The Silence of Pentecost

 And I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever. The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, nor knoweth him: but you shall know him; because he shall abide with you, and shall be in you
(John 14:16-17)

St Luke in his dramatic account of the first Christian Pentecost (Acts 2:1-41) focuses, naturally enough, on those whom the Spirit had called to active life. The disciples who spoke in strange languages, St Peter fulfilling his Apostolic function as preacher. We can be sure though that amongst those gathered in the Cenacle there were some followers of Jesus, like Our Lady, Mary of Bethany and St John, who were contemplatives. For those whose mission that day was to talk the Spirit appeared as a tongue of flame. Perhaps for the contemplatives it was more akin to an arrow point which was to descend and transpierce their hearts with the fire of divine love.

We each have a unique relationship with the Father through the Son, and the Holy Spirit guides us into that on the path which He knows to be best for us. We can, perhaps, infer from the Gospel how it was that He guided those saints whom He called primarily to the inward, silent life on the day that the Church, with all her vocations, was born.

In the first book of his two volume history of the primitive church St Luke tells us how the Blessed Virgin responded to the things of God "Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart" (Luke 2:19) and "Mary said: My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." (Luke 1:46-47) Which is to say that the Theotokos held all these things before the eyes of her heart and this led her to pour out to the Almighty her grateful thanks and abiding joy. Her lips sang sometimes but her grace-filled spirit sang all the time. Perhaps on this historic Pentecost it was for her Son above all that she was grateful as the Spirit led her ever deeper into knowledge and understanding of Divine things. Mindful also of the commandment to love her neighbour as herself she no doubt too reflected with thanks on the new children which Christ had given her from the Cross. All who could be called a beloved disciple of Jesus were also now beloved children of Mary.

Tradition has identified Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany though some now dispute this (primarily for political reasons.) However that might be, of her Luke says "a certain woman named Martha, received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sitting also at the Lord's feet, heard his word. But Martha was busy about much serving" (Luke 10:38-42) If Mary sould sit still and give her undivided attention to the Son in the midst of all the bustle created by her sister and the Apostles it would not surprise us to learn that she did precisely the same thing when it was the Spirit that called for her entire focus. An upper room filled with busy Martha's would not distract her from the one thing that mattered.

About this same Mary the Evangelist St John wrote "Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of right spikenard, of great price, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment." (John 12:3) This was an act of much self abasement and a devotion of things of great value and beauty to God. Many of those seeing it, especially the traitor Judas, decried it as needlessly extravagant but the Lord praised it highly. It was impractical and unworldly and on Pentecost day when we recall the eminently practical business of preaching in all the tongues of the world and converting souls to the Church we should remember too the witness borne by the Magdalene. Through silence, humility and the creation of beautiful things in the service of worship the Holy Spirit works just as effectively and powerfully as He does in all the other charisms which He gives to the faithful.

Not many days before the Holy Spirit descended, by the Lake of Tiberias, St John was the first of the Apostles to recognise the Risen Messiah "That disciple therefore whom Jesus loved, said to Peter: It is the Lord" (John 21:7) The quick eyed love born of contemplation gave the young Evangelist a power of discernment greater than that of his companions. On this same occasion St Peter had been confirmed as chief of the Apostles and shepherd of the Church which is why, within a few weeks, it was he who preached to the people at Pentecost. We see here, again, that different people are led in different ways by the Spirit, some to be active leaders and teachers, others to be devoted to quiet love and contemplation. Peter laboured to give us the Church, John allowed the Spirit to flow through him and gave us the most sublime of the four Gospel accounts which we now have.

It is sometimes asked what useful purpose the Catholic contemplative orders serve. I like to think that on that birth day of the Church the efforts of the missionaries on the streets of Jerusalem were strengthened by the prayers of the contemplatives in the Cenacle joined to the power of the Spirit. Furthermore, whenever from time to time the active disciples and the new converts ascended to the Upper Room the sight of the contemplatives absorbed in silent prayer both inspired them more and filled them with a sense of the peace of Christ which passes all understanding. And as she began so has the Church ever continued down to this day with the devoted lives of those called to bear silent witness to the faith through an enclosed vocation serving the spiritual life and health of Christians in a hidden but powerful way.
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The picture is from a 15th Century Belgian Book of Hours in the Morgan Library

Doing Good Because It Is Good?

Was it not thy duty to have mercy on thy fellow servant, as I had mercy on thee?
(Matthew 18:33)

It is sometimes argued that we should do good simply because it is good and not out of any desire for reward or fear of punishment. And, it is frequently added, the most powerful force preventing people from doing good is often religion. Although the argument is superficially plausible it contains multiple flaws.

One of these is the assumption that 'Good' is a category which is immediately obvious to all and that everyone shares the same understanding of it. That being so, where Good is 'common sense' or a thing that 'stands to reason' or an inherent 'natural' quality, then only an irrational counter-balance, like religion, can lead people astray. But it is not so. I propose to look at three concepts, Forgiveness, Mercy, and Duty, to make the point more clearly.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt, who was no Christian, wrote "The discoverer of the role of forgiveness in the realm of human affairs was Jesus of Nazareth" This does not mean that the concept had no prior existence what it suggests is that Jesus injected it into the everyday practice of ordinary people in a way which had not previously occurred. Rather like rock and roll existed before Elvis but until he released the single Blue Suede Shoes it did not enter the American mainstream.

Forgiveness is not a 'natural' reaction. Retaliation is the impulsive response to injury. While a case in Reason can be made to justify forgiveness one at least equally strong can be made to justify its opposite. So, a decision has to be made as to which of these is Good and it is by no means obvious to 'common sense.' Arendt put it like this "The freedom contained in Jesus’ teaching of forgiveness is the freedom from vengeance, which incloses both doer and sufferer in the relentless automatism of the action process, which by itself need never come to an end." This is a fairly subtle point, albeit a significant one, and would not have entered into the current of daily life in the West had it not had a powerful agent promoting it. By which I mean, specifically, the Catholic Church.

The case may become clearer if we consider Mercy. Unlike forgiveness which anyone can practice Mercy is a quality which only the powerful can exercise. It means restraining that power when one could use it, not because such restraint benefits the strong one but because it benefits the weak one. Again, this is not something obvious to 'common sense' In ancient thought, summarised by Thucydides in the Melian Dialogue, it was held that the strong ruled because they could and the weak obeyed because they must.

Christianity introduced the idea that even the very powerful are themselves recipients of Mercy from God and if they desire to continue to receive that Mercy then they must themselves be merciful. Once more, the concept of mercifulness existed apart from the Church. The Stoic Seneca, who was to the Emperor Nero much like Steve Bannon is to President Trump, wrote an essay on Clemency. But the suggestion was not that Nero was under a binding obligation to be merciful simply that it befitted him as an adornment to his rule, nor was the principle capable of infinite extension to everyone with the least little power over another human being.

The Christian notion that we should give mercy and forgiveness because we receive it does not come from the realm of 'common sense' or 'nature.' There is no 'because' to be logically derived from a set of relationships where A receives mercy from B and then mercilessly denies a request for mercy from C. Why should A be merciful to C, from whom he has received nothing, just because B has given him something? Well, because he has a Duty to be merciful. But this Duty does not emerge from the realm of pure thought alone, it comes from the spiritual realm, that is, it is a religious Duty.

For more than a thousand years almost everyone in the West frequently repeated the words "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." More than that from early childhood they were catechised into owning these words, into making them a reality in their daily lives. They became and have remained part of the furniture of the Western mind and Western sentiment. If they now appear to Westerners as 'common sense' it is not nature which has effected this level of understanding, it is the Christian Church, it is Jesus Christ.

At its highest possible expression Absolute Good is not a series of propositions we can deduce from our immanent surroundings. It is a transcendent reality which we encounter. God is Absolute Goodness and if we have a duty to do Good apart from considerations of reward and punishment it is because God is Good not because we are.
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On my *other* blog I have looked at this from another angle in- Are Atheists More Moral than Christians?

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The painting is The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant by Barent Fabritius.

Salvation: Is It Relevant in 2017?

                                                 Only in Him is there salvation
                                                  (Acts of the Apostles 4:11)

If people have no concept of themselves as personal sinners and no belief in the existence of an eternal hell does the Christian doctrine of salvation serve any useful purpose? One could argue that disbelieving in a fact, like for example the law of gravity, does not make a person less exempt from the effects of that fact. So if the doctrines are true (which they are) then people will discover that, for themselves, in due course. It is, however, the business of the Church to save souls in time not to follow the (reputed) example of Scottish presbyterianism-
"There will be people cast into the pits of Hell, crying 'oh, Lord, we didna ken!' And the Lord will reply, 'well, ye ken noo!'"

The obvious angle of approach, I suppose, is to persuade people that they are wrong by urgently preaching about the wickedness that truly does abide in each person's heart, leaving them vulnerable to temptation, and about the eternal consequences of indulging that sinful inclination. It is important that this path is pursued vigorously but Christians should have more than one string to their bow.

Another line of argument can, I think, be found if we consider the significance of the words "in Him" from the text. To be saved is to be in Christ and to have Christ in us. "Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction." (Pope Benedict XVI) When we rest in Him life is transformed, we see things and people and our very selves differently. We have entered into a new relationship. We are in love and will be so for eternity. That is what salvation is.

It is no coincidence that the romantic language of lovers mirrors the language of our salvation relationship with God. The first is an as yet imperfect icon of the second. As the Pope Emeritus put it "God is the absolute and ultimate source of all being; but this universal principle of creation—the Logos, primordial reason—is at the same time a lover with all the passion of a true love" When He saw our estrangement from Him this desire He has for us led Him to travel the infinite distance from divine glory to abandonment, shame and death on the Cross for no other reason than for to win us back to loving Him. He does not dazzle us with His power but He shares with us our vulnerability and weakness.

As romantic love changes into conjugal love over time so our life in Christ alters from our first experiences of it. We discover "in drawing near to the other, it is less and less concerned with itself, increasingly seeks the happiness of the other, is concerned more and more with the beloved, bestows itself and wants to “be there for” the other."(Deus Caritas Est 7) Since God is not physically present to us here below we can only, as it were, do good to Him through our neighbours whom He loves as thoroughly as He loves us.

This then is the beginning of salvation, to experience in our limited way infinite love here and now and to share that infinite love with all those, both the good and the bad, who are around us. The end of it is to experience the same in an unlimited way for eternity. Is salvation relevant to you, now, today? Of course it is.
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The Carthusian Option

I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me
(Psalm 84:9)

The earliest martyrs of the English 'Reformation' begun by Henry VIII were Carthusian monks. They were executed because of their loyalty to the Apostolic See in Rome. There is something richly symbolic in the fact that an order which is committed to contemplating the things of God and whose motto is Stat crux dum volvitur orbis ( the Cross stands firm while the world turns) was the first to apprehend what Henry's plan would lead to.

Another monastic order, the Benedictines, have as the first words of their Rule "Listen carefully." This word 'listen' may indeed be the Benedict Option which the world, and particularly the Christians who inhabit it, may most need to exercise. Paradoxically the best environment to enable one to hear is silence.

We are accustomed to making our decisions, big or small, in the midst of a cacophony of noise. Not simply the external noise generated by things but also the internal noise generated by our mind's leaping from thought to thought, impulse to impulse, stimulus to stimulus. The choices so made may be good or bad but they share one characteristic; they are hurried. What appears before the eyes of our mind is the obvious and the material and it is from those things that we draw the primary conclusions which prompt us to act.

The world, and we ourselves, are made up of a fine web of subtle and invisible things. We see them if we look and hear them if we listen but whether we see and hear them or not they are there and they are of the most vital importance to us. We cannot then fully understand ourselves or the world if we are continually in hurry mode. To get behind the noise we must stop and listen to the silence.

It is in silent listening every day that we can begin to hear what the Lord God speaks in us. He speaks through the material universe, through the world of men and of events and through our friends and acquaintances. He speaks too, and that most profoundly, through the Sacred Scriptures, the Sacraments and in the prayer of contemplation. It is, perhaps, because they listened above all to these things that the English Carthusians perceived long before the practical men of politics did that Henry VIII was hell-bent and so, ultimately, would be those who went along with him.

It behoves each of us then, if we wish to understand the signs of the times and the secrets of our own hearts, to become listeners. To contemplate the One who is All Wisdom and Love itself. Is this a difficult thing for an ordinary person to do you ask? "This commandment, that I command thee this day is not above thee, nor far off from thee...But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart, that thou mayst do it" (Deuteronomy 30:11-14)

Although it is a specifically contemplative order the Carthusians prescribe no single method of prayer to its monks. Instead each is free to find among the treasures of Catholic spirituality the one approach which is most suitable to them. We can do the same, prayer is a very adaptable thing. Even a Rosary prayed with a recollected mind is a form of contemplation. Seek and you shall find. You might even wish to start on this blog with my post on 'A Simple Method of Contemplative Prayer'

The symbolism of the Carthusian martyrdom is twofold. First, that their contemplation gave them a clarity of vision which others lacked. Second, that they died out of loyalty to the universal Church. Deep personal prayer does not estrange us from the corporate life of the body of Christ it unites us more firmly to it. Through contemplation we can understand and love with ever greater comprehension the liturgies, sacraments and dogmas of the Apostolic faith. We are not saved or enlightened as individuals apart and alone but as members one of another in the body of Christ. It is through contemplation that we can gain the quiet Carthusian strength to bear witness to truth in our lives and to fully understand the meaning of the words Stat Crux Dum Volvitur Orbis
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The Paintings are Martyrdom of the Carthusian Priors by Vicente Carducho and The Forty Martyrs by Daphne Pollen

In the Shadow of Medina

Christian & Islamic Visions of an Heroic Age

The English historian Tom Holland, through his book In the Shadow of the Sword, gives an overview  of several crucial centuries during which the Middle East was fundamentally and world-changingly altered. The epoch in question, late antiquity, saw the effective end of two ancient empires, Roman and Persian, as well as the emergence of a new one, the Arab. These events were of profound religious significance as well as being geopolitical earthquakes since each empire was associated with what are now, in 2016, distinctive religions Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Islam respectively. Mr Holland's approach aroused some controversy because he discounted as unreliable most of the accounts which we have of the rise of the new empire on the grounds that they were first written down some two centuries after the events which they describe. As these accounts represent not only a story of Arab conquest but also the foundational mythos of Islam itself this is rather delicate ground upon which to tread.

Relying on the scant resources which are more or less contemporaneous with the remarkable transformation of the region Tom Holland develops an explanatory hypothesis which is admittedly speculative or, in his own word, 'provisional'. It is well beyond my competence to comment on these matters I was, however, struck by some things which are present clearly in the Holland version and in a more veiled form in the 'official' narrative. Firstly, it seems clear that the career of the founder of Islam can be divided into a period where he proclaimed the new faith in the face of opposition before a flight (hijrah) to the city now called Medina where, in phase two, he and his emigrant companions (muhajirun) set about building a State and expanding its frontiers. Secondly, the essential groundwork to what are now orthodox Sunni Islamic doctrines and practices began to appear in written form in southern Iraq during the era of the Umayyad Caliphs some decades after the Arab victories.

So, why am I writing about all this in a Catholic blog you ask? I think that if we look at the way in which our respective orthodoxies began to be formed we can see crucial and irreducible differences between Catholicism and Islam, differences which still matter today and cannot be wished away by airy references along the lines of 'we all worship the One God'. Leaving aside conspiracy theorists like Dan Brown, the new atheists and liberal theologians it is generally accepted that the basic framework of Catholic orthodox belief, its core texts and fundamental doctrines, were in place before the Emperor Constantine revolutionised the relationship between Roman Church and Roman State. This means that Christians being excluded from power first addressed themselves to questions of meaning and thus engaged from the outset with the ideas of philosophy, something we can see in St Paul and St John within the canon of the New Testament itself. As an aside I would note that although we are frequently told that an advanced Islamic civilization exported philosophy to a backward Western Europe it is the case that philosophy helped to form Christian thought from the beginning whereas Muslim philosophers had to deal with an already existing and sometimes hostile body of Islamic orthodox thought when they began their work.

I digress however, another consequence of powerlessness was that the Church could appeal to the marginalised and excluded as being of their number itself. Combining these two elements early Christian thinkers focussed on the texts and examples from their own history which most addressed their own radical powerlessness and exclusion and developed their theological doctrines on that basis. There are few things more inspiring than the example shown to us by heroic figures whom we can imitate. For the formation of the Church's self-image the icons which they looked to were the life of Jesus, who was arrested and executed (without resistance), and the history of the Apostolic era where the primitive Christian community was persecuted (also without resistance) and scorned. For the Church as Church it's history of being the patient victim of misused power became the heroic age towards which it looked as the gold standard for guidance about how to behave in every age.

Several centuries later Iraqi Muslim scholars found themselves in a radically different situation when they came to mould their inchoate mass of ideas and texts into a single universally useable form. While they themselves might be out of power their rulers were all professedly Muslim. Consequently they had every reason to develop doctrines that could and should be adopted and implemented by the Caliphal State. Therefore the heroic age towards which they looked was post-hijrah Medina and the behaviour of their religion's founder together with his empire-building companions and successors among the muhajirun. This was logical enough, the founder had faced problems and difficulties which could be seen as analogous to those of their own situation. As he, the founder, was inspired by God but the Caliphate's current rulers obviously were not the presumed example of the founder could be used as a stick with which to beat the rulers into changing their behaviour.

Like Christianity it was the case that Islam too made its appeal to the marginal and excluded but it did so in the context of a very different situation. In its early centuries to become Catholic was to risk persecution, during the equivalent era of Islam becoming a Muslim was a way to escape persecution or, at any rate, punitive taxation. Looking towards different icons of heroism and having different relationships with the State inevitably led the two orthodoxies down wholly divergent paths where the notional shared belief in the One God became very much a second order question.

It would be a profound mistake to suppose that these different origins are no more than an interesting historical background. They are profoundly important for the essential natures of the two great faiths and for the societies influenced by them. Islam, as it began to be understood in Umayyad Iraq, had no Christ Crucified and no suffering pilgrim Church or their equivalents nor does 21st Century Islam. And that matters, it matters a very great deal. In the shadow of Medina Islam is a religion which understands the use of State power and Law not from the position of an outsider who needs to fear it but from that of an insider who may wield it. To that extent it is the polar opposite of Christianity regardless of its monotheism. Friendship between Christians and Muslims there may be and co-operation between religious leaders there should be but one can only underplay the differences in belief by sacrificing basic elements of one's existing identity.

There is a 'new thing' in the world though. Today there is a large and growing Muslim population living outside Muslim lands. The original viewpoint of Islamic orthodoxy had in mind a model where the Caliphate, the House of Islam, stood in relation to those outside its borders as potential conquerors and Muslim minorities would also be ruling minorities. That has not, fortunately, transpired so the Muslim diaspora has to work out a doctrinal and theological modus vivendi for flourishing in non-Muslim lands into the foreseeable future. One approach, the most highly publicised, is to renew the pattern of conquest and incorporate Western lands into a new Caliphate. The idea that this might succeed appears to us as vanishingly unlikely, no doubt, as the prospect of an Arab Empire appeared to seventh century Romans and Persians.

There is another possible approach though. The powerlessness of minority Muslim communities has some resemblance to that of the early Church. This makes the pre-hijrah experience of the founder of Islam and his companions much more of a suitable icon for them than the Medina model. The time of persecution and meekness in what tradition names as Mecca (though Tom Holland dissents) will be much more serviceable to diaspora Muslims than any muscular assertion of a power which they do not possess and are unlikely to possess any time soon. Certainly there are many, to put it mildly. 'difficult' passages in the Quran which they will require to reinterpret creatively or subsume to milder ones but Christians are in no position to get sniffy about difficult Scripture passages in anybody's religion. This will be a dangerous enterprise for Muslims to embark upon (and it goes without saying that in my opinion Christianity is a superior option to any redaction of Islam) because it will spark a violent, literally violent, response from Muslim conservatives.

I think, nonetheless, that if Muslim thinkers and writers outside the House of Islam can create a form of their religion which escapes the shadow of Medina and embraces the example of Mecca then they will be doing their faith and the rest of the world a great favour. They will also be demonstrating a great truth that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.
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The picture is The Rawdah Mubarak in Medina where the founder of Islam is reputed to be buried.  

Faith & Knowledge

There are some who like to define faith as "believing in something which you know is not true." Others, less sneeringly perhaps, opt for "belief which exists in the absence of evidence." The weakness of these definitions is that they presume religious belief falls into the same category as, say, belief in a demonstrable fact (Lincoln was President during the Civil War) or an irrefutable theory (gravity exercises an effect on all material objects.) Christian belief, however, is faith in a person, Jesus, based upon what we know of Him as sufficient evidence. St Mark gives us an example of this-
"Jesus led them on, while they were bewildered and followed him with faint hearts"
Mark 10:32

This text describes the final journey to Jerusalem. The Apostles knew that the authorities would use the opportunity presented by having Jesus within their jurisdiction to do Him harm. They, the Apostles, also knew that they possessed no earthly power through which they could resist the authorities and their minds had not yet been fully opened to the spiritual power concealed in our Lord. Nonetheless, because they knew Him as well as they did they followed Him into danger. The evidence of His person itself was enough to give them the faith necessary to walk into hazard so long as He led them. Where they could not see clearly themselves; where their reason and their fears told them one thing they consented to do another because they willingly conceded their judgement to One who could see more clearly, reason more perfectly and conquer fear more completely.

It is of course possible, indeed common, for humans to place their faith in persons, causes or ideas which are not worthy of receiving such an high trust. Holy Church, aware of this, proposes that faith should always be allied to hope and love since an object worthy of these last two is likely to be worthy of the first also. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews writes-
"Turn your minds to Jesus, the apostle and the high priest of our profession of faith."
Hebrews 3:1
As apostle, which means messenger, Jesus lays before us; through His life, His actions and His words the hope which we, as Christians, can have. The certainty of a new life in Him, by the will of the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit, a new life which begins now, today, in this life and continues through death to eternal life in His blessed presence. As high priest He offered Himself on the Cross at Calvary, a gift of pure love, perfect love, overflowing love for us and for our salvation.

So, our Catholic faith is belief in Jesus based upon our knowledge of Him as our hope, our Saviour, and the foundation of our new life. And these constitute our evidences for belief. How do we gain this knowledge of Him? We encounter Him in Sacred Scripture, clearly and openly in the Gospels, under veiled forms and types in the Old Testament. We encounter Him in prayer, in silence and in stillness. We encounter Him in the sacraments and liturgies of His body which is the Church. We encounter Him in His saints those in heaven and those we live beside here on earth. Each such encounter increases our knowledge of Him and so strengthens our faith, our hope and our love.

Or, at least, they should so strengthen these things. Hebrews once more-
"We have been granted a share with Christ only if we keep the grasp of our first confidence firm to the end."
Hebrews 3:14
The definitions with which I began have this much truth in them: A faith which begins as alive can end as dead. Our life in the Spirit can fade, our joy in Christ can pass away and we can profess our faith out of habit not conviction. The evidences which we once possessed we may possess no longer. If we do not renew ourselves daily in Christ, drinking from the fountain of life and love which flows from His wounded side then we will lose Him. And that means that we shall have lost ourselves too.
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The painting is Christ in the Wilderness byIvan Kramskoy

The Gate & the Way

An Evangelical Christian preacher very often, if not always, preaches on the need for conversion. She will invite her hearers to accept Christ into their hearts and be born again. Catholics and other Christians are prone to finding this repetitive and tedious. They have, they think, already made that fundamental choice and are more interested in finding out the best way to translate it into their daily, hourly, lives. By contrast, Evangelicals often find Catholic preaching tepid and uninspiring. Moreover since it often focuses on outward behaviour it can lead an unconverted person to pursue an hypocritical life where they publicly conform with their bodies to Catholic usages but inwardly do not accept them and practice vices in private.

The late nineteenth century Quaker Hannah Whitall Smith reflected on a useful distinction which can be made here. There are Christians primarily concerned with foundation truths and those who mostly deal with superstructure truths-
"Foundation truths deal with the beginnings of things, superstructure truths deal with their development. The first show the entrance to the divine life, the last teach how to live and walk after we are in that life. Without the superstructure truths, the foundations remain bare and crude; without the foundation truths, the superstructure will be tottering and unsafe."
(The Unselfishness of God: Chapter 29)
Growing up she was exposed to much teaching about how she should live but not about why she should make such choices which were radically at odds with the world at large. When she encountered the Revivalist movement she, or at least her faith, went from being dead to being alive. This led her to direct her attention to the exhilarating task of making converts. But that was not the end of the story for her-
"As years have passed on and the foundations of our Christian life have been, as we believe, securely laid we have become more and more interested in the superstructure and now to some of us the old preaching which once we did not understand has become marrow and fatness to our souls. This is not so much because the preaching has changed as because we have changed."
(Quaker Writings: An Anthology)

The obvious thing to say at this point is that the Church needs balance and must find a way to combine both things. How it is to do this is a question above my pay grade to answer. To paraphrase Mr Spock, however, I will say that the needs of the many are often the same as the needs of the few or of the one. That is, each one of us who call ourselves Christian cannot afford to neglect either our own foundation or our superstructure. Specifically we cannot take our calling as an unexamined first assumption. We must continually revisit Christ, Christ Himself, and be born again in Him from out of the death of sin and forgetfulness which we constantly plunge ourselves into.

For Catholic and Orthodox Christians the sacrament of penance (confession) can play an important part in this process of renewal, unless it becomes a routine outward practice with no inward feeling attached to it. It could be said though that if we have many eggs the Lord has provided us with many baskets to put them into. That is, we have multiple ways open to us to return to our Divine source and seek refreshment. As we are each different then we may each find different methods more helpful to us. Prayer is one, daily examination of conscience is another, listening to charismatic preachers is a further option and so it goes on.

For my part I find nothing, outside of the sacraments, more powerful than the Gospel. When I approach it with a thirst for Jesus it always satisfies me. How you read the Gospel and why you read it will powerfully affect the impact it will have on you. When you pick it up longing with all your heart to encounter the Beloved then He will not hide Himself from you. In His divinity and in His humanity He is there, waiting for you, longing for you as you long for Him. Although I read from the Scriptures every day I do not always do so with the same attitude, few of us do. We must consciously call to mind the need to shore up our foundations and then open ourselves to what the Holy Spirit will do through the pages of that wonderful text to bring us to a rebirth in Christ.

Nor must we neglect our superstructures. The Church has produced many saints and their lives and examples can inspire us, teach us and guide us in our journey towards God. And we should recall that not all the saints are in heaven, some are among us still, some perhaps are our neighbours, our priests or teachers. Some, it maybe, do not yet embrace all the fullness of our faith but yet can still show us the effects of grace in the human heart. The Christian life is not only about doing but also about being. Sometimes the fastest way to travel is to stand still and the most deep reaching sound is silence. We can build up our faith lives and strengthen ourselves to help others by occasionally or frequently doing nothing but communing with our Father who is in heaven, His stillness to our stillness, His silence to our silence, His love to our love.

Although it is convenient to think about foundation and superstructure it is only an analogy. There are threads that weave their way through all of our aspects of life in Christ. There is, I think, no part or stage of the Christian life where we cannot offer up this heartfelt prayer which St Catherine of Siena has given to the Church-
"Lord, unmake me, and break the hardness of my heart, that I be not a tool which spoils Thy works"
May each one of us join ourselves to this petition and may the Good God in His mercy answer us.
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The painting is Pilger ins Heilige Land by Alois Niederstätter

Pentecost & the Idiot

And they were all filled with the holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim
Acts 2:4

There is an ancient Chinese saying that when the sage points at the moon the idiot looks at his finger. This refers to the idea that religious actions, practices and rituals which are designed to point beyond themselves to a transcendent reality are often transformed into ends in themselves, and dead ends at that. The 'spiritual but not religious' crowd, enemies of organised religion and theological liberals emphasise this idea and suggest that the individual presenting themselves before the ultimate spiritual reality is the only show in town. In this view the function of the Church is, at best, merely an organising one, to carry out good social work and to gather believers in one place so that they can form suitable affinity groups.

The saying, however, has an important secondary meaning which is often overlooked. We can see the moon without the help of the sage but we cannot see it through his eyes without his help and guidance. That is, both the sage and his finger are necessary parts of the process which transform our understanding of the moon into something which we did not possess before. From a Christian point of view it is sometimes argued that since we receive the Holy Spirit, who is God Himself, then what need do we have for formalised actions, practices and rituals since we can be guided directly? What happened in the days immediately after this gift was first received? St Luke tells us-
They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers.
Acts 2:42
So, although each believer had been touched by the Holy Spirit in order to grow in understanding, love and effective response they had recourse to the teachings brought to them by the companions of Jesus and to the spiritual strengthening offered by the sacrament of the Eucharist and by the liturgy. In that sense the Spirit is like the moon and the sage, we can each perceive its presence within us but to grow in response to its presence requires us to make an effort beginning with having the humility to recognise our own weakness and ignorance. The Apostolic Church is our sage and wise guide, the sacraments are the finger of God. Believers need them both if they are to both see and understand the true light which comes to us from the Father and the Son.

Blessed John Henry Newman, of course, expressed this idea with more elegance than I can hope to muster-
Our Prayers and Services, and Holy days, are only forms, dead forms, which can do us no good. Yes, they are dead forms to those who are dead, but they are living forms to those who are living. If you come here in a dead way, not in faith, not coming for a blessing, without your hearts being in the service, you will get no benefit from it. But if you come in a living way, in faith, and hope, and reverence, and with holy expectant hearts, then all that takes place will be a living service and full of heaven.
(Parochial Sermons Vol 7:13)

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The painting is Pentecost by  Jan Joest van Kalkar

Our Lady of the Window-A Vision

The declining sun lit up her sweet-sad smile, the folds of her blue mantle glowed softly. Below, the stone-flagged nave was dappled with multi-coloured shadows. For over a thousand years her delicate, fragile eyes had looked benignly on the people who passed backward and forward through her Son’s cathedral.

Many of these had scurried across the shaded space ignoring her. Others, half-aware of her presence and of her beauty had snatched hasty glances at her. Occasionally one or two individuals had stopped as if transfixed and had drunk their fill of the gifts of light which flowed through her and into the hearts of each woman or man who would accept them.

There was no one upon whom she did not smile; the empty headed and the wise, the ambitious and the contented, children of the pharisees, heirs of the Apostles. If the smile did not benefit each equally the fault lay not with the giver but with the recipient. People who will not be smiled upon will walk in a gloom of their own making.

Over that same thousand years too she had gazed upon the altar at the Eastern end of the nave. There the life, death and resurrection of her beloved Son had daily been made present in the midst of a mostly indifferent world. A spiritual truth become visible, like herself, under the veil of material forms. She did not weep at the sight, her weeping was done. Now her eyes were forever fixed on Him and would be though altar, window and cathedral should pass away into destruction.

In the city behind her as in the church before her much had happened since the first sunset had lit up her first smile. Crowned heads had risen and, quite literally in some cases, had also fallen. Fields had turned into factories, shepherds had become hirelings. Revolutions and wars, baptisms and marriages, martyrs and their murderers all had now slipped into the irrecoverable past. Sometimes the sound of cannon-fire had been heard, bombs too had fallen from the skies. In their houses the people of the city had trembled. Amongst them, some few in every generation, had been those who trembled more for her than for themselves. Hearing the explosions they had called to mind her delicate tracery, her thin, ancient, finely crafted glass. They knew how easy it was to destroy beauty, how difficult it was to create it, how impossible to restore it.

These few were the ones who had discovered the great secret, the window of our Lady was also a gateway. She was a channel who conveyed light to them and from them. She was more than the sum of her parts, the unmatched craftsmanship of medieval artisans, the materials of the builders, the vision of the Gothic architects, just as the light she conveyed was more than mere radiance from the sun. Anyone standing in the blue shadow of her mantle who turned dappled eyes towards her, accepting her gifts, found themselves lifted out of time and into eternity. That light from heaven transformed itself into heaven’s light within which flowed back through the gateway to its divine source. They became, if only for a moment, mirrors reflecting back the perfection which reached into them. And because the source was generous and gave abundantly when they left the window behind them they too became channels pouring out light to their neighbours in the form of selfless acts of love.

Our Lady of the Windows had sisters and because fragility and vulnerability was a necessary part of their beauty and usefulness some of these sisters had been shattered. Men marching beneath black flags or red ones had smashed them in the name of God or in the name of No God and they had vanished from the world forever. Yet the divine purposes had not been frustrated, He has many channels by which His light might be conveyed. But woe to those by whom that destruction has come. The gates which they have closed have been their own gates, their own path from darkness. They have locked themselves into their own dungeons. Woe to those who prefer ugliness to beauty, anger to gentleness, destruction to creation. They walk in hell already and it is a hell composed of their own hatefulness.

There are times when our Lady of the Window is clothed with the sun and there are times when she is crowned with the stars. She is a daughter of light, a dispenser of light. She is not, it is true, a creator of that which she shares but she draws people towards the One who is that Creator. May we too walk in the shadow of her mantle and be drawn through the sweetness of her smile into the presence of the Father of Light.

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Salvation: It's Not All About Me

Now if I have found favour in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favour in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.’  He said, ‘My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’ And he said to him, ‘If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favour in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.’
Exodus 33:13-16

Formulae like 'I accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour' are very commonly used among Evangelical Christians. They can act as the gateway marking the point at which a person becomes a Christian. In that sense they resemble the shahada, the Muslim profession of faith. What they don't resemble is the traditional Christian gateways which are baptism and the profession of the  Nicene creed. There are many things which could be said about this but I propose to focus on what I see as the excessive individualism which this approach to the faith both reflects and encourages.

The formula is theologically sound so far as it goes, its main problem is the premature use of the full stop. It makes the Christian faith in its totality appear to consist of a personal relationship between the individual believer and one member of the Blessed Trinity. This is at best inadequate and at worst positively misleading. If we consider the example of the relationship between God and Moses then we can see that the Prophet never considered himself to be simply an individual fragment of humanity standing before the Almighty One but as a part of the People of God, his well-being was bound up with theirs, theirs was bound up with his. When the Israelites worshipped the Golden Calf at Sinai the Lord planned to destroy them but to Moses He said 'of you I will make a great nation' (Exodus 32:10) Moses declined this honour and, as the psalmist put it 'stood in the breach before Him' (Psalm 106:23.) For the Prophet salvation was not merely a personal affair it was a national one also and his nation consisted of all those, whoever they may be, with whom God had entered into a Covenant relationship.

The New Covenant inaugurated by Jesus on the Cross does not negate this communitarian aspect of the relationship between God and His people. St Paul wrote 'If we are being afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation; if we are being consoled, it is for your consolation, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we are also suffering.' (2 Corinthians 1:6) The nation of God, the New Israel, is the Church which is not only a single body it is actually the body of Christ Himself. So when this same Paul was persecuting the Church Jesus could say to him 'why do you persecute me?' (Acts 9:4) This means, in fact, that the relationship between the Almighty and His people is closer than it was during the time of Moses, destroying Israel was always an option, destroying Himself is never a possibility.

There is an interesting phrase in the dialogue on Mount Sinai. The Lord says ‘My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’ Jesus echoed this later by saying 'Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.' (Matthew 11:28) On the mountain God is telling Moses that He will accompany the people Israel and that for all of them, for each of them He will be their rest and Jesus is not varying this message here. It follows from this that if we have a relationship with God that this includes everywhere that God is and everyone in whom God dwells therefore an exclusive focus on ourselves alone and our personal salvation is not an expression of the Christian faith but its negation. We do not enter into this rest of God other than as members of each other, indeed we, insofar as we are instruments and agents of our Lord, are called upon to be that rest for each person whom we encounter.

Another way of looking at this is from the angle of sin. Evangelicals hold, quite correctly, that we need salvation because we are sinners, but what is sin? In Spe Salvi Pope Benedict XVI looks at this and notes-
"14...sin is understood by the Fathers as the destruction of the unity of the human race, as fragmentation and division. Babel, the place where languages were confused, the place of separation, is seen to be an expression of what sin fundamentally is. Hence “redemption” appears as the reestablishment of unity, in which we come together once more in a union that begins to take shape in the world community of believers"

That which has caused our rupture with God is a crime against unity, against human solidarity, and so to repair that breach Jesus came to be at the heart of community, of solidarity above all with the suffering. If we are to be clothed with Christ (Galatians 3:27) then we too must be immersed wholly in lives of solidarity.

One of the advantages of baptism as the gateway to the Christian life consists in the fact that we cannot baptise ourselves. On our own, at home, in the car wherever, we can use the formula I accept Jesus Christ etc. in response to the radio, TV or internet. As our Christian journey starts in a bubble it could easily continue that way, we proceed as consumers of Christianity and Christian products. The necessity of community and communion is not immediately obvious from such a perspective. To be baptised is to present ourselves before the People of God and have the blessed names of Father, Son and Holy Spirit pronounced over us as we are washed in the sacramental waters. From the outset the message is clear- your salvation is not only personal. Apart from the people whom God has called together you will not be saved, apart from you they will not be saved. The ancient formula of the Nicene Creed explicitly and deliberately unites the concepts of community (Church= Ecclesia), baptism and resurrection so that together we can say-

I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins

and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead

and the life of the world to come. Amen.

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The picture is Moses by Lorenzo Monaco

Heaven in Ordinary

As Paul went on and on, a young man called Eutychus who was sitting on the window-sill grew drowsy and was overcome by sleep and fell to the ground three floors below.

Acts 20:9

If Eutychus isn't the patron saint of ordinary churchgoers then perhaps he should be. On days when the sky is blue, the sun is warm, the sermon is dull and a tall glass of something cool is waiting for you outside then who is the one whose attention would not waver at least a little? I don’t think that this is a cautionary tale (spoiler alert: it has a happy ending) its more an observation that even in the presence of the famous Apostle to the Gentiles human flesh is weak. If it were not there would have been no need for the Incarnation.

There are many positive arguments that can be made in favour of churchgoing but Eutychus I think points us towards a negative one. Church services can be dull or worse than dull. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. The temptation to think that the Church can pretend to be a part of the entertainment industry is something that should be firmly resisted. However well put together a service is, however many guitars or flashing lights that it has there will always be something much, much better to watch on TV or YouTube. If the demand of churchgoers is ‘entertain me’ then they need to be challenged but I don't think that that is what they/we do demand whatever worried pastors with declining congregations might think. Lively, inspiring and enlightening homilies are always welcome. Worthily celebrated sacraments are gratefully received. But even when these are not present there is still a reason to turn up week after week and if necessary do a Eutychus.

Our daily lives are filled with dull moments, with mediocrity, with routine. The thousand and one necessary things which we have to do, go to the shops, buy petrol for the car, endure a long commute, listen to boring anecdotes you've heard a dozen times before. Their dullness is as real as their necessity and we cannot dispense with either, they are part of what it means to live a human life. If an hour in church resembles an hundred other hours we have already spent in the previous week that doesn't represent a failure on the part of the pastor. It means that churchgoing is woven naturally into the fabric of our lives. It has this one difference though. At any moment from a phrase of scripture, the verse of a hymn, a sentence in the homily or the elevation of a Host or even a sunbeam dancing on the sanctuary at any moment I say we can suddenly be transpierced by the love of Christ. We can be moved from time to eternity. Transcendence should be a regular visitor to the Sunday service, coming and going as He pleases.

There is a need for Sacred Space and Sacred Time where we can concentrate on what is holy. More than that though there needs to be the possibility of interpenetration between the two. Where we are aware that ordinariness is a part of the church experience then we will also be aware that the sacred can invade and be a part of the ordinary experience too. Our dull days and routine activities, our falling asleep through boredom, are not exempt from an infusion of the divine. Eutychus points us towards this mingling of the two realms. The title of this piece is from the poem Prayer by the Anglican vicar George Herbert it ends with these words, the ‘something understood’ is the subject of this article-

   

Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,

         The land of spices; something understood.

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The painting is St Paul by Pompeo Girolamo Batoni

The Veiled Majesty of Jesus Christ

                                                           Ecce Homo- Cigoli

The Jews answered, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.”  Now when Pilate heard this statement, he became even more afraid
John 19:7-8

The Gospel accounts of the encounter between Pontius Pilate and Jesus are tensely dramatic and full of profound meanings. This exchange between Pilate and the mob occurred immediately after the scourged and mocked Jesus had been displayed publicly. There could be few individuals in the world who looked less divine than our Lord did at that moment. Yet to the mind of the Roman Governor these words of the Jewish crowd carried a ring of conviction. He clearly accepted the possibility that perhaps his prisoner was after all what He has apparently claimed to be. Why might that be?

There are various plausible explanations. As an occupying power the Romans would have had a good intelligence network which no doubt informed Pilate about the miracles attributed to Jesus in Judea and Jerusalem. Also he had received a message from his wife anent our Lord 'Have nothing to do with that righteous man. I suffered much in a dream today because of him' (Matt 27:19) Taken together these might have been sufficient to induce the Governor to take the claim of divinity seriously. I doubt this however. In the world of the first century Roman Empire claims about miracle workers and prophetic dreams were if not commonplace at least of sufficient frequency for them to be explained by things other than divine filiation.

It seems likely to me that there was something about the person of Jesus which conveyed outwardly the inward truth about His origins. It was not so obvious as to compel recognition or belief but it was there to be seen by anyone who looked closely enough. Pilate was, in effect, a politician. To get where he got to he had to have an ability to 'read' people. In Jesus he perhaps read something which at the least puzzled him. Our Saviour possessed what we would call charisma (although technically this is inapplicable in His case, I mean charisma in the popular sense.) We can only speculate as to how this might have manifested itself but it would probably take different form depending on the role that He was fulfilling. In this case He was on trial for His life, He had been abandoned by His friends, beaten by the Jews, scourged by the Romans. And yet His judge at least half-believed that He was the Son of God.

I have often wondered what it would be like to look into the eyes of Jesus. I feel that in those something essential about His mystery is to be seen. In the encounter between Judge and Judged I think that it was in the eyes of his prisoner that Pilate would have seen the intimation of the real nature of our Lord. He wavered before them for a while but then surrendered to the demands of the mob, as politicians will whatever their inner wisdom might tell them to do. He veiled his own eyes because he preferred power and applause to the uncertainties of the journey which the charisma of Jesus promised him.

Does this have any significance for us today? The Church is the Body of Christ. In many parts of the world like Him it is scourged and bloody, in other parts it is mocked and ridiculed, politicians turn away from it. Almost everywhere it is crowned with thorns. Yet veiled within it is the divine majesty of Christ. It is there to be seen by those who look. If it must face its Passion it can do so with a serene confidence in its Resurrection. Some vent their fury upon it precisely because they do sense that hidden divinity, others allow that fury to flow without seeking to hinder it because they, like Pilate, choose to veil their own eyes. As long, though, as the Church returns again and again to its divine source to draw strength and renew hope there are no defeats it cannot overcome, no losses it cannot sustain and no persecution it cannot survive. Try as they might the gates of hell will not prevail, the Church of Christ will survive until the time comes to greet its returning Lord. Vivat Christus Rex!

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Sense & Sensuality

                                     Allegory of Modesty and Vanity by Bernadino Luini

And the servants of the goodman of the house coming said to him: Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? whence then hath it cockle? And he said to them: An enemy hath done this. And the servants said to him: Wilt thou that we go and gather it up?  And he said: No, lest perhaps gathering up the cockle, you root up the wheat also together with it.

Matthew 13:27-29

In the last time there should come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodlinesses. These are they, who separate themselves, sensual men, having not the Spirit

Jude 1:18-19

Because I have a short attention span I've always had a soft spot for the Very Small Books in the Bible. I'm especially fond of the Old Testament books of Ruth and of Jonah. They are good stories and, apart from their religious content are full of little vignettes of human emotion from tender love to extreme crabbiness. The Very Small Books of the New Testament are more 'difficult' since they lack narrative and touch on deep spiritual and theological themes which you can't really get to grips with unless you have a good working knowledge of the ideas contained in the rest of the NT. Nonetheless the Catholic Epistle of St Jude the Apostle has several things going for it, its only 25 verses long, it illustrates the wheat and tares parable of our Lord and it is attributed to the patron saint of lost causes who is an appropriate patron for this little cottage blog that dreams of international stardom.

Essentially the letter concerns the presence within the body of Christ of those who do not truly belong to it. While it hints that there may be doctrinal disputes involved ("denying the only sovereign Ruler, and our Lord Jesus Christ" v4) it firmly lays the blame for those disruptive tendencies at the door of disordered desires. Like the Didache but less explicitly it presupposes that there are two ways, that of life and that of death the former rooted in the spirit and the latter in sensuality. St Jude gives a list of historical precedents for this kind of thing finishing with a threefold peroration-

Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain:

 and after the error of Balaam they have for reward poured out themselves,

 and have perished in the contradiction of Core

(Jude 1:11)

This echoes the first verse of the Book of Psalms

Blessed is the man

    who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

nor stands in the way of sinners,

    nor sits in the seat of scoffers

(Psalms 1:1)

Except that St Jude casts in a negative way (woe unto them) what David had cast in a positive one (blessed is the man.) It is significant that the three examples which he highlights relate examples of human vices specifically and directly to religious actions. The story of Cain (Genesis 4:1-16) displays anger and envy which leads to murder, this stems from the fact that the sacrifice offered to God by Cain's brother Abel is more pleasing to God than Cain's own offering. Balaam acts as a prophet-for-hire, that is although he has received a great gift from God, that of prophecy, he is willing to misuse that gift on behalf of the enemies of God if they pay him enough (Numbers 22.) Greed then is one of the traits that can lead us onto the way of death, doubly so perhaps if we abuse our God given charisma in the service of wickedness.

The episode of Core or Korah is probably less well known these days but it serves the author as a useful hinge since it illustrates both ways, that of life and that of death, thus giving us an early preview of his later positive prescriptions. Basically Korah leads a rebellion against the divine ordinance that reserves the priesthood to Aaron and his family "They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” (Numbers 16:3) So Korah and his followers stood with censers swinging to offer incense to God and Aaron and his sons did the same with rather unpleasant results for Korah et al. Here the sin described is envy (again!) aggravated by pride. This example was and is much to the point insofar as it relates to the Church. There are different roles within the body of Christ, the priesthood of all believers does not mean that each believer is called to fulfill the same function as each other believer. Some are called to be Apostles, some presbyters, some prophets, some teachers and so on. To aim at exercising a charism which God has not gifted you with is not obedience unto life but rebellion unto death.

                                                    Allegory of Chastity by Memling

St Jude's prescription for life is twofold, right belief (orthodoxy) as a necessary foundation for right action (orthopraxy.) While history and, no doubt, our own personal lives clearly evidences that there is often no real connection between what we profess to believe and what we actually do the theory here is that what we really and truly hold as our heart-beliefs is reflected in our outward actions, for better or for worse. Thus if we internalise orthodoxy we shall externalise orthopraxy. At this point the non-orthodox among you will begin to get red or purple in the face and evince a desire to jump up and down yelling irately that one does not have to be a Christian to 'do the right thing.' This is both correct and wrong, but not in equal measure. The correctness consists in the fact that heart-belief, to the extent that is good and virtuous, is always and only prompted by the grace of God. When your heart is aligned with His promptings and cooperates with them in your outward actions then you can to a greater or lesser extent be credited with orthopraxy. However, there are limitations to this if your response to grace is made while unconscious of the presence of grace since you attribute its promptings either to yourself, your sound reason, your innate goodness, or to the effects of the good example set by others, perhaps beginning with your parents. This means that the good actions you perform are limited to what, say, your reason finds to be a suitable response to the partly understood promptings of God felt in your heart. What you don't offer then is gratitude and praise to Him who is the source of both your will and your actions, nor can you strengthen yourself in continued good doing through a personal relationship with Him, through faith, in prayer and in the sacraments. Heartfelt orthodoxy is the only basis upon which consistent orthopraxy can be based which is not the same thing as saying that orthodoxy is the only basis for a life of good and generous acts.

So how according to St Jude can we know of what right belief consists? He gives us two hints firstly by talking of the faith once delivered to the saints (v3) and then later where he says be mindful of the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. (v17) It is worthy of noticing that in a short letter saturated with references to the Old Testament he does not suggest that Scripture alone should be the source from which orthodox belief is derived. In part this might be because as well as the biblical sources he uses our Apostle also quotes or refers to apocryphal or non-canonical sources such as The Assumption of Moses, the Book of Enoch and the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs. It is as if he is saying to the Christian community that there are a wide variety of written sources from which we can draw nourishment some of them contain this or that element of God's revelation to Man and some contain material which is edifying or useful but not revelatory and thus non-binding. The only sure fountain from which we can drink the water of salvation in all its purity is the teaching of the Apostles and the traditions which they have handed down (or for his contemporaries are still handing down since, of course the Epistle he was writing was part of that deposit of faith then being laid down.) In short, the Christian faith is Apostolic before it is scriptural.

Some one thousand eight hundred years later Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman reflected on this very question. In Apologia pro Vita Sua he wrote  the sacred text was never intended to teach doctrine, but only to prove it, and that, if we would learn doctrine, we must have recourse to the formularies of the Church.  His argument being that the complex, multi-layered, multiple genre containing Bible is not a thing which any individual can safely use to deduce the entire structure of belief from. We require to understand it in the same way that the Apostles guided by the Holy Spirit understood it (and in part wrote it) for which purpose the only available source to us is the continuous understanding of the Church which those Apostles founded and which continues in unbroken succession to this day. More than that in a sermon Faith and Private Judgement he described the process by which the contents of the Christian religion were received by the Church in its epoch of foundation. ...either the Apostles were from God, or they were not; if they were, everything that they preached was to be believed by their hearers; if they were not, there was nothing for their hearers to believe That is one did not analyse their words accepting this and rejecting that, this was a straightforward either/or choice. One cannot describe a religion based on Scripture Alone in the same way that one can describe that religion based on the Apostles because in the former one uses one's private judgement and the final arbiter of doctrine is personal opinion while in the latter it is the opinion of the Apostles which is to say the Holy Spirit to which one submits.        

So, having received the Apostolic faith what do we do with it, how does it express itself in action? St Jude gives us this description You, my beloved, building yourselves upon your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ (vv20-21.) Here the Apostle touches lightly upon a sequence of actions which to fully expound would take more space than this blog has and more knowledge than this blogger possesses. You can discern the three theological virtues of faith, hope and love in what St Jude says and of these three the greatest is love so perhaps the most effectual commentary on St Jude's prescription comes from St Paul-

Love is patient and kind; 

love does not envy or boast; 

it is not arrogant or rude. 

It does not insist on its own way; 

it is not irritable or resentful; 

it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, 

but rejoices with the truth. 

Love bears all things, 

believes all things, 

hopes all things, 

endures all things. 

Love never ends

(1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

The sensual man (meaning man or woman) whom our Apostle talks about in verse 19 is one whose love is primarily directed towards himself and restricted to the realm of material things and sensations. Over against this is the way of life, the way of good sense, grounded in the spirit and lived out as a life which is primarily directed outward to God and neighbour. For it is a fact that love of necessity is never a solitary thing, it always requires to overflow from the individual, it can only exist by being shared. To hoard it is to lose it, to spend it is to increase it. To the extent that the Church contains both wheat and tares one of the functions allotted to each grain of wheat is, by love, to transform each sensual seed into a new grain of wheat which will flourish and give forth some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold and some an hundredfold fruits of love and life.

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