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 otherplatforms, 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.
Ah, I see the Satan Club is in the news again. This time spreading light. . . . well, not light, exactly . . . but speading somethingin the Milwaukee area. Don’t be alarmed, though, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel assures us that, despite their evocative name, the group “does not believe in a supernatural figure equal or similar to Christian definitions of Satan – rather, according to the Washington Post, the Satanic Temple [sponsor of the Satan Club] “rejects all forms of supernaturalism” and instead promotes “scientific rationality.” Right. Which is why they call themselves after that eminent scientist, Satan.
I first heard about the Satan Club several years ago, when they were bringing their special kind of joy to Portland, Oregon. They’re still up to their old tricks, posing as an angel of light when, in truth, they are something very different. In honor of Satan Clubs everywhere I’m republishing my original post, called “One H*ll of an After School Club.”
There’s A New Club In Town
Here’s some happy news: the Nehalem Elementary School in Portland, Oregon, has approved a “Satan Club” for its young (i.e., pre-teen) students. The club is sponsored by a group going by the felicitous name of The Satanic Temple. Does that, or does it not, sound uplifting?
I don’t doubt that there are some people who do consider it good news that there will be a club upholding the Prince of Darkness as a role model for youngsters. In particular, some of a more secular bent may appreciate that this puts those of us in with, shall we say, more traditional religious views, in something of a bind. After all, aren’t we always carping about religious freedom, and complaining about efforts to exclude religious belief from the public square? Don’t we claim that government has no business deciding what is legitimate religion and what is not? Are we not, in fact, hypocrites if we try to prevent the satanists from sharing their enthusiasm for Lucifer with the boys and girls at Nehalem Elementary School?
Keeping The Satan In Satanism?
The answer is, I think, simpler than it might at first appear. We absolutely ought to oppose as strenuously as we can anything as poisonous as a “Satan Club” in schools, especially for pre-teen children, and no, there is nothing whatsoever hypocritical about it. Consider the following:
Charming illustration from “Educatin With Satan” website
The satanists themselves make it clear that they are not really a religion. For instance, The Satanic Temple is also trying to install an after school club in the Seattle, Washington area. The Seattle Times (story here) quotes Tarkus Claypool, campaign manager (um, “campaign manager”? Since when does a religion have a campaign manager?) for the group in that area, as saying: “We don’t worship a deity . . . We only see Satan as a metaphor for fighting religious tyranny and oppression.” This is a fairly common trope among Satanists, one you might have heard before. There was a similar quote in the original Fox News article about the Oregon Satan Club. That quote has since been removed, perhaps because the spokesperson in Portland also added that most satanists are really atheists, which tends to undercut even further their claim to religious status.
So, if the satanists don’t really believe in Satan, what is the purpose of their club? “Our curriculum is about teaching them logic, self-empowerment and reasoning”, according to Claypool, “The most Satanic thing about it is in the healthy snack — we have an apple.” Finn Rezz, speaking on behalf of the newly-approved Nehalem group in Oregon, adds that, in addition to “science and rational thinking”, the club will promote “benevolence and empathy for everybody.”
If only that were true. After all, if all they want to do is to promote rational thinking, why not a “Reason Club”? Why not a “Science and Empathy Club”? Those are perfectly legitimate viewpoints. Why not even an “Atheists Club”? However much we believers might dislike it, the same laws that allow Christian clubs on school grounds also protect the nonbelievers. The Satanic Temple has chosen a different route, however, and their choice of the Prince of Lies as their public persona tells us what they’re really about; it has nothing to do with reason or benevolence.
The Devil Is In The Details
To begin with, let’s talk about Satan. He has a track record: he’s been a public figure, so to speak, for millennia. If you were to go out on the street and ask people at random what the Devil represents, what responses will you get? Most people will, of course, answer “evil”, “sin”, “death”, “corruption”, etc. How many do you think will say “a metaphor for fighting religious oppression”? There may be a few, perhaps, but a very few indeed. No, Lucifer’s image has remained true what it is in Scripture, the source that introduced him to us. There we read:
He who commits sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. (1 John 3:8)
He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44)
Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. (2 Corinthians 11:14)
Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)
Image from the “Educatin With Satan” website
How rational is it to hold up as a paragon of “reason” a figure who is the enemy of truth, a born liar who hides his true nature? How appropriate a personification of “empathy and benevolence” is someone known as a murderer who seeks to “devour” the unwary? My purpose here is not to make a Biblical argument against the Satan Club, I’m simply pointing out who and what its patron has always been known to be, and what he actually represents. One doesn’t need to believe in the truth of the Bible to recognize that Satan represents the exact opposite of what the Satan Club claims to promote.
“By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them”
In fact, their choice of the universally acknowledged personification of every evil as their public face brings to mind another applicable scripture passage: “You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit.” (Matthew 7:16-17). Again, that’s just common sense, isn’t it? And what are the “fruits” the Satan club displays? Do the satanists act like people committed to reason, love, and kindness, and do their own self-explanations emphasize any positive message of their own . . . or are their fruits of a different kind? Let us look again at what they say about themselves. Seattle satanist Tarkus Claypool says of the Satan club, “It’s designed to be a counterpoint to the Good News program.” Portland Oregon’s Finn Rezz says that their Satan club “will be held on Wednesdays once a month at the same time as the Good News Club.” In fact, if we look at the FAQ page from the satanists’ “Educatin With Satan” website, we find that they really have more to say about this “Good News Club” than they do about their nominal patron demon, and certainly more than they do about reason, science, benevolence, and empathy put together. In several places they cite the Good News Club as their reason for being, and they even advise those who might wish to establish a Satan club (my bold):
Please keep in mind that The Satanic Temple is not interested in operating After School Satan Clubs in school districts that are not already hosting the Good News Club. However, The Satanic Temple ultimately intends to have After School Satan Clubs operating in every school district where the Good News Club is represented.
Good News: What’s Not To Like?
What are these Good News Clubs that so exercise the good people at the Satanic Temple? The Good News Clubs are a ministry of the Child Evangelism Fellowship. From CEF’s website they appear to adhere to a fairly traditional Evangelical Protestant understanding of Christianity. They describe the purpose of their Good News Clubs as follows:
Photo from the CEF website
Our ministry teaches morals and respect for others, helps build character, strengthens families, assists schools and encourages children. We frequently receive comments of support from school officials, bus drivers and parents which complement the positive change in the behavior of the boys and girls who attend Good News Clubs. Our mission is to serve the children, their parents, the school and the community.
They also give a succinct explanation of their methodology:
. . . trained teachers meet with groups of children in schools, homes, community centers, churches, apartment complexes, just about anywhere the children can easily and safely meet with their parent’s permission. Each week the teacher presents an exciting Bible lesson using colorful materials from CEF Press. This action-packed time also includes songs, Scripture memory, a missions story and review games or other activities focused on the lesson’s theme.
As with all CEF ministries, the purpose of Good News Club is to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and establish (disciple) them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living.
Here and in numerous other places they emphasize that they only meet children with their parents’ permission, and do not seek to supplant their family’s church. Also, while they are straightforward in proposing sin as something that infects everyone, at the same time they emphasize Christ’s saving love and forgiveness: “Now, because of what Jesus has done for you, you can have your sins forgiven. Read on to see how!”
J’Accuse!
Most fair-minded people, even if they take issue with the Child Evangelism Fellowship on some points of theology and ecclesiology, would have a hard time objecting to this program. Perhaps you won’t be surprised that the Satanic Temple doesn’t take a positive view. On their FAQ page they say:
[T]he twisted Evangelical teachings of The Good News Clubs “robs [sic] children of the innocence and enjoyment of childhood, replacing them with a negative self image, preoccupation with sin, fear of Hell, and aversion to critical thinking . . . ”
Forgive me for observing that this angry, accusatory smear seems neither rational nor objective, nor terribly benevolent or empathetic. In fact, it reminds me of nobody so much as the Satan Club’s standard bearer, of whom I observed in an earlier post (“‘Choice’ and The Father of Lies“):
For this reason he is called “the Devil”, from the Greek διάβολος(diabolos), which means “slanderer, perjurer, false accuser, and can also mean “deceiver, one who misleads”. It derives from the verb διαβάλλω(diaballo), whose original meaning is “drive through”, or destroy. Satan seeks to destroy us, eternally, by using falsehood and deception to separate us from God.
Rational thought and benevolence: Seattle area Satanic Temple members (Seattle Times photo)
Isn’t that just what the Satan club is about? They pose as “angels of light” with their talk of empathy and science, but it’s clear by their own words and deeds that their true agenda is to disparage and harass a particular Christian group, and separate Christian children from the religious beliefs of their families; the only plausible reason to choose as their public face Satan, the personification of mindless hatred, untruth, and evil from the Christian Scriptures, is to taunt and insult Christians; their stated policy is to form their clubs only where they can target the Evangelical Christian “Good News” clubs. Clearly, their purpose is not to promote a religion in which they assure us they don’t believe, and they manifestly don’t model the virtues they claim to advocate. They are in reality a hate group dedicated to denying Christian students the right to exercise their own right of free expression in their own clubs. Far from being hypocrites, we have solid legal and moral reasons to work to deny them access to public facilities.
Detail from The Ghent Altarpiece, Jan van Eyck 1432
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one. (1 Corinthians: 4-6)
St. Paul, in the well-known passage above, reminds the Corinthians that the Lord works through all of us in different ways. In similar fashion, we all receive and understand in our own way as well. In my regular job as a teacher I’ve learned to employ a wide variety of approaches in order to reach the largest number of students. In the Age of Covid I have even learned to make my own instructional videos, a skill which I have occasionally applied here when Vimeo didn’t already have a recording of a sacred music selection I wanted to share on the blog.
It was in the spirit of offering different modes for different people that I began making podcasts of some of my posts last year. I have just added a second channel for sacred music posts (which I have not previously recorded as podcasts). To date I have published Vivaldi’s “Laudamus Te” and Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus.”
Please stop by the Podcast Page and let your ears do the work. Your eyes will thank you for the rest.
Lent is approaching fast: Ash Wednesday is just over a week away. This is one of our last chances to get in a joyful sacred composition by our old friend Joseph Haydn before the penitential season begins.
Today’s selection is a setting for the ancient prayer Te Deum (see my discussion of the prayer itself below the video). This is the third different setting of the Te Deum I’ve posted on this site. Last year I shared a very recent composition (as in, premiered in December 2019) by Pedro Camacho. I also posted a version by Domenico Scarlatti that was first performed in the 1720s.
Haydn’s magnificent setting was probably composed in 1799, and had its public premier in 1800. Haydn wrote the piece at the request of the Empress Maria Theresa, for which reason it is known as (what else?) The Te Deum for the Empress Marie Therese. The Aylesbury Choral Society has published a brief but very informative explanation of this wonderful sacred composition HERE. I’m really not sure who is performing the piece in the video below, other than they’re boy singers (sängerknaben), along with somebody named Diego. Whoever they are, they do a fine job. Take a few minutes to enjoy their performance of a great composer’s masterful musical rendition of a beautiful ancient payer:
The Te Deum is an ancient Christian prayer. Its title comes from its first line in Latin: Te Deum Laudamus, “We praise you, God.” For many centuries Christians would sing the Te Deum as a song of celebration and thanks to the Lord. This was true not only after events of clearly religious significance, such as the Christian victory over the Muslim Turks in the Battle of Lepanto in 1572, but on the occasion of more worldly triumphs as well, in recognition that all good things are a gift from God. For instance, the English King Henry V is reputed to have ordered his army to sing the hymn after their victory over the French at Agincourt in 1415, an event William Shakespeare includes in his play Henry V.
While nowhere near as old as the psalms, the Te Deum is still a very ancient prayer, having been composed in the 3rd or 4th century. Its authorship is unknown, but has been attributed to St. Ambrose and/or St. Augustine, St. Nicetas of Remesiana, or St. Hillary of Poitiers. It has been set to music many times over the centuries.
Te Deum:
Te Deum laudámus: te Dominum confitémur. Te ætérnum Patrem omnis terra venerátur. Tibi omnes Angeli; tibi cæli et univérsae potestátes. Tibi Chérubim et Séraphim incessábili voce proclámant:
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dóminus Deus Sábaoth. Pleni sunt cæli et terra majestátis glóriæ tuæ. Te gloriósus Apostolórum chorus; Te Prophetárum laudábilis númerus; Te Mártyrum candidátus laudat exércitus. Te per orbem terrárum sancta confitétur Ecclésia: Patrem imménsæ majestátis; Venerándum tuum verum et únicum Fílium; Sanctum quoque Paráclitum Spíritum. Tu Rex glóriæ, Christe. Tu Patris sempitérnus es Fílius. Tu ad liberándum susceptúrus hóminem, non horruísti Vírginis úterum. Tu, devícto mortis acúleo, aperuísti credéntibus regna cælórum. Tu ad déxteram Dei sedes, in glória Patris. Judex créderis esse ventúrus. Te ergo quǽsumus, tuis fámulis súbveni, quos pretióso sánguine redemísti. Ætérna fac cum sanctis tuis in glória numerári. Salvum fac pópulum tuum, Dómine, et bénedic hæreditáti tuæ. Et rege eos, et extólle illos usque in ætérnum. Per síngulos dies benedícimus te. Et laudámus nomen tuum in sǽculum, et in sǽculum sǽculi. Dignáre, Dómine, die isto sine peccáto nos custodíre. Miserére nostri, Dómine, miserére nostri. Fiat misericórdia tua, Dómine, super nos, quemádmodum sperávimus in te. In te, Dómine, sperávi: non confúndar in ætérnum.
You are God: we praise you; You are the Lord: we acclaim you; You are the eternal Father: All creation worships you. To you all angels, all the powers of heaven, Cherubim and Seraphim, sing in endless praise: Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.The glorious company of apostles praise you. The noble fellowship of prophets praise you. The white-robed army of martyrs praise you. Throughout the world the holy Church acclaims you: Father, of majesty unbounded,your true and only Son, worthy of all worship, and the Holy Spirit, advocate and guide. You, Christ, are the King of glory, the eternal Son of the Father. When you became man to set us free you did not spurn the Virgin’s womb. You overcame the sting of death, and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. You are seated at God’s right hand in glory. We believe that you will come, and be our judge. Come then, Lord, and help your people, bought with the price of your own blood, and bring us with your saints to glory everlasting. Save your people, Lord, and bless your inheritance.— Govern and uphold them now and always. Day by day we bless you. — We praise your name for ever. Keep us today, Lord, from all sin. — Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy. Lord, show us your love and mercy, — for we have put our trust in you.In you, Lord, is our hope: — And we shall never hope in vain.
(Detail), Scenes from the Apocalypse, Paris-Oxford-London Bible moralisée, France, c. 1225–45 (The British Library, Harley MS 1527 fol. 140v)
Latin is Your Language
Latin is your language.
At least it is for the 1,295,000,000 Catholics who belong to the Latin Rite. We call it “Latin Rite” because Latin is its language, as it has been for over a millennium and a half. It is not just the official language of the Church but, to this day, the official language of the Mass. I’m not talking about the Tridentine Mass, which we often call the Traditional Latin Mass, or TLM. I mean the ordinary Mass that you can find in any parish church.
True, you have probably never heard it in any language other than English, or another modern language such as French or Spanish. And yes, the Second Vatican Council permitted the Mass in local languages (see below). That permission quickly became the norm after the council. Nevertheless, the official language of the liturgy is still the same language spoken by Julius Caesar. It’s the language of St. Augustine. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote the Summa Theologica, and rowdy medieval scholars composed the Carmina Burana, in this very same tongue.
Yes, there are non-Latin Catholics, by the way. About 18 million of the World’s Catholics belong to other rites such the Byzantine, Maronite, Melkite, etc. Still, the fact remains that, outside of those relative few, if you’re Catholic, Latin is your liturgical language.
If you’re lucky you may hear some of the traditional language, your language, at Mass. At the very least you should hear it in some traditional Christmas songs. You may even occasionally hear some chant in Latin. After all, the Second Vatican Council also decreed:
The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. (Sacrosanctum Concilium 116)
The Human Touch
Again, if you’re lucky: the “Spirit” of Vatican II has little use for the Letter of Vatican II. If you’re very fortunate indeed you may find yourself in one of those parishes which is bringing back some of the responses, such as the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei, in Latin.
The Laying on of Hands: Archbishop of Brisbane Mark Coleridge ordains Timothy Harris as Bishop of Townsville, Australia (https://mediablog.catholic.org.au/)
Some of you, no doubt, are asking, “What’s so lucky about that?” Glad you asked . . . But first, before I deal directly with the Latin language in the liturgical life of the Church, we need to take a quick look at the sacraments.
I’m thinking specifically of the ordination of bishops. The bishops are the successors of the Apostles. The ordination rite of Catholic bishops says: “Gladly and gratefully, therefore, receive our brother whom we are about to receive into the college of bishops by the laying on of hands.”
And that’s exactly what happens.Iit has always been part of the rite that, just before the consecration itself, the presiding bishop places his hands on the head of the bishop-elect. That same presiding bishop felt the hands of another bishop on his own head when he was ordained, the hands of a bishop who himself had experienced the laying on of hands from another bishop, and so on all the way back to the Apostles. Those same Apostles had felt the physical touch of Jesus Christ himself. A true bishop must be part of that unbroken chain of physical contact starting with the hands of our Lord. It’s an essential part of the Apostolic Succession.
The Tangible Connection
The recognition that God transmits Grace through physical means permeates the entire Catholic understanding, and really the entire traditional Christian understanding, of God’s relationship to his creation. It’s the underlying rationale for all the sacraments. The same is true for sacramentals like holy water, holy medals, etc. It’s why every Mass used to end with the reading of the Last Gospel, the opening chapter of the Gospel of John, which proclaims that “The Word became Flesh.” (John 1:14)
You’ll notice that those physical connections include not only things, but people. Just as the physical touch of human bishops over the centuries passes on Grace originating in Christ, all of us can draw closer to God through our relationship with our older brothers and sisters in the faith, the saints. Our connection with our fellow Christians in the communion of saints is not a purely spiritual connection, either. We’ve preserved little bits of cloth and even the very bones of the saints to make that connection as tangible as possible. We are soul and body: we need to experience spiritual realities in a physical way.
That’s where the Latin language comes in. It’s our tangible connection to, and direct sharing in, the liturgical experience of many generations of our predecessors in the Communion of Saints. That’s why in the decree Sacrosanctum Concilium the Second Vatican Council said that “The use of the Latin language, with due respect to particular law, is to be preserved in the Latin rites.” (SC 36) The document does go on to say, however, that: “since the use of the vernacular whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or in other parts of the liturgy, may frequently be of great advantage to the people, a wider use may be made of it, especially in readings, directives and in some prayers and chants.” (SC 36)
You might not think so from what has happened to the liturgy over the past few decades, but the Second Vatican Council did not mandate, or even recommend, removing the Latin language from the Mass. It was simply allowing some use of the vernacular. Sacrosanctum Concilium returns to this point later on, when it says: “Nevertheless care must be taken to ensure that the faithful may also be able to say or sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them.” (SC 54)
Not Something We Create
The Council Fathers understood that the Latin language serves a purpose similar to the laying on of hands. Not the sacramental function, certainly. Nevertheless, it keeps alive that sense of connection to previous generations of believers. Even more than that, it’s a tangible reminder that the Mass isn’t something that we create ourselves, or that exists only for us. It tells us in a very concrete way that the Mass is here to bind us back to something immeasurably older and greater than ourselves. It helps to turn us away from a focus on ourselves, and instead put our attention where it belongs, on our Loving Creator.
In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen
“It’s like comparing cats and dogs.” Ever heard that expression before? Ever used it? I did, several years ago. I was teaching a 9th grade theology class in a (more or less) Catholic school, and same sex marriage (a hot topic at the time) came up for discussion. I wanted to emphasize that the marital relationship between a man and a woman is fundamentally different from a relationship between two men or two women. In my naivete I thought it would be helpful to explain that the relationships were as different as cats and dogs. Which is why I found myself in the assistant principal’s office the next day responding to student complaints that I had called people in same sex couples animals. “They tell me you said they were cats and dogs!”
Image from Pixabay.com
This is a true story. I understood perfectly shortly afterwards when I heard Catholic scholar and apologist Peter Kreeft say that analogical thinking is a dying art. Our addiction to communications technology, it appears, is killing our powers of imagination. Kreeft pointed out that brains which spend a lot of time interacting with video games and various other electronic devices simply don’t develop in the same way as those formed by extensive reading. Among the those things that are undernourished are linear and analogical thinking. Professor Kreeft has found that this makes it difficult to teach a subject like Theology that requires dealing with a lot of difficult and abstract ideas.
The “cats and dogs” example above is just one of many I’ve experienced in thirty-plus years of teaching and, yes, such examples have become more frequent over the years. Fortunately, we still have a long way to go: while many people, especially young people, may not be as quick to grasp them as they might have been several decades ago, analogies are still the most effective way to communicate many ideas. Analogies have always been a preferred way of explaining Christian doctrine: think of the parables of Jesus, or St. Paul’s comparison (1st Corinthians) of the Church to a body, with all the members working together at their own assigned tasks. Not only that, one of the four traditional Levels of Meaning in scripture, the Allegorical, relies very heavily on analogical thinking. Analogy is often the only reliable way for us who are composed of both spirit and matter to understand spiritual realities.
Not surprisingly, analogies are also an essential tool in any dialogue with those who don’t share our faith. I don’t mean only those analogies we ourselves offer to explain our ideas. There are times when critiquing poorly conceived analogies offered up by those with whom we are, as they say, in dialogue, can sometimes help clarify the muddy thinking behind them. I once had an enthusiastically atheist student, for example, who proposed the following analogy as a critique of the Christian conception of God: Our Lord, as we Christians envision Him, is like an armed robber with a gun to our heads. He is offering us a choice between giving him all our money (i.e., living according to the Gospel and spending eternity in Heaven), or having our brains blown out (which is spending eternity in Hell).
Now, clearly, there are some very obvious problems with this analogy. The vast majority of people, even many non-Christians, will have a hard time seeing going to Heaven as equivalent to getting mugged, even if we accept the premise that living a Christian life “robs” us of pleasures we might otherwise enjoy. Heaven promises something infinitely better than anything available here, whereas an armed robber does not even pretend to make our life better than it was before we met him. And of course there is quite a lot of secular, sociological evidence that following God’s law actually makes us happier in the here-and-now. Also, the robber analogy depicts Hell as something that God imposes on us, in which we take no initiative at all, when in fact the Catholic conception of Hell is that it is something that we choose for ourselves by our rejection of his freely offered love, contrary to God’s desire that “all men be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4)
The example above, by the way, also shows how analogies can be used not only to enlighten, but to deceive. A vivid image can capture the imagination and appear to be making a good argument, when in fact it is distorting the underlying ideas. A rational rebuttal can help to undermine a bad analogy, but logic doesn’t have the emotional impact of the tangible picture an analogy can create. Sometimes, in addition to reasoned argument, a good counter-analogy helps.
The Return of the Prodigal Son, by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, c. 1670
In this case, what analogy more truthfully communicates the eternal choice which God presents to us? Try this: imagine that we are standing outdoors on a cold, rainy night. Somebody (God) opens a door and invites us to come inside with him, where it is warm and dry (although, of course, we need to take off our wet muddy boots and our wet, dripping coats: those represent our attachment to sin). That’s God’s offer of eternal salvation. We can say yes, although we are equally free to say no. In fact, we are free to say “No, you can’t tell me what to do! Besides, can you prove it’s really warm and dry in there?” And we can remain out in the cold, wet darkness. That’s Hell, the product of nothing but our own pride and stubbornness.
The second analogy presents a much more accurate image of the Christian view of our eternal destiny. Notice also that these two analogies do more than simply offer different interpretations of the Christian view of our relationship with our Creator. Each also provides a telling view of the perspective of those who are offering the analogy. We can clearly see that the atheist’s philosophical stance is concerned with power, force, and will, a zero sum game in which one party must be the winner, and the other the loser. The truly Christian perspective envisions a reality in which love can triumph, and everyone can win.
So, yes, analogies can get us into trouble, both because in our increasingly literal-minded age our listeners might not understand, but also because the images we choose may reveal more of ourselves than we intend. Nonetheless, we follow a Lord who compares faith to a mustard seed, and to a treasure buried in a field. Not only that, he describes our omnipotent Creator as a loving, forgiving Father who waits for each one of us anxiously from afar, desiring us to return to him so that he can say of each of us, “this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” (Luke 15:24) Let’s not stay outside in the rain.
The Good Shepherd, by Phillippe de Champaigne, 17th century
Are you prepared to “die for love”? It’s a romantic cliché, of course, but today is the traditional feast of a martyr who did die for love, literally. I discuss the story of 3rd Century Saint and Martyr St. Valentine in greater detail in “St. Valentine, Patron of Agape.”
One thing is clear from the story of this saint: for Valentine and his fellow Christians, romantic love was inseparable from Christian marriage. In that spirit, I chose for today’s Music Monday selection a piece that has been traditionally played at weddings, “He Shall Feed his Flock Like a Shepherd” from Handel’s Messiah.
Although most of us today tend to associate the Messiah with the season of Advent and the run-up to Christmas, Handel originally composed his oratorio for the season of Lent. As it happens, Lent is just around the corner. And in fact, if you attended the Traditional Latin Mass yesterday, you probably noticed that father was already wearing the purple vestments of the penitential season. For many centuries the Church observed a pre-Lenten season known as Septuagesima, starting on Septuagesima Sunday, the third Sunday before Ash Wednesday (which falls on February 13th this year). Septuagesima disappeared for most of the Roman Church in 1969 in the same reform of the liturgical calendar that removed St. Valentine’s Day as a formal observance.
It’s not surprising that the Messiah has shifted to the less somber penitential season of Advent, since the exuberance of much of its music seems a little out of place for Lent. “He Shall Feed his Flock Like a Shepherd,” with it’s quiet intensity, however, never sounds out of place. It starts out with the description of the Good Shepherd from Isaiah 40:11: “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd . . .” Midway through the piece we shift to Matthew 11:28-29 “Come unto Him, all ye who labour . . .” In this context “He Shall Feed His Flock” emphasizes the love of the God who is Love (see John 4:8) for all of us, but especially for our own love as expressed in the Sacrament of Marriage.
Soprano Regula Mühlemann sings in the clip below, accompanied by the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, with Ramus Baumann conducting.
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.
There’s an old joke about a police officer who was walking his beat one night when he came upon a man, apparently drunk, crawling around on his hands and knees on the pavement under a streetlamp.
“What are you doing?” asked the officer.
“Looking for my keys,” came the reply.
“Where’d you lose them?” returned the constable.
“Over there” answered the other, gesturing toward a shadowy area outside the halo of the streetlamp.
“Then why are you looking here?” demanded the bemused policeman.
“Well,” said the man, looking up at the officer, “the light’s better here.”
I am sometimes reminded of the unfortunate man under the streetlight when I am engaged in discussion with atheists. It’s not that they are intoxicated, but that they insist on conducting the search for God where He cannot possibly be found, using a method that is guaranteed not to find Him.
Most atheists I talk to are materialists, who insist that we can’t reasonably argue for the existence of God unless we can detect his presence using the tools of science. This is, of course, a very narrow and limited understanding of “reason” (and one for which they have a hard time coming up with a reasonable defense). They either can’t or won’t accept that the Creator of the universe must logically be outside his creation (just as an artist cannot be inside his own painting). Science can only detect things that are part of the natural universe. If God is truly God, then finding Him through scientific inquiry is as useless as looking for lost keys thirty feet away from where you know you dropped them.
Unless, of course, you don’t wantto find anything . . .
Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden, by Wenzel Peter, 1829
We’ve been looking at selections from Haydn’s oratorio The Creation over the past few weeks . Last week we saw the overture, “Chaos,” a musical representation of the state of disorder that prevailed before God created the universe. The selection before that was “The Heavens are Telling,” based on Psalm 19. This piece comes at the end of the first part of the oratorio, after God has created the firmament and the land. It celebrates the wonderful way in which creation reflects its Creator.
Today we are listening to the conclusion of Haydn’s masterpiece . . . but not the end of the story. At this point God has created the parents of the human race, Adam and Eve, who are happily busying themselves about the Garden of Eden. In “Sing the Lord, ye voices all!” the chorus booms out a joyful song of thanks:
Sing the Lord, ye voices all! Utter thanks ye all his works! Celebrate his pow’r and glory! Let his name resound on high! The Lord is great, his praise shall last for aye. Amen! Amen!
The drama ends before the Fall. We, of course, know what lies ahead for Adam and Eve, even if they don’t. As we listen to the rousing finale, we can’t help but reflect on the words spoken moments before by the angel Uriel. “O happy pair, and always happy yet,” he says to the first man and woman, “if not, misled by false conceit, ye strive at more, as granted is, and more to know, as know ye should!” The true drama is about to begin.
The clip below features the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir performing “Singt dem Herren alle Stimmen” (“Sing the Lord, ye voices all!”) from Haydn’s The Creation.
The Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and The Norwegian Soloists’ Choir performed the Creation by Joseph Haydn in the University Aula, Oslo, on April 3rd 2012.
Conductor: Grete Pedersen Soloists: Marita Kvarving Sølberg (soprano), Astrid Sandvand Dahlen (alto), Magnus Staveland (tenor) Johannes Weisser (bass)
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