A Theology of ‘Perhaps’: A Catholic Response to Leithart and the Future of Ecumenism

In November of 2013, Peter Leithart published a controversial article in First Things entitled “The End of Protestantism.” The article lived up to its provocative title, proposing in the opening lines that, “The Reformation isn’t over. But Protestantism is, or should be.” Acknowledging the positive fruits and necessities of the Reform, Leithart nevertheless proposes that Protestants need to “envision new ways of being heirs to the Reformation”—a way rooted in positive theology as opposed to the negative (or anti-Catholic) theology which has defined Protestantism for the last few centuries. This would be achieved, muses Leithart, through a return to the original catholicity of the reformers and a reform of the Reform, thereby correcting the errors of contemporary and often non-liturgical denominationalism.

            Both exciting and precarious, Leithart’s project offers new insights into ecumenical discussion. Nevertheless, his project suffers the susceptibility of becoming an “in-house” conversation within Protestantism, thereby leaving out one of the more important players in western ecumenical dialogue—Rome. While most Roman Catholics would laud Leithart’s attempts to “catholicize” Protestantism through a critical and corrective analysis of the Protestant tradition, they would (and do) simultaneously see his project in exactly the manner I have described it—an in house dialogue on the “other” side of the Tiber. After all, how could the Catholic Church, with her robust magisterium, correct herself in like manner? Granted, in not doing so, frustrated Christians (including Leithart) deem her a haughty obstacle to ecumenism. Yet if she were to do so, would not she be guilty of a far greater haughtiness—the presumption that the present age trumps all others, and, even worse, that present knowledge can override the Spirit working in and through history? A critical (and perhaps corrective) analysis of the past may be necessary to assuage the wound of division that threatens the claims of the Church, yet that very same analysis could inevitably undermine the credo which makes her the Church. What is a Catholic theologian to do?

             

I. Essentialism, Relativism, and the Middle Distance

Two opposite and equally perilous positions threaten the Catholic theologian examining ecclesiology. Some, on the one hand, purport a Church in possession of all truth with a capital “T”—fully revealed, fully understood, and fully transcending any historical context. On the other hand, some suggest that the truth of the church changes constantly with history and peoples, all ultimately being subject to revision. As Nicholas Lash writes in his book Theology on the Way to Emmaus, “The opinions with which we are presented in these matters are often exceedingly stark: either unwarranted metaphysical assertion or unrestrained relativism; either ‘absolute knowledge’ or ‘mere belief.’”

Lash proposes, in response to such impasses, a theory of “middle distance”—looking neither from the peak of an all-transcendent mountain (which is impossible) nor independently from amidst the thicket of the present (which is absurd). Instead, the theologian must recognize his own subjectivity and historical contingency, while simultaneously acknowledging the shoulders upon which he stands. He must “transcend present circumstances sufficiently to discover something of where we have come from,” all the while realizing his inability to entirely transcend where we are. This position is undoubtedly uncomfortable, disallowing the theologian to “pick a side” in the insufficient and inappropriate “liberal/conservative Catholic” divide. Yet this balance is necessary, for it simultaneously recognizes historical disconnect and what Rowan Williams calls “the recognition that some sort of conversation is possible across surprisingly wide gaps in context and understanding” (Why Study the Past, 29).  This middle distance is only possible, however, if the theologian embraces a disposition of ‘Perhaps.’

II. A Theology of ‘Perhaps’

In the introduction to his acclaimed Introduction to Christianity, Joseph Ratzinger posits that in every person there exists a disconcerting but inevitable mix of faith and doubt. Every thoughtful Christian asks, “But, perhaps it is false;” and every staunch atheist likewise ponders, “But, perhaps it is true.” Nothing ex Cathedra can ever eliminate this “perhaps”—in fact, this ‘perhaps’ keeps theologians employed. The ‘perhaps’ in the heart of the believer calls the theologian, with the Church, to an examination of conscience. If doctrine goes unheeded, ought the Church change her teaching, or simply re-articulate her teaching in the language of the times? Without this ‘perhaps,’ and thus without this question, all evangelization becomes impossible, and theology devolves into contemporary politics—a shouting match between two platforms.

The ‘perhaps’ of the believer also reminds the theologian of his roots—that faith is not a list of tenets (a.k.a. a partisan platform) but a relationship with a person—the person of Jesus Christ. Thus the purpose of doctrine and dogma is the preservation and expression of the memory of this person—expressed first and foremost in His own historical contingency, and subsequently in His transcendence and enduring Presence as Lord of History. If all doctrine is, therefore, the memory of the person of Jesus Christ, language of “revision” and “change” becomes far less appealing. Instead, perhaps the words “rediscover” and “develop” prove more adequate. The person of Jesus can never be altered, yet how that Person is received through faith can be adapted according to historical circumstances—so long as that adaptation remains faithful to the person of Jesus in history.

This “perhaps”, however, does not negate the need for dogma—quite the contrary. If the Church is to remain “the Church” in any real sense of the term, then dogma must also remain dogma because the person of Jesus is a real, historical person who cannot be “made to order” according to contemporary needs. Of course, the question arises: who do we fundamentally preserve in “preserving Jesus”—the Jesus of the Gospels, the “historical Jesus”? Ratzinger writes in his essay “Seven Theses on Christology and the Hermeneutic of Faith”: “The center of the life and person of Jesus is his constant communication with the Father.” The Sonship of Jesus, which reveals his relationship to the Father and therefore his person and nature, must be the heart of any Christology, and therefore any doctrine. Thus, for example, the philosophical language of Chalcedon, far from imposing paganism on the purity of the Gospels, in fact retrieved the very heart of the Gospel and re-articulated that reality in order to preserve that reality. The homoousias so controversial in the fifth century successfully preserved the central aspect of the person of Jesus: his Sonship in relation to the Father. Likewise, any contemporary attempt to re-articulate doctrine must primarily seek to re-articulate that Sonship of Jesus in order to preserve that Sonship.

III. Liturgy as Middle Distance

This simplification of the Christological question, however helpful, does not resolve the dichotomy between classic “liberal” and “conservative” archetypes, for both seek to preserve the Sonship of Jesus, with the former deeming ancient language an obstacle to that preservation and the latter deeming that same language essential to preservation. Yet Ratzinger offers another criteria which may aid in mediation. He writes, “Since the center of the person of Jesus is prayer, it is essential to participate in his prayer if we are to know and understand him.” The gap between history and dogma is first and foremost bridged through a hermeneutic of prayer—the lex orandi, the encounter between Jesus Christ and the disciple. This prayer precedes all conciliar creeds, for the creed renders explicit what the faithful know implicitly in prayer. This prayer, however, is not merely the private prayer of the individual, but that prayer bound to and inseparable from the prayer of the Church: the liturgy. When the Church prays “Do this in memory of me,” the whole mystery of the person of Jesus Christ becomes present in bread and wine, and the faithful encounter the totality of revelation in a single moment. If ever there were an acceptable “essentialism”—a moment which transcends the historically contingent thicket of the present—this is it. In the liturgy, the believer encounters the Person of Jesus Christ preserved in the maternal memory of the Church; and sent from this source, the believer seeks to relay this Person to the world. This is the mission of the Catholic theologian in every age.

IV. The Future of Ecumenism

            What aspects of this memory, then, can be corrected or refreshed? Peter Leithart has proposed that Protestantism has forgotten its catholic roots, and therefore needs a new reformation; and it should be no surprise, given where our inquiry has led, that his solution emphasizes liturgical reform. This, perhaps, proves the greatest virtue or vice of Leithart’s project. Perhaps he desires to move toward a common Protestant liturgy—one which recognizes the centrality of the Eucharist as the reformers themselves did. Thus perhaps he hopes that, common liturgy “in hand,” a Protestantism of common and catholic substance can then begin productive dialogues with Rome, as has been the case for years between Rome and Constantinople.

            Yet the question remains, as was posed in the introduction: can the Catholic theologian “move toward the center” to the same degree? We are now equipped to rephrase the question: to what degree can the liturgy “move toward the center”? Indeed, while the Roman Catholic Church can adapt liturgy to cultural practices and norms, as evidenced beautifully in, for example, the Anglican Ordinariate, she cannot adapt the very heart of the liturgy—the relationship between the Father and the Son revealed in the Eucharistic mystery. And lest one mistake this mystery for an independent constant in the field of liturgical experimentation, the Catholic Church also cannot sever this essential mystery from the history to which it is bound. Just as an event remembered cannot be separated from the faculty of memory, so too the Person remembered in the liturgy cannot be separated from the faculty preserving that memory—the Petrine office, the creed, and the communion of saints.

This conclusion undoubtedly frustrates ecumenical efforts on every side. Yet this conclusion does not render the Catholic immune from penitential history—a fortressed elite patiently waiting for others to forge the Tiber. Though they can never repent of the chair of Peter, the Real Presence in the Eucharist, or the credo which affirms their prayer (to do so would be to repent of Jesus Christ himself), Catholic theologians must nevertheless place their hands into the wounds of the divided Body of Christ, realizing, as Thomas did, that we are as responsible as they. With this realization, the Catholic theologian must look for ways to integrate Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and others into the large and eclectic body which is the Catholic Church. They must seek to incorporate the richness of the Protestant tradition within the embracing colonnade of St. Peter’s. They must not wait, dwelling in the illusion of a Promised Land (as, perhaps, was previously the case), but rather must “put out into the deep” as a fellow ship in via. The Catholic theologian can never aband

on his own ship—as Leithart and others perhaps hope—yet he also can never abandon other ships to their own devices. Rather, he must seek to bring the myriad vessels of Protestantism under a single captain, to journey together toward the eschaton with Peter at the helm.

The God of Luther and St. Therese: A Lenten Reflection

This morning while receiving my ashes, I was reminded of the story of the woman caught in adultery. We recall in John 8 how the woman is brought before Jesus to be stoned on account of her sins. Jesus, after writing in the sand, says to the scribes and Pharisees, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” But no stone is cast—the scribes and Pharisees go away “one by one.” St. Augustine most beautifully writes, “There are left only two: miseria et misericordia.”

Miseria et misericordia—misery and mercy. These are all that remain. There is nothing in between—no pride, no adornments—simply grace. How often, I thought this morning, do I approach Lent with a “works righteousness” mentality: I need to do this and give up that and sacrifice this. Now, giving things up and fasting and doing works of charity are good and essential during the whole liturgical year, and especially during Lent. I mean to take nothing away from them. Instead, it is the mentality which is the focus of my concern. How often I look back at Lents of the past and say, “I gave up such and such, but I failed,” or “that was a bad Lent”—as if the priest collects a scorecard on Easter Sunday. In fact, looking back, I do not think I have ever actually succeeded in Lent—never made it flawlessly to the end.

Thus every year, in the days leading up to Ash Wednesday, I seek ways of remedying last year’s Lenten failures—give up more, give up less, give up something different, do something positive, etc. Yet this year during my pre-Lent reflection, I received inspiration from two unlikely yet undoubtedly kindred souls: Martin Luther and St. Therese.

Anyone who knows the legacy of these two souls would likely never mention them in the same breath: the one a sixteenth century reformer who ended up on the wrong end of a bull of excommunication, and the other a Carmelite doctor of the Church who never left the cloister. Yet scratching the surface of their lives a bit more, we may discover some interesting similarities: desires for sanctity, struggles with scrupulosity, and a beautiful theology of grace. Both Luther and Therese wrestled with their imperfections, with merit, and with mercy. And thus they concluded:

Luther: “I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.”

Therese: “In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is blemished in your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in your own justice and to receive from your love the eternal possession of yourself.”

Theologian Mickey Mattox, who first connected these two great people for me in his book Changing Churches, writes, “One can only regret that this wonderful saint (Therese) was not around to meet with Martin Luther as the controversy over the Ninety-Five Theses unfolded… Each of them expected to appear before God with empty hands, and hoped at last to be clothed in God’s justice alone” (65).

            Though the differences between the two theologians are as plentiful as their similarities, I think their theology of grace remains central to mere Christianity—and to my Lenten preparations. I will always enter Lent with bold initiatives, and I will likely always fail. Yet so long as these bold initiatives are rooted in my love for God, and so long as my confidence is always in Him alone, I can be assured that my Lents will be “successful.” For in my desire to love Him, I do in fact love Him; and in my weakness and sinfulness, I can still be confident in His love, for His power is made perfect in weakness. Thus it is with joy and hope that the Christian hears, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

In remembering that we are dust, we remember that in God alone rests our joy and hope. It is as if we begin Lent every year with the words, “Remember that you are misery, but more importantly, remember that He is Mercy!” In embracing this Lenten call and in making it our prayer, we surrender the work of our sanctity to God. God does indeed make progress in me. Yet it is because of His work in this unworthy servant, not my own. Only with this mentality can the pilgrim enter Easter Sunday every year with confidence and joy, for he will bring neither pride nor adornments, but only empty hands—only miseria to greet the overflowing abundance of misericordia.

Stripping Our Lives: On Observing Lent

I have been asked to do for the season of Lent what I did for Advent, that is, to provide a cursory guide for observing this commemoration of the forty days which Christ dwelt in the desert before his Passion and Crucifixion. I gladly do so while prefacing the following comments in noting that although Advent and Lent are in the same situation with respect to secularism, the traditions of Lent have been kept more or less intact while Advent has almost ceased to be recognizable in the face of the secular Christmas holiday. Easter, despite being able to get more Resurrection for your money at your local Walmart, is not the money-maker that Christmas is. Traditions such as Mardi Gras, “Fat Tuesday,” and fish-fry Fridays are the popular associates of Lent and are, in fact, popular in the contemporary sense of the word. In short, Lent itself is almost more lucrative to business than Easter is, and while this will not prevent a new iPhone from finding its way into the American Easter basket, Lent does not suffer the pressures under which Advent has deteriorated. All this being said, true observance and preservation of Lent rests only in the context of the Church and the liturgical year. Besides, getting more Easter for my money leaves me half expecting that my bill will come out to something like thirty pieces of silver.

            So what has Tradition bequeathed to us in the celebration of Lent? I list first the popular practices of Lent, such as weekly praying of the Stations of the Cross, abstaining from meat and fasting on Fridays, working and praying to end a bad habit and (and more fruitfully) sacrificing some necessity or good, for a sacrifice of sin is no sacrifice at all. Service is also of principal importance, disposing a heart to be ever-ready to give of himself with a sacrificial love in daily life, for as Pope Benedict XVI writes of the Washing of the Feet, “Jesus represents the whole of his saving ministry in one symbolic act. He divests himself of his divine splendor; he, as it were, kneels down before us; he washes and dries our soiled feet, in order to make us fit to sit at table for God’s wedding feast.” Additional spiritual reading is also always recommended. Liguori Press, has, as it does for Advent, Lenten wisdom books. But I especially like reading about the Passion itself and for this purpose I have to suggest Pope Emeritus Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week. Reading five pages a day throughout Lent and reflecting and meditating on Christ’s Passion is a beautiful way to spend time in the desert with Our Lord. Or read another spiritual classic, such as Thomas Á Kempis’ Imitation of Christ, that forms the spiritual life in the crucible of Lent.

In addition to these Lenten practices, an environment that aids the observance of Lent and the spiritual growth of the soul therein can be established in very simple ways. Christ’s “Lent” provides a home environment for our own Lent: the desert, being conducive to prayer but also open to temptations of a nearly exclusive spiritual nature, an opportunity to let God find the soul or for the soul to refuse His Love.

            The Church tradition has, of course, adornments for this desert, but these ornaments are largely negative, i.e., they channel the soul towards renouncement of one’s own will that opens the heart to a new-found love for the crosses of its vocation. Such decorations of desolation are a real Crown of Thorns—especially if made from the branches of a Hawthorne tree—placed as a table centerpiece or in another focal point for the home, accompanied by large, iron nails. Besides this ultimate symbol of humility, however, Lent is distinguished as a season not so much by what it adds but by what it strips man of, just as Christ was stripped. The desert life epitomizes the spirit that ought to be sought for and which heeds contemplation and service in Lent. In the home, cover beautiful artwork or remove it outright from the walls and tabletops. If one wishes to have a more concrete reminder of the desert, I have also heard of filling jars with sand and placing barren sticks in them, setting these about the inside of the home. Moreover, since Lent corresponds with Spring, especially this year, resist the desire to pick flowers and new blooms for interior arrangements…for yourself, that is. By all means, offer them solely to a statue of Our Mother, a small bit of solace offered to her whose soul was also pierced as, at the foot of the Cross, she gazed up at her tortured, dying, dead son. While outside, allow oneself to wonder at the blossoms of the Dogwood tree, streaked with red in the sign of the Cross.

            There is one common practice that I am not in favor of, however, and that is the complete veiling of the Crucifix during Lent. Leaving this piece of artwork exposed gives us our end, the goal of Lent: to die to ourselves that we may be raised with Christ. It serves as a reminder of Christ as a complete and boundless “being for” whom we are to imitate in our own vocation. In this time in the desert, we must call to mind what St. Josemaria Escrivá tells us, that in every vocation there are “The everyday hidden crosses…the cross that is waiting for the corpus that it lacks: and that corpus must be you.” The Crucifix that is the sign of Love, of God giving His whole being absolutely, of God Being Himself to Man—this is the great image of perfection. For us to heed the command to “Be perfect,” we should keep ever before our eyes, in our palms, and pressed against our lips, the bloodied Crucifix.

            In fact, to exalt the Crucifix in Lent is to tap a spring from which flows the desert life. It is my prayer for all who read this that something from the above comments might accompany you as you pass through this land with Christ, this Lenten trial whereby each of us might be judged worthy to mount a cross of our own.

Ascension Liturgy

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." (Ephesians 2:4-6)

"...And those whom he called he justified, and those whom he justified he glorified." (Romans 8:30)

"While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven." (Luke 24:51)

I've spent a fair amount of time wondering what those first two passages mean.  Specifically, it's the verbs in the past tense that throw me off: God "raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus," then "those whom he justified, he glorified."  I've been 'glorified'?  The coffee stain I just put on my pants surely suggests otherwise.

But the elegant logic of Scripture bids me reconsider the alluring temptation to think that my immediate, measurable experience of the world explains its totality, that everything that is true about the universe can be measured in tangible phenomena.  Despite the stain on my pants, I am - as part of the Church - a member of Christ's body (1 Cor. 12:27); Christ's body ascended to heaven (Luke 24:51); I, then, have ascended into the heavens "in Christ" (Eph. 2:6).  It's a pleasant thought.

I wonder, though, if too often we have done just that and reduced this glorious reality to a "pleasant thought" or "comforting image."  If we have ascended "to the heavenly places in Christ Jesus," then that reality means something for our daily lives.  More importantly, it means something for the Church, because it is not actually you and I - considered as individuals - that ascended with Christ: it is His body, the Church, that He took away in a cloud almost 2,000 years ago.  And if the truth of the Church is that she is both already feasting with the Bridegroom and not yet partaking in the wedding supper of the Lamb, then we have to ask ourselves how she lives out this tension in tangible, incarnate practices.  Does the fact of the Church's ascension have any tangible impact, and can we really say that the ascension of Christ means something for us now?  The early Church found an important, oft-forgotten answer to this question in her weekly gathering of worship, her time to exist as church, as an assembly of the Body of Christ.  Foundational to the early-Christian conception of worship is that, in worship, we participate in the glorified, ascended reality of the Church at the wedding feast, and it is this participation that makes the rest of the Church's functions at all possible (evangelism, mission, etc.)

Consider the following from Alexander Schmemann:
"[The early Church] realized that this ascension was the very condition of their mission in the world, of their ministry to the world.  For there – in heaven – they were immersed in the new life of the Kingdom; and when, after this ‘liturgy of ascension,’ they returned into the world, their faces reflected the light, the ‘joy and peace’ of that Kingdom and they were truly its witnesses…In church today, we so often find we meet only the same old world, not Christ and His Kingdom.  We do not realize that we never get anywhere because we never leave any place behind us." (For the Life of the World, 28)

Thus the church constructed her weekly worship - her liturgy - around this fundamental idea: that in worship, we participate in the reality of our ascension in Christ.  Worship is, to use Schmemann's phrase, ascension liturgy.  The hymns we sing join with the heavenly chorus of the seraphim; we shake hands, greet, and (in some traditions) kiss those around us as common family members at the heavenly supper of the Lamb; we listen to the teaching of the Word, the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, for in heaven we see Him whose revelation will continue to astound, allure, perfect, and draw us for all eternity; we come to the Lord's table to take the body and blood of Christ, which makes present the wedding feast and Him whose love calls us to a place there.  The hymns of heaven are our hymns; her feast is our feast; her communion is our communion.

Perhaps one of the most essential notions about the Church that needs to be recovered today is that the Church does not assemble on Sundays merely to teach, to learn, to sing songs, and to "be edified."  She assembles on Sunday - the day of resurrection - to practice for the Kingdom, to partake in her already glorified destiny, to eat the food and drink nourishing those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb.

This also explains why the early church explicitly referred to her worship - and continued to do so for over 1500 years - as "the liturgy." Liturgy, in Greek 'litourgeia,' literally means "the work of the people."  The Liturgy of the Church is her unique work, her unique joy and privilege to participate in that which she enjoys in heaven.  Only the Church - since only the Church ascended to heaven in Christ - can do this unique "work."  Only those who have already ascended to the wedding feast can partake of Him who feeds His Bride for all eternity in the bread and wine.  Again, Schmemann is helpful:
"The liturgy is, before everything else, the joyous gathering of those who are to meet the risen Lord and to enter with him into the bridal chamber.  And it is this joy of expectation and this expectation of joy that are expressed in singing and ritual, in vestments and in censing, in that whole ‘beauty’ of the liturgy which has so often been denounced as unnecessary and even sinful.  Unnecessary it is indeed, for we are beyond the categories of the ‘necessary.’  Beauty is never ‘necessary,’ ‘functional’ or ‘useful.’  And when, expecting someone whom we love, we put a beautiful tablecloth on the table and decorate it with candles and flowers, we do all this not out of necessity, but out of love.  And the Church is love, expectation and joy.  It is heaven on earth" (30-31)

Heaven on earth - we gather together on Sundays for nothing less than to make this a reality.

To give these thoughts an immediately practical bent, it seems to me that a recovery of the Church's weekly worship as "ascension liturgy" is vital for combatting a poisonous tendency: to make our services "seeker-friendly."  Yes, the Church is not the Church without mission, evangelism, and a ferocious commitment to love, but we have to ask ourselves this question: is evangelism the fundamental point of the weekly gathering, the "Sunday experience"?  Christians have almost without exception seemed to think that the answer, in fact, is 'no.'  Evangelistic and outreach opportunities, foreign missions, Sunday schools, and opportunities to talk to and engage with "the curious" are necessary church structures that serve to spread the Kingdom of God in love.  Again, the Church is not the Church without them.  But that special time when she gathers for worship, to do her unique work that only she can do (i.e. perform her unique liturgy), is for the purpose of ascension.  Thus the entire point of gathering is to do something that will inevitably seem foreign and perhaps crazy to the happenstance person who wanders in church off the street.  He should be welcomed with arms of love and invited back for further dialogue and inquiry, but that dialogue is not for the Sunday assembly.  The Sunday assembly is for the ascension of the Bride.  And it is only from the source of ascension in Christ that we can go back into the world with light, joy, peace, and the evangelistic zeal of those who have tasted the goodness of the Lord.  This is where we find our tension between the "already" of ascension and the "not yet" of a world crying out for redemption.  The Church is that middle ground, that point of departure, literally, that "Passover" where the two realities collide, and it is this Paschal existence which is the foundation of her mission and her daily life.

To close, I'd like to simply offer the words of Romano Guardini, who beautifully encapsulates the nature of what happens when the church practices her ascension on Sundays:

"It speaks measuredly and melodiously; it employs formal, rhythmic gestures; it is clothed in colors and garments foreign to everyday life…It is in the highest sense the life of a child, in which everything is picture, melody, and song.  Such is the wonderful fact which the liturgy demonstrates: it unites act and reality in a supernatural childhood before God."

And such children we are and will forever be.

On the Feast of St. Thomas: Scholar, Poet, Mystic, Saint

A.G. Sertillanges, in his little book The Intellectual Life, cautioned against those who would make a golden age out of some past epoch, thus becoming a "pallbearer at the funerals of the past." The French Dominican quickly retorts, "Every age is not as good as every other, but all ages are Christian ages."

Sertillanges wrote another little book, Thomas Aquinas: Scholar, Poet, Mystic, Saint, the first lines of which read, "All great men have understood their own age and furnished what it sought. This alone marks them out as heroes worthy of our admiration. But if there are among them men who represent our common nature in one of its permanent functions, their work outlives them, and their message makes a fresh appeal to each generation. St. Thomas is one of this number."

St. Thomas indeed lived within his time, and did so with excellence. He must dwell also in our time, but not in the way that some theologians suppose--those theologians who reach for a golden age that never was, thinking "Ah, if only..."

No, Thomas neither can nor should be invoked as the sola via, but he must be invoked. We must reexamine the scholar: his historical concerns, his theological advances, his fearless synthesis of Truth wherever it lie (whether in the pagan Aristotle or the Jewish Maimonides or the Muslim Averroes). But we also must not forget to reexamine simultaneously the poet, the mystic, the saint; for the titles remain inseparable.

Those in the East have often criticized St. Thomas for being a dry and static rationalist. Many in the West have offered the same criticism. Yet for anyone who has read the prayers and hymns of the Angelic Doctor, these criticisms remain entirely unfounded. For example:

Adoro te devote, latens Deitas, 

Quae sub his figuris vere latitas; 

Tibi se cor meum totum subiicit, 

Quia te contemplans, totum deficit. 

Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore,
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.

(Gerard Manley Hopkins translation)

There are countless others of matched eloquence and beauty. In an age when we need ever more frequently the reminder that one cannot be a theologian unless he prays, Thomas could perhaps prove a most timely exemplar. For at the end of his days, when kneeling in the chapel before the Blessed Sacrament, Our Lord spoke to Thomas: "You have written well of me. What now do you ask in return?" Thomas' reply must never cease to be the response of theologians in every age: "Nil nisi te, Domine. Nil nisi te. Nothing but you, Lord. Nothing but you." 

A blessed feast of St. Thomas. 

Virgil

Great line from Virgil for thinking about literature:

"Nisus ait: 'dine hunc ardorem mentibus addunt,
Euryale, an sua cuique deus fit dira cupido?" (IX.184)

Or in Fagles' translation:

"Euryalus,"

Nisus asks, "do the gods light this fire in our hearts

or does each man's mad desire become his god?" (IX.220)

"Executioner, Why Do You Delay?": On the Feast of St. Agnes

Six feasts of St. Agnes ago, I first read this sermon. I have read it every January 21st since. It was originally delivered by St. Ambrose, fourth century Bishop and Doctor of the Church. The words remain to this day some of the more beautiful I have ever read; the theology some of the more profound. It is indeed a sermon worthy of its subject. And so, to Ambrose:

Today is the birthday of a virgin; let us imitate her purity. It is the birthday of a martyr; let us offer ourselves in sacrifice. It is the birthday of Saint Agnes, who is said to have suffered martyrdom at the age of twelve. The cruelty that did not spare her youth shows all the more clearly the power of faith in finding one so young to bear it witness.

There was little or no room in that small body for a wound. Though she could scarcely receive the blow, she could rise superior to it. Girls of her age cannot bear even their parents’ frowns and, pricked by a needle, weep as for a serious wound. Yet she shows no fear of the blood-stained hands of her executioners. She stands undaunted by heavy, clanking chains. She offers her whole body to be put to the sword by fierce soldiers. She is too young to know of death, yet is ready to face it. Dragged against her will to the altars, she stretches out her hands to the Lord in the midst of the flames, making the triumphant sign of Christ the victor on the altars of sacrilege. She puts her neck and hands in iron chains, but no chain can hold fast her tiny limbs.

A new kind of martyrdom! Too young to be punished, yet old enough for a martyr’s crown; unfitted for the contest, yet effortless in victory, she shows herself a master in valour despite the handicap of youth. As a bride she would not be hastening to join her husband with the same joy she shows as a virgin on her way to punishment, crowned not with flowers but with holiness of life, adorned not with braided hair but with Christ himself.

In the midst of tears, she sheds no tears herself. The crowds marvel at her recklessness in throwing away her life untasted, as if she had already lived life to the full. All are amazed that one not yet of legal age can give her testimony to God. So she succeeds in convincing others of her testimony about God, though her testimony in human affairs could not yet be accepted. What is beyond the power of nature, they argue, must come from its creator.

What menaces there were from the executioner, to frighten her; what promises made, to win her over; what influential people desired her in marriage! She answered: “To hope that any other will please me does wrong to my Spouse. I will be his who first chose me for himself. Executioner, why do you delay? If eyes that I do not want can desire this body, then let it perish”. She stood still, she prayed, she offered her neck.

You could see fear in the eyes of the executioner, as if he were the one condemned; his right hand trembled, his face grew pale as he saw the girl’s peril, while she had no fear for herself. One victim, but a twin martyrdom, to modesty and to religion; Agnes preserved her virginity, and gained a martyr’s crown.