On the praise of Bees Wax.

As mentioned below, in the Easter proclamation (the Exultet) mention of the Paschal Candle triggers an extravagant praise of the bees who produced the necessary wax for its crafting and light emitting function of praise.

It is interesting to note that some Medieval Texts of the Exultet actually contain a long and more theological appraisal of the humble bee. This surprisingly lengthy section refers to a vast array of scholarly and popular lore on the marvellous behaviour of bees. It ends as follows:
O vere beata et mirabilis apis, cuius nec sexum masculi violant, foetus non quassant, nec filii destruunt castitatem. Sicut sancta concepit virgo Maria peperit et virgo permansit.
O truly blessed and wondrous bee, whose sex the males do not dishonor, the bearing of offspring does not violate them, nor do (the bearing of) children destroy their chastity. Just as the holy Virgin Mary conceived and bore a child and yet remained a virgin.

In this we can see that the use of Bees Wax is not just a tradition that exists because of medieval practical techniques. It is not a tradition made redundant by synthetic paraffin. But it is, to the praise of God, I sermon on that Light from Light born of the Virgin Mary.

Bees Wax truly is for ever!

On that blessed night, that sacred night in which the Church celebrates and makes present the redemption from slaver which is communicated as if light from light in the Glorious Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, She [the Church] does not neglect to give due praise to the humble bee:

In huius igitur noctis gratia, suscipe, sancte Pater laudis huius sacrificium vespertinum, quod tibi in haec cerei oblatione sollemni, per ministrorum manus de operibus apum, sacrosancta reddit ecclesia.

Therefore on this sacred night, receive, O holy Father, the evening sacrifice of this sacrifice, which thy holy Church by the hands of her ministers presents to thee in the solemn offering of this wax candle made out of the labour of bees.

Sed iam columnae huius praeconia novimus, quam in honorem Dei rutilans ignis accendit. Qui, licet sit divisus in partes, mutuati tamen luminis detrimenta non novit. Alitur enim liquantibus ceris, quas in substantiam pretiosae huius lampadis apis mater eduxit.

And now we know the excellence of this pillar, which the bright fire lights for the honour of God. Which fire, though now divided, suffers no loss from the communication of its light. Because it is fed by the melted wax, which the mother bee wrought for the substance of this precious lamp.

This calls us to remember that the ability to praise God is itself His gift to us. As God created the bees in such a way that they give us wax that we then mould to praise God through its burning, so too did that same Heavenly Father sent His eternal Son to dissipate the darkness and, being accepted as a sweet savour, united us with the celestial lights. That same Christ, that morning star, that star which never sets, which, being returned from hell, shone with brightness on mankind so that it would be truly fitting and just to proclaim with all the affection of our heart and soul, and with the sound of our voice thanks and praise to the invisible God the Father almighty, and his only Son our Lord Jesus Christ.

O truly blessed night, in which heaven is united to earth, and God to man!

God and Politics

The following article is a copy of a talk given by Mr Christopher Wolter on the top of “God and Politics”. It is no great work of political science, nor is it a fair treatment of the topic of 'the separation of Church and State'. However, it is a thoughtful reflection on something of the contemporary problem and includes a (if not some what utopic) realist appraisal of the 'God fearing State'.

Saint Augustine, who lived in the last days of the Roman Empire, considered all earthly governments, regardless of their form, as representative of the fallen and imperfect "city of man." The state provided the "sword" to discipline sinful man through law and education. The church, for Augustine, represented the perfect and eternal "city of God," preserving the divine, otherworldly values of peace, hope, and charity. Hence, church and state were separate but related: they occupied different realms and held different values, but both existed in this world. A later paper will be discussing St Augustine and the city of God, it just suffices to say now that though separate but coinciding, the more ideal the city of man that more readily it intersected with the city of God.

Following on from this, Saint Thomas Aquinas defined the state as author and executor of human law, whose charge is the punishment of vice and encouragement of virtue. The church, he held, is the interpreter of divine law through natural law, of which human law is an inferior part. Hence, for Aquinas, the church properly advises the state on many matters, especially those relating to moral legislation.

Martin Luther made a radical break with traditional Christian theology. By defining the state purely as a "hangman," charged with establishing worldly peace through punishment of crime, and considering the church as primarily concerned with spiritual matters unrelated to politics, Luther effectively placed the church under the governance of the state. This state governing the Church was not a new thing but had been a consistent tension since the edict of Milan and even (in a certain sense) prior to that in various Roman persecutions but with Protestantism it became a doctrine of churches (small 'c') themselves. Having a wider appeal to the European powers, State control of the Catholic Church became extremely problematic in France, post revolution, so much so that great defenders of the Church, like the SVDPS founder Bl Fredric Osnam and the great Dominican preacher Lacourdair became advocate voices for the separations of Church and state. Of course their concern was not that the Church was influencing government, but adversely that the government was having detrimental control over the Church.

The real home and birth place for the modern understanding of the separation of Church and state is, of course, the US. Puritans, as well as the Lutheran, influences affected the institutional arrangements reached in the United States, the Lutherans by upholding the already mentioned principle of the separation of church and state. Because of persecution by the crown in England, the Puritans who settled in New England were steadfastly opposed to the established Anglican Church. Distrust of an established church influenced their descendants, who at the time of the American Revolution (and forever after) have sought to restrain the state's interference in religion. Freedom of religion in the United States is secured by a portion of the 1st Amendment of their Constitution that reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." Thus the amendment, giving freedom to religion from the state, also separates the state from religion. This takes affect, for instance, when the U.S. Supreme Court, in Engel v. Vitale (1962), declared school prayer unconstitutional because it violated the "establishment" clause (through the use of public facilities for religious practices), it was accused of limiting citizens' "free exercise" of religion (by interfering with their prayers when and where they please). The line of thinking behind such a decision is the same line of thinking that ignores all religious consideration, or wisdom, in the decisions of government. And so we saw in 1960 the first Catholic president of the US, on the eve of his election in saying, and quote JFK:
I believe in an America where the separation of Church and state is absolute... I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair... [and] Whatever the issue may come before me as president – on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any thing else, I will make my decision in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the nations interest,...

This form of thinking has tricked down into the way we Australian also think.
The big problem is that in saying religion should stay out of politics we then go on to say God is a thing of religion, so God should stay out of politics and not only politics, but how we see man, how we treat individuals and how we even see ourselves, for those things pertain to our political views. The inclination is to say 'we will be accepting of all religion just as long as it is only a personal thin'. The problem with this Liberalism with its practical atheism is that it does not end up religiously neutral, but religiously hostile ignoring or marginalising (trivialising) people of faith of religiously informed decisions in favour of a community of dog eat dog competition, a community hate and of death!

Let us look at this theologically.
To take God out of politics is to leave man subject to his own failure, to his own sin. As we informed Catholics know, though man has a disposition towards God and is thus inclined towards truth and the good, always acting for what he perceives as good, humanity stumbles in the dark in the fallen state of original sin, making mistakes. That is why human history is littered with bad government and utopic ideas (especially the atheistic ones like Communism) that have all ended in tears.

Some say 'but what about the wars and persecutions that religion has in the past coursed? Well, As Cardinal Pell has pointed out many times before, the worst atrocities in human history have been caused not by religiously inclined governments, but by Stalin, Lenin, Chairmen Mow and Hitler, all proponents of atheistic ideologies!

In purely materialistic systems, ones which for what ever motive ignores God, we find an ignorance of any real notion of truth. In the public sphere reason is replaced by consensus of opinion in the exchange of ideas and personal responsibility and morality is replaced by a relativity which idealises that which 'feels good', 'feels right', or pertains to ones individual conscience.

Where as, a Christian or God centred state has its philosophical foundation in the recognition of the nature of the human person as a spiritual and material being -- a being that has a relation to God and to each other.

Man, humanity is a communal creature. We informed Catholics believe that all men are called to the same eng, God Himself and, as the CCC and VII GS have taught, there is a certain resemblance between the union of the divine persons and the fraternity that men are to establish among themselves in truth and love. As all men know, the human person needs to live in society. We naturally seek out friend, we love relations we find fulfilment in play with others as well as the need for all the practical advantages and necessities of living in a soc. The society enriches us and we, if we are good citizens, enrich the soc.

Yet, for a society to work towards its common goals, for a society to function in any way, it must have a common ground, a common understanding on which to function and a common set of ideas and principles that it venerates as belonging to that polity.
Let us look at this with reason.

If we leave religion or religious beliefs out of this common understanding as if they are relative only to the individual, if we say 'there your personal beliefs mate, keep them out of it', then we are not only trivialising religion but we are denying its truth value and thus the value of any truth. We are saying 'you hold your religious views, that's relative to you, I hold my religious views, there relative to me and together, publicly we will all carry on as atheists, we will think and form and articulate ideas all based around (and only based around) those things which we know by empirical science and those things that bring the majority the greatest material comfort. Yes, we will give everybody freedom, that is religious freedom, moral freedom and (for those that have the aptitude for it) commercial freedom, but only as long as these freedoms are seen as personal and relative only to the individual. This B16 has called the dictatorship of relativism.”

The Holy Father teaches that Public reason is not possible in a culture that is dominated by the "dictatorship of relativism," as an unreasoning dogma (a kin to a fundamentalism) Relativism rejects rational argumentation, even toward itself.

'Public reason', that is human reason in dialogue and research, can obtain certain truths about man and about man in society. In that Public reason, critically as well as constructively is not only capable of achieving a "consensus" of opinions, but can also attain the truth and the good of man in society. So, dialogue, public debates and intellectual pursuits should not be about consensus, which is given to compromise, but about obtaining truth. Such truths (that we informed Catholics already hold too) like the dignity of the person (which is behind any understanding of the common good), the inalienability of human rights, justice, the meaning of individual freedom and of community ties, all depend on the possibility of a public reason. That these things be respected requires that our governments listen to public reason.

However, public reason is not possible; truth cannot be obtained, in a relativist state, for all is relative and there is no truth! And yet in this there is a basic contradiction, the statement: “relativism is true” is a truth statement, unarguable and dogmatic, it contradicts its very self by admitting the possibility of non-relative truths. Thus the "dictatorial" character. In the cultural sense relativism prevents the use of public reason. For relativism can not even critic itself.

Reason needs religion, just as (and we shall see) religion needs reason.
In 2004, Cardinal Ratzinger participated in a debate with philosopher Jurgen Habermas that focused exactly on the public role of reason. On that occasion, he argued that if terrorism that is fuelled by religious fundamentalism is the symptom of a pathology of religion that must be corrected by reason, then in the same way the technical-scientific capability of producing human beings is the symptom of a pathology of reason that needs to be corrected by religion. This is his conclusion: "There are extremely dangerous pathologies in religion that require us to consider the divine light of reason as a control mechanism ... there are also pathologies of reason that are not less dangerous … therefore reason has to accept warning as to its limits and must be willing to listen to the great religious traditions of mankind." As we can see, he credits reason with the ability of "controlling" religion. Christianity, unlike relativism, does not ask reason to shrink from its public role but to fully fulfil it; however, in order to do that, reason needs to rediscover its own greatness. Christianity wants a reason that is able to breathe and She is willing to help reason do that. She wants to be "put to the test" by this reason.

The reason I bring this up is to call our minds to another symptom of relativism and its unreasonableness. That is the belief that what feels good is what is right. For that belief itself is an unreasoning dictatorship. It is false to appeal to feelings, relativist opinions or conscience and thus close all further discussion and to claim immunity to reasoned argument or the moral law. Especially as our Social/Political positions are effected by our moral judgments. Relativism, relating all moral and religious beliefs to the individual’s personal whims paradoxically elevates the status of personal feelings, desires, opinions or (in some Catholic circles) a false notion of conscience. True conscience is, in the eyes of the Second Vatican Council, is common to all human beings, not just Christians, and is part of the very dignity of man; mediating a universal and objective moral law which is given rather than invented; summoning us to seek good and avoid evil by loving God and neighbour. However, our conscience, like our personal feelings and inclinations, “err out of 'invincible ignorance' or by being blamefully corrupted”.

This teaching on conscience brings us back to our basic understand about the ignorance of fallen man, who though seeking the good, makes numerous mistakes. However, the Catholic view of conscience presupposes an optimistic view of human capacities to discern the good, even after the Fall. Yet, as Bishop Anthony OP recently explained in a paper delivered to the Pontifical Academy for Life, conscience, like any intellectual ability, can err because the human mind can be more or less mature, experienced, trained, healthy, sophisticated, imaginative, prudent, integrated with passion, etc. Conscience is only right conscience when it accurately mediates and applies that natural law which participates in the divine law; it is erroneous when it does not.

All of these points are, as you can see, as relevant to our social/political thinkings and doings as they are to our personal thoughts and actions. For as we denying that conscience (or personal choice) is infallible or has "primacy" over truth or faith or the teachings of Christ and his Church so we must denying that political whims of fashions, grounded on little else than 'choice' have an infallibility in regard to our social judgments. “Choice” being relative, brings us back to considering the society without God.

It also brings us back to the relativism of religion that is part of the dictatorship of relativism. There in, not only is religious belief seen as purely personal but also irrelevant to anything practical, concrete or (from that perspective) real!

In fact, the consequence of philosophical relativism can only be religious relativism: saying that all religions are different and yet actually the same. As if to say:
“They are irrational, they are the result of an unfounded choice, and thus they cannot be compared.”

Relativism views religions as unjustified beliefs, because it cannot demonstrate it materially. Relativism "believes" that religions are unfounded, thus they cannot be compared. In other words, it believes that religions have nothing to do with reason and truth.

In this way, all religions are reduced to myth, i.e. to a way of exorcizing mysterious, bizarre and irrational forces. If religions are unfounded, it means that the divine forces they refer to are irrational. Religion is imagined to be a form of insurance policy in the unknown beyond the material world and death. Thus, religious relativism regresses to a kind of religious primitivism.

To consider religion as something irrational, according to Benedict XVI, is entirely inconsistent with our whole Western and Christian history. In fact, both Greek thought and the Jewish religion, as well as Christianity, of course, rejected the vision of religion as myth and conceived religion as knowledge and God as Logos.Our faith and the Gospel of St. John teaches that Jesus is the Logos; he is the spirit of God that created all things. Christianity does not borrow from the many religions of the time, the religions of the myth, but presents us with God-truth reconnecting directly with Greek thought and developing the experience of Israel. Thus Benedict XVI teaches that Christianity relates "to that divine presence which can be perceived by the rational analysis of reality … In Christianity, rationality became religion." We believe that at the beginning of everything is the eternal Word, with Reason and not Unreason.

This brings us back to 'public reason'. As we have already noted, Christian faith confirms and supports the rational search for truth and calls for a public role of reason that will also include the critique of religions. In fact, we cannot say that all religions relate to truth and reason in the same way as Christianity. They relate to truth and reason in a different manner, which is the same as saying that they are more or less rational and that they can more or less adequately support the public role of reason. This was the theme touched upon by the Holy Father in his now famous Regensburg address. A God who preaches violence is not a rational God, because reason rejects violence as means of transmission of faith. As we have said, what is not rational cannot come from the true God. This critiquing of religion from the reason of man must also be possible from the point of view of public reason as it pertains to man in society. For with that in mind it becomes clear that not all religions are equally respectful of the good of man in society. Religion, if good, has to be just that, good, in relation to society. In other words, it has to be publicly good; it has to be part of the common good. It is also clear that the political power that seeks to organize society according to reason not only cannot relate to all religions in the same way, but should also cherish its obligations to the true religion. Of course, if the political power is based on the relativistic democracy, it will not feel any obligation in this regard. Relativism, in fact, can only express a procedural public reason. When the truth is replaced by the decision of the majority (wich usually is a compromise between factions), culture is set against truth and the relativistic presumption leads to the desecration of people's spiritual roots.Relativism regards all religions as equivalent. It does so because it is incapable of engaging in a public critique of religions because for relativism common good cannot be rationally identified. By doing so, it precludes the possibility for the true religion to support what men do to attain the common good.

We can see in all of this that relativistic democracy produces religious relativism and this (in turn) strengthens ethical and social relativism, which in turn gives a facade of credibility to relativistic democracy. It is all very well for us to claim that 'the state has obligations to the true religion', but does the critic of reason substantiate this claim? From where does the state, which is secular, derive these obligations to the true religion? Not from being a "Christian" state, but from reason, that is from the natural ability to see truths about man in society, from the ability to understand the common good. This reasoning also has the ability to see that one religion consolidates and helps pursue humanization objectives while another contributes to the degradation of man. Christian religion has this claim, the claim of preaching a "God with a human face" (to quote Benedict XVI ).

In this connection with God, through His image and likeness in creation, His taking on of the human condition in the incarnation and crucifixion to that eschatological resurrection and eternal life with him, Christianity preaches a dignity about humanity that no materialistic ideology could every comprehend coming close to. And this brings our discussion full circle, back to man as a social being of persons in a community, the image and likeness of God the Holy trinity.

The Thomistic view -- that there is a law in human nature that is derived from (though separate from) a divine or eternal law and that humanity’s ‘end’ goes beyond anything attainable in this life – is really something else. No atheistic philosophy can attribute such dignity to man. Not just a pie in the sky; in this acknowledging of God as our ultimate end we can see that there is a natural law that is ‘unwritten’ but immanent in nature. For in that we are aimed at God, but God, there is, thus, in us a specific pattern or order of movement. Given that nature too has a teleological character, one can know what a thing ‘should’ do or how it ‘should’ be used by examining its ‘end’ and the normality of its functioning. For the ‘natural law’ is an order or a disposition that the human reason may discover, especially with the use of public reason.

In other words, the natural law is universal and invariable and deals with the rights and duties which follow from the first principle or precept of law -- that good is to be done and evil avoided. This is rooted in divine reason and in a transcendent order (i.e., in the eternal law), and is ‘written into’ human nature by God. The practical common 'laws' of our civilisation (like any other) should be an extension of the natural law as they pertain to the circumstances of life in society, and thus concerned with human beings as social beings (e.g., as citizens or as members of families). In this we need 'positive laws’ that are the system of rules and regulations involved in assuring general order within a particular society. It is in virtue of their relation to natural law that they "have the force of law and impose themselves on conscience". When a positive law acts against the natural law, it is, strictly speaking, not a law. Thus, by the use of public reason and reflecting on the Natural Law, the very functions of our society can be patterned on God.
The Goal for us is to be advocates of public reason.

The ‘end’ of humanity is to be free but, by ‘freedom,’ we don't just mean license or pure rational autonomy, but the realisation of the human person in accord with his or her nature -- specifically, the achievement of moral and spiritual perfection. Human beings are ‘individuals’ who are related to a common, social order of which they are parts. But they are also persons. The person is a ‘whole’, is an object of dignity, with a transcendent destiny. In both the material and the spiritual order, however, human beings participate in a ‘common good.’ Thus, one is an individual in virtue of being a material being; one is a person so far as one is capable of intellectual activity and freedom. Still, while distinct, both elements are equally necessary to being a human being (soul and body). It is in virtue of their individuality that human beings have obligations to the social order, but it is in virtue of their personality that they cannot be subordinated to that order. In other word, the state is not the “end” (or goal or aim) of the person.

Not separating political philosophy from moral philosophy, we informed and traditionally Christian minded citizens consider the human Being (an entity that has both material and spiritual dimensions) as a unified whole and because we see human beings in society as participants in a common good. In this it is our duty to outline the conditions necessary to making the individual more fully human in all respects, seeking to bring the different dimensions of the human person together, without ignoring or diminishing the value of either. While one’s private good as an individual is subordinate to the (temporal) common good of the community, as a person with a supernatural end, one’s ‘spiritual good’ is superior to society -- and this is something that all political communities should recognize.

Thus, the best political order is one which recognizes the sovereignty of God. We must reject, therefore, not only fascism and communism, but all secular humanisms. We should demand a Theo-centric humanism which has its philosophical foundation in the recognition of the nature of the human person as a spiritual and material being -- a being that has a relation to God -- and our morality and social and political institutions must therefore reflect this.

SACRED TRIDUM CELEBRATIONS

Take a look at this fairy, playing Mary Poppins. I found this picture on Thomas Peregrinus It’s no wonder people make funny of the Old Rite and its excesses. I bet that things even got bells on it.

No, seriously, for all the talk of noble simplicity, it is the more antique rite that really turns on stark reality of the crucifiction when it’s suitable to do say...

And unleashes the bells and smells when it is time to sing Alleluia!

Pope's 1st Portrait

The first official portrait of B16 is underway. The British Artist, Michael Noakes has been commissioned for the task and the Holy Father has already sat. It is reported that Noakes saw the Pope as a slightly shy man and tried to portray that. According to the Times, the painter is quoted as saying "he also smiles a great deal, but it's an oil painting and is going to be around as part of the records for a long time. So I made him look cheerful, with a degree of gravitas and a bit of a twinkle." The finished product is expected to be presented to the Holy Father at the end of April.

The acompaning image here is, of course, Cardinal Basil Hume. It was executed buy the same artist and can be somthing along the lines of what we can expect.

beezwax4ever

Art at the service of the liturgy

The Post Eucharist Synod, Apostolic Exaltation of Pope Benedict XVI, ‘SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS’ has, as expected, been the talk of the town.

I thought I would focus on something different, some thing other than the use of Latin, Gregorian Chant and praise for former day. While not unrelated and a part of the general trend of things that have been and things to come, Sacred Art, like language, music and the former glories, has in many ways been the grater damaged. For it has not just been attacked in the minds and hearts, ears and practises of the faithful and the clergy. But it has been the victim of physical and often irreparable damage. The visual arts, including architecture, décor, vestments and sacred vassals as well as painting and sculpture is, like that of the Church’s music or the Latin language part of her glorious treasure (the dowry which she offers in tribute to the Eternal Bride Groom) but one once lost not that easily re-learnt or re-found.

Here follows an extract of some of the Holy Fathers words on the Subject.

41. The profound connection between beauty and the liturgy should make us attentive to every work of art placed at the service of the celebration. (122) Certainly an important element of sacred art is church architecture, (123) which should highlight the unity of the furnishings of the sanctuary, such as the altar, the crucifix, the tabernacle, the ambo and the celebrant's chair. Here it is important to remember that the purpose of sacred architecture is to offer the Church a fitting space for the celebration of the mysteries of faith, especially the Eucharist. (124) The very nature of a Christian church is defined by the liturgy, which is an assembly of the faithful (ecclesia) who are the living stones of the Church (cf. 1 Pet 2:5).

This same principle holds true for sacred art in general, especially painting and sculpture, where religious iconography should be directed to sacramental mystagogy. A solid knowledge of the history of sacred art can be advantageous for those responsible for commissioning artists and architects to create works of art for the liturgy. Consequently it is essential that the education of seminarians and priests include the study of art history, with special reference to sacred buildings and the corresponding liturgical norms. Everything related to the Eucharist should be marked by beauty. Special respect and care must also be given to the vestments, the furnishings and the sacred vessels, so that by their harmonious and orderly arrangement they will foster awe for the mystery of God, manifest the unity of the faith and strengthen devotion (125).

I know it’s not a lot, but the seed bed for important things.

Some think that those ‘Latin Mass types’ are nothing but a bunch of daggy young fogies who, for fun, attend book clubs or dine over Sunday lunch! These pictures testifies to the contrary, Latin Mass Types are classy, swish, sophisticated, good looking and straight up HOT!




And, as for this image, how else would you end a ball?