Finding the flood…

"Evidence shows that what is now the Persian Gulf was flooded by the waters of the Indian Ocean around 8,000 years ago. Dr. Rose thinks the new colonists may have come from the heart of the Gulf to escape the rising water levels that plunged the once fertile landscape beneath the water."

Deutsch als Vatersprache…

die Abrede (stellen)
Wenn ein katholischer Priester Abtreibungen finanziell unterstützt, stellt er im Grunde dabei seinen Glauben und spirituelle Autorität in Abrede.

abreissen
Der Streit um die Erderwärmung reisst nicht ab!

auf dem Absatz kehrtmachen
Sofort als ich sie in der Kaffeestube bei dem Tisch, an dem ich sitze gern, gesehen hatte, kehrte ich auf dem Absatz und ging zurück nach Hause.

Zufriedenheit wohnt mehr in Hütten als in Palästen. --> So Sprüche 15.17 "Besser ein Gericht Kraut mit Liebe, als ein gemästeter Ochse mit Haß! " und 17.1 "Besser ein trockener Bissen mit Ruhe, als ein Haus voll Opferfleisch mit Zank!"

Zufriedenheit ist eine Tugend, Selbstzufriedenheit ein Fehler. --> Die Heuchler sind ihre eigenen grössten Unterstützer.

Zufriedenheit geht über Reichtum. --> Als oben, Sprüche, usw.

Belief, character, behavior, perception…

Our behavior is an expression of our character.

Our character is an expression of our beliefs.

Our beliefs are a codification of our perceptions.

If we can modulate our perceptions, and perceptual environment, by systematically altering out behavior, we can alter our beliefs and, in turn, our character, which will also influence our behavior. This is praxis. This is the "technique" of ascesis and sacramental devotion.

The soteriological dispute between Protestants and mainline classical Christians about "works vs. faith" runs much deeper than the exegesis of various biblical passages. The proper teaching on salvation must reflect Jesus' basic account of being(s), definition, and agency. "You shall know a tree by its fruit"––that is a very Aristotelian concept. Powers stem from essence; actions reveal powers. Essence is revealed, or known, in the (actual) application(s) of its given powers.

"You look at the signs of the weather but do not look at the signs of the times"––a semiotic thesis. If a thing's existence integrally includes its semiotic relations to other subjects, then a thing's real nature must include its outward 'performance(s)'. If a subject's faith, faith rooted in an object, does not manifest in certain signs, in certain 'performances', then it is not essentially the faith that the subject is seeking.

Fides formata et informata, I know, I know… but it would be an interesting study to see how Jesus' naturalistic and often philosophically robust parables illuminate the "faith vs. works" dispute. The task of faith is to align itself with the signs presented by its object so that the subject generates the appropriate signs on its own. If you do not 'perform' such signs, objectively you have no faith and thus no salvation.

Brethren, fall not back into thyselves…

Hebrews 3:

[12] Take care, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
[13] But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
[14] For we share in Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end,

12 videte fratres ne forte sit in aliquo vestrum cor malum incredulitatis discedendi a Deo vivo
13 sed adhortamini vosmet ipsos per singulos dies donec hodie cognominatur ut non obduretur quis ex vobis fallacia peccati
14 participes enim Christi effecti sumus si tamen initium substantiae usque ad finem firmum retineamus

12 Gebt Acht, Brüder, dass keiner von euch ein böses, ungläubiges Herz hat, dass keiner vom lebendigen Gott abfällt,
13 sondern ermahnt einander jeden Tag, solange es noch heißt: Heute, damit niemand von euch durch den Betrug der Sünde verhärtet wird;
14 denn an Christus haben wir nur Anteil, wenn wir bis zum Ende an der Zuversicht festhalten, die wir am Anfang hatten.

12 弟兄們！你們要小心，免得你們中有人起背信的惡心，背離生活的天主；
13 反之，只要還有“今天”在，你們要天天互相勸勉，免得你們有人因罪惡的誘惑而硬了心，
14 因為我們已成了有分於基督的人，只要我們保存着起初懷有的信心，

We are called to faith in the God whose splendour blinds the eye of man as the sun blinds the eye of an owl. With that faith in the unseen reality behind all passing realities that crowd our vision, we enter the family of the Church. Washed in the waters of Baptism, Christ's own Death and Resurrection, we are given a new challenge: seeing our true selves in Christ beneath the frail scaffolding of our fallen nature. We are to treat ourselves as clay vessels in which treasure is hidden and likewise to treat the Sacraments as vessels of various textures in which the same treasure is hidden in a boundless way. Only by holding to the substance of the Eucharist, hidden beneath the accidents, can we rightly partake of the Holy Gifts. Likewise, only by holding to the substantial God-likeness of all humans, beneath the accidents of their birth and idolatrous confusions, can we live right among men. In the same vein, only by holding to the substance of a unified, coherent nature, beneath the accidents of empirical error and statistical uncertainty, can we attain a scientific grasp of the world. Thus, all reality is sacramental, all reality a symphony of dim reflections towards Eucharistic fullness.

Saved from God or by God?

From A Thinking Reed:

Ted Grimsrud, a professor of theology and religion at Eastern Mennonite University, … has a series of essays on his site looking at core Christian doctrines. I read the chapter on salvation and really liked the way he framed the problem:

The theology I was first taught as a Christian implicitly told me that it was God from whom I needed to be saved. God is furious at each of us because of our sin. So we are doomed—and we fully deserve our doom. Our only way out is through Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross. God visits upon Jesus the violence we deserve because God must punish sin. Jesus is our substitute who saves us by paying the price required to satisfy God’s righteous anger.

I’ve never heard it put quite that way, but this really pinpoints the problem with what often passes for “traditional” atonement doctrine: it portrays Jesus as saving us from an angry God rather than portraying God in Christ as the origin and agent of our salvation.

Prof. Grimsrud goes on to argue that we aren’t saved from God, but saved by God. More specifically, God is not bound to some cosmic cycle of retributive violence that requires inflicting punishment on Jesus in order for God to forgive us, but instead seeks to heal us from the damage we inflict on others and ourselves when we turn away from trusting in God and put our trust in various idols.

He sees the salvation taught by Jesus as fully continuous with the salvation story of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. God acts to save without needing to be appeased, sacrificed to, or otherwise bought off, because it’s God’s nature to be merciful. “Contrary to many Christian soteriologies, for Jesus the salvation story of the Old Testament remains fully valid. He does not tell a different story, but proclaims the truthfulness of the old story.”

Christmas is for Christ! 2.0

Continuing with points I made in an earlier post…

Christmas Was Never a Pagan Holiday

Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D.

Around this time of year we are bombarded with anti-Catholic propaganda questioning the blessed day of Christ’s birth as December 25. This date, we arrogantly are told, was originally a pagan holiday. The Early Church “chose” it to “Christianize” a Roman feast of the Sun. According to this theory, the Christmas date was only established in the 4th century, when we have the first evidence of the Nativity being celebrated in Rome in 336. The conclusion: The origins of Christmas are pagan, and we do not really know the date the Savior of mankind was born. …

The notion that Christmas had pagan origins began to spread in the 17th century with the English Puritans and Scottish Presbyterians, who hated all Catholic things. The Puritans hated Catholicism so much that they revolted against the so-called Anglican church because, even with their heresies, they considered it still too similar to the Catholic Church.

… Since the Bible gave no specific date of Christ’s birth, the Puritans argued that it was a sinful contrivance of the Roman Catholic Church that should be abolished.

Later, Protestant preachers like the German Paul Ernst Jablonski tried to demonstrate in pseudo-scholarly works that December 25 was actually a pagan Roman feast, and that Christmas was yet another instance of how the medieval Catholic Church ‘paganized’ and corrupted ‘pure’ early Christianity. (1) …

The two principal claims for Christmas having pagan origins pretend that the early Church chose December 25 in order to divert Catholics from Roman pagan festival days. The first claim pretends that it replaced the ancient Roman holiday of Saturnalia, a time of feasting and raucous merry-making held in December in honor of the pagan god Saturn.

Now, the Saturnalia festival always ended on December 23 at the latest. Why would the Catholic Church, to diverge the attention of her faithful from a pagan celebration, choose a date two days after that party had already ended and whoever wanted had already overindulged? It makes no sense. No serious scholar believes this claim. …

The second claim is that the Catholic Church established Christmas on December 25 to replace a solar feast invented by Emperor Aurelian in 274 AD, the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (Birth of the Unconquered Sun).

The fact that Christmas entered the world calendar (the accepted Roman calendar) in 354 – which was after the establishment of the pagan feast – does not necessarily mean the Church chose that day to replace the pagan holiday. …

First, one must not simply assume that the early Christians only began to celebrate Christmas in the 4th century. Until the Edict of Milan was published in 313, Catholics were persecuted and met in catacombs. Hence, there was no public festivity. But they celebrated Christmas among themselves before that Edict, as hymns and prayers of the first Christians confirm (2).

Second, this claim is based on unsound assumptions. … Emperor Aurelian inaugurated the festival of the Birth of the Unconquered Sun trying to give new life – a rebirth – to a dying Roman Empire. It is much more likely … that the Emperor’s action was a response to the growing popularity and strength of the Catholic religion, which was celebrating Christ’s birth on December 25, rather than the other way around. (3) …

But let us leave the realm of conjecture and return to historical records. There is ample evidence to demonstrate that, even though the Christmas date was not made official until 354, clearly it was established long before Aurelian instituted his pagan feastday.

The conception of St. John the Baptist is the historical anchor to know the date of Christmas, based on the detailed and careful calculations on dates made by first Fathers of the Church.

The early tractatus De solstitiia records the tradition of the Archangel Gabriel appearing to Zachariah in the High Temple when he was serving as high priest on the Day of Atonement (Lk 1:8). This placed the conception of St. John the Baptist during the feast of Tabernacles in late September, as the Archangel Gabriel said (Lk 1:28) and his birth nine months later at the time of the summer solstice. (4)

Since the Gospel of Luke states that the Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary in the sixth month after John's conception (Lk 1:26), this placed the conception of Christ at about the time of the spring equinox, that is, at the time of the Jewish Passover, in late March. His birth would thus be in late December at the time of the winter solstice.

That these dates, based on Tradition and Scripture, are trustworthy is confirmed by recent evidence taken from the Dead Sea Scrolls, whose authors were very concerned about calendar dates, essential for establishing when the Torah feasts should be celebrated. The data found in the Scrolls make it possible to know the Temple’s rotating assignment of priests during Old Testament times and show definitely that Zachariah served as a Temple priest in September, thus confirming the tradition of the Early Church. (5)

The Catholic Church determined March 25 as the date of Our Lord’s Conception long before Aurelian decided to make his solar feast. For example, around 221 AD, Sexto Julio Africano wrote the Chronographiai in which he affirmed that the Annunciation was March 25. (6) Once the date of the Incarnation was established, it was a simple matter of adding nine months to arrive at the date of Our Lord’s birth - December 25. This date would not be made official until the late fourth century, but it was established long before Aurelian and Constantine. It had nothing to do with pagan festivals. …

Posted on December 15, 2010

Of related interest is the recent disclosure of (colorized) photographs of a "Nazi Christmas". The story is interesting in its own right as historical candy. It is, however, especially pertinent for this post because it provides a vivid, recent instance of the same kind of pagan revisionism of which Dr. Horvat writes in reference to Emperor Aurelian's attempts to supplant Christmas for caesaropagan gains.

Hitler's Christmas party: Rare photographs capture leading Nazis celebrating in 1941

By Allan Hall, Daily Mail Online, 24 Dec. 2010

…the Nazi Christmas was far from traditional.

Hitler believed religion had no place in his 1,000-year Reich, so he replaced the Christian figure of Saint Nicholas with the Norse god Odin and urged Germans to celebrate the season as a holiday of the ‘winter solstice’, rather than Christmas.

Out of sight at the top of the tree behind Hitler was a swastika instead of an angel, and many of the baubles carried runic symbols and iron cross motifs. The remarkable pictures were captured by Hugo Jaeger, one of the F[ü]hrer’s personal photographers.

He buried the images in glass jars on the outskirts of Munich towards the end of the war, fearing that they would be taken away from him.

Later he sold them to Life Magazine in America which published many of them this week. …

In 1944-1945, the Nazis tried to reinvent Christmas once again as a day to commemorate the dead, in particular fallen soldiers – by that time Germany had lost almost four million men in the war.

But while many Germans baked biscuits and cakes in the shape of swastikas and adorned their trees with the symbols of the Nazi regime, most still called the festival Christmas.

While there is no denying Hitler made use of Christian imagery and rhetoric [LINK]––a Germanic tradition of "militarizing" the Gospels which goes back to the early Middle Ages, as I discussed in my bachelor's honor's thesis (with much insight from James C. Russell's scintillating book)––, the point is that the dominant basis for his political vision was Aryan occult theosophy [LINK1, LINK2, LINK3, LINK4]. Indeed, there is a great deal of evidence that Hitler had much Nietzschean disdain for Christianity [LINK1, LINK2]. Hence, to say that "Catholic was a [good] Catholic" is a canard that should be put to rest. Claiming that he was an Aryan pagan may also be debatable (just as claiming Nietzsche was a proto-Nazi is irresponsible), but the point is that Hitler was hardly a consistent, honest Catholic.

A more nuanced and troubling point of debate is how the Church's teaching and witness could defend and extricate itself from the aid which strains of anti-Semitism in Christian history gave to Nazi anti-Semitism. In the same way, the question for Nietzscheans is not whether Nieztscheanism was proto-Nazism, but whether it has resources of its own to inoculate itself from legitimately being expressed and embodied by an Übermensch in the mold of Hitler. The consistent and radical opposition which the Church gave the Nazi party demonstrates that the Gospel is genuinely distinct from the anti-Semitic errors of past teachers. I do not however think Nietzscheanism can so easily be removed from the Hitler-ethos.

The fourth magus...

The Shrine of the Magi (relics) in Cologne, Germany. I have been there!

Let us imagine, merely for devotional purposes, that when the Magi set out to find the King under the Star, there were four of them, not merely three. Over the course of the trip, however, the fourth magus lost heart and turned back. He felt the journey would be too long, the star too hard to triangulate, the intentions of the King too risky to face, and so forth. As we know, it was only three magi that brought their gifts to Christ the Infant King.

Last week at Mass we celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany (though it should be celebrated on January 6th, it is all too typical these days for bishops to shunt such feasts to the nearest prior Sunday). The priest, an Indian who arrived in Taiwan only months ago, and therefore who led the whole liturgy and preached by way of a halting oration of notes in Pinyin, made the point that now is Bethlehem, here is Bethlehem. Your home, your job, your social life--all fall under the manger. For, indeed, to paraphrase Chesterton, if such a manger [LINK: PDF!] could hold the Lord of All Creation, surely it holds us in our lordly and not-so-lordly affairs. By celebrating Epiphany, we join ourselves mystically and sacramentally to the adoration the magi gave to Christ. Or perhaps we don't.

The point of this post is to encourage all readers, of suitable disposition, to imagine themselves as the fourth magus as those magi set out to follow the Star. Ask yourself, "Am I prepared to go the whole journey? Am I prepared to submit myself to a King I can know only by faith and only by a light shining in the otherwise consuming darkness? What gift can I offer Him?"

On this earth, we have no lasting home--we are all faced with inadequate vacancy, we are all in Bethlehem. Yet, Christ is among us in His shrouded sovereignty. The Eucharistic altar is the true Manger. Facing that Altar, we are called to be wise like Magi and to offer our best to the King of the Feast. Then, having submitted to His humble Kingship, we are compelled to "return by a different way" (cf. Mt 1:12) to our "normal lives," perhaps even to restore the lost faith of that fourth magus when we get back.

You might be Catholic if…

You know you're really Catholic when you get multiple enriching devotional times from readings in Baruch. I've been in this passage several times in the past few weeks.

3:[9] Hear the commandments of life, O Israel;
give ear, and learn wisdom!
[10] Why is it, O Israel, why is it that you are
in the land of your enemies,
that you are growing old in a foreign country,
that you are defiled with the dead,
[11] that you are counted among those in Hades?
[12] You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom.
[13] If you had walked in the way of God,
you would be dwelling in peace for ever.
[14] Learn where there is wisdom,
where there is strength,
where there is understanding,
that you may at the same time discern
where there is length of days, and life,
where there is light for the eyes, and peace.

[15] Who has found her place?
And who has entered her storehouses?
[16] Where are the princes of the nations,
and those who rule over the beasts on earth;
[17] those who have sport with the birds of the air,
and who hoard up silver and gold,
in which men trust,
and there is no end to their getting;
[18] those who scheme to get silver, and are anxious,
whose labors are beyond measure?
[19] They have vanished and gone down to Hades,
and others have arisen in their place.

[20] Young men have seen the light of day,
and have dwelt upon the earth;
but they have not learned the way to knowledge,
nor understood her paths,
nor laid hold of her.
[21] Their sons have strayed far from her way.
[22] She has not been heard of in Canaan,
nor seen in Teman;
[23] the sons of Hagar, who seek for understanding on the earth,
the merchants of Merran and Teman,
the story-tellers and the seekers for understanding,
have not learned the way to wisdom,
nor given thought to her paths.

[24] O Israel, how great is the house of God!
And how vast the territory that he possesses!
[25] It is great and has no bounds;
it is high and immeasurable.
[26] The giants were born there, who were famous of old,
great in stature, expert in war.
[27] God did not choose them,
nor give them the way to knowledge;
[28] so they perished because they had no wisdom,
they perished through their folly.

Mothers…

You only get two.

Nope, nothing to see here of merit…

It's sola fide all the way down.

From today's missal reading in Philippians 4:10–19:

16] For even when I was at Thessalonica
you sent me something for my needs,
not only once but more than once.
17] It is not that I am eager for the gift;
rather, I am eager for the profit that accrues to your account.

So the Philippian Christians can do things which "profit" their "account" as Christians. Here is the Greek for verse 17:

[17] οὐχ ὅτι ἐπι ζητῶ τὸ δόμα, ἀλλὰ ἐπιζητῶ τὸν καρπὸν τὸν πλεονάζοντα εἰς λόγον ὑμῶν.

The word for "account" is lógon (which is mildly humorous, since in our day we must "log in to an account" or "log on to the Internet"), and you can read the Strong's Lexicon here to understand more about the word. You can also examine the other uses of the word in the New Testament, based on Strong's Concordance here. Granted the word does not strictly mean a "bank account," but rather an explanation of one's behavior when faced with judgment. This is the reason accounts have taken on their financial connotation: they are detailed records (explanations) of previous fiscal behavior that must be assessed (judged) by a higher authority. The upshot is that St Paul is commending the Philippian believers for adding to their account before God by means of their acts of charity towards him. At the Final Judgment, Paul assures them, their charity will abound to (pleonázonta, cf. Perseus Lexicon) their account before God.

Now, the typical Reformed objection to the idea of merit is that, at the Final Judgment, the believer will give an account simply by pointing to the Lamb, or showing the Blood. And this is true as far as it goes. The problem, however, is that Jesus is the Lamb who takes away sin, and the Blood is what washes away our guilt––not the Lamb who specifically performs the acts of virtue to which He calls us, and not the Blood which paints on our virtues. The atonement is a negative victory for us: it gets us out of Hell. It does not however completely suffice to determine our precise standing in the Eschaton, a standing which is but a ratification of the "account" we have before God. On the one hand, our merits in Christ are our merits, but, on the other hand, they are ultimately meritorious before God only becuase they are in Christ.

I grant that from today's reading it does not logically follow that our vices can detract from the atoning power of the Blood of the Lamb, but I do think it adds striking support to the notion of merit as taught by the Church. As we read in Part 3, Section 1, Chapter 3, Article 2, subsection III of the Catholic Catechism:

2006 The term "merit" refers in general to the recompense owed by a community or a society for the action of one of its members, … deserving reward or punishment. Merit is relative to the virtue of justice, in conformity with the principle of equality which governs it.

2007 With regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man. Between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality, for we have received everything from him, our Creator.

2008 The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. The fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man's free acting through his collaboration, so that the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful. Man's merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ, from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit.

2009 Filial adoption, in making us partakers by grace in the divine nature, can bestow true merit on us as a result of God's gratuitous justice. This is our right by grace, the full right of love, making us "co-heirs" with Christ and worthy of obtaining "the promised inheritance of eternal life."60 The merits of our good works are gifts of the divine goodness.61 "Grace has gone before us; now we are given what is due. . . . Our merits are God's gifts."62

2010 Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life. …

A second Reformed maneuver in light of such "works" passages in Scripture is to localize, or 'immediatize', their meaning. In this case, the rebuttal would be that Paul is merely talking about the standing the Philippians have in the eyes of other Christians, or perhaps the impression their kindness toward him makes on non-Christians. But this is specious for at least two reasons. First, regarding the impact charity has on non-Christians, the biblical theme of "fearing God, not man" makes it highly suspect that Paul would encourage believers to curry favor with non-believers. Granted, Jesus tells the disciples to let their light shine before men (Matthew 5) so that they may glorify the Father, but this actually reinforces the Catholic notion that faith by itself is inadequate: what truly glorifies God is the concrete expression of that faith. (It also undermines the Reformed doctrine of monergism, since if salvation unfolds monergistically, it is incoherent for Jesus to exhort believers to "let" their light shine, as if they could synergistically impede or abet the power of God.) Second, if St Paul is applauding the account the Philippians have in the eyes of other churches, he is again undermining Reformed doctrine since he is commending the works of believers as a means to justify themselves. Further, if acts of virtue, supernaturally inspired though they may be, are "as but filthy rags" before God, then it is a strange logic on the part of the "Reformed Paul" to base his congratulations on filthy rags.

The last-ditch Reformed rebuttal is that while "saving faith" just is faith that tends to produce good works, it is still only faith which saves us. This, however, is simply to concede the Catholic teaching, the point of which is that "faith alone," devoid of actual virtuous output, is insufficient for salvation.