Letter to PennyQuostal, part 6

Letter to Penny Quostal, continued:

Where was I when I was so rudely interrupted by the government’s attempt to destroy religious freedom? 

Oh yes.... sacraments. As I have said, a sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace. It is very hard not to think magically about sacraments. Sacraments aren’t magic. A lot of superstitious people treat them that way. What pray tell, does the Catechism say about superstition? Paragraph 2111 tells us that:

 “Superstition.... attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition.”   

Say what?  Can you translate that into English? Certainly!  The catechism is simply saying that it isn’t just the appearance that counts. A sacrament doesn’t work like magic. It is an outward sign that gives grace to the degree that a person is disposed to that grace. So, what is grace?  Paragraph 1997 of the Catechism says “Grace is a participation in the life of God”  and Paragraph 1999 “The grace of Christ is the gratuitous (free, unmerited) gift that God makes to us of his own life.”

In other words God is freely  offering us His own life in the sacraments. It is free but it isn’t automatic. It is the offer of the new life and the only thing we do is allow the Holy Spirit to take way our old life. God will not give the new life to His children if we cling to our life. Grace doesn’t overwhelm us like a magic spell. We have to say yes to that offer. He offers, but we can refuse.

Perhaps we need to back up and look at the Greek word for grace. That’s always fun. The word is “Kharis.” and it means “favor, even attractiveness,” as in “to find favor with someone.”. It can also mean “help, goodwill, that which someone experiences from another.” A common definition of the word grace is “an unmerited favor.” This means that a sacrament is the offer of a gift from God. What kind of gift?  As I’ve already said, it is the gift of adoption as God’s sons and daughters. 

Sacraments are NOT magic ceremonies that make our lives nicer. They are visible signs that invite us into the process of being turned into God’s children. They are entrances to conversion, to transformation. This is not always a pleasant process, “Those whom He foreknew  He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son that He (Jesus ) might be the first of many brothers.”  Remember Jesus had holes in His hands even when he rose from the dead.

A sacrament is not a voodoo ritual. It is an adoption ceremony that really works. It really changes us into something new and different but it is not a quick or easy process. Falling over at a camp meeting is very quick and easy (Remember that’s what this harangue is about.) Mystery, in the sense of a secret may be the Greek word for a sacrament, but when the first Christians wanted to talk about these things in Latin, they chose the word sacramentum, which means “an oath to the death,” or “a solemn oath between lovers.”  The Roman soldier swore a “Sacramentum” on a regular basis, that he would die, if need be, for the emperor.  This is precisely the word that Pliny, a Roman governor in Turkey uses in about 110 AD when writing to the Emperor Trajan about the Christian  They were accustomed, on a stated day, to meet together before it was light, and to sing a hymn in alternating antiphons, to Christ, as to a god, and to oblige themselves by a sacrament, not to do anything that was evil, but that they would commit no theft, or pilfering, or adultery...”  This sacramentum, this solemn oath was Mass. 

It may seem almost blasphemous to say, but to receive the Lord in Holy Communion is more than to receive the whole Christ, in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. It is, as St. Paul says, to make up in our flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ. (Col.1:24)  What could possibly be lacking in the sufferings of Christ? Simple: my participation. 

To take Holy Communion is to say that, just as Christ gave His life for me on the altar of the cross, I give my life for Him and His Bride, the Church on this altar. Like the Roman soldier swearing the sacramentum for his emperor, or the lover offering his life for the beloved, I will live for Him and, if necessary, die for Him. That’s what a sacrament is. It isn’t a nice experience of God’s love that causes me to fall over. It is not the laying on of hands for the sake of blessing. It is the laying on of hands for sacrifice.

If this is true of the Holy Eucharist, it is most certainly true of Holy Orders, by which the Eucharist is made available and it is a commitment most certainly made by deacons priests and bishops. Part of this “being conformed to the image of Christ” is the visible nature of the sacrifice. A Greek mystery made the secret things of the gods visible to the elect. So it is with us. The world sees a piece of bread, we see the Lord. A sacrament make the invisible realities of the Kingdom of God visible to us sinners. “If I am lifted up I will draw all men to Me.” (Jn. 12:32)and again “He is the visible image of the invisible God.” Col. 1:15) 

The sacrament of Holy Orders makes bishops, priests and deacons into marked men. They are targets. That’s why they wear the odd clothes at Mass. It is as if they are wearing bulls’ eyes on their clothing that say, “Arrest me first. Shoot me first.” There is no such thing as an invisible sacrament. Religious experience is  interior and invisible. The sacramental, sacrificial reality of the Christian Mysteries is there for all the world to see, even if they don’t understand. “Seeing, they do not see.” (Matt. 13: 13) That’s why you wear a ring if you are married and the clergy wear clerical garb, though those things are not sacraments in themselves. They are extensions of the visible nature of the sacrament.  Believe me, they don’t get the respect they used to. They get you some really funny looks in the super market and the occasional insult.

The liturgy is not a drama. It is not a show, but it does have some elements of drama. It is a presentation of the mystery. The Eucharist is the un-bloody representation of the sacrifice of Calvary. It is the foreshadowing of the Heavenly Wedding of the Lamb, that is of Christ and His bride, the Church. The tradition is that while we all have our roles, we are all standing in for someone else, as in a wedding by proxy. The congregation stands in for the Church, the bride. The congregation in itself is not the Church. She may be part of the Church, but despite the Neo-Congregationalists who write the vapid liturgical music so popular these days, we are not the Church. She has existed from all times and we have the privilege of being joined to her. We are her members and her children, but we are not the whole ecclesial enchilada. We represent the saints, though poorly, who stand at the Father’s throne.

The priest, an unworthy sinner, stands in for Christ. The Latin phrase  “in persona Christi” is usually translated , “in the person of Christ.” In Latin, the word “persona” primarily referred to a mask worn by an actor in one of the solemn religious dramas of the Greco Roman theater. It had a double use. It was actually a loudspeaker, but it also hid the actors individual face so that the audience was in no doubt which god or hero was being portrayed. So the phrase “in persona Christi” really means “representing,” or in “the guise” of Christ.” The individual actor didn’t matter in the drama, just as the individual priest shouldn’t matter at Mass. We priests are there wearing the mask of Christ. So we have the Bride, and the saints her children, and we have the Lord in His priestly role, but what use are deacons?

Deacons represent that most understudied element of the Kingdom of God. Deacons stand in for the Angels! In the Eastern Liturgy of St, John Chrysostom, at a certain point, the deacon’s stole is rearranged during the Mass to make it represent the wings of angels. The word deacon means minister, steward. The angels are called ministering spirits. “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent in service to those who will inherit salvation?”  (Heb:1:14) the word “ministering” in the text is “liturguca” and “service” here in Greek is “diakonia.” The very word angel means “messenger” The angels go back and forth between the altar in heaven and the altar on earth, bringing the messages of God to earth “In humble prayer we ask you, almighty God, command that these gifts be borne by the hands of your holy Angel to your altar on high.” (Words for the Roman Canon of the Mass.)  The role of the deacon is not just to clean up the altar and read the announcements. He stands in for the angelic choir without which the Heavenly Wedding would not be quite complete. The deacon is more than a functionary. He is the messenger of God in the Church and that role is symbolized in the Eucharist.

So there you have it. There is the laying on of hands for blessing and the laying on of hands for sacrifice. You have ecstatic experience and you have the absolute commitment of the sacraments. “Gather my saints together before me. Those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.” (Psalm 50:5) I have nothing against a good revival meeting. I thoroughly enjoy them, and I’ve fallen over with the best of them, but if falling over is the high point of your religious life, you’ve set the bar pretty low. “The Spirit and the Bride say, Come!” (Rev. 22:17)   Come where? “You have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly.”(Heb.11:1)   

That’s what Mass is.  It is Calvary seen from heaven. Sacrifice and Joy at the same eternal moment. It is the best God has to offer. Falling over is swell, but God has a lot more to offer.

Yours truly,

The Rev. Know it all

A Call for action

Dear Friends,

(The Rev. Know-it-all needs to discuss something other than convoluted history and obscure theology because things are not so good back on planet earth. I will resume my treatise on the relationship between sacraments and religious swooning next week, unless things get even weirder.)

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, Archbishop for the Military Services of the USA, wrote a letter to be read at all Sunday Masses for U.S. military personnel around the world. The letter is critical of the Obama administration’s decision to rescind the exemption for the Catholic Church that allows Catholic institutions not to provide condoms, sterilization, artificial birth control, and chemically induced abortions by means of insurance provided to employees. The letter said that the decision by the Obama Administration as part of new federal health care law “is a blow to a freedom that you have fought to defend and for which you have seen your buddies fall in battle,” and that “We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law.”   

Today, there are hurried meetings. As of this writing, (Feb. 8, 2012), Archbishop Broglio spoke with Secretary of the Army John McHugh and they have “agreed that it was a mistake to stop the reading of the archbishop's letter,”  The Archbishop has also agreed to McHugh's suggestion that the words, “We cannot, we will not comply with this unjust law,” will not be in the letter for fear that “it could potentially be misunderstood as a call to civil disobedience.” 

The chaplains have narrowly missed being in the position, as I understand it, of deciding whether or not to obey their bishop or their commander in chief. I am reminded of the sad days that destroyed the faith of England, when the clergy had to obey the king or obey the pope. Only one bishop (St. John Fisher) and St. Thomas More, the former chancellor resisted the king, dying for their faith and conscience, imprisoned by the administration of Henry the Eighth for refusing to give their blessing to the marriage of Henry and Ann Boleyn, and eventually beheaded for treason. 

Thomas More in particular did not ever even publicly oppose the marriage. He was executed simply for not endorsing it. We Catholics are once again in this difficult position as were our forbears in the faith. We are being asked not only to give our blessing, but to pay for what we regard as a perversion of one of our seven sacraments. In the 1966 film, “A Man For All Seasons” Sir Thomas More, having been convicted of treason by means of  false testimony, finally gives his opinion of the King’s marriage. He cries out, “ I am here because I would not consent to the marriage!” 

We are in exactly the same position. We will not consent to the forced redefinition of the sacrament of marriage. We Catholics define marriage as permanent, faithful and familial. America now defines marriages as temporary, narcissistic and self-gratifying. For us, marriage is an exclusive relationship between a man and a woman that exists for the sake of stable families in which children can be brought into the world in as much emotional and physical safety as possible.  For them, marriage can be ended by divorce when it no longer meets one’s needs, or the relationship is unsatisfying. Instead of faithfulness to another, one’s own interests are paramount. Instead of the emotional and physical safety of children, America’s new definition of marriage makes the giving of life optional. Pleasure and emotional gratification give marriage meaning.   

We are not saying that they may not do these things. We are just asking to be allowed to hold to our own beliefs, to the freedom of our consciences and to the free expression of our faith in the public forum. We Catholics are on trial for the sake of Marriage and the Universality of the Church, just as surely as was St. Thomas More. Don’t be fooled. They will not give up. They will not rest until they have American marriage blessed by an American, not a Catholic Church. 

They are a bit surprised by the Catholic reaction. They had thought we would remain asleep while the country was ruined. They may back off until they can hear us snoring again. Stay awake!  St. Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans: “It is already the hour for you to wake from sleep. The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore, let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ! (Romans 13:11-14).

So what can we do? Go to the Relevant Radio Website. Just do a web search for Relevant Radio and at the top right-hand corner just below Our Lady of Guadalupe’s picture where it says Enter Keyword type in HHS.  Also, go to the USCCB Website. (That’s the United States  Conference of Catholic Bishops. USCCB works just as well)   There you will see URGENT ACTION ALERT under those words  you will find WRITE to CONGRESS TODAY. Click on this and it will guide you through the process.  Another good thing to do: get the movie “A Man For All Seasons.” Watch it. Have your children watch it, reminding them that it is a true story.

 

Here is the letter I wrote:

Hon. Senator Durbin, Hon. Senator Kirk, Hon. Representative Schakowsky,

I am writing to ask you to support Senator Rubio's bill protecting religious freedom. I am very concerned about  the decision by Kathleen Sebelius  and the current administration to deny the insurance exemption for churches that object to artificial birth control and chemical abortions. I  object, not simply because I am a Catholic, and a clergyman, but because my ethnic origins are German. My family fled Germany in the 19th century to escape a growing of tyranny. My cousins who remained in the old country were gradually forced to pay for and then to assist in the horrors of the Nazi holocaust. They were fooled by the slow, incremental denial of fundamental human rights. “First they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, then came for the Gypsies, but I was not a Gypsy..... “Now in America, “First they are coming for the Catholics....” I cannot believe that in this country that I love, I and my congregation will be forced to pay for what we regard as murder. I appeal to your love of country and your love of justice, don't force the Catholic Church to abandon its mission to those in need by insisting that we provide the means of murder to those we employ. Such a situation could end in the closing of our schools, hospitals and charities and thus cause the unemployment of a million people.  Please help.

Letter to Penny Quostal, part 5

Letter to Penny Quostal, continued:

The original word for the Sacraments, oddly enough is not “sacrament.” Sacrament is a Latin word, and as you must know, having the intelligence to peruse this column, the primary language of the early Church was Greek.  Greek culture and language was to the ancient world what America and English is to the modern world. Greek was spoken (as a second language) from Spain to India, from Germany to Ethiopia. It was the language of trade and international communication. 

Latin was more common in the west, outside of Rome where, at times,  more people spoke Greek than Latin and Aramaic, a Semitic language similar to Hebrew, more common in the East, but in most places, there was somebody who spoke a little Greek.  So the Holy Spirit used the Greek word “mysterion” to describe those seven ceremonies that Christians practiced. Baptism, Anointing (called Confirmation in the West, Chrismation in the East) Eucharist, Matrimony, Ordination, Penance and the Anointing of the Sick (formerly called Extreme Unction or the Last Rites).

So what is a mysterion? It is most certainly not what we mean in modern English by the word “mystery.” A mystery is something you watch on TV or read on a dark and stormy night. The imprecise use of the word has caused a lot of trouble in the Church.  Remember when you were seven years old and asked the nun who was trying to cram the catechism into your little heathen head, and you asked her, “Sister, how can there be three persons in one God and not be three gods?” Or “how can bread and wine become Jesus when they still taste like bread and wine? Huh? Huh?” 

She would sigh, say, “It’s a mystery!” and lay her poor habited head on the desk. She was probably about 20 years old, and was trying to wrestle 40 seven-year-olds and their unpredictable bodily functions into some kind of order, all for the greater glory of God.   

When she said, “It’s a mystery!” what she was really saying was “Look, kid, I don’t understand it so there’s no way you’re going to understand it. Now just color in the book and stop pestering me.” I am amazed that more of these idealistic, valiant young  women didn’t go absolutely bonkers. 

So, we grew up thinking that the mystery of faith was just an idea that made no sense but was still true and if we wanted to get to heaven, we just had to swallow the idea and not ask too many questions. And Remember to put your envelope in the basket on Sunday. Amen. One gets the feeling that when the priest chants “the mystery of faith” after the consecration at Mass, he might as well be chanting, “we have no idea what’s actually going on here!” 

This is not what mystery means in the theological sense. The Greek word “mysterion” as in “mystery” comes from the Greek word “myo” meaning to shut (the lips), hence to whisper. A mysterion is a thing whispered, a secret.   When the priest says “Mystery of Faith” he is actually saying “the secret of faith.” Jesus said to His disciples, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.” (Luke 8:10) He was really saying “To you it has been given to know the SECRETS of the kingdom of God.”  That’s different. 

We still use it in this sense when we pray the Rosary. We speak of the mysteries of the Rosary. For instance, the second joyful mystery is titled “Mary visits Elizabeth.” What’s so mysterious about that, at least in the modern sense? If you understand there are the fifteen, oops, the twenty SECRETS of the Rosary, it makes a whole lot more sense. To the world it looks like two pregnant ladies klatsching, perhaps even kvetching. 

To us, to whom the mysteries of the kingdom have been given, it is the moment when the Old and New Testaments meet, the moment when the old woman Elizabeth, bearing the last prophet of the old covenant greets the Virgin Mother, the young woman, bearing the new covenant.  The messiah, the prophet promised by Moses is hidden in her womb. The old acknowledges the new and rejoices. 

So it is with the seven Sacraments, more properly called the seven Mysteries, that is the seven Secrets. The world may see a priest holding a little round piece of bread. We believers know the secret. It isn’t really bread. It is the perfect sign of God’s love for the world. It is his heart made visible on the altar, His only begotten Son, the whole Christ, His body, blood soul and divinity.  I can see it. Can’t you? I can see it because I have the eyes of faith. After Jesus told the disciples that the secrets of the kingdom had been entrusted to them, that Jesus once said, “seeing they dot not see, and hearing they do not understand.”

At the time of Christ the word mysterion most commonly referred to secret religious rites that initiated people into the secret religious societies. The only comparable groups I can think of in our world today are the Moonies, the Druze and the Masons. The Masons are members of a fraternal organization that initiates members by entrusting certain secret practices and beliefs, the higher the degree that one achieves in Freemasonry, the more secrets are entrusted to him. The initiate swears a solemn oath to abide by the rules of the fraternity and to keep the "secrets of Freemasonry.”   

This is exactly what the ancient Greek cults did. The most famous of the ancient Greek mystery religions was the Eleusinian mystery. Initiates gathered in the market place of Athens on a certain day every year, walked the 14 miles to the shrine of the goddess Demeter and were shown secret objects sacred to the goddess and then sworn into the group with the most solemn oath not to reveal what they had seen. Like the Masons, the Mysteries of Eleusis had degrees of initiation and one could ascend to the highest secrets of the group. To reveal these secrets meant death, and to this day we have very little idea of what actually went on. The mysteries provided a sense of intimacy and belonging and a promise of afterlife that was lacking form the state religion and its mythology.

When Jesus spoke of the Mysteries of the Kingdom, He was clearly dealing in a category that was known to His disciples, but there was something very different about the Christian mystery. “What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the rooftops.” (Matt 10:27) The function of the Church was not to hide the secrets, but to reveal them. Heaven is not like earth. Heaven is like Jesus.  He is the sacrament of heaven. He is the visible image of the invisible God

Next week: You still haven’t explained anything about the relationship of the diaconate to the presbyterate...... I’m getting there.

Letter to Penny Quostal, part 4

So, Ms. Quostal, in your original question, which most of our readers have long since forgotten, you wonder why, when the bishop lays his hands on the head of one being ordained, nothing appears to happen? When a Pentecostal faith healer lays his hands on someone who is praying for healing, that person may fall over, speak in tongues or some such interesting thing.  You are assuming that the laying on of hands always means the same thing. It doesn’t.

The laying on of hands had a number of meanings in the Bible. It was a way to ask God to give a blessing. For instance, Isaac blessed Jacob by the laying on of hands. (Genesis 27:27) This is what happens in a prayer meeting or healing service. The person doing the praying is asking God to bless or heal someone and different people react in different ways to the experience of God’s Holy Spirit. 

The Moravian Brethren, a movement similar to Pentecostalism met in the Quaker meeting house on Aldersgate Street in London. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement had a life-changing, even a world-changing experience there in 1727. He didn’t fall over or speak in tongues. He simply said that “I felt my heart strangely warmed.”  He was an understated sort of fellow. Some people fall over. Some people don’t. The whole thing is that different people react to the perception of God’s Holy Spirit in different ways. It is a human reaction, not necessarily a divine or supernatural action. 

I remember a priest who was prayed over at a prayer meeting who said  afterwards that he had never felt that God was alive. He had always believed it, but never felt it.  It was no less real when he didn’t feel it, and no more real when he did. It was just that he now felt what he had always known. That’s one function of the laying on of hands. In this case it confers nothing. It is a  form of prayer, a kind of petition.

The next example of the laying on of hands in the Bible is found in Leviticus 16: 21. The high priest transferred the sins of  Israel to a sacrificial goat by the laying on of hands.  We see the same thing going on in Exodus 29:10 and Leviticus 1:4. The laying on of hands was a way to designate sacrifice. This is closer to what happens in ordination. To ordain means to arrange or appoint unalterably. As in the phrase, “ordained since the beginning of time.”  It means to consecrate to God’s use. 

It has nothing to do with “experience of the Holy Spirit.” It has everything with offering yourself sacrificially for use by the Holy Spirit. The two are different things. Paul the Apostle fell over on the Damascus road. That didn’t make him a priest. We read in Acts 13:2

“While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them on their mission.”   

See? No falling over, just being set apart for a certain work, which ultimately involved the sacrifice of their lives. Falling over and ordination: two completely different things.

Ordination goes way back in Israelite/Jewish tradition. Moses ordained Joshua by the laying on of hands. ( Num  27:15-23, Deut  34:9) He and the elders of Israel  ordained their successors, also by the laying on of hands in this way. This unbroken chain of ordination of elders by the laying on of hands continued through the time of the Second Temple and only seems to have ended in the late Roman Empire when  Emperor Theodosius II executed Gamaliel VI and abolished the great Sanhedrin. 

This idea of ordination by the laying on of hands isn’t something we made up. The idea of an unbroken chain of ordination comes from the Bible and our Israelite roots. The Israelites ordained their elders. Don’t forget that the word priest comes from the Greek word “presbyter” which means elder.  I can think of nowhere in the Bible where religious experience alone confers authority on a person. 

Religious experience may call a person to ordination or be the result of ordination, but it is not, in and of itself, ordination. Ordination has to do with the unbroken chain of relationship. Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and the Church of the East have it. Rev. Billy Bob’s Church of What’s Happening Now with Signs and Wonders Following does not, no matter how many people fall over when the Rev. Billy Bob prays for them.  Ordination is God’s plan in the Bible for the Church. Religious experience is wonderful. It is a gift from God that proves God is generous to sinners like me, but it isn’t ordination. 

Ordination is a sacrament, which, as I have said, is an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace. You may think that someone falling over is an outward sign. It isn’t. It is an external reaction to an inward experience and though it might have great meaning for the person experiencing it, it is meaningless, or at best hard to interpret, for those who see it. 

A sacrament is incontrovertibly external. There was no doubt when I went up to the altar and placed my hands in the Bishop’s hands and he looked square into my eyes without blinking and asked, “Will you respect and obey me and my successors?” I said “yes” and he laid his hands on my head, and from that moment on I was consecrated to a specific work in the church and my life became a sacrifice to the Lord for his people just as surely as the Yom Kippur goat became a sacrifice for the good of Israel. I might not have known it then, but I know it now. I was not “empowered.” I was consecrated. It’s a different thing. 

Today, as I write these things, it is the 44^th anniversary of my experience of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, so called. It really was an immersion in the awareness of the presence of God. It helped me on the road to ordination and was incontrovertibly a life changing experience. Everything I have done since has been colored by that experience and the direction my life has taken is most certainly the result of that evening in January of 1968. 

At the time I had no idea what the whole thing meant, even though it would change my life. I had not asked for the experience, but God gave it to me without my asking. It was a calling, the beginning of an amazing and  difficult journey. Ordination was quite different. 

On May 14, 1975, I knew exactly what ordination meant. I would offer my life at the altar with Christ for the well being of his Bride, the Church, and for the salvation of the world. In the religious experience of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit God was calling me. In ordination, God called and I answered and was set apart.  Different things.  One was an experience, given by God. The  second a covenant that involved God and this sinner, that is to say, it was a sacrament. You have to have your eyes open for a covenant. Falling over is not part of it.  It is an outward sign, not just an inward experience that causes an outward reaction. The sign is meant to be outward, not the reaction.

Next week: More about Sacraments. It will involve more Greek and Latin words. Oh Boy! I bet you can’t wait!