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V2, We Love You: Introduction

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As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m planning on offering a series of blog entries about the “Ecumenical Council” commonly known as “The Second Vatican Council”, or simply “Vatican 2”.

Most Catholics will be able to tell you that Vatican 2 was important, but, in my experience, fairly few are actually able to articulate well why it was important.  Many are not able to explain what exactly Vatican 2 was, what it actually taught and why it is important in the history of the Catholic Church.  It is my hope that this blog will help shed a little light on these issues.

I think that it is best, before I get stuck into the meat of Vatican 2, that I attempt to give something of a general introduction to the concept of councils in general, and ecumenical councils in particular.

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The Four Loves – Chapter 1 (“Introduction”)

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Four Loves 1

Our San Diego C.S. Lewis Reading Group will starting a new book this week, The Four Loves.

Once again I will be providing an outline of the arguments presented in each chapter, together with quotations and explanatory notes. The chapters in this book are generally a good bit longer than our previous book (Mere Christianity), so I may well experiment with the format of these posts as I work through each chapter.

Notes and Quotes

1. Lewis thought that St. John’s statement that “God is love” would provide a clear plan for this book

“‘God is love,’ says St. John. When I first tried to write this book I thought
that his maxim would provide me with a very plain highroad through the
whole subject. I thought I should be able to say that human loves deserved
to be called loves at all just in so far as they resembled that Love which is
God”

2. He therefore divided love into two types:

(a) Gift-love

“The typical example of Gift-love would be that love which moves a man to work and plan and save for the future well-being of his family which he will die without sharing or seeing”

(b) Need-love

“…that which sends a lonely or frightened child to its mother’s arms”

3. These types of love reflect both divinity and humanity

(a) Divine Love

“Divine Love is Gift-love. The Father gives all He is and has to the Son. The Son gives Himself back to the Father and gives Himself to the world, and for the world to the Father, and thus gives the world (in Himself) back to the Father too”

(b) Relation to God

“…what…can be less like anything we believe of God’s life than Need-love? He lacks nothing… We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness. We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves”

3. Lewis thought he could just praise Gift-love and disparage Need-love

“I was looking forward to writing some fairly easy panegyrics on the first
sort of love and disparagements of the second… But I would not now deny the name love to Need-love… The reality is more complicated than I supposed”

In this section, Jack uses the term “panegyrics” which refers to a speech in which something is praised. He also refers to his “master, MacDonald” was an author and minister he greatly admired, George MacDonald.

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Getting started with the Early Church Fathers

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A friend recently expressed interest in getting to know the Early Church Fathers so I said that I would put together a brief (hah!) list of resources.

I was first introduced to the Early Church Fathers by Marcellino D’Ambrosio while I was on a retreat in England. He regaled us with some of the many colourful stories from the Early Church, such as the election of St. Ambrose to Bishop of Milan. Since St. Ambrose will be my roommate’s Patron Saint when he’s received into the Church next year I’ll make sure I write about that sometime soon…

Audio Resources

This initial introduction to the Fathers by Dr. D’Ambrosio was later supplemented by the excellent lecture series given by Dr. Lawrence Feingold to the Association of Hebrew Catholics.  Dr. Feingold takes the listener through a tour of the Early Church, focussing upon the issues in that Church, such the call to martyrdom, as the relationship between faith and reason, and the Arian heresy.

Association of Hebrew Catholics

Over time, I have found several other excellent sources for lectures. The Institute of Catholic Culture has an entire section of their website dedicated to the the Early Church, with lectures concerning the Lives of the Apostolic Fathers, The Councils of the Early Church and the desert fathers.

Institute of Catholic Culture

Another excellent resource is one which I recently advertised, the St. Paul Center For Biblical Theology. The website has lot of talks available, including the lives of the Fathers and a short series on Patristics.

St. Paul Center For Biblical Theology

If you would like to get a deeper grounding in Christian history (which is, itself, the story of the Fathers), I highly recommend the extensive series of lectures by Fr. Michael Witt. If you get through the Early Church period, don’t worry! You don’t have to stop there since he also covers Church history up until the present day… 🙂

Mike Aquilina also now has a podcast.

So those are a number of audio resources, but what about books?

Websites

There are several websites which provide a handy concordance for the Fathers, such as ChurchFathers.org.

Books

Mike Aquilina has written a number of very accessible books on the subject and I would particularly recommend his book The Fathers of the Church as it gives a good, brief survey of the Patristic period. If you’re interested in the worship of the Early Church he also has a very readable book entitled The Mass of the Early Christians.

I know a lot of people were first introduced to Patristics through The Four Witnesses by Rod Bennett, which focusses just four Fathers: Clement, Ignatius, Justin and Irenaeus. Likewise, if you would like to focusses more in depth on specific Fathers, Dr. Howell has a great couple of books which focus on Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp.

Fathers of the ChurchMass of the Early ChristiansFour Witnesses

Clement  Ignatius aThe Fathers Know Best

A new excellent reference book came out recently from Jimmy Akin entitled The Fathers Know Best. It is a book which arranges the writings of the Church Fathers by topic. For example, have you ever wanted to know what the Fathers thought about contraception? Well, with Jimmy’s book you can just flip to that topic and read, in chronological order, extracts from the Fathers on that subject.

Ad Fontes!

Finally, I would invite anyone wishing to get to know the Fathers better to actually get down and read the works themselves. I have several works available on this website in my Patristics section, together with MP3 recordings of the text. If you want to see what the Fathers thought about the Gospel readings at Mass each week, I’d suggest consulting the Catena Aurea. For further reading, I would recommend the Ancient Christian Writers series. The translation is excellent and there are a good number of explanatory endnotes.

So there you go! Hopefully that wasn’t too overwhelming! Pick which way works best for you and get stuck in! Get to know your Christian family 🙂

25 Random Facts

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One of my friends commented that there’s not a whole lot of “me” on this blog, so today I’m cheating and rehashing something which I posted on Facebook two years ago…

It was a craze that went around Facebook where you wrote twenty-five random facts about yourself in a Note and then tagged a load of friends who then had to do the same. Rinse and repeat.

The content of my Facebook Note was as follows:

Man, this was difficult! It was particularly hard coming up with things that people may not know about me but that I’m also comfortable with putting into the public domain!

I think this “25 Random Facts” thing has been the best thing in Facebook to date – I’ve really enjoyed reading everyone else’s, so here goes…

1. I was a bit of a handful in Primary School – I became very familiar with the Headmaster’s office, having usually been sent there for getting into fights. I wasn’t at all academic then either.

2. I hated school up until the age of 16. After that, it just got better and better…

3. I was a very arty child (drawing, poetry etc) until about the age of twelve when I swapped my soul for an Amiga 600 with 1MB of RAM…

4. I have a scar by my right elbow from a moped accident in France when I was fifteen. I’m really proud of it. Chicks dig scars.

5. I’ve been a Christian all my life, but at the age of twenty I had a major renewal in my faith. I couldn’t imagine life otherwise.

6. I love chick-flicks. There, I said it.

UPDATE: If you know me, this really isn’t news… 😉

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Fully conscious, active participation

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Today I would like to reflect a little more on the development of liturgy following the Second Vatican Council. In the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (“Sacrosanctum Concilium“), the Council called for the laity to have “fully conscious, and active participation” in the liturgical celebration.

Participation

As someone who grew in the post-concilliar Church, I have often felt that there was an attempt to respond to this call of the Council by simply giving the laity as many jobs as possible. Tasks previously performed by priests and deacons in the Liturgy were now given to those who sat in the pews.

While I appreciate what was being attempted, I have recently been thinking that the implementation of the Council’s teaching contained rather flawed logic. After all, if “fully conscious, and active participation” necessitates that I have some kind of liturgical role at Mass, what about those who don’t get assigned a job that week? There are only so many things that need doing! We can’t have everybody read the Readings or bring up the gifts! If participation requires a job, does that mean that those without a job are not participating in the Liturgy? Obviously not.

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You’ve got (ancient) mail!

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When reading any book of the Bible we must first talk about its literary genre. What kind of writing is it? Is it apocalyptic? Is it poetry? Is it historical? The literary genre to which a document belongs affects how we understand it.

If we get the literary genre wrong, it is extremely likely that our interpretation will be faulty. Therefore, when we are looking at a book of the Bible which is an epistle i.e. a piece of correspondence, we must read it as such. It is also extremely helpful when reading a biblical epistle to first examine the conventions of letter writing at the time of the Apostles.

A friend recently asked that we should study the First Epistle of St. Peter together. Since I’ve had to explain the mechanics of ancient letters a few times now, I’ve decided to devote a blog entry to the subject so that I can easily refer to it in future 😀

(There is a technical difference between an “epistle” and a “letter”…
but we’ll ignore that distinction in this post)

Snooping on Mail

To see the structure of ancient letters more clearly, let’s examine a short letter written by a Pagan in approximately AD 150:

Apion sends heartiest greets to his father and lord Epimachus.

I pray above all that you are well and fit; and that things are going well with you and my sister and her daughter and my brother.

I thank my Lord Serapis that he kept me safe when I was in peril on the sea.

As soon as I got to Misenum I got my journey money from Caesar – three goldpieces. And things are going fine with me. So I beg you, my dear father, send me a line, first to let me know how you are, and then about my brothers, and thirdly, that I may kiss your hand because you brought me up well, and because of that I hope, God willing, soon to be promoted.

Give Capito my heartiest greetings, and my brothers and Serenilla and my friends. I sent you a little picture of myself painted by Euctemon. My military name is Antonius Maximus. I pray for your good health. Serenus sends good wishes, Agathos Daimon’s boy, and Burbo, Gallonius’ son.

Deconstructing Apion

There are several distinct features in this letter:

1. Greeting. The author first identifies himself (“Apion”) and then identifies to whom he is writing (his father “Epimachus”):

Apion sends heartiest greets to his father and lord Epimachus.

2. Prayer. The author prays for the health and well-being of the recipients (his father, siblings and niece):

I pray above all that you are well and fit; and that things are going well with you and my sister and her daughter and my brother.

3. Thanksgiving. The author gives thanks to his god (“Serapis”):

I thank my Lord Serapis that he kept me safe when I was in peril on the sea.

4. Body. There is then the main contents of the letter. He speaks a little bit about military life and expresses gratitude to his father.

As soon as I got to Misenum I got my journey money from Caesar – three goldpieces. And things are going fine with me. So I beg you, my dear father, send me a line, first to let me know how you are, and then about my brothers, and thirdly, that I may kiss your hand because you brought me up well, and because of that I hope, God willing, soon to be promoted…

5. Personal greetings. The author asks that his greetings be conveyed to some other people. Finally, he sends greetings from those who are with him.

Give Capito my heartiest greetings, and my brothers and Serenilla and my friends...Serenus sends good wishes, Agathos Daimon’s boy, and Burbo, Gallonius’ son

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Making everything new

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The other day I was at the pub discussing theology with one of my friends. During our discussion, I referred to “the New Exodus”, a phrase which he hadn’t heard before. I can’t say for sure, but I think I first heard it used by either Brant Pitre or Scott Hahn…someone like that…

Actually, if you listen to other theologians at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, you’ll hear them use the word “new” an awful lot. They speak about the New Moses, New Manna, New Solomon, New Temple… In light of this, today I would like to give a brief overview of this way of viewing Scripture, with particular reference to the New Exodus. Understanding this perspective on Scripture can be really helpful, particularly in seeing the overarching unity of Scripture in the Old and New Testaments.

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