Tuesday, October 6, 2009

"Without these three orders you cannot begin to speak of a church."


Today's reading from St. Ignatius, writing in around AD 117 (at the latest), and a man who learned the faith from the Apostle John himself, contains these words. Here is the whole selection. My comments follow.

A letter to the Trallians by St Ignatius of Antioch
Ignatius, also called Theophorus, to the holy church at Tralles in the province of Asia, dear to God the Father of Jesus Christ, elect and worthy of God, enjoying peace in body and in the Spirit through the passion of Jesus Christ, who is our hope through our resurrection when we rise to him. In the manner of the apostles, I too send greetings to you with the fullness of grace and extend my every best wish.
Reports of your splendid character have reached me: how you are beyond reproach and ever unshaken in your patient endurance – qualities that you have not acquired but are yours by nature. My informant was your own bishop Polybius, who by the will of God and Jesus Christ visited me here in Smyrna. He so fully entered into my joy at being in chains for Christ that I came to see your whole community embodied in him. Moreover, when I learned from him of your God-given kindliness toward me, I broke out in words of praise for God. It is on him, I discovered, that you pattern your lives.
Your submission to your bishop, who is in the place of Jesus Christ, shows me that you are not living as men usually do but in the manner of Jesus himself, who died for us that you might escape death by belief in his death. Thus one thing is necessary, and you already observe it, that you do nothing without your bishop; indeed, be subject to the clergy as well, seeing in them the apostles of Jesus Christ our hope, for if we live in him we shall be found in him.
Deacons, too, who are ministers of the mysteries of Jesus should in all things be pleasing to all men. For they are not mere servants with food and drink, but emissaries of God’s Church; hence they should guard themselves against anything deserving reproach as they would against fire.
Similarly, all should respect the deacons as Jesus Christ, just as all should regard the bishop as the image of the Father, and the clergy as God’s senate and the college of the apostles. Without these three orders you cannot begin to speak of a church. I am confident that you share my feelings in this matter, for I have had an example of your love in the person of your bishop who is with me now. His whole bearing is a great lesson, and his very gentleness wields a mighty influence.
By God’s grace there are many things I understand, but I keep well within my limitations for fear that boasting should be my undoing. At the moment, then, I must be more apprehensive than ever and pay no attention at all to those who flatter me; their praise is as a scourge. For though I have a fierce desire to suffer martyrdom, I know not whether I am worthy of it. Most people are unaware of my passionate longing, but it assails me with increasing intensity. My present need, then, is for that humility by which the prince of this world is overthrown.
And so I strongly urge you, not I so much as the love of Jesus Christ, to be nourished exclusively on Christian fare, abstaining from the alien food that is heresy. And this you will do if you are neither arrogant nor cut off from God, from Jesus Christ, and from the bishop and the teachings of the apostles. Whoever is within the sanctuary is pure; but whoever is not is unclean. That is to say, whoever acts apart from the bishop and the clergy and the deacons is not pure in his conscience. In writing this, it is not that I am aware of anything of the sort among you; I only wish to forewarn you, for you are my dearest children.

I know a lot of people like to point out that the threefold office isn't explicit in Scripture. I get to that in a moment. But if that is true, it seems pretty ballsy of St. Ignatius to say that you can't even begin to think of "Church" without them. If Ignatius is wrong here, it is a big wrong which ought to preclude his being celebrated as a Father of the Church. And if he was wrong, why didn't Church, taught by the apostles, tell him that he was wrong. All the evidence is that the Church accepted this teaching as nothing other than what they had heard from the Apostles themselves. You may reject the threefold office, but you cannot avoid the question, "Why didn't the early Church reject it?" And where does St. Ignatius get off saying that "Without these three orders you cannot begin to speak of a church." if he himself knew that the Apostle's spoke of the church without those orders. He is not saying that the three order are good and practical, yet only one of many valid forms of ecclesiastical structures, he is saying that the threefold ministry is intrinsic to ecclesiology. Like I said, it would be pretty ballsy to made that up without being able to trace it back to the apostles, and it is hard to believe that the Church would accept it without controversy.

Of course, it is even more ballsy to be so arrogant as to assume that you know better than him. He had the same New Testament as you have, with the ability to read the Greek without BAGD or the TDNT. He was in fellowship with the very same local churches to which the NT epistles were written, and regarded to be a faithful, Christian Bishop by them.

Do you really think that you have a superior knowledge of what the Holy Apostle's taught than the St. Ignatius, and the people who received his episcopacy? Not that is ballsy.

And here's the deal, the three offices are in the NT even if it is difficult to differentiate between "episcopos" and "prebuteros". Even without that distinction, you clearly have deacons, you clearly have the apostles, and then you have the priests/bishops. Today, the successors of the apostles are Bishops, the successors of the prebyters, are priests, and the successors of the deacons are deacons. So while some nomenclature is still fluid at the time of the NT, the offices are already there.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

What Grace is for.

I haven't blogged for a while. Maybe I can get back into it. Today's reading (from the office of reading) from Gregory of Nyssa struck me:

So a man who openly despises the accolades of this world and rejects all earthly glory must also practice self-denial. Such self-denial means that you never seek your own will but God’s, using God’s will as a sure guide; it also means possessing nothing apart from what is held in common. In this way it will be easier for you to carry out your superior’s commands promptly, in joy and in hope; this is required of Christ’s servants who are redeemed for service to the brethren.

Here's the deal. I am not a communist. But unmoderated Capitalism must be recognized as a crime against God and man. You can close your eyes to the testimony of Early Church (Acts 2) on how the Early Christians lived. They were not communists either. But neither were they capitalists. The communist says "What's yours is mine." The Early Christians said, "What's mine is yours." Big difference. The capitalist says "What's mine is mine."


I am not suggesting that it is a sin to own private property. Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) were struck dead not because they kept what was theirs, but because they gave the false pretense before the prince of the Apostles and God:

"But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.”

It is not a sin to keep what is yours. It is a sin, however, to withhold aid from those in need. If God has given you more than you need, do you really think it was so you could spend it on nice cars, beautiful homes, fine clothing, and the latest iphone or gadget? If you possess such thing, you can surely use them without sin. More often than not, however, they get in the way of our loving God with all our hearts, all our minds and all our strength. But maybe this isn't about doing the bare minimum--getting by in this world without mortal sin.

And it is not just about tithing. That is the bare minimum. But tithing is for chumps. It you won't do even that little bit, I have my doubts that you are even a Christian. The gloves are coming off. Get off of the ground before the God of Mammon, and love Jesus. Follow Him. I know you can't on your own. That's what GRACE is for. Jesus did not tell the rich young man (Mt 19) to tithe, he said "Go, sell your possessions and give to the poor."

This isn't about what you have to do. This is about what you get to do. This is about living a truly luminous life, rather than doing what everyone else does. "For after all these things do the Gentiles seek."

Read Romans 12: "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Be transformed by the grace of God.

This is about Baptism, and the newness of life in which you now get to walk. And if you stumble (and stumble again and again and again), just get up and start over again. That is what Confession and the Eucharist are for. This is where Jesus gives you all of His love, and where you are renewed to love Him back (and your neighbor too).

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

A Life like that of the Angels

Whoever is in Christ is a new creation; the old has passed away. Now by the “new creation” Paul means the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in a heart that is pure and blameless, free of all malice, wickedness or shamefulness. For when a soul has come to hate sin and has delivered itself as far as it can to the power of virtue, it undergoes a transformation by receiving the grace of the Spirit. Then it is healed, restored and made wholly new. Indeed the two texts: Purge out the old leaven that you may be a new one, and: Let us celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, support those passages which speak about the new creation.

Yet the tempter spreads many a snare to trap the soul, and of itself human nature is too weak to defeat him. This is why the Apostle bids us to arm ourselves with heavenly weapons, when he says: Put on the breastplate of righteousness and have your feet shod with the gospel of peace and have truth around your waist as a belt. Can you not see how many forms of salvation the Apostle indicates, all leading to the same path and the same goal? Following them to the heights of God’s commandments, we easily complete the race of life. For elsewhere the Apostle says: Let us run with fidelity the race that has been set before us, with our eyes on Jesus, the origin and the goal of our faith.


So a man who openly despises the accolades of this world and rejects all earthly glory must also practice self-denial. Such self-denial means that you never seek your own will but God’s, using God’s will as a sure guide; it also means possessing nothing apart from what is held in common. In this way it will be easier for you to carry out your superior’s commands promptly, in joy and in hope; this is required of Christ’s servants who are redeemed for service to the brethren. For this is what the Lord wants when he says: Whoever wishes to be first and great among you must be the last of all and a servant to all.

Our service of mankind must be given freely. One who is in such a position must be subject to everyone and serve his brothers as if he were paying off a debt. Moreover, those who are in charge should work harder than the others and conduct themselves with greater submission than their own subjects. Their lives should serve as a visible example of what service means, and they should remember that those who are committed to their trust are held in trust from God.

Those, then, who are in a position of authority must look after their brothers as conscientious teachers look after the young children who have been handed over to them by their parents. If both disciples and masters have this loving relationship, then subjects will be happy to obey whatever is commanded, while superiors will be delighted to lead their brothers to perfection. If you try to outdo one another in showing respect, your life on earth will be like that of the angels.

---Gregory of Nyssa (d. ca. 385)

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

To Whom Praise is Due if You are Good.

This is our glory: the witness of our conscience. There are men who rashly judge, who slander, whisper and murmur, who are eager to suspect what they do not see, and eager to spread abroad things they have not even a suspicion of. Against men of this sort, what defence is there save the witness of our own conscience?

My brothers, we do not seek, nor should we seek, our own glory even among those whose approval we desire. What we should seek is their salvation, so that if we walk as we should they will not go astray in following us. They should imitate us if we are imitators of Christ; and if we are not, they should still imitate him. He cares for his flock, and he alone is to be found with those who care for their flocks, because they are all in him.

And so we seek no advantage for ourselves when we aim to please men. We want to take our joy in men – and we rejoice when they take pleasure in what is good, not because this exalts us, but because it benefits them.

It is clear who is intended by the apostle Paul: If I wanted to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. And similarly when he says: Be pleasing to all men in all things, even as I in all things please all men. Yet his words are as clear as water, limpid, undisturbed, unclouded. And so you should, as sheep, feed on and drink of his message; do not trample on it or stir it up.

You have listened to our Lord Jesus Christ as he taught his apostles: Let your actions shine before men so that they may see your good deeds, and give glory to your Father who is in heaven, for it is the Father who made you thus. We are the people of his pasture, the sheep of his hands. If then you are good, praise is due to him who made you so; it is no credit to you, for if you were left to yourself, you could only be wicked. Why then do you try to pervert the truth, in wishing to be praised when you do good, and blaming God when you do evil? For though he said: Let your works shine before men, in the same Sermon on the Mount he also said: Do not parade your good deeds before men. So if you think there are contradictions in Saint Paul, you will find the same in the Gospels; but if you refrain from troubling the waters of your heart, you will recognise here the peace of the Scriptures and with it you will have peace.

And so, my brothers, our concern should be not only to live as we ought, but also to do so in the sight of men; not only to have a good conscience but also, so far as we can in our weakness, so far as we can govern our frailty, to do nothing which might lead our weak brother into thinking evil of us. Otherwise, as we feed on the good pasture and drink the pure water, we may trample on God’s meadow, and weaker sheep will have to feed on trampled grass and drink from troubled waters.

--St. Augustine, Bishop.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Christ is the Bond that Unites Us


[Today commemorates St. Cyril of Alexandria, Bishop. We thank God for His witness to Jesus Christ, and that we have been preserved from the Nestorian Heresy! May God preserve us from all such schisms. See prayer at end]


"Paul bears witness to the fact that we achieve bodily union with Christ to the extent that we partake of his holy flesh. About this great mystery he says This that has now been revealed through the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets was unknown to any men in past generations: it means that pagans now share the same inheritance, that they are parts of the same body, and that the same promise has been made to them, in Jesus Christ.

If we are all the same body with one another in Christ – not just with one another, but with him who, through communion with his flesh, is actually within us – are we not then all of us clearly one with one another and one with Christ? For Christ is the bond that unites us, being at once God and Man.


Following the same line of thought, we can say this about spiritual unity: we all receive one and the same Spirit, the one Holy Spirit, I mean the Holy Spirit. So in a way we are blended together with one another and with God. Even though we are many individuals and Christ, the Spirit of the Father and his own Spirit, dwells in each one of us individually, still the Spirit is really one and indivisible. And so that one Spirit binds together the separated spirits of each one of us so that we are seen to be one, together in Christ.

Just as the power of Christ’s holy flesh makes into one body everyone in whom it exists, in the same way the Spirit of God, being indivisible, ties together the spirits in which it dwells.

Again, Paul emphasized this point: Bear with one another charitably, in complete selflessness, gentleness and patience. Do all you can to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you together. There is one Body, one Spirit, just as you were all called into one and the same hope when you were called. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God who is Father of all, over all, through all and within all. As the one Spirit abides in us, the one God and Father will be with us through the Son, leading those who share the Spirit into unity with each other and with himself.

There is another way to show that we are united through sharing in the Holy Spirit. If we abandon living as mere animals and surrender ourselves wholly to the laws of the Spirit, it is surely beyond question that by effectively denying our own life and taking upon ourselves the transcendent likeness of the Holy Spirit who is joined unto us, we are practically transformed into another nature. We are no longer mere men, but sons of God and citizens of Heaven, through becoming partakers of the divine nature.

We are all, therefore, one in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit; one because we have the same relationship, one because we live the same life of righteousness, and one in receiving the holy flesh of Christ and in sharing the one Holy Spirit.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, AD 376-444

We sinners, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That Thou wouldst spare us,
That Thou wouldst pardon us,
That Thou wouldst bring us to true penance,
That Thou wouldst vouchsafe to govern and preserve Thy holy Church,
That Thou wouldst vouchsafe to preserve our Apostolic Prelate and all orders of the Church in holy religion,
That Thou wouldst vouchsafe to humble the enemies of holy Church,
That Thou wouldst vouchsafe to give peace and true concord to Christian kings and princes,
That Thou wouldst vouchsafe to bring back to the unity of the Church all those who have strayed away, and lead to the light of the Gospel all unbelievers,
That Thou wouldst vouchsafe to confirm and preserve us in Thy holy service,
That Thou wouldst lift up our minds to heavenly desires,
That Thou wouldst render eternal blessings to all our benefactors,
That Thou wouldst deliver our souls, and the souls of our brethren, relatives, and benefactors from eternal damnation,
That Thou wouldst vouchsafe to give and preserve the fruits of the earth,
That Thou wouldst vouchsafe to grant eternal rest to all the faithful departed,
That Thou wouldst vouchsafe graciously to hear us,
Son of God, we beseech Thee, hear us.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

To Impress the Vastness of His Love...

St Thomas Aquinas:

Since it was the will of God’s only-begotten Son that men should share in his divinity, he assumed our nature in order that by becoming man he might make men gods. Moreover, when he took our flesh he dedicated the whole of its substance to our salvation. He offered his body to God the Father on the altar of the cross as a sacrifice for our reconciliation. He shed his blood for our ransom and purification, so that we might be redeemed from our wretched state of bondage and cleansed from all sin. But to ensure that the memory of so great a gift would abide with us for ever, he left his body as food and his blood as drink for the faithful to consume in the form of bread and wine.

O precious and wonderful banquet, that brings us salvation and contains all sweetness! Could anything be of more intrinsic value? Under the old law it was the flesh of calves and goats that was offered, but here Christ himself, the true God, is set before us as our food. What could be more wonderful than this? No other sacrament has greater healing power; through it sins are purged away, virtues are increased, and the soul is enriched with an abundance of every spiritual gift. It is offered in the Church for the living and the dead, so that what was instituted for the salvation of all may be for the benefit of all. Yet, in the end, no one can fully express the sweetness of this sacrament, in which spiritual delight is tasted at its very source, and in which we renew the memory of that surpassing love for us which Christ revealed in his passion.

It was to impress the vastness of this love more firmly upon the hearts of the faithful that our Lord instituted this sacrament at the Last Supper. As he was on the point of leaving the world to go to the Father, after celebrating the Passover with his disciples, he left it as a perpetual memorial of his passion. It was the fulfilment of ancient figures and the greatest of all his miracles, while for those who were to experience the sorrow of his departure, it was destined to be a unique and abiding consolation.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Faith and Reason

From R. H. Benson "Paradoxes of Catholicism"


FAITH AND REASON


_Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall
not enter into it_.--MARK X. 15.

_Some things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and the unstable
wrest, as also the other Scriptures, to their own perdition_.--
II PET. III. 16.


There are two great gifts, or faculties, by which men attain to truth:
faith and reason. From these two sides, therefore, come two more
assaults upon the Catholic position, a position which itself faces in
both these directions. On the one side we are told that we believe too
simply, on the other that we do not believe simply enough; on the one
side that we reason too little, on the other that we do not reason
enough. Let us set out these attacks in order.

I. (i) "You Catholics," says one critic, "are far too credulous in
matters of religion. You believe, not as reasonable men believe, because
you have verified or experienced the truths you profess, but simply
because these dogmas are presented to you by the Church. If reason and
common-sense are gifts of God and intended for use, surely it is very
strange to silence them in your search for the supreme truth. Faith, of
course, has its place, but it must not be blind faith. Reason must test,
verify, and interpret, or faith is mere credulity.

"Consider, for example, the words of Christ, _This is My Body_. Now the
words as they stand may certainly be supposed to mean what you say they
mean; yet, interpreted by Reason, they cannot possibly mean anything of
the kind. Did not Christ Himself sit in bodily form at the table as He
spoke them? How then could He hold Himself in His hand? Did He not speak
in metaphors and images continually? Did He not call Himself _a Door and
a Vine_? Using Reason, then, to interpret these words, it is evident
that He meant no more than that He was instituting a memorial feast, in
which the bread should symbolize His Body and the wine His Blood. So too
with many other distinctively Catholic doctrines--with the Petrine
claims, with the authority 'to bind and loose,' and the rest. Catholic
belief on these points exhibits not faith properly so-called--that is,
Faith tested by Reason--but mere credulity. God gave us all Reason! Then
in His Name let us use it!"

(ii) From the other side comes precisely the opposite charge.

"You Catholics," cries the other critic, "are far too argumentative and
deductive and logical in your Faith. True Religion is a very simple
thing; it is the attitude of a child who trusts and does not question.
But with you Catholics Religion has degenerated into Theology. Jesus
Christ did not write a _Summa_; He made a few plain statements which
comprise, as they stand, the whole Christian Religion; they are full of
mystery, no doubt, but it is He who left them mysterious. Why, then,
should your theologians seek to penetrate into regions which He did not
reveal and to elaborate what He left unelaborated?

"Take, for example, Christ's words, _This is My Body_. Now of course
these words are mysterious, and if Christ had meant that they should be
otherwise, He would Himself have given the necessary comment upon them.
Yet He did not; He left them in an awful and deep simplicity into which
no human logic ought even to seek to penetrate. Yet see the vast and
complicated theology that the traditions have either piled upon them or
attempted to extract out of them; the philosophical theories by which it
has been sought to elucidate them; the intricate and wide-reaching
devotions that have been founded upon them! What have words like
'Transubstantiation' and 'Concomitance,' devotions like 'Benediction,'
gatherings like Eucharistic Congresses to do with the august simplicity
of Christ's own institution? You Catholics argue too much--deduce,
syllogize, and explain--until the simple splendour of Christ's
mysterious act is altogether overlaid and hidden. Be more simple! It is
better to _'love God than to discourse learnedly about the Blessed
Trinity.' It has not pleased God to save His people through dialectics._
Believe more, argue less!"

Once more, then, the double charge is brought. We believe, it seems,
where we ought to reason. We reason where we ought to believe. We
believe too blindly and not blindly enough. We reason too closely and
not closely enough.

Here, then, is a vast subject--the relations of Faith and Reason and the
place of each in man's attitude towards Truth. It is, of course,
possible only to glance at these things in outline.

II. First, let us consider, as a kind of illustration, the relations of
these things in ordinary human science. Neither Faith nor Reason will,
of course, be precisely the same as in supernatural matters; yet there
will be a sufficient parallel for our purpose.

A scientist, let us say, proposes to make observations upon the
structure of a fly's leg. He catches his fly, dissects, prepares, places
it in his microscope, observes, and records. Now here, it would seem, is
Pure Science at its purest and Reason in its most reasonable aspect. Yet
the acts of faith in this very simple process are, if we consider
closely, simply numberless. The scientist must make acts of faith,
certainly reasonable acts, yet none the less of faith, for all that:
first, that his fly is not a freak of nature; next, that his lens is
symmetrically ground; then that his observation is adequate; then that
his memory has not played him false between his observing and his
recording that which he has seen. These acts are so reasonable that we
forget that they are acts of faith. They are justified by reason before
they are made, and they are usually, though not invariably, verified by
Reason afterwards. Yet they are, in their essence, Faith and not Reason.

So, too, when a child learns a foreign language. Reason justifies him in
making one act of faith that his teacher is competent, another that his
grammar is correct, a third that he hears and sees and understands
correctly the information given him, a fourth that such a language
actually exists. And when he visits France afterwards he can, within
limits, again verify by his reason the acts of faith which he has
previously made. Yet none the less they were acts of faith, though they
were reasonable. In a word, then, no acquirement of or progress in any
branch of human knowledge is possible without the exercise of faith. I
cannot walk downstairs in the dark without at least as many acts of
faith as there are steps in the staircase. Society could not hold
together another day if mutual faith were wholly wanting among its
units. Certainly we use reason first to justify our faith, and we reason
later to verify it. Yet none the less the middle step is faith. Columbus
reasoned first that there must be a land beyond the Atlantic, and he
used that same reason later to verify his discovery. Yet without a
sublime act of faith between these processes, without that almost
reckless moment in which he first weighed anchor from Europe, reason
would never have gone beyond speculative theorizing. Faith made real for
him what Reason suggested. Faith actually accomplished that of which
Reason could only dream.

III. Turn now to the coming of Jesus Christ on earth. He came, as we
know now, a Divine Teacher from heaven to make a Revelation from God; He
came, that is, to demand from men a sublime Act of Faith in Himself. For
He Himself was Incarnate Wisdom, and He demanded, therefore, as none
else can demand it, a supreme acceptance of His claim. No progress in
Divine knowledge, as He Himself tells us, is possible, then, without
this initial act. _Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a
little child shall not enter into it_. Every soul that is to receive
this teaching in its entirety must first accept the Teacher and sit at
His feet.

Yet He did not make this claim merely on His own unsupported word. He
presented His credentials, so to say; He fulfilled prophecy; He wrought
miracles; He satisfied the moral sense. _Believe Me_, He says, _for the
very works' sake_. Before, then, demanding the fundamental act of Faith
on which the reception of Revelation must depend, He took pains to make
this Act of Faith reasonable. "You see what I do," He said in effect,
"you have observed My life, My words, My actions. Now is it not in
accordance with Reason that you should grant My claims? Can you explain
away, _reasonably_, on any other grounds than those which I state, the
phenomena of My life?"

Certainly, then, He appealed to Reason; He appealed to Private Judgment,
since that, up to that moment, was all that His hearers possessed. But,
in demanding an Act of Faith, He appealed to Private Judgment to set
itself aside; He appealed to Reason as to whether it were not Reasonable
to stand aside for the moment and let Faith take its place. And we know
how His disciples responded. _Whom do you say that I am?... Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the Living God._

At that instant, then, a new stage was begun. They had used their Reason
and their Private Judgment, and, aided by His grace, had concluded that
the next reasonable step was that of Faith. Up to that point they had
observed, dissected, criticized, and analyzed His words; they had
examined, that is, His credentials. And now it was Reason itself that
urged them towards Faith, Reason that abdicated what had hitherto been,
its right and its duty, that Faith might assume her proper place.
Henceforth, then, their attitude must be a different one. Up to now they
had used their Reason to examine His claim; now it was Faith, aided and
urged by Reason, which accepted it.

Yet even now Reason's work is not done, though its scope in future is
changed. Reason no longer examines whether He be God; Faith has
accepted it: yet Reason has to be as active as ever; for Reason now must
begin with all its might the task of understanding His Revelation. Faith
has given them, so to speak, casket after casket of jewels; every word
that Jesus Christ henceforth speaks to them is a very mine of treasure,
absolutely true since He is known to be a Divine Teacher Who has given
it. And Reason now begins her new work, not of justifying Faith, but, so
to say, of interpreting it; not of examining His claims, since these
have been once for all accepted, but of examining, understanding, and
assimilating all that He reveals.

III. Turn now to Catholicism.

It is the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church only, that acts as
did Jesus Christ and offers an adequate object to Reason and Faith
alike. For, first, it is evident that if Christ intended His Revelation
to last through all time, He must have designed a means by which it
should last, an Authority that should declare and preserve it as He
Himself delivered it. And next, it is evident that since the Catholic
Church alone even claims that prerogative, clearly and coherently, her
right to represent that Authority is in proportion to the clearness and
coherence of her claim. Or, again, she advances in support of that claim
precisely those same credentials as did He: she points to her miracles,
her achievements, the fulfilment of prophecy, the unity of her teaching,
the appeal to men's moral sense--all of them appeals to Reason, and
appeals which lead up, as did His, to the supreme claim, which He also
made, to demand an Act of Faith in herself as a Divine Teacher.

For she alone demands it. Other denominations of Christendom point to a
Book, or to the writings of Fathers, or to the example of their members,
and she too does these things. But it is she alone who appeals to these
things not as final in themselves, not as constituting in themselves a
final court of appeal, but as indicating as that court of appeal her own
Living Voice. _Believe me, for the works' sake_, she too says. "Use your
reason to the full to examine my credentials; study prophecy, history,
the Fathers--study my claims in any realm in which your intellect is
competent--and then see if it is not after all supremely reasonable for
Reason to abdicate that particular throne on which she has sat so long
and to seat Faith there instead? Certainly follow your Reason and use
your private judgment, for at present you have no other guide; and then,
please God, aided by Faith, Reason will itself bow before Faith, and
take her own place henceforth, not on the throne, but on the steps that
lead to it."

Is Reason, then, to be silent henceforth? Why, the whole of theology
gives the answer. Did Newman cease to think when he became a Catholic?
Did Thomas Aquinas resign his intellect when he devoted himself to
study? Not for one instant is Reason silent. On the contrary, she is
active as never before. Certainly she is no longer occupied in
examining as to whether the Church is divine, but instead she is busied,
with incredible labours, in examining what follows from that fact, in
sorting the new treasures that are opened to her with the dawn of
Revelation upon her eyes, in arranging, deducting, and understanding the
details and structure of the astonishing Vision of Truth. And more, she
is as inviolate as ever. For never can there be presented to her one
article of Faith that gives the lie to her own nature, since Revelation
and Reason cannot contradict one the other. She has learned, indeed,
that the mysteries of God often transcend her powers, that she cannot
fathom the infinite with the finite; yet never for one moment is she
bidden to evacuate her own position or believe that which she perceives
to be untrue. She has learned her limitations, and with that has come to
understand her inviolable rights.

See, then, how the features of Christ look out through the lineaments of
His Church. She alone dares to claim an act of Divine Faith in herself,
since it is He Who speaks in her Voice. She alone, since she is Divine,
bids the wisest men _become as little children_ at her feet and endows
little children with the wisdom of the ancients. Yet, on the other hand,
in her magnificent Humanity, she has produced through the exercise of
illuminated human Reason such a wealth of theology as the world has
never seen. Is it any wonder that the world thinks both her Faith and
Reason alike too extreme? For her Faith rises from her Divinity and her
Reason from her Humanity; and such an outpouring of Divinity and such an
emphatic Humanity, such a superb confidence in God's revelation and such
untiring labours upon the contents of that Revelation, are altogether
beyond the imagination of a world that in reality, fears both Faith and
Reason alike.

At her feet, and hers only, then, do the wisest and the simple kneel
together--St. Thomas and the child, St. Augustine and the "charcoal
burner"; as diverse, in their humanity, as men can be; as united in the
light of Divinity as only those can be who have found it.

So, then, she goes forward to victory. "First use your reason," she
cries to the world, "to see whether I be not Divine! Then, impelled by
Reason and aided by Grace, rise to Faith. Then once more call up your
Reason, to verify and understand those mysteries which you accept as
true. And so, little by little, vistas of truth will open about you and
doctrines glow with an undreamed-of light. So Faith will be interpreted
by Reason and Reason hold up the hands of Faith, until you come indeed
to the unveiled vision of the Truth whose feet already you grasp in love
and adoration; until you see, face to face in Heaven, Him Who is at once
the Giver of Reason and the _Author of Faith_."

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