Getting to the Point: creation

Showing posts with label creation. Show all posts

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Why Did Jesus Die?

Do you sense something so far beyond mystery that you almost feel as if you were teetering at the edge of the universe? Last night in Gethsemane God the Son took upon himself my sins and yours—the sins of all the world. He took them on himself and lifted them up, or rather, he was lifted up for them on a cross. He died to atone for them.

Before our eyes this simple wooden cross holds the absolute forgiveness of God for us. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! A thousand languages repeat it, and he has pity on us because he has been lifted up and from him came pity, compassion, tenderness, understanding. Can we comprehend what has happened? God, the Almighty, the All–Powerful, the One who has no limit to his power, limited it. It is incomprehensible…

Today is the day of an examination of conscience, and yet somewhere deep within us joy rises like the sun. However it is still dark and the darkness is I, looking at myself. The darkness is also sorrow that he had to die for me. The joy is that he did! Now I am whole and healed and all is well! My separation from God, the original one, is wiped off.

Now I walk in the mercy of God; we live in his mercy. Now the moment of guilt is gone. Man must not feel any guilt anymore, only a terrible sadness when he once again breaks his alliance with God, the alliance of love. Whenever you feel that you have broken it, pray, “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner!” and it is forgiven!”

Catherine Doherty

Reflection – Happy Palm Sunday to you all, and a blessed Holy Week. This excerpt from a talk by Catherine Doherty on Good Friday 1973 seemed a fitting way to begin our week of the Lord’s Passion and love this year. The talk itself is part of my book Going Home.

I have been trying to do a bit of catechesis on Sundays here and there. This Sunday, let’s talk about the catechetical matter that is perhaps the one above all others, namely the death of Jesus Christ and its saving power in our lives.

For those who have simple faith, this matter poses no problem, and perhaps that is the best way to be. We know Jesus died; we know He died because He loves us; we know His loving death has saved us, won us forgiveness of our sins, opened heaven’s doors, reconciled us to the Father. For many people, that is all we need to know—we don’t get troubled by questions of how and why and what is the meaning of all this.

There are those who are so troubled, though, and it is good to have some kind of answer worked out for them. We cannot precisely ‘explain’ our faith—it is a divine revelation and ultimately transcends the powers of human comprehension—but we can talk about it, clarify it, make it a bit more understandable even if we cannot (and should not) eliminate the mysterious aspect of it.

And so many theologians over the millennia have given some account or other of ‘how’ Jesus’ death saved us. The Church has never adopted any one of those explanations as its own dogma. The dogma of the Church is precisely what I laid out two paragraphs ago, that this death happened and that this death has had these effects for all who are saved, and that the salvific fruits of this death are offered to all men and women.

In the Western Church, the most influential theory has been that of St. Anselm of Canterbury, the ‘substitutionary’ theory of salvation. Humanity, in committing sin against God, ran up a debt that was infinite, since our offense was against an infinite majesty. Being finite we could not pay that debt; but since it was a human debt, a human being had to pay it; but only an infinite being could make the infinite satisfaction of the debt; so only a God-man could pay that debt, and the wages of sin are in fact death, and so Jesus paid the debt for all of us.

With all due respect to St. Anselm and the many holy men and women who have accepted and taught this theory, I have never cared for it. It is too much rooted in categories of law for me—yes, this is an aspect of life and of our relationship with God (Scripture would collapse into incoherence if all notions of law were eliminated from it)—but law is not the heart and the whole of our life with God. And since this matter of Jesus’ death is at the heart of our faith and our life with God, it seems to me that casting it in wholly legal terms impoverishes our faith.

This is the theory I prefer (I offer this bearing in mind that this too is merely a theory, and that our Catholic faith is the simple faith that Jesus saved us by dying for us, period): Sin is fundamentally death, the undoing of creation. Creation in its deep heart is being flowing from Being, being ordered and shaped and given life from Being. This is the deep meaning of obedience, that our whole existence is from Another, the Uncreated One.

Sin rejects being, life, creation, and so sin is death. Jesus, being God the Creator, enters the reality of sin without sinning (which is metaphysically impossible for God) by entering the reality of death in his sacred humanity. His motivation is love—love of His Father, love and mercy to us poor sinners.

And so, in the very place of sin, the place where sin does what it does—kills us—the Creator God establishes a new creation. That which had been the great monument of destruction and uncreation—the tomb—becomes the place of personal encounter with Life. That which had been the fruit of our tragic and terrible disobedience and selfishness becomes transformed by obedience and selfless love.

It is not on the level of law and debts, but on the level of personal encounter, personal love, personal communion—a communion of love that is forged at the very place where all relationships are destroyed and sundered. And so—sin is forgiven, heaven opened, we are reconciled and saved.

Ultimately all we need to know is that God loves us so much that He died for us, and simple faith is satisfied by that answer. But it is good to meditate on just what Love does, and just how much Love has shown itself to be stronger than death, isn’t it? Happy Passion Sunday, and may we all enter into the victory of Christ and know his joy this Easter.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

The Best Thing That Can Happen To Us

Generally speaking, the notion of “human rights” is also seen as highly subjective and a call for a person to self-determination, a process which is no longer grounded in the idea of the natural law. In this regard, many respondents relate that the legal systems in many countries are having to make laws on situations which are contrary to the traditional dictates of the natural law (for example, in vitro fertilization, homosexual unions, the manipulation of human embryos, abortion, etc.).

Situated in this context is the increased diffusion of the ideology called gender theory, according to which the gender of each individual turns out to be simply the product of social conditioning and needs and, thereby, ceasing, in this way, to have any correspondence to a person’s biological sexuality.

Furthermore, much attention is given in the responses to the fact that what becomes established in civil law — based on an increasingly dominant legal positivism — might mistakenly become in people’s mind accepted as morally right. What is “natural” tends to be determined by the individual and society only, who have become the sole judges in ethical choices.

The relativization of the concept of “nature” is also reflected in the concept of stability and the “duration” of the relationship of marriage unions. Today, love is considered “forever” only to the point that a relationship lasts.

Instrumentum Laboris for Synod on the Family, 23-24

Reflection – This section of the Instrumentum gets into some very difficult territory indeed. As was discussed a few days ago, the word ‘natural’ has come to mean ‘that which comes easily or spontaneously’. Natural law, in this understanding, would simply mean that the iron law of humanity is to do whatever you most want to do, whatever comes easiest and reflects your deepest drives and urges.

It is one thing—a difficult, thorny thing—that this is indeed the prevailing ethos in secular society. And we who are Christians have to be very creative and engaging and compassionate and thoughtful in our dialogue with secularity. Not to get (too) repetitive, but I think one person who has modeled this creative and compassionate dialogue like no one else is Pope Benedict XVI, as I outlined in my book on his writings.

The fact is, the modern ethos of self-determination and freedom as license is persuasive to many perfectly decent and well-meaning people. The process of dialogue has to be done with great care and respect, in these secular circles.

However, it is quite another thing when this same ethos of nature finds its way into the Church and into Christian minds and hearts. It is not that we cease to be kind and compassionate in our communications, but we can be a bit stronger and more insistent.

Because it is sheer and unfettered nonsense, from a position of Christian faith, to advance this same idea of freedom and nature, happiness and human flourishing, as the carrying out of whatever desires we have and feel most strongly. Leaving aside the specific moral issues touched on above, the whole of our Catholic Christian moral sense comes from three principles.

First, that God is the author of creation, and that the meaning and order of creation is from Him. We do not make up our own meaning and order, but receive it from Him. Second, that sin has darkened the human world and put our desires into a state of considerable disorder. We cannot just listen to our hearts and follow our bliss; our hearts are, alas, deceptive. Third, that God has restored and perfected His divine order of creation and humanity in Jesus Christ, and is carrying out that work of restoration in every human being who believes in Jesus and comes to Him for healing. The path of discipleship, of obedience, of surrendering our wills and our lives to Jesus Christ is the fundamental moral path, the Law of the Christian.

In practical terms, this means that we don’t get our way in life. We don’t get to do our own thing. We don’t get what we ‘want’, at least not the immediate thing, generally, not usually. We don’t get to cut loose (footloose!), at least not as a general principle. Life as a disciple of Jesus Christ is life lived as a serious choice, made daily that “Not my will, but your will be done, Father.”

“I was always afraid that if I really surrendered to God, He would do me in. And it turns out I was right!” Someone said this to me recently in a casual conversation. I responded, “Yeah, and it turns out that having God do us in is actually the best thing that can happen to us.” It’s what we really need and, although it can take a while to get there, it’s what we really want, anyhow, deep down.

How this all applies to marriage, divorce, sex, gender, not to mention all the other moral conundrums of life, is for another day. But we have to start at the level of these fundamental principles and patterns, or our conversation goes wrong from the outset.

I also want to add, in conclusion, that the path of discipleship I describe may sound a bit ‘heavy’ and even grim. It is heavy, but it is far from grim. It is a joyful, free, peaceful, and beautiful path of life, and we need to proclaim that, too, or nobody will believe us or be interested in what we have to say.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

What is the Point of Religion?

The essence of an image consists in the fact that it represents something… with the fact that it goes beyond itself… thus the image of God means, first of all, that the human being cannot be closed in on himself. If he attempts this he betrays himself. To be the image of God implies relationality. It is the dynamic that sets the human being in motion toward the totally Other. Hence it means the capacity for relationship; it is the human capacity for God.

Joseph Ratzinger, In the Beginning

Reflection – ‘What is the point of religion, anyway?’ In a novel I read on my holidays, one of the characters, completely steeped in secular values and irreligious, asked this perfectly reasonable question. What is the purpose of prayer in human life, of religious observance, of turning towards God?

It is an important question – one might argue that it is the question the world poses to the Church right now. What are we bringing to the table? We have to avoid, it seems to me, giving answers that are utilitarian in nature. Religion helps us to be more peaceful… or helps us to work for social justice… or makes us more generous… or creates a more stable society…

All of these may be true to greater or lesser degrees, but none of these is the ‘point’ of religion. Prayer, and hence God, are not tools we use to achieve some greater purpose, some end of our own. This quote from Ratzinger gives us the real answer. The real answer to the question, hard as this may be to present to a thoroughly secular person, is that the point of God is that God is the point of everything.

We are not religious people because we hope to gain some other good from being religious—having our prayers answered so that we get what we want, or some variation on that. We are religious people because we believe that the purpose of creation is to enter into relationship with God.

Really the question is not ‘what is the point of religion?’ The question is ‘what is the point of anything?’ Life can be about professional success… but why bother with that? Life can be about happy family relationships… but why bother with that? Life can be about cramming in as much pleasure as we can into each moment (YOLO!)… but why bother with that?

At each twist and turn of trying to find some ultimate meaning and purpose to life, we are always confronted with human finitude, with the inevitability of death and the insufficiency of strictly human goods to genuinely satisfy us. What is the point of anything, really, unless everything is pointing us beyond the human and the finite and the mortal?

Once we open the door to that other reality, to God and to faith and to prayer, then everything becomes charged with meaning—our work, our loves, our families, our pleasures all become taken up in a world of meaning that is not doomed to the futility of the grave.

The point of religion, of faith, is that it gives a sure and solid and indestructible meaning to everything else in life, and without this meaning, everything else is really very fragile. It is quite a mysterious affair—it is only when we allow for the invisible, the unprovable, that which no eye has seen and no ear has heard, that which seems to be so insubstantial and fleeting, that all the things that are near at hand, obvious, plain, become fully solid and real with a lasting meaning and purpose.

Secularism has turned its back on the invisible and indemonstrable matters of God and the spirit in favor of what can be proven and known to the senses. Ironically, we find ourselves in a world devoid of lasting value or purpose, a world of brute matter and physical forces, a world where there is no meaning save what our frail and feeble humanity can impose on it for a short span of years.

Faith allows for this one element of impenetrable mystery—God!—and so the whole universe becomes charged with crystalline purpose and goodness, all the brute matter echoes like a resonating glass vibrating with the music of the angels, and all of humanity becomes the great priesthood of the cosmos, offering praise and worship to the Creator and so enacting that which is the utter fulfillment of all creation, the utter fulfillment of our own human destiny and vocation, the absolute and final and endless point of all that is.

And that is the point of religion.

Monday, August 25, 2014

Take a Good Look Around

O Lord, our Sovereign,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.

Out of the mouths of babes and infants

you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,

to silence the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars that you have established;

what are human beings that you are mindful of them,

mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little lower than God,

and crowned them with glory and honor.

You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under their feet,

all sheep and oxen,

and also the beasts of the field,

the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,

whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Sovereign,

how majestic is your name in all the earth

Psalm 8

Reflection – Monday Psalter time again. We have had quite a sequence of psalms so far that have had strong elements of distress, cries for help, anguish in suffering, and confrontation with evil.

Now, as if to give a relief from this necessary aspect of prayer, we have a psalm that simply praises God and exults in his work and his greatness. There is something of a lesson for us in this, too (the psalms are, among other things, the great schoolbook of prayer for the Church). That is, we have to leave off our lamenting and groaning over the state of the world and of our own lives, once in a while, to simply rejoice in the goodness and beauty of God.

Something is badly amiss in our faith if we never stop, take a good look around us, and glorify God for his majestic name. No matter what is happening in our lives, what terrible sorrow or grief we may carry (and it can be severe, I do know), there is a larger world than that sorrow surrounding us, and a larger God who embraces it, and praise breaks us through to that larger world, on the level of faith if not that of our emotions.

The specific praise of psalm 8 flows from apprehending the beauty and greatness of creation on the one hand, and the immense royal dignity given to human beings on the other hand. The human person as the master of the world, of all created things, given dominion and crowned with glory and honor—this is the great cause of our wonder and joy in this psalm.

Environmentalists have wrongly identified this strand of biblical theology with the subsequent destruction of the environment from the industrial revolution onwards. This is utterly illogical and deeply silly, since I do not think the normal course of being given stewardship over a thing is to wreck it and ruin it. Generally, we take care of things we are given responsibility for.

I also don’t think the architects of the industrial revolution and of modern heavy industry were much occupied with a spirit of deep piety and constant meditation upon Genesis 1. The general idea seems to have been to make as much money as possible, as quickly as possible, poisoning earth, air, water, and maiming and killing one’s own workers in that process. To lay all that at the feet of the biblical theology of creation is a stretch at best, a ludicrous calumny in fact.

Meanwhile, Psalm 8 is a fantastic celebration of human dignity precisely because creation is such a wonderful, marvellous thing, and God has paid us such a compliment in asking us to take care of it. And this psalm takes on a deeper resonance yet when prayed in the spirit of Jesus Christ.

Human dominion over creation has been elevated to a new height, the man Jesus of Nazareth seated on the very throne of heaven, and calling us to love creation the way He loves it, to have our small human love and care for the world suffused and transformed into a share in the divine cosmic tenderness and mercy for the whole universe.

There is much to ponder in all this, much to meditate on, and much profit to be had from praying Psalm 8 in the spirit of Christian faith. The whole relationship of human beings to God and to creation in a sense is found in this rather short psalm. So let us pray it, and in praying it lift our minds and hearts to this immense vision of life, and above all praise and thank God for having made all things so wondrous and well.