Finding Jesus
Here is a fascinating interview with a Catholic priest, Father David Neuhaus, who is the vicar for Hebrew-speaking Catholics. He is a convert from Judaism who first encountered Jesus through the witness of a bed-ridden eighty-nine year old Russian Orthodox nun.
The first part of the interview ends with this exchange:
Q: What would you say is the sacrament with which you have the greatest affinity?
Father Neuhaus: It was very clear right from the very beginning of my Christian life that I was very much drawn to the Eucharist; to be in contact with the Body of Christ in the Eucharist. And of course, I repeat again for 10 years I attended the Eucharist regularly without being able to participate.
Q: So the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist was never a question for you.
Father Neuhaus: Absolutely no question and not only that but I was regularly going to adoration long before I could even take Communion.
Q: What was it that drew you?
Father Neuhaus: The realization that Christ is keeping His promise in the Sacrament; the promise that He would be with us always, that we are not alone, that He is there until the end of time. I think that I was only really interiorly touched by the Sacrament of Confession when I studied here in Rome and took the classes to prepare future priests to hear Confession and then realizing that the presence of Christ in this Sacrament of Reconciliation; in this Sacrament of pardon, is a very, very powerful way to make God present in the world. I would say that all the Sacraments, of course are very, very strongly felt in the life of a priest but for me personally the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Reconciliation are where I have a very strong personal sense of Jesus’ real presence in the world.
The rest is here.
Without touching upon the main topic of this thread, I have two quick remarks.
First, the link takes us to the zenit news website. I stopped consulting zenit when I learned of its links with the Legionaries of Christ. I believe that those links are still strong. For example this can be found in wikipedia: On Thursday, September 29, 2011, it was stated that Jesus Colina, Zenit’s publisher, resigned voluntarily at the request of the sponsoring Legionaries of Christ because he felt they had not let Zenit set up separate financial mechanisms to be more readily fiscally transparent which they supposedly had earlier promised to do, and also because he felt they were too evasive, selective and partial (in other words, not cooperative or forthright enough) about the actual results and implications of the sex scandal involving Fr Marcial Maciel Degollado (the founder of the Legion).
According to an online article by John Thavis of Catholic News Service (CNS) posted on Tuesday, October 11, 2011: “The six editors of the Catholic news agency Zenit have resigned, saying the agency has become too closely identified with the Legionaries of Christ.
I fear an insidious perversion of the news more than outright support of Maciel’s view of the world.
With that in mind, I read the article with an eye towards criticism: what can be found in there that is wrong?
One word jumped at me. It is said that Father Neuhaus “converted” to Catholicism. But I personally got quickly corrected when I used that word two years ago to refer to some Hebrew-speaking nuns in Jerusalem who had come from Judaism. I was told to avoid that word, that they did not want to apply to themselves. That’s because those nuns see themselves as still Jewish at the same time as Catholic. They have not left Judaism: they are Jews who believe the Good News of Jesus Christ.
The wikipedia article on Hebrew-speaking Catholics is an interesting read. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_Catholics
Unlike typical wikipedia articles, it proposes theories or opinions as though they were facts.
It is obviously a very sensitive topic!
Claire,
back to “the main topic of the thread:”
Let us rejoice heartily with all those who have come to “believe the Good News of Jesus.”
Ok. Feel free to delete what goes in a direction you don’t like. For my comments, I won’t mind.
I guess that one thing that is interesting here is that, although Fr Neuhaus was immediately drawn to the Eucharist, he was only “interiorly touched” by the sacrament of Reconciliation when he “took the classes to prepare future priests to hear Confession”. If that’s what’s needed to appreciate that sacrament, no wonder it has so little popularity! For many of us, going to confession is just a chore that we know we’re supposed to do, and sometimes we manage to drag ourselves to church for it, out of some vague sense of duty, but it leaves us cold and even if we try to push ourselves, it feels fake.
I agree with all your comments, Claire.
(The editors and contributors dislike comments that do not agree with their premises.)
Thanks Gerelyn. Note that Fr I. has not deleted my comments. In fact I think that he has never deleted any comment of mine, nor have I ever noticed him deleting any other comment.
The big question for this Lent, like every year: to go or not to go to Confession, that is the question!
From the current issue of commonweal:
“At first glance, Oesterreicher—a youthful convert from Judaism…”
Claire,
Full disclosure in this penitential season. I confess that I’ve deleted comments twice. But never comments from a lady :-)
I find stories of conversion from/to Judaism from/to Catholicism interesting.
With genealogical research so easy now, thanks to Ancestry.com, and DNA research so easy now, thanks to Family Tree ( http://www.familytreedna.com/ ), many people who were unaware of Jewish antecedents are now delighted to find them. Others who were always attracted to Jews and Judaism now know why.
The stories of the hidden Jews of New Mexico are the best, imho. Among them is Fr. William Sanchez, a priest of Albuquerque. He’s not only Jewish. He has the Cohanim marker.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/29/national/29religion.html
The other famous priest/convert named Neuhaus, John, a former Lutheran, is mentioned in this article from today’s Denver Post about how “Santorum benefits from mistaken religious identity”.
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_20043250?source=rss
CryptoJews! What a term! But “reversion” suggests choosing one’s religion for cultural and identity reasons, rather than because of some received grace, as, I guess, in David Neuhaus’s case (judging from his story). Reversion is not inspiring, is it?
Lovely interview. Thanks. I’m looking forward to the second part.
This sort of thing – short texts of interviews in Catholic publications – seem to tend to a regrettable brevity. Maybe that’s got to do with limited space in print media or maybe with an assumption that modern readers don’t have the attention span for longer material. I wish, though, that this interview had been much longer.
Claire: for me, the answer regarding Confession is that I will not go until the Sacrament is revised and the priest is no longer allowed to say, “I” absolve you from your sins…” GOD alone absolves through the power of the Holy Spirit and the grace of Jesus Christ. Again, the current state of the Sacramental form provides too much food for a “God complex” among the ordained. Confession of sin? Absolutely. We do this at every Eucharist and, hopefully, each time we encounter God in prayer and any time we find ourselves missing God’s mark. Communal services can be a breath of fresh air. I trust in the mercy of God and avoid the individual form of the Sacrament with a clear conscience. (By the way, are you the same Claire from the Pray Tell blog?)
Fr. Neuhaus sounds like an interesting person. The idea of proposing a 10 year wait at age 15 is quite extraordinary; I am impressed with the results in terms of family unity. The outcome of acceptance is not so common, and the fact that he retains strong relationships with both his parents is a very happy ending indeed. Sr. Barbara too must have been an extraordinary person to have produced such a strong impression on a teenage boy.
I must say, however, that the interviewer’s question about which sacrament you have a special affinity for seemed vain and silly to me. It’s like asking: what means of sanctification do you prefer personally? Our affinities don’t matter. I think it’s rather presumptuous to claim an affinity for one sacrament as opposed to another. I mean, suppose somebody “doesn’t” “have an affinity” for Eucharist. What the implications?
Janet: I have no trouble distinguishing between the ordained and God, so that’s primarily their problem, not my problem. I am happy, nay, eager to help them by pointing out their faults at every occasion. (Oddly, they do not seem particularly grateful.)
I am not sure I understand your reluctance. Surely if Confession is all it’s made to be, then the risk that the phrasing will inflate a priest’s ego is at most a marginal concern?
I grew up with communal services and they’re wonderful, but they’re not enough. First, it may happen that something eats at you; then you need to voice it and possibly to have some appropriate “penance” to help be cleansed. Second, more frequently, it may happen that you have difficulty with the first step – awareness of your sins. The young rich man wanted to follow Jesus and thought he was doing all right, until Jesus asked him to give away everything he had: then the man realized that he was attached to his stuff. I think that many, many of us are much like the young rich man. We do what we can, we think we’re doing ok, we want to do more, but we do not see exactly what’s wrong with us and are frustratingly stuck. Individual confession might help, I guess.
Janet,
You write: “GOD alone absolves through the power of the Holy Spirit and the grace of Jesus Christ.” I think that is a fine expression of sacramental theology, as expressed in the prayer of absolution:
“God, the Father of mercies, through the death and the 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.”
The “I” of the minister is subordinated to (is the sacramental embodiment of) the “I” of Christ. Rather than it promoting a “God complex,” its proper understanding should promote a “kenosis.”
“I am happy, nay, eager to help them by pointing out their faults at every occasion.”
Claire–
During confession???
Mark, that’s a good idea. There’s a suggestion! Maybe it’ll motivate me to go to confession after all.
Thanks for your reply, Robert. Yes, such an exprsssion “should” promote kenosis, but I have little experience that it does. Especially among the newer breed of younger priests, the whole idea of what they do has inflated their sense of self-importance and indispensability to almost idolatrous proportions. I have always been (even when I was highly conservative–and yes, I truly was) vaguely troubled by the unreflective acceptance (by clergy and non-clergy) of the evil of clericalism; the day I heard a young, on-his-way-up-the-clerical-ladder priest claim that ordination is a form of “transubstantiation” was the day everything changed for me, and radically so. I refuse to enable this by exposing myself to it; I no longer call priests “Father,” a dangerous and pernicious custom that is condemned by Jesus; I believe that the barring of women from the priesthood is simply sacralized sexism (another sin, or so Church authority has said); and I am willing to risk that God’s mercy can and does reach me in my own failings and sinfulness even if I cannot, in conscience, participate in the form of the sacrament we now have (and which, I remind everyone, is not the only form the Church has ever had). I believe in the confession of sin and I also believe that this can and should be done within the praying community. I take seriously the power of the penitential rite at Eucharist and avail myself of every opportunity to examine my life and bring it all before God without flinching. I also trust that the Scripture commanding us to “confess our sins to one another” (James 5:16) expresses both the need for individual confession and the possibilty that God’s mercy can extend to us outside the juridical pronouncement of the ordained. Until the Church puts its practice where its mouth is and actually behaves as if Baptism and Eucharist (NOT ordination) are the central realities in which the Christian community coheres and by which it is identified, I will continue on my way with a quiet conscience.
PS to Claire: For me, individual Confession in the form we now have it and in the current climate of the Church is NOT “all it’s made to be.”. And like you, I have NO problem distinguishing between the ordained and our beloved Lord Jesus. But they need help doing this, and I refuse to enable anything that keeps them in the dark.
PS to Robert: Before you or others are tempted to tell me that the idea of ordination as a form of transubstatiation was an aberration: I asked another priest who was present at the Mass where this heresy was preached why he or another of his fellow priests didn’t take the little man aside and provide some fraternal correction. “Why would we?” was his reply. “What he said is true.”
Rita said: I must say, however, that the interviewer’s question about which sacrament you have a special affinity for seemed vain and silly to me.
Agree. I would think that for a priest, Holy Orders would be the fave, the one that turns him into an alter Christi, with the power to loose and bind, to absolve or to withhold absolution, etc. Or maybe Confirmation, the sacrament in which the Holy Spirit endows us all, female or male, with Her gifts.
——–
Claire said: CryptoJews! What a term! But “reversion” suggests choosing one’s religion for cultural and identity reasons, rather than because of some received grace, as, I guess, in David Neuhaus’s case (judging from his story). Reversion is not inspiring, is it?
The terms used for the Jews who were forced to hide their real religion for centuries don’t bother me. The descendants of forced “conversos” who lately have learned the truth about their ancestors seem so happy with the discovery, that questioning the “received grace” that is involved seems harsh. Is God’s generosity so easily contained? Is “reversion” inspiring? It is to me. I enjoy seeing people learn from family trees and DNA where certain traits, gifts, etc., came from.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Mexico.html
OOOh, sorry, Claire! I forgot to close the italics. You did NOT say what follows “Reversion is not inspiring, it it?” Those words in the second paragraph are mine. SORRY!
Overheard from a future Claire confession:
“…and while I missed Mass once, I couldn’t help but notice, Father, that your 6:30 am mass often kicks off at 6:35…”
Boy (oops, I mean, non-sexualized young person), I hope I someday have it all figured out like Janet does. She can state her case, state your objection so’s you don’t have to, then refute the objection you/she supplied. What a woman!
Well, Mark, I’ll probably be a little bit less direct than that:
“… I get distracted during Mass when the priest doesn’t follow the rubrics…”
“… I’m too lazy to follow the homily; after a few minutes I give up, when it goes on and on. …”
“… I also have no patience for a homily that is unprepared. I really ought to have more patience …”
“… I have jealousy when I see that big rectory, for just one person, at this time of economic troubles, when our parish has so much difficulty with its budget and there are discussions of closing the food pantry…”
“… I get annoyed when I see that [x] died without the sacrament of the sick, that he was so anxious to have. I can’t help but think that it ought to have been possible to make the time…”
“… mostly I am angry a lot of the time. So much harm done in the sexual abuse scandal, and yet, still so little accountability. Even at the parish level, lay people have no say in anything of import, little knowledge of how decisions are taken, and it makes me angry…”
How’s that for a confession of jealously, envy, anger, sloth, and all sorts of negative thoughts? Do you think I’d be absolved?
Thanks, Mark, for such helpful comments. Nice of you to spread a little heat but no light. Addressing my experience and criticizing my conclusions might have provided some challenge and insight, but such is the present climate in the church…you wear it well.
Claire–Smooooooooooooooth. First, you’d be absolved. Then, you’d be asked to volunteer for the parish council.
Come on, Janet, laugh a little. Do you really think my comments were any more heat-seeking than yours?
Yes, I do. I was attempting to give a reasoned explanation mainly in response to Robert’s reply to my original post, and also trying to reply to Claire. Yes, I laugh a lot about the current state of affiars in the Church and can sling the hot sauce with the best of them. But this time I was not doing that and it would have been nice for someone to address what I actually said instead of sniping. The experience I related was truly life-changing for me and was the cause of many months of grief and the loss of an orientation within the church that had given me a sense of security and purpose. False security and shabby purpose, as it turns out. I am forever grateful to God for the experience and for the grief. But it changed me forever. That in itself is of no concern on this blog, but I do feel that it is germane to the discussion regarding the present form of the sacrament of Confession.
Janet, some time ago there was a thread in which Father K. participated at some length, about the nature of the priesthood. He was mostly criticizing excessive interpretations that were perhaps similar to that “transubstantiation” that you are quoting.
I have been lucky in dealings with young priests who think they know it all and are throwing themselves head first into the race for the salvation of everyone around them, whether we want it or not. They make me think of my teenage son, and I find their enthusiasm too endearing to mock their naiveté. They touch us by their intensity, like a teenager in love for the first time, and I am sure that they can be vectors of grace, so we still need to take them seriously. The idea of being “transubstantiated” probably makes them feel invulnerable, as if it was some kind of magic shield. One day they will inevitably learn that they, too, can fail and fall from grace, and then maybe they can become friends. In the meantime we can still learn from them. After all, I learn things from my kids all the time!
See, I was just going to say everything Claire just said, word for word.
I understand what you are saying, Claire, but I think there is a much darker side to the “priest is Jesus” concept that disables it from comparison to the simple growing pains of teenagers in the flush of first love. I might find their posturing outrageous and laughable, but I think it can— and does—have deadly serious consequences for the Church. When it comes to working through the serious problems the Church is currently facing, I find the whole thing more generative of fear and grief than of humor. After all, is the Church simply a stage for this type of sacralized farce? Or are we called to something better? My experience of this—and it has been pretty intense—is that there is nothing endearing about it at all. I am glad for younthat you can see it differently. For me, that is no longer possible. Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
Janet –
As with you, such talk scandalizes me. It borders on the blasphemous to say that a mere human is miraculously changed into — what? — Jesus Himself?? Next they’ll want us to genuflect before them.
It isn’t the young priests who scandalize me so much, it’s their teachers. Where are they getting this trash-theology? How can their bishops tolerate it? Or do their bishops know what is being taught?
Thanks, Anne. After this happened, I tried to reason with this guy and asked him, in a 4 page letter, how he related such a concept to Baptism, the preisthood of the faithful, etc. No answer. Many people I told about it found it dismissively humorous in a way similar to what Claire has expressed. But I think it is positively deadly and, as you say, quite blasphemous. Like you, I fault the culture and the higher-ups who teach this crap, but teach it they do and it seems now more than ever. I was scandalized by it and still am. The only way I can manage to stay in the Church is to resolutely, if only privately, resist enabling it at every turn. For example, the rationale for the new response, “And with your spirit,” is that we are acknowledging the “special spirit” the priest receives at ordination. Really? A “special spirit” other than the Holy Spirit who fills and animates us all? NO THANKS. I am sticking with, “And
also with you.”. And let’s not kid ourselves: there were countless cases of clergy sexual abuse where the attitude was, “Father couldn’t do something like that…”. “Don’t you dare say anything like that about a priest!”. ETC, ETC, ad nauseam. I am having no part of it. And anyway, why would anyone who claims to love God and neighbor, and is supposed to be all about “service,” WANT to have such an inflated self-distinction? This is all about POWER and EGO. And of course, no women need apply. Right. Sure. It’s just the same old thing, over and over again. By the way, pls excuse any typos or weird punctuation: I am sending this via my iPad and I don’t find it that friendly. Thanks again for your reply. I hope Robert chimes in…would love to hear his views on all this.
Janet,
where even to begin?
To affirm that transubstantiation applies only to the Eucharist not to the sacrament of orders; to remind, however, that in the Catholic Church both baptism and orders are sacraments; to recall that there are different charisms of the Spirit and that the translation, “and also with you” was, from the beginning a mistranslation, not indulged in by the Italian, French, and Spanish vernacular; but mostly, returning to the topic of the post, to hope that some of the joy of the bed-ridden aged nun may be ours this Lenten season.
“Addressing my experience and criticizing my conclusions might have provided some challenge and insight…”
Janet–
This comment may be too personal for this forum, so it may be best deleted, but in this thread you’ve cast yourself about so widely that there’s no room on the couch for anyone to come sit down and talk with you. Then you are upset that you’re not engaged. One needs to have the self-confidence to play a game one might lose.
I am sorry that you had a very bad experience in the confessional (or so I gather) and hope you can find more of the joy Father Imbelli alludes to.
Thanks for showing me the door, gentlemen. Big difference between me and you, Mark: to me this isn’t a game.
See ya.
And let’s not kid ourselves: there were countless cases of clergy sexual abuse where the attitude was, “Father couldn’t do something like that…”.
I know from first-hand experience that you’re entirely correct. But even that did not shake my basic optimism about the future of the church. It seems to me that staring at those “dark” aspects risks pulling us in. When the problems seem overwhelming, for my own sake I take a break and focus on the saints of the church instead. Carolyn Disco does that too. I think that everyone who is deeply troubled by the problems of the church has to do that from time to time for their own sanity. That’s my interpretation of Father I.’s suggestion. I hope that we’re not merely emulating Pangloss but putting the Catholic both/and into practice. To each their own way of facing, not facing, dealing, or not dealing with the problems of the church as best as we can!
Mark, I appreciate the fact that you disagree with Janet, but I don’t find your comment above (9:16) to be quite fair to what she has written. There are some serious implications of what she has pointed out. Janet, I hope you will not abandon this discussion altogether. I believe and hope that this is not the intent of either of the gentlemen whom you addressed at 10:52.
The key issue here which Janet has raised is a very profound one, namely, how do human beings act as representatives of God and of Christ Jesus without taking for themselves the role of the Almighty and all-Holy One which belongs to God alone? How do we realize the mandate for selfless service exemplified by Jesus washing feet, in a situation where hierarchical arrangements tempt people to exercise power and privilege in unredeemed ways? Spiritual conversion? Structural reform? The first would be a message of Pope Benedict, the second a message of the Protestant Reformation. But to imply that it’s not a struggle or a challenge would be to deny the evidence of history and of our senses even today.
Simply as an observation of general human psychology too, I would point out that the example of a priest talking about Holy Orders as an event of transubstantiation would not have had the effect of repelling and dismaying someone deeply if it had not been preceded by numerous incidents in which clerical arrogance had also been displayed, to the detriment of Christian witness. If a consistently credible witness is being given in action, we tend to be generous about foolish words which are spoken from time to time. It’s when the words name a disturbing pattern of behavior that we have actually witnessed that their message cuts deep. I find Janet’s reaction believable, and hardly fabricated or self-centered. We could all tell stories.
On a couple of liturgical points… Robert, we could have a longer discussion about “And also with you” but I think this isn’t the thread for it. I appreciate that you are speaking briefly, and I don’t dismiss your comment about other language groups, but I think to call it a simple “mistranslation” that the English liturgy “indulged in” isn’t really quite fair — as I know you wish to be. There are even serious arguments for it as a better translation, but this is indeed a long discussion and I don’t want to burden your thread with all that.
As a point of information (which Robert already knows, no doubt, but other readers may benefit from knowing as background), in the reform of the Sacrament of Penance there was indeed some disagreement concerning the formula of absolution precisely concerning the way best to express who forgives, but in different (more refined) terms than those which Janet’s initial post suggests. Annibale Bugnini’s tome, The Reform of the Liturgy, 1948-1975, relates what happened as follows:
“The Congregation for Divine Worship had proposed that in the formula of absolution the essential words be introduced by an “and therefore” while the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith wanted this changed to “and I absolve you…” The former seemed more appropriate because it better reflected the theology of the sacrament; it sought to bring out the fact that God forgives through Jesus Christ, who in turn acts in his Church. “And I” on the other hand makes a distinction between two subjects, “God and I,” so that the priest’s action seems to be as it were added on to the first part of the formula rather than intrinsically connected with it. Many of the periti in the Congregation for Divine Worship strongly emphasized this point, because they regarded it as necessary for a proper understanding of the sacrament and as expressing a genuine liturgical sense that rejects any separation of the essential words from the context in which they are used.
But on June 19 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith denied both requests. Regarding the second [described in the paragraph quoted above], it said “The reasons given by the Congregation for Divine Worship are not convincing. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has serious reasons for keeping the formula as it is.” When asked what these reasons were, the Congregation replied that it would make them known to the Pope.” (p. 674 of the English edition)
What strikes me in this account, and is the reason why I offer it here, is that who forgives is really not in question, but the ways of expressing this have been evaluated variously. Robert, I am so glad you quoted the rite’s actual words, which I find very inspiring. The reference to the paschal mystery and the ministry of the Church always fill me with great joy and consolation, as they express a fullness that the sacrament is truly intended to convey. Alas, many forget all that and jump to “I absolve you” in isolation, as if the other words do not exist.
Janet –
Please don’t leave. Your voice is needed.
Fr. Imbelli –
You have ignored the issues that Janet has asked you to address. That doesn’t help.
“This comment may be too personal for this forum, so it may be best deleted, but in this thread you’ve cast yourself about so widely that there’s no room on the couch for anyone to come sit down and talk with you. Then you are upset that you’re not engaged.”
Mark –
Oh, come on! First YOU say the issue is too personal to engage, and then you criticize Janet for being too involved and emotional about it?
YOU are the one who is turning your back on an important issue == does a priest “transubstantiate” by being ordained? Is it blasphemous to say that he is transubstantiated?
Janet is willing to talk. You apparently aren’t.
\
Rita,
I find your quotation from Bugnini informative. Thank you. For what it’s worth: I would find “therefore” perfectly appropriate.
But I think we have sufficiently strayed from the topic of the post. and, therefore “adieu.”
Rita–
Thanks for expressing your belief about my intent. Janet was not shown any door–she had one foot out the door at all times. I agree that she raised some legitimate problems–there are clerics who see their ordination more as a coronation than a cross–but I find them few and far between and not built into the structure of the Church. What I find so frustrating about people who are angriest about the power they perceive the hierarchy to possess is that they mainly want one thing: more of it for themselves.
That is not to say that I would not feel as they do if I had been exposed to “numerous incidents in which clerical arrogance had also been displayed, to the detriment of Christian witness”, nevertheless…