Do This in Memory of Me

What Jesus shared with us was a meal and his life.

What Jesus shared with us was a meal and his life.

In each of the four eucharistic prayers in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, the words “Do this in memory of me” are spoken by the priest in what is called the Institution Narrative. Although some of the words change for each prayer, these are repeated in each one: “Do this in memory of me.” They are significant words that help guide us in our understanding of this celebration.

In one sense, it is a clear reminder that the reason we meet each week in the Church is because Jesus gave his body and blood to the disciples through the celebration of the Last Supper just prior to his Passion. His words invoke the memory of this religious celebration, the great institution of the sacrament that gives us life and offers us salvation.

But our memory cannot stop there. In another, maybe more significant sense, the memory we must have when we celebrate the Eucharist is of Jesus himself. When we take his body and drink his blood, we are not only remembering the final meal he shared with his disciples before his Passion, we are remembering all that he was/is and all that he did. In one complex moment, we call to mind his triumphant Incarnation and his glorious Passion; the miracles he performed and the words he preached; the love and forgiveness he brought to the lost and the least, and the truth and justice he brought to the corrupt and powerful. Our memory of Jesus is not simply one of a religious feast or liturgical action, it is one of love, forgiveness, humility, simplicity, openness, mercy, unity in diversity, sacrifice, friendship, and most of all, justice.

Because of this, taking part in the mystery of the Eucharist does bring to the present a moment in history, the Last Supper, and allows us to share in the once-for-all sacrifice of our God; but it does much more than that. Taking part in the Eucharist brings to the present the whole life and teaching of Jesus. How can we possibly celebrate the feast without remembering the person celebrating it?

When we remember the person of Jesus, we radically open ourselves up to a new experience of and response to the Eucharist. If what we are remembering when we take the precious body and blood is how Jesus “emptied himself” to become human, we are forced to ask ourselves how well we act with humility and grace. If we remember how Jesus showed mercy and forgiveness to sinners, we are forced to ask ourselves how well we forgive those who wrong us. If we remember how Jesus loved the poor and cared for the outcasts of society, making them his primary focus because no one else would, we are forced to ask ourselves how well we love the poor and outcasts of society and whether or not we are missing an opportunity to love someone unloved by anyone else. In every way, if we remember the person of Jesus, we will be forced to compare our lives with the life he lived, challenging us to grow closer to the one who wants nothing more than to be in perfect union with us.

Jesus says, “Do this in memory of me.” My prayer is that, the next time you receive the Eucharist, you will be flooded with the powerful memory of Jesus’ life and teachings, that it may be such a powerful experience of remembering the person of Jesus that all you can do is let him pour out of you for the whole world. That is the memory Jesus wants us to have, and that is the true thanksgiving meal we share with one another. Only when Eucharist transforms us in this way can be it called the “source and summit” of our life.

 

 4 Comments

 Posted on June 30, 2014 by

 Justice, Prayer, Theology

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A Retreat With Saint Bonaventure

My little cabin in the "woods"

My little cabin in the “woods”

This past weekend I left the world for a while. Like hermitage retreats in the past (one during postulancy and two during novitiate) I disconnected from technology, quieted my life, and spent the weekend in prayer and reflection. Unlike previous hermitage weekends, I did this one entirely on my own. No one was there to find the location or pay for the cabin (although they would have); no one was there to tell me when to leave or when to get up for prayer; no one was there to cook for me or clean up when I was done. In reality, no one told me that I had to go on a personal retreat in the first place; this one was entirely on my own initiative. And what an experience that was.

Don’t get me wrong: I love community life and have no desire to live the life of a hermit. But given the nature of formation so far, being “encouraged” to try this and that, being carted off on one trip after another, being thrown into classes, workshops, discussions, and faith sharing sessions on a regular basis, there is something positively fulfilling and extraordinarily liberating about taking control of my own formation. There was a sense of ownership in this retreat, having spent my own money; a sense of intentionality in choosing to go do something beyond requirements; a sense of confirmation in my own vocation after such a personal, intimate experience.

What, then, does one temporary professed Franciscan friar do with such liberation? I spent the weekend with one of the great doctors of the Church, St. Bonaventure. Living shortly after the time of Francis, Bonaventure acted for as the Minister General (world leader) of the Franciscans before becoming a Cardinal, and represents the beginning of the vast Franciscan intellectual tradition that largely shaped the high middle ages. Despite all of this, I knew very little about him or his theology prior to this weekend, and decided that he could be my guide.

In some ways, it definitely felt a lot like studying for my philosophy and theology courses at Catholic University given the difficulty of some of his works and the incredible intellect that he packs into each page. The difference was, unlike studying for school, I was able to spend as much time as I needed with each concept because I had no overall “objective” to complete other than to pray in the way of someone gone before me. When something troubled me, I took time to pray about it, to think deeply about its implications before moving on. When something appeared not to produce spiritual fruit, I moved on to something else, not worrying that I was missing something that might be on a test.

Space certainly does not allow for me to explain all of these concepts that tied my brain in a knot, nor do I feel like I even have a good enough grasp of his spirituality to even try, but I would like to offer two points of particular importance. (I realize that this is not for a general audience, but there is an aspect of my nurturing my own understanding in attempting to express it. I completely understand if you choose to stop reading at this point. In some ways I actually recommend it!)

The first is the way in which Bonaventure viewed the Trinity. One of the great detriments I’m finding with common spirituality is that we often talk about and pray to “God,” a homogenous, single-faceted being. In our Christian tradition, however, God consists of three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Unlike many others in the west that wondered how one God could be three persons, Bonaventure focused on the individuality of the three persons and asked how they could be one. These are two sides of the same coin for sure, but the nuance here is significant. That difference, as I understand it, is twofold: it emphasizes union over division (how to come together rather than split apart) and it calls the believer to a particular focus on each facet of God’s greatest, even a particular relationship with each person. God is at once father, brother, and spouse; each a different person, each requiring a different response. (This is something worth taking to prayer.)

There is quite obviously a flaw to this analogy, as in the case of all analogies: God is not male and so cannot be “Father,” “brother,” or “Son,” in the complete sense that we understand these terms. The point is the relationship, one of begetting or giving birth to another, followed by emanation. In less human terms, Bonaventure uses the analogy of speech: one is the speaker, one is the word being spoken, and one is the diffusion of that speech or the rhetoric. Which is first? Which is most important? Which actually creates, redeems, or sanctifies? Well, all of them, really. Clearly one cannot be speaking without the word spoken, which naturally diffuses, and the word cannot be spoken or diffused without a speaker. They are all simultaneous and yet distinct, individually incomplete and yet each containing the fullness of God.

If you think you’re still with me, here’s an excerpt from “The Journey of the Mind to God” in which he contemplates the mystery of the Trinity, the conundrums of the relationship:

You wonder how communicability can be found together with self-containment, consubstantiality with plurality, alikeness with distinct personality, coequality with sequence, coeternity with begetting, mutual indwelling with emission… For in Christ there is personal union together with trinity of substance and duality of nature; there is full accord coexisting with plurality of wills, joint predication of God and man with plurality of properties, joint adoration with plurality of rank, joint exaltation with plurality of eminence, and joint dominion with plurality of powers. (Chapter 6)

This presents itself with a very interesting question: if Jesus is “begotten” of the Father, the Word spoken of the first, uncreated, unmoved, always existing speaker, when did this happen (keep in mind that the Church believes Jesus to be coeternal with the Father)? The only possible answer to this question is that it has always been happening. The very nature of the first person of the Trinity is to create, to beget from itself; for this to be true, the first person must have always been begetting the second person, forever being disseminated in the third person. There can never be a moment in which God the Father is not creating through the Son and in the Holy Spirit, past, present, or future.

The key to this whole discussion is that Bonaventure believes God’s very nature to be creative and diffusive Love. Pure, perfect love cannot help but to beget of itself something to be loved, and can only be perfected if it has someone to share it with. To say that God is love is not just some hallmark catchphrase but a highly Trinitarian theology: God is by God’s very nature self-contained overflowing love (sit with that one for a little while).

Thus, Creation is but an outpouring of that very nature, a model for the Trinity itself. Isaiah provides the perfect image of this Franciscan understanding:

Yet just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down and do not return there till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, giving seed to the one who sows and bread to the one who eats, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but shall do what pleases me, achieving the end for which I sent it. (55:10-11)

The Creation of the world was an act of God the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit, and outpouring of God’s very nature to create, diffuse, and return. Self-contained overflowing love. As created being ourselves, we are taking part in this outpouring of God, this emanation of Love; we ourselves are an outpouring of this Love that must return to God one day.

If you made it this far, I thank and commend you, and hope that it may be inspiration for your own prayer as it has been for mine. I do not suggest quoting anything I have said as it is a humble friar’s first encounter with Bonaventure and no doubt lacks precision in language.

 3 Comments

 Posted on April 7, 2014 by

 Prayer, Theology

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Redefining Freedom

What do we actually mean when we say "freedom"?

What do we actually mean when we say “freedom”?

Freedom is a word that is thrown around a lot in this country, used to justify a political agenda or distract from the true issues at hand. “Fight for freedom,” “let freedom ring,” and “don’t take away my freedom” are phrases heard on a daily basis in politics and general conversations. What does it actually mean to be free?

The reason I pose this question is because I believe that the “American” concept of freedom, founded on thinkers such as John Locke, is an entirely different concept from the freedom we find in the Church. Though it is the same word, there is a wide discrepancy when it comes to defining it. Whenever I hear people using the word “freedom,” I feel like Inigo Montoya in the Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I do no think it means what you think it means.”

For the political philosophers like John Locke, freedom is the complete separation of the individual from any social structures or institutions that would inhibit one’s ability to act entirely in one’s own self-interest. The only guiding principle of the individual and government, what keeps society from utter chaos, is the principle that one can do anything one wants as long as it does not infringe upon the rights of others. It is a concept of freedom defined by radical individualism and subjectivity, and often uses the word “from”: freedom from government, from oppression, from responsibility. Thus, it is not the role of society to provide quality options nor is it anyone’s right to make any choice, while helpful, on behalf of another person; it is simply the role of society to not interfere with one’s own choices, allowing for the most possible choices. Simply put, someone with five choices is more free than someone with three choices, and no matter what those choices are, both should be free to continue looking for more.

What is entirely lacking from this conversation is the quality of choices made available. If one thirsty person is given five options to drink (crude oil, Clorox bleach, mouth wash, salt water, and rotten milk) while another person is given only one option (water) which person is more free? Clearly the second person is more free because none of the first five choices would quench thirst. What if, in the same situation, the government mandated that crude oil, Clorox bleach, mouth wash, salt water, and rotten milk were illegal to drink, and that one could drink water? It would be entirely non-sensical to be enraged by such a mandate, for the former options are poisonous to the human person and the latter is good for one, and yet, I suspect that there would be those protesting on principle: “You can’t tell me what I can and cannot drink!” This, I say, is a distorted view of a freedom and a very misguided way to relate to others.

Freedom as a Christian concept is one defined by relationship with God, self, and neighbor, and often uses the word “to”: freedom to flourish, to worship, to live peaceably with others. Unlike the radical individualism and subjectivity above, it is a recognition that there are things that are objectively good and bad, and that the only choice one needs is the choice of the good. In this way, we as Christians have recognized for two thousand years that we are on this journey together, as one Pilgrim Church, not in competition with one another for rights and resources, but in cooperation with one another for the building of God’s Kingdom.

A Christian conception of freedom must also look at one’s ability to choose within oneself, namely, one’s Free Will. While God has given each human the Free Will to choose to act free from God, this does not mean that we are absolutely free: in many ways, our freedom of choice is limited. The greatest culprit of this limitation is not the will of other individuals. It is sin. Through sin, our choices and encounters contrary to God’s will, we are left less able to choose what is good. It’s easy for us to look at others, particularly those with addictions, and say, “Why can’t they just have the will power to stop doing that.” As I mentioned in Sin, A Social Problem, original sin and social sin are very real and very destructive because they strip people this ability: children who are abused, addicts of every kind, and individuals born into violence must deal with tremendous burdens inhibiting their free choice. They are not free in an ultimate sense because the psychological, physical, social, and economic factors are often too heavy to bear.  When we sin, the effect is the same for us: we cloud our judgment and confuse our conscience with what is wrong, making it easier and easier to sin until we are in fact less free to do what is right than we were before. At no point are we without the freedom will entirely, but we must always recognize, in ourselves and in others, the ways in which our choices are very limited at times (think about how we act when we are hungry, angry, lonely, and tired… are we truly free to act perfect in those situations??) and to treat everyone with mercy and forgiveness.

This is how Jesus, our great liberator treats us and how we hope to treat others. But what Jesus does is much greater: He frees us from our sins, our situations, our inhibitions so that we may love more truly. Jesus forgives us of our shortcomings, recognizing that we are only able to do so much without his help, but also makes us more able to do better the next time. True freedom is a life in Jesus. To be free, thus, is to be able to love the good, the objective truth that is God.

 1 Comment

 Posted on March 27, 2014 by

 Theology

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Sin, A Social Problem

The effects of our individual actions have tremendous social effects.

The effects of our individual actions have tremendous social effects.

While sin is primarily a result of an individual’s misconduct—the consent in thought, word, or action to something contrary to the Eternal Law of God (see previous post)—there are clearly effects of sin that disseminate far beyond the original act and remain long after forgiveness has been given.

For instance, if I were to harm another person, let’s say even kill them, I would be gravely sinning. Upon realizing the evil I had done, returning to God with a contrite heart, and wishing to be converted in mind and body, we believe that God’s mercy would prevail and I would be forgiven of that grave sin. End of story, right? Hardly. What about the family of the person killed who must now say goodbye forever and may be burdened psychologically or financially? What about the community that must live with the shock and terror of such a horrid act happening so close to home? What about the children (and adults for that matter) who may become traumatized, or worse yet, desensitized, by such an act and may even become more prone to commit it themselves? The ripples of sin are often so far reaching that it is difficult to conceptualize just how far they go, how they may affect others, and in what ways they may lead to other sins. In a very real sense, God cannot take away these effects because God cannot make someone forgive and cannot take away the memory of what was.

Such is the nature of our fallen state, and such is the effect of Original Sin. While we are ourselves not guilty of the first sin committed by Adam and Eve in a direct sense, we must live with the consequences in our world and in ourselves. Prior to their sin, there was nothing but pure being, obedience, and perfect relationship with God. Sure, while there was always the possibility of scorning God and blemishing that relationship, it had yet to be done. The water was perfectly still. By introducing the world to the first act of disobedience, saying “no” for the first time, a giant stone was cast into the water and its effects could not be undone: the world now knew that “no” was an option. One act of disobedience rippled into another which rippled into another until the once perfectly-still water was nothing but a choppy mess. Paradise was lost, and even those who wished to remain perfectly still in obedience to God had to now live in choppy waters.

So who’s to blame? Surely we can’t scapegoat Adam and Eve for all of our problems, but can I really say that I am to blame for Climate Change and pollution? War and violence? Poverty and mistreatment? Can you? The thing is, many of our cultural problems have no face and have no easy scapegoat because they are our sins; they are the sins of the collective identity we all share. In the same way that than individual sins when s/he consents in thought, word, or action to misconduct against God and neighbor, such is the case for the identity we make up as a whole. Sin in this regard is called Social Sin.

Take pollution for instance. As an individual, I may throw my trash directly into the river. If out of seven billion people I am the only person to do such a thing, the effect would be minimal, and it would be difficult to call this a sin. But what happens when we as a society choose inappropriate means for disposing of our trash? While individually we only throw into the river the same amount as before, collectively we place thousands of tons of waste into natural environments. As an individual I am not culpable, but as a collective we are all at fault. The same goes for war, poverty, exploitation, disease, and energy consumption: while no single individual is the cause of the world’s disasters, each of us has contributed to the whole and has taken part in the collective identity, either in direct support or general apathy, in order to produce worldwide sins.

So once again I ask: why write about sin? Like the previous post, I write with less of an eye for judgment and more of a hope for reconciliation. Sin exists in our world, but it need not! The first step in fixing our world, regaining the perfect union with God, neighbor and self once experienced in Eden, is recognizing that we have sinned, and how we have sinned. Sin is much more than thinking mean thoughts and its effects reach much further than a guilty conscience; it pervades the lives of our brothers and sisters. And it lasts.

What I call for is a consciousness of our relationship with our surroundings, both as individuals and as a collective. At the end of the day, have my thoughts, words, and actions left this world in a better place or have they left someone else, maybe halfway around the world, worse off? While the cause of our social sin may not be due to one person, the reconciliation needed to make things right may be. It takes one person to ask the question; one person to light a spark; one person to set the example; one person to stop the perpetuation of social sin, even if that is in only one case. I’ve said it before and I will say it again: the way we eat, the places we shop, what we do with our excess, and how we treat the least in our society are not trivial issues. To think, speak, or act without answering these questions, while individually having only a minute effect on the world around us, may in fact be sin.

Ultimately I write this to bring to all of our attention the necessity for true reconciliation for our sins. When we realize we have sinned and ask God for forgiveness, we believe that God will be merciful and forgive us. But our act of conversion does not end there. We must seek to fix what we have done. True reconciliation is mending relationships that have been hurt, forgiving those who have sinned against us, and altogether trying to put the world back to the way it was before we sent a ripple of sin through it. If we believe sin to be a relational problem with social effects, reconciliation must also be relational with social effects. How have you affected your world today?

 2 Comments

 Posted on February 14, 2014 by

 Theology

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Sin, A Relational Problem

Sin the is slow unraveling of a rope, separating us in our relationships with God, neighbor, and self.

Sin the is slow unraveling of a rope, separating us in our relationships with God, neighbor, and self.

Sin is a difficult topic to speak about in today’s world. On the one hand, due largely to theologians such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, there are those that can see nothing but humanity’s sinfulness, believing that humans are by our very nature “depraved,” so much so that God the Father is concerned only with justice and that Jesus is only able to cover our sins. This is evident in the “fire and brimstone” style sermons and the scare tactics of billboards portraying a fiery hell for sinners.  On the other hand, due largely to the effects of the New Age Movement and Modern relativism on Christianity, there are those that overemphasize the redemptive mercy of God to the extent that sin is essentially non-existent, and nothing could ever separate us from God. This is evident in phrases like, “Who are you to judge?” and “If God loves us how could there be such a thing as Hell?”

The fact of the matter is that our Trinitarian God is a God of justice AND mercy; a God of expectations AND exceptions; a God of patience AND anger. A quick breeze through the Bible reveals this two-fold response (and while slightly off topic and impossible to show in just a few lines, it is entirely false to think of the Old Testament God as a God of justice and wrath and the New Testament God as a God of mercy and love. In a lot of ways, it is quite the opposite. Maybe another time, but I digress…) The fact of the matter is that God has the capacity for both unbound mercy and irrefutable justice (and it it not up to us which one will be expressed!

So, what then is sin, and why does the majority of the world have such an unclear understanding of it? When we look to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, sin is defined as

An offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.” (1849)

In essence, sin is an act against relationships. Implicit in this definition is the goodness of the relationship, whether with God, neighbor, or self, that once was and is yet possible: to speak of sin as the absence or failure of love requires that there be at some point the perfect expression of that relationship to begin with. Goodness explains sin, not the other way around. There is need for the perfect relationship for there to be sin, but there is no need for sin to explain the possibility of a perfect relationship.

And so what is a “perfect” relationship? It is the relationship that is oriented towards the Eternal Law, the law of God dictating the way things are and should be. This can be known through the scientific study of Reason or the expressed Truth of Divine revelation, both of which can manifest themselves through one’s conscience.

When we evaluate our actions, we ask ourselves: has this utterance, deed, or desire brought me closer to God, neighbor, and self, or has it divided what once was and stunted what could have been? 

The list of actions that divide and stunt is infinite in length and may actually be a bit relative to the time, place, and situation. We must not allow ourselves to become so attached to the literal interpretation of God’s law, e.g. The Ten Commandments, that we fail to see the possibility for destroying God’s kingdom all around us. Sure, I may not have every physically murdered anyone in my life, but I have certainly hurt people with my words that have effectively ruined the possibility for relationship in the future. I may not have born false witness against my neighbor in a public court of law, but I sure as heck have spread gossip that tarnished someone’s image and ultimately weakened my relationship with them and with others. I may not have stolen anything substantial in my life, but I have certainly possessed more than I needed when there were those around me in dire need. In each of these cases, a current relationship was weakened and the potential for a future relationship was all but eliminated.

So why write about sin? Is it because I’m feeling really self-righteous and want to cast anyone into the fires of hell or to make people feel self-conscious? Absolutely not. I share these three examples of my own sins to diffuse any sense of self-righteousness. What’s really at stake here is the power of the community of believers to feel in communion with one another and to feel responsible for each other’s livelihoods in Christ. The Church is not some social gathering or academic class in which people sign up for their own sake, get what they need out of it, and then go home. There is something powerful about the community of faith, coming together as the body of Christ, striving to be in greater communion with one another and God. We are not simply individuals with a common goal; we take on a collective identity.

To do so, we must be in right relationship with God, neighbor, and self. To disregard the power of sin, the divisive effects of evil in our lives, cheapens and divides this community. We must seek always to be in right relationship with our brothers and sisters, all of them, and when we fall short, to ask forgiveness so as to be readmitted into the community. This is the beauty of the sacrament of reconciliation. When we ask absolution from a priest, we are not simply going to some middleman so that God will forgive us because we are unable. God could and does do this without a priest. What we miss when we do not receive this sacrament is the gentle correction of a figure of wisdom, the guidance to find our way back, and the official welcome back into the community of believers.

Unfortunately, even though sin is the result of a personal action, it has a social, lasting effect in the world that cannot be removed simply by God’s forgiveness. One may be forgiven by God for killing someone, but the effect of that sin is irreversible, and the relationships that have been broken because of it require much more work on the part of the sinner to be healed. In most cases, what once was may never be recovered. This is the power of sin, but it need not exist.

This is where I’d like to pick up in my next post: sin as a communal problem. If we see sin as broken relationship, it is something that goes far beyond the personal act, and is something that pervades our every moment. What must we do to conquer it?

 2 Comments

 Posted on February 7, 2014 by

 Theology

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Breaking In The Habit

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