From Personal Piety to the Social Kingship of Christ: The Ordered Loves of the Sacred Heart

Originally posted June 8, 2018 by David Pence

2019 Update: June is not "Pride" month but the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is celebrated liturgically on the Friday following the second Sunday after Pentecost with the Immaculate Heart of Mary honored the Saturday after. We invite you to keep Catholic time with us today as we reflect on this solemnity - the highest and holiest liturgical celebrations - with the words of the late Dr. David Pence. -A.J.L. 

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"There are others who reckon this same devotion burdensome and of little or no use to men who are fighting in the army of the divine King... [they] see it rather a type of piety nourished not by the soul and mind but by the senses and consequently more suited to the use of women, since it seems to them something not quite suitable for educated men."
(Leo XIII 1899 encyclical Consecrating the Whole Human Race to the Most Sacred Heart)

Pope Francis says to trust the practices of the faithful people. "Reality is more important than ideas." But Really! All these bleeding hearts and pierced sides, talking angels and burning souls and then the secrets of a beautiful lady sealed by the miracle of the Sun. The Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the white and red lights of Divine Mercy from the wounded side of Christ, "entering the wounds to reach the heart," the promise of Fatima, the conversion of Russia, and the Kingship of Christ. Do we really have to treat this mish-mash of peasant practices and apparitions as  reality?  Could these disparate peasant devotions instruct an army which awaits the general orders for the day?  Men should not run away... a convergence is appearing from the ruins of the bloody 20th century.  The messages come from children and virginal young women. Old ladies have long heeded them. Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.
                                                                      

Kaki Katsuhiko (1872-1961), in preaching the Shinto nationalism that would propel Japan against the western imperialists colonizing Asia, gave speeches to the military called "One Heart, One Body." He was a law professor and a scholar of Shinto classics as well as a professor at the Japanese Naval  Academy for the 25 years before Pearl Harbor. He was the major intellectual/spiritual force who  welded law, statecraft, religion and military identity together to forge the Japanese people into that incredible social organism that defeated China and then Russia before expelling the British from Hong Kong and Singapore.  "One Heart, One Body, One Head." That is exactly the language he had taught. American soldiers learned to respect the resolve of that one heart as a fighting force, while Chinese civilians grew to hate the "Japanese devils" for their unspeakable barbarism. But no man can look at the history of the 20th century and fail to see there was some fundamental spiritual difference between the "Mystical Body of Japan" and those other bloody 20th-century forces of Soviet scientific socialism and the armed Darwinism of the German Reich. No man should hear the language of the Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart and One Body and dismiss these categories as the sentimentality of old ladies. There lurks a Serpent much more devious and horrible than any of the armies of the world wars. A great Heart beats and a Mystical Body is stirring to expel that monster.

The disciplines of the First Fridays and First Saturdays are deeply Eucharistic. We should remember that in 1673 (St Margaret Mary Alacoque) and 1879 (Sister Mary of the Divine Heart), frequent and early reception of Holy Communion was not common. A profound culture of love has been formed by the monthly devotions to what Pope John Paul II called "the alliance of the hearts." Buttressed by the liturgical reforms and sensibilities of the early twentieth century, these devotions set a rhythmic metronome for the practice of Catholic parish life: daily Mass and Communion, monthly confession, and daily meditation on the life of Christ through the Rosary. The Catholic week is centered on Sunday when the Father created the heavens and the earth, the Son rose from the dead and the Spirit inflamed the hearts of the faithful. Catholics devote Friday to acts of Penance and the Passion. Thursdays recall the institution of the Eucharist and that pivotal struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane. Saturdays are Marian -- a day of faithful anticipation that the Tomb will become a womb bringing forth the first-born of creation. The renewal of the liturgical year in the last century was preceded by the renewal of the Catholic week by the devotions of the hearts. Those disciplines started out as monthly prayer practices, but they led to the daily and weekly keeping of Catholic time that would mark strong parish life. The centrality of the bishop and the Eucharist in the local Church emphasized at Vatican II was prepared for by setting hearts aflame for the Heart of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. It is hard to convey the Real Presence in words; it is hard to miss His Presence in a church, quiet and full, during Thursday Holy Hour. The binding of the peoples' hearts with the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary draws our thoughts to think with the mind of the Church and our wills to carry out the Will of the Father. This Christocentric culture consolidates and renews a worldwide community of shared attention and memory in the synchronous practices of local parish life.

These devotions linking the heart of the believer with the heart of Christ were meant to draw all of humanity into the human heart of Jesus. This targeting of humanity and not just particular souls as the recipient of grace was not always the emphasis of the Church. It was considered noteworthy that the Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth) Encyclical of Pope John XXIII in 1963 as well as  the opening statement of the Bishops at the Second Vatican Council were addressed not only to bishops and Catholics, but to all men of good will. Indeed, Pacem in Terris was much more about the harmony and order that is at the root of reality than a plea for "no more war." It opened: "That a marvelous order predominates in the world of living Beings and in the forces of nature is the plain lesson of modern research." Against the ontological conflict and violence inherent in the western ideologies of Marxism and Social Darwinism, the Catholics threw their lot in with the great philosophies and cultures of primordial order and harmony. Love made the Universe. Love called forth man in creation. And in thousands of chapels across the world, mostly women pondered the love of God in the loving hearts of Mary and Jesus. Countering the shadowy ether of practical atheism, the daily and weekly practices of Catholics held up the Body of Christ offered to the Father. Amidst the rubble of the great wars, the sanctuary lamps in parishes across the globe lit up the faces of the faithful reciting  more prayers, kneeling for more confessions, attending more Masses and receiving more Holy Communions. Attention and Piety were centered not upon a thousand different village saints but focused through the Mass and the Rosary on the central reality of Christ in nature and history.  The physical sinews for the theology of Communio were being drawn taut. When the young virgin asked the Supreme Pontiff (the Holy Father) to consecrate all of humanity to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, there were years of pause. Popes had spoken often to fellow bishop-apostles and other times to the whole Catholic faithful. The pope and his priests were used to speaking definitively with effect to a specific target. They repeated the words of Christ in special sacramental settings --"This is my Body", "Go, your sins are forgiven." The pope was careful with his words. Generally the Church invited people as individuals to enter her sacramental life and be consecrated. The Church was one kind of society; the world was another. What should be said to humanity? What could be said to all of mankind? The pope balked at the consecration of humanity. But the realization grew deeper as the Church reflected on her identity as Church. The sons of Adam and the descendants of Noah needed to hear a call from the Ark. Humanity is the Church in potential. In the Vatican Council's reflection on the Church (Lumen Gentium), the term "People of God" was used  at different times to describe three different corporate realities: the Jews, the whole Church, and mankind from the beginning.
                                                                       

Pope Leo XIII did consecrate mankind to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1899. Pope Pius XII consecrated the whole world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1942, one year before his encyclical on the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ. Henri de Lubac and the Communio theologians would remind us that the Church could not be fully the Body of Christ without embracing her mission as fulfilling the destiny of mankind. The nations apart from the Church were parts of the Body not yet awakened to their identity as members. Uniting ourselves with the Heart of Jesus shapes the whole human race into the eusocial species that we were meant to be from the beginning. This clarity about the Church's message to humanity as a whole emerged in the century that humanity organized a level of technological murder through ideologies and racial empires and nation states which dwarfed the acts of Cain through the previous millennia.

In 1925, Pius XI said that the annual consecration of the world to the Sacred Heart would be done each year on the Feast of Christ the King which he established in that encyclical. The empires of the Romanovs, Hapsburgs, and Ottomans had fallen in WWI. The Papal States had been taken 50 years before that. In Catholic Mexico and Catholic Spain the forces of Communism which had butchered the Orthodox clergy in Russia were now killing the Catholic priests. The war against clerics and the priestly Eucharistic authority of Christ had taken a bloody turn. Yet it was just then the pope established a Sunday every year to reassert the one monarchy that would never fall. The empires deposed their rulers, the mobs killed their priests, and just then the pope reminded us that mankind still had a monarch. The pope crowned the liturgical year with the Kingship of Christ, not simply to announce his regal return in the end times but to reassert the Church's life is meant to build His Kingdom on this earth.  Five decades later,  a new decade of the rosary was dedicated to that truth of building the kingdom of God. Catholics began to hear for the first time that same charge in the Pater Noster- an old prayer they had said all their lives. The Holy Father said every faculty of man -- intellect, will, and body -- owed allegiance to the King. There was no square inch of social life or earthly territory that wasn't His.

A century later our allegiance abides in Christ the King. Christ as the Head of a Body with a beating Heart makes a King's claim on our hearts. The loss of Papal States and the passing of Christian monarchs has actually cleared our field of vision to see how we might better institute Christ's Social Kingship. The Soviet Union is no more but Holy Russia reappears. The Roman Empire has disappeared but Israel is a nation. The Church was torn asunder but Christian nations are on every continent. The world of politics, of war and peace, of poverty and development is not immune to His rule. We dare not say, "the business of the Church is souls; we leave the life of nations in the bloody fangs of Social Darwinists".  How then shall we bring public life in concordance with the rules of love?

Political men must love the Father and love mankind as the Heart of Jesus does. This filial love for the Father invigorates and disciplines our special ardor for our countrymen and nation. Brotherhood under a Father is the public love of priests and bishops forming the living foundation stones for the Church. That is the Apostolic template that Christ loved into existence. Public brotherhoods of protective duty in defined territories under legitimate authorities constitute the form of love that makes the nations. Christ ordered his apostles not to reject the nations but to baptize them. He had been incorporated and instructed about his male duties in the Jewish nation by his father Joseph who came from the House of David (ed:2/2019)
    Losing this Christian fraternal sense of patriotism has been disastrous for American social life. The rejection of color-blind Christian brotherhood as the means and goal of civic life has destroyed our urban black communities. Ignoring the tough purity and work codes of Christian manhood has turned our white working-class neighborhoods into drug ridden spiritual wastelands. Renewing a public Christian code of manhood and brotherhood cuts across the debilitating battle lines of color and class. Forging the Christian alliance of hearts can reverse our cultural disintegration and we can reverse it quickly. We are commanded as men to participate in the public brotherhood of protection and work. This is one of the ordered loves of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. His brotherhood of protection and work was the Apostolic Church-a holy nation of priests.  Civic publics are spiritual communal bodies. To build the Kingship of Christ there must be authoritative male bodies in specific cities and countries living out this Christian natural pattern of love. Christ's heart wept for Jerusalem not Damascus. He ordained a band of Galilean working men (not an audience of ladies and gentlemen) into a public corporate body. Kingdoms require knights and they are established in homelands. The feast of the Sacred Heart reminds us that "all you need is love," but it is the structured love of religion, nation, and brotherhood that makes peace on earth.

Ordered masculine love is the way to peace. It is the antidote to murder and war. It is not to be trifled with. Masculine love is not erotic -- that is fake news. Incest destroys the family unit. Homosexuality destroys the public nature of civic and ecclesial brotherhoods. Its kiss is no more innocent than the kiss of Judas. Masculine love is a public brotherhood of fathers defined by laws and lands. It is high and noble. It allows us to meet the Russians and Chinese and Iranians as brothers in their own neighboring communities with their own customs and rules of law and leadership.

When a Cain picks up his weapon, the brotherhood moves to stop him. But when an Esau sets up his separate territory, Jacob respects his brother's border. Pope Francis says the high calling of politics is to establish fraternity. Civic fraternity is meant to rule, to exercise authority. The Sixties are over. The centuries of revolution are over. It is time to accept the duties of adulthood, the exercise of authority, and the public ordered love of territorial fraternity.

The Sacred Heart gives a physical form to the greatest of all loves -- the love of Christ for the Father and the love of Christ for humanity through his particular loves for His mother and His apostolic brothers.  The Church enters into this love through a very definite form: the Eucharistic Liturgy. All of the devotions of the Hearts, Fatima, and Divine Mercy have led to a deeper Eucharistic sensibility. Masculine brotherhood and male-female love also have defined physical forms within which they are expressed. The nation and marriage are these forms of covenant love. The Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Kingship of Our Lord are deeply entwined. All of humanity is being drawn into a kind of force-field defined by the Trinitarian template of ordered love. Public territorial boundaries of nations for men are foreshadowed by the territorial divisions of the diocesan Church. The paired love of man and woman in the unity of marriage is a sacrament of Christ and His Church. The wide encompassing waters of mercy that wash all of mankind come by way of a narrow wound in his side. The widest of loves are possible only if we conform to the limiting liberation of the fundamental resonating communal forms of ordered love.

John Eudes (1601-1680) a saint priest of France fostered devotion to the Sacred Hearts but never emphasized that above all "Jesus loves you." Fr. Eudes knew that above all ( and this cannot be repeated too often) Jesus loves His Father. Putting on Christ means putting on His loves and while that includes each of us, only the moderns think it starts there.  Eudes emphasized that putting on the heart of Jesus is "considering that the Lord Jesus  Christ is your true head and that you are a member of His body...He desires that whatever is in Him may live and rule in you, as the head lives and rules in the body...(let) these words be fulfilled in you: Glorify God and bear him in your body, that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in you.. He earnestly desires that you serve and glorify the Father by using all your faculties as if they were His." The good priest also grounded this devotion in the sacramental life of the church and 300 years before the present Catechism, he explained the sacraments of initiation: "These great gifts in the follower of Christ originate from Baptism. They are increased and strengthened through Confirmation and by making good use of other graces that are given by God. Through the Holy Eucharist, they are brought to perfection."

The forms of Christ's love are not restricted to the sacraments but are most manifest in them. Every man does not have to be baptized and confirmed as a Catholic for the Christian template of love to order the bonds of mankind. Christ has established forms of order. Conforming the "holy things" of matter and person in the sacraments exerts a field effect in cultures shaped by Christianity. The Catholic plan for politics is not a Catholic monarch in every country, though we have a special fondness for a good Catholic king. The bishops at the Second Vatican Council asked the leaders of the world to see them as a template. Their interracial brotherhood under the Fatherhood of God was a sign of how the nations could be. The Council Fathers established a sacral formation within which the great Spirit movement of Pentecostalism could be made incarnate.  The Marxists were wrong that class conflict was the driving force of human history. The capitalists and Darwinists were wrong that the nations, races, and men must be in perpetual conflict. Nations can be fraternities and live in fraternity. Man is meant for community. Men are meant to be brothers, as surely as man and woman are meant to be spouses. National flags are not above the altar, but they are found in churches, because the flags of nations are as fundamental signs of love and loyalty as the wedding bands of spouses.

Large groups of men in armed agreement should not evoke an image of Nazis. Large groups of men in armed agreement describes the form of love and loyalty that defeated the Nazis. It was religious men in arms and the nations at war which ended the brutal rule of scientific socialists. It was Catholic movements like the Cristeros and Catholic leaders like Franco, de Gaulle, Kennedy, and Diem who played their roles as armed Catholic nation-men in the fight against the atheist ideologies of their century. May a hundred such men and a hundred such nations emerge in this century to work in harmony with the Church in pursuit of peace. The nations are not meant to war with one another, but sometimes only a just war will bring a true peace. We must make peace with one another. Our only permanent enemy is the Devil.
     
The devotions to the Sacred Heart deepen our sensibility of being one with humanity in the Body of Christ. In the soul, in the parish, and in the the celebration of the Mass, the acts of personal piety link us in our common humanity united in the Heart and Body of Christ. (ed:2019 When we love in the same order that Christ loved we carry out the anthropological imperative of mimetic desire which Rene Girard discusses. We desire what Christ desires--He is a good man to mimic).   The Eucharist sends us out to incorporate the rest of humanity into this deep bond which is our common ultimate destiny. On the way to that perfection of the Mystical Body, we form the other fundamental societies and love covenants that radiate out from the core love. They are shaped by a field effect from the electromagnetic bonds of Trinitarian and sacramental life. Civic and marital bonds feed back by providing a culture for the present age that allows the ecclesial culture of eternity to be expressed in worship. The loves we live out in the rhythms of daily, weekly, and yearly Catholic Eucharistic culture are stronger, more truthful, and more full of joy than the disintegrating self-absorption of the modern west and the hateful violence of the jihadists. From our simple parish cultures of prayer and praise let us build the Kingdom of God. Let our hearts burn with the love of the Father and the bond of brotherhood in the priesthood. Let our love for the interiority of the Virgin and the practical kindness of the Mother lead us to the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.  Let our love of God be made manifest in the unified hearts of our marriages and domestic life. Let our love of God be manifest in our love of countrymen and reverence for our flag. Let our nation seek fraternity with the other nations reflecting the Heart of Christ for all mankind. Let our loves be His loves. He taught us His loves on the cross. Above all,  He loved His Father and obeyed His Will unto death. He loved His Blessed Mother and His priestly brotherhood. He looked down from the Cross and bequeathed them to each other. He loved the poor and outcast of humanity at the periphery. He looked to His side and promised Paradise to the repentant thief. He loved his country, telling the women of Jerusalem to save their tears for the beloved city of his countrymen. He too had wept for the city to be leveled a few decades after  the King of the Jews (as Pilate authoritatively inscribed) was lifted up.  Let us unite ourselves in the loves of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as we build the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

CORPUS CHRISTI: Lessons from Nature and History

First published Thursday June 19, 2014


Dr. Pence writes on this feast day, the Thursday after Trinity Sunday (a holy day of obligation in the universal Church; and a national holiday in countries such as Brazil, Portugal, and Poland) --


The feast of Corpus Christi seldom inspires dialogue with Protestants. This is unfortunate, for much more than theological formulations of justification and faith, it is the sacral priesthood’s irreplaceable role in forgiving sins and bringing the Eucharist to the faithful that divides Catholic and Protestant.  The consecrated Apostolic Priesthood and the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist are indivisible truths. The faithful Protestant with a Bible in his hand, a heart for his Savior, and the name of Jesus on his lips cannot fathom that liturgical actions of the sacramental priesthood are an indispensable means to proximity with Christ. The personal faith of the Reformers has trumped the priestly works of the Papists.

In the same way as Andrew did with Peter, Catholics run to our brothers saying: “We see the Messiah. Come and be with Him; come and be with us.” We know that believing Protestants want to hear us, but it is a hard saying. They want to be close to Christ. They say He is their personal friend and Savior, and they mean it. But especially during Corpus Christi processions and Eucharistic Adoration hours, the Catholics seem so radically different.

Catholics kneel and say with Thomas, “My Lord and my God” – expressing the awe and veneration owed to the God who made heaven and earth. We join the centurion in saying that we are not worthy that Christ should enter under our roof. In the Holy Communion that immediately follows, He enters under our roof and our souls are healed in an act of incorporation beyond any act of friendship.
                       

   from "Last Communion of Saint Jerome" by Botticelli

Why don’t Catholics display the continued unrelieved intensity of a “personal relationship with Christ”?  Because we live in a different sort of emotional universe.  At times we do not dare the familiarity of friendship, as we take off our sandals with Joshua and “fall down and worship.” Other times we know the communion of theosis for which friendship is too sparse a term.  We admire the intensity of our Evangelical friends, but we should neither envy nor imitate the one-dimensional emphasis on friendship that compensates for centuries apart from the Eucharistic presence. Receiving the Lord in the Eucharist introduces a kind of interpersonal consummation, which generates an abiding peace.  This rhythmic liturgical experience of Presence is less excitable than the enthusiasm of college friends; but like marriage, it is a deeper communion.

Corpus Christi invokes an irresistible lesson from the Book of Nature as well.  Bacteria were the first forms of physical life created 3.8 billion years ago. Bacteria live as single cells or in colonies. They consist of prokaryotic cells, which have no nuclei and multiple coverings – a membrane, a cell wall, and a capsule. Around 2 billion years ago, one of the great transformations in life-forms occurred as certain bacteria lost some of their external coverings (the capsules) and merged with other bacteria to form something new: eukaryotic cells. This type of cell was larger and had a nucleus. Most importantly, the new cells had fewer coverings, and the membranes of their cells were capable of much more complex social interaction with other cells. These cells would develop over time with a capacity to “incorporate” into multi-cellular organisms.

These new eukaryotic cells would become the multi-cellular organisms of the protist, fungal, plant and animal kingdoms. [The protist kingdom is that of amoeba and algae; the ‘silly putty’ of the biological world, or the living goo from which emerges the more defined forms of plants and animals].

                                       

I have always pictured this event as the best biological analogy to the capacity of persons with spiritual souls to be incorporated in the Body of Christ. There is something about shedding an outer self to allow a deeper bonding in a new multidimensional organism that resonates. The sacraments of Initiation and Holy Orders seal our souls with indelible characters that configure us in a radically transformed mode of living. The feast of Corpus Christi calls us to consider this truth: that Christ is fully present in the Eucharist and being incorporated in Him (and participating in His Sonship) is the way members of our species are going to live forever in the Father’s household. 



UPDATE:  From a letter of J.R.R. Tolkien to his son (November 1, 1963) --

"But for me, that Church of which the Pope is its acknowledged head on earth has as its chief claim that it is the one which has (and still does) ever defended the Blessed Sacrament and given it most honor and put it as Christ clearly intended in prime place.  'Feed my sheep' was His last charge to St. Peter… It was against this that the West European revolt (or the Reformation) was really launched – 'the monstrous fable of the Mass' – and faith/works a mere red herring."

"Oculi omnium in te spirant, Domine:
 et tu das illis escam in tempore opportune."

(The eyes of all look towards you in hope, O Lord:
 and you give them their food in due season.)

"Ecce Panis Angelorum, factus cibus viatorum."

(Behold this bread of Angels
Which hath become food for us on our pilgrimage.)

ASCENSION THURSDAY: Thus began “his participation, in his humanity, in God's power and authority.” The Restoration of Patriarchy

[first published on May 29, 2014]

"Yea, angels tremble when they see 

how changed is our humanity; 

that flesh hath purged what flesh had stained, 

and God, the flesh of God, hath reigned."

                                 

Doc Pence writes on this feast of the Ascension:


An old nun reflecting on the Ascension said it had always been her least favorite mystery of the rosary. "We wait two thousand years for the Messiah.  He comes. He is killed, but he conquers death and rises victorious from the dead. He is back for just forty days and then He’s gone again—and we call that a joyful mystery?"

But it really is such a glorious feast. We should stop the work week and devote this 40th day after Easter to contemplate this very good news. For Christ finally brings Adam where he was meant to be – in communion with the Father through the Son. "The nature of our Humanity in Christ was raised above all the Hosts of heaven, over all the ranks of angels, beyond the height of all powers, to sit with God the Father," said Leo the Great (d. 461). Christ the alpha male who configures humanity into a single organism shows humans our heavenly place in the divine Plan. We will be the Body of Christ at the right hand of the Father.  

The netherworld of Death has been lit up. The Prince of this world witnessed the greatest prison-break in history, as the King returned and claimed as his own not only Abraham and Moses but Adam and Eve -- the Chosen People and the human race. Christ took back the nether-world -- all that space and time where man enters the land of the dead is now a place not to be imprisoned by the Devil but to encounter the risen Christ. 

One kind of earthly absence allows His Sacramental Presence everywhere else. One Divine Person goes behind a cloud and the host, while the Person of the Spirit becomes more prominent.

There has been a righting of the spiritual universe with the Son entering the Divine Sanctuary providing a Way for humanity's theosis.  The Beloved Son has obeyed.  Humanity has been returned to the Father. Filial Piety has restored us to the Patriarchy. Christ now is returned to the right hand of the Father with these new "creature persons" allowed to participate in their Divine Communion. This restoration of the Beloved Son to the Father after His great battle creates a huge magnetic field penetrating the biosphere where men are meant to form ourselves into the patriarchal fraternity of the apostolic church. This will create a central protected space for the Marian Church where virgin mothers receive the Holy Spirit and live the works of mercy.

Christians need to keep acting even as we exalt in our new elevated status as sanctified humanity.  St. Augustine in his Ascension Day sermon reminded us: "Christ is now exalted above the heavens, but He still suffers all the pain that we the members of His body have to bear. He showed this when He cried out from above,  'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' and when He said, 'I was hungry and you gave me food'."

The angels (who seem to appear whenever a ladder is extended from Heaven for them to ascend or descend) have the final word. As they assured Jacob that his descendants would be blessed and restored to their Promised Land, they designate the Apostolic Church as the site of the Lord's Return:

"Men of Galilee...This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him going into heaven."

                     

by Benvenuto Tisi (1481-1559)

HOLY THURSDAY: He who cleansed the temple, now cleansed the priesthood so He might dwell among us

[first published April 17, 2014]

An explanation of feet-washing at the birth of the Christian priesthood by Dr. Pence:

On the night before He died, Christ formed the foundation of the Church by a new command of ordered love. This commandment was not the general order that each of us is to love our neighbor as ourselves.  He issued a more particular command to His chosen apostles: to love one another “as I have loved you.”  Christ 'transmitted to the apostles the Kingdom received from His Father' (Pope John Paul II on the Birth of the Church, August 1989).

This newly ordered love of an elected group of men with the power to forgive sins, cast out demons, and heal the sick shapes the sacred fraternity of the priesthood and the Church. This sealed-character relationship with Christ that is fully realized in bishops, and shared by priests and deacons, is the sacred bond from which Christ’s earthly presence in the Eucharist is made real. The Kingdom of God is now present as the new Adam and His sons are incorporated as priests into the communal love of the Trinity.

Just as the Levitical priesthood was born in a bloody battle, so the new priesthood was ordained in a struggle. It was essential that the priestly bond be shaped by the deep love of Father and Son, the filial fraternity of Sons and brothers -- not polluted by incestuous counterfeit or betrayed by avarice for gold or fractured by arrogant pride.  This priestly bond was prepared to receive the 'generation of the Church by Christ's redemptive death' [JP II], as well as the two comings of the Holy Spirit: sealing their power to forgive sins on Easter night, and sweeping them into the public manifestation of their mission on Pentecost Sunday.

Before the priestly prayer was said and the newly ordered love covenant was established, Judas was expelled from the room – discreetly but definitively.  And before that, the necessity to wash the priestly bond clean of the Evil One was demonstrated by Christ in the washing of the feet.   Peter (like so many of his clerical successors today) saw the Lord on his knees as an act of humility and service. He was having none of it. But Jesus corrected him: “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

The washing itself was not an act of self-negation, but an authoritative act by Christ establishing a new priesthood which would sanctify and rule his Church.  Christ’s action was foreshadowed by the priestly consecration when “Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water” (Leviticus 8:6 and Exodus 30:17-21). After Christ entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, one of his first acts was the cleansing of the Temple. On Holy Thursday, He would wash the new priests of the new Temple. This same order of consecration is described in Numbers when Moses first consecrates the altar, and then "takes the Levites from the Israelites and purifies them" with "the water of remission."

Christ’s washing was a casting out of the Evil One who was polluting the collegial body of the new priesthood (“for He knew who should betray Him.”)  Priestly acts of exorcism, healing and forgiveness of sins are spiritual acts of authority -- as was the Lord’s washing of his apostles. Thomas Aquinas saw the command to “do as I have done” in the washing of the feet as a command to laymen to forgive one another's trespasses.  For prelates, Aquinas saw this as an order to sacramentally forgive sins.  Every act of forgiving sins is an expulsion of one Spirit of authority for the sweeter yoke of another.  It takes authority to set the captives free.  Every baptism is an exorcism. The water that lifted the Ark left many others drowned; and the Red Sea which split for the Jews closed on Pharaoh’s army. If Christ had to rid himself of one of his own – numbered among the Twelve – why should his followers be spared the same troubling duty?  “If I your Master washed your feet, you should wash one another’s feet.”  This was a priestly purification command, which preceded the Love command. It was a bestowal of authority and the assignment of a duty. The Eastern Liturgy prayer of that night puts it this way: “When Thy glorious disciples were enlightened at the washing of their feet before the supper, then the impious Judas was darkened …”

Christians who have no apostolic priesthood can be excused for misinterpreting the foot-washing command as a general ordinance (see Foot-washing Baptists).  English monarchs can be admired as they pass out money to the poor, inspired by the King of kings on His knees (see Maundy money). Many early Christian communities integrated foot-washing as a favored part of Eucharistic liturgy – a sort of kiss of peace with an added touch of humility – (see Saint Ambrose, d. 397). All these practices are understandable.  For Christ was indeed a servant leader. He preached it often; thus, to match His persistent general teaching with that particular iconic moment seems irresistible.

But Jesus personally handed his apostles the Body and Blood, and no one dwells on His being a waiter! Likewise, when he separated his apostles from the power of the Evil One, we shouldn’t over-interpret His bended knee.

The love which will save us from the Evil One is the powerful sacramentally-ordered love of Christ and his purified apostles. Christian love is an ordered love, and the washing of the apostles’ feet manifests the authoritative love of a High Priest instituting a new ordinance.   We must insist that priestly ordination, the power to cast out sin, and the necessity of apostolic fraternal correction which constituted the substance of Christ’s act not be lost in the Zeitgeist.  We are not recounting this story to soothe priestless Protestants or feckless feminists.

The spotless purity of the Marian Church can only be safeguarded by a protective authority ready to cleanse and do battle.  Wherever Christ appears too publicly, He will be attacked.  Saint Joseph had little time to coo with the baby Jesus before He was leading His sacred charges into the dangers of a nighttime flight.  So, before Christ entrusted His presence with the new priesthood, he burnished some of them and expelled others.  The shirking of duty by Peter, the uncertain voice of Thomas, the cowardice of all the others must be confessed, repented, and reformed. The perfidy of Judas had to be washed away and expelled.

"The Lord will wash away the filth of the daughters of Zion; he will cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire." (Isaiah 4:4). It was Irenaeus who recalled these words when he beheld the new Moses washing the feet of Aaron and his sons. When Irenaeus reflected on the washing of feet at the Last Supper, he did not see a Christ adding service hours to His resume.  He saw “the Word Himself ‘…washing away the filth of the daughters of Zion,’ when He washed the disciples' feet with His own hands. For He who washed the feet of the disciples sanctified the entire body, and rendered it clean.”
(Irenaeus, Book IV Chapter 22, Against Heresies)

The reintegration of the washing of the feet in the Holy Thursday liturgy is a very recent event (1955). It is not surprising that we are still learning the deep significance of this ancient ritual. It may be that it would be better placed in the morning Chrism Mass centered on the bishop and his priests.  For many, the male-only character of the foot-washing seems an affront – but so is a Church built on a male priesthood, the Real Presence of Christ, and a sacramental form of confession.  The flattened de-sacralized spirit of modernity and the congregationalist mentality of Protestants can make no peace with the authoritative masculine fraternity that Christ instituted on Holy Thursday to maintain His Living Presence among us.  Rather than inviting the ladies and grade-school girls to join in the foot-washing festivities, let us more deeply reflect on what we have received and render a more profound account of this pivotal event in the life of Christ and the Church.



UPDATE: In 2016, Pope Francis allowed the washing of women's feet in this ritual. Because he understands this as a sign of service, he sees no reason to exclude women and in his own practice has included non-Christians as well. This is entirely consistent with the symbol of service interpretation. Our comments when he made the announcement are here.  

Mapping Holy Week

By A. Joseph Lynch

The above map (click to enlarge) depicts the city of Jerusalem as it was at the time of Jesus. Although most of us are familiar with the events of Holy Week (from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday), most have not been introduced to the spatial and geographic dimensions of Holy Week. This is in some ways true even for those who have made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. For example, the walls of the "Old City" today are not the walls that stood 2,000 years ago. The walls from the time of Jesus were destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70 and those that stand today were built by the Kurdish Sunni Muslim, Saladin, during the time of the Crusades. Because of this, the location of the Upper Room (site of the Last Supper and Pentecost) is now located outside the Old City walls despite the fact that it was within the walls at the time of Jesus. (To put the Jerusalem  story in the national context, see our Mapping Israel: from Joshua to Jesus.)

On Palm Sunday, Jesus made his way to Jerusalem along the road from Bethany and Jericho, over the Mount of Olives (see the east, or right, side of the map). According to Matthew 21, Jesus rode both an ass and a colt as he made his way over the terrain and into the city via the Golden Gate (see Matthew 21:1-11). Taylor Marshall suspects that Christ rode the ass, more capable of crossing rugged terrain, over the Mount of Olives and the colt as he rode into the city. He sees in the former an image of Israel under the yoke of the Law of Moses and young colt as a sign of the Gentiles to which Christ will send the Church. It is highly likely that Jesus would have passed by the Garden of Gethsemane on his way down the mountain. Luke records that as Jerusalem came into full view, he foresaw its eventual destruction by the Romans and wept over its failure to accept the coming of the Messiah (see Luke 19:41-44). Below is an image the author took of Jerusalem from the church now standing to mark the place of Jesus' weeping.

From the site of which Christ wept over Jerusalem. The gold-topped Dome of the Rock today sits on the place the Temple once stood. Immediately below this picture is the Kidron Valley dividing Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. Nearby towards the base of the valley is Gethsemane.

As Jesus crossed the base of the Kidron Valley and approached the Golden Gate at the foot of the Temple Mount, he was met by many proclaiming "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!" (Matthew 21:9). From here Jesus entered into the Temple where the Synoptic Gospels tell us he overturned the money tables and cleansed the Temple of the those making it a "den of robbers." Some allegorically note that as we prepare to receive the Eucharistic Christ into our bodies - the temples of the Holy Spirit - we proclaim the same words as those at the city gates and await the arrival of the King to cleanse our souls of venial sin through the reception of Holy Communion.

From Palm Sunday we advance to Holy Thursday. The Last Supper took place in the Upper Room, which is named for the guest room that stood above the site of King David's tomb. The site today is revered by both Jews and Christians as the former, segregated by gender, flock to visit the tomb of David while the latter climb the stairs up to the place where the Last Supper and Pentecost took place. The significance of this place to both religions is also why Christians have not turned the site into a church. Nevertheless, this area became the Church's first chancery of sorts as it is where the Apostles originally governed and, just across the street, the place where Mary is said to have entered her Dormition and Assumption. That site is marked today by the Church of the Dormition, visible in the Jerusalem cityscape image above and blown up in the image to the right. Note in the picture that the medieval walls of Jerusalem place the area outside the Old City, but in the time of Christ the walls would have extended much further south.

As Jesus, Peter, James, and John departed from the Upper Room for Gethsemane, they may very well have passed the house of Caiaphas. This house included areas to hold prisoners and it would be here that Jesus would have been taken after his betrayal by Judas. Remains of stairs (see left) from the first century have been found and preserved descending on the north side of Caiaphas' house on a path towards the Kidron Valley and Gethsemane below. A few feet from these stairs is the courtyard where Peter denied Jesus three times. Pilgrims today can visit both sites, and go inside the house of Caiaphas and enter into what scholars believe was the pit-like prison into which Jesus was interred the night of Holy Thursday after his pseudo-trail before the Sanhedrin.

While there is little debate over where Good Friday ended, there is some debate today over exactly where some of the earlier events of Good Friday took place. Crusaders believed that Jesus was taken to the Antonia Fortress located at the northwestern corner of the Temple. The fortress, however, was built to stand over the Temple to keep guard against an potential religiously-induced anti-Herodian or anti-Roman riots among the Jews on Temple grounds. By locating this place as where Jesus went  before Pilate, the crusaders left their mark on the location for pilgrims following the Stations of the Cross within the city. It seems that early Christians - and modern scholars - look to a different location for the trial. On the west side Jerusalem (see map at top) is found both the Praetorium (where Pilate lived) and Herod's Palace. As the Gospels note multiple trials taking place during the day between Herod and Pilate, it seems to make more sense that Jesus was not taken back and forth from one side of town to the other but rather shuttled back and forth from two parts of the same general location. If this is the historical case, it would mean that the path set down by the Crusaders for the Stations of the Cross were inaccurate while the western path used by early Christians was the correct one.

The site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher today marks the place where the Crucifixion and burial of Christ took place. At the time of Christ it would have been located just outside the city walls on the northwest part of Jerusalem. Calvary - or Golgotha, the place of the Skull (of Goliath)  - was the location for public executions. In some traditions this site was the burial place of Adam as well.  The execution sites were near the city gates so travelers and inhabitants would see the punishment for capital crimes. As the site of frequent deaths, it is unsurprising that burial grounds where located nearby. In fact, so close were they to Calvary that the tomb of Jesus is preserved within the same Church that houses Calvary. Within the walls of that Church, the pivotal moments of salvation history took place in which the eternal Son of God won man redemption through His suffering, death, and resurrection. Forty days later - Ascension Thursday - Christ would end his time on earth where this article's story began: the Mount of Olives overlooking the city of Jerusalem. Here Jesus commissioned the Apostles to baptize the nations. From there they went back to the Upper Room with Mary, praying for the next ten days until the Holy Spirit descended upon them on Pentecost Sunday bringing about the corporate body of Christ, the Church.

THANKSGIVING: Don’t call it Turkey Day

[first published November 22, 2012]

David Pence writes:

Thanksgiving Day is an embarrassing holiday for the atheists. Whom should one thank?

Nonbelievers first turned this day of formal national prayer into a rekindling of an earlier bliss betwixt Pilgrims and Indians. A little rewriting, and secularists turned the feast into a memorial of Pilgrim settlers thanking the native-born Americans for their ecological wisdom that allowed us a full table and survival through the winters. As usual, the guilt-ridden white folk reminded us of something true but missed the real story. There were formal acts of prayerful thanksgiving before we became a nation but unfortunately for the Protestant imagination the first such acts were in that old liturgical  form of the Catholic Mass.

The Pilgrim parable was soon debunked by Indian activists who reminded the well-meaning storytellers that the only gifts white men gave Indians were smallpox blankets. "Who wants to celebrate that, white man?"

Instead of returning to the first Congress or Washington or Lincoln to get the holy day back on track as a civic duty of a repentant nation to a Sovereign God, our adaptable consumer culture had a new answer. Let the appetites be sacralized! There was a surge to elevate not "Whom We Thank" but "What We Eat." Turkey Day was proclaimed!

No more messy cross-cultural narratives. Instead of asking that our sins be forgiven and as a nation we bow to God, a turkey was pardoned and the whole affair was consummated in a next-day orgy of shopping called Black Friday. That spin-off Feast Day is demanding a vigil service of its own, which may drive the whole embarrassment of public thanksgiving to God  back in the memory hole where school prayer now abides.
               

Contrast our evolving celebration of  Black Friday Eve with George Washington’s understanding of Thanksgiving Day in the first sentence of his 1789 Proclamation:

“Whereas it is the duty of all nations to recognize the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor…” 

Contrast Turkey Day with the content of his prayer:

“And also that we may unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions -- to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually…” 

This is a day as a nation we are supposed to perform a religious duty -- to ask forgiveness and give thanks to a Divine Ruler who governs not only the lives of men, but the public communal forms of men: the nations. That is what Congress requested Washington to declare; and that is what this national day of prayer for forgiveness and thanksgiving is still meant to be. Let us assemble in our houses of worship, at community kitchens, and at our family tables but remember we are acting as members of the larger national political community.  Let us ask God forgiveness for turning away from Him and allowing these sacred goods to be defiled: His holy Name, our sacred flag, our national brotherhood, the institution of marriage, the protective love of mother for child, and the sacred virginity and innocence of our young. In Lincoln's words: "with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience...we fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and union."




UPDATE: Be sure to check out Andrew Lynch's essay.

The Thanksgiving proclamation of our First Continental Congress.
 A reminder from "War on the Rocks" that Thanksgiving is a holiday forged in national wars.
  Lincoln declared the last Thursday of every November as a national holiday at the bequest of Sara Josepha Hale, editor of the popular magazine, Godey's Lady's Book. 

Religion, Nations, and Geopolitical Review: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9

by A. Joseph Lynch

R&G NEWS ROUND UP

MAKING MASS MEANINGFUL: This week the Religion, Sex, & Politics YouTube channel hosted its first livestream class entitled Making Mass Meaningful. We invite our readers to watch the presentation and join the channel for the next class on Thursday, October 21 at 7 PM (central time) featuring a presentation about Sacred Scripture.

FRENCH SEX ABUSE REPORT: A new, 2,500+ page report from France has revealed that some 330,000 French youth - 80% of whom were underage boys - were sexually abused by more than 3,000 Catholic priests and by church employees since 1950. It is another stunning revelation of homosexual pederasty within the Church's hierarchy that must be dealt with or risk the total collapse of (what's left of) the Church in Western Europe.

SWISS GUARDSMEN RETREAT: The vaccine insanity plaguing the Vatican is claiming victims among the Swiss Guard, the warrior men willing to lay down their lives in order to protect the Pope. At least three guardsmen have been forced to resign - perhaps the first to do so in centuries, if ever - because, given their health and high survival probability, they refuse to take the experimental COVID vaccines. It's a tragic moment for the Swiss Guard that could be used to press forward with certain plans to add women to its ranks.

SERRA STATUE INSTITUTIONALLY TOPPLED: The statue of Junipero Serra, the Catholic saint who evangelized and served the native populations of the west, was toppled first by anti-Christian rioters and has now been institutionally toppled by Newsom and his far-Left Democrat allies in California's statehouse. And replacing it will be a statue to the Indians with no mention of the charitable services rendered to them by great men like St. Junipero Serra. The saint has been doubly desecrated. God help California.  

JORDAN-SYRIA NORMALIZATION: Relations appear to be on the mend between Jordan and Syria after their leaders shared a phone call for the first time in over a decade. The two countries are moving forward with normalization and it appears it is the next step towards the war's end. Turkey is under pressure to make peace as well. Rumors are swirling that the Turks may give back Idlib province to Syria, return Syrian refugees, and sponsor global Syrian reconstruction efforts... in return for the Syrian government clamping down on Syrian Kurds. Time will tell, but with the 2023 elections nearing the horizon, Erdogan is hard pressed to end the war that Assad has clearly won.

DUTERTE RETIRES: Rodrigo Duterte will not be running for vice president after all. Instead, he surprised the world by announcing his retirement from politics. Despite indicating his daughter would run in his place, it appears she will keep her sights set on running for mayor of Davao (the Philippines third largest city). While we're glad to hear she will not run for president, we wonder what is to come of Duterte and the path forward he set for his nation.

PORTLAND FD GETS BULLETPROOF VESTS: Firefighters in bulletproof vests. This is what you get when a city cancels its police while its civic leaders abdicate all authority to govern. 

PHILLY OUT OF CONTROL: In another out-of-control city, Philadelphia police could only look on as street racers ran donuts around their squad car - and even danced on top of it - outside of city hall. 

CITY AS ESCHATON AND SACRAMENT: Considering the Christian theology surrounding the city, the current chaos in the cities is truly demonic. Be it Revelation's depiction of the holy city come down from heaven or St. Augustine's City of God, the city is a central image in Christian theology. In order to reflect on this reality, we invite readers to listen to a talk from the Thomistic Institute entitled The City As Eschaton And Sacrament.

ARE PARENTS DOMESTIC TERRORISTS? Attorney General Garland is seeking prosecute (and persecute) parents and teachers who question the propaganda being imposed on school children via public education. This comes as thousands of parents demand an end to masking and the teaching of (racist) critical race theory. Garland may have a vested interest in the battle, however, as his family is in the business of selling critical race theory materials to schools.

HOLY THURSDAY: He who cleansed the temple, now cleansed the priesthood so He might dwell among us

[first published April 17, 2014]

An explanation of feet-washing at the birth of the Christian priesthood by Dr. Pence:

On the night before He died, Christ formed the foundation of the Church by a new command of ordered love. This commandment was not the general order that each of us is to love our neighbor as ourselves.  He issued a more particular command to His chosen apostles: to love one another “as I have loved you.”  Christ 'transmitted to the apostles the Kingdom received from His Father' (Pope John Paul II on the Birth of the Church, August 1989).

This newly ordered love of an elected group of men with the power to forgive sins, cast out demons, and heal the sick shapes the sacred fraternity of the priesthood and the Church. This sealed-character relationship with Christ that is fully realized in bishops, and shared by priests and deacons, is the sacred bond from which Christ’s earthly presence in the Eucharist is made real. The Kingdom of God is now present as the new Adam and His sons are incorporated as priests into the communal love of the Trinity.

Just as the Levitical priesthood was born in a bloody battle, so the new priesthood was ordained in a struggle. It was essential that the priestly bond be shaped by the deep love of Father and Son, the filial fraternity of Sons and brothers -- not polluted by incestuous counterfeit or betrayed by avarice for gold or fractured by arrogant pride.  This priestly bond was prepared to receive the 'generation of the Church by Christ's redemptive death' [JP II], as well as the two comings of the Holy Spirit: sealing their power to forgive sins on Easter night, and sweeping them into the public manifestation of their mission on Pentecost Sunday.

Before the priestly prayer was said and the newly ordered love covenant was established, Judas was expelled from the room – discreetly but definitively.  And before that, the necessity to wash the priestly bond clean of the Evil One was demonstrated by Christ in the washing of the feet.   Peter (like so many of his clerical successors today) saw the Lord on his knees as an act of humility and service. He was having none of it. But Jesus corrected him: “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

The washing itself was not an act of self-negation, but an authoritative act by Christ establishing a new priesthood which would sanctify and rule his Church.  Christ’s action was foreshadowed by the priestly consecration when “Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water” (Leviticus 8:6 and Exodus 30:17-21). After Christ entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, one of his first acts was the cleansing of the Temple. On Holy Thursday, He would wash the new priests of the new Temple. This same order of consecration is described in Numbers when Moses first consecrates the altar, and then "takes the Levites from the Israelites and purifies them" with "the water of remission."

Christ’s washing was a casting out of the Evil One who was polluting the collegial body of the new priesthood (“for He knew who should betray Him.”)  Priestly acts of exorcism, healing and forgiveness of sins are spiritual acts of authority -- as was the Lord’s washing of his apostles. Thomas Aquinas saw the command to “do as I have done” in the washing of the feet as a command to laymen to forgive one another's trespasses.  For prelates, Aquinas saw this as an order to sacramentally forgive sins.  Every act of forgiving sins is an expulsion of one Spirit of authority for the sweeter yoke of another.  It takes authority to set the captives free.  Every baptism is an exorcism. The water that lifted the Ark left many others drowned; and the Red Sea which split for the Jews closed on Pharaoh’s army. If Christ had to rid himself of one of his own – numbered among the Twelve – why should his followers be spared the same troubling duty?  “If I your Master washed your feet, you should wash one another’s feet.”  This was a priestly purification command, which preceded the Love command. It was a bestowal of authority and the assignment of a duty. The Eastern Liturgy prayer of that night puts it this way: “When Thy glorious disciples were enlightened at the washing of their feet before the supper, then the impious Judas was darkened …”

Christians who have no apostolic priesthood can be excused for misinterpreting the foot-washing command as a general ordinance (see Foot-washing Baptists).  English monarchs can be admired as they pass out money to the poor, inspired by the King of kings on His knees (see Maundy money). Many early Christian communities integrated foot-washing as a favored part of Eucharistic liturgy – a sort of kiss of peace with an added touch of humility – (see Saint Ambrose, d. 397). All these practices are understandable.  For Christ was indeed a servant leader. He preached it often; thus, to match His persistent general teaching with that particular iconic moment seems irresistible.

But Jesus personally handed his apostles the Body and Blood, and no one dwells on His being a waiter! Likewise, when he separated his apostles from the power of the Evil One, we shouldn’t over-interpret His bended knee.

The love which will save us from the Evil One is the powerful sacramentally-ordered love of Christ and his purified apostles. Christian love is an ordered love, and the washing of the apostles’ feet manifests the authoritative love of a High Priest instituting a new ordinance.   We must insist that priestly ordination, the power to cast out sin, and the necessity of apostolic fraternal correction which constituted the substance of Christ’s act not be lost in the Zeitgeist.  We are not recounting this story to soothe priestless Protestants or feckless feminists.

The spotless purity of the Marian Church can only be safeguarded by a protective authority ready to cleanse and do battle.  Wherever Christ appears too publicly, He will be attacked.  Saint Joseph had little time to coo with the baby Jesus before He was leading His sacred charges into the dangers of a nighttime flight.  So, before Christ entrusted His presence with the new priesthood, he burnished some of them and expelled others.  The shirking of duty by Peter, the uncertain voice of Thomas, the cowardice of all the others must be confessed, repented, and reformed. The perfidy of Judas had to be washed away and expelled.

"The Lord will wash away the filth of the daughters of Zion; he will cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire." (Isaiah 4:4). It was Irenaeus who recalled these words when he beheld the new Moses washing the feet of Aaron and his sons. When Irenaeus reflected on the washing of feet at the Last Supper, he did not see a Christ adding service hours to His resume.  He saw “the Word Himself ‘…washing away the filth of the daughters of Zion,’ when He washed the disciples' feet with His own hands. For He who washed the feet of the disciples sanctified the entire body, and rendered it clean.”
(Irenaeus, Book IV Chapter 22, Against Heresies)

The reintegration of the washing of the feet in the Holy Thursday liturgy is a very recent event (1955). It is not surprising that we are still learning the deep significance of this ancient ritual. It may be that it would be better placed in the morning Chrism Mass centered on the bishop and his priests.  For many, the male-only character of the foot-washing seems an affront – but so is a Church built on a male priesthood, the Real Presence of Christ, and a sacramental form of confession.  The flattened de-sacralized spirit of modernity and the congregationalist mentality of Protestants can make no peace with the authoritative masculine fraternity that Christ instituted on Holy Thursday to maintain His Living Presence among us.  Rather than inviting the ladies and grade-school girls to join in the foot-washing festivities, let us more deeply reflect on what we have received and render a more profound account of this pivotal event in the life of Christ and the Church.



UPDATE: In 2016, Pope Francis allowed the washing of women's feet in this ritual. Because he understands this as a sign of service, he sees no reason to exclude women and in his own practice has included non-Christians as well. This is entirely consistent with the symbol of service interpretation. Our comments when he made the announcement are here.  

CORPUS CHRISTI: Lessons from Nature and History

First published Thursday June 19, 2014


Dr. Pence writes on this feast day, the Thursday after Trinity Sunday (a holy day of obligation in the universal Church; and a national holiday in countries such as Brazil, Portugal, and Poland) --


The feast of Corpus Christi seldom inspires dialogue with Protestants. This is unfortunate, for much more than theological formulations of justification and faith, it is the sacral priesthood’s irreplaceable role in forgiving sins and bringing the Eucharist to the faithful that divides Catholic and Protestant.  The consecrated Apostolic Priesthood and the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist are indivisible truths. The faithful Protestant with a Bible in his hand, a heart for his Savior, and the name of Jesus on his lips cannot fathom that liturgical actions of the sacramental priesthood are an indispensable means to proximity with Christ. The personal faith of the Reformers has trumped the priestly works of the Papists.

In the same way as Andrew did with Peter, Catholics run to our brothers saying: “We see the Messiah. Come and be with Him; come and be with us.” We know that believing Protestants want to hear us, but it is a hard saying. They want to be close to Christ. They say He is their personal friend and Savior, and they mean it. But especially during Corpus Christi processions and Eucharistic Adoration hours, the Catholics seem so radically different.

Catholics kneel and say with Thomas, “My Lord and my God” – expressing the awe and veneration owed to the God who made heaven and earth. We join the centurion in saying that we are not worthy that Christ should enter under our roof. In the Holy Communion that immediately follows, He enters under our roof and our souls are healed in an act of incorporation beyond any act of friendship.
                       

   from "Last Communion of Saint Jerome" by Botticelli

Why don’t Catholics display the continued unrelieved intensity of a “personal relationship with Christ”?  Because we live in a different sort of emotional universe.  At times we do not dare the familiarity of friendship, as we take off our sandals with Joshua and “fall down and worship.” Other times we know the communion of theosis for which friendship is too sparse a term.  We admire the intensity of our Evangelical friends, but we should neither envy nor imitate the one-dimensional emphasis on friendship that compensates for centuries apart from the Eucharistic presence. Receiving the Lord in the Eucharist introduces a kind of interpersonal consummation, which generates an abiding peace.  This rhythmic liturgical experience of Presence is less excitable than the enthusiasm of college friends; but like marriage, it is a deeper communion.

Corpus Christi invokes an irresistible lesson from the Book of Nature as well.  Bacteria were the first forms of physical life created 3.8 billion years ago. Bacteria live as single cells or in colonies. They consist of prokaryotic cells, which have no nuclei and multiple coverings – a membrane, a cell wall, and a capsule. Around 2 billion years ago, one of the great transformations in life-forms occurred as certain bacteria lost some of their external coverings (the capsules) and merged with other bacteria to form something new: eukaryotic cells. This type of cell was larger and had a nucleus. Most importantly, the new cells had fewer coverings, and the membranes of their cells were capable of much more complex social interaction with other cells. These cells would develop over time with a capacity to “incorporate” into multi-cellular organisms.

These new eukaryotic cells would become the multi-cellular organisms of the protist, fungal, plant and animal kingdoms. [The protist kingdom is that of amoeba and algae; the ‘silly putty’ of the biological world, or the living goo from which emerges the more defined forms of plants and animals].

                                       

I have always pictured this event as the best biological analogy to the capacity of persons with spiritual souls to be incorporated in the Body of Christ. There is something about shedding an outer self to allow a deeper bonding in a new multidimensional organism that resonates. The sacraments of Initiation and Holy Orders seal our souls with indelible characters that configure us in a radically transformed mode of living. The feast of Corpus Christi calls us to consider this truth: that Christ is fully present in the Eucharist and being incorporated in Him (and participating in His Sonship) is the way members of our species are going to live forever in the Father’s household. 



UPDATE:  From a letter of J.R.R. Tolkien to his son (November 1, 1963) --

"But for me, that Church of which the Pope is its acknowledged head on earth has as its chief claim that it is the one which has (and still does) ever defended the Blessed Sacrament and given it most honor and put it as Christ clearly intended in prime place.  'Feed my sheep' was His last charge to St. Peter… It was against this that the West European revolt (or the Reformation) was really launched – 'the monstrous fable of the Mass' – and faith/works a mere red herring."

"Oculi omnium in te spirant, Domine:
 et tu das illis escam in tempore opportune."

(The eyes of all look towards you in hope, O Lord:
 and you give them their food in due season.)

"Ecce Panis Angelorum, factus cibus viatorum."

(Behold this bread of Angels
Which hath become food for us on our pilgrimage.)

ASCENSION THURSDAY: Thus began “his participation, in his humanity, in God's power and authority.” The Restoration of Patriarchy

[first published on May 29, 2014]

"Yea, angels tremble when they see 

how changed is our humanity; 

that flesh hath purged what flesh had stained, 

and God, the flesh of God, hath reigned."

                                 

Doc Pence writes on this feast of the Ascension:


An old nun reflecting on the Ascension said it had always been her least favorite mystery of the rosary. "We wait two thousand years for the Messiah.  He comes. He is killed, but he conquers death and rises victorious from the dead. He is back for just forty days and then He’s gone again—and we call that a joyful mystery?"

But it really is such a glorious feast. We should stop the work week and devote this 40th day after Easter to contemplate this very good news. For Christ finally brings Adam where he was meant to be – in communion with the Father through the Son. "The nature of our Humanity in Christ was raised above all the Hosts of heaven, over all the ranks of angels, beyond the height of all powers, to sit with God the Father," said Leo the Great (d. 461). Christ the alpha male who configures humanity into a single organism shows humans our heavenly place in the divine Plan. We will be the Body of Christ at the right hand of the Father.  

The netherworld of Death has been lit up. The Prince of this world witnessed the greatest prison-break in history, as the King returned and claimed as his own not only Abraham and Moses but Adam and Eve -- the Chosen People and the human race. Christ took back the nether-world -- all that space and time where man enters the land of the dead is now a place not to be imprisoned by the Devil but to encounter the risen Christ. 

One kind of earthly absence allows His Sacramental Presence everywhere else. One Divine Person goes behind a cloud and the host, while the Person of the Spirit becomes more prominent.

There has been a righting of the spiritual universe with the Son entering the Divine Sanctuary providing a Way for humanity's theosis.  The Beloved Son has obeyed.  Humanity has been returned to the Father. Filial Piety has restored us to the Patriarchy. Christ now is returned to the right hand of the Father with these new "creature persons" allowed to participate in their Divine Communion. This restoration of the Beloved Son to the Father after His great battle creates a huge magnetic field penetrating the biosphere where men are meant to form ourselves into the patriarchal fraternity of the apostolic church. This will create a central protected space for the Marian Church where virgin mothers receive the Holy Spirit and live the works of mercy.

Christians need to keep acting even as we exalt in our new elevated status as sanctified humanity.  St. Augustine in his Ascension Day sermon reminded us: "Christ is now exalted above the heavens, but He still suffers all the pain that we the members of His body have to bear. He showed this when He cried out from above,  'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' and when He said, 'I was hungry and you gave me food'."

The angels (who seem to appear whenever a ladder is extended from Heaven for them to ascend or descend) have the final word. As they assured Jacob that his descendants would be blessed and restored to their Promised Land, they designate the Apostolic Church as the site of the Lord's Return:

"Men of Galilee...This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him going into heaven."

                     

by Benvenuto Tisi (1481-1559)