This Blog to be Discontinued

[Added on 2009-04-12:

I'm back to writing occasional pieces for this blog but it's a low-priority effort relative to my other projects.]

As the title says, this blog will be discontinued. There seems to be a dwindling readership and I’ve decided to concentrate on my other blog, Acts of Being where I’m exploring the frontiers of theology and philosophy and empirical knowledge more freely. I’m also trying to get going on some books, despite the lack of sales for my two published books and the lack of interest in my novels on the part of publishers. This means, of course, that I’m discontinuing my weekly commentaries which were to follow the 2008-2009 liturgical year.

Eventually, I’ll identify the material from this blog which I consider of some long-term interest and move that material to my other blog. Some of this material might even show up in books.

I wish my few readers a happy new year and I pray God will grant you His blessings.

2008-2009 Christian Liturgical Year: Nativity of the Lord

Readings for Vigil Mass: [Isaiah 62:1-5; Acts 13:16-17, 22-25; Matthew 1:1-25 or 1:18-25]

Readings for Midnight Mass: [Isaiah 9:1-6; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14]

Readings for Mass at Dawn: [Isaiah 62:11-12; Titus 3:4-7; Luke 2:15-20]

Readings for Mass During the Day: [Isaiah 52:7-10; Hebrews 1:1-6; John 1:1-18]

In the Gospel reading for the Vigil Mass, we learn of a seemingly irrelevant genealogy, that of Joseph, the husband of Mary and legal father of Jesus but he’s never referred to as the biological father of Jesus.

In the Gospel reading for Midnight Mass, we learn that Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem to fulfill a call to enroll in a census (which has left no historical evidence though the Romans were nothing if not good bureaucrats and documenters). Moreover, shepherds in a field were told to go to the city of David (Bethlehem) where they will find a savior in the form of an infant in a manger.

In the Gospel reading for the dawn of Christmas day, we learn the shepherds did find Joseph, Mary, and the infant. All were amazed by the shepherds’ story of the angels and Mary begins to wonder (didn’t she already supposedly know)? The shepherds go away, glorifying and praising God.

In the Gospel reading for Christmas during the day, we learn of the Word of God, quite personal, with God in the beginning. The Word was God.

Few there are who will follow such a trail of words through the readings of four different Christmas Masses. Perhaps there are even fewer who can follow the trail through the Gospels or the New Testament or the entire Bible if they embark upon a more general reading program.

There are dangers here, some dangers for those who are careful and skeptical readers and some dangers for those who just believe what they are told and happily read the Bible in the same way they once read their books of fairy-tales.

The historian Carroll Quigley once summarized the philosophical teachings of traditional Christianity in these words:

The truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

The Gospels can be read, along with the letters of St. Paul, in such a way that we can see the Good News unfolding in the hearts and minds of a monotheistic people just beginning to understand the Trinity of Persons who live as one God. The idea that God could be embodied in human flesh, while perhaps hinted at in the Old Testament, was shocking to the Jews including those who first followed Christ. In some ways, it would have been still more shocking to the more intellectually inclined pagans who were horrified by the misbehaving and lusty gods of Homer. However well-behaved Jesus was, a higher pagan wouldn’t have been so accepting of a God who needed a mother to change His diapers, a father to teach Him how to live in the world that baby supposedly created.

We know that Jesus of Nazareth entered a public mission which is usually described as three years long though it might have been a bit longer. We know that He scandalized the Jews by claiming that loyalty to Jesus of Nazareth was more important than loyalty to even father and mother. He even told one disciple to leave his father to be buried by others because the primary duty of men is to follow Jesus. [Matthew 8:21-22] Are we not bidden by God to honor father and mother? Can any but God override that commandment?

Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…” [The entire story is told in John 6:35-65.] No wonder the pagans thought Christians to be cannibals.

Before His mission years, Jesus of Nazareth was said to have lived in obscurity. Mark tells us that this man who supposedly was announced as the Savior at His birth was not even acknowledged as having any authority by His neighbors. “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country and among his own kin, and in his own house.” [See Mark 6:1-6 for the more complete story.]

He multiplied loaves and fishes, using small amounts of fish and bread to feed thousands of those who’d followed Him to listen to Him preach. [Mark 6:31-44.]

He healed the sick. [Luke 4:38-39.]

He forgave sins. [Luke 8: 36-56.]

He exercised control over storms. [Luke 22-25.]

He turned water into wine. [John 2:1-11.]

Of all these, the forgiveness of sins is the most remarkable, but surely, we should be shocked by the power to overrule the commandments God gave to Moses.

The truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

As the early Christian preachers and teachers came to understand more clearly that Jesus Christ, Son of God, was true man and true God, they struggled to communicate that great truth. It doesn’t seem all that hard to identify the parts of the Gospels which are history, stylized only in the Gospel of St. John. In the other three Gospels, most of the narrative is gritty and broken up and generally inconsistent. It has the smell of stories told by simple men who were there. Those parts give us no reason to believe the Savior was glorified at His birth. There is no reason to believe, and not a shred of historical evidence, that Herod or other powerful men knew something had happened to endanger their positions. The Gospels aren’t even consistent about Mary’s understanding of her son, until she stood at the foot of His cross, or maybe not until the Holy Spirit came upon her once again at the Pentecost. This much we know:

God became man that man might share the life of God.

The early Christians saw this truth unfold in time, within their communities. It was a process that involved deep thinkers, preachers, social organizers, and charitable workers. It was a process that would extend over time, reaching the clear statements in the creeds promulgated by the Church Fathers at Nicea, Chalcedon, and other conferences. Those clear statements were not finalized until more than three centuries after the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the matter has not ended there.

Matthew and Luke saw the truth unfold and felt compelled to speak of a Kingly birth and of visits from great men acknowledging the Kingship of the son of Mary, though there is no evidence that even the miracles or shocking words of Christ were sufficient to convince many to seriously contemplate His divine royalty. John saw the truth unfold and produced the most wonderful poetry in the history of theology:

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

This was something new, not Greek as some have falsely claimed. It was something beyond the reach of the human imagination. If it hadn’t happened, we could have never guessed at the possibility.

The truth continues to unfold. In the modern world, we have been particularly successful at learning truths of God’s Creation, starting with the physical universe but going deeply into more abstract truths. Even the more mundane truths of Creation lie beyond the reach of human efforts at schematic knowledge and we sin greatly in presuming that the origins of the human race or the nature of time and space will correspond to the thoughts of our minds untutored by proper responses to the Creator and His works. If not for those bones in the sands of Africa or the openness of the likes of Einstein to unfolding truths, we’d not have known about the evolution of the human race or the existence of black-holes.

We know much about the history of the human race before Abraham, much that is disturbing to those who would accept the story of Adam and Eve as literalistic truth. Still more disturbing is what our new knowledge of human nature tells us of the sheer wonder of God becoming man.

We know enough about space and time to know they’re one creature and not two absolute truths. What does that tell us about the journey of the Son of God as He entered Creation to embody Himself as one of His own creatures? What does it say about the possibilities of Heaven or the nature of our Creator?

The Lord of Creation will lie in a manger before the sun rises. He will need to suckle at the breasts of Mary. He will need to be fed and clothed and taught the skills of carpentry by His legal father, Joseph.

It is time to glorify and praise Him and time to open our hearts and minds that the truth might unfold.

[Biblical quotations from RSV, Catholic Edition as printed by Thomas Nelson Publishers for Ignatius Press.]

2008-2009 Christian Liturgical Year: Fourth Sunday of Advent

[2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38]

We are told in various ways that the Incarnation of the Son of God was part of God’s plans for His Creation. Through the Church’s selection of today’s reading from the Letter to the Romans and from a more general reading of St. Paul’s letters, we can infer that St. Paul is speaking of this Incarnation when we hear of “the mystery which was kept secret through the ages and is now disclosed and through the prophetic writings is made known to all nations…”

But the Incarnation as understood by the traditions of Christianity is not so easy to accept. It seems in conflict with not only the teachings from high school biology but also from our own observations of human begetting. But, with a serious effort and a willingness to think clearly, maybe we can make sense of the miracle which is the incarnation of Christ. Maybe we can see that miracle as a part of God’s story, which it has to be.

What, then, is a miracle? Some believers, even those who defend high standards of rationality speak of miracles as being suspensions or violations of the laws of this physical universe. I’d propose the following definition:

A miracle is an event, perhaps highly unlikely but not necessarily, which fits into the narrative of God’s relationship to His children in such a way that it gives evidence the Lord Almighty has acted directly in this world He created. He has acted as if a character and not a distant and dispassionate Sustainer of Creation.

A good story obeys its own rules. Unlikely events can happen but not impossible ones which violate the rules which are part of that story. Of all stories, those told by God must be good, the story which is this mortal world and — most certainly — the story which is the world of the resurrected. Notice that God’s story is different from a human story in that the story as actions of its characters is not separate from its setting. The stars and planets and all the events which take place upon that particular planet, Earth, are part of one phase of Creation and have a unity and coherence which are appropriate to the works of a God who is both rational and loving.

In some ways, God’s story is like a story told by a human being, but it’s not a story in which characters act within the context of a given world. God creates this world as He tells His story. He doesn’t tell a story on a stage which was given to Him nor even on a stage which He built from raw materials given to Him. God’s acts of creation, of bringing stuff into existence and shaping it into things or living creatures, aren’t separate from the action of His story. They are the action of His story.

I repeat:

A miracle is an event, perhaps highly unlikely but not necessarily, which fits into the narrative of God’s relationship to His children in such a way that it gives evidence the Lord Almighty has acted directly in this world He created.

Miracles may even be ordinary events to human perceptions, but they’ll be seen as miracles to those who have formed their minds to follow along with God’s story. We associate miracles with such acts as spontaneous cures of cancer, not noticing that those occur in the ordinary flow of events and not just when some pious Christian prays for the intercession of Mary or some other saint. That famous random act of charity, a moment of peace in an overly active society, and certainly the pursuit of holiness rather than the pursuit of financial success and physical comfort, are all miracles. They are acts of creatures aligning themselves with God’s own acts, realizations of our true freedom. We are truly free when we move with God and share in His freedom, the only true freedom possible. When we act with God, then the Lord Himself acts directly in His Creation. This was the case when Mary submitted to the Lord’s will. “Let it be to me according to your will.” [Luke 1:38b]

Then God acted directly. The Holy Spirit came upon Mary and she conceived a son. Words are tricky. They mostly speak of reality or of some abstraction related to reality. We hear words and try to imagine their meaning in terms of the world in which we live and breath. We think of the Holy Spirit as somehow invading Creation from Transcendental regions and then entering the holy womb of Mary. God was already present in all parts of Mary’s body as He is present in all parts of our bodies and in all parts of an elephant’s body and in the entirety of a black-hole. God was already present in the egg-cell in Mary’s womb, the egg-cell in which extremely unlikely but physically possible events took place.

If Jesus of Nazareth was true man, as the Bible and the ancient creeds tell us, He had a full set of DNA and He developed from a single fertilized cell in the holy womb of Mary. To get from the initial egg-cell in Mary’s womb to a fertilized egg-cell involves some unlikely, almost impossible, events, but we’re talking about real-world states. To get from one to another involves a highly unlikely pathway but the impossibilities are less than some involved in the shaping and stabilization of the expanding universe.

What’s most important is that this incarnation of the Son of God is the beginning of the most important part of the story God is telling in this world He created. This universe is the physical aspects of that story. God doesn’t have to override this universe and its matter to bring about the fertilization of the egg which will be implanted in Mary’s womb. He simply has to act directly, moving the matter He Himself created. We don’t have to suspend our beliefs in the law-like behavior of nature when we enter the Christmas story. We simply have to realize that the Creator can act within His own Creation.

If God is present and always capable of acting directly in His own Creation, then we have no need for miracles of a magical sort. We simply have better reason to fear the Lord and to wonder at His mighty works.

[Biblical quotations from RSV, Catholic Edition as printed by Thomas Nelson Publishers for Ignatius Press.]

2008-2009 Christian Liturgical Year: Third Sunday of Advent

[See Isaiah 61:1-2a, 10-11 (8b), 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24, John 1:6-8, 19-28]

Today’s readings might first give the impression that the prologue to the story of the Savior’s birth is dragging on a bit. Isaiah is still speaking of the good which will arrive in the wake of the conquering God. The gospel reading is again about the forerunner, John the Baptist, who reacts righteously this time against any suggestion he might be that mysterious Savior.

Our attention spans are limited. We live in a world where even our so-called leisure time is hectic. Publishers give us works where the action is well under way by the end of the first paragraph, training us to avoid spending the time to learn context and historical background. But we allow ourselves to be so trained, and the publishers and their pet authors aren’t the only ones to give us a distorted view of God’s Creation. Our commercial leaders and bankers make investment decisions as if the world had been freshly created that morn and awaited the shaping hand of one strong-willed executive or another. Our political leaders act in that sort of cynically naive way, waging bloody wars in countries whose histories remain unknown to Presidents and Senators and all their advisers.

In today’s second reading, St. Paul tells us:

Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophesying, but test everything, hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil.

Encounter God’s world, even corrupted regions if you have the strength and calling, with courage and faith and hope. Speak the truths we have been given in the Gospel, the Good News of our Savior, but remain open to what we can learn about God’s Creation even from pagans and atheists. Test what passes for knowledge in the world around us, test its truth and plausibility. Test any presentation of truths or plausible speculations for consistency with the Good News of Jesus Christ. Hold fast to what is good, remembering that even by standards of self-interest, salvation is worth more than wealth and comfort and prestige in our mortal lives.

Encounter God’s world as a Christian. That means you make your decisions according to your duties to God and then according to legitimate but more ephemeral duties. As we await the Prince of Peace on this globe covered by wars and other acts of violence, we need to pay particular attention to our duties as Christians to not commit acts of violence unless they at least satisfy just-war doctrines and other Christian ideas of justice. (Some may go further and choose to not even resist violence in self-defense in imitation of Christ, but I’ll assume we can at least defend ourselves for now.)

When our government calls upon us or our children to fight a war, do we have a duty to obey the government first and then to do our Christian duty by putting clergymen in uniform to bless us as we do what might be wrong by Christian standards of justice? Do we go to heaven by doing what our governments tell us to do or by doing what’s right by the standards of justice given us by Christ and the prophets who came before Him?

More generally, as we live our lives in marketplaces, political and commercial, do we quench that often inconvenient Spirit or remain open to the movement of the Spirit? Do we turn from the various prophets who seem to speak truly of uncomfortable truths and turn to those who assure us that we can be greedy or hateful in a Christian way? Do we test the claims of the human institutions which promise prosperity and honor if we but obey them or do swallow those claims whole? Do we hold fast to what is good even when there’s a price to be paid or do we prefer to please the gods of the marketplaces? Do we abstain from every form of evil or do we merely avoid those which we don’t find attractive or necessary to our personal success?

The Son of God approaches but He brings justice and not just mercy. And that strange and often obnoxious man in camel hides, he who lives on locust and wild-honey, is staring us in the face, his eyes blazing with passion and accusing us of being luke-warm as he calls us to repent before the Lord arrives. The story is not just that of God come as a cute baby in a manger. The story is that of God who comes to collect those who are His own. Do you belong to God or to the Principalities and Powers? Do you obey God and then do your duty by your country within those Christian restraints or do you obey your country and seek to satisfy your duties to God within the constraints of your country’s orders?

[Biblical quotations from RSV, Catholic Edition as printed by Thomas Nelson Publishers for Ignatius Press.]

2008-2009 Christian Liturgical Year: The Feast of the Immaculate Conception

The Church has told us that the Blessed Virgin Mary was born sinless, though I think it better to say she was born in a state of grace. The major reason is that grace is of primary importance in our relationship to our Savior. A second reason, important also, is that we’re at a time in history when we don’t have a rational understanding of sin. Indeed, we have a compromised understanding of Creation since we’ve not yet made peace with modern empirical knowledge and many of our ways of speaking of God’s revealed truths are drawn from pre-modern understandings of living creatures and of stars, understandings now known to be wrong. In particular, there’s some serious divergence between the man who is the subject of Christian theological and philosophical discussions and the man who is being revealed by modern scientists, historians, and other explorers of the empirical realm. If our ideas of man, in fact, our ideas of life and of Creation as a whole, are being revised, what chance is there that our ideas of sin remain valid? What chance is there that our beliefs provide a coherent description of God’s Creation?

But sin was never the main issue, nor was sinlessness. Grace was the main issue. “Hail Mary, full of grace.” “Hello Mary, how is it that you already share the life of God?” To emphasize sin or sinlessness is to return to the forms of Law rejected by Christ and, in greater detail, by St. Paul. Mary’s sinlessness followed from her fullness of grace. The grace didn’t come as a result of the sinlessness.

Mary was born full of grace. From her conception, she was in a special communion with God, a communion at least similar to that enjoyed by the resurrected if not exactly the same. The obsession with sin and the possibility or impossibility of sinlessness in our mortal lives can often hide God and His Creation from us rather than bringing us closer to Him. We should instead realize that we are bound to obey not only the moral laws which arise from our biological natures but also the more demanding versions of those laws given to us by Moses and by Jesus of Nazareth. We should also realize that perfect obedience of these laws doesn’t save us; it merely brings us to a more perfect state of humanity. Some Medieval Scholastics discussed limbo as a way of dealing with the supposed problem of the nature of life after death for ungodly but virtuous men. Perhaps this is an important problem but one that is a side-issue when we discuss salvation.

We are saved when God is truly with us. We speak truly when we speak along with God. We do God’s work when we act with God.

God wasn’t hidden to Mary. From conception, she had a relationship to her Creator more intimate than that enjoyed by others after a life devoted to learning the craft of sainthood. Mary gave her flesh to the Son of God and suckled Him at her breasts. She responded properly and without hesitation to God’s direct guidance in matters small or large. The rest of us often feel that guidance, or at least suspect it, but have trouble responding properly, trouble even discerning if that’s really God nudging us to eliminate a bad habit or even to explore the possibility of a religious vocation. Those who move freely with the will of God don’t have conversations with God to discuss the details nor do they get their instructions through angels. Those who wait for God to speak directly to them will waste their opportunities to serve God and His children.

Mary was already aware of the presence of Her Creator and was responsive to Her Creator without reserving any part of herself. From the moment of her otherwise normal conception, she was in that state, already saved but aware of her Lord’s presence and waiting for His guidance.

And now we should contemplate the meaning of this part of the story which the Church tells as we travel with Her through the liturgical year:

Mary bears the Son of God in her holy womb and God prepared her for this maternal task by forming her from conception to be fully aware of His presence and responsive without hesitation to His will.

2008-2009 Christian Liturgical Year: Second Sunday of Advent

The readings for this Second Sunday of Advent seem unfocused at first glance as do the readings for many Sundays. [See Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11; 2 Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8.]

Isaiah speaks of better days to come. Since he’s prophesying truly and not making some prideful effort to predict the future, he leaves us in some confusion as to when hills and valleys will be brought to a level. More importantly, in light of the resurrection, we’re in some confusion as to whether these alleged improvements to the landscape will take place in this world or in some sort of world God will create for His children.

Peter tells us that God will not limit Himself to use of bulldozer and shovel, instead using fires which will make those of Hiroshima seem pretty limited. All will be melted down and the Lord God Almighty will build anew from the ashes and slag.

In light of this apocalyptic build-up, the Gospel reading is a bit anticlimactic. But it’s worse than anticlimactic. It’s as if the entire world had suddenly become a deflating balloon and all we hear is a meaningless hiss of air as we learn of some sort of eccentric who’s retreated from all that’s good in human life to wear animal hides (were they even tanned?) and to eat locusts and wild honey. A story which had at least as much potential as that of Luke and Princess Leia has gone off in a strange direction.

I speak somewhat tongue-in-cheek and not to cast doubt upon Holy Scripture nor to encourage any sort of impiety. I’m trying to set the stage for better and more insightful readings of Scripture in light of an enlarged human reason, a reason shaped both by God’s word and also by His world.

Let me speak in vague terms. God created stuff from which He shaped this universe and the things and living creatures which are part of this universe. This universe is both setting and itself a participant in a story which God is telling, the climax of which was the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet, we have to remember that the story as a whole pleases God and works to His purpose, from the formation of the first stars to the collapse or heat death of this universe. When we see the universe in this light and have even a faint understanding of God’s story, the universe itself and all the creatures and events which are part of it take on a unity and coherence and completeness which make of it what I call a world.

Still there is a greater setting, all of Creation. There is that fundamental stuff which God created from nothingness. I call that fundamental stuff the primordial universe. From that primordial universe, God can shape worlds which contain things and living creatures as we can imagine them. He has shaped this world and continues to shape it. God creates some sort of stuff from nothingness, He shaped the particular stuff of this universe, and then He tells a story. There is a four-part structure to created reality in this simple model:

1. The raw stuff or abstract stuff created by God from nothingness.

2. This universe which was shaped from that abstract stuff.

3. Thing-like entities, including living creatures, were shaped from the matter of this universe.

4. The story told by God, a story set in that universe and using the universe itself and all the entities which are part of it.

The readings for this Sunday point to God as a story-teller. Isaiah tells us that the story may involve hardships (valleys and mountains to travel) but all will be made well in the end. Peter tells us the story will be told in God’s time which may stretch out far beyond human imagination, certainly far beyond the life-span of a mortal man. Mark tells us the story begins with an eccentric man who has left respectable society to preach repentance and to offer baptism though that baptism doesn’t promise much or seem to mean much. So it is that Marks tells us that God will tell the story He chose to tell.

For now, it’s best to contemplate this strange beginning to the Christian liturgical year. A proper human mind is shaped by proper responses to our environments or even to wider parts of God’s Creation, including His story seen as a story and not just a more or less meaningless stream of events. Sit quietly and let God’s story take hold in your mind. Let it shape your mind. It’s a story that will end in a just world of peace and plenty. It’s a story which will be told in God’s time. And it’s a story which has a special chapter beginning with a call to repentance by a humble but outspoken man who has sacrificed all to be the forerunner of a Lord and Savior who is coming soon.

Ask your very human self, “How will this story end? How will this great Lord establish His rule? How will He bring justice and peace and prosperity to those He chooses as His own? What concrete form will that justice and peace and prosperity take? When will the Lord conquer His enemies and bring about a better world?”

Alexander the Great. Julius Caesar. Constantine. Attila. Charles the Great. Genghis Khan. Frederick the Great. Napoleon.

Those were men who knew how to conquer, how to reduce their enemies, how to impose their will upon others. Surely, He who comes in the name of God, He who will bring justice to God’s people, will prove His power in such ways. To be sure, His justice will be true justice and not the false justice of human conquerors, but He will prove Himself the greatest of all conquerors.

Maybe not, at least not in human terms. The part of God’s story which deals with the coming Lord begins with that strange man who dresses in camel-hair and eats locusts and wild honey. That’s not promising from a human perspective. Those sorts of men were little more than pests to the likes of King David and his descendants.

But we’re characters in a story being told by God and the Lord’s ways are not our ways.

[Biblical quotations from RSV, Catholic Edition as printed by Thomas Nelson Publishers for Ignatius Press.]

2008-2009 Christian Liturgical Year: Preface

I’ll be doing my best to post a meditation each week throughout the 2008-2009 liturgical year. The meditations will be Bible-centered but also reflective of my understanding of modern empirical knowledge. This is to say that I’ll be explicitly viewing God’s revelations through the eyes of a modern man somewhat knowledgeable about modern empirical knowledge. I will be especially concerned with the revelation who was the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is the purpose of these meditations — to try to start a turn towards a sane Christian worldview, one that recognizes both the revealed eternal truths and the best available empirical knowledge.

Those who wish to read the translation of a particular reading as used in the Catholic Mass can find it here. I’ll be mostly using the RSV, Catholic Edition as printed by Thomas Nelson Publishers for Ignatius Press.