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The View of Veritatis Splendor
Theology

The View of Veritatis Splendor

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

I was thinking more about this part of The Pillar’s interview with Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez.

There seems to be increasing criticism of Veritatis splendor in the Church today, and even a desire to reexamine it. Why is that? How should it be addressed?

Veritatis splendor is a great document, powerfully solid. 

Obviously, it denotes a particular concern — to set certain limits. For this reason it is not the most adequate text to encourage the development of theology. In fact, over the last decades, tell me how many theologians can we name with the stature of Rahner, Ratzinger, Congar or Von Balthasar? 

Not even that which they call “liberation theology” has theologians at the level of Gustavo Gutiérrez. 

Something has gone wrong. 

There were controls, [but] not so much development.

Today perhaps a text will be needed that, collecting everything valuable from Veritatis splendor, has another style, another tone, which at the same time allows for encouraging the growth of Catholic theology, as Pope Francis asks of me.

I have read Veritatis Splendor (6 August 1993) | John Paul II a couple of times, and should be seen as a source of nourishment, not deprivation. It should be further mined, not undermined. Still, what I fundamentally disagree with here is that it has caused theological stagnation.

I invoke Chesterton’s brilliant line in Orthodoxy “Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground.”

There is so much room within the Church’s theological playground to play in to be concerned. Plus, I don’t understand being concerned about the current stature of theologians within the Church. Even if true, was there ever a time of continuously having a posse of theologians of great stature? That any seeming lull indicates that “something has gone wrong.”

Now I am just another convert and one that started with zero understanding/belief of Christianity. As an autodidact I have had a succession of foolish teachers, so I have no competence to evaluate the current state of theology within the Church. My caveat would be that after seeing the interviews Larry Chapp has done with theologians, I think we have much to learn from them as they have learned from those who went before them.

The domain of my website is http://www.splendoroftruth.com, which is a homage to this encyclical.

Gaudiumetspes22: Dr. Larry Chapp – YouTube

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Suffering from the Church
Theology

Suffering from the Church

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

“It’s to feel the contemporary situation at the ultimate level. I think that the Church is the only thing that is going to make the terrible world we are coming to endurable; the only thing that makes the Church endurable is that it is somehow the body of Christ and that on this we are fed. It seems to be a fact that you have to suffer as much from the Church as for it but if you believe in the divinity of Christ, you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.” Flannery O’Connor (Habit of Being)

Just to emphasize:

“It seems to be a fact that you have to suffer as much from the Church as for it but if you believe in the divinity of Christ, you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.”

Gee, I wonder why I am thinking about suffering from the Church. Still, this puts this into contextual reality. I will focus on gratitude to God.

Earlier today I read this from Brant Pitre.

“In fact, the word “patience” (Latin patientia) comes from the same root as “suffer” (Latin pati).”

From: Introduction to the Spiritual Life (p. 192)

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Deep Thoughts & Puns
HumorTheology

Deep Thoughts & Puns

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

Our soul purpose is to glorify God.

If I ever write a book it will be on the spiritual life via puns.

“when you confess, you come forth. For what does ‘come forth’ mean if not emerging from what is hidden, to be made manifest. But for you to confess is God’s doing; he calls you with an urgent voice, by an extraordinary grace. And just as the dead man came out still bound, so you go to confession still guilty. In order that his sins be loosed, the Lord said this to his ministers: ‘Unbind him and let him go’. What you will loose on earth will be loosed also in heaven” (St Augustine, In Ioann. Evang., 49, 24).

I like St. Augustine’s comparison of confession to the raising of Lazarus. Plus you know it is time to go to confession when Martha says “Lord, by this time there will be an odor.”

I was talking today to somebody who discovered the joy of reading Ratzinger. This made me very happy. There is a heightened joy when you share the love of something with your friends. For me this is especially true of shared authors.

Thinking about this I thought of the fact that God loves everybody and that I don’t love everybody he loves. Even in the Thomistic-sense of willing the good for the other I have work to do.

The other day I was struck by this line in the Gospel.

“Jesus came, although the doors were locked”

I certainly thought I had locked out all doors to God and that he could never intrude into my life. Like Thomas I demanded empirical knowledge, yet even if presented to me I would have denied it.
This reminds me for the hope I have in me for those currently outside the faith, that Jesus can burst through those locked doors giving us what we need to cooperate.

For Christianity there is a problem with heard immunity. People think they have heard the Gospels, but it hasn’t really penetrated. They have developed an immunity to what they have not really heard. Part of the problem is asymptomatic Christians. People who identify as Christian yet show no signs and will not pass it on to anybody.

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Theology

Which Jesus Do We Believe In?

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

I was struck by the seeming incongruence of the start of today’s Gospel reading from Jn 8:31–42.

“Jesus said to those Jews who believed in him,”

Jesus proceeds to castigate them as they argue with him.

I was thinking of the dichotomy between believing in Jesus yet not believing what Jesus was telling them. I guess this is the difference between believing in the Jesus we have created in our mind with believing in the actual Jesus.
This is something we all do to some extent and something we have to be aware of and constantly purify. I know this is something I have to think about more.

Plus here is Dr. John Bergsma talking about another aspect of today’s Gospel reading.

Fact Checking the Pharisees on their Ancestral Claims – YouTube

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Theology

I have God’s Back

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

From then-Cardinal Ratzinger “On The Way To Jesus Christ”

“Exodus, clearly pointed to Christ, the refusal to allow him to see and the restriction that he could only glimpse “the back of God” could not likewise be applied to Jesus. In the first instance, the figure of Moses accordingly represented both the mystery of Christ and the way of Jesus’ disciples; the second text, then, must point to them, that is, to all of us who believe in Christ. This is the basic thought in the patristic commentaries on Exodus 33; naturally their interpretations of this difficult text about seeing God’s back, about standing in the cleft of the rock beneath God’s hands, which cover our eyes, vary greatly as to the details. Personally, I always find particularly moving the commentary on this passage that Gregory of Nyssa gives. Being able to see God only from the back—what else does that mean, he says, but that we can only encounter God by walking after Jesus; that the only way we can see him is by following Jesus, which means walking behind him and thus going along behind God’s back.”

I copied a lot from this book into my quote journal.

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Theology

No Bible, No Breakfast! No Bible, No Bed!

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

The phrase “No Bible, No Breakfast! No Bible, No Bed!” is one coined by Father Larry Richards. I thinks I heard him mention it a couple of time on his radio show, but didn’t think much about it. When I saw him at our Eucharistic Congress this year the phrase sunk in a little bit more for me.

At first my reaction was “Well this is a good idea for other people, after all I read the Liturgy of the Hours, listen to homiletic podcasts, and have read through the Bible a couple of times.” Surely that’s enough. The more I thought about this the more lame this excuse sounded to me. So I started to take up daily scripture reading again.

“…If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time.” – The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)

Chesterton is exactly right (as usual) and it is amazing that when you think you know something you start to see it for the first time. What I thought familiar had nuances I realized I only glimpsed at the surface. Intellectually I knew to some extent how polyvalent scripture was. I just needed to relearn that lesson.

I remember sometimes thinking while watching the Journey Home show on EWTN, former Protestant pastors talking about not really noticing a passage before. I was thinking DOH!, but then having to double-DOH! myself.

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PrayerSong ParodyTheology

Blood and Water from His Side

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

I so love this from St. John Chrysostom in today’s Office of Readings.

”If we wish to understand the power of Christ’s blood, we should go back to the ancient account of its prefiguration in Egypt. “Sacrifice a lamb without blemish”, commanded Moses, “and sprinkle its blood on your doors”. If we were to ask him what he meant, and how the blood of an irrational beast could possibly save men endowed with reason, his answer would be that the saving power lies not in the blood itself, but in the fact that it is a sign of the Lord’s blood. In those days, when the destroying angel saw the blood on the doors he did not dare to enter, so how much less will the devil approach now when he sees, not that figurative blood on the doors, but the true blood on the lips of believers, the doors of the temple of Christ.

If you desire further proof of the power of this blood, remember where it came from, how it ran down from the cross, flowing from the Master’s side. The gospel records that when Christ was dead, but still hung on the cross, a soldier came and pierced his side with a lance and immediately there poured out water and blood. Now the water was a symbol of baptism and the blood, of the holy eucharist. The soldier pierced the Lord’s side, he breached the wall of the sacred temple, and I have found the treasure and made it my own. So also with the lamb: the Jews sacrificed the victim and I have been saved by it.

“There flowed from his side water and blood”. Beloved, do not pass over this mystery without thought; it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolized baptism and the holy eucharist. From these two sacraments the Church is born: from baptism, “the cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit”, and from the holy eucharist. Since the symbols of baptism and the Eucharist flowed from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church, as he had fashioned Eve from the side of Adam Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the story of the first man and makes him exclaim: “Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh!” As God then took a rib from Adam’s side to fashion a woman, so Christ has given us blood and water from his side to fashion the Church. God took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us the blood and the water after his own death.

Do you understand, then, how Christ has united his bride to himself and what food he gives us all to eat? By one and the same food we are both brought into being and nourished. As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with his own blood those to whom he himself has given life.”

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Theology

Scripture and the Sacraments

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

I heard about the following on Al Kresta’s show.

The St. Paul Center is offering limited-time access to its video Bible study series, The Bible and the Sacraments. Over the course of 11 lessons, beginning on March 1, this study presents the participant an opportunity for growth in knowledge of Scripture and the Sacraments.

As part of St. Paul Center’s mission, we want to share this study with as many people as possible. Please tell your friends and share this resource. You can also post comments to the page with your Facebook account, sharing your thoughts in a truly Catholic (universal) way.

Two new lessons will be posted each week and will be available for two weeks after the post date. Keep an eye out for a new email each week announcing that the new lessons are available.

You can sign up here.

FULL SCHEDULE

March 1: Lessons 1–2 posted

March 8: Lessons 3–4 posted (Lessons 1–2 still available)

March 15: Lessons 5–6 posted (Lessons 3–4 still available)

March 22: Lessons 7–8 posted (Lessons 5–6 still available)

March 29: Lessons 9–10 posted (Lessons 7–8 still available)

April 5: Lesson 11 posted (Lessons 9–10 still available)

April 12: (Lesson 11 still available)

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LiturgyTheology

Bad Analogy Sunday

by Jeffrey Miller
written by Jeffrey Miller

You never know what kind of homily you will get on Trinity Sunday or as I call it Bad Analogy Sunday. Still this time around my pessimism was not rewarded and I was treated to a rather good homily. One that started “Thomas Aquinas says.” He used the Analogy of the Family to good effect, which is also the analogy the Catechism uses (CCC 2205).

Being in the Diocese of St. Augustine, not surprisingly over the years, I have often been treated to the story of St, Augustine, the boy, and the seashell. As a Middle Ages legend it serves it purposes as a reminder that the Trinity is a mystery, but not anything beyond that.

I would rather hear St. Augustine’s analogy of the Trinity he used in his book Confessions.”

I speak of these three: to be, to know, and to will. For I am, and I know, and I will: I am a knowing and a willing being, and I know that I am and that I will, and I will to be and to know. Therefore, in these three, let him who can do so perceive how inseparable a life there is, one life and one mind and one essence, and finally how inseparable a distinction there is, and yet there is a distinction. Surely a man stands face to face with himself. Let him take heed of himself, and look there, and tell me. But when he has discovered any of these and is ready to speak, let him not think that he has found that immutable being which is above all these, which is immutably, and knows immutably, and wills immutably.

Just as long as you remember all analogies limp, and they are downright crippled when it comes to The Most Holy Trinity.

Although I find Frank Sheed’s explanation providing the most light as laid out in Theology and Sanity and Theology for Beginners.

The Lutheran Satire bit on St. Patrick’s Bad Analogies is pretty funny as a vehicle to go over common bad analogies. Although there is no evidence that St. Patrick ever actually used the Shamrock as an analogy for the Trinity.

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