“Unto the praise of the glory of his grace”
Here is today’s second reading in the Douai-Rheims version:
Blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ, as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in his sight in charity; who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto himself: according to the purpose of his will, unto the praise of the glory of his grace, in which he hath graced us in his beloved son in whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins, according to the riches of his grace which hath superabounded in us in all wisdom and prudence that he might make known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in him, in the dispensation of the fulness of times, to re-establish all things in Christ that are in heaven and on earth in him in whom we also are called by lot, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will that we may be unto the praise of his glory, we who before hoped Christ, in whom you also, after you had heard the word of truth, (the gospel of your salvation;) in whom also believing, you were signed with the holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance, unto the redemption of acquisition, unto the praise of his glory.
I chose this version only because it does not break what in the Greek is a single sentence up into six sentences as did the New American Bible version read out in our churches. In my sermon today I compared the style of this Epistle, so different from that of the genuine Pauline letters, to a succession of waves lifting and carrying us on all those prepositional phrases, as in the one I chose for the title of this thread.
J. D. G. Dunn calls this passage “as profound a meditation on the blessing and purpose of God as we will find anywhere in the Bible”; he thinks the Epistle was written by someone in the Pauline tradition as “an attempt to formulate Paul’s legacy… for the second-generation Christians and to give this synthesis of his heritage a fitting liturgical setting for use in church-gatherings, to provide matter for meditation and worship as well as for instruction.”
Since on another thread below, a couple of people have recommended a discussion of the referent of the word “Church” and in particular of the coming together of divine and human elements to constitute the Church, one way into the discussion is to ask to what degree, if at all, the spiritual blessings here described as the gift of God in Christ and his Holy Spirit enter into one’s apprehension of the Church.
I often find it interesting to compare translations to Andy Gaus’s translation in The Unvarnished New Testament.
Thank you so much for this thread on this reading and on the ecclesiology of Ephesians, Fr. Komonchak.
I take from your homily these two overlapping lists of the spiritual blessings of the Church, according to the passage:
spiritual blessings; election; adoption; redemption by Christ’s blood; the forgiveness of transgressions; knowledge of God’s final plan for humanity; being sealed with the promised Holy Spirit
election, adoption, redemption, forgiveness, knowledge, heartfelt love
Although I agree with you about authorship, I’m reminded of the deep mystical chapters in the letters everyone acknowledges as Pauline, particularly Romans 8. I do believe that I find these blessings in the Church. I wish everyone in the world could find them.
Too profound for me.
Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, a French Carmelite: called herself “Praise of Glory” after this passage, as a kind of religious nickname. She explains:
“A praise of Glory is a soul of silence that remains like a lyre under the mysterious touch of the Holy Spirit so that He may draw from it divine harmonies.”
This passage presents what is central to my belief about God in relation to people — creation, redemption, salvation. But even more central to my belief is what I believe about God-as-God, if I may but it that way. I mean that what God is *in Himself* — Love, the Trinity, Goodness, Power, Creativity, Beauty, Truth, Liberality, Infinity — is the foundation of all that St. Paul talks about here, God’s traits are presuppositions of the dogmas Paul is listing, but they’re more important too.
I might note that many of Paul’s central topics here are the dogmas that the young people seem to reject so emphatically these days. They’re inspire the “i’m spiritual, not religious” and “I don’t believe in organized religion” memes. Too many of today’s young people don’t seem to have much of a concept of God.. They reject HIm as judge and savior and see Him as simply as “compassion” or “loving kindness”. That’s just a sketch of God, as I see it, and those concepts too are about God-in-relation-to-us. So no wonder they have so little appreciation or need of Mass. Yes, there are exceptions, mainly, I suspect, those who have mystical leanings. Too bad the Church doesn’t teach more about its mystical tradition.
Ann: Creation, Redemption, Salvation: what C.R.S. stands for!
If the prepositional phrases are like waves, then the same structure is also present in the small: “unto the praise of the glory of his grace” are like three little wavelets, maybe.
But I have read this text a number of times in the last few days, and the waves have gone over me without getting me wet in the least. I could not even say what it is about. For example, take that “praise of glory of grace”: what?? why not simply “praise of grace”? what is glory of grace anyway? Why praise, not the grace, but the glory of grace? I could take any permutation of those three words and it would make just as much sense. Kathy, I understand your image, but what does it have to do with “praise of glory”? Couldn’t it be called any “A of B”? It’s frustrating that people as different as Kathy and Ann both like it. What am I missing that you’re getting?
Claire,
What if the saints are like living icons of God?
Then, maybe it works this way. God gives grace. This grace is glorified, i.e., given honor and renown, by the saints. God’s grace becomes famous in the works of the saints–Mother Teresa, for example. People praise the glory of His grace, for example, people gave Mother Teresa a Nobel Prize as praise of the showing forth of God’s grace in her works.
Praise = Nobel Prize
Glory = Charitable works on an unbelievable scale
Grace = Hidden life according to the theological virtues
Does that help at all?
I recently finished a theology degree, that has a somewhat unusual format to the final exam. I was asked to submit ten paper topics with bibliographies. Only one would be chosen. I would know 48 hours ahead of the exam time which of the topics was chosen, and then prepare a 45-minute lecture on that topic.
As it happens, the topic that was chosen was from a term paper I wrote for Fr. Komonchak, a decade ago now.
Among the other topics, at least half had something to do with this passage and others like it, about “the plan” of God, the divine indwelling, the mystical life, merit and charity.
Anyways, one of my papers was about how this passage in Ephesians, along with a closely parallel passage in another deutero-Pauline book, the Letter to the Colossians, reflects one of the “ambigua” or difficulties treated by Maximus the Confessor, namely “Natures are instituted afresh.” St. Maximus postulates an intriguing version of the salvation or summing up of all things in Christ. The human being exercises a priestly function that benefits all creation (as in Romans 8, and the Ephesians and Colossians passages), by restoring the unity of being that existed before the Fall.
I’m not wedded to Maximus’ schema, but I do think that as Catholics we should be thinking of salvation in very robust terms, not as an individual matter, nor in minimalist moral terms, but as a thoroughgoing process.
(I could go on and on and probably will later…)
Some notes on Maximus and the Ephesians canticle. Again I’m not claiming that this is the best way to read Ephesians, but at least it’s an adequately robust account of salvation, with a universal scope.
The two canticles, Eph and Col, use slightly different language for the summing up. Anakephalaiosasthai (Eph. 1:10) means to make a total summation of formerly discrete identities. It can be used for the summation of an argument, or of a column of figures.I6 In its only other New Testament usage besides Ephesians, it means to sum up all Law ‘in the saying “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.—(Rom 13:9) Hidden in its etymology, of course, is the Greek word for “head”—and so summation- here lightly touches on the idea of the -body” that is being formed of believers.
The word apokatellallaxen (Col. 1:20) means to reconcile. It is used here, as well as two verses later: -He has now reconciled [you] in his fleshly body through his death, to present you holy, without blemish, and irreproachable before him (Col. 1:20), and in a
similar way in Eph. 2:16, in which Christ reconciles both Jew and Greek with God, “in one body, through the cross, putting that enmity to death by it.”
These two words are used very similarly here, though apokatellallaxen carries the added meaning of the relief of an antagonistic situation. Furthermore, they suggest a third word that has been the subject of theological study over the years, apokatastasis, meaning “restoration.- Literally the word is a kind of double negative: away from (apo)+ against (kata) + standing (stasis). Strictly speaking, this is a restoration of things to a former state.
As a theological concept, in its most extreme formulations, it stands for the certitude of universal salvation. Here, many important questions come into play, regarding predestination, human freedom, and, not least, exegesis: How do we explain Christ’s many warnings about hell’? These questions are addressed, for example, in Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Dare We Hope? But for the purposes of this paper, it is important to move forward to the means of restoration, rather than its certitude. A rather delightful teacher of the mechanisms of restoration exists in the Tradition, St. Maximus the Confessor.
St. Maximus’ clearest exposition of the division of being is presented in his Ambigua 41. How is it, an imaginary interlocutor seems to ask, that, as the Christmas Liturgy says, “natures are instituted afresh..? The question, it seems to me, is similar to that of Nicodemus: “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” (in. 3: 4)
Originally, as Maximus explains more fully later in the Ambigua, there was a commonality of being, and still, their divisions notwithstanding, all things in their proper logoi share in a unity of being. In their true logos all beings have at least something in common one with another. Amongst the beings after God, which have their being from God through generation, there are no exceptions, neither the greatly honoured and transcendent beings which have a universal relationship to the One absolutely beyond any relation, nor is the least honoured among beings destitute and bereft since it has by nature a generic relationship to the most honoured beings. For all those things that are distinguished one from another by their particular differences are united by their universal and common identities, and forced together to the one and the same by a certain natural generic logos, so that the various kinds are united one with another according to their essence, and possess the one and the same and the undivided.’
Each existent has this in common with all other existent: it is self-identical—the unifying underlying logos of all creation that derives from “the one, simple, undifferentiated and indifferent idea of production from nothing.” It is this identification of itself with itself that it shares with all other beings. Yet being is also, quite evidently, divided:
They say that the substance of everything that has come into being is divided into five divisions. [1] The first of these divides from the uncreated nature the universal nature, which receives its being from becoming… The division that divides creation from God is to be called ignorance. [2] The second division is that in accordance with which the whole nature that receives being from creation is divided by God in to that which is perceived by the mind and that perceived by the senses. [3] The third is that in accordance with which the nature perceived by the senses is divided into heaven and earth. [4] The fourth is that in accordance with which the earth is divided into paradise and the inhabited world, [5] and the fifth, that in accordance with which the human person… is divided into male and female.
Maximus holds that the human being is naturally a “laboratory,- a concentrated privileged mediating place, because human beings are uniquely related to all the extremities of the divisions of being. Human beings would unite the sexes by knowledge of the human logos, becoming simply human, uniting male and female. They would unite paradise and earth by virtue, “by a way of life proper and fitting to saints.” They would also unite heaven and earth by virtue, by “a life identical in every way through virtue with that of the angels. They would unite the sensible and the intelligible by acquiring angelic knowledge. Finally, they would by the love of God attain God Himself, and in fact “become completely whatever God is, save at the level of being.
(Man as such fails to mediate the divisions, so Christ accomplishes this.):
Christ establishes unity between the five divisions in the human stead. [1] He united male and female (Gal. 3:28) by becoming
the perfect human being, having from us, on our account, and in accordance with our nature, everything that we have and are, “apart from sin- (Heb. 4:15), and having no need of the natural intercourse of marriage.
[2] Christ united paradise and earth by opening the way to paradise, as shown by his words to the good thief on his Cross. [3] He demonstrated the unity of heaven and earth by his post-Resurrection appearances. [4] In his Ascension he showed the unity of the sensible and the intelligible, by passing through all the ranks of heaven in his human body. Finally,[5] he goes before the Father on our behalf, indivisibly one with the Father and consubstantial with us, fully obedient, with all things accomplished, uniting the creature with the Creator.
This passage occurs very frequently in Evening Prayer, as a canticle – it occurs every Monday in the four-week cycle, and also in a number of commons and propers. Iin the breviary I use for everyday prayer (the one-volume “Christian Prayer”) it utilizes the NAB translation (the translation previous to the one proclaimed at mass today, with slightly-more-digestible English), and also divides the canticle into a series of four-line stanzas. This makes it (mostly) suitable for chanting which, to the consternation of my family, is my usual way of praying the Liturgy of the Hours. But the divisions, into sentences and stanzas, do cause one to lose that sense of rolling waves of propositional phrases.
I’ve always taken it to be a song of praise for salvation history. The NAB footnote indicates that the canticle “is rich in images almost certainly drawn from hymns and liturgy.” It’s a good reminder that Christian worship preceded the compilation of the New Testament.
God gives grace. This grace is glorified, i.e., given honor and renown, by the saints. God’s grace becomes famous in the works of the saints–Mother Teresa, for example. People praise the glory of His grace, for example, people gave Mother Teresa a Nobel Prize as praise of the showing forth of God’s grace in her works. – So clear! Thanks!
Kathy ==
Thanks for the Maximus explanations. Very interesting. Also thanks for the praise, glory, grace analysis. Very clear. Most of us aren’t mystics, and it is largely through the lives of the saints that we get to know indirectly what God is in Himself.
Thanks, Claire and Ann. It’s fun to talk about these things.
I guess the question I’m obsessed with is, what is the Holy Spirit doing? He’s not an innocuous bird, simply floating above us, waiting to bless our decisions. He is the God of holiness, inside you, who are in Communion with millions of others who live in that same rather awkward situation. What does God intend to do, that He would be living and acting on us from the inside? What is salvation?
Jim,
Thanks for pointing out that hymns and liturgy precede the Scripture. As you likely know, there is a polemic in sacred music circles, concerning hymns at Mass vs. the proper texts, such as the introit. Since hymns are allowed at Mass but almost certainly not preferred by the General Instruction on the Roman Missal, hymns are sometimes characterized negatively, as liturgical add-ons that displace the propers. There is something to be said for that characterization, in the Roman Rite. And yet hymns have been here since the beginning of liturgy.
I like that Blessed Elizabeth’s image is musical…
Still, it’s a reading for the pros. I question the wisdom of putting it in the Sunday lectionary.
Several modern translations offer this: “to the praise of his glorious grace” (one says “glorious generosity”). The NEB has: “in order that the glory of his gracious gift…might redound to his praise. ” Ronald Knox has: “the splendour of that grace.” I think that something like this is what is meant by “the glory of his grace.” St. Augustine once described the human race as Dei laudatrix (God-praising), and when he asked what will we do in the Kingdom, he replied that we will be praising God with an unfailing Alleluia.
It would seem that there were Christian hymns before there were any Christian writings, at least none that have survived.
Claire: You surely don’t want us to leave the “hard parts” out! I fear that many Christians don’t take seriously such passages as describing themselves as gloriously graced by God. That’s why in my homily I referred to Newman’s theme of “realizing sacred privileges,” that is, as making them real to ourselves by bringing them into explicit consciousness so that they can shape our own self-awareness.
Does it help to know that the shift from the first person plural in the earlier verses to the second person plural in the last is meant to introduce one of the great themes of the Epistle that the Gentiles (those far off) have been brought into the same covenantal blessings as those who were near, that is, the Jews?
Yves Congar said that for the Fathers the word “Church” referred to “le ‘nous’ des chrétiens,” so that how Christians thought of themselves as the Church could be discovered not only by their use of that word but also by seeing what they were saying about themselves when they used the first person plural. This passage has much to say, then, about what the author and, presumably, his addressees understood themselves to be as a community so blessed by God.
The long list of “spiritual blessings” could be taken one-by-one and reflected on.
One could imagine a black preacher in a congregational church doing a riff on “unto the praise of the glory of his grace”: something like this:
Yes, people, that’s why we’re here today, to praise the glory of God’s grace. Can I hear an “Amen”? Because there’s a glory in God’s grace, isn’t there? Halleluiah! A glory in his grace! Isn’t it glorious–the grace of God: that he chose us is a glorious grace! That he adopted us, made us his sons and daughters–that’s glorious grace! That he redeemed us from slavery by the blood of his Son–what glorious grace! That he forgave us our trespasses–yet another glorious grace! It’s grace all the way down and all the way up. Glorious grace, Halleluiah. Halleluiah means “Praise God!” And every time we shout “Halleluiah” we are praising the glory of God’s grace, praising his glorious grace! Let me hear an “Amen”! Praise God! Praise God! Praise the glory of his grace!
Calvin paraphrased it as “the glorious praise of such abundant grace.”
Fr K – now that’s a hymn of praise!
I understand how Claire feels. We studied all the Pauline letters during the ” Year of Paul and the following year in our parish scripture study group. And I still recall the day that we came together to talk about the opening section of Ephesians. The group had been reading the scriptures together for years, was experienced, committed, and giving it their all, but heads were spinning. And that was only the beginning. It wasn’t easy to relax and go with the flow of those extraordinary, somewhat run-together sentences. The image of waves of thought was a good one, though riding the waves of Ephesians had a way of feeling like a day at the “Jersey Shore”: exhilarating, but exhausting.
I was glad to see Fr K. citing James Dunn, because the best commentary I found on this passage when we were working on it was Dunn’s piece on Ephesians in the “Oxford Bible Commentary.” Among other things he says of this passage “the repetition of key words, the piling up of phrases, and the circling round and steady enrichment of the central theme gives it a depth and resonance unsurpassed in Christian praise. It is a word to return to, to rest upon, to rejoice in, and not least, to enjoy. It should have been put to great music long before now.”
Kathy, re: hymns vs appointed psalms like the introit: istm that they’re both neglected genres, both the introit/offertory/communion, and the traditional hymns for LotH. Regarding the hymns in particular, I’m sure I’m not as immersed in them as you are, but it seems to me that it is not just old texts that are being neglected, but a lot of wonderful imagery and theology, as well.
As you have probably gleaned from our various discussions about liturgical music, I am a proponent of quite a bit of newer hymns in a popular style, but I think it’s a mistake to do nothing but them, in all times and places. Faith communities that are capable of doing pieces from the gradual should find faithful ways of doing so. Introits could be adapted and used widely as psalms in English translation have been adapted for the Responsory Psalm. And translations such as your own of traditional hymns could be utilized as well.
I love your Black preaching, Fr. K.
The Greek syntax of the praise/glory/grace phrase is beyond me, but there are two unambiguous uses of the expression “praise of His glory” in the passage. If we can praise God’s glory, could we not also praise the glory of God’s grace?
The reading from Ephesians appears in the Lectionary again on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. I was hoping to find a reference to Eph 1 in the final chapter of Lumen Gentium, but it does not appear. Still, I think the mystery of the deuteroPauline Church, and “its exalted type,” as the Council calls Mary, are deeply related. Mary’s salvation was given all at once, for our sakes. And the Church’s salvation plays out over time. Both are predestined by the will of God, and given superabundant graces and blessings. Both are called to be free from sin, Mary from her creation, and the Church in time. This last point, referring to Eph 5:27, is made in LG 65: But while in the most holy Virgin the Church has already reached that perfection whereby she is without spot or wrinkle, the followers of Christ still strive to increase in holiness by conquering sin.
From yesterday’s Angelus:
“The whole life and theology of St. Bonaventure have Jesus Christ as their core inspiration. This centrality of Christ is also to be found in the second reading of today’s Mass, the famous hymn of the Letter of Paul to the Ephesians, which begins: ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens’. The Apostle then goes on to show us how this blessing is realised in four passages all of which begin with the same expression ‘in Him’, referring to Jesus Christ. ‘In Him’ the Father chose us before the creation of the world; ‘in Him’ we are redeemed through His blood, ‘in Him’ we have become heirs predestined to be ‘the praise of his glory’; ‘in Him’ those who believe in the Gospel receive the seal of the Holy Spirit. This hymn contains the Pauline view of history, which St. Bonaventure helped to spread inthe Church: all of history is centred on Christ, Who is a guarantee of novelty and renewal in every age. In Jesus, God has spoken and given everything, but because He is an inexhaustible treasure, the Holy Spirit never ceases to reveal and update His mystery. Therefore, the work of Christ and the Church never regresses, but always progresses”.
On the “we” that is the Church, there is this from Pope Benedict speaking at Frascati yesterday:
“Here also, in the diocesan community of Frascati, the Lord is generously sowing his gifts, is calling people to follow him and to prolong his mission today. Here too a new evangelization is needed, and for this I propose that you live intensely the Year of Faith that will begin in October, fifty years after the opening of the Second Vatican Council. The Council documents contain an enormous wealth for the formation of new Christian generations, for the formation of our consciences. So read the Council; read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and thus rediscover the beauty of being Christians, of being the Church, of living the great ‘we’ that Jesus formed around himself in order to evangelize the world: the ‘we’ that is the Church, never closed, but always open and eager to announce the Gospel.” (Benedict XVI, Homily at Frascati, 15 July 2012)
Ten or fifteen years ago, I was asked to lead a weekend of ecumenical retreat for members (mostly) of peace-churches in the DC area (Mennonites, Sojourners, etc.). I made my three sessions revolve around the reading of three Epistles: 1 Thessalonians, Ephesians, and I Timothy. Among the group there was most enthusiasm for the Church depicted in I Thess., which seemed to them down-to-earth, one they might feel at home in. Ephesians seemed too ethereal for a good number of them; they didn’t know quite how to relate to it. I Timothy they downright disliked: it has all that stuff about qualifications for ministry and concern about orthodoxy. It was some progress that they admitted that all three of the Epistles are part of the canon of the New Testament and, therefore, had to be taken into account in any integral biblical ecclesiology.
It might be fruitful to look at this passage in terms of the “already” and “not yet.” Which of the blessings have been more or less given already, in the mystery of Christ? Which are currently manifesting signs of fulfillment? Which are promises at this point, to be fulfilled only in heaven?
Or are those divisions useful?
Fr. K.: Your black preaching is a fantastic key to unlock this text! I look at it again and I can now see that there is a rhythm! That it is saying something!
Now that I understand something, may I phrase your question differently? Ok, so, it is good to be Christian. We all agree on that. We can feel it in our bones. But the question is: why is it good to be Christian? The answers given there – election, adoption, redemption, forgiveness, knowledge, and being sealed with the Holy Spirit – I must admit that they are not what would have first come to my mind, but that’s probably my loss.
Is that a fair rephrasing of your question?
About putting this hymn to music –
I wonder whether Handel’s chorus in his Messiah, “And the glory, the glory of the Lord” wasn’t an attempt to express some of what this text is about. ” … Wonderful ! . . . Marvelous!. . . The mighy God ! . . . . the everlasting Father ! . . . The Prince of Peace!!!” Not to mention Handel’s Halleluia chorus which JAK’s black preacher exults about. It has always seemed to me that those who say that the Halleluia chous is not suitable ecclesiastical music are the dumbest people in the Church.
Claire — I think the reason I so very much like this text is that it centers upon what God is — the source of grace, the Overflowing Kindness that He is in Himself.
Ann, isn’t it a bit more specific than what you say, more centered on God’s relationship with Christians? There are many things for which we can give thanks to God: having been born, the beauty of nature, a sunny day, the existence of some other people for example; but such things, that are given to all humans alike, Christians or non-Christians, are not really mentioned here. Instead the gifts that are lined up here are all things that we receive (or have received, or will receive, as Kathy says) because we are Christians. They are the things that we, maybe, are, or maybe, should be, grateful for, specifically as Christians: why it is good to be Christian.
But what am I doing talking about a text that only yesterday looked like a wall of bricks…
The opposite of this: the canticle of the sun by St Francis, and all of its derivatives in contemporary prayers and in prayer books for kids.
Ann, all of that Handel is from Isaiah 9 (which, interestingly, doesn’t find its way into the NT).
Claire: You are correct that these verses celebrate God, not in general and not for other reasons, but for what he has done “in Christ,” the formula used so often in the Pauline letters. We have to remember that this Epistle is part of the effort to make sense of what had happened in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, of what all the authors of NT books believed God had done in Christ. We witness in the NT writings the forging of a Christian identity in terms of beliefs and practices. There is a fine book on this by C.F.D. Moule, The Birth of the NT, and another book by the same author, The Phenomenon of the NT poses the challenge of accounting for those writings in any other way than by the claims their authors make.
In other words, the God whose glorious grace is praised here is the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Church’s emerging self-identity is that of people, whether Jews or Gentiles, who have been given to experience the spiritual blessings being sung here.
Father, what do you think “in Christ” means?
“But what am I doing talking about a text that only yesterday looked like a wall of bricks…”
I know – isn’t it awesome?
I also found this passage impenetrable at first (and I’m not claiming I’ve got my head wrapped around it now – this whole discussion has been very stimulating / illuminating. I’m just starting to think about Fr. K’s original suggestion that this passage provides a window to apprehending the church.)
I do want to hearken back to something that Kathy and I have been kicking around. This passage seems to be a liturgical hymn. And that is how I’ve encountered it, by praying Liturgy of the Hours. As I mentioned in an earlier comment, this passage confronts me many times throughout the year, so I’ve had a lot of chances to meditate on it and try to unpack it (or just a portion of it, whatever happens to strike me). The habit/discipline of praying Liturgy of the Hours has been a very good thing for me, spiritually, in this respect.
Jim McK: Large scholarly tomes have been written about the “in Christ” formula, and I don’t know that any consensus has been reached. I suspect that its meaning will vary with various contexts. Sorry I can’t be any more helpful.
JAK –
I don’t doubt that the letter was intended as instruction — among other things. It’s packed with meanings about both God’s blessing us and our being blessed. However, the translation which you give here, unlike the one David Nichol gives as well as other versions, leaves out a lot of the personal pronouns referring to God. Compare the many pronouns referring to Him in the NIV version as well as the Latin of the Vulgate with the pronouns in the Douai version. The number of times God is referred to explicitly is very much larger than the number of times we are referred to.
So I read the whole thing as focused on God-the-Blessor, not man-having-been-blessed. The demand Paul makes is not for his hearers to thank God for what He has given us, but to praise Him for what He is, one who blesses in marvelous ways even the unworthy.
Also see the immediately following verses 18-19 (NIV) where the writer says that his concern is for the hearers to know God better, but he prays “also” that they will understand their “inheritance” better:
“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spiritf of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and his incomparably great power for us who believe.
Ann: I count fifteen occurrences of “he” and “his” (referring to God) in the Douai-Rheims translation I posted. Which other ones, found in the Vulgate, were omitted? (Or is it that you were looking for capital letters for “He” and “Him”? There are eleven occurrences of “we,” “us,” or “our.”
This hymn praises God overwhelmingly for the blessings he has in Christ bestowed upon Jewish (us) and Gentile Christians (you). I do not see any evidence that he is here blessing God for what he is rather than for what he has done. Look at all those verbs of which God is the subject. Of course, one cannot separate these things in God: God’s being and his acting are identical.
Jim,
I did once write a hymn that included a verse paraphrasing some of this canticle. My text as a whole was intended for the Immaculate Conception. Verse 1 summarized the doctrine, referring esp to the Preface. (All is meant to be sung to the tune of Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.)
Free from all stain of evil, from sin of any kind.
Our holy Mother Mary was born of lost mankind.
The Father kept her pure to bear His Son, Christ Jesus, the savior of our race.
Then verse 2 brings in the Ephesians passage, the 2nd reading at Mass. This is the verse most pertinent to our discussion:
Before the world was fashioned, before the dawn of time,
Our Holy God eternal chose Christ’s beloved bride:
He chose the Church in love to sing the praise of glory,
The riches of His grace.
The hymn goes on to account for Mary’s role in salvation, esp as the “star of the sea” or guiding light for the life of the Church in its response to God, and then its destiny. I had Lumen Gentium 8 particularly in min.:
Freed from all stain of evil, from sin of ev’ry kind:
Christ’s Church before the Father at the appointed time.
O come, Christ, haste the day; O bring us home with Mary
Before the throne of grace.
JAK –
I was looking for references to God in all of the texts, including the Vulgate’s verb endings. My Latin’s not good, so I’ll just point out that in the NIV there are 34 references to God/Jesus/Spirit/He/Him/whatever. and only 13 references to us/we/you/our/your/whatever.
I didn’t say that the text praises God/His grace rather than counting our blessings. I said the text is crammed with meaning, but the focus is on what God is.
Ann:
The focus is on what God has done and is doing, for us. Look at the verbs.
Fr, thanks for your response. I was surprised you had highlighted “in Christ” because its meaning does vary with context, so I wondered if there was something about the phrase apart from context that made it significant.
In this text we start with “blessed us … in Christ” and move to “we who before hoped Christ, in whom you… believed.” Christ is central, with God doing in him and us hoping or believing in him, but the ‘in’ is very different. Is it just a rhetorical link?
Does “in Christ” have ecclesiological implications at the end? The reference to Baptism (sealing) makes me wonder what meaning of ‘in Christ’ applies to “believing in Christ”? Are we, who are in Christ, believing or hoping, or is it Christ as the object of our faith?
Just curious about what you think.
The focus is on the “plan” of God, I think, and how it is being accomplished.
I just looked through Dunn’s two-volume commentary on Romans for his interpretation of the “in Christ” formula. He sees it linked to the collective dimension of the person of Christ, into whose death, for example, we are baptized. It is closely linked to the idea of the Body of Christ. Another usage makes it refer to the realm in which Christians live. Another usage seems instrumental: “through Christ.”
I’ve heard it said that God is in the prepositions.
Kathy – very nice.
Jim P. ==
Ever notice how dictionaries just give synonyms for prepositios? They don’t even try to define the. We can’t define God either.
They don’t even try to define the what?
not “the,” “them”
(I think)
Now, about that other question: How should this passage enter into our understanding of the Church? It doesn’t use the word, which can, however, be found later in the Epistle. But what might we learn from the first-person plural usages–we, us, ours? Has that “we” expanded now to include us? How would a vision of the Church inspired by this passage relate to other, perhaps more earth-bound visions? Is it compatible with what most people take the word “Church” to mean today? Can the latter notion be broadened, deepened to include the ideas expressed in this passage?
Has that “we” expanded now to include us? [] Is it compatible with what most people take the word “Church” to mean today?
Maybe I’m too literal, but I can’t see the “we Jewish people, who first hoped in Christ” versus “you Gentiles” as having any relevance. I did meet some nuns in Jerusalem who took offense when I said they had converted to Catholicism from Judaism, because for them it was not a conversion but an accomplishment, and they were still Jewish. But once you’re Christian, it doesn’t matter where you come from. Among Christians “there is neither Jew nor Greek” – isn’t that obvious nowadays? So… what we might learn from the first-person plural usages–we, us, ours: nothing? Is that what you have in mind?
On the other hand there is now a different division: in the US at least, people think of the Church as the Catholic Church, and however they describe it, that excludes Protestants. Or maybe not – I realized a couple of years ago that my children, then older teenagers, didn’t know the difference between “Christian” and “Catholic”, so maybe there is hope.
Well, most of us would probably be among the “you” in the last verse or two, that is descendants of those “far off” who have drawn near and made to share in the covenantal blessings brought and realized through Christ. The “mystery of Christ” is described in Eph 3:6: “In Christ Jesus the Gentiles are now co-heirs with the Jews, members of the same body and sharers of the promise through the preaching of the gospel”–not a bad summary of what St. Paul was about. This was not something old and taken-for-granted in the first generations of Christianity as the NT amply illustrates.
My question about learning from the first-person plural meant to ask about whether the great blessings described by St. Paul, and given to Jew and Gentile alike in Christ, enter into our self-consciousness as Christians and whether they are part of what we understand as the Church.
I have a couple of close friends (agnostic or atheist) who sometimes ask me: “What is it about your being Catholic? How is it different? [Or, perhaps;] What is it that you have that I don’t have: does it have to do with your religion? [Or, if I talk about love;] Buddhists also have a value system based on compassion: how is it being Catholic any different?” It’s always a hard question to answer, and I have been wondering whether any of my attempts have any relation to the blessings listed in that text, or whether they suggest any answer that I could give and that would be true for me.
For example:
“What’s different is that I have been chosen and not you. So, there!”
“My sins have been forgiven, and not yours, na-na na-na boo-boo!”
“I have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus. I am saved, and not you. But you, too, can be saved. All you have to do is say yes. Come to church with me!”
“God has revealed to his existence to me, not to you. Why, I don’t know. Tough luck for you!”
“God is my daddy. I am his adopted child. Christ is my big brother. They are close to me. I am never alone.”
I have heard the third answer from Evangelists and have recoiled from it. But I think I have sometimes given, in somewhat different words, answers that are not completely distinct from the last two.
Claire –
I think what I have is the conviction that *I* am loved, me, in all my particularity and individuality. And “love” there doesn’t have the connotation of pity which “compassion” always does for me. I don’t want compassion, which to me is pretty much an abstraction, a generic sort of concern which in practice ens with a generic sort of pity. I want love — of me. And I want it whether or not I need compassion/pity.
I think that’s where Buddhism falls short of Christianity — it is extremely strong on compassion, but not on love of individuals as they are. I suppose that follows from the Buddhist dogma that there there *is no* individual, no self, no center of thinking,feeling, action, etc. There are many wonderful things about Buddhism, but appreciation of individuals in their rich individuality is not one of them.
But really, talking about our gifts and privileges is a bit unseemly. We are not better than other people. Our countries are not better than other countries. Our priests are not better than other people. The culture that we fostered has responsibility in the Shoah. As a group, we have failed to be what we were meant to be. This is not a time for boasting joyfully that we have infused knowledge or any kind of superior access to the truth. The way forward that I imagine as a church is via humility and searching – or maybe, at most, for some, via the milder tone of “Amazing Grace”? It seems to me that if one wants to read it as a position for the Church, the tone of the reading, confident and bullish, is out of sync with the times.
Ann: I agree.
The “succession of waves lifting and carrying us on all those prepositional phrases” creates a deepening image of a grace filled Church. At the beginning, God gives us our redemption in or through Christ, but by the end we are “in Christ” shifting the meaning to a location, ie the Church. That shifts the meaning of all the uses of “in Christ.” The many Spiritual blessings given in Christ become spiritual blessings in the Church, which is in Christ.
This sense of being blessed is why we celebrate the Eucharist, the word being from the Greek for giving thanks. Our awareness of what God has done for us by creating us and all that is around us, is the necessary prelude to giving thanks. So I guess I have to answer yes, all the blessings given to us in Christ are with us who live in Christ.
Jim, I wish I could think like you, from each individual person’s sense of being blessed to a global “grace filled Church”. It’s a leap.
Claire, i share your concern; triumphalism in the Church is not a good thing. God is the giver, not us, and it is no particular ‘worthiness’ of our own that puts us here. So humility is the proper stance.
That means that, with Buddhists, we do not reject what they have worked out in their relationship to God but welcome with thanksgiving whatever blessings God has given them. They are blessings for all.
That is not always easy. I find myself fumbling to express a real appreciation, hopefully coming closer to your later replies than to the early ones.
Claire: To your last post: I wouldn’t equate “gifts” and “privileges”. With regard to gifts, it seems to me unseemly not to be grateful to the one who gave them–which is what this passage from Ephesians is expressing. If Christianity begins and ends with God’s gracious gifts, then the first response of Christians ought to be gratitude, and it is from a desire to be worthy of gifts already received that we embark upon a Christian life.
Second, the gifts are given to the unworthy, so there is no ground for boasting, or even of comparing oneself to others, as the Pharisee in the Temple who was grateful that he wasn’t like the publican. I can agree with your comment: “As a group, we have failed to be what we were meant to be.” Perhaps I would add to it: “and as individuals” and “often” or “frequently”.
Consider this passage from Augustine who is commenting on Ps 55[56],5, which in his Latin version read: “In God I will praise my words.”
In other words, it’s destructive pride to neglect that these are gifts; but it’s neglectful ingratitude to pretend that they haven’t been given to us.
Not to confess the great things God has given is to be ungrateful for them. Our passage expresses confidence, yes, but I certainly don’t think it’s “bullish”. Exultant, yes, but if what the Gospel says is true, how can we keep from singing?
In answer to the question what’s different about Christianity, I would say first that the difference is Jesus Christ and all that the Creed says God has done for us through him and in him. Some years ago, the London Tablet had a discussion in the letters-column about whether there was any major difference between Catholics and Buddhists. The whole discussion turned on attitudes and morality. No one mentioned what Catholics believe about God or about Jesus of Nazareth! This is the very common habit in our culture of identifying religion with ethics, which is a terrible reductionism, I think. Christianity is first and basically a grateful confession of what God has done, and it is only secondarily and derivatively the attempt to live a life worthy of such a God.
On the great Christian feastdays–Christmas, Easter, Pentecost–do you really include that “and not you”? I don’t see any “and not you” in the passage we’ve been discussing.
Yes. I cannot disagree with any of what you say. It is a great text if one just looks at it without trying to fit it with the Church at the present time. If I do, I get derailed, as you show. It appears that I cannot peacefully discuss the Church as it is now. I wish I could. Sorry!
Could it be that that “it” in your sentence is part of the problem? How about if it read: “…the Church as we are now”? Would the text not describe part (I do not say the whole) of our experience as the Church? E.g., on Christmas, Easter, Pentecost? Every Sunday? Every day if, in fact, whenever we gather, it is chiefly in order to give thanks?
Claire -
If we aren’t at least a little better creatures for having received the gifts, then wasn’t God foolish to give them? This is not to claim responsibility for the goodness, but to recognize that God gives us the opportunity to become better beings. That is not pride. Thomas says that humility is telling the truth about yourself, no more and no less.
I think that what I get on my soap box against is the Calvinist notion that we all start at a point of rottenness, and nothing admirable is to be found in people. Even our potential for good is thoroughly spoiled.. This, I think, runs counter to the second great commandment “Love thy neighbor as thyself”. This assumes that, yes, we are all to some extent valuable, and therefore worthy of at least a little love. People who can’t love themselves have a dreadful time trying to love others. They end up like Calvin. And this is NOT to ignore the fact of our sins and our constant inclination to sin.
Claire –
P. S. When I say that each person is to some degree “good” I don’t mean “exceptional”. On the contrary. Exceptional goodness is just that — rare.
Claire –
One other thing == *all* of us, even the worse sinners, those who sin in ways that most of us cannot imagine sinning, they too include some good, at least potentially. Jesus tells us to love even our enemies! That can only be because there is some good in them. And this is why (sigh, sigh, sigh) we are obliged to love all of those guilty priests and all the bishops who covered up their crimes. Plus all those who are butchering each other even as we read this blog, and all those who are stealing from widows, and beating their little ones, and being cruel to animals, etc., etc., etc. It’s because there is still some good in them, at least a potential for actual goodness.
Complexity, complexity.
It is a great biblical, Augustinian, and Thomist theme that God does not love us because we are already good but that it is his love that makes us good. Unlike ours, God’s love creates the beauty and goodness that he loves. “God proves his love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). And this, from the OT, has its own application to the Church: “The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the promise He made to your fathers” (Deut 7:7-8).
JAK –
“Good” in what sense? For Thomas everything is good to the extent that it is, and that includes people. No, we’re not born with all our potentials in perfect shape because of Original Sin. But to the extent we are we are one, good, true, beautiful. True, it is His being Love itself that inclines Him to create us. But He created the world ‘and saw that it was good”, and to the extent that it images Him, it is good. That’s pure Thomas.
If you’re using the word in a moralistic sense, then, OK, we need saving because of our sins. But here is more to us than our sins.
Would the text not describe part (I do not say the whole) of our experience as the Church? E.g., on Christmas, Easter, Pentecost?
All I know is my experience of the Eucharist. Me as a Christian, not us as the Church. Yes, Easter and the beginning of Easter time is a period for singing praise after the tension of reliving the Passion that mounted over the previous weeks. No, otherwise I do not gather with others “chiefly to give thanks” but to draw closer to God.
Ann, one does indeed hope that we are “at least a little better creatures for having received the gifts”, and I am sure that it is true for some Christians (occasionally for me, I hope), but that is not true for the group. Why? maybe because of the group dynamics.
Do you know how an academic department, composed of a collection of faculty, staff and students, takes on a life of its own? What it creates is not just the sum of what would happen from each person’s individual efforts. There are the group dynamics, the atmosphere. It is not neutral. In some friendly departments, people are pulled to give the best of themselves and colleagues join forces to make things better. In others, people’s potential is squandered in petty fights. So you cannot say that a department is just the collection of its members and describe it just by describing each person. Their interaction matters.
Similarly, if we think of the Church as the collection of Catholics together in our parish, or of US Catholics, or of every currently living Catholic, or of every currently living Christian – at every level, we have to think not just of each person but of their interaction. At many levels, my impression is that the Church is less than the sum of its parts: stifling initiatives, deflecting people’s energy, hiding problems, distracting us with arguments over secondary matters, meanwhile letting the great questions of society (such as anti-Semitism and its consequences) pass us by without confronting them. It’s like a troubled academic department. The result is that today’s Church, as a group, offers no witness to the world.
Two qualifiers to that pessimistic assessment:
-at the lowest level: there exist parishes and small communities that are life-giving.
-at the highest level, the Church as the community of all Christians across all times. I don’t understand it well, but it gives completely different vibes: maybe because what we inherit is largely dominated by the contributions of the saints? The rest disappears into oblivion, but the saints’ witness survives? At any time, the current Church looks almost hopelessly toxic, but it doesn’t matter, because only what is good will live on?
Ann: The goodness in everything (and everyone) that God has created exists because He has created it good. This creation ex nihilo is surpassed by the new creation from the nothingness of sin that is justification and sanctification. Of course, Aquinas did not believe in total depravity of the sinner, but what good remains in the sinner is the effect of God’s love, not its cause.
Claire:
I’m a little surprised that you don’t seem to regard the Mass as a communal event or experience. One does not have to gather with others in order to get closer to God. All the prayers are in the first-person plural–it’s “le nous des chrétiens” that is making them.
I’m glad that your pessimism is relieved by thought of life-giving parishes and small communities. I think that’s where one should start in thinking about the Church. The “great” Church is a communion of communions of such communions. There is no one Church apart from those many Churches, and if it lives, it lives in those that are alive and life-giving.
When Augustine took the Psalm metaphor–”Your wife like a fruitful vine in the recesses of your house”–to refer to the Church, he asked, “In whom is the Church a fruitful vine?” He answered that it was in those who cling to Christ, that is, in the holy ones, the saints. In other words, it is not some automatic thing, some mechanical process, that produces fruit, that is, brings people to believe in Christ, but in those who live the Christian life as fully as they can. This, I take it, is what you also mean when you say that “what we inherit is largely dominated by the contributions of the saints; … the saints’ witness survives.” Until now, when it’s our turn….
I like your comparison to the different character an academic department can take on. There does develop a kind of communal ethos. People often say, “The Church is more than the sum of its members,” but often without saying what this “more” is. In any case, it’s also true that other social bodies are “more than the sum of their members”; even an ad hoc committee is more than that. Human co-intentionalities (John Searle’s term) have to be involved.
It is good when the Mass is a communal experience, but more often it is not. For that it is much better to go to weekday Mass (which I do occasionally), because, there, people pray, so we can pray together. But on Sundays… let’s just say that when there are people nearby who are praying, it’s a blessing. (Since I don’t know what’s going on in other people’s minds, “praying”=being attentive to the liturgy.)
Have you ever tried putting some random elevated words into some of the prayers to make some sentences that are nonsense, to test how many people were paying attention to what you were saying?
“. . you cannot say that a department is just the collection of its members and describe it just by describing each person. Their interaction matters.”
Claire –
I agree with the rest of what you have said, but not this. There is not something over and above the members which constitutes the Church. There are relationships between the members, and these relations are real, ontologically valuable perfections of the members. The unity of the Church is the relationships between the members, not something added on on top of those. Yes, I’m sure you’ll find theologians to agree with you, especially those who talk about the Church as ‘subsisting” on its own. But that is to turn it into some semi-angelic, semi-human creature in between us and the angels. I don’t think any such magical thing exists.
Yes, the Church exists across all times, but as a process, not as a subsistent creature with its own unity apart from its members and their relationships.
“Of course, Aquinas did not believe in total depravity of the sinner, but what good remains in the sinner is the effect of God’s love, not its cause.”
JAK –
Yes, what good remains is the effect of God’s love, but yes, that good is also a cause of His love after the fact of its being caused, using the word “cause” in an analogous sense, of course. (All predication of God is analogous predication.) In loving us God does not thereby love Himself more. His love of us is implicit in His being from eternity, but it is still a love of us.
Says Thomas, “The first cause, who is purely active without passivity, does not work to acquire an end, but intends solely to communicate his perfection”. (S.T. Ia, xliv.4 , Gilbey trans. Oxford.)
Ann: This last quote from Aquinas makes my point exactly.
As between you and Claire, I would distinguish. Claire says that an academic department is not “just the collection of its members” and can’t be described “just by describing each personl. Their interaction matters.” I don’t see how this interaction differs greatly from what you describe as the sets of relationships among the members, except that Claire’s word is more dynamic than simple relationships. And when you speak of the Church as a”process,” you, too, are describing something dynamic. So I don’t think you two differ greatly. What I would want to add is that the inter-relations among its members that constitute the Church are on the level of intentionality. They are, to use John Searle’s term, “ontologically subjective”; I think one could also say that they are “subjectively ontological.” That is, their ontological valence is that of subjectivity and intersubjectivity, and the set of such subjective and inter-subjective relationships across time and space is what constitutes the Church. (Some of them, I hasten to say, involve the relationships of the members with God.)
Fr, what do you think “in Christ” means?
Is Jesus one among many subjects in the Church? Or is the set of subjective and intersubjective relations “in Christ”?
And then there is St Augustine’s grand realization: “I sought you outside of myself but you were within and I was outside.” Is God inside our subjective ontology prior to any intersubjectivity? What role does that play in defining the Church?
JAK and Claire –
I suspect we see things just about the same, but i fear that the philosophers have been remiss in developing the notion of a relation, one of the Aristotelian categories he didn’t give much attention to. The medievals *should* have given it more attention because they (Augustine originally?) had the great insight that the Trinity itself is a triad in which three relations are themselves the relata. What an overwhelming notion of intimacy/identity! Surely the metaphysicians should take a closer lok at the various sorts of relations we find in the world — they reveal Him.
The great insight of Aristotle, I think, was to define a relation as an “esse ad. . .”, a “being towards” another being. It it by our relational parts that we overcome the boundedness of the rest of ourselves. And for aristotle both acts of knowing and acts of willing were “intentional” acts in sense of being directed toward or to something other than itself. The contemporary development of the philosophy of “intentionality” from Brentano to Searle and other philosophers outside of the phenomenological tradition are efforts to describe how our intentions can bring us towards and even all the way *to* other beings (or in the case of the will, turn us away from them). These moderns recognize that knowledge and willing both unite us to others forming complex wholes. No, our acts of knowing and willing are not parts of our substance (they can come and go), but they are parts of our own complex unity, parts which can unite with other parts of creation. The parts do not become identical with each other, but they do unite into a larger, contingent, aeshetic whole. And the Mass, I think, is the union par excellence of these esse ads. It is a complexus of acts of knowing and willing and accompanying body motions which weave us into a super-natural whole.
Jim McK =
Fr. Robert Sokolowski, a highly respected phenomenologist, was interested in “presencing” even 50 years ago when I had his courses. He’s a great teacher who manages to make even very obscure stuff clear. He has a theology book, ‘Eucharistic Presence: A Study in the Theology of Disclosure”, which sounds right down your alley. I haven’ read it, but I know the sorts of questions he asks.
http://www.amazon.com/Eucharistic-Presence-Study-Theology-Disclosure/dp/0813207894/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1343000786&sr=8-4&keywords=robert+sokolowski
I recommend his “Introduction to Phenomenology” very highly. It’s even been translated into Chinese!
Claire –
About the uniting of the elements of the Mass (us, the angels, Christ and God), the unities are not just on one level, a physical presencing with esse ads among the elements. There are levels upon levels of unitings (e.g., symbolic, real, hierarchical, one-to-one, one-to-many, etc.). Are you a computer scientist? You must deal with lots of analogous relationships among elements and structures if you do programming. Complexity, complexity to the nth degree.
Ann: yes, as the Eucharistic prayers say. But Fr. K was talking about the communal *experience* and opposed it to praying on one’s own and also to the encounter with God, so I thought that he was talking about the experience of praying together with the other people who are physically present then.
Once we move from talking about one’s “experience of the Church” to one’s “experience of the Mass”, the question becomes clear and it is easy to each give our own answer. Mine (which I could have expanded on at length and which changes with time, as it depends on the last few Masses I attended) might not have been what he wanted, but it is what it is.
Some years ago, the London Tablet had a discussion in the letters-column about whether there was any major difference between Catholics and Buddhists. The whole discussion turned on attitudes and morality. No one mentioned what Catholics believe about God or about Jesus of Nazareth! This is the very common habit in our culture of identifying religion with ethics, which is a terrible reductionism, I think.
I’m interested in that, because such questions come up regularly with atheists who have a longing for religion in spite of themselves.
Now, if someone asks you: “You don’t believe in Greek myths. Do you actually believe that there was a man who lived 2000 years ago and who was God? Do you really believe that he came back to life after he had died?”, it is pretty difficult to answer a straightforward “yes”, for two reasons: first, that implies a belief akin to believing that the rock that I see in front of me is actually there, and I don’t think that many Catholics have that kind of belief (and I’m not entirely sure that it is desirable); second, it ends the conversation because it makes you sound like a wacko. By instead restricting yourself to safer topics, you can maintain dialogue. Attitude and morals is also what attracted them in the first place, and what they are trying to understand, so they naturally try to keep conversation on that terrain.
OTOH. Once at a lunch I said: “The difference between the story of Mahomet and his horse flying from Mecca to Jerusalem, and the story of the resurrection, is that the resurrection is true.” There was a moment of stunned silence around the table, and then the conversation quickly changed topics. Everyone present was Catholic, so why was that so shocking? Perhaps the belief in the resurrection is not with certain hope but with uncertain hope, and many Catholics think that we don’t know for sure, but that it doesn’t matter; it’s a fine thing to “believe” because it leads to good consequences in art, attitude and morals; no point in digging further. But how can you say it “doesn’t matter” unless you don’t really believe it’s true? Now, that’s reductionism!
This thread is over, but I had one more thought about this question: “I fear that many Christians don’t take seriously such passages as describing themselves as gloriously graced by God. … whether the great blessings described by St. Paul, and given to Jew and Gentile alike in Christ, enter into our self-consciousness as Christians”
To answer that, we can think about free-form prayers. When people meet in prayer groups, or when they improvise prayers, or when they find some “inspirational quotes” to bring to prayer meetings, what is the content of those prayers?
- prayers asking for certain things
- prayers acknowledging inadequacy
- prayers expressing gratitude for some current events
I have never heard a free-form prayer mentioning any of the blessings listed in the Ephesians reading.
Claire –
I’m not sure of this theological point, but isn’t Mass an act of the whole Church with all the members contributing somehow? Istn’ that one of those mysteries we can’t fully explain? Sometimes I’m aware of the fact — as when the bishop in our parish celebrates the Mass — I recall the bishop in China and then the people in Syria, and others who aren’t physically present but are somehow spiritually. Isn’t the Mass/Mass somehow outside of time? (There’s more “supernatural” talk.) True, my experience isn’t anybody’s individual experience, not even the people who are at the same Mass with me. But we are all united by our intentions to be united in the love of God and in His love for us which is always in existence at least outside of our time.
I think that maybe the theologians could profitably use the vocabulary of some of the contemporary physicists who talk about “alternate universes” and times and places and things. It would help those with some understanding of the physics to understand what the theologians have been talking about for 1000 years when they talk about eternity as a different sort of time.
Oops — that should have been 1500 years, when Boethius first definted eternity as “the simultaneously-whole and perfect possession of interminable life.” Here’s Thomas on the subject:
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1010.htm#article1
Ann, I’m also not sure, but if you look at the wording of the EP and the “us” versus “them”, I think that the “we” refers to the people physically present. (I’m taking the 1973 English wording because that’s what we are both familiar with, and to avoid being sidetracked by allergic reactions.)
“Lord, remember your Church
throughout the world;
make us grow in love,
together with N. our Pope,
N. our bishop, and all the clergy.
Remember our brothers and sisters who have gone to their rest
in the hope of rising again;
bring them and all the departed into the light of your presence. Have mercy on us all;
make us worthy to share eternal life with Mary, the virgin Mother of God, with the apostles,
and with all the saints who have done your will throughout the ages.
May we praise you in union with them, and give you glory.”
Look at the beginning of the EP, with the “us” versus “all the Church”:
“May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands
for the praise and glory of his name, for our good,
and the good of all his Church.”
It suggests to me that the Mass that is being said at that particular moment in that particular place is offered, by just the people present, for the entire Church. It’s like pooling donations to buy something: each donation is made by a particular donor, then those donations all come together and are used to buy something for the group. The Mass is our little local contribution, donated by us, the local community. In fact isn’t the Mass our way of joining the group?
(Note that I appear to be contradicting not only your experience but also Fr. K’s assertion that “All the prayers are in the first-person plural–it’s “le nous des chrétiens” that is making them”.)
To make it concrete, let’s just focus on you and me. What do you in New Orleans and I in Paris have in common? When I go to Mass, I am (mysteriously) united to Christ, along with my local community consisting of the people who are there with me at Mass. When you go to Mass, you are (also mysteriously) united to Christ. So you and I are united, not directly but through Christ. Yes? No? Or am I mysteriously participating in your New Orleans Mass as well?
What a wonderful exchange between Claire and Ann! (I’ve been away so couldn’t participate until now.) Here’s my two cents.
A Mass is, immediately, the worship of the community gathered to be fed by Word and Sacrament. This particular Church, however, is the local presence of the one catholic Church which is not itself some subsistent reality apart from the local Churches but is best described and understood as the communion of all the particular or local Churches. What makes the many Churches one Church is the bond of a common faith, common hope, and common love, all of them directed to God through Christ and in the unity of the Holy Spirit. So while it is obviously distinct and various individuals who make up the many local Churches, they are in communion with one another even when this communion is not the object of explicit reflection. (The reference to the local bishop and to the pope reminds us of a larger communion than that of the parish or diocese.)
This communion also extends beyond our space and time, as we are reminded at the end of the Preface when we are reminded of the angels and saints with whom we join in singing the Trisagion: “Holy! Holy! Holy!” [Is it that we are transported in spirit to join the heavenly choir, or do they come here to increase and improve our efforts?]
We may get some experience of the wider-than-local communion when we find ourselves in another country and engage there in the same worship we enact here. (This was a reason often given for why the Mass should remain in Latin…) We may move this sense of catholic communion from a notional to a real apprehension at moments of intense concentration as, for example, at a funeral or a wedding, when common grief or common joy unites participants.
Claire –
I re-read what I said and see that it was very unclear when I said, “True, my experience isn’t anybody’s individual experience, not even the people who are at the same Mass with me.” That should have been “isn’t anybody ELSE’s individual experience”. It surely is my own. So I didn’t mean to separate the individuals at the same Mass, though, as always, I think we do remain individuals but unified ones. And we are unified with the whole Church.
Yes, I agree: “for our good AND the good of all his Church” does adds the rest of the Church to “our” little one.
I do love the old prayer. Maybe it’s a good thing I can’t hear the new translation. The new one is so very curt at places.
Claire –
When you’re in Paris you have Notre Dame and Sainte Chapelle, that’s what you have!! No, you can’t experience Mass in them at the same time. But it has always seemed to me that in the ordinary sense of “the Church” people do include the Church’s physical symbols, especially the most beautiful ones. They are physical manifestations of “the Church”, and I would add, they are the clearest representations to non-Catholics of what the Church is about. “The Church” has often been the target of non-Catholic insult, but the beautiful Churches and sacred objects reach everyone somehow, especially the most beautiful ones like the French medieval churches. (Odd how people can’t wait to get to Paris to see Notre Dame, yet they persist in thinking that the medievals were totally “Gothic”– i.e., barbarians!)
JAK –
I’ve always thought that the bonds of the faithful were also directly between individuals. Is that heresy? No, we don’t know them all directly, but that doesn’t stop the bonds from being real.
Thanks for the point about the angels. I never advert to them at Mass, but they surely adds dimension upon dimension, do they not? (I’m assuming that each angel *is* a different degree of being, and, therefore, a singular dimension. Ah, St. Thomas. I wonder if he’d agree :-)
Glad you’ve enjoyed Claire and my do-it-yourself theology :-)
Ann: Yes, of course, there are bonds that link us one to another and not just the bond of our common faith, hope, and love. When St. Paul made use of the metaphor of the body, he said that “we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another” (Rom 12:5), and when he was urging the Corinthians to avoid dissension, he reminded them that all the members ought to be concerned for one another: “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members share the joy” (1 Cor 12:25-26). This seems to me to correspond in the realm of grace to the intersubjectivity, the primitive community, that Lonergan described in Insight: “A sense of belonging together provides the dynamic premise for common enterprise, for mutual aid and succour, for the sympathy that augments joys and divides sorrows. ” I love that last clause!
OK, JAK. I grant you, that last clause is really fine. Almost poetry.
Fr. K: right. “intense concentration” sure works wonders. I prefer to think of it as “focused attention” because it can be very peaceful. And listening to my neighbor’s voice, or even to my neighbor’s neighbor’s voice in prayer, instead of my own voice (a trick I was taught in choir to help us sing as one: it forces us to pay attention to one another).
Ann: I went to Notre Dame last week at midday, and what did I see? First a big, restless crowd; but also: kids slouching on the chairs being bored; a woman taking vaguely seductive poses as she was being photographed; and two men kissing at the foot of the altar steps … I’m afraid that you have an idealized image of tourists being “reached” by “beautiful churches and sacred objects”.
I love Lonergan’s quote!
Count me as someone with a romantic vision of Notre Dame. I picture it with a sinister clergy in charge; gypsies congregating in front of it being persecuted; and hunchback finding refuge from a society that spurns the disfigured. Maybe that is what is so beautiful, so catholic, about it, that it attracts the seductive and bored as well as the devout and pious.
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Ann, I am not sure we need to go to “alternate universe” language. Much of this discussion is covered by multi-dimensional language explored in Flatlands. To a 2d person, before and after describe the world, but a 3d person sees that world as a circle or a line, grasping a whole instead of parts. A 4d person sees a whole gathered from across time and space, and a multidimensional Christ finds himself substantially present throughout time and space, joined by the dimensions of faith and hope.
And an infinite God looks on from beyond all those dimensions, grasping each particular in the midst of the world he created and loves. We can only guess at what that means, but the time transcending practices of song and story help our guessing.
You know, Jim, I think you’re right. I had not thought of it, but Notre Dame nowadays still fit Hugo’s romantic description (unless you were thinking of Disney?). In the evening, on the square in front of the cathedral, there are people making giant soap bubbles, jazz combos, jugglers of fire torches, and roller bladders doing high jumps over a bamboo bar 6 feet high, while the crows claps in rhythm to encourage them. At Mass, in the assembly there is usually a smattering of random monks and nuns who are passing by, wearing habits of all colors and shapes. As to the clergy, I don’t know if they are sinister, but they are certainly trying to maintain a bit of decorum. They solemnly process out of the sacristy at the beginning of Mass, solemnly process back and disappear into the sacristy after Mass, and if you wish to meet one of them informally, you’re out of luck (But I have seen people latch on to tourist monks who happen to be there, probably to ask them for confession if they’re ordained). The one thing they are careful about is communion: if someone leaves before they have seen him or her eat the host, they go “pssst!”, go after them and take the host back from them (I saw one person in that situation, looking confused and mortified). Overall the clergy don’t seem to mind the constant stirring and foreign language whispering and foot shuffling and picture taking, though. I guess you can’t work at Notre Dame unless you enjoy mixed crowds!
Oh, and, I forgot the staff pushing the crowd back to make a path for the clergy to process out of the sacristy. At at dusk, down below by the river, the rats scuttling about. Lots of them. Brrr! Not so different from Hugo’s times, indeed!
Claire,
I definitely meant Hugo’s Notre Dame, though perhaps a little too influenced by Charles Laughton’s. If I had meant Disney, I would have added in the gargoyles, instead of just the hunchback who lived among them. More variety of unpredictable people, the stones themselves crying out.
And I think that was Ann’s point, that the art calls out to a world of people that otherwise would not respond to the religion.
JIm McK — Yes, exactly my point.
Claire — You say, ” Notre Dame nowadays still fit Hugo’s romantic description (unless you were thinking of Disney?). In the evening, on the square in front of the cathedral, there are people making giant soap bubbles, jazz combos, jugglers of fire torches, and roller bladders doing high jumps over a bamboo bar 6 feet high, while the crows claps in rhythm to encourage them.”
Do you mean *literal*, actual birds clap rhythmically?? Even French CROWS are orderly???? Amazing culture.
You also say, “The one thing they are careful about is communion: if someone leaves before they have seen him or her eat the host, they go “pssst!”, go after them and take the host back from them (I saw one person in that situation, looking confused and mortified).” Why in the world do people retain the host? I’ve never heard of such a thing here.
Ann: crowds, not crows! …
Claire –
Sorry I couldn’t guess right. But I really do have an enormously high regard for the French appreciation of order. Since crows can imitate human speech like their cousins the ravens and macaws, I thought it might have been possible that the French have taught them to dance :-)
(The ravens at the Tower of London don’t do anything smart.)