On The Seventh Day Of Christmas

Apparently, I jumped the gun yesterday and declared the Feast of the Holy Family being then. It is, however, today.

Also, today is the Feast of Saint Sylvester I who was the 33rd Pope. He fought against Arianism and presided over the council of Nicea. He was also the first pope to wear the tiara.

I Felt The Same Way

"I was in a humour, certainly, to bite off their ears. I will freely confess, indeed I said it some pages back, that I was angry with the Anglican divines. I thought they had taken me in; I had read the Fathers with their eyes; I had sometimes trusted their quotations or their reasonings; and from reliance on them, I had used words or made statements, which by right I ought rigidly to have examined myself. I had thought myself safe, while I had their warrant for what I said. I had exercised more faith than criticism in the matter. This did not imply any broad misstatements on my part, arising from reliance on their authority, but it implied carelessness in matters of detail. And this of course was a fault."

-Ven. John Henry Newman in Apologia Pro Vita Sua.

Authority Is There For A Reason

"The spirit of lawlessness came in with the Reformation, and Liberalism is its offspring."

-Ven. John Henry Newman

On The Sixth Day Of Christmas

Today is the Feast of the Holy Family!

"Father in heaven, creator of all, you ordered the earth to bring forth life and crowned its goodness by creating the family of man. In history's moment when all was ready, you sent your Son to dwell in time, obedient to the laws of life in our world. Teach us the sanctity of human love, show us the value of family life, and help us to live in peace with all men that we may share in your life for ever. We ask this through Christ the Lord. Amen."

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph: Ora Pro Nobis!

Patristic Smorgasbord

Phil over at Hyperekperissou has posted his second edition of the Patristic Roundup and has so graciously included yours truly in the mix. Go check it out and learn what the Church Fathers have to say!

In Newman's Own Words

"Only this I know full well now, and did not know then, that the Catholic Church allows no image of any sort, material or immaterial, no dogmatic symbol, no rite, no sacrament, no Saint, not even the Blessed Virgin herself, to come between the soul and its Creator. It is face to face, 'solus cum solo,' in all matters between man and his God. He alone creates; He alone has redeemed; before His awful eyes we go in death; in the vision of Him is our eternal beatitude....What I can speak of with greater confidence is the effect produced on me a little later by studying the Exercises of St. Ignatius. For here again, in a matter consisting in the purest and most direct acts of religion, -in the intercourse between God and the soul, during a season of recollection, of repentance, of good resolution, of inquiry into vocation, -the soul was 'sola cum solo;' there was no cloud interposed between the creature and the Object of his faith and love. The command practically enforced was, 'My son, give Me thy heart.' The devotions then to Angels and Saints as little interfered with the incommunicable glory of the Eternal, as the love which we bear our friends and relations, our tender human sympathies, are inconsistent with that supreme homage of the heart to the Unseen, which really does but sanctify and exalt, not jealously destroy, what is of earth. At a later date Dr. Russell sent me a large bundle of penny or half-penny books of devotion, of all sorts, as they are found in the booksellers' shops at Rome; and, on looking them over, I was quite astonished to find how different they were from what I had fancied, how little there was in them to which I could really object."

-Ven. John Henry Newman in Apologia Pro Vita Sua.

On The Fifth Day Of Christmas

That's right...Christmas isn't over yet! Keep on celebrating the birth of Our Lord.

"Arise, everyone! Mary invites us all -rich and poor, the just and sinners- to enter the cave of Bethlehem, to adore and to kiss the feet of her newborn Son. Go in, then, all of you devout men and women. Let us enter and not be afraid."

-St. Alphonsus Liguori

Do something special today on this fifth day of Christmas to celebrate. Go visit Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, say an extra rosary with your family,....or you could watch the movie Becket, since today is also the Feast Day of St. Thomas Becket!

Blessings and Happy Feast Day to all!

Hans Urs Von Balthasar And The Mystery Of Holy Saturday

In his theology of the Mystery of Holy Saturday, Balthasar argues that God knows creation in no other way, than from the vantage point of His Son’s own hellish descent. On Holy Saturday, Christ in His obedience agrees to suffer the full extant of malice and power inflicted by sin. He bears it all the way down into the depths of Hell.

Christ’s descent into Hell is the final act of obedience to the Father. This is the center-piece of the obediential stance for Balthasar. Only in the descent itself is the deepest and definitive "No" of the sinner against God made known. In Christ’s descent, He brings the silent compassionate accompaniment of man in the extremity of solitude we call Hell, which is the absence of Faith, Hope, and Love. It is the loss of any human communication, whereby sinners are separated from God in their loneliness.

In Hell Christ must seek the Father, for he cannot find him under any circumstances. There is a seemingly separation of Christ from the Father. Seemingly, not actual. In this darkness the incarnate Son learns experientially what until then was reserved for the Father. The descent represents the final and deepest point reached by Christ in His self emptying. It is the Supreme expression of God’s life and love; the consummate icon of what God is eternally like.

For Balthasar there is immense compassion on the part of Christ. Christ identifies Himself with the sinner so much so that he puts Himself in the place of the sinner. Balthasar tries to capture the sense of solidarity that Christ freely entered into alongside the damned. Christ’s suffering is the result of Love. It is a freely embraced pain due to the suffering of Love. Christ goes to Hell because He loves all of mankind, even the damned. He cannot not love them. He wants to make His presence known among even the most damned of creation. And for the damned who has rejected all forms of love, this is the worst punishment of all. Not even in Hell can the damned escape the loving gaze of Christ. The descent is an act of solidarity between Christ and man. It is the ultimate paradox in that Christ who is sinless, experiences the effects of Hell as the "sin-bearer."

The Pastoral importance of Balthasar’s theology is that it shows the endless love of God. That God loves us so much, He would send His own Son to the depths of Hell for us. And Christ goes out of obedience to the Father and love for man. There is no place we can hide from God’s love. No matter how far away we think we have gone, we could never go outside the reach of the Love of God.

First Things has published an ongoing debate between anti-Balthasarian Alyssa Lyra Pitstick and pro-Balthasarian Edward T. Oakes, S.J. in its previous two issues. The first can be read here and the second here.

In Newman's Own Words

"It was difficult to make out how the Eutychians or Monophysites were heretics, unless Protestants and Anglicans were heretics also; difficult to find arguments against the Tridentine Fathers, which did not tell against the Fathers of Chalcedon; difficult to condemn the Popes of the sixteenth century, without condemning the Popes of the fifth. The drama of religion, and the combat of truth and error, were ever one and the same. The principles and proceedings of the Church now, were those of the Church then; the principles and proceedings of heretics then, were those of Protestants now. I found it so, —almost fearfully; there was an awful similitude, more awful, because so silent and unimpassioned, between the dead records of the past and the feverish chronicle of the present. The shadow of the fifth century was on the sixteenth. It was like a spirit rising from the troubled waters of the old world, with the shape and lineaments of the stern, resolute, overbearing, and relentless; and heretics were shifting, changeable, reserved, and deceitful, ever courting civil power, and never agreeing together, except by its aid; and the civil power was ever aiming at comprehensions, trying to put the invisible out of view, and substituting expediency for faith. What was the use of continuing the controversy, or defending my position, if, after all, I was forging arguments for Arius or Eutyches, and turning devil’s advocate against the much-enduring Athanasius and the majestic Leo? Be my soul with the Saints! and shall I lift up my hand against them? Sooner may my right hand forget her cunning, and wither outright, as his who once stretched it out against a prophet of God! anathema to a whole tribe of Cranmers, Ridleys, Latimers, and Jewels! perish the names of Bramhall, Ussher, Taylor, Stillingfleet, and Barrow from the face of the earth, ere I should do ought but fall at their feet in love and in worship, whose image was continually before my eyes, and whose musical words were ever in my ears and on my tongue!"

-Ven. John Henry Newman in Apologia Pro Vita Sua.

On The Fourth Day Of Christmas

Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents.

"Let us ask the Holy Innocents to help us...to offer up our own pain and to have great compassion for all who suffer." - Francis Fernandez


"It is surely right to celebrate the death of the Holy Innocents: for it was a blessed one. To be brought near to Christ, and to suffer for Christ, is surely an unspeakable privilege; to suffer anyhow, even unconsciously. The little children whom He took up in his arms, were not conscious of His loving condescension; but was it no privilege when He blessed them? Surely this massacre had in it the nature of a Sacrament; it was a pledge of the love of the Son of God towards those who were included in it. All who came near Him, more or less suffered by approaching Him, just as if earthly pain and trouble went out of Him, as some precious virtue for the good of their souls; —and these infants in the number. Surely His very presence was a Sacrament; every motion, look, and word of His conveying grace to those who would receive it: and much more was fellowship with Him. And hence in ancient times such barbarous murders or Martyrdoms were considered as a kind of baptism, a baptism of blood, with a sacramental charm in it, which stood in the place of the appointed Laver of regeneration. Let us then take these little children as in some sense Martyrs, and see what instruction we may gain from the pattern of their innocence. "

-Ven. John Henry Newman