Faber's Hymn Disfigured

On our Unam Sanctam Catholicam Facebook page, I recently shared a story about a Catholic school in California that had decided to remove images of Jesus and Mary in order to be more inclusive. It made me remember G.K. Chesterton's definition of a liberal as someone who is so open minded their brains have fallen out. The virus of "inclusiveness" and "tolerance" has infected the Catholic soul to a degree unfathomable a few decades ago. In the wake of the events of Charlottesville, this insanity seems to have reached a fever pitch. For example, the sportscaster being pulled from an event for being named Robert Lee, or the Memphis movie theater that withdrew a planned showing of Gone With the Wind.

I was taking these thoughts with me to Mass this morning. We were singing "Faith of Our Fathers" by Frederick W. Faber. I couldn't help notice a new verse smooshed into the middle of the song. The annotation at the bottom of the hymn page noted it was a new alternate verse added in 1994 by progressive liturgist Mike Hay. The verse said:

Our mothers, too, oppressed and wronged
Still lived their faith with dignity;
Their brave example gives us strength
To work for justice ceaselessly

The only way this verse could have been added is because Hay thought the song as written by Faber was unjustly excluding women from the roster of the Church's faithful. It was irking to see how the value of women's example is found, not in the salvation of souls or the glory of God, but in the "strength to work for justice ceaselessly." Women in the Church are social justice warriors, in Hay's vision.

Given this, I wonder in what manner they were "oppressed and wronged" in Hay's vision. The context of the song as a whole is about the oppression of the Church by her persecutors. But since the value of the women's suffering is in inspiring us to work for social justice, I can't help wondering if there is a secondary meaning implicit in Hay's lyric - that the "oppression" is the oppression of "patriarchy", and the admonition to "work for justice" also refers to pushing for alleged "women's equality" within the Church (in terms of female ordination, etc).

Of course referring to our "Fathers" doesn't mean to exclude women. The entire first centuries of the Church are called the "Patristic" era, but obviously that's not meant to deny the role of many holy women in establishing Christianity - women like the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Agnes, or St. Monica, whose feast we celebrate today. More generally, in English referring to the "days of our fathers" or "the faith of our fathers" and similar such sentiments simply means "the past." As if when we sing about the faith of our fathers we are some how meaning to exclude the possibility that any female also had faith! It's ridiculous. But of course, liberals have never been able to stomach the male universal to refer  to humanity as such.

"Everything's political," says the obnoxious Marxist character Perchik from Fiddler on the Roof. This is real sad thing about progressive ideology. Everything is only political all the time. It's always about power struggle. Not even the martyrdoms of Catholic history can be considered without inserting a political narrative about women's oppression and social justice. In the liberal mindset, there is no refuge from political interpretation; no "safe space", to use a popular progressive phrase. Social justice (rather than the glory of God and salvation of souls) becomes an interpretive meta-principle - a filter through which everything else must pass.

As an aside, it's interesting that this would not be the first time this hymn was added to or redacted. The original third verse of the hymn invoked the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the conversion of England:

Faith of our fathers, Mary’s prayers
Shall win our country back to Thee;
And through the truth that comes from God,
England shall then indeed be free.

It was the Protestants who altered this verse, such that "Mary's prayers" became "faith and prayer", "our country" became "all nations", and "England" replace with "mankind" or "we all" or something similar. The result is that an impassioned plea to the Blessed Mother for the conversion of a particular country becomes a very generic prayer for the conversion of the world. Hmm...that reminds me of something else...

At any rate, it's not surprising Protestants would have edited the hymn in this regard, but what is astonishing to me is that Catholic hymnals have adopted the Protestantized version of verse 3. I have never encountered a Catholic hymnal that actually used the original Catholic version of the song as penned by Faber. I'm willing to bet many of these Catholic hymnal and missalette producers are not even aware that the version of the song they are printing is Protestantized.

+Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam+
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The Story of the Canaanite Woman

Today in the Gospel readings, we heard about the story of Jesus healing the daughter of the Canaanite woman from Matthew 15:21-28. The text of the Gospel reads:

At that time, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, "Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon." But Jesus did not say a word in answer to her. Jesus' disciples came and asked him, "Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us." He said in reply, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But the woman came and did Jesus homage, saying, "Lord, help me." He said in reply, "It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters." Then Jesus said to her in reply, "O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And the woman's daughter was healed from that hour.

It is unfortunate that in the wake of the Charlottesville violence we have to endure more violence - violence to the text from pastors whom I'm sure are taking this story about Jesus encountering a person outside His own ethnic group and making it a story about racial harmony. I guess such an interpretation certainly fits with the zeitgeist, but I don't think that's what this story is really about. Just because Jesus talks to a foreigner doesn't mean this story is about racial harmony. 

Not that the fact that the woman is a Canaanite is inconsequential; it's actually central to the meaning of the story, but I am wryly amused that people can often find no other way to understand this apart from contemporary paradigms about ethnicity and inclusion. 

Let's dig in to what's going on here.

This story has a lot in common with another tale in the Gospel of Luke - the healing of the centurion's servant:

After he had ended all his sayings in the hearing of the people he entered Capernaum. Now a centurion had a slave who was dear to him, who was sick and at the point of death. When he heard of Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his slave. And when they came to Jesus, they besought him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and he built us our synagogue.” And Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. For I am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this he marveled at him, and turned and said to the multitude that followed him, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave well (Luke 7:1-10).

The two stories have three things in common:

1) The one petitioning Jesus is a Gentile
2) Both the Canaanite woman and the centurion use an analogy to make their case
3) Jesus marvels at the faith of each before granting their requests

In the tale of the centurion's servant, the centurion is no less a Gentile than the Canaanite woman, yet nobody makes this story about racial harmony. That's because it is so clearly about faith. The centurion uses an analogy of military command and authority to demonstrate his faith in Christ's ability to affect a cure by merely pronouncing the words. This is very clearly about the nature of faith. 

This Gentile, who was not part of God's covenant with Israel, has a more authentic understanding of faith than the Jews. "Not even in Israel have I found such faith!" This is really the heart of the story. Contrasting the disposition for faith found in the Gentiles with the kind of hard-hearted unbelief of the Jewish community. This story both prefigures the inclusion of the Gentiles into the New Covenant, as well as incites the Jews to envy by casting the Gentiles as a foil.

I have two other places in Scripture I can cite in defense of this. First, Acts 13, where St. Paul and Barnabas are preaching in Pisidia. Notice how the faith of the Gentiles is contrasted with the unbelief of the Jews, and how this arouses the Jews to envy when St. Paul mentions it:

The next sabbath almost the whole city gathered together to hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with jealousy, and contradicted what was spoken by Paul, and reviled him. And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles, for so the Lord has commanded us, saying, ‘I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the uttermost parts of the earth.’” And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of God; and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord spread throughout all the region. But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city, and stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district. (13:44-51).

St. Paul publicly praises the faith of the Gentiles, which incites the Jews to envy. This is the same thing Jesus does when He praises the faith of the centurion and says "Not even in Israel have I found such faith!"

But more pertinent to the discussion of the Canaanite woman is my second text, which comes from St. Paul's epistle to the Romans, where he basically spells out the strategy I have explained above and says that provoking the Jews to jealousy is a means of saving at least some of them:

I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I glory in my ministry in order to make my race jealous and thus save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? (Rom. 11:13-15)

The "ministry" St. Paul is glorying in is his apostolate to the Gentiles. He says specifically that he magnifies the successes of his work among the Gentiles "in order to make my race jealous", with the end result of hopefully bringing some of them to faith.

If this verse sounds familiar, it is because it is paired with the story of the Canaanite woman in the liturgy; you heard this passage at Mass today alongside the story of the Canaanite woman. This tells us that the Church would like us to interpret the story of the Canaanite woman in light of St. Paul's teaching in Romans 11.

What are we left with then? What is actually going on in the story of the Canaanite woman?

Jesus' ministry was initially to the Jews; He left ministry to the Gentiles for the Apostles after the coming of the Holy Spirit. This is why He initially refuses the Canaanite woman's request for a healing. This is the meaning of His comment, "It is not right to take the little children's bread and throw it to the dogs."

However, like the centurion, the Canaanite woman grasps the true nature of faith. She responds "Even the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from the master's table." This is what causes Jesus to marvel at her faith and grant her request. The "bread" referenced by our Lord is like the grace of God. Sanctifying grace had hitherto only been made available to the Israelites through the Old Covenant. Jesus essentially tells the Canaanite woman, "The special graces of the Old Covenant are not yet available to the Gentiles, only the faithful of Israel." The woman responds that even foreigners eat the scraps of bread from the Master's table. The substance of her response is, "Even the common graces available to all mankind are sufficient for me, lowly as I am, to understand my utter dependence upon my Creator. The smallest of things depend on God just as much as the greatest." Jesus marvels at the woman's intuitive understanding of her dependence on God's goodness. Moved by her great faith, He grants her request.

Thus, the story is really about the nature of faith and how pleasing faith is to God. It's just that the Canaanite woman's metaphor takes a little more thought to unpack than the one used by the centurion, but they are both essentially the same message.

We could also cite an event from Luke 4. In Luke 4, Jesus is preaching in the synagogue at Capernaum; this is the famous episode where Jesus reads from the prophet Isaiah and identifies Himself as the Messiah. When He sees that His detractors want Him to perform a miracle to back up His claims, He says:

“Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself; what we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here also in your own country.’” And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country. But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land; and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and put him out of the city" (Luke 4:23-29).

Here our Lord refers to the days of the prophets Elijah and Elisha and contrasts the unbelief of Israel with the faith of the Gentiles, who were granted miracles. This is the exact same context as the healing of the centurion's servant and the daughter of the Canaanite. It should also be noted that Mark 7:24 said that the episode with the Canaanite woman occurred "in the region of Tyre and Sidon"; in other words, the Canaanite woman was most likely a Sidonian, just as the widow of Zarephath Jesus references in the Gospel of Luke. This further reinforces the interpretation I am proposing.

The Old Testament law was particular to the biological children of Israel. But the rule of faith is greater than the law. It is before Moses (St. Paul traces it to Abraham in Romans 4) and has the capacity to be universal. That's why the faith of the Church is catholic. Just as the prophecies of the inclusion of the Gentiles in the Old Testament foreshadow this, so do Jesus' healings of the centurion's servant and the Canaanite woman's daughter. This foreshadowing is fulfilled on the day of Pentecost.

Thus, the healing of the Canaanite's daughter is about the nature of faith, the universality of God's covenant, and how pleased God is with the humble, childlike faith of His people.

One final note: People often comment on how "mean" Jesus is to the Canaanite woman. "He calls her a dog!" they say. How demeaning! Is it racist? Is it sexist? Is it both? How rude!

This is a reflection more of the mindset of modern people than of any rudeness in the behavior of our Lord. When our Lord uses a metaphor of a dog, people cannot but assume our Lord is calling the woman a dog. However, this is more about the way eastern cultures talk. In the Middle East, there is a very common manner of speech whereby the speaker uses a metaphor to make a point. We do this in the west too, obviously, but in the east it is much more common. Entire conversations may be carried out this way, and the prevalence of metaphor increases to the degree that the conversation becomes more delicate.

This is very common in Semitic, Bedouin, and Arabic cultures. I recall one time years ago reading the authorized biography of Lawrence of Arabia by Jeremy Wilson. The book describes in fascinating detail how T.E. Lawrence often worked out his tactics with his Arab allies. Sometimes, the entire discussion would take place in metaphor. Lawrence might propose striking an Ottoman railroad at a certain point, and the Arab sheikh would smile and say "Ah! The snake bites the horses heel!" or something similar. The book describes how frustrating it could get when complex arrangements had to be hammered out.

The thing is though, the sheikh was not actually insinuating that the Arab armies possessed the characteristics of snakes. Yes, there was a metaphor. But it wasn't exactly a simile, which is making a positive affirmation that one thing is like something else. Simile is a more refined type of metaphor. Jesus was not saying that the Canaanite woman has the negative characteristics of a dog - cringing, smelly, animalistic, etc. Rather, in typical Semitic fashion, he was using a colorful metaphor, the purpose of which was to explain a complex idea simply. And the Canaanite woman understands. She doesn't miss a beat. She's ready with the proper metaphorical response.

Jesus does a similar thing when He says "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head" (Luke 9:58). He's not suggesting any character similarities between Himself and stereotypical foxes or birds. He's just using a colorful analogy to draw attention to His itinerancy without meaning the parallel to be taken in any moral sense. Not every metaphor Jesus uses is like this, but I think this example of the Canaanite woman certainly is. He's not making any sort of moral judgment about her. He's merely engaging in some colorful Middle Eastern metaphor.

Yes, Jesus is willing to do a miracle for the Canaanite woman even though she is not an Israelite. But it was because of the nature of her faith, not because Jesus wanted to teach us a lesson about ethic harmony and racial inclusiveness.

Hope for Eternal Life

There is always a part of the human heart which desires to have paradise now on earth. To those who read the Holy Scriptures thousands of years after they were written, it seems obvious that the Kingdom of Heaven spoken of in the Gospel was not a more glorious reign of a King David with great command over all temporal affairs and the respect of the nations given to Israel. However, this was not necessarily obvious to the Apostles. We know this because even after the Resurrection of Christ in the Acts we see them say to our Resurrected Lord: 

"They therefore who were come together, asked him, saying: Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" Acts 1:6

Our Lord redirects the Apostles hopes not unto such things, but unto the hope of receiving gifts of the Spirit. I wanted to do a follow up article on this subject after reading some comments left on my brothers Boniface's article Five Unlikely Scenarios. 

We must at some point come to the realization that at no point either now or in the near future will this life cease to be a valley of tears. That all of us must first pass through death and judgement before dwelling in continual peace in the City of God which is Heaven to come. In the Rule of St. Benedict and the Rule of the Poor Knights it is put quite well when it says that we are to "Long for eternal life with all of your soul".

It is good to long for reform in the Church, so that institutionally the Church might be a faithful bride of Christ. It is good to hope for the reunification of the Church from schism, or that temporal leaders might be defenders of the Church.

But these hopes must be put in the proper place. It is an error to believe that before the last day God will systemically end all abuses, confusion, political persecution and so forth. Every day children are born into this world, made in the image of God, but nevertheless under the dominion of the devil. Even those that are baptized still suffer under the yoke of Original Sin, and will fall and sin throughout their life. God will always allow his Saints to be chastised and tried because He loves them, and   "And all that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution." 2 Timothy 3:2

Even the people who lived during the 13th century - the supposed "golden age" of the Church - believed their own times were so bad and corrupt that they were living in the end times.  

If God allows abuses now in the Wisdom of His Providence, how dare any of us say that at some future point He will end all of those things before the Final Day!. We should rather believe that the reason why we have these crosses are to our benefit and that they may even be necessary for our salvation right now. There is another sin against hope seldom spoken of, but you will find in moral theology manuals, and that is the sin of aversion. Aversion is not the hatred of God but the preference of this life to the next. Yes, this world is a cross. Enduring poor liturgy is a cross. Enduring persecution for believing right belief in the Church is a cross. Enduring a hostile secular political order is a cross. Enduring tortured theology heavily influenced by humanism is a cross.

It is a real danger if we desire relief from these problems simply on account of the personal anguish they cause us because we seek peace and comfort in this life and despise the suffering that these things cause us to endure. It is through the bearing of these modern crosses that we merit Grace, that sinners are sanctified in patience, and which can help us yearn for Eternal life with all of our souls. We don't want to fall into the snare in our spiritual life of praying and hoping mainly for a good temporal order, or for that matter even allowing our peace to be destroyed because these things must be endured.

True Christian Hope is not that God will deliver us from these afflictions, but that God will give us to the grace to bear them well and persevere in His Grace until the very end of our lives, forgive us our sins and grant us eternal life. 

I would encourage you my brothers to view all of these temporal burdens as crosses and to let them help you long for death and eternal life. 

That you pray with sincerity for our leaders, especially the Church.

That you strive with all of your strength to Worship God with the proper reverence due to Him, and that the pious reception of the sacraments bears fruit in the life of the Church.

That you come to great wisdom through the humble studying of the Holy Faith, and you pass on the faith of the Fathers to those who are entrusted to you. 

That you are more so busy about laboring for your salvation and praying for those Gifts of Grace that can help you obtain it, than about pleading with God for a period of temporal peace brought on by the consecration of Russia.  

That you, with vigilant watchfulness, are eager for the salvation of the friends and enemies near to you and execute your civic duties with the love and piety fitting of a Catholic, not eagerly looking for a Monarch whom in the end could only institute a temporal order, not give people the gift of repentance that only comes from above.

May God bless us all.