There were two elderly men, Bill and Steve. They were devout Catholics who also had a life-long love of the game of baseball. They played together when they were young and coached their sons’ teams later in life. In their old age they avidly watched games together.
Eventually, Bill passed away. Some time later, he visited Steve in a dream.
“Steve! Steve! This is Bill!”
“Bill! Is it really you?”
“Yes! God has allowed me to visit you this one time.”
“Where are you Bill?”
“I’m in Heaven! Oh Steve, it’s amazing here. I can’t describe it.”
“That’s wonderful Bill, just incredible! Listen, though, can you tell me one thing?”
“What is it, Steve?”
“Is there Baseball in Heaven?”
Bill pauses for a moment. Then he slowly answers,
“Well, there’s good news and bad news there.”
“Okay, give me the good news first.”
“Yes, there’s baseball. We even have teams – I play all the time!”
“Okay, that is good news. So what’s the bad news?”
“Well,” Bill hesitates again, “You’re on tomorrow’s roster as our starting pitcher.”
Bad News or Good News?
I can’t remember where I first heard the joke above. I’d credit the source if I could. In any case, it came to my mind recently when I was attending the funeral of a fellow parishioner. He was a Catholic layman with a long and distinguished record of service to the Church in a number of capacities. He also had a love for sports and had volunteered countless hours to youth sports leagues. I think he would have appreciated the joke, if he knew it.
There’s something about it that’s always bothered me, however. The punchline is that Steve is about to die as well, that’s the “bad news.” But if he’s on tomorrow’s roster, that means he’ll be going straight to Heaven. That’s Good News. In fact, that’s the best possible news for a believing Christian, isn’t it?
Good News (detail from Disputation of the Holy Sacrament by Raphael, 1509-1510)
God’s Friendship
Which brings us to the doctrine of Christian hope. This is not the secular concept of “hope,” which is little more than wishful thinking. Catholic Answers defines Christian hope as:
a Divine virtue by which we confidently expect, with God‘s help, to reach eternal felicity as well as to have at our disposal the means of securing it.
Let’s take note that we are to “confidently expect to reach eternal felicity,” but we can’t take it for granted. That would be the sin of presumption. There are conditions to making the heavenly roster.
First, we need God’s help. We can’t do it on our own. The definition specifies “the means of securing it” as a part of that help. We need to avail ourselves of those means if we want to remain in God’s friendship, to use the traditional terms. Foremost among those means are the sacraments. Of particular importance are the Holy Eucharist and, just as important, the much-neglected sacrament of Confession.
“Run so as to win!”
–1 Corinthians 9:24
Run to Win
Another bothersome point in the joke above is the implication that Steve will go directly to Heaven. Now, such a thing can certainly happen. Our understanding, however, is that only the great saints enjoy the Beatific Vision immediately upon their departure from this world. Most of us, even if we’re destined for Heaven, need to undergo purification in Purgatory. In a similar way, most ball players need to spend time, often years, in the minor leagues before they can move up to the Big Club.
Hope, then, is God’s assurance that we will, eventually, find a place on his roster . . . provided we follow the play book he’s given us. So, let’s take care to maintain our friendship with God. “Run so as to win!” as St. Paul urges us (1 Corinthians 9:24). Oh, and keep working on your fastball.
The Temptation of St. Thomas by Francesco Gessi, 1632-1633. St. Thomas says “no” to sin
What is Truth?
“What is truth?” – I seem to remember someone raising the question somewhere. For the ideologue, “truth” is whatever promotes the ideology, and if it happens to correspond with reality that’s fine. If it doesn’t, no problem, we’ll make something up. Followers of Him who is “The Way, The Truth, and The Life” (John 14:6) know better . . . or we should know better. Truth isn’t something we create to serve our own purposes, it exists beyond and above us. We can’t manufacture truth, but we can discover it.
One of the Church’s greatest discoverers and teachers of the truth is St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church. We celebrate his feast day today. Idealogues in the Church will often use his name, when it suits their purposes, to promote their heterodox version of Catholicism. As we shall see, however, it isn’t easy to exploit St. Thomas.
Below is a revised version of the very first blog post I published, nine years ago. Since “Truth” is a perennial theme (see here, here, and here), this seems a good day to republish “A Sin is a Sin: St. Thomas and Conscience.”
When is it A Sin Not To Sin?
St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest of Catholic theologians, is the target of a sort of “hostile takeover.” That is to say, I’ve heard some people invoke his authority in order to justify ignoring Catholic moral doctrine. They point out that St. Thomas says it’s wrong not to follow our conscience, even if it’s in error. Therefore (they say), if our conscience tells us to use contraceptives, or support pro- abortion politicians, or vote in favor of redefining marriage, we would actually be sinning if we obeyed the Church! Don’t blame them, these people add. St. Thomas Aquinas made them do it. What else can they do?
What can any of us do? Well . . . we can let the Angelic Doctor speak for himself. On the one hand, St. Thomas does actually say what the dissenters claim he says, that we are morally bound to follow our conscience. On the other hand, if we look at all of what he says, he actually means the opposite of what they say he means. Let’s look at the relevant passage from his Summa Theologiae [ST hereafter]:
. . . conscience is nothing else than the application of knowledge to some action. Now knowledge is in the reason. Therefore when the will is at variance with erring reason, it is against conscience. But every such will is evil; for it is written (Romans 14:23): “All that is not of faith”–i.e. all that is against conscience–“is sin.”
Therefore the will is evil when it is at variance with erring reason. ST IiaIae
Conscience is not Feelings or Opinions
St. Thomas composing the Summa (image from aquinasonline.com)
Yes, it is “evil” to disobey even an erroneous conscience. But here’s the key. Conscience does not mean “feelings” or “opinions” (the common misrepresentation). Rather, conscience is “the application of knowledge to some action.” To St. Thomas (and to the Church) it is the process of applying moral principles to one’s particular situation. In another section he describes it as “knowledge applied to an individual case.” (ST I, 79, 13).
Since conscience is the reasoning process by which we determine whether a course of action is good or evil, going against conscience means deliberately choosing what we believe to be evil, even if we do not actually accomplish evil:
But when erring reason proposes something as being commanded by God, then to scorn the dictate of reason is to scorn the commandment of God. (ST IiaIae)
When we violate our conscience, then, quite apart from the actual harm we might or might not be doing (objective sin), we are intentionally rejecting what we believe to be God’s will (subjective sin). The “evil” in violating our conscience is our conscious choice to disobey God. This act of defiance is a sin in itself, quite apart from the sinfulness (or not) of the particular act we are contemplating.
Forming Our Conscience
The story doesn’t end there, of course. St. Thomas was well aware that someone might try to use his argument to justify sin. He goes on to explain that, even though we must obey an erroneous conscience, we might be morally culpable (i.e., guilty of sin) for having an erroneous conscience. He says:
If then reason or conscience err with an error that is voluntary, either directly, or through negligence, so that one errs about what one ought to know; then such an error of reason or conscience does not excuse the will, that abides by that erring reason or conscience, from being evil. But if the error arise from ignorance of some circumstance, and without any negligence, so that it cause the act to be involuntary, then that error of reason or conscience excuses the will, that abides by that erring reason, from being evil. (ST IiaIae)
What One Ought to Know
St. Thomas did not make her do it
Recall that conscience is moral principles (what he calls “knowledge” or “Divine Law”) when we apply it to particular circumstances. We don’t get to create those moral principles for ourselves. For an adult Christian “what one ought to know” are the moral principles contained in Church teaching. Now,it is quite possible to be mistaken or misinformed, through no fault of one’s own (invincible ignorance), about the circumstances to which one is applying the principles. Therefore, invincible ignorance excuses us from subjective guilt. Failure to form our conscience properly does not.
Just to be sure his point is clear, St. Thomas illustrates with the following examples:
For instance, if erring reason tell a man that he should go to another man’s wife, the will that abides by that erring reason is evil; since this error arises from ignorance of the Divine Law, which he is bound to know. But if a man’s reason, errs in mistaking another for his wife, and if he wish to give her her right [i.e., sexual intercourse] when she asks for it, his will is excused from being evil: because this error arises from ignorance of a circumstance, which ignorance excuses, and causes the act to be involuntary. (ST IiaIae)
Notice the phrase “bound to know.” Whether or not adultery is wrong is not a matter of conscience. Its wrongness is an unalterable reality that we are “bound” to acknowledge.
The Wages of Sin
When the champions of conscience (or perhaps more properly, “conscience”) over and against Catholic moral doctrine invoke St. Thomas, it is almost always in order to justify their rejection of the Church’s teaching on one of the currently fashionable sexual issues, such as contraception, gay marriage, extra-marital sex, and so on. Scripture and the teaching of the Church have unambiguously condemned these practices under the sixth commandment’s prohibition of adultery.
If we look at St. Thomas’s entire discussion, however, and not just the one sentence that seems to excuse dissent, we see that he is saying explicitly that you cannot invoke conscience against these teachings. He uses adultery as his example to demonstrate that the role of conscience is not to determine basic rules of right and wrong. Rather, it is to guide our own actions according to the sure rules we have received from God through his Church.
Three Strikes You’re Out
It would be helpful at this point to recall that sin involves a lot more than just the will of the sinner. The Church teaches that there must be three conditions for a sin to be a mortal sin: grave matter, full knowledge, and full consent. In other words, “it’s bad, you know darn well it’s bad, but you go ahead and do it anyway.”
St. Thomas is here considering only the second part of the formulation, that is, whether or not you know darn well it’s bad. Even if, through no fault of your own (a significant “if”, as we saw above) you don’t know it’s bad, and so are not guilty of choosing bad, it’s still bad. And it’s bad because bad consequences, for you and/or society at large, are likely to follow.
That’s why it’s a sin, after all. Consider St. Thomas’s example of the unwitting adulterer. He is not guilty of subjective sin, because he is not aware of what he is doing.
The act is nevertheless an objective sin, which could lead to all manner of destructive consequences. Fathering a child out of wedlock (with all the attendant problems) is one. So is contracting a disease which might in turn infect his innocent wife. Let’s not forget the other woman. She might receive an infection from him, and, depending on her awareness of the situation, might feel exploited or betrayed by him. If the adultery becomes known, as is likely, it will damage the man’s relationship with his wife and children. If not, he may feel the need to cover up his deed and commit the further sin of lying in order protect his family . . . And on and on.
A Sin is a Sin
In other words, a sin is a sin is a sin, and whatever we may think, it’s still a sin. As Catholics, we have ample means of knowing the Moral Law, and therefore have no excuse for disobeying it. We have it straight from the Ox’s mouth. Nothing justifies committing acts which the Church teaches to be morally wrong.
1st century Roman mosaic; Kunsthistorisches Museum / Public Domain
When a man dies, his life is revealed.
Call no man happy before his death,
for by how he ends a man is known. (Sirach 11:27-28)
Human Trafficking
Prostitution sometimes hides under the phrase “the world’s oldest profession.” There’s some truth in that expression, in that the practice has been with us since the beginning of recorded history, and beyond. But only enough truth to obscure and trivialize a much deeper and uglier truth. Prostitution is not a “profession” that someone chooses for themselves like law, medicine, or selling real estate. Rather, it is a degrading form of sexual slavery. It involves buying and selling human beings, and treating them like a disposable product. The more recent name “human trafficking” hits closer to the mark.
It is a sad mark of our fallen state that, despite its evident inhumanity, there is always no shortage of customers for the trade in human flesh. Just as today (see below), there were many people in earlier times who strove to normalize prostitution. Christians who publicly denounce sexual exploitation have always done so at the risk of provoking the wrath of promoters of the Oldest Profession.
St. Vitalis, Patron of Handymen and Prostitutes
One of today’s saints, St. Vitalis of Gaza, is a good example. The Orthodox churches and the Catholic Church venerate St. Vitalis as the Patron Saint both of day laborers and of “ladies of the night.” In other words, handy-men and prostitutes. His hagiography [Hereand Here] tells us that, around 625 A.D., when he was already of advanced years, he came to Alexandria in Egypt in order to minister to the prostitutes. His method, as described in the brief biography on Catholic.org, was as follows:
[A]fter obtaining the name and address of every prostitute in the city, he hired himself out as a day laborer, and took his wage to one of these women at the end of the day. He then would teach her about her dignity and value as a woman and that she did not deserve to be used by men as an object of their lust.
St. Vitalis of Gaza
He followed the same routine every day, and he succeeded in rescuing a large number of women in this way. Many fellow Christians misunderstood his motives, however, as he insisted that the women he helped not tell anybody about his role in their conversion, or the real reason for his nocturnal visits. Presumably these women – and their handlers – only let him in because they believed he was a paying “customer.” If they knew what he really wanted, they would have barred the door . . . or worse.
One righteously indignant young Christian, assuming the worst about Vitalis, struck him a blow to the head that resulted in his death. Only then were the women he had helped to save able to clear his name by their testimony.
Nothing New Under the Sun
There are a number of compelling angles to the story of St. Vitalis. One is that, yet again, we have confirmation that “there is nothing new under the Sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). The scourge of prostitution is still very much with us and, as St. Vitalis understood fourteen centuries ago, it is a vicious form of exploitation that not only enslaves the body but sickens the soul. Despite the push in some quarters today to whitewash prostitution with terms like “sex workers,” it is becoming more commonly recognized for the evil it is. Hence, as we saw above, the more accurate (if still somewhat tame) heading of “human trafficking.”
Nonetheless, prostitution is still a sad reality. In fact, it is worse and more pervasive than most of us realize. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to hear a talk by Darlene Pawlik. Darlene is now a pro-life and anti-trafficking activist, but she was at one time an exploited teen who was first “trafficked” on her 14th birthday. Darlene remained under the control of various traffickers, a virtual slave, for the next several years . . . all right here in United States. A turning to Christ eventually saved her. She escaped with the help of Christians who, like St. Vitalis, made it their mission to reach out to the victims of the “sex trade.” There are in fact many groups today that similarly follow in the footsteps of St. Vitalis, both among Catholics and other Christiansas well.
One Soul at a Time
Another point that stands out in the mission of St. Vitalis is his desire to save one soul at a time. He is like the shepherd in Jesus’ parable (see Luke 15:4) who leaves behind the 99 sheep to recover the one who is lost. St. Vitalis treated each woman as an individual, and talked to her about her life, and the salvation of her own soul. He treated each prostitute as a thinking, feeling child of God instead of an object to be used, and he was therefore able to offer real Love, as opposed to the tawdry simulacrum of love they were used to seeing.
From http://awakenreno.org/myths-and-facts-about-nevada-legal-prostitution/
I can’t help but think, in a way, of St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta, who also insisted on treating each human being like, well, a human being. Secular leftists such as the late Christopher Hitchens criticized her for being an ineffectual sentimentalist: she should have been addressing “The Real Causes” of poverty (capitalism, inequality, etc.) instead of “merely” comforting the poorest of the poor in their distress.
While there is certainly a place for governmental and political action, Mother Theresa understood that laws can’t save souls, and that Christ didn’t suffer and die to save us from abstractions. He didn’t sacrifice Himself to establish a perfect political or economic system. He came to save us from sin, through the great outpouring of His Divine Love on The Cross.
The Only Thing That Can Save Us From Sin
His Love, as it happens, is still the only thing that can save us from sin. That’s why so many of us have come to conversion through the example of others, or because of the loving attention of a Christian who, like Christ Himself, showed an interest in us, not as a means to an end, but simply for our own good.
Not all of us have a calling to start seeking out prostitutes, of course. As the death of St. Vitalis shows, that was and remains a risky undertaking, for a number of reasons. We can, however, offer material assistance to those who are willing and able to take the risks (perhaps some of the groups linked above). Likewise, we can offer our prayers for their safety and success, and also for the salvation of the exploited women (and men) they seek to help. We should certainly support appropriate laws to thwart traffickers and to help their victims.
Pray for Victims of Human Trafficking
As always, prayer is a powerful tool available to each one of us. In this context we could ask specifically for the intercession of St. Vitalis of Gaza. We could ask, for instance, that St. Vitalis pray for our own continued conversion and growth in holiness.
We could also pray that he help us recognize the seriousness of sexual sin, including not only prostitution but other varieties of commercial sex such as pornography, and how permissiveness in this area can help create an environment in which a soul-killing evil like the “sex trade” can flourish.
Finally, we could ask him to intercede both for the conversion and repentance of the traffickers in human flesh, but, most especially, for the redemption, body and soul, of their victims.
St. Vitalis of Gaza, pray for us, and for all victims of human trafficking.
The Madonna of the Streetsby Roberto Ferruzzi, 1897
Loving Mother of Our Redeemer
Who doesn’t want a loving mother? Or, if we need to win the favor of a powerful person (a King, for instance), how could we pass up the opportunity of having his Mother put in a good word for us? That’s the dual promise of the Alma Redemptoris Mater.
The first few words tell us that Mary is the Alma Mater of our Redeemer, Jesus. The American English translation of the prayer that we see in the Liturgy of the Hours translates the word alma as “loving.” It does mean that, but that’s not it’s first meaning. The literal meaning is “nurturing” or “nourishing.” That’s why the mouth, throat, etc. is called the “alimentary tract.” It’s the passageway for nourishment to come into our body.
Our Adopted Mother
For that reason, the term alma mater itself used to mean a nursemaid, or wet nurse. This is why we often call a school we attended our alma mater. Just as a wet nurse nurses a little baby on behalf of the natural mother, our school nurtured us in loco parentis. Mary likewise is a nurturing mother to us, beyond our biological mothers. As Pope St. John Paul II explains in his Encyclical Redemptoris Mater:
In accordance with the eternal plan of Providence, Mary’s divine motherhood is to be poured out upon the Church, as indicated by statements of Tradition, according to which Mary’s “motherhood” of the Church is the reflection and extension of her motherhood of the Son of God. (Redemptoris Mater, I.24)
What that means for us is that we can call on our adopted, spiritual mother to intercede for us with her son by birth, Jesus Christ.
Falling and Struggling to Rise
Because of her intercessory role she is the “accessible gate of Heaven” (pervia caeli Porta). Sadly, the American English translation lacks the word “accessible,” pervia. Next, we address Mary with a title familiar from another prayer, Stella Maris, “star of the sea,” our guiding star.
The image that follows is one for which I’ve always felt a strong affinity, the “falling people who struggle to rise again” (cadenti,/ Surgere qui curat populo). The Latin also nicely evokes the falling and rising of the sea (a fitting complement to Stella Maris). Cadenti, “falling,” ends one line on a solemn note, immediately followed by surgere, “to rise,” the word that begins the next.
We complete the first half of the prayer with our first plea for our Blessed Mother’s aid. The Latin verb, succurrere, literally means “run up” to help.
“You who bore, to the wonderment of nature, your own Holy Creator.”
Nativity scene with the newborn Christ mural Franciscan Church Shepherd`s Fields near Bethlehem. Image shot 1990. Exact date unknown.
To the Wonderment of Nature
The second half of the prayer again reminds us that Mary’s importance comes through her connection to her son Jesus, again with some wonderful imagery:
tu quae genuisti, Natura mirante, tuum sanctum Genitorem
“You who bore, to the wonderment of nature, your own holy Creator.” The incarnation is so astounding that all of creation looks on in amazement. I always picture the animals that are traditionally pictured around Jesus in the manger. Now we know what they were thinking.
Nature might well wonder at the next point as well. Mary remained a “virgin before and after” (Virgo prius ac posterius), because Jesus wasn’t conceived in the usual way. Rather, The Holy Spirit came upon her, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her (see Luke 1:35) at the time of the Annunciation. The time, as the prayer puts it, “When she received that “Hail” from the mouth of Gabriel” (Gabrielis ab ore / Sumens illud Ave).
We Are Not Unstained
Our second petition comes after this reminder that the Blessed Mother remains unstained by sin. Here we acknowledge that we need her help, because we are not equally unstained: peccatorum miserere, “have pity on us sinners.”
The Alma Redemptoris Mater is specifically associated with the seasons of Advent and Christmas, most likely because of the references to the Incarnation and the Annunciation in the final lines. We sing or recite it at the end of Compline, the closing liturgical prayer of the day, from the first Sunday of Advent through the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord on February 2nd.
Ceiling Fresco of Blessed Hermann from the Monastery atSchussenried.
Blessed Hermann
Tradition holds that it was composed by Blessed Hermann of Reichenau, a Benedictine monk who lived in the eleventh century. Blessed Hermann, also known as Hermann the Cripple, was well acquainted with suffering and difficulty. From the beginning of his life he suffered from what seems to have been amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or spinal muscular atrophy. Hermann had great difficulty walking and talking. He also lost his sight before his early death at the age of 41.
He rose above his disabilities, however, to become an outstanding scholar in theology, mathematics, astronomy, and history. After the loss of his vision he dedicated himself to composing prayers and hymns (the Alma Redemptoris Mater being a fine example). Most importantly, like his fellow disability sufferer St. Servulus, he never let his sufferings dampen his joy in sharing Christ’s Gospel.
Please find the Latin and English Text of the Alma Redemptoris Mater below the video clip.
Alma Redemptoris Mater
Alma Redemptoris Mater, quae pervia caeli Porta manes, et stella maris, sucurre cadenti, Surgere qui curat populo: tu quae genuisti, Natura mirante, tuum sanctum Genitorem, Virgo prius ac posterius, Gabrielis ab ore Sumens illud Ave, peccatorum miserere.
Loving Mother of the Redeemer
Loving mother of the Redeemer, gate of heaven, star of the sea, assist your people who have fallen yet strive to rise again, To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator, yet remained a virgin after as before, You who received Gabriel’s joyful greeting, have pity on us poor sinners.
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17)
It’s Greek To Me
You’re probably familiar with the beautiful passage above, which is from the end of John’s Gospel. As he sits with the Risen Christ at a charcoal fire on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, Peter has the opportunity to redeem himself for what he did the last time we saw him at a charcoal fire. On the night of Holy Thursday, when Our Lord had been arrested, the apostle had denied Jesus three times. Here, Jesus invites Peter three times to tell his Lord, face to face, that he loves Him.
St. John the Evangelist, from the St. Thomas altarpiece Berruguete, Pedro (c.1450-1504) Convent of St. Tomas, Avila, Spain
I wrote an earlier version of this post as one of my first excursions into bloggery. There was something about the language in this passage that caught my attention: I was intrigued by the fact that the original Greek text uses two different words for “love.” I’m not familiar with any English translations that reflect this difference in wording. The difference is pretty clear, however, in the original language. The first two times Jesus asks, “do you love me?” he uses one Greek verb for “love”: ἀγαπᾷς (agapais). When Peter answers “I love you” he employs a different word, φιλῶ (philo); the third time Jesus switches to φιλῶ as well. Now, knowing that, among Christians, the verb ἀγαπῶ came to mean all-embracing divine love, whereas φιλῶ referred to ordinary human affection, I thought I had stumbled onto Something Big. What was the deeper meaning of this passage?
Love is Love
As it happens, contrary to my dreams of achieving scholarly glory through my linguistic discovery, many others before me had also noticed the difference in the Greek verbs. In fact, I soon learned that quite a few commentators had previously written on this very topic (who would have guessed?). I was disappointed to learn that the consensus of the scripture scholars was that we shouldn’t attach too much significance to the difference in the verbs. It appears that at the time John wrote his Gospel Greek speakers used the two verbs more or less interchangeably. φιλῶ was much more common, but there was no substantial difference in meaning. John, the scholars tell us, was probably doing no more than making his language more interesting by avoiding redundancy.
More Than Words
But is that really all there is to it? I’m not one to pick a fight with the experts on their own turf, but I can’t help but think the Evangelist has more on his plate here than simply avoiding redundancy. After all, we know that John is a careful and subtle writer, and if he were that concerned with varying his vocabulary for purely stylistic reasons the prologue to his Gospel would read rather differently, wouldn’t it? In any case, even if we can’t find a Big Linguistic/Theological Significance here, I can’t help but think that John is nonetheless using his selection of verbs to draw us deeper into the events of his Gospel.
Let’s take another look at what’s happening in this passage. First of all, it immediately follows a passage where Peter is fishing. The apostle does not at first recognize the figure on the shore as Jesus. When Peter, who has caught nothing, follows the unknown person’s advice, he immediately hauls in “a hundred and fifty-three [fish]; and although there were so many, the net was not torn.” (John 21:6) It’s then that the Apostles, first John himself, then Peter, recognize Jesus. They return to shore with their fish, where Jesus, who has built a charcoal fire, invites them to cook some of their catch. This, the Evangelist tells us, “was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.” (John 21:14)
On the night of Holy Thursday, when Our Lord had been arrested, Peter denied Jesus three times . . .
“The Denial of St. Peter” by Caravaggio, 1610
“Do You Love Me?”
It’s after this meal that Jesus addresses Peter directly. He asks, “do you love (ἀγαπᾷς) me?” Peter answers affirmatively using what appears to be a synonym, φιλῶ, after which Jesus says in reply, “feed my lambs.” Jesus repeats his question using the same verb he used before, and Peter returns his prior response, to which Jesus answers, “Tend my sheep.” Finally, Peter grows visibly distressed by the repeated questioning. No doubt, he knows all too well why it needs repeating. Nonetheless, the Lord asks a third time . . . only this time He uses Peter’s preferred word, φιλεῖς, as if to say, “All right, Peter, you love me, but do you loveme?” At this point, Peter replies “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus completes the series of questions by combining his two previous responses into one: “Feed my sheep.”
I look at this passage as a reflection of how Grace works in our life. Just as Grace always starts with God, Christ comes to Peter, who does not at first recognize Him. After Peter realizes with whom he’s conversing, Christ invites him to express his love. In so doing, he gives Peter an opportunity to repudiate his earlier sin. Peter, the man Jesus named “The Rock,” is willing, but can’t quite bring himself to use the same word that Jesus uses. Instead, he replies with a (possibly more humble) synonym. After the same thing happens a second time Jesus moves a little closer. Then, He moves closer yet, echoing Peter’s own word back to him. He “meets him where he is”, as we like to say. And every time Peter proclaims his love, Christ calls on him to share that love with others (“feed my sheep”).
The Word Becomes Flesh
Just so, God is always the initiator, inviting us to share His Grace. He often comes to us in a tangible form (the Incarnation, the Eucharist, his ordained ministers acting In Persona Christi). Our Creator calls on us to act out the love we proclaim. Isn’t that the purpose of audible confession, acts of mercy, evangelization, living our lives so that we are that beacon on a hill, and so on? And He’s always willing to move a little closer, if it will bring us closer to Him . . . even to the point of becoming one of us, “taking the form of a slave” (Phillipians 2:7).
Christ is always asking us, “Do you love Me?” Can we answer, along with Peter, φιλῶ?
Featured image top of page: “Christ’s Charge to Peter” by Raphael, 1515
What’s wrong with the picture above? At first glance it looks like a confessional of the sort you used to be able to find in any Catholic church. A closer look reveals that the doors through which the penitents were accustomed to enter have been replaced by plain panels. There’s no way in for those who might wish to confess their sins.
Fortunately, the church which houses the sad looking retired confessional above does still offer the Sacrament of Penance. More often, in fact, than many other Catholic parish churches. I’ll return to that in a moment. I include the picture above because it’s a graphic illustration of much that has gone wrong in the Church over the past half century. Not only have we de-emphasized confession, we’ve closed down, boarded up, and often even removed the visible evidence of its importance in the life of the Church. No such thing could have happened unless we had first lost our sense of Sin.
The reality of Sin is a foundational concept in Christianity. It goes back to the very beginning, to the rebellion of Satan. The Church has traditionally understood (quite reasonably) that the sooner we turn away from sin, and toward God, the better. That’s why one of the Precepts of the Church is to “Confess your sins at least once a year.” We also had a concrete reminder of the importance of confession, the confessional. This distinctive structure was usually in plain sight, often prominently visible in the nave of the church building. Every time we entered the church it was there, urging us to bring our sins to the Lord.
Traditional Wisdom
The Confession, by Giuseppe Molteni, 1838
Unfortunately, in the decades after the Second Vatican Council much of the institutional Church has forgotten its traditional wisdom. We seem to have lost the understanding that, just as we are both body and soul, we need concrete things, images, sacramentals, and sacraments, to help us apprehend spiritual realities. Isn’t that, in fact, at least part of the reason for confession? God could simply forgive any and all sins any time we ask for it in prayer, but instead he tells us through his Holy Scripture: “Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” (James 5:16) There is a reason that the Word chose to become Flesh.
Our leaders do not only seem to have forgotten this fundamental feature of traditional Catholicism. They also seem to have forgotten, or to be ignoring, something even more important. Too many bishops and priests seem reluctant to warn of the dangers of sin (unless it’s abstract and politicized “systemic” sin). When they mention confession at all, it is often under the kinder, gentler sounding name “reconciliation.” This term emphasizes the happy reunion at the end without reference to the hard work of first acknowledging and repenting of our sins. It’s not wrong, but it’s only part of the story, like Easter without the Passion. Consequently, confessionals sit abandoned, often used as storage closets, or sealed off, or removed altogether.
The Confessional Strikes Back
That’s the bad news. The good news is that there are signs of improvement. I can’t say I’ve done a systematic study. It could be the churches I’ve been hanging around in more recently. In any case, I’m seeing much longer lines at confession today than I was thirty years ago. To tell you the truth, there was often no line at all when I first came back to the Church in the early 1990s. Now I can no longer count on getting into (and out of) the confessional quickly.
There are two things in my experience that go along with greater numbers of penitents. The first is priests (and bishops) who talk about sin and confession often. When the teachers in the Church don’t mention a teaching, many people naturally assume that it’s just not that important (see: contraception). Nobody likes to think about sin, sin in general, but most especially our own sin. We’ll avoid thinking about it if we can. We need reminders.
The other factor is availability. Just as placing confessionals clearly in public view sends a message, so does offering (and publicizing) frequent opportunities for people to confess. The churches that offer confession for only half an hour on Saturday afternoon still don’t seem to have long lines. The churches I know that set aside more time (in one case, an hour each on Saturday and two week nights. The cathedral church in our diocese offers confessions twice on Saturday, and after every weekday morning mass) are never lacking penitents. At any of those times, plan on getting there early or you risk a long wait. It has happened more than once that I have been left waiting when father had to leave to say Mass.
Don’t Fear the Confessional
Penitents waiting outside a traditional confessional (catholicherald.co.uk)
You might have noticed that priests who are too young to have been formed during the full flowering of what Fr. Richard John Neuhaus used to call the “silly season” in the immediate aftermath of Vatican II tend to be more forthright in talking about sin and in emphasizing sacramental confession. The pastor of the church that houses the sealed off confessional pictured above is one of these young, enthusiastic priests. He’s not responsible for closing it up. He does, in fact, offer confession several times a week in a clearly marked room where we can confess behind a screen. I’ve never been the only person in line there.
Where does this bring us? Lent is a time when we pay particular attention to our own need for repentance. We might also want to give some extra encouragement and support to those bishops and priests who are not afraid to remind us of the dangers of sin and the need for sacramental confession. There are some clerics who are afraid that talking too directly about these “negative” topics will drive people away from the Church. We should pray that the Lord gives these men the courage to be bolder in speaking the Truth. We can also point to real life examples of priests who draw more people in precisely becausethey are willing to talk about sin and repentance.
Sin is a reality. If that weren’t the case, Christ had no reason to suffer and die on the Cross. If we don’t need salvation from sin, then Christianity is pointless. That promise of savation from sin is the reason why countless martyrs have willingly given their lives over the past two thousand years. We shouldn’t be afraid to proclaim it as loudly and as often as we can. Let’s keep the confessionals open.
Who would you expect to be more open to conversion, prison inmates, or students at a Catholic college? A few years back my sons used to attend a Catholic boys group that included sports, games, scripture reading, and catechesis, along with the occasional guest speaker. One such speaker was a young priest we knew who came to talk about his work as a chaplain. As it happened, he had been assigned to two different chaplaincies shortly after his ordination, one at the local (more or less) Catholic college, the other at a nearby prison. One of the boys asked him who was harder to work with, the cons or the coeds?
“It’s not even close,” was the priest’s reply, “the students are much harder to work with.”
Maine Correctional Center Windham, Maine (Portland Press Herald photo)
We might expect it to be the other way around; the young priest certainly thought so before he started working in the two different institutions. And yet it really shouldn’t surprise us. If you’re in prison, it’s hard to ignore the consequences of your actions. It’s true that many criminals can still convince themselves that it’s all somebody else’s fault, even after they’ve been convicted and locked up. But the prisoners who are still in denial, generally speaking, aren’t the ones seeking out the chaplain.
Students at a Catholic college, on the other hand, tend to be doing fairly well. Again, there are exceptions: all have experienced some difficulties in life, and some, of course, will have experienced serious suffering. For the most part, however, if you’re a student in good standing at a private college, you have reason to consider yourself fairly successful. The more successful we are, the more in control we feel . . . and the less need we feel for God.
The Sacrifice of Elijah Before the Priests of Baal, by Domenico Fetti, 1621
I remember grappling with this problem thirty years ago, when I returned to the Church after my years of exile among the secularists. It was exciting to understand the stories and lessons in the Bible with fresh eyes: I found myself understanding even long-familiar passages in a totally new way. One thing that perplexed me at first, however, was the behavior of the Hebrews in the Books of Kings and Chronicles, who were constantly chasing after other gods and “doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” They knew who God was, didn’t they? They had all the evidence they needed in the history of their people, and yet they kept rejecting God for . . . other things.
I soon came to understand that the Hebrews, as fallen human beings, were simply doing what fallen human beings do. I came to see it in my own life: I was brought back to the Faith by a profound experience of Jesus Christ. I knew firsthand that God was real. And yet, time and again, I found myself straying, drawn by the allure of . . . other things.
That’s why Jesus gave his Apostles the power to forgive sins (see Matthew 16:19 and 18:18, and John 20:23). We are all in continual need of repentance and forgiveness, both individually and collectively. The problem is, we don’t always know it. Like the ancient Hebrews before the Baylonian exile, we forget about God whenever things seem to be going well. We feel like we’re in control, and think we can do whatever we want. It often takes a setback to remind us that we’re really not in control at all. Sometimes it takes a severe setback. For the Hebrews of the First Millennium BC, it took eighty years of enslavement in a foreign land to put them straight.
Unfortunately, there is often a price to pay, and the stronger the reminder, the greater the price. The Hebrew tribes of Judah and Benjamin, who occupied the Kingdom of Judah and were carried into exile by the Babylonians, later returned to their land with their faith purified and strengthened by the harsh lessons of exile. The ten tribes of the Kingdom of Israel, however, who had been conquered over a century earlier by the Assyrians, were scattered and disappeared from history. Likewise, an alcoholic who at long last hits rock bottom and turns to God as his Higher Power will often, nonetheless, still suffer permanent physical, mental, and neurological damage. We risk paying a high price for our failings. It’s better to respond to gentler reminders before we hit rock bottom.
And reminders there will be. The inspired author of the letter to the Hebrews writes:
“For the Lord disciplines him whom he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? . . . he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. (Hebrews 12:6-7; 10)
Note the positive incentive: “that we may share his holiness.” The potential reward is great beyond our imagination; the price of failure, however, is something we don’t want to imagine. The stakes are high.
Chuck Colson handing out Bibles to prisoners (prisonfellowship.org)
The convicts in the state penitentiary know from hard experience that the stakes are high. One of the most well known of these is Chuck Colson. Colson was deeply involved in the illegal Watergate activities of President Richard Nixon’s administration. As his arrest seemed imminent in the spring of 1973, a friend gave him a copy of of C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. That was just the spark he needed to bring him back to Christ: instead of cursing his bad fortune, he saw his imminent incarceration as a deserved chastisement for his wrongdoing. He became a committed Evangelical Christian, and accepted responsibility for his criminal behavior, pleading guilty to obstruction of justice charges.
The Book of Proverbs assures us that “Whoever heeds discipline shows the way to life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray.” (Proverbs 10:17) Colson discovered the truth of those words in prison, saying afterwards: “I found myself increasingly drawn to the idea that God had put me in prison for a purpose and that I should do something for those I had left behind.” After his release Colson founded an organization called Prison Fellowship, dedicated to helping the broken people in our correctional institutions find spiritual healing, and more. As the Prison Fellowship website puts it:
Through an amazing awakening to new hope and life purpose, those who once broke the law are transformed and mobilized to serve their neighbors, replacing the cycle of crime with a cycle of renewal.
That message is for all of us, not just convicted criminals. We’re all called to replace the cycle of sin in our lives with a cycle of renewal.
The bad news is that, however in control we feel, failure and suffering, of some sort, will come into our life. The good news is that those apparent misfortunes are what will turn us away from ourselves and toward God. That’s the Mystery of the Cross. St. Paul says, “But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Galatians 6:14) The Good News, in other words, is that Christ is calling all of us to share in his glory, whether we’re cons, or coeds.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, 1342
And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.” (Luke 2:33-35)
How would you like to be pierced by sword? That sounds like a pretty painful image, does it not? And yet, despite that, the Presentation, which is today’s feast day and the occasion of the exchange above, is included in the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary. How can that make sense?
Yes, the Presentation of the Lord shows us a paradox, or maybe a series of paradoxes, which can lead us deeper into the mystery of Christ. On the one hand, it is our last fleeting look back at the recently concluded Christmas Season, and we experience some of the joy and wonder of that season, particularly in the prophetic utterances of Simeon. Simeon proclaims the infant Jesus “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel” (Luke 2:32). His final words, however, foretell that Christ will be “a sign that is spoken against,” and he warns the Blessed Mother that “a sword will pierce through your own soul also.” His words here redirect us toward the quickly approaching Season of Lent, and beyond to the sorrow and suffering of the Triduum. The last thing we see in Luke’s account of the Presentation is the prophetess Anna, who hints at the solution to the apparent contraries in Simeon’s prophecy: she “spoke of him to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38). In the end, the glory of Christmas and the sword of Good Friday come together on Easter Sunday: Redemption comes only from the light shining through the darkness of suffering, and we catch a glimpse of that Paradox of Pain in the Feast of Presentation.
Stephen Fry, left, as Jeeves and Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster (from thetimes.co.uk)
I once ran across an interview with English actor and comedian Stephen Fry (on the Feast of the Presentation, as it happens), that provides a good illustration of what happens when we take Jesus Christ out of the Paradox of Pain. You may know Fry from Jeeves and Wooster, the British television series from the early 90s. Fry puts in an outstanding performance as Jeeves, the unflappable valet whose clever stratagems always manage to extract his employer, Bertie Wooster, from the ridiculous difficulties he creates for himself.
It turns out that Fry, in addition to being an accomplished comic actor, is an “outspoken atheist” (ironic, given how often he played the part of deus ex machina as Jeeves). In light of his public witness for unbelief, his interviewer asked him what he would say if he found himself, contrary to his expectation, face to face with his Creator in the afterlife. Fry’s answer is instructive:
“I’d say, ‘Bone cancer in children? What’s that about?’” he began.
“’How dare you? How dare you create a world to which there is such misery that is not our fault . . .It’s not right, it’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?’ That’s what I would say.”
There are a lot of unspoken premises in that statement. The largest is the assumption that physical suffering is the worst thing that can happen to you. And it does make sense that if all reality is reducible to matter, and that this present world is all there is, then what else could possibly be worse than suffering? This stance, however, leads to some paradoxes of its own. Fry goes on to assert, for instance, that eradicating belief in God would render our lives “simpler, purer, cleaner, more worth living, in my opinion.” Doing away with belief in God, however, really only makes Fry’s problem worse: instead of leading to redemption, suffering is now simply random and pointless pain. Not only that, but it is something we all must experience, it’s inescapable. The only way to eliminate suffering for an unbelieving materialist like Steven Fry is not to eliminate God, but to do away with humanity.
Fry’s fellow atheist, the philosopher David Benatar, states Fry’s unspoken premise explicitly, and openly arrives at the logical conclusion. In fact, he makes it the title of his best-known book: Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence. No people, no suffering: that’s the best the atheist can hope for.
Faith in Jesus Christ offers us something infinitely better. Most of us probably know people whose faith brought them joy, sometimes in the face of intense suffering, sometimes even throughtheir suffering, so that they could say along with St. Paul ” in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body” (Colossians 1:24). In my post “Death and Human Dignity” I discuss one such person, an aunt whose faith allowed her to be a support to everyone else as she lay dying of cancer.
Crucifixion, by Jacopo Tintoretto, 1568
But that’s not all. The God we worship is not a God who is indifferent to our suffering, as Stephen Fry suggests. On the contrary, he willingly took our form and underwent the most horrendous suffering, and not just physical suffering but the sometimes more bitter pain of rejection and humiliation, all for our sake. In the process he shows us that suffering does not need to be pointless misery: it can be our path to the infinite joy of the beatific vision.
There is an episode of Jeeves and Wooster in which Bertie Wooster gets himself into a hopelessly tangled and embarrassing situation. Just as it looks like there is no escape for him, Jeeves (played, of course, by Stephen Fry) comes on the scene disguised as a Scotland Yard detective, and announces that he is arresting Bertie for “possession of an illegal golf club.” He whisks him off the premises, and the two merrily depart, free of consequences and no wiser than they were before. Jesus isn’t Jeeves. It’s true that he wants to save us from final damnation, but he doesn’t shield us from the wisdom gained from experiencing the consequences of our own, or even other peoples’, actions. As St. Paul explains to the Christians in Rome:
. . . we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. (Romans 5:3-5)
Yes, he allows us to suffer, but he accompanies us in our suffering, so that we may accompany him to the Throne of the Father where we will experience joy unlike any pleasure this world can offer.
Small wonder, then, that The Presentation is included in the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary, despite Simeon’s ominous (and alarming, no doubt, to Mary and Joseph) utterance. We are reminded that, through his Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection, Christ has sanctified suffering: it is no longer a random, meaningless evil, but instead a path to Heaven.
“What is truth?” I seem to remember someone raising the question somewhere. For the idealogue, “truth” is whatever promotes the ideology, and if it happens to correspond with reality that’s fine; if it doesn’t, no problem, we’ll make something up. Followers of Him who is “The Way, The Truth, and The Life” (John 14:6) know better . . . or we should know better. Truth isn’t something we create to serve our own purposes, it exists beyond and above us. We can’t manufacture truth, but we can discover it.
One of the Church’s greatest discoverers and teachers of the truth is St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, whose feast day we celebrate today. Idealogues in the Church will often use his name, when it suits their purposes, to promote their heterodox version of Catholicism but, as we shall see, St. Thomas isn’t easily exploited. Below is a revised version of my very first blog post seven years ago. Since we have been exploring the theme of truth recently (here, here, and here), this seems a good day to republish “A Sin is a Sin: St. Thomas and Conscience.”
The Temptation of St. Thomasby Francesco Gessi, 1632-1633. St. Thomas says “no” to sin.
When is it A Sin Not To Sin?
St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest of Catholic theologians, has been the target of a sort of “hostile takeover.” That is to say, I’ve heard some people invoke his authority in order to justify ignoring Catholic moral doctrine. They point out that St. Thomas says it’s wrong not to follow our conscience, even if it’s in error; therefore, if our conscience tells us to use contraceptives, or support pro- abortion politicians, or vote in favor of redefining marriage we would actually be sinning if we obeyed the Church! Don’t blame them, these people add: St. Thomas Aquinas made them do it. What else can they do?
It’s Wrong to Will Wrong
What can any of us do? Well . . . we can let the Angelic Doctor speak for himself. On the one hand, St. Thomas does actually say what the dissenters claim he says, that we are morally bound to follow our conscience. On the other hand, if we look at all of what he says, he actually means the opposite of what they say he means. Let’s look at the relevant passage from his Summa Theologiae [ST hereafter: italics mine here and below]:
. . . conscience is nothing else than the application of knowledge to some action. Now knowledge is in the reason. Therefore when the will is at variance with erring reason, it is against conscience. But every such will is evil; for it is written (Romans 14:23): “All that is not of faith”–i.e. all that is against conscience–“is sin.”
Therefore the will is evil when it is at variance with erring reason. ST IiaIae
Yes, it is “evil” to disobey even an erroneous conscience, but conscience does not mean “feelings” or “opinions” (the common misrepresentation); rather, it is “the application of knowledge to some action.” To St. Thomas (and to the Church) it is the process of applying moral principles to one’s particular situation, or “knowledge applied to an individual case,” as he describes it in another section (ST I, 79, 13). Since conscience is the reasoning process by which we determine whether a course of action is good or evil, going against conscience means deliberately choosing what we believe to be evil, even if we do not actually accomplish evil:
But when erring reason proposes something as being commanded by God, then to scorn the dictate of reason is to scorn the commandment of God. (ST IiaIae)
When we violate our conscience, then, quite apart from the actual harm we might or might not be doing (objective sin), we are intentionally rejecting what we believe to be God’s will (subjective sin): the “evil” in violating our conscience is our conscious choice to disobey God. This act of defiance is a sin in itself, quite apart from the sinfulness (or not) of the particular act we are contemplating.
Forming Our Conscience
The story doesn’t end there, of course; St. Thomas was well aware that someone might try to use his argument to justify sin. He goes on to explain that, even though we must obey an erroneous conscience, we might be morally culpable (i.e., guilty of sin) for having an erroneous conscience. He says:
St.Thomas composing theSumma (image from aquinasonline.com)
If then reason or conscience err with an error that is voluntary, either directly, or through negligence, so that one errs about what one ought to know; then such an error of reason or conscience does not excuse the will, that abides by that erring reason or conscience, from being evil. But if the error arise from ignorance of some circumstance, and without any negligence, so that it cause the act to be involuntary, then that error of reason or conscience excuses the will, that abides by that erring reason, from being evil. (ST IiaIae)
Recall that conscience is moral principles (what he calls “knowledge” or “Divine Law”) applied to particular circumstances. We don’t get to create those moral principles for ourselves. For an adult Christian “what one ought to know” are the moral principles contained in Church teaching, although it is quite possible to be mistaken or misinformed, through no fault of one’s own (invincible ignorance), about the circumstances to which one is applying the principles. Therefore, invincible ignorance excuses us from subjective guilt, but failure to form our conscienceproperly does not. Just to be sure his point is clear, St. Thomas illustrates with the following examples:
For instance, if erring reason tell a man that he should go to another man’s wife, the will that abides by that erring reason is evil; since this error arises from ignorance of the Divine Law, which he is bound to know. But if a man’s reason, errs in mistaking another for his wife, and if he wish to give her her right [i.e., sexual intercourse] when she asks for it, his will is excused from being evil: because this error arises from ignorance of a circumstance, which ignorance excuses, and causes the act to be involuntary. (ST IiaIae)
Notice the phrase “bound to know”: whether or not adultery is wrong is not a matter of conscience, its wrongness is an unalterable reality that we are “bound” to acknowledge.
The Wages of Sin
When the champions of conscience (or perhaps more properly, “conscience”) over and against Catholic moral doctrine invoke St. Thomas, it is almost always in order to justify their rejection of the Church’s teaching on one of the currently fashionable sexual issues, such as contraception, gay marriage, extra-marital sex, and so on. These practices have been explicitly and unambiguously condemned in scripture and in the teaching of the Church under the sixth commandment’s prohibition of adultery. If we look at St. Thomas’s entire discussion, however, and not just the one sentence that seems to excuse dissent, we see that he is saying explicitly that you cannot invoke conscience against these teachings. Using adultery as his example, he demonstrates that the role of conscience is not to determine basic rules of right and wrong, but to guide our own actions according to the sure rules we have received from God through his Church.
St. Thomas did not make her do it.
It would be helpful at this point to recall that sin involves a lot more than just the will of the sinner. The Church teaches that there must be three conditions for a sin to be a mortal sin: grave matter, full knowledge, and full consent or, more prosaically, “it’s bad, you know darn well it’s bad, but you go ahead and do it anyway.” St. Thomas is here considering only the second part of the formulation, that is, whether or not you know darn well it’s bad. Even if, through no fault of your own (a significant “if”, as we saw above) you don’t know it’s bad, and so are not guilty of choosing bad, it’s still bad. And it’s bad because bad consequences, for you and/or society at large, are likely to follow.
That’s why it’s a sin, after all. Consider St. Thomas’s example of the unwitting adulterer. He is not guilty of subjective sin, because he is not aware of what he is doing. The act is nevertheless an objective sin, which could lead to all manner of destructive consequences: fathering a child out of wedlock (with all the attendant problems), or receiving a disease which might in turn infect his innocent wife; the other woman might receive an infection from him, and, depending on her awareness of the situation, might feel exploited or betrayed by him. If the adultery becomes known, as is likely, it will damage the man’s relationship with his wife and children; if not, he may feel the need to cover up his deed and commit the further sin of lying in order protect his family . . . And on and on.
In other words, a sin is a sin is a sin, and whatever we may think, it’s still a sin. As Catholics, we have ample means of knowing the Moral Law, and therefore have no excuse for disobeying it. We have it right from the Ox’s mouth: nothing justifies committing acts which the Church teaches to be morally wrong.
How often we are reminded that we are not incontrol. My laptop died, and all the alternatives are limited and very slow. I had planned a new post on current Eucharistic controversies this weekend, but it won’t be ready on time. Instead, I’m reposting a piece that was originally a talk on Eucharistic Adoration that I was asked to deliver in my then-parish a few years ago:
As Catholics, we are blessed to have some wonderful devotional practices that help us grow closer to Christ. One of the most profound of these is Eucharistic Adoration. My wife and I were recently asked to help encourage participation in Adoration in our parish, in the course of which we ourselves came to see dimensions of this great gift that we hadn’t considered before.
For one thing, we both thought immediately of scriptural connections. My lovely bride thought of the passage from First Kings (1 Kings 19:10-13) where the Lord tells the prophet Elijah to stand on the mountain, for “The Lord is about to pass by”. There’s a mighty wind, an earthquake, and a roaring fire, but God is not in any of those things; instead, Elijah encounters the Lord in a “gentle whispering”.
Just as God does not appear to Elijah in any of the grand and dramatic forms we might expect, so Jesus enters the world as a tiny baby, and continues to manifest himself to us as a simple piece of bread. Eucharistic Adoration gives us a chance to shut out all the storm and stress of our daily lives while we contemplate the infinite God embodied in that piece of bread, and hear his gentle whisper.
My own first thought was the passage from Luke’s Gospel (Luke 10:38-42) where Jesus is visiting the sisters Martha and Mary. Martha, who is “worried about many things”, is frantically bustling about the house, while Mary simply sits at the feet of Jesus, watching and listening. When Martha complains that Mary isn’t helping her, Jesus answers that Mary has chosen “the better part, and it will not be taken away from her”.
Most of us can probably identify with Martha: always “worried about many things”, and too distracted to notice the Lord. Adoration is a great opportunity to give our “inner Martha” a rest and, like Mary, choose “the better part”. After all, what is Eucharistic Adoration, if not watching and listening at the feet of Jesus?
What’s true for us as individuals also applies to us communally. However important, even necessary, all of our various activities, committees, and causes may be, they can overshadow “the one thing”, as Jesus tells Martha, “that is needful”. What better reminder that Christ is the Center than a parish putting aside twelve hours in the middle of the week to sit at the Master’s feet? It keeps us from becoming nothing but noisy gongs and clanging cymbals (1 Corinthians 13:1).
My brief comments here can’t even begin to explore the depth of meaning contained in the Eucharist. God who created us knows what we need; having given us both body and soul, he knows we need material means to understand spiritual realities. The opportunity to kneel in adoration before our Eucharistic Lord is a gift we can’t afford to pass up.
Featured image top of page: “Christ in the House of Mary and Martha” by Vermeer, 1655
