After completing undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 1974, Fr. Koliński did postgraduate study at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, where he received an MA in Slavic ethnography. Many years later, perceiving a call to the religious life and the priesthood, Fr. Koliński became one of the founding members of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius, a new religious community of men that was founded at St. John Cantius Parish in Chicago in 1998. He received his MDiv degree following the completion of his seminary studies at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut and was ordained to the priesthood in 2004. After serving as an associate pastor at St. John Cantius Parish in Chicago, Fr. Koliński was appointed in 2007 as pastor of his community’s second parish, St. Peter’s in Volo, Illinois. Since 2010, he has been assigned to Holy Apostles Seminary and College as formator and academic advisor for the seminarians of the Canons Regular of St John Cantius. He is also a member of the seminary faculty and helps in seminary formation

Note from Dr. Chervin: 
The word “spirituality” means different things to different people. In the Catholic tradition we associate the word primarily with the witness and writings of great saints or other influential accounts of ardent Christians in their lives and words. Others may think of spirituality primarily as a personal quest for holiness.  Although John Paul II was considered holy even by those outside the Catholic faith, not often has his life and thought been studied as a type of spirituality.  At Holy Apostles, Fr. Dennis Koliński is admired mostly for his courses on liturgy, but he is also a fine confessor and spiritual director. I think you will find his article interesting and helpful.

When we think of the great Catholic minds of the twentieth century, we can’t help but think of Saint John Paul II, already called by some the “the Great.” His pontificate was not only one of the longest in the history of the Church but also one of the most fruitful. A natural teacher, who was called to guide Christ’s Church at a critical time in her history, he left us with an enormous body of works: official papal documents, papal audiences and public addresses, teachings, academic works, personal writings and literary works. We have only just begun to assess their extent and the impact that they will have for generations to come.

At his death, the people who had gathered in St. Peter’s Square, already sensing “the odor of sanctity,” spontaneously began to call out Santo Subito! For, not only was he a great intellect, perhaps one of the greatest of modern times, he was a charismatic figure, who knew how to connect with the crowds, especially youth. He was a person, who exuded holiness and whose life was so thoroughly immersed in Christ that people knew he lived in a unique, intimate relationship with him.

He was born Karol Józef Wojtyła to Karol and Emilia (Kaczorowska) Wojtyła on May 18, 1920, in Wadowice, a small city in the foothills of southern Poland. For centuries it had been a regional center of crafts and trade, and by the end of the nineteenth century, it had a very active academic and cultural life. Until the Second World War, Wadowice also boasted a large well-integrated Jewish population.

The Wojtyłas were devout Catholics, and from the beginning, they instilled a love of the faith in their children. They lived in a second-story flat next to the city’s main parish, Church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Growing up in such close proximity to it helped cultivate Karol’s spiritual life from an early age. Every day he could see it from the windows of his home and hear the sounds of liturgies and devotions taking place within it. At an early age, he became an altar server and the church was like a second home to him.

However, when he was only nine years old, the tranquility of Karol’s childhood was suddenly shattered with the death of his mother. Instead of remarrying, his father, a retired officer from the Austro-Hungarian army, chose to raise Karol and his brother Edmund alone. He was to be a great influence on the formation of young Karol’s early spiritual life. According to Jerzy Klunger, Karol’s lifelong Jewish friend from Wadowice, the Captain’s outstanding characteristic “was that he was a ‘just man.’ And he believed he had a responsibility to transmit that commitment to living justly to his son.” During those formative early years, the elder Wojtyła had an enormous influence on Karol’s own spiritual development. He would remember his father as a man of constant prayer, whom he would often see praying silently on his knees late at night. His father’s example was for him, in a way, his “first seminary, a kind of domestic seminary.”

In 1932, only three years after the death of his mother, tragedy struck the family again. Karol’s elder brother Edmund unexpectedly died. The young Karol was now left  with only his father.

Wadowice was a regional center of literary life and theater, which began to interest Karol in his high school years. Mieczysław Kotlarczyk, one of the city’s theatrical directors, had a deep influence on Karol in “the relationship of the proclaimed word to the dynamics of history.” A devout Catholic, Kotlarczyk believed that drama was a means of “transmitting the Word of God,” and that the actor, by opening up the realm of transcendent truth, “had a function not unlike a priest.” One can already see in this the beginning of the development of a certain aspect of Blessed John Paul’s spirituality by means of which he began to realize the power of the word to transform history. As pope, he would write that the Word is the primary dimension of the spiritual life and that the word, even in a literary or linguistic sense, comes close to the Mystery of the Word.

After Karol completed high school in 1938, his father decided that the two of them would move to Kraków where Karol would begin university studies in Polish philology at the Jagiellonian University. It was a much larger city and center of culture where he was able to immerse himself in the theater and literary pursuits that so captivated him.

However, life would radically change very soon. On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland and soon occupied the entire country. The entire country essentially became a large war camp, in which everyone and everything was strictly controlled. There were shortages of everything. Poles lived in a state of constant want of even the most basic items. People were routinely arrested, shipped off to concentration camps and shot—priests, religious, professors, workers, students, Catholics and Jews. It was a life of continual uncertainty: whether one would sleep in one’s own bed that night, whether one would have enough to eat, whether one would be alive the next day.

During the Occupation, the Nazis required all able-bodied men to have some type of employment or be shipped out to labor camps. So, when they closed down the university, Karol had to find himself a job. He began work at the Zakrzówek quarry on the south side of Kraków, and then, after a year there, was transferred to the nearby Solvay chemical plant in Borek Fałęcki where he worked for another three years. Up until this time, Karol Wojtyła had lived in the world of academia and the literary arts. But being forced to work with his hands was actually providential because it introduced him, for the first time in his life, to the world of manual labor and common laborers.

During the war, the Wojtyłas belonged to St. Stanisław Kostka Parish in the Dębniki district of Kraków, which was staffed by the Salesian Fathers. He would later recall that the Salesian environment of the parish played an important role in his own spiritual formation.

As the Gestapo systematically took priests of the parish off to concentration camps, the few, who remained turned to laymen to lead clandestine ministries within the parish. One of these men was Jan Tyranowski, a mystic who would have a decisive influence on Karol’s spiritual life. When Tyranowski created a “Living Rosary” for young men in the parish, he asked Karol Wojtyła to be one of its group leaders.

Tyranowski taught his group leaders both the fundamentals of the spiritual life and methods for systematically examining and improving their daily lives. … Members of the Living Rosary pledged themselves to a life of intensified prayer as brothers in Christ who would help one another in all the circumstances of their lives. … The Living Rosary groups also discussed how Poland might be reconstituted as a Christian society after the war.

Although a very unassuming, self-taught man, Tyranowski was one of the greatest influences on the spiritual life of the young Wojtyła. Karol learned from Tyranowski how to develop his inner spiritual life, opening the path to a more intense prayer life lived in the constant presence of God so that his whole life would be transformed.

Perhaps, the greatest impact that Jan Tyranowski had on the spiritual life of the future pope, however, was when he introduced him to St. John of the Cross, sensing that the saint’s spiritual poetry would appeal to the young student’s love of literature. This, in turn, opened for Karol the door to Carmelite spirituality, which would have a profound spiritual influence on the rest of his life. It was a spiritual perspective that taught him “the imitation of Christ through the complete handing over of every worldly security to the merciful will of God,” [which] “would become the defining characteristic of his own discipleship.” And although it was Jan Tyranowski, who initially introduced Karol to the works of St. John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila, this was not the only Carmelite influence in his life; for during those formative years, occasional visits to the Discalced Carmelite Monastery in Kraków would further imprint Carmelite spirituality on his spiritual life. Karol Wojtyła strongly felt that he was destined to be an actor—but that was not to be. His father’s death on February 18, 1941, was to be the decisive moment that changed the course of his life. The loss of his father, the last living member of his family, began a process of detachment in his life. Orphaned before he was twenty-one years old, amidst the harsh reality of war and an increasingly intense spiritual life, Karol gradually came to the realization that he was called to an even greater destiny: to the priesthood. Later in life, he would describe those years as “an evolutionary process of gradual clarification or ‘interior illumination.’” At first, he wanted to enter the Carmelites, but Cardinal Adam Sapieha, the Archbishop of Kraków, convinced him that a man with talents such as his belonged not in a monastery but among the people as a diocesan priest.

Karol Wojtyła made the definitive decision to enter the seminary in the fall of 1942. Because the Nazis had closed the archdiocesan seminary, Karol began his theological studies in secret while continuing to work in the Solvay chemical plant. Then, in the light of the increasing repression by the occupying Nazi regime, Cardinal Sapieha eventually moved the seminarians to his private residence where he set up an underground seminary.

On November 1, 1946, Cardinal Sapieha ordained Karol Wojtyła to the priesthood in his private chapel. The following day, the young Fr. Wojtyła set off for Wawel Hill where he offered his first three Masses on All Saints’ Day in the St. Leonard Crypt of the Cathedral. 

November 1 was a very unusual day for an ordination but the Cardinal had chosen it because he wanted to immediately send Fr. Wojtyła to Rome to begin graduate studies. There, he completed his doctorate in theology in just under two years and then returned to Poland.

His first assignment was as a curate in the Parish of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in Niegowić, a small village southeast of Kraków. Only eight months later, the Cardinal transferred him to St. Florian’s Parish in Kraków to work as a chaplain to students of the Jagiellonian University. He was well suited to the job and had great success. But seeing Fr. Wojtyła’s talents, Cardinal Sapieha had other plans for him. Despite Wojtyła’s protests, the Cardinal released him from his duties at St. Florian’s in September of 1951 and gave him a two-year academic sabbatical to complete his habilitation thesis. After this, he began lecturing at the Jagiellonian University and the Catholic University of Lublin.

On July 4, 1958, at the age of only thirty-eight, Pope Pius XII named Fr. Wojtyła auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Kraków. As the motto on his coat-of-arms he chose the now well-known Totus Tuus, an abbreviated form of St. Louis de Montfort’s consecration to Mary: Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea Tua sunt. Accipio Te in mea omnia. Praebe mihi cor Tuum, Maria.


When Archbishop Baziak of Kraków died in June 1962, the young Bishop Wojtyła was then appointed temporary administrator of the archdiocese. Not long after this, he left for the opening of the Second Vatican Council where he played a key role in some of the Council’s discussions. On January 13, 1964, Pope Paul VI named him Archbishop of Kraków and then, three years later, raised him to the cardinalate.

Perhaps one of the clearest examples of how the history and culture of this Slavic nation helped define his spirituality is the choice he made for the site of his first Masses the day after his ordination to the priesthood. November 2 is known in Poland as Dzień Zaduszny, a day when Poles visit the graves of their ancestors, decorating them with vigil lights and mounds of flowers. After dark, the cemeteries, lit with the light of thousands of flickering flames, are filled with crowds of people paying their respects to deceased family members and friends. By choosing to offer his first Masses on that day in the Crypt of St. Leonard in Wawel Cathedral, the historic coronation cathedral and necropolis of Polish kings, the newly ordained Fr. Wojtyła had consciously chosen to express his spiritual bond with all of those who lay at rest in that cathedral, showing thereby, his living bond with the history of his nation.

He also saw it as a profound theological moment, for those lying in the sarcophagi of Wawel Cathedral, were members of the Communion of Saints awaiting the resurrection from the dead. Among them were not only kings and queens, bishops and cardinals, but also the great bards of Poland, “great masters of the word, who possessed such enormous significance for [his] Christian and patriotic formation.”

Many of Poland’s monarchs were devout Catholics. As a defender of the faith one of Poland’s greatest accomplishments was the defeat of the Ottoman Turks under the command of King Jan Sobieski III at the Battle of Vienna. Leaving Warsaw to command the troops of Europe, he first visited major Polish shrines along the way to request heaven’s aid in a crucial mission that would either save Christian Europe or lose it to the Muslims. Upon achieving victory, he proclaimed, in a twist on Julius Caesar’s famous statement: “Veni, Vidi, Deus vicit.” But that was probably the last of Poland’s glory days because the country was already in a political, economic and military decline. 

As the Polish nobility began limiting the powers of the monarchy more and more, Poland’s three powerful neighbors, Russia, Prussia, and Austria began to grow in greed. In 1772, they signed a treaty by means of which they each took possession of a segment of Poland adjoining their country. In an attempt to reform and strengthen the government, the Polish Sejm (i.e., parliament) adopted the first democratic constitution in Europe on May 3, 1791. But by then it was already too late. In 1793, Russia and Prussia confiscated further Polish territories, and in 1795, the three powers adopted a joint agreement by which they divided up the remainder of what was left of Poland between them. Poland ceased to exist as a political state and entered into a long tragic era of its history called The Partitions. It would only be the beginning of two centuries of foreign occupation and suppression.

But Poland continued to exist in the minds and hearts of Poles, despite the fact that they were now divided between three different countries. In spite of efforts to de-Polonize them, Poles managed to maintain their national identity by keeping their culture alive. During this time, “the family became the mainstay of Polishness, which was clearly identified with Catholicism,” which in turn, became such an important part of that identity and so intertwined with Polish culture that before long, to be Polish meant to be Catholic. 

Battle of Vienna, 1683

The long dark night of The Partitions ended in 1918 when the Treaty of Versailles, ending World War I, reinstated the Polish state. Independence, however, was not to last long. Only twenty-one years later, on September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded and Poland once more became an occupied country. World War II inflicted severe losses on Poland, both in lives lost and in physical damage to the country. The Nazis not only wanted to exterminate the Jews but also wanted to eliminate the Polish nation. Six million Poles, one sixth of the country’s population, lost their lives, Christians and Jews alike. 

The end of the war seemed to bring hope to many Poles, but even though they had fought on the side of the Allies, the Yalta Agreement turned their country over to the Soviets. A communist government was imposed on them and Poland once more became an occupied country, forced into servitude, this time by its old enemy to the east. Occasional uprisings in the 1960s and 1970s were suppressed until, in 1980, a strike in the Lenin Shipyard of Gdańsk led to the formation of Solidarność, the first independent trade union in the Soviet Block. It was a movement, which spread throughout the Eastern Block, eventually toppling the Soviet Empire. A decade later, Poland became an independent, free country once again.

This was the nation into which Saint John Paul II was born, a nation whose history and culture formed a distinctive Polish mentality and Catholic spirituality. The city, which he called home for forty years and which his heart never really left, was an integral element of that Polish history and culture, which would shape his personal spirituality.

Kraków was the former seat of the Polish monarchy. It grew up on the bank of the Vistula River at the base of Wawel Hill where Polish kings built their royal castle and cathedral. So important was Wawel in the minds of Poles that, even after the capital was moved to Warsaw in the seventeenth century, Wawel Cathedral remained the site of royal coronations and the final resting place of Polish kings. In his autobiographical work, Dar i Tajemnica, Saint John Paul recalled what a great experience it was to attend the Sacred Triduum in Wawel Cathedral once during his high school years, at the invitation of Fr. Kazimierz Figlewicz, one of the parish priests in Wadowice. So important was the royal-sacral complex on Wawel Hill in the historical consciousness of Poles, that in the nineteenth century it was often referred to as the Polish Acropolis or Polish Zion. When Karol Wojtyła came to occupy the episcopal seat of the archbishops of Kraków, he had a deep realization that he himself had then become a part of that sacred site.

Kraków had always been a great center of culture in Poland. It was the place where Karol Wojtyła’s own cultural talents and sensitivities matured. It was there that he learned that culture had always played a vital role in the faith, fully conscious that it had also played an important role in the shaping of his own spirituality.

Because of its numerous churches, monasteries, shrines, and miraculous images, Kraków was often called the “Rome of the North.” Since the tenth century it was already a prominent center of Christian pilgrimage. But the fifteenth century, in particular, was a unique and blessed period in the city’s spiritual history. Known as Felix saeculum Cracoviae—“the happy century of Kraków”—it was a period when a number of mystics, later canonized or beatified, lived there. Some of them played an influential role in the spirituality of Saint  John Paul II.

From among the saints of Kraków’s Felix saeculum, the one to whom Saint John Paul had the greatest devotion was St. John Cantius, patron of the Jagiellonian University, as well as of Kraków itself. Two characteristics of the Saint’s life stand out as something that particularly influenced Saint John Paul: cultivation of the intellect within the context of a life of holiness and an intense love for youth, especially students.

Born in 1390, St. John of Kęty (as he is also known) studied at the Jagiellonian University and then later spent the rest of his life there as a professor of philosophy and theology. Saint John Paul, therefore, saw in the saint a model of what he himself was: a philosopher and a theologian. Throughout his many years in Krakow, he visited the saint’s tomb in the beautiful Church of St. Anne many times and there drew much inspiration from his own patron saint of learning. It was no surprise, therefore, that during his 1997 pilgrimage to Poland, he made a point of visiting the tomb of St. John Cantius, where during a special gathering with professors of the Jagiellonian University, he alluded to the saint, saying: “Knowledge and wisdom seek a covenant with holiness.” It was in St. John of Kęty, that Saint John Paul saw clearly that Christian faith and the pursuit of human knowledge were not mutually exclusive, as many think today. It was the same thought that produced his famous encyclical, Fides et Ratio.
That same perspective revealed itself especially in Saint John Paul’s love for young people and students that he shared with the Saint from Kęty, who once wrote: 
What kind of work can be more noble than to cultivate the minds of young people, guarding it carefully, so that the knowledge and love of God and His holy precepts go hand-in-hand with learning? To form young Christians and citizens—isn’t this the most beautiful and noble-minded way to make use of life, of all one’s talents and energy.

Saint John Paul II had a particularly great devotion to his early predecessor as archbishop of Kraków, the great St. Stanisław Szczepanowski, bishop and martyr. In fact, upon accepting the papacy, his first inclination was to choose the name Stanisław.

St. Stanislaw was the Thomas Beckett of Poland, suffering martyrdom in 1079 at the hand of King Bolesław Śmiały, an evil and psychologically tormented man, who wanted to restrict the Church’s authority. But because Stanislaw would not cede to the king’s demands, he murdered the bishop as he offered Mass. That’s why, in the face of an evil communist government that wanted to limit the authority of the Church in Poland, Archbishop Wojtyła very much saw himself as a modern-day Stanislaw fighting for the rights of the Church.

Another of Kraków’s fifteenth century saints, who influenced Saint John Paul’s spiritual life, was St. Jadwiga, Queen of Poland. She was one of those buried in Wawel Cathedral, in whose presence he so desired to be on that November 2 in 1946, as he celebrated his first Masses. She often spent time deep in prayer in front of what is known as the Black Crucifix in Wawel Cathedral. Tradition has it that once while praying in front of the Black Crucifix she heard Christ say: “Fac quod vides.”

The young Karol Wojtyła had served Mass for his confessor and spiritual director, Fr. Kazimierz Figlewicz at the altar in front of the Black Crucifix. He spent time in prayer before it, just as Queen Jadwiga did. When the cardinals approached him in the Sistine Chapel that fateful day in October 1978, asking whether he would accept their choice of him as Supreme Pontiff, he didn’t want to leave his beloved Kraków, but perhaps he remembered what Christ had told Jadwiga “Fac quod vides.”

Two other modern-day saints also deeply influenced the young Karol Wojtyła’s spiritual life. One, among the many Polish priests who made the ultimate sacrifice of their life during the Second World War, St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe gave him a living model of the priesthood as a life of total sacrifice for others, even to the point of giving one’s life. Of him Blessed John Paul wrote: “at a time when so many priests all over the world are questioning themselves about their ‘identity,’ Fr. Maximilian rises in our midst to answer not with theological discourses, but with his life and with his death, and as a teacher to bear a testimony of the greatest love.”

St. Faustyna Kowalska, who lived and died in the shadow of the Solvay Chemical Plant where Karol Wojtyła worked during the war, helped open up for him, in turn, the riches of God’s infinite mercy, that divine attribute, which a priest must also possess if he is to be “another Christ.” It is no surprise, therefore, that one of his first encyclicals as pope was Dives in Misericordia, which is “the clearest expression of the pastoral soul of John Paul II, and the clearest indication of how that soul was formed by Karol Wojtyła’s experience and understanding of fatherhood.”

However, the saint that was to have the profoundest influence on the spiritual life of Saint John Paul II was Our Blessed Mother. From the very beginnings of Poland as a Catholic nation, she was accorded a special place in Polish spirituality as both Mother and Queen. Intense devotion to her was always a characteristic trait of Polish mysticism, and so it was for John Paul II.

The Poles always refer to her as Matka Boża, “Mother of God,” and she is portrayed in Polish iconography almost exclusively as a Mother, holding the Christ Child on her arm. But the Poles see her not only as the Mother of Christ. She is also very much their own Mother. Even when portrayed as Queen, she was never someone unapproachable because of her lofty status, but rather someone to whom they could always turn in their most intimate needs.

Mary also holds a privileged place in Polish culture as Queen. Already in the fifteenth century Polish historian Jan Długosz called her Regina mundi et nostra. This was formalized in 1656, during the “The Deluge” when the Swedes overran the country and King Jan Kazimierz, in an official royal act, placed his country under Mary’s protection and named her Queen of Poland, an official title which she holds even to the present day.

In Our Lady of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska Saint John Paul saw a mother, who perhaps helped fill the void left by the loss of his own at such an early age. But in Częstochowa she reigned for him as Queen on her throne of Jasna Góra, “The Bright Mountain.” This image, painted, as tradition relates, by St. Luke on the tabletop from the Holy Family’s home in Nazareth has, since its arrival in 1361, played a crucial role in Polish consciousness, which in turn influenced the personal spirituality of our Polish pope. After the attempt on his life in 1981, Saint John Paul presented the bullet removed from his chest to Our Lady in Fatima but he gave the blood and gunpowder stained sash he wore that day to her in Częstochowa.

Whereas Saint John Paul’s Marian devotion is well-known, few people, however, know of his intense devotion to the Passion of Our Lord. As Archbishop of Kraków he would often walk to the Franciscan Church across the street from the Bishop’s Palace to pray the Stations of the Cross. But to fully understand this aspect of his spirituality, we need to return once again to Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, not only a Marian shrine, but foremost a shrine to the Passion and Death of Christ. Often called the “Polish Jerusalem,” it began in 1600, when Mikołaj Zebrzydowski, a devout aristocrat, began building chapels and small churches representing Jerusalem’s Via Crucis on a vast tract of his land that he thought resembled the topography of the Holy City. And ever since then, every year during Holy Week, mystery plays reenacting the Lord’s Passion would move from one station church to another amidst vast crowds of pilgrims, who became a part of the Passion drama.

Eventually, the shrine at Kalwaria Zebrzydowska became a unique complex of forty-two chapels, commemorating both the Lord’s Passion, as well as the life and death of the Blessed  Mother. Not only during Holy Week, but also throughout the year, pilgrims would come there to walk either the four-mile-long Way of the Cross or the stations of the Blessed Virgin Mary. When he was a child, Karol Wojtyła’s father would take him there during Holy Week where he would see the emotional intensity experienced by the thousands of devout pilgrims as they followed “Christ” from station to station, an experience that must have made a strong impact on him as a young boy. And from this, devotion to the Lord’s Passion began to grow.

Throughout his life, he would return to Kalwaria time and time again. In an address that he gave in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska during his pilgrimage to Poland as pope in 1979, he said:

Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: the sanctuary of the Mother of God and its stations. I visited them many times, beginning in the years of my boyhood and youth. I visited them as a priest. I visited the Kalwarian sanctuary particularly often as Archbishop and Cardinal of Kraków … I knew that I had to come here more often, first of all because there were more and more such matters, and secondly because—strangely enough—they usually resolved themselves after my visit to the stations. … The mystery of the Mother's union with her Son and of the Son with his Mother is seen [here]. … Whenever I came here, I always had the realization, that I was plunging into this reservoir of faith, hope, and charity, which were brought to these hills, to this sanctuary, by whole generations of God's People from this region from which I myself originate.

The influence of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska on the formation of Saint John Paul II’s Marian and Passion spirituality cannot be overestimated. In fact, his spirituality cannot be adequately understood without it. Even as bishop of Rome he continually returned there in his heart. Encapsulating the mystery of this sacred shrine so well during a visit there in August of 2002, he said: 

In a mysterious manner, this place tunes the heart and mind for entering into the mystery of that bond, which united the Suffering Savior with his Mother, who shared his suffering. And in the center of that mystery of love, everyone, who comes here finds himself, his life, his own daily rhythm of life, his weakness and at the same time, the strength of faith and hope—that strength, which flows from the conviction, that the Mother will not abandon her child in adversity, but leads it to the Son and embodies his compassion.

It is easy to see then, why the acceptance of suffering as a sharing in the Passion of Christ was also a prominent and pervading element of the spirituality of Saint John Paul II. It was a theme that grew out of his own life experience: the loss of his entire family by the time he was twenty-one, the horrors of World War II and the struggles of living under an oppressive communist government. This would have been enough to make one view life from the perspective of suffering. But for Saint John Paul, the roots of this spirituality of suffering go far deeper, into the very history of the nation with which he identified with such intensity.

“Poles show a clear tendency to highlight sufferings as the key to the nation's philosophy of history. For more than three centuries suffering has been a constant historical determinant of Poland and the price paid for patriotism.” In the seventeenth century, the Swedish “Deluge” swept across Poland, destroying churches, castles, cities and villages. It was something from which Poland was never able to fully recover. Then, at the end of the eighteenth century, when Poland was brutally ripped apart in The Partitions, the loss of political independence intensified the sense that suffering was the lot of the Polish nation.

Although Saint John Paul downplayed the concept of Polish Messianism, the role of suffering in his spiritual life, however, cannot be adequately understood outside of this broader context of Polish history. That’s why, since his childhood, he already saw the spirituality of redemptive suffering as one of the central themes in the Gospels.

By the time he entered the seminary, Karol Wojtyła had encountered a great deal of suffering. He lost his mother when he was only a child, then his brother and finally his father. At his father’s funeral, he remarked: “I never felt so alone.” Life during the Nazi Occupation was characterized by suffering. Shortages of food meant that most Poles lived in a state of constant hunger. The amount of coal allotted was barely enough to keep the chill out of homes and apartments during the bitterly cold winters. Many people, including Karol, had to work long grueling hours in sometimes inhuman conditions. He saw death everywhere in wartime Kraków: professors, priests, religious, laity, young and old arrested at a moment’s notice and then executed. His Jewish friends were rounded up and sent to Nazi death camps. Innocent people were killed by air raids and the lives of many courageous young people, some of them his personal friends, snuffed out as they tried to resist the oppressor through the Polish underground. And there were times when he asked himself: “So many of my friends have perished, and why not me?”

Although Saint John Paul II expected suffering in his life of one kind or another, he kept hearing Christ tell him through the Gospels: “Fear not!” He once wrote:

The Gospel is not a promise of easy success. It does not promise a comfortable life to anyone. It makes demands and, at the same time, it is a great promise—the promise of eternal life for man, who is subject to the law of death, and the promise of victory through faith for man, who is subject to many trials and setbacks.

From St. John of the Cross he learned that “between God and the human being is an obscure faith in which the intellect knows that, in the ‘night of faith,’ it has to give up attempting to know.” And the Carmelite spirituality that helped form his spiritual life told him that the soul searching for God must go through purification. “In the dark night … one abandons every other security and plunges into a kind of radical emptiness … God can only be known in himself when all of our human attempts to ‘reach’ God are abandoned in complete surrender, which is an act of complete love.”

The Polish Messianism that helped form the spiritual life of Karol Wojtyła said that Poland had a special role to play as a defender of Christianity and that this role required that it suffer. Through the intense suffering of his own life, when he lost “every other security and plunge[d] into a kind of radical emptiness,” Karol Wojtyła gradually began to realize during the intense purification of World War II, that perhaps God was calling him to a special mission, that perhaps he had a special role to play in God’s plan—that perhaps, God was calling him to become a priest, another Christ, and to offer up his life in a similar manner for the salvation of men. It may be that he kept telling us throughout the years of his pontificate, “Be not afraid,” because in the crucible of wartime Poland he discovered that if he abandoned himself totally to God, he would have nothing to fear, for he would gain what was most important—God himself. Karol Wojtyła saw his priesthood as both a great mystery and a great gift. It was the mystery of being chosen by God. For, as Christ once said, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit.” (John 15:16)

One could, perhaps say, that by the time of his ordination, the spirituality that would influence the rest of Saint John Paul II’s life had essentially taken shape. There was, however, one other aspect of his spiritual life that would not be yet emerge fully until several years into his priesthood: something we might call his spirituality of the body.

When Fr. Wojtyła was assigned to St. Florian’s Parish in Kraków, he immediately began to work with the young university students, who frequented that parish. He taught them about the faith but as they came to him to discuss the most intimate details of their lives and the struggles they were dealing with, especially in their relationships, he also learned much from them about the relationships between men and women. Little-by-little a spiritual perspective on the relationship of the body to the soul in interpersonal relationships gradually began to emerge in his mind, which many years later crystallized into his teachings on the theology of the body.

Although it perhaps looked as if this was something completely new, something totally different, it really wasn’t. In a sense, it reflected the Carmelite spirituality that had such a large impact on Karol Wojtyła’s own spiritual life. For, he thought, if we are made for God, then we have to abandon ourselves completely to him, body and soul, in an act of complete love. And only in that way will we be able to enter into that total union with him for which we are all destined. This he understood in his own life by the total gift of his body and soul to the priesthood.

The young Fr. Wojtyła also perceived that this same relationship is mirrored in our relationships with each other, especially in the union of man and woman. He told the young students of Kraków, with whom he worked, to surrender themselves to each other in an act of complete self-giving love, body and soul, by which they would come to know and understand what true love is and only then would they discover true happiness.

What he would later formulate in theological terms was born out of a spiritual perspective on the intimate relationship between the body and the soul. His understanding of this relationship wasn’t just a moral code to be followed. It wasn’t just a promise that he made at his ordination. Rather, it was a lived experience in the spiritual life of Karol Wojtyła that could rightly be called a spirituality of the body, a spirituality recognizing that the integrity of the human person includes both the body and the soul.

Saint John Paul II was born into in a unique Catholic culture that was lived intensely by the Poles of his era, a culture that reflected the soul of the nation,  and that would, in turn, form his identity and profoundly influence his spirituality. It was a spirituality rooted deeply in the history of his nation and inspired by saints, whom he encountered along the path of his life. It was thoroughly permeated by a Marian and Passion spirituality, grounded not only in great mystics like St. John of the Cross and St. Louis Grignon de Montfort, but also in the spirituality of his country that he learned from the various spiritual masters that crossed his path. The spirituality of Saint John Paul II was like a rich tapestry woven from many different threads, revealing for us the inner life of a great modern mystic, who has much to teach us about the inner life of the soul.

A deep faith determined not only Saint John Paul’s perspective on the destiny of the world, but also on his own life, in which the principal dimension of his spirituality was “his living bond with Jesus Christ … [for] thanks to this complete union with Christ [he] became like a reflection of him.” He was convinced that everything that took place in his life was the realization of God’s designs.

The twentieth century was an era of overwhelming scientific and technological progress, but also of unprecedented horrors and confusion. As people have tried to make sense of it all, they sought meaning, consolation, and sometimes escape, in various forms of spirituality. Many have sought refuge in vague, esoteric spiritualities that are not grounded in the realities of the human person and the inner workings of the soul. Too few, however, influenced by fads and the promise of some kind of inner gratification, have questioned whether a this or that spiritual path is the best road that can be taken. Too few have asked: are the principles of a given spirituality valid and are they rooted in truth?

In Saint John Paul II we have an example of how the inner spiritual life of one of the most influential Catholics of the twentieth century was formed not on the basis of vague abstract concepts, but on the realities of his life and the solid principles of Catholic spirituality handed down to him by those, who had gone before him. We see how the various elements that shape a person’s life, if lived within an intense spirit of Catholicism, can shape one’s inner spiritual life.

Although this look into Saint John Paul’s personal spirituality opens up for us the spiritual life of only one individual, it nonetheless, shows us the type of qualities that we should like to see in Catholics of the twenty-first century. By letting the life of Saint John Paul II speak for itself, we have an example of what we might call Catholic realism that can help guide us on our own individual spiritual paths and show us some of the equalities that we should hope for in this new era.

For Personal Reflection and Group Sharing


1. What are the primary defining characteristics of Saint John Paul II’s spirituality?

2. What are some of the aspects of Saint John Paul II’s spirituality that have found    expression in his writings as pope?

3. Marian devotion is characteristic of many great saints and, as evidenced in Saint John Paul II, the context in which it was fostered has been an important determining factor of the role which Mary plays in their lives. What is the character of your own Marian devotion and what helped shape it?

4. “Spirituality” is a word used very loosely today and can mean almost anything that one wants. What is a true understanding of “spirituality,” especially in the sense of “Catholic spirituality?”

RESPONSES TO THIS CHAPTER:

Response from Tommie Kim: 

I have personally obtained most of my knowledge of the Christian faith and spirituality of  Saint John Paul II’s spirituality through his writings. I was actually in Rome during the last minutes of Blessed John Paul II through his funeral.  I was deeply impressed with thousands of young people that gathered from all over the world shouting together “sancto subito”.  In 2000, I attended the beatification mass for Jacinta and Francisco. Prior to those days, I was able to attend his lectures and homilies when Pope John Paul II visited Catholic University in Korea. In addition, I have always enjoyed his lectures and homilies through Catholic websites and radios. I count it as one of the greatest blessing to have lived in the same era as Pope John Paul II.  

In order to understand the spirituality of anyone, I agree that it requires an understanding of that person’s historical background as well as the family influences from youth.  The history of Poland and its long years of suffering do help me understand that Poland was a country chosen by God for a purpose.  Had there been no Polish history we may not have had such great saints and Pope of all times.  It was even more amazing to realize the fact that the faith of the Poles deepened and strengthened further with suffering.  Poland is identified as a martyred and crucified nation. And the Poles participated in the suffering as they were chosen by God to take special role as defender of Christian faith. I remember seeing a video of Pope John Paul II on his 7-day journey that changed the world.  The most impressive message was how Poles were able to become strong even at a sight of a cross.  The cross was the source of strength for the Pole.  After the shooting attempt at the Vatican, Pope John Paul II gave a  homily at the Fatima.  He mentioned that in God’s providence, there is no coincidence. God’s grace has protected the Pope on the day of the shooting.  “The Gospel is not a promise of easy success. It does not promise a comfortable life to anyone. It makes demands and at the same time, it is a great promise – the promise of eternal life for man…”

In this chapter concerning ecumenism and interreligious dialogue, I am focusing on Paul VI’s first encyclical, Paths of My Church (Ecclesiam Suam, 1964). He wrote this encyclical prior to the completion of the Vatican Council II documents dealing with these two issues in whole or in part. In it, he explained the true meaning of dialogue and offered a model for understanding it and engaging in it. These explanations can only be described as countercultural. I believe his approach to ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue will resonate with faithful Catholics throughout the coming centuries. 

I will explain the secular understanding of several words concerned with dialogue. Then I will quote Paul VI extensively and examine these quotations to extract the pertinent information about dialogue from them. Lastly, we will compare what the Church teaches about dialogue with popular cultural understandings of it today.

The goal of ecumenism is to promote unity among the world’s Christian denominations.2 By extension, moving outside of Christianity, the goal of interreligious work can be considered  promoting unity among all people. Although there are many processes that can be an aid to moving towards unity—such as combined liturgies, working together to aid the poor, etc.— the most common is dialogue. Note that the distinction between ecumenical and interreligious is an important one as concerns dialogue. Ecumenical is within Christianity (e.g., Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists) while interreligious is between religions (e.g., Christians, Buddhists, Hindus).

Unity with other Christians and with all people regardless of their religion is a lofty goal, and dialogue is an excellent tool to aid in the process of approaching that goal. However, it is not one that is easily engaged in, nor should it be done without a solid foundation in Catholic thought and with extensive practical training. Returning to my research on www.dictionary.com, I found six definitions of dialogue, of which four were pertinent to this chapter: as a noun, a conversation between two or more persons, and an exchange of ideas or opinions on a particular issue, especially a political or religious one, with a view to reaching an amicable agreement or settlement; and as a verb, to carry on a dialogue or to converse, or to discuss areas of disagreement frankly in order to resolve them. Interreligious dialogue can thus be defined as a conversation that involves an exchange of ideas, opinions, and on areas of disagreement conducted frankly to resolve the issue being discussed. 

This is not a bad secular definition of interreligious dialogue except that, from a Catholic perspective, it is inexact and incomplete. At minimum, the people involved in the dialogue must be knowledgeable in the dogma and morals of their religions. The dialogue should not be one of opinion, but in as much as possible, of fact. Further, the goal of unity requires that we start the discussion by making sure each party understands the terms, history, and perspectives of the other party. For instance, in Catholicism, marriage is a sacrament while in many if not most protestant denominations, it is not.

In Catholicism, the preborn are human beings who must not be directly aborted; in many Eastern religions, the belief is that if the preborn is aborted it was not his or her time to be reincarnated, and if born, it was his or her time to be reincarnated. The differences in definitions have serious repercussions for any dialogue. Participants to the dialogue are using the same words or phrases, but with sometimes radically different definitions, and additionally with different perspectives, assumptions, beliefs, and moral standards.

This definition of unity is, to me, dangerous and frightening. Within Catholicism alone there are, for instance, legitimate diversities in liturgy, traditions of spirituality, language, history, and culture. Within Christianity as a whole there are an incredible number of differences in all aspects of what Catholics would define as necessary to be considered Christian, although the range of differences vary by protestant churches.  These particularly include apostolic succession, the use of Tradition and Scripture as the twin sources of revelation, magisterial authority, sacraments, and almost all dogmatic and moral principles. Within the world religions, the other four of “The Big Five”—Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism—vary on issues as basic as what it means to say there is one God and how to serve him, to at least the appearance of many gods, to no belief in God. How can all of Christianity be unified into an undiversified oneness or all the religions of the world (and there are many more than The Big Five) be unified into an all-inclusive sameness? Clearly, this cannot be legitimately done.

When ecumenical and interreligious dialogue are pursued in the wrong way, all philosophies, thoughts, beliefs, morals, and opinions are given equal weight. The unity resulting would be a religion based on the lowest common denominator. What everyone could agree upon would become the new norm (as if a vote on the supernatural, or even the existence of the supernatural, could be taken!) Such a common denominator leads to syncretism, or a combining of components of different religions, and a relativistic approach to the components of all religions, where all are considered equally valid. 
Fortunately, in Paths of My Church, Paul VI writes about a different model.

Paul VI’s Three Principal Policies

Paul VI itemized three principal policies of his pontificate: it is essential for the Church to attain a deeper self-knowledge, an inevitable result of that self-knowledge is renewal, and together these two lead to dialogue with others.

Background Information: Self-Reflection and Reform


He said, 
[W]e are convinced that the Church must look with penetrating eyes within itself, ponder the mystery of its own being, and draw enlightenment and inspiration from a deeper scrutiny of the doctrine of its own origin, nature, mission, and destiny. The doctrine is already known; it has been developed and popularized in the course of this century. But it can never claim to be sufficiently investigated and understood. (#9)

Paul VI is saying that we must always try to know the Church better than we currently do. We should strive to understand the mysteries Christ has revealed about her and what he wants her to be. 

This makes perfect sense. Over the last 2000 years multitudes of people within the Church have prayed, studied, and meditated on the Church and her mysteries, and many have succeeded in deepening our understanding of this divine-human institution. Yet, no matter how many holy people are engaged in this process, nor for how long, we must always put more effort into better understanding the Church. We are finite beings and our founder is infinite. We will never exhaust the depths of understanding of what He gave to the Church and what he made her to be. 
We should also focus on the fact that we do not succeed in presenting the ideal image of what Christ wanted the Church to be. Paul VI said,
A vivid and lively self-awareness on the part of the Church inevitably leads to a comparison between the ideal image of the Church as Christ envisaged it…and the actual image which the Church presents to the world today.  (#10)
He mentioned that although there is always some likeness to the divine ideal, the comparison of the actual and ideal images shows that in many ways it does not reflect what Christ wanted.

Reform

Summarizing Paul VI (#46), reform is needed in the Church to more clearly image the ideal, but that does not mean we are to reform the “essential nature of the Church or its basic and necessary structure.” We do not want to change such things, we want to preserve and restore the features Christ gave the Church. 

[W]e are concerned to restore to the Church that ideal of perfection and beauty that corresponds to its original image, and that is at the same time consistent with its necessary, normal and legitimate growth from its original, embryonic form into its present structure.” (#47)



Nor should we think of reform as a process of adapting to the ways of the world, to “its way of thinking and acting to the customs and temper of the modern secular world,” even though many think this would be the wise course of action. (#48) Additionally, we must fight against the temptations of Naturalism, Relativism, and the attempt to minimize Christianity so it requires no “effort or causes inconvenience.” Paul VI reminded us, “We must be in the world but not of it.” (#49)3

Dialogue

These two principles together, self-awareness and reform, Paul VI argued, lead to the third principle, dialogue. Rather than tell us how to dialogue, he explained the meaning behind dialogue. First is the attitude the Church must adopt when she engages herself with the world at large. (see #58) This issue is clearly a serious one as people in the world and those in the Church do not think or act the same way. He pointed out, we (in the Church) are not entirely separated from, indifferent to, afraid of, nor contemptuous of the world. “When the Church distinguishes itself from humanity, it does so not in order to oppose it, but to come closer to it.” (#63) 

He continued, through self-awareness, the Church will have a clear awareness of a mission received from God, of a message to be spread far and wide. Here lies the source of our evangelical duty, our mandate to teach all nations, and our apostolic endeavor to strive for the eternal salvation of all men…The very nature of the gifts which Christ has given the Church demands that they be extended to others and shared with others. This must be obvious from the words:  “Going, therefore, teach ye all nations,” Christ’s final command to His apostles. The word apostle implies a mission from which there is no escaping. (#64)

We engage in dialogue because we must. It is not a mere conversation, as believed in the secular world, holy conversation. We are obeying a command we have received from God when we engage in dialogue. We are a proselytizing religion, sent on a mission to tell all people the Good News. Our goal in dialogue is to reach unity, but not one in which each party to the conversation holds fast to some ideas and relinquishes others so that an agreement can be reached. Our goal is to engage others to speak truth.

Having explained why we engage in dialogue, Paul VI turned to the true meaning behind the word. He said, 
To this internal drive of charity which seeks expression in the external gift of charity, We will apply the word  “dialogue.”(#64) Because, the Church must enter into dialogue with the world in which it lives. It has something to say, a message to give, a communication to make. (#65)4

Our dialogue is one of love. We love all our neighbors, because everyone is made in the image and likeness of God, coming from him and called to spend eternity with him. There is no love in dialogue when we know this information, but withhold it from others who desperately need it. 
As God took the initiative in starting the dialogue with man, we have to be the ones to pursue dialogue with others.(#72)5(#72) As God’s dialogue sprang from his love, we have to dialogue with love. (#73) As God’s dialogue did not rest on the merits of those addressed or potential results, we should not set limits to dialogue. (#74) So too freedom—Jesus honored the free acceptance or rejection of those he dialogued with, and we must too. We cannot use external coercion (#75); our dialogue must be accessible to all—we must make it as universal as possible (#76); and for it to be successful, it must proceed gradually and we should wait for God to make it effective. Yet we should not postpone what we can do today. (#77)6
Paul VI explained the seriousness of our approach to dialogue:
If, in our desire to respect a man's freedom and dignity, his conversion to the true faith is not the immediate object of our dialogue with him, we nevertheless try to help him and to dispose him for a fuller sharing of ideas and convictions. (#79)
He continued, 
Our dialogue, therefore, presupposes that there exists in us a state of mind which we wish to communicate and to foster in those around us. It is the state of mind which characterizes the man who realizes the seriousness of the apostolic mission and who sees his own salvation as inseparable from the salvation of others. His constant endeavor is to get everyone talking about the message which it has been given to him to communicate. (#80)
Simply stated, our “[d]ialogue, therefore, is a recognized method of the apostolate. It is a way of making spiritual contact.” (#81)7 When we review the secular definitions of the words dialogue and unity, it is readily apparent how bold and countercultural Paul VI was in this area of his magisterium.

ENDNOTES:

1 The fourth definition of ecumenical is historically accurate. It is, “…of or pertaining to a movement (ecumenical movement) especially among Protestant groups since the 1800s, aimed at achieving universal Christian unity and church union through international interdenominational organizations that cooperate on matters of mutual concern.”

2Note that Catholicism is not a denomination, although it is frequently considered as such in the social sciences and in the popular culture. Denomination is now used to include other religions.

3Paul VI later said,  “But let Us repeat once again for our common admonition and profit: the Church will rediscover its youthful vitality not so much by changing its external legislation, as by submitting to the obedience of Christ and observing the laws which the Church lays upon itself with the intention of following in Christ's footsteps. Herein lies the secret of the Church’s renewal, its metanoia, to use the Greek term, its practice of perfection.” (#51)

4Paul VI said,  “Was not the Council itself given a pastoral orientation, and does it not rightly strive to inject the Christian message into the stream of modern thought, and into the language, culture, customs, and sensibilities of man as he lives in the spiritual turmoil of this modern world? Before we can convert the world-as the very condition of converting the world-we must approach it and speak to it.” (#69)

5See #70.

6I urge you to read the section of this encyclical entitled “Dialogue as a Method.” (#78-95)

7Paul VI suggests a model of concentric circles as a way to engage in dialogue. See #96-115.


For Personal Reflection and Group Sharing

• Can you explain the difference between ecumenism and interreligious dialogue? Give examples of each and try to think of an important topic the participants would discuss.

• Differentiate between the Catholic understanding of dialogue and that of the secular world.

• Differentiate between the Catholic understanding of unity and that of the secular world.

• What are the three principles that Paul VI mentioned in his encyclical? How do the first two impact the third?

• How should our dialogue be modeled on God’s dialogue with us?


RESPONSES TO THIS CHAPTER:

Response of Kathleen Brouillette:

As a young Catholic convert, wife, and mother in my late twenties, I became an advisor with the Youth Group in my parish.  The Pastoral Associate decided that it should be more than a social club.  With that in mind, he decided that we should offer religious instruction to our young people who were now confirmed, and that those who attended our classes would get the first tickets and seats for our outings.

This was before all the safe environment requirements, so we were able to teach classes in our homes.  There were a variety of courses being offered, one of which was a Comparative Religion course, which I taught.  We visited a synagogue, an Episcopal church, an Orthodox Church.  But I came to believe, even then, that our children did not know enough about their own religion to go comparing it to others.  When the Episcopal pastor said to our students, “your Church may have more truth than ours…” I wondered how he could think or say that and not be Catholic. But I decided that what he said was absolutely right and that I needed to teach that truth. From then on, my class was called, “Did You Know…” and I taught as much about the dogma, doctrines, and devotions of our Church as I could.

The chapter on metaphysics this semester reminded me about my HACS Logic course and how critical it is for us to mean the same things when we say the same words.  Dr. Toolin’s chapter emphasizes the importance of knowing what we mean when we dialogue with each other.  Especially significant in that would be: knowing what we mean within the same religion, before we go talking to others.  That’s such a huge issue in our faith.  Our people don’t know what we mean.  If we can’t dialogue within our own Church, how can we dialogue with others?

If we truly love one another, as Christ has loved us, we must tell the truth, whether convenient or inconvenient.  Yes, with love.  Love must motivate us to draw every soul to this message of hope in a hopeless world. As Paul VI says, Jesus gave us “a message to be spread far and wide.”  Dr. Toolin points out, “There is no love in dialogue when we know this information, but withhold it from others who desperately need it.” To that I would add, especially within our own Church. 

Response from David Tate:

… Many times interreligious dialogue gravitates to hot topics like trying to win the debate over a religious point of doctrine, and having the opponent ascent to the correct ideal. There is no need for dialogue to only be at that level. There are many baser needs that are common to all peoples, and this can easily be discussed without heated debate. Some examples of these needs include: food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and the care of children… 

There is an initial premise that makes Catholic dialogue different from secular dialogue. The main difference is a theological difference for Catholics; and an anthropological difference for secular thinking. For the Catholic, God has revealed himself through the true Catholic Church, and sharing those truths with others is no different than trying to give information to someone who does not speak your language. You are trying your best to explain across a barrier of language what the truth is. When one follows the anthropological difference, there is the premise that all religions everywhere are a part of cultural development. In this perspective, all religions, and all cultures, have equal access to the truth. There is no hierarchical difference to be found.

Even though it was expressed that religious unity “is a lofty goal”, it makes life easier to see what kind of unity one is working for. In my own mind, I see ‘unity’ as having three different scenarios: unity in receiving, unity in giving, and unity in living (existence). Very different groups can be unified in a common task depending on the situation. 

A large mammal can be hunted down and killed for food. There are many different animals that consume the different parts of the animal. So, everyone works together to receive the animal as food. Next, in regards to giving, a field might need to be planted. Many people give of their specific abilities (i.e. some break the ground, some clear the weeds, some plant, some water, some guard the plants from predators, others help bring in the harvest. Everyone gives for the common task of seeing a field planted, so that crops can one day be harvested. Finally, and this is the most difficult to attain. 

Unity for the purpose of daily living involves a much deeper relationship. There are many types of relationships. Each type helps afford a unity between different individuals. Relationships can be mutualistic or parasitic, just to give some examples. Catholic unity seeks to see all peoples find their place under the umbrella of the authority of God. Secular unity involves the idea that all may be united by some factor like geography or access to basic needs (i.e. water), but maintaining the old premise, “unity – not uniformity”. In the fullest sense of secular unity, there should be nothing that is imposed upon another.

…The whole pathway of the topic of ecumenism is littered with questions regarding where God’s grace is, and where it is not. When we look around in our daily life, we must have in our mind, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Pt 3:9); and “"I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” (Ez 33:11) God’s habitual grace and his actual grace are not things that we control. So, it is only just that we should look at each human person as one who has been given the possibility for becoming a redeemed soul, who will “become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.” (CCC, 1) Dr. Toolin makes this premise with perfect clarity with her statement, “We are a proselytizing religion, sent on a mission to tell all people the Good News.”

I left the Catholic Church for a time. I drifted into various evangelical protestant churches, and eventually I drifted away from all churches. But I came back. I am a returned prodigal, and now I am a son of the Church with my own children. I do not want my children to be prodigals, and while I would prefer returned prodigal children to lost children, my goal is to raise my children so they always stay in their Father’s house.

As I reflect on my own problems and the problems of our society, I think parental failure—prodigal parents—cause the most harm in this country. It is time that prodigal parents return home—to take up their purpose of loving their children by teaching them what is true and good—so that their children may grow up to be good.

Of the many things that need to happen for parents to become real parents, they must learn to teach their children how to live for the summum bonum. There are nine truths of St. Thomas’s ethics that need to be lived by parents, and those same nine truths need to be taught from parents to their children.

These nine principles will benefit parents and children if parents understand that they love God by educating their children. Next, parents must make sure that they—as parents—are present to their children daily, not as observers, or as an audience that watches their children’s lives on a screen or through a lens, but as active orderers—as junior shepherds in the service of the Great Shepherd.

A Stained Glass Window in Krakow

Even when I was not going to Mass regularly, I would still occasionally stop by churches to see their stained glass windows. I lived in Krakow, Poland, for two nonconsecutive years. Near the Archbishop of Krakow’s Palace—across the street—there is a church, the , Franciscan Church, and its main stained glass window has an image of Father God. It was created by one of Poland’s most famous artists, Stanilaw Wyspianski and it has a swirling image of the ancient, powerful Creator God.

To several people I have said that it was the stained glass windows that brought me back to the Catholic Church, and recently I was trying to figure out which one was I talking about when I said that. More than any other window, it is the Father God window in the Franciscan Church across the street from Pope John Paul II’s former residence that brought me home from a desolate spiritual land.

In that same church, I remember going to Mass in the winter, and the church was not heated. The floor was of rough stone, and it was time to kneel. I did not want to kneel. I was freezing. But an older woman—a babcia—kneeled next to me. She had on an old dress—the material of which seemed appropriate for warm weather. Her knees may have been bare. So I was compelled to kneel too, and my knees ache at the memory from the coldness of those stones.

That old Polish woman—who could have been a peasant out of a story book—taught me that we do what we are supposed to do even if it hurts—and we do so especially if it is for God. Also, the church—with flowers painted on its walls—had Father God looking over it. And the beauty of that Church with its stained glass window was a witness to me in my darkness.

What I Wish My Parents Would Have Told Me

When I was young, I wish my parents would have told me about the powers of the soul. I wish they would have told me that I had an intellect that desires and needs to know what is true and good, that I had a will that sought to choose what is good, and that I had feelings, or passions, that would alternately be of assistance to me or a real danger to me (or both at the same time). I wish my parents would have explained all of this to me so that I understood what it meant to be human—to understand the very nature of the powers that God had given me. Since I think I would have benefited from this, I share these things with my own children.

Teens Need More Time Than Toddlers

A friend of mine once told me that he and his wife had come to the conclusion that teenage children need more time from their parents than toddlers. At first, I scoffed a bit, but after a quick inventory of my own relationship with my fourteen-year-old daughter, I saw wisdom in his words. And in those words, I also saw an opportunity to better parent my own children.

Recently, we moved to a home that would allow us to have some yard and trees of our own. In the first few weeks in the home, we made a small trail around our property—about a quarter-of-a-mile loop. We did that so we could take walks as a family without getting in the car. Shortly after the trail was made, and with the conversation with my friend fresh in my mind, I took a walk with my daughter just to talk, and later we took a walk in which I told her that I wanted to talk with her about the powers of the soul.

It is important to know that all persons desire the good because we then may understand something key about the psyche—that we will try to make whatever decisions we make (whatever we will) seem good. Before we make a decision, it must seem good to us. In other words, the will  puts the intellect in its service as a kind of defense lawyer—or a justifier.  We need to be aware of that—even more so about ourselves than for others. I think it is important for children to understand human nature—especially the sin nature—so they may be properly prepared to will what is right.

My own children show a lot of confusion when asked about why they did something wrong; I think that they show signs of having a tendency toward rationalization. I want them to be able to understand this, to detect it, and to help them make better moral decisions. For my younger boys, this means not responding to aggression from their brothers with inappropriate force.

With my teenage daughter this is especially important as she has the potential to do much more harm to herself. A few months ago my wife and I discovered that our daughter had been sending texts in the early hours of the night from our tablet; a high bill is what led us to the discovery. We had noticed that she had been short tempered with her brothers and had seemed more disrespectful to us, but we did not understand that she waiting up until everyone was asleep to text friends.

We had just moved, and we were feeling a bit guilty about moving her away from her old friends; however, we came to the conclusion that our daughter had made morally bad choices for which she needed to take responsibility. But we also realized that we needed to spend more time with her—to know her better and to become closer so that we could help her learn how to avoid destructive choices and habits.  We applied the principle of teens take more time than toddlers, and we have sensed our daughter becoming more of her true self—the self that God wants her to be and that will make her happiest.

This brings us back to one of the walks with my daughter. We took a walk and talked about the powers of the soul, and she got it. She wasn’t as excited about the knowledge as I was, but she understood the principles; and we have since had more conversations about them to reinforce them. With children we are learning that it is especially important for them to hear important truths regularly and in times and ways that allow for them to clearly hear the message, to take them to heart.

Use Right Reason to Determine What Is Truly Good and What Is Only Apparently Good

Children need to know how to use the sense—the intellectual abilities—that God has given them. One way in which this is possible is through discussing stories—their meanings and what we may learn from them. The Bible instructs us to talk about the laws of God as we go, and this is especially important with children. I think most children should read J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. In the first book of the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, there is a scene in the Prancing Pony that gives us a lesson on why it is important to use right reason. Frodo needs to determine if Strider is good or bad, and Frodo says that he seems foul but feels fair. That means that Strider looks on the surface like a bad man, but there is something about him, some traits or properties, that reveal his being good in essence. Explaining that to children— what to look for and why—is to train them how to use their God-given sense, their right-reason.

Children like to know all the possibilities, so the use of right reason when examining people could help them to understand the possibilities:

• A person who appears fair but is really foul.

• A person who appears foul but is really fair.

• A person who appears fair and is fair.

• A person who appears foul and is foul.

If children know the possibilities, they know what to look for. The use of right reason is really necessary in proper trust, especially when parents are raising a child to trust goodness and flee from foulness. Also, it is important to help children to understand that their first impression might be wrong; they need to continue to assess the person—to make sure their judgment fits the data. The use of right reason in this case will help to keep them safe.

Be Fair and Not Foul: Do Good, Avoid Evil

When my children are in groups with other children when I am not present, I remind them to take care of each other. I tell them—especially the older ones—that they need to keep the younger ones from harm—and that they should band together to protect each other. Conversely, I tell them that if they do something wrong, then they need to ask for forgiveness and apologize. Often I will walk them through apologies to other children. So far, we are good at apologizing but not so good in avoiding actions that require an apology. Our next step is to develop foresight—an element of prudence.

Our Freedom Is for Choosing Good: Vision

I have five children who are sleeping in their beds, two in Heaven, and another to be born in late spring. Our family experiences a bit of chaos from time to time. One of my dear friends, who has six children, calls it being gloriously overwhelmed. In the midst of the chaos, it is important to take children to a place apart when they are out of sorts, to a quiet spot where a peaceful conversation can be had. I have found that taking one of my children out of contentious situations is an opportunity to help my child understand that freedom is for choosing good and that we need to see life with eternal eyes in order to rightly understand the good in moments filled with conflicting emotions. Wisdom stored up in advance is stored up for storms—for difficult situations. If our children can understand that we prepare ourselves for the challenging times, then when those times arrive, we will be prepared. Surprise is sometimes paralyzing, and while we cannot prepare for every situation, we may develop good habits that will help us through difficult situations.

Virtue Is a Habitual Characteristic

I am convinced that one of the things that led to my own prodigal time was that the cardinal virtues were not clearly explained to me over time (they were not guideposts), and I was not held accountable to them or instructed how to recover from error. As a child, I lacked virtue formation.

Even though my wife and I are grateful for all of the good parenting we experienced growing up, we seek to do a better job raising our children then our parents did for us—as most parents do. However, we cannot will a good into being that we do not understand. The truth that virtue is a habitual characteristic must be explained to children. They must understand the concept in words appropriate to their age. Talking with children is a constant reexplanation—a process of finding the right words. The onus of responsibility is always on the parent; if a child cannot understand the meaning, then the parent must find a new way to explain it. (Parents must develop fortitude in this area—and patience.)

The will cannot make good decisions if it does not know the truth. The truth that virtuous people become so by habit must be explained—that each small trial is a gift-opportunity from God to be good for the sake of being good.

Acquiring Virtue Is Necessary: The Cardinal Virtues Are Obligatory

Another truth and good that children must understand is that virtue is necessary to become habit, and this should be explained—day after day, year after year—so that the child not only understands the truth but also sees—values—the good in the wisdom. Also, children must understand that just as it makes no sense to have freedom so as to do evil, so it makes no sense to do wrong so that we will miss the blessing of happiness.

When explaining happiness to children, it is important that they understand the difference between pleasure and happiness. Pleasure feels good, but happiness is good. Whereas pleasure may be external, happiness comes from being ordered as we ought to be: happiness is being as we were created to be. True happiness and joy are identical twins.

What Makes an Act Good: Law, Intent, and Circumstance

Young children are fearless. The average toddler will fearlessly try pronouncing the most complex words no matter the language. Young children can also understand most words if given a simple definition. As parents, it is important that we honor our children’s potential—both for virtue and intelligence. And as it is important that children a given proper nourishment, they must also be given intellectual, moral, and spiritual food—at least three times a day excluding snacks.

I believe that parents ought to explain to their toddlers what makes an act good, and I think this will make the teen years better for everyone too. If there is a family rule—for example, no texting—then a child cannot have a good act if she texts. Had I made certain my daughter understood the three necessary things that make an act good before she was fourteen, I think she would have made a better decision about texting at night. My teenager, like my toddler, must understand that all three of the following things must be correct in order for an act to be good: (1) the law (whether of the home or natural law or command of God) must be followed; (2) the intention must be a good one; and (3) the circumstances must be correct.

If we do not understand what makes an act good, it is much easier to deceive ourselves; and it is the same for our children. Also, it is always good to remind children that to be good is to be virtuous and happy—with emphasis on eternal happiness with an All Loving God, Jesus Christ.

The Natural Law for Everyone

Besides the laws and commandments given to us by God through revelation, we also have the natural law. The natural law may also instruct our consciences, and it is important for children to know that the natural law is the same for everyone on earth. Before my children leave home, I want each of them to read all of C. S. Lewis’s popular books. One reason for this is because Lewis gets it: he gets what good is. He wrote that God doesn’t want us to be good so that He can love us, but He wants us to be good because he loves us. God knows, of course, that we will be happy if we are good. I want my children to experience his witness to this.

Another reason that we have created a reading schedule for our children to read Lewis is so that they may be able to understand what is good and true by both faith and reason. Lewis frequently points to the natural law, and the natural law—the law written on our hearts—is a basis by which we can talk with those who will not accept or do not believe in the truth of revelation. C. S. Lewis gives us reason to understand moral laws accessible by reason.

It is also helpful to know that Lewis was not a saint before he became a Christian, and I think his experiences in sin and evil allowed him to understand and appreciate the goodness of the good—the goodness of the summum bonum and the fulfillment of living a virtuous life that has its end in God. In this fashion, Lewis can be another guide in helping prodigal parents to return home to be the parents that God wants them to be—they will be happy no other way.

For Personal Reflection and Group Sharing

1. What two main challenges do prodigal parents face?

2. What are the means of parenting? What is the end of parenting? How long does it take to train children in the way they should go?

 3. Identify three concepts from the essay that most parents fail to learn themselves and   fail to teach their children.

4. In your own words, explain those three concepts in terms appropriate to a four-year-    old, a seven-year-old, and a sixteen-year-old.

 5. Keeping this essay in mind, what is one principle that each person in the Body of   Christ should understand about the responsibilities of the domestic church?

 6. Write a brief prayer that could be used as an intercession during Mass.

 7. In one paragraph, share a parenting story that you have experienced or heard that embodies one of the Thomistic principles discussed in this essay.


RESPONSES TO THIS CHAPTER:

Response of David Tate:

If parents have one thing going for them, it is the extreme number of hours that children ‘can’ spend with their children, especially in the pre-kindergarten years. If parents can use those hours to impress on the children that it is a world of “we”, and that the “we” means us (your parents) and you (our children), and that they are an integral part of it, I feel that children will develop a sense of attachment and security. This is the parents’ chief weapon for nurturing their children during the early years…The ‘end’ of parenting is to see their kids grow to adults that have a healthy and well balance view of God, themselves, and finally others. Their clarity on realizing that striving for the good (the summum bonum) is what fosters balance will greatly affect a successful striving. When do parents know if their children succeeded? Ummmmmmmmmmm?

We must steer towards the good; we must cultivate virtue. There are more than one goods, but we must reason and chose the right one. I would not say these all come at the same age, and certainly some take longer than others to master. I like hearing that the landscape of life has been properly ordered with things appropriate and things not appropriate. I always thought that if I had been a parent I would have tried to out-silence my kids by waiting for the pregnant pause to finish, and then quietly assure my kids, “It will be all right. This is the way things happen.” 

I saw a Bogart movie one time. It was The Dark Passage. It was one of the handful of films that teamed up Bogie with Lauren Bacall. In the movie, she comforts his anxiety with, “It will be all right, Vincent.” I could feel very deeply the confidence and care that she intended by those words. These are the words I wished my parents would have used. One time, my dad “wished me, luck” on a job interview. It was so empty of hope, mainly due to his own lack of trust in the interview processes, that it consequently threw out any confidence that I thought he had in me. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe I had any skills, it was just that he thought the world did not have a genuine interest in me. Maybe in a contorted spiritual meaning, he ended being right. 

Solak states that, “Acquiring Virtue Is Necessary”. I will alter this with the following, Acquiring Virtue [through Grace] Is Necessary. To keep our Thomism straight, I will clarify that we are given, Faith, Hope, and Charity at our Baptism. These theological gifts must be protected, nurtured, and fostered to grow stronger. The greater they grow, like a string tree, the better they will stand and prosper against the storms of life. In teaching the Catholic Faith, it seems like if we can catechize the faithful into knowing their vertical relationship with God, and their horizontal relationships with others; then the best way to achieve a successful teaching about these two relationships is through the idea that the virtues are strengthened by the work of God’s grace. We put our self in the way of God’s grace by actively pursuing virtuous choices. We can - choose to go to Mass, - choose to practice the other sacraments, and - choose to know better the Bible better. 

Response of Tommie Kim:

The educational system in Korea today is an endless battlefield of competition.  “Winner  takes it all”  is the moto of Korean people;  if you are the first in class, then you are considered a success in life.  Because of this, children under highly competitive environment obviously grow up full of selfishness and parents support this as “the right thing to do” if only their children can do better than others.  In order to win over another, students attend after school classes where Korean students pay significantly high fees to study more so that they can become top of the class.  Because teachers can earn more money by teaching these private classes or at these private institutes, students know that the qualification of the teachers are far better than their teachers at school and they have no respect for their teachers at school. 

Simply put, in Korea there is little room for moral education.  Rather, parents and students have no time for the acquisition of virtue.  Without a  doubt, you will hear back from students and parents in Korea that to become top of the class is good no matter how what you do is contrary to virtue.  Life’s goal for Korean students is simple. Become top of the class, enter the best university and the most money making career and you are the winner of life.  

However, such life is not granted for everyone.  Children who grew up with this one goal, do not know how to make any decision on their own when they are faced with challenges. As a consequence of lack of proper moral education, the suicide rate for Koreans between the age of 10 -19 increased by 57% over the past 10 years, ranking 2nd highest in all of the OECD countries.  Among this number, 39% of the reason is due to bad school performance and an uncertain future due to bad school grades.  This is a serious problem in Korea. 

Parents all want their children to become successful so that they can fulfill the dream parents failed to achieve.  But as Carl Gustav Jung said, “the greatest tragedy of the family is the unlived lives of the parents.”

I have written a book about ethics entitled Living in Love: About Christian Ethics. This was in the 1970’s. It was reprinted by different publishers three times, each time updated. Now it is part of a series of small books on love called The Way of Love under the title of Making Loving Moral Decisions. I have been teaching ethics for forty-three years!  Just the same, I think it will be a good challenge to think through how I want to teach it now with the theme of overcoming polarities in the Church for a twenty-first century Catholic world-view.

Let me begin with a description of two contrasting ways of teaching Catholic ethics on the extremes.

Teaching Catholic Ethics A: 

What is important is that we never give the impression that rules are more important than persons. Every human being has a conscience. This conscience should be informed by perennial magisterial Catholic teaching, by the viewpoints of contemporary philosophers and theologians, and then by the individual insights of each Catholic. For example, it is true that the Church teaches that human beings have the right to private property and that all Catholics should be charitable to the poor on an individual basis, but, in terms of a given individual’s conscience, some may think that because of the need for a safety net we may need a more socialistic central government to take care of the poor, but others may think that gives too much power to central government and only more capitalism can improve the lot of the poor by providing more jobs.  Or, to give a very different example,  a couple should thoughtfully read the encyclical Humanae Vitae about contraception, then read what philosophers and theologians have said about the issue, and then consider their own circumstances and come to a decision they can live with.

Teaching Catholic Ethics B:

Catholics nowadays are “going to hell in hand-basket!” to use the old phrase. They actually think that on morals they are right and the Lord God Almighty is wrong! The constant teaching of the Church comes under infallibility, so where do Catholics come off choosing whatever they wish cafeteria style? Since centralized government leads to socialism and communism, contrary to Church teaching, we should hold on to our private money and property. Since contraception is wrong we don’t need to delve into it to see why, just avoid it. What we need to do is simply give everyone the moral rules in sermons and other catechetical settings and tell them if they don’t agree or practice them they should forget about ever getting to heaven.

Probably none of the readers of this chapter would want to teach ethics exactly in the mode of either A or B. But what would be the mediating concepts that would be a way of teaching the truth, not error, with love, not only with threats?

In this chapter I will present some of the key ideas I have taken from the ethics of St. Thomas, the ethics of  John Paul II and the ethics of Dietrich von Hildebrand that I hope will inspire teachers of ethics in the twenty-first century to be able to “speak the truth with love.” 

Thomistic ethics is noted for using philosophy as the handmaid of theology. It is contrasted in this with what is called Divine Command Morality. The latter, proclaimed by some non-Catholic Christian church teachers, asserts that we do not need to use reason to explain the ethics of the Old and New Testament. Our role is to obey. God’s Word is higher than reason. So, for example, not many, but some Christians influenced by Divine Command Morality might think this way about social justice and about contraception:  “He who doesn’t work shouldn’t eat.” (2 Thessalonians 2:4)  No need to support lazy street people. Or, on contraception, since Onan is killed by God for spilling his seed on the ground (Genesis 38:3-10), that should be enough to outlaw contraception. 
By contrast, Thomistic ethics will include Scriptures such as the ones above about work and about Onan in Scripture, such as the prohibition against magic (Galatians 5:20) which scholars say included contraceptive herbs packed in the vaginas of women)  but it will also include philosophical reasoning in explaining such teachings. Recently I have been reading a biography of Pope Leo XIII (Leo XIII: A Light from Heaven) by Brother William J. Kiefer, SM, Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1961). He points out how strongly Pope Leo showed that natural law ethics upholds the rights of workers over against exploitative capitalists, at the same time showing why socialism and communism were contrary to the right to private property.   Concerning contraception, Thomistic ethics shows how the fertile nature of the human body rules out having sex and at the same time destroying the life-giving seed of the male in the act.  

John Paul II in Love and Responsibility (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993) would flesh out such Thomistic arguments with a personalist approach. Love is self-giving. The way the pope-philosopher describes the importance of seeing others as persons and not as people to be simply used can be employed to explain the violation of rights of workers. But contraception withholds part of the natural endowment of each person and thwarts the self-giving nature of love.

John Paul II never presented the moral teachings of the Church as a bunch of rules. Instead he carefully explains the human values at stake in each moral teaching.  I like to add that when someone cares very much about a particular ethical matter, that proponent never thinks of it as just a matter of rules. No one working with rape victims would ever say “well, not raping another person is an old rule, we need new ways of thinking about it.” 

With reference to social justice issues, Dietrich von Hildebrand’s value ethics would stress the due response we need to give to the sufferings of others.  In his book Humanae Vitae: A Sign of Contradiction (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1969) von Hildebrand writes about the mentality typical of our times where everything inconvenient is fixed by techniques and pills. This can lead to a value blindness about the mysterious linking of the sexual act to the procreation of a new human being—a visible manifestation of the love of the parents for each other. 

My own writing and speaking concerning social justice makes use of a little, but extreme fictional example I thought of to illustrate the Church’s teaching that “our luxuries belong to the poor.”  Suppose you are going into Wal-Mart with the plan of buying four T-shirts. In front of the store you see a woman on the sidewalk with a baby crying at her breast because she has no milk since she is starving. Would you walk past and buy the four T-shirts or would you buy one T-shirt and use the rest of your money to buy milk for this mother to drink so her baby could live? Well, we know that Mother Teresa’s nuns feed the starving and waste no money on administration since these sisters don’t even have toilet paper in India.  Just the price of a stamp can get money to their Bronx convent from where distribution of donations goes throughout the world. 

In my book, Making Loving Moral Decisions (presently part of the volume The Way of Love, CreateSpace/Amazon 2013) I present imagery about contraception that came to my mind unexpectedly when this issue became so controversial.  For example, many of us were thrilled at the Black is Beautiful movement where people who previously tried to look as much as possible like “whitey” donned beautiful African garments, stopped trying to lighten their skin, and wore fascinating long locks instead of trying to make their hair flat. The analogy I use is that a woman in her fertile period should be saying “I am a beautiful fertile woman. I should not try to get rid of the possibility of babies as could a man who doesn’t have to carry the fruit of his seed.  If a man comes to me he should value my fertility instead of asking ‘is this your bad time.’” (See The Way of Love – Making Loving Moral Decisions in the section about contraception for more of my reasonings about this thorny topic.)  

Do you see how these ways of teaching ethics avoid the laxity of the “A” method above, or the harshness of the “B”method? 

But I have a new insight now in the twenty-first century about teaching Catholic truths. It came about in this way. I was team-teaching a course with Dr. Sebastian Mahfood to our MA Distance Learning students about refuting atheism.  Many of these students are teachers. The majority of them were dissatisfied with learning only the concepts needed to refute atheism. They wanted more on how to approach atheists with new evangelization methods for converting them to living the Faith. 

Let’s look at how this would play out with teaching ethics. What I am suggesting here is not new; actually, it is just a fresh emphasis for me, and perhaps for you, readers of this book. In teaching social justice, why not have readings not only from philosophy and theology texts but also from pioneers in Catholic social justice theory and practice such as Dorothy Day? How about bringing in speakers from local Catholic outreaches?


In teaching why contraception is wrong, we need to bring in spouses from the Couple to Couple League to talk about their natural family planning ministry. We need to read books by doctors who have stopped referring women and men to contraceptives and now teaching Natural Family Planning instead. 

The thrust I am highlighting really involves person to person, heart to heart, vs. truth in general. I love to hear how social justice activists work with the needy. I love to hear how Natural Family Planning experts work with each couple to show them how to express their love in new ways during the period of abstinence when they space their births for serious reasons. 

Now, remember the problem of existing polarities in the Church we wish to overcome! There are some who emphasize social justice but fail to see how abortion is a one of the most horrifying social justice issues involving the killing of totally innocent babies in the womb. And, on the other hand, some emphasize the tragedy of abortion, but minimize worldwide exploitation of the poor. In a twenty-first century synthesis wouldn’t we hope to have each group feeling much more support for the causes dearest to their hearts from those of the other emphasis? 

Lastly a “holistic”, if you will, approach to teaching ethics should always include prayer.  Prayer for enlightenment, and also prayer for ourselves and others who have learned the hard way, through sin and its consequences, what rebellion against Catholic moral teaching leads to. And prayer, also, for all those, including ourselves, who are tempted to violate such teachings.

Here is what I propose as a possibility for our twenty-first century Catholic synthesis on teaching morals: 
Steps in Teaching—Classroom and One-on-One

• Prayer before, during and after.

• Listen—in class by asking questions; in one-on-one— speak gently with respect.

• Give the teaching clearly and firmly but in a tone full of understanding.

• Suggest readings—especially the Catechism which is written is such a beautiful and loving style.

• Bring in speakers from the field.

• Ask if the students have questions about the teaching.

For Personal Reflection and Group Sharing

• When have you experienced Catholic moral teaching shared in a powerful, persuasive, loving manner?

• What specific teachings, other than the ones given in the chapter, have you found to be taught in a lax or harsh manner?

• What moral teachings do you seek greater enlightenment about?

• Is there someone in your life or some who you minister to as a group that you need to approach with the steps outlined at the end of this chapter? 

RESPONSES TO THIS CHAPTER:

Response of Kathleen Brouillette:

The most powerful teaching of the faith I have ever experienced came from my most beloved Fr. Jon Bokron, a young Catholic priest, who was a convert from the Greek Church and a former stock broker, and was dying of leukemia only two years after ordination.  The final homily he gave at the final Mass he would celebrate in our parish was an experience I will never forget.  I am profoundly grateful to have it on video.  His love for the Church was unquestionable, his passion for the faith exemplary, and the power of his words was overwhelming because we all knew he was dying.  Here was a man who could have been bitter, or self-pitying, or questioning everything about the faith.  Instead, he used his last homily to plead with us to believe and live what the Church teaches.  This is the same priest who told me I was addicted to prayers, but not to prayer.  He never, ever watered down Church teaching, yet he was loved by every person who knew him.  

St. Thomas More said we cannot get to Canterbury simply by knowing the way there if we are not willing to walk in that way.  We cannot get to heaven by simply knowing or teaching the faith if we do not live it with love.  God, give us the wisdom to be obedient to the Church you have give us in your love, and to love one another as you have loved us.

Response from David Tate:

(On polarities about ethics) besides the well-known topics like the poor, being wealthy or privileged, and contraception I find that most other teachings can be taught with some kind of bias. I have been observing things as best as I can since my journey started towards a religious life style. I feel that the number one reason behind why it has become so difficult to teach without wavering over to one bias or the other is rooted in the break-up of the family. 

One of the unnatural fruits of the disintegration of the family has become, for lack of a better nomenclature, ‘misplaced respect’. It used to be that there was a set hierarchy in society, and you could give respect accordingly. Children had parents. brothers had sisters; and visa-versa. Grandchildren had grandparents. If you were under eighteen, then you usually travelled with your parents. If you got in trouble, your parents were notified. Nowadays, teachers are unsure of who is the proper authority figure in the family. This pushes the teacher to the extremes. If the teacher does not believe that an authority figure even exists, then they artificially drift off the center. If they are wanting to project church authority, then they come off expounding on the “rules” of the moral teachings. If they are squeamish about sounding authoritative, wanting maybe even to sound politically correct, they will soft-sell the morals of the church, even to young children. My final thought is that we have lost the zeal to say, “the moral bar is much higher than an average person, and we have to strive to conform to it because we, by ourselves, do not measure up.” The “Steps in Teaching” are very good, but they have to come with a peaceful, but authoritative, spirit.         

I think that we have lost one of the great ingredients to true moral teaching. This is the idea that God and life are our teachers, and we must become the student if we are going to learn the moral lessons that are being presented to us. The idea of ‘apprenticing’ is not something that we value anymore. We love “techniques’ because they obey the clock. In an upside down manner, we end up being our own “masters” when we use such-and-such technique. With a technique, we know beforehand what we should be achieving at each step of the process. If we don’t get the payback, then it must have been the fault of the technique – certainly not something in us. Under the old school of apprenticeship, you were ignorant and depended on the sagacity of the master to bring hidden talents or skills out of you that you never had a clue about. For me personally, I feel I am looking for finding some door that will let me escape my own mental prison of measuring my life by my self-training through my personal control over my time and life.

To Twenty-first Century Catholics

As our vantage point rises further into the twenty-first century, it will become clearer that three facets of theology are colliding: liturgy, moral anthropology, and spirituality. Any student of liturgy recognizes that the reforms of Vatican II were neither sudden nor unpredictable. The groundwork had been laid, beginning with Pius X through Beauduin, to Guardina, de Lubac to Pius XII up to Vatican II, where a young Karol Wojtyla and Joseph Ratzinger were influential; no coincidence there as the Spirit was at work.

Now with many misinterpretations of the Council Fathers being ferreted out, the liturgical reform will move forward providing identity to who we are as a people (anthropology) and how we live out our spirituality (life in the Spirit). With God’s continued ‘light’, the centuries ahead will recognize little distinction between liturgy and one’s life, as we now experience it. And in doing so, we will come to a more profound understanding of the human person in relation to God and other men rooted in love.

“Light” and “liturgy” are familiar terms, but it is not immediately clear how they apply to a Christian anthropology. One might ask how light, being such an ethereal metaphor and liturgy such a common experience, help man understand something essential about himself. As with all revelation (natural or divine) there is nothing new anticipated, but always something new to understand. Forty years of marriage does not reveal a “new” love, but it is not the same understanding of the love as when first married. 

Light is so familiar to man. In and with light one sees, is warmed, is exposed, is drawn to. Light demands both fear and respect. This light signals man to safety and warns him of danger: it greets him each day; it can be benevolent or terrifying; it purifies and makes things durable; it inspires and it encompasses. Light is both far away and yet near; it reveals and can also, in its intensity, conceal. But it can never be hidden. All of those features of light can be found in the context of liturgy. And in turn, liturgy provides the context for understanding man’s nature in terms of this light. 

All is liturgy. Everything in which man participates that is good, true, and beautiful, there he finds himself in a liturgical relation. Liturgy is a fraternity with all creation and an affiliation with man’s Creator. One may think here of “Hegel’s concept of God as unfolding in the universe,” but it is a revelatory measure of man’s grasp of the immutable God.1 Liturgy then subsumes this unfolding, and in orienting man’s being towards God, sets man’s essence. Man is like God. It is the nature of this relational God to give himself as gift. This gift manifests itself in terms of sacrifice.2

Offerings to the Lord

Offerings to the Lord were brought by Cain and Abel immediately following Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the garden of Eden. Questions usually revolve around why Abel’s offering was favored over Cain’s. That does have significance concerning liturgy, for it appears evident that God does have a preference in how he is to be worshiped and what constitutes genuine “sacrifice.”3 This pericope tends to be some literary bridge to introduce a source of strife between the two brothers and demonstrate the extent to which sin has now entered creation: jealousy, murder, deceit, etc. But even though this story is so familiar, an important point often simply gets passed over. Why are they offering to the Lord at all? The reader or hearer accepts the set-up for the plot, when in reality, we do not read of any prescription nor ordinance given to present an offering to their Creator Lord. Sacred Scripture reveals it as an introductory clause; it literally reads, “in the course of time.”4 There was no mention of these offerings being necessary for ‘making amends’ due to the Fall, or recognizing the Lord’s sovereignty for creation, or being an act of justice or gratitude, though the latter two are good candidates. 5 

One sacrifices in imaging a God who himself freely offers sacrifices (this is communicated in and with the Divine Persons). What resides in God, resides in man for the purpose of making him a participant in the divine holiness.  The understanding of a Trinitarian God and the relationship the Three Persons share expresses in man an extension of their love. These Three Persons are ever communicating in pure act with one another. “God wishing to step freely outside of himself, must create man,” and so did. 9 

In the Trinitarian relation, the Father withholds nothing from the Son, the Son receives all and returns it in sacrifice to the Father. The Holy Spirit proceeds from that love ever seeking to unite man to the Son in sacrifice and then to the Father in love. This God, in his being is unreachable by man because of  man’s natural limitations and the presence of sin. Man needs the assistance of light to penetrate God’s light. It is those very “modes of existing in which the Divinity can communicate itself to created beings,” giving access into His light.10 The inaccessible then becomes accessible. The love of God then “consumes its opposite (sin) and transforms man into itself, which is Light.”11. This Light and love then sustains man, indeed all creation; “in Him, everything continues in being.”12 

Sacrifice, Love and Worship

Sacrifice, love and worship then are integral to God’s creative act and remain imprinted on man. This defines his self-understanding. This love and worship “means handing over to God a reality that is in some way precious to man,” yet when received is freely returned.20 Man sacrifices to a “God that demands from us not only adoration but also love.”21 There is no mistaking here the beautiful liturgical language describing the relation of man to his God.

For understanding God’s creational relationship with man, it must involve a sacrifice (liturgical), be accepted as favorable (living in His light—recall Abel), and witness to who man is (anthropology). Cain and Abel’s offering of a sacrifice was an ordinary movement towards God; it was not motivated externally even as a demand of justice. God’s chosen people understood themselves in terms of a “people who sacrifice.” Culminating then in the Person of Christ, St. John’s prologue introduces us to the Logos, which carries through to the Transfiguration. There will be a glimpse of man’s eschatological life in the Trinity. 

John Paul II continued this trajectory as it moves through and into the communio personarum where Christ’s light in man (grace) is brought into the God (Light) whom we image. It all is contained in the context of liturgy, which remains the connection of heaven and earth. Now, liturgy as being an intimate experience and the source and summit is nothing new, but the concept of worship and light being anthropological markers (liturgical anthropology) is not well developed or expressed in modern spirituality or moral theology. But as will be shown, the groundwork is present.

Made in His Image

Made in his image (imago Dei) is traditionally understood as how created man shares in the attributes of the uncreated God. A few paragraphs should be devoted to the Church’s revelation of this dignity before proceeding with grafting liturgical to the understanding. In comparison with other creation myths, the Priestly mythos stands apart; man was not created out of chaos, or as a product of some destruction, or to be the slave of the victor god. Man, in the Judeo-Christian understanding is to be in the image and likeness of God by the will of him who created all from nothing. This God then continues to sustain man with his ruah. “Without this ruah [man] would not have life and would be devoid of consistency.”22 It is the source of life, and it is also the source of worth in every individual. No one can surrender it, nor can it be suppressed by another. And to be like God is to be in him. That is the role of liturgy. For “the goal of worship and the goal of creation as a whole are one and the same—divinization,” which is contingent man’s participation in His non-contingent Being.23       

The imago Dei firstly is demonstrated in man possessing the spiritual faculties of rationality and free-will. Man is a rational animal, and above the brutes in that he is not a slave to his instincts; for man may choose not to do that which he is urged to do. Man is an animal of reason, who alone among creation can choose to dip below his nature. But he too can rise above, and this rising above instinct manifests itself as freedom. The two are joined and stand together.

Where there is rationality, there is freedom. Where there is instinct alone, there is not freedom and thus, no culpability. So, culpability arises with man’s freedom; whereas being compelled internally (an error of the materialists) or externally (under coercion) may mitigate or leave noculpability.24 And this freedom must be understood in terms of “doing that which we are designed to do” (freedom of excellence) and not as a lack of restraint (the modern notion of freedom being autonomy). To be “tied down” or imprisoned is a privation of freedom to be sure, but a lack of restraints is not necessary for the exercise of authentic freedom (many a martyr was free authentically while under extreme duress and constraint). So freedom is an exercise in aligning our direction with the nature of man, to do that which we were designed to do.

Following rationality and free will, man understands himself to be relational. This is another imaging in which man shares in the nature of the Trinity. God recognized that, “It is not good for man to be alone” because the Trinity of Persons is not alone.25 Those that lack a Trinitarian economy suffer at the expense of their own anthropology. As the Father gives himself to the Son, and the Son returns all to the Father and from the Father and Son proceeds the Holy Spirit, so too man is “built” to give, receive, and issue forth (to create with).

Another sense of imaging is being supernaturally oriented. Man is a natural being with a supernatural destiny. This is displayed in the way all the baptized are called to live and act as “travelers in a foreign land.” The imprint of this “super nature” is the immaterial soul, as man too is a composite being (body and soul). This nature of man taken on by the Son (Incarnation) elevates man to share in the imaging of the Creator. The Incarnation was “in time”, but “ever present” in the God-Man as the Second Person of the Trinity. It is entirely possible (and in some views probable) that the Incarnation was part of the plan from the beginning. It may not be a reaction countering human fault; i.e., it was planned, not precipitated by man’s weakness. So it follows then that as Christ sacrificed to his Father, man images him in offering sacrifice (which is really a Trinitarian imaging). 

Finally, since man is created by God, he is contingent on God. All things created are contingent. This connects not only all creation to God, but sets all creation in relation to man. Liturgy is the connection between creation and Creator. It provides immunity from any neo-pantheism (often attributed to Spinoza) or an unanchored spiritualism (being spiritual but not religious) rampant in contemporary understandings of worship. This is all a product of removing sacrifice from liturgy, and not identifying liturgy with worship. 

Now one can explore the connection of liturgy in terms of ‘living liturgy’ (spirituality) and of ‘imaging God’ (moral life). But the glimpse given of the Light of God (Transfiguration) and sacrifice being integral to man as ways of knowing man (anthropology) must lead to imaging God by participating in his life (light to theosis). If by sharing in God’s attributes, man images the Creator, then partaking of Divine Life (light) is crucial. Did not the Father assure man, “I say, you are gods?”26 And further, it is only “in his light that we see light.” 

Contemporary Connotations

Contemporary connotations of these aspects of the imago Dei may raise immediate objections. Can it be that the liturgy offers nothing new, although it might provide a synthesis of all the elements? But liturgy provides a unique role for man. In the Dogmatic Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Fathers specifically spoke of man’s participation in the liturgical sacrifice as actual. But actuosam liturgicarum celebrationum participationem was immediately interpreted by many to mean “playing a role” in the liturgy (lector, extraordinary minister of the Eucharist, etc.). Its intended meaning was that the baptized are to offer themselves, united with Christ’s sacrifice through the Holy Spirit to the Father. It is not possible if the anamnesis is absent from the minds of the faithful. There is nothing to anchor the past event in the present. So, it is only grasped as Christ’s sacrifice being “watched,” or maybe the priest’s.28 But the result is the same; it remains distant from man’s life and not connected to those present. And most would be surprised to know who’s present. If it is the entire Church, it includes all the baptized, absent or present (militant), those who have died but are being made holy (suffering) along with those who have entered union (triumphant). 

If the connection among the baptized is not appreciated, then the relation between the baptized and God has only superficial meaning. It becomes hard to say if there is any true grasp of the reality of the vertical and horizontal relational dimensions. Man’s context rather is reduced to the many familiar and earthly relations one has throughout life; marriage (a great paradigm, but being so misunderstood as a sacrament, its ability to witness becomes distorted), extra familial relations that remain utilitarian (this would be the closest to carnal man’s understanding of imaging God), virtual relations provided by various media (cinema, internet), and so on. If being baptized, but absent, man is still in liturgy, then how does one not live a liturgical life?

This grasp of unity is important, because when misunderstood it not only diminishes solidarity among men, but it also affects man’s contingency on the Creator Lord. All connections seem contrived. It is even emboldened by a misunderstanding of the findings of modern biological evolutionary science. Accepting a poor metaphysics, many welcome the secular proposal that creation either happened without God at all (atheism) or that God is a distant and disinterested observer (Deism). Where man fails here is not in terms of the mechanism, which may be demonstrated materially, but in the contingent relation of man to God, which is an immaterial reality not proper to biology. God’s role is in the sustenance provided by his light and breath. 

For instance, even though all analogies fail, just as heated air keeps a balloon afloat, God’s ruah sustains all creation. If it were to be withdrawn, just as if the flame were extinguished, the balloon would fall and similarly all creation would whither. One might even push it further by suggesting that as the burden of sin is cast off, man rises closer to God (Light from Light) just as a balloon is more buoyant with less of a load. But since contingency carries the price of obedience (following one’s nature) it is rejected. To be contingent, it is thought, is to lack power, and to be susceptible to manipulation. 

Liturgy doesn’t allow that type of distortion; the prize of light in man is unification with both God and all creation. Then this supernatural and natural, the sacred and the profane all come together in the liturgy. They both belong there, pointing to heaven while staying on earth. Most people’s understanding of any supernatural destiny is far off, not relevant for the present. But liturgy places it in the here-and-now. In the epiclesis, it is the supernatural that both communicates and is communicated between man and God, earth and heaven. So, it is not just that the liturgy provides the context for man’s anthropology, it is more of being the arrangement (a sense of form) for man’s imaging of God to come to fruition.

Liturgical Living

Liturgical living appears, for far too many, rather inconsequential. Here it could be seen as being a stretched term, out of context for man’s imaging. But what else could be the case as the word “liturgy” is often absent in vernacular use? And in terms of defining it, most would be found wanting to provide an adequate response. 

Without offering any extensive treatment, it will be used here to include the priestly and public worship (leitourgeo) of the Church that extends beyond the sacramental rites. It always includes a sensible sign, united with and being a sacrifice whose purpose is to glorify God and sanctify man. So, it would include the Divine Office and liturgies outside of Eucharistic celebrations, but exclude any private devotions.29 

So how does one live liturgically? How is living liturgically identified in terms of man? It is not a peculiar question if there is an understanding that “liturgy is the first source and norm of faith” (orthodoxia prima), [leading to] how man understands himself (homo liturgicus).30 But since personal experience determines cultural influences, man associates his existence (his living) by what is experienced in his flesh and bones. This is well enough, as these things are part of man’s temporal existence and are gifts from God. But it is not the sum of man or adequate for knowing himself. Thinking so splits the sacred from the carnal and limits man to earthy tones alone and only what can be derived from their meanings. How is man transfigured, or how does he transcend his earthly plane? 

One goes to liturgy but how does that spill out into man’s living? The questions, “When does it start?” and “How long will it be?” reveal that separation and the difficulty in identifying one’s life with liturgy. Contemporary man is spiritual at liturgy and temporal in living. But only homo liturgicus can speak to the depth of man’s being and vocation, transcending the perceptible, allowing the “eternal now” to be present. There is “either a humanism in which man is the measure of everything, or the liturgy through which the mystery transfigures and divinizes us.”31 It is in and with liturgy that man truly lives.

Christendom Is Fractured

Christendom is fractured, but yet all the baptized remain the one Body of Christ.32 So in those faith expressions opposed to any liturgy, a depth of man remains unrealized. Some claim that liturgy is too rigid. Rather, it is argued, that the impulse of the Spirit is thwarted. This is “the notion that religious expression can be genuine only when it occurs in absolute spontaneity...[but that] is a piece of nonsense” as a person can always ascent to what is recited; it need not be rote.33 Yet others don’t shun it as much as they simply do not endorse it. They don’t see it as a way to relate to God, or perhaps they see liturgy as an antiquated way that is now irrelevant. In fact, these Christian denominations pride themselves on being instrumental in having done away with liturgy entirely.

They claim to have moved from a sacramental (liturgical) expression, to what is now referred to as a relational experience (praise and worship). It appears real and leaves one with the impression of feeling close to God. But this evaluates the worship in terms of the participants’ sincerity. So the feelings of gratification are the measure of the experience. But it does not regard worship from the aspect of God’s desire, but rather uses as a benchmark man’s aspirations of being fulfilled. It is only necessary to attend if one needs uplifting.

There indeed is a semblance of union (the I becomes we), or it would not be attractive. But it remains horizontal. This “we without Christ leads to a superficially anchored pseudo-communion...leading to a mass-egoism.”34 It is not unlike the experience of a sporting event, where there is a sense of community and shared gratification. 

Some congregations even reflect this in the terms they use, referring to their central space of worship as a “sanctorium” (a portmanteau formed from sanctuary and auditorium) replete with all the emotions of a hyped-up event. Missed entirely is that all things sacramental are relational. Ironically then where the sacraments are reduced (or denied), the horizontal relational aspect is reduced. This results in the contemporary worship service being personally subjective, yet collectively gratifying. There is nothing transcendent; it lacks mystery. With this collapse of mystery, all that remains is “a pervasive folksiness and casualness, a self-conscious sense of practicality and immediate relevance.”35 What occurs never moves above an earthly experience. Liturgy is not just an obstacle then ecumenically, but in its absence, man’s imaging of God is reduced.

The Transforming Light of God

The transforming Light of God can change man who is drawn freely closer to God. If this is not true, then liturgy is a passive act that loses all meaning, an event that one merely attends. Liturgically this change is an interior movement of love, pulled by the Light to make men gods. Tragically this potential departs from those denominations that have retained a liturgical structure, but being “outside” deny any possibility of this type of transfiguration. 

It is true that those ‘liturgical’ churches (sometimes referred to as High Protestant) appear to share the form of worship, but having different ends, so the resemblance is superficial. Change in the individual himself is required by definition, for man to become a god beginning here on earth. If this is not affirmed, then what is the function of liturgy and its end of sanctification?

For example, Martin Luther’s novel theory of  “extrinsic justification” is hostile to this notion. If one holds and “affirms grace alone saves us, [but then adds] the negation that it changes nothing in us so doing,” how can man be transformed?36 This statement may appear polemic, but as the principle of noncontradiction affirms, either man can be or cannot be deified (a participation in him). It is either a sacrifice that transforms man by created light into an image of the Uncreated Light, or it doesn’t. There is no room for intermediaries, hence again the difficulty in common ground concerning this issue. This affects the primary understanding of man as a liturgical creature in that the worshiper becomes disconnected from Sacred Scripture’s recognition of sacrifice being central to man’s relation to God. It also distorts an intra-Trinitarian grasp of relationality. How can sacrifice (liturgy) be pivotal to an understanding of man who reflects this Trinity? It cannot and does not.

Relevant Worship

Relevant worship, it was already mentioned, is the novel goal of modern religious services.37 It’s often how one chooses a congregation. The religious service must be pragmatic, or applicable to one’s life. The service is deemed necessary to fulfill one’s needs. It becomes one of the ways to satisfy a spiritual yearning, much like a fitness gym is chosen by how well it provides both the environment and services for fitness.38 Dietrich von Hildebrand spoke of those who seek such practical aims as being “flat and limited men.”39 Their utilitarian aspirations subsequently inverts worship? The relevant experience is not viewed in the relation of man to the Worshiped. The question for them is not, “What worship does God desire for man?” but “What worship does man desire for God?” It is considered in terms of its perceived effectiveness to fulfill subjective expectations. So the event can only achieve satisfaction. What then of any real sense of transformation (imago Dei)? The truth is that the worshipper did not expect to be transformed. Transforming man into a god is not even considered something the service is capable of. Sanctification disconnected from justification only permits Christ’s sacrifice and goodness to be applied to man in a judicial extrinsic sense. This is not the occasion to provide an in-depth argument, but it is enough to recognize that one’s position towards justification affects both an understanding of liturgy and of the human person. An inability to transform the individual in a real way (deification) severs the two ends of liturgy. Separated, both ends lose their potency. Does anyone ask what is God’s preference in how he is to be worshiped?

It can now be seen how retaining a liturgical structure does not make one immune from a man-centered worship. If there is not a present and genuine sacrifice, then all that remains possible is some sense of a reenactment, albeit a sincere and pious one. There may even be a real presence affirmed, but it is the sacrifice (work of Christ) that produces the transformation of the elements (ex opere operato). So whether it is the lack of sacrifice, personal relevance, subjective satisfaction, or individual faith, the transformative light is rendered sterile.

This, however is not just a protestant phenomenon. How many congregants leave Roman Catholic or Orthodox liturgies (Mass or Divine Liturgy) expressing little to no satisfaction? Consider comments such as, “I really didn’t get anything out of that.” Does that perceived lack of relevance really differ in essence from those perspectives previously mentioned? I recall the story of one of my liturgy professors, who was confronted with that very question by a couple after Mass. This priest’s reply was, “Good. Maybe you’re finally getting it, because it’s not really about you.” 

It’s not that man should not “get something” out of liturgy, but that any subjective evaluation misses the mark. Both the love of God and love of neighbor, as being the two great commandments, are fulfilled by the objective participation of the baptized in the sacrifice of Christ united to one’s own sacrifice. These two must remain unified, and man can only offer this through liturgical living.

Questions Arise

Questions arise when one’s personal sacrifices are separated from the action of Christ (our sacrifice at your hands). Worship becomes distilled down to an evaluation of the experience in temporal human terms. Disillusioned by the perceived irrelevance (got nothing out of it), the remoteness of liturgy from life seems more acute. 

For instance, the faithful are told that liturgy is the “source and summit” of their lives. But they cannot understand how. They are told that they are a liturgical people. But they are not certain what that even means. They are told that all the baptized are present in this eternal now liturgy providing genuine communion with God and man. That doesn’t seem to be their assessment of the experience. They are told that it is their sacrifice on the altar. But they are at a loss to articulate any connection. How can liturgy become central to man’s understanding of himself as a person when they are hard-pressed to muster even a definition? If liturgy and life are connected as proposed, and one does not recognize the meaning of the first, there will be no connection possible to the latter. Mass egoism in the sanctorium seems to offer a much more perceptible notion of union, and exhilaration is gladly traded for the unfelt contribution of liturgy. 

It should now be evident that the problem of personal satisfaction being sought in worship, (what it does for them being the gauge), is the very thing that frustrates any transfiguration. This deification (sanctification to be like God) alone has the power to deliver relevance since that is God’s ultimate desire for man. A false expectation in worship limits man’s apprehension of his own quest towards divinity, and an understanding of himself in liturgy and the role of liturgy imbuing every aspect of man’s life.

Separating the Secular and the Sacred

Separating the secular and the sacred is another underlying cause in this liturgy and life estrangement. The only antidote will be “a radical reorientation toward liturgy breaking that sacred/profane distinction.”40 Think how the mindset of life existing outside of liturgy and consequently liturgy restricted to an event happening “in there” destroys any potential of a liturgical transformation. 

Here again, one strives for an analogy to demonstrate the significance of liturgy and this “light.” Many a homilist has proclaimed that, now filled with grace, the baptized can go out into the world.41 Upon being worn down, man should return to liturgy to be reenergized. What that analogy does is reduce the magnificence of the Eucharistic feast to a charging station, rather than a transformative event. It constricts liturgy to be understood as existing only within the time of gathering. 

But as the liturgy flows into the world, it exists properly in the world in the transformed man (homo liturgicus). Further, the sanctification of man in liturgy is not a power in man, but a relation of God to man. It is a relation that is not reduced necessarily because one is not in liturgy, but dwindles only when the sacred is not recognized outside. It is the baptized man himself who is this sacred image (imago Dei). Liturgy exposes the baptized man as being sacred himself and in the world as a sacred image, i.e., imago Dei. It being the summit meaning it is the destiny of “all apostolic activity, and is the source in that one passes through the Eucharist” as a spark ignited or a flame emboldened. 2 This light of Christ, given in liturgy is not a battery draining. It becomes the relation that sustains man as he continues in a world destroying the sacred/profane distinction.

The worldview of the modern man furthers this disruption by wrongly associating the sacred with the immaterial and the profane with the material. Again, it is a bad metaphysics at play here in the culture. Unfortunately, the effects of Positivism remain, and scientific proofs are recognized as the only reliable and verifiable facts capable of providing certainty. Materialism becomes the norm and all things spiritual are relegated as meaningless. This “dissociation of the material and the spiritual in a predominately materialistic civilization [has]divided society into a secular sphere and an increasingly unimportant otherworldly sphere.”43

The liturgy, only recognized “in church,” is seen as an island of sacred in a sea of profane. It has even blurred the priestly (sacrifice) image in man, as the ordained deal with the sacred and the laity wrestle with the worldly things. The sacred is thought to be better than the other. This gives the false impression that the priest, in dealing with the sacred, is called to live a life of holiness above that of the lay person. And in turn the laity, living in the secular realm cannot live liturgically, for that is reserved for when the laity is in the presence of the priest. This separates any understanding of liturgy as continuing in one’s secular life, so liturgy has no relevance for man’s daily living. And unfortunately, artificially separating the holy from the profane has led to “nourish that ‘clericalism’ that reduces the laity to second-class citizens. The priest then must protect that which is ‘holy.’”44 The holy then is not capable of being sustained out there. The liturgy is viewed as a spiritual gas station and the priest becomes the pump attendant.

Light from Light

Light from Light, as we profess in the creed, is not restricted to “in there” or only for those ordained. This Light unites and transforms all of creation. But why the word “light”? On the surface it seems to be a metaphor presented between two univocal reiterations (God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God...). Is it just affirming Christ’s divinity? During the battle with the heresy surrounding Christ’s divinity and humanity, the emphasis of the East was to affirm the unity of God, while in the West it was the Threeness of God; the nod appears to have gone to the Eastern Church as we begin our profession saying, “Credo in unum Deum.” 

It is also those Eastern Churches who have maintained man’s capability for deification; becoming light by this Light. It is this spirituality of divinization that protects against holding any fallacious understanding of salvation as getting into heaven, as if it were something assured and the result a guaranteed location rather than a transformation of the person. (Note from Dr. Ronda: Throughout this chapter you will see words like divinization, deification, we are to become gods. This never means we become God in identity as if we become the creator of the universe…rather concerns participation in the divine through grace.)

 That thinking leads one to not fully appreciate the gradation of joining with Christ now. “Light” can speak to that nuanced understanding. Man, through light, is becoming one with the Light in the already but not yet. That is the gift of living in a liturgical relation as sojourners.

Eastern spirituality tapped into this concept of moving towards the Light by the light. In particular there is an appreciation of Gregory of Palamas, to whom Pope John Paul II nodded approvingly.45 Though the quietest aspect (hesychast) removes one from the world, and this separation is a concern, its focus on the uncreated light is of value. Both “lungs of the Church” is not immune from an over emphasis, “Western theology has become reduced to a static form of objectifying God’s transcendence by separating Him (as a primary cause in all things) from the created world.”46 So it may be that both traditions can separate man from the world in different ways and are not immune from a misplaced emphasis. But together they accentuate the issue properly; i.e., the created world is not something to overcome, but yet God’s uncreated light remains in the created world; light is immanent and transcendent. 

The connection may possibly be how God’s ruah sustains man. Is this created light of God (let there be light) sourced in the Trinity reaching out to man? This is how man is granted access to “God [who] proceeds from His essence (inaccessible light). These processions being modes of existing in which the Divinity can communicate itself to created beings” where liturgy provides the context for self-knowing.47 

Logos and Light

The fullness of that communication is the “the light [which] shines in the darkness.”48 It was the Logos of John’s prologue (God made Man) which brings life to all. “What ‘took place’ in the Logos was ‘life’: this life is the light of humankind.”49,50 It was only by this Light, in this act, that man’s low nature was granted potency to be elevated and perfected. Pseudo-Dionysius said that this is the very reason “God goes forth toward His created world—to share his being or unlimited perfections.”51 

That statement is more profound than a first reading may reveal. A limitless Being, in reason (Logos) sharing and giving of himself to what he has created. And this sharing and giving is all played out in liturgy. There’s a certain culmination occurring (Incarnation), and yet it is a beginning (new life). The Logos in the world is the origin of something not yet complete, yet this “Incarnation is the peak and irreversible finality” of God’s self-communication” to all creation.52

It’s interesting to note the Franciscans hold this apex as always a present idea in the mind of God; i.e., it was not necessitated by the Fall. It was the only way this low nature (man) would ever grasp hold of divine light and love. It must have been and was “Man-delivered.” Think how it is so frequently understood in myths and the popular psyche that God must descend for man to know him. Consider the tower of Babel as an example, where man must rise up to where he is. Transcending the worldly is only through arduously contemplating the divine things. Wasn’t it Plato who taught that “man must make a tortuous ascent of the mountain of wisdom to find truth? [How unlike] Christianity where God descends downward with his message of love and eternal happiness.” 53 It is the Logos, this Light that came down to be light. This Jesus took on man’s nature so that man can be made like him, namely an elemental one (characterized as the body) and a nature of light (pre-glorified).”54 

Regardless of the impetus for the Incarnation (whether God had ordained this from all eternity, or if it was precipitated by the Fall), the light is grace given for man to restore that which would raise him up. The light is in the Lord, the Light is the Lord. For without it, “even the heaven of heaven would have been in itself a dark deep; but now it is light in the Lord.”55 Christ is the source of all light!

Transfiguring Light

Transfiguring light identifies the significance of man’s deification and the event of Christ on Tabor. It is the source and image of God, as it is man’s revealing God’s presence to other men (imago Dei) and Christ’s revealing God presence in himself (Transfiguration). It was the presence of the Deity in Christ revealed as Christ was transfigured. In his light, man too has that capacity, for when God “transforms us from light to light: he also transfigures us,” revealing in man his deity.  But man is never the source of the light. What is ‘seen’ in man is Christ’s light. Just as the “three Apostles had for some measure of limited time the faculty of seeing the Master as He was,” so too it is a gift to see in man who truly he can be.57 This witnesses to the source of Light itself. As it was for the Apostles after the Resurrection, to see man as he truly will be is an eschatological gift of man’s own transfiguration.58 

After the Resurrection and being brought into the Light, man assumes the transfigured state, even then sustained by the light of heaven. This state increases on man’s pilgrimage as God’s consuming love continues to penetrate man’s heart and life with his “message of love and eternal happiness.” This leads to a deeper revelation, a deepening penetration of the light transfiguring man; a progression of man to and becoming like God in this age of the Spirit until all things are brought to completion into the Light.59 (Note from Dr. Ronda: I think Bujno is emphasizing the positive here, but not denying that, darkened by sin, and individual doesn’t just climb up the mountain, but continually falls down on the path, and needs to be cleansed. 

Endnotes

• Maloney, SJ, George A. A Theology of Uncreated Energies, The 1978 Père Marquette Theology Lecture, Marquette University Press, April 16, 1978, p. 104.

• This is important to retain, for modern connotations present  “gift” as something superfluous, or unnecessary for the giver, requiring no ‘sacrifice’. Consider only the great gift of Christ on the Cross.

• In another instance about  “right worship,” Pope Benedict XVI points out in The Spirit of the Liturgy, that “the freedom to give right worship to God, appears, in the encounter with Pharaoh, to be the sole purpose of the Exodus.” p. 20.

• Some translations read, “At the end of days”, without specifying whether it refers to a  “creation week” or a  “harvest season.”

• Aquinas does place religion under the cardinal virtue of justice.

• Schmemann, Alexander, Eucharist, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987, p. 101.

• Commentary on this speculates that both Cain and Abel may have had priestly status in    their family and therefore duties before the Lord. This would then assume that oblations were anticipated in accordance with their state, in line with their nature.

• Wisdom of Solomon 2:23b, RSV.

• Rahner, Karl, The Trinity, The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2004, pp. 89-90).

• Lossky, Vladimir, In the Image and Likeness of God, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974, p. 40.

• Corbon, Jean, The Wellspring of Worship, (  Ignatius Press, 1998) p. 222.

• Cf. Colossians 1:12-22 (consider too how this understanding does not permit a static relationship with God, or the concept of a distant  “hands-off” God. If he were to withdraw his breath, man would cease to exist; that’s intimacy!

• Pope Benedict XVI, I Believe in One God, ( St. Paul’s Publishing, 2012) p. 29.

• “In the early Church, Baptism was called the Sacrament of Illumination.” Cf. Pope Benedict XVI, I Believe in One God, p. 132.

• Gelin SS, Albert, S., The Concept of Man in the Bible, David Murphy, Tr., (:Alba House, 1968) p. 29.

• Luke 12:50, RSV.

• Cf. Romans 12:1.

• Cf Acts 14:8-18 Where St. John Chrysostom states of Paul and Barnabas, “For a tongue of fire was added to their human nature...[and this] fire is never something that is simply due to another and therefore exists beside him.” Pope Benedict XVI, Images of Hope, (:Ignatius Press, 2006) pp. 72-73.

• Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine. Rex Warner, Tr. New American Library, 1963 (cf. XIII, 9,10). 23

• Pope Benedict XVI, The Spirit of the Liturgy, (Ignatius Press, 2000), p. 27.

• von Hildebrand, Dietrich, Liturgy and Personality, Sophia Institute Press, 1985, p. 74.

• Gelin SS, Albert, S., The Concept of Man in the Bible, David Murphy, Tr., Alba House, 1968, p. 17.

• Pope Benedict XVI, The Spirit of the Liturgy, p. 28.

• Cf. Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, 1993, §63.

• Genesis 2:18, RSV.

• Cf. Psalm 82:6a.

• Cf. Psalms 35:9b.

• The baptized are priests (universal priesthood). Until that identity is returned to all, the dignity of one’s baptism cannot open up any possibilities of genuine sacrifice.

• In the Liturgy of the Hours, the baptized priestly person is the sensible sign.

• Irwin, Kevin W., Liturgical Theology-A Primer, The Liturgical Press, 1990. p. 29.

• Corbon, p. 233.

     

• This will always be understood here as the baptized People of God (cf. Lumen Gentium, Ch. 2). Those coming into the fullness of the Catholic Church are not converts properly speaking. If they are baptized validly, they are in the Body of Christ. Anything short of that is an affront to the dignity of baptism and the work of the Spirit in man.

• Rahner, Karl, The Practice of Faith, The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1983) p. 173.

• von Hildebrand p. 46.

• Mannion, p. 108.

• Bouyer, Louis, The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, Scepter Publisher, 2001 p. 168.

• Ironically, service is aptly named as it is indeed a service to God, not man.

• Religious freedom should not be thwarted, as it is preparation for the fullness of truth.

• von Hildebrand, p. 54.

• As spoken by the Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann, in Irwin, Kevin W., Liturgical Theology: A Primer, The Liturgical Press, 1990, p. 42.

• The concluding rite exclaims ite missa est, meaning “you are being sent.” This implies to bring the liturgy into the world.

• Cf. Synod of Bishops, XI Ordinary General Assembly, The Eucharist: The Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church, Lineamenta, 2001, §2.

• Mannion, p. 77. 24

• Schmemann, Alexander, Eucharist, p. 20.

• Every moment of the Incarnation is to unite to man—concerning the hesychast controversy, “to emphasize the concrete possibility that man is given to unite himself with the Triune God in the intimacy of his heart.” Cf. Pope John Paul II, “Eastern Theology has Enriched the Whole Church”, Angelus Message, 11 August 1996.

• Maloney, pp.8-9.

• Lossky, p. 40.

• John 1:5, RSV.

• Logos “is not reason pure and simple, but creative Reason, that speaks and communicates itself.” Cf. Pope Benedict XVI, I Believe in One God, St. Paul’s Publishing, 2012. p. 19.

• Maloney, pp. 42-43.

• Maloney, p. 66.

• Rahner, Karl, The Trinity, p. 90.

• Chervin, Ronda, The Way of Love, Volume III, “Making Moral Loving Decisions,” 2010.

• Canty, Aaron, Light and Glory-The Transfiguration of Christ in Early Franciscan and Dominican Theology,  The Catholic University of America Press, 2011) p. 95.

• Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine. Rex Warner, Tr. New American Library, 1963, p. 321 (XIII. 8).

• Corbon, p. 227.

• Maloney, p. 88.

• Cf. Canty, p. 93, John of La Rochelle brings up an objection, raised but not properly satisfied by Alexander of Hales, asking “how is it that Jesus’ post-Resurrection appearances are not properly referred to as transfigurations.”

• Pope Benedict XVI, who followed him wrote his doctorate thesis on Bonaventure who understood all ages as a progression towards the  “age of the Spirit.”

• Lossky, p. 65.

• Pope Benedict XVI, The Spirit of the Liturgy, p. 58.

• St. Gregory of Nyssa uses the word “energy” to describe the bond between God and his creatures… “every essence has an energy if it is to be more than possible; this is God’s manifestation in the created order.” Cf. Maloney, p. 72,

• Lossky, p. 54.

• Roberts, Alexander and Donaldson, James, Ed., Ante-Nicene Fathers, V.2., Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, Book I, Chap. VI.  Hendrickson Publishers, 2004 p. 215. 25

• Augustine, (XIII.8), p. 321 (emphasis mine).

• How telling is the fact that John Paul II added the illuminative mysteries to the great prayer of the Rosary.

• “The freedom to give right worship to God, appears, in the encounter with Pharaoh, to be the sole purpose of the Exodus.” Cf. Pope Benedict XVI, The Spirit of the Liturgy, p. 20.

68.  Luke 1:74b, RSV.

69.  Cf. Wisdom 7:26

70. Alighieri, Dante, The Divine Comedy, tr. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Fall River Press, 2013 Paradiso, Canto XXX - line 46, p. 671.


For Personal Reflection  and Group Sharing: 

• What does the metaphor of light offer in terms of man’s relation to God and other men?

• In what ways is sacrifice necessary to complement the word  “gift”, as in the phrase “giving of yourself to another”?

3.   What are some of the obstacles to grasping the significance of being in liturgy?   Pastorally, how can it be shown as necessary and relevant for the life of man?

4. Why is it so easy to separate the sacred from the secular? How can one help others overcome that false dichotomy?

5.  What is the significance of the Logos and the Transfiguration for a human anthropology?

6.  Pastorally, how can others be guided to grow in love through the Light and liturgy, in order “to make the candle ready for its flame”?


RESPONSES TO THIS CHAPTER:

Response from Kathleen Brouillette:

“It is the nature of this relational God to give Himself as gift.  This gift manifests itself in terms of sacrifice.”  Taken from the second page of Bujno’s article, this may be the single most important sentence of the entire chapter…perhaps of the entire course.  That God sacrifices is key to understanding His love for us, and our required response to Him.  Sacrifice is key to understanding the role of Jesus Christ as Bridegroom of the Church, which is key to understanding the priesthood and married life.  It is key to understanding that we are members of the Mystical Body of Christ and must love and treat one another as such.  It is key to understanding liturgy, grace, relationship, love and worship.

Bujno also suggests that the polarity we experience in the Church, especially since the second half of the twentieth century, really began with Adam and Eve, and continued with Cain and Abel.  We have taken that polarity in a different direction, completely away from sacrifice, toward fulfillment of me.  It is important for us to remember that God has revealed to us how He wishes to be worshiped.  This is not about man, his will and self-fulfillment – the focus is to be on GOD. We must see ourselves in Him on our way to divinization.  “One sacrifices in imaging a God who himself freely offers sacrifices.”  “Man’s vocation is to be a sacrifice.”  Who believes that?????  To how many has the concept even occurred???  

Bujno further speaks of being free to do that which we are designed to do, but mankind leans more toward being free of restrictions to do his own will than on doing the will of God. Man’s focus on his relational nature is more about being able to do what he wants, when he wants, with whomever he wants.  And rarely is the object of that desire God. Too many see this life as an end in itself.  There is precious little thought of heaven except as some delightful place of reward where everyone goes after having done whatever they want in this life on earth.

How is it possible for people to live liturgically when they seldom, if ever, participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?  And, at the risk of repeating my position in every single chapter, how can they offer full, active, conscious participation in the liturgical aspect of life if no one ever teaches them about it????  How many people know, let alone meditate upon, the fact that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a participation in the heavenly liturgy?  How many people know they need to prepare for this experience?  When the music director in my parish plays before Mass, it seems to be a signal to the people that now is the time to talk to your neighbors, and to talk louder in order to hear one another over the organ.  There is no thought of talking to God, or of being silently in His Presence, or of offering the Mass.  There is no thought of talking to Christ within us when we return to our pews after Communion.  There is no thought of becoming divinized, or of taking this grace out into the world to be its light.  It’s part of a check-off list:  go to Church, receive Communion, take the kids to religion class.  Or, don’t do any of these things because, “I don’t get anything out of it.”

But it isn’t about what we get.  We have to live liturgy and be it.  If we understand that we are made in the image of God, that He wishes us to worship Him according to His will, that He sacrifices and we are to do so as well, that liturgy gives us the grace to become more and more like Him and to be light for one another, then we change the world by the way we live in it, and God will be all in all!

Response of David Tate: 

Reading Bujno’s first section regarding his theological and anthropological use of light, I am reminded of several words. Knowing, Understanding, and even Security are words that come to my mind. Bujno writes,” With God’s continued ‘light’, the centuries ahead will recognize…” He invites a similar common denominator with his word, recognize. Reading Bujno, I am reminded of my days of when I was an avid John Wayne films fan, especially his Westerns. One classic scene shows Wayne and others sitting around a campfire. Night has fallen, and there exists an aura of light where everyone is easily seen. Beyond a certain point, the light fades and what lies beyond sits invisibly behind the curtain of darkness. Many times for drama sake, some mysterious or intimidating sounds breaks the sound of the soft campfire conversations. The startling sound sends everyone to the task of producing a gun for protection. The light of the campfire provides visibility to life, and a sense of security against the curtain of blackness that encroaches ever closer as the fire dies down. With this metaphor I feel that the idea of light in man’s understanding of others (especially God) is wrapped up in the dual sense of giving light, but also for pushing back the darkness.

The lesson from Nature and from God is that the act of creating life is the ultimate in “giving”. The parents of children give of their time, talent, and treasure to provide for their young what the young need for survival into adulthood (food, warmth, protection, sometimes nurturing). It has been made clear that the greatest example of caring and giving are demonstrated by some form of sacrifice. In the history of man, the most moving stories are those of people that give their life for the sake of another’s survival. The most explicit act of giving rests on the fact that the one being given to cannot provide for itself. Bujno mentions, ”relational God to give himself as gift.” God’s act of giving to Mankind is the Gift of Himself in the Second Person of the Trinity who became Flesh, in order to die a death upon a Cross for the sins of all mankind. This is the visible sign of God’s relationship with Man that did not want, nor was able to, provide a way out of his sinfulness. Like the old hymn says, “We owed a debt we could not pay. God paid a debt He did not owe.” God’s greatest Gift was Himself in the Paschal sacrifice.

Joseph Ratzinger and Democratic Socialism
by Fr. Peter Kucer, MSA 

Fr. Peter Kucer, MSA, is an instructor of Church History and the Interim Academic Dean at Holy Apostles College & Seminary.  He completed his STD in Systematic Theology from the Catholic University of America in January, 2012, and worked in parish ministry before being appointed to the faculty at Holy Apostles in the fall of 2013.  His interests include the relationship of Catholic doctrine to history, politics, economics and scientific reasoning.  While teaching he is studying these relationships from the standpoint of stability and change.  Another relationship that is of great interest to him is between Catholicism and Judaism again from the standpoint of continuity and change.

The SPD, as presently known by Ratzinger, is a messy democratic political party that is not highly structured and centralized, as was the KPD and the Nazi party, but rather, as described by Peter Lösche, “is decentralized, fragmented, and flexible.  Local party organizations of various kinds…enjoy a high degree of autonomy, while organizations at the regional (Bezirk) or state (Land) level have their own, very considerable weight.  The party Executive (Parteivorstand) and the party Presidium do not stand at the summit of a centralized, pyramid-like structure; rather, they tend to function separately from the rest of the party.” It advocates a moderate, welfare state and, in a non-totalitarian manner, a moderately, planned economy.  When Ratzinger refers to Democratic Socialism his primary point of reference is the SPD as distinguished from the KPD and the NSDAP, also known as the Nazi party.

 Ratzinger on Democratic Socialism and other Political Ideologies:

When Ratzinger’s remarks on socialism are read in light of the just presented historical context, then it becomes possible to correlate political terms that he uses with specific German parties.  First, Ratzinger’s positive appraisal of democratic socialism is to be understood with reference to the present SPD party which, as previously explained, promotes a welfare state that is moderately planned, democratic, decentralized and non-totalitarian.  Second, Ratzinger’s negative appraisal of the “rigidly materialistic and atheistic”  totalitarian socialism corresponds to Germany’s  KPD party which aimed at creating a state that is the totality of its citizens’ existence.  According to Ratzinger, this form of socialism failed not simply because of its “false economic dogmatism” but more fundamentally due to its “contempt for human rights” and by “their subjection of morality to the demands of the system and to their promises for the future.”  By making morality subordinate to the political system of communism, “man’s primordial certainties about God, about himself, and about the universe” are, argues Ratzinger, lost. 

An example of the Church’s indirect influence on politics is the witness set forth by Mother Teresa of Calcutta and her sisters in their personal dedication to the poorest of the poor.  Although they do not advocate any political ideology, they are not simply acting as a first response, Band-Aid solution to the problem of poverty but rather are, as official representatives of the Church and her politics of a not-yet and present Kingdom of God, challenging the consciences of those who make up and decide various political platforms.  Their courageous witness serve as a constant reminder to politicians of all parties, to take into account the needs of the poor which can never adequately be met only by distant, mechanical and technocratic means.

In defending the relative autonomy of faith from political reason, as well witnessed to by Mother Teresa and her sister, Ratzinger disagrees with theologians who after Vatican Council II “transformed de Lubac’s theology of Catholicity into a political theology that sought to put Christianity to practical use as a catalyst for achieving political unity.”   According to Ratzinger, this transformation does not follow de Lubac’s thought “to its logical conclusion.”   Rejecting this transformation of de Lubac’s thought does not mean, though, that Ratzinger is advocating an individualistic manner of perceiving Christianity in which grace mediated by the Church only has relevance for the individual soul and not also for man as a whole.

Consequently, Ratzinger strongly rejects the political theologies of both Alfons Auer and Johann Baptist Metz.  These two theologians confused truths of faith with political reason by proposing, writes Ratzinger, the “ecclesialization of everything.”  Auer and Metz integrate faith and reason in their common relationship to political reasoning to an extent that Ratzinger does not.  In contrast with Auer and Metz, Ratzinger maintains that even though salvation begins in this world it is not to be politicized, for it is primarily directed beyond this earthly world to the heavenly world, where reason will encounter divine truth without the mediation of faith.  According to Ratzinger, such political theologies attempt to replace the Church’s role of evangelizing the world with truths of faith to be received and which transcend the world with the role of “liberating the world within its worldliness” by actively making truth on earth.

In Introduction to Christianity, Ratzinger further argues that the politicization of theology is contrary to the Christian faith in the Trinity.  In order to understand his reasoning his concept of ontological truth as defined by consciousness, love and freedom needs further explanation.  Ratzinger describes truth in this manner by writing, “if the logos of all being, the being that bears up and encompasses everything, is consciousness, freedom and love, then it follows automatically that the supreme factor in the world is not cosmic necessity but freedom.”  

After defining “the supreme factor in the world” as a rational love which necessarily entails freedom and unpredictability Ratzinger then concludes that “if the supreme point in the world’s designs is a freedom which bears up, wills, knows and loves the whole world as freedom, then this means that together with freedom the incalculability implicit in it is an essential part of the world.”

The above reasoning leads Ratzinger to reject political theology as principally defined by Hegel since Hegelian idealistic political theology, according to Ratzinger, ignores freedom as constitutive to the world including its politics.   In addition to rejecting an idealism that is taken up into political theology, Ratzinger also rejects Marx’s supposedly scientific, political theory which is similar to Hegel’s thought without the theological and spiritual aspect of Hegelian dialectics. Present, therefore, within his rejection of Hegelian political theology is also a dismissal of Marx’s approach to politics.  He spells out his rejection of Hegelian political theology in the following manner. According to Ratzinger, Hegel rejects love as constitutive of God since, as explained by Ratzinger, Hegel views the Triune nature of God as only “the expression of the historical side of God and therefore of the way in which God appears in history.”    Hegel, therefore concludes Ratzinger, is a Monarchist since the description of God as three persons in one divine nature “are regarded as only masks of God which tell us something about ourselves but nothing about God himself.”   

This view of Ratzinger is in accordance with his manner of defining truth as ultimately a personal reality and not as located in a general, ideal practice set forth by a political ideology.  By being personal, truths of faith are primarily relevant for causing conversions in individuals through their transformation in Christ and not in bringing about a structural political change.  Once again, the non-direct political, but not a-political, example set by Mother Teresa of Calcutta and her sisters well exemplifies this ecclesial way of engaging and challenging the political context she is situated in.

In summary, despite Ratzinger’s positive appraisal for democratic socialism, as primarily understood in reference to the German SPD party, he makes, as demonstrated previously, a clear distinction between political opinion and ecclesial faith.  This distinction follows from his moderate integration of the reason-faith relation that respects a clear differentiation between political reasoning and truths of faith.  

According to Ratzinger the papacy is to be especially respectful of this distinction by taking care not to side with any one political party.  In this way, he writes, the pope as a non-political center “can be effective against the drift into dependence on political systems or the pressures emanating from our civilization.”  “[O]nly by having such a center” argues Ratzinger “can the faith of Christians secure a clear voice in the confusion of ideologies.” 

Furthermore, according to Ratzinger, in her present “painful ‘between’” state on earth the Church (in this context understood through the ordained and consecrated life) shares in the suffering of mankind “from within” by relating to the world non-politically.  She does so, asserts Ratzinger, by offering moral norms for politics and not by presenting herself as an ideal “political norm of political activity.”  For Ratzinger, the fundamental moral norm to be defended by the Church within the political arena is the right to life.  The killing of the innocent, which includes abortion, “cannot”, declares Ratzinger, “be made right by any law.”  While, for Ratzinger, the Church, as publicly represented by the bishops, is to be a moral authority in the world she is neither to focus her efforts on addressing specific political/economic issues nor is she to advocate any one political ideology.  This does not mean she may not legitimately critique in a broad way specific economic/political positions and events such as the US led invasion of Iraq.  However, it is not her role to come up with a detailed political/economic plan to serve as a blue print for the US, or any other country, to follow.  

Ratzinger’s Political Views in the Context of US Politics:  

As is quite evident in the current US political climate, Socialism is portrayed negatively by both mainstream Democrats and Republicans.  According to a recent poll done by Pew Research, “The word 'socialism' triggers a negative reaction for most Americans, but certainly not for all. Six-in-ten (60%) people say they have a negative reaction to the word, while just 31% have a positive reaction. Those numbers are little changed from April 2010.”  The negative association that the term socialism bears in the US has a particular impact on those who are running for office or are in office.  The term is typically used in order to either discredit an opponent or to reassure the voter that a candidate, by not being a socialist, is a moderate.  

However, as was described in the first section of this essay similar programs were advocated by the Socialists in Germany, in particular Theodor Christian Lohmann, who under Otto von Bismarck helped to draft Germany’s social security plans.  Lohmann in Communismus, Socialismus, Christenthum proposed reforming Germany by looking to socialist theories for inspiration.

In contrast with the general US fear of socialism, which can be understood as an excessive reaction to the European revolutions of 1848 and the subsequent cold war, Ratzinger is not irrationally frightened by the mere prospect of socialism.  He recognizes it as a political system that, along with other political systems, can be compatible with Christianity as long as it is not expressed according to the totalitarian version.  Democratic socialism, for Ratzinger, served as a “salutary counterbalance” between more radical positions.

The “two existing models” that Ratzinger refers to, (the laicist model in which all religions are completely relegated to the private sphere, a tendency in France, and a state supported Church model, evident in German history) do not have direct parallels in the US, especially in relationship to US Catholics who do not as a block of voters gravitate towards one specific party.  Nonetheless, the concept of democratic socialism serving as a “salutary counterbalance” is something that the US political arena could benefit from.  Currently, US politics tends to be bipolar, either Democratic or Republican.  A third intermediary party, whether socialistic or not may help the US political environment to be get out of its entrenched binary thought, become less polemic and more open to dialogue and genuine listening to opposing sides and viewpoints, in accordance with the Catholic concept, inspired by the Trinity, of an assimilating political unity and not a totalitarian political unity.

With that said it is important to acknowledge that Western Europe, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, has been described as experiencing a Eurosclerosis.  This term is used in reference to Western Europe’s difficulty in funding their welfare state, their wide spread low birth rates, their rapidly aging populations, their high unemployment rates, and their slow job growth.  Taking these aspects into account, the question arises as to whether the Western European social welfare state model is a viable one for the US to pattern itself on.  Furthermore, as has been acknowledged by many, if Western Europe had not accepted US aid, for example in post WWII Marshall Plan, and had not relied on US leadership and military protection it would have been impossible for any Western European country to develop and sustain their welfare programs.  Likewise, since the US was relied upon, along with constant barrage of criticisms, as the Western military might to keep chaotic anti-Western European forces at bay, the US was not able to develop a similar welfare program.  It could not, since a significant portion of tax dollars, which could have been used to build up a social safety net, was instead used to support a US military budget that far exceeds any Western European military budget.  Finally, it has been pointed out that Democratic Socialism has been relatively successful in small countries, such as in Denmark and Sweden, since they are small and homogenous.  In contrast, the US is a large and highly diverse country politically, economically and culturally.  Could these differences pose an unsurmountable obstacle for the US in its attempts to enact a similar democratic socialism?

The issue of whether democratic socialism is viable for the US is not, though, the main one that Ratzinger’s reflection on politics has to offer for US politics.  (Even though, as has been pointed out, a third major party that shares some features in common with European Democratic Socialism could greatly help in ending the current hardened bi-polar political scene in the US.)  What the US can greatly benefit from Ratzinger’s political views is his recognition that since all political parties are necessarily imperfect, theological attempts to so integrate faith with political reason that the two become practically indiscernible from each other ought to be rejected.  Since any political ideology, by being reflective of this fallen world, are imperfect, it is imperative for the Church, in its official capacity, to remain ascetically detached from political parties while, at the same time, encouraging a multitude of political expressions, as long as they are not totalitarian, to spring up and in their competitive struggle for votes and thus purify to one another in their overlapping relationships.  

Ratzinger’s political views on the proper relationship of Church and political ideologies are a direct outcome of his understanding of how reason is to relate to faith.  According to him, although reason and faith are integrated and related to one another, they, at the same time retain a degree of autonomy within their perspective realms.  He, therefore, opposes attempts to couple faith with socialism, as has been proposed in Europe, or in the case of the US, with capitalism as evident in more conservative politics typically associated with the Republican Party. Marrying any political ideology to faith would, according to Ratzinger, abolish, to the detriment of both faith and politics, the vital distinction between faith and politics.  Faith suffers in such a scheme since, at the price of being immanent by being totally integrated with one political system, it loses its transcendence.  Politics likewise suffers in this system since, argues Ratzinger, it would no longer be accountable to a reality that is distinct from it, thus greatly increasing the possibility of political regimes veering off into totalitarianism. According to Ratzinger, by maintaining a clear distinction from any one political system, faith, in respecting the different qualities that each system has to offer, is better able to come to the aid of all political systems.  

Although the Church, as represented by Ratzinger, clearly grants the greatest moral weight to moral issues dealing with the beginning of life and the end of life, this does not mean that moral issues that concern men and women between these two stages are of no importance to the Church.  They certainly are, as repeatedly asserted by Pope Francis.  When it is acknowledged that there exists a healthy, legitimate diversity of opinion among US Catholic on how to address issues such as immigration, taxation and health care reform, then the marked tendency for US Catholics to idolize either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party will diminish.  In addition, when US Catholics resist the tendency to idolize a political party while demonizing the opposing party, they, including those who rightly cannot in conscience vote for the Democratic Party that seems wedded to a pro-abortion position, will be freed to see that even the party they oppose cannot be wrong on all issues in all ways, especially ones concerning pragmatic thought and application.  Idolization, forbidden by the first commandment, prevents one from acknowledging deficiencies within the political party one adopts and blinds one to the need of a purifying presence of another party, and hopefully the purifying presence of more than one.

In summary, the essential teaching US Catholics can learn from Ratzinger’s thought is that the maintenance of clear and not hazy boundaries between political reasoning and truths of faith is ultimately beneficial to politics since it allows the Church to be “an open space of reconciliation among the parties”  and, as a result, grants to Catholics the interior freedom to judge a political party they may adopt according to the supranational ethics encouraged by the Church. The moral supranational ethics of the Church founded in universal truths also encourages Catholics to transcend their political party when it tends towards totalitarianism and to avoid idolizing the political party they adopt.

Conclusion:
In this essay, we have distinguished Democratic Socialism from totalitarian socialism.  Next we examined the historical context in which Ratzinger positively appraises socialism in its democratic form. This was followed by examining, in light of Germany’s political history, Ratzinger’s take not only on democratic socialism but also on all political ideologies in relationship to the Church’s mission.  Finally, in the context of present day US politics, Ratzinger’s assessment of democratic socialism, while insisting that the Church is never to officially promote any political ideology no matter how attractive it may appear, was discussed. 

These various steps in the thought of Ratzinger were taken with the hope of finding a way to lessen the US’s highly polarized political environment.  We saw that in Europe democratic socialism, by mediating between two political options, helped to bring about greater dialogue and cooperation.  In stating this Ratzinger writes, “Starting from its initial premise, democratic socialism was able to become part of the two existing models, as a salutary counterbalance to the radical liberal positions, enriching and correcting them.”  However, upon appraising some key differences between US and Western Europe political and economic history the question arose as to whether democratic socialism could ever serve the US political environment in such a positive manner.  However, Ratzinger’s ascetic detachment as an official representative of the Church even from persuasive aspects of Democratic Socialism can teach US Catholic a very important lesson.  Following the example of Mother Teresa’s indirect political influence the best way, as proposed by Ratzinger, for the Catholic Church, sacramentally speaking, in the US to have a positive effect on politics is to avoid presenting the faith as “a political norm of political activity.”  This means that great caution is to be taken not to be tempted to wed the faith to what is currently defined as liberal politics or conservative politics.  As pointed out by Ratzinger, such a marriage would contradict the very nature of Christianity, especially as it was lived out in its early stages.  In explaining this Ratzinger writes:

When Christianity was looking in the Roman world for a word with which it could express, in a synthetic way understandable to everyone, what Jesus Christ meant to them, it came across the word conservator, which had designated in Rome the essential duty and the highest service necessary to render to mankind.  But this very title the Christians could not and would not transfer to their Redeemer; with that term, indeed, though could not translate the word Messiah or Christ or describe the task of the Savior of the world.  From the perspective of the Roman Empire, indeed, it would necessarily seem that the most important duty was that of preserving the situation of the empire against all internal and external threats, since this empire embodied a period of peace and justice in which men could live in security and dignity…Nevertheless, Christians could not simply want everything to remain as it was…The fact that Christ could be described, not as Conservator, but as Salvator certainly had no political or revolutionary significance, but it necessarily indicated the limits of mere conservatism and pointed to a dimension of human life that goes beyond the causes of peace and order, which are the proper subject of politics.

Questions:

• Is the political system of democracy necessarily coupled with capitalism?  Why or why not?  

• Can the political system of democracy be coupled with socialism?  Why or why not?

• Can a democracy become totalitarian?  If so, why?  If not, why not?

• What determines when a political system is no longer compatible with Catholic faith?

• Historically, why did Ratzinger claim, “In many respects democratic socialism was and is close to Catholic social doctrine; in any case, it contributed toward the formation of a social consciousness.”

• Do you agree with Ratzinger’s claim, why or why not?

• According to Ratzinger, how may the Church, when presenting herself officially, legitimately engage the political world?

• Based on the article, how do you suggest a priest, when publicly speaking, represent the Church’s relationship to politics?

RESPONSES TO THIS CHAPTER:

Response from Sean Hurt: 

Like I said in previous comments, in a past-life, I used to consider myself a socialist. So, Ronda sent me this chapter, I think, expecting me to have lot to say about democratic socialism. Rather, I don’t at all. It sort of leaves me cold—like ashes of an old flame. I’m more interested in Ratzinger’s warning about faith, that it’s not “a political norm of political activity” that finds expression in a particular form of governance.

An aspect of the gospel that is so astounding to me is that Jesus' message is perpetually fresh. Christ's truths are so true and yet so impossible... It's not just that they seem unlikely, but they're simply impractical. For example, can I offer up my other cheek or be a lily of the fields? Can I sell all my belongings, hate my mother and carry a cross? As Chesterton pointed out, there is nothing about Jesus' moral teaching that resembles a platitude. I think that's because the heart of the Gospel is rejection of the world for the sake of a deeper reality. It's a fresh message in every age, but nothing if not extreme. 

So, there is no resting for us Christians. It's not a task to be done, but rather an unending ascent up God's holy mountain. In this sense, I can agree with the notion that faith is not “a political norm of political activity”. We cannot content ourselves with human governance because we were designed for God’s kingdom. The saints lead us ever on, ever closer to perfection. Any form of human government ultimately falls way short. Thus, zealous advocacy of a particular government seems to me a dangerous faith in mankind’s self-salvation, and a dangerous level of collusion with the world.   

Lessons From Fr. Joseph Owens

The purpose of this paper is to cast some light on the challenges confronting the academic program of a seminary and college like Holy Apostles by analyzing the Foreword written by Father Joseph Owens, CSSR. for his book intended for  undergraduates entitled An Elementary Christian Metaphysics. That there are challenges, particularly in the last fifty years or so, is obvious. The answer of Holy Apostles and similar institutions has been and is now to implement a pre-theologian’s program devoted to two years of philosophy in preparation for four years of theology done according to the mind of St. Thomas Aquinas. This program quite naturally brings to my mind the following questions drawn from the Foreword of An Elementary Christian Metaphysics: 1) What is an elementary metaphysics? 2) What is a Christian metaphysics? 3) What is a metaphysics done according to the principles of St. Thomas Aquinas? It is my thesis that the answers Father Owens gives to these questions give us an appreciation of the program of Holy Apostles’ College and Seminary. 

Because philosophy is the highest of the human sciences, Owens takes for granted that it has a place in any undergraduate or graduate program. No one today denies a place to the sciences of mathematics, astronomy, biology, physics and the rest. Why should metaphysics be an exception? It is a human achievement just as the other sciences are. Indeed it is the highest of strictly human intellectual achievements and should be part of any sound program in college education. Hence college students, especially those bound for the seminary, should study metaphysics. Both human reason and the directives of the bishops prescribe this. The philosophical habit of mind has been standard equipment for the educated human being since the time of the ancient Greeks. Lay students and seminarians should be heirs to that tradition. But they should be working heirs, so to speak. You can inherit money without working. But you can’t inherit a philosophical habit of mind without thinking things through. 

Holy Apostles embodies this tradition, thus contributing to the intellectual welfare, not only of lay Catholics and seminarians but of the nation as a whole. The nation has been swamped in the atmosphere that suggests that the study of the modern sciences is the legitimate use of formal reason. As an institution Holy Apostles resists this atmosphere. The highest use of the human intellect is to grasp the truth, to be contemplative, not to change the world or to be practical. To be contemplative is to be truly and fully human. 

What Is a Christian Metaphysics?

Owens then turns his attention to the notion of a Christian metaphysics. He is using the term “Christian” in the way Pope Leo XIII used it when he called for the reformation of Catholic philosophy. In that view the philosophies found in the theological works of figures like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas may be called Christian. Since there has been controversy about this matter, Owens proceeds to show that the term “Christian philosophy” is sanctioned by long tradition. But before detailing his argument, I will make one note on the difference between faith on the one hand and revealed theology and natural philosophy on the other. Faith comes from what God in the person of Christ has revealed to the Apostles from whom the pope and the bishops are descended. 

A sample of Owen’s argument of how philosophy can be an aid the faith is the Church’s use of the term “transubstantiation” to describe the mystery of bread and wine becoming the Body and Blood of Christ. It is not on the authority of Aristotle that she does so. Nor is it on the authority of St. Thomas. It is by her own authority that she chooses to use this term as a great help in illustrating the mystery of the Eucharist. Here the mystery is not cleared up. It is just given a form that can be used to counter the subtleties found in false teachings. 

Let me expand on this point by Owens. Consider the teaching of Aristotle and Aquinas that all material things are composed of 1) a form which makes a body the kind of thing it is, (for example a rock, a plant, an animal or a man) and 2) prime matter, the underlying bridge which explains the fact that earth can be taken up by plants which can be eaten by cows which in turn can be eaten by men who in turn die and go back into earth from which they push up daisies, thus starting the whole process of substantial changes all over again. These transformations are as much a fact now as they ever were. Aristotle and Aquinas proved that the teaching of hylomorphism is the only explanation that explains the fact that one substance can change into another.

Consider another use of the hylomorphic teaching in helping to understand the resurrection of the body on the Last Day. The only way we can know with certainty that human beings will get their bodies back again is that it has been revealed by God. There is no evidence this side of the grave that can support such a conclusion. But there is evidence from ordinary human experience that the human soul is immortal because it is a spirit. Plato saw that a spirit cannot be poisoned, crushed, cut up, or destroyed because it has no bodily parts. Once the soul is in existence, it will live forever even after the death of the body. Plato had no great difficulty in taking this position because of his view that the soul is one substance and the body is another, the soul being like a driver and the body like a chariot being driven. Aristotle had trouble with this view because he held that man is a single substance composed of a body and a soul, which is another way of saying that man is a single substance where an intellectual soul or form actualizes the potential found in prime matter. On this view man is a chariot which drives itself. Now in the case of brute animals there is no difficulty about the sensitive soul surviving death. It doesn’t. A sensitive soul needs the organs of the body to operate. Thus when an animal dies, its soul evaporates, so to speak. Aristotle also taught that the rational soul has an immaterial operation called reasoning. But in order to reason man needed the data drawn from the senses. For it was not the nature of man to be a pure spirit, as Plato held. Rather it was the nature of man to be a body informed by a rational form or soul. What would be the point of holding that the soul lived forever if it could not use its intelligence to know anything, even itself? Hence we do not see Aristotle emphasizing the eternal existence of the human soul as Plato. 

How did Aquinas handle this difficulty? He sided with Aristotle in saying that man is a single substance of body and soul, matter and form. He also sided with Aristotle in saying that the soul of man is dependent upon the senses for its knowledge. Yet he concluded that the soul after death could still operate, was aware of itself and of other beings. What was his evidence for saying so? It could not be the evidence or ordinary human experience, which, of course, is the experience of life on this side of the grave, the same evidence that Aristotle had. Then from where did Aquinas draw his evidence? It was from his faith in the teaching of the Church that after death each and every soul was judged by Christ. By faith, then, he reached the conclusion that although the soul was not the pure spirit that an angel was, it still could be conscious of itself, its past activities, and its judge even though the soul did not animate a body as it did on earth. Aristotle could not have drawn this conclusion because he did not have the faith. Aquinas drew it because he did have faith in the teachings of Church.

It follows that between the time of the death of human being and the Last Day a human being is not fully a human being because it does not have a body. While this does not detract either from the joy of the saved or the agony of the damned, it does show the importance of the body on the Last Day. Only then will human beings become fully so. For it is of their very nature that they are not angels, pure spirits, but composites of body and soul. For the saved, the bodies will be glorified bodies. 

This kind of analysis would be impossible without a knowledge of the philosophical demonstrations involved in the teaching of hylomorphism. Nor would it be possible without having faith in the teaching of the particular judgment after death and the general judgment at the end of the world. Again we see the power of faith, which is available to the unlearned.  But it is also available to the learned who then can then do the kind of theology that looks for help from philosophy and the kind of Christian philosophy that can be of assistance to theology.

An accurate knowledge of metaphysics can be of great help in understanding as much as humanly possible such mysteries as the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation. The method to be used is to take the truth of the mysteries for granted and then consider the role that metaphysics has played in its elucidation of such concepts as nature, person, soul, or body by considering the data supplied by human experience of the world as it is.

In doing theology, philosophy is a great help in understanding as much as humanly possible about God’s revelation that he, the One and Only, created the world from nothing, that angels are pure spirits, or that man is a composite of body and soul. These truths taught to children in the catechism as preambles to faith can be sharpened by the study of Christian metaphysics. In doing this the educated adult not only has a stronger intellectual hold on these religious truths. He also has a hold upon how to rank the realities he sees on earth in terms of their ultimate causes. In knowing the relative importance of God, angels, humans, animals, plants, and minerals, the metaphysician has the ability to rank the various sciences dealing with these objects. He has the habit of mind which enables him to deal all the data of human experience, not just the data supplied by the modern sciences of physics, chemistry, biology, and the rest.

We are speaking of course of a Christian metaphysics. There are also atheistic, agnostic, pagan, German or French metaphysics. They all can lay a claim to be philosophical because they all start with some kind of human experience of this world and then derive their consequences in the public and precise way of formal inference. But there is no rule that excludes Christians from looking at the world, deriving their first principle from it, and drawing conclusions that follow from first principles. 

What Is a Metaphysics Done According to the Principles of St. Thomas Aquinas?

Owens says: “Though it [his book] derives its inspiration and its guidance overwhelmingly from the reading of St. Thomas Aquinas, it is nevertheless quite hesitant in making the claim to the title of a Thomistic metaphysics” (p. vii). He continues: “The interpretation of St. Thomas’ metaphysical principles are in fact so widely divergent today that any dogmatic claim to present faithfully the original Thomistic doctrine must be regarded as presumptuous, or at least premature” (p. vii). These statements were quite a surprise to me when I first read them over fifty years ago. I was educated under the impression you could take the Summa Theologica and extract the philosophical principles involved. But Owens, following his teacher Gilson, insists that the only purely metaphysical exposition that Aquinas ever wrote was the De Ente et Essentia. Consequently Owens refers to this work in his footnotes while he develops his argument in the body of his main text. The interpretation of the De Ente et Essentia is of course that of Joseph Owens, an interpretation about which other Thomists differ. 

Since I side with Owens on this matter, I have been led to the conviction that the metaphysical tradition is not the same as the tradition of faith. In the faith there is absolutely one authoritative teaching, one pope, one priesthood, one set of sacraments. Should there be any disputes about any of these matters, they are to be settled by the Magisterium of the Church. Now the Church has not decided on the difference between Owens and his opponents. It is not her province. All that she has done is to make St. Thomas Aquinas the Common Doctor when introducing students to their theological and philosophical studies. After that professors and students are free to study others in the Catholic tradition. There is plenty of room for all when it comes to various theologies and philosophies.

There is a kind of scandal to the followers of St. Thomas Aquinas in the fact that many of his basic principles are still matters of dispute. But that is simply the way that human beings have in trying to understand the human work of a human being though he be a genius. But there seems to be even more of a scandal in seeing faithful Catholics differing about the best way the pope should deal with the modern world. But neither of these disputes about the nature of philosophy or about the Church’s stance to the modern world are really scandals. They are simply the efforts of the faithful in taking one step at a time in discovering what the truth is. Only at the Last Judgment will the veil be completely lifted. In the meantime the faithful muddle through as best they can, certain of the goal they are seeking, but uncertain about the precise way to get there. 

As an institution still existing in this modern world, a remarkable achievement, Holy Apostles College and Seminary embodies the tradition of faith and reason being the two wings by which mankind rises to the fullness of truth. But the line of flight is not the straight shot of a rocket thundering off into the sky. Rather it is the rather wobbly flight of wings moving up and down until the battered birds get to where they’re going.   

The question naturally arises as to whether a knowledge of theology and philosophy is necessary to attain this sight. Of course not! Supernatural faith is given both to the educated and the non-educated.  But let us recall that supernatural faith came to pagans who already had a natural knowledge of God. They had reason and therefore the ability to see the existence of the world as an effect of God’s power. Having reason, they had a conscience that distinguished between right and wrong actions. Thus even before the coming of revelation through the message of Abraham, the Prophets and Jesus Christ, men were able to be saved. But to enter the Gates of Paradise Christ would have to open those gates, which he did by his resurrection and descent into hell. 

For Personal Reflection and Group Sharing:

• What was your understanding of the word “metaphysics” before reading Dr. Geraghty’s article?

• If you have studied metaphysics, what do you remember as most helpful?

• Do you think that Catholic university education is better with metaphysics being an elective rather than a required course? 

RESPONSES TO THIS CHAPTER:

Response of Kathleen Brouillette: 

A recent article on yahoo.com listed philosophy as one of the top five useless college majors, citing a high unemployment rate.  Yet that same article reminded me that the consequences of the lack of such education may be not merely unemployment or a decline in the ability to think and reason, but also the eternal loss of souls.

In Fr. Legault’s Logic course (Fr. Legault is a senior professor of Thomistic philosophy at Holy Apostles College and Seminary) we learned Canadian children are required to take Logic from their earliest years.  The vast difference in the way my fellow students interpreted words through life experience rather than their true meaning in Logic showed me how much easier it would be for people to think and to communicate if we all meant the same thing when we speak.  Language is so critical!  If everyone were required to take courses in Metaphysics early in elementary education, we would be using a similar thought process.  While we might not be thinking exactly the same, or be even on the same page, we might be closer to being in the same book or, at least, in the same library, so to speak.  

When Catholic schools became the only ones to require Metaphysics, there was a breach in the educational process between Catholic and public schools in the U.S.  Now, with even Catholic schools no longer requiring Metaphysics and Logic, and so much reliance on technology, education is distancing itself from thinking.  

My granddaughter attends a Franciscan college where she is not even required to take a Catholic religion class, let alone Christian Metaphysics or (other courses in) Christian Philosophy.  Only one religion class is required and she can take Buddhism if she chooses!!  It is a frightening thing to look at the lack of hope in current generations.  It isn’t a far stretch to see that the lack of exposure to and understanding of Metaphysics is depriving our youth of belief in the existence God.  I have Confirmation students who have dropped out of the Religious Education Program because they do not believe in God.  Public schools and their methods are directly involved in such doubts, which lead to hopelessness.  They may even contribute to the loss of heaven for some souls.

We cannot decry the lack of attendance at our Masses and in our Religious Education Programs if we fail to guide our people.  Telling them there is a God and limiting their education to memorization of the Ten Commandments and the Seven Sacraments is not enough.  Unless we help them use their powers of reason to obtain a conviction regarding the existence of God, the corresponding legitimacy of His power and authority, and the promise of eternal life for those who love Him, there will be no faith, no hope, no love, no peace, and a sparsely populated heaven.

Response of David Tate:

Before starting my education in philosophy, I did not know the word metaphysics. If I thought about it, I probably would have gotten it confused as being some kind of weird synonym for paranormal.  Reese (Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion) defines the word as, “the study of ultimates”. Another source defines it as knowing, “what the real nature of things is.”  (The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Paul Edwards) Joseph Owens, in his own book, defines it as, “the study of what comes after the physical.” 

Many years ago, I was standing with someone, and we were looking through my telescope. After looking at a selection of objects, this person turned to me and asked, “What does it all mean?” This response for me typifies what most people seem to think about when they get the opportunity to see a baby born, or a blazing summer sunset, or fly above the earth in a jet at 35,000 feet.  If I had been asked what metaphysics means twenty years ago, I would have liked to have been one of those that answered metaphysically, “It’s about what it all means.”

For all seminarians, I would have to agree with Pope John Paul II, when he stated that,” a solid philosophical formation… is a necessary propaedeutic for theological studies.” (SAPIENTIA CHRISTIANA, 1979, #72) I feel that metaphysics should continue to be a required course for all students; including the lay students.

Response of Tommie Kim: 

The fact that the principle of human intellect and faith are inseparable enabled the Gospel propagation into the Western world.  John Paul II also mentions the important relationship between reason and faith in the encyclical Fides et Ratio. Only when we know and love God, can a human comprehend the truth of the self.    Faith is needed in order to realize that God exists in all events of our lives. Therefore, sound understanding of metaphysics will help build sound theology.  The autonomy of philosophy is necessary for human reason to reach truth.  Therefore, the Church needs to pay attention (to what is happening in the philosophical world) since a false philosophical approach leads into a denial of faith and often into atheism. For any school founded on Catholic faith, I believe that metaphysics needs to be a required course.  Atheistic tendencies are leading many people to pursue only worldly happiness. This tendency develops further into scientism, with its agenda that with scientific development man can dominate the world.