January 31 2019 - Association Of Catholic Priests

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Home / 2019 / January / 31

31 January. Thursday of Week 3

What applies to our ordinary conversations applies even more .. There is always more to the word of the Lord than first meets the ear.

1st Reading, Hebrews 10:19-25

We enter the Holy of Holies by the new and living path Jesus has opened for us

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4 comments
07 Dec 2023 – Thursday of Advent, Week 1
December 7 2023
Paddy Ferry
Seán @1, what an interesting observation. And: "It is not too late to heed the call to a life founded on the simplicity and compassion of Jesus – but it is very late indeed." Now, this is something we can completely agree on. If they had left it at that --the simplicity and compassion of Jesus -- all would have been well. It is all the add ons over the millennia that has -- among other things -- so undermined confidence in our church's teaching.
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4 comments
07 Dec 2023 – Thursday of Advent, Week 1
December 7 2023
Sean O'Conaill
What 'baby', Joe? As for the divine Mozart and his benefitting from church patronage, did you know that he was once kicked downstairs by the servants of the Archbishop of Salzburg? (See e.g.: https://discover.hubpages.com/entertainment/wolfgandamadeusmozartandhissackingbythearchbishopofsalzburg#A%20Classical%20Composer%20Has%20A%20Bad%20Day Many thanks for that quote from Athanasius. That greatly helps to fill the gap between Ignatius of Antioch and Anselm of Canterbury - helping to explain how the latter came to remake the Father of the Prodigal Son in the image of the most exalted monarchs of Christendom. All nostalgia for the Middle Ages is founded upon the vain supposition that if born in that era we ourselves would not most likely have been born into serfdom - and then used as cannon fodder when that military option became available. As to 'Cosmic Honour', have you never asked yourself about the strange recurrence of social pyramids of dignity in all historical eras - including our own? Always, always, always these arise from what Alain de Botton calls our 'status anxiety' - our uncertainty about our own value and the overweening need that some then have for others to recognise their own superiority. This is the driving force of all imperialism from Alexander through Julius Caesar to Napoleon - whose career in itself explains the sudden and tragic failure of 'liberty, equality and fraternity'. This is a constant in all eras - the self-conscious dimension of honour and shame that explains even Jeff Bezos' need for not one but two superyachts (because he cannot land his helicopter on the larger masted one)! Until our bishops see this they won't even be able to get to grips with clericalism, which is simply clerical status anxiety, the root also of their own continuing non-transparency. But maybe what follows is the 'Baby' I am throwing out - St Anselm's response in 'Cur Deus Homo' to the possible charge that a Father God who needs satisfaction for Sin is a contradiction to Jesus' teachings on forgiveness? ~ (To explain, 'Boso' in what follows is Anselm's interlocutor in a hypothetical theological dialogue.) Anselm: But it is not fitting for God to pass over anything in his kingdom without dealing with it. Boso: I cannot disagree without the risk of sin. Anselm: It is therefore not proper for God to pass over sin unpunished. Boso: That follows. Anselm: There is also another thing which follows if sin is passed by unpunished, — that with God there will be no difference between the guilty and the not guilty. That would be inappropriate for God. Boso: I cannot deny it. But God commands us always to forgive those who sin against us. It seems inconsistent to tell us to do something it’s not proper for him to do himself. Anselm: It is not inconsistent for God to forbid us to do what only he should do. To take revenge belongs to none but the Lord of all.... ~ You can see there, I hope, how Anselm's 'take' on atonement could devolve into the theory of 'penal substitution' - that Jesus substituted himself to avert the vengeful blow that must fall upon ourselves. How in the end can Anselm's theology be freed from the implication that the crucifixion was the expression of the divine vengeance that Anselm himself actually justifies? With the world still held fast in the grip of human status anxiety (e.g. Vlad Putin and the West; Trump and 'liberal elites'; Steve Bannon et al and 'Replacement theory') it is the perception that in all eras that the Trinity are bent upon freeing us from this that we need. That is what those earlier understandings of the crucifixion can restore for us. In short, if status anxiety has always been our biggest problem - especially the fear of the negative judgement of our own society - does it not make sense that the Trinity would set out to free us from it by showing us the limits of the power of any society to shame anyone? How could Ignatius have faced that rending in the Colosseum with Anselm's understanding of the death of Jesus? That is my core reason for reciting, and believing the Creed. It is in essence a counter-narrative to the story of the Caesars - whose power rested in the end upon crucifixion - and the greatest superhero story ever told. The Father too has always been our 'redeemer' - the father of the prodigal son that Jesus came to take us to. Once in Würtsburg - in what had been the 'palace' of the archbishop there - I was told to take off my sun hat, as though wearing it was disrespectful to the religious associations of the building. You will forgive me if I snigger in disbelief at that residue of medievalism. Wasn't the original St Francis sent to free us from all of that nonsense, via other Franciscans - e.g. Duns Scotus and Bonaventure?
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4 comments
07 Dec 2023 – Thursday of Advent, Week 1
December 7 2023
Joe O'Leary
Sean, I fear the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater. Compare Mozart — his reliance on princes or prince-archbishops — does it render his music worthless? Well, the centuries of Christendom produced many saints and doctors, poets and architects who were the equivalent of Mozart. They emerged within a richly varied human world which awaits our rediscovery. I have a book on my knees just now that I have never read: R. W. Southern, Saint Anselm: A Portrait in a Landscape (Cambridge UP, 1990). “A legalist demanding satisfaction for sin – understood primarily as defiance of the 6th commandment” is hardly fair to one of his great texts, the Cur Deus Homo. When he says “divine honour” he means cosmic order (in which honour was a key principle in that feudal culture). He gets away from older theories of the Devil’s rights and answers afresh the question that Athanasius discussed in his De Incarnatione, facing “the Jewish criticism that Christianity unnecessarily exposed God to the pain and indignities of human life”; “the gross indignities offered to God in Christ could only be justified if they were necessary for the rectification of the universe under the will of God” (p. 212). Many critics of (a mostly imaginary) Anselm today are really rejecting the proposition that “Christ died for our sins.” Anselm dares to ask for a rational account of why this should be so, and he comes up with a deep meditation on the harmony of justice and mercy within divine providence. something much more wide-reaching and intelligent than “a legalist demanding satisfaction for sin – understood primarily as defiance of the 6th commandment.” If we had time to study this great thinker and attempt to think along with him, I have no doubt that we would find many things to edify, enlighten, or at least stimulate.
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1 comments
Synodal Pathway Update: National Steering Committee Report plus Irish Synodal Pathway Research for the Development of a Facilitative Leadership Programme
December 6 2023
Sean O’Conaill
How many of us shout ‘Hallelujah' at the arrival of yet another long synodal report? Of course the steering committee did need to report and to sketch its proposals for what happens next. Of these the plan to expand the steering committee into six separate working groups - one of which would focus on 'theology and sociology' - could be the most important. Given that 'mission' must have a clear grasp of the 'good news' of the Gospel, and so many of the 2022 diocesan reports confessed some bewilderment as to what that is in 21st century Ireland, a theological focus is vital. It fits in also with Pope Francis' recent appeal for theology to be pastoral and contextual - i.e. suited to the needs of those to whom it is addressed. In the end however, long and detailed reports of this kind are not in themselves vitalising and ‘missionary’. As they accumulate they increase the ‘chore’ of ‘getting one’s head around’ synodality. Perhaps another of those six working groups - that for ‘communications and outreach’ could address this by producing a running radical summary of progress so far - a ready shortcut to the vital essence of it. What a tragedy if synodality were unnecessarily to suffer ‘suffocation by self-documentation’ - and I do now seriously fear that this could happen.
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