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March 16, 2022 iacobusm Faith and Culture, The Liturgical Year

The Lorica of St. Patrick Is As Timely As Ever

The Lorica of St. Patrick

St. Patrick Window — *Window in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh*

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

As Timely As Ever:

Pious Tradition v. The “Experts”

Pious tradition attributes authorship of the prayer above, known as “The Lorica (or “Breastplate”) of St. Patrick”, to the Apostle of Ireland himself. As is the case with the beloved “Prayer of St. Francis”, experts tell us the eponymous Saint is most likely not the real author. I myself trust Pious Tradition more than The Experts any day, but for our purposes here we’ll just say that it could have been written by St. Patrick. In any case, while the prayer as you see it above is the most well-known version, it is really only a part of a much longer composition (I’ve put the full text at the bottom of this post). At one time this magnificent prayer, in its complete form, was a part of my morning devotions every day.
“The Breastplate of St. Patrick” is, in fact, written as a morning prayer, and more: it is a statement of faith, a brief but comprehensive catechesis, and a call for Divine help against the dangers that beset us from both earthly and spiritual sources. Those things are as necessary today as they were in 5th century Ireland, and St. Patrick’s prayer is a powerful and inspiring way to start our daily journey.

“I Arise Today . . .”

The complete “Breastplate” opens with “I arise today/Through a mighty strength, the invocation of Trinity . . .” St. Patrick is famous for his emphasis on the Trinity, reportedly using the tree-leafed shamrock to illustrate the doctrine (as memorialized in the present-day stained glass window from the cathedral in Armagh, his primatial see). Here, he also emphasizes “the Oneness of the Creator of creation.” In converting a pagan people, Patrick needed to impress upon them that there was indeed only one God, as distinct from their pagan pantheon, although expressed in three Persons. The Triune God is also unlike their familiar gods in that He alone is the universal Creator, as opposed to pagan deities who were more powerful than mortal men, but still finite and fallible beings. In our own day we also need to be reminded that God is Love (1 John 4:8), and Love reaches its perfection in a union of persons, but also that God the Creator is master of all the blind forces of nature with which we wrestle.

**St. Patrick Lighting the Paschal Fire on the Hill of Slane, 433,** *by Vincenzo Waldre, 1792*

     The next “I arise today . . .” is followed by a brief Christology: incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and descent to the Dead. We, no less than our newly-christened forefathers did, need to understand exactly Who and What is the God that we follow.
     A third “I arise today . . . .” is followed by a litany of various Angels, Patriarchs, Prophets, and Saints, which re-establishes for us that our devotion to the Person of Jesus Christ also connects us to all the lesser persons, living and dead, in the Communion of Saints.
     Next, “I arise today/Through strength of heaven,/the light of the sun . . .” and so on, through a list of natural forces which, St. Patrick here reminds us, come below us in the order of creation, and are so much the more under God’s power (how often we moderns forget both of these truths!).

God’s Providential Care

     After a fifth “I arise today . . .” we see a litany of the various manifestations of God’s Providential care:

     God’s strength to pilot me,
     God’s might to uphold me,
     God’s wisdom to guide me . . .

And so on. At the end of this section we shift our focus to the various evils that beset us:

     God’s host to save me
     From snares of devils,
     From temptation of vices,
     From everyone who shall wish me ill,
     Afar and near.

    In the next section we call for God’s help against these evils, which are laid out in more detail:

     I summon today
     All these powers between me and those evils,
     Against every cruel and merciless power
     That may oppose my body and soul,
     Against incantations of false prophets,
     Against black laws of pagandom,
     Against false laws of heretics,
     Against craft of idolatry,
     Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
     Against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul.
     Christ shield me today
     Against poison, against burning,
     Against drowning, against wounding,
     So that there may come to me
     an abundance of reward.

Notice the priority given to spiritual evils, which Christians have traditionally understood to be far more serious dangers than the physical hazards at the end of the passage. Today we often ignore or even deride these deadly perils (as I discuss in my post “For Such a Time as This: Powers, Principalities & The Culture Wars“).

The Lorica

     At this point we come to the famous passage quoted at the top of this post (Christ with me,Christ before me, Christ behind me . . .), from which the prayer takes its name. Here we call upon Christ to surround us, to “armor” us, with his protection.
     Finally, the prayer ends by repeating the invocation with which it starts:

     I arise today,
     Through a mighty strength,
     The invocation of the Trinity,
     Through belief in the Threeness,
     Through confession of the Oneness
     Of the Creator of creation.

     As I read through this prayer, which was composed for ancient pagans who knew nothing of Christianity, I am struck by how well it is suited to our current post-Christian, neo-pagan culture. We shouldn’t kid ourselves. Even with all the amazing gadgetry that we’ve concocted for ourselves over the centuries, we’re still subject to the same basic temptations and hazards that have always haunted humanity. We still could use the breastplate of Christ.

(See also “St. Patrick, Julius Caesar, and Slavery to Sin“)

Here’s a beautiful setting for St. Patrick’s prayer by contemporary composer Ola Gjeilo:

The Breastplate of St. Patrick:

I arise today

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ’s birth with His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In the obedience of angels, In the service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In the predictions of prophets,
In the preaching of apostles, In the faith of confessors,
In the innocence of holy virgins,
In the deeds of righteous men.

I arise today through
The strength of heaven,
The light of the sun,
The radiance of the moon,
The splendor of fire,
The speed of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of the sea,
The stability of the earth,
The firmness of rock.

I arise today through
God’s strength to pilot me,
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s host to save me
From snares of devils,
From temptation of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
afar and near.

God’s Providence

I summon today
All these powers between me and those evils,
Against every cruel and merciless power
that may oppose my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul.

The Lorica

Christ shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that there may come to me
an abundance of reward.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.

March 14, 2022 iacobusm Lent and Easter

Fear and Hope: Confutatis and Lacrimosa from Mozart’s Requiem

Fear and Hope are the twin themes of the “Confutatis and Lacrimosa” from Mozart’s Requiem.

**The Last Judgment**, *by Michelangelo, 1536-1541*

If thou, O LORD, shouldst mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?

But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope . . . (Psalm 130:3-5)

Fear and Hope

Fear and hope power this short musical piece. While it’s not strictly speaking a Lenten composition, Mozart’s Requiem Mass, which he was still completing at the time of his death, lends itself to the penitential nature of the liturgical season. This excerpt (“Confutatis and Lacrimosa”), part of the setting for Thomas of Celano’s great hymn Dies Irae, looks ahead to the Final Judgment. Here, Mozart’s music powerfully complements the words of the hymn: we can almost feel what it’s like to be unworthy sinners approaching the Throne of God to throw ourselves upon his Mercy (which, indeed, we are).

I didn’t choose the clip below because it is the most polished performance on the web. Instead, I liked the way this ensemble captures Mozart’s vivid dramatization of the struggle between fear and hope. The male voices and the pounding, insistent strings in the “Confutatis” section powerfully evoke our fear of damnation. The plaintive female voices in the “Lacrimosa” express our hope in God’s mercy and the promise of salvation.

It’s a short piece. Take a couple of minutes here in the second week of Lent to meditate on the Drama of Salvation along with one of the great musical masters, Wolfgang Mozart.

Latin and English Text

Confutatis maledictis,
flammis acribus addictis,
voca me cum benedictis.
Oro supplex et acclinis,
cor contritum quasi cinis,
gere curam mei finis.

     When the wicked are confounded,
     and consigned to bitter flames,
     call me among the blessed.
     I pray humble and downcast,
     my heart worn down like ash,
     take up the care of my end.

Lacrimosa dies illa,
qua resurget ex favilla
judicandus homo reus.
Huic ergo parce, Deus,
pie Jesu Domine,
dona eis requiem. Amen.

     That day,full of tears,
     when from the ashes shall arise,
     Man, the accused to be judged.
     Have mercy on him, therefore, O God,
     faithful Lord Jesus,
     grant them eternal rest. Amen

February 28, 2022 iacobusm Lent and Easter, Sacred Music

The Drama of Sin and Repentance (or not) From Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Music Monday)

**The Last Judgment**, *attributed to Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516)*

The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be kindled and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire! (2 Peter 3:9-12)

Hell is a real possibility for all of us. It’s not a happy thought, but it’s an appropriate introduction to today’s Music Monday selection, our last musical offering before Ash Wednesday. It’s not really sacred music, but it is very relevant indeed to the Lenten themes of sin, repentance (or not), and damnation. This is the finale* of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni (a.k.a. Don Juan), one of the most powerful scenes in the history of musical drama.

First, a little context for the scene below. Don Giovanni is a serial abuser of women. According to his servant Leporello, he has sexually exploited precisely 2,065 women in five different countries (and that’s just during the time of Leporello’s service). Earlier in the opera Giovanni had crept into the bedroom of an unsuspecting young woman, and killed her elderly father, the Commendatore, who had come to her defense. In this final scene, the spirit of the Commandatore has come in the guise of his memorial statue from the nearby cemetery to visit Don Giovanni. The ghost of the murdered father is here to offer the licentious Don one last chance of repentance before his final end.

Samuel Ramey (front) as Don Giovanni, Kurt Moll (back) as the Commendatore

Pentiti!– “Repent!” the ghost insistently demands.

Don Giovanni, unwilling to surrender his pride, every time answers a defiant “No!” Finally, a host of demons arrives to haul the wicked old sinner off to Hell.

In Don Giovanni’s last moments we see in dramatic form the situation that we all face. As St. Peter tells us in the passage at the top of the page, God wishes “that all should reach repentance.” St. Paul likewise assures us that our Lord “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 3:4) God makes His offer of salvation to all, even to so prodigious a sinner as Don Giovanni. At the same time, we need to accept God’s offer by turning away from sin, that is, we need to choose salvation by repenting. Note that St. Peter also says, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins,” (Acts 2:38), and St.Paul reminds us that ” the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) Don Giovanni makes his choice for sin and death . . . forever.

Repent and believe the Gospel!

The clip below is from one of my favorite productions of Don Giovanni, performed in Salzburg in 1991 with Samuel Ramey as Don Giovanni, Kurt Moll as the ghost of the Commandatore, and Feruccio Furlanetto as Leporello. (Please pardon the slightly fuzzy visuals – there are better reproductions on other platforms, but we don’t link to those)

*There is an additional scene after this in which the surviving characters discuss their futures, which was almost never performed in Mozart’s day.

https://vimeo.com/196825301

February 12, 2022 iacobusm Faith and Sin

Cons or Coeds? Sin, Suffering, and the Mystery of the Cross

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.

January 28, 2022 iacobusm Faith and Sin

A Sin is a Sin: St. Thomas and Conscience

“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.”

St. Thomas by Francesco Gessi — **The Temptation of St. Thomas** *by 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 the* **Summa** *(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 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. 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.

Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, January 25th.

March 26, 2021 iacobusm Lent and Easter, Sacred scripture, Saints

Why did Jesus ‘Take the Form of a Slave’?

Did you know that we are all slaves – and have you noticed how often the topic of slavery comes up in Scripture and in Salvation History? We can see it in some recent posts here: last Wednesday we discussed how St. Patrick was kidnapped and sold into slavery, and then returned after his escape to convert his former slave masters. Two days later we celebrated the Solemnity of St. Joseph, whose forerunner Joseph son of Jacob had also been sold into slavery. An impressive number saints have been slaves at some point, as recently as St. Josephine Bakhita, who died in 1947.

Why is slavery so prevalent? We Catholics know that in the Bible and in the history of God’s interaction with humanity there are different levels of meaning. In another recent post, for instance, we talked about leprosy in scripture as a metaphor for sin; in much the same way slavery represents our attachment to sin. Why else has the Church’s Office of readings placed so much emphasis on the Book of Exodus during the first weeks of Lent? God’s action in freeing the Hebrews from servitude to the King of Egypt is a foreshadowing of Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection. Through his Passion, Death, and Resurrection he frees all of us from slavery: not thralldom to any human Pharaoh, but our own sinfulness.

While Jesus himself was free from any attachment to sin, his human ministry inevitably reflected human servitude. Although we rightly call him the King of Kings, for instance, he didn’t look like a king when he lived on Earth. As Jesus himself told Pilate, “My Kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36). In fact, St. Paul tells us “though he was in the form of God, [Jesus Christ] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave (δούλου in Greek), being born in the likeness of men.” (Philippians 2:6-7) St. Paul seems to be suggesting that to be man is therefore to be a slave – since of course, we’re all slaves, to sin. Jesus took the form of a slave so that by his death and resurrection he might break the bonds of sin that hold all of us in servitude. That’s why it’s Good News, Evangelion (Eὐαγγέλιον) in Greek, Gospel in Old English.

Christ has broken our chains, but here’s the catch: we need to be willing to shake them off, get up, and follow him. “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24) And in fact, a quick search of all four Gospels finds at least twenty instances of Jesus inviting his disciples to “follow” him.

The problem is, that’s not as easy as it sounds for those of us who are Slaves to Sin. The bonds of sin have been there so long, they feel like a part of us. Anyone who’s worn a ring for a long time knows what that’s like. I once had to send my wedding ring out to be resized. My finger was discolored and actually disfigured where the ring usually rested. Not only that, I was constantly feeling for it, not even consciously, but out of a reflexive sense that something was missing . . . something that was supposed to be there.

I mentioned above that the Exodus story takes a prominent place in the liturgical observances of Lent. We might notice that the Hebrews did not go straight from slavery under Pharaoh to the Promised Land, but spent forty years in the desert trying to shake off their desire to return to the well-known comforts of bondage. More than once we see them yearning to go back to the predictability of a slave’s existence:

“The Israelites Leaving Egypt” by Johann Heiss (late 17th Century)

Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (Exodus 16:3)

and again

Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving; and the people of Israel also wept again, and said, “O that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.” (Numbers 11:4-6)

They weren’t ready to enter the Promised Land until their desire to move forward was stronger than their longing to back to their old, well-known chains.

The forty days of Lent are intended to be our own forty years in the desert. The penances and prayers of this penitential season are designed to help us turn away from our “strong craving” for whatever Fleshpots of Egypt we have in our own lives, and direct our gaze instead in the direction of the Promised Land.

Now, as we enter into Holy Week, the Church invites us to accompany Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, with its Passion Narrative to remind us what the sequel is to that ironic Triumphal entry. Through the Triduum we have the opportunity to pick up our cross and follow Our Lord to Calvary and, through the tomb, to the True Triumph, Easter Sunday. After all, we have nothing to lose but our chains.

(Feature Image top of page: “Joseph Sold Into Slavery” by Cornelis van Poelenburgh, early 17th Century)

March 16, 2021 iacobusm Faith and Sin

St. Patrick, Julius Caesar, and Slavery to Sin

“You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today” (Deuteronomy 15:14-15)

St. Patrick is, of course, the Patron Saint of Ireland, but he wasn’t originally Irish. He was Romano-British, probably born in what is now southern Scotland, or possibly Wales. His first introduction to the Emerald Isle was as a slave, after he had been kidnapped as a youth by Irish raiders. In his difficulties he came increasingly to rely on God, and he believed that God was calling him out of captivity. He escaped and found his way home. His faith life deepened, and after a time he concluded that he was being called back to save those who had enslaved him. After ordination as a priest he returned to Ireland, where he successfully evangelized his former captors, and eventually became known as the Apostle of Ireland.

There is something profoundly Christian about St. Patrick’s story. Consider just how different is the story about Julius Caesar, as told by the Roman historian Suetonius. When he was a young man, Caesar was kidnapped by pirates, who held him for ransom. The buccaneers were charmed by the Roman aristocrat’s magnetic personality, and soon he was a participant, even a leader, in all their feasting and horseplay. Suetonius relates that Caesar often smiled as he told the pirates that, when he was ransomed, he would come back and crucify all of them, which apparently amused them quite a bit. As it turned out, Caesar wasn’t joking: after he was ransomed, he did return, and brutally avenged himself on his abductors.

St. Patrick came back as well, but in a spirit of love, not of vengeance, heeding the words of Jesus Christ: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). He shows us in a very concrete way how the Wisdom of God is indeed different from the “wisdom” of the world (see 1 Corinthians 3:19).

St. Patrick came back as well, but in a spirit of love, not of vengeance, heeding the words of Jesus Christ: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

We don’t need to be kidnapped or enslaved in a literal sense to see how the lesson of St. Patrick applies to ourselves. Jesus Christ came to save us from slavery to sin. Many people who are now serious Catholics previously spent a significant part of their life separated from Christ, living in that state of servitude. Like St. Patrick, we are called to respond to that experience in love, and to try to bring others, even those who have wronged us, into the freedom of Christ. That, rather than funny hats and green beer, is the true Spirit of St. Patrick’s Day.

(Pictured above: “St. Patrick Baptizes the King of Munster”. Stained glass window from St. Patrick’s Church, Columbus, OH; photo Wikipedia Commons)