Sixth Sunday of Easter: Re-humanise the world

Readings: Acts 10; Psalm 98; 1 Jn 4; Gospel John 15:9-17


Homily held for the 9.30 community at Blackfriars, Oxford.

The readings of today talk about ‘Love’. It’s one of those words that are most used, and maybe also misused in our daily life, still it is not easy to approach it. In order to try to reach its core, I would like to begin in the other end so to speak. I have in mind the Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik and the ongoing trial against him. He killed 77 people last summer, most of them adolescents. For hours, days and weeks case after case is being described in detail. Relatives, friends and all of us really, are weeping silently over the loss of innocent lives.

The national and international press tends to present the accused as a being without emotions or conscience. We do not want to identify us with this man, and we push him out of the zone of recognition. He is not like us. But by treating him in this way, the press risks expressing exactly the same attitude as the defendant does. Because Breivik himself does not talk about people, boys and girls, moms and dads. He talks about goals, strategies, sacrifices, achievements and politics. We cannot respond to him in the same way. To try to dehumanise Anders Breivik is deeply wrong and unjust. Breivik is just as much a human being as any of us here today. Why then, this alienation of this person?

I believe it is because Breivik also shows an aspect of something that is true of both humanity and our society, an aspect that neither the press nor we who follow the trial want to see. As we observe this person, we are also confronted with a society that is developing a mode of life where its individuals can be totally lost. And in their isolation they may lose contact with reality. We see, and are also part of, a society where responsibility is being moved around, we see signs of an ever less-personal system that in the end leads to a terrible, and dangerous, isolation. We are members of a society that are more and more divided into layers.

A few days ago, one of the brethren spoke with great enthusiasm of a novel called ‘The city and the city’. It is to be found in the shelves of ‘Fantasy’ and ‘Science Fiction’. It describes two cities that in a kind of double layered world actually occupy much of the same geographical space. However, the habitants of the two cities do not interact with each other, and if so should happen, even accidentally, it is considered to be a crime worse than murder.

Now I can see by the expression on some of the faces here that you are asking ‘How could such a double world possibly exist? Wouldn’t they bump into each other? And what about Tesco? On a Friday afternoon, it’s already pretty crowdy!’ Well. To get those answers, I guess you’ll have to read the book yourselves, or track down the brother who mentioned this in the first place. However, we don’t need to read Science-Fiction in order to observe such blindness in a society. Just think of how easily we pass the homeless in the streets. Or drug addicted. Or teenagers hanging out at MacDonald’s. Or elderly people in institutions or sitting alone in their homes or on benches around in town. We live in a society whose members are segregated, a society that teaches us to say: ‘This is not my responsibility’. Where we learn to cry out: ‘Someone’s got to take care of this!’

We may not even need to go leave this house of prayer to see these tendencies. There might be peoples within our own community that we do not really know. Or we might know something about them, enough to keep a certain distance. Even in our own family, and maybe especially there, we live sometimes at an infinite distance from each other, in spite of our proximity in daily life. In the end, the layers of our society, and the filter through which we observe the world and make our choices, are rooted in our own hearts. The Second Vatican Constitution ‘Gaudium et Spes’, points at this reality as it concludes: ‘Man is split within himself. As a result, all of human life, whether individual or collective, shows itself to be a dramatic struggle between good and evil, between light and darkness’ (GS 13).

Dear brothers and sisters, we are not gathered here because it is convenient, because we may benefit from it, as if we were on a market place. We are here because we find ourselves in profound need of healing. Our healing consists in restoring our ability to love. And this is, in fact, also the precious gift we have been given by God himself: ‘It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain’. This fruit is the gift of loving one another. We are called to break the conventions rooted in fear and conformity, conventions that hold us back from fulfilling our mission of love. We are called, not to dehumanise the world, but to re-humanise it.

This means that in spite of the terrible actions of the Norwegian terrorist, we have to defend him; not his actions which are beyond comprehension, but his humanity. In our daily life, we have to ask ourselves if we have become too comfortable with the divisions in our society. Do we care for those around us, even if they don’t belong to our immediate sphere of interaction? And in family life, we are called to slow down, and look into ourselves with honesty and humility. How do we relate to each other? Do we really talk together? Do we give of ourselves?

But what if we find that we do not fulfil the commandments we are given today? Let us then remember that we the body of Christ, and in Christ we receive life, strength and humility to grow in love both to God and to each other.

Sacraments: Penance

“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’” (John 20:21-23).

After his resurrection, Jesus shares his authority to forgive sins with his apostles, authority given by the Father. The Church inherits this authority, as the Apostles instructed their successors to continue this ministry of forgiveness. But, since Baptism washes away sin, gives us a share in Christ’s passion, and incorporates one into the Body of Christ, why do we need a Sacrament of Penance? Surely Christ’s death suffices for the forgiveness of sins once and for all.

The problem in connecting the Crucifixion “only” to one Sacrament, such as Baptism or the sacrifice of the Eucharist, is that one loses sight of the reality that the Paschal Mystery merits the grace flowing through all the Sacraments. The Church does not invent the Sacrament of Penance as a way of dealing with the inconvenient reality of post-baptismal sin. Rather, God, knowing the weakness of man’s condition provides the Sacrament of Penance as a means of reconciliation and sign of hope for the baptized.

While Christ’s death freed us from the bondage of sin, the bruises of those shackles still ache. And the pleasurable memory of false happiness brought on by sin still tempts us. When we celebrate the Sacrament of Penance, we seek the support of the priest both as a representative of Christ who forgives sins and as a representative of the community we have harmed by our sins.

As said above, a common criticism of Penance is that Jesus’s death atoned for our sins once and for all. Our sins can no longer control us, and there is no need to confess one’s sins to anyone so long as we profess faith in Christ as our Saviour. While this is an optimistic claim, this argument has certain flaws that Scripture corrects.

St James teaches, “Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective” (5:16). James surely believes in the power of Christ’s death as atonement for our sins. He also believes, as we do, that Christ’s death destroyed sin and death once and for all. Yet, he still encourages us to seek healing for our sins.

This healing comes through the saving ministry Christ commanded his Church to continue through the gift and working of the Holy Spirit. In seeing the work of God in the Sacrament of Penance, one should look at the formula for absolution. The prayer clearly explains who is responsible for the forgiveness of sins:

God the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Anyone claiming that the penitent seeks forgiveness from the priest as any other man and not from God, or that the Church invented Penance as some form of moral leverage over sinners, should study the prayer closely. As the formula explains:

God the Father:

1. reconciled the world through the death and resurrection of his Son [note completed form in the verb “reconciled,” which holds true for the original Latin text reconciliavit].

2. sent the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins [note that God sent the Spirit for the forgiveness of sins even after he reconciled the world to himself through Christ’s passion].

The Priest:

1. asks God to give pardon and peace through the ministry of the Church [note the priest asking God (i.e., praying for the penitent)…not the priest claiming to grant pardon through himself].

2. absolves sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit [note the only thing the priest does is absolve (i.e., state a declaration of freedom from sin)...and he does so by invocation of God].

The Church does not impose the Sacrament of Penance as a means of punishment or to embarrass sinners. Rather, the Church celebrates this gift of God that imparts Sanctifying Grace, which in the case of this Sacrament opens our intellect to seeing the true nature of sin and strengthens our will against falling into the practice of sin.

Seven Painters at Blackfriars

As part of Oxfordshire Art Weeks, from Saturday 12th May, and lasting just over a week, there will be an exhibition of paintings entitled, 'Seven Painters at Blackfriars,' in the priory church. The exhibition will be open every day 9am-5.30pm, apart from Sundays, when it is open from 1.15-5.30pm. Some of the paintings are by artists who attend Blackfriars. One of the artists, Louise Sturgis, will be displaying some of her paintings of scenes from the Rosary.

 The Annunciation

 The Visitation

The Nativity

 The Presentation

The Last Supper

Sacraments: Eucharist - Sacrifice

The Eucharist is both a Sacrament and a Sacrifice: as a Sacrament it is received as the soul’s nourishment; as a Sacrifice it is offered to God for the needs of the world. In the Mass, the Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, the Spotless Victim’s self-offering to God the Father, is made present in a bloodless manner upon the altar, not only as a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, but as a sacrifice in expiation for sin and in petition for divine favour. By affirming the sacrificial nature of the Mass, therefore, the Church emphasises that the Eucharist benefits not only the community gathered for its celebration, but – as an event of cosmic significance – that it benefits the whole world, the living and the dead.

As Br Nicholas noted in his post on Real Presence, Christ’s passion is re-presented – it is made present again – by the Sacramental Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The Eucharistic Sacrifice is a ‘memorial sacrifice’, but this remembrance has a unique character – it is not simply a recollection of history or a dramatic re-enactment of a past divine favour, but an anamnesis, a remembrance that actually makes present today the events of salvation history, as the means by which we get vitally in touch with the power of the cross.

The Mass and the Sacrifice of Calvary are therefore one and the same. The Eucharistic sacrifice has a dependent and relative character, being logically inconceivable without the incarnation, passion, death and resurrection of the Lord. Neither is the Mass a repetition of the complete and sufficient saving work of Christ: as the Epistle to the Hebrews makes clear, the one sacrifice of the superior New Covenant is distinguished from the sacrifices of the Old Covenant by being truly efficacious, unrepeatable and complete. Indeed, there can be no question of Christ being repeatedly sacrificed, for He is risen, glorified and ascended, sitting at the right hand of the Father. 

Although this has been the faith of the Church from the earliest days – there have always been Christian priests, and it is the proper duty of a priest to offer sacrifice – during the medieval period scholastic theologians disputed which part of the Eucharistic liturgy constituted the sacrifice. Perhaps it was in the offering of the bread and wine (Eck), or in the breaking of the bread (Cano), or in the destruction of the accidents at the priest’s communion (Bellarmine)? All these ritual actions have clear sacrificial significance, but there was a gradual realisation that they all related primarily to the substance or the enduring accidents of the bread and wine, and not to the real sacrificial offering, which is Christ Himself, substantially present in the Eucharist.

When we consider the notion of ‘sacrifice’ our thoughts are often dominated, I think, by the destructive aspect of sacrifice: the killing of an animal or the destruction of a crop, etc. In the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, the killing of an animal was a means of obtaining its blood for use in worship: blood, which theologically represents the life principle of the animal, is poured (Leviticus 1:5), sprinkled (Leviticus 16:15), and used to symbolise a ritual sealing (Exodus 24:3-8) and consecration (Exodus 29:20). The sacrificial action was one that involved the separation of the animal’s blood from its body, so that blood could be applied in divine worship.

As Christ hung on the cross, his blood too was separated from his body. In the Mass, this real immolation is made mystically present (as a “bloodless cutting”) by the separate consecration of the bread and wine, which represent His Body and Blood respectively. Of course, it is the whole Christ – body, blood, soul and divinity - that is present under each kind, because in the resurrection Christ’s body and blood, his soul and his divinity, are reunited, and he is glorified and impassible in his ascension, never to endure the separation of body and blood again. So the scholastics made a distinction between what was present by the power of the sacrament’s words, and what was present by ‘natural concomitance’. By the words “This is my body”, the bread is converted in Christ’s Body, which ‘brings with it’ His Blood, Soul and Divinity, because it is eternally united to them. By the words “This is my blood”, the wine is converted into Christ’s Blood, which ‘brings with it’ His Body, Soul and Divinity for the same reasons. It is, therefore, this mystical immolation, brought about by the two-fold consecration, that constitutes the essential sacrificial action of the Mass.

As a re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Calvary, in which priest and victim are identical, it is not only the same victim that is offered, but the same interior act of oblation, and the same offering priest. The Sacrifice of the Mass, therefore, is only validly offered by a priest who has been identified with Christ the High Priest by his Ordination. That is not to say that the faithful  –  who by their baptism are conformed to Christ as priest, prophet and king  –  have only a passive role at Mass, for they too offer the Sacrifice through and with the priest’s offering. The common priesthood of the Baptised deputes the believer to participate in Christ’s attitude of worship, pre-eminently by participation at the Eucharistic table, but this priesthood differs not merely in degree, but fundamentally in kind, from those deputed and empowered by ordination to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Aquinas Institute/Templeton Lectures – Nicholas Lombardo OP

Last week the Aquinas Institute at Blackfriars, supported by the Templeton Foundation, was privileged to host two open lectures by Dr Nicholas Lombardo OP, professor at the Catholic University of America.

Ransom, Redemption, and the Sign of Jonah: The Crucifixion in Patristic Theology (1 May) was a nuanced exposition of the idea of the 'Devil's Ransom'. Although the dominant account of the Crucifixion for the first millennium of Christian theology, this view has been out of favour since St Anselm's critique in Cur Deus Homo? Fr Lombardo, however, contends that the Patristic theory of the Devil's Ransom had been misinterpreted, often through a failure to see the Crucifixion in the light of the Resurrection. Relating it to the earlier image of the Sign of Jonah (who is a type of Christ), he argued that the theory can be adequately rescued, contrary to Anselm and later theologians, in a way that safeguards and even amplifies the sense of God's goodness and unity.

This inadequate précis does not do justice to the richness of detail or clarity of argument in the lecture; hopefully the following account of the Fr Lombardo's first lecture will bring a little more satisfaction to our Godzdogz readers' desire for truth.

Boredom and its Discontents: Making Sense of a Modern Phenomenon with Aquinas' Theory of the Emotions (30 April)

Beginning with the emergence of 'boredom' as a theme in modern literature, notably in Huysmans' À rebours (1884), the seminal text for the Decadent movement, Fr Lombardo observed that we often talk about boredom without knowing either its root causes or its proper cure. Boredom afflicts only humans (other animals just go to sleep), but not as a positive emotional distress: rather, as an "experience without qualities" (Elizabeth Goodstein) or "the desire for desires" (Tolstoy). We are bored when our desire cannot find anything on which to rest. Our will restlessly strives after God-knows-what – and fails to desire anything at all. No wonder many people rush to seek escapist pleasures, such as high-risk gambling, violence, casual sex, and even pain. Was Schopenhauer right to think that, since nothing can ever totally fulfil our desires, we are doomed to swing between boredom and dissatisfaction? Is perpetual entertainment our only hope?

Aquinas makes a similar diagnosis, explained Fr Lombardo, but comes to a radically different solution. Aquinas states that the will is inexhaustibly oriented towards the good, bringing joy if satisfied or desire if not. Boredom is when unsatisfied desire becomes restless. In his 'Treatise on the Passions' (ST I-II, qq. 22-48), completed in 1271, St Thomas distinguishes passions (which we share with other animals) from intellectual affections (our deepest joys and sorrows, which are mental but flow over into the body). Among the latter, acedia (sloth, accidie) is a kind of sadness, about God or spiritual goods; it is a vice opposed to charity and the joy that flows from it. It is a cognitive, not just affective, failure to appreciate God and spiritual goods. And this is what causes boredom (though Aquinas does not have an exact term for this).

Now we can see that there is a possible remedy, which Fr Lombardo called Aquinas' "counterintuitive cure": boredom (or acedia) is best overcome if we spend time thinking about spiritual goods. Don't rush about, but learn to concentrate. When we do so, we can't help but find those spiritual goods attractive. Whereas the disenchanting project of the Enlightenment tries to sever us from the Infinite, in reality our will restlessly strives after God. So we need a stand-point from which to see the world properly. But, if the Infinite seems a little too far above us, where then shall we look?

We must seek out the least bored – that is, the saints! The saints did seemingly boring things without getting bored. In Fr Lombardo's phrase, "they are heroically not-bored"; and the fifth-century St Simeon the Stylite serves as a classic example. While living atop his pillar for 37 years, he gave homilies twice a day, prayed constantly, and oversaw ministries to the poor. Yet he wasn't bored; instead, he conquered boredom. The saints could overcome boredom only by a "proactive love of God and neighbour, saturated with the infinite". This was a continual activity of perceiving the lovability of the world. When desire is enflamed this way, boredom is infallibly banished. If our deepest (i.e. intellectual) desires are satisfied, the rest will follow; echoing perhaps St Augustine's maxim, "Love, then do what you will!"

We are not disembodied minds, however, but weak flesh and blood. So the solution must be cultural as well as cognitive. Fr Lombardo therefore proposes a recovery of the Sabbath. Though especially relevant to Jews and Christians, the Sabbath is a way for all people to reorient their spirit, to rest and relax in order to "see the world with fresh eyes". This is an end in itself, not a utilitarian means to enjoy greater productivity the other six days of the week (though that is a concomitant benefit). It is also the way to create space for community, in the "streams of living water" flowing from the Temple.

The lecture did not explicitly characterise the Sabbath rest as essentially for worship (as Josef Pieper does), perhaps to encourage a common cultural space with the non-religious. But it ended unambiguously on that prophetic note. In his review of Huysmans' novel, Barbey d'Aurevilly had challenged the author to choose between his present atheism and the Cross; and eight years later, as a result, Huysmans became a Catholic. In the end, Fr Lombardo repeated that challenge: our contemporary Western culture must take that same choice.

Wanting Everything

Readings: Acts 14:5-18; Psalm 115; John 14:21-26

There are times when the Gospel seems to be closed off, days when I have to twist and turn my brain, sit down and try to pray (not easy when you’re running out of time), or even desperately knock on a brother’s door and hope for some inspiration. There are days when it seems almost impossible to say anything of relevance to the readings.

And there are days when the readings seem to overflow with ideas, and I simply can’t get started. The different aspects accumulate, one idea upon another, so that in the end I don’t know what to say. Today is one of those days!

Should I speak about how Paul and Barnabas are being confused with Hermes and Zeus as they successfully perform miracles at Lystra? Yes, I should. But what about the glory of our God, creator of all things? ‘Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to your name give glory!’ That’s a theme that would do for several homilies! But then again; how could we possibly ignore the theme of obedience as the way to full communion with God our Father? And what about the question that the disciple is asking; did Jesus really give him an adequate answer to the revelation only given to the disciples? Much to elaborate here! And then we are confronted with the great mystery: both the Father and the Son will come and make their dwelling in those who love the Son. How could they possibly find room in such a little being as a human?

The questions and the themes accumulate. So what should we go for? I concluded that I would like to say something about Winnie the Pooh! This little fellow has the gift of expressing what most of us only think. One example is a late morning when Pooh was having a little walk and “accidentally” bumped into Rabbit. He was very glad to see Rabbit getting out the plates and mugs; and when Rabbit said, ‘Honey or condensed milk with your bread?’ he was so excited that he said, ‘Both’ and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, ‘But don't bother about the bread, please’.

Or said in other words: Yes please, I choose it all, and then the best of that again. Now that’s the spirit. And it is truly the language of the Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit doesn’t measure, calculate or hold back. Once it is there, it is fully there. The Spirit gives in abundance. If we want to place this in a more explicit Christian context, we may turn to Thérèse of Lisieux, who by love and driven by God’s Spirit wrote in her diary: ‘I feel myself called to be a soldier, priest, apostle, doctor of the church, martyr. Finally, I feel the need, the desire to perform all the most heroic deeds for you, Jesus ... I feel in my soul the courage of a crusader, of a soldier for the Church, and I wish to die on the field of battle in defence of the Church...’ (from The Story of a Soul).

So let us throw ourselves onto the Lord, let us with open heart and good will give our Father our 'Yes.' In return, we receive the Promise of Christ, as he tells us: ‘The Holy Spirit will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you’ (John 14:26).

Sacraments: The Eucharist - Presence

When thinking about the Eucharist it is important to be clear from the very beginning that we are dealing with a mystery. God is not some ‘thing’ that we will ever get our thoughts around, not some thing we will ever get our language around; the infinite God exceeds our finite mind’s capacity to understand. We ought, then, to be suspicious of any attempt to ‘explain’ the real presence of Christ among us in the Eucharist. In the end, an understanding of how bread and wine can become the Body and Blood of Christ will be beyond us; it is not something we can demonstrate or prove but a truth revealed by God that must be accepted on faith. Nevertheless, if we are to remain faithful to this revelation, faithful to the tradition we have received, and in our turn to hand it on to others, then we must be sure that what we are preaching is the true faith and not nonsense. Catholicism is not contrary to reason, the mysteries of God are not truths that we can say nothing about; they are simply truths that we cannot say everything about. 

The first thing we can say about the Eucharist is, of course, that it is a sacrament. Sacraments, in essence, are signs that make real what they symbolize. They are not just symbols, but signs which God institutes and uses to speak and act in human history through and in his Son. Christ is present in the other six sacraments in a relative manner because each is a real cause of grace. In the Eucharist, however, Christ dwells absolutely. This absolute presence is a sacramental presence. When we speak about the Eucharist we must always hold together symbol and reality. The bread and wine are significant: Jesus used this matter as a sign of his sacrifice and so his sacrifice becomes really present in a single sacramental event. When we speak of the Eucharist as being the Body and Blood of Christ, then, we are not referring to the natural body of Christ during the time of his public ministry on Earth, and we are not referring to the bread and wine in a symbolic way only. The bread and wine really do become the Body and Blood of Christ; Christ’s passion is re-presented or made present via these signs, this sacrament of bread and wine, that Jesus instituted at the last supper: the signs instituted by Christ make real what they symbolize. 

Traditionally, the Church has used language borrowed from Aristotelian philosophy in an attempt to describe, but importantly not explain, this Eucharistic change. The key distinction here is between what the Ancient and Medieval world called ‘substance’, by which they meant not some kind of chemical but the very being of a thing, what it is fundamentally; and ‘accidents’, that is, features which are not essential to the being of a thing but can change or disappear without changing what something is. A cat, for instance, has the ‘substance’ of ‘catness’. In contrast, the colour of the cat’s fur is accidental; it does not need to have a particular colour of fur to be a cat, the colour of the cat’s fur could be changed, added to, or lost but the cat would remain a cat, it would not lose its  ‘catness’. 

Every day we observe natural causes changing the substance and the accidents of things. For example, if a cat dies then a substantial change takes place, the substance of ‘cat’, as the ancients and medievals understood that term, becomes the substance of ‘dead cat’ and the causes of this change can be known by us. Similarly, if I get my hair cut, then I have undergone an accidental change. Something about me has changed, the cause of this change can be identified, but it does not influence who or what I am. Clearly, the Eucharistic change clearly cannot be explained in the same way as these natural changes. The Eucharist is an act of God, who as the Creator of all things has the power to change the very being of a thing, what it is, so that bread and wine becomes the Body and Blood of Christ, yet the accidents of bread and wine remain. The Eucharistic change is not, then, a transformation. It is not simply a re-organization, re-shaping, or re-branding of what is already present – it is better described as a change in the very being of what is on the altar, a transubstantiation: the substance changes but the accidents remain. 

Transubstantiation then, on the one hand, is not a natural change. On the other hand neither is it an act of creation simply speaking. Creation, theologically understood, is the act by which God creates and sustains the universe out of nothing. Strictly speaking, then, creation is not a change. Transubstantiation cannot therefore be an act of creation since in the Eucharist it is bread and wine that becomes the Body and Blood of Christ. The change is not ex nihilo, from nothing, but from something: bread and wine. The Eucharistic change, therefore, must be distinguished from both natural changes and the act of creation. It has common features with both, but is neither. This, in the end, is why the Church settled on transubstantiation as an appropriate technical term for describing this change whereby the accidents of bread and wine remain but the substance, what we are actually dealing with, has changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. Aquinas puts it like this: 

The complete substance of the bread is converted into the complete substance of Christ’s body, and the complete substance of the wine into the complete substance of Christ’s blood. The Eucharistic change is not a formal change but a substantial one. It does not belong to natural kinds of change, and therefore must be called by a name proper to itself such as transubstantiation (Summa Theologiae 3a.75.4 res). 

Aquinas goes on to remind us that we cannot know by our natural reason that the Body and Blood of Christ is present at Mass. There are no changes knowable by reason comparable to transubstantiation. We simply have to be told what is going on; the Church understands Jesus to have done just this at the last supper when he said ‘This is my body, this is the cup of my blood’ (Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14: 22-24; Luke 22: 19-20; 1 Corinthians 11: 23-26; Summa Theologiae 3a.75.1 res).

Sacraments: Confirmation

Confirmation is the sacrament of Christian maturity. By a unique sealing with the gift of the Holy Spirit, baptismal grace is strengthened and perfected, confirming the Christian for public witness to the Gospel. But why is Confirmation necessary – is it not enough to be born-again in Baptism?

'Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit; for it had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit' (Acts 8:14-17).

This passage suggests that, right from the apostolic period, baptism was strengthened by a second, distinct action: the laying on of hands to call down the Holy Spirit. Any explanation of how the earliest followers of Jesus became 'Christians', and how God formed these men and women into a recognisable 'Church', has to look at the sacraments – those efficacious signs of God's grace in our lives. The Church recognises three sacraments of initiation: Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist. The first two leave an indelible spiritual mark on the individual, newly remade in the image of Christ, and can only be performed once. If Baptism is the birth into the Christian life, Confirmation is its maturity – and clearly these cannot be repeated. The Eucharist, however, is our heavenly food, even 'daily bread', to nourish us regularly along the way.

How, then, is Confirmation truly distinct from Baptism? In the early Church, the two were performed by the bishop in a double ceremony, but they became divided in the Latin tradition when bishops could not easily reach every part of their expanding dioceses. Baptism could be done by the local priest (or anyone, in fact) but Confirmation required the bishop to be the ordinary minister, so the latter sacrament was separated out and could occur even years later, just as soon as the bishop was available. This tells us something important about the sacrament. The bishop's action in conferring Confirmation is a sign of the unity and apostolicity of the Church. As successor to the apostles (who are 'sent'), the bishop now sends out these confirmed Christians to witness to Christ in the Holy Spirit.

The liturgical actions are a further indication of what Confirmation is all about, because they constitute the visible sign by which the sacrament is conferred. After being presented, the candidates make the renewal of baptismal promises; the link to Baptism is especially clear if the candidate's sponsor for Confirmation is their baptismal godparent. There follows the laying on of hands, according to the apostles' example.

Now, crucially, comes the anointing with chrism. This is the perfumed oil consecrated by the bishop on Holy Thursday and used also for conferring Baptism and Holy Orders. Oil is a traditional sign of abundance and joy, being employed to cleanse, heal, beautify and strengthen (CCC 1293). But it has a very special meaning here: Jesus is the Christ, which means the Anointed One, the Messiah, who is priest, prophet and king. Our anointing with chrism, therefore, consecrates us to Christ, marking us out as his own, his beloved. And as the bishop applies the chrism, he names the candidate and says:

'Be sealed with the Gift of the Holy Spirit.'

We say there are seven gifts of the Holy Spirit – wisdom, knowledge, understanding, counsel, piety, fortitude, and fear of the Lord (cf. Is. 11:2-3; CCC 1831) – and twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit – charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, chastity and self-control (cf. Gal. 5:22-3; CCC 1832). These traditional lists may seem to imply placing limits on God's grace, to be measured out by human standards. In fact, they do the opposite, pointing to the sheer variety and superabundance of these graces at work in the different aspects of our lives. If someone says the life of the Spirit is (for instance) simply joy, we joyfully reply, 'Yes, yes, yes! And so much more!' The Holy Spirit is a Divine Person and obviously cannot be measured, or dispensed in degrees. But the Spirit operates in us in diverse ways and for different purposes. That is why the Spirit can be given to us more than once – in Baptism then Confirmation – not because he has changed, but because we have.

Confirmation is our Pentecost, when we are strengthened by the Holy Spirit to take the bold step of witnessing to Christ in our lives, in word and deed. As confirmed Christians, even if we are young, unsure and inexperienced, the Spirit of Jesus brings us to a new maturity, completing baptismal grace within us, and commissioning us for God's work in the world. 

'It is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has commissioned us; he has put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.' (2 Cor. 1:21-22)

If perhaps we struggle to express what this strengthening really consists in (which is why some say Confirmation is 'a sacrament in search of a theology'), that is only because human maturity is very difficult to describe. But we need not worry: the apostle Peter resorted to the words of the prophet ('I will pour out my spirit in those days') and simply went on to proclaim the Good News to the crowds (Acts 1:14-40). The Spirit's gifts of wisdom, knowledge and understanding help us to appreciate that the operation of divine grace becomes a visible and tangible mystery in the sacraments, sufficient to bring us to salvific faith. In piety and reverence it is our commission to live out that faith wherever we are, and – with fortitude and counsel – to proclaim it to others.

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The Church invites baptised Catholics who are not yet confirmed to come forward to receive this sacrament 'at the appropriate time', to complete their initiation (CCC 1306). Thus sealing our maturity, we are conformed more closely to Christ and strengthened to witness to the reality of salvation in him. 

On the other hand, it is a sad fact that many Catholics fall away from the Church even after Confirmation, especially if conferred during early adolescence as a default rite of passage. Clearly, our Christian lives need to be nourished in daily prayer, the regular participation in the sacraments (especially the Eucharist) and in a vibrant community of faith. Ordinary human maturity does not prevent us making mistakes; likewise, God's grace, which builds on nature, does not guarantee a perfect Christian life. Yet God's grace is infinite, and no matter how far we drift away, the Father is always extending his loving embrace to welcome home his prodigal sons and daughters (for that is what we all are). And, of course, it is Christian maturity in Confirmation that best disposes us, humbly and gratefully, to accept and return that love.

Fourth Sunday of Easter: The Loving-Kindness of God

Homily given on the Isle of Iona (where Br Haavar has been on retreat), Sunday 29th April:

Readings: Acts 4:8-12; Psalm 118; 1 Jn 3:1-2; Gospel John 10:11-18

We hear in the psalm of today a characteristic of God, not formulated by the Church or even the early Christians, but by the chosen people of God from the time of the old covenant.
The psalms we just heard says:

'Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his mercy endures forever.' (Psalm 118,1)

The Lord is good, and his mercy endures forever. The Hebrew word used for 'mercy' in this psalm is hesed. It is true that this word implies mercy, but the word contains much more. If we were to chose only one word to describe it, we would probably say that hesed means loving-kindness. It indicates a profound attitude of goodness, and this goodness surpasses an attitude of simply doing each other well; it also implies faithfulness rooted in an inner commitment.

Hesed then, is rooted in fidelity, and through this fidelity, love and grace is given and shared. Hesed expresses faithful love in the Old Testament, and so it naturally connects to the covenant between the Lord and his people. The covenant is rooted in God's hesed, and it implies faithfulness and care, but it is above all a love that remains constant regardless of the circumstances.

The loving-kindness of the Lord, the hesed, is repeated throughout the whole of the Old Testament. But from where has Israel got this expression?

The answer is: From God himself! When God passes in front of Moses on the mountain Sinai, during the great exodus from Egypt, the Lord himself proclaims:

'The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in loving-kindness and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty...' (Exodus 34: 6-7)

Our knowledge of God's faithful loving-kindness is given us through God's self-revelation. God is loving-kindness because God tells us so. And he proves this again and again, until the final exodus, not the one through the Red Sea, but through death itself. God's loving-kindness is ultimately expressed in the revelation in Christ. Christ is the one who cares. He is the one who loves us without measure. He sees each one of us, he watches over us, he remains faithful. He is the good shepherd.

And Christ the shepherd is present in our lives and in the life of the Church. He is present when the word of the Lord is proclaimed. He is present in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist and in the Holy Communion we receive, but his presence goes farther. Christ is present in his Church, in his body, and when we come together to celebrate the very meaning of life given us in Christ, Christ is already here with us. We are surrounded by Christ, and we are filled with him: for the good shepherd does not leave us as orphans (John 14: 18).

Now, there is one dimension of Christ's presence that I have not yet mentioned, that is the role of the priest. It is true that the priest re-presents Christ in a special way. The words being said during the consecration are Christ's own words, and the priest prays on behalf of the community just as Christ prays for the chosen ones, the ones God the father has given the Son (John 6,37). And the priest has become so through the sacrament of Holy Orders. He is marked in an irreversible way.

I think of this quite a lot these days, because I am going to be ordained priest in Oslo in October this year, God willing. Being ordained priest implies a question of identity. Who am I, what will I become, and how will others see me? Am I going to be the good shepherd, like Christ? Will I possess authority, like Christ the King does?

Let me now just share with you an enlightening encounter that brother Arnfinn, prior of Oslo, and I had during this week here on Iona. We were having lunch down at the sea side when a little grey and white sheepdog came towards us. It had these very awake grey-blue eyes, and it was very playful. It disappeared, but suddenly came back with a little stone in his mouth that it dropped before our feet. 'Shall we play?' it asked, and got ready to sprint after the improvised toy. We totally fell in love with this dog, and we could easily see in this little fellow an example of a good Dominican; creative, curious, playful, ready to move, with good capacity of communication. Said in all humility of course...

Now, the Dominicans, if our name is written in Latin and then split up, becomes Domini canes - God's dogs. And that is exactly what a priest may be described as, and especially a Dominican priest, because we stand under the Lord's command, and on his word and signal, we do as the master tells us; go left, go right, go forth, around, guide, lead, encourage, and watch out, we might even bite a bit now and then... We are the Lord's servants, ready to do what we are told, and thereby following the example of him who laid down his life for us. Christ acts through his priest. Let us just pray that the priest always seek to act in Christ.

As it is today also the feast of St Catherine of Siena, let us give her the final words, as she summons up the loving-kindness of our Saviour:

O unfathomable depth! O Deity eternal! O deep ocean!
What more could You give me than to give me Yourself?"
(St. Catherine of Siena on the Blessed Sacrament)

bror Haavar Simon Nilsen O.P.

Sacraments: Baptism

‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,’ (Mt 28: 19). So Jesus commands the apostles at the end of St Matthew’s Gospel, and so the Church, faithful to that command, has sought to do ever since.

What, though, is the significance of Baptism? Why does Jesus tell his apostles that this is what they must do? It’s important here to notice that he doesn’t say, “Go and make disciples of all the nations, then baptise them,” but rather, “Go and make disciples …, baptising them … ” Baptism is what makes people disciples of Christ, not just something we do to show that people are his disciples: that, after all, is one of the basic definitions of a sacrament – a sign which brings about what it signifies.

‘Isn’t it faith in Jesus that makes us his disciples, though?’ some might say. ‘Yes,’ is the short answer. But we must remember that faith is God’s gift, and not something we can come to on our own: that is why, at the start of the rites of Christian initiation of adults, the priest asks the candidate, ‘What do you seek of the Church of God?’ and the answer is, ‘Faith.’ It is God’s grace, of course, that also draws us to the Sacrament (directly or through our parents), that plants the first seeds of faith in our heart, inviting our cooperation, but it is in the Sacrament of Baptism itself that he gives us the faith which saves us.

Nevertheless, the Church has always held that some who have not received the actual sacrament are saved: how are we to reconcile that? The Church’s understanding is that all who are saved by Christ stand in some relation to the Church and the Baptism which incorporates people into it: there is some desire, explicit or implicit, to do what must be done to enter into the relationship with God which he makes possible for Christians.
How are we saved through this faith that Baptism gives us and shows forth? Among other things, this faith is what constitutes the Church (of which we receive membership by our Baptism), that community of faith which is also the Body of Christ. By our Baptism, we are incorporated into Christ’s Body, the body of him who died and rose again in the glory of the Father: indeed, as St Paul teaches us, our Baptism is a sharing in the death of Christ, symbolised by the descent into the water, that we might also share his resurrection (cf. Rom 6: 3-4; Col 2: 12).

Our sharing in Christ’s death is also symbolised in Baptism by the death to sin which it entails: Baptism is that new birth of water and the Spirit of which Jesus speaks to Nicodemus (Jn 3: 5), which washes away all the sin of our past life and begins a new life in Christ.

Christ’s death and resurrection, we have seen, is central to Baptism: it is what has won for us the salvation we receive for ourselves in Baptism, and it is the sacramental incorporation into that death and resurrection which brings it about. It is unsurprising, then, that from the earliest times the Church has celebrated Baptism especially on Easter Night, as the whole Church gathers to celebrate the Resurrection.

So central, however, is the importance of Baptism that, although at the one end the ideal is a celebration on Easter Night by the Bishop amidst a large assembly of the faithful, this sacrament can be conferred by anyone (even an unbaptised person), so that no one should be denied the possibility of receiving the sacrament: all that is required is that someone, intending to do what the Church does, pour water over the candidate’s head, saying, “I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
Such a Baptism, just like any other, confers all the graces discussed above, graces which leave a permanent mark, or ‘character’, on our soul: this character marks us out as Christ’s, however much we may fail to live up to all that that entails, and lays on us the responsibility of a Christian life and witness so that, conformed to our baptismal calling, we may enjoy the eternal life with Christ which it makes possible.

Dominican Theology Summer School at Buckfast Abbey: June 25th-29th

Sacraments: The Sacraments in General

We live in a world of signs: the coloured lamps of a traffic light, the flags which identify nations and the complex cluster of laundry symbols in the label of a jumper are all physical things, perceived by the senses, which penetrate beyond the senses, to communicate something to the mind. In the medical world, an empirically identifiable ‘sign’ - pointing beyond itself to the hidden existence of an illness - is differentiated from the subjectively reported but otherwise invisible ‘symptom’.

The Sacraments of the Church belong to the order of signs, because they are physical realities that point to a hidden spiritual reality that they ‘contain’. The seven Sacraments of the Church, instituted by Jesus Christ, are not merely human signs however, but signs of the ever-creative Word of God: they not only signify meaning, but they actually accomplish what they signify, penetrating not only the human intellect, but also the will, to the very depths of our being. The things of the natural world which signify God’s presence, and the rites of the Old Testament, are ‘sacraments’ insofar as they point to God, but they lack the supernatural causal power to effect grace that characterises the Sacraments of the Church.

As signs instituted by God to communicate grace to man, the physical aspects of the Sacraments are determined by God, and cannot be the subject of arbitrary human determination. Certainly, there is a time for creative expression, but signs that have constantly shifting meanings cease to be reliable as means of communication, and therefore fail in their mission. The sacraments are divine – and therefore perfect – signs, and thus the material of the sign (the water of baptism, or the oil of confirmation, for example) is joined to a consecrated form of words, which refines and perfects the natural symbolism of the matter, revealing its signification – and thus the grace it effects - beyond doubt.

 

As the Sacraments are instituted to communicate grace – to incorporate us into Christ by the gift of sanctifying grace – the sacraments are elevated by God to become causes of grace. For this reason, St Augustine rigorously opposed the heretical view of the Donatists that sacraments celebrated by wicked ministers were invalid and in need of repetition. The ‘power’ of the sacraments to communicate grace does not depend upon the moral character of the minister, but upon the power and glory of God and the merits of Christ’s paschal victory. The subjective disposition of the minister or recipient is not the cause of grace, therefore, but grace is communicated by the power of the completed sacramental rite, or – in scholastic terminology – ex opere operato. It is, of course, possible to interpose the obstacle of mortal sin to the flowering of grace within the soul, but this does not compromise the objective efficacy of the sacramental rite performed.

Some theologians of the reformation alleged that by seemingly giving the (albeit sacred) activities of man a quasi-divine power to communicate grace, we had fallen into the other great heresy that St Augustine fought, that of Pelagianism, which saw salvific value in purely human activity. It is, however, Christ Himself who presides as High Priest at every sacramental celebration. God always respects the freedom of man, and so the human minister never loses his authentic causal relationship to the world, but serves only as a subordinate and instrumental cause of grace: the priest at Mass is an instrument deployed by the Sacred Humanity of Christ, one who God ‘causes to be a cause’ without loss of freedom.

Different causes produce different effects, and therefore the existence of seven sacraments points to the diversity of work done by them. The work of sanctification done by each of the sacraments, by the conferral of sanctifying grace, is one and the same, but each sacrament also addresses a particular human need by a particular effect of ‘sacramental grace’. Together the sacraments form a coherent system for the communication of the merits of Christ’s death and resurrection, known as the sacramental economy. This sacramental economy is the opening of the inner life of the triune God to humanity, offering to us the possibility of participating in the very life of the Godhead.

Third Sunday of Easter - The Real Presence and the Trinity

 Readings: 1 Acts 3:13-15,17-19; Psalm 4; 1 John 2:1-5a; Luke 24:35-48

The 25th March is the feast of the Annunciation. It's Nine months to the day before Christmas day and it marks the occasion on which the angel Gabriel announced to Mary 'The Lord is with you' and she conceived her son. So it's a celebration of Christ being present among us. Now the 24th March, the Eve of the Annunciation, this year coincided with a rather less edifying occasion, the first ever 'Reason Rally' a celebration of irreligion, atheism and secularity. On the Eve of the Annunciation this year, Richard Dawkins effectively announced to the world 'Christ is not present among us.' At the rally, he proclaimed to cheering crowds:

Religion makes specific claims about the universe which need to be substantiated, and need to be challenged – and if necessary, need to be ridiculed with contempt. For example, if they say they're Catholic ask them: Do you really believe, that when a priest blesses a wafer, it turns into the body of Christ? Are you seriously telling me you believe that? Are you seriously saying that wine turns into blood?

If the answer is yes, Dawkins suggests atheists should show contempt for believers instead of ignoring the issue or feigning respect. “Mock them,” he told the crowd. “Ridicule them! In public!”

So how should we deal with Richard Dawkin's question. The disciples in today's Gospel had a hard enough time believing that Jesus was truly among them, and they could see His hands and His feet. What hope is there for us who can only see what looks like bread and wine? Well lets ask a slightly different question. Is Christ's body and blood really present in the Eucharist, or is the Eucharist symbolic? This is actually a trick question.  Christ's body and blood is really present in the Eucharist but the Eucharist is also symbolic. In our culture we automatically tend to think that symbolic means less real, but this is not always the case. The Eucharist is simultaneously both the most real and the most symbolic of anything in the whole of creation.

To unpack this a little we need to think a bit about what symbols are. Symbols are certain kinds of relations which give meaning to our lives. For example, food is symbolic. On the most basic level, food means something to us in the first instance because there's a relationship between some stuff and us, the relationship that this stuff is edible. And there's something very real about this relationship. Whether or not we like the taste of something, it doesn't change the fact that it can provide us with nourishment.

Eating a meal together is also symbolic. It means something not only because there are relations between us and the stuff we call food, but also because there are relations between us and those who we eat with. It means something when we engage in some mutually beneficial activity with someone and enjoy each other's enjoyment. It means we love them. Eating together with friends and family is related to the very real love we have for each other, and the symbol of eating together embodies this love.

Now not all symbols are as real as each other. For instance, usually a kiss is a symbol of love, but when Judas kissed Jesus, it was a symbol of betrayal, it wasn't a real kiss. The reality of the symbol depends on the reality of the  relationship which gives the symbol its meaning. When Judas kissed Jesus, the reality of love wasn't there.

So when thinking about what are the most real symbols, we need to think about when the relationships which give meaning to the symbols are most real. What are the most real relationships? If we knew the answer to this question, we might be in a position to say which symbols are most real, and discover what is most meaningful in our life. So what are the most real of all relationships? I'll give you a clue. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Well, actually that was a bit more than a clue. The persons Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the names of the distinct relationships within the Trinity, but they are not like any kind of relationship we find in creation. In creation, relations always exist between things, but in the Trinity, the relations are the things, the relations are God, the source of all reality, and it is these most real of all relations, Father, Son and Holy Spirit which are revealed to us in those symbols we call sacraments.

We should never try to explain the sacraments in terms of anything natural even if people would ridicule us for refusing to do so, but rather we should try to explain nature in terms of the sacraments. The sacraments show us the sacramentality of creation, they show us the true meaning of life. The relationships we have with other people, the thoughts we have, the things we do can all be understood sacramentally. We're made in the image of the Trinity. God is real, He is truly among us, He loves us and is constantly drawing us to Himself. 

The sacrament which most powerfully reveals the persons of the Trinity is the Eucharist, and the whole point of our lives is to show and understand how this is so. So we believe the Eucharist is real. It shows us what reality is. In the Eucharist we commemorate Christ's Passion.  It's at the point when Jesus dies on the Cross that the centurion says 'Truly this man was the son of God,' so the Cross shows us most clearly what God looks like in our sinful world. It's through Jesus' body and blood we know that He is truly among us. And He died because He wanted to be with us. He loves us, and this is made apparent to us in the Eucharist when the bread and wine truly become the body and blood of Christ. But also in the Eucharist, we offer a sacrifice of thanks and praise. That's what Eucharist means – thanksgiving. The same Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from death to life raises our hearts and minds to God, and so the Eucharist is our deepest form of nourishment because it makes us who we're most fully meant to be. The celebration of the Eucharist has more right to be called a meal than any other meal we'll ever had, and the body and blood of Christ has more right to be called food than any other food we'll ever eat. 

Maybe I haven't explained this very well, but I can't think of anything better to do with my life than to come up with deeper and more profound explanations of why and how the Eucharist reveals the persons of the Trinity. This is what every Christian life should be about. Every Christian life should be a revelation of the Trinity.

Perhaps Richard Dawkins will always want to mock us for saying we seriously believe that the bread and wine on the altar become Christ's body and blood, but all the same, we should thank Richard because by asking us these questions, he is giving us the opportunity to delve ever deeper into the mystery that Christ is truly present among us.

This is a sermon preached to the 9:30 Mass at Oxford.

New Series: The Sacraments of the Church

Traditionally, the fifty days from Easter to Pentecost Sunday are a period of ‘mystagogical catechesis’, a time of post-baptismal instruction given to new Christians who have been initiated into the Christian mystery by the Sacraments of Baptism and/or Confirmation at the Easter vigil. 

This time of reflection is primarily ordered towards helping new Christians to ‘settle in’ as they make their first steps as members of the Church, and to help them to apprehend more deeply the meaning of the rites they have received and in which they now participate as full members. Yet the presence of neophytes in our midst is a tremendous gift of God, bringing new life to the ever-youthful Body of Christ, and inviting Christians of all ages to reflect upon the faith they received at the Baptismal font (called by one Easter hymn the “grave of sin”), a faith which they practice pre-eminently at the Eucharistic table.

Over the next few weeks, therefore, the Godzdogz team will be reflecting on the Sacraments of the Church. Our lives as Christians are punctuated by the Sacraments, as it is by Holy Baptism that we are born into the Church’s sacramental life which is ultimately consummated (God willing) in the Sacrament of Anointing. As Catholics, the Sacraments lie at the heart of our faith, for they are the enduring presence of the Easter mystery, through which the power of the cross can be operative in every generation and through which the merits of Christ are applied to all people. The Sacraments, then, are the ordinary means by which God reaches out to us, to reconcile us to Himself, and in which we are enabled to reach out to Him, to bring our needs and our petitions before Him in a particularly direct way. For this reason it is distressing that so many people today see Church services as 'boring' or 'irrelevant', since the celebration of the Sacraments is not reducible to an adjunct to the liberating and saving power of the gospel, but is its very presence and vitality in our often turbulent world, offering to all people a new way of living with God and with one another.

April to July 1994: the Rwandan Genocide

Last year, my friends and I were watching a movie (Sometimes in April) about the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, and they said at the end:”This is a violent movie.” However, it does not even show, in my understanding, 2% of the violence that happened during that Genocide and times that followed it. I will try to say something about that unspeakable episode of the History of humanity. Or should I say “inhumanity”! I do not promise to put any scholarly order in the following article.

Every year, since 1995, from the 7^th April to the 4^th July, the entire world commemorates the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. On the 7^th April 1994, started what was going to be known in the history of humanity as the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. In 100 days, more than 800,000 human lives of Tutsis and moderate Hutus were lost. Most of those were butchered by their neighbours, their family members who did not want to be associated to them and some others by indoctrinated strangers. Since then, many have been those who refer to the Rwandan Genocide in their speeches, lectures and debates. But do they really grasp what it was all about and how indescribable it is?

On Easter day, the 3^rd April 1994, two of my best friends and classmates, fraternal twins, were baptised. Their mother had taught us in grade 3. After the Holy Mass we had a reception in the hall of the Cathedral. Both of them, their brother and their mother were killed a few weeks later. They had been hiding for weeks and were discovered hiding in bushes sometime during the genocide. Hundreds of thousands of people were butchered in churches where they had gone to seek protection. Sometimes they were betrayed by their parish priests, superiors, or pastors. Some pastors chose to die with the victims; some others were among on lists of those to be killed. At the end of the genocide, more than one million and a half of Rwandans went to exile in the then Zaire (today Democratic Republic of Congo). Hundreds of thousands died in refugee camps.

Genocide memorial in Kibeho. Brs. Gustave and Peter.

The general and obvious feeling of all the persecuted Rwandans in that time was that they had been abandoned by a careless world. They might not have known that their number was going to join other numbers of slaughtered populations found in History books on genocides, natural disasters, “just wars”, colonialism,  slavery, etc. They never thought about studies that would be done about their fate, controversies would rise about the gravity of the “events’ and some people might deny that they actually died. 

The survivors still struggle to understand how humanity works! The fact is that most of them have completely lost trust and interest in international justice and look sceptically at political and religious leaders who attempt or have strived to give moral lessons since then. Most of the survivors have adopted a few habits that became addictions, some of them destructive, some others less harmful; this is a kind of escape from reality and a hope to create another reality different from the horror they lived through. Fortunately, many other chose to pray about it and became very spiritual people.

It is difficult for people who saw death under its ugliest colours to know that they have to keep on “living”. The usual sentence that one hears is:”God spared your life for a reason!” But does this kind of ‘magical’ sentence work? What about their eradicated families? The daily problems they have to live with knowing that their chances to find solutions are insignificant. One confidence: the scars of wounds endured during those times reopen easily, even after going through the most experienced counselling. It is always better to know that one will live with them and the best and most helpful attitude would be to teach the survivors to accept that sometimes human beings become inhuman but that they [the survivors] are victims and not perpetrators. That is because most of the surviving victims do often think that they were guilty of some wrongdoing. It is also dangerous to let them deal with their problems alone.

While Rwandans do not claim that their suffering is superior to any other people’s, they do expect, at least, a common respect towards their beloved departed ones. At the same time, they are always grateful for the world to still welcome them with their wounded personality and the obvious incurable affliction that the 1994 Rwandan genocide left them with. However, they must make a superhuman effort to keep the air and normal not to scare people around them. And their inner pain, which is like lava from a volcano boiling inside, they should let escape a few bubbles at a time in order not to ignite themselves and their environment. It is a heavy burden and Rwandans are able to carry it on them with dignity and serenity.

Genocide Memorial in Kibeho. Photo by Br. Gustave Ineza OP

What is the use of discussing the Rwandan genocide on a blog that is supposed to share about spiritual experiences and preach a little bit? In my understanding, it helps us to grasp the danger of polarized identities, especially when they look at other identities as evil. That applies well to civilizations, religions, races, ethnic groups and any other major identities that could lead people into violence. The major question for the Rwandan Christians today is: what is the most important message of the Gospels and do we really focus on that and strive to love each other instead of looking for divisive ideas and doctrines?

Let us pray for the victims, both deceased and those alive, of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and for the world to care about suffering populations and, most of all, for people to know that their primarily identity is humanity as they were all created by the same God. A true love of humanity and of its creator would not allow such a thing to happen. Otherwise, how could we claim to be saved, civilized, and more intellectual than other living things if we sit and watch our brothers tearing each other apart and do nothing?

After genocides, the world always says these famous words: “Never again!” For once, may it say them with seriousness and may we, as Christians, join in with love, faith and hope.

Easter Sunday - The Resurrection is Real

Readings: Acts 10: 34, 37-43; Psalm 117; Colossians 3: 1-4; John 20: 1-9

Several people encounter the Risen Christ today: Mary Magdalene, Peter, John, and others. A few bystanders, such as the guards, see only the empty tomb, and they leave perplexed. And there are people, such as the high priests, so threatened by Christ in his earthly ministry, that they fear the witness of anyone spreading news of his resurrection.

Today, each one of us is a descendant of one of these people. Today the world marks an event of great Truth for Christians, skeptical interest for curious nonbelievers, and outright absurdity for hardened naysayers.

It should be no surprise that skeptics abound. As St. Paul warned us, “We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Paul does not speak of God’s power and wisdom while leaving Christ in the tomb, nor is his accusation against naysayers of his day based solely on the Crucifixion. The thrust of his argument is that God brought salvation to all the world through Christ’s death and resurrection.

Although this message has persisted through two millennia of hardship, when men of every age have tried to deny Christ, today’s naysayers are trying more clever tactics. Today’s critics have gone so far as to endorse the Good News of Christ on earth, or at least their interpretations of it,  but not the reality of his resurrection. A recent book entitled The Sign explains how the Shroud of Turin represents the physical impression of Jesus’ dead body on a burial cloth – it does not deny the existence of Jesus, or his death, or even the authenticity of this relic. Instead the book uses evidence to present the disciples as primitive and distraught mourners, struck by the very realistic image of the body on the shroud, anthropomorphizing it into the risen Christ in their midst.

This theory and so many others not only fly in the face of 2,000 years of belief in the physical resurrection, they make Christ’s disciples look nonsensical. They implant a modern skeptic’s doubt and spiritual turmoil onto the very real witnesses of the physical resurrection.

These theories are examples of how a world turned against God cannot explain the work of God, so the world aims for the next nearest target: God’s holy ones. If skeptics cannot ridicule God to His face, they make the His Church look like fools. They have been doing it since the foundation of the Church – and Christ warned us about them from the very beginning. In the coming weeks we will hear several accounts of the high priests persecuting the early Church for proclaiming the resurrection.
But in focusing their attack on Christ’s resurrection as an historical event, skeptics (then and now) miss the whole point of our Paschal celebration. There is more to our faith in the resurrection than God’s work in Christ. We celebrate more than Christ alone overcoming the power of death for his own sake.

Our Easter is a celebration of a present reality, namely, Christ’s risen life in us, here and now. Our Easter celebration is a renewed sharing in the physical dying and physical rising of Christ, as we die to sin and come alive in a fuller way in the Holy Spirit of the risen Lord.

As St. Paul teaches us in the second reading today, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above.” It is no wonder that skeptics abound in the attack on the faith. Christ’s death and resurrection make no sense to those on the road to self-destruction, those obsessed with demonstrating clever theories and basking in human accolades.

We are a people of faith. But faith in what? We do not seek to aggrandize Christ’s life for the sake of God, or to glorify God for the work He can do for Himself. What would be the point of celebrating the resurrection annually if it marked a one-time event for Christ alone? Our faith reminds us of Christ’s resurrection, but it points us towards our own. Our celebration today is a foretaste of our own destiny and the confirmation of God’s promise in the psalms: “I will not let my beloved know decay.” We are God’s beloved.
Any skeptic who devotes himself to reading historical documents finds evidence of Jesus on earth and Jesus’ death. And history demonstrates that a number of people have died for worthy causes. Certainly dying to atone for all the sins of the world is a worthy cause. But any assessment of Christ’s Passion is incomplete without viewing it in light of the true and tangible bodily resurrection. Seeing the risen Christ, not an image on cloth, compelled men and women to face public humiliation, torment, and even death for their belief. They knew, as we know because of their teaching, that Salvation itself would be incomplete without the resurrection of Christ and our own resurrection from death.

The crowing achievement of the Passion is God’s restoring us to life, as he does first in Christ and then for all of us. Man could have been satisfied if Christ’s death had washed away sin, and we were simply free to die in God’s peace. However, that would imply God’s love reaches some endpoint or some final satisfaction. There is no point at which God says to us, “I have loved you enough.” The love of God cannot be exhausted – even on the Cross.

Through the Resurrection of Christ, God gives us new life. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, God opens the way for us to offer that new life fully to God, eternally. This love is both the foundation for and result of the Passion we have commemorated throughout these holy days. The truth of the resurrection goes far beyond the sunrise encounters of that first Sunday or shrouds kept under glass. These things point us to the reality of Christ’s love, a love as real as his resurrection, witnessed by those holy women and men, and experienced and shared by all of us who believe in the Gospel.