Rethinking God VI

Blessed John Henry Newman

champion of listening to the

faithful

A major player in in the debate over the divinity of Christ was a priest from Alexandria in Egypt by the name of Arius. Arius lived at the end of the third century and the beginning of the fourth.  Trying to preserve the traditional view on the Unity of God—that God is One—Arius would not ascribe full divinity of Christ.  As I posted yesterday, the received Tradition from Judaism: “ Hear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One,” the prayer known as the Shema Yisrael  taken from Deuteronomy 6:4, created a huge problem for Christians in the first six centuries as they tried to reconcile the Unity of God with the Divinity of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  The idea of the Father being God, the Son being God and the Holy Spirit being God sounded too much like three gods to a lot of people.  Arianism acknowledged that Christ shares in Divinity but to a lesser degree than the Father.  While still an Anglican before his becoming a Catholic in 1845, Blessed John Henry Newman had written a study of Arius and history published under the title: The Arians of the Fourth Century.  Arius was opposed by Saint Athanasius, the secretary to Arius’ bishop, Alexander, but according to Newman the majority of bishops in the Church had accepted the Arian theology.  It was only at the Council of Nicea that the bishops—at the urging of Athanasius, defined that Christ is consubstantial (one in being) with the Father—that is, that Christ shares fully in the same Divine Nature as the Father.  Incidentally only 318 bishops out of the 1800 Constantine had invited came to the Council—a very small minority.)  While the majority of bishops had originally agreed with Arius, the laity and the lower clergy—the faithful—had held to faith in Christ’s divinity. Newman always remembered this and years later as a Catholic wrote his famous essay “On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine.” Newman argued—with quite a bit of opposition in his day—that the magisterium needs to pay close attention to the faith of the People of God. The laity are not merely to be instructed by the pastors of the Church but the pastors must remember that the Faith of the Church is that which is held in the hearts of the Faithful and therefore those who teach need to be in tune with the faithful.  This is something to pay attention to today.  Too many think that it is up to the Bishops to teach and the faithful to listen but if the bishops are teaching something other than that which is in the faith held by the people, the bishops are not teaching the faith of the Church.  The faith of the Church is no more and no less than the faith put into the hearts of the People of God by the Holy Spirit.  There are those in the Church today who are upset that the faithful are not listening to the bishops when they teach but maybe we should be more concerned that the bishops have not been listening to the faithful before they teach.    

Of Gnostics, Carmelites, the Incarnation, and Communion in the Hand

Two Carmelites, sisters by blood as well as in religious

life, at the Detroit Conference

I mentioned in the last entry that heresy sometimes lurks just beneath the surface of trumpeted orthodoxy.  Let me give an example.  Some years ago I was in Detroit to do some research on the infamous Father Coughlin who had a very popular radio show in the 1930’s which he used as a platform to attack Franklin Roosevelt  as well as to proclaim his anti-Semitic views.  I was staying, courtesy of a friend of mine, at a retreat center run by the Passionists.  Coughlin was very popular with a large segment of the American people though he was a huge embarrassment to the Church.  Coughlin had no endorsement from the Archbishop of Detroit –to the contrary.  The Osservatore Romano, the semi-official Vatican newspaper condemned him in 1935, but Coughlin remained popular with anti-Roosevelt Americans, Catholics and Protestants alike.   Cardinal Pacelli, papal Secretary of State discussed the matter with American officials on his 1936 visit to they United States but was unable to silence him.  Cardinal Mooney was appointed to Detroit in 1937 with the mandate to silence him but was unable.  American Catholics are notorious for listening not to the Church but to those voices in the Church with which they agree.  There must be something in the water in Motown as we currently have Michael Voris setting himself up against the hierarchy with his “Real Catholic TV.”   O well, I digress. 
     While I was staying at the Passionist Retreat Center there was a conference of Carmelite nuns going on—a meeting of about a hundred cloistered nuns—mostly the Prioresses (mothers superior) and Formation Directors (novice-mistresses) of various monasteries in the United States and Canada, though I did see some younger nuns with the white veils of novices.  It was interesting seeing these women outside their monasteries.  They were anything but a somber group.  There was much laughter and a strong sense of family.  They looked very traditional—almost all in the same habit their predecessors had worn  for centuries though a few had modified veils that showed a wisp of hair.  They were very serious when it came time for prayer and it was a privilege to attend their Mass each morning.  I served the Mass—or rather I served the old priest who celebrated the Mass for them each morning.  I was surprised to note that at communion not a single nun received communion on the tongue.  Young and old, reverent all, but each nun extended her hands to receive Holy Communion.  I mentioned this one day at lunch—I had my meals with them in the retreat dining room—and the nuns at the table all thought for a moment and then began to discuss it.  They had never given it much thought, they agreed, it just seemed natural to them.  Then one older nun—the prioress of a Carmel on the West Coast—said “Well, why wouldn’t we?  The Incarnation is the central mystery of our lives.  Holy Mother (Saint Teresa of Avila) says that we should meditate on either the Passion or the Incarnation.  When you meditate on the Word Becoming Flesh, you burn with desire to hold the Flesh of the Lord for yourself.    In this sacrament, his Flesh becomes our Flesh and our Flesh becomes his.  Why should be afraid to touch him?  He is our Spouse, the deepest Desire of our being.”  I was impressed at her fervor as well as her insight.
     Several years before while in Minneapolis I had been taken to hear a young priest, a Father Robert Altier, who at the time was something of a seven day wonder.  Father Altier drew huge crowds to Saint Agnes Church where he celebrated what at the time was the “indult” mass.  A college buddy of mine who had just returned to the Church after three “marriages” (only one of them with a woman if you get my drift)  would go only to Saint Agnes.  Saint Agnes with the Latin Mass facing the wall represented the Church he had left forty years ago and it was the only Church to which he was willing to go back now that he had religion again. (That is the danger in being a historian: the temptation is to restore the past, a futile effort, rather than build the future on the past.)   Father Altier told us in his talk that day—it wasn’t a sermon but a talk in the hall after mass as I recall—that receiving Communion in the hand was “an abomination, a sacrilege”  The Blessed Mother, he assured us, had never received Communion in the hand.  I almost laughed out loud.  She who had changed Jesus’ diaper (I could use a more graphic phrase) was too awestruck to take his flesh in her hand in Holy Communion?   Who is this Christ in Whom this young priest believed?  Is it the Christ of the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, the Christ whose human nature is preserved intact in the hypostatic union?  Or does this Christ have a different sort of human nature than we do?  Sure he is “consubstantial” with the Father according to his Divinity.  What I wonder if people believe is whether he is “consubstantial” with us regarding his humanity?  Here again is Gnosticism lurking behind orthodox piety.  It is perfectly all right to receive Communion on the tongue if that your choice, but can we say that it is wrong or sacrilegious to receive Christ in our hands?   If so, what is that implying about human nature?  What is that saying about material creation?  Beneath such “orthodoxy” lurks some very dark beliefs.