Et Incarnatus Est

                                          The Newborn by Georges de La Tour 

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us
(John 1:14)

And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: ‘The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life.'
(Revelation 2:8)


The extreme adaptability of humans can be a mixed blessing. Their ability to exist and even flourish in extremes of nature caused by climate or terrain is a valuable survival tool. Their ability to do the same in the face of abnormal conditions caused by human folly or sin as in a tyranny, a religious cult or even a workplace run by incompetent managers is both a survival mechanism and a brake on effecting change. When something extraordinary becomes the 'new normal' it can take an extra effort to see just how unjust, unfair, dysfunctional or plain wrong it is and an even bigger effort to persuade people to do something about it.

Sometimes this adaptability has a more subtle effect still. When the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation began to be proclaimed it immediately provoked strong reactions. Jews thought it a horrible blasphemy, Greeks a foolish absurdity. From the moment of their first encounter with it they realised its revolutionary implications for the world of thought and religion and reacted accordingly. So radical were these implications that even many who were attracted by the figure of Jesus rejected them and most of the heresies which the primitive Church had to battle, from Gnosticism to Arianism, aimed quite precisely at removing the doctrine of Incarnation from the Christian credo.

However with the spread of Christianity and the passage of time Incarnation became the new normal. It's implications did not stop being revolutionary but these implications for the most part did stop being considered. Humans adapted to the extraordinary by banalising it, ignoring it or denying it under a form of words which implied accepting it. It belongs, however, to the peculiar genius of the Catholic Church that it is this doctrine above all others which she has held patiently, doggedly and unapologetically before the eyes of the faithful and the world these past two millennia or so. It is this which lies behind the myriad images of the baby Jesus and the crucified Christ, behind the cult of Mary and the saints, behind the relics, the shrines, the pilgrimages and most of all behind the holy sacrifice of the Mass as the 'source and summit of Christian life.' To the extent that we simply consider these things severally and together as just being the Catholic 'brand' the stuff that Catholics do then we miss the point that it is not just what Catholicism does but also what Catholicism is. To see why this is so we need to step back several paces so that we can encounter the doctrine of Incarnation as if for the first time.

From ancient times it has been an accepted psychological fact that people are often wracked by severe internal conflicts. St Paul expresses it in this fashion 'What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate' (Romans 7:15.) Conventionally this has been understood as the lower self battling against the higher self. It would still be so regarded indeed were it not that judgmentalism has become the only unforgivable sin in the modern West. The classic understanding saw the flesh at war with the spirit, the appetites with the intellect, the irrational with the reasonable. The model has much to commend it, so much so that secular social science renamed it 'deferred gratification' and adopted it to its own use. Hovering behind this paradigm is the 'why' question, why are we conflicted?, and the 'how' question, how can we resolve or escape from this conflict?

One answer, which comprehensively embraces Greek philosophy, Indian religion, Gnostic heresy and arguably some understandings of Protestantism is to see the spirit of a person being a different entity from the body of a person. The particular body which a person inhabits is an accident of history but the spirit and that alone is the essence of person. The spirit not the body has a relationship with God (or is identical to Him) and endures to eternity. This means that the object of the spiritual life is to leave the body behind. What the flesh does is either inimical to salvation or satori or God realisation or whatever or else it is irrelevant depending on your cult of choice. Gnosticism (inspired by Zoroastrianism) took this line of thought to its logical conclusion by suggesting that God only created spirit and that the material cosmos had been created by an evil demiurge. Everything material was wicked and spirits had fallen from the spiritual realm to become captives in the material one. Matter was despised and liberation from it was the only project worth pursuing. The Cathars expressed this idea by holding nothing to be more abhorrent than a pregnant woman representing as she did a newly captive spirit and procured abortions as the means by which the spirit could be set free to return to God

Not all such approaches go to the extremes of the Cathars but they do necessarily lead to either a passivity in relation to the body or an active hostility to it. The obverse of this view might be termed Dionysian which suggests that the appetites of the body exist to be served and that the apparatus of intellect and reason fulfils its purpose chiefly by delivering satisfactory sensual inputs to the body. This might be called a practical philosophy and whilst it has few advocates it certainly has innumerable adherents.

                                                       Deposition of Christ by Caravaggio 

Into all this comes the child Jesus, fully human and fully divine. Unlike a prophet or an enlightened teacher He is not simply a person filled with an abundance of spirit or who has more fully realised His essential nature concealed by the material barrier of Maya. Nor is He an Avatar of divinity who is human only in appearance or only temporarily. His humanity and His divinity are united eternally. The Logos of God is never not one thing with Jesus. Jesus is never separate from the Logos.  Because of the Incarnation the material universe in general and the human body in particular can be considered as part of the solution rather than as part of the problem. Bodies are not barriers to union with God or to salvation but an essential part of the equipment necessary to achieve these aims.

Certainly the flesh can fall under the dominion of sin (so can spirit and intellect of course) but it is not sinful by nature. Taking the classification of higher and lower functions the flesh is inherently vulnerable to temptation because of its greater distance from the seat of reason and spirituality but in the battle to control it inevitable victory belongs neither to good or evil. The body is always in a position to be retrieved from the dark side and more than that to become a positive force for good in the struggle for the triumph of light. Incarnation means that the whole person and every person can be saved and enter into a perfect relationship with the Divine Source of life. The Church, of course, counsels asceticism for her children and the world, the flesh and the devil are often highlighted as the enemies of salvation. This represents the important principle of balance between, in Aristotelian terms, excess and defect. The untamed flesh is an enemy, the tamed flesh is an ally. For the Gnostic or the Buddhist or even perhaps the extreme Lutheran the notion of 'tamed flesh' is inadmissible.

For God to enter so fully into the human condition, to become embodied, He begins His journey from within a body. That is, the project of Incarnation to be complete requires Jesus to be not only Son of God but also Son of Mary. His conception is miraculous but His gestation and birth follow the normal human pattern. He is as we are but without sin. There is no part of the human journey from conception to death which has not been divinised by His touch and which we also can therefore divinise by putting on Christ through faith. What the Cathars found abhorrent the Catholic finds to be suffused with the prospect of glory. And so we see, as I noted at the start, the cult of Mary is a celebration of the Incarnation of God through her. The cult of the saints is a celebration of the Incarnation made present in their lives through the actions of their bodies The relics, the shrines, the pilgrimages all point to the fact that material objects and places can, properly used, be not barriers to spiritual progress but, because of the Incarnation spiritual superhighways. And the supreme expression of this is the Eucharist where Divinity is not only made present under the appearance of bread and wine but is consumed and incorporated by the faithful. It is, perhaps, this sacrifice of the Mass which causes the greatest scandal to the greatest number of critics of the Catholic faith; atheists, Muslims, Jews, Protestants (or at least their most logically consistent spokespersons) all for different reasons find the notion appalling, revolting, disgusting, ludicrous and any number of other epithets you could think of. Good. I'm glad that this is so. It shows that the Church is faithful in its adherence to the central saving truth of its faith. When those who reject the doctrines of the Church approve of it worship and liturgies then it will be a sign that the Church has lost its way.

Non-religious readers who have made it this far may say that Incarnation is nothing more nor less than an elegant solution to a non-existent problem. Modern psychology has described and explained these internal conflicts and proposed solutions to them which do not require the notion of spirit or spirituality. It is not only beyond my powers to address this comprehensively but it would unduly try the patience of those poor souls who have already spent so much time with this blog which they started under the impression that it was a jolly Christmas story. I will just say that psychology is a useful science and has given us many tools which are helpful in healing troubled souls. What it hasn't done is disproved God and, moreover, to the extent that material techniques are useful in addressing spiritual needs it can be argued that it confirms more than it refutes the notion that divinity can find a home in the bodies of men and women because Jesus has made all things possible

Read my Christmas fable Adoration of the Pangolins  on Wattpad
Follow @stevhep on Twitter, Google+ and Tumblr. Follow Catholic Scot on Pinterest.
Like the Catholic Scot Blog Page on Facebook.

Some of my earlier blogs have been collected as This Contemplative Life and can also be downloaded from Wattpad

Making a Home for Divine Love

                                          St John the Evangelist- by Valentine de Boulogne

A Reflection on 1 John 4:7-18

v13: This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us of his Spirit

v15: Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God

v16:...God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him

Very rarely do we perceive something as it actually is in itself. Normally when we observe an event or read a text we do so through the eyes of our personal history, our beliefs, our cultural background and our personality. In the fraction of a second between our seeing something and it presenting itself as an idea in our mind a whole interpretative process takes place. When we explain this event or text to ourselves or to others we may fondly imagine that we are doing so in an objective fashion but we are not. Our explanation is a complex hybrid of the thing in itself and our commentary upon it. Sometimes an event or text will catch us by surprise; by being so far outside of our normal terms of reference it will present itself almost unmediated to our mind shocking us as it were into responding to the thing itself. As time passes, however, our interpreting mechanisms will get to work on it and when we come to retell the event or text then our account of it will, unconsciously to us, increasingly diverge from our original response. Eventually we will settle on a final account which brings it entirely within our preexisting mental and psychological framework. Only if the event or text carries with it enough force to fundamentally alter ourselves so that our framework itself is changed will this revisionism not happen. Every encounter, therefore, with an event or text involves a transformation, either we transform it in our minds or it transforms who we are.

This process is profoundly significant when we come to consider the Sacred Scriptures. When we read this or that portion of them their meaning may strike us as perfectly obvious and we are surprised when others propose alternative meanings, supposing perhaps that this proceeds from mere perverseness on their part. There are at least two extremely plausible ways of understanding the three propositions by St John which I have listed. Each choice once made leads on to concrete real world actions and therefore the choice is of more than academic importance. How we make that choice, or indeed if we even become aware that a choice is to be made, will for most of us depend upon our ready made bank of predispositions.

The propositions are that in order for us to remain in God and for God to remain in us we must-

• Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit
• Acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God and
• "Remain in love."

It might be that the Apostle intends to convey that these things are simultaneous and inseparable. This would mean that only those who acknowledge the divinity of Jesus also receive the Spirit and remain permanently loving. It would follow then that only Christians receive these gifts and attain these heights. It also follows that if these things are inseparable then they can only be achieved instantaneously. That is, we have the classic 'born again' experience where the descent of the Spirit, the confession of Jesus as Lord and the infusion of a state of grace filled with love all happen in an instant. And having happened they cannot unhappen unless the believer consciously apostatises. This means in effect that the spiritual life of the Christian consists of a constant attempt to chase the dragon since the spiritual impact of the moment of conversion is a peak experience which represents the point to which the believer always wishes to return.

It is no less plausible, however, to understand the Apostle as suggesting a sequence of events, a series of steps from a lower state to a higher one. An idea that gains strength if we suppose that a fourth proposition is intended in a slighter later verse v18..perfect love drives out fear Thus the sequence would be-

• Receiving the Spirit then
• Acknowledging Jesus as Son of God then
• Abiding in love then
• Attaining perfect love.

The first stage at least becomes universally accessible without explicit faith and for Christians the Christian life can be seen more in terms of process than event although conversion experiences and peak experiences can form part of that process.    

Looking at the first step we see that it is a gift. The initiative comes from God and is unearned by the recipient. The Spirit operates in an infinite variety of ways and often with great subtlety so it would be unwise to lay down rigid parameters and say that it requires in all cases to be an overwhelming experience of the kind outlined in Acts2. However St Paul in 1 Thessalonians 1:5 suggests that 'power' and 'conviction' accompany the gift. This would mean that it comes under the category of an event which presents itself to our mind in the first instance unmediated and as it is (or more properly as He is) in itself. Our response to it then becomes to some degree formed not by ourselves but by that to which we are responding. The Holy Spirit though takes seriously the idea that there is no compulsion in religion (more seriously perhaps than many of the adherents of the book where these words first occurred.) That being so the person who receives the gift can reject it, run with it or subject it to an interpretative framework which significantly alters the explanation that one would offer for the thing in itself. Christians would argue that the Holy Spirit carries its own explanation with it in the sense that the Holy Spirit is inseparable from the other two persons of the Blessed Trinity nonetheless, however, except in exceptional circumstances the person receiving the gift will have to seek for an explanation of it from a source which will precisely correlate the experience with the explanation. This source is the Christian Church, we see in the Acts of the Apostles and in the New Testament Epistles that the Apostles and those delegated by them as missionaries explained the gift in relation to Jesus. Subsequent generations of the Church could additionally use the Scriptures themselves as explanatory resources but it remains primarily the task of the Church and not of the texts.

There is no good reason to suppose that God restricts the gift of the Spirit only to those who subsequently go on either to become Christians or to those who explicitly reject Christianity. God created Man in order to love Him and be loved by Him in an eternal relationship of ever greater depth and strength. Where a person find themselves in a situation where are insuperable obstacles to them accessing the comprehensive explanation of the gift offered by the Church then they can respond to it in the best way they know how and grow to the fullest stature available to them in this life as a prelude to an eternity of intimate knowledge of God. This does involve a loss on their part relative to Christians though. Firstly, by not having access to the sacraments of the Church, especially baptism, reconciliation and the eucharist they are not strengthened on their journey. Secondly, by not having an explanation for the thing in itself which fully corresponds to that thing they are faced with internal dissonances which may tend to weaken their response to it. Thirdly they are deprived of the possibility of that personal relationship with Jesus which is the fundamental axis around which the entire relationship of Man redeemed from his sinfulness and a just and merciful God revolves.

Which brings us to Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God.  This is the second step along the road to perfect love. Earlier in his letter St John writes every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh belongs to God (1 John 4:2) Abrahamic religions like Judaism or Islam are happy to acknowledge the reality of a relationship between Man and God but utterly reject the notion of incarnation. Hinduism will acknowledge the presence of God on earth in the form of avatars like Lord Krishna but do not develop a theology of incarnation because the flesh, indeed all matter, is something that is left behind when we enter perfection which is a purely spiritual state. Buddhism will accept that an individual like Gautama Buddha can achieve an earthly perfection but that too is merely a prelude to abandoning the body and all connected with it in eternity. The USP of Christianity is its proclamation that God became Man by nature that Man might become God by participation. That is, that the second step on our road is our being clothed with Christ (Galatians 3:27.) God abiding with us is not a transitional phase before we shed this mortal form finally and forever. It is a transformative experience in which all that we are, body, soul and spirit, is readied for a time of renewal when all that we are enters joyously into the eternal bliss of a risen life with Christ. It also makes sense of the second half of the equation. The first part, God abiding in us, is relatively easy to conceptualise. Our abiding in God where God is considered in terms of an abstract spiritual entity of infinite power and perfections is practically impossible to conceptualise until or unless we are incredibly far advanced along the spiritual path. Jesus, in whom our and His humanity and His divinity are united indissolubly, however, is a much easier object of contemplation. We can more readily imagine dwelling in Him and He in us than we can if He did not form such a perfect bridge for us.

The third step is a remaining or an abiding in love.We can conceive of it in this way Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light (Matthew 11:29-30) and also like this Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. (John 14:27) Beyond a certain point the concepts of 'rest' 'peace' and 'love' merge into one another because their meeting point is the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This is no chasing the dragon kind of spirituality but a process of growth into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. (Ephesian 4:13) By accepting the gift of the Spirit and responding to it in and through the incarnate Son of God and Son of Mary then we enter into a relationship which is not intellectual alone or emotional alone or spiritual alone or anything alone it is a personal relationship involving the whole person of both participants in that relationship. And since the whole person of Jesus includes His divinity He constantly raises us higher and higher towards Himself so that we become more like Him. As He is, so are we in this world (1 John 4:17)

I would like to speak of the fourth step, the perfect love that casts out fear. Unfortunately I am uniquely unqualified to do so. I am far from that state. If you, dear reader should ever attain it please remember me in your prayers.

    
                   The Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist from the workshop of Oostsanen

 Whenever we read St John it is always worth holding in our mind the fact that he was an adopted son of Mary Immaculate (John 19:26-27) They shared a home, probably for some years, and no doubt often talked about not only the one thing most of all which brought them together, Jesus, her Son and his Master, but also, if you will, the spiritual autobiography of Mary. Additionally the Evangelist had constantly before him her example of a life absorbed in the perfection of love for God and neighbour. So when he came to write about these things it would be our Lady which formed the model which he held in his mind as he wrote. We can do the same. Her generous response to the Spirit, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word. (Luke 1:38) Her acknowledgement of Jesus, My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour (Luke 1:46-47) Her abiding in love, And his mother kept all these words in her heart. (Luke 2:51) And her fearlessness in love Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother (John 19:25) Each of these severally and all of them together should serve us as the most noble of examples to follow. Not only this but if, despite the beauty of the Incarnation we still have difficulty in envisaging our abiding in God through Jesus, since He is after all the sovereign Lord of Creation and the Judge who is gravely offended even by the least of our sins, then we can take refuge in the Immaculate Heart of Mary which is a perfect mirror of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. If we have not yet attained to the love which is free from fear then in the gentle and merciful Heart of Mary we can find solace and refreshment and through her prayers and the grace which flows through her hands we can hope in time to come to that blessed state.

Follow @stevhep on Twitter, Google+ and Tumblr. Follow Catholic Scot on Pinterest. Like the Catholic Scot Blog Page on Facebook.

 

An Everyday Assumption

                                                Coronation of the Virgin by Fra Angelico

He hath given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature
2 Peter 1:4

Draw us onward with the sweetness of your voice, that one day, after our exile, you may show us Jesus, the blessed Fruit of your womb, O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.
Pope Venerable Pius XII

One reason why the Church celebrates certain feasts, such as Easter and Christmas, with particular solemnity is that they have a universal applicability. That is to say, after we have put away our festal party frock and resumed our workaday dress the content of the feast which is celebrated on one day continues to have vital relevance on all the other 364 days of the year. [NB. the frock and the dress can be either literal or metaphorical as the case may be.] Recently some of my non-Catholic friends on social media, they know who they are, expressed some bemusement about my rejoicing on the occasion of the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary so it struck me that it might be useful to say something about what this feast is all about and why its importance overflows into the daily life of the Christian.

Quite simply the Church celebrates this fact-
The Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory 
Munificentissimus Deus
This was proclaimed a dogma of the Church in November 1950 by Pope Pius XII of blessed memory although it has been celebrated and believed in by Christians since ancient times as he outlines in the Apostolic Constitution which I have just quoted. Among Eastern Christians it is celebrated under the perfectly splendid title of the Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God. The word dormition has the same root as dormouse and refers to the falling asleep of the Virgin which preceded her Assumption into heaven.

In the whole course of the 20th century the Catholic Church only once exercised, via the Pope ex cathedra, her infallible teaching office in order to affirm as certainly true what had only been received as probably true before. At the halfway point of this most troubled of centuries and only 5 years after the end of the most destructive war in human history she proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption. Christians of the Reformation traditions (often called Protestants) might argue that what the world most needed was to have Jesus proclaimed, not Mary. Non-Believers might argue that instead of indulging in such magical realism the Church would be better employed in feeding the hungry, tending the sick and housing the homeless. In part of course the critics are right so far as their instincts go but err in their judgement. In proclaiming Mary Assumed by Jesus, because of her love for Jesus and His for her, the Church precisely proclaims Jesus to the world and show the effects of His involvement as Emmanuel, God with us. And amongst those Catholics who do in fact commit themselves to feeding the hungry and so on there are few whose commitment is not enriched and strengthened by their devotion to Mary and there are none whose work is not made more effective through her prayers and the graces which flow through her hands as Mediatrix of all Grace.

It is obvious why we might be glad for our Lady that she has been reunited with her Son in much the same way as we might be glad when a friend passes an exam or marries their beau ideal but what practical effect does it have on our daily life? If you have read my blog about Mary-Mirror of Perfection you might recall the Jubilee Prayer which includes these words-
because you are the star of the morning, the gate of Heaven,
and the first resurrected creature
The words 'first resurrected creature' contain in very few words an idea I am about to use many words to explain. In this kind of context 'creature' is a technical term it follows from the role of God as Creator, those living things which He creates are referred to generically as creatures. 'Resurrection' refers to rising from the dead never to die again. So, in Scripture Jesus is the only Resurrection recorded but He cannot strictly speaking be referred to as a creature since He is fully God as well as being fully Man. Scripture records other people, such as Lazarus (John 11:38-44,) rising from the dead but in time they would again die so the term resurrection cannot be applied to them. Similarly Scripture arguably records two people, Enoch (Genesis 5:24) and Elijah (4 Kings 2:11), who were translated into heaven but they did not first die so again resurrection does not apply to them.

Being first has a double significance to it. It means that no one was before Mary, her Son accorded her a unique privilege, and it also means that others will follow her. She is not the first and the last she is the first of many. So for us Mary is a pioneer. Her faith in the Father, her co-operation with the Spirit and her love for the Son were of such a superlative order that she has precedence over all other Christians yet all who share in that faith, co-operation and love for God have a share too in the gifts that flow from it. In the vision of Mary Assumed the Catholic can fill their own lives with hope and raise up their hearts at all times. 'Pie in the sky when you die' the atheist will say. If that was the sum total of the gift to us from the Assumption then they would have a good point but as usual with God's gifts it overflows with abundance and cannot be limited to just one thing. If our Lady is now seated with honour in the heart of heaven it is because heaven was first seated with honour in her own heart. Entering heaven is not about endless time it is about a continuously present eternity and we can enter eternity now and experience it now by opening our hearts to the eternal God and giving Him a dwelling place. A necessary prelude to the Assumption was the indwelling of the Spirit in the Theotokos and a prelude to our own eventual resurrection is a similar if lesser indwelling and this transforms our lives here, it transforms our lives now and if we remain faithful it transforms them forever.

It is important to notice also that this is among other things a physical event. From the very get-go Christianity has been vigorously challenged about the whole notion of the Incarnated God and the physically resurrected Christ as forerunner to a general and universal resurrection. It was about this very point that the Sadducees challenged our Lord (Mark 12:18) and the Athenians ridiculed St Paul (Acts 17:32.) Gnostics, Cathars, Buddhists, Baha'is and theologically liberal Protestants can all unite around the idea that life from eternity and into eternity is purely a spiritual thing in which the body has no part. If life continues beyond death and attains a happier state than now it is because the body which is an encumberance and a stumbling block is 'left behind' (to coin a phrase). Indeed matter itself in any form is a potent source of evil and the spirit alone is or can be the only source of good and happiness. 'Not so' says the Church, by uniting Himself essentially and forever to a body of flesh Jesus, the Divine Logos, has divinised matter, He has become Man by nature that Man the whole of Man can become God by participation. Our Lord who desired the most supreme possible blessedness for His mother did not permit her body to be subject to corruption and decay, the Assumption is a triumphal affirmation that perfect happiness for humans is an exaltation of all that it means to be human, not spirit alone, not soul alone but spirit, soul and body. And it reminds us day by day that we must give our bodies what is due to them, if they make bad masters opening to us the gates of damnation they also make excellent servants sharing in the joys of eternal beatitude if only we use them wisely.

Protestants may say that this is all very well but where in Scripture can we find a reference to the Assumption? In Munificentissimus Deus Pope Venerable Pius XII refers to a number of figures or types of the Assumption which contain the mystery under a veiled form but essentially these are secondary sources. The belief has been held in the Church since ancient times, it has been celebrated in the West and in the East, it is fitting that God should have acted in this way and it is not contrary to Scripture. As the First Vatican Council put it- all those things are to be believed by divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the written Word of God or in Tradition, and which are proposed by the Church, either in solemn judgment or in its ordinary and universal teaching office, as divinely revealed truths which must be believed. There is nothing in Scripture which says that Scripture Alone should be our rule of faith and neither Catholic nor Orthodox Christians feel constrained to ignore what has been handed down from antiquity simply because it has no express warrant in the Bible. Scripture is a sure guarantee against error if we do nothing which contradicts it but it is an unsure source of doctrine when read without reference to the continuous beliefs of the People of God as the ever growing multiplicity of Protestant sects all too sadly confirms.

Another powerful help to our daily Christian journey comes from the knowledge that the Son, who through love of His mother raised her to heaven, cannot fail to respond positively to her prayers. In Mary we have a highly effective intercessor. As the Marian prayer Memorare puts it Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided.  Protestants argue against this that since we can pray to Jesus ourselves why should we need intercession? To which we can  reply that we have an explicit injunction in Scripture itself to seek intercession from others-
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful.           James 5:16
That Mary is righteous beyond all others we can know from the fact of her Assumption therefore we can have every confidence in her intercession. It is also worth considering this point You ask but do not receive, because you ask wrongly (James 4:3.) The Saints and the Blesseds have greater success with their prayers than you or I because they know how to ask aright. That is to say their prayers are not infused with their own egos and passions nor do they act as conduits for the egos and passions of others but their prayers proceed from pure love to Him who is pure Love itself. And since Mary is filled beyond all others with love for her Son Jesus who can doubt that her prayers are asked with perfect rightness and are heard with gladness by our Lord? All that is impure and awkward in our petitions is transmuted by flowing through her hands so that they come to Christ in forms which are perfectly suited to our real needs.

But how can Mary hear all these prayers offered up day and night by millions around the globe the objector asks? How can I hear your objection? I hear it because God has made it possible for you to communicate and for me to understand your communication. Is it more difficult for God to make it possible for Mary to hear many communications than it is for Him to enable me to hear one? If Mary were in time she might be overwhelmed but she is not in time she is in eternity. Those Christians who believe it possible for God to enable the dead to rise with their bodies after thousands of years in the grave, and who can empower an Elisha or a St Paul to raise the dead themselves but impossible for Him to allow Saints to hear prayers have a very limited notion of omnipotence.

There is so much more that could be said but I will consider just one final thing. One of the Marian titles is Our Lady of Sorrows.

As Simeon prophesied (Luke 2:35) our Lady had her soul pierced by a sword not just once but many times. Her life, like the lives of so many of us, was marked by loss, anxiety and pain. Above all that unnatural loss that every mother fears, a child who dies while its parent still lives, was enacted in brutal and horrific reality in front of her eyes. Yet that soul did not break because it was linked with that of her Son in a love stronger than death. Through sorrow she was sustained by Him and that love which was and is mutual was not conquered by the end of her own earthly life it triumphed to raise her up to where she always longed to be. And we in our own sorrows to the extent that we possess that love of Jesus and recall to our minds the dogma of the Assumption can be assured that sorrows will have an end but the love of God for us is without end and without measure. There is no despair so bleak that it can overwhelm a firm faith in the Assumption as a guarantor of how the friends of God are cherished by God. It is important to recall, of course, that our ability to hold this faith can be gravely impaired by mental illness or some other factor which incapacitates our judgement and which is known to God alone to whom we can safely entrust the souls of all those who have died under the influence of such unblameable despair.

St Paul famously outlined the three theological virtues as being faith, hope and love (1 Corinthians 13.) We can see each of these three as being powerfully present in the Assumption. Through them and by them Mary was raised to heaven. Through meditating upon the Assumption, or at least frequently recalling it, we as Christians can grow in each of these virtues and above all in love which is, as it were, the fuel that powered the flight of Mary from the grip of the tomb into the arms of her beloved Son. May the prayers of Mary, Mother of God and Queen of Heaven, help us to find our way to the same destination.


Follow @stevhep on Twitter, Google+ and Tumblr. Follow Catholic Scot on Pinterest. Like the Catholic Scot Blog Page on Facebook

A Fond Embrace

And taking a child, he set him in the midst of them. Whom when he had embraced, he saith to them:
(Mark 9:35)

This episode is included in three Gospel accounts but only St Mark includes the detail that Jesus embraced the child. It is, indeed, one of the characteristic features of Mark that such little human touches are recorded. For example, in all the accounts of our Lord asleep in a storm tossed boat only this Evangelist tells us that Jesus was "sleeping upon a pillow." (Mark 4:38) Tradition tells us that St Mark was secretary to the Apostle Peter and that essentially his Gospel account is a retelling of the stories which Peter himself first told him. Such little details as this certainly bear the hallmarks of an eyewitness account and the breakneck speed at which Mark rushes through the story with its profusion of 'at once's' and 'immediately's' certainly fits in with the impetuous personality of St Peter that is so vividly described in all four of the canonical Gospels.

However that might be the fact before us is that Jesus embraced the child. We can say that this was a gratuitous act. Had it been necessary to the point He was making then all the Evangelists accounts would mention it. It was unnecessary from the illustrative point of view but, in a sense, necessary from the point of view of a Sacred Heart overflowing with love. That is to say Jesus could not help hugging the child because He who is love Himself cannot act contrary to His nature and Incarnated love embraces a child and does not just use her or him as an instrument for however exalted a purpose. Humans, or indeed any creature, can never be mere instruments in the hands of love and human children least of all. So when Jesus set the child before the Apostles His primary purpose was to teach them a lesson about humility but in thinking about the Apostles He did not forget the child.

The embracing of the child in and off itself is a lesson to us. It teaches us that love must express itself and, moreover, that it must express itself in deeds as well as or instead of words. There is no record of our Lord speaking to the child, though no doubt He did, but there is this description of the embrace. There is an important point too about incarnation. Between Spirit and Matter there is a constant tension. A continuous dwelling upon the weaknesses of the flesh and the superiority of the Spirit could lead us into imagining that all Matter and its needs and desires are nothing but evil, total depravity, and all things of the Spirit are good because partaking of Divinity. Such indeed was the perspective of the various Gnostic heresies, like Catharism, and the idea can be seen to appear at various times within most religious traditions. The Incarnation of the Son of God and Son of Mary, however, means that Matter too now partakes of Divinity, flesh is indissolubly linked to God for all eternity. And so the happiness that the child felt at being embraced and the Love that expressed Himself in embracing that child have no part of evil and constitute undiluted good.

The truths which are taught in the Gospels are timeless but each generation comes to read them through the eyes of their own time. For us, at least in the West, the image of a man hugging a child raises at least subliminally feelings of anxiety. The scandalous abuse of many children by some men, including  ordained pastors, had sent shock waves deep into our consciousness. Reason may tell us that such abusers are few in number and that tactile expressions of love by men towards children are overwhelmingly innocent in intent. But subconscious anxieties are seldom susceptible to reason alone. The horror which we rightly feel at such crimes stirs up an emotion which is linked to an established fact, some men behave in this fashion, and as long as the horror endures so too shall the subliminal anxiety. This is another incarnational fact, humans possess reason but are not purely rational creatures.

 The Church recognises that at times, on the wings of faith, we can rise above reason and soar into regions well beyond its limits. She recognises also that at times, weighed down by fear, we can fall below the level of reason. The response is not, or should not be, to chide and to scold. It is human to fear and to fear excessively is neither fully reasonable nor entirely unreasonable, it is simply human. If our mind accepts the image of Jesus embracing the child for what it is but our heart, in this generation, is troubled or subliminally uncomfortable about it then she proposes an alternative icon. The embrace of Mary is more than merely unproblematic to us it is an illustration of precisely the same point that Mary's Son was making. Overflowing love has and must have and is divinely ordered to have a physical expression. It is common to see images of our Lady embracing the child Jesus, I have one before me as I write this, but that is not the image I have in mind. At the foot of the Cross the Beloved Disciple was given into the care of Mary and he into hers. Who can doubt that they embraced, and which Christian is not a beloved disciple of Jesus? The lesson that Jesus and Mary teach cannot be defiled or befouled by criminal acts nor should we be afraid to proclaim it. Chaste love which does not express itself is incomplete at best and no love at all at worst.


Follow @stevhep on Twitter Google+ and Tumblr, follow Catholic Scot on Pinterest

The Logos in sight.

 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

John 6 

For St John the Theologian seeing or looking upon Jesus is an important part of the Good News. It can be seen as a running theme through much of his Gospel account. Almost the first words he reports our Lord saying are "come and see", words which St Philip echoes on his first evangelical mission to St Nathaniel. Our Lords final reported words. to St Thomas, in what was probably the originally planned final chapter (20) are “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John 20 John does not use words without a purpose nor does he write without a schema in mind. At one level he appears to be saying that with the Ascension one mode of access to the Saviour, with the eyes, is closed and henceforth the believer is less richly gifted than the Apostolic generation of His followers. Indeed the opening of his first letter points clearly to this theme   1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. 1 John 1

St John can believe firmly, fully and truly because he has seen. Is he calling upon us to believe in the same way simply because we trust implicitly in his witness and the testimony of the other Apostles? Perhaps he is, but he is also more subtle than that. Different kinds of people will believe the same thing for different kinds of reasons. The words of the Evangelists carry conviction for those who find good cause to believe them reliable reporters. Others will approach from the opposite angle and seek to establish the reports accuracy before crediting the reporters (and who nowadays trusts a reporter?). For these St John provides pointers to the sort of direct experience of Jesus which will have the power to convince. In the chapter containing my opening quote there is guidance to experiencing the Incarnated Christ in the Eucharist, but this is about taste, touch and sensation as a form of the Divine encounter it does not address the experience of looking on the Son.

Does the Theologian provide such pointers to the experience of seeing Jesus as well? I think he does in two ways, via the fullness of the Incarnation and via the absence, as it were, of the Incarnation. Firstly, St John gives a vivid account of the Passion. Pilate displaying the scourged Saviour says "Behold the man" and again "Behold your King" (John 19) and then he delivers Him over to be crucified. And as He is taken down from the Cross the Theologian concludes his account with the words “They will look on him whom they have pierced.” There are different ways of reading the Gospels. One, perhaps the most widespread, is to study them for meaning. Another is to inhabit them, to enter into their life with our own lives. For the first generation of Christians, mostly illiterate perhaps, the Gospels were heard spoken by those deeply moved and convinced by them. Sometimes, indeed, spoken by eyewitnesses to the events described or fellows of the Apostles. For those hearers those accounts were inhabited. They almost literally saw them. As they took them away in their minds and hearts and meditated upon them in the days and hours after they could experience a good deal of what it meant to look on the Son, broken, bruised and bleeding, and so believe in Him, entering thus upon eternal life.

For me, however, the clearest description of the Son and the most direct way I have found to look on Him is to be found in these words that the Theologian addresses to us-

 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 1 John

What form could the Son have before there was form at all? Before there were forms there were Persons. One Person, who later could be described "he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him." Isaiah 53, was first the Logos. Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher spoke, long before Christianity, of the Logos in this way All things come out of the One and the One out of all things. ... I see nothing but Becoming. Be not deceived! It is the fault of your limited outlook and not the fault of the essence of things if you believe that you see firm land anywhere in the ocean of Becoming and Passing. You need names for things, just as if they had a rigid permanence, but the very river in which you bathe a second time is no longer the same one which you entered before. The Son is the rational principle underlying God's creation because He was first of all a Divine Person of the Blessed Trinity. To look on the Son and believe in Him means to look upon the self giving principle that empties Himself that we may be full. Who empties Himself for love, in love and through love. Who uses love to render hate void and weakness to overcome strength. Whom darkness can neither overcome nor comprehend. To look upon all this with thankfulness is to do all that is required to see the Son and enter in upon His promises.

My online presence is at-

http://www.facebook.com/CatholicScotBlog

https://twitter.com/stevhep