Sacred Liturgy as a Source of Trinitarian Doctrine in the Early Church

Though we live in an age when few points of doctrine are completely safe from the ravages of “dialogue” and “further study,” one doesn’t hear much argument about the nature of the Blessed Trinity these days. Though this is surely a sign of the generalized postmodern indifference to things metaphysical, interest in Trinitarian theology, at least in the West, started waning long ago.

The modes of thought that predominated during the eighteenth century were hostile to “irrelevant” doctrinal details that had no bearing on the utopian society soon to be ushered in by scientists and secular philosophers. This trend continued into the nineteenth century, despite a renewed appreciation for certain aspects of medieval religion and culture. A revival of sorts—of course accompanied by sterile debate and dubious speculation—began in the twentieth century and has continued into the twenty-first; Karl Barth and Karl Rahner, both highly influential theologians, published works on the Trinity and helped to move trinitarian doctrines away from the periphery and toward the center of Christian theology. This revival is mostly an academic phenomenon, but it nonetheless gives us a small sense of affinity with the early Church, which prayed and studied and labored tirelessly in response to that most fundamental of Christian questions: How is God both One and Three?

A fourteenth-century illumination depicting the Holy Trinity as Father, Lamb, and Dove.

The Three Centuries before Nicaea

The First Council of Nicaea, convened in 325, did not entirely dispel the obscurity surrounding man’s understanding of the Trinity. Nothing ever will, for as Augustine and Aquinas recognized, it is the very nature of the Deity to be three-in-one, and nothing in the material or psychological realm supplies an analogy that makes such a nature fully comprehensible to the human mind. Nevertheless, Nicaea was a turning point. The Council spoke with strength and clarity against the principal dangers of the time, declaring that the Son is eternally begotten, not created, and that He is consubstantial with, rather than ontologically subordinate to, the Father.

Dante and Beatrice adoring the Blessed Trinity. “Gazing upon His Son with that Love which / One and the Other breathe eternally, / the Power—first and inexpressible— / / made everything that wheels through mind and space / so orderly that one who contemplates / that harmony cannot but taste of Him” (Paradiso, 10; Mandelbaum translation).

The three hundred years of Christianity that preceded Nicaea were a period of grave and often contentious uncertainties about the relationships between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Relatively little doctrinal development occurred during the first two centuries. The triune nature of God was established in Holy Scripture, invoked by Apostolic Fathers (Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch), and explained by Apologists (Justin Martyr, Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch), but the Church lacked a precise and philosophically robust understanding of her trinitarian beliefs. Thus, the dogma of the Trinity existed, but it did not always satisfy inquiring minds, and it was vulnerable to potentially catastrophic theological attacks—such as that of a certain heresiarch by the name of Arius.

In the third century, theologians supplied insights that brought greater coherence and clarity to trinitarian orthodoxy, thus laying the groundwork for the triumph of Nicaea. Three of the most prominent were Hippolytus of Rome, Tertullian, and Origen; in this article I will focus on Origen, who gives us an early example of the intimate relation between orthodoxy and liturgical orthopraxis—or in other words, between doctrinal Truth and the poetic Truth that ordinary Christians experience in the expressive language and multisensorial artistry of the Church’s public worship.

A sixteenth-century iconographic rendition of the First Council of Nicaea.

The Triune God in the Liturgy of the Early Church

Though records are sparse, liturgical devotion to the Holy Trinity was present, if not pronounced, in the first three centuries of Christianity. The three Persons were invoked in the administration of sacraments, St. John Cassian (d. 435) reports that Egyptian monks ended their psalmody with a brief hymn “in honor of the Trinity” (Institutes, II.8), and St. Basil (d. 397) indicates that the faithful had long praised the Holy Trinity when lighting the Vespers lamp:

Who was the author of these words of thanksgiving at the lighting of the lamps, we are not able to say. The people, however, utter the ancient form, and no one has ever reckoned guilty of impiety those who say, “We praise Father, Son, and God’s Holy Spirit.” (De Spiritu Sancto, ch. 29)

A fascinating passage from St. Cyprian’ s treatise On the Lord’s Prayer, written in the middle of the third century, interprets the liturgical horarium as a symbol and “sacrament” of the triune God:

In discharging the duties of prayer, we find that the three children with Daniel, being strong in faith and victorious in captivity, observed the third, sixth, and ninth hour, as it were, for a sacrament of the Trinity.... For both the first hour in its progress to the third shows forth the consummated number of the Trinity, and also the fourth proceeding to the sixth declares another Trinity; and when from the seventh the ninth is completed, the perfect Trinity is numbered every three hours, which spaces of hours the worshippers of God in time past having spiritually decided on, made use of for determined and lawful times for prayer. (ch. 34)

Origen and the Appeal to Sacred Liturgy

We see, then, that the Church’s intuitive understanding of the Holy Trinity, perhaps in a wide variety of poetic and ritualistic forms, had filtered into her life of communal prayer. Origen’s writings show us how these liturgical manifestations of trinitarian belief could then return to the theological domain and influence the formulation of dogma.

A portrait of Origen attributed to the sixteenth-century French printer Guillaume Chaudière.

On two occasions of which I am aware, Origen mentions trinitarian liturgical practices in a way that is particularly significant. He doesn’t merely describe these practices; he appeals to them as justification for trinitarian beliefs that were, in these pre-Nicene days, still unsettled. One instance is found in De Principiis (I.3.5):

It seems proper to inquire what is the reason why he who is regenerated by God unto salvation has to do both with Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and does not obtain salvation unless with the co-operation of the entire Trinity; and why it is impossible to become partaker of the Father or the Son without the Holy Spirit.

Here Origen invokes the Church’s baptismal practice in affirming the unity of the Trinity and, more specifically, the full membership of the Holy Spirit in that divine unity. The discussion was a topical one insofar as the pre-Nicene understanding of the Holy Spirit developed more slowly than that of the Father and the Son; Origen himself, in the preceding paragraph (I.3.4), falls unintentionally into heterodoxy: “For although something else existed before the Holy Spirit, ....”

The second instance is in the Dialogue with Heraclides, a document discovered in 1941 by British soldiers who were looking for a place to store ammunition. Bishop Heraclides was caught up in a doctrinal controversy related in some way to prayers used in the eucharistic liturgy, and Origen insists that when praying we should ward off heretical notions by respecting both the distinction of Persons and the unified divinity in the relationship between Father and Son. He continues:

Offering is universally made to Almighty God through Jesus Christ inasmuch as, in respect of his deity, he is akin to the Father. Let there be no double offering, but an offering to God through God.

With admirable concision, Origen makes a profound argument about the nature of the Holy Trinity by drawing our attention to established liturgical practices. The Church prays to the Father through the Son, and therefore the Persons must be somehow distinct; yet the prayer is not a dual offering, and therefore the Two must be One God.

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For thrice-weekly discussions of art, history, language, literature, Christian spirituality, and traditional Western liturgy, all seen through the lens of medieval culture, you can subscribe (for free!) to my Substack publication: Via Mediaevalis.

TradiVox: A Major Catechetical Enterprise with Liturgical Resonances

As many already know, an inspiring restoration project is currently underway with the endorsement of Bishop Athanasius Schneider, to restore the traditional Catholic catechisms of the past millennium. For those unfamiliar with Tradivox, here’s a glimpse:

Catechism Restoration Project from Tradivox, Inc. on Vimeo.

This is a monumental work, comprising archival manuscript recovery, text and graphics restoration, reformatting and republication of dozens of classical texts as an entirely new catechism series – all demonstrating the continuity of Catholic faith, moral practice, and liturgical life across time and space. The catechisms will not only be published in book form, but also organized into a massive online database that will be able instantly to show the consistency of teaching across centuries on any subject treated.

NLM readers in particular should note one fascinating aspect of many traditional catechisms: their witness to the Roman liturgical tradition (both before and after the Council of Trent), and how significantly this shaped the formation of the Catholic faithful over the centuries. Reading these texts is like climbing into a time machine to watch the old adage, lex orandi, lex credendi play out before one’s very eyes; one is made aware that the signs and symbols of the traditional Roman Rite had the effect of deeply inculcating Catholic dogma, which in turn could be explicated to the faithful of every age and station of life, and at several levels of depth.

To take just a few examples, from the simple, 1614 “eye catechism” of St. Robert Bellarmine (forthcoming in Tradivox’s Volume 2):

Notice how the figure depicted here on the Altar is the resurrected Christ – indicating his presently glorified state by which He communicates Himself to us sacramentally. Note also the visual match between the standing Christ and the stooping priest, through whom He gives himself to the faithful, and the kneeling faithful, ready to receive what Christ gives through His minister. Note how the miniature includes a physical barrier separating the priest and acolyte from the faithful, emphasizing the fundamental difference between the ordained or ministerial priesthood and the universal priesthood of the faithful.

Here is another image from the same text, showing the seriousness with which the Mass was regarded as a propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead. Note the gravity and attention paid to it by the faithful in attendance, who conceive of themselves as there to fully and actively contribute to the mediated extension of the salvific fruits of Christ’s saving work on the Cross:

As these small examples help illustrate, the traditional catechisms hold far more than didactic expositions. Indeed, many exude an art and piety that border on the poetic, the mystical – even the heroic, given the fact that many of them closely touched the lives of Confessors and Martyrs (for instance, each of the three separate catechisms reproduced in Tradivox’s Volume 1 was penned or printed by Catholic priests who suffered for the Faith in Elizabethan England).

Viewing the profound mystagogia and liturgical piety at work in the traditional catechisms in light of the historic integrity of the Roman Rite itself, one begins to understand just why and how many Catholics found the strength to die rather than violate Catholic liturgy in the 16th and 17th centuries, and why many of these catechisms found their origin in the same milieu.

One wonders if today, when nearly 70% of self-identified Catholics in the U.S. deny that Our Lord is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament (aggregating the Pew Forum survey and the EWTN survey), an “average Catholic” would die in defense of his liturgical or doctrinal heritage?

The old catechisms offer a way back. They bear witness to how things were, and how they could be again. Parents will find in them a lodestar for handing on the Faith of our Fathers to the next generation. Students will find simple and straightforward answers to questions of faith and morals. Priests will find exhaustive anecdotes, explanations, and illustrations to use in homiletics and systematic instruction. Scholars will find compendious annotations and fascinating apparatus for cross-reference and historical comparison. Non-Catholics will find in them a compelling testimony to the truly divine nature and mission of the Church established by Our Lord Jesus Christ. Everyone will find in them an essential consistency and a reliable guide in this increasingly confusing period.

As one who has been involved in the genesis of TradiVox, I urge NLM readers this Lent to consider supporting this incredibly timely and much-needed restoration project – an enduring monument to our Catholic forebears, and a legacy of Faith to pass on to our children.

Donate to Tradivox here.

View the Tradivox volumes (so far) here.

Share their video in your own circles here.

Classics of the Liturgical Movement: Romano Guardini (1)

Last year, I started an open-ended series, which I introduced with these words:

I have decided to start a new series here, introducing readers to older and newer authors who have a valid claim to be considered representatives of that authentic Liturgical Movement to which this blog has been contributing for years, and of which Pope Benedict XVI is the greatest recent exponent.

The mention of Pope Benedict reminds us, of course, of his great teacher, Romano Guardini, who is a sort of grandfather of NLM. So famous an author, with so many wise and penetrating books to his credit, hardly needs an introduction. It may be as well to admit that Guardini, like most modern Catholic authors, is not always reliable or sound on certain points, but when he’s on, he’s really on. The excerpts presented below, from chapter 1 of The Spirit of the Liturgy, are just a taste of the exquisite insights one can find in his work, particularly when he is writing on the liturgy, which he loved so ardently. Indeed, I prefer to think that certain problematic practical applications with which his name is connected were the result more of a misjudging zeal for sharing the riches of the Church’s liturgy than of a considered desire to modernize or transmogrify it, and it is obvious that he would have been sorely disappointed in the postconciliar collapse of the liturgy, the stripping of its symbols, the reduction of its majesty, the evisceration of its eloquent prayers and gestures, and the general loss of the awareness of the sacred, a category central in his thinking.

When we read the best of Guardini, we seem to hear, as from a distance, the future coming of Joseph Ratzinger and the unsurpassed writings on the theology of the liturgy that Pope Benedict the Great (for he, in truth, deserves such a title) would bequeath to the Church, as a heritage that can vie with the golden age of the Fathers. Without further ado, let us hear some excerpts.

*          *          *

The Catholic liturgy is the supreme example of an objectively established rule of spiritual life. It has been able to develop kata ton holon, that is to say, in every direction, and in accordance with all places, times, and types of human culture. Therefore it will be the best teacher of the via ordinaria—the regulation of religious life in common, with, at the same time, a view to actual needs and requirements. The significance of the liturgy must, however, be more exactly defined. Our first task will be to establish the quality of its relation to the non-liturgical forms of spiritual life.
          The primary and exclusive aim of the liturgy is not the expression of the individual’s reverence and worship for God. It is not even concerned with the awakening, formation, and sanctification of the individual soul as such. Nor does the onus of liturgical action and prayer rest with the individual. It does not even rest with the collective groups, composed of numerous individuals, who periodically achieve a limited and intermittent unity in their capacity as the congregation of a church.
          The liturgical entity consists rather of the united body of the faithful as such—the Church—a body which infinitely outnumbers the mere congregation. The liturgy is the Church’s public and lawful act of worship, and it is performed and conducted by the officials whom the Church herself has designated for the post—her priests. In the liturgy God is to be honored by the body of the faithful, and the latter is in its turn to derive sanctification from this act of worship. It is important that this objective nature of the liturgy should be fully understood. Here the Catholic conception of worship in common sharply differs from the Protestant, which is predominantly individualistic. The fact that the individual Catholic, by his absorption into the higher unity, finds liberty and discipline, originates in the twofold nature of man, who is both social and solitary.
          Now, side by side with the strictly ritual and entirely objective forms of devotion, others exist, in which the personal element is more strongly marked. To this type belong those which are known as “popular devotions,” such as afternoon prayers accompanied by hymns, devotions suited to varying periods, localities, or requirements and so on. They bear the stamp of their time and surroundings, and are the direct expression of the characteristic quality or temper of an individual congregation.
          Although in comparison with the prayer of the individual, which is expressive of purely personal needs and aspirations, popular devotions are both communal and objective, they are to a far greater degree characteristic of their origin than is the liturgy, the entirely objective and impersonal method of prayer practiced by the Church as a whole. This is the reason for the greater stress laid by popular devotion upon the individual need of edification. … But in spite of the fact that the liturgy and popular devotion have each their own special premises and aims, still it is to liturgical worship that pre-eminence of right belongs. The liturgy is and will be the lex orandi. Non-liturgical prayer must take the liturgy for its model, and must renew itself in the liturgy, if it is to retain its vitality. … All other forms of devotional practice can always measure their shortcomings by the standard of the liturgy, and with its help find the surest way back to the via ordinaria when they have strayed from it. The changing demands of time, place, and special circumstance can express themselves in popular devotion; facing the latter stands the liturgy, from which clearly issue the fundamental laws—eternally and universally unchanging—which govern all genuine and healthy piety. …
          The first and most important lesson which the liturgy has to teach is that the prayer of a corporate body must be sustained by thought. The prayers of the liturgy are entirely governed by and interwoven with dogma. Those who are unfamiliar with liturgical prayer often regard them as theological formulae, artistic and didactic, until on closer acquaintance they suddenly perceive and admit that the clear-cut, lucidly constructed phrases are full of interior enlightenment. To give an outstanding example, the wonderful Collects of the Masses of Sunday may be quoted. Wherever the stream of prayer wells abundantly upwards, it is always guided into safe channels by means of plain and lucid thought. Interspersed among the pages of the Missal and the Breviary are readings from Holy Scripture and from the works of the Fathers, which continually stimulate thought. Often these readings are introduced and concluded by short prayers of a characteristically contemplative and reflective nature—the antiphons—during which that which has been heard or read has time to cease echoing and to sink into the mind. The liturgy, the lex orandi, is, according to the old proverb, the law of faith, the lex credendi, as well. It is the treasure-house of the thought of Revelation.
          This is not, of course, an attempt to deny that the heart and the emotions play an important part in the life of prayer. Prayer is, without a doubt, “a raising of the heart to God.” But the heart must be guided, supported, and purified by the mind. … Only thought is universally current and consistent, and, as long as it is really thought, remains suited, to a certain degree, to every intelligence. If prayer in common, therefore, is to prove beneficial to the majority, it must be primarily directed by thought, and not by feeling. It is only when prayer is sustained by and steeped in clear and fruitful religious thought, that it can be of service to a corporate body, composed of distinct elements, all actuated by varying emotions.
          We have seen that thought alone can keep spiritual life sound and healthy. In the same way, prayer is beneficial only when it rests on the bedrock of truth. This is not meant in the purely negative sense that it must be free from error; in addition to this, it must spring from the fullness of truth. It is only truth—or dogma, to give it its other name—which can make prayer efficacious, and impregnate it with that austere, protective strength without which it degenerates into weakness. If this is true of private prayer, it is doubly so of popular devotion, which in many directions verges on sentimentality. Dogmatic thought brings release from the thralldom of individual caprice, and from the uncertainty and sluggishness which follow in the wake of emotion. It makes prayer intelligible, and causes it to rank as a potent factor in life.
          If a prayer therefore stresses any one mystery of faith in an exclusive or an excessive manner, in the end it will adequately satisfy none but those who are of a corresponding temperament, and even the latter will eventually become conscious of their need of truth in its entirety. For instance, if a prayer deals exclusively with God’s mercy, it will not ultimately satisfy even a delicate and tender piety, because this truth calls for its complement—the fact of God’s justice and majesty. In any form of prayer, therefore, which is intended for the ultimate use of a corporate body, the whole fullness of religious truth must be included.
          Here, too, the liturgy is our teacher. It condenses into prayer the entire body of religious truth. Indeed, it is nothing else but truth expressed in terms of prayer. For it is the great fundamental truths which above all fill the liturgy—God in His mighty reality, perfection, and greatness, One, and Three in One; His creation, providence, and omnipresence; sin, justification, and the desire of salvation; the Redeemer and His kingdom; the four last things. It is only such an overwhelming abundance of truth which can never pall, but continue to be, day after day, all things to all men, ever fresh and inexhaustible. …
          Individuals, or short waves of enthusiasm, can to a wide degree dispense with learning and culture. This is proved by the beginnings of the desert Orders in Egypt, and of the mendicant friars, and by holy people in all ages. But, generally speaking, a fairly high degree of genuine learning and culture is necessary in the long run, in order to keep spiritual life healthy. By means of these two things spiritual life retains its energy, clearness, and catholicity. Culture preserves spiritual life from the unhealthy, eccentric, and one-sided elements with which it tends to get involved only too easily. Culture enables religion to express itself, and helps it to distinguish what is essential from what is non-essential, the means from the end, and the path from the goal. The Church has always condemned every attempt at attacking science, art, property, and so on. The same Church which so resolutely stresses the “one thing necessary,” and which upholds with the greatest impressiveness the teaching of the Evangelical Counsels—that we must be ready to sacrifice everything for the sake of eternal salvation—nevertheless desires, as a rule, that spiritual life should be impregnated with the wholesome salt of genuine and lofty culture.[1]

* * *

The internal revival of the Catholic community will not make progress until the liturgy again occupies its rightful position in Catholic life. And the Eucharistic movement can only effectually distribute its blessings when it is in close touch with the liturgy.[2]

* * *

Certainly the grace of God is self-sufficient; neither nature nor the work of man is necessary in order that a soul may be sanctified. God “can awaken of these stones children to Abraham.” But as a rule He wishes that everything which belongs to man in the way of good, lofty, natural and cultural possessions shall be placed at the disposal of religion and so serve the Kingdom of God. He has interconnected the natural and the supernatural order, and has given natural things a place in the scheme of His supernatural designs.[3]

SOURCE
From chapter 1 of The Spirit of the Liturgy. Trans. Ada Lane (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1935). Amazon link.

Other installments in this ongoing series "Classics of the Liturgical Movement":

• Canon G. A. Simon's Commentary on the Rule
• Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard's Soul of the Apostolate
• Dom Paul Delatte's Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict

Is the Liturgy an End or a Means? Further Considerations

After seeing the post “A Fundamental Misunderstanding of the Nature of the Catholic Liturgy,” a reader wrote to me about her experiences in a certain religious community that seemed to embody this very misunderstanding. She gave her permission to share the letter as long as I did not reveal any names or dates. First, then, for her story:

For [x] years I was a religious sister … During my years with them at various convents, I had difficulty with the way they spoke of the Liturgy, and likewise I had difficulty with the way the Liturgy was carried out. Among the many philosophical distinctions made in homilies, classes, and chapters, the one I heard most often was that the Liturgy is “at the level of the Form, not at the level of the Finality.” Another way they put it was that the Liturgy is “secondary.” This word “secondary” seemed to translate as “not too important.”
          It seems there were many consequences to such a view, although I’m not sure whether they are all direct consequences. I’ll list a few of the consequences I had in mind. Liturgies were planned at the last minute. Silence during the Mass was often preferred to music (during times which traditionally require music, such as an Introit, an Offertory proper or Communion proper). If they did have music, it was a skeletal version of Gregorian Chant which had been translated into the vernacular and stripped of its melismas in the name of “purity” … The walls of their chapels were blank white …
          My fellow religious would readily admit, with a laugh, that our Divine Office was poor, but in the next breath they would often explain, “but we are not Benedictines. Liturgy is not first in our life.” Some referred to the Benedictines as “liturgical Pharisees.” Even art itself was spoken of as being merely “at the level of the form.”
          Today, I help run a choir and schola at a parish. I’m so edified by the way our priest treats every detail of the Liturgy with such great attention and care, as if he were dealing with our Lord Himself. Even so, I still run into people who criticize our efforts at making the Liturgy beautiful. One person recently said to me “Our Lord said ‘make a joyful noise,’ not ‘make a beautiful noise.’ Your expectations of the Liturgy are much too high compared with us normal people.”
          I could list many other sad comments, which seem to me stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Catholic Liturgy, just as you said. It seems there are many different ways this misunderstanding manifests itself.

This writer has eloquently said what is wrong with putting the liturgical adoration of God in a secondary or compromised position. There is such a temptation to relegate liturgy to an incidental, a stepping-stone, a means, a mindset, an incentive, a mere symbol of what is greater—however one wishes to put it.

All of these phrasings share, at root, a Protestant rejection of the Incarnation as a mystery that irrupts into time and space and becomes living and real for us in and through the sacred liturgy, which is the very gate of heaven, our access to and participation in the heavenly Jerusalem. The fact that most Western liturgies look and feel nothing like the heavenly Jerusalem suggests the extent to which we have bought into Protestant iconoclasm, anti-sacramentality, anti-bodiliness, and Eucharistic indifferentism. A solemn and beautiful celebration of the usus antiquior is, indeed, a taste of heaven—as it should be. If one cannot forget oneself in the liturgy, one has not yet even begun to pray. I mean this in the sense of the Byzantine chant: “Let us who mystically represent the cherubim and sing the thrice-holy hymn to the life-giving Trinity now set aside all earthly cares.”

The world, like the poor, we will always have with us; but Christ the Lord, in our mystical encounter with Him in the holy oblation, we do not (so to speak) always have with us; we are not always engaged in liturgical divine worship, and that is why, when we are so engaged, it must count. It must be right, holy, God-oriented, a total immersion in His life, death, and resurrection. The focus is all on Him.

That point about “not being Benedictines,” too, is striking, since Benedictine spirituality has long been recognized and praised as simply the natural unfolding of the supernatural vocation of the Christian. Every Christian, to the extent he can, ought to be a sort of Benedictine. I realize not everyone would agree with this formulation, but it could be demonstrated from the Holy Rule that all of its author’s general principles are taken from the New Testament or are directly extrapolated from it. For example, let nothing be put before the Work of God. Can anyone honestly say, even if he’s a Jesuit, that caring for the bodily needs of the poor ought to take precedence over the worthy praise of God Himself and the conferring of His life-giving sacraments? By all means, take care of the poor—but do not neglect “the one thing necessary” for the rich and for the poor!

Those who understasnd that the lex orandi is the first and fundamental expression of the Christian faith will understand what true obedience in the Church means: it means keeping alive in every generation the mission of Christ and the apostolic seed, receiving what has been passed down, cherishing and embracing it, and making it fruitful in the world and for the future. But if the liturgy is relegated to a secondary position, what then is going to take its place? What will be the source and summit of the Christian life? It’s up in the air: it could be apostolic work or the field hospital, it could be theology, it could be endless conferences and meetings and synods, it could be anyone’s idiosyncratic version of Christianity. It seems to me that everything hinges on whether one takes liturgy to be a goal that orders everything else around it or a mere “form” of life—that is, a means to a different goal.

Going to meet Christ, the Light of the World

Are We God’s “Sons and Daughters”?

A priest of my acquaintance, and one who knew how to preach an excellent sermon, nevertheless had one turn of phrase that irked me. He would often refer to how we are “God’s sons and daughters.” Now, you might be thinking: What could be wrong with this? Isn’t is true that we are God’s children? Yes, that is true—and thanks be to God for such a wondrous gift. The problem consists in the use of the female-gendered language, rather than saying “sons” or “children” or “offspring.” After explaining why, I will come around to the revised ICEL translation of the Roman Missal and the lex orandi dissonance it presents.

I

When speaking of our relationship to Christ the Lord and to Holy Mother Church, one could find room for speaking of sons and daughters, taking Christ metaphorically as the father of the family and the Church as His fruitful wife. But when speaking of the Father and our insertion into the Father-Son relationship, there are only “sons in the Son,” which, indeed, is the way the New Testament consistently speaks:

All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. … For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. (Rom 8:14-15, 29)

In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. (Gal 3:26)

But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir. (Gal 4:4-7)

He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. (Eph 1:5-6)

It was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering. (Heb 2:10)

He who conquers shall have this heritage, and I will be his God and he shall be my son. (Rev 21:7)

In contrast with dozens of New Testament passages that speak of “sons” in the manner of these examples, there is only one text in the entire NT that speaks of God’s “sons and daughters” (2 Cor 6:18); here, Paul seems to be paraphrasing a passage from Isaiah that uses metaphorical speech pertaining to the order of creation (cf. Is 43:6-7; Jer 31:9). More typically, the Old Testament places a singular emphasis on sonship, preparing the way for Christ by speaking of Israel as God’s firstborn son (cf. Ex 4:22) and of the Davidic king and Messiah as God’s son (e.g., Ps 2:7, “I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to me, ‘You are my son, today have I begotten you’”). All of this reaches a climax in the two “filial epiphanies” of the Gospels:

And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Mat 3:16-17; cf. Mk 1:11; Lk 3:22)

He was still speaking, when lo, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” (Mat 17:5; cf. Mk 9:7, 2 Pet 1:17)

The baptism of Jesus in the Jordan is the efficient and exemplar cause of our own baptism, which makes us beloved “sons in the Son”: by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are made to participate in Christ’s natural sonship, being made like unto Him, as He is like unto the Father. This is what our adoption consists in, as Saint Paul so carefully and frequently teaches. The transfiguration, too, shows us, in our Head, what we, the members, are to become in our resurrection, provided we are united to Christ in a death like His.

For their part, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church unanimously follow Scripture’s preferred way of speaking of “sons in the Son,” a rule we see observed with utter consistency throughout the ages, in the great monastic and Scholastic authors, and in all the great modern theologians and spiritual authors, such as Newman, Mersch, Marmion, Scheeben, Journet, and Ratzinger.

But why is this consistency and clarity of sonship language so important?

II

Our fundamental filial relationship with God is not in any way conditioned by our sex. We are Christians not inasmuch as we are men or women, but inasmuch as we are human persons made in the image and likeness of God, and therefore redeemable and saveable. We participate in the sonship of the natural Son of God, in whom there is no natural Daughter, even as we participate in the bridal nature of the Church, who is a She, not a He.

In comparison with Christ, we are all brides; in comparison with the Father, we are all sons. Yes, the images clash and refuse to mesh—in the order of nature, one cannot be simultaneously a son and a bride—because we are dealing not with natural realities but with a supernatural mystery of divinization so profound that no single way of speaking can fully express it. And yet, the precise images we use do matter: they cannot be arbitrarily switched around, for we are dealing with definite truths, not with vague mythic metaphors.

To go one step further: in our participatory divine sonship, there is not a natural filiation like the one we have to both of our parents. In the natural order, we proceed as male or female from a man-woman couple. Supernaturally, however, we proceed as the Son from the Father; God is Father, not Mother, nor is the Son a Daughter. Hence, when speaking of our relationship to God in Christ, we must not bring in gender (“God’s sons and daughters”), for such language necessarily implies a relationship of merely natural or physical generation.

Put differently, by trying to be inclusive, the language of “sons and daughters” actually ends up being exclusive. For all of us are sons, and all of us are brides. The modern linguistic convention distributes these identities, under the influence of an excessively sexualized conception of the human person, as if women cannot have a certain relation to God that men can have (namely, that of sons, like the natural Son Jesus Christ), and as if men cannot have a receptive stance vis-à-vis God the way women can (namely, that of brides, like the Church in whom they exist). In reality, every Christian gets all of these privileges, some of which are best described by strictly masculine language and some by strictly feminine language. It is the greatest honor of a man or woman that he or she gets to be re-created in the image of the Son, as a son; and it is an astonishing perfection of our creatureliness that the same man or woman gets to be united to Christ as a chaste virgin to her Lord: “I feel a divine jealousy for you [Christians of Corinth], for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband” (2 Cor 11:2). It would be just as ridiculous to talk of men and women as “brides and bridegrooms of Christ” as to talk about men and women as “sons and daughters of the Father.”

III

Given the massive witness of Scripture and Tradition concerning a central dogma of the Faith—our adoptive sonship in Christ through water and the Holy Spirit—imagine my chagrin when I saw that the revised translation of the Roman Missal adopts the very language that is problematic. Here are three of many instances:

Almighty ever-living God, whom, taught by the Holy Spirit, we dare to call our Father, bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters [adoptionis filiorum], that we may merit to enter into the inheritance which you have promised. (Collect, 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time)

O God, by whom we are redeemed and receive adoption, look graciously upon your beloved sons and daughters [filios dilectionis tuae], that those who believe in Christ may receive true freedom and an everlasting inheritance. (Collect, 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time)

Look, we pray, upon your people’s offerings and pour out on them the power of your Spirit, that they may become the Body and Blood of your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, in whom we, too, are your sons and daughters. (Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation I)

Even if the redactors of the translation could plead that they intended no theological assertion but merely wished to avoid giving the impression of excluding women—an inclusive language move, they would say, rather than a doctrinal stance—nevertheless the venerable axiom lex orandi, lex credendi reminds us that the liturgy cannot avoid forming us with its formulas and will teach well or badly depending on the soundness of its formulations. The language of the liturgy shapes our minds, our hearts; it is, without a doubt, the primary source of doctrinal formation for contemporary practicing Catholics, especially in an age bereft of substantive catechesis.

Now, it is clear to everyone who studies the liturgy that the revised Roman Missal is, overall, fortunately such a vast improvement over its predecessor that they can hardly even be compared in the same breath; and it is no less clear (pace Butler) that, as the official text, it must be used and cannot be modified at the whim of the celebrant, whatever imperfections may remain in it.  (Of course, one is always free to celebrate the Novus Ordo in Latin, if one wishes to have the Ordinary Form in its most authoritative expression.)

Bd. Elizabeth of the Trinity

Still, these facts do nothing to change our responsibility to use language precisely, when we speak in our own words, as servants of the unchanging truth of Divine Revelation. If we want to avoid transmitting over time a distorted doctrine of the Trinity, of our adoptive filial relationship to the Father in and through His only-begotten Son, and of the nature of the Church as “spiritually feminine,” the Bride of Christ and the Mother of the faithful, we would do well to avoid referring, in our preaching and conversations, to “God’s sons and daughters.” Let us speak of God’s “children” (cf. Heb 2:13, 1 Jn 3:1-2), and even, when appropriate for the context, of God’s “offspring” (cf. Acts 17:28-29), and of “brothers and sisters in Christ”; but let us take special delight in proclaiming the wondrous truth that all of us who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ (cf. Gal 3:27), and thus, are “sons in the Son,” to each of whom our heavenly Father can truly say: “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.”

In this connection, I was struck by a beautiful passage from Dom Paul Delatte’s Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict:

With baptism and faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ, all these distinctions vanish; and in spite of the diversity of our individual circumstances, in spite of the plurality of our natures, we are all one in Our Lord Jesus Christ. The same divine sonship is enjoyed by all, the same blood circulates in all veins, all have the same name, the same spirit, the same nourishment, the same life. This levelling is accomplished, not by the degradation of any, but by the elevation of all to the stature of Our Lord: “unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. iv. 13).

Perhaps the most sublime expression of this mystery is given to us in the prayer written by Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity:

O Consuming Fire, Spirit of Love, descend into my soul and make all in me as an incarnation of the Word, that I may be to Him a super-added humanity wherein He renews His mystery; and You, O Father, bestow Yourself and bend down to Your little creature, seeing in her only Your beloved Son, in whom You are well pleased.

Do We Pray for "the Dead" or for "the Faithful Departed"?

With November, the Month of All Souls, around the corner, it seems pertinent to raise the question: Are we in danger of a slow corruption of our understanding of liturgical prayer for the dead? Put differently, for which souls are we praying at Mass?

If one examines liturgical formulae to see how Catholics pray for the dead, one is struck by the specificity of intention, the delimited subject of these prayers—namely, baptized Christians. A much-loved prayer expresses it thus: “May the souls of the faithful departed (fidelium animae defunctorum), through the mercy of God, rest in peace.” As will be demonstrated below, the official liturgical books offer overwhelming evidence for this claim. First, however, let us consider what might be called the problem on the ground.

The Problem on the Ground

In many Ordinary Form Masses, communities pray for the dead in an entirely generic or undifferentiated manner. Consider an otherwise excellent book, Prayers of the Faithful for All Sundays, Solemnities, Major Feasts and Other Occasions, edited by Bishop Peter J. Elliott (New Jersey: Catholic Book Publishing, 2009). Throughout the book, petitions are announced on behalf not only of the “faithful departed” (or variations on that theme: “all who have died in faith,” “all who sleep in Christ,” “the dead who have entered a state of purification,” “our dead,” “our departed brothers and sisters”), as is traditional, but also on behalf of “the dead” or “those who have died” with no specifying language whatsoever:

That the dead may rejoice forever in the house of the Lord… (p. 1); That the Son of Man may grant his salvation to those who have died… (p. 3); That the eternal light of salvation may shine upon those who have died (p. 6); That those who have died may find eternal rest… (p. 7); For our deceased relatives and friends, and all the departed, that they may be gathered into the eternal joy of their heavenly home… (p. 16); That the dead may be cleansed from all their sins… (p. 28); That the departed may taste and see the eternal goodness of God… (p. 39); That those who have died may live for ever in the God who is love (p. 66); That the dead may be called to perfect union with God for ever (p. 67); etc.

Although I have not tabulated the hundreds of petitions for the dead included in this volume, my impression from using the book is that the language goes about half of the time in the traditional direction and the other half of the time in the generic/undifferentiated direction.

An older book, The Prayer of the Faithful for Weekdays, ed. Eltin Griffin, O.Carm. (Dublin: Dominican Publications, 1985; repr. 2003), exhibits a bigger problem in that it rarely has the living faithful praying for the faithful departed at all. When it does, the language tends to be elegant and specific, but with occasional lapses into vapid inclusivism:

Bring all the dead into the light that no darkness can quench; may we all meet in joy with you (p. 59); That Jesus, who is our resurrection and life, may give peace for ever to all who have died (p. 292).

The problem was brought home to me when I was attending Mass at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City one Sunday morning, and the deacon offered a public prayer for the deceased wife of the head of the Mormon church. This was, on any reading of it, an absurd petition to make, since the true Church of Jesus Christ has already defined that Mormons are not confessionally Christian and that their “baptism” is null and void.

In summary, at a Novus Ordo Mass we will frequently hear something like: “Let us pray for the dead…” or “For all who have died this week…” or “For all our departed loved ones…”—with no specificity or delineation that we are praying for Christians or faithful who have died.

What’s the Big Deal?

To pray at the liturgy for someone who is either not known to have been a baptized Christian or known to have not been a baptized Christian, or to offer prayers “for the dead” in a completely generic way, without specifying that we are praying for departed brethren and servants of God, is not just a departure from custom; it implies and leads to theological error.

Those who are not Christian when they die cannot be saved; and the only people we know to be Christians in such a manner that we may publicly pray for them are those who were baptized or were formally seeking baptism (e.g., RCIA candidates). Someone who is neither baptized nor known to have been seeking baptism is simply not someone for whom we can publicly pray, as he or she is not known to be a member of the Mystical Body of Christ, and the liturgy of the Church is the prayer of the Mystical Body of Christ, the prayer of the Head and of the members in union with the Head. It is not the prayer of the non-members and it is only a prayer for non-members who have not yet departed from this world. Once non-members depart from this life, they are eternally non-members and they are never prayed for, either on earth or in heaven.

In short, we can and should pray for the living who are not yet joined with us, but we cannot pray for the dead who are not joined with us. This, it seems to me, is the fundamental reason why the Church’s formulas of prayer, stretching back as far as we have records and continuing right into the official liturgical books in use today, nearly always qualify the dead for whom we pray by indicating those who are servants or handmaids of God, those who are baptized, those who are united with the Son in a death like his (another reference to baptism), those who have faith (meaning at very least a votum implicitum for baptism), those on whom God has had mercy (in that they have received the effect of baptism prior to death), etc.—whatever the formula may be, it is never merely, without qualification, “the dead.”

Establishing the Fact

We can establish this fact by reviewing a number of liturgical texts from both the Extraordinary Form and the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, since they agree on this theological point, although the usus antiquior expresses it with greater clarity and frequency.

The Usus Antiquior

We begin with the usus antiquior, giving translations from the Baronius Missal.

Offertory. Accept, O holy Father, almighty and eternal God, this unspotted host, which I, Thine unworthy servant, offer to Thee . . . for all faithful Christians, both living and dead . . .

Roman Canon. Remember also, O Lord, Thy servants and handmaidens N. and N., who are gone before us with the sign of faith, and rest in the sleep of peace. To these, O Lord, and to all that rest in Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, a place of refreshing coolness, light, and peace.

From the Requiem Mass on All Souls:

Collect. O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful: grant to the souls of Thy servants and handmaidens the remission of all their sins: that through pious supplications, they may obtain that pardon, which they have always desired.

Tract. Absolve, O Lord, the souls of all the faithful departed from every bond of sin. And by the help of Thy grace may they be enabled to escape the avenging judgment: and enjoy the bliss of everlasting light. 

Offertory. O Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory, deliver the souls of all the faithful departed from the pains of hell and from the bottomless pit: deliver them from the lion’s mouth, that hell swallow them not up, that they fall not into darkness, but let the standard-bearer Holy Michael lead them into that holy light, which Thou didst promise to Abraham and to his seed. . . . 

Secret. Mercifully regard, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the Sacrifice which we offer Thee for the souls of Thy servants and handmaidens: that to those to whom Thou didst grant the favour of the Christian Faith, Thou wouldst also grant due reward. 

Preface. For to Thy faithful people, Lord, life is changed, not taken away; and when the home of this earthly sojourn is dissolved, an eternal dwelling is made ready in heaven.

From the Absolution and Burial:

Wherefore suffer not, we beseech Thee, the sentence Thou pronouncest in judgment upon one whom the faithful prayer of Christian people commends to Thee, to be a doom which shall crush him utterly. Rather succour him by Thy gracious favour, that he may escape Thine avenging justice who, in his lifetime, was signed with the seal of the holy Trinity.

Grant to Thy servant departed, O Lord, we beseech Thee, this favour, that he who desired to do Thy will may not receive punishment for his deeds; and that even as here on earth the true faith joined him to the ranks of the faithful, so in heaven by Thy mercy he may have fellowship with the choirs of Angels.

Other prayers could be cited, but that’s plenty to establish the point. From the earliest liturgical records down to the 1962 editio typica of the Missale Romanum, when Catholics of all places and times prayed for the dead, this is how they prayed.

The Ordinary Form

Drawing from the current ICEL translation of the Novus Ordo Missae:

Preface I for the Dead. Indeed for your faithful, Lord, life is changed not ended, and, when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in heaven.

Eucharistic Prayer I. Remember also, Lord, your servants N. and N., who have gone before us with the sign of faith and rest in the sleep of peace. Grant them, O Lord, we pray, and all who sleep in Christ, a place of refreshment, light and peace.

Eucharistic Prayer II. Remember also our brothers and sisters who have fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection, and all who have died in your mercy: welcome them into the light of your face.

Eucharistic Prayer II (in Masses for the Dead). Remember your servant N., whom you have called (today) from this world to yourself. Grant that he (she) who was united with your Son in a death like his, may also be one with him in his Resurrection.

Eucharistic Prayer III. To our departed brothers and sisters and to all who were pleasing to you at their passing from this life, give kind admittance to your kingdom. There we hope to enjoy for ever the fullness of your glory through Christ our Lord, through whom you bestow on the world all that is good.

Eucharistic Prayer III (in Masses for the Dead). Remember your servant N. whom you have called (today) from this world to yourself. Grant that he (she) who was united with your Son in a death like his, may also be one with him in his Resurrection, when from the earth he will raise up in the flesh those who have died, and transform our lowly body after the pattern of his own glorious body.

Eucharistic Prayer IV. Remember also those who have died in the peace of your Christ and all the dead, whose faith you alone have known.

The last text, from E.P. IV, is the most ambiguous of the lot, but inasmuch as it mentions the faith of the departed, it is asserting (in line with defined Catholic doctrine) that God knows if a man or woman died with a sufficiently explicit and living faith in Christ the Redeemer to have been a sharer in the fruits of Redemption. “All who have died in your mercy,” from E.P. II, is a similar kind of formula.

On November 2nd, All Souls:

Second Mass, Collect. O God, glory of the faithful and life of the just, by the Death and Resurrection of whose Son we have been redeemed, look mercifully on your departed servants, that, just as they professed the mystery of our resurrection, so they may merit to receive the joys of eternal happiness. 

Second Mass, Prayer over the Offerings. Almighty and merciful God, by means of these sacrificial offerings wash away, we pray, in the Blood of Christ, the sins of your departed servants, for you purify unceasingly by your merciful forgiveness those you once cleansed in the waters of Baptism.

Third Mass, Postcommunion. Through these sacrificial gifts which we have received, O Lord, bestow on your departed servants your great mercy and, to those you have endowed with the grace of Baptism, grant also the fullness of eternal joy.

Again, other texts could be cited, but it is enough to point out that one can see two general trends. In the usus antiquior, the prayers for the dead are worded in such a way that there can be no doubt that the one being prayed for was a member of the Church through baptism. In the Novus Ordo, by contrast, most of the texts use qualifying language, either mentioning baptism explicitly or using words like “servant” or “handmaid,” but some texts are more generic and vague, although one can argue that the meaning is discernible from the context. In any case, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal removes all doubt when it says:

379. The Church offers the Eucharistic Sacrifice of Christ’s Pasch for the dead so that, since all the members of Christ’s Body are in communion with one another, what implores spiritual help for some, may bring comforting hope to others.

In order to benefit from the Eucharistic Sacrifice or any other liturgical action of Christ and His Church, a departed soul must already be in communion with Christ and His Church. This is the reason we pray for those souls.

What’s At Stake and What We Should Do

If one has followed the earlier theological reasoning about the very nature of the liturgy, one can see that the question of whom we pray for, and under what aspect or title, is a far from trivial matter. It goes the very heart of what it means to be a Christian, to be sanctified, to be graced with the very ability to reach heaven. It is not enough that Christ accomplished our Redemption on the Cross (objectively, one can say); we ourselves, each one of us, must actually (or subjectively) participate in it through faith and the sacraments, especially baptism. Without that actual participation in His Death and Resurrection, there is no salvation for us; and we do not, we cannot, find that participation apart from His Mystical Body, the Church, which, in her inner identity, is nothing other than perfect communion with Christ.

Thus, to ask what difference it makes whether we pray for (e.g.) “the dead” or “our dead,” “the departed” or “the faithful departed,” is precisely a test case of whether we adhere to the de fide doctrine extra ecclesiam nulla salus, “outside of the Church there is no salvation,” or have instead imbibed the poison of indifferentism, latitudinarianism, and false ecumenism, all of which involve a denial of Jesus Christ as the one Savior of mankind and the Catholic Church as His very Body in which all will be saved who are to be saved.

Two courses of action therefore suggest themselves. First, at a minimum, the Prayer of the Faithful or General Intercessions in an Ordinary Form liturgy must be written out with care so that we are raising up prayers for “the faithful departed,” “our brothers and sisters in Christ,” etc., and if a published version is used, it should be reviewed ahead of time (and corrected, if need be).

Second, we desperately need a renewal of catechesis in this area, because it touches on fundamentals of the Catholic Faith such as the necessity of belonging to Christ and the Church for salvation, the necessity of dying in a state of sanctifying grace in order to be admitted to the beatific vision (whether immediately or after purgation), the eternity of hell and the impenitence of the damned. These truths are not sufficiently known or preached nowadays, and given the truth of the axiom lex orandi, lex credendi, the way we are praying for the dead, week in and week out, will either confirm true doctrine or reinforce false doctrine.

Animae omnium fidelium defunctorum, per misericordiam Dei, requiescant in pace. Amen.

Confessing the Messiah: The Church's Confession of Christ in Jewish-Christian Dialogue - Bishop Müller's Statement Pt. IV

Concluding our series regarding Jewish salvation and the liceity of the extraordinary form Good Friday prayer for Jewish conversion, with all the far-reaching implications this has for central questions of our Faith, here is the last part of the momentous statement of Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller (see part I, II and III here, here and here, and Dr Thomas Pink's Introduction to it here and here).



The Church's Confession of Christ in Jewish-Christian Dialogue - Part IV

By Bishop Dr Gerhard Ludwig Müller

Translated by Dr Thomas Pink

The Search for Fundamental Reconciliation

The text of the ZdK's 'Jews and Christians' dialogue circle carries the all too showy title 'No to Mission to the Jews - yes to Jewish-Christian dialogue'. The either-or choice suggested here oversimplifies beyond the possible measure the theologically complex unity of the Old Covenant with the New as well as the difference between the Jewish and Christian faith-communities in respect of the confession of Jesus the Christ.

We must surely welcome it if in a theological research circle there is a deepening of the positive relation between Christians and Jews regarding the sources of revelation and confessional belief, if wounds are healed and if a deeper reconciliation is sought. Given a spiritual relationship rooted in the God of creation and of covenant (see Nostra Aetate §4), Christians and Jews face a common challenge, namely that of giving witness before a secularised world to the liberating power of God and of proclaiming the human dignity that is based on that power. Man is created in the image of God, and is called to the freedom and glory that belongs to God's children (see Romans 8, 21).

Dialogue in a research circle cannot however occur at the expense of qualifying or muddying essential Christian doctrines about the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation, about the redemption and justification of sinners, about grace and original sin, about the universal and sole mediation of Christ, about the necessity for salvation of the Church, of faith in Christ, and of union with Christ in the sacraments, and about the relation of God's will that all be saved to that will's realisation in Church and sacrament.

From the point of view of Catholic theology it is very difficult to make out any convincing conception of the subject in the text being considered.

Magisterial evaluation of the 'Jews and Christians' dialogue group's declaration

The text has no magisterial authority. It can in no way be regarded as an official document of the Catholic Church or as an authentic presentation of the Catholic faith and confession. The text is guided by a quite blatant setting of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and of John Paul II against the teaching and legitimate measures (in the formulation of liturgical texts) of Pope Benedict XVI - an opposition (ZdK Declaration pp1, 10) which both in form and content is completely off the mark.

Neither is it true that the reformulation of the intercession for the Jews in the extraordinary rite of the Good Friday liturgy has anything to do with a 'Mission to the Jews' in the absolutely pejorative sense which the research circle's paper insinuates ("the Mission to the Jews … as expression of a disdain of Judaism... and therefore prepared the ground for the anti-Semitism of National Socialism." ZdK Declaration p13). Nor is there a 'Church of the Second Vatican Council' which presents the covenant of God with the Jewish people as one saving way to God – ‘even without any recognition of Jesus Christ and without the sacrament of baptism’ (ZdK Declaration p1).

The Second Vatican Council precisely did not express itself in this reductive and ambiguous way.
Nostra Aetate is of great importance for the new beginning in relations between Jews and Christians. But neither this declaration nor other Council texts nor the New Testament may be interpreted selectively on the basis of certain preconceptions which qualify the universal mediation of salvation of Jesus Christ and the consequent necessity for salvation of the confession of Christ, of the Church and of her sacraments.

Church teaching in its entirety and interrelatedness remains determinative. In the interpretation of revelation as it is transmitted in proper yet related ways in each of Scripture and Tradition, Catholic theology must always respect the fact that the binding explanation of revelation is 'entrusted exclusively to the living magisterium of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.' Dei Verbum §10

For this reason the Church’s undiminished confession of Christ remains constitutive of the Catholic faith and a central point of reference in the dialogue with the Jewish faith-community.

Jews and Christians should be a blessing to the world

The Second Vatican Council has in Nostra Aetate framed the foundations for a dialogue which encompasses both what has already been achieved and responsibility for the future: 'Together with the Prophets and the same Apostle, the Church awaits that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will call on the Lord in a single voice and "serve him shoulder to shoulder" (Zeph. 3:9). Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies as well as of fraternal dialogues.' Nostra Aetate §4.

The words of John Paul II which he uttered in 1993 to the Jews of his homeland Poland are still valid for the proper development of Jewish-Christian dialogue: 'As Christians and as Jews we follow the example of Abraham. We are called to be a blessing to the world. That is the task that awaits us. It is absolutely essential for us, Christians and Jews both, first to be a blessing to each other!'

Pope Benedict XVI took up this theme in the Cologne synagogue on his visit in 2005 during World Youth Day: 'On this occasion too I would like to assure you that I intend to continue with complete commitment on the path of improving relations and friendship with the Jewish people - a path along which Pope John Paul II took decisive steps.'

---

Previous parts of the series:

Confessing the Messiah: The Church's Confession of Christ in Jewish-Christian Dialogue - Introduction Pt. I

Confessing the Messiah: The Church's Confession of Christ in Jewish-Christian Dialogue - Introduction Pt. II

Confessing the Messiah: The Church's Confession of Christ in Jewish-Christian Dialogue - Bishop Müller's Statement Pt. I

Confessing the Messiah: The Church's Confession of Christ in Jewish-Christian Dialogue - Bishop Müller's Statement Pt. II

Confessing the Messiah: The Church's Confession of Christ in Jewish-Christian Dialogue - Bishop Müller's Statement Pt. III

Confessing the Messiah: The Church's Confession of Christ in Jewish-Christian Dialogue - Bishop Müller's Statement Pt. III

As we continue our series regarding Jewish salvation and the liceity of the extraordinary form Good Friday prayer for Jewish conversion, here is part III of the statement of Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller (see part I and II here and here and Dr Thomas Pink's Introduction to it here and here).



The Church's Confession of Christ in Jewish-Christian Dialogue - Part III

By Bishop Dr Gerhard Ludwig Müller

Translated by Dr Thomas Pink

The concept of 'Mission' and Judaism

In any dialogue between Jews and Christians the concept of mission must be presented properly. Christian mission has its source in the Father's sending forth of Jesus. Jesus gives his disciples a share in that mission in relation to God's people Israel (see Matthew 10, 5) and then also as the resurrected Lord in relation to all peoples (see Matthew 28, 19). Thus comes into being the people of God founded in the covenantal blood of Jesus, who calls his Church from both Jews and Gentiles (Ephesians 2, 11-21), on the basis of faith in Christ and by means of baptism, which is incorporation into his body, which is the Church (Lumen Gentium §14).

The Jews who do not arrive at faith in Christ are not excluded from salvation on that account, if they live from the grace of the covenant and in accordance with God's commandments. The salvation of which we are speaking here means though on the Christian understanding the salvation which God has given to Jews and Gentiles through Christ.

Differences in soteriological conceptions follow from the different evaluation of the person and mission of Jesus. Christian mission, therefore, is not about the use of subtle arts of persuasion to entice away believers in other religions, or of threats of disadvantage in this world and of punishments in the next to coerce someone into Christian faith.

Faith and freedom are mutual conditions of each other. A faith that is compelled or a baptism that is forced are contradictions in themselves and are opposed to revealed teaching (Dignitatis Humanae §10).

Mission and non-violence

Christian mission and witness through proclamation of the word and through the conduct of one's own life belong together. To prefer to suffer violence than to inflict it is the fundamental principle that Jesus gives to his disciples when he sends them forth. Christians can therefore trust in God, who will carry out his universal saving plan in ways that only he knows. For though Christians are witnesses of Christ, they do not have to accomplish the salvation of men themselves.

Zeal for the 'house of the Lord' and calm trust in the victorious action of God belong together. Christian mission means that the appointed messengers witness to and proclaim the historical realization of the universal salvific will of God in Jesus Christ and celebrate the sacramental presence of that realization in the martyria, leiturgia and diakonia of the Church of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The reason for this missionary Church lies in the universal salvific will of God, which realizes itself in the saving mediation of Christ: 'Therefore, all must be converted to Him, made known by the Church's preaching, and all must be incorporated into Him by baptism and into the Church which is His body. For Christ Himself by stressing in express language the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mark 16:16; John 3:5), at the same time confirmed the necessity of the Church, into which men enter by baptism, as by a door. Therefore those men cannot be saved, who though aware that God, through Jesus Christ founded the Church as something necessary, still do not wish to enter into it, or to persevere in it. Therefore though God in ways known to Himself can lead those inculpably ignorant of the Gospel to find that faith without which it is impossible to please Him (Hebrews 11:6), yet a necessity lies upon the Church (1 Corinthians 9:16), and at the same time a sacred right, to preach the Gospel. And hence missionary activity today as always fully retains its power and necessity.' Ad Gentes §7

Thus does the Second Vatican Council present the necessity for salvation of faith in Christ and of the Church.

The people of God made up of Jews and Gentiles - the witness of Scripture

It is and remains a qualitative definition of the Church of the New Covenant that both synchronically and diachronically she is a Church made up of Jews and Gentiles, even if the quantitative ratio of Jewish and Gentile Christians may give a different impression.

Just as after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ there are not two unrelated covenants existing alongside each other, so there is not the covenantal people of Israel existing apart from and alongside the 'people of God made up of the Gentiles' (ZdK Declaration p17). Rather the continuing role of the covenantal people of Israel in God's salvific plan is dynamically related to the 'people of God made up of Jews and Gentiles – united in Christ', whom the Church confesses to be the universal mediator of creation and of salvation.

In the context of God's will that all should be saved, all those who have not yet received the Gospel of Christ are ordered towards the people of God of the New Covenant: 'In the first place that people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh, a people most dear according to its election on account of the patriarchs: for the gifts and vocation of God are irrevocable.' (Vatican II Lumen Gentium §16)

Jews and Christians as brothers in dialogue

Hence it is possible to set out, in terms of the theology of revelation and the history of salvation, the relation of the Jewish and Christian faiths - and to do so without the Church of Christ having to restrict or even qualify the substance of her faith in her Lord and in her universal mission to proclaim the Gospel for all people.

Faith in Christ cannot be reconciled with any form of polemic or denigration of those 'Jews' (any more than of those 'Gentiles' or 'heathen') who in full sincerity of conscience lack belief in Jesus as the Christ. A Christian who is hostile to Jews - that would be a contradiction in terms. And the awful fact that there have been excesses committed by Christians against their Jewish brothers and sisters only shows that those have acted in a way that blatantly contradicts their own name of Christians.

Hostility towards Jews in circles that are (nominally) Christian is not a consequence of the confession of Christ, but proof of a betrayal of it. Enmity or any form of persecution is diametrically opposed to Christ's command. This is the declaration of the Council: 'Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel's spiritual love, deplores hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.' Nostra Aetate §4

On the other hand, in the context of the Jewish-Christian dialogue of today that has developed in so positive and friendly a way, there is equally no place for polemics and for the constant use of history to fuel renewed resentments or Christian self-accusations, as when the slogan 'Mission to the Jews' with all its load of historical and theological negativity is used to discredit the mission of the Church to witness Jesus, the Christ, as 'a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel.' Luke 2, 32.

How can New Testament passages when interpreted in a way hostile to Jews ever support a 'Mission to the Jews' (ZdK Declaration p16)? A scripturally based enmity towards Jews would be a contradiction in itself. Since 'the pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature, since it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she draws her origin, in accordance with the decree of God the Father' (Ad Gentes §2), mission has nothing to do in any way with an attitude of hostility either to Jews or towards heathens that would, as in a form of political imperialism, confront opponents with a choice between extermination or subjection.

The opposite is the truth: 'This decree flows from the “fount-like love” or charity of God the Father' (Ad Gentes §2). God's reign is love, and his kingdom means the raising up of man in the grace of Christ, who has sacrificed his life for all out of love, and thereby the overcoming of all enmity.

Being a Christian is not the basis for some feeling of superiority, let alone for any contempt towards those of other faiths, but rather for assimilating oneself to Jesus's own attitude of humility and readiness for service, so that 'all the Church's children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ.' Lumen Gentium §14

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Previous parts of the series:

Confessing the Messiah: The Church's Confession of Christ in Jewish-Christian Dialogue - Introduction Pt. I

Confessing the Messiah: The Church's Confession of Christ in Jewish-Christian Dialogue - Introduction Pt. II

Confessing the Messiah: The Church's Confession of Christ in Jewish-Christian Dialogue - Bishop Müller's Statement Pt. I

Confessing the Messiah: The Church's Confession of Christ in Jewish-Christian Dialogue - Bishop Müller's Statement Pt. II

Subsequent parts of the series:

Confessing the Messiah: The Church's Confession of Christ in Jewish-Christian Dialogue - Bishop Müller's Statement Pt. IV