Four Reasons for the Resurrection of Jesus

[Apr 9, 2023] "If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain" (1 Cor. 15:14). The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the centerpiece of the Faith, what St. Paul called the matter "of first importance" (1 Cor. 15:4) in Christian preaching. In this article, we shall consider various reasons why, in God's infinite wisdom, He ordained the Resurrection of Christ in the grand plan of salvation history.

"I Know That My Redeemer Lives"

On this day we celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Resurrection is the greatest miracle and the principal testimony to the truth of our Lord's teaching, for, as St. Paul says, "if Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain; you are still in your sins" (1 Cor. 15:17). This is a potent reminded that it is not merely the crucifixion of Christ that saves us; our salvation is incomplete without His resurrection to glory. Jesus was "put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification" (Rom. 4:25). His rising also serves as a pledge that we, too, shall be raised to life again, adoring God forever in our glorified flesh. Christ is "the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ" (1 Cor. 15:20-24).

"The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise. But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it" (Mark 9:31-32). Christ spoke plainly of the Resurrection to His disciples ahead of time, but the meaning of His words was veiled from them. The reason for this is uncertain; perhaps God deliberately obscured this truth from their minds, or perhaps they misunderstood through a defect in their own natural faculties. Whatever its cause, the Resurrection remained indiscernible to them before the fact. Thus, the death of Christ shattered their imaginings; the finality of the crucifixion must have made their squabbles about who would be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven seem childish and naïve. We can imagine what disappointment they must have had. A hint of this disillusionment can be heard in the voice of the nameless disciples Christ encountered on the road to Emmaus after the Resurrection: telling Him about the events surrounding the Crucifixion, they say, "we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel" (Luke 24:21) the pluperfect "had hoped" signifying that they had once hoped, but now hoped no longer.

The Resurrection, then, was not a foregone conclusion to the disciples. We may presume the Blessed Virgin Mary to have nurtured this hope in her Immaculate Heart, but for the rest of His followers, we can assume they were as dejected as those Christ met on the Emmaus road. The Gospel of John tells us that after the Crucifixion, Peter and the other disciples returned to Galilee and went back to their lives as fishermen (John 21:1-3); this is not the sort of behavior we'd expect from men who were anticipating an imminent Resurrection of their Lord.

How glorious and life-changing, then, must have been the realization that the Lord had risen indeed! How excited Peter must have been when, hearing Christ's voice from the shore, he leaped from his boat into the sea to swim to His Master. How stupefied the disciples must have been as they sat around the fire on the beach in stunned silence watching the Resurrected Messiah munching on roasted fish. But if these moments were astonishing, it was only the apparent finality of His death that rendered them so. For had He not truly died, His sudden reappearance would not have been as stupendous. Suppose Christ had not died, but merely been wounded and escaped; His reappearance would have been welcome, to be sure, but not astounding and certainly not life-altering.

The Lord's ultimate demonstration of His power did not prevent suffering; it came rather after the evil had been done. This is the locus of the Resurrection for us as well. There is no rising to life if there first be no death. For every Christian, this entails a "dying to sin" so we can rise to "newness of life" (Rom. 6:4). This is the spiritual Resurrection that every Christian undergoes. But all of us work through many smaller "resurrections" throughout our lives. I am speaking of the "death" we all undergo whenever we suffer in any sense. The sufferings we undergo are manifold: abuse by others, destructive behavior from ourselves, or agonies of nature. God's power to "deliver us from evil" does not often free us from the experience these things; it turns them to good. The only way out is through; this is the lesson of the Resurrection. In a sense, every little victory of grace is a resurrection: when I finally divest myself the burden of resentment towards someone who has wronged me, that is a resurrection. When I overcome a bad habit, that is a resurrection. When I speak a word of comfort to a wounded spirit, or deny myself some pleasure for the good of my soul, or find God in the deepest midst of my suffering and ignorance, these are little resurrections. But, like the Resurrection of Christ, we find they do not come save in the aftermath of some chaos, some evil, some catastrophe. 

Whether we like it or not, we are all handed burdens in this life, and the challenge of our existence is to rise above them, that in doing so we may know ourselves better and conform ever more closely to the image of God. Nature establishes the parameters of our existence, but we are to transcend what nature has given us. This is the function of grace—to elevate our nature, ennoble us, transfigure us into something greater than we could have ever become on our own. This is the hope of the Resurrection, both the "little" resurrections of daily life, and the grand Resurrection, when we shall see God. But it is a "hope against hope" (Rom. 4:18), born from death, like a seed falling to the earth sprouts into new life. And when that fresh life blossoms into glory, we shall see, on that day when all that is hidden shall be manifest (cf. Matt. 10:26, Luke 8:17), how every tear and heartache and loss was but another stone into the spiritual temple we are all called to become (1 Pet. 2:5); scars gilt in gold, trials become gems, wounds turned to radiant light.  

Thus, with Job, I say, "I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another" (Job 19:25-27).

"Restore our fortunes O' Lord, 

like the watercourse in the Negev

May those who sow in tears

reap with shouts of joy!

He that goes forth weeping,

bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy

carrying their sheaves" (Psalm 126:4-6).

My First Christmas as a Christian

This December I have been remembering my first Christmas as a Christian. It was Christmas of 1999. I had only come to Christ scarcely two months earlier. What a whirlwind those early days of faith were! It reminds me of the passage about the scales falling from St. Paul's eyes. Finding Christ—or rather being found by Him—was like having my mind flooded with light, the ground of my being shaken, and seeing life anew. Sometimes I felt like I was gazing out upon creation as if I were the first man, Adam looking upon a new world fresh from the hands of its maker, the breath of God still in his lungs.

When Christmas came that year, I was profoundly aware that it would henceforth take on a new meaning for me. For twenty years I had celebrated Christmas with my family according to secular custom: vaguely aware of its commemoration of the birth of Christ but primarily as a holiday about Santa Claus, family, and gift giving. But even as a child I'd always felt something special about Christmas, especially Christmas Eve. It seemed like a charmed night, a night where the wonder and magic of the old days lived and walked again.

After I had embraced Christ, I realized that, in a certain sense, that year would be my first "real" Christmas. It would be the first time observing the birth of Christ as a brother in Christ. This realization overwhelmed me with gratitude for the holy day I had grown up with but only then begun to understand. Knowing who Jesus Christ is and what He means enriched the celebration of His birth in ways I'd never appreciated. But how would this new realization change my celebration? How would I observe Christmas differently?

This was tricky. I was still living at home and thus how the day was observed was going to very much depend on my parents, who were secular. Furthermore, I had not yet revealed my conversion to them. They knew I was acting a bit differently, but I had not yet figured out how or when to tell them. My conversion was still very new, and I did not want to "cast my pearls before swine", as our Lord said. I believed if I told them of my conversion too soon they would not take me seriously or mock my sudden piety after years of heathenism. So I didn't feel like I could make any requests of them to celebrate any differently.

In the end, the one tangible thing I did was I got my own little Christmas tree. My parents had the large family tree downstairs, but I had this small artificial tree, about two feet tall, that I had previously had in an apartment. I set the tree up upstairs on a table in my parent's sitting room and decorated it with the few ornaments I possessed of my own. When Christmas Eve came, I spent a lot of time up in that room on my knees before the little tree in prayer. I was not yet Catholic, so it had not occurred to me that going to church was fitting for the night. But I at least had enough Christian sense to know I should be praying.

It was snowy that Christmas Eve, but not snowing. It had snowed hard the day before; this night it was peaceful. The land was blanketed in about a foot. The sky was bright and clear, illumined by a moon almost full. The Michigan countryside about was silent, the pine branches, weighted down with snow, drooped. The snow was immaculate, untouched save for the occasional rabbit track. It shone white and twinkled like crystal in the moonlight.  Beams of pale moonlight streamed into the windows of the room and fell on the carpeted floor. I knelt there in the moonlight, before the little Christmas tree, with my arms spread in the ancient orans posture (though I knew neither the name of the posture nor its antiquity).

I again had that sense that this of newness...as is if this was the first night. The countryside draped in freshly fallen gave a feeling of purity, of cleansing, of freshness. The light of the moon streaming into the window seemed to me like the light of the Star of Bethlehem. I don't recall what I was praying about that Christmas Eve; but I remember vividly how I felt. I felt like that Christmas was the first Christmas. I felt like Christ was being born right then, as if I were a witness alongside the shepherds and animals of the stable. It was such a tender sentiment...I was so new in faith, and in a very real way, Christ was being born in me at the time as well. Everything I saw on the outside seemed to reflect the reality I recognized on the inside.

I've never had a Christmas quite like that one. It's been hard to recapture that. I had no worldly cares that year. I was just living at my parents, not married, no kids, no girlfriend, just a low maintenance gas station job. I was completely unencumbered. Then, gradually, year after year, life closed in on me. To some degree, there's a paradox where the busyness of preparing for a holiday can obstruct one from actually entering into the spirit of the holiday. Too many Christmases since have been marred this way. I suppose it's just part of dealing with holidays with a large family, kids, and so on.

But, ah, one day when I am old and my face is weathered and my hands are cracked with the rigors of age, and I am closer to my life's end than its beginning, I hope again to come to the feast of the birth of our Lord with nothing save my piety, kneeling in the moonlight of a midwinter's night.

The Power of Resurrection

Happy Easter friends, near and afar—Christus surrexit sicut dixit! Today the Church celebrates the holiest feast of the liturgical year, the solemnity of the Resurrection of our Lord. 

The Easter feast of course calls to mind the historical Resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, the cornerstone of our faith—the one truth of which St. Paul says without which our faith is vain (1 Cor. 15:14). Alleluia and praise to the risen King!

But more than that, the Feast of the Resurrection reminds us that we, too, shall one day rise again in glorified flesh to stand before the Lord of Hosts. The Resurrection of Christ, "the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep", (1 Cor. 15:20), is merely the first flowering in what will become the blossoming of the human race united with Christ our head. As Job says, "And I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I will see my God" (Job 19:26). 

Yet, Resurrection means even more than this. It means in this life, here and now, through the grace merited by our Lord Jesus we, all of us, even the most miserable, can rise above our sins and live a life of holiness unto the Lord.

St. Augustine says that he power of the Lord to help us rise from mortal sin to newness of life is exemplified by the three resurrections in the Gospels: the the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow of Nain, and that of Lazarus. The daughter of Jairus had just died when she was resurrected; St. Augustine says this signifies those souls who have just fallen into a single mortal sin and speedily repent. The son of the widow of Nain had been dead a bit longer—he was being carried out of the city on a bier prepared for burial. St. Augustine says this is the sinner who has allowed his sins to become habitual, and but for the intervention of grace is swiftly moving down the path to damnation. Then there is Lazarus, who has been dead so long for so long that his flesh has rotted "he stinketh" says the Gospel of John. Here is the man who is so long dead in his sins that all human hope for his salvation has been lost. The very sight of the man is an offense to God and his character has the stench of corruption. Yet, even this soul, though rotting in his sins, can be saved and restored to grace.

Thus, friend, whomever you are and whatever sins you are struggling with, the power of Christ can confer upon you victory over your sins. You are not called to manage your sins or negotiate or call a truce with them; you are called to victory, and in Him you can have it. Let the same faith you place in Christ's Resurrection be now placed in the hope of your own resurrection from sin through Him.

But Resurrection means yet even more than this. It means, in the most general sense, that evil and injustice do not have the final say. Your personal failures will not define you. Your professional setbacks are not all there is. Family tragedy, resentment, injustice, hurt feelings, fear—none of these things are the last word. In the midst of all the brokenness, even when the deepest darkness swirls about you, you can find the power of forgiveness, hope, and new life. And though the Christian life is always a journey and a battle, the forgiveness and grace and healing you need is not far—in fact, it is right where you are. Right here. Right now:

For this commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it (Deut. 30:11-14).

The power of the Resurrection is real. It is potent and vibrant and will transform all your weakness into strength that His power may be manifest. 

Blessed Easter everyone.

Mutans Tenebras Ad Lucem

"Turning darkness into light." ~ Pangur Bán

Book Review: The Week of Salvation by James Monti

It’s been many years since I first came across James Monti’s voluminous Week of Salvation: History and Traditions of Holy Week. I was still a student at Ave Maria College back when it was still in Michigan—the real Ave as us small band of brothers sometimes call it—when someone gifted me this book for Lent. I remember spending hours poring through it in the college library and common room, learning for the first time, as a relatively new practicing Catholic, about the rich history of Holy Week.

Monti’s book goes through Holy Week day by day examining the history and customs surrounding each. The breadth of his study is very exhaustive; chapters typically begin with an exegesis on the relevant biblical passages and then go on to examine the patristic writings, drawing on such rich and diverse sources as St. Cyrl’s Catechetical Lectures, fragments of ancient liturgies, and the diary of the pilgrim Egeria. They frequently discuss early medieval liturgical sources, including those outside the Latin rite, such as the liturgies of the Mozarbic rite and the Chaldeans. It also covers monastic usages during and after the Cistercian reform and draws on early modern travelers’ journals for its narratives of various celebrations in the 17th-18th centuries. It typically concludes each chapter with a section on how various Holy Week celebrations are conducted in the post-Conciliar era.

One thing I particularly appreciated about Mr. Monti’s book is the attention it gives to the now lost royal liturgies associated with Holy Week in former monarchical countries. In the kingdoms of old Christendom, the monarch and his family used to play a central role in the traditions surrounding Holy Week. For example, there is a beautiful passage explaining how the Kings of Spain used to wash the feet of the poor on Holy Thursday. The following account appears in the book; it is taken from the court of King Alfonso XII of Spain in the year 1885:

Following Mass at the Chapel Royal, the king and queen would proceed to the Hall of Columns. Arriving there at two o'clock in the afternoon, the king (Alfonso XII) entered in full ceremonial uniform, decked with all his medals of state, together with his queen (Maria Christina), who was dressed in a fine down and flowing train, with a white mantilla and a diamond diadem on her head.

In the center of the hall stood two platforms; on one twelve poor elderly men were seated, clothed in new suits provided by the king; on the other platform were twelve elderly women, likewise dressed in new clothing provided by the queen. Nearby stood an altar on which was placed a crucifix and two lighted candles. The bishop, who was Patriarch of the Indies, then went before this altar and read St. John's gospel account of Christ washing the feet of His disciples at the Last Supper.

Following the reading, a small gold-fringed embroidered band was tied around the king's waist, symbolizing the towel that Christ tied around His waist on this occasion. The king now mounted the first platform, accompanied by his steward, who brought a golden basin and ewer [jug]. He then knelt down before each of the men seated there and poured water over their feet, wiped them, and kissed them.

Reading about how the monarch’s family used to be integrated into the celebrations of Holy Week really helped flesh out in my mind what the civic culture used to be like in Catholic confessional states—and what was lost when such kingdoms passed away.

I don’t know whatever happened to James Monti. Week of Salvation was published back in 1993 and I am not aware of any other titles by this author, which is unfortunate since this was such a helpful and exhaustive study. The writing style is not always the most engaging; it sometimes feels like reading a dry historical chronicle. If you’re very interested in reading cultural histories, you might enjoy this. But it’s not very engaging for casual reading. You really need to set out with the intention of making it an occasion for serious scholarly study to enjoy the book.

Still, if that’s not a problem, I definitely recommend this book. I plan on revisiting some key chapters next week as part of my preparations for the Holy Triduum. Incidentally, though this book was originally published by Our Sunday Visitor, it no longer appears in their catalog. The only copies available are used editions.

May you all be blessed in your preparation for Easter.

Click here to purchase James Monti's Week of Salvation: History and Traditions of Holy Week.

St. Patrick was not named "Maewyn Succat"

Today is the Feast of St. Patrick, the day set aside for commemoration of the life and deeds of the grat Apostle to the Irish. Unfortunately, its also the day a lot of rubbish about Patrick get spreadall over the interwebs. For example, have you ever heard people asserting that St. Patrick's real name was not Patrick, but Maewyn Succat?

The theory is that St. Patrick was born Maewyn Succat and only took the name Patrick upon his ordination to the priesthood. I first came across this bizarre assertion a few years ago when I overheard it on the Veggie Tales St. Patrick video. Since then, I have heard it with increasing frequency, especially from writers who have this smarmy "I know better than you" attitude about St. Patrick's Day; you know, the kind of articles that are like "Ten Things YOU Didn't Know About St. Patrick!" Number ONE...he was not Irish! (mind blown!), Number TWOOOO, his name was not actually Patrick. Number THREEEE...there were never any snakes in Ireland!!!! Whoaaaaa!

Reasons for Skepticism

The general tenor and scholarship of such articles obviously gives me pause, as well as some other facts. For one thing, I am very familiar with the writings of St. Patrick. He left only two authentic documents behind, the Confessio and the Letter to Coroticus. In neither of these does Patrick give any indication that his name is other than Patrick. He begins his Confessio with the beautiful and humble phrase, "Ego Patricius, peccator rusticissimus et minimus omnium fidelium", "I am Patrick, a sinner and a simple rustic, the least of all believers." Nowhere in the Confessio or his other letter does he give his name as anything else. So at least from primary sources, there is no justification for thinking Patrick's name was anything other than Patrick.

I also knew that it would not make sense for Patrick to have some sort of Gaelic name when he was clearly Romano-British. Patrick tells us as much in the opening of the Confessio. He gives his father's name as Calpurnius and his grandfather as Potitus, both ordained men and Latin speakers. The family came from the town of Bannavem Tiburniae - a Roman settlement. Remember, Patrick was born around 387 AD, about 23 years before the Roman legions left Britain. It was still a Roman province. He was educated in Latin and came from a Romano-British family. He was thoroughly Romanized. Some even say they came from Gaul originally, which would have made a Gaelic name even less plausible.

Given this, it is extremely unlikely that his birth name would have been the Gaelic Maewyn Succat while his father was Calpurnius and his grandfather Potitus. It would be like suggesting that  a German family where the grandfather is Hans and the father is Gunter would name the next in line Gomez. Is it possible? Certainly. Is it likely? Probably not. If I had to look at that genealogy and someone told me, 'The son is known as Heinrich, but some say his name was Gomez,' I'd bet my money on Heinrich. Similarly, it does make perfect sense that a father named Calpurnius would name his son Patricius since they were Romano-British, but it makes much less sense to think they would name him Maewyn.

Shoddy Research

The Maewyn Succat theory is characterized by shoddy research and the repetition of unfounded assertions. As I searched, I found that every article or essay which held to the Maewyn Succat theory did not cite any source for their assertion; or, if they did, they cited a source which itself was a secondary source and offered no primary reference or did not assert what the authors assumed. For example, the Wikipedia page or St. Patrick says Patrick was originally named Maewyn Succat and offers a citation. The citation leads to the website Sacred Space, run by the Irish Jesuits. The Sacred Space page cited on Wikipedia gives several details about St. Patrick's life, but does not include any claim that his name was Maewyn Succat. And even if it did, the Sacred Space article is not a primary source; it's simply a contemporary article written by some Irish Jesuit. So the Wikipedia claim that Patrick was named Maewyn Succat is a dead end. Most of my other attempts to track this down were as well. People are just repeating things without knowing where they came from.

But it did come from somewhere. People did not just start repeating the Maewyn Succat theory in a vacuum. Where was this coming from?

The Hymn of Fiacc

St. Fiacc, Bishop of Leinster (d. 520) was born from a Christian family who had been converted by St. Patrick. He had met the saint personally and is known for composing a metrical hymn in honor of St. Patrick. The hymn begins with the lines:

Patrick was born at Emptur:
This it is that history relates to us.
A child of sixteen years (was he)
When he was taken into bondage.

Succat was his name, it is said;
Who was his father is thus told:
He was son of Calpurn, son of Otidus,
Grandson of Deochain Odissus.

The relation between "Emptur" and Bannavem Tiburniae is uncertain; notice also that grandfather Potitus has become Otidus, and an additional relative Odissus is added. This is an example of what I would call the extreme elasticity surrounding Patrick's genealogy that anyone who has seriously studied the saint will acknowledge.

If there is an argument that Patrick's birth name was other than Patrick, I think Fiacc's poem would provide the strongest evidence. Yet even so, I do not think this is conclusive.

The interesting thing is that even though Fiacc had known Patrick, his knowledge seems to be from hearsay. Patrick was born at Emptur which is what "history relates to us"; Succat was his name, "it is said." By the time of Fiacc's old age, Patrick had been dead for almost sixty years and a substantial body of oral tradition had sprung up around him. One would think if Fiacc had first-hand knowledge of Patrick, Patrick's birth name would have been known to him from sources other than hearsay.

Fiacc's tentative naming of Patrick as Succat based on hearsay I think reflects not so much what Patrick was actually named by his Romano-British parents as much as what he was called by the Irish or by others. This is not an uncommon occurrence when a missionary or visitor comes to anew culture; for example, St. Isaac Jogues was called Ondessonk by the Hurons. Cortez, despite all his fame, was not called Cortez by the Aztecs; they called him Malinzin.

I believe this is what we have in the case of Patrick as well, at least in the first generation. The reasons for this will be explained below, but  think Fiacc is giving an authentically contemporary account of how Patrick was referred to by Irish converts in the early 6th century, not the name Patrick was baptized with.

Notice also that even if we grant the birth name Succat, we do not see any use of the name Maewyn in Fiacc's meter. Where did we get Maewyn Succat?

Tírechán Collectanea

Through a twisting academic goose chase the details of which I will not bore you with, I eventually found myself with the Latinized version of Maewyen Succat, Magonus Sucatus. This in turn led me to the writings of Tírechán (c. 684), Bishop of Connacht in County Mayo. Tírechán produced a work known as the Collectanea, which was a loose collection of stories about St. Patrick based on oral traditions. These oral traditions were gathered from the work of Tírechán's mentor, Ultan of Ardbraccan (d. 656) who had himself written a book on St. Patrick.

The Collectanea is interesting because it is written in first person, as if Patrick himself were speaking.

In the introduction to the Collectanea, we find the following passage:

"I have found four names for Patrick in a book written by Ultan, bishop of maccu Conchubair: the saint was called Magonus, that is, famous; Succetus [Succat], that is, the god of war; Patricius, that is, father of the citizens; Cothirthiacus, because he served four houses of druids" (Tírechán, Collectanea, 1).

Thus, we have four names given for St. Patrick. Notice right away that Maewyn Succat ("Magonus Succetus") is not one of them. Magonus and Succetus are two different names, as well as Cothirthiacus, which, presumably it is so cumbersome, is usually omitted by those who want to insist Patrick's name was not Patrick. Maewyn Succat is just an arbitrary mishmash of two separate names. We might as well call him Magonus Patricius, or Patricius Cothirthiacus, or Succeus Corthirthiacus or any other combination. Ludwig Bieler, the German Hiberno-Latin scholar who first translated Tírechán in 1951, noted that there was a "dubious selectiveness too often practiced in Patrician studies" when it came to Patrick's nomenclature (source).

So the name Maewyn Succat is just an arbitrary combination of two different names. But are Magonus or Succetus even proper names at all? This is hard to discern; clearly they are given in the same list as Patrick's given name, Patricius, which seems to imply they are. If Patrick is a proper name, then the others in this list may be as well. Then again, perhaps not. These other names may be titles or nicknames. For example, Succetus, god of war, according to Tírechán. Why would Patrick's Christian family - several of whom were members of the clergy - name him after a druidic war god? More likely than not, this was a title the Druids themselves may have given to Patrick. Similarly, Magonus, a corruption of Magnus (great), means famous and could have distinguished St. Patrick ("the famous Patrick") from others of similar name.

Thus, Tírechán's list is most likely not referring to Patrick's actual proper name (as if he were really named Magonus Succetus Patricius Corthirthiacus); rather, it is a amalgamated list of all names Patrick went by, both his proper name, as well as nicknames or titles given to him by others. Not to mention these might not have been nicknames used for Patrick while he was alive; Tírechán wrote in the late 7th century and these could have easily been titles that Patrick accrued posthumously.

Muirchú's Vita sancti Patricii

A generation after Tírechán wrote, a monk of Leinster named Muirchú wrote his own Life of St. Patrick. Muirchú's Vita sancti Patricii is based on Patrick's own Confessio as well as several oral traditions. Muirchú's work exists only in fragments and his not given too much historical credence as an actual biography of Patrick.

In the introduction to Muirchú's Vita, we see the following:

"Patrick, also named Sochet, a Briton by race, was born in Britain. His father was Cualfarnius, a deacon, the son (as Patrick himself says) of a priest, Potitus, who hailed from Bannauem Thaburniae" (Muirchú, Vita sancti Patricii, I.1).

We note right away that "Calpurnius" has been butchered to become "Cualfarnius." "Sochet", however, is spelled the same in Muirchú's Latin text; presumably this is the same title as Succat-Succetus in Tírechán's work. Muirchú is repeating an oral tradition here, as he says elsewhere he is unaware of any other biography of St. Patrick, other than that of Cogitosus (which does not mention the name Sochet or Succat). So clearly Muirchú is not simply copying Tírechán.

At any rate, this obscure passage "also named Sochet" from a hagiography c. 700, almost two and a half centuries after St. Patrick died, is of very little value in determining what Patrick was actually named by his family. He may have been drawing on the meter of Fiacc; but if so, are we to believe that Patrick's Christian parents - one of them ordained - baptized him in the name of a druidic deity?

Conclusion

Why do I seriously doubt Patrick was named Maewyn Succat? Just to be clear, I have no stake in Patrick not having a Gaelic name or something. It's really neither here nor there; I don't care if Patrick's real name was Maewyn any more than I care that St. Peter's real name was Simon. The reason I oppose this theory is because it is based on shoddy research and arbitrary nomenclature promoted by ignorant people looking for click bait. Just to review my reasons for opposing this theory:

(1) There is no primary source evidence that Patrick was named anything other than Patrick. Zero.
(2) Fiacc's meter, written 50-60 years after Patrick's death, mentions the name Succat but tentatively, suggesting "it is said" but gives no first hand knowledge of the fact. And he omits any mention of Maewyn.
(3) It makes no sense culturally or linguistically that Patrick's Roman family would give him a Gaelic name. But it makes perfect sense that he'd be named Patricius.
(4) It makes no sense that his Christian family would name him after a druidic war god.
(5) There's no documentary reference to Patrick's ordination, let alone that he changed his name on the occasion. Stories of Patrick's ordination (sometimes said to be by St. Germanus, sometimes by Pope St. Celestine) come from later hagiographies.
(6) The only other names given for Patrick do not appear in history until over two centuries after Patrick's death.
(7) These names may not be proper names at all but titles or nicknames given by the Irish or the Druids.
(8) These names may have been given posthumously.
(9) "Maewyn Succat" is not one of the names mentioned in either source; it is an amalgamation of two other separate names (Magonus and Succetus).
(10) This amalgamation is totally arbitrary because it omits the third name, Corthirthiacus.
(11) Bieler, the translator of Tírechán, also thinks insisting on this nomenclature is selective and arbitrary.
(12) Even if Tírechán and Muirchú were actually insisting that Patrick's given name was Maewyn Succat, this comes from two 7th century hagiographies which are generally not regarded as historically reliable sources of information about the historical St. Patrick.
(13) Nobody - or at least very few people - who assert the Maewyn Succat theory bother to track down its source. They just copy and paste and move on.

No, St. Patrick was not named Maewyn Succat, and I am fairly certain it s safe to insist on this.

+AMDG+

The Ox, Ass, and the Master's Crib

The birth of Jesus Christ has been a favorite theme of Christian artists throughout history. And no wonder; the birth of the incarnate Word of God was the beginning of God's ultimate work of salvation. It was the beginning of the long journey that would end on Golgotha.

Christian artistic tradition has developed a standard manner of depicting Christ's birth in art, based on the accounts of the Gospels. The details may vary, but we recognize the different elements - a manger, the star, shepherds, angels, and of course, Mary and Joseph. In this post, I would like to focus on one of the more humble and overlooked elements of traditional nativity art: the animals.

In modern nativity scenes, we usually see a lot of sheep associated with the shepherds - camels show up closer to Epiphany to signify the journey of the Magi. But in traditional depictions, the ox and the ass are the default animals that always show up. You may not have noticed this - we don't often pay attention to the animals - but it is so common that constitutes its own particular design element. Consider the following examples, taken from the East and West:

The last image is particularly striking; taken from the Fresco of the Nativity At the Church of the Holy Cross in Palermo, Italy, this image omits St. Joseph but takes care to include the ox and the ass!

This is very interesting given that neither the Gospel of Luke nor Matthew mentions the presence of animals at the Nativity, although they both mention St. Joseph.

Of course, the fact that no animals are mentioned does not mean they were not present;  St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate renders Luke 2:7 as: "et reclinavit eum in praesepio," which the Douay-Rheims version renders as Mary "laid him in a manger." The Greek text for St. Jerome's praesepio is phatnei, which is the Greek word for a manger, a feeding-trough for animals. It is certainly no stretch to assume animals were present.

However, the presence of the ox and the ass in particular are not explained by the datum of the New Testament, but by the prophecies of the Old. In the book of the prophet Isaiah, we read the following, in which God laments the infidelity of Israel:

"Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have brought up children, and exalted them: but they have despised me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood" (Is. 1:2-3).

 The immediate context of this prophecy is the rebellion of Israel. God notes to the prophet that even a dumb animal knows who its master is. Anyone who has ever had livestock knows this - if you go out to the sheep with a bucket of grain,  the sheep will come right to your hand. They recognize their owner and come to him for their necessities. God notes this to Isaiah as a form of irony; a dumb animal intuitively recognizes its master and comes to him for his needs, but the very people God has called for His own are unable to recognize Him and refuse to come to Him!

Thus, when the ox and the ass are depicted at the manger of Christ, it is an allusion to Isaiah 1. The people of Israel did not recognize the Messiah when He came to them, but the ox and the ass are depicted reverencing Jesus as their Master. The fidelity of these simple animals to the Incarnate Word is contrasted to the infidelity of Israel, which the ox and the ass foreshadow. "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel hath not known me, and my people hath not understood."

It is true that no animals are mentioned in the infancy narratives. But the ox and the ass in depictions of the Nativity were never meant to infer the historical presence of these creatures at the birth of Jesus. Rather, they are iconographic symbols - rooted in the Old Testament prophets - meant to tell us something about the divine identity of Christ and call us to humble submission to Him.

Merry Christmas

On Avoiding Servile Labor

The third commandment enjoins us to honor the Lord's Day and keep it holy. This command is part positive, part negative - positively, it commands us to worship God and devote this day to Him in a special way; in a negative sense, it prohibits us from engaging in certain activities that are traditionally referred to as "servile labor." 

However, what exactly constitutes servile labor is usually not spelled out except in the most general terms. To a large extent Christianity has never adopted the Judaic practice of compiling exhaustive, definitive lists of exactly what is and is not prohibited (e.g., exactly how long one can travel in a day, what household items can be used and what can not, how much weight it is acceptable to lift, etc). Christianity, being a faith of the spirit and not of the letter, has tended to prefer very general guidelines, leaving the specifics to the (presumably well-formed) conscience of the individual and the customs of the times.

Just because Christian tradition has tended to leave much of this to the individual's conscience does not mean there are no guidelines at all. Before the modern age, Catholic catechisms featured very helpful, concise lists of activities generally considered inappropriate for Sundays and Holy Days. This sort of instruction has generally disappeared from catechetics and homiletics since the Council.

Protestants, of course, working from an exaggerated dichotomy between the "freedom of the Gospel" and "legalism" have generally eschewed any restrictions on Sunday activity whatsoever. Work of all sorts is usually accepted; Most Protestants I speak with on the subject consider the prohibition of any work whatsoever on Sunday to be a Jewish legalism. Protestants do not even believe going to church on Sunday is an obligation - in fact, I know Protestants who will occasionally stay home on Sunday morning intentionally just to prove that they have no obligation to attend to any communal worship on Sunday. 

Of course, there is no obligation to attend Protestant worship; this applies only to the Catholic Mass, but we are speaking here only of principle. The point is that contemporary Christianity generally has very little sense of anything being unacceptable on Sunday, both among Catholics and Protestants.

Being Catholic, we have nothing to say about what Protestants choose to observe on Sunday; their unfortunate ubiquitous dualism between "works" and "freedom" is too radical for most to have a balanced approach to the question. But from a Catholic perspective, it would be helpful to return to the traditional concept of "servile labor." 

Servile labor traditionally means any sort of work that is heavy manual labor, or such work as in a given society people commonly associate with strenuous effort and do not engage in when they have the freedom to avoid it; it is work you do "for a living", versus something you might engage in for recreation, education, or the worship of God. I want to share - in an informal way - some of my attitudes towards this aspect of Sunday and some rules of thumb I follow in assessing what is and is not "servile labor." This is all just my own approach; I don't claim it's authoritative in any way.

I personally apply the label "servile labor" to any sort of job or chore that is strenuous. For example, I would personally not work on a home improvement project on Sunday. Tiling the bathroom, shingling a roof, pruning trees - in my household, these sorts of projects are off limits on Sundays. Even if they are not "for a living", they are just too strenuous and physical for me to feel comfortable doing them on the Lord's Day. It seems incompatible with the concept of rest.

In the modern age, however, it is not as helpful to focus on the "manual" aspect of servile labor, because a great many people no longer engage in any sort of strenuous physical work. Rather, I find it more helpful to associate servile labor with that which you do "for a living" - i.e., your job. Thus whereas in the old days farmers were encouraged to abstain from farm work on Sundays, nowadays it is common for Catholic business people to abstain from phone conversations relating to business or looking at work emails on Sunday, even though these actions are not strenuous physically. Even so, I think this is a good modern adaptation of the principle. I avoid anything work related on Sunday.

What about strenuous physical sports? In this case, I think it is alright, because, say, getting all worked up and sweaty playing basketball is still clearly recreational - it is merely strenuous recreation, and I think that distinction is important. Now some will immediately say, "But what if it is recreational for me to tile my bathroom or hang siding on my house? Should that not be allowed by your criteria?" To that I say, "Friend, if you can truly tell me that the tiling of your bathroom or the siding of your house is truly and solely a recreational pursuit, then be my guest, I suppose." But I don't know anyone who undertakes a home improvement project just for fun and without any utilitarian reason.

In general, I avoid anything that seems like a "chore." I have mentioned home improvement sorts of projects; I also avoid more routine chores. Doing laundry. Chopping firewood. Mowing the lawn. Vacuuming the house. Washing the windows. Weeding the garden. Going grocery shopping. This also includes homework; my kids are forbidden from doing homework on Sundays, and I will not grade student homework on Sundays. Anything that is a "chore" we avoid. 

However, we do make one exception - chores that have to do with simply maintaining basic sanitation and cleanliness are allowed. If the trash is overflowing, I will still take it out on Sunday. If the sink is full of dirty dishes, of course I wash them. I don't vacuum the house in general, but if the kids were eating popcorn and make a mess, of course I vacuum it up. So essentially anything that is like, maintaining basic sanitation and cleanliness we will do.

I will do other sorts of "work" that is recreational. I obviously blog on Sunday. I will spend time writing or working on books. I will exercise or do things for personal fulfillment. 

I often get the question on whether or not it is alright to go out to eat on a Sunday. The objection is that when we go out to eat, we are forcing other people to work on Sunday (i.e., the waitstaff, cooks, etc. who staff the restaurant). I suppose this question comes up because it is so common for people to go out for breakfast after Mass that it is a very common quandary.

I personally have never objected to going out to eat on Sundays and Holy Days. Feasting is a way the Holy Day is celebrated, and often times Sunday is the only everyone in the family is home from work and able to go out together. It is celebratory. Now, it could always be argued that it causes the restaurant staff to work. Perhaps. I assume they would be working that day whether or not I came in to the restaurant. I also assume - generally - that people who are working on Sunday morning are not Catholics anyway, so I don't scrupulize too much over whether they are doing unnecessary work on Sunday. At any rate, the concern has never stopped me from enjoying breakfast with my family on a Sunday. 

I do, however, try to support businesses that close on Sunday. 

One final thing: even though the disappearance of a real catechesis about the Lord's Day is a post-Conciliar phenomenon (perhaps with the exception of St. John Paul II's Dies Domini), do not be tempted to think that flaunting the prohibitions against work on the Lord's Day is something modern. As far back in history as one can find homilies, one can find examples of preaching against servile labor on Sundays. Even in the "golden age" of the 13th century, surviving homiletics reveal that working on Sundays and Holy Days was endemic; several chapters in the Fioretti of St. Francis are devoted to describing the misfortunes of peasants who worked on Holy Days. It is certainly not a post-Vatican II novelty. So please, no comments about how in the "old days" no Catholic would have ever dared work on Sunday.

We also should remember, in the Middle Ages there were many more days that were considered Holy Days where work was prohibited - so many so that many common folk complained about not having enough time to finish their work. I cannot cite the source, but I remember reading in one scholarly work on medieval calendars that in some places as many as 100 days out of the year were nominally supposed to be work-free. This was, of course, excessive, and by the 13th century many of these days were no longer being observed. This cluster happened as a result of the accumulation of universal and regional festal days over the centuries; it was not until after Lateran IV and the reforms of the late Middle Ages that the status of many of these feasts changed to make their observance more manageable.

Anyhow, such are my hodge-podge of random thoughts on the duty to abstain from servile labor on Sundays. Any comments or thoughts are welcome. Pax.

Merry Christmas from Pope Leo the Great

Merry Christmas, and blessings to you and yours going in to 2016. As we celebrate the Octave of our Lord's Incarnation, let us nourish our souls with the words of the very venerable St. Leo the Great, whose famous Letter 28 to Flavian of Constantinople, known as his "Tome", set forth the correct doctrine of our Lord's dual nature against the errors of the heretic Eutyches. It was upon hearing the words of this great pope that the fathers of the Council of Ephesus in 451 arose and exclaimed, "This is the faith of the fathers! This is the faith of the Apostles! So we all believe!...Peter has spoken thus through Leo!”

"It was perhaps that [Eutyches] thought that our lord Jesus Christ did not have our nature because the angel who was sent to the blessed Mary said, "The holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most High will overshadow you, and so that which will be born holy out of you will be called Son of God," as if it was because the conception by the virgin was worked by God that the flesh of the one conceived did not share the nature of her who conceived it? But uniquely wondrous and wondrously unique as that act of generation was, it is not to be understood as though the proper character of its kind was taken away by the sheer novelty of its creation. It was the holy Spirit that made the virgin pregnant, but the reality of the body derived from body. As "Wisdom built a house for herself," "the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us": that is, in that flesh which he derived from human kind and which he animated with the spirit of a rational life.

So the proper character of both natures was maintained and came together in a single person. Lowliness was taken up by majesty, weakness by strength, mortality by eternity. To pay off the debt of our state, invulnerable nature was united to a nature that could suffer; so that in a way that corresponded to the remedies we needed, one and the same mediator between God and humanity the man Christ Jesus, could both on the one hand die and on the other be incapable of death. Thus was true God born in the undiminished and perfect nature of a true man, complete in what is his and complete in what is ours. By "ours" we mean what the Creator established in us from the beginning and what he took upon himself to restore. There was in the Saviour no trace of the things which the Deceiver brought upon us, and to which deceived humanity gave admittance. His subjection to human weaknesses in common with us did not mean that he shared our sins. He took on the form of a servant without the defilement of sin, thereby enhancing the human and not diminishing the divine. For that self-emptying whereby the Invisible rendered himself visible, and the Creator and Lord of all things chose to join the ranks of mortals, spelled no failure of power: it was an act of merciful favour. So the one who retained the form of God when he made humanity, was made man in the form of a servant. Each nature kept its proper character without loss; and just as the form of God does not take away the form of a servant, so the form of a servant does not detract from the form of God.

It was the devil's boast that humanity had been deceived by his trickery and so had lost the gifts God had given it; and that it had been stripped of the endowment of immortality and so was subject to the harsh sentence of death. He also boasted that, sunk as he was in evil, he himself derived some consolation from having a partner in crime; and that God had been forced by the principle of justice to alter his verdict on humanity, which he had created in such an honourable state. All this called for the realisation of a secret plan whereby the unalterable God, whose will is indistinguishable from his goodness, might bring the original realisation of his kindness towards us to completion by means of a more hidden mystery, and whereby humanity, which had been led into a state of sin by the craftiness of the devil, might be prevented from perishing contrary to the purpose of God.

So without leaving his Father's glory behind, the Son of God comes down from his heavenly throne and enters the depths of our world, born in an unprecedented order by an unprecedented kind of birth. In an unprecedented order, because one who is invisible at his own level was made visible at ours. The ungraspable willed to be grasped. Whilst remaining pre-existent, he begins to exist in time. The Lord of the universe veiled his measureless majesty and took on a servant's form. The God who knew no suffering did not despise becoming a suffering man, and, deathless as he is, to be subject to the laws of death. By an unprecedented kind of birth, because it was inviolable virginity which supplied the material flesh without experiencing sexual desire. What was taken from the mother of the Lord was the nature without the guilt [of original sin]. And the fact that the birth was miraculous does not imply that in the lord Jesus Christ, born from the virgin's womb, the nature is different from ours. The same one is true God and true man."

Foot Washing: What's the big deal?

Pope Francis has again made headlines by announcing he will spend Holy Thursday washing the feet of inmates at the Rebiba prison in Rome. This is the third time the Holy Father has chosen to perform the foot washing ceremony in such facilities, visiting the Casal del Marmo prison in 2013 and the Don Gnocchi center for the elderly and disabled in 2014. 

Saying the Holy Thursday Mass in the prison in 2013 was one of the first gestures of Francis' pontificate, which earned him the respect of many while provoking apprehension among traditional Catholics. This misgiving among traditionalists provoked (and continues to provoke) ire among those who "don't see what the problem is" and can't understand why this is such a "big deal."

I would say this is one issue where the traditionalist objection is totally misunderstood - willfully, I believe. "Don't like it when Peter goes around with tax collectors and sinners, huh?" "Yeah, Jesus was offensive to the Pharisees, too." These are the sorts of shallow rebuttals our criticisms have been met with, as if there is really nothing deeper to traditionalist objections beyond the stupid old "tax collectors and sinners" trope.

So - even though I know they will not listen - let me once and for all clarify what the "big deal" is about the pontiff spending Holy Thursday washing the feet of inmates.

First off, lets clear the air about one thing: there is no problem with the pope celebrating a Mass at a prison or other such facility. Benedict XVI celebrated a Mass at Casal del Marmo prison during Lent of 2007 - the same location Francis used in 2013. The issue is not the location of the Mass, or that the pope wants to celebrate with prisoners, elderly, indigent, whatever. Not an issue.

Benedict, however, did not celebrate this Mass on Holy Thursday, and that is a big difference. This brings me to my first objection: The traditional location of the Holy Thursday evening Mass is St. John Lateran, the pope's cathedral. But John Paul II was had performed the rite in St. Peter's Basilica, which made the Holy Thursday Mass much more available to the faithful. St. Peter's Basilica (according to its website) is capable of seating 15,000 people; if Mass is held in the square, it can accommodate 80,000. Whatever one may want to say about Masses of that magnitude, it cannot be denied that a Mass in a basilica offers a much greater opportunity for participation of the faithful than a Mass in a small prison or nursing home. The Holy Thursday Mass, which inaugurates the sacred Triduum and which (until 1642) was a holy day of obligation is in a totally different category than, say, a daily Mass. This is why when Benedict XVI wanted to celebrate Mass in the Casal del Marmo, he did so in a daily Mass, not the Holy Thursday Mass, which as part of the sacred Triduum, is of a much more solemn and public nature than a mere daily Mass.

Remember, the pope is also Bishop of the diocese of Rome. This means that for the past three years, the faithful of that diocese have been deprived of access to the celebration of one of the most sacred Masses of the year by their bishop. I admit this is not a huge issue or a monumental scandal - but it is something.

Regarding the importance of this inaugural Mass of the Sacred Triduum, it is well to recall that its proper name is the "Mass of the Lord's Supper." The "theme" or focal point of this Mass has always been the double institution of the Eucharist and the priesthood by our Lord Jesus Christ at the Last Supper. 

In his last Holy Thursday homily delivered in 2004, St. John Paul II preached on the centrality of the Eucharist and its connection to the priesthood in the context of Holy Thursday:

"While we fix our gaze on Christ who institutes the Eucharist, we have a renewed awareness of the importance of the priests in the Church and of their union with the Eucharistic sacrament. In the Letter that I wrote to priests for this holy day, I wished to repeat that the Sacrament of the altar is gift and mystery, and that the priesthood is gift and mystery, both having flowed from the Heart of Christ during the Last Supper." (source)

This is why one of the readings from the Holy Thursday Mass has always been the institution of the Eucharist as described in 1 Cor. 11:23-32. This has been part of the readings for the day as far back as we have records. In Pope Francis' Holy Thursday celebrations, there is little emphasis on these traditional themes. For example, Francis' 2013 homily does not mention the Eucharist at all; the refrain was a very generic message of "Help one another"; Francis' 2014 homily focused entirely on the foot washing ceremony and admonished Christians to "be servants to one another." No mention of the priesthood at all, and only a passing comment on the Eucharist, which he strangely subordinates to "service"; service is the main theme of the Mass in Coena Domini, and the Eucharist is an afterthought to service. This is an inversion from the familiar formula that the Eucharist, in fact, is the source and summit of the faith.

It must be remembered that though foot washing in general is a sign of service (cf. 1 Tim. 5:10), the Holy Thursday foot washing in particular is much more than that. Christ did not just wash His disciples' feet as a sign of service to mankind in general, but of the service the hierarchy renders to the clergy in particular. This is why most liturgical foot washing in the Church's history has always focused on the bishop's service to his clergy; priests, canons, deacons and subdeacons have been the recipients of foot washing; this was true of diocesan bishops as well as the pope. It is an ecclesiological ritual relating to the clergy and their superiors, not a general sign of service to mankind.

It is certainly not "wrong" to wash the feet of persons not among the clergy; obviously as the parish level, a priest does not have any clergy beneath him whose feet he can wash and the washing of laymen's feet is the norm (still, in some parishes, the priest will not wash the feet of anybody willy-nilly; he will choose representatives of different parish apostolates - Knights of Columbus, the DRE, ushers, etc). As mentioned above, foot washing was a sign of general obeisance in the early church. But at a pontifical Holy Thursday Mass, we would expect a bishop or the pope especially to recognize this clerical aspect of the rite by performing the Mandatum on the clergy subject to him. This gets obscured when the focus of the rite is reduced to mere "service" without reference to the clergy.

An interesting side note - it was always understood that the Lord's command to serve, while understood primarily in terms of the clergy, also had a broader significance. For this reason, beginning in the Carolingian era, there used to be two foot washing ceremonies, one for the poor, one for the clergy. This was practiced in monasteries as well as in the papal liturgies of Rome. The Mandatum of the poor was eventually discontinued, however, and only the Mandatum of the clergy remained. This illustrates the point that the "service to the poor" aspect of the Holy Thursday Mandatum was always secondary to the clerical aspect.

Incidentally, for a great summary of the history of the Holy Thursday foot washing ceremony, I recommend my new article "Mandatum: Liturgical History" on the Unam Sanctam Catholicam sister site.

If the Holy Thursday foot washing is supposed to signify the service of the hierarchy to the Church - and to the clergy in particular - then we can easily understand why it is totally inappropriate that non-Christians should be the recipients of the ceremony. In what fantasy land can a Muslim or atheist in any way represent the Church?

Finally, of course, we all know that the rubrics for Holy Thursday say the recipient of the foot washing must be a vir (Lat. "man"). In 2013, the decision of the Holy Father to wash the feet of women prompted some apologists to simply shrug and say, "Well, the Holy Father is the supreme interpreter of the Church's liturgical law and canon law. He can change it how he sees fit."

That's true to an extent. But it seems lost on many that to say one has an authority to change a law is not the same thing as suggesting he can simply break the law. We all understand this. If the Holy Father does not like the current legislation, he has the power to change it. He can promulgate new rubrics or new norms if he so chooses. But for law to be law, this is accomplished by an act of law; i.e., the lawgiver changing the law by an legitimate exercise of his legislative power. The law is not changed by the lawgiver simply breaking the law.

Suppose the speed limit in your town was 30 mph. Suppose your small town Mayor decided he did not like that speed limit. Suppose, on the premise that he was the "supreme authority" in your small town, he just decided to start breaking the speed limit with impunity. How would you react? You would be indignant! You would say, "If the Mayor doesn't like the speed limit, then change the law, but for heaven's sake, don't just break it!"

Since the rubrics for Holy Thursday have not changed, the fact remains that Pope Francis is simply violating the rubrics. You may say the law should change. You may applaud his inclusiveness. You may affirm that he has the power to change the law. But you cannot deny that he is breaking the law every time he washes the foot of a female on Holy Thursday. There's no other way to explain it.

Let us also remember that the conservative apologists who are now saying that the pope can do whatever he wants are the very same who, under John Paul II and Benedict XVI, loudly insisted that the letter of the law must be observed when it came to liberal priests washing women's feet.

It is not because I or anyone else has a "problem" with the pope fraternizing with the poor, or prisoners, or whatever. It is not because we think women are inferior or any nonsense like that. The substance of the traditionalist critique of Pope Francis' venues for Holy Thursday is that this is a violation of liturgical law and hence an abuse of power; that it obscures the ecclesiological symbolism of the Mandatum rite and constitutes a detraction from the Eucharistic and clerical focus of the Mass of the Lord's Supper; and that it deprives the Catholics of the Diocese of Rome from the ability to publicly celebrate the beginning of the Triduum with their bishop, thus depriving them of special graces.

You may read all this and shrug and say, "Eh. You're nitpicking." Maybe you think that. Maybe you are right. God knows. But it is definitely not a matter of traditional Catholics somehow objecting to the poor, or women, or prisoners receiving papal attention. You may think the objections are not worthy of consideration; but at least acknowledge that there are legitimate objections that go far beyond the tired old "tax collectors and sinners" mantra. It was never about that anyway.

See also:
Mandatum: Liturgical History (from USC)
How the Cistercians Can Help Us Disentangle the Washing of Feet (Dr. Peter Kwaskiewski, New Liturgical Movement)

Contact: uscatholicam[at]gmail.com

Old Testament Typology: Epiphany

What is the typological interpretation of Scripture? There are various ways it could be explained, but I think the best is to say that typology refers to the way the truths of the New Testament are foreshadowed or "hidden" in the Old Testament, to use St. Augustine's famous dictum.

It is the way in which Isaac carrying the wood up Mount Moriah to his own sacrifice signifies Christ carrying the cross; the way in which the waters of the great Flood signify baptism, or the valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem symbolizes Hell. The Old Testament is replete with examples in which persons, things and events signify New Testament realities in the same manner a shadow signifies the real thing by which the shadow is cast.

Please note that typology is not the same thing as prophecy; in prophecy, prophets reveal what God is doing or will do in a time to come - a telling or a foretelling. In typology, we have no foretelling but more of a signification, a symbolic affinity that helps us shed light on the mysteries of the New Testament in light of the Old and vice versa.

Two years ago we looked at the Feast of Epiphany as found in the prophetic texts of the Old Testament. This article explained Epiphany as the revelation of the Messiah to the Gentiles and examined many prophecies from the major and minor prophets which foretold this event. The following year we did an article examining the most famous of these prophecies in depth, that of Micah 5, which is the well-known Bethlehem Prophecy ("But thou, O' Bethlehem Ephratha...").

Today we shall again revisit this theme of Epiphany by examining the typological signs of the inclusion of the Gentiles throughout the Old Testament - that is, looking at persons and events of the Old Testament that signify the inclusion of the Gentiles into the household of God, which is at the core of this great Feast.

In the Book of Genesis, the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth are the fathers of the nations and hence representative of the diversity the human race. Shem of course will be the father of the Hebrews and all the Semitic races. Japtheth, because he settled in the western isles, is typically symbolic of the Gentiles. In Noah's prophecy after he discovers Ham has seen him naked, he says:

"May God enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan be his servant" (Gen. 9:27).

That God will "enlarge" Japheth by making him "dwell in the tents of Shem" is signified that at some point the Gentile descendants of Japheth will be grafted into the house of Shem, which is what is inferred by saying they will "dwell in the tents" of Shem's descendants; i.e., the Gentiles will be grafted in to Israel (cf. Rom. 11:11-24).

Later in the Book of Genesis, we see Abraham, after returning from the victory over the five kings, pays homage to Melchizedek of Salem and offers him tithes (Gen. 14:17-20). This Melchizedek is a Gentile king who nevertheless has knowledge of the true God - at least that is the Catholic Tradition.* In Hebrews 7, St. Paul uses this historical episode to demonstrate the superiority of the New Covenant priesthood over the old, since in Abraham's submission there is a figurative submission of the Levitical order to the priesthood of Melchizedek. Now the priesthood of Melchizedek is one composed of Jews and Gentiles - of all who acclaim the Messiah. Therefore the episode of Abraham paying homage to Melchizedek demonstrates that the future priesthood will include the Gentiles, signified by the Gentile King Melchizedek.

In the Old Testament, especially in Genesis, we frequently see strife between the older and younger sibling with the theme of the younger supplanting the older. The Ishmael-Isaac, Esau-Jacob, and Joseph-Brothers stories all contain this element. Jesus Himself draws on this theme in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15). In this parable of our Lord the younger brother represents the Gentiles while the older brother represents the Jews; the older brother is indignant about the Father's forgiveness and restoration of the prodigal son just as the Jews were envious an indignant at the inclusion of the Gentiles into the early Church. That the Gentiles have been grafted in while the Jews have persisted in unbelief is signified by the supplanting of the older sons by the younger in the Genesis patriarchal stories.

In 1 Kings 10 and 2 Chronicles 9, we see that the Queen of Sheba comes to visit King Solomon with a very great retinue laden with all sorts of gifts. She has traditionally represented the nations, and the medievals saw a connection between her gifts to Solomon and the Magi's gifts to Christ. The Queen of Sheba came from the "ends of the earth" (cf. Luke 11:31) to present gifts to the Son of David and hear his wisdom; the Magi came from the ends of the earth to present gifts to the Son of David and learn the wisdom of God. Thus, the homage the Queen of Sheba pays to Solomon is a figure of the Gentiles being drawn into the Church of God, which is what Isaiah prophesied when he said:

'Many peoples will come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
    so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,    the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.' (Isa. 2:3).

We also should note that the genealogy of Jesus contains several references to Gentile's being grafted in to the messianic line. The genealogy of Christ, which is read at the Easter Vigil, contains references to four women, all of whom are Gentiles. These women are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Rahab.

Tamar (Gen. 38) was a Canaanite woman who was wed to two of Judah's sons and eventually, by ruse, became impregnated by Judah himself and gave birth to Perez, who was an ancestor of Jesus.

Rahab is best known as the Canaanite harlot who hid the twelve spies from Joshua in the episode of Jericho. But what is less well known is that after the fall of Jericho she was wed to Salmon of the house of Judah (Matt. 1:4-5) and would subsequently become the mother of Boaz.

Ruth was a Moabite woman who, through her attachment to her mother-in-law Naomi, came to dwell among the people of Israel and wed Boaz, and thus became the great-grandmother of David, and an ancestor of Christ.

Bathsheba, mentioned in the genealogy of Christ as "she who had been the wife of Uriah" (Matt. 1:14), was either a Hittite or a Jebusite. She is particularly important, as she is the Mother of the Son of David (Solomon) and hence a type of Mary (which we see in her intercessory role depicted in 1 Kings 2) as well as the Church. With the Gentile Bathsheba grafted into the royal House of David, we have the most perfect figure of the Gentiles being grafted in to the Church.

In each case we have a Gentile woman who is not only taken into the house of Israel in the Messianic line but who also serves to advance salvation history. None of these women are passive; they are active in the affairs of their day in one way or another and as such serve as instruments of God's Providence by which the Messiah is given to the world. This signifies the centrality of the inclusion of the Gentiles into the New Covenant, which is signified by the centrality Gentile women have played in the affairs if Israel throughout salvation history.

Our Lord also makes mention of some Gentiles in the Old Testament that were recipients of special favors from God:

“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way" (Luke 4:24-30).

Why the anger of the Jews? The widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian were both Gentiles. Elijah's miracle of the widow and the cleansing of Naaman both signify the inclusion of the Gentiles in God's covenant, especially the latter, which is a type of baptism. The Jews react with the same envious anger of the older brother in the Prodigal Son or the workers in the vineyard who were indignant that those hired later will receive the same pay as those who have worked all day. Our Lord suggests that because of unbelief, His message will be of greater news to the Gentiles than to unbelieving Jews, just as the miracles of Elijah and Elisha were done for pagans.

The inclusion of the Gentiles in the covenant is not an accidental aspect of the New Testament, but is central to it, something that St. Paul says is a mystery whose revelation had to wait the coming of Christ:

"In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 3:4-6).

This incorporation of the Gentiles into God's family is part of the birthright of the Messiah. God, speaking of the Messiah, says in the prophet Isaiah: "You are My servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified," but then goes on to say, "It is too light a thing that you should be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the preserved of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that My salvation may reach to the ends of the earth" (Isa. 49:3,6).

It is this light, this revelation of God to the Gentiles and their subsequent incorporation into the Kingdom of Christ that we celebrate today on the Feast of Epiphany.

Related:
Epiphany in the Prophets
The Bethlehem Prophecy of Micah

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*Jewish tradition, unable to affirm that Father Abraham would pay tithes to a Gentile, has Melchizedek being none other than Shem himself under another name.

The Increasingly Non-Committal Christmas Proclamation

Christmas is almost upon us. Whether you go to the Traditional Latin Mass or the Novus Ordo, most of us will hear some form of the traditional Christmas Proclamation. The Christmas Proclamation is not part of the 1962 Missale Romanum (being originally associated with the Divine Office and the hours of Prime), but a many EF Masses include a reading of the Proclamation prior to the midnight Mass.

The Christmas Proclamation is meant to situate the Incarnation of our Lord in the context of salvation history by relating it to other important events and persons of the Old Testament and emphasizing how Christ's Incarnation happened "in the fulness of time" (Gal. 4:5).

The Traditional Christmas Proclamation as used in the Latin rite reads:

The twenty-fifth day of December.
In the five thousand one hundred and ninety-ninth year of the creation of the world
from the time when God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth;
the two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seventh year after the flood;
the two thousand and fifteenth year from the birth of Abraham;
the one thousand five hundred and tenth year from Moses
and the going forth of the people of Israel from Egypt;
the one thousand and thirty-second year from David's being anointed king;

It is interesting to see how this Proclamation has changed with the coming of the Novus Ordo. It was not promulgated in NO Masses until 1980, when John Paul II restored it to the Christmas liturgy. In the revised English Christmas Proclamation, as adopted by the USCCB in 1994, we see that some changes were made to the traditional dating [bolded]:

Today, the twenty-fifth day of December,
unknown ages from the time when God created the heavens and the earth and then formed man and woman in his own image
Several thousand years after the flood, when God made the rainbow shine forth as a sign of the covenant.
Twenty-one centuries from the time of Abraham and Sarah;
thirteen centuries after Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt.
Eleven hundred years from the time of Ruth and the Judges;
one thousand years from the anointing of David as king;

We have moved from asserting the Incarnation happened "in the five thousand one hundred and ninety-ninth year of the creation of the world" to saying that this happened "unknown ages from the time when God created the heavens and the earth." And, "two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seventh year after the Flood" has become, "several thousand years after the Flood."

The current version of the Christmas proclamation is even more watered down. Here is the official 2004 version in the Novus Ordo as listed on the website of the USCCB for Christmas of 2014:

The Twenty-fifth Day of December,
when ages beyond number had run their course from the creation of the world,
when God in the beginning created heaven and earth,
and formed man in his own likeness;
when century upon century had passed
since the Almighty set his bow in the clouds after the Great Flood,
as a sign of covenant and peace;
in the twenty-first century since Abraham, our father in faith,
came out of Ur of the Chaldees;
in the thirteenth century since the People of Israel were led by Moses
in the Exodus from Egypt;
around the thousandth year since David was anointed King;

"Unknown ages" from the Creation has now become "ages beyond number." I thought the amount of ages was "unknown"? Apparently the committees who decide these things thought that, despite stating that the amount of ages since the beginning was "unknown", we have now learned (just since 2004) that it was actually "ages without number." Whereas the 1994 amendment places the flood "several thousand years"  ago, the newer amendment says "century upon century", which is an even more indeterminate amount of time - "century upon century" could mean ten centuries or ten thousand centuries.

A few other quirks: Notice that the traditional "one thousand and thirty-second year from David's being anointed king" in 1994 was changed to the more general "one thousand years from the anointing of David as king" and then at last in 2004 to the extraordinarily non-committal "around the thousandth year since David was anointed King." What is "around the thousandth year"? Is that give or take a decade? A century? Two centuries? Also Ruth and the Judges briefly appear in the 1994 version only to disappear in the 2004 version.

I think we can infer two things from these changes.

Some time ago, I noted in my article "The Solemn Enthronement of Evolution" that it is totally incorrect when people say the Catholic Church has 'never had a problem with evolution.' When evolution was first proposed back in the mid-1800's, the Church had a huge problem with it; Catholic publications sympathetic to Darwinism were condemned and placed on the Index. The Church's objections had to do with the concept of substance. If evolution is true, even theistic evolution, then there really is no underlying Being that undergoes accidental change but is not itself changed. Being is becoming. Everything is in a state of flux. In short, there can be no concept of substance with an evolutionary model. This has striking implications for a number of things, including human nature and transubstantiation. I recommend the article linked above for a more thorough treatment of this problem.

The Christmas Proclamation demonstrates that, yes, the Church traditionally did assume a literal, historical reading of Genesis and the Creation. This is not to say that the Church has infallibly taught that the world was created in 5199 B.C.; and the Christmas Proclamation is not even formally part of the Missale Romanum, so we are not asserting anything infallibly or suggesting that opinions to the contrary are heresy. But this does suggest that the Church's Tradition has strongly favored a literal reading of the Genesis account. Remember, the according to Msgr. Agius in The Church and Tradition, the Church's prime constitutive tradition is her liturgical practices. So while the literalism favored by the Christmas Proclamation does not establish anything with absolute authority, at the same time,the dating in the Proclamation is not meaningless.

The second thing we can infer is the Church authorities are less and less comfortable with chronology when it comes to the Old Testament. The first date to be abandoned was the Creation, and then the Flood date was abandoned in favor of "several thousand years." While "several thousand years" is less specific than "two thousand nine hundred fifty-seven years", it still commits us to a time-frame of more or less a few millennia. "Several thousand years" would rule out, say, five-hundred thousand years or a million. "Several thousand" basically limits us to 2,000-5,000 years before Christ, in my personal opinion. Still, quite a bit of leeway.

But the 2004 revision is not even comfortable with that, so we get "century upon century" since the Flood, which could mean anything from 5,000 years ago to four billion years ago.

By now the dating of Abraham and Moses is called into question, too. The 1994 version gives us broad ranges of "twenty centuries" for Abraham and thirteen for Moses. The traditional date for Moses is the year the people of Israel "went forth" out of Egypt while the 1994 version gives us the date the people were "led" by Moses, which was really a period of forty years at least, again, creating more wiggle-room.

David is also adjusted from the more specific 1032 B.C. to 1000 B.C. in the 1994 version. In the 2004 version, its as if the uncertainty about chronology has seeped right up to the time of the Davidic kingdom, as the 2004 text says David ruled "around" a thousand years ago. Who knows what "around" a thousand years ago means?

My point here is not to say that one date is "wrong" and the older ones infallibly correct. My point is to establish that the Church is increasingly uncomfortable maintaining chronology when it comes to the Old Testament. This is no doubt influenced by the general acceptance of the Documentary Hypothesis, which assumes the patriarchs are fables and questions the historicity of David (see my article "Deconstructing the Documentary Hypothesis" for a thorough dismantling of this faith-destroying theory). The modern Magisterium is less and less willing to hold the line on the traditional timeline for Old Testament events.

Eventually we may see uncertainty on any dating prior to the Exile - many Documentarians have already reached this point. Perhaps a future edition of the Proclamation will look like this:

The Twenty-fifth Day of December,
thousands of eons since the creation of the world,
when God in the beginning created heaven and earth,
and formed man in his own likeness through a gradual evolution of pre-existing matter which was later ensouled at a certain point;
when tens of thousands had passed
since the pre-Camrbian age,
tons of thousands of years since Abraham may or may not have actually wandered out of Ur of the Chaldees;
in the tenth century since a few hundred Israelites were led by Moses across the six-inch deep Reed Sea in what Jewish religious experience would later call the Exodus from Egypt;
around the thousandth year - give or take three centuries - since the vagabond warlord David was anointed King over a United Kingdom that probably never existed.
Two or three centuries since the post-Exilic works known as J,E,P and D were compiled into the Torah...

Merry Christmas from Unam Sanctam Catholicam.