A Necessary Clarification

36. Wherefore, strictly adhering, in this matter, to the decrees of the pontiffs, our predecessors, and confirming them most fully, and, as it were, renewing them by our authority, of our own initiative and certain knowledge, we pronounce and declare that ordinations carried out according to the Anglican rite have been, and are, absolutely null and utterly void.

Thus, Pope Leo XIII in Apostolicae Curae defined the reality of Anglican ordinations. A few days ago, I was discussing this with a Catholic who did not understand that Anglican orders are and have been invalid.

Catholics recognize that their priests are in the line of Apostolic Succession-the unbroken tradition of the laying of hands in the Sacrament of Ordination which goes back to Christ's call of the Apostles. The Eucharist is only valid when consecrated by validly ordained Catholic priests. 

Pope Leo XIII clearly did not mess with modern "false ecumenism".

39. We wish to direct our exhortation and our desires in a special way to those who are ministers of religion in their respective communities. They are men who from their very office take precedence in learning and authority, and who have at heart the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Let them be the first in joyfully submitting to the divine call and obey it, and furnish a glorious example to others. Assuredly, with an exceeding great joy, their Mother, the Church, will welcome them, and will cherish with all her love and care those whom the strength of their generous souls has, amidst many trials and difficulties, led back to her bosom. Nor could words express the recognition which this devoted courage will win for them from the assemblies of the brethren throughout the Catholic world, or what hope or confidence it will merit for them before Christ as their Judge, or what reward it will obtain from Him in the heavenly kingdom! And we, ourselves, in every lawful way, shall continue to promote their reconciliation with the Church in which individuals and masses, as we ardently desire, may find so much for their imitation. In the meantime, by the tender mercy of the Lord our God, we ask and beseech all to strive faithfully to follow in the path of divine grace and truth.

Some of the confusion has to do with the difference between intent and the words of ordination. But, the good pope covered this point as well. I read a modern commentator on line who was confused on this point, a convert from Anglicanism, who did not understand the following illumination.

32. Many of the more shrewd Anglican interpreters of the Ordinal have perceived the force of this argument, and they openly urge it against those who take the Ordinal in a new sense, and vainly attach to the Orders conferred thereby a value and efficacy which they do not possess. By this same argument is refuted the contention of those who think that the prayer, "Almighty God, giver of all good Things", which is found at the beginning of the ritual action, might suffice as a legitimate "form" of Orders, even in the hypothesis that it might be held to be sufficient in a Catholic rite approved by the Church.

33. With this inherent defect of "form" is joined the defect of "intention" which is equally essential to the Sacrament. The Church does not judge about the mind and intention, in so far as it is something by its nature internal; but in so far as it is manifested externally she is bound to judge concerning it. A person who has correctly and seriously used the requisite matter and form to effect and confer a sacrament is presumed for that very reason to have intended to do (intendisse) what the Church does. On this principle rests the doctrine that a Sacrament is truly conferred by the ministry of one who is a heretic or unbaptized, provided the Catholic rite be employed. On the other hand, if the rite be changed, with the manifest intention of introducing another rite not approved by the Church and of rejecting what the Church does, and what, by the institution of Christ, belongs to the nature of the Sacrament, then it is clear that not only is the necessary intention wanting to the Sacrament, but that the intention is adverse to and destructive of the Sacrament.

The intent of the original men who broke with Rome in the Anglican communion involved that desire to no longer be part of the Roman Catholic Church. The changes in the rite occurred in order to reflect the decision to break with Rome.

Those members of the Ordinariate understand this distinction and receive the sacrament of Catholic ordination. One can recall that Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman was ordained in October, 1846, in Rome, one year after his conversion to Catholicism. 

“To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.”

 
Blessed John Henry Newman

Reading Newman Again and The Road to Perfection

Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman notes that if one wants to be perfect, there are some possible routes.

The first is study. For those with an intellectual bent, the study of the teachings of the Church, the Fathers of the Church and the Councils can lead one to perfection, as the mind informs the soul and natural wisdom moves into infused wisdom.

The second way is through believing everything the Church teaches without understading. This is a position of humility and most people would fall into this category.

But, the key to perfection in Newman, as in all those I have read on the subject, is obedience, complete obedience to Church Teaching.

Newman also notes that if one is not working on perfection, cooperating with grace, suffering, that person will not be saved in the end.

Sounds familiar, does it not?

From Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. i (1888), p. 114

and

The Via Media of the Anglican Church vol i (1888) pp 135-136

People, we do not have time. Do not put off the dedication to the way of perfection.

Newman warned of individualism and subjectivism in the Anglican Church. He saw the dangerous emphasis on feeling from the Evangelicals. He predicted all the problems the Anglican Church faces today.

It will melt away into paganism.

An Anxiety Put Down

Using Newman these past few days for meditation and devotional reading, I was delighted to read his own comment that he meditated  better with a pen in his hand.

I was greatly relieved after reading this, as I meditate better when typing. Many of my blog posts are meditations on the Scriptures or, recently, a combination of study and contemplation on the Attributes of God. Writing helps me pray and prayer helps me write.

Why this is so, I do not know. Perhaps it is the way some minds work; in other words, writing out something is part of the process of meditation or active contemplation.

I have been worried about this for a long time, but as this was true for a saint, I can relax, as one who is aspiring to be a saint, I have found a model in writing. I am so glad Newman wrote this for me and others to ponder.

Twice I started theses on Newman and have not, for good reasons, not sloth, not been able to finish these. I have been studying him off and on for over 30 years, but only really read this phrase today.

Amazing how when one is ready for certain knowledge, it can just leap off the page of a book one has read before.....

The second idea I want to share from Newman is the thought of his that all sin is actually blasphemy. This point stunned me today.

Here he is on this point: "O my God, can I sin when Thou art so intimately with me? Can I forget who is with me, who is in me?" The fact that we Catholics through baptism have the Indwelling of the Trinity means that when we sin, we sin against God within us.

Think on that....

This great man needs another miracle in order to be canonized. Please pray for one and pray for me to be included in his intercessions before the Throne of God.

A Short Road to Perfection by Newman

see same book as two posts ago, pp. 104-105

September 27, 1856

It is the saying of holy men that, if we wish to be perfect, we have nothing more to do than to perform the ordinary duties of the day well. A short road to perfection—short, not because easy, but because pertinent and intelligible. There are no short ways to perfection, but there are sure ones.

I think this is an instruction which may be of great practical use to persons like ourselves. It is easy to have vague ideas what perfection is, which serve well enough to talk about, when we do not intend to aim at it; but as soon as a person really desires and sets about seeking it himself, he is dissatisfied with anything but what is tangible and clear, and constitutes some sort of direction towards the practice of it.

We must bear in mind what is meant by perfection. It does not mean any extraordinary service, anything out of the way, or especially heroic—not all have the opportunity of heroic acts, of sufferings—but it means what the word perfection ordinarily means. By perfect we mean that which has no flaw in it, that which is complete, that which is consistent, that which is sound—we mean the opposite to imperfect. As we know well what imperfection in {286} religious service means, we know by the contrast what is meant by perfection.

He, then, is perfect who does the work of the day perfectly, and we need not go beyond this to seek for perfection. You need not go out of the round of the day.

I insist on this because I think it will simplify our views, and fix our exertions on a definite aim. If you ask me what you are to do in order to be perfect, I say, first—Do not lie in bed beyond the due time of rising; give your first thoughts to God; make a good visit to the Blessed Sacrament; say the Angelus devoutly; eat and drink to God’s glory; say the Rosary well; be recollected; keep out bad thoughts; make your evening meditation well; examine yourself daily; go to bed in good time, and you are already perfect.

Newman on Some of The Attributes of God

VIII. God All-Sufficient from Meditations 

http://www.newmanreader.org/Works/meditations/meditations10.html#doctrine8

Ostende nobis Patrem et sufficit nobis …
Philippe, qui videt Me, videt et Patrem.

Show us the Father, and it is enough for us …
Philip, he that seeth Me, seeth the Father also.

1. THE Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son. O adorable mystery which has been from eternity! I adore Thee, O my incomprehensible Creator, before whom I am an atom, a being of yesterday or an hour ago! Go back a few years and I simply did not exist; I was not in being, and things went on without me: but Thou art from eternity; and nothing whatever for one moment could go on without Thee. And from eternity too Thou hast possessed Thy Nature; Thou hast been—this awful glorious mystery—the Son in the Father and the Father in the Son. Whether we be in existence, or whether we be not, Thou art one and the same always, the Son sufficient for the Father, the Father for the Son—and all other things, in themselves, but vanity. All things once were not, all things might not be, but it would be enough for the Father that He had begotten His co-equal consubstantial Son, and for the Son that He was embraced {367} in the Bosom of the Eternal Father. O adorable mystery! Human reason has not conducted me to it, but I believe. I believe, because Thou hast spoken, O Lord. I joyfully accept Thy word about Thyself. Thou must know what Thou art—and who else? Not I surely, dust and ashes, except so far as Thou tellest me. I take then Thy own witness, O my Creator! and I believe firmly, I repeat after Thee, what I do not understand, because I wish to live a life of faith; and I prefer faith in Thee to trust in myself.

2. O my great God, from eternity Thou wast sufficient for Thyself! The Father was sufficient for the Son, and the Son for the Father; art Thou not then sufficient for me, a poor creature, Thou so great, I so little! I have a double all-sufficiency in the Father and the Son. I will take then St. Philip's word and say, Show us the Father, and it suffices us. It suffices us, for then are we full to overflowing, when we have Thee. O mighty God, strengthen me with Thy strength, console me with Thy everlasting peace, soothe me with the beauty of Thy countenance; enlighten me with Thy uncreated brightness; purify me with the fragrance of Thy ineffable holiness. Bathe me in Thyself, and give me to drink, as far as mortal man may ask, of the rivers of grace which flow from the Father and the Son, the grace of Thy consubstantial, co-eternal Love.

3. O my God, let me never forget this truth—that not only art Thou my Life, but my only Life! Thou art the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Thou {368} art my Life, and the Life of all who live. All men, all I know, all I meet, all I see and hear of, live not unless they live by Thee. They live in Thee, or else they live not at all. No one can be saved out of Thee. Let me never forget this in the business of the day. O give me a true love of souls, of those souls for whom Thou didst die. Teach me to pray for their conversion, to do my part towards effecting it. However able they are, however amiable, however high and distinguished, they cannot be saved unless they have Thee. O my all-sufficient Lord, Thou only sufficest! Thy blood is sufficient for the whole world. As Thou art sufficient for me, so Thou art sufficient for the entire race of Adam. O my Lord Jesus, let Thy Cross be more than sufficient for them, let it be effectual! Let it be effectual for me more than all, lest I "have all and abound," yet bring no fruit to perfection.

Evil And The Effects of Sin-Meditation by Newman

 from Meditations and Devotions, Part One: Meditations on Christian Doctrine, Paulist Press, 2010 pp. 36-37

O my God, I know full well why all these evils are. Thou hast not changed Thy nature, but man has ruined his own. We have sinned, O Lord, and therefore is this change. All these evils which I see and in which I partake are the fruit of sin. They would not have been, had we not sinned. They are but the first instalment of the punishment of sin. They are an imperfect and dim image of what sin is. Sin is infinitely worse than famine, than war, than  pestilence. Take the most hideous of diseases, under which the body wastes away and corrupts, the blood is infected; the head, the heart, the lungs, every organ disordered, the nerves unstrung and shattered; pain in every limb, thirst, restlessness, delirium—all is nothing compared with that dreadful sickness of the soul which we call sin. They all are the effects of it, they all are shadows of it, but nothing more. That cause itself is something different in kind, is of a malignity far other and greater than all these things. O my God, teach me this! Give me to understand the enormity of that evil under which I labour and know it not. Teach me what sin is.

 All these dreadful pains of body and soul are the fruits of sin, but they are nothing to its punishment in the world to come. The keenest and fiercest of bodily pains is nothing to the fire of hell; the most dire horror or anxiety is nothing to the never-dying worm of conscience; the greatest bereavement, loss of substance, desertion of friends, and forlorn desolation is nothing compared to the loss of God’s countenance. Eternal punishment is the only true measure of the guilt of sin. My God, teach me this. Open my eyes and heart, I earnestly pray Thee, and make me understand how awful a body of death I bear about me. And, not only teach me about it, but in Thy mercy and by Thy grace remove it. 

Alter Christus, Not Alter John Waynes

"A Bit Worried About Stereotypes" could be the subtitle of this post.

Priests from all times were not necessarily John Waynes. If one looks at the lives of the saints, many of the male saints were full of so-called feminine traits. I am thinking of the great Doctor of the Church, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, for one, whose long series of sermons on the Song of Songs, would not have been given without insights into courtly love. He could not have been the great saint he was without the attitude of love towards the Bridegroom. In fact, a saint has to come to the union with God in an intimate manner of receiving, not giving, which is the opposite of the normal masculine manner. Read St. John of the Cross as well.

St. Bernard was raised a nobleman and passed those traits on to his monks.

He was not afraid of conflict, either. He called the great crusade. There is in the life of a gentleman, times for fighting and times for singing.

Why do we make dichotomies when these might not exist?

I can think of saints like SS. Francis de Sales, Alphonsus, John Henry Newman, Francis Borgia, Louis IX and Edward I, who were gentle men and saints. To be a gentleman is a goal of all Catholic men, hopefully and discussed on this blog many times.

I think it is dangerous to stereotype men as if outward appearances or even traits define masculinity or femininity.

The great saints who wrote on Love, such as St. Augustine and St. Francis, may be passed by on the streets today as not the American notion of manly.

I have noticed over the years that English gentlemen are much more balanced in their masculinity than American men, on the whole. They have nothing to prove and are comfortable being men, yet intellectual and interested in the arts, as many American men think are "sissy" things to do and pursue.

St. Anselm re-introduced the Trivium and Quadrivium into the seminaries for several reasons. One was to stop the ordaining of uneducated men, and the other was to make sure priests were gentlemen, who knew how to identify the stars and planets, to sing and even to dance. They learned all the subjects of both those classical curricula for a reason-to become whole, mature men.

The priest represents God and is an alter Christus. He is not an alter John Wayne. The priest needs to be a protector male, of course, but of the Faith, of Truth, of the Body of Christ, of his flock. He does not need to know how to raise cattle or fix a toilet.

(Although I know one sem close to me who was trained by his mum to be a handy-man and does fix stuff, rip up carpet, sand and oil floors, as well as does gardening, cleaning, cooking, ironing, laundry and so on.)

The helpless male is not the type we want for either the priesthood or for marriage. But, one cannot ignore the need for the scholars, the artists, the singers and composers. In our cry for more men, we must not deny that even men have different talents to bring to the Church.

It is not merely a question of either masculine or feminine traits, but men who are mature in their own selves, in their identities. Too often the gifts of empathy and gentleness are seen as feminine. These are traits of Christ Himself. Alter Christus, not alter John Waynes, please....

Second Poem Revealing The Dark Night

http://www.ccel.org/n/newman/gerontius/gerontius.htm  a beautiful poem about a soul in purgatory and one which reveals a personal experience of purification and longing. This has been put to music by Elgar. Here is one version.

One of Two Poems Revealing A Dark Night

by Bl. John Henry Newman

Praise to the Holiest in the height,

And in the depth be praise,

In all his words most wonderful,

Most sure in all his ways.

O loving wisdom of our God!

When all was sin and shame,

A second Adam to the fight

And to the rescue came.

O wisest love! that flesh and blood

Which did in Adam fail,

Should strive afresh against their foe,

Should strive and should prevail.

And that a higher gift than grace

Should flesh and blood refine,

God’s presence and his very self,

And essence all divine.

O generous love! that he who smote

In man for man the foe

The double agony in man

For man should undergo.

And in the garden secretly

And on the cross on high,

Should teach his brethren, and inspire

To suffer and to die.

Praise to the Holiest in the height,

And in the depth be praise,

In all his words most wonderful,

Most sure in all his ways.