Vital Immanence Revisited

We've been here before....

Regular readers of this blog will recall an article published here some days ago entitled Change We Can Believe In? In it, I provided a very brief account of the historical origins of Pentecostalism, the general condemnation of the notion of a 'New Pentecost' issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1897, and the gradual acceptance of that same movement by modern Catholics in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Either by mutual enrichment or by chance, the matter of this New Pentecostalism was subsequently treated by fellow blogger S. Armaticus over at Deus Ex Machina in an article which ended with the following observation:

The fascination that Bergoglio and the neo-modernists have with evangelical Pentecostalism is likely grounded in the fact that, since their neo-modernist theology is a purely negative thesis, with no attractive force of its own, and the adaptation of this negative theology is causing the death of their ecclesiastical structure, they are attracted to the evangelical Pentecostalism due to its "positive" i.e. "attractivistic contents". [...] These Pentecostal ideas are not correct, but at least they say something substantial. Or, in the worst case scenario, Pentecostalism says something more substantial than neo-modernism.

That paragraph stuck in my mind, as it echoed something I remembered having read somewhere before, but I couldn't quite put my finger on the source. Regular readers will have picked up by now that this kind of thing happens to me quite often.

A few days later, blogger Stefan Schwarz directed my attention to a video of a presentation given by Fr. Paul Scalia entitled The Errors of Modernism. At about the 17 minute mark, I remembered whence the original observation regarding the negative and positive content of Modernism came - Pope St. Pius X's encyclical Pascendi:

However, this Agnosticism is only the negative part of the system of the Modernist: the positive side of it consists in what they call Vital Immanence.

Suddenly, everything I had been suspecting regarding the role of the "New Pentecost" and its most avid proponents fell into place: I was staring into the new face of Vital Immanence.

It was, of course, Pope St. Pius X who alerted the Catholic world to the heretical doctrine of Vital Immanence and its central role in Modernist thought. Many definitions of this doctrine have been formulated over last century following the publication of Pascendi, but that proposed by Salusbury F. Davenport is perhaps the most relevant to the heresy's present manifestation:

[Vital Immanence] is the wholly psychological process of the human consciousness unfolding itself, which has not the remotest likeness to the presence of a transcendent reality abiding within us. God as transcendent is lost to sight; no room is left for any kind of revelation; God is the permanent possibility of progress, He is ever projected as the ideal in advance of each successive stage of evolution and changes as the advance proceeds. (Immanence and Incarnation, p. 68)

Replace "God" with "Holy Spirit," and we have before us the (logically) positive element of the New Pentecost viewed objectively: the Holy Spirit is the agent of change and reform. As Fr. Peter Knott, S.J., a proponent of the "Holy Spirit, God of Surprises" theology, remarked in his book, The Keys to the Council:

Authentic reform and renewal will always be a response to the promptings of the Spirit in ever-changing historical and cultural contexts.

Unsurprisingly, one of Pope Francis' favorite homiletic themes is that of the Holy Spirit as the Divine agent of change:

• The Holy Spirit upsets us because it moves us, it makes us walk, it pushes the Church forward. [...] The Spirit pushes us to take a more evangelical path, but we resist this. [...] Submit to the Holy Spirit, which comes from within us and makes go forward along the path of holiness. (16.04.2013)
• This is the temptation to go backwards, because we are 'safer' going back: but total security is in the Holy Spirit that brings you forward, which gives us this trust - as Paul says - which is more demanding because Jesus tells us: "Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law." It is more demanding! (06.12.2013)
• The Holy Spirit is the living presence of God in the Church. He keeps the Church going, keeps the Church moving forward. More and more, beyond the limits, onwards. The Holy Spirit with His gifts guides the Church. You cannot understand the Church of Jesus without this Paraclete, whom the Lord sends us for this very reason. And He makes unthinkable choices, but unimaginable! To use a word of St. John XXIII: it is the Holy Spirit that updates the Church: Really, he really updates it and keeps it going. And we Christians must ask the Lord for the grace of docility to the Holy Spirit. Docility in this Spirit, who speaks to us in our heart, who speaks to us in all of life's circumstances, who speaks to us in the Church's life, in Christian communities, who is always speaking to us. (12.05.2014)

Subjectively viewed, however, the positive element of Vital Immanence - the New Pentecost - is a personal experience of the Divine, hinted at by Pope Francis above in his description of the Holy Spirit as that "which comes from within us." Fr. Paul Scalia describes it as follows:

Religion, for the Modernist, is nothing more than a manifestation of this presence of the Divine to each person. It is radically individualistic. It is the presence of the Divine in each one of us which stirs up and makes some sentiment felt. This is what Cardinal Newman calls a "sentiment" and a "taste." Vital Immanence makes religion - in the words of Fr. John Hardon - "a kind of motion of the heart, hidden and unconscious, [...] a natural instinct belonging to the emotions, a feeling for the Divine that cannot be expressed in words of doctrinal propositions because it has no intellectual content to express, [...] an outlook of spirit that all people naturally have but some are more aware of having."

Pope St. Pius X describes the same with characteristic clarity:

For the Modernist Believer, [...] it is an established and certain fact that the Divine Reality does really exist in itself and quite independently of the person who believes in it. If you ask on what foundation this assertion of the Believer rests, they answer: in the experience of the individual. On this head the Modernists differ from the Rationalists only to fall into the opinion of the Protestants and pseudo-mystics. This is their manner of putting the question: In the religious sentiment one must recognize a kind of intuition of the heart which puts man in immediate contact with the very reality of God, and infuses such a persuasion of God's existence and His action both within and without man as to excel greatly any scientific conviction. They assert, therefore, the existence of a real experience, and one of a kind that surpasses all rational experience. If this experience is denied by some, like the rationalists, it arises from the fact that such persons are unwilling to put themselves in the moral state which is necessary to produce it. It is this experience which, when a person acquires it, makes him properly and truly a believer. (Pascendi, §14)

It should now be clear why Pope Francis regularly chastises certain segments of his flock for "lacking faith," for "failing to respond" to the "promptings of the Holy Spirit," for lacking "docility" to the Spirit which "speaks to us from within", "driving us forward" and "demanding" that we "abandon the false security" of things like defined dogma and adherence to Church law. He rails against them because they are holding fast to notions of God, Revelation, and Church which are simply incompatible with the New Pentecost. They are, after all, Catholics.

Origin of Calvinism

Sixth in a Series on the Protestant Reformation

by

Fr. Charles Coppens, S.J.

John Calvin, ca. 1560

John Calvin was a very different character from Martin Luther. Like one another in their uncommon power of intellect and strength of will, in their rejection of all authority on earth that claimed to control their independent thought, speech and action - these two standard-bearers of the Reformation were in most other respects the opposites of each other.

Luther was by nature and principle a destroyer and disorganizer in religion and morality, fond of breaking through all bonds, of throwing down all bars for himself and for other men generally; Calvin, on the contrary, had a remarkable genius for organization, and delighted in imposing bonds. He built up a novel structure of dogma and morals, tightening the yoke on the multitude, but releasing himself and a few elect souls from all fear of future punishment. We shall understand this better when we shall get acquainted with his personal history.

Calvin was born at Moyen, in Picardy, France, on July 10, 1509, when Luther, as a young monk, was beginning his professorial career at the University of Wittenberg. His father was a faithful Christian, blessed with a good wife and six children, but not with ample means for their support. Of the children, John was the most talented and the most ambitious. In the same town, the noble family of Mommors, with a charity common in Catholic times, took him into their home to be educated with their own children by a private tutor. When he was twelve years old, they sent him with two of their own sons to Paris, where John was to continue his studies for the priesthood.

While attending lectures at the great Paris University, the poor boy was lodged and supported gratis by his paternal uncle, Richard, who made an honest living as a locksmith. The boy was thus described by an early writer:

His body was dry and slender, but he already exhibited a sharp and vigorous intellect, prompt at repartee, bold in attack. He was great at fasting, he spoke but little; his language was serious and always to the point. He entered seldom into company and sought retirement.

Meanwhile, the errors of Luther, his fierce assaults on the Pope, his condemnation of penance and morals restraints, etc., had begun to attract public attention in France, and was creating a wild excitement, particularly among the students of the Paris University. Calvin was soon infected with the new spirit. While his good Uncle Richard daily attended Mass, abstained from flesh meat every Friday and Saturday, and piously told his beads daily, John had begun to scoff at such devout practices. For, already at 14, he had read some of Luther's books; he had admitted doubt and then proud contempt into his conceited mind. The influence of his principle professor at the time was in favor of the novel errors, and soon the boy was no longer a Catholic except in name.

Still, he found it his interest to conceal his sentiments, and at the age of 19, having been enrolled among the clergy by receiving the tonsure, he obtained a considerable ecclesiastical benefice, which enabled him to live on the Church without discharging any sacred duties. He never recevied the priesthood nor even the Minor Orders, though he held the title of pastor of a considerable parish.

For a while, he studied law at Orleans, where, under the tuition of an excellent master, he greatly improved in logical thought and trenchant expression; but he was never unpopular among his fellow students, with whom his habit of fault-finding earned for him the sobriquet of "the accusative case." Next, he studied at Bourges, where he made the acquaintence of Beza, Wolmar and other enthusiastic admirers of Luther. Thence he returned to Paris to complete his theological course, living all along on the income of a Church benefice, while he was maturing in his active mind the plan of his heretical system of predestination. While he paused on the brink of the precipice, he was a prey to racking torments of conscience.

At last, his mind was made up, for, to use his own words: "God, by a sudden conversion, subdued his heart and made it docile." From Audin's Life of Calvin we are led to conceive the genesis of his system in this way. He had a powerful intellect, and an iron will to execute whatever he resolved upon; but he had no love of any person but himself, no kindness, no tenderness, no pity on the miserable. Being such, he formed to himself a conception of God after his own image and likeness, a God all intellect and strength of will, but wanting in the element of goodness. This God, in Calvin's system, created the world simply to exercise His arbitrary power, without any regard to the happiness of His creatures. Some of these He predestined to be saved, happy forever, others to be lost in endless woe; without leaving any influence on their lot to either the elect of the reprobate. To the elect. God gives sooner or later an intimate conviction of their election; this pledge, once received, can never be lost. Calvin calls this conviction "faith," taking this word in a novel sense of his own. This faith prompts the happy recipients of it to lead holy lives. Those who have it not are a mass of damnation; they have nothing to gain by the practice of virtue, but they should be kept in order by the elect, by force if necessary.

Calvin, while still openly professing the Catholic religion, held conventicles at night with his secret followers, whom he indoctrinated with his new tenets. His position became dangerous. So, he sold his ecclesiastical benefice and fled to the court of Navarre, where Queen Margaret patronized the Reformation. In that kingdom, he composed the gospel of his sect, which he entitled The Christian Institutes.

We can best understand the spirit of his teachings by seeing how he reduced it to practice during the twenty-two years from 1542 to 1564, while he was all-powerful in Geneva, Switzerland. Considering himself and his partisans as the elect of God, he looked down contemptuously upon the "Libertines," as he styled the unconverted Genevese, just as the Pharisees of old used to look down upon the Publicans. In the spirit of Phariseeism, he enacted a code of the most rigid morality, and he organized a consistory to enforce it on the people. Geneva had been for generations a city of comfort, of cheerfulness and moderate conviviality, of simple pleasures and happiness. The new code abolished all public amusements, all games, all dances, all that had the appearance of frivolity. Domiciliary visits were instituted and various inquisitorial measures were taken to watch the conduct of every citizen. Offences against sanctimonious decorum, and against the very appearance of vanity, were severely punished. Thus we read that a lady was put in prison for having arranged her hair too coquettishly, so was her chambermaid for having assisted her. Imprisonment was inflicted on merchants for playing cards, on peasants for using rude language to their oxen, on burghers, for not extinguishing their lamps in the evening at the appointed hour. Such was the origin of that legislation which caused his followers in English-speaking lands to be called "Puritans," from the external purity of morals which they affected.

Calvin crushed all opposition by the severest punishments. Every word uttered against him was a crime, of which banishment was a common penalty. James Grunet, whom Calvin in open council had called a dog, and who, thus provoked, had written some threatening words against the dictator, was punished with death. All the world knows how he caused Servetus to be seized and condemned for having published, though in another land, some heretical theses against the Holy Trinity, and history blames Calvin for the public burning of the stranger.

The worst feature of Calvanism is that it presents the great, good God as an odious tyrant. What human heart can love a heartless autocrat? In our day, a strong revulsion against this leading feature of Calvanism has caused some branches of that unfortunate system to revise their creed, and return in part to the ancient doctrines of the Catholic Church.

The Eucharist: A Witness to Christian Virtue

Second in a Series on the Reasons of the Eucharist

by

Fr. Albert Tesnière, S.S.S.

Dominus Est!

THESIS

The Eucharist continues the admirable example given by the earthly life of the Incarnate Word.

ADORATION

Adore Our Lord Jesus Christ, truly and personally present and living upon the altar, and listen to the consoling words issuing from the depths of the Sacrament: "I am the light of the world; he who follows Me does not walk in darkness." "I am the way, the truth and the life; learn of Me who am meek and humble of heart." "I have given you an example, that as I have done so you yourselves may also do." When Our Saviour said these words, He testified to one of the greatest blessings, one of the most important ends of His mission upon earth. Humanity had perverted the notion of natural virtues and it was totally ignorant of supernatural ones. Without the revelation of Christ, the Saviour, of the "holy One of God," who taught by His words and by His example the real idea and the perfect practice of virtues, the world would have continued to live in darkness, and to walk in the evil paths of moral corruption, soiled with all the infamy of paganism.

The idea of virtue taught by such clear words, and sustained by such encouraging examples as those given by the Incarnate Word, is therefore an immense boon. It is He who taught the world what the love of God is, what love towards our neighbor is; in fine, what are chastity, humility, patience, obedience, and all other virtues. By first practising them, the Saviour rendered them amiable and attractive; He counteracted by His example our repugnance against making any efforts. By rendering Himself the recompense of every act of virtue performed through love of Him, He has given to our combats in the cause of virtue such magnificent compensations that man has reached the point of joyfully embracing the greatest sacrifices that he may practise it.

The Eucharist perpetuates before the eyes of all generations the virtues of the terrestrial life of the Incarnate Word; it suffices to look at it, to know what faith teaches in regard to the Sacrament, in order to behold, shining in it, the most sublime, the most heroic virtues, those which come forth from the very Eucharistic state itself and seem to be the condition of it.

Who is it that remains in such a state of inertia in a poor tabernacle under such humble appearances? The all-powerful Man-God, the triumphant king. But, then, what poverty, what humility! Who is it that obeys the words of the consecrating priest; who is it that gives Himself to the prayers of the communicant? The King of kings, the sovereign Master! But, then, what ready obedience, what unreserved submission! Who is it that bears in silence the irreverence, the outrages, the sacrileges by which the Sacrament is daily attacked? The God of majesty, the God whom the angels adore in trembling! But, then, what heroic patience! Who, lastly, is it that gives the Eucharist with all its graces to all, always, and without end? The God that owes nothing to anyone, the Saviour who finished His task on earth down to the last iota. But, then, how sublime is His devotedness in the Sacrament! What charity, what forgetfulness of Himself!

Thus, all the virtues are taught and practised by the Saviour in the Eucharist, where He perpetuates in His sacramental life the teaching and the examples given during His human life.

Adore, then, Jesus in the Sacrament; praise Him and contemplate Him as the master of all virtues; penetrate your soul fully with this truth, which is one of the most important in regard to Eucharistic piety.

THANKSGIVING

It would not be possible for you to meditate upon this consoling truth without your soul feeling itself to be penetrated with gratitude for the sweet kindness, the touching condescension of Our Lord. For if the teaching of virtues is absolutely necessary in order that we may comprehend them, is it not infinitely kind of Him to perpetuate, in the Sacrament, the virtues of His earthly life, so that all may see them there practised before them in all their perfection? Doubtless it is much to read of them in the Gospel, but is it not more efficacious still to see the practice of them continued in our presence?

And the examples are so striking that the most simple among us can easily understand them. The poverty of the tabernacles; the fragility of the sacred species; the silence and the patience observed by the Saviour in the Sacrament, where He is forgotten, where injuries are inflicted on Him, or where He is maltreated; the readiness He shows to give Himself to all of us, friends or enemies - all this is visible, accessible, palpable to everyone; it suffices to have the faith of the catechism which teaches that Christ, God and man, is present under the veils of the Sacrament. If He accepts and submits to all the conditions of such a state, poverty, patience, humility, sacrifices, it is evident that He wills them, that He has chosen and adopted them; these conditions are therefore virtues which He practises and of which He gives us the example. Therefore, there is nothing to do, in order to understand it all, but to place ourselves before the Eucharist, and to recall to mind the precept of St. Peter: "Behold and do!"

But His goodness, which places before our eyes such luminous and perpetual examples, does still more: it gives us the Sacrament itself as nourishment, which means that, by the Communion, we receive grace, strength, and the means of practising what is taught us. The Communion gives to the soul power to practise what has been taught us by example. The Master of virtues descends into us, unites Himself to us, practises His virtues with us; He gives us, by His presence in our souls, the power and the facility of virtue, of its sacrifices and of its combats. It is more than example, it is the divine strength infused into the depths of our soul, appropriated to our faculties. And as the Communion is offered to us all the days of our life, in all the situations in which we may be placed, it is therefore in an uninterrupted manner that the Eucharist communicates to us the grace of Christian virtues, even as it is without interruption that it shows us the examples of them.

Oh, abundance of the riches of our God, bestowed so lavishly in the Sacrament! Who is able to understand thee sufficiently in order to praise thee worthily?

REPARATION

Two thoughts ought to furnish reparation in regard to this subject. The first is that the example of the virtues of Jesus continued before our eyes so mercifully, and its succor so abundantly diffused in our souls, render our vices, our sins, our cowardice in doing what is right, our voluntary defects, incomparably more disfiguring, more guilty and more worthy of chastisement. To be what we are, in presence of what He is, and of what by His grace and His example He labors so perseveringly to render us - oh shame! oh horror! oh stupidity! How can we sufficiently despise ourselves?

The second source of reparation springs from so few Christians thinking of the virtues of Jesus in the Eucharist; nearly all of them neglect the treasure which Jesus offers us at the price of immense sacrifices imposed upon His glory, His honor, and His royalty. It is sad, painful, and lamentable that so great a masterpiece of wisdom and of love should be so ignored and so neglected. We cannot but deplore it for ourselves and for others, and take opportunity from it to compassionate the Saviour, "ignored by those in the midst of whom He lives," and so really too!

PRAYER

Let us ask for grace, and let us make the resolution henceforth to live in nearer and more loving relations with the Eucharist; to study in it the virtues of Jesus; to apply to them, in order the better to understand them, all that the Gospel relates of them; lastly, in the contemplation of the Eucharist, to derive from it examples of the virtues of our state; and on the reception of the Communion, the graces and succor necessary to reproduce in us these divine examples. May the Eucharist be to us indeed, "the way, the truth, the life!"

PRACTICE

Never meditate upon a virtue without studying the way in which Jesus practises it in the Sacrament, and the help Holy Communion offers to us for the practice of it.

Origin of the Anabaptists and Baptists

Fifth in a Series on the Protestant Reformation

by

Fr. Charles Coppens, S.J.

Thomas Müntzer, ca. 1520

We are not inquiring here what kind of men the Baptists are today, but what was their origin, what their early history. They state in their writings that their origin is wrapped in obscurity. But history has of late torn away the veil of many pretences, and it has done so in the present case. It is now clearly known that the Baptists have come from the Anabaptists; they have dropped the first two syllables of their original name in order to escape the odium attached to those early sectaries. The history of the Anabaptists is as well known as any ordinary event of the past four centuries.

The word anabaptist etymologically means a person who baptizes over again. It was used to designate the fact that their new doctrine held infants' baptisms to be of no avail, since the sacrament could benefit those only who desired it. Now as all Christians before the Reformation began had been baptized in their infancy, those who joined this sect were re-baptized. This error was origininated by Thomas Müntzer, the Lutheran pastor of Zwickau in Saxony, in the year 1520. He and his followers carried the principles of the Reformation to their furthest consequences: everyone was to interpret the Bible for himself, and they professed to find texts in the Sacred Volume that justified rebellion against princes as well as against bishops and popes. They were socialists, mystics, fanatics; they rejected all authority, all tradition, all control of any kind. Intoxicated with individual liberty, they went about committing such excesses, such outrages on morality, as disgraced the name of Anabaptists for all future generations.

Müntzer gave a fresh impulse and a new character to the "Peasants' War," as it was called, which was directed by him to the establishment of an ideal Christian commonwealth with communistic institutions. In 1525, his army was defeated at Frankenhausen. He was tried, condemned and executed.

But this well-deserved punishment was looked upon by the Anabaptists as a form of most unjust persecution. New associations were formed among them, new prophets and teachers arose, the propaganda was extended among the peasants and serfs of Germany, Austria and Hungary in every direction. They summarized their tenets as follows:

Impiety prevails everywhere. It is therefore necessary that a new family of holy persons be founded, enjoying, without distinction of sex, the gift of prophecy, and skilled to interpret Divine Revelation. No need of learning; for the internal law is more than the outward expression. No Christian is allowed to go to law, to hold an office in the civil government, to take an oath in a court of justice, or to possess any personal property; everything among Christians must be in common.

They went about burning all books but the Bible, and destroying all churches within their reach. Catholics are often blamed for being intolerant of heretics, for refusing them liberty of conscience. But when they saw what heresy and liberty of conscience meant during the first decades of the Reformation, how could they help being intolerant? Who, if he knows the facts, can blame them for defending their own liberty of worship, their churches, their altars, their priests, bishops and the Supreme Pontiff against all manner of insult and violence? Must a man stand by and see what is nearest and dearest to his heart outraged by mobs and fanatical leaders of mobs? I do not think the Catholics today would patiently submit to such mob violence if it were offered, and I do not know that any would expect it from high-spirited citizens.

A few years later, John of Leiden, a tailor by trade, was proclaimed King of New Zion. He put all the laws of morality, of decency and moderation at defiance. He was a tyrant to his subjects; yet, he pleased them by introducing polygamy. He pronounced anathemas against Luther as well as against the Pope of Rome. At last Munster, the capital of his kingdom, was taken in 1535; and he and others of the leaders were tortured with hot pincers till they expired.

The most fanatical of their leaders being thus removed, new prophets arose, who objected to polygamy and to other most revolting disorders. In many places, the better element among the Anabaptists prevailed, and the sect became more like the ordinary followers of the Reformation. But its name has ever since remained one of extremely bad repute, and its members have often been persecuted by other Protestant bodies. Some of them went to settle in the Netherlands, and thence passed over into England, in company with some English dissenters who had fled from the persecution in their own country, and who in Holland had taken up the main tenets of the Anabaptists. As early as 1535, we read of ten Anabaptists suffering death for their heresy under Henry VIII in England, and in 1538 of three men and one woman executed for the same opinions. Yet their tenets gradually spread, and now there are said to be about 500,000 of those sectaries in Europe; but the name Anabaptists had been changed to that of Baptists.

In America, they are far more numerous. In 1533, a colony of Welsh Anabaptists had come over to settle in Massachusetts. Here the celebrated Roger Williams undertook to defend the same errors as the Anabaptists in Europe, as far as Baptism was concerned. But instead of the lawlessness and the excesses of the early leader of the Anabaptists, he displayed a spirit of moderation and tolerance which has made him one of the most honored pioneers of religious liberty in the United States.

From the beginning of the heresy, its followers objected to the name "Anabaptists," because they said infants were incapable of receiving baptism, and therefore were not re-baptized but simply baptized when they desired it in riper age. They claimed the name Antipaedobaptists, "against the baptism of children." But the appellation was cumbersome; and, besides, the term Anabaptists was not incorrect, for the vast multitudes of Christians in all ages have considered infant baptism valid, and therefore the repeating of the ceremony in later life was an attempt to repeat baptism, to baptize over again. History has consecrated the term Anabaptists and it will no doubt remain till the end of time.

But the Baptists of the present day have another objection against the name as applied to themselves. In this, they are right. For although they are historically connected by descent of origination, and still more evidently by sameness of their leading doctrine, with the Anabaptists of Reformation times, yet, as it is a given or proper, not a common name, and the appellation has been historically disgraced, they have an undoubted right to disown it as the designation of their present organization. We respect their reasonable wishes in this matter, and therefore we have headed this essay Origin of the Anabaptists and Baptists, admitting the distinction, yet tracing both divisions to their common historical origin.

It would certainly be unjust to blame the modern branch for the wild fruit produced by older branches which are now dead and cut off. But the root of the entire tree is evil; at most, the defence can be made that the Baptist sect is the growth of human passion pruned by human reason, but it is in no sense the work of God. It is the same with many others of the early Reformation sects. Their modern members have, to a great extent, disowned the most objectionable principles of their founders. Thus, most Lutherans of the present day no longer believe in the total depravity of human nature, in the slavery of our will and the needlessness of good works. The Presbyterians, too, have recently so amended their Calvinistic profession of faith as to strike from it the most offensive tenets.

In fact, even in Luther's time, the fruit produced by the tree which he had planted had become so bad that he was forced by what he saw and heard on all sides to lament the sad results. Thus he complained, saying:

The world grows worse and worse, and becomes more wicked every day. Men are now more given to revenge, more avaricious, more devoid of mercy, less modest, and more incorrigible, in fine, more wicked than in the Papacy.

In his Table Talk, he commented thus:

One thing no less astonishing than scandalous is to see that, since the pure doctrine of the Gospel has been brought to light, the world daily grows from bad to worse.

He would willingly have corrected some of his own teachings if he could have done so without stultifying himself before the whole world.

Feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus

by

Fr. Leonard Goffine

Introit

In the name of Jesus let every knee bow of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth; and let every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:10-11). O Lord our Lord, how wonderful is thy name in the whole earth! (Ps. 8:2).

Prayer of the Church

O God, Who didst ordain Thine only-begotten Son to be the Savior of mankind, and didst command that he should be called Jesus: mercifully grant that we may enjoy in heaven the blessed vision of him whose holy name we venerate upon earth. Through our Lord.

Epistle (Acts 4:8-12)

In those days, Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said: Ye princes of the people and ancients, hear: If we this day are examined concerning the good deed done to the infirm man, by what means he hath been made whole, be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God hath raised from the dead, even by him this man standeth here before you whole. This is the stone which was rejected by you the builders; which is become the head of the corner: neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved.

Explanation

This Epistle speaks of the omnipotent power of the name of Jesus, through which miracles are not only performed, but also on which our salvation depends. Jesus alone can give us redemption and happiness; He alone under heaven has been given to man by God, that through Him happiness could be reached; He alone can break the fetters of error and sin in which all mankind lies captured. He alone is the truth, He alone, as the Son of God, has power to render perfect satisfaction for sin, and to make us truly good; and the good alone can be saved. Cling, therefore, ever faithfully and firmly to Jesus, and depart not from Him; without Him you can accomplish nothing; with Him, through Him, you can accomplish all things.

Gospel (Lk. 2:21)

At that time, after eight days were accomplished that the child should be circumcised, his name was called Jesus, which was called by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

Q. Why did Jesus submit to Circumcision?

A. That He might show His great love for us, which caused Him even at the very beginning of His life, to shed His blood to cleanse us thereby from all our sins. Furthermore to teach us obedience to the commandments of God and His Church, since He voluntarily subjected Himself to the Jewish law, although He was not in the least bound by it, which ordered that every male child should be circumcised on the eighth day after its birth (Lev. 12:3).

Q. Why was He named Jesus?

A. Because Jesus means Redeemer and Savior, and He had come to redeem and save the world (Mt. 1:21). This is the holiest, most venerable, and most powerful name by which we can be saved.

Q. What power has this name?

A. The greatest power, for it repels all attacks of the evil Spirit, as Jesus Himself says (Mk. 16:17). And so great is the efficacy of this most holy name that even those who are not righteous, can by it expel devils (Mt. 7:22). It has power to cure physical pains and evils, as when used by the apostles (Acts. 3:3-7), and Christ promised that the faithful by using it could do the same (Mk. 16:17). St. Bernard calls the name of Jesus a "Medicine"; and St. Chrysostom says, "This name cures all ills; it gives succor in all the ailments of the soul, in temptations, in faintheartedness, in sorrow, and in all evil desires, etc." "Let him who cannot excite contrition in his heart for the sins he has committed, think of the loving, meek, and suffering Jesus, invoke His holy name with fervor and confidence, and he will feel his heart touched and made better," says St. Lawrence Justinian. It overcomes and dispels the temptations of the enemy: "When we fight against Satan in the name of Jesus," says the martyr St. Justin, "Jesus fights for us, in us, and with us, and the enemies must flee as soon as they hear the name of Jesus." It secures us help and blessings in all corporal and spiritual necessities, because nothing is impossible to him who asks in the name of Jesus, whatever tends to his salvation will be given him (Jn. 14:13). Therefore it is useful above all things, to invoke this holy name in all dangers of body and soul, in doubts, in temptations, especially in temptations against holy chastity, and still more so when one has fallen into sin, from which he desires to be delivered; for this name is like oil (Cant. 1:2) which cures, nourishes, and illumines.

Q. How must this name be pronounced to experience its power?

A. With lively faith, with steadfast, unshaken confidence, with deep­est reverence and devotion, for in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth (Phil. 2:10). What wickedness, then, is theirs who habitually pronounce this name carelessly and irreverently, upon every occasion! Such a habit is certainly diabolical; for the damned and the devils constantly abuse God and His holy name.

Q. Why does this name so seldom manifest its power in our days?

A. Because Christian faith is daily becoming weaker, and confidence less, while perfect submission to the will of God is wanting. When faith grows stronger among people, and confidence greater, then will the power of this most sacred name manifest itself in more wonderful and consoling aspects.

St. Bernard on the Sweet Name of Jesus

The sweet name of Jesus produces in us holy thoughts, fills the soul with noble sentiments, strengthens virtue, begets good works, and nourishes pure affections. All spiritual food leaves the soul dry, if it contain not that penetrating oil, the name Jesus. When you take your pen, write the name Jesus: if you write books, let the name of Jesus be contained in them, else they will possess no charm or attraction for me; you may speak, or you may reply, but if the name of Jesus sounds not from your lips, you are without unction and without charm. Jesus is honey in our mouth, light in our eyes, a flame in our heart. This name is the cure for all diseases of the soul. Are you troubled? think but of Jesus, speak but the name of Jesus, the clouds disperse, and peace descends anew from heaven. Have you fallen into sin? so that you fear death? invoke the name of Jesus, and you will soon feel life returning. No obduracy of the soul, no weakness, no coldness of heart can resist this holy name; there is no heart which will not soften and open in tears at this holy name. Are you surrounded by sorrow and danger? invoke the name of Jesus, and your fears will vanish. Never yet was human being in urgent need, and on the point of perishing, who invoked this help-giving name, and was not powerfully sustained. It was given us for the cure of all our ills; to soften the impetuosity of anger, to quench the fire of concupiscence, to conquer pride, to mitigate the pain of our wounds, to overcome the thirst of avarice, to quiet sensual passions, and the desires of low pleasures. If we call to our minds the name of Jesus, it brings before us His most meek and humble heart, and gives us a new knowledge of His most loving and tender compassion. The name of Jesus is the purest, and holiest, the noblest and most indulgent of names, the name of all blessings and of all virtues; it is the name of the God-Man, of sanctity itself. To think of Jesus is to think of the great, infinite God Who, having given us His life as an example, has also bestowed the necessary understanding, energy and assistance to enable us to follow and imitate Him, in our thoughts, inclinations, words and actions. If the name of Jesus reaches the depths of our heart, it leaves heavenly virtue there. We say, therefore, with our great master, St. Paul the Apostle: If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema (1 Cor. 16:22).

The Eucharist: A Continuation of the Incarnation

First in a Series on the Reasons of the Eucharist

by

Fr. Albert Tesnière, S.S.S.

Dominus Est!

THESIS

The Eucharist Continues and Extends the Great Blessing of the Coming of God upon Earth.

ADORATION

Recognize and adore, with all the power of your faith, Our Lord Jesus Christ, God and man, really present in the Blessed Sacrament. And after having saluted Him with profound reverence, as the angels and the Magi did at Bethlehem, prepare yourself to comprehend and to be profoundly penetrated with this capital truth, namely, that the Eucharist was instituted to continue and extend the great blessing of the coming of God upon earth.

You know and profess the mystery of the Incarnation, in which the Word, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the only Son of God, became man, without ceasing to be God, and began to dwell among us, similar to one of us.

In virtue of this fact, God Himself, God in person, corporally inhabited the earth. He ceased to be invisible and inaccessible; He was seen in Jesus, He was approached and spoken to, and He was touched in Jesus; for Jesus, truly man, was also truly God.

Until then, God was seen only in inanimate creatures and in rational creatures, which are but imperfect images of Himself. But in Jesus, He was seen in His reality, in an immediate manner, and in person. Whilst continuing to be everywhere diffused by means of His infinite being and the universal action of His power, He was nevertheless circumscribed in Jesus; He had a soul, a body, blood, a heart, and human limbs. He spoke and acted by the mouth and by the hands of Jesus. He was one of us, like to us, born in poverty, of a human mother. He labored, was weary, He was hungry and thirsty, as we are; He performed miracles, placing at our service, in His benevolence and His compassion for our miseries, His marvellous omnipotence, which rules over sickness, afflictions and death, and made them retreat. He announced the truth for which human reason longs, the eternal truth, without any mixture of error, with regard to God, His majesty, His goodness, His mercy, and with regard to our sublime destinies. Jesus was God come upon earth, inhabiting it, treading on it with His feet, watering it with His sweat before watering it with His blood; He was come to unite in Himself these two extremes: sinful man and a justly irritated God; and He reconciled the world to Himself, giving to it by His presence and His benefits a warrant of the most complete of pardons, the assurance of future peace and happiness.

This fact of the coming of God upon earth had been awaited, desired, demanded by the anguish and sufferings of the creature and of the whole world during more than forty centuries; it was the work of works, the gift of gifts, the masterpiece of omnipotence and the greatest blessing which had ever emanated from the goodness of God. If it had not been for His coming, the world would have cast itself down the deep and sombre precipices of suffering, of sin, and of despair unto eternal death. Therefore, the Incarnation of the Word is the end and the reason of everything in the works of God.

The Eucharist continues to give to the world this great blessing, this incomparable masterpiece. Through the Sacrament, God is present in person, in body and in soul, in all parts of the globe; God is amongst us; God has dwellings; God can be approached, supplicated. He sees us, He hears us, He loves us with His human heart, in all things like to ours, and His presence is no longer confined to one point as it was formerly in Judea, but it is to be found in all parts of the earth at one and the same time: it is not there for a few years only, but always, until the end of the world.

Adore, then, with faith, with loving gratitude, the Son of God made man, the Man-God, the Incarnate Word, present and living in the Holy Eucharist; believe in the truth of His power, in the perfection of His life, divine and human at the same time.

THANKSGIVING

It is certainly impossible to read in the Gospel of the numberless blessings which the Saviour bestowed all around Him without envying the happiness of those who were able to approach Him, to see Him, and to receive from Him a word of peace or a miraculous cure. His countrymen exclaimed with admiration: "No one ever spoke like this man." And His life upon earth is summed up in these words: "He went about doing good."

Now the same presence ought to produce the same results. If Jesus continues and perpetuates Himself upon earth, He will do so with the same power, the same goodness and for the same merciful and beneficent object as ever. Therefore, it is true to say that, in the same way in which all good things were restored to the guilty world by the Incarnation, they are preserved and applied to it at all times and in all places by the Eucharist: seeing that the Sacrament is the same Christ, the omnipotent Son of the Father, the wholly merciful Son of the Virgin Mother. Truth, virtues, order, peace, harmony in the world and in souls, the continuation of the relations between the earth, in spite of its crimes, and a justly irritated God all is preserved for us, continued and given ceaselessly, by means of the fact, the power, and the admirable efficacy of the presence of Jesus perpetuated here below in the Eucharist. If it were to disappear for one moment, there would be a chaos in the world of souls worse than that which would be caused by the disappearance of the sun or the falling into ruin of the universe.

Thank Jesus, therefore, for the love which makes Him remain here below for you, and enables you to enjoy all the advantages of His presence as much as did those who lived with Him during the days of His mortal life, and even more still; for if they saw Him and heard Him, you feed on Him in reality, and you possess Him so fully that He is yours fully and entirely.

REPARATION

The great crime of the Jews at the time of the first coming of Jesus Christ was to repel Him, to refuse to acknowledge Him, and to persecute Him down to His death on Calvary. Hence the malediction which has pursued them during nineteen centuries. Alas! The great crime of nations at the present hour is, also, to refuse to the God of the Eucharist the means of establishing His beneficent empire and ruling it for the good of souls. Disowned and persecuted, men desire to make Him disappear, even from His material temples, after having snatched from Him through infidelity the souls of children and of Christians of all conditions. Oh, make reparation for this great crime, by becoming more and more faithful to the Eucharist and by bringing souls to it as fast as it is possible for you to do so, above all the souls of children.

PRAYER

Ask for the grace of a lively, hearty faith in this great fact of the Eucharist perpetuating for you upon earth the presence of the Incarnate Word. Ask to believe so easily and in so lively a manner that the Eucharist is Jesus in person, that it may draw you towards Him, and that His presence may impress you and excite in you the same feelings you would have if you were to see the Saviour in His crib, upon Thabor, or on the cross.

PRACTICE

As soon as you enter a church, salute Jesus in the tabernacle in these words: "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God!"

Church in Crisis: Diaspora Germany

The following article, published on December 29, 2014 in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of the largest and most reputable newspapers in Germany, is causing something of a stir in the German Catholic community. The author, one Markus Günther, pulls no punches in his stark portrayal of the current situation of the Church in Germany - one which is found in many places in the western world. Though the article is somewhat long, I highly recommend it - so much so, that I gladly took the time to translate it from the original German. I present it below, in its entirely and without comment. -RC

***

Church in Crisis: Diaspora Germany

by

Markus Günther

Dresden, Germany (1945)

On the night of December 13, almost exactly 50 years ago to the day, a student named Franz wandered through the streets of Münster. He could not sleep. He was too upset by the homily he had heard in the cathedral earlier that evening, delivered by a young priest and professor only a few years older than himself, which interpreted Advent and Christmas in an entirely different, even revolutionary way: the old doctrine, according to which human history falls into a time of darkness and a time of salvation - namely, into the time before and the time after  the birth of Christ - is one which no one today can take seriously, said the young theologian. Who, after the World Wars, after Auschwitz and Hiroshima, could still speak of the 'Time of Grace' which began 2000 years ago in Bethlehem? No, the dividing line between the darkness and the light, between captivity and salvation, does not divide history, but rather our own soul. Advent is not an event which takes place in the calendar, but rather in our hearts - or it founders there fruitlessly. That's strong stuff, and one can easily understand why the young student had trouble finding sleep after this homily, and instead wanted to be alone to think it all through.

Today, both the student and the priest of this memorable evening in Münster are old men: Franz Kamphaus, who suffered that sleepless night, and Joseph Ratzinger, the 37-year-old academic rising star who was shaking up students of theology. It is remarkable how the lives of these two men crossed paths for the first time. In retrospect, these two names - Ratzinger and Kamphaus - stand for two paths in Germany which, though they need not be labelled as 'right' and 'left,' were nonetheless quite divergent. Both attempted to preach Christianity under a different set of circumstances and to somehow translate it safely into the modern world - and they fought bitterly over the true and false compromises being made in the relationship between Christ and the World. And now, at the end of life and despite the distances separating them, the two men remain connected through a shared result of failure: Christianity in Germany is ideologically bankrupt.

Neither the humble, charming manner of Kamphaus nor the clever theology of Ratzinger, who helped to govern Germany from Rome, could change that fact. Not even a German Pope - who then, less than 20 years after the war, would have even considered such a thing possible? - could reanimate Christendom in Germany. Other than a bit of national pride and a few pleasant snapshots, nothing remains of the German pontificate. Kamphaus and Ratzinger, Modernists and Traditionalists, eager reformers and stolid conservatives: all stand before a common shambles in Germany.

Of course, one could deny it all. One could say that Germany is still a Christian country, because nearly two thirds of all Germans belong to one of the two major churches; because German children, even those on public schools, are instructed in religion; because there are crosses hanging in our courts and classrooms; because the Church does valuable work in kindergartens and hospitals. Even in the Preamble of the Constitution, there is still a reference to God, and the Chancellor called upon the aid of God while she swore her oath. And Germany is not a Christian country?

Yes, the historic backdrop is still there, and it is surprisingly well conserved. In many respects, however, the Church in Germany today is comparable to the German Democratic Republic [GDR; Communist East Germany (1949-1990)] in its later days: it looks stable, but it stands on the verge of collapse. And, like in the last days of the GDR, many officials are fooling themselves. Pastors and bishops, as well as many active parishioners, see blooming landscapes where there is nothing but desert. Love, as they say, is blind. And where existential threats are concerned, a calculated optimism often clouds a sober view of reality.

Shiny new facades and robust structures assist the work of self-deception: there are ca. 45,000 churches in the country and most of them - structurally speaking - are sound. This year, the Catholic Church and the Evangelical church in Germany has taken in more money than ever before. German church music is the best in the world. There are still 44,000 Catholic weddings and 225,000 Evangelical confirmations every year. What crisis? All that's missing is the argument that the churches are the second largest employer in Germany, offering more than a million people secure jobs - and the Church has finally arrived at a level of legitimization equaled only by the local garbage dump.

Only a Church which is a community of faith, and not merely an employer or a pillar of the social system, can be taken seriously. And precisely that - the common faith - has largely vanished into thin air. That only a third of all German believe in the Resurrection of Christ should be a cause for concern in the Church, especially given that, according to the files, two thirds are Christian. But it's much worse: even among the faithful, core elements of the Christian message are widely rejected. 60 percent do not believe in a life after death. At the same time, one in four Germans believes that black cats bring bad luck. More people between Flensburg [in the extreme north] and Oberammergau [in the extreme south] believe in UFO's than in the Last Judgement. Welcome to Diaspora Germany.

Just how little confessional affiliation still has to do with faith was revealed by a survey conducted by the Allensbach Institute for the Catholic Church. The results were so devastating, however, that they were never published. To the question, 'Why are you Catholic?' 68 percent gave the answer: "Because it allows one to celebrate the important events of life in the church, such as weddings and baptisms." The refreshing honesty of the second most common answer is no less admirable: "It's just what you do; it's a family tradition." Its is obvious that these cannot be considered religious, but merely cultural, social reasons. Most pastors on location can confirm the findings: the Church works best when it promises a fabulous celebration. A wedding in white, often in a strange but imposing church, is still very much in vogue, as are pictures of children in white for their First Communion or young adults in dark suits for Confirmation. One in three of those receiving Confirmation, however, doesn't even believe in God. The comparison with the GDR rears its head again: even after socialism had gone bankrupt, Youth Consecration [a secular coming of age ceremony practiced by all 14-year-olds in the GDR] remained in high demand. It even survived the demise of the GDR and, while emptied of its overtly socialist content, is still celebrated. Many worship services, too, are today such exclusively cultural events (e.g.: weekly meeting place, annual folklore, family reunion) that even after a conclusive proof for the non-existence of God they could continue to be celebrated.

The autumn of Christendom in Germany has begun. The Church Tax will either be eliminated as a result of political pressure or ultimately run dry by 2030; the last socialized and actively Christian generation will soon be exiting the workforce, and dead within three decades. Then the facade of the Church, too, will crumble. Behind it, a minority will become visible - a minority not much larger than the community of Jehova's Witnesses.

At the same time, a veritable renaissance of religion is proclaimed by the media every few years - preferably at Christmas time. Journalists and sociologists convince themselves that they have discovered a trend: a harking back to Christian roots, a new generation's search for meaning, a 'Benedict' - and, most recently, a 'Francis'- Effect. Truth be told, there is no data to support such a trend. The numbers are moving steadily in one direction: down. In 2013 alone, Mass attendance in the Catholic Church dropped by 10 percent.

There is no harking back to religion. Interestingly, however, the number of atheists has hardly budged. One might, after all, be tempted to think that the drop-off in Church attendance would correlate with a significant uptick in atheism. There is no such correlation. Even those who are at ends with traditional religions are not satisfied with the explanation that there was once nothing which exploded in a Big Bang, bringing the universe into existence; that mankind - and each and every person - was brought about through evolutionary chance; that the world consists of nothing other than what we can see, measure and understand; that everything ends with death. The question of whence and whither, the question of God is part and parcel of man. In decisive moments - such as those touched by illness and death, by the inscrutable in one's own life, by guilt and failure, hope and mourning, and, not least of all, by the experience of love - the question of God poses itself to the human consciousness. Karl Rahner once said: "Even if, one day, every religion were to disappear and even the word 'God' were to be completely eradicated, then someone would simply invent the word anew to describe the nameless mystery of our existence."

For the vast majority of people, whether in or outside the Church, the question of God remains a life-long issue with which they never really come to terms. The vicissitudes of life are also reflected in the biography of faith. Resolute atheism is the exception; a vague, often diffuse faith is the norm today. One could also say: they still exist in large numbers - the seekers and doubters who are asking about God and who are looking for answers - but the churches are reaching them less and less.

But why are the seekers no longer finding guidance? Why are the supply and demand no longer jibing? The most popular answer to this question is: because the Church is no longer relevant to the times. She must conform more closely to the realities of the lives of modern people. Initially, that sounds plausible, but under closer scrutiny reveals itself to be idiocy. For the Evangelical church in Germany has done nearly everything which is being demanded from the Catholic Church in order to become more relevant to the times: women priests, the elimination of celibacy, liberality in moral theology, the complete acceptance of homosexuals and the divorced. If these were the real reasons for the malaise of Christendom, the Protestants should be far better off than the Catholics. But that simply isn't the case. A second error in thinking is introduced by the popular buzzword "relevant to the times" [German: zeitgemäß, which can mean "modern," "suitable," or even "appropriate," and often carries all of these shades when applied to the Church]: Wherever the Church does not base herself upon timeless, incontrovertible truth, she reveals herself to be purely man-made. Political programs should be "relevant to the times," entertainment programming, too; but a religion must take command of absolute truths - or it is no religion at all.

On the contrary, both churches in Germany - not always officially, but de facto, in practical life - have already long ago abandoned central doctrines of the faith. In the attempt to avoid offending people and make access to the faith as easy as possible, a good deal has been laundered as if with fabric softener: Jesus, Son of God, has been reduced to Jesus, an exemplary man, like Buddha and Gandhi. The Resurrection of Christ has been reduced to a legend which is not to be taken literally, but rather in the sense of "who has love in his heart never dies." The lowest common denominator of the preaching often consists of nothing more than feel-good prose which should be acceptable to as many people as possible and for precisely that reason comes off as arbitrary. Peace on earth, more justice for all, being less egotistical - every group of halfway decent people can agree on that. Besides, an appeal from UNESCO or Greenpeace doesn't sound much different. Why should God be any different?

When the churches are all full - at Christmas, that is - everything is quite festive, but the spark of faith rarely catches fire. Many visitors wonder - both at the church and themselves. What were they actually looking for? And why didn't they find it? Of sacred acts there is very little to notice. And if the spiritual nomad finds himself at a more tradition-oriented liturgy, the result is no better, for the stranger is all the more strange here, and turns away all the more baffled. Liturgy assumes a good deal of knowledge; otherwise, one sees nothing more than ballyhoo and mumbo-jumbo.

Perhaps the person of today, with all his enlightened cleverness, occasionally stands in his own way. Faith requires a pinch of naivete, the readiness to give up control and open oneself to the Incomprehensible. Groping and hoping. No wonder that many find this increasingly difficult in a world which is set upon industrially reorganizing the last untouched domains of being: sexuality, love, birth, death. Total control, complete autocracy over one's own life is in trend. A more inhospitable breeding ground for faith is barely conceivable.

And yet, the churches themselves have done their fair share to destroy piety and the naivete of faith - or better: the immediacy of religious imagery. The storm against traditional forms was born in many minds. Perhaps this is the most calamitous development of modern theology: the desire to loose the content from its images, to abstract the faith and thereby to trust that modern man can accomplish more with a concept than with an image. A delusion. A faith without images is an ideology, and an ideology is judged in the mind of the individual and by the spirit of the times. An image remains an image: it challenges, fascinates, irritates, is accepted or rejected - but it proclaims itself. He who destroys images leaves nothing of the content. He who no longer wants to conceive of God as a Person, but rather as an abstract Being, as an Energy or Force, such a one will also thereby lose his faith. Every human relationship - and faith is precisely that - requires as its counterpart a living person.

(Original: German)