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Stratford Caldecott

What is Love?

25 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by in Love, Matrimony, Sacraments, Stratford Caldecott

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How many of you, after reading the title of this post (and seeing the picture), immediately thought the following words:

Baby don't hurt, don't hurt me, no more.

I imagine there are at least some people (at least those close to my age) that did indeed have the above lyrics go through their minds, as it did mine. Even if you don't know who wrote this song you have probably heard it before somewhere, sometime. There is nothing really spectacular about the song–electronic music and lyrics that could have been written by a kindergartener–but nevertheless, it captured the minds of our lovesick society. The reason for this is not because of Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan on Saturday Night Live, but because our society truly wants to know: what is love?

You see, our modern society has little, if any, knowledge of what true love is. In our secularized and God-less society love has become 'whatever feels good.' But then, by pursuing only that which 'feels good', people get hurt along the way, which of course resulted in the above mentioned song being written in the first place. By this I do not want to appear to be condemning feelings or imply that they are not real. Feelings are real; in fact, they are strong truth tellers for us–but only in regards to things that are apparently good. But in order to understand what 'apparent goods' are we must contrast them with those goods which are authentic.

Apparent good – That which merely seems good; that which satisfies some appetite or desire sufficiently to become an object of choice. But it is not the true good because it is not morally right, since it does not conform to the purpose of man as a whole.

Authentic good – (A very good definition by St. John Paul II) – “Acting is morally good when the choices of freedom are in conformity with man's true good and thus express the voluntary ordering of the person towards his ultimate end: God himself, the supreme good in whom man finds his full and perfect happiness.” Veritatis Splendor, §72

The reason that we must differentiate between these two in order to understand that which is truly good is because in all our choices we are always seeking the 'good'. But a problem arises in that we can err in our understanding of whether or not the thing which we pursue is authentically good. St. Thomas Aquinas, along with Aristotle before him, said that “the good is what everyone desires.” The logical consequence to this statement that we must understand is that no one deliberately chooses that which is evil. In regards to this Fr. Robert O'Donnell has this to say in his book Hooked on Philosophy,

No agent, whether animal or human, chooses evil. Only the good can motivate an agent; only the good can act as a final cause. But sometimes an agent may think something to be good which is really evil.

And thus that which he refers to as evil is an 'apparent good' to the one who chooses it. To understand this we must remember that evil is a privation of some good. The best way to explain this is through an example from St. Augustine of Hippo,

For what is that which we call evil but the absence of good? In the bodies of animals, disease and wounds mean nothing but the absence of health; for when a cure is effected, that does not mean that the evils which were present—namely, the diseases and wounds—go away from the body and dwell elsewhere: they altogether cease to exist; for the wound or disease is not a substance, but a defect in the fleshly substance,—the flesh itself being a substance, and therefore something good, of which those evils—that is, privations of the good which we call health—are accidents. Just in the same way, what are called vices in the soul are nothing but privations of natural good. And when they are cured, they are not transferred elsewhere: when they cease to exist in the healthy soul, they cannot exist anywhere else.

But this does not mean that evil doen't exist because we see evil all around us. What this does mean, though, is that evil is not a 'being'. To say that it is a 'being' would be to promote a dualistic understanding of the universe. To say that evil is a 'being' would be to say that good and evil have always co-existed. This is not what the Church teaches nor is it what anyone with common sense would believe. God and Satan are not two eternal but opposite beings. Instead, God is the good Creator of all things, which includes Satan. Satan, or Lucifer, was created by God as a good angel but Satan chose to turn his back on that good. Stratford Caldecott put it this way, “Though Lucifer is by nature part of the image of God's love, he refuses to assume the likeness of God's kenotic nature.” (The Radiance of Being, p.242) What this means is that even though Lucifer was created in the image of God's love (and to a greater or lesser extent so was everything else that is created) Lucifer rejected that image because it meant that he would have to give of himself to those that were lesser than he – it meant that he would have to imitate God – in short, it meant that he would have to love.

And this finally brings us back to the original question: what is love? Part of what is needed to truly understand love can be found above in reference to 'God's kenotic nature.' Kenosis is usually a reference to the 'self-emptying' of Christ referred to by St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians. But here the author uses it to express the love that exists within the Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are eternally giving themselves completely to the other Persons within the Trinity. He explains this in the book much better than I have but that is the basic point. From this we can see that to love is to give oneself completely to the 'other'. And later in the book he gives a wonderful definition of what love is:

Love is that absolute freedom that binds itself absolutely.

The Radiance of Being, Stratford Caldecott, p.263

And an example of the love that personifies “the absolute freedom that binds itself absolutely” is the love between Christ and His Bride, the Church. Christ gave of Himself completely for the one He loves – the Church – and the Church in turn gives herself completely to Christ (although this won't be perfectly realized until the end of time, it is forshadowed in the perfection of the Blessed Virgin Mary who gave her perfect 'yes' to God's will for her life). And by analogy it is the love between husband and wife, who have bound themselves freely and absolutely through the Sacrament of Matrimony, which symbolizes for us the love between Christ and His Church. And from this we can see why people are so often hurt by 'love' in today's society. People pursue the apparent good of 'what feels good' without any intention of binding themselves to the 'other' in absolute freedom. To say it another way, those who are hurt in their pursuit of love have rejected the good that God intends for us and have replaced it with the lesser apparent good of temporary pleasure. But to do so will leave us, possibly eternally, dissatisfied.

Body, Soul, and Spirit

10 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by in Philosophy, Stratford Caldecott

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Most people understand that mankind consists of both a body and a soul. And very often the words spirit and soul are used interchangeably in this understanding of the makeup of mankind. But today I want to make you aware of a distinction between the meaning of the words soul and spirit, which can help us to understand better how we are made in the image of God.

There is within the Tradition of the Church an understanding that man is not just body, and soul; but body, soul, and spirit. This understanding stretches back at least to St. Paul as we see in the verse below.

May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 5:23, RSV-CE)

In the various writings of the saints there are some that have separated this into three separate 'parts'–body, soul, and spirit–(although to speak in such a way is misleading because man is a unified whole and not a compilation of parts) and some who separated man into body, and soul/spirit with the spirit being a deeper or more important part of the soul. Between these two options the Church seems to favor the latter. In §366 of the Catechism it refers to the soul as the “spiritual soul.” And in §367, when referring to St. Paul's passage above, it states that the “Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul.”

This third aspect of our makeup–that of the spirit–is important because it helps us to understand ourselves as made in God's image. First of all, when we include spirit with the usual body and soul understanding, then we can see man made with a tripartite nature, which is analogous to God as a Trinity of persons. And from this, according to St. Teresa of the Cross, we can see “the human soul, body, and spirit corresponding to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit respectively. (The Radiance of Being, p.209) But more importantly for us, because we are all fallen and sinful, the inclusion of spirit with body and soul can help us to understand our sinful condition. This is explained below:

…the three parts of the human being explain the threefold concupiscence. They correspond to the three archetypal sins, since Eve took the fruit in Eden because it was (1) good for food, (2) a delight to the eye, and (3) desirable for wisdom–sins enveloping respectively body, soul, and spirit–that had to be overcome at their triple root by Christ in the wilderness and by divine grace operating in the Christian life through fasting, almsgiving, and prayer (and through chastity, poverty, and obedience in the religious state.)

The Radiance of Being, p.207, Stratford Caldecott

What We ‘Will Be’

05 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by in Saints, Salvation, Stratford Caldecott, Theosis

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Yesterday was St. Jean Marie Vianney’s feast day. I had intended on posting this on his feast day but, as so often happens, other things got in the way. Below is part of a short biography – the rest of which can be found here.

St. Jean Marie Vianney (1786-1859) was born in a time of intense persecution of priests in revolutionary France. As a child, his parents helped to hide faithful priests and took their children to secret Masses in old barns and private homes. The young Jean Marie showed an extraordinary piety and love for the blessed Mother…Finally, at the age of 19, his father allowed him to study with a holy priest, Fr. Balley, who had survived the time of persecution. Yet, Jean Marie was already much older than his classmates and had great difficulty learning Latin. Later, after a brief and unsuccessful time in the seminary, he was allowed to complete his studies with his priest-mentor. Having failed twice in his examinations, he was finally allowed to take the examination in the supportive presence of Fr. Balley, and this time succeeded.

From the little that I know about St. Jean it appears that he knew early in his life what he was called to do – he knew he was to be a priest. Even though various circumstances kept him from pursuing the priesthood as early as he would have liked, he never gave up on God’s call for his life. And even through all the struggles he had in his studies and failing his examinations twice he still did not give up. When it appeared that everyone had given up on him, he did not give up on God’s call for his life.

But, in contrast to St. Jean Vianney’s life, let us consider the lives of those who do not hold fast to what God is calling them to do. I will explain what I mean by an example from my own experience. In a similar fashion to St. Jean, early in my own life I too felt called to some form of ministry within the Church. Although, I had no idea what that meant for my life because, at the time, I was Baptist and definitely did not feel called to be a Baptist ‘preacher’ (which is term we used instead of pastor). But because of this general sense of a vocation that I had, I assumed from an early age that I would one day go to seminary. And in preparation for seminary, once I entered my second year of college I started to study philosophy.

Now, when you are in college it is typical for people to ask you what you are studying. And whenever I was asked that question and responded, “Philosophy” I would commonly get responses like these: “What on earth are you going to do with that degree?” or “Can you make any money with a such a degree?” And even after I explained I was planning on going to seminary many people would still have a disapproving look on their face because of my choice of studies. Such are the dangers of pursuing what you feel called by God to do I suppose.

But eventually that whole mindset got to me – the pragmatic mindset that questions the value of the search for truth and the acquiring of knowledge simply because it has nothing practical to offer. This was part of the reason that I eventually stopped studying philosophy in college. (Although there were also other factors that led to my leaving the study of philosophy.)

Looking back at my life I can say that the point at which I stopped studying philosophy coincides with the point at which I started to lose the sense of a call from God; in other words, I lost my sense of purpose. This is evidenced by the fact that, after that point, I started little by little to lose any sense of direction in my life – I did not have any idea of what I was supposed to do or even of what I wanted to do. During this time I was just the same as the man who had been given one talent by his master but, instead of doing anything with it, he went and hid it in the ground. (Matthew 25:18) But of course we mustn’t hide our talent in the ground because we know what will happen to us if we do: we will be “cast…into the outer darkness (where) men will weep and gnash their teeth.” There is a question that may be asked, though: why is the punishment so harsh for not using the ‘talent’ that God gives you?

The answer to that question can be found in the following quote:

God creates in his eternity, where he already sees the intellectual creature as it ‘will be’ when it has arrived at deifying union with himself. Each moment of the intellectual creature’s actual journey to God is thus at once a new event and a deeper realization of what has always already been true.

The Radiance of Being p.174-5, by Stratford Caldecott

Christians know that God created mankind in His own image. We also know that God loves us. But we need to truly understand and believe these things, and the implications that come from them, if we are to understand the Parable of the Talents and the reason why we should not waste time as I did earlier in my life. We need to understand that God knows us and loves us as we ‘will be’ at the end of time – without all the sin and attachment to sin that we now suffer from. Yes, of course he loves us as we are right now, but how we are right now is not good enough! Jesus revealed to us the need to be perfect and that is what God expects from us. And in order to arrive at the destination of what we ‘will be’ at the end of time we must start our journey right now. Who we are here on this earth is intimately tied to who we ‘will be’ at the end of time. And our perfection then will reflect back to God something that no other creature will be able to duplicate. Out of His infinite love God desires for each of us to reach that perfection that already exists in His mind and that is why He is never satisfied with how far we progress here on this earth.

And it is that point that brings up a crucial difference between the life of St. Jean and my own life. St. Jean never ceased pursuing God’s plan for his life, although it may have been delayed by things out of his control. But I did leave God’s plan for my life behind, at least for a while. And I would imagine that there are many other people that have done the same thing in their own lives. And if that is the case for you as it was for me then bring to mind the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. In that parable there were many throughout the day that the owner of the vineyard noticed just standing around and doing nothing. And throughout the day the owner came back to these directionless and lazy people over and over again imploring them to go work: in other words, to put their talent to use. Some of them were like St. Jean – they immediately went out at the first part of the day when they were called. Others, like myself, were lazy and waited until much later. And why do we do that? Perhaps because we despair of ever being able to complete the task we have been assigned.

But just because we cannot reach that perfection that is expected of us here on this earth does not mean that we should just give up and wait around, doing nothing. The lessons we learn from the parables of the talents and the workers in the vineyard gives us proof. If we just sit on the sidelines of this life and don’t use that which God Himself has given to us then we are telling Him with our actions (or lack thereof) that we do not love Him. God created us to know and to love Him but we will never know or love Him unless we strive with our entire being to seek Him out. And our very being includes that special talent that God has given to each and every one of us. And from the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard we know that if we will heed the call of our Lord to go and work – to put to use that talent He has given us – then even if we do so at the end of the day we will receive our reward from Him.

In imitation of St. Jean Vianney, it would have been much better for me to immediately go into the vineyard and start doing the work God has called me to do. Nevertheless, I thank God that even though I gave up on Him during part of my life, He never gave up on me. There is so much time that I wasted, which I truly lament. And as a result of that wasted time there are things that I should have learned years ago that I am only just now discovering. But I let that loss spur me on to do right now what I can to fulfill that which God has called me to do. To do so is to begin to become what I ‘will be’ and in fact what I already am in the mind of God.