Dogmatics and Doxology

«Lex orandi [est] lex credendi» is the cry of many but the game of few (to misquote W. K. Clifford).  Byzantine dogmatic handbooks consistently quote the words and gestures of the liturgy to demonstrate the Church's profession of faith, whereas those composed from within a Roman theological milieu tend to cite juridical documents and with little reference, if any, to the Missal or Breviary.  How, then, can we dare to claim the axiom Lex orandi, lex credendi?

Is this not the very wedge driven between faith and worship, dogmatics and doxology?  Or worse, might this not exhibit a dislodging of the fides qua (the personal act of faith) from the fides quae (the ecclesial profession of faith)?  It is worth noting that 1 John 4:16, "we have come to know [ἐγνώκαμεν] and to believe [πεπιστεύκαμεν] the love that God has for us," places ginōskō prior to pisteuō, that is, an experiential knowledge before the profession of faith; in other words, St John the Theologian expresses the Christian community's gnoseological, experiential awareness of God's love as being ontologically anterior to "believing."

In contrast, contemporary Catholic 'systematic theology' tends to reduce the act and profession of faith to an epistemological exercise.  (The English translation of chapter 1 of Cardinal Müller's Dogmatica Cattolica has "theological epistemology" for «gnoseologica teologica»!)

What, then, is the kernel of this axiom Lex orandi, lex credendi?  I would propose that it is rooted in the Christian's experience of the Trinitarian structure of the graced soul.  Today's First Reading at Mass has, at Romans 8:14-16,

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of Sonship.  When we cry, "Abba!  Father!" it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

St Paul made a similar point in his earlier epistle (I say "earlier" on account of the 'South Galatian' theory of the dating of Galatians) to the Galatian church:

And because you are sons [and daughters], God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba!  Father!" (Gal 4:6).

This is why we 'tradition' the Lord's Prayer so late in the Catechumenate--during the Third Week of Lent--and why it is not 'returned' during the Preparation Rites of Holy Saturday as is the Creed:  God as "Our Father" is true only of those who have become partakers in Christ's Resurrection.  Hence, at one of His Easter appearances, the Risen Lord said to St Mary Magdalene--

"Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father [τὸν Πατέρα]; but go to My brethren and say to them, I am ascending to My Father [Πατέρα μου] and your Father [Πατέρα ὑμῶν], to My God and your God" (Jn 20:17).

It is for this reason, I would propose, that "Abba!  Father!" is in fact the primordial liturgical prayer, and Christians are endowed with new language to address God no longer merely as Creator but as Our Father.  As we saw earlier in St Paul's epistles to the Roman and Galatian churches, the indwelling Holy Spirit re-orientates the soul of the believer in such a way that a new relationship to God is forged--one from being merely a creature to participation in the very Sonship of Christ.

Moreover, the motif of the Christian believer of as a "temple" of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 3:16 and 6:19) is not only about the Paraclete's indwelling but about the constitutively liturgical structure of the graced soul.  As a temple of the Holy Spirit, the Christian in fact shares in the overflow of the Anointed One's unction such that we are christs within the one Lord Jesus Christ.  In the primordial liturgical prayer of "Abba!  Father!", the Incarnate Son puts His prayer to His heavenly Father into our mouths.

The Lord's Prayer, the Paternoster, is the next step after a 'primordial' prayer; it is the crystallization of the shared, ecclesial experience of being the Body of Christ.  If "Abba!  Father!" is the primordial liturgical prayer, then the "Our Father..." is the original liturgical prayer, around which, ultimately, the whole Sacred Liturgy is built.

It follows, then, that the Christian's experience of the Most Holy Trinity--as temples of the Holy Spirit, co-sons and daughters in the only-begotten Son, calling God "Father!"--is fundamentally doxological; subsequently and only subsequently does it become dogmatic, as in the three principal strophes in the Creed:  "I believe in God, the Father almighty...and in Jesus Christ...and in the Holy Spirit."  More precisely, since it is the Holy Spirit who reminds us of Jesus' words (Jn 14:26) and unites us to Christ (Rom 8:9b), who in turn is the Way back to the Father (Jn 14:6, 9), it follows that the very taxonomy of the Trinity in liturgical prayer (Holy Spirit-Son-Father) is the converse of the taxonomy of the Trinity in the profession of faith (Father-Son-Holy Spirit).  It is a diptych that behaves like a mirror:  Only in hindsight do we believe in God as Father of the Son and from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds (fides quae), because we have the experiential knowledge (γνῶσις) by the Holy Spirit of the Son who returns us to the Father's embrace (fides qua).  

The blasé approach to the Sacred Liturgy now very much in vogue--or, worse, liturgy as a self-celebration of a group--painfully indicates a spiritual malformation which, in turn, yields a formlessness in the act of faith.  Conversely, to teach a 'correct' systematic theology apart from a paradigmatic interiority rooted in the Trinitarian life can be nothing other than an 'imposition.'

Otherwise, how can we be a "synodal Church" if 'synodality with the Trinity' is excluded?

Being Pastoral,or Being "Pastoral"?

Once I was summoned to give "the Sacrament of the Sick" (yes, those are scare quotes) to a believer very much advanced in age and who was, clearly, moments away from eternity.  Seeing the obvious, I made the decision to give the Last Rites rather than simply "Anointing of the Sick" (which is the proper name of this sacrament).

As I began praying the Rite, I was interrupted by a member of the chaplaincy staff and indecorously yanked out of the patient's room and given a mild dressing-down for beginning the Last Rites instead of a mere anointing.  It was clear that, first, the patient's imminent death was a subject of denial and second, the chaplaincy staff was more interested in the transitory emotional state of the family than the care of the patient's immortal soul.

In my line of work, if I've heard it once I've heard it a thousand times:  Being "pastoral" is code for "assuaging someone's feelings."  Thanks be to God, the professor of pastoral theology at my seminary worked very hard to disabuse us seminarians of the idea that being "pastoral" and being "truthful" are somehow dichotomous.  Clinical Pastoral Education supervisors, on the other hand, are notorious for harbouring a "reductionist" pastoral outlook that is more interested in assuaging than authentically pastoring.  (I remember being in the office of one such CPE staff and observing that this person's bookshelf--it was only half-full but only with books on psychology and other titles that look like they were recommended by Oprah Winfrey.)

I bring up this story because it has crossed my mind many times as I read through Revd Dr Harold Senkbeil's The Care of Souls:  Cultivating a Pastoral Heart.  Written from a Lutheran perspective, it provides sound guidance on what it means to be a shepherd.  He thus quotes an American Lutheran theologian, Carl Walther:

Pastoral theology is the God-given practical disposition of the soul, acquired by certain means, by which a servant of the church is equipped to perform all the tasks that come to him in that capacity--validly, in a legitimate manner, to the glory of God, and for his own and his hearers' salvation.

That last clause is crucial--"to the glory of God, and for his own and his hearers' salvation.

Yet, looking around, one may be given the impression that "pastoral care" is about being the custodians and guardians of someone's feelings rather than her or his soul.  

But Jesus isn't a glorified Tony Robbins.  To assuage is not to save.

At the heart of this grave error is a fundamental ignorance of how the soul operates--and let me say right now that theological anthropology is sorely, sorely lacking in pastoral formation.  If a physician has a commanding knowledge of the various means of diagnosis and of various pharmaceuticals, it would be absolutely useless if she or he did not know human anatomy.  So how can pastors apply the medicine of grace and mercy if they do not know the "anatomy" of the soul?

When I bump into such "pastoral malpractice" as being fixated on one's feelings rather than the healing of one's soul, my "Thomistic sense" starts tingling.  Why is that?  Because St Thomas Aquinas--in line with the Biblical testimony--teaches that the human soul has three parts:  The "vegetative" part (devoted to nutrition, growth, and reproduction), the "sensitive" part (with eleven prime emotions in two categories, namely the "irascible appetite" and the "concupiscible" appetite), and the "intellectual" part (where the intellect and will operate).

It is the intellectual soul--the part of the soul where the intellect and will function)--that distinguishes human beings from the rest of the animal kingdom.  What makes us human beings is that we have intellectual/rational/cognitive souls.  But what makes us sinners is that original sin introduced a disorder in the soul:  The sensitive part is given to "overriding" the intellectual part.  When God created our first parents, he gave them the "gift of integrity" which, among other things, meant a correct ordering of the soul:  The intellectual part of the soul governs the sensitive part, which in turn governs the vegetative part.  St Thomas also uses synonyms for these various parts of the soul:  Sometimes "spirit" means the intellectual soul or mind (cf Eph 4:23) and "soul" as being the sensitive or animal soul (akin to the early Hebrew idea of soul as life).  Now we can understand what the sacred author meant when he said that

...the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit... (Heb 4:12).

This is how St Thomas Aquinas explains the passage:

The Word of God effects and distinguishes between all those divisions and species, namely, how the sensibility is distinguished from reason; also, the species of the same sensibility in itself; also, the species of the function of reason, and what arises in the rational soul from the consideration of spiritual and earthly things. (Super Hebraeos, C.4, L.2, §222).

In other words, the disordered, sinful mixing-up of the sensitive part of the soul ("sensibility") from the intellectual part of the soul ("reason") is corrected by the preached word of God so that the soul is so healed that each part is restored to its proper place.  Hence St Thomas goes on, citing a mediæval Biblical commentary called the Ordinary Gloss:

...it can be explained, according to a Gloss, in two ways: so that the soul refers to carnal sins which involve bodily pleasures, such as lust and gluttony; but the spirit refers to spiritual sins, which involve an act of the mind, such as pride, vainglory, and the like.  Or by soul is understood evil thoughts, and by spirit good thoughts.  Then the sense is this: reaching, i.e., discerning, unto the division of the soul and the spirit, i.e., between carnal and spiritual sins, or between good and evil thoughts (§223).

To reduce pastoral care to a fixation on someone's feelings or emotional state is to focus on the wrong part of the soul, namely the sensitive part.  This is not to say that feelings aren't important; they are.  But to assuage feelings before healing the soul's intellect is like giving first aid but skipping a hospital visit.  Emotional disorders (and I am not talking about people with emotional and psychological disabilities) are often the result of intellectual disorders.

The Orthodox lay theologian Fredericka Matthews-Green has famously said that "sin is infection, not infraction."  This is very much in accord with St Thomas' theology which refers to sin as "wound" and grace as "healing."  By applying the salve of grace and mercy to the human soul infected by sin, we begin to see a gradual healing of the person's emotions.  (See how "salve" and "salvation" are related?)

As pastors of souls, our calling is to bring people to Jesus the Divine Physician who wants nothing less than to give us abundant life (cf Jn 10:10), not just a pep talk or a fainting-couch.  Perhaps the shepherd's staff can drive the point home:  One purpose of the crook at the top of the shepherd's staff is so that he can hook a sheep by the neck or the hind legs and pull it away from eating something that looks delicious but is actually poisonous.  In other words, the shepherd knows better than what the sheep feels like eating.

Let's start putting an end to the "pastoral malpractice" of skipping the health of the soul that focuses on assuaging rather than saving, and begin to restore the habitus of pastoral care as "having a thousand eyes" (as St John Chrysostom put it) to diagnose the soul of the believer (and believers-to-be) in view of applying the salve of Christ's loving grace.

 

Theology and Charity

Clearly, one can readily admit that a distance often does exist between the daily exercise of theology and its ideal mode of realization.  Furthermore, separations can even occur that contradict the practices of a holy way of life, those which should inform the exercise of theology.  One can practice theology with a dead faith.  I ought to remark, however, that this objection does not touch on theology as such, but only on the theologian.  We thus pass from the de jure realm to what is de facto.  The latter might justify all kinds of reservations, but it remains that, de jure, “theology is a pious science” [cf M-D Chenu OP].  Although the loss of charity does not bring about the dissolution of the theological habitus, nevertheless it constitutes a state as violent as that of a dead faith.  The diminished habitus that we designate by this name still allows a person to adhere to supernatural truths, but the absence of charity radically deprives the theologian of his or her ability to cling to these truths in a life-giving manner. The same is true of theology itself: it is literally drained from the inside by the loss of charity. Without charity, theology cannot bring its task to completion, because charity alone gives it the dynamism to reach its end. Accordingly, it is not simply under the title of finis operantis that the love of charity has its place in theology; indeed, charity has this place in virtue of the finis operis.

J-P Torrell, Christ and Spirituality in Thomas Aquinas,
(Washington, D.C.:  Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 28-29.

The Epiklesis of our Lives

"Eucharistic Dove"--a tabernacle or artophorion
in the form of a dove representing the Holy Spirit,
common during the early and high Middle Ages.

What is the Epiklesis?

One of the happier revisions to the Sacred Liturgy by the Consilium was the inclusion of an explicit epiklesis in the Anaphora (= Eucharistic Prayer, after the Preface).  From the Greek noun ἐπίκλησις, 'invocation,' the epiklesis (sometimes spelled epiclesis) is the invocation of the Holy Spirit to transform the Holy Gifts into the Body and Blood of Christ.

In Eucharistic Prayers II, III, and IV, they are easy to spot.  In the first place, when the priest-celebrant extends his hands over the chalice and paten, it is there that he will call on the Holy Spirit, and this is specifically called the Consecratory epiklesis.  For example, the Church prays in Eucharistic Prayer II:

Make holy, therefore, these Gifts, we pray, by sending down Your Holy Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There is a second, Communion epiklesis, whereby we ask the Holy Spirit to unite the Church by this Eucharistic Celebration (since growth in charity and ecclesial unity is the res tantum--the "thing itself" or the goal--of the Sacrament).  It takes place after the Institution Narrative and immediately after the Anamnesis (whereby we articulate the sequence of the Paschal Mystery).  An example from Eucharistic Prayer IV goes like this: 

Look, O Lord, upon the Sacrifice You Yourself have provided for Your Church, and grant in Your loving kindness to all who partake of this one Bread and one Chalice that, gathered into one body by the Holy Spirit, they may truly become a living sacrifice in Christ to the praise of Your glory.

In Eucharistic Prayer I--the Roman Canon--the epiklesis is a little less apparent, but by no means absent.  In the first place, all prayer is an invocation.  In the Older Rite, there is a kind of epiklesis during the Offertory (whose removal by the Consilium was ill-conceived):

Come, O Sanctifier, almighty eternal God:  Bless this oblation prepared for Your holy Name.

This "Sanctifier," obviously, is the Holy Spirit.  But, near the beginning of the Roman Canon, the priest-celebrant will make the sign(s) of the cross over the Holy Gifts, saying:

...that you accept and bless these gifts, these offerings, these holy and unblemished sacrifices...

There is a continuation of the epiklesis in the Roman Canon just prior to the Institution Narrative where the priest extends his hands over the Holy Gifts at the Quam oblationem tu (though, in the Older Rite, the hands are extended at the Hanc igitur):

Be pleased, O God, we pray, to bless, acknowledge, and approve this offering in every respect; make it spiritual and acceptable, so that it may become for us the Body and Blood of Your most beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

In any case, the importance of the epiklesis lies in the fact that, like Christ "who was conceived by the Holy Spirit" (Apostles' and Nicæne-Constantinopolitan Creed), the same Holy Spirit brings about the Presence of Christ upon the altar.  It is no less true that the Institution Narrative is the "form" of the Sacrament of the Eucharist, but it would be careless theology to isolate it from the whole Anaphora.

'Eucharistic Doves'

This is why, in the early and high Middle Ages, the early form of the 'tabernacle' was the so-called Eucharistic dove, a pyx containing the reserved Sacrament, hanging from the ceiling above or near the altar.  We are blessed in the Archdiocese of Edmonton to have such a Eucharistic dove in the lady chapel of St Joseph Seminary.  This dove-motif, taken obviously from the gospel narrative of Jesus' baptism (cf Lk 3:22), is intended to highlight the Pneumatological reality of the Eucharist.  It should be remembered, too, that it was in the Upper Room where the Lord Jesus celebrated the Last Supper that the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Church on that first Pentecost Sunday morning (Acts 2:2).  More to the point, St Thomas Aquinas teaches that the Lord Jesus instituted the Sacrament of Confirmation "not by bestowing, but by promising it" (S.th., 3a, q. 72, art. 1, ad 1), and goes on to cite John 16:7, "Nevertheless I tell you the truth:  It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counsellor will not come to you."

But this was the second time during the whole Farewell Discourse (Jn 14-17) that Jesus promised Pentecost; the first time was in the Upper Room (Jn 14:15-31), before leaving for Gethsemane (Jn 14:31).  In other words, Jesus promised that 'baptism in the Holy Spirit'  foretold by John the Baptist (cf Mt 3:11-12) shortly after the first Mass and in the Upper Room where he would be outpoured.  (This is why, in the Dominican Rite, the Sermo Domini is chanted after the repose of the Blessed Sacrament, bridging the gospel of Maundy Thursday to that of Good Friday--to remind us, among other things, that even if the Resurrection is 'right around the corner,' we have still got Pentecost to look towards.)

The Offertory of Ourselves

The Eucharist is not simply an 'amulet' to be hoarded, but the very paradigm of the Christian life.  When the Holy Gifts of bread and wine are placed upon the altar, the Church invites us to offer, alongside them, our own lives.  Hence, in the Older Rite, when the priest is preparing the chalice, he prays:

O God, who, in creating human nature, did wonderfully dignify it, and still more wonderfully restore it, grant that, by the Mystery of this water and wine, we may be made partakers of His divine nature, who vouchsafed to be made partaker of our human nature, even Jesus Christ our Lord...

The purpose of the Eucharist is be "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pt 1:4) or, in a word coined by St Gregory the Theologian, "divinized" (cf θέωσις), just as the bread and wine are "divinized" to become the Sacred Body and Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, just as the Church prays that the Holy Spirit would effect the transformation of the Holy Gifts into Christ's Presence, so too does she pray that the Holy Spirit continue to transform Christians more and more into Christ Himself.  It is easy to partake of Eucharistic Communion; the challenge is to make way for that grace whereby we "become what we eat" (St Augustine).

We can draw a further lesson from the bread and wine used for the Eucharist:  As inanimate objects, bread and wine have no will of their own; its existence is passive and has no choice but to receive the transformation effected by the Holy Spirit to become really, truly, and substantially Christ present.

You and I, on the other hand, possess a will:  We can either resist the Holy Spirit's transformation or we can yield to it.  St Thomas Aquinas teaches that infused virtue has a twofold defect--one on the part of the virtue itself (and this is remedied by the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit), and one on the part of the agent's consent to being virtuous.  By repeated acts of conscious, intentional, and deliberate self-offering, the Holy Spirit is able to mold us more and more into Christ.

Speaking of the Holy Spirit, the entire purpose of his Seven Gifts is to effect, in our wills, docility and amenability to his promptings and movements.  St Thomas thus makes a special connexion between the Eucharist and the Seven Gifts:

But the priest greets the people seven times, namely, five times, by turning round to the people, and twice without turning round, namely, when he says, "The Lord be with you" before the "Preface," and again when he says, "May the peace of the Lord be ever with you": and this is to denote the sevenfold grace of the Holy Ghost (S.th., 3a, q. 83, art. 5, ad 6).

Making our Lives an Epiklesis

The Church is experiencing a difficult moment in her history.  If I had to pinpoint the source of her ills, it would be simply this:  Refusal to surrender to the Holy Spirit.  Since the Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church, then seeking any other source of empowerment is a betrayal of "being Church."  What is needed for reform is not another meeting, another programme, another bureaucratic process.  What is needed, rather, is a lifelong epiklesis of daily surrender to the Holy Spirit, of "eucharistizing" our lives.

The Eucharist is the re-enactment of the Sacrifice of Calvary.  But, as the sacred author of Hebrews tells us, Christ's self-sacrifice was not a matter of gumption and gall, but of an offering empowered by the Holy Spirit:

...how much more shall the Blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Heb 9:14).

May it be for us, too. 

Pentecost and the Eucharist

Holy Spirit dove-motif under Bernini's baldachin in the Vatican Basilica

It is no accident that the Last Supper, the Resurrection-appearances, and Pentecost all took place in the Upper Room.  The Upper Room was, in fact, the very first 'house of the Church.'  This 'triangulation' of the Eucharist, the Risen Lord, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit are sine qua non constituting the Church:  As the "Body of Christ" (Eph 4:12; cf 1 Cor 10:16-17) we "proclaim the death of the Lord until He comes" (1 Cor 11:26) this One of whom St Paul said "No-one can say 'Jesus is Lord!' except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor 12:3).

In every Eucharistic celebration, we are really in the Upper Room with the Risen Christ, whose Presence is mediated by the Holy Spirit.

On Ember Wednesday of the Pentecost Octave in the usus antiquior, the liturgy seeks to highlight exactly this.  On that day, we read John 6:44-52, a portion of the Bread of Life discourse--

[In those days, Jesus said to the crowds]:  No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the Last Day.  It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.'  Every one who has heard and learned from the Father come to Me.  Not that any oen has seen the Father except Him who is from God; He has seen the Father.  Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.  I am the Bread of Life.  Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and they died.  This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die.  I am the Living Bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this Bread, he will live for ever; and the Bread that I shall give for the life of the world is My flesh."

The Pentecost Octave, therefore, looks toward the Solemnity of Corpus Christi which is the tail-end of the Easter-Pentecost cycle; more to the point, the older form of the Sacred Liturgy seeks to highlight the absolutely necessary connexion between Pentecost and the Eucharist, since they were instituted at the same location.

The reason for this connexion is not difficult to see.  In the Nicæno-Constantinopolitan Creed, we profess faith in Christ «Qui incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto» because the Lord Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit overshadowing the Virgin of Nazareth (Lk 1:35).  Likewise, the Holy Gifts of bread and wine are transformed by the same Holy Spirit to become the Sacred Body and Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Hence, in the Older Rite, the following was prayed at the Offertory, which is my absolute favourite prayer in the entire Mass--

Veni, sanctificátor omnípotens ætérne Deus: et bénedic hoc sacrifícium, tuo sancto nómini præparátum.

Come, O Sanctifier, almighty eternal God:  Bless this oblation prepared for Your holy Name.

If liturgists complain that the Roman Canon lacks an epiklesis, it is because they forget that this prayer, the Veni, Sanctificator, effectively turns the entire Anaphora to an invocation to the Holy Spirit, since it is only by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit that we can say "Abba!  Father" (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6; cf Eph 2:18).  For this reason alone are we able to begin to pray--

 Te ígitur, clementíssime Pater, per Iesum Christum, Fílium tuum, Dóminum nostrum, súpplices rogámus, ac pétimus...

Therefore we ask You, this most clement Father, through Jesus Christ Your Son our Lord, we ask You, we petition you... 

(More's the pity that this prayer did not survive the liturgical revisions of 1964-1970.  But, thanks to Pope Benedict XVI, it was restored to the Church's normal liturgical life.)

Only the Holy Spirit enables us to be adopted as children of our heavenly Father and empowers to call him "Abba, Father" in the liturgy, this same Holy Spirit who will transform the Holy Gifts.

By remembering the connexion between Pentecost and the Eucharist, we are able to situate the Solemnity of Corpus Christi within its proper theological and liturgical context.  If the Orthodox theologian Nikos Nissiotis criticizes Catholics of 'Christmonism,' it is because we Romans have, in our deformed piety, isolated the Eucharist from its 'Pentecostal nexus.'

During the XI Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in 2005 (what luminous times!), one of the prelates of the Eastern Church gave an intervention in which he reminded us of the specifically Pentecostal dimension of the Eucharist, citing St Ephraim the Syrian:

The Seraph did not touch the coal with his fingers. / It touched only the mouth of Isaiah. / [The Seraph] did not hold it, and [Isaiah] did not eat it. / But to us our Lord has given both. (Hymns on Faith, X.10)

The idea here is that the Eucharistic elements are glowing with the fire of the Holy Spirit such that it is not only Christ whom we receive in Holy Communion, but also the Paraclete, since Christ means Anointed One, "anointed with the invisible oil of the Holy Spirit," as St Thomas Aquinas often said.  In the Eucharist, then, the Holy Spirit who effected the Incarnation and perpetuates it, as it were, in the Eucharist, comes to us.  I would even go so far as to say that, in the Eucharist, we are gifted with an increase of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Hence, among the prayers of preparation before Communion in the Byzantine Liturgy composed by St Basil the Great--the same author of On the Holy Spirit--

Grant me, until my last breath, to receive the bread and the wine which are Your Body and Blood, and thereby to receive fellowship with the Holy Spirit as a provision for the journey to eternal life, and an acceptable answer at your dread Judgment-Seat.

This is why, during the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, hot, near-boiling water called the Zeon is poured crosswise by the priest into the Eucharistic chalice, saying--

The fervour of faith, full of the Holy Spirit.

What saves the Eucharist from being an 'amulet' is that it is up to us to be intentionally and deliberately open and receptive to the graces that accompany Holy Communion.  These graces are not 'automatic'; St Thomas Aquinas tells us that virtue has a twofold defect:  On the part of the virtue itself (and the Seven Gifts serves to perfect the virtues and bring them to fullness) and on the part of the believer herself (by our apathy or resistance); too often we resist the graces of the Eucharist or simply let them pass us by.  Hence the words apply even in receiving the Sacred Body and Precious Blood:  "Do not extinguish the Spirit!" (1 Thess 5:19).

In scholastic theology, the most important "part" of any Sacrament is the res tantum, the 'thing itself.'  For the Eucharist, the res tantum is twofold:  Growth in charity and the unity of the Church.  In other words, we are transformed to love even more (cf Rom 5:5), thereby strengthening the communion of believers.  Neither can be done apart from the Eucharist and the Holy Spirit.  Thus, in purposefully receiving the Lord's Body and Blood, we are transformed--

And we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into His likeness from glory to glory; and this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit (2 Cor 3:18).

Returning to the connexion between the Pentecost Octave and the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, St Thomas Aquinas explicitly explains their connexion in the First Nocturn, Third Reading which he composed (but removed from the Office of Readings by the Consilium)--

Hence, so that the faithful may solemnly honor again the institution of such a great Sacrament by a complete office of celebration, the Roman Pope Urban IV, influenced by the devotion of this Sacrament, piously decreed commemoration of the aforementioned institution on feria five after the octave of Pentecost, to be celebrated by all the faithful, so that we, who use this Sacrament throughout the year for salvation, may honor again, at that time especially, its institution, by which the Holy Spirit taught the hearts of the disciples to understand fully the mysteries of this Sacrament.  For at the same time this sacrament began to be frequented by the faithful. It is indeed read in the Acts of the Apostles that "they were persevering in the apostolic doctrine by sharing in the breaking of bread, and by prayers" (Acts 2:42), immediately after the departure of the Holy Spirit (Opuscula IV:  Officium Corpus Christi).

In other words, St Thomas here explains that the experience of Pentecost enlightens us precisely about the Sacrament of the Altar.  This is why Ember Wednesday of the Pentecost Octave aims to prepare us for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi.  In fact, nine days are counted between Ember Wednesday of Pentecost and Corpus Christi Thursday, a kind of novena mirroring that of the one between the day after Ascension Thursday and Pentecost Sunday.

Let us, then, remember to meet not only Christ in the Eucharist, but the Holy Spirit who Eucharistizes.

Christ, the Anointed One, is never separate from the Anointing One, the Holy Spirit.

The Eucharist is never separated from Pentecost.

This entry is dedicated to my dear friend and confere,
Sr Ermyrita Palacasero OP

 

Pentecost and Mission

In a recent conversation, a Dominican friar shared that in an American diocese where he worked, every other year occasioned a priests' meeting where the latest "programme" or "plan" was marshalled as the thing which would usher in new life for an otherwise languishing Church.

"The problem with these," he said, "was that they expected to do something without the aid of grace."

Or, as St Paul put it:

...my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration fo the Spirit and power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (1 Cor 2:4-5).

It was not without reason that the Church was "born" on that first Pentecost.

The Jewish Feast of Weeks or Shauvot celebrated, among other things, the "first fruits" of the grain harvest (cf Ex 23:16; Num 28:26).

In the gospels, the motif of wheat-harvest was often used to indicate a 'harvest of souls.'  St John the Baptist made use of it (cf Mt 3:12).  The Lord Jesus called the first band of missionaries "labourers" of "the harvest" (cf Lk 10:2).  On the Last Day, the angels are said to "reap" the harvest of souls (Mt 13:39; cf 13:24-30).

By the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, St Luke the Evangelist wanted to highlight the first 'preaching mission' of the Church as the harvest of the first-fruits of the nations (hence the Gospel being preached in different tongues).  It was in being empowered by Pentecost that the apostles and disciples were able to reap the first harvest.  As we Cursillistas sing--

    Faithfully, faithfully
    we will slake the great thirsting
    of Christ the Immortal.
    Joyfully, joyfully
    we will bring to our Saviour
    a harvest of souls
    pouring outward the light from within
    the grace of our God his infinite Life!
    Pouring outward the light from within
    the grace of our God his infinite Life!

Yet it is the Holy Spirit who is the primary agent of evangelisation.  As St John Paul the Great wrote, "The mission of the Church, like that of Jesus, is God's work or, as Luke often puts it, the work of the Spirit" (Redemptoris missio, §24).

It's one thing to say as much, it's entirely another to live it out.  So how is Pentecost the paradigm for mission and evangelisation?

Most Confirmation preparatory workshops seldom go beyond enumerating the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit and what they do; more seldom still do we hear of how to put the gifts of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord to use.  There will be plenty of time for that when I return to Edmonton, but for the moment we must recall what the Seven Gifts are for:  They make our souls docile and amenable to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit.  To put the same point more crudely:  It is like an "app" downloaded into graced souls in order to read, interact, and respond to the Holy Spirit.  To do so requires, first, surrender and, second, cooperation.

The Holy Spirit--and, by extension, grace--do not work 'accidentally' as if it just 'happens' to us.  Rather, there must be an intention on the part of the Christian to openly receive the Holy Spirit's motions.  When that happens, among other things, the Christian soul becomes sensitive to certain situations she finds herself in and discovers these situations to be an "evangelical moment."  As another Dominican friar and spiritual writer once said, "apostles do not go looking for souls, but are sent to them by God."  But this can only happen when one intentionally lives out the Mystery of Pentecost.  In other words, Pentecost is not a past event, it is a present reality when the Christian makes it the paradigm of 'being Church.'

Every other attempt at 'techniques' or 'methods' in the work of expanding the Church is a desperate attempt to lock up the Holy Spirit in a kind of solitary confinement, because it is (rightly!) sensed that the Holy Spirit is a threat to self-security and self-determination.  In reality, however, it is not how much the Holy Spirit changes lives that frightens so many would-be Christians; it is being frightened by the prospect of that authentic, wholistic freedom which the Holy Spirit alone brings.

At the end of the day, lethargy in the Church's mission arises from that servile fear of being free; this choice of remaining enslaved is the unstrange bedfellow of that cosmic malevolence conspiring to keep souls enchained to Adam's primordial sin.  For the Church to flourish, Christians must dare to live out the perennial freedom of Pentecost which also frees us to preach the Gospel, thus 'paying it forward' as that freedom which liberates new believers from age-old bondage.

    Missionaries, missionaries
    of Christ with His courage
    determined to conquer.
    Cursillistas, Cursillistas
    who don't pay attention
    to human opinion.
    Let the cowards, let the cowards
    deride us and taunt us
    but it is the truth
    that they really desire the pleasure
    of being in grace, in colors with us!
    That they really desire the pleasure
    of being in grace, in colours with us!

Again, Pentecost is not an event locked up in history, but the Church in her fecundity.

St Augustine's Prayer to the Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit, my God, I want to speak about you, and yet I hesitate, since I am not qualified. Could I, in fact, say anything but what you inspire me to say? Could I utter a single word unless you come into me, in order to take my place and speak to yourself about yourself?

Begin, then, by giving yourself to me, O generous Benefactor, O perfect Gift, for you are mine. Nothing can belong to me, nor can I belong to myself, unless I first possess you. Be mine, and thus I shall be my own as well as yours. If I do not possess you, I shall possess nothing.

In whose estimation would I have the right to possess you? In no one’s but yours. You must, therefore, give yourself to me so that I may become your property. Predispose me, then, prepare my soul to receive you; and, once you’ve entered into it, speak to yourself for me and listen to yourself within me. Yes, listen to yourself rather than to me, O you who are so kind! Listen for once, and do not get annoyed. See what inspires my words, since I really do not know, though I realize full well that without your help I cannot say a single thing.

I remember, though, how your grace once sufficed to turn an adulterous murderer into a psalmist; how you rescued innocent young Susanna; how you looked upon a woman possessed by seven demons, upon Magdalen, and filled her with such overflowing love that she became the apostle to the Apostles; how you visited Dismas as he hung upon his cross, and how—​that very day—​you opened heaven for him to rejoice in the glory of Christ. Under your influence, Peter the apostate wept tears of repentance, and you prepared him to serve as supreme pontiff. Was it not at your prompting that a tax collector became an evangelist? And did you not unhorse the persecutor who, back on his feet again, became an outstanding teacher of the faith?

God of all holiness, when I ponder how you inspired all these people, their example encourages me to speak to you like this. And I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that you have taught me to respond the same way they did. That, too, is why I long for you and throw myself into your arms. Hear me, O unbounded Goodness, and may your miserable creature not incur your wrath!

If I have sinned more than all these people who exemplify your many mercies, still your leniency—​being infinite—​far and away surpasses my guilt. You can forgive hundreds of thousands of sins just as easily as one. Here, for instance, is a man who, because of a single mortal sin, is marked for damnation upon leaving this world; and here is another who, despite thousands of sins, is saved by God as being predestined to eternal life. What does that mean, O gentlest Spirit? It means that in one instance you manifest your mercy, and in the other your justice. Here again are two men, vastly different from each other, but both with a long history of enormous crimes. When their world comes to an end, both are equally destined—​one to enter into eternal life, and the other to plunge into horrific torments. What can we learn from this, O God full of goodness? That, in such matters, your limitless mercy is always whole and entire, and always true to itself, though it acts in diverse ways. A small number of sins does not guarantee entrance into eternal life any more than a large number of serious sins should lead to despair.

But because your mercy is preferable to any life style, I invoke it, I desire it and find solace in clinging to it. Give yourself to me through your mercy, and grant me your mercy through yourself, so that I may possess it in you, and that it may serve you as a pathway to come to me.

Your mercy is what inspires me to speak to you courageously and confidently. It makes my soul rise above itself. And in possessing your mercy, I possess you. I therefore ask for nothing but you, since you are both teacher and knowledge, both doctor and remedy, love and lover, life and protector of life.

What remains to be said? You are everything we call good. For if we have not been annihilated, that is because of your leniency. It alone sustains us while patiently waiting for us; it alone preserves us by not condemning, calls us back without upbraiding, releases us without judging, grants us grace and does not take it back, and saves us through its persistence.

O my sinful soul, get up, stand straight, pay attention to these consoling thoughts, and do not reject the help which can assist you so mightily in reforming yourself. And always remember that the Holy Spirit is the only person you need for that task. So, let every fiber of your being rise; and, since your salvation resides in this person alone, consecrate all your powers to him, prepare yourself to serve as his dwelling place, and receive him so that he may receive you in turn.

Come, then, sweetest Spirit; extend your sacred finger to help me get up. May it come ever closer and draw me to you, as it touches my wounds and heals them. May it remove the swelling of my pride, clear the rot of my anger, purge the ravages of poisonous envy, cut away the dead skin of apathy, soothe the ache of cupidity and greed, drive out superfluity and gluttony, and replace the infection of lust with the fragrant aromas of the most perfect continence. Yes, O God full of goodness, touch me with the finger that pours wine, oil and purest myrrh on my wounds. Then will all my corruption disappear, as I return to my earlier innocence.

As a result, when you come to live in me (who at present am only a torn sack), you will find a dwelling in good condition, founded on the truth of faith, built with the certitude of hope, and crowned with the glow of ardent charity.

Though we sinners have not desired you for very long, come, lovable Guest. Yes, come! Stay with us; for, unless you do, it will grow late and the day will draw to a close. [cf. Lk 24:29] Knock, and open the door; for if you open it, no one will close it; come in and shut it behind you, so that no one may then open it. [cf. Apoc 3:7] All your possessions are secure [cf. Lk 11:21], and there can be no peace without you—​you, repose for laborers, peace for combatants, joy for the suffering, consolation for the sick, refreshment for those oppressed by the heat, happiness for the afflicted, light for the blind, guide for those harrowed by doubt, and courage for the timid. Indeed, no one experiences tranquility unless he labors for you, nor peace unless he does battle for you. To suffer for your sake is the height of happiness, and to weep for you is supreme consolation—​so much so that, in moaning for you, my soul (after a manner of speaking!) would seem to be surrendering to “vice” and “delights.” Ineffable Goodness, you cannot bear to see us suffer, to see us weep and toil because of you; for, at one and the same moment, both labor and rest begin, both war and peace, both sorrow and happiness. Thus, to be in you is to be in eternal bliss.

O my Beloved, touch my soul. Touch this soul which you created and then chose as your abode on the day of my baptism. Alas, you have a thousand times been shamefully, outrageously evicted from this house which belongs to you fully and entirely! But now your wretched guest is calling you back with loud cries because he realizes that your absence is the worst of evils.

Come back, O kindly Spirit; take pity on this traitor who has driven you out. Now—​oh! yes, now—​I vividly recall the happiness I tasted when you were present. With you, I had everything that was good. [cf. Wis 7:11] As soon as you left, however, my enemies robbed me and took all the treasures you had brought for me; and, not content with impoverishing me so, they beat and wounded me, leaving me half-dead. [cf. Lk 10:30]

So come back, beloved Lord; come once again into your own home, before your demented guest draws his last breath. Today I see, today I understand how miserable I am, living apart from you. Even though I blush with shame and confusion because you are far away, still the unspeakable weaknesses occasioned by your absence force me to call you back.

Precious Guardian, return to the house of the wretched Martha whom I have become; and keep me in the truth, lest I someday fall asleep in death and my enemy boast, “I have prevailed!” [Ps 12:5] With your help, I will trust in your mercy, latch onto it, place all my hope in it. It will be my portion, my inheritance [cf. Ps 16:5–6]; and, accordingly, I will not fear what mortal man can do to me. [cf. Ps 56:5]

It is impossible for you to withhold your mercy from me, for mercy and you are consubstantial. See how poor I am, how dire my needs; and have pity on me, not according to my sinfulness, but according to your infinite greatness. May your compassion prove that it ranks above all your works. [cf. Ps 145:9–10] Let not the malice of sin outweigh the greatness of your mercy. Leniency is what makes you declare: “I take no pleasure in the death of sinners, but rather in their conversion, so that they may live.” [Ez 33:11] For you desire “mercy, not sacrifice.” [Mt 9:13]

Most generous Benefactor, stretch forth your right hand—​that sacred hand which is never empty, does not know how to refuse, and always gives to those in need. Yes, beloved Benefactor, extend that hand, so full of your gifts: it is the hand of the poor. Give this poor man of yours—​or, rather, give to poverty itself—​those weapons or treasures that enrich the poor yet leave them nothing to fear. Complete, O Lord, what your right arm has begun. [cf. Ps 68:29] For I clearly see that if you save us, it is not because we have performed righteous deeds, but because you are merciful. [cf. Tttus 3:5]

Therefore, most holy Communication, grant me the gift of piety, whose role is to inspire gentleness as well as to preserve us from any attachment to worldly goods. Thus shall we be able to say, like the Apostle Peter: “We have given up everything and followed you.” [Mt 19:27]

As soon as we have renounced the things of this passing world, your salvific influence will guide us over level ground [cf. Ps 143:10] directly to the land of the living. [cf. Ps 142:6] And through the loving devotion which it inspires, it will usher us into that blessed abode where we shall delight in you for all eternity. 

Amen.

St Augustine the Greater, Sermon 34