What is in a Prayer Anyway?

What does it mean to pray? How are believers even supposed to commune with the divine?

The Christian faithful are luckily not resigned to speculation about these topics. For prayer to be effective, four thing are required according to Fr. Guido de Monte Rochen. First, prayer must be made with "firmness of faith." Christ remarks "Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive” (Matthew 21:22) and "So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours" (Mark 11:24).We must genuinely believe in God, in our prayer, and His ability to hear it. The second criteria is "goodness of content". If the prayer is a petitionary prayer for example, it cannot be asking for something stupid (e.g. "I pray that a million dollars fall into my backyard", "I pray that my rival drops dead."); it has to be something useful. The third criteria is that the prayer is done with "devotion of soul."  It requires the fire of charity, which Aquinas defines as friendship with God (ST, II-II, q.23, a.1). Finally, prayer must be done in the name of God. You can't pray to Zeus or Muhammad to do something for you. You can only ask God. As Christ says, "If you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you" (John 16:23).

Thus, we have now acquired a framework for how to make prayer effective. Now, what about the words we should say? In the sixth chapter of Gospel of Matthew, Jesus shares both this and how to pray: 

“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 

"When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

“Pray then in this way:  

 

Our Father in heaven, 

hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Jesus remarks that prayer should be done intentionally with love for God. Prayer, furthermore, should not be vain repetitions of empty words. However, does this mean Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians are erring whenever they recite the rosary or some other formulaic prayers?

New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Pastor Steven Anderson on the Jesus Prayer and Sign of the Cross

Pastor Steven Anderson (video above) clearly does not see the benefit of formulaic prayers like the Jesus Prayer, seen as early as St. John Chrysostom in 407 AD. These prayers are too monotonous and simply empty phrases. However, Christ gave us a formulaic prayer in the Gospel of Matthew! How do we reconcile this? Christ remarks that prayer should not not be empty phrases, while simultaneously giving us exact phrases to say. The significance of the Lord's Prayer cannot be understated. While short, it covers everything necessary for both temporal life and eternal life (Handbook for Curates, 280). Fr. Guido goes phrase-by-phrase of the entire Lord's Prayer, breaking down just how significant it is. Each phrase carries a multitude of profound meanings. To be charitable to Pastor Anderson, I wonder how many of my Eastern Orthodox and Catholic brothers and sisters truly reflect over the profoundness of the words that they are saying when they pray the Our Father at Mass or with a rosary. "Our Father"—just the first two words—carry so much depth as Fr. Guido points out. Fr. Guido notes five meanings behind calling God Father: 1) by reason of care, 2) by reason of birth, 3) by reason of age, 4) by reason of honor, and 5) by reason of creation (Handbook for Curates, 280). First, God is our Father because he cares for us and everyone, as the Apostle Paul notes (1 Peter 5:7). Second, God brought about our birth into this world, which is echoed by the Apostle when he writes, "In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures" (James 1:18). Third, God has been around since the dawn of time itself. Fourth, God should be called Father because God deserves a unique type of reverence above the level of humans. Fifth, God is the creator of the world and each one of us. When we say "Our Father" in prayer, how often do we reflect over how significant that is? God is our Father! Do we even reflect over one of these meanings every time we pray? The analysis in this post only highlights the profoundness of the word "Father"; it does not even begin to tackle the meaning of the other phrases in this prayer. For example, this post does not even recount how significant it is to call God our Father. Not my Father, the Father, a Father, Christ's Father, he is our Father.

To be fair to my Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters, I think Pastor Anderson is entirely wrong in his mockery of formulaic prayers. Christ quite literally gave us the Lord's Prayer. However, it would be extremely beneficial for Christians that pray the Our Father to go a little bit slower next time. Say each line, each phrase, each word, intentionally. Don't just speed through the prayer with empty phrases. Fill the phrases with the fire of charity. Reflect over just how amazing this Prayer is. 

- Alejandro Ignacio

* For a deep line-by-line analysis on the profound meaning of the Lord's Prayer, read Guido of Monte Rochen's Handbook for Curates pages 280-293.

How to Read the Song of Songs

    If the Song of Songs can be a riddle to read, it is all the more so for preaching. On the one hand, it can be easy to teach, for its great beauty makes all students attracted to it. But, on the other hand, it can be most difficult to teach, for its great beauty can also lead to worldly distraction. It seems to me that Medieval Christians undertook to face this riddle -- and I wonder if we have something to learn from this. 

    The towering St. Bernard of Clairvaux certainly faced it. As one can see from his first sermon on the Song of Songs, Bernard was able to protect the Song of Songs’ beauty and refinement by clearly placing it in the whole of Solomonic literature. If one understands this part of Scripture in its unity, Bernard implies, the Song of Songs is no longer troubling. If one is prepared by Ecclesiastes, which turns one away from concupiscence, and the Proverbs, which turns one toward good conduct, there is no danger that a premature reading of the Song of Songs leads one astray. Most strikingly, Bernard also shows that the Song of Songs is not without the solid support of the other two “loaves” of Solomon is not an accident, but a design of the “artistry of the Spirit” that matches the order of personal experience with the order of wisdom. Every novice has the experience of bad and good conduct ready at hand, and knows the thanksgiving and joy that attends the conversion from bad to good, so that the two introductory “loaves” of Solomon are readily understandable. But the Song of Songs, on the other hand, is perplexing so that no one without the necessary preparation could understand it. This means that only the most hard-headed prejudice and presumption would claim to have understood the Song of Songs without a spiritual elevation. In other words, the Song of Songs will reveal itself only to those who have first seen Scripture as a whole and have meditated at length on it, and because of this, it cannot lead astray. 

    Of course, this way of Bernard’s of facing the riddle of the Song of Songs was done in the rarefied setting of monastic life. One might think, therefore, that his solution could not be widely available. But, against this thought, it seems to me that Guido of Monte Rochon’s Handbook for Curates bespeaks a similar, if modified, solution meant for the general believer. 

    In Guido of Monte Rochon’s Handbook for Curates the Song of Songs is alluded to only once. Only at the very end of the Handbook for Curates, in fact in its very last section before the author takes his leave, and only after laying out the sacraments, the author finally discusses the “gifts of the blessed,” or what is promised to those who maintain the commandments discussed before. It is in this context that Guido finally deems it worthy to bring in the Song of Songs. Like Bernard, Guido stresses the union with God described in the Song of Songs, as in the line “I held him and would not let him go,” and that this union is the last and most perfect gift of the blessed. What this seems to me to imply is that Guido, in the context of regular parishes, again like Bernard, recognizes that progress in faith is not only necessary, but led to by faith itself in order to appreciate the height and sublimity of the Song of Songs, which cannot but originally be an object of the greatest perplexity until and spiritual conversion and practice is maintained. 

    What these and many other readings in this course have led me to believe is that Medieval Christianity, expansive in every sense, presented believers with an integrity and comprehensiveness of vision in comparison with which our splintered civilization pales. We tend to specialize and get hung up where they saw whole vistas. That the Medieval Christians had a solution for the difficulties of the Song of Songs that worked by seeing it as a culmination of a whole preparation seems to me one of several important confirmations of this phenomenon. 

    If we read the Song of Songs without prejudice today, perhaps we can take in this lesson. I would suggest that our perplexity before the Song of Songs is not really different from the perplexity that Bernard of Clairvaux and Guido of Monte Rochon already had an answer for: one fails to see that the beauty of the Song of Songs lies in its being both a seeking an end of what is sought. It does not just rest at the end, but puts love, which is the active love of God, at the end. It imitates this, as Bernard notes, by using novel, striking, and intimate language that spurs us to appreciate the veil of its figurations.  In this way it prefigures Jesus as both “the way” and “the truth and the life.” One cannot, therefore, separate the Song of Songs from its place in the comprehensive whole of faith, for this would be to treat it as an end before the way, as if it did not itself, even from the darkness of night, call for an ever-renewed seeking and seeing! 

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth 

- LB

Improbability and Belief in the Nativity

    The events of the Nativity - indeed, many of the events described in the Bible - seem distinctly improbable, if not impossible.  An angel announcing the future birth of Jesus, a virgin conception, a holy man foretelling the baby’s fate; to many secular observers, these stories seem far-fetched.  It seems apparent to me, based on some past experiences and scriptural readings, that the improbability of these stories has long been acknowledged by Christians and believers in God as well.  However, this improbability or doubtfulness is not presented as a reason to reject belief in God, but rather as a reason to embrace it; indeed, the improbable is often transformed into the miraculous.  This tension fascinates me, and it is visible in many Christian texts pertaining to the subject.  

    One might consider the story of the birth of John the Baptist, which was roughly concurrent with the Nativity of Jesus.  Luke describes how Gabriel appeared to Zachary with the news that God was blessing him and his wife Elizabeth with a son.  Zachary had long prayed for a child, but he responded with disbelief; he believed that he and his wife were too old to conceive at this point.  However understandable Zachary’s doubt might have seemed, Gabriel chastised him for it, revoking his ability to speak during Elizabeth’s pregnancy (Luke 1:11 - 20). 

     Though Zachary was punished for his disbelief, his last words in the narrative would not be words of doubt.  After Elizabeth gave birth, she named the baby John, as God had decreed; however, their neighbors and kinsfolk believed that the couple should name him Zachary instead.  However, Zachary himself wrote that the boy would be named John.  At this point, God restored Zachary’s ability to speak; Zachary in turn praised God and gave a prophecy about John’s future role as the forerunner of Jesus (Luke 1:57 - 80).  Zachary regained his voice because he had regained his faith.  Though the circumstances of John's birth were unusual, Zachary had witnessed everything that Gabriel had described come to pass; as such, he had repented of his earlier doubts.  The implausible conception and birth of John the Baptist had become a sign of God’s power.

    Another example is visible within Advent Lyric II of the Exeter Book, which perfectly encapsulates the perception of the Nativity as both highly improbable and highly praiseworthy.   The author of the text deliberately describes the virgin conception and birth of Jesus as “an unknown happening in our history” (“The Exeter Book” 306), underscoring how unlikely and unusual it must have seemed to Medieval Christians.  However, this improbability does not cause the author to doubt the Nativity; on the contrary, the Nativity’s unlikeliness makes the event that much more glorious.  Mary was able to take on this exceedingly unique role because she herself possessed a worth “unmatched in the world”.  Likewise, the Nativity revealed the true “might and mystery of the Lord”, as only he was capable of making it come to pass (“The Exeter Book” 306).  The birth of Christ may have been unlikely, but this unlikeliness made it truly special.

    In addition to the stories of the Nativity, improbability is transformed into a reason to believe in other places in the Bible as well.  The story of Elijah’s duel with the prophets of Baal in front of a crowd of spectators comes to mind.  Both sides agreed to pray to their respective gods to light the bulls on their sacrificial altars on fire.  After the prophets of Baal failed, Elijah upped the ante.  He constructed his altar out of wood and stones and then poured enough water onto the altar to thoroughly drench it.  Elijah then prayed to God to give the people a sign, and God delivered: he sent down fire and completely disintegrated the meat, the altar (stones and all), and the water on the ground.  The spectators immediately fell and worshipped God, having been reminded of his abilities and powers (1 Kings 18:20-39).  If one had told them what they were going to see beforehand, they might not have believed it; nonetheless, they had just witnessed it.  Indeed, the highly unusual nature of the display would have driven home to the people exactly why they worshipped the God of Israel.  

    Within all of these texts, the doubtfulness of the events described is either explicitly (Luke and Advent Lyric II) or implicitly (1 Kings) acknowledged.  However, the fact that they come to pass makes them glorious; the unlikeliness of these happenings stops being a reason to doubt and becomes a reason to believe more fervently instead.  I have also personally experienced this phenomenon in which doubtfulness leads to belief.  

    Though I am not anymore, I used to be a pretty fervent Christian back in the day.  The phenomenon of incorruptibility, in which the bodies or body parts of certain saints do not completely decompose after their deaths, was one of the most alluring aspects of the faith for me.  I first learned about incorruptible saints over a decade ago when I visited the Holy Virgin Cathedral in San Francisco.  I saw the body of St. John Maximovitch, a Russian Orthodox bishop who was canonized after his death in 1966.  Surprisingly, his corpse seemed to be mostly intact. Though his hands were blackened and shriveled, they were not skeletal.  Much of the rest of his body, including his face, was covered by priestly vestments; still, it did not seem to be heavily damaged.  I knew that John had not been embalmed at all, and yet he had been found in this relatively well-preserved state a few decades after his death.  The whole spectacle was awe-inspiring to me, and I wondered how this was possible.

    I know now that there are many reasons why a body might appear to be incorrupt that do not seem to indicate divine intervention.  Corpses can take longer than usual to decompose when left in the correct microclimatic conditions, which are found in certain sealed tombs; conversely, if those conditions are disturbed, the bodies might decay as normal.  Moreover, bodies that have been found in an incorrupt state are often subsequently given treatments by the church to further preserve them; for example, St. Paula Frassinetti’s body was treated with carbolic acid.  For these reasons, the Catholic Church no longer recognizes incorruptibility as a miracle for the purposes of canonization (“Photographing the Incorrupt Bodies of Real Saints”).  

    Still, even with this knowledge, incorruptibility inspires awe (at least for me).  The lack of complete decay seems to contravene much of what we know happens to the body after death.  These bodies were not mummified (at least before their discovery), and yet they remained preserved for decades or even centuries before they were found.  Incorruptibility is a seemingly unlikely state of being, and yet we have documentation of many bodies being found in this state.  Moreover, there is the fact that these bodies in particular belonged to people who were deemed to have lived holy lives.  Though there are natural explanations for incorruptibility, it can still seem miraculous because of this confluence of coincidences.  I can see how a believer would interpret this phenomenon as God intervening to preserve the bodies of his saints, in part because I once saw it this way.  As with the Nativity, then, the seeming improbability of incorruptibility need not weaken faith; on the contrary, it could very well amplify it. 

-WJC

Outside sources:

1. Harper, Elizabeth. “Photographing the Real Bodies of Incorrupt Saints.” Slate, 14 August 2015, https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/08/photographing-the-real-bodies-of-incorrupt-saints.html.  

The Problem with Making Mary Relatable

I will confess that during this quarter I have struggled to engage with the material, the mythology, at face value. In the deconstructive process of my youth I believe I so thoroughly removed myself from Christianity than any sense of shock or awe from the theology itself has become very difficult to achieve -- I have spent these past few weeks attempting to transpose much of the Christian mythological components into other types of mythology, mythology not burdened by a supposition of truth in the present -- to replicate what I imagine feeling the "stakes" of Christianity would be like. This all changed with the understanding of Mary.

Mary has always seemed to me a random, weak link in Christian theology. If God -- or, as we have now more specifically discussed, the Son -- was the Creator, why could he not appear on Earth by his own doing, without involving a human in the matter? I think attempts to humanize Mary, Jesus, and other biblical figures have in this regard been counterintuitive. They undermine the (for lack of a better word) world-building elements that make this mythology so compelling. 

The idea of Mary as the New Ark, makes perfect sense and so neatly explains the rest of the mythology - the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Crucifixion. And yet most of all, it feels larger-than-life. It feels much more similar to ancient mythologies or those described in fantasy novels, and particularly, more like a continuation of the Old Testament than if these greater implications were not present. To me, the symbolic abstraction of Mary as the Ark, and Jesus as the literal incarnation of the Word from the Tablets is far more believable as the basis for a religion precisely because it is so unreal.

As a student of Art History, I have spent much time looking at medieval art, Christian art, and just as the Middle Ages have been framed to me by professors as a "period of time attempting to recover all that was lost with the fall of Rome" leading into the Renaissance, art has always appeared to follow the same course. I find it very amusing when my friends come with me to museums and laugh at the un-human looking figures in medieval paintings. Their laughs are often accompanied by self-deprecating remarks or commentary on the artist's skill and the primitivity of the Middle Ages. The instinct is understandable, but what they do not know is that this was (for the most part) deliberate. Late antique and early Christian art specifically sought to abstract their figural representations to emphasize how unlike the average man the saints and biblical figures were. They were a material testament to their reality, but a safeguard against excessive familiarity. 

I see the popular distinction between the New Testament and Old Testament (particularly in the idea that their Gods are distinctively different) not unlike the "rift" between medieval and Renaissance art; the idea that one is more natural and good while the other is crude and harsh and untamed. I am by no means an expert on New and Old Testament theology or their intersections, but they have always seemed distinct from each other to me. Mary helps bridge this gap. 

The way Mary is popularly described, at least in modern Christianity, seems very naive and passive. I was struck in reading St Anselm's Prayers to St Mary by the more serious undertones that lend a different dimension to the effusive praise bestowed on her. 

While he does praise Mary to a degree that numbs its own effect, all of this praise is qualified, in a way that grants Mary authority and qualities beyond her virtues. Anselm refers to her as "holy Mary," "most gentle [...] kind [...] dear Lady" (I.80-85), the "most blessed of all Marys" (III.2), and marvels at her "unparalleled virginity" (III.99) in a way that seems not dissimilar to modern representations of Mary. Yet he also begs her: "surely you will not forget in hatred of me / what you so mercifully brought into the world, / so happily revealed and lovingly embraced? [...] how can the mother of God not care / when the lost cry to her?" (III.40-46). It feels odd to suggest that in the midst of a beautifully written, meditative prayer there are elements of resentment and accusation, but thus was my initial impression, only compounded by Anselm's representation of the relationship, to an ordinary Christian, between God and Mary:

"Who can reconcile me to the son if the mother is my enemy? [...] 
So the accused flees from the just God / to the good mother of the merciful God.
The accused finds refuge from the mother he has offended
in the good son of the kind mother" (III.78-86).

Mary is not just an intercessor, but an agent capable of anger, enmity, and offense, very similar to God. The explanation for this is only possible through her incarnation as the Ark -- not just as a servant of God but as an agent and a protector as well. The fear (although perhaps that is too strong a word) of her is not due to her actions and personality, but due to the conditions of her existence; she retains a larger-than-life quality that inspires belief and all that comes with it.

Mary's humanization speaks, to me, of a form of demythologizing. In making her too human-like (although still idealized), whether in art or in her reduction to a perfect woman and servant of God, she loses her power, and Christianity loses its mystery.

- clmr

The Blessed Virgin: Our New and Improved Ark of the Covenant

In the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans, the apostle declares that “the law of the spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, hath delivered me from the law of sin and of death” (8:2). The “law of sin and of death” was the Old Covenant between God and the Israelites, which found physical embodiment in the Ark of the Covenant. A box “of setim wood” overlaid “with the purest gold within and without” (Exodus 25:10–11), the physical Ark contains the cornerstone of the law (the stone copy of the Ten Commandments that God handed down to Moses), the rod of priestly authority that allowed for the law’s execution, and manna (Hebrews 9:5).* God’s pact with the Israelites was that, if they followed the letter of His law and made sin offerings when they erred, they would enjoy His favor (Exodus 19:3–6). Conversely, “the law of the spirit of life” is the promise that we will enjoy eternal life through belief in and submission to Jesus Christ, the bodily manifestation of the Word that “was in the beginning with God” (John 1:2). The Blessed Virgin Mary is, under the New Covenant, the new and improved Ark of the Covenant: “the sacred, living ark, which carried within itself the One who fashioned it” (Golden Legend, p. 93). Because Mary said “be it done to me according to thy word” when the angel Gabriel told her that she would bring Jesus Christ into the world (Luke 1:38), she came to contain the means for the execution of God’s law, as had the physical Ark of the Covenant. However, Mary is the New Covenant’s new and improved Ark because, in three respects, she allows for direct intermediation between God’s law and mankind.

Mary’s assumption to Heaven, the only place suitable for our new and improved Ark.

First and foremost, by agreeing to carry the Son of God, Mary gave the Word flesh and blood. “[T]hrough the love and operation of the Holy Spirit,” writes Hugh of St. Victor, “nature provided the substance for the divine fetus from the flesh of the virgin” (On the Sacraments, p. 229). Mary’s fateful decision allowed mankind to interact with their Creator. As Professor Rachel Fulton Brown writes, “Without Mary, God would have remained invisible, ‘Father of all created things,’ yet still ‘only ruling invisibly over them all’” (Mary and the Art of Prayer, p. 74). Mary’s willingness to bear Christ also made possible the New Covenant. After all, it was only upon His embodiment that He could sacrifice Himself so that those who believe in Him—and repent for their sins under the moral law—might enjoy eternal life: Elsewhere, Fulton Brown quotes an Ave’s declaration that, through Mary, “the fruit of salvation becomes sweet and grows” (p. 87). Mary’s acceptance of her impregnation by the Holy Ghost allowed mankind a bridge between the tangible physical sphere and the celestial sphere, which would have otherwise been invisible to us on Earth. This is infinitely better than the physical Ark of the Covenant, which contains cold, lifeless law and the rod that gave priestly authority the right to execute it.

Second, whereas the four walls of the physical Ark merely protect its contents, Mary serves as an active intercessor between the rest of mankind and Jesus Christ, allowing us to better relate to Him. She served this function on Earth and continues to do so in Heaven. As for the former, the Bible features Mary intermediating between her Son and the waiters at the wedding in Cana. “Whatsoever he shall say to you,” she told them, “do ye” (John 2:5). From Heaven, Mary receives the prayers of people on Earth and communicates them to her Son. Saint Anselm writes, “Most gentle Lady, whose intercession should I implore when I am troubled with horror, and shake with fear, but hers, whose womb embraced the reconciliation of the world?” (Prayers and Meditations, p. 110). Elsewhere, Anselm adds, “The good mother prays and beseeches for us, she asks and pleads that [Jesus Christ] may hear us favourably” (p. 123). Conrad of Saxony sounded the much same theme, calling Mary “an abyss in goodness and deepest mercy; whence she obtains for us the mercy of her son” (quoted in Art of Prayer, p. 83). The Blessed Virgin is able to serve this intercessory function because she is, like man, not divine, even while unambiguously being Jesus Christ’s closest relation among mortals. Thus, she serves as a bridge between lesser mortals and the divinity that she was not.

Third, the Blessed Virgin serves as “the armour of God,” giving people the means by which they can “stand against the deceits of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11) and satisfy their obligations under “the law of the spirit of life” (Romans 8:2). Marian legends offer bountiful examples of her protecting and saving believers from the forces of darkness. For instance, she freed Theophilus from a covenant he made with Satan to “deliver up his soul to hell in exchange” for “the glory of the world,” returning to Theophilus the parchment on which he and Satan had drawn up their pact (Religious Art in France, pp. 260–61). In exchange, Mary compelled Theophilus to “renounce the devil” and “confess his faith in her and in Christ, the Son of God, and in the whole Christian doctrine” (Golden Legend, p. 157). Another story recounts how a knight agreed to hand his wife over to Satan in exchange for precious metals and stones, only for Mary to intervene and instruct Satan to “never again dare to do injury to anyone who invokes me with devotion” (quoted in Golden Legend, p. 118). The active spiritual protection that Mary affords believers is a contrast to the physical Ark, which statically contained the protocol by which we were damned under the law of sin and death.

In accordance with God’s command in the Book of Exodus, the Israelites held the Ark of the Covenant in great regard, centering it within the Holy of Holies behind a veil. So sacred was the Holy of Holies that it was entered by “the high priest alone, once a year: not without blood, which he offereth for his own, and the people’s ignorance” (Hebrews 9:7). Under the New Covenant, access to God and redemption is a possibility for anyone, with the Catholic Church making His doctrine digestible for the masses (Matthew 16:18–19). But, just as Israelites paid homage to the physical Ark of Covenant under the Old Covenant, Christians should pay devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, our new and improved Ark of the Covenant. It is because she bore Jesus Christ that, to quote Saint Bernard, “all captives receive redemption, the sick receive healing, the sorrowful consolation, sinners forgiveness, the righteous grace, the angels joy, and . . . the Son of man the substance of human flesh” (quoted in Golden Legend, p. 51). Thus, Christians should heed Richard of Saint-Laurent and “serve [Mary] not only in their hearts, but also with all of their bodily members and all of their senses” (Art of Prayer, p. 58).

After all, “heaven is more worthy than earth to guard so precious a treasure” (Golden Legend, p. 96).

— DMH

* See Saint Bede’s On the Tabernacle for a description of how these contents prefigure Jesus Christ.

Believing but Still Not Fully Understanding

Yesterday's discussion was particularly enlightening because the mysteries of the Incarnate Word reminded me so vividly of St. Anselm's Proslogion, specifically his notion of understanding God:

   "I do not seek to understand so that I may believe, but I believe so that I may understand; and what is more, I believe that unless I do believe I shall not understand." [1].

Perhaps the Prosologion resonated because of my atheist upbringing. I felt like I have gained new levels of understanding while becoming more rooted in the Christian faith. Thus, I think there are multiple distinguishable levels of "understanding" the Incarnate Word, and I shall roughly define them. Note that this is based on my own experience and my own journey in faith.

Level 0: Jesus was an innocent man who died on the cross under false charges. 

This was what I first took as the core of Christianity whenever I went with my friends to church. There is no God in the picture—only Jesus as a morally righteous teacher and man who was free from sin. It takes seriously the parts of the Gospels that depict the "many [who] bore false witness against [Jesus]" even as Pontius Pilate asked what evil he had done. [2].

It takes less seriously the idea that God sent Jesus, the Son, to die on the cross. Jesus was just some innocent, good man and the divine aspect is just some flowery, metaphorical tale that defies human biology.

Now, one can stop at the above or seriously weigh parts of the Gospels that depict the divinity of Jesus having been sent by the Father. Take John, for example: "The next day, John saw Jesus coming to him, and he saith: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world." [3]. This leads to what I will call "Level 1," where belief in the divinity of God having sent his only Son to die for man's sins begins.

Level 1: God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for man’s sins. 

Jesus is no longer just some nice man. He is our Savior who God, our Creator, sent on earth to atone for humanity's sins. Man is forgiven for his trespasses as Jesus who, blessed by the Lord, obeyed God and gave up his fleshly life.

Personally, I think this answer would have satisfied me temporarily after becoming Christian. After all, this was what I learned at almost every Sunday service. The only difference was that now I believed Jesus to be divine, coming to earth to save man, and ascending to Heaven after commissioning his disciples to spread the Gospel.

Needless to say, this is where the Prosologion idea of believing in order to understand really kicked in for me. If I believed in God and he was so powerful enough to send the Son to save his creation, why did he do it this way? If God is almighty and powerful, why go through the pain of sending his own son to die? This was a question touched upon in Tuesday's discussion. It immediately makes me think of Romans:

"For why did Christ, when as yet we were weak, according to the time, die for the ungodly? For scarce for a just man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man some one would dare to die." [4].

As asserted by Professor Fulton Brown’s paper, Anselm differed from Peter in that “Peter attempted to take the burden of payment upon his own body” whereas Anselm insisted that “recompense. . . was a weight only Christ could bear; and his sacrifice for humanity was, correspondingly, a debt that could never be repaid.” [5].

The underlying logic of this is more important. God cannot “absolve sin” incurred because it would violate his notion of justness. Sins, being acts of evil, must be rightfully punished. Man’s sinful nature, stemming all the way back to Adam, is an infinite debt that is unpayable by man himself. Thus, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, his dwelling upon men, and his ultimate death were the only way in which such debts were justly paid off. He could only do so because he was born a man free of sin. As described in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, “he who knew no sin, he hath made sin for us, that we might be made the justice of God in him.” [6]. 

Anselm’s work reflects a clear knowledge of these implications. He knew his own debt as a sinner was unpayable and subject to the mercy of God. It is only if one accepts this complex layer of understanding such that Anselm’s language of “continually mourning,” the “horrible chaos of hell,” and “the wrath of the judge” makes sense. [7]. He was lamenting of a debt he could never pay in his lifetime.

Thus, Anselm, like Paul before him, thanked God for his mercy. Paul writes, “But God commandeth his charity towards us,” while Anselm writes, “yet my soul will pay its debt by some sort of praise and thanks, not as I know I ought, but as I can.” [8].

Hence, Level 2.

Level 2: God sent his only Son—who is free of sin—to die on the cross, taking on the sin of man. It was necessarily done so because the justice of God requires an equal payment for the debt incurred by man’s sin and utterly unpayable by man himself.

The story certainly does not end there. The understanding of the Incarnate Word fundamentally changes once one accepts the Holy Trinity. To me, this is where the mysterious, marvelous element of the Incarnate Word reveals itself: if God, being three-in-one, created the world and then “sent his Son” to die in order to recompense for his creation’s sins, does that not amount to him entering his own creation to die for his own creation? Who even is “his Son?”

This is where, I think, Hugh of St. Victor comes in with his more metaphysical analysis. There were parts that I found compelling, especially his Aristotelian-like analysis of distinguishing the flesh and the soul of Christ. However, other parts were less satisfactory, such as his analysis of the Mary’s holy conception: “Therefore, Mary conceived of the Holy Spirit . . . because through the love and operation of the Holy Spirit nature provided the substance for the divine fetus. . .” [9].

Perhaps, I am just stuck at Level 3—attempting with human-level intelligence to comprehend divine metaphysics. Nonetheless, I can try describing it.

Level 3: God—being the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—entered his own creation to take on its sins, was rejected by his own creation, and “died” on the cross to pay the debt incurred by the sins of his own creation.

Hugh recognizes this sheer complexity: “If you do not understand, nevertheless believe. It can be believed, if it cannot be understood.” [10]. The beauty of this is that it circles back to Anselm. Perhaps we may be forever stuck at Level 3. But we needed to believe to begin with in order to get there.

Level 4: ??? 

—PJZ

Sources:

1. St. Anselm of Canterbury, The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm with the Proslogion, trans. Benedicta Ward (Middlesex, U.K.: Penguin Books, 1973), 244.

2. Mark 15-16 (DRV).

3. John 1:29.

4. Romans 5:6-7.

5. Rachel Fulton Brown, From Judgement to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-1200 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 176.

6. 2 Corinthians 5:21.

7. St. Anselm, 223.

8. St. Anselm, 93.

9. Hugh of St. Victor, On the Sacraments of Christian Faith, trans. Roy J. Deferarri (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1951), 229.

10. Ibid., 10. 

Question and Answer, Mystery and Miracle

It seems to me that to most people who sit on the fence between (nominal) Christianity and secularism, Christmas – the celebration of the Nativity – is the tightest tether to a religious dimension. Under the umbrella of "Christmas and Easter" churchgoers, I think, the latter is far rarer than the first. In my family, this is not quite the case. It has been many years since we have celebrated Easter, and many since we have celebrated Christmas "properly" (it is almost completely out of family obligation). And yet the one relic of religious observance that has kept its hold is Advent. 

My brother has often asked my parents why we still celebrate Advent. The most obvious answer is some type of cultural entrenchment and nostalgia – I remember going to the Weinachtsmärkte in Berlin as a child, learning the German carols that my family still sings every year. At my Catholic high school, every December, the priest would talk about Advent as a season of "anticipation" and meditation, Advent's importance predicated entirely on the inevitable coming of Christmas just as Lent was on Easter's. This never quite resonated with me: all the anticipation I felt was for Advent itself, so that by the time it was over, Christmas felt underwhelming, almost like an afterthought. 

Of course, I will not pretend that this is remotely akin to how I see my religious friends, peers, and family members experience the same season. And yet I wonder – how does the sense of prophecy, the repeated anticipation with promise of reward actually influence that period of waiting and reflection, the chance to meditate on change?

From the Old Testament onwards, waiting is a constant: waiting through the famine ("for it is two years since the famine began to be upon the land, and five years more remain," Genesis 45:6), waiting in the desert ("and the children of Israel ate manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land," Exodus 16:35). 

From a Christian perspective, it sets up a growing need, suspense, that is then so conveniently answered by the New Testament. This is, of course precisely the point: to offer an answer, to make sense of the questions. Matthew and Luke's gospels both begin with a detailing of Jesus' lineage. "All the generations, from Abraham to David, [...] from David to the transmigration of Babylon, [...] from the transmigration of Babylon to Christ" (Matthew 1:17) have been building up to the nativity, and the nativity gives them meaning.

Ironically, neither of the gospels that depict the nativity provide many details of the time immediately before it. There is very little about Mary (although Luke does describe the Visitation), very little drama in the leading up to this event that is so foundational to everything that follows from it, and the "anchor" in the Christian cyclical calendar, as we discussed in class. 

Although I did not much resonate with what my high school priest said about advent, I did like to humor him by imagining myself "in the story." While I was never part of a Christmas play as a child, I had many friends who were, and my understanding was that there was much more emphasis on the experience of those at the nativity than the gospels directly provide. The "first advent" (if one could call it that), was much more predicated on uncertainty and fear than what Advent evokes in the mind now – reflection mitigated by certainty and stability, not equal to the earth-shattering importance of the nativity. 

The Advent Lyrics of Exeter Book, and the York Mystery Plays provide a somewhat more "pure" insight into this idea of the "mystery," and yet still don't quite manage to replicate that which I imagine was critical to the actual experience of it: the uncertainty. One does not quite feel what is at stake. Expressions of lament are followed too closely by faith in salvation: "but we live in a world of rubble and wreckage. / Now we need our Creator, our Craftsman and King, / to [...] rescue the weary" (Lyric I 15-21).

I suppose what I mean to express is that the "mystery" and the "miracle" appear somewhat muddled. Joseph's confusion and dilemma in the Pewterer's and Founder's Joseph's Trouble About Mary didn't seem to me to be slanderous but appeared truly genuine. As Dorothy Sayers put it, "the dogma is the drama." 

One of my high school religion teachers liked to say that believing in Christianity fully is not meant to be easy, nor is it meant to fit neatly into one's mindset. The challenge of belief, the challenge of testing oneself against what one would like to believe, is far more important that prompt acceptance of those beliefs. Joseph seems to exemplify that. If he did not wrestle with his distrust, his fear, the uncertainty of what was to come, his ultimate acceptance would not have mattered nearly as much. 

Perhaps it is ironic for me to say all of this when I myself do not believe in it, and am thus not in a position to judge how others come to their faith – but I think of how I approach Advent: as a period not defined by a certain end, somewhat more of a secular meditation that happens to coincide with a Church tradition. But its value comes from the time spent in it, not knowing what is to come. I imagine the importance of the "mystery" and "miracle" components of the nativity came about in much the same way: because although the nativity was an answer to many questions, to many years of waiting, it did not end the conversation.

- clmr

O Come, All Ye Faithful

 This was one of the Christmas carols my high school chamber choir performed in our annual madrigal concert, welcoming the advent of Christ Jesus. The entire concert is a two- or so-hour long venue, featuring plenty of cheers (and wassail). The performance opens with Silent Night as the performers walk in and settle, greeting the guests. Soon after, groups of students perform prepared skits to open every carol sung—some historically informed, others more comical. The larger scene, nonetheless, is one festively honoring the Holy Nativity.

The author (left) in the 2019 madrigal concert celebrating the advent of Jesus Christ.

Yet, the elephant in the room remains. Why is everyone dressed up in these ridiculous outfits, and why are they trying to pull off exaggerated, English accents? Yet, nobody in the audience is gawking or giggling over such sight; instead, they are enamored by the story.

By bringing up my high school memory of performing in this choir, I attempt to make an analogy of how more modern historians view both the medieval visual and performing arts’ depiction of the Holy Nativity (at least, according to our readings). As Rudolf Bultmann asserts, for example, the mystery of the Gospels is now futile—an antiquated view that is “pointless because there is nothing specifically Christian about the mythical world picture,” and “impossible because no one can appropriate a world picture of a time now past that was not yet formed by scientific thinking.” [1].

In this sense, I think of Bultmann as a less extreme version of Thomas Jefferson, who labored to cut off all miracles in his Bible as he found it incompatible with a rationalist view of the world. While Bultmann does not go as far as Jefferson in personally rejecting the notion of the sublime, he thinks it infeasible to imagine the same Heaven and Hell, spirits and demons as our medieval predecessors did. If someone thinking like Bultmann entered our concert, I am sure they would chastise our skits being made up by the contriving minds of bored seventeen-year-olds and that half of our carol selection not actually existing in the medieval period. 

From the outsider point of view, that is true. Perhaps, substantively, the skits are superficial, maybe even arbitrary. Silent Night did not exist before the 19^th century. But is that criticism really getting at the point?

The same criticism can be used against elements of the York Mystery Plays, the Exeter Book, and the French iconography cited by Emile Mâle. In “Joseph’s Trouble about Mary,” the play fixates upon Joseph’s utter disbelief of Mary’s virginal pregnancy:

“God’s sand? Yah, Mary, God help!

But certes that child was never ours two.

But woman-kind if them list help,

Yet would they no man wist their woe.” [2].

The audience stands in Joseph’s place, bewildered and undoubtedly puzzled by such miracle. Matthew’s Gospel, however, tells a much simpler story without emphasis on the mystery: “Whereupon Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing publicly to expose her, was minded to put her away privately.” [3]. Even Advent Lyric VII in the Exeter Book tells much more vivid tale than Matthew ever did, speaking on how Joseph found the “wicked conception. . . the source of [his] shame” and that it “has been nothing but trouble.” [4]. Here, it is the maiden Mary herself that tells Joseph of the mystery. Yet, Matthew 1:20 clearly notes the “angel of the Lord appear[ing] to [Joseph] in his sleep” and informing him of the birth of Christ. [5]. Luke’s Gospel does not even tell of Joseph’s struggle.

I think an implicit suggestion Mâle’s work advances is that the medievals had a better sense of the “bigger picture” of the Gospels, including the Holy Nativity. He asserts that “if the life of Christ be divided into three parts—the childhood, the public life, and the passion—it becomes evident that the first and last alone have been represented with any wealth of detail.” [5]. The iconography did not seem to care too much about Jesus’ daily life. When reading the Advent Lyrics and the York plays with this framework in mind, I think things make more sense. The public life of Jesus Christ mattered much less than more significant, theological events like the Nativity and the Passion. Clearly, it was significant enough such that their liturgical calendar was fundamentally structured off this.

Stained glasswork at the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris depicting the Nativity.

The medievals, feeling much less constrained than their Puritan successors, wrote liberally and without a “textualist” restraint. Take the more reflective Advent Lyric VIII, for example, pondering upon the eternal coexistence of the Father and the Son:

“There is no one so wise,

No sage so skilled under earthly skies,

No riddle-unraveler who can solve for us

How heaven’s guardian gathered himself

Into the spirit and flesh of his own Son.” [6].

This bewilderment is not found in Matthew nor Luke. Matthew’s Gospel simply tells the narrative of Joseph obeying angel Gabriel and taking Mary as his wife while birthing Jesus Christ. Luke’s Gospel also does not mention this mystery of a coeternal Father and Son. The medievals, much more than the later Puritans and certainly the modern thinker, willingly immersed themselves into such mystery. They were not afraid to be dazzled by them, nor be handicapped by the pure historicity of every granular detail of the Gospel.

In fact, the medieval Christian fully understood that strict, “textualist” interpretations of the four Gospels risk losing out on the bigger picture. John’s Gospel made this exceedingly clear:

“Many other signs also did Jesus in the sight of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God: and that believing, you may have life in his name.” [7].

John’s verses remind us of our utter subservience under the eyes of God—the one who humbled himself by becoming part of his creation. Bede’s note of the writing of the Bible being guided by the Holy Spirit reminds us further that it is already remarkable that God has chosen to communicate with us through scripture (or, as a previous blog post eloquently pointed out, the biblical “tabernacle”).

“O Come Let Us Adore Him, Christ, the Lord!”

I thus circle back to my high school madrigal concert. What does it have to do with what I discussed immediately above? The point of the concert is, like the iconography, York plays, and Book of Exeter, not to recreate such scenes of medieval Advent worship one-for-one; we are twenty-first-century high schoolers dressed up in funny outfits pulling off ridiculous “English” accents. Instead, the point is to celebrate the advent of Jesus Christ—the coming of the Son of God. The historicity of the performance, though not completely irrelevant, is still ancillary.

Similarly, the medievals recognized that there was nothing heretical about putting theological considerations ahead of historical ones. No one denies that there are elements that may not have completely lined up with the “historical” Gospel. But the importance is, as John said, to immerse the reader into the story of the Gospel and demonstrate that Jesus is the Son of God.

—PJZ

Sources:

1.     Rudolf Bultmann, “New Testament and Mythology (1941),” New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 3.

2.     “Joseph’s Trouble about Mary,” York Mystery Plays, ed. Richard Beadle and Pamela King (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 56.

3.     Matthew 1:19 (DRV).

4.     The Exeter Book: Advent Lyric VII, The Complete Old English Poems, trans. Craig Williamson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 313-15.

5.     Emile Mâle, The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century (1958) (New York: Routledge, 2018), 177.

6.     The Exeter Book: Advent Lyric VIII, 315-17.

7.     John 20:30-31 (DRV).

Respect the Foster Father of Christ

“The Church admires the simplicity and the depth of [St. Joseph's] faith.” – St. Pope John Paul II

    Last year, I had the opportunity to participate in a consecration to St. Joseph. While devotion to Saint Joseph is not a modern invention—St. John of the Cross in the 16th century admitted he lacked sufficient knowledge of the greatest of St. Joseph—it is admittedly a newer theological study (Consecration to St. Joseph, page 1). Josephology really took off about 150 years ago, when Pope Pius IX proclaimed Saint Joseph "Patron of the Universal Church." Since then, a deeper appreciation for St. Joseph and more study into the role he had in the Holy Family has occurred. While I knew that Josephology is a relatively modern field, I was frankly shocked with how the Pewterers' and Founders' Guilds represent the saint in their play during Middle Ages England.

    Before we can examine the accuracy of this medieval depiction of St. Joseph, it is prudent to refer to Sacred Scripture first. St. Joseph is very much a "background character" in the Gospels, instead choosing to elevate his foster Son and wife instead. What we know about Joseph's attitude during the build-up to the Nativity is found in Chapter 1 of the Gospel of Mark:

The Birth of Jesus the Messiah

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

Essentially, St. Joseph's qualities and actions can be simplified into the following:

1) He is a righteous man.

2) He planned to "dismiss" Mary "quietly" so she would not be "expose[d] to public disgrace].

3) After receiving an apparition from an angel confirming the Incarnation of Jesus through the Virgin Mary and being told to "not be afraid to take Mary as [his] wife", Joseph does as the angel commanded by taking Mary as his wife and not having marital relations with her.

    In the play "Joseph's Trouble about Mary", only point 3 is satisfied. St. Joseph does receive an apparition from an angel at the end of the play confirming that Mary's child was divinely conceived, and that Joseph should not leave her. However, before the angel's apparition, Joseph was anything but righteous. He threatens Mary that if she is not honest about how she is pregnant, she will have to 'pay the price' (line 111). This is neither the action of a righteous man nor a man who wanted to dismiss Mary quietly. Instead, Joseph is written in as a comedic character to create tension in the play. A righteous man—even when perceivably cheated on—would not immediately call his betrothed a wench and a liar, nor would he joke that a human tricked Mary by disguising himself as an angel. 

    The Advent Lyrics, found in the Exeter Book (dated to around the 10th century) paints a somewhat better picture of St. Joseph, but not my ideal. Specifically, Advent Lyric VII is a conversation Joseph and Mary, where Joseph doubts Mary's virginity. His response to Mary reads:

This wicked conception is the source of my shame. / This pregnancy has been nothing but trouble. / How can I battle slander, struggle with woe? / How can I answer my endless enemies? / Their hateful words are like daggers in my heart. / Everyone knows that I gladly received / From the temple of God a clean maiden, / Pure and unstained. Yet now this is undone, / Your virtue unmade in some unknown way. / It does me no good to speak or keep silent. If I speak the truth, then the daughter of David / Must suffer the law—death by stoning. / If I keep silent, concealing the crime, / Then I am bound to bear the burden / Of whispered perjury and malicious scorn, / Loathed by everyone, accused by all.

    This story does not cover point 3, which isn't the most blatant offense. Even though Scripture does not record a conversation between Joseph and Mary before Joseph changes his mind, it also does not discredit the possibility of it occurring. Thus, the angelic apparition could have just occurred after this scene. Point 2 is satisfied as well; the Joseph of the poem accurately recounts the internal dilemma he is facing. If he reveals Mary's 'infidelity', she could be stoned to death. If he stays with Mary, he, Mary, and their child would be the subject of non-stop gossip.  In his lament, he clearly expresses that he does not want Mary to die, unlike the Joseph of the play who threatens Mary for a confession. Furthermore, he does not necessarily doubt or blame Mary throughout the poem. Instead, Joseph grieves over the shame and abuse he has suffered and would continue to suffer. But are these the actions of a righteous man?

Saint Joseph. Francesco Grandi. Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccorso - Ossuccio, Italy.

    There are three theories behind why St. Joseph wanted to "dismiss [Mary] quietly", which have all been held by various saints of scholars.

1. St. Joseph suspected Mary of having committed adultery and wants to receive a divorce. According to Jewish law, he would need to stone her. Because he is just, he does not want to stone her and wants to divorce her quietly.
2. St. Joseph is perplexed by Mary's pregnancy. He doesn't doubt Mary's innocence, but he has no idea how she got pregnant and what he should do. He decides to divorce her quietly.
3. St. Joseph is fully aware that Mary is pregnant and how she got pregnant. He does not doubt her innocence and purity, but, as a just man, he knows that Mary belongs to God. He feels himself unworthy to be the human father of Jesus Christ out of respect and love for both God and Mary.

The Church has never objectively said which of these three theories is 'the truth', and reasonable defenses could perhaps be made for both. But isn't the third one so inspiring? In the Litany to St. Joseph, he is invoked as the "Pillar of Families" and "Glory of Family Life." Would this be the same that wants to divorce the pure Virgin Mary, greatest of all saints? God chose Mary specifically to be the mother of Christ. Why would God not have chosen Joseph as well? Jesus would spend almost his entire life being raised by both Mary and Joseph; why would the latter not have been a role model as well?

    I personally believe that the third theory makes the most sense, but the Church opens room for any of these three interpretations. However, there is a sharp contrast between theory 1 and what the play depicted. No righteous man would call the Virgin Mary a wretch, and what he threatened was definitely not dismissing them quietly. Plays do not need to be entirely accurate to their source material, especially if the goal is just to convey the underlying moral lesson, like we talked about in class. However, I truly think this play does more harm than good in its depiction of the Spouse of the Mother of God.

- Alejandro Ignacio