Final Destiny

When my cousin was young, she spent a lot of time in the closet.  Not because she liked it there, especially.  Mostly it was to give my aunt Stephanie a few minutes of respite from her antics.

 It really wasn’t so bad in the closet, which was actually a tiny room with a comfortable chair, a window that opened, and books and blankets and pillows.  And a door.  The door was always closed unless the closet was occupied, since, unlike a bedroom door, which opens in to the room, this one opened out to the hallway, blocking traffic. 

My cousin was a bright, inquisitive, and determined preschooler who was very creative, and very fast.  And thus, long before the term “time out” was coined, she spent many an afternoon “in the closet.”

One summer afternoon, so the story goes, my cousin was outside playing.  I can picture her, with her dark curly hair and rosy cheeks, a chubby bundle of energy happily immersed in some shenanigan or another. 

Aunt Stephanie had learned long before to keep one ear tuned to the tell tale sounds of mischief in the making.  It had been awhile, and Aunt Stephanie had heard neither whisper nor word from my cousin.  Just as she was beginning to wonder what trouble the silence was signaling, she heard the screen door slam, followed by the sound of little feet running across the hard wood floor.  Before Aunt Stephanie could reach the living room, she heard my cousin call out exuberantly, “Open up the door, Steph, I’m coming in!”

I love that story, which for  years  has been told over and over at family reunions and

get-togethers.  I love that my cousin was absolutely certain about the end result of her

behavior.  She knew beyond the shadow of a doubt where she would end up, and she accepted the outcome with her typical enthusiasm.

That’s how I want it to be when I die.  I want to know, without a doubt, where I’m going and why.  I want the assurance that I will be spending eternity in the most wonderful place in all of creation.  And when my time comes, I want to call out with joyful confidence, “Open up the gates, Lord, I’m coming in!”

Yet, I have doubts.  I have a little voice in my head that tells me I’m not good enough, not holy enough, not prayerful enough.  I yell at my kids, I swear when I get cut off in traffic, and once when I was five years old, I stole my cousin’s eraser. 

But here’s the thing.  God, in His infinite mercy, has made provisions for slackers like me.  The bible tells us, “The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him” (Daniel 9:9)  ;

See?     

John 1:9 promises, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

So, when I hear those little voices, when I mess up on a day-to-day basis, I know it is important to silence those voices.   I must not let myself be defeated.  Instead, I need to confess my sins, thank God for His loving mercy, and rest assured that when my time comes, I’ll call out ahead, “Open up the gates, Lord, I’m on my way!”

Do you feel defeated by sin and bad habits?  What helps you to stay positive and  to keep trying?  What helps you to remember that you are a child of the Lord who is waiting to welcome you with open arms?

Knowledge of the Trinity

Regarding the question of whether the Trinity of divine persons can be known by natural reason, in Summa Theologica 1.32.1 Aquinas answers that:

It is impossible to attain to the knowledge of the Trinity by natural reason. For, as above explained (12, 4, 12), man cannot obtain the knowledge of God by natural reason except from creatures. Now creatures lead us to the knowledge of God, as effects do to their cause. Accordingly, by natural reason we can know of God that only which of necessity belongs to Him as the principle of things, and we have cited this fundamental principle in treating of God as above (Question 12, Article 12). Now, the creative power of God is common to the whole Trinity; and hence it belongs to the unity of the essence, and not to the distinction of the persons. Therefore, by natural reason we can know what belongs to the unity of the essence, but not what belongs to the distinction of the persons. Whoever, then, tries to prove the trinity of persons by natural reason, derogates from faith in two ways.

Firstly, as regards the dignity of faith itself, which consists in its being concerned with invisible things, that exceed human reason; wherefore the Apostle says that "faith is of things that appear not" (Hebrews 11:1), and the same Apostle says also, "We speak wisdom among the perfect, but not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world; but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery which is hidden" (1 Corinthians 2:6-7).

Secondly, as regards the utility of drawing others to the faith. For when anyone in the endeavor to prove the faith brings forward reasons which are not cogent, he falls under the ridicule of the unbelievers: since they suppose that we stand upon such reasons, and that we believe on such grounds.

Therefore, we must not attempt to prove what is of faith, except by authority alone, to those who receive the authority; while as regards others it suffices to prove that what faith teaches is not impossible. Hence it is said by Dionysius (Div. Nom. ii): "Whoever wholly resists the word, is far off from our philosophy; whereas if he regards the truth of the word"--i.e. "the sacred word, we too follow this rule."

The Redemption of Suffering

Over at The Roman Road, there's an excellent little series on the theology of suffering, a topic dear to my heart from years of preaching/encouraging in a devotional service at a local nursing home.

 It is also a topic very relevant to our modern culture which is so Corinthian and which requires a focus on 'Christ, and him crucified.' It seems to me that there are basically three attitudes towards suffering:

1 Suffering is an illusion, seek enlightenment

Classically expressed in Buddhism, this is also the perspective of some forms of scientific naturalism

2 Suffering is a fact, seek power

Although the paths to power differ, this is the common attitude of Mohammad, Nietzsche, and Marx.

3 Suffering is a redemptive opportunity, seek the Messiah

With its roots in the Hebrew scriptures, this attitude finds its fullest expression in the Catholic Church.

Pope John Paul II, in an apostolic letter from 1984, wrote extensively on the Christian meaning of human suffering in Salvifici Doloris. Here is a brief excerpt:

14. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life". These words, spoken by Christ in his conversation with Nicodemus, introduce us into the very heart of God's salvific work. They also express the very essence of Christian soteriology, that is, of the theology of salvation. Salvation means liberation from evil, and for this reason it is closely bound up with the problem of suffering.

On Marriage Equality

Speaking of equality in marriage, the Church holds that marriage is a sacrament and hence indissoluble both by men and by women, indissoluble both by commoners and by kings.

In this regard, an article from 1972 by Joseph Ratzinger on the dogmatic-historical state of affairs and its significance for the present has recently been translated into English: On the Question of the Indissolubility of Marriage.  Here are a few excerpts:

On Eric Peterson

In 2011, Stanford University Press published Michael J. Hollerich's English translation: Theological Tractates, by Eric Peterson. I think the best short introduction to the work of Eric Peterson is via the translation of an introduction which Pope Benedict XVI gave, at the 2010 International Symposium. Here's an excerpt:

The starting point of this path is the binding character of sacred Scripture. According to Peterson, sacred Scripture becomes and is binding not as such, it is not only in itself, but in the hermeneutics of the Apostolic Tradition that, in turn, is made concrete in the Apostolic succession and thus the Church maintains Scripture in a living present and at the same time interprets it. Through the bishops, who are in the Apostolic succession, the testimony of Scripture remains alive in the Church and constitutes the foundation for the permanently valid convictions of the faith of the Church, which we find first of all in the creed and in dogma. These convictions are continuously displayed in the liturgy as a living space of the Church for the praise of God. The Divine Office celebrated on earth is, therefore, in an indissoluble relationship with the heavenly Jerusalem: Offered there to God and to the Lamb is the true and eternal sacrifice of praise, of which the earthly celebration is only an image. Whoever participates in the Holy Mass stands almost on the threshold of the heavenly sphere, from which he contemplates the worship carried out by the angels and the saints. Wherever the earthly Church intones her Eucharistic praise, she is united to the festive, heavenly assembly, in which, in the saints, already a part of her has arrived, and gives hope to all those who are still on the way on this earth towards the eternal fulfillment.

Perhaps at this point I should insert a personal reflection. I first discovered the figure of Erik Peterson in 1951. At the time I was chaplain in Bogenhausen, and the director of the local publishing house Kosel, Mr. Wild, gave me the volume, just published, "Theologische Traktate" (Theological Treatises). I read it with increasing curiosity and let myself be truly impassioned by this book, because the theology I was looking for was there: a theology that employs all the historical seriousness to understand and study the texts, analyzing them with all the seriousness of historical research, and not allowing them to remain in the past, but that, in his research, he participates in the self-surmounting of the letter, enters into this self-surmounting and lets himself be led by it and in this way enters into contact with the One from whom theology itself comes: with the living God. And thus the hiatus between the past, which philology analyzes, and the today, is surmounted by itself, because the word leads to the encounter with reality, and the entire timeliness of what is written, which transcends itself toward reality, becomes alive and operating. Thus, from him I learned, in the most essential and profound way, what theology really is, and I also felt admiration, because here he does not only say what he thinks, but this book is an expression of a path that was the passion of his life.