I Have Given You An Example

Ninth Conference on the Most Sacred Heart

by

Fr. Henry Brinkmeyer

In our last conference, we studied the human love which our Lord showed for man in His private life. We saw it manifesting itself in voluntary poverty, in obedience to creatures, and in attractiveness and grace of person and character. The next subject that presents itself is the love of our Lord as displayed in His public life until the hour which ushered in His dolorous Passion. From His birth in the stable until He reached the age of thirty, we know very little of our Saviour, but these years of His public life are more fully described by the Evangelists, and therefore reveal to us more of the wonderful and inexhaustible love that was contained in His Sacred Heart for man.

Our Lord exhibited His love for men by relieving their temporal ills and sufferings. He healed the sick, raised the dead, restored the blind, cured the maimed, and spoke words of comfort to the afflicted. None ever asked in vain of the Divine Physician. All that came to Him were relieved, without respect of name or degree. Even though He knew they would prove ungrateful and abuse His goodness, His Heart was never insensible to their misery. Still, it was not the intention of our Lord to remove all temporal suffering from the world: hence, we cannot very well measure the full depth of His tenderness by the assistance which He rendered to the poor and afflicted. If we would understand the intensity and magnitude of His love we must study earnestly His zeal for the salvation of souls. The more ardent that zeal, the more ardent must be His love; for zeal is nothing else than an eagerness to benefit the one loved. Since it would have been conflicting with the plans of Divine Providence to remove from mankind all temporal and bodily evils and other consequences of sin, the immense love that was throbbing in the Sacred Heart for men induced our Lord to pursue principally the eternal interests of their souls.

Now, who is there that does not admire the zeal of our Saviour for the salvation of souls? Does not every line written by the four Evangelists bear witness to that zeal? Follow Jesus through the three years preceding His Passion. He was never at rest. Rarely do we read of His having allowed Himself a brief repose. By day He journeyed from city to city, from hamlet to hamlet. In that period there were no railroads to lend speed to the traveler, and our Lord was too poor to have a conveyance of His own. He walked over the dusty roads and scaled the stony hills, only light sandals, if any, covering the soles of His feet. When He had traveled all day in the heat of the sun, and at dusk had reached the neighboring village, hungry and spent with fatigue, it was His practice to go up into the synagogue of the place and there preach to the people. And at night He would again leave the town and retire to some solitary place, a mountain, a grotto, a garden or lake, and there pass whole hours, frequently whole nights, in prayer.

During these three years of His public life, there was not a village or hamlet of Judea and Galilee that did not receive the sublime lessons He came to teach. Wherever the people assembled, there He was found, eager to dispense to them the bread of heavenly truth. In the public markets, on hills and mountains, in the open fields and meadows, out in the desert, on the roadside, from a skiff floating on the lake, on the banks of the river, beside the well or at the gates of the city - everywhere He taught the people; and when He had thus instructed men in public, He did not weary repeating and developing His doctrines in private. 

Besides all this, He had no preferences; or if any, they were for the ignorant, the poor, and for children. He visits the rich and the poor, the master and the servant; He teaches the just and the sinner, the learned and the illiterate, the high and the low, with equal zeal He labors to enlighten one or many. Whether three thousand or five thousand are hanging upon every word of His lips, or He is speaking to a few eager to ensnare Him in His words, He is ever the same zealous teacher.

Mark the simplicity of His teachings. He could have thrilled the world with His eloquence and wisdom; but no, He spoke to the people in their own language, made use of homely similes, and clothed His heavenly doctrines in parables taken from every-day life. The lily of the field, the sparrow, the grass in the meadow, the mustard-seed, the birds of the air, the lost sheep, the lost drachma, the lamp, the kingdom, the vine, the city, the net cast into the sea, the fig-tree - in a word, whatever was apt to enlighten His hearers and touch their hearts, He employed as a means to illustrate the truth.

And see with what patience He labored! We are sometimes amazed at the ignorance, the dullness - I had almost said, the stupidity - of the apostles. It mattered not how lengthily and how clearly He had spoken, they frequently failed to grasp His meaning; they returned to Him again and again with the simplest questions. For example, how often our divine Lord had referred to His Passion and especially to His Resurrection, yet He was never understood by them. Only after His Resurrection did they remember what He had so often and so clearly indicated in His touching discourses. Then again, they were so stubborn, so rude, and above all, so little-minded; even with the great example of our Lord before their eyes, they were frequently jealous of one another, quarreling among themselves who was to have the first place in His kingdom. Yet Jesus bore with all their weakness; He repeated His instructions, He acted towards them as if they were His masters, and He their servant; He knelt down before Peter who was soon to deny Him; He washed the feet of Judas who had already betrayed Him. And just here we find that His zeal was not only ardent, but gentle and compassionate, and therefore could not spring but from a love strong and deep and tender as a mother's love.

Zeal is naturally ardent and passionate; it is very apt to become harsh and exacting, and when it does not spring from a deep love, it is rigorous in judging, it grows angry at sin, and strikes against obstacles in its way. Such was the zeal of St. James and St. John when they were yet young in the spiritual life, and wished our Lord to rain down fire upon those who did not listen to His teaching. But such was not the spirit of our Lord: His zeal was as humble and patient and kind as it was ardent and exalted. When they accused Him of being the Friend of sinners, and by His leniency of encouraging sin, He answered: "I have not come to call the just, but sinners. It is not the healthy, it is the sick that need a physician. " When they reproached Him with not obliging His apostles to fast, He replied: "Can the children of the bridegroom mourn while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, (namely, when the apostles were strengthened in faith and virtue); and then they shall fast." When the Pharisees were shocked at His eating with sinners, He related to them the touching parable of the Prodigal Son, and of the Good Shepherd who left the ninety-nine in the desert and sought after the poor lost sheep until he had found it: "I came not to execute justice, but to grant mercy!"

One day, a poor creature taken in adultery was brought to Him. According to the Jewish law, one sinning thus was to be stoned to death. The Scribes and Pharisees accused her before Him who is sanctity itself. He said nothing, but bending over, He wrote with His finger in the sand. They would not, however, be put off. They repeated their question, what was to be done with her? He rose and said: "He that is without sin, let him cast the first stone." Tradition has it that one hoary-headed hypocrite seized a rock to fling at the culprit, but Jesus looked up, then traced a sin of the wretch upon the ground. Terrified, the man fled. Another, more daring, it is said, was about to cast a stone, but the glance of Jesus and the mysterious writing in the sand caused the missile to fall from his sin-stained hands. At last the guilty woman was alone with her Saviour. Looking upon her, He asked: "Where are they that accused thee? Hath no man condemned thee?" Trembling, she said: "No man, Lord." And Jesus answered: "Neither will I condemn thee. Go and sin no more." Truly, our Lord had reason to say: "I came not to execute justice, but to grant mercy."

Nothing shows more clearly the tender, human zeal and, in consequence, the human love of our Lord, than His conduct towards Judas Iscariot. He had called him to the Apostolate; had sent him out to preach; had given him the power of working miracles; had allowed him to listen to His intimate instructions and to share in all those marks of holy friendship bestowed upon the other apostles. He had even showed him a certain preference, a special confidence, in making him the treasurer of their little society. Judas, however, was preparing to betray his Lord. Jesus knew this. His heart was full of pity for His faithless disciple. He essayed to save the wretch by signifying that He knew of the meditated crime: "One of you is about to betray me." But Judas was not moved; he even dared ask: "Is it I, Lord?"

Jesus tried again; He knelt down before the perfidious one, His grace spoke to that hardened heart while He silently washed the traitor's feet. But Judas was unmoved. They sat at table: Jesus instituted the Eucharist, He ordained Judas priest with the rest of the apostles, and, to screen the ingrate, even gave him the Sacred Bread of life. But Judas was not yet moved. They arose, and were about to leave for the garden on the mountain-side. Jesus turned again to Judas and, to convince him that his heart was known to his God, bade him do quickly what he intended, but in words that the other apostles could not understand. That night, Judas entered the garden with the band of soldiers. He approached our Lord, Goodness and Sanctity themselves, and, embracing Him, pressed his foul lips to the cheek of the Holy One. The Heart of Jesus, how it must have bled! He knew that all would be in vain; still love, though despairing, makes efforts to win the object beloved. "Friend," He said, "dost thou betray the Son of man with a kiss?"

O, pray that such zeal and love may reign in the hearts of the priests of the Church, and in the hearts of all those who spiritually or corporally continue Christ's mission on earth. "Behold, the harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that He send forth laborers into His harvest."

On Metaphysics, Americanism and Penguin Poop

St. Thomas Aquinas
Master of Metaphysics

A few days ago, I presented you, gentle reader, with something of an experiment in creative analogies to be drawn between fighting the culture wars and dragon slaying. As far as I can tell, you didn't read it - which, to be perfectly frank, does not entirely surprise me. I'm pretty sure mixing obscure medieval Germanic lore with even more obscure philosophical issues would top any list of things to avoid in writing popular blog posts.

While the exercise was largely cathartic - my inner medievalist is now thoroughly accoyed (!) and purring like a cat upon a bed of canary feathers - the article was nonetheless attempting to make an important point: philosophy matters. A lot. Unfortunately, however, most people don't understand what philosophy is or what role it plays in their daily lives. The mere mention of a word like "metaphysics" is usually sufficient to cast a thick glaze over the eyes of even the best-intentioned of interlocutors. On occasion, I have been tempted to replace "metaphysics" with "the quantum mechanics of sugar-plum fairies", just to see if anyone would notice. Given the utterly bewildering popularity of hip-hop music and reality TV shows among the general populace, I suspect most would not.

This was not always the case, mind you. There was a time - and not too long ago, actually - when every self-respecting educated person in the western hemisphere had a firm grasp of the essential components of the major branches of philosophy, such as logic, metaphysics, and ethics. As I noted in a recent article on the roots of America's educational system, Scholasticism played a tremendous role in the intellectual life of the American Founding Fathers, though this has been largely forgotten - or intentionally overlooked, depending upon your politics. Having reviewed Dr. James Walsh's book on the subject in some depth, it is safe to say that the Founding Fathers framed the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for a people thoroughly acquainted with the rudiments of natural theology. The very opening line of the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident," positively drips with philosophical presuppositions drawn directly from Scholastic metaphysics.

Lest there be any confusion, let me clarify that I am most certainly not asserting that the Founding Fathers were closet Catholics. On the contrary, most of them held the Catholic Church to be a contemptible institution guilty of hobbling the human intellect for centuries. Nonetheless, they begrudgingly recognized the inestimable service she has rendered to mankind by fully developing a rational system of natural theology, anthropology, cosmology and ethics. So impressed were they with this rational system that they constructed the entire edifice of the fledgling state upon it as a sure foundation. "We hold these truths to be self-evident." Sadly, an appallingly large segment of the American population today would be hard-pressed to list even one such self-evident truth, let alone to explain what "self-evident" actually means.

Thus, I make no novel claims regarding the particular religious affiliations of the Founding Fathers. Some were Anglicans, some were Presbyterians, some were Congregationalists - there were even a few Catholics, believe it or not. In the wider population, there was even greater diversity, with Quakers and Shakers, Lutherans and Unitarians, and a whole host of assorted sects. While they differed greatly in regards to their understanding of divine or supernatural theology, they all agreed on the rational principles of natural theology and morality. Anyone familiar with the principles of Freemasonry will see why it was so attractive to the Founding Fathers, and how important religious rationalism, divorced from all sectarian views, was to the success of early America.

As an aside, anyone familiar with the Catholic teaching on the subject - i.e. that natural theology intentionally divorced from dogmatic theology quickly becomes a diabolical imitation of true religion - will also see why, prior to the invention of baseball, Anti-Catholicism was the favorite All-American pastime. Catholicism threatened to upset the precarious balance struck in the American intellect: religious rationalism coupled with dogmatic indifference. Catholics were insufferably dogmatic, which required their exclusion from the institutions of higher education, and unquestioningly loyal to the Pope, which required their exclusion from the public offices of government. In short, they refused to go along to get along, which threatened the real purpose of the American Enterprise: making obscene amounts of money.

And the plan worked brilliantly, as far as such things go, provided that everyone who was destined to wield the power of government continued to receive an education in the rudiments of sound philosophy and sufficiently distanced himself from anything resembling genuine religious belief. Of course, people of faith had their role to play: Catholics, with their culture of pious submission to suffering, were ideal cheap labor in the growing cities, and Protestants, with their desire to flee all trace of authority, were ideal settlers in the expanding wilderness, and both would help to make Manifest Destiny a profitable reality. But the most their religious faith could hope to achieve vis-à-vis the state was toleration, never support. To violate the principle of indifference to dogma and enshrine one religion's beliefs in law would be to invite all kinds of internal strife and - ultimately - to threaten profit margins. That is to say, religious faith is tolerated until it interferes with the bottom line.

This is, incidentally, the proximate cause of the rapid reversal of the U.S. government's stance on issues such as same-sex unions. But the cause-in-fact is the near-complete erosion of America's intellectual and moral foundation brought about by the elimination of the principles of Scholastic philosophy from the education of the general population. Even otherwise educated Americans don't know what to make of arguments from natural law, and are perfectly mystified by appeals to objective morality. As a case in point, I provide the following excerpt from a recent article by Margery Eagen, Crux's spirituality columnist, in which she opines:

Wall Street, Main Street, the ultra-macho world of organized sports, most of America, Europe, and the industrialized world has done an about-face on gay rights and even gay marriage. Republicans are looking for a way to finesse the problem away. Yet the catechism of the Catholic Church, like some "Reefer Madness" denial of reality, still describes a "homosexual inclination" as "objectively disordered" and homosexual acts as "intrinsically disordered."

Not only does Ms. Eagen betray her own ignorance as to the actual import of the terms in question, she's dilettantish enough to wield actual quotes as scare quotes. It's hard to relate just how ridiculous that looks to anyone with even rudimentary training in Scholastic philosophy, but the following image comes close:

In her defense, Ms. Eagen - though writing for an allegedly Catholic newspaper - has very likely never even seen a manual on Scholastic ethics, let alone read one, and the distinction between moral philosophy and moral theology would, in all likelihood, be completely lost on her. And it's not (entirely) her fault. But expecting people who rely solely upon their typically malformed conscience to guide them through a complex issue such as sexual morality is like expecting a 4th grader to review a critical edition of the collected works of Chaucer. "It must be good, because it has a really pretty picture on the cover." Such an evaluation carries all the weight and intellectual merit of the typical argument in favor of same-sex unions: "They love each other, so it must be OK."

I said it before, and I'll say it several times more on this blog, God willing: The weak point of the culture of death is to be found in the soft underbelly of its metaphysical assumptions. It is there that its weakness is helplessly exposed, and it is there that we must apply the deadly strike.

This means, in the first place, educating ourselves and our children in the principles of Scholastic philosophy, i.e. logic, ontology, natural theology, anthropology, psychology, cosmology, ethics. Of course, these are to be supplemented by dogmatic theology, the natural sciences and moral theology. But these latter are not effective tools in the fight for sufficient breathing space for the practice of our Catholic Faith in a world increasingly hostile to true religion. Not only are they not effective, they can actually be counter-productive, as they give the appearance of pushing our religious beliefs off on other people. This is a fatal mistake in the context of the U.S., for the reasons outlined above. Instead, we must take the fight to the culture of death on rational - particularly metaphysical - grounds. Let the Protestant reactionaries thump their Bibles. Catholics have always excelled at philosophy, and we need not appeal to Sacred Scripture to assert what every man of sound mind is capable of ascertaining through the use of his God-given reason. That's how America - and the modern western world - was designed to work. It's by no means ideal, but it's what we have to work with.

Are We Witnessing a Marian Miracle?

Our Lady of Kibeho, who called the people
of Rwanda to repentance and prayer of
the rosary, saying that God's punishment
was imminent. 12 years later, the
Rwandan genocide claimed the lives
of more than 800,000 people.

On April 18, Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme told Catholic News Agency that he saw Our Lord in a vision sometime during 2014 and was made to understand that the Islamic terrorist organization Boko Haram would be overcome and expelled from his diocese through praying the rosary. He related his vision in the following words:

One evening, towards the end of last year, I was praying in my chapel before the Blessed Sacrament, where we have 24 hours perpetual adoration. So, I was there before the Blessed Sacrament, praying the rosary. And then, suddenly, the Lord appeared, and I saw Him - this was Jesus! - with a sword in His own hands. And I started trembling. I said, "Lord, what is this?" He did not say anything. He just stretched out His arms, with the sword in His hands, towards me. And then I, also, stretched out my hands, and received the sword. As soon as I received the sword, it turned into a rosary. It turned into a rosary! The Lord now spoke: "Boko Haram is gone. Boko Haram is gone. Boko Haram is gone." Three times he said that, and then He disappeared. I didn't need any prophet to give me an explanation. It was clear that, with the rosary, we would be able to expel Boko Haram from our diocese, that, with the intervention of His own mother, whom I so cherish, whom I am so close to, and if I encourage our own people to do the same thing, we will dislodge Boko Haram, and that is exactly what is happening.

The story received coverage on nearly every major and quite a few minor Catholic news outlets and blogs, and was run mostly as an inspiring reminder of the importance of prayer. I hope that you, gentle reader, found a little time in your busy schedule to pray for these, our youngest brothers and sisters in Christ, in their hour of need. If you didn't, you might want to now.

Fast-forward one month, and the position of Boko Haram in Nigeria appears to have all but collapsed. Gbenga Akingbule, reporting for the Wall Street Journal, describes the sudden and surprising turn of events:

Boko Haram has abandoned so many hundreds of kidnapped women and girls recently that Nigerian officials tasked with bringing them back into society on Sunday said they were looking to open a second rehabilitation camp, a nod to how fast the tide of abductions has reversed. In the past few weeks, as troops from Nigeria and surrounding countries have punched deep into Boko Haram territory, soldiers said they have rescued about 1,000 women and girls, hostages the Islamist insurgency left behind. They include about 275 that army pickup trucks brought into the city of Yola on Saturday night and 260 rescued on Sunday.

Of course, Boko Haram has not been thoroughly defeated, and the Christians of Nigeria are still undergoing horrible trials and tribulations. But I cannot help but be reminded of the words once spoken by Blessed Pope Pius IX:

The Council of Jerusalem

Reading N°14 in the History of the Catholic Church

by

Fr. Fernand Mourret, S.S.

History does not tell us what effect was produced by the epistle to the Galatians. But we do know that very soon the trouble sprang up again at Antioch. So intense did it become that the brethren at Antioch decided upon an appeal to the Apostles and ancients at Jerusalem.^[1] From them it was that these dissenters said they had received their commission; to them the Antiochene Christians turned to have the pending conflict settled by a competent authority that was recognized by all.

The delegates from Antioch, with Paul and Barnabas at their head, set out, by way of Phenicia and Samaria, for the Holy City. Their solemn reception by the Apostles and ancients^[2] shows that the latter wished to repudiate any solidarity with the coterie that had stirred up so many disputes. But this party, which had its center in Jerusalem and claimed to have connection with the supreme religious authority of the city,^[3] was ready to renew its attacks. It was violently aggressive. No doubt it repeated all the curses of the old rabbis against violation of the Law.

The Apostles and ancients were assembled in council. All were waiting to hear what Peter and James would say. "Men, brethren," said Peter, "you know that in former days God made choice among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knoweth the hearts, gave testimony, giving unto them the Holy Ghost, as well as to us. [...] Now therefore, why tempt you God to put a yoke upon the necks of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?"

After Peter finished speaking, "all the multitude held their peace." It was not easy to say anything against words so full of authority and good sense. Paul and Barnabas were brought into the council to tell "what great signs and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them." Then James arose. Although Peter's hierarchical authority was beyond dispute among the faithful, yet James' moral authority was universal at Jerusalem, even in the Jewish world. His regular attendance at the Temple had gained him the particular esteem of the zealots; his being a "brother of the Lord" won him exceptional deference. After citing certain words of the prophets, he concluded by saying: "I judge that they who from among the Gentiles are converted to God are not to be disquieted. But that we write unto them that they refrain themselves from the pollution of idols and from fornication (πορνεία) and from things strangled and from blood."

This was clearly an acceptance in principle of the law of liberty proclainled by Peter and Paul. But it also took into account the need of managing the transition cautiously. The whole assembly agreed to the view expressed by James. The prohibition against eating blood and things strangled went back to the early days of the world. God had given this prohibition to Noe for the purpose of inculcating in his descendants respect for human life. The ban on food offered to idols was intended to inspire a horror of idolatry. The word "fornication" in this passage probably means marriage between relatives within the degrees of consanguinity and affinity forbidden by the Book of Leviticus.^[4]

The Council of Jerusalem then drew up the following decree:

It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay no further burden upon you than these necessary things: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication. From which things keeping yourselves, you shall do well.^[5]

In the letter written to the Church at Antioch we find these additional words: 

Some going out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, to whom we gave no commandment.^[6]

This assembly, which took place about the year 51, is commonly spoken of as the Council of Jerusalem.^[7] Besides giving the faithful a rule of conduct, the Apostles and ancients proclaimed a rule of faith by refusing, contrary to the claims of Christians overly imbued with the Pharisaic spirit, to recognize circumcision and the Jewish observances as necessary for salvation. The rule of conduct which was laid down could have only a passing significance. As St. Thomas Aquinas says, "its only purpose was to facilitate the union of Gentiles and Jews living together, and it therefore ceased in course of time; when the cause ceased, the effect would likewise disappear."^[8]

St. Luke relates that the Christians of Antioch received the decree of Jerusalem enthusiastically.^[9] Henceforth the road to the Gentiles was wide open to the Apostles, and Antioch could be proud of having been the starting point of this movement of free expansion.

The Judaizing party did not, however, lay down their arms; they merely changed their tactics. Finding they could no longer hope to shelter themselves under hierarchical authority, they set up a schismatic sect with chiefs of their own. The Epistles of St. Paul, St. Peter, St. Jude and St. James supply a few valuable data about this revolt and schism. St. Paul, writing to the Colossians some time between 58 and 63, warns the faithful against false doctrines that are "according to the tradition of men," "according to the elements of the world,^[10] and not according to Christ."^[11] In his pastoral Epistles, he names some of the leaders of the sect: Hymeneus, Alexander, and Philetus.^[12] He also mentions their disputes over words, their idle questions, and the endless patriarchal genealogies to which they appealed.^[13] St. Peter and St. Jude denounce their contempt for authority and their denial of the coming of the Lord.^[14] St. John declares that, at the time he was writing, certain Antichrists, who had come from the ranks of Christians, denied that Jesus was the Son of God or the Christ, and said that He was only a man and had only the appearance of a body.^[15] In these details, as also in those to be found in the Apocalypse,^[16] we can recognize the germ of Ebionitism and Docetism. In the spread of Christianity, its chief auxiliary had been Judaism; but soon the Judaizing spirit became its principal internal enemy.

It is impossible to deny the existence of the Judaizing sects in Palestine during the Apostolic age, and there is reason to believe that the party condemned by the Council of Jerusalem formed the nucleus of that sect. But it would be a serious mistake to exaggerate, as Baur does, the extent of their influence, by misunderstanding the perfect orthodoxy of those "churches of God which are in Judea," which, as St. Paul testifies in his Epistle to the Thessalonians, suffered from those Jews "prohibiting us to speak to the Gentiles, that they may be saved."^[17] The Acts of the Apostles also mentions Christian communities in Galilee, in Samaria, and on the coast of the Mediterranean. "The term Judaeo-Christianity, strictly speaking, applies only to those Christians, born in Judaism, who looked upon the Law as still binding, and who therefore found themselves engaged in an irreconcilable conflict, not only with St. Paul, but with all Christianity."^[18]

But in the daughter churches, two currents still appear: that of the Ecclesia ex Judaeis, made up of Christians of Jewish birth, who continued to observe the Law, and that of the Ecclesia ex Gentibus, made up of non-Jewish Christians, for whom the Law, though certainly of divine institution, had been provisional, and was now abolished. Beginning with the Council of Jerusalem, this latter current takes on a preponderant role. The triumphant formula is decidedly that of the Epistle to the Galatians:

Neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision availeth anything, but a new creature. And whosoever shall follow this rule, peace on them and mercy, and upon the Israel of God."^[19]

In fact, and justly so, all the old bonds are broken.^[20]

Footnotes

[1] Acts 15:2.

[2] Acts 15:4.

[3] The expression τινὰς ἀπὸ Ἰακώβου, which St. Paul uses (Gal. 2:12), may signify persons who claimed to have been sent by James or who were in his entourage. This is the most likely interpretation of the text. "Anyhow, we should not wonder if this old man who, from the testimony of St. Epiphanius (Haereses, LXXVIII, 14), was then from 85 to 88 years old, and had never left his Palestinian surroundings, had not fully realized the situation at Antioch, and judged things not exactly in the same way as did Peter and Paul." (Tixeront, History of Dogmas, I, 151.)

[4] This is the view of Father Prat, La Théologie de saint Paul, I, 76. Le Camus (L'Œuvre des apôtres, I, 161) holds a like opinion. In any case, the decree cannot refer to the sin of fornication as such. It is concerned with determining certain outward and public facts which are capable of serving as the ground for admission into or exclusion from the Christian society. According to the Book of Leviticus, cohabitation within forbidden degrees is a heinous deed (revelare turpitudinem). (Lev. 18:7-18.)

[5] Acts 15:28 f.

[6] Acts 15:24.

[7] Melchoir Cano (De locis theologicis, V, 4) considers it a provincial council; Torrecremata (De ecclesia), a diocesan council; Benedict XIV (De synodol dioecesana, I, i, 5), a sort of council. Some authors look upon it as a tribunal rather than a council. (Le Camus, L'Œuvre des apôtres, II, 153.)

[8] Summa theologica, 1a 2ae, q. 103, a. 4. St. Paul (I Cor. 8:4-10) interprets the decree somewhat broadly. It is possible that the Jerusalem decree, in its practical regulation, was not observed everywhere, but only where there was a question of scandal for certain Jews. Thus are explained the numerous texts gathered by German scholars to cast doubt upon the authenticity of the Council of Jerusalem, because it is supposed that it was not applied in some places. For references of all these texts, see Dufourcq, L'Avenir du christianisme, III, 22. The authenticity of the account of the Council, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, is attacked on the ground that St. Paul recounts it differently in his Epistle to the Galatians. This difficulty does not exist for those who, like us, agree with Le Camus (op. cit.), Belser (Einleitung in das Neue Testament), Weber (Die Abfassung des Galaterbriefes vor dem Apostelkonzil) , and Round (The Date of St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians), that the Epistle to the Galatians is anterior to the Council of Jerusalem and that it relates a journey made by St. Paul to Jerusalem in the year 47. The provisional character of the practical regulations promulgated by the Council, and their early abandonment, account for the numerous variants of the decree, as found in the manuscripts. The copyists, thinking to correct an error, altered the text to make it conform to the practice of their time. Amidst these divergencies, the critics distinguish two versions: the Eastern and the Western, but they are not agreed on the question which version is the earlier. At all events, the fact of these variants does not affect the authenticity and the substantial integrity of the decree. On this question, see a scholarly article by Coppieters in the Revue biblique, 1907, pp. 35 ff. The so-called "Canons of the Council of Antioch," discovered in 1572 by Father Torres, S.J., have proved to be apocryphal; they were composed at Antioch about the year 360. The critical questions concerning the Council of Jerusalem are summed up by Leclercq in Hefele, Histoire des Conciles (French transl.), vol. I, part 2, pp. 1070 ff.

[9] Acts 15:31.

[10] By these "elements of the world," St. Paul means the elementary religious institutions, Jewish or other, which could serve as a preparation for the Christian faith for one who knew how to pass beyond them, but which could be an obstacle to the faith for those who let themselves be seduced and halted by them.

[11] Coloss. 2:8.

[12] Cf. 1 Tim. 1:20; 2 Tim. 2:17.

[13] Cf. 1 Tim. 1:4; 4:7; 6:3-5. Today, exegetes generally hold that the "endless genealogies" spoken of in the Epistle are fabulous genealogies to be found in certain Jewish apocrypha, not the genealogies of the eons. (Jacquier, Histoire des livres du Nouveau Testament, I, 375.)

[14] Cf. 2 Pet. 2:10 f.; Jude 8.

[15] Cf. 1 John 2:18 f., 22 f.; 4:2, 3, 15.

[16] Apoc. 2:9, 14-16, 20-25.

[17] Cf. 1 Thess. 2:14-16.

[18] Batiffol, Primitive Catholicism, p. 238; Harnack, History of Dogma, I, 289.

[19] Gal. 6:15 f.

[20] For a detailed study of the relations of the Christian Church with Judaism, and for its progressive separation therefrom, see Batiffol, op. cit., pp. 1-36.

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On Winning the Culture Wars, or How To Kill A Dragon

Fafnir
Arthur Rackham (1867-1939)

One fine day, the Hero Sigurd armed himself with his helmet, shield and sword, sattled Grani, his steed, and rode deep into the forest. He halted before Regin's smithy and called to the old man in a loud voice: "Come out, old master! Today we ride to Gnita Heath to slay a dragon!" Regin poked his swarthy head out of the doorway and laughed: "This is the best day of my life! Welcome, Hero Sigurd, to my doorstep!"

It's nearly omnipresent these days: Catholics are being called to combat. Not to material combat, mind you - not yet, at least - but to spiritual combat with the forces of darkness, destruction and death which have arrayed themselves against God's Holy Church. Some are hearing the call for the first time, and are eagerly launching themselves headlong into the fray; others have been in the field for so long that they're beginning to show signs of battle fatigue, wondering aloud whether the fight is still worth fighting, whether the generals have a plan, whether it will ever end.

The unlikely pair arrived at Gnita Heath, and the old man paused at the entrance to the clearing in the forest which surrounded the cave where the dragon Fafnir slept. "We have arrived, Hero Sigurd," Regin said in a hushed voice. "Do you see how the trees surrounding the mouth of the cave are all leafless, and that all their bark is singed and covered in soot? The fire which Fafnir blows from his nostrils has eaten them up. And look! Here is the path upon which he drags his massive body when he goes forth to drink from yonder stream. No grass grows upon it." 

The Hero Sigurd traced the course of the well-worn path, his eyes coming to rest upon the point where it disappeared into the blackness of the cave. The opening was littered with crushed helmets and broken shields, and splintered spearshafts sprouted from the ground in odd bouquets. The remains of a charred sattle, apparently flung aside as Fafnir prepared to devour a brave knight's mount, had come to rest upside down in the branches of a nearby tree. The hero turned to Regin, his heavy brow narrowing over his pale blue eyes: "Tell me more about this dragon."

Today's Church Militant is no stranger to such combat. No less than three generations of Catholics have marched into battle against legalized abortion. Despite the victories which have been won - and every child saved is a tremendous victory - the situation on the ground remains shockingly grim: some 50 million babies are murdered in their mothers' wombs every year - 750,000 in the U.S. alone. On any given day, ca. 125,000 babies from around the world die at the hands of certified abortionists. That's slightly more than the maximum capacity of Michigan Stadium.

Over the same time period, pornography has mushroomed into a veritable industry of filth and corruption with earnings topping $100 billion annually, and sex trafficking has grown to see more than 20 million women and children bought and sold on the black market every year; in the U.S. alone, such trafficking generates $9.5 billion yearly. Similarly staggering figures can be produced to document the proliferation and industrialization of the whole gamut of manifest social evils: fornication, pedophilia, contraception, divorce, suicide, euthanasia, corruption, exploitation, usury, etc., etc., ad nauseam. Wave after wave of Catholic resistance fighters have mounted the charge to combat these evils. And though they have fought valiantly, their efforts have done virtually nothing to stem the tide of moral decay currently sweeping the western world.

"Fafnir is an awful and foul beast," began Regin, "with black, dead eyes and thick, leathery scales covering his body from snout to tail. His legs are as massive as tree trunks, and once he has dug his sharp claws into the earth, no amount of force can move him. He belches smoke to blind and confuse his prey and spits fire to maim and torture them before crushing their bones with his powerful jaws and then gorging himself on their flesh."

This scaly panoply of corruption and sin, this "culture of death" as it has been called, is not some random cluster of unfortunate collective human failures, but rather a coherent array of organically related, closely-knit manifest evils. To attack one of these without understanding how it connects to its proximate neighbor, and how each functions in support of the other to form a unified whole, is to engage in a battle with exceedingly little chance of success. What makes the task all the more daunting is that the entire nexus of visible, manifest evil rests squarely upon a mostly invisible foundation composed of the cardinal errors of materialism, positivism, reductionism and relativism. Once these have taken root in the collective mind of a culture, it becomes nearly impervious to all attempts to dissuade it from the path of annihilation.

Sigurd listened carefully to Regin's description, and when the latter had finished, the hero's gaze fell to the ground at his feet. "What is your plan of attack?" asked the old man, who was now worrying that he had put too much flourish into his account of the dragon's ferocity. The Hero Sigurd stood motionless for several moments, then looked again to the mouth of the cave and slowly traced with his eyes the course of the path to the place where the two stood. "We dig." 

"Wha... what?" the old man stammered. A broad smile broke across the hero's face. "We dig a trench in the middle of this path, as wide as a man's shoulders, but several times longer, and deep enough to stand in. I shall hide myself in the trench, and when the beast drags himself down to yonder stream to drink, I shall strike him from below, driving the full length of my sword into his soft, wide belly."

Sigurd kills Fafnir
Hylestad Stave Church (12th century)

The weak point of the culture of death is to be found in the soft underbelly of its terrifically unsound metaphysical assumptions. It is there that its weakness is helplessly exposed, and it is there that we must apply the deadly strike. It was not mere nostalgia or easy familiarity that moved numerous Popes to hold aloft scholastic philosophy in general, and that of St. Thomas Aquinas in particular, as the surest remedy of the ills plaguing our modern world. And it was not by accident that the study of Latin, of scholastic philosophy and particularly of logic and metaphysics, i.e. ontology, natural theology, psychology and cosmology, was quietly and thoroughly removed from our schools' curricula in the late 19th century. Only a generation raised in complete ignorance of the axiomatic principles of scholastic metaphysics could be duped into exchanging true religion for an intellectually corrupt system of pseudo-scientific speculation. Only such a generation could be convinced of the absurdity of a freedom assured, not through submission to God and His Law, but through submission to an increasingly technocratic bureaucracy of individuals welded together by nothing more than common self-interest. Only such a generation could be brought to effectively deny the existence of a divinely ordained human nature - the touchstone of natural law and human morality - and replace it with an infinitely malleable proto-plasmic nothingness.

To prepare for this particular battle, then, it is necessary that we return to the school of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, and learn from him the sound principles of a rationally defensible metaphysics. Only then we will be prepared to follow the wise counsel of St. Paul to the Ephesians (6:10-17):

Finally, brethren, be strengthened in the Lord, and in the might of his power. Put you on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore take unto you the armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace: in all things taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one. And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Covetousness

Tenth in a Series on Catholic Morality

by

Fr. John H. Stapleton

Avaricia (Covetousness)
Hieronymous Bosch

"What is a miser?" asked the teacher of her pupils, and the bright boy spoke up and answered: "One who has a greed for gold." But he and all the class were embarrassed as to how this greed for gold should be qualified. The boy at the foot of the class came to the rescue, and shouted out: "Misery!"

Less wise answers are made every day in our schools. Misery is indeed the lot, if not the vice, of the miser. 'Tis true that this is one of the few vices that arrive at permanent advantages, the others offering satisfaction that lasts but for a moment, and leaves nothing but bitterness behind. Yet, the more the miser possesses, the more insatiable his greed becomes, and the less his enjoyment, by reason of the redoubled efforts he makes to have and to hold.

But the miser is not the only one infected with the sin of avarice. His is not an ordinary, but an extreme case. He is the incarnation of the evil. He believes in, hopes in, and loves gold above all things; he prays and sacrifices to it. Gold is his god, and gold will be his reward - a miserable one.

This degree of the vice is rare; or, at least, is rarely suffered to manifest itself to this extent; and although scarcely a man can be found to confess to this failing, because it is universally regarded as most loathsome and repulsive, still few there are who are not more or less slaves to cupidity. Pride is the sin of the angels; lust is the sin of the brute, and avarice is the sin of man. Scripture calls it the universal evil. We are more prone to inveigh against it and accuse others of the vice than to admit it in ourselves.

Sometimes, it is "the pot calling the kettle black;" more often it is a clear case of "sour grapes." Disdain for the dollars "that speak," "the mighty dollars," in abundance and in superabundance, is rarely genuine.

There are, concerning the passion of covetousness, two notions as common as they are false. It is thought that this vice is peculiar to the rich, and is not to be met with among the poor. Now, avarice does not necessarily suppose the possession of wealth, and does not consist in the possession, but in the inordinate desire or greed for, or the lust of, riches. It may be, and is, difficult for one to possess much wealth without setting one's heart on it. But it is also true that this greed may possess one who has little or nothing. It may be found in unrestrained excess under the rags of the pauper and beggar. They who aspire to, or desire, riches with avidity are covetous whether they have much, little, or nothing. Christ promised His kingdom to the poor in spirit, not to the poor in fact. Spiritual poverty can associate with abundant wealth, just as the most depraved cupidity may exist in poverty.

Another prejudice, favorable to ourselves, is that only misers are covetous, because they love money for itself and deprive themselves of the necessaries of life to pile it up. But it is not necessary that the diagnosis reveal these alarming symptoms to be sure of having a real case of cupidity. They are covetous who strive after wealth with passion. Various motives may arouse this passion, and although they may increase the malice, they do not alter the nature of the vice. Some covet wealth for the sake of possessing it; others, to procure pleasures or to satisfy different passions. Avarice it continues to be, whatever the motive. Not even prodigality, the lavish spending of riches, is a token of the absence of cupidity. Rapacity may stand behind extravagance to keep the supply inexhausted.

It is covetousness to place one's greatest happiness in the possession of wealth, or to consider its loss or privation the greatest of misfortunes; in other words, to over-rejoice in having and to over-grieve in not having. It is covetousness to be so disposed as to acquire riches unjustly rather than suffer poverty. It is covetousness to hold, or give begrudgingly, when charity presses her demands. There is, in these cases, a degree of malice that is ordinarily mortal, because the law of God and of nature is not respected.

It is the nature of this vice to cause unhappiness which increases until it becomes positive wretchedness in the miser. Anxiety of mind is followed by hardening of the heart; then injustice in desire and in fact; blinding of the conscience, ending in a general stultification of man before the god Mammon.

All desires of riches and comfort are not, therefore, avarice. One may aspire to, and seek wealth without avidity. This ambition is a laudable one, for it does not exaggerate the value of the world's goods, would not resort to injustice, and has not the characteristic tenacity of covetousness. There is order in this desire for plenty. It is the great mover of activity in life; it is good because it is natural, and honorable because of its motives.

He Dwelt Among Us

Eighth Conference on the Most Sacred Heart

by

Fr. Henry Brinkmeyer

There being in Christ two complete natures, the divine and the human, there must also be in Him two distinct and complete operations: He must have divine thoughts and human thoughts, divine inclinations and human inclinations, divine love and human love. Having studied His divine, uncreated love as manifested in Creation, in the Incarnation and in Heaven, there remains for us to consider His human and created love.

According to a general opinion, from the first moment of His conception in the womb of His Mother, our Lord had the full use of all the faculties of His human soul. His human intellect, as we have already seen, was, from its creation, gifted with infused knowledge, and since love follows knowledge, His human will was also from its creation glowing with human love. This human love manifested itself in many ways, and first of all, in our Lord's private life.

In the created love of the Sacred Heart as manifested in the private life of Christ, the first trait that impresses us is His Poverty. He made Himself poor because He loved the poor and desired their love. Real poverty is indeed hard to bear. The poor man often wants bread to sustain him, clothing to cover him, fire to warm him, a time of relaxation in his fatigues, a physician and remedies in his sickness. He has no choice, he takes what is given to him. His life is a laborious, rough and troubled one. From early dawn till late into the night, he must pursue his painful task. He does not regard weariness and discomfort, if only he can obtain work. He does not rest when he is weak; he does not complain when his hands are toil-worn and the heat is almost overpowering him; he does not seek repose as long as he can earn even a scanty pittance. He is satisfied with a hard bed, coarse clothing, poor food. He does not think of murmuring or seeking sympathy. Nor is he less patient in suffering and sickness. He is content with little; he does not ask for any special attention: and when he is left alone through the weary night, he utters no complaint, when but a word of consolation is spoken to him, his heart wells up, and his eyes fill with glistening tears of gratitude.

Such is veritable poverty: and such was the portion our Lord took for Himself on earth. The whole world was obliged to acknowledge Him as its true proprietor, its Creator, its God: all joy, all delight, all honor and beauty could have been His: but He renounced all to win the poor man's love. His parents were poor, and He was born poor, not even in an ordinary dwelling house, but in a deserted stable, His cradle was a manger; the breath of animals, the fire to warm Him; He was satisfied with the stall of the ox and the ass. Like a hunted beast of prey, He fled into Egypt, and there in exile He was poor. He remained poor in Nazareth. He grew up a poor carpenter's son. On His youthful shoulders He carried the timber to build for His own creatures; till the age of thirty He labored in the sweat of His brow with the square, the hammer and the saw. Later on, He continued to live among the poor and was indeed the lowliest among them. He who fed the birds suffered from hunger. He who created the sun endured the cold. He who found a hole for every fox of the field had not whereon to rest His head. He who clad kings with purple wore all His life the woolen garment woven by His Mother's hands. He who possessed all things had not a coin wherewith to pay the tribute. Deprived of all, naked and bleeding away His last blood on the cross, He was forced to cry out: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" It was in this way our Lord strove to win the hearts of men ! and why? Because He loved them: love seeks to be loved.

But there was another way by which He sought to draw all to Himself. In every sin there is pride, for in every sin there is rebellion of the proud self against the will of God. Christ became man to destroy the reign of sin by being obedient to His Father even unto the death of the cross. Obedience is a death-blow to pride. Christ came, then, to teach men obedience. But how did He impart the lesson? Not only by fulfilling the commands of His heavenly Father and drinking the chalice of the Passion to its bitterest dregs! His Heart was too full of love for men to be satisfied with that. He went further: He took no thought of the profound humiliation it was to cost Him; He was determined in His love to give them an example which would break down every pretext of pride and consequent insubordination. What course did He pursue? Of the thirty-three years He spent on earth, He lived thirty in complete subjection to the will of His creatures. Try to fathom those mysterious depths of humiliation, for they were dug by love.

"He was subject to them!" (Luke 2:51) He was their God and Creator and Lord, yet He was subject to them. In Him were all the depth and riches of the knowledge and wisdom of God, yet, when they commanded, He was subject to them. It was He who framed the laws of the universe and who marked the courses the stars are traveling, yet He listened to the orders of His creatures, and was subject to them. His hand it was that held them up and preserved them, His bounty it was that gave to them the light of understanding, and the power of speech; yet their directions were for Him a law. "He was subject to them."

Mary and Joseph knew that He was God, and that all wisdom was in Him. A trial indeed, then, it was to be obliged to command. Still such was their Child's will. They must command, for He would obey. His Mother called Him hither and He came; she directed Him to go thither and He went. His foster-father bade Him carry this plank and He carried it, to saw or fasten those joists of timber, and He obeyed. "He was subject to them!"

And not only was He subject to Mary and Joseph, but to all men. He, with St. Joseph, hired Himself out to His creatures. He built them houses and made them furniture; He asked for their directions and followed them; He received their advice, even their reproofs; no work was too menial for Him! He was but the carpenter's son, men engaged Him as such, and He was subject to them! Whose heart is not touched when meditating on this mystery of our Lord s obedience? Remember it was all prompted by love; His Heart was consumed with love for man, and nothing is too difficult or humiliating for love.

By His voluntary poverty Jesus wins our compassion; by His obedience He gains our admiration. But love is excited by beauty, beauty of body, of soul, of character; for beauty is a certain aspect of goodness. In its root, only the good is beautiful; for beauty arises from order, harmony, due arrangement and subjection, and that is goodness. Now, our Lord came to win the hearts of men, and therefore He made Himself beautiful. He took to Himself, not only the infirmities of human nature, but also its goodness; He was physically and spiritually the most beautiful of the children of men. His humanity was a lattice through which His divinity appeared.

I know some authors have doubted the physical beauty of our Lord, and have fancied that there was nothing extraordinary in His appearance, that He looked like any ordinary mortal. This, however, cannot be. A perfect soul requires a fitting instrument to actuate it, that is, a perfect body; the more tender and fine the fibre, muscle and nerve, the more sensitive also is the human being to shame, the more deeply does he feel degradation or dishonor. Our Lord's body must consequently have been perfect in form and symmetry, and a mirror of the soul within. But our Lord's beauty was especially and principally spiritual. Beauty of body becomes repulsive when it cloaks a wicked soul. Christ's outward beauty all came from within. His beauty was too pure and holy to be equally appreciated by all. What Jesus was in the sight of His Mother, He was not in the sight of any other; what He was for His Apostles and intimate friends, He was not for strangers; what He was for the just, the pure, the humble, the faithful, He was not for the unjust, the immodest, the proud and the unbelieving.

Still, His character was so grand, and yet so beautifully human, that in every age it attracts and subdues the hearts of men. Holy Scripture indicates this when it tells us that He grew in grace and loveliness before God and man. Children pressed around Him on the streets and gathered on His knees, for He was innocent and mild like them. Multitudes paused to look upon Him as He passed; when He spoke, though His words were often severe, men felt strangely stirred and hung entranced upon His lips, and the thought entered the hearts of the women in Israel, "How happy to be the mother of such a Son!" Yes, He took to Himself our nature with all its littleness and lowliness so far as they are innocent; He was one like ourselves, a man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity; yet His sacred character, even at this distant day, appears so beautiful and excellent that it captivates all hearts and causes even professed infidels in unguarded moments, to confess that He was Divine.

One day we shall see Him. We shall contemplate His holy feet, His gentle hands, His sacred lips, His noble brow. We shall look into His blessed countenance, His loving eyes, His opened side. We shall rest our heads upon His bosom and listen to the beatings of His tender Heart. "Dearly beloved, we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like to Him: because we shall see Him as He is!" (1 John 3:2) God grant it!