The all powerful totalitarian state in George Orwell’s novel 1984 uses the comforting, familial image of “Big Brother” to mask the ugly reality of its absolute control. Big Brother uses many tools (such as constant surveillance) to keep and exercise his power, but the most effective is language. By tightly controlling the language, Big Brother can control the way his subjects think. Just as the image of Big Brother himself is a fiction, words and phrases serve, not to convey meaning, but to hide real meanings in favor of whatever content the state chooses to give them.
Newspeak
This language that is intentionally designed to deceive rather than inform is called Newspeak. A character in the novel named Syme, a lexicologist, explains that, as Newspeak develops . . .
“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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Truth is “a thing,” to use the current jargon. Today’s memorial of St. Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, commemorates a man who suffered greatly to safeguard the Truth of Jesus Christ. The 4th century theologian and Bishop of Alexandria dedicated his life to fighting the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ. The Arians were tenacious and unforgiving in their attacks on Athanasius. He “was banished five times and spent 17 years of his life in exile for the defense of the doctrine of Christ’s divinity” (St. Athanasius, catholic.org). At times he was opposed by a wide array of bishops, as well as the Roman emperor himself. He appeared to be standing alone in defense of orthodox Chrstian belief. His lonely stance earned him the nickname Athanasius Contra Mundum (Athanasius Against the World).
The battle for Truth continues today. The modern day descendants of the Arians are still with us. There are still those, even bishops, who would turn the Church of Jesus Christ into something more worldly. We still need Catholic Christians to stand up and proclaim, as St. Athanasius did, that Truth is a Thing.
A Grim Trajectory
In honor of today’s Memorial of St. Athanasius I’m revisiting a piece I first published on November 21st, 2014. Much has changed since then: I no longer teach in a Catholic school, for instance. Anthony Esolen likewise no longer teaches in the nominally Catholic college he has sometimes referred to as “St. Eustaby” (pronounced “Saint Used-To-Be”, as in used to be Catholic). By all reports he’s finding the environment and student body at Magdalen College in Warner, NH, much more attuned to the traditional Catholic understanding of God and His universe.
In the world outside, however, things have travelled even further along the same grim trajectory. Just as ecclesiastical and temporal powers joined forces against Athanasius, powerful institutions of our day are uniting to impose an alternative “truth.” Today, they deny even such basic natural truths as the difference between the two sexes. Read on to see why, more than ever, we need to assert that Truth is a Thing.
Athanasius Against the World
Let’s go back in time to the fall of 2014. I’ll share just a couple of the highlights, or better yet lowlights. There was the Sunday when I found myself berated from the pulpit. Not me personally, but me and people like me. We were bad Catholics because we expected Catholic clergy to speak out in support of the Church’s moral teaching on issues such as abortion, marriage, serial adultery, etc. We were told we should be more like the Pope, welcoming everyone with a wink and nod. We should just stick to talking about Jesus (too bad Pope Francis didn’t get the memo: see here).
Then there was a Friday afternoon. This time I found myself trying to explain the Church’s teaching on human sexuality to a classroom full of fourteen-year-olds. My young theology students found my assertion that one need not indulge any and every sexual desire to be novel and inexplicably bizarre. I began to feel a little bit like Athanasius Contra Mundum. Shouldn’t these kids have heard this somewhere before, or from someone, anyone, beyond their 9th grade religion teacher? Even students from church-going families seemed unfamiliar with the idea that there is a real alternative to the self-righteous libertinism of the popular culture. This particular group was not unique. I had been seeing it more and more over the years.
The Good Professor Says His Piece
Coincidentally (perhaps?), when I arrived home that same day my lovely bride wanted to share an article with me. Anthony Esolen had just published a piece in Crisis (“Who Will Rescue the Lost Sheep of the Lonely Revolution?”). Apparently, Dr. Esolen was also getting rather frustrated with trying to reach students who have grown up immersed in the grim propaganda of the sexual revolution. In his article he addressed himself, not to the students themselves, but to the adults responsible for their moral formation:
Let me speak up for the young people who see the beauty of the moral law and the teachings of the Church, and who are blessed with noble aspirations, but who are given no help, none, from their listless parents, their listless churches, their crude and cynical classmates, their corrupted schools.
These youths and maidens in a healthier time would be youths and maidens indeed, and when they married they would become the heart of any parish. Do we expect heroic sanctity from them? Their very friendliness will work against them. They will fall. Do you care? Many of these will eventually “shack up,” and some will leave dead children in the wake of their friendliness.
Where are you? You say that they should not kill the children they have begotten, and you are right about that. So why are you shrugging and turning aside from the very habits that bring children into the world outside of the haven of marriage?
The Self-Help Guy Agrees
Esolen makes a number of important points. First, that our culture is toxic. Next, that its moral corruption has very real material consequences. Finally, and most damning, that we have largely abandoned our young people to it.
Some years ago the late self-help author Stephen Covey made a similar argument:
In the past, it was easier to successfully raise a family ‘out-side-in’ because society was an ally, a resource. People were surrounded by role models, examples, media reinforcement, and family-friendly laws and support systems that sustained marriage and helped create strong families. Even when there were problems within the family, there was still this powerful reinforcement of the whole idea of successful marriage and family life . . . (Stephen Covey, The7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, p. 15).
After the Revolution
That is no longer the case. In fact, society now actively subverts parents’ efforts to raise their children: it is, as Covey puts it, “family-fatal”. He marshals an impressive array of statistics (he cites sources for all of these in his book) to support his assertion:
Illegitimate birth rates have increased more than 400 percent.
The percentage of families headed by a single parent has more than tripled.
The divorce rate has more than doubled. Many project that about half of all new marriages will end in divorce.
Teenage suicide has increased almost 300 percent.
Scholastic Aptitude Test scores among all students have dropped 73 points.
The number one health problem for American women today is domestic violence, four million women are beaten each year by their partners.
One fourth of all adolescents contract a sexually transmitted disease before they graduate from high school.
Since 1940 the top disciplinary problems in public schools have changed from chewing gum and running in the halls to teen pregnancy, rape, and assault. (Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, p. 16)
Covey’s book was published in 1997. I guarantee that these statistics have not changed for the better in the intervening 25 years. And these are only some of the more obvious bad consequences of what Esolen calls the “Lonely Revolution.”
Who Needs Those Goofy Rules Anyway?
But don’t take my word for it. Almost two decades later, the Catholic News Agency brought us “Agree to Disagree: Why Young Catholics Pose a Unique Challenge For the Church.” The U.S. bishops had commissioned a study of young Catholics. Even those who considered themselves devout felt free to ignore “’goofy’ rules” that they did’t like:
If any Church teachings conflict with their own perceptions, young people simply “tune out” the teachings.
“They agree to disagree with the Church,” [Archbishop Thomas Wenski] said.
Furthermore, young Catholics are sensitive to language that could imply judgment. “For them, language like ‘hate the sin love the sinner’ means ‘hate the sinner’,” Archbishop Wenski said.
The last sentence gives the game away, even if the article does not explicitly say which particular “goofy” rules are at issue. The conflation of the sin with the sinner is a preferred tactic that the storm troopers of the Sexual Revolution. They often employ it in conjunction with the damning charge of “judgmentalism” to lead good Christians into error. Truth is not a thing for the revolutionaries.
Qui Bene Distinguit, Bene Docet
The Church, on the other hand, follows the old legal maxim Qui bene distinguit, bene docet. In English, “he who distinguishes well, teaches well.” She has always understood that “hating the sin” is not the same as “hating the sinner.” In fact, if we love the sinner we must hate the sin, because sin poisons the soul of the sinner. Notice, by the way, the Latin word docet, “teach.” It comes from the same root as doctrine. Doctrine is the sacred teaching of the Church.
If those responsible for teaching doctrine don’t teach, then those under their tutelage will be left to the teaching of the World. We have seen that the World “does not distinguish,” non distinguit. In fact, it intentionally fails to do so, in order to deceive. Is it any wonder, then, that our young people also nondistinguunt? The Church is supposed to be a Sign of Contradiction (Luke 2:34). If all she offers in the face of sin is a Nod and a Wink, however, what is she teaching? How is any distinction possible between her teaching and what the Conventional Wisdom has on offer? Do we not then give tacit assent?
Where’s That in The Bible?
The underlying problem is not a new one. Let’s go back a little further into the past, to the Book of the Prophet Ezekial:
If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you will have saved your life. (Ezekial 3:18-19)
But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you will have saved your life. (Ezekial 3:18-19)
Ezekial, by Michelangelo, 1508-1512
A Prophetic Office
All of us baptized Christians have a prophetic office, and the warning addressed to Ezekial above applies to all of us, as the Letter of James tells us:
My brethren, if any one among you wanders from the truth and some one brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. (James 5:19-20)
When it comes to guiding the young, our Lord himself puts the matter even more starkly:
Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. (Matthew 18:6)
Avoiding unpleasant truths, it seems, is not an option.
The Truth That is The Thing
Let’s return briefly to the scolding homilist I mentioned above. He’s correct that we need to model the love of Jesus. We do that, however, when we speak the Truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). When we distinguish between the sin and the sinner, we can show that we hate the sin because of our love for the sinner, because we understand the harm it is doing him.
I once heard a Catholic radio host wrap up his show with a nice summation of this truth. “The worst thing you can do for somebody” he said, “is to allow him to wallow in sin.” That’s exactly right. It is more loving to warn a person about sin, with all its painful consequences, than to leave them ignorant of something that’s destroying them. That’s the truth, and truth is indeed a thing. Yes, we should talk about Jesus, by all means. And didn’t he suffer and die for the express purpose of saving us from sin?
Go and Sin No More
I’m not saying we should be mean, or accusatory, or call people names. We do, however, need to recognize, as Anthony Esolen points out, that the currently popular sexual sins are not simply harmless “peccadilloes.” Sexual sin destroys families and ruins lives. It puts people in danger of being lost . . . forever. Jesus saved the woman caught in adultery from stoning, but he also told her: “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11). We all, and particularly those of us who are parents, teachers, and leaders, should be prepared to say the same.
It seems all too easy for us sometimes to see the Apostles, in their bumbling humanity, as almost comic figures. They certainly don’t appear too dignified, for instance, when they argue over which one of them is greatest (Luke 22:24, Mark 9:33, etc.); they look almost like clamoring children, who are clearly missing the point of their Master’s teaching. We see another example in last evening’s Holy Thursday reading from John’s Gospel (John 13:6-10), where Peter just can’t understand what Jesus means when he washes the Apostles’ feet.
Matthew’s Gospel shows us a further instance of Apostolic confusion in its account of the Last Supper. After the Apostles have assembled for the meal with Jesus, the Lord says a remarkable thing: “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” (Matthew 26:21) Were it not so serious a moment, we might be tempted to laugh a little at the Apostles all frantically asking “Is it I, Master?” (Matthew 26:24). On the one hand, you would think that they knew their own hearts, on the other, well . . . maybe they’re on to something.
We All Betray Him
As it happens, not all of them doubt. Peter confidently asserts, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.” (Matthew 26:33) He’s in for a rude awakening: Jesus gently corrects the man he named “the Rock”, saying “Truly, I say to you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times” (Matthew 26:34). And of course, Peter does just that. The other Apostles, as it turns out, had a better understanding of their own weakness.
Yes, it tempting to put a comic spin on the Apostles’ reactions, but that would be a mistake, and not simply because they are holy people to whom we owe respect. When Jesus says to them, “You will all fall away” (Matthew 26:31), he’s not speaking only to his Apostles, but to all of us who have been his disciples in the millennia since, as well as all those in the years to come. They all betrayed him; we all will betray him; I betray him (is it I, Lord?). Constantly. That’s why we need the Sacrament of Confession.
“Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” (Matthew 26:21)
“The Last Supper” by the Master of Portillo
It is I, Lord
That’s also why we venerate the Cross and meditate on Christ’s suffering on Good Friday: because on the Cross Jesus died for us, because of our betrayals, because we fall away . . . because it is I, Lord; I fall away, not just three times, but over and over again.
O Jesus, Who by reason of Thy burning love for us
hast willed to be crucified
and to shed Thy Most Precious Blood
for the redemption and salvation of our souls,
look down upon us here gathered together
in remembrance of Thy most sorrowful Passion and Death,
fully trusting in Thy mercy;
cleanse us from sin by Thy grace,
sanctify our toil,
give unto us and unto all those who are dear to us our
daily bread,
sweeten our sufferings,
bless our families,
and to the nations so sorely afflicted,
grant Thy peace,
which is the only true peace,
so that by obeying Thy commandments
we may come at last to the glory of heaven. Amen.
Featured image top of page: Christ Carrying the Cross, by Titian, 1575
Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy steadfast love; according to thy abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. (Psalm 51:1)
Have Mercy
And what transgressions they were! King David had used trickery and deceit to send Uriah the Hittite to his death. He had, in fact, murdered his loyal soldier in order to hide his own adultery. Tradition tells us that David composed Psalm 51 as an expression of sorrow and repentance for the wicked deed. We often refer to the psalm as the Miserere(“Have mercy”) because that’s its first word in the Latin Vulgate Bible.
It seems natural to associate King David’s great psalm of repentance with the penitential Season of Lent. As it happens, many composers have written musical settings for the Miserere. The most famous musical treatment of the psalm was composed by Gregorio Allegri in the 1630s. I have posted various performances of Allegri’s Miserereover the last few years (most recently here). Last year I also posted the lesser-known (but still powerfully beautiful and moving) setting by Pergolesi . I’m continuing that tradition this Lent by sharing yet another setting for the Miserere, this one by Antonio Lotti.
Lotti the Man
Lotti may not be well-known today (at least to those of us who, like me, are not music history experts), but he was (it seems) an important and influential composer and teacher in his day. He lived from 1667-1740. He spent his entire musical career (except for a brief period in Dresden from 1717-1719) at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice as a singer, organist and, eventually, maestro di cappella.
Reliable information about Lotti the man is somewhat spotty. Biographical accounts over the years have contained some documented factual information, with a healthy admixture of less reliable “oral tradition.” For example, biographers have claimed that Lotti influenced the music of J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel. All we know for sure, however, is that Bach and Handel both had copies of Lotti’s Missa Sapientiae. While it’s a reasonable guess that they admired his work, there’s no direct evidence of influence.
There’s one thing we know for sure about Antonio Lotti. He composed beautiful and moving music. His Miserere, for instance, in which the combined voices of the chorus powerfully express the sorrow and penitence of King David. In the clip below László Matos conducts Prelude Choir Budapest in a performance of the first section of Lotti’s Miserere.
Then let us celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.’ (Luke 15:23-24)
The Prodigal Son
Who hasn’t heard, or at least heard of, Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son? I’ve encountered people with no experience of Christianity whatsoever who are familiar with the story of the profligate son and the forgiving father from Luke chapter 15. Jesus’ characters bring to life some universal human experiences. Many of us have been the foolish, headstrong son. We may also have grown up to be the father anxious for the return of his erring offspring. Let’s not overlook the resentful “good” brother. All of us have probably played more than one of these roles at some point in our own lives.
It’s not surprising that Jesus’ story has become so well known. There’s something for everyone there, and many levels of meaning. As it happens, the Parable of the Prodigal Son was this past Sunday’s Gospel reading. When I heard it along with the other readings for the 4th Sunday in Lent, it got me thinking. Specifically, it brought to mind the concept of tough love.
Tough Love
The activist Bill Milliken first popularized the term “tough love” in 1968. Milliken had spent a lot of time working with addicts. He had found that often the best approach was not to shield them from the consequences of their bad choices. Once they had made themselves truly miserable, they were ready to get serious about turning their lives around. Milliken famously characterized the attitude of tough love as:
I don’t care how this makes you feel toward me. You may hate my guts, but I love you, and I am doing this because I love you.
Tough love has enjoyed something of a mixed reception over the years. Many supporters point out, correctly, that individuals intent on following an immoral or self-destructive course generally don’t want to change. Very often they won’t change until the pain their actions cause themselves become unbearable. When we indulge them in order to keep on friendly terms, we’re actually enabling their ruinous behavior.
Unconditional Love
Critics point out in turn, with some justification, that a strong relationship of trust and love is the most essential thing. Without such a relationship, the tough love approach is likely to do more harm than good. We will simply drive the suffering person away.
The 4th Sunday of Lent’s scripture readings suggest that we need a robust mixture of both approaches. We see the love, for instance, in the reading from from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians:
And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)
Manna No More
The word reconciliation, however, implies a prior separation. How does that separation happen? Take a look at the first reading from Joshua (Joshua 5:10-12). The Hebrews are ready, after forty years in the wilderness, to enter the Promised Land. During that forty years God has fed his people with divine food, manna from Heaven.
No longer. From now on the Hebrews will need to feed themselves from the “produce of the land.” God has built up a relationship of trust and love with them over four decades. He has fed them in much the same way parents feed their children. Now they need to take up adult responsibility.
We know from the books that follow Joshua in the Old Testament that they did not always exercise that responsibility wisely. As a consequence, all the Hebrews eventually suffer subjugation by foreign powers, and exile from the Promised Land. Most of the tribes never return. It’s a harsh lesson. The members of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi who do return, however, have learned the bitter lessons of defeat and exile. They recommit themselves more deeply to the relationship their ancestors enjoyed with their loving Creator. Eventually, the Divine Savior is born in their midst.
Rock Bottom
This same dynamic plays out vividly in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke, 15:1-3; 11-32). A young man takes advantage of his father’s love, and demands to receive his inheritance immediately. He then goes out on his own, and wantonly squanders his inheritance. Bad choice. He eventually needs to take a job feeding another man’s pigs just to keep from starving to death. He finally “hits rock bottom” and decides to change his life. The repentant son knows that he has destroyed his claim to sonship. At the same time, because of the love and respect he has for his father, he trusts that his father will treat him with compassion.
For his part, the father allows his son to face the consequences of his actions. He doesn’t intervene when the young man is “swallowing up his property with prostitutes,” as the resentful elder brother puts it. Nor does he come to rescue him from the pigsty. The father knows that his son won’t truly understand how bad his choices have been until he faces the full consequences of his actions. It’s only then that he will freely commit himself the right path.
The Father is Waiting
Once the son does finally understand, and decides to turn his life around, the father is waiting. Not only is he waiting, he’s actively on the look-out. The eager father “ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.” He restores the son to his place in the family, and throws a big feast in celebration.
The readings from the 4th Sunday of Lent show us a Father who fully embraces tough love, but who is also fully committed to an unconditionally loving relationship. A full commitment to both may seem impossible for us, “but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). He gives us complete freedom to choose our own course. We are free to choose against his wishes. We are free even to choose the eternal desolation of Hell.
Joy in Heaven
But He wants us to choose to come to Him, all of us (1 Timothy 2:4). Once we make that choice He will not only welcome us, He’ll come to meet us. He’ll throw a feast in our honor. As Jesus himself says, “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 5:7).
In a post earlier this week (“Our Goal is The Resurrection: Ain’t No Grave“) I suggested that we could look at the Season of Lent as representing our time of exile in this fallen world. The 4th Sunday of Lent, Laetare Sunday, is a reminder in the midst of that exile that God has promised us a new life of eternal joy, if we persevere. We might be feeling the tough love right now, but our Father is more than willing to come and welcome us on the road home.
Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel, which means “God is with us!” (Isaiah 7:14)
Gabriel’s Annunciation
There’s something that doesn’t seem to make sense at first in today’s Gospel reading (Luke 1:26-38). Here’s the scene. God sends the Angel Gabriel
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary.
The angel brings incredible news. He greets the young woman as “full of grace,” and tells her that she has “found favor with God.” He then goes on to say:
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end.
Now, it’s no surprise that her first reaction isn’t “Great! Thanks for telling me!” But what she does say is, in its way, even more surprising:
“How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?”
Do you see the disconnect? She doesn’t object that she’s an insignificant maiden and that her child couldn’t possibly “be called the son of the Most High.” Nor does she express any surprise at her offspring ruling over the House of Jacob as the heir of King David. Her first response is “How can this be, sinceI have no relations with a man.”
A Different Life
It’s not what we would expect. The Evangelist has just told us that she’s “betrothed to a man named Joseph.” A young woman who’s about to be married would expectto conceive a child, especially back in the day when there were no contraceptives, and no Planned Parenthood to “take care of” an inconvenient baby. And yet, it’s not the exalted future predicted for her child, but the very fact of conceiving a baby that concerns Mary.
Scholars have traditionally seen this apparent incongruity as consistent with the perpetual virginity of Mary. Her response makes sense if she has taken a vow of virginity, and her betrothed has already agreed to live “as brother and sister” with his wife. Such a commitment would indeed seem to stand in the way of conceiving and bearing a son.
Gabriel’s Annunciation, then, means that Mary has a very different life ahead than what she planned for herself. God’s messenger is offering all the tribulations of motherhood without the compensations of a full marital relationship with her child’s father. But that’s not what troubles Mary. Compare her response to what Ahaz says in the first reading from Isaiah. God instructs Ahaz to ask for sign. Ahaz answers, “I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!” Mary, in contrast, doesn’t refuse: she just doesn’t understand.
Gabriel is happy to explain further:
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”
Mary’s Renunciation
After that, satisfied that bearing this son is God’s will for her, Mary completely turns over her own will. In response to Gabriel’s Annunciation she replies:
“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”
The Vulgate Latin Bible renders Mary’s answer: fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum. We call this response”Mary’s Fiat,” from its first word, fiat, “let it be done.” Mary willingly gives up anything and everything she has planned for herself, in order to follow God’s plan. Because of the completeness of her surrender to God, we consider her the model Christian believer. As Pope St. Paul VI put it, she “displayed the perfect form of a disciple of Christ” (perfectam Christi discipuli formam expressit).
Today’s feast is called The Solemnity of the Annunciation. But in addition to Gabriel’s Annunciation, it also entails a Renunciation on the part of Mary. That is to say, when Gabriel announced God’s plan for her, Mary freely renounced all her plans for herself. All generations call her blessed (see Luke 1:48) precisely because her renunciation opened the door for the Divine Savior.
Making Mary Our Model
Mary’s renunciation also gives us a helpful way of looking at the disciplines of Lent. We give up things we want, things that may even be good in themselves, to train ourselves in renunciation. At some point God will make his plan for our lives known to us. When he does, how much better if we can follow the example of Christ’s Blessed Mother and say: fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum.
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5-4)
Capturing the Spirit of Lent
The Spirit of Lent is penitence and sorrow. If I may state the obvious, penitence and sorrow are not a lot of fun. Rewarding, salvific in fact, yes . . . but not a cause for joy until later, when we realize their fruits. Not surprisingly, composers creating music for Lent need to make music that’s moving and beautiful, but at the same time appropriately somber.
As we saw in a previous post, George Friedrich Handel originally composed his oratorio The Messiah for Lent. Much of the music, however, is far too sumptuous for this most penitential of seasons, which is why we have come instead to associate Handel’s greatest work with Advent and Christmas. Nevertheless, the sections of the oratorio dealing with the Passion and Death of Christ powerfully capture the spirit of the liturgical season leading up to the Triduum and Good Friday.
Grief and Healing
The selection below is a good example. The first part is the chorus “Surely he hath borne our griefs,” a musical meditation on Isaiah 53, verse 4 and the first part of verse 5. Handel’s libretto, following the King James translation of the Bible, reads:
Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised. The chastisement of our peace was upon him.
The second piece completes verse 5. In a haunting fugue, the chorus repeats the line: “and with his stripes we are healed.”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find a clip on Vimeo containing both of them, although “With his stripes” comes immediately after “Surely he hath borne our griefs” in The Messiah. There are good performances of the two togeher on another platform. Sadly, Google owns it, and I reject Google and all its works and empty promises. Well, as Hannibal said before leading his army across the Alps, Aut viam inveniam aut faciam!(“I’ll either find a way or I’ll make one”). I made my own video and posted it to the Vidyard platform. The music is a perfomance by AD LIBITUM Orchestra and Chorus. The images are Christ Carrying the Cross, by El Greco, painted c.1580, and the Flagellation of Christ, by Michael Pacher, c. 1495-98.
God said, “Come no nearer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. (Exodus 3:5)
The Burning Bush
I was fascinated by the image of the burning bush when I was a little boy. I was also intrigued by God’s demand that Moses remove his sandals. What exactly is “holy ground,” I wondered. How was this dirt different from the dirt twenty feet away?
The meaning “holy” is well worth considering on this 3rd Sunday of Lent. What does it really mean? The word “holy” itself comes from an Old English word which means “separated” or “set aside for God.” The synonym “sacred” is derived from a Latin word which means the same thing. Both are used to translate the Hebrew word qadosh, whose literal meaning, according to the Ancient Hebrew Research Center, is “set apart for a special purpose.” The ground upon which Moses meets God is separated from ordinary ground, and so Moses needs to leave behind his ordinary footwear before he can stand on it. He mustn’t bring the worldly dust into the sacred precinct. He needs to meet God on God’s terms, not his own.
Sacred and Profane
While we don’t take our shoes off before we enter a church, the same principle applies to us as well. Our churches themselves are holy ground, of course. They are formally consecrated, which comes from the same Latin word as “sacred.” They are set aside for God’s purposes. The same is true of the Mass itself. It’s an action that’s set aside, separated, from the usual events of our lives. The priest wears clothes for liturgical worship that he doesn’t wear anywhere else (and the rest of us don’t wear at all). We hear music that is different from ordinary music (or is supposed to be). We also use a distinctive language.
You can see this reality, by the way, in the word “profane,” which originally meant no more than “not sacred.” It comes from the Latin words pro, in front of, and fanum, shrine. When the presiding priest was sacrificing the victim at the altar, the unconsecrated people remained outside of the sacred precinct. They were literally in front of the shrine, pro fanum, rather than in it.
Lent is Holy Ground
The season of Lent is also holy ground. It is time set aside for a special purpose. Lent prepares us to relive the passion and death of Jesus, just as Moses’ time in the Sinai is preparing him to face Pharoah and the events of Passover. And just as Moses leaves behind his sandals, and along with them the dirt of his everyday life, we also need to leave something behind. That’s one way, at least, of understanding the sacrifices and deprivations of Lent.
There’s another message for us here, as well. The purpose of religion isn’t to put God to work for us (as if such a thing were even possible). Religion is intended to reconnect us to Him (religio= “a binding back”), not the other way around. All the things that are “set aside” for God’s purposes (sacraments, sacramentals, sacred space, sacred music, sacred language) are meant to draw us out of ourselves and into His orbit. A sacred space tells me I’m no longer on my own turf. Sacred language tells me that I’m no longer in my own world. Sacred liturgy takes me out of myself. It’s not about bringing God down to my level, it’s about lifting me closer to him.
Take Off Your Sandals
And so it is with the Lent. When we shed some of our worldly pleasures or pursuits during the penitential season, it is to remind us that we need to set aside our wordly disposition as well. “If you do not repent,” Jesus tells us, “you will all perish as they did.” (Luke 13:5) After all, we’re standing on holy ground.