Jesus Christ came to restore man to God’s grace

 

Counterrevolutionary Considerations

Saint Benedict Center’s conference will take place very soon (October 11-12). As I prepare my own comments on this year’s theme, I thought I would give both a plug for, nd a sneak preview of, what our attendees will be hearing in a little over a month.
 

Our theme is “Catholic and Counterrevolutionary.” For my purposes, I will define “counterrevolutionary” as “of or pertaining to the restoration of a pre-revolutionary state of affairs.” In our thought here at Saint Benedict Center, a“revolution” and things “revolutionary” are necessarily bad. The French and Russian Revolutions are the notable historical examples that clearly illustrate the badness thereof, but revolution, as a spiritual ideal, predates these: It is seen in the ideals of Freemasonry, in the Enlightenment, in Protestantism, in the Renaissance rejection of Medieval Christian Civilization — indeed, in the very Fall of Man itself, and in that earlier Fall of Lucifer and his rebel angels.

If we agree with Saul Alinsky that the first radical — another name for a revolutionary — was Lucifer, it is not because, as Alinsky does, we think that revolution is a good thing. (Here is the dedication on the opening page of Rules for Radicals: “Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history… the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer.”)

If Lucifer is the first revolutionary, Jesus Christ is the first counterrevolutionary. I say “first,” not in order of chronology, but in that higher order of metaphysical primacy, according to which Saint Paul refers to Jesus Christ as “the firstborn of every creature” (Col. 1:15), “the firstborn from the dead”(Col. 1:18), and “the firstborn amongst many brethren” (Rom. 8:29). Jesus Christ came to restore the pre-revolutionary state of affairs. That is, He came to restore man to God’s grace and to reverse the worst effects of the Fall without altering some of its other effects.

Before Original Sin, Adam enjoyed infused knowledge in his intellect, loving obedience in his will, spontaneous virtue in his emotions, and no sickness or death in the body; after the fall, he is punished with ignorance in the intellect, malice in the will, concupiscence in the emotions, and suffering and death in the body.

God Himself had to grant the remedies. These are principally two: The Divine Law and grace. These heal ignorance and malice, but do not remove concupiscence; nor do they do away with death. Our way back to God must therefore, include the suffering consequent upon resisting temptation and being resigned in the face of death. We must — to use the Ignatian phrase — agere contra, act against our sinful inclinations. That hurts.

The French ultramontane thinker, Joseph de Maistre, said: “The Counter-Revolution will not be a reverse revolution, but the reverse of the Revolution.”Revolution corrodes order, whereas the Counterrevolution restores it. The revolutionary tears down, while the counterrevolutionary builds up. The revolutionary is a bully, a murderer; he hurls Molotov cocktails and terrorizes noncombatants. Counterrevolutionaries may not descend to such methods. Our task is harder, but while it appears that the progress of history is against us, we know that the Lord of History is for us.“If God be for us, who is against us?” (Rom. 8:31). History is full of unexpected good turns that make those words of Jesus echo in our ears: “Fear not, little flock, for it hath pleased your Father to give you a kingdom” (Luke 12:32).

Today’s Catholic counterrevolutionary does not simply seek to reestablish the pre-Revolutionary status quo — if by that status quo, we mean some social order predating France’s Revolution. No, today’s Catholic counterrevolutionary must seek to establish society according to God’s will. In so doing, he seeks to do his part to cooperate with the Trinity in answering these two petitions of the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”

We would be mistaken if we became mere antiquarians or enthusiasts of an earlier age seeking the literal reestablishment, for instance, of the order of the Middle Ages, of the late patristic age, or of Spain as it was in the Counter-Reformation. Many individuals and families seeking intelligently and diligently to do God’s will may produce a society (however small) that vaguely resembles one of those, but it is the doing of God’s will that matters.

We see here a direct correlation toward what is counterrevolutionary and what is holy: God’s will is one with Himself; God’s willis God. When we conform our will to God’s, we unite ourselves to God. Now, union with God is the essence of sanctity. Those seeking to do God’s will in society are also seeking for sanctity. If they are not doing so for themselves as individuals and their families as small social units, then they are going about things the wrong way.

The Catholic counterrevolutionary has for his weapons the theological virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost. The counterrevolutionary also realizes the value of the Cross. Seeing suffering in the supernatural light of Faith, Hope, and Charity, he realizes that the Cross is our way to salvation. The revolutionary aims to make a painless world, a utopia, and ends up causing everyone tremendous pain. He speaks of a bloodless struggle and ends up spilling gallons of blood.

(An aside: Did you ever notice how the vast majority of futuristic films are dystopian in nature? My theory is that somehow, the Hollywood liberal progressive realizes deep down inside that his favorite ideas are actually horribly destructive.)

The counterrevolutionary is no utopian, and realizes that suffering is necessary for his aims, but he embraces that suffering himself, in union with that first Counterrevolutionary.

The revolutionaries and their revolutions will cause us suffering. In God’s admirable economy, this very suffering is one of the causes of our own sanctification, and therefore one of the greatest weapons against the revolutionaries and their revolutions. This is why Christ remedied the worst effects of the fall without altering them all. Salvation is now possible through the Cross. These words of a great spiritual writer could be directed to today’s would-be Catholic counterrevolutionary:“To be able to say Thy Will be done immediately and calmly in the midst of suffering — that is the perfection at which we must aim.” (They Speak by Silences by A Carthusian, p. 41.)

If we profit from the suffering our revolutionaries inflict on us, we fulfill the words of the psalmist: “They prepared a snare for my feet; and they bowed down my soul. They dug a pit before my face, and they are fallen into it” (Ps. 56:7).

If readers would like to hear more “counterrevolutionary considerations,” attendance at our conference is encouraged!

 

In the Immaculate Heart of Mary,

Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M.

Holy Spirit's gift of understanding enlightens minds, Pope says

                       

 

Vatican City, Apr 30, 2014 / 11:49 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis explained that the Holy Spirit’s gift of understanding allows Christians to obtain “intimacy with God” and helps them understand things “as God understands them.”

“When the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts and enlightens our minds, he makes us grow day by day in the understanding of what the Lord has said and accomplished,” the Pope said at the Wednesday General Audience April 30.

“One can read the Gospel and understand something, but if we read the Gospel with this gift of the Holy Spirit, we can understand the depths of God’s words.”

The Pope said Christians must pray together: “Give us, Lord, the gift of understanding.”

 

Pope Francis greets pilgrims in St. Peter's Square before the Wednesday general audience on October 2, 2013. Credit: Elise Harris/CNA.

Catholic theology traditionally recognizes seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord. Pope Francis began a catechesis on the gifts of the Holy Spirit in his April 9 Wednesday audience, when he discussed wisdom.

On April 30, he explained that the Holy Spirit’s gift of understanding differs from human understanding, the “intellectual prowess” that varies from person to person.

“What a beautiful gift the Lord has given us. It is the gift with which the Holy Spirit introduces us into intimacy with God and makes us sharers in the plan of love which he has for us,” he said.

The Pope noted that Jesus told his disciples he would send the Holy Spirit to help them understand everything he had taught them.

This kind of understanding is a “grace” which “awakens in a Christian the ability to go beyond the outward appearance of reality and to probe the depths of the thoughts of God and his plan of salvation.”

This gift does not mean that a Christian can “comprehend all things” and have “full knowledge of the designs of God,” Pope Francis clarified. Rather, it helps the Christian to “read inwardly” and “understand things as God understands them.”

While human understanding and prudence are good, Jesus Christ desired to send the Holy Spirit so that everyone might understand “with the mind of God,” he explained.

Pope Francis said the Gospel story of the disciples who encountered the risen Jesus Christ on the road to Emmaus shows the “depth and power” of the Holy Spirit’s gift of understanding.

Believing Jesus to be dead, the disciples’ eyes were “veiled with sadness and despair” and could not recognize him.

“When, however, the Lord explains the Scriptures to them so that they might understand that he had to suffer and die in order then to rise again, their minds are opened and hope is rekindled in their hearts,” the Pope said.

He said the Holy Spirit “opens our minds” and “opens us to understand better the things of God, human things, situations, all things.”

Pope Francis encouraged Christians to pray for the gift to understand things as God understands them and to understand “above all, the Word of God in the Gospel.”

The Pope then greeted English-speaking pilgrims at the audience, invoking upon them and their families “the joy and peace of the Risen Lord.”

He also voiced his special thoughts for young people, the sick, and newlyweds, encouraging them to look to the example of St. Catherine of Siena whose feast day was Tuesday.

“Dear young people, may you learn from her to live with an upright conscience of one who does not give in to human compromise,” he said. “Dear sick, may you be inspired by her example of strength in moments of greater suffering. And may you, dear newlyweds, imitate the firmness of faith of those who trust in God.”
 

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Taken from: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/holy-spirits-gift-of-understanding-enlightens-minds-pope-says/

The Institution of the Eucharist in Scripture

http://www.ewtn.com.au/faith/teachings/euchc2.htm  ....  from a talk by Scott Hahn The Catholic Church claims that Christ is really present in the Eucharist, that the sacrifice of calvary is repeated at every Mass, and that he gives Himself to us in Holy Communion as food unto eternal life. With this in mind, let's look at Scripture. Luke 22, verse 15, our Lord says, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you." So we are assured that the Last Supper in the Upper Room was a Passover meal. In Mark 14, verses 22 through 26, we hear the words of institution, "And as they were eating He took bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them and said, 'Take, this is my body.' And He took a cup and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them and they drank all of it and He said to them, 'This is my blood of the New Covenant which is poured out for many. Truly I say to you, I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.'" You could also say it this way: that if the Passover isn't finished until Calvary, I would suggest that Calvary is really begun in the Upper Room with the Eucharist. When does Jesus' sacrifice really begin? Well, He insists on the fact that His life is not being taken away from Him. He is laying it down. Now in the trial, in the passion, it's being taken away; but in the Upper Room, prior to all of that, Jesus lays it down. He says, "This is my body. This cup is the blood of the New Covenant." What happens when you differentiate and separate body and blood? You signify death. When your body and your blood are separated, death begins. That's obvious, I think. So Jesus is symbolically and actually beginning the sacrifice. St. Augustine has said that Our Lord held himself in his own hands and commenced the sacrifice of the New Covenant Passover as He was transforming the old. Calvary really began in the Old Testament Passover being celebrated in the Upper Room, when the Eucharist was instituted and the Passover Eucharist of the New Covenant really isn't over until Calvary, when He says, "It is finished." No wonder St. Paul says in 1st Corinthians 5, "Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us." Therefore, what? Therefore we don't have any more sacrificial offerings or ceremonies or feasts and so on to celebrate because all those ceremonies are outdated and done with? No. He says, "Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed; therefore, let us keep the feast." And he goes on to talk about how we take out the leaven of insincerity and we have this unleavened bread. What's he talking about? Christ, our Passover has been sacrificed; therefore, we've got to achieve the whole goal of that sacrifice, the second half is communion where we eat the lamb. Now you can't eat a lamb cookie in Egypt. If you didn't like lamb, you couldn't have your wife make lamb bread, little biscuits in the shape of a lamb and say, "God, you understand, we just can't stand the stuff." No, you do that, your firstborn would die. You had to eat the lamb. Jesus Christ has said to us, "My flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has everlasting life." Let's turn to John 6 and see the context in which he says that. John 6, verse 4 tells us, "Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews was at hand." So everything that transpires within John 6 is within the context of the Passover. Jesus is talking to them now. At the time of the Passover, after multiplying these loaves, ending up filling twelve baskets with the fragments from the five barley loaves, He uses that as his point of departure for one of the most important sermons that He ever preaches and also one of the most disastrous from a human perspective. He goes on talking about this bread and He goes on talking about Moses in context with that bread. For instance, in verse 32, "Jesus then said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven. My Father gives you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.' They said to him, 'Lord, give us this bread always.'" Welfare state! "Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in me shall not thirst.'" And He goes on talking about this some more. The Jews would then murmur at him in verse 41 because He said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven." They're thinking, "What is He talking about? This guy is Joseph's son. How does He say, 'I've come down from heaven?'" They only look at it from a human perspective. They don't see that He's the divine Son of God. Verse 47, "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven.'" How often did they eat the manna? Every day. How often do we receive the Bread of Life? Every day. This is not a once for all sacrifice, like many anti-Catholics allege in the sense that Christ is sacrificed and now there's nothing more to be done. Jesus Christ is sacrificed as priest and as victim, as lamb and as firstborn son and as the Bread of Life, he gives himself to us as well as the unleavened bread of the Passover meal, which commenced, of course, the whole feast of unleavened bread the week after the Passover celebration. Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life, the unleavened bread of God which came down from heaven which the Israelites received every day, the manna of the New Covenant. Christ through the Holy Spirit makes himself available as the Lamb of God to be consumed continuously. That's the whole point of the Resurrection, incidentally. The Holy Spirit raises up that body and glorifies it so supernaturally that body and blood which is glorified may be internationally distributed through the elders and priests of the Church so that all of God's children can be bound back to the Father in the New Covenant sacrifice of Christ. He didn't die again. He's not bleeding and he's not suffering. He's reigning in glory and giving us his own flesh and blood. Where do you get that? From the Old Testament -- the manna, the Passover, the sacrifice as it's described on Calvary as it's initiated in the Upper Room and as he states right here in verse 51. "If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." Jews stop, wait a second. Hold the phone. "John, what do you mean 'my flesh?'" Verse 52, "The Jews then disputed among themselves saying, 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?'" Cannibalism, paganism, barbarism, sin in the highest degree. So did Jesus say to them, "I didn't mean it, guys. I was just kind of, you know, using hyperbole or metaphor." No. He actually intensifies the scandal. He actually raises the obstacle even higher. "He said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood,' which Leviticus condemns, the drinking of blood, 'unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.'" He said that four times in four different ways. In verse 60, "Many of His disciples when they heard it said, 'This is a hard saying. Who can listen to it?'" That is an understatement. "Jesus, however, knowing in Himself that His disciples murmured at it" (the disciples, the followers, the spiritual proteges, not just the crowd now, the disciples themselves are taking offense at this and murmuring and grumbling), "said to them, 'Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the son of man ascending to where He was before? It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.'" What words? That you've got to eat my flesh and drink my blood, those words. In 63 we discover why Christ's flesh and blood will be so powerful and animating for supernatural life. Verse 66, "After this, many of His disciples drew back...." We get the impression that the vast majority of them said, "This is just too much." "...and no longer went about with him. And Jesus turned to the twelve;" he didn't apologize. He didn't say, "Now that we're down to twelve, I'll tell you what I really meant." He didn't say that at all. In fact he is perfectly willing for this obstacle to remain scandalous even to the twelve. "Do you also wish to go away?" But "Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go?'" Almost implying we would leave if there was somebody else that we could trust more than you because what you said is rather baffling. But he says, "To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God." So we have reason to believe that this sacrifice of the New Covenant Passover begun in the Upper Room and consummated on Calvary and ultimately as 1st Corinthians 5 suggests continued and celebrated as a climactic communion on the altars of the Church around the world when we receive the Eucharist in Communion. All of this is right from the Bible but you've got to know your Bible. You've got to know John. You've got to know Matthew, Mark and Luke. You've got to know Exodus. You've got to know the Psalms. You've got to know Corinthians and you also have to know Revelation. Abridged from Scott Hahn's audio and video tape presentation, "Eucharist: Holy Meal" as it appears in the "Catholic Adult Education on Video Program" with Scott and Kimberly Hahn. Full text available in our library. Both the individual audio and video cassettes and the entire 20 cassette library, complete with study guides, are available from: St. Joseph Communications PO Box 720 West Covina, CA 91793 818-331-3549 Electronic text (c) Copyright EWTN 1996. All rights reserved.