Author Archives: Saint Joseph's College Online Theology Faculty

Who Said This Was Going To Be Easy?

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Lenten discipline requires the reconsideration of our spiritual state.

Deacon Scott Dodge (a great blog to follow after the St Joseph’s College Theology blog!) provides a thoughtful connection between popular culture and classic Christian art, specifically Grunewald’s Isenheim altarpierce, here. Deacon Scott: “The failure of our own words, of our ability to comprehend and articulate the greatness, the height, length, and depth of love of God’s great love for us should drive us to God’s word.” He then quotes Romans 5:6-9, but I would rather reflect on today’s Gospel, Matthew 5:11-17:

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter
will pass from the law,
until all things have taken place.
Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do so
will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.
But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments
will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.”

Each of the four Gospels brings its own voice, comforts, and challenges to the story of Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Among Matthew’s many gifts (e.g., 16:18-20), I find most rewarding and provocative Chapter Five’s intensifications of the Jewish Law. Thou shall not murder? Well, even if you’re angry with somebody, stop what you’re doing and seek reconciliation. Thou shall not commit adultery? That’s not enough—do not even look another lustfully. So much for the nice, domesticated Jesus we like to tell ourselves we already resemble. No, in Matthew’s gospel Jesus holds us to a higher, not lower, standard. And this is the Word of God to which Lent inexorably drives us, not a Jesus who confirms our smugly-held opinions, nor a Jesus who simply ignores our sins. As G. K. Chesterton so aptly put it, “the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” Who said this was going to be easy?

Bernini from St Peters domeThe Lenten stereotype depicts the unwillingly ascetic Catholic wallowing in self-abnegation. I, though, found Deacon Scott’s words about God’s greatness reminded me of the Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968). Barth often stood quite opposed to Roman Catholic theology, even as he avidly read St. Augustine and St. Anselm (among others). Good Calvinist that he was, Barth began his theology with the absolute sovereignty of God. Mankind cannot save itself; only God can do that. Barth asserted God’s NO! to all human pretensions to religious agency and self-direction. The YES that comes in the Incarnation overcomes that negation, but, Barth believed, the NO still remained. That, in part, was made grace what it was—thoroughly unmerited.  While he spent far more time and ink lambasting fellow Protestants, Barth always considered standard Roman Catholic spirituality a target of that divine NO! Thus it is seems rather ironic that Wikiquote welds Barth’s famous words of YES and NO to…Gian-Lorenzo Bernini’s Holy Spirit stained-glass window gracing the western wall of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Gone are the days when I accepted prima facie everything Barth wrote. Deo gratias! However, occasionally a little Barth reinvigorates the theological project. Barth’s insistence on divine sovereignty resonates with the Gospel image of Jesus declaring the Law’s enduring presence. Not only that, but the NO! extends to our own teaching. Since the Law remains valid, we simply cannot invent what we want and disregard what we dislike. Knowledge of the Law implies teaching the whole Law. We can’t blunt the sharp edges to make it “nicer.” With his customary brevity and sharp insight, Father Robert Barron critiques this facile presumption that being Christian means being nice. Father Barron doesn’t mention Barth—he doesn’t need to—but the point remains: God calls us to something greater than merely being nice to each other.

While it wanders off to once-current issues, this post from my own blog addresses the same point through the lens of an Augustinian critique of American evangelical eschatology. It wasn’t until I had read St. Augustine that I began to understand my dislike for Protestant eschatologies: they were too easy and too self-assured. Chapter Five of Matthew’s gospel offers the initial, damning criticism: this will not be easier—quite frankly, it will be more difficult than before! That is a tough message to hear, which perhaps is why Christian history is filled with those seeking waivers. Christian theology is filled with so many false starts because of the failure to confront honestly today’s gospel: Jesus comes not to abolish, but to uphold, the Law which, by the way, remains very much in effect. It is to such stark reminders that Lent calls us.

Quite frankly, we don’t always start where we should. I started with St. Augustine, and then only later realized that St. Augustine himself points us all back to the Gospel (and thus the Gospels). And there we find both the negation of our human pretensions and yet simultaneously the reaffirmation of God’s love for us—in the same person, Jesus. So will the Way of Jesus be an easy ride? More than likely no—in fact, it can be quite bumpy and crooked. What was that about not abolishing? Yet Jesus also tells us: “I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). So it is not easy, but it will be worth it—and along the way we receive life itself.

Guest blogger Jeffrey Marlett blogs at Spiritual Diabetes.

The Feminine Genius

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mimosa Today, March 8, in many places around the world is celebrated as International Women’s Day.  I first learned this when I was living in Rome and at the end of Mass every woman leaving church was handed a sprig of yellow Mimosa flowers.  Ever since that day, I have marked International Women’s Day in some way. Today, I will give thanks for the many women throughout Church history who have been models of what St. John Paul II termed “the feminine genius.”

In his letter to women, (Mulieris Dignitatem) he spoke of the need for the Church to recognize and raise up the gifts of women both within the church and within society.  He addressed the sad part of church history in which the Church failed to protect and promote the dignity of women and to make full use of women’s gifts.  Since the publication of that letter in 1987, great strides have been made in opening up positions for women in all fields of theology, pastoral ministry, and diocesan leadership and in Catholic institutions. Pope Francis has spoken a number of times about creating new leadership roles for women at the Vatican.  With all the attention given to what the future might hold, we sometimes forget to honor our past.

The Church’s primary mission is to invite people to an encounter with Jesus Christ and to find new life in Christ, in and through Baptism and the sacramental life of the Church. In Baptism, we are called to holiness—to live out the fullness of the Gospel in our lives. At no time in the Church’s history did it make a distinction between men and women with regard to the universal call to holiness. In fact there is a long and rich history that in every age, the Church recognized women who lived the Christian life in a full and distinctive way. Beginning Mary Magdalene, often called the “Apostle to the Apostles” who was the first to announce the good news of Our Lord’s resurrection to the other Apostles and most recently St. Rosa Eluvathingal, an Indian Carmelite nun who was known to be a woman of deep prayer and a gift for intercession, the church and world has been enriched by the feminine genius of Catholic women. The United State is blessed with seven women saints who illustrate the tremendous contribution Catholic women have made to church and society.

Elizabeth Ann Seton, Mother Katherine Drexel, Kateri Tekakwitha, Marianne Cope, Frances Xavier Cabrini, Rose Philippine Duscheneand Thodore Guérin represent women who as educators, healers, social justice advocates, and faithful to Our Lord, even in the face of death, as in the case of Kateri, exemplify the feminine genius in a specifically Catholic and American expression. These women, like many of their sisters in faith from all parts of the world, were often first in their fields or lived in a time when the Church was the only place women served as college presidents, founders of hospitals and schools,statue reformers of their religious communities and advocates for those without a voice. Mother Catherine McAuley whose statue graces the lawn of St. Joseph’s College is a reminder of the contribution of women to Catholic education in the United States.

As we look forward to Pope Francis’s vision for expanding the role of women in the Church, let us also celebrate and remember that we follow in the footsteps of our sisters who were martyrs, mystics and missionaries, daughters of God and daughters of Mary, Our Mother, who as Pope Francis said “under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and with all the resources of her feminine genius…has not ceased to enter ever more into ‘all truth’” (Address to International Theological Commission, 2014).

Susan Timoney is the Assistant Secretary for Pastoral Ministry and Social Concerns for the Archdiocese of Washington and teaches spirituality for Saint Joseph’s College Online.