that initial romantic insight must be the guiding star that leads me to God and to her as she exists in God, that is, as God intends her to be.  

As I alluded to earlier, so many people are not morally and psychologically mature enough to handle the experience of romantic love without a great deal of excess and disorder. We see this especially among the young; for moral and psychological immaturity really have to do with a disordered or excessive love of self. It’s much like the experience of becoming famous overnight. Some young celebrities cannot properly handle the fame and attention without becoming cocky, overconfident, and delusional. Fame, like power, can destroy a person. True love is healing, but attention of a certain kind and degree can ruin a person. In heaven, we will see others as God sees them, and others will see us as God sees us, but this experience will not destroy us, because by that point, we will be purified of disordered love of self; life has a way of doing that to us. And we will see the good in each one in a way that we cannot conceive of at this point. We don’t see that now, but our task is to learn to see it, to look for it in others, to see others as God sees them, and that happens the more we take on the mind of Christ. And of course, that is why there is so much darkness in this world, because we don’t see others as God sees them. We tend not to see the other as a mystery, but, at our worst, as things to be used in some way for our own ends. This is how romantic love becomes corrupted and reduced to sexual exploitation. Without even realizing it, the person is loved merely for what he or she can provide sexually and emotionally. Once that wears out, the relationship is over. This is a failure to see the other as an inexhaustible mystery who is infinitely knowable.

Marriage as a Sharing in the Paschal Mystery

I want to shift gears now and say a word about marriage, in particular the Paschal Mystery of Christ, which is the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection; for it is this mystery that reveals the true nature of marriage. Consider the time when the Egyptians enslaved the Hebrew people and God called the Hebrews to leave Egypt with its pantheon of false gods and go to the land of Canaan. God called Moses to lead them out of Egypt, as He called Abraham to leave the land of Ur of the Chaldeans. A life of holiness always begins with God calling someone to leave the familiar and the comfortable. Now in Matrimony, two people are also called to leave behind the familiar and the comfortable, to leave behind a world closed in upon itself. 

The word “consecrate” means to make sacred, but for the Jews, sacred means “to be set apart”, which involves a kind of “leaving behind”. In marriage, the couple are consecrated, which means they are set apart, called to leave their comfortable world of independence and self-sufficiency, to be given over to another, to belong to one another, to belong to something larger than their own individual selves, namely, their marriage bond. The couple relinquish their individual lives; they are no longer two individuals with their own independent existence; rather, they have become one; their lives are directed towards one another. In giving themselves entirely to one another, irrevocably, exclusively, without knowing what lies ahead, they die to their own individual plans, they die to a life directed by the individual will. In doing so, they find life, for they have become larger, that is, a two in one flesh union. 

They choose to live a life that is not merely an image of the Paschal Mystery, but a life that is made possible by the Paschal Mystery, because matrimony is a sacrament, a sign that contains what it signifies, and what it signifies is the relationship between Christ and his Bride, the Church. Matrimony is a sharing in that Paschal Mystery. 

When Christ himself leaves this world of sin behind to go to the Father, immolated on the cross, the new Israel is born. Christ is indeed married; his Bride, his Mystical Body, the Church, is born as a result of that dying and leaving. Holy Matrimony is an icon of that mystery; divorce is a contradiction of that testimony, a counter witness. But in marriage, the two grow together through stages. There are moments of darkness and drab, difficulties, and there are glorious moments. Married life is a constant dying and rising. Married love is hesed, the Hebrew word for perpetual and steadfast love, the kind of love God has for Israel. Matrimony is a profoundly religious vocation precisely because it is a sharing in the Paschal Mystery. 

Romantic Love and Sexual Union

Love of its very nature is unitive, that is, it tends to union. No matter what kind of love we are talking about (philia, eros, storge, agape, etc), that love expresses itself in physical union of some sort. For example, friendship love, what the Greeks called philia, is often expressed by a handshake or a hug; storge, which is affection, is often expressed by a kiss. Conjugal love involves a complete and total giving of the self to another, and because it is a total giving of the self, it includes the giving of one’s body. And so, the natural expression of married love is the act of sexual intercourse in which the two become reproductively one organism. They become one body in the act of sexual union–and this is true even if the couple are unable to conceive a child. They still become reproductively one organism, for a male is reproductively incomplete, a female is reproductively incomplete, but in the act of sexual union, the two become reproductively complete.

Now, if genuine romantic love is holy in that it begins with a kind of divine illumination, and if marriage is a sharing in the Paschal Mystery, then the sexual act between husband and wife is holy. In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas writes in his Summa Theologica that the sexual act between husband and wife merits an increase in divine grace. [6]  

Not only is love unitive, love is also effusive. It spreads beyond itself, seeks to communicate itself to others outside itself. Love is not self-contained, like an egg, but pours itself out, like an egg broken open. And so there is a twofold goodness to the sexual act: it is 1) an expression and celebration of the couple’s one flesh union, and 2) it is procreative (effusive, ordered to new life). 

These two human goods, conjugal love and human life, constitute the single good of marriage. As was mentioned above, romantic love begins with an insight into the glory of the beloved, which is followed by what might feel like a “return to reality”, so to speak, in which one beholds just how much the beloved falls short of that perfection. The purpose now is to help one another to achieve that perfection, that holiness. Dante speaks of the two virtues that the grace of romantic love gave rise to as he was greeted by Beatrice (charity and humility), and these are the two virtues needed to make it through married life; for it is through charity that one is committed to the salvation of the beloved, and humility is the virtue needed to persist–for the other sees me in all my imperfection, flaws, quirks and idiosyncrasies, and so this relationship requires a tremendous amount of humility and trust. 

But this mutual help is precisely the primary purpose of marriage. In 1930, Pope Pius XI wrote:  

This mutual inward moulding of husband and wife, this determined effort to perfect each other, can in a very real sense, as the Roman Catechism teaches, be said to be the chief reason and purpose of matrimony, provided matrimony be looked at not in the restricted sense as instituted for the proper conception and education of the child, but more widely as the blending of life as a whole and the mutual interchange and sharing thereof. [7]  

Hence, the sexual act is an expression of that conjugal love, that love of one’s spouse for his/her sake. The act of sexual union is a marital act (the act of marriage). If God calls a person to be married, he calls that person to participate in the Paschal Mystery in a particular way, to leave behind that world that is closed in on itself, the world in which you cater to your own individual needs and wants, and turn to another. One sees the other romantically, with the divine vision, but at the same time with the real vision of one another’s imperfections, and the two help one another towards achieving that eschatological perfection. He gives himself to her completely, totally, for her sake, for the sake of that perfection that he beholds, and she as well. Outside of that sacred union, the sexual act is abused and trivialized, and to abuse the sex act is to abuse a person.

Moreover, in baptism we are anointed priest, prophet, and king, and so the faithful exercise a genuine priesthood. The sexual act within marriage is a priestly act, a genuine exercise of that priesthood, in that the act of sexual union between husband and wife is an offering. Priesthood is about offering a sacrificial victim to God, and the married couple offer themselves to one another. This offering, however, is at the same time an offering to God, because this is how God has called the two to love Him, that is, by loving one another. And so, just as the ministerial priest offers to God bread and wine that he may change those substances into the substance of Christ, to return them to us as the Bread of Life, in the act of sexual union husband and wife offer their matter to God, so to speak (sperm and egg), and God receives what is offered and changes it, infuses into it a human soul, so that it becomes a person. What God does with that offering at that moment is out of our control; the couple can only hope that this offering will be completed in the conception of a child, but they do not exercise any dominion over it. That, of course, does not mean that the couple must intend to conceive a child every time they engage in the sexual act. 

Contraception and NFP

There is no doubt, one of the most difficult teachings in the area of sexuality and marriage has to do with contraceptive birth control. The Church is probably the only voice in the world today that teaches that contraception is morally wrong. There was and still is a great deal of controversy surrounding this issue. Personally, I’ve studied this issue for over 40 years now. The reason is that I was fascinated by it. When I first learned of this teaching, I thought it was simply ridiculous–akin to forbidding the taking of a Tylenol. But there were some very good professors who assured me that it was not as ridiculous as it might appear at first. So, I began to look into this moral issue. As a teacher, I was determined to find ways of making this teaching intelligible for my students and friends. So, I’m going to offer here what I regard as the best explanation I can provide as to why the Church’s teaching on this is in my mind correct and is rooted in the Holy Spirit, which guides the Church in her teachings on faith and morals, despite the sinfulness and imperfection of the hierarchy. 

Over the years I have, in the face of objections from students and couples in marriage prep, second guessed myself many times. But nobody yet has been able to explain to me how the use of contraception is morally justified, and I wish someone would, because it would make my life much easier. So far, however, it hasn’t happened. Furthermore, I always tell couples in marriage prep that we are not here to impose anything; rather, we propose this. Personally, I think the Church’s teaching on openness to life is really quite beautiful, and I am quite convinced that it really does promote and strengthen couples’ relationships. In fact, the divorce rate for couples who use NFP is under 4%, which is an interesting statistic. It is a statistic, however, and statistics have to be interpreted. What are the factors for this? It’s hard to say, but perhaps we can leave this to the end and attempt to offer some possible reasons for this. 

But Catholic teaching is that every marital act must be open to new life. But what does that mean? We can certainly tell you what it does not mean. It does not mean that every act of sexual union between a married couple must result in the conception of a child. That would be absurd; for that would mean that if a couple end up having four children, they can only engage in sexual intercourse four times in their married life. 

What else does it not mean? That every act of sexual union must be open to life does not mean that controlling birth is morally wrong. Couples must control birth; for no couple is obligated to have as many children as is physically possible. My mother grew up in the province of Quebec in the 30s and 40s, and that was common teaching in the Church at that time. My mother knew a lady who had fifteen children already, and if she was not pregnant the following year, she would receive a visit from the parish priest inquiring of her as to why that is the case. 

What it does mean, however, is the following: a couple engaging in sexual union must not intentionally or willingly sterilize the sexual act, by using a contraception: a condom, birth control pill, or any other contraceptive method. A couple can certainly control birth, choose not to have a child at this time for whatever good reason–and there are many good reasons–, but contraceptive methods of birth control involve intentionally closing the sexual act to new life as a means to some further end. But why not? What is so wrong with that? And, isn’t the couple doing the same thing when they use NFP and engage in periodic abstinence?

A couple that uses NFP is able to determine when ovulation will occur or is occurring. Ovulation only occurs once every cycle, and the ovum, when released, has 24 hours to be fertilized, otherwise it disintegrates. So, there is a relatively small window in which a woman can conceive a child. Before ovulation, there is the early non-fertile phase, and after ovulation, there is the late non-fertile phase (which lasts approximately 16 days), and so if a couple engage in sexual union during that time, for example in the late non-fertile phase, they will not conceive a child, because there is no ovum to fertilize (during the early non-fertile phase, however, cervical mucus can keep sperm alive up to about five days, so although there is no ovum to fertilize yet, conception can occur days later). 

A common objection is that couples who use this method, who abstain from sexual intercourse during ovulation and instead engage in the sexual act during a non-fertile phase, are also deliberately closing the act of intercourse to new life. What I’d like to try to show is that this is not necessarily the case. The couple who abstains from acts of sexual union during ovulation and instead engages in the sexual act during one of the two non-fertile phases of the female cycle is not intentionally closing the act to new life; rather, the woman’s fertility cycle is such that she cannot conceive during these two phases, so they don’t have to close the act to new life. 

But, why is this distinction so significant? This is where things become a bit abstract and difficult to explain. And I understand that many couples today just don’t see it, but my task is to continually find ways to better explain this as clearly and easily as possible. There are certainly medical differences between the two, for example, NFP has no adverse medical side effects, whereas the birth control pill has all sorts of risks involved, which every birth control pill package will list: the risk of permanent infertility, the risk of deep vein thrombosis, certain kinds of cancers, but I am not an expert in this area; one can find a great deal of information about this online. I limit myself to the moral question, that is, the moral difference between the two. And the difference is very subtle, perhaps too subtle for some people, but I will go over this regardless. 

If this is going to make any sense, we need to begin with a very important distinction. What is it that makes an action a morally significant act (either good or evil)? The answer is: the will. Without a will, one is not a moral agent. Now let’s imagine that you are a gun enthusiast and enjoy target shooting. You set up a target in your backyard out in the country and begin practicing. You have put in place all sorts of safety measures, but someone decided earlier in the day to sneak onto your large piece of property and hide among the trees in the backyard, in order to rob the house later on when you leave to run some errands. While practicing, you miss the target and you end up shooting the man hiding in the bushes. Of course, you didn’t know he was there. Are you guilty of homicide? The answer is no; you are not. You did not will or intend that this person cease to exist, that is, cease to live. Murder is an action that involves a will that this person no longer be (it is the adoption of a proposal that includes the death of a person). That is why animals, although they can kill, cannot commit homicide; they don’t have a will, but are governed by instinct.

However, imagine that you hire someone to kill your wife. You meet with this hitman and enter into a contract. You agree to pay him $20,000 for the murder. You meet again at a certain time, and you hand him $10,000 as a down payment–he’ll get the rest when he carries out the deed. He does so, shows you a picture. You pay him the remaining $10,000. Now, it turns out that your hitman is really an undercover police officer; the polaroid snapshot that she showed you is of your wife made up to look dead. You didn’t know this. No one was killed. The question now is: Are you a murderer? The answer is, yes, morally speaking. Although no one was killed, the act of handing over an envelope with the cash so that she will be killed is an act of murder, morally speaking. One adopted a proposal that included the death of the spouse.

You and I determine our moral identity, our moral character, by the moral choices that we make. If I choose to lie to you, I become a liar; If I choose steal money from your purse when you are not looking, then I become a thief; If I choose to kill, I become a killer. That’s my moral identity, my character, which is very different from personality–one can have a great personality, but morally bad character. Most psychopaths in fact have great personalities, but they are depraved characters.

What does this have to do with contraception? Let us compare the series of choices made by a couple who use contraception to a couple that uses NFP. We will assume that in both cases, the couple have a good reason to avoid conceiving a child and that their act of intercourse is intended to be a genuine expression of conjugal love. The contracepting couple 1) consider having sex (as a genuine expression of married love). They remember that they have a good reason to avoid conceiving a child, and so they 2) project a possible baby as a consequence of their act of intercourse. At this point, they 3) choose to have sex, but they make a further choice in taking steps to prevent that possible baby from becoming an actual baby. Now, in choosing to prevent that possible baby from becoming an actual baby, they will or intend that this possible baby not become an actual baby. This is to act with a contra life will, a will that this possible baby not come to be. That is to act with contra life intent. 

It is important to emphasize here that contraception is not homicide (homicide involves willing that an actual living human being no longer be, or cease to be). However, what homicide and contraception have in common is a contra life intent, or a contra life will. If I kill someone without a contra life will, as in the scenario involving target practice, I have not necessarily done anything morally significant, certainly not murder. But if you kill someone with a contra life will, that act becomes an act of homicide. As we said, contraception is not homicide, because the will does not bear upon an actual human life, but only a possible human life. However, it is this contra life will or intention that makes killing immoral, so too it is this same contra life intention (or will) that makes contraception immoral. I positively will that this possible baby not become an actual baby. That describes a contra life intention or will, which is why it is fittingly called contraception (contra: “against”, the conception of new life). Although one is not willing that an actual baby not come to be, but a possible baby, nonetheless a possible baby is a basic intelligible human good, just as a possible friendship is a basic intelligible human good, an aspect of human flourishing. In other words, if I do something to willingly prevent a possible friendship between two people who do not yet know one another from becoming an actual friendship, I am willing contrary to the good of friendship, which is not yet an actuality.

This is not necessarily the case with Natural Family Planning, however. In the use of NFP, the couple becomes familiar with the female fertility cycle, they chart that cycle from month to month, and they choose to engage in sexual union during the non-fertile phases of that cycle, of which there are two. The NFP couple also consider having sex as a genuine expression of married love, and they too project a possible baby as a consequence of their act of intercourse. But it is at this point that they choose differently, for they choose not to have sex. The couple abstains from the act of sexual union during the ovulation phase of the cycle, because there is a good reason to avoid conceiving a child. Choosing not to have sex does not involve preventing a possible baby from becoming an actual baby. The couple simply chooses not to cause a baby, and there is nothing contra-life about choosing not to cause a baby; we do it all the time every time we choose to go to work or watch TV, etc. The only time a baby becomes a real possibility is when the couple choose to have sex at a time when conception is a real possibility. This is a very subtle distinction, but it is significant. The couple have not taken steps to close the marital act to new life by wearing a condom or taking a progesterone/estrogen pill, for example. 

We should point out that not every device referred to as contraception is truly a contraceptive. For example, the IUD, the intrauterine device, is not a contraceptive, but an abortifacient; an IUD allows sperm and egg to meet, but it prevents implantation on the lining of the uterus. So human life has already been conceived, but it aborts its development. So too, the low dose birth control pill has three mechanisms: 1) it prevents ovulation. However, a woman on the pill can still ovulate as a result of stress factors; 2) the pill thickens cervical mucus so that no sperm can get through; but one sperm is all it takes to fertilize an ovum. If fertilization does occur, 3) implantation on the lining of the uterus will be very difficult, because the pill changes the uterine wall. At this point, the pill is no longer a contraception, but an abortifacient, because life has been conceived.

As for the less than 4% divorce rate for couples that use NFP, it may have something to do with the fact that the couple are willing to practice periodic abstinence, which is good for a relationship. It may also have something to do with the fact that the pill treats the woman’s fertility as a disease, as something to be protected from, while NFP fosters a certain reverence for a woman’s fertility. Instead of cancelling that fertility with artificial hormones, the couple choose to adjust their own behavior and live in accordance with the woman’s physiology. 

Also, a woman who is taking the birth control pill for medical reasons, to raise her estrogen level, for example, is not engaging in contraceptive behavior, but is choosing a medical course of action that has an undesirable side effect, namely infertility. Also, a woman who has had three c-sections and who chooses to have her tubes tied because a fourth c-section would be dangerous is not, I have argued elsewhere, engaging in contraception, any more than a surgeon removing an ectopic pregnancy is performing an abortion. 

Notes

1. He writes: “Of all the misconceptions about love the most powerful and pervasive is the belief that “falling in love” is love or at least one of the manifestations of love. It is a potent misconception, because falling in love is subjectively experienced in a very powerful fashion as an experience of love. When a person falls in love what he or she certainly feels is “I love him” or “I love her.” But two problems are immediately apparent. The first is that the experience of falling in love is specifically a sex-linked erotic experience. We do not fall in love with our children even though we may love them very deeply. We do not fall in love with our friends of the same sex—unless we are homosexually oriented—even though we may care for them greatly. We fall in love only when we are consciously or unconsciously sexually motivated. The second problem is that the experience of falling in love is invariably temporary. No matter whom we fall in love with, we sooner or later fall out of love if the relationship continues long enough. This is not to say that we invariably cease loving the person with whom we fell in love. But it is to say that the feeling of ecstatic lovingness that characterizes the experience of falling in love always passes. The honeymoon always ends. The bloom of romance always fades.” The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth. By M. Scott Peck, M.D. Touchstone Books. 1978. p. 84-90. 

2. See Derrick Sherwin Bailey. Sexual Relation in Christian Thought. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers. pp. 19-102. 

3. Confessions, 3, 11. 19. (Tr. Albert C. Outler). “o tu bone omnipotens, qui sic curas unumquemque nostrum tamquam solum cures, et sic omnes tamquam singulos”.

4. Dante Alighieri, Vita Nuova: A Dual-Language Edition with Parallel Text. Kindle Edition. p. 33.

5. Charles Williams, The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante, II. Kindle Edition. p. 18.

6. See S.T., Supplement, Question 41, a.4.

7. Casti Connubii, 24.

Miscellaneous Thoughts on Difficult Church Teaching and the Holy Spirit

Deacon Douglas McManaman

I remember one of my email correspondences with Eve Tushnet, who is the brilliant author of Gay and Catholic and Tenderness. I had written a piece for my students which was an attempt to support and explain as clearly and pastorally as possible the Church’s teaching on same sex marriage. We certainly see eye to eye on this issue, because she adheres to Catholic teaching on the nature of marriage and sexuality, but I didn’t quite “seal the deal” for her with respect to my contention that a same-sex relationship cannot be a one flesh union (in that a one flesh union means becoming reproductively one organism in the sexual act). My article left her unconvinced. In the end, she stressed the importance of urging students to “trust the Church”– and by this I gather she did not mean trust in a group of male celibates, many of whom–she is fully aware–have proved themselves to be untrustworthy. Rather, I believe she meant trust that Christ is working in and through the Church. I found it interesting not to mention praiseworthy that she finds it in herself to trust Catholic teaching, despite what she sees as a weakness in what I see as the heart of the matter.[1] 

I’ve written quite a few articles over the years (600+), many of which have vanished from memory. On a few occasions I stumbled across some of these forgotten articles and after reading some of them over again, I wondered to myself how I was able to acquire certain insights, given that I did not know then what I know now, and yet what I wrote then was in perfect agreement with what I have come to know now only as a result of experience. It’s not that I have the charism of infallibility–there are many articles I’d written that I would like to remove from the internet permanently, but I don’t have the nerve to ask the editors to remove them after they put time and effort into publishing them. But despite my stupidity, limitations, sinfulness, and other imperfections, the Holy Spirit seemed to have helped me say what I otherwise would not have been able to think of saying, for the sake of my students. 

In 1980, upon discovering that the Catholic Church teaches that contraceptive means of birth control are morally wrong, I became very interested in why that is the case, because at first it struck me as terribly out of date and closed minded. I was fortunate that some of my professors did not think so and encouraged me to think about it more. I remember where I was standing in Waterloo, Ontario when the light bulb went on (Waterloo and Phillip), the moment I believe I came to see why contraception is morally problematic. From that point on, I was determined to uncover the reasons for this so that I could explain this difficult teaching to others, especially my future students. Initially, I found the explanations of many who defended Humanae Vitae to be rather unsatisfactory; I knew they would not persuade skeptics that taking the pill or wearing a condom or sterilization (for contraceptive reasons) is morally wrong, while NFP can be legitimate and morally justifiable. It was only after meeting Dr. Joseph Boyle in Toronto that I discovered what I thought was the most persuasive and logically coherent presentation on why every marital act must remain open to new life and what that meant. I worked hard to make this intelligible for my young students and taught this over the years. Their reaction was very much like their reaction to Leibniz’s modal proof of God’s existence (If MLp, then Lp, or “If the Necessary Being is possible, then the Necessary Being exists”) – some students simply did not understand it, others understood it but found it uncompelling, while a minority understood it and found it compelling. 

I am not an “all or nothing” thinker. I don’t believe that if a person gets something wrong over here in this area, then they cannot be trusted in what they say over there in that area. I do love Hans Kung, for example, especially when he writes on the Reformation, Luther, Erasmus, and Vatican II, but I have never been able to understand the issue he has with Catholic morality, specifically abortion, cohabitation, and contraception. And he’s not the only one whom I can study and enjoy in one area, but scratch my head when it comes to the difficulties they seem to have with these moral issues in particular. I’ve spent a great deal of time over the past 40 years studying the fundamentals of ethics only because I was a teacher of young adolescents, and you have to get morality right when you are teaching students of this age group. There’s only so much time in a day, and if one is devoting a great deal of time to the study of Church history, perhaps there isn’t much time left for ethics. Could that be the reason Kung and others appear to be a little off on sexual ethics? I don’t know for certain, but I wonder. 

John O’Loughlin Kennedy has written a brilliant, well-researched, and very interesting work entitled The Curia is the Pope and why it cannot listen. In it, he discusses the history surrounding Humanae Vitae, the work of the Birth Control Commission that was initiated by Pope John XXIII, not to mention a rather brilliant analysis of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis. Without knowing what I know now about sexual ethics and the nature of contraception, I could easily be persuaded by his presentation that Humanae Vitae was a complete disaster and the product of clerical stubbornness. But it was as a result of studying this issue for decades that I came to believe that the Church is indeed guided by the Holy Spirit; for in my mind there is no chance a bunch of celibates in Rome could have figured this out on their own, especially when the Western world was capitulating.

In 2009, I wrote an article for my students entitled A Concise Account of Why Women are Not Ordained, and it was just that, a concise summary of the reasons for the non-ordination of women. Seventeen years later, however, after studying a number of rather brilliant feminist thinkers, I am less than enthusiastic about this article and would not be inclined to use it or recommend it to students. Moreover, within my eighteen years as a Deacon, I have seen more than my fair share of clerical misogyny, especially in recent years. That is why I was inclined to write Thoughts on the Influence of Old Prejudice, which began with an account of an experience I had one day that to me suggested some interesting things about the psychology of prejudice and unconscious bias. Naturally, I began to wonder whether the Church’s position on the non-ordination of women could turn out to be little more than a residue of centuries of old prejudice (misogyny) and patriarchy.[2] But, could Kennedy’s brilliant and critical analysis of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis in this same work turn out to be similar to his historical analysis of Humanae Vitae in the sense that reason and common sense at this time would lead a person to one obvious conclusion, while the Holy Spirit working in and through the hierarchy lays down the contrary conclusion, despite the weakness of the hierarchy’s arguments supporting it? In other words, in my mind, one side wins the argument hands down, at least up to this point in time, namely the side that argues that the exclusion of women from Holy Orders is indefensible. Could it be the case that the Holy Spirit–who works in and through the Magisterium made up, in part, of limited and even self-centered prelates [3] scattered among a good number of genuinely holy and wise prelates–has led the Church, through that hierarchy, to the right position, despite the fact that the side arguing for the ordination of women puts forth the better arguments, while the other side scrapes for reasons that in the end come across as tortured and as durable as a thin water balloon? I’d have to say that it is indeed possible and highly plausible. If it can happen in my own individual life, how much more so in the life of the Church as a whole? 

Perhaps this is ultimately a matter of trusting that the Holy Spirit does indeed work in and through a Church made up of flawed individuals. As Eve Tushnet said in that same email correspondence to me: “In the end our faith is not founded on whether we accept the arguments we’ve heard for particular doctrines, you know? It’s founded on a personal relationship with Christ as given to us through His Bride the Church, our Mother and Teacher.”[4] And I do believe that at this time in our history, it is better not to say “trust the Church”, only because for many people that conjures up images of having to trust a bunch of men, many of whom are emotionally abusive, negligent, self-centered, sometimes haughty and incompetent. It is much better to say “trust in the Holy Spirit” that descended upon the Church at Pentecost, who is the “soul of the Church”, the “spirit of truth” (pneuma tes aletheias) and who will lead the Church to the complete truth (Jn 16, 13), certainly through our efforts but despite our dullness of intellect. 

Of course, this does not mean that Church teaching does not develop and that her current understanding of certain theological matters must remain forever unchanged. Nor does it mean that her common teaching that is not a constituent part of the deposit of faith but may pertain to it is irreversible. Much less does it mean we must resign ourselves to current ecclesial structures and practices that may stifle the Spirit (1 Th 5, 19) – structures and practices have changed throughout history and will continue to change, albeit rather slowly. And so, we still need theology to push the envelope and test certain hypotheses, for it is not always clear what does and does not belong to the deposit of faith [5]. That is why open discussion (Synodality) is utterly important–shutting it down retards the development of doctrine and only harms the Church, especially the prospects of ecumenical unity.  

But Jesus did say “I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Mt 28, 20). What does this mean if not that despite our own limitations, short sightedness, intellectual sluggishness and incompetence, somehow collectively as a body he will not allow us to be led astray on the most important issues. In this case it is not so much a matter of grace building on nature, but grace superseding nature, as it were, that is, overcoming nature if you will. The gates of hell will not prevail against it (ekklesian), he said (Mt 16, 18). How can he err in that promise? In the end, the Spirit has to win out, otherwise what good is that promise?

Notes

1. She very wisely wrote: “I personally didn’t think you quite “sealed the deal” on why a same-sex relationship can’t be a one-flesh union; or at least, if the reason for that is, “‘one-flesh union’ refers to becoming a biologically-reproductive organism,” I don’t then know why only biologically-reproductive organisms can offer one another complete love. It seems to me that we have often seen examples of deep, self-sacrificing love, e.g. during the AIDS crisis in gay communities, where there did not seem to be any love held back, if you see what I mean, among those who nursed their partners through their last days. Or their friends–sex seems neither necessary to a full gift of self, nor in some visible way deleterious to it. Service is a way of loving someone with your body, I think….But I do think it would help advance the purposes of your speech to just give a defense of obedience! Basically tell your students that it is actually ok if they and/or the people they shepherd don’t understand the reasons for specific commands, as long as they understand why the Church is worthy of our complete trust. That in itself is a big ask, esp nowadays when we all know how untrustworthy so many Catholics have been.” Eve Tushnet, email message to author, March 14, 2022.

2. See Thomas O’Loughlin. The Eucharist: Origins and Contemporary Understandings. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing PIc. 2015. 

3. Pope Francis writes: “There should be no place in the Church for a worldly mentality. The worldly mentality says: “This man took the ecclesiastical career path, he became a bishop”. No, no, in the Church there must be no place for this mindset. The episcopate is a service, not an honour to boast about. Being a bishop means keeping before one’s eyes the example of Jesus who, as the Good Shepherd, came not to be served, but to serve (cf. Mt 20:28; Mk 10:45) and to give his life for his sheep (cf. Jn 10:11). Holy bishops — and there are many in the history of the Church, many holy bishops — show us that this ministry is not sought, is not requested, is not bought, but is accepted in obedience, not in order to elevate oneself, but to lower oneself, as Jesus did who “humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). It is sad when one sees a man who seeks this office and who does so much just to get there; and when he gets there, he does not serve, he struts around, he lives only for his own vanity.” General Audience. Wednesday, 5 November, 2014. The following year Francis wrote: “Remembering that you have been chosen from among men and constituted on their behalf to attend to the things of God, exercise the priestly ministry of Christ with joy and genuine love, with the sole intention of pleasing God and not yourselves. It is unseemly when a priest lives for his own pleasure and “struts like a peacock!” Homily of His Holiness Pope Francis. Vatican Basilica, Fourth Sunday of Easter, 26 April 2015.

4. Tushnet, email message, March 14, 2022.

5. “On January 24th Cardinal Ratzinger offered an important clarification regarding the CDF Responsum, specifying that it did not intend to say that this teaching was a part of the deposit of faith but rather that it pertained to the deposit of faith. This ambiguity resulted in part from poor English translations of the Latin. The distinction is important however because it means that the teaching has the status of a definitive doctrine and not a dogma and the denial of this teaching would not constitute heresy. However, while it may not constitute heresy, the situation is sufficiently severe that a formal excommunication was declared for Fr. Tissa Ballisuriya, in part because of his positions on this issue. It should also be noted however, that according to Catholic teaching definitive doctrine belongs to the so called “secondary object of infallibility”—in other words, the CDF still insists that this teaching has been proposed infallibly. As will become clear in the balance of this essay, I do not believe this claim can be sustained at this point in time”. Richard Gaillardetz. “Infallibility and the Ordination of Women”, Louvain Studies 21 (1996): 3-24. See also ‘Guideposts from Catholic tradition. Infallibility doctrine invoked in statement against ordination by Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’, by Francis A. Sullivan, The Tablet 23/30 December 1995, p. 1646. See Francis A. Sullivan, S.J. Creative Fidelity: Weighing and Interpreting Church Documents. New York: Paulist Press, 1996.

Slow of heart

Deacon Douglas McManaman

What is interesting about the discussion on the road to Emmaus is that the two disciples are talking about Jesus, while the very person they are talking about is right there walking with them, but without their awareness that this person is in fact the risen Christ. They see him as a stranger. Luke tells us that “their eyes were kept from recognizing him”. This is an interesting expression. The obvious question is: “What is it that kept their eyes from recognizing him”?

Of course, the risen Christ had a glorified body, so he did not look quite the same as he would have before the resurrection, but there is a more interior reason they failed to recognize him. The clue, I believe, is in the nature of their hope: they hoped that Jesus would be the one to “redeem Israel”; however, their understanding of that liberation was far too narrow. Jesus came not to liberate a particular nation (Israel) from Roman oppression, but to deliver humanity from the oppression of sin and death. 

Old habits are very difficult to change, especially habits of thinking, and many of our assumptions keep us from understanding the obvious. For example, in the synoptics, Jesus had to foretell his passion three times (that the Son of Man was destined to suffer and be put to death, but on the third day he would rise again); for the disciples simply could not understand how victory could come about through any means other than physical force. Not even Peter understood that Christ came to defeat death by dying and rising (See Mt 16, 22). And even after seeing the risen Christ, the disciples still could not get beyond an understanding rooted in old habits: “When they had gathered together they asked him, ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’” (Acts 1, 6).

There was something in these two disciples that kept them from recognizing him, and it was with respect to this that they were “foolish” (Gk: anoetoi), lacking wisdom and the insight that would allow them to see who the real enemy is, which is sin and death, not the Roman Empire–Rome was destined to fall in the late 5th century. Jesus came to defeat the one enemy man was powerless to defeat, namely death. Their hope was narrow because their hearts were narrow, that is, their love was too limited in scope: “…how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets declared”. 

“Slow of heart” (bradeis te kardia) is an interesting expression as well. What it suggests is that understanding follows upon the disposition of the heart, which is the center of intellectual and spiritual insight. It is the heart that keeps the disciple from fully recognizing Christ, who is in our midst, mistaking him for an ignorant stranger. But Jesus begins to teach them, opening the Scriptures to them, all the while still failing to recognize him. In other words, the stranger teaches them about himself. Luke tells us, however, that their hearts were burning; hence, they were open to learning, which is why they were listening to him in the first place, and it was this openness that gradually disposed them to recognize him. But recognition only came after they pressured the stranger to stay with them. It was at this point, when he was at the table with them, that he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them; then their eyes were finally opened and they recognized him.

What was it that opened their eyes? The breaking of the bread. In other words, it was “community” that opened their eyes; they had table fellowship with a stranger, as Jesus himself was wont to do, and it was only at this point that they were given the eyes to recognize that the stranger in their midst was Christ himself. 

Breaking bread together, that is, table fellowship, means much more than eating for the sake of my own individual nutrition. For the Jews, breaking bread brings about a genuine communion of persons, for each person partakes of the one life source on the table, namely the food, so that all who are at table become one. This is a very profound and symbolic understanding of a meal that we’ve lost in the West; and this table fellowship is precisely what ruined Jesus’ reputation among the religious leaders at the time, namely, his fellowship with tax collectors, who were regarded as traitors, and his fellowship with “sinners”, those who did not observe the proscriptions in the Torah because they were not familiar with them. In short, he associated himself with the marginalized. 

In feeding the five thousand, he entered into intimate communion with everyone who came to listen to him. But in the minds of the religious leaders, to commune with the ritually unclean is to become unclean. For Jesus, however, the reverse takes place. Those who partake and thus willingly enter into communion with him become clean, because he is clean, the fount of all holiness. 

In joining a human nature to himself, the Son of God joined himself to every man, as it were (GS, 22), in all times and places–for the Word is eternal. We know this from the parable of the Last Judgment: When did we see you hungry, naked, and in prison?… As long as you did this to the least of my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25, 31-46). And so, Christ is in our midst, drawing near and walking with us, and we don’t necessarily have the eyes to recognize him. To do so, we need to take on the mind of Christ, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not deem equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself and took the form of a slave” (Phil 2, 5-7). It is our willingness to descend with him, to become a slave (doulou) and associate with all who are suffering that opens our eyes to the Christ hidden behind the face of the stranger. In short, we discover Christ in community, not in a privatized Catholicism. 

The Eucharist is the Bread of Life in which we become united with Christ in all his physicality, but the community of the faithful is Christ’s Mystical Body, and so the Eucharist should move us away from a bourgeois spirituality towards a deeper insertion into the international community that Christ is. The Eucharist in which we receive the whole Christ, his body, blood, soul and divinity, should change us into that body, and that should give us the eyes to see him underneath his various disguises, as Mother Teresa would often say. But it is very possible for us to resist that impetus. Jesus speaks about this in the gospel of Matthew: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you.’” (Mt 7, 21-23).

In the end, we will not be judged on our theology, or our private acts of piety, but on how we related to Christ hidden underneath his various disguises, as he identified himself in the first century with those whom we would be least likely to suspect were his dwelling places: the hated tax collector, the prostitute, and those who neglect the religious requirements of the Torah.  

Padre, don’t forget

Deacon Douglas McManaman

My good friend, a retired priest from the Diocese of Hamilton, Ontario, took a group of kids to the Dominican Republic more than 30 years ago. One day he went out to the outlying regions in Consuelo, called the Bateyes, which are small rural settlements designed for plantation workers. They are very impoverished areas, lacking basic services such as clean drinking water. My friend remembers meeting a very poor woman who was blind and who had one arm severed; she was in her 50s, and of course she was living in great poverty. Through a translator, my friend said to her: “I’m sorry”. He was sorry for her condition, for her suffering. She read his sorrow on his face and simply said to him in reply: “Padre: don’t forget, there is going to be a resurrection”. 

My friend felt tremendously uplifted by her words. In her suffering, and in her faith and hope in the resurrection, she lifted him up. This lady experienced something of the empty tomb; she was a witness that we can actually experience the reality of the resurrection without actually having been at the empty tomb. She is an example of those whom Christ referred to in the gospel of John: “Blessed are those who have not seen but believe”. Her Easter joy transcended all her misery.  

The word ‘gospel’ means good news. Over the years, I would often ask my students: “What is the good news”? Many of them would be stuck for an answer. Only a few could tell me. And many Catholic adults today reduce the gospel to “a collection of rules and prohibitions… to the repetition of doctrinal principles, to bland or nervous moralizing” (Aparecida, 12). “You shall not kill”; is that good news? “Do not take the Lord’s name in vain… You shall not commit adultery… You shall not steal…”; is this the good news? Not at all: “…for through the law comes consciousness of sin” (Rom 3, 20).

Recently, I was part of a 90-day spiritual exercise at a local parish that includes rigorous disciplines, such as cold showers, fasting and abstinence on Wednesdays and Fridays, no social media, no sports on TV and alcohol, work out three times a week, and more. There are many good things about this exercise, in particular the weekly fraternity meetings, but it is very easy to fall into a discussion on the details of how we failed in this or that discipline during the week: “I was just too tired to work out this week”, or “I had a glass of wine”, or “I just couldn’t take cold showers this time around”, etc. This is not the good news, for we are talking about our failures. If anything, it was good news that the program ended on Easter Sunday. 

And this leads me to what the gospel really is, namely, Easter. The good news is the resurrection of Christ. Death has been defeated; for death had no power over him. So much of our sinful behavior throughout our lives is rooted in a deep but unconscious fear of death. The good news is that death no longer has the final word over your life and my life, and we know this because one Person has risen from the dead. His resurrection means that you too will rise to new and everlasting life. To live in him and to die in him is to live and die in the sure hope of resurrection. Furthermore, all those we loved in life and who have died, we will see and touch them again, for we will rise with a glorified body, not subject to sickness and death–and we won’t look like we do now, which is more good news to many of us.

I remember walking into my friend’s office and seeing a picture of a little girl, about 4 or 5 years of age. I asked my friend who that is. “That’s little Stephanie”, he said. One afternoon she choked on a sandwich and died. It was one of the saddest days of my friend’s priesthood, walking into the hospital and seeing her young mother and father standing there beside the hospital gurney with the lifeless body of their four-year-old girl lying on it. About 6 months later in the middle of a dark winter night, however, my friend had a powerful dream-vision of Stephanie, but not as a 4-year-old child, but a young adult woman in her 20s, surrounded by a bright white light, like nothing my friend had ever seen before. She said to him: “I can’t see my parents now, but I can come to you. Tell them not to worry, that I am happy.” My friend then reached out to her and suddenly found himself sitting up in bed, in the pitch black of night, about 3 am. What struck me, among other things, is that she did not appear as a child, but as a young adult. 

The gospel is a message of salvation. But more to the point, our resurrection to new life begins now, in this life. Salvation is ours today, it has been freely given, as sheer gift. And we are saved by faith, not by works. As St. Paul says: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph 2, 8-9). We did not nor can we save ourselves. Even our own cooperation with grace, our free decision to follow the lead and promptings of divine grace is itself a grace; for we were given the power to cooperate and to follow, so we cannot take any credit for where we are today. 

The good news is that our sins have been forgiven: “In him we have redemption by his blood, the forgiveness of transgressions, in accord with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us” (Eph 1, 7-8). For example, there is nothing that the paralyzed man did to earn God’s forgiveness (Mk 2, 1-8). His friends who brought him to Jesus believed that Jesus could and would heal him. Nothing more is required. Christ’s healing of his paralysis is a resurrection. He can freely stand up. That’s what the forgiveness of our sins is, namely, our theosis. The problem, of course, is that we have a very hard time believing that and even receiving that forgiveness. Many of us still believe, deep down, that we have to do something to earn it in some way. But to think this way is to very subtly and perhaps unconsciously reject the gift of grace he offers us; so instead of “all glory and honor are yours”, some of us would rather a portion of that glory directed our way. But God loved us while we were sinners: “God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5, 8). 

The focus of our lives must not be on our sins, our failures, our shortcomings, but on the immeasurable and gratuitous nature of his love for each one of us. Only then can our life be a genuine response to that love, a joy, not a burden.  

The Silence of God

The Silence of God published @ Where Peter Is

Deacon Douglas McManaman

One of the most pressing questions people have, young students especially, has to do with the problem of evil. Why do bad things happen to good people? And if God exists, how can he allow so much suffering and evil in the world? Questions bearing upon the tragedies that befall the innocent are very puzzling to say the least, and they are downright scandalous for some, to the point where many have simply rejected outright the very notion that a good God exists.

The philosophical resolutions of such questions are certainly interesting and perhaps persuasive to a good number of people, and they usually include the point that human beings have the power of free choice, and when we choose to do things our way instead of God’s way, life begins to fall apart. A more sophisticated response is that God is all powerful and he is supremely and perfectly good, which means that 1) he wills your perfect happiness and 2) has the power to bring about your greatest happiness; hence, whatever God allows to happen to you in your life, he allows ultimately for your greatest happiness.

There is nothing wrong with these arguments per se; they are sound. However, one does not want to be engaging in this kind of discourse when in the presence of someone who is broken by the loss of her own son, or who has been suffering from clinical depression all her life or someone with PTSD as a result of being exposed to the horrors of war or the evils that are around us but hidden from most people, except police officers and undercover agents. It’s much easier to be impressed with certain abstract ideas in the presence of like-minded people far removed from such suffering, but when in the presence of a person who is in deep darkness, suffering in ways that we’ve never experienced, we begin to sense the inadequacies of our neat and tidy solutions. If we were to push them onto our suffering brethren anyways, ignoring our deepest intuition to keep quiet, we’d see firsthand that our answers only increase their feelings of alienation, isolation, and darkness. The only response these situations call for is utter silence. We just need to be present to them in their suffering; for there are no words that can relieve them of their darkness and the pain they have to live with. The only thing that will bring them any sort of consolation is our silent presence, which acknowledges our inability to console them with words, ideas, platitudes, or rational discourse. 

Their suffering is a great mystery; for their lives and all that has happened that plunged them into darkness is in many ways beyond our ability to fully comprehend. It is opaque and larger than ourselves, and our task is to remain quiet and listen, share in their suffering, participate in it, feel it; for the more we feel it, the more we relieve them of their loneliness and sense of abandonment. 

And that is why Good Friday is the ultimate answer to the mystery of suffering. God does not deliver us a series of premises that entail a conclusion that is supposed to satisfy the mind. Rather, God the Son descends among us, joins himself to a human nature and enters into our darkness. The light of the world enters into the darkness of human suffering not because he wants to understand our suffering–God is all knowing, so he does not lack any understanding. Rather, he joins himself to our flesh, our suffering, our human situation, tastes misunderstanding and rejection, becomes the object of death threats and attempts on his life, was rejected by some of his disciples who couldn’t tolerate his claim to be the Bread of Life, and experiences the worst physical suffering, his passion and death, all this in order to be present in silence to the sufferings of each human person, the sufferings we have undergone and are currently undergoing and have yet to undergo in our lives. He who is Life Itself dies in order to be present in our death, that we might find him there. All this so that our suffering will not be an experience of complete and utter desolation and loneliness. We still suffer, but there is a divine presence in that suffering, a Person who is there paying close attention to each one of us. Scripture assures us that this Person, this presence, is even in the very bowels of hell: “If I climb to the heavens you are there, if I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there” (Ps 139, 8). 

I’ve always said to my mental health patients that you accompany Christ in his suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, and he accompanies you in yours–while Peter, James, and John sleep. They cannot stay awake, but you stay awake; for your depression keeps you from the peace of restful slumber. That is your gift to him, and it is the deepest sharing in his passion. Moreover, friendships are based on common qualities, and you have something in common with Christ, namely innocent suffering and mental anguish, and this common factor establishes an identity that is an eternal source of joy.

God is so good that he chooses to taste complete alienation even from himself; for God the Son experiences the anguish of the Father’s silence: Jesus receives no response from God to his anguished prayer to let this cup pass him by (Mk 14, 32-42), and there is no answer to his final words on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mk 15, 34). And this very lament was uttered centuries earlier by a victim of injustice:  

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why so far from my call for help, from my cries of anguish? My God, I call by day, but you do not answer; by night, but I have no relief (Ps 22, 2-3).

His words have become Christ’s words, or better yet, they were Christ’s words from the beginning, for God the Son is eternal, embracing all time and place. Like the psalmist, we too keep Christ company when we suffer what he suffered. Nothing but the silence of his presence and ours adequately responds to the mystery of suffering. This alone gives us the strength to trust that our darkness and death are not the final word; the final word will be uttered three days later.   

Thoughts on the Trastevere

I have a picture of the piazza di Santa Maria, which is in the heart of the Trastevere (Rome), on my computer. I am familiar with this piazza, I’ve been there a number of times. In fact, if one were to drop me off anywhere in Rome, I would be able to find my way there. I’ve been inside the Basilica di Santa Maria, in Trastevere, which is one of the most beautiful Churches in Rome. So when I gaze at this picture, I think back to the time I spent there. 

Each time I gaze at the picture, however, I notice a detail or two that I did not notice while there. There is so much about this small area that I was not explicitly aware of. I often gaze at the apartments surrounding the piazza; I was not aware of the number of apartments there are–in fact, I still don’t really know, I haven’t counted–, nor do I know who owns those apartments, whether they are rented out or not. I do not know the apartments from within, I’ve never been inside them, and I don’t know the occupants, what they do, where they came from, I don’t know the two restaurants on the street level, I’ve never eaten there, nor have I worked there, so I don’t know the employees or the owner, what it is like to work there every night, etc., I don’t know what kind of plants are in the pots, nor do I know anything about the architecture of those buildings, how they were designed, nor the kind of drywall used for the interior, I do not know the kinds of materials used on the outside of the apartments, I do not know about the wiring (the quality of wire used, nor how the building was and is now wired, whether or not it has changed, etc.), nor do I know anything about the plumbing (the kind of metal pipe used, the plans for the plumbing), etc. I have been inside the Church, but there is so much to know about the interior, such as the ceiling and when it was built, the art, who produced it and when, the floor of the Church, who designed it and when and under what circumstances; I do not know about the geological features below the ground on that small piazza. In short, there is so much about the history of that piazza that I am unaware of and will always be unaware of; there is a veritable cognitive inexhaustibility about that little place that I am, nevertheless, familiar with. I could spend more time there and if I did so, my understanding of it would gradually increase, especially if I had access to a historian, a geologist, an architect, and a carpenter perhaps. After a time, I would very likely not look at that piazza the same way again, just as we do not look at anything we come to know more fully the same way as we did initially. 

The world is like that; science is like that. In the 1950s, we had no idea that there was so much more to the cell than what we thought at the time, i.e., a membrane, a nucleus, protoplasm, etc. We now appreciate that the complexity of a cell far exceeds that of a computer. How much more is there to the physics of a simple water molecule than what most of us currently know about water? How much more is this true of human nature? Consider what cognitive psychology has discovered about the epistemic conditions that are behind the day to day judgments we make, almost entirely unaware of the influences that have shaped those judgments? I know what I know, but I tend not to be aware of how much I do not know and how much more there is to know about the very things I know. I can make myself aware of it to some degree as I have done here, but the details will always escape me, for if I understood the extent and the details, I would not be ignorant of them. I can only know my ignorance generally. 

The same is true of people. How much about these students before me do I not know? How much more is there to know about them? 

Now all these new pieces of information that are gradually acquired as my experience is enlarged are data, as it were, that become part of the limited set of data we already have, on the basis of which we draw our conclusions about the real. I come to a conclusion about the student in front of me (or any person, for that matter) or the city I’ve been to twice, etc., on the basis of the evidence I have up to this point, that is, the data, the theses that constitute the set I now possess. I draw a conclusion about this person, or about Italy, the Trastevere, the food, etc., on the basis of the data I have acquired. New data might corroborate a judgment, it might enrich it, but new data may also render my current set of data internally inconsistent, which in turn affects the plausibility of the data I have. In other words, some theses will have to be dropped, for their plausibility has been drastically reduced. I have to adjust, that is, accommodate the new data, throw out certain theses, etc. For example, I may learn that this student before me is actually abusive to her parent, or I may become aware that he has autism spectrum disorder, etc. Or, thinking back to the piazza di Santa Maria, I may say to myself: I’d love to live here in one of these apartments. But with further data, I may change my mind. I look at those apartments now and certain feelings of nostalgia arise, but after years of acquiring new data (perhaps as a result of living there), that may change. I may become completely indifferent to this place; I may never want to see it again. Sometimes ignorance is bliss; for if I am ignorant, I can imagine anything I want about this place, i.e., a life that is exhilarating, but in the end the product of my imagination is unreal. 

Think of growing up in a white, American, Catholic/Protestant world. The Sikh, the Hindu, the Muslim, etc., all come across as foreign. I don’t know what they believe, how they think, but they do dress differently, their symbols are different, they don’t eat the same kinds of foods. Initially at least, they appear as strange; they are an enigma. The usual course of action is to react defensively: I remind myself what it is we believe, that we see the world as it really is, that our way is right, it is the norm, and they are not part of that norm; I tend to think they should assimilate to our way of life, or way of dress and way of thinking, eating, etc. The unknown can give rise to fear. But as we come to know them, as we begin to live with them day in and day out, we begin to understand one another. Fear begins to subside, and they are not so foreign anymore; we realize that they are in many ways just like us. And they too looked at us as foreign, and they have or had the same defensive reaction. The world as they see it makes sense to them, it is right not just to them, but absolutely, and in their minds perhaps, we are the ones who have to assimilate. In other words, they can be just as dogmatic as we are. But this new encounter enriches us both with new information, and so it can enlarge our cognitive frame of mind. It is a real personal encounter that provides this new data, which may corroborate or render inconsistent the set of data we already possess and through which we see and interpret the real. 

This epistemic process involved in plausible reasoning takes place within the realm of theological science as well–how could it not? There is so much about my Sikh brother that I don’t know about, and there is so much about me he does not know about, and as Socrates pointed out, there is so much about me that I don’t know about, and as the Old Testament makes clear there is so much about God that I don’t know about; as a Christian, there is so much about Christ that I don’t know about. Indeed, I can say with St. Paul that Christ lives in me and I live in him, but how much more is there to know about him? The knowledge I refer to here is connaitre, the French verb for connatural knowledge, the kind we possess for those close to us. The more I love someone, the more I enter into a kind of union with that person, and the result is the more I know him. Do I really believe my love for Christ is adequate? And so isn’t the same epistemic process at work in my knowledge of Christ? Isn’t the same process at work in a Muslim’s knowledge of Allah or a Jew’s knowledge of G_d? And, could further data upset the applecart of my own set of data, my own limited cognitive framework? Of course it can and it will, in due time. My conclusions are tentative because they are not strictly deductive; they are a matter of coherence. They are maximally plausible on the basis of the theses I have at my disposal. But the plausibility of these theses may change with further data. We see this type of growth and development–sometimes revolutionary–throughout the history of the Church. If the 10th or 14th century Church were to look into a crystal ball and see the Church in the 21st century, with its expanded understanding of human rights, the right to freedom of speech, our post-Vatican II ecumenism or pastoral approach to human beings, our understanding of the separation of Church and state, perhaps the way people dress, etc., would she be scandalized?

There are none so blind

Reflection for the 4th Sunday of Lent

@Where Peter Is

Deacon Douglas McManaman

Many years ago people would often ask me whether I thought this person or that person in the seminary was going to make a good priest, and I would readily offer my opinion. I’ve since refused to answer such questions only because I’ve been wrong far too often. This person, who I thought would make a great priest, turned out not to be, and that person who I thought would not last very long turned out to be a fine and committed priest. The fact of the matter is we simply don’t have all the information required to make a secure and accurate judgment, whether we are talking about the quality of future priests or just people in general. We are always information deficient, but we tend not to realize it. We are inclined to believe that “what you see is all there is” (availability heuristic), which is a very pervasive cognitive bias.

I used to teach the Theory of Knowledge to International Baccalaureate students, and when teaching young adults, one has to provide lots of examples, so I began to pay attention to the mistaken inferences that I would make on a daily basis and would use these as examples to illustrate the precarious nature of inductive inference. It is remarkable how many mistaken inferences we typically make every single day, but without realizing it, and that is another common bias of ours–we tend to quickly forget the times we were wrong, but the instances when we were right stand out in our memory like neon lights. Take a simple matter like forming a judgment on why a student has been late to class five days in a row: “Well, because he doesn’t really care about his education”, or “He doesn’t like my class, he’s bored”, etc., and then a short time later we discover that his mother is dying of cancer and he has to take his younger sister to school every morning, so he just can’t manage to get to school on time, let alone concentrate. These things happen all the time with us. 

The first reading is a good illustration of this. David is regarded as having the lowest social standing in his family; his father and brothers thought he was the least likely to be chosen king, so they left him in the fields to do the menial work of a shepherd; he was not even included in the lineup for the prophet Samuel. Of course, this is the person whom God chose to be king of Israel. The Lord said to Samuel with regard to Eliab: “Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance but the Lord looks into the heart.”

One serious problem with human beings is that we don’t like the feeling of not knowing; we insist on the feeling of possessing certain knowledge, which inclines us to settle upon unwarranted conclusions, only to vigorously defend them even when evidence is eventually brought forth that strongly suggests our judgment is mistaken. And so, it is very important to cultivate a healthy skepticism in the face of our own truth claims and remain ready to alter them if evidence demands it. Openness or open-mindedness (docility) is a very important virtue, one not easy to cultivate, especially for religious people, ironically enough.

Consider the judgment that the disciples pronounced on the man born blind, in today’s gospel reading: “As Jesus passed by he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’” This is a good example of the need to have an answer to a difficult question. Suffering is a great mystery, but it makes things so much easier if we can convince ourselves that this person is suffering misfortune because of his sins or the sins of his ancestors. Suddenly I don’t feel guilty for not making the effort to help this person, after all, his condition is a kind of punishment from God. This is a primitive mode of thinking that has not entirely disappeared. I remember quite clearly a number of people who insisted that the Covid 19 pandemic was a divine chastisement on the world for its sins. But how would one know this? How do we distinguish between the daily misfortunes that befall us personally and those that affect others or the world at large? Is a flat tire a punishment from God? Is a death in the family a punishment from God? Thankfully, Jesus corrected the disciples: “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.”

There’s an old proverb: “There are none so blind as those who will not see”. So much of our mistaken beliefs are rooted in a desire for them to be true, and so we attribute great weight to evidence that confirms them. We see this in the conversation between the man born blind and the Pharisees. They asked him how he was able to see. He told them. They asked him what he thought of the man who opened his eyes. “He is a prophet”, was his reply. 

But they didn’t quite like what they were hearing. In fact, they began to doubt that was born blind, so they called his parents in and asked them. They, however, were astute and knew that if they said something the Pharisees did not want to hear, they would be made to pay in some way. They acknowledged that this was their son and that he was born blind, but to the question: “How does he now see?” they said: “Ask him, he can speak for himself”.  So, the Pharisees called him back again and said: “We know that this man (Jesus) is a sinner.” The man replied: “If he is a sinner, I do not know”. He readily acknowledges his ignorance, but not the Pharisees; in their own eyes, they know. The man continued: “All I know is that I was blind and now I see”. So they asked him again: “How did he open your eyes?” At this point, it is becoming comical. The man said: “I told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?”

The man born blind has a sense of humor, and what he says to the Pharisees at this point is rather brilliant: “This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him. It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything” (Jn 9, 30-33).

Of course, this is not what the Pharisees wanted to hear, so before throwing him out they managed to assure him of his place: “You were born totally in sin, and are you trying to teach us?” Note the irony. Who is really blind here? Those who will not see. 

St. Paul says that God chooses the weak of this world to shame the strong. To the Corinthians he writes:

Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God (1 Cor 1, 26-29).

And of course, the prime example of this is our Blessed Mother, who was nothing in her own eyes: “The Lord has looked upon the nothingness (tapeinōsis) of his handmaiden” (Lk 1, 48). That is why Mary was able to listen to Simeon and the prophet Anna at the Presentation in the temple. She was impressed by what they were saying to her; she could listen to them, because she was not elevated in her own eyes. 

It’s a very dangerous place to be in to see ourselves as something. Like water, God seeks the lowest place–that’s why basements flood, not the upper levels. God is always found in the lowest places. And Mary has the highest place, she is the Queen of Angels, only because she held the lowest place in her own eyes.