Apologies for delays to Second Spring issue 11, which is still in production. In the meantime, please note the new features on this site, including our redesigned CHRISTIANITY section, and CATHOLIC OXFORD, accessed from the menu on the left. In the run-up to the release of the eagerly-awaited papal encyclical please visit our new web pages on Catholic social teaching and the economic crisis.

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Calvary by Daniel Mitsui

‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Many people have seen in Jesus’s cry from the Cross an indication that the Son of God was allowed to experience the whole of human suffering – including the pain of real despair and a sense of meaninglessness. As the sun itself seemed blotted out of the sky, the world seemed to lose its connection to God. And yet it was God who experienced this exile.

One human being can only experience so much. But each of us can find our own suffering in his. We know that he has accepted it for us, even as we fight against it in ourselves. He makes suffering a sacrament, a thing that connects us to him, and therefore a conduit through which grace can flow to us through him.

The relationship works both ways, of course. That is why traditional piety at Passiontide tells us that our own sins have nailed him to the Cross. My little acts of selfishness, pride, self-indulgence, dishonesty and betrayal find themselves in the treachery of Judas, the denials of Peter, the weakness of Pilate, just as my own sufferings have found their home in his. This is not ‘guilt tripping’ but realism. The life of Jesus in me cannot be disconnected from his life in Galilee, Calvary, Gethsemane – or heaven.

I have known people who, whether for a short time or longer, have lost their religion. Faith deserts them, as though it was never there. Sometimes this is because deep down they don’t want to believe. However it happens, they have lost their connection with Christ. He has become to them merely a figure in the distant past, or a person in a story that has been heard once too many times.

The best argument I have heard against faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist was this. If it is true, and if Catholics receive God in communion every week, how do they remain such a miserable bunch? This applies not just to the ones who hypocritically receive communion without even trying to live the moral life that it signifies, but to those who are devout, good people. Shouldn’t something more extraordinary happen to them? Surely they should be transformed into something more impressive, if God is entering them every week?

It will happen. Just give it time. If we look at ourselves, instead of hastening to judge others, we will see how easily we have built a wall of habit and inattention around ourselves that prevents grace flowing into every part of our lives. Why am I not transformed? Even when my heart is spiritually alive, the blood of Christ somehow does not reach my hands and feet. The eucharist, though it keeps me alive, cannot do more than that without my help.

Mostly we simply continue to struggle – with the same habits, the same sins, the same thoughts, repeating ourselves day after day. ‘Baptism is the beginning of a struggle, more or less severe according to God’s providence, that ends only at the moment of death’ (Vivian Boland OP, Spiritual Warfare). By all accounts, the moment of death itself is the most intense part of the struggle. It is like the struggle of a woman giving birth, for we are giving birth to our eternal selves. The best way to prepare for that moment is by receiving the sacraments and trying to be faithful to them: they may not transform us, but they give us the strength to continue the struggle.

Or think of it like this. We are on a journey, but we are tempted to go in many directions. Going to Mass, being reconciled and receiving communion is a way of turning back towards God. We may not get far, but at least we are facing in the right direction.

The image is reproduced with permission from www.danielmitsui.com

Are we forgetting how to read?

“Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going — so far as I can tell — but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

“I think I know what’s going on. For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet. The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes….  For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many, and they’ve been widely described and duly applauded... But that boon comes at a price. As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles….” Read the whole article by Nicholas Carr here.

The Messenger

Éala éarendel engla beorhtast / ofer middangeard monnum sended
Hail Earendel, brightest of angels / above the middle-earth sent unto men

These lines from Cynewulf’s poem Crist, which inspired Tolkien on the eve of the First World War, became the seed of the Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. In those stories, Earendil (the father of Elros and Elrond) is a messenger to the angelic Valar from the races of Elves and Men, conjoined through his own ancestry. He jouneys into the Farthest West at the darkest moment of earth’s history, bearing the holy light of the Silmaril upon his brow, to beg for assistance against the Dark Lord. Having set foot in the Undying Lands, where his appeal is heard by the Valar, he is not permitted to return home but is given immortality, and his ship is given the power to journey among the stars. He becomes the world’s first space-traveller, and the flaming jewel he wears as a token of love appears to us as the Evening and the Morning Star. At the end of the First Age, in response to Earendil’s intercession, the armies of the Valar descend upon Middle-earth to overthrow the power of Morgoth. Descending from the heavens in his silver ship, Earendil slays the greatest of dragons, Ancalagon the Black, and Morgoth himself is thrust by the Valar beyond the Walls of the World into the Timeless Void.

The most effective prayer of intercession is made by one who can represent by his ancestry all the afflicted peoples of the earth, to plead for pardon and pity. And intercession is necessary, not because God is deaf to the cries of individual victims, but because we are part of something bigger than ourselves, and the history of our own woes is bound up in a larger story.  The events to which the myths of the Simarillion look forward have taken place in reality. Jesus Christ who is both God and Man has paid the full price of our redemption, pleading on our behalf at the throne of God for pardon and pity. “For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24).

See Ted Nasmith’s painting of Earendil’s voyage here.

In his new booklet for CTS, Edward Hadas tries to get to the roots of the present financial crisis, the full scale of which continues to unfold in the headlines every day. “Banks have failed, governments have debauched currencies and the rest of the economy has been thrown into recession. If only the business of banks worked anything like as smoothly as the aviation system. Then crises of the sort the world is now enduring would be almost as rare as plane crashes. Could that happen? No one can be sure in advance, but it is worth trying to create a sounder financial system. The current crisis provides an excellent opportunity. ”

Hadas concludes his analysis with a “moralist manifesto” that aims to integrate finance with morality. For in the words of the Church’s Compendium of Social Doctrine: “The moral dimension of the economy shows that economic efficiency and the promotion of human development in solidarity are not two separate or alternative aims but one indivisible goal.”

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Visit our Stations of the Cross during Lent.

Where did evil come from?

There is a gaping hole in the Christian explanation of the universe. Or that is how it appears to many young people. Where did evil come from? The standard answer, of course, is “free will”, but that isn’t enough. The question is why, if God knew that sin and therefore suffering would ensue, did he continue with the creation?

The Christian tradition replies (a) that any creation is better than none, and (b) that God made sure that it would end well, by dying on the Cross. But many believe that non-existence is better than suffering (witness the rise in suicide and the arguments for mercy-killing). And they ask, how can it be made to end well by yet more innocent suffering? Especially if an eternal hell lies in wait for those who don’t repent.

Lent seems a good time for Christians to reflect on all this, and to try to clarify what is going on. Two preliminary points come to mind. Point one. As Chesterton once said, you should not look a gift-universe in the mouth. How can we pretend to be able to judge whether the whole is worthwhile, or weigh the positives against the negatives and find it wanting? We are simply not in a position to be able to do so. Point two. Suffering is not cumulative. As the philosopher Wittgenstein pointed out, there is no suffering greater than the suffering of one man. I’ll come back to that next month, as we approach Easter.

Meanwhile, the origin of evil is still on the agenda. How could the highest Angel, Lucifer, reject God in full knowledge of what he was doing, and of the consequences, so completely that he will never repent of it? That is the question, surely, in its starkest form? The fall of humanity is merely an echo of the angelic fall that preceded it.

Satan in his original glory, William Blake

It is impossible to reject God completely, since our being comes from him. To reject him in that sense is beyond our power; it would be to un-make ourselves. But what is possible – for a creature that is like God but not God – is to reject “part” of God, or an aspect of God; specifically, its own loving relationship with God. In fact, the more like God, the more beautiful and glorious, a creature is made to be (and Lucifer was very great), the more intense must be the temptation to reject that relationship.

To be like God is to be self-sufficient in every way except the most important – we depend on God for our existence. But if our existence is already assured, we can reject God in every other sense. Lucifer has what he wanted: himself. He was faced with a choice between water and fire, between flowing and burning. In choosing to keep what God had given him, rather than give it back to God, he chose the fire.

But why did God, knowing that Lucifer would reject him, go ahead and create him anyway? We might turn the question around. Would Lucifer in fact have chosen non-existence, if that had been an option for him? It seems not, because he wanted his own being so much he was prepared to reject God in order to keep it for himself, even if it meant being wrapped in flames.

In Tolkien’s creation-myth, Ainulindale, God tells Melkor (Lucifer) that the divine plan for creation as a whole cannot be thwarted: “For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.” In God’s design, even the rebellion of Satan, with all its dreadful consequences, can be accommodated. No comfort there, of course, to the mother whose children are being tortured to death before her eyes. But who said the truth must be immediately comforting?

We assume too readily, also, that Revelation (and therefore theology) must have an answer to all our questions. The Venerable John Henry Newman wrote: “Now why does God permit so much evil in His own world? This is a difficulty, I say, which we feel at once, before we open the Bible; and which we are quite unable to solve. We open the Bible; the fact is acknowledged there, but it is not explained at all. We are told that sin entered the world through the Devil, who tempted Adam to disobedience; so that God created the world good, though evil is in it. But why He thought fit to suffer [permit] this, we are not told. We know no more on the subject than we did before opening the Bible. It was a mystery before God gave His revelation, it is as great a mystery now; and doubtless for this reason, because knowledge about it would do us no good, it would merely satisfy curiosity. It is not practical knowledge.” Read the whole sermon.

If you are looking for more Lenten reading, I cannot recommend too highly Timothy Radcliffe OP’s Why Go to Church? The Drama of the Eucharist, which is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book. It manages to be both funny and wise on every page.

Darwin in 1840

This month being the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, most of us are already tired of the theory of evolution. Yet it goes to the heart of the modern world, and as such this web-site cannot let the moment pass without adding to the festivities. I recommend the articles you will find in the “Darwin” issue of Philosophy Now magazine (Jan/Feb 2009). Among them is an enlightening piece by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci. In it he writes:

“Just as the Standard Model in physics is undergoing challenges and revisions (think of string theory, for one), so is the Modern Synthesis in evolutionary biology being challenged. An increasing number of scientists – including yours truly – have grown dissatisfied with the fact that the current version of the theory does not adequately address many important questions. These include the role of developmental processes in evolution, the origin of completely novel traits (such as the turtle’s shell, for instance), the increasingly-plausible possibility of so-called ‘soft’ inheritance (ie, mechanisms of heredity that do not depend on DNA), and even whether and how the propensity to evolve – the so-called ‘evolvability’ of a lineage – can change during the course of evolution.

“Moreover, some evolutionary biologists think evolution is a much richer phenomenon than the Modern Synthesis allows, and includes the ability of natural selection to act not only on individual organisms, but at both lower (gene) and higher (species) levels. Perhaps more speculatively, but also most interestingly, some of us are pursuing research that for the first time since Darwin looks seriously at the possibility that natural selection may not be the only natural mechanism generating complexity. Intriguing mathematical models borrowed from complexity theory suggest that intricate forms and behaviors may be generated ‘for free’ as an emergent property of certain types of non-linear systems, of which living organisms are but one example (other examples include meteorological phenomena such as hurricanes, and computer-based algorithms, such as the appropriately named game ‘life’).”

The scientific status of the theory of evolution is therefore more complicated than we are often led to believe. We should beware of those who seek to turn it into a monolithic dogma to oppose Christian or other religious beliefs. My own summary article on the question can be found here. As Richard Dawkins retires as Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, and is replaced by the mathematician Marcus du Sautoy, with any luck we will find ourselves moving into a “post-Dawkins” phase of the debate about religion and science. Du Sautoy is an atheist but a much less militant one than Dawkins. In a calmer atmosphere we may perhaps reflect on the debate less in terms of the intellectual arguments but more in terms of what it reveals about our religious imagination.

Our God is Too Small

For the whole debate may be less about ideas than about images. We are persuaded by the sheer size and complexity of the world revealed by modern science to abandon our image of a God who is personally concerned with one small corner of the universe and our insignificant species. Religious believers have often cultivated an image of God that seems inadequate to cope with the cosmos as a whole, including all the innocent suffering it entails. There seems little connection between the loving Jesus of private devotion, the warlike Jehovah of the Old Testament, and the implacable Law that determines the extermination of millions of lives in natural disasters. But we need to respond to the increased scale of the universe not by abandoning but by expanding our idea of God.

God stops making sense when our image of him is both too little and too big. Too little: – we think of him as just a BIT bigger than us, or than the universe as a whole, whereas in reality he is INFINITELY bigger. As the great theologians have always said, we know that God is, and we know what God is not, but we are fooling ourselves if we think we know what God is. (In that sense theology is an exercise in controlled folly.) But at the same time, our image of God is too big. By that I mean he is not just small enough to fit in our heads, he is INFINITELY small. He is within the within.

The God Within

Perhaps what is missing in much religious formation is the vital instruction to look for God within ourselves. That is to be distinguished from identifying ourselves with God, or thinking that God is Myself. As G.K. Chesterton said, “Of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within. Any one who knows any body knows how it would work; any one who knows any one from the Higher Thought Centre knows how it does work. That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not the god within.”

No, what I mean is that we need to discover God at the root of ourselves if we are discover him anywhere at all. Within ourselves, but beyond the self, is the living presence of the God who creates all things from the inside out. That is the God who is closest to us, whose reality is most evident. When we are tormented by the problem of evil, or uncertain about the meaning or value of Scripture, there are voices in our head that say, “You know it doesn’t really make any sense!” But there is a much quieter voice we need to learn to hear that whispers, “Just be patient and trust, and I will lead you to what you need to know.” That quieter voice is harder to hear because it comes from a deeper level – not from the self but from beyond the self.

The Two Halves of God

The secret of religious faith is when we manage to put the two halves of God together – to see and feel the connection between the inner God and the outer God. The outer God is so much bigger than anything that exists that even the word “exists” can only be applied to it with inverted commas. This is the God whose watermark runs all through the world in the form of a beautiful order – the same order that science has partially explored, the order that determines the rain to fall on the good and the bad alike, the order by which a man may give thanks for his bread, but the parasite may also give thanks for the warm body on which it feeds in the dark. How can we relate to that God, unless we know that it is also the God that creates us from within, that we find within ourselves, at the origin of our own minds, the source of all our consciousness and love? THAT God, who is the same God because ultimately there can only be one, is a God we can communicate with.

The Christian faith pus the two halves of God together in a particular way. The inner God and the outer God meet in Christ, who is outside ourselves yet inside the universe. More on that another time.

Growing Intolerance of Christianity in Britain

The newspapers in Britain have recently drawn attention to the case of a Christian nurse suspended for offering to pray for an elderly patient (or, in Newspeak, ‘failing to demonstrate a personal and professional committment to equality and diversity’!) – and then reinstated after the absurdity of it was pointed out in the House of Commons. It was then revealed that the National Health Service has also issued guidelines that define all attempts to ‘preach and to try to convert other people’ in the workplace as a form of harrassment. Similar stories continue to emerge which appear to indicate increasing intolerance towards those who speak of Christianity in public. Put this together with the following comment (Telegraph, 8 Feb 09), and we may have further reason for concern:

“The evidence is growing by the week that the Government is creating a surveillance state. It was confirmed yesterday that a database containing the international travel records of all citizens is being compiled; and Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, is drawing up plans to keep similar details of every phone call and email that is sent. In addition, the records of all children are to be held on a system called ContactPoint, a national ID database is currently being developed, all health records currently held by GPs will be centrally available and a database of DNA profiles, ostensibly for criminals, is being built by stealth. Meanwhile, the ubiquitous CCTV cameras in every public space make personal privacy increasingly hard to maintain.”

Proselytism vs Evangelization

It is of course true that some forms of proselytism are objectionable and do amount to harrassment. But there is also a danger that such rulings may be used as an excuse to suppress any religious talk at all. That would be a shame, because nothing is more interesting to most people than the meaning of life. And if you believe something is true, good and beautiful, the natural reaction is to want to share it – to help others to see it too. This certainly applies to Christians, who are in any case obliged by their faith to evangelize. The point is always to do it tactfully and prudently, in a way that does not offend and alienate others.

The NHS document (‘Religion or Belief’) can be downloaded from here. It includes some interesting statistics on religious belief in Britain – between 1996 and 2006, the proportion who claimed no religious allegiance rose from 42.6 to 45.8%. As one might expect, the biggest rises were among Muslims (from 1.8% to 3.3%) and non-denominational Christians (from 4.7% to 9.6%). The number of those who identified themselves as Roman Catholics rose very slightly from 8.9% to 9%, while other Christian denominations declined.

S.C.

PS. I was recently appointed Senior Editor at Sophia Institute Press. My task is, while preserving the traditional Sophia strengths – its popular reprints, spiritual classics and self-help and transformational titles, as well as the successful new imprint for Catholic fiction, Imagio – to broaden the range to include more scholarly, though still accessible titles in keeping with Sophia’s developing role as a College Press. Read more…

When I see the heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and the stars which you arranged, what are we that you should keep us in mind, men and women that you care for us?

A question often asked (rhetorically) by modern sceptics is how the Maker of such a vast universe could be as concerned as the Bible claims with one tiny planet and one tiny species among so many. The question was answered by J.R.R. Tolkien in The Silmarillion, when he writes in his Elvish creation myth the Ainulindale (bearing in mind the Ainur are the Angelic spirits and Arda is the Earth):

“Now the Chidren of Iluvatar are Elves and Men, the Firstborn and the Followers. And amid all the splendours of the World, its vast halls and spaces, and its wheeling fires, Iluvatar chose a place for their habitation in the Deeps of Time and in the midst of the innumerable stars. And this habitation might seem a little thing to those who consider only the majesty of the Ainur, and not their terrible sharpness; as who should take the whole field of Arda for the foundation of a pillar and so raise it until the cone of its summit were more bitter than a needle; or who consider only the immeasurable vastness of the World, which still the Ainur are shaping, and not the minute precision to which they shape all things therein.”

If you go to the magazine section and click on ‘current issue‘ you will see a draft of the cover and list of contents based around the theme of divine praise. The printing of the issue has been delayed, but to make up for that, I am paying some attention to the renovation of various sections of this web-site. We continue to place important new papers in the Articles section, including links to articles in other journals that you may find of interest. The Apologetics section (‘Christianity Q&A‘) and the one on Catholic social teaching (‘Sane Economy‘) will receive special attention and be extensively revised during the year. In the Spirituality section (‘Mystagogy‘) I have recently added a series of meditations on the Rosary. The Books section will gradually be expanded as new publications come along, and readers can already find there additional materials, background reading, and further research that could not be included in the printed books themselves, as well as copies of reviews and helpful links. Other sections will continue to be updated – including, of course, the main Links section.

Our ONLINE COMMUNITY serves as a space for discussion of current events as well as publications and conferences. This online facility can be really useful for maintaining contact with people of similar interests and for sharing ideas and scholarship. There is a brand-new section called Questioning Faith where you can ask difficult questions.

Though the financial recession and tensions in the Middle East will dominate headlines for a while, this also promises to be a year in which there is a lot of talk about science. February marks the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, and November the 150th of ‘The Origin of Species’. It is also the 400th year since Galileo turned his telescope to the heavens. The summer may see the Large Hadron Collider turned on at last – colliding particles together at close to the speed of light just to see what will happen. We are looking out for good popular science links and articles to add to the site, to help our readers follow these events and reflect on the relationship between their faith and the discoveries of science.

The “Atheist Bus”. The newspapers have been reporting on the placing by atheists (including Richard Dawkins of Oxford) of a message on the sides of buses around Britain: There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life. It was the advertising standards authority that insisted on the “probably”, thus at a stroke converting the atheist bus into an agnostic bus, and planting the seeds of worry in the minds of many who had not given God’s existence a second thought for many years. How can you relax and enjoy life if it is conveying you inexorably to a possible confrontation with the God you have been denying?

The astute Catholic commentator Sandro Magister has rightly picked up on a recent address by Benedict XVI on the intelligent structure of the universe – mathematics not as a proof but as a pointer to the existence of God. “The great Galileo said that God wrote the book of nature in the form of the language of mathematics… It seems to me almost incredible that an invention of the human mind and the structure of the universe coincide… In this sense it really seems to me that mathematics – in which as such God cannot appear – shows us the intelligent structure of the universe… Only because our mathematics is reliable is technology reliable. Our knowledge, which is at last making it possible to work with the energies of nature, supposes the reliable and intelligent structure of matter.” You can read the full article here.

Of course, very few people read the Pope. A more direct approach would be to send round an alternative message on the buses. Something like this, perhaps: There might be a God. Why does that worry you?

ANNOUNCEMENT. The recession is causing a delay in the production of the Fall 2008 issue of Second Spring (issue 11). It will be printed and mailed as soon as possible in the new year. We apologise to our readers. Subscriptions will, of course, be carried forward, and we hope to resume production early in 2009. Watch for further announcements. — S.C./Thomas More College

THOUGHTS ON CHRISTMAS

First and foremost, the Nativity is simply a birth, which is the bringing forth of the secret that Mary has cherished within her for nine months – the face that God has fashioned for himself in the womb of the world. This is nothing less than a re-making of the world, for the world as it existed before was perishing, falling into nothingness, whereas now it is united through this tiny child with the divine life of the Trinity.

Into relation with this child all people and things are being drawn, and in this relationship they will pass through death into a new existence. The seed of this life began to grow in the earth’s soil at the Annunciation, but now it shows itself above ground, at Epiphany it will be acknowledged by the Wise, and on the Cross it will spread its branches over the earth. In the image of Madonna and Child is represented the drama of the human personality, coming to birth in the meeting of two gazes and of two smiles, the mother’s smile kindling the child’s, the child’s spontaneous smile evoking this sign of love from the enfolding cosmos. The Mother here is the purely human, the Child is God. It is Joseph’s mission to protect and raise this Child, which means first of all to shelter the Mother who is the Child’s first home. Icons of the Nativity show him weary, perhaps doubting his fitness for the task, puzzling over God’s plan. He is appointed to represent the heavenly Father and become an Icon of the Invisible.

[Extract from the meditations on the Rosary in the Mystagogy section. The illustration by Daniel Mitsui is from http://danielmitsui.tripod.com/artwork/religious.html]

Read the rest of this entry »

I want to thank all those made our 1 November conference in Oxford on “Scripture and Liturgy in the Theology of Benedict XVI”, cosponsored by the St Paul Center for Biblical Theology, such a great success. The Zenit news report can be read here.  We estimate around 300 people attended, many of them coming from a considerable distance. Follow-up will be announced on this site in the weeks and months to come. Conference participants may be interested in our web pages devoted to Mystagogy and Liturgy.

As I said in the programme for the event, back in 1996 our Centre for Faith & Culture organised an international conference on Liturgy at Westminster College under the title “Beyond the Prosaic”. (The conference proceedings were published by T&T Clark.) Thanks to the timing of the event, and the extraordinary range of brilliant speakers who came together for it, the conference marked the coming of age of the new liturgical movement or “reform of the reform”. The conference issued the Oxford Declaration on Liturgy which received a great deal of publicity, and we subsequently heard that Cardinal Ratzinger himself had referred to this as a “sign of hope”. Some time later, in 2001, I was also privileged to be able to stand in for Aidan Nichols OP at a conference at the Abbey of Fontgombault with Cardinal Ratzinger as the chief speaker. This may have been the occasion where the policy of reviving the Tridentine Mass alongside the Novus Ordo was first formulated and justified – a policy which later resulted in the recent Motu Proprio. At that conference Cardinal Ratzinger told us, “it would be fatal if the old liturgy found itself in a refrigerator, rather like a national park, protected for a certain species of persons, to whom one would leave these relics of the past. The classical liturgy should also be a liturgy of the Church, and under the authority of the Church. And only in this ecclesiology, in this fundamental link with the authority of the Church, can it offer all it has to offer.” The future Pope Benedict also spoke at that time of enriching the missal of 1962 by introducing new saints – such as Maximilian Kolbe, Edith Stein, the Spanish Martyrs, and the Ukrainian Martyrs – and by adding some of the ancient prefaces for Advent from the Church Fathers. Dr Alcuin Reid edited the book of the conference proceedings (Looking Again at the Question of the Liturgy with Cardinal Ratzinger), which apart from its specific recommendations explores the nature of Catholic liturgy and the principles that guide its organic development from a range of orthodox viewpoints.

Ratzinger enunciated one principle we particularly need to remember: the liturgy, including the classical liturgy, is “not something of the past to be protected, but a living reality of the Church, much respected in its identity and in its historical greatness. All the liturgy of the Church is always a living thing, a reality which is above us, not subject to our wills or arbitrary wishes.” It is a failure to understand and remember this principle that lies behind the tragic mistakes that have been made in the course of liturgical reform in the last forty years.

The privileged place for reading and listening to the word of God is in the liturgy. By celebrating the word and rendering the Body of Christ present in the sacrament, we bring the word into our life and make it alive and present among us.

– Pope Benedict XVI

And the kings of the earth, who committed fornication and were wanton with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning; they will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say, “Alas! alas! thou great city, thou mighty city, Babylon! In one hour has thy judgment come.” – Apoc. 18:9-10.

It probably isn’t the end of the world just yet, but who am I to say?  It is in any case becoming hard to avoid the conclusion that Chesterton arrived at:  “The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.”  Perhaps it is time to correct some of the mistakes.  A Distributist perspective can be found here.

In the meantime, we pray.  And maybe we read the Book of Revelation, not to find out what will happen next, but to remind us of what history is all about.  In fact Revelation is less about predicting the future than about Liturgy, according to Dr Scott Hahn, who expresses a growing consensus among theologians that the last book in the Bible was intended to be read as a kind of commentary on the Mass.  For the Eucharist on earth is a participation in the Heavenly Liturgy that St John glimpsed in his visions on Patmos.  As Scott writes, “The new Jerusalem came to earth, then as now, in the place where Christians celebrated the supper of the Lamb.”  We will be exploring this vision of the Cosmic Liturgy in our Oxford conference on 1 November with Scott Hahn, Aidan Nichols, Adrian Walker and Michael Waldstein, Scripture and Liturgy in the Theology of Benedict XVI.

Pope Benedict is our inspiration. The following is an extract from an online article by Sandro Magister:

‘Benedict XVI … has identified his mission as successor of the Apostles precisely in being the celebrant of a “cosmic liturgy.” Because “when the world in all its parts has become a liturgy of God, when, in its reality, it has become adoration, then it will have reached its goal and will be safe and sound.”

‘It is a dizzying vision. But Pope Ratzinger has this unshakable certainty: when he celebrates the Mass, he knows that the entire action of God is contained in it, woven together with the ultimate destiny of man and of the world. For him, the Mass is not a mere rite officiated by the Church. It is the Church itself, with the triune God dwelling within it. It is the image and reality of the entirety of the Christian adventure. …

‘Easter, or the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, is an action that took place once in time, accomplished once and for all, but it is also an act carried out “forever,” as the Letter to the Hebrews highlights well. And this contemporaneousness is realized in the liturgical action, where “the historical Passover of Jesus enters into our present, and from there its goal is to touch and embrace the lives of those who celebrate it, and, therefore, all historical reality.” As cardinal, in the book “The Spirit of the Liturgy,” Ratzinger wrote evocative pages about “Church time,” a form of time in which “past, present, and future penetrate one another and touch eternity.”

‘… But the structure of the Mass also demonstrates this in a striking way, as Pope Benedict recalled in a commentary on the supper of the risen Jesus with the disciples in Emmaus, at the Angelus on Sunday, April 6, 2008. In the first part of the Mass, there is the listening to the Holy Scriptures, and in the second there are “the Eucharistic liturgy and communion with Christ present in the Sacrament of his Body and his Blood.” The two tables, of the Word and of the Bread, are inseparably connected.

‘The homily is the bridge between the two. The model is Jesus in the synagogue of Capernaum, in Chapter 4 of the Gospel of Luke. When he rolled up the scroll of the Scriptures, “the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them: ‘Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing’.” In his homilies, Pope Benedict does the same thing. He comments on the Scriptures, and says that “today” they have been fulfilled in the liturgical act that is being celebrated. With the repercussions that follow from this for the lives of all, because – as he has written – “the celebration is not only a ritual, it is not only a liturgical game, but is intended to be ‘logiké latreia’, a transformation of my existence in the direction of the Logos, an interior contemporaneousness between me and Christ.”‘

BODY AND SOUL – A FORUM FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. On Sunday 2 November 2008 there will be a Forum in Oxford on communication, friendship, respect, relationships and the Good News about sex. ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CHURCH’S TEACHING? Ask our Panel: Adrian Walker, Ruth Ashfield, Brigitte Rowland and Fr Joseph Welch.

2.30-5.30pm, ending with tea, at the Parish Centre, the Oratory Church of St Aloysius, 25 Woodstock Rd, Oxford OX2 6HA.  No charge – just come and put your questions (anonymously if you prefer).  Any queries to Fr Daniel at <danielseward@oxfordoratory.org.uk> or <s_caldecott@yahoo.co.uk>

This event takes place the day after the exciting conference on Scripture and Liturgy with Scott Hahn, at which Adrian Walker will be one of the speakers.  Further details below (under ‘August’).

Also, attention teachers at secondary schools and sixth form colleges! Recommended speakers on love and sexuality from a Catholic perspective can visit your school from Family Choices.

Please also note there will be a conference of hope for young people and families at St Albans on 25-26 October.  Called The Faith, The Family… The Future it is a way of

- Fostering and exploring the beauty of the Church’s vision for marriage and the family;

- Passing on the faith to the next generation and the role of the family in this work;

- Promoting the growth of Catholic culture and vocations through the family;

Over the weekend there will be many eminent speakers, representing a broad panorama of Catholic thought and culture. With programs specially tailored to each age group, combined with the opportunity for retreat, spiritual reflection and renewal, the weekend provides a great opportunity for Catholics to renew their spiritual life, strengthening their families through meeting other young Catholics who share their hopes and views.

Illustration: William Blake, ‘Satan watches the caresses of Adam and Eve’, engraving for Paradise Lost. The inscription reads: ‘Ah! gentle pair, ye little think how nigh / Your change approaches.’

Scripture and Liturgy in the Theology of Benedict XVI. This important theological conference with Dr Scott Hahn, the popular American writer and biblical scholar, which also features Dominican theologian Aidan Nichols, leading Biblical scholar Michael Waldstein, and Adrian Walker the translator of the Pope’s book on Jesus Christ, will take place at the Catholic Chaplaincy of Oxford University opposite Christ Church College on Saturday 1 November 2008. It is organized by the Centre for Faith and Culture in Oxford and cosponsored by Dr Hahn’s ‘St Paul Center for Biblical Theology’ in Steubenville, Ohio.

The purpose of the conference is to focus attention on the principles underlying the Pope’s ongoing ‘reform of the reform‘ of Catholic liturgy. The relationship between SCRIPTURE AND LITURGY underpins the Pope’s teaching. The Pope reminds us that ‘The privileged place for reading and listening to the Word of God is in the liturgy.’ Furthermore, that liturgy is cosmic, for the love of the Trinity moves the stars. These principles are inspiring a new liturgical movement.

On the previous evening, 31 October, Dr Hahn will give the annual CTS Lecture in London.

Dr Hahn is Professor of Theology and Scripture at Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he has taught since 1990, and is the founder and director of the Saint Paul Center for Biblical Theology. In 2005, he was appointed as the Pope Benedict XVI Chair of Biblical Theology and Liturgical Proclamation at St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. The author of numerous books and articles, he speaks widely in the United States but only rarely in the UK.

The conference also provides a rare opportunity to hear Dr Michael Waldstein, who will have been attending the Synod on Scripture in Rome as a peritus. Formerly the President of the International Theological Institute of Cardinal Schonborn in Gaming, Austria, he is currently the Max Seckler Professor of Theology at Ave Maria University in Florida. Dr Adrian Walker, a member of the editorial board of Communio, is also rarely in England: after teaching for some years at the John Paul II Institute in Washington, he now lives in Germany and works as a translator. Aidan Nichols OP is, of course, well known as writer of numerous books on theology and liturgy, including the leading study of the thought of Pope Benedict XVI.

Meanwhile, for World Youth Day follow-up see the official Vatican WYD site, as well as the Catholic Herald blog. Oh yes, and Sophie Caldecott’s article on Zenit!

Read the World Youth Day blog.

“Life is not just a succession of events or experiences, helpful though many of them are. It is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this – in truth, in goodness, and in beauty – that we find happiness and joy. Do not be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth.” – Pope Benedict on arrival in Sydney.

But on another matter…

The New Yorker magazine recently lent its prestige to the 100^th anniversary of G.K. Chesterton’s popular introduction to Christianity, Orthodoxy, by publishing a major article by Adam Gopnik called ‘The Back of the World’ (7 and 14 July 2008). The article is appreciative of GKC’s genius, although the author’s bias is clear from his description of Chesterton’s most strenuous advocates as ‘conservative pre-Vatican II types who are indignant about his neglect without stopping to reflect how much their own uncritical enthusiasm may have contributed to it.’ It would be fairer, I think, these days to describe GKC’s main advocates as ‘post-Vatican II radicals’.

Gopnik describes Chesterton, rightly, as a ‘hearty mystic’ who saw all things in what he once called the ‘white light of wonder’; and as the ‘grandfather of Slow Food, of local eating, of real ale, the first strong mind that saw something evil in the levelling of little pleasures’. He locates Chesterton’s masterpiece (or the nearest he came to one) not in Christian apologetics such as Orthodoxy but in a novel, The Man Who Was Thursday, written with ‘nightmarish intensity’ on a theme that has recently become all too relevant – Chesterton’s ‘anarchists’ are today’s ‘terrorists’. The novel has a profundity that stands the test of time. Insightfully, Gopnik goes from there to Chesterton’s Catholic conversion in 1922: ‘If you want a solution, at once authoritarian and poetic, to the threat of moral anarchism, then Catholicism, which built Chartres and inspired Dante, looks a lot better than Scotland Yard. If you want stability allied to imagination, Catholicism has everything else beat.’

Yet the article is leading up to a serious accusation – the mild anti-semitism even Chesterton’s admirers must recognize in him (and which was commonplace in England before the Second World War) not only became an ‘ugly and obsessive’ hatred after 1918, but ‘is not incidental’ and in fact arises from ‘the logic of his poetic position’ – his love of the local. That simply does not wash, for locality does not imply homogeneity in Chesterton’s vision, but rather variety. If as Gopnik claims he viewed all Jews as in some sense ‘aliens’, and even English Jews (including his own friends) as essentially ‘foreigners’, it came from taking seriously the image of a Chosen People temporarily deprived of a Promised Land, and from mixing up religious with ethnic identity. I would not want to defend all of Chesterton’s opinions on the Jews, but it is a slur to say he hated them, and indeed his Jewish friendships and even his writings point in quite another direction. Gopnik himself admits that Chesterton was no fascist, spoke out against the persecution in Germany, and was emphatically opposed to any kind of genocide.

Gopnik does not understand Chesterton’s Catholicism, or the ‘conversion sickness’ which made him see his newly adopted faith as ‘a shining, perfectly balanced system, an intricately worked clock where the cosmos turns to tell the time and the cuckoo comes out singing every Sunday’. It is true, I suppose, as Gopnik argues, that English writing changed after 1918, leaving Chesterton’s accounts of Christianity looking a bit too boisterous and blustery to be taken seriously. Perhaps today we need a more nuanced apologetic – even, at times, a more apologetic apologetics. But not all change is for the best, and sometimes Chesterton’s apparent crudity marks a deeper subtlety, as Aidan Nichols recently argued in a series of lectures at Oxford.

Gopnik refuses to dismiss Chesterton, even though he thinks his beliefs (localism, Catholicism) would eventually lead most people to intolerance and authoritarianism. Chesterton’s personality was too genial, his love of life too infectious, his mystical appreciation of reality too profound, his aphorisms too funny. But those of us who have come to share Chesterton’s ‘conversion sickness’, and who can admire without idolizing him, need to demonstrate both by words and by deeds that faith is more than a mood, and that it leads in a direction even the sceptics of the New Yorker need have no reason to fear.

Which brings us back to World Youth Day. Read the Pope’s wonderful addresses to young people here.