Christ is Risen!

Is there anyone who is a devout lover of God?
Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!
Is there anyone who is a grateful servant?
Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Are there any weary with fasting?
Let them now receive their wages!
If any have toiled from the first hour,
let them receive their due reward;
If any have come after the third hour,
let him with gratitude join in the Feast!
And he that arrived after the sixth hour,
let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss.
And if any delayed until the ninth hour,
let him not hesitate; but let him come too.
And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour,
let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.

For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.
He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour,
as well as to him that toiled from the first.
To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows.
He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor.
The deed He honors and the intention He commends.

Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord!
First and last alike receive your reward;
rich and poor, rejoice together!
Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!

You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,
rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!
Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one.
Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith.
Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!

Let no one grieve at his poverty,
for the universal kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again;
for forgiveness has risen from the grave.
Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed it by enduring it.

He destroyed Hades when He descended into it.
He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.
Isaiah foretold this when he said,
"You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.
Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.
O death, where is thy sting?
O Hades, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!
Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;
for Christ having risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!

-St. John Chrysostom


Special thanks to Fordham's Internet Medieval Source Book, a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts related to medieval and Byzantine history, which provided the text of this sermon.

Authority & Power: A Little More Etymology

When I wrote a week ago about natural authority, I left out an important aspect of the discussion: power.

Again, I will examine this question from an etymological perspective, and from the perspective of exousia in Rom. 13:1. If you look up exousia in a dictionary, you will find several possible definitions besides "authority," one of which will be “power.” Another way of seeing this is to think of the “authorities” in question as “the powers that be.” The two expressions seem to be functionally equivalent, at least in many circumstances.

If you look up the Neo-Vulgate translation of Rom. 13:1, you find the Latin word potestas, which means “power.” For instance, the power possessed by the tribunes of the people in republican Rome was called potestas tribunicia.

If you look up the German translation of the same passage, you will find St. Paul admonishing the Romans to submit to the state's Gewalt, or “the state’s power.” Gewalt, however, is much more than mere power; it implies violence. For instance, a derivate of this word, vergewaltigen, means “to rape.”

These three possible translations of exousia show that there is considerable overlap between the concepts of authority and power. On the one hand, authority and power are not identical. After all, might does not make right. On the other hand, authority and power cannot be completely separated. Indeed, authority without power is a joke.

Is there any way to understand power and authority? The neatest way of thinking about this is, I believe, as follows. Authority can be defined as the right to use force, and power can be defined as the ability to use force. These two terms, however, are not mutually exclusive; instead, power needs authority, and vice versa. They each complete the other.

My discussion is, of course, completely inadequate for such a complicated topic, so I hope some of you will contribute your insights.

Back to Basics

“Observation in the real world and small-scale experiments on the Earth now take second place to expensive and ever-expanding theoretical models” of questionable reliability. “Our tank is near empty of data and we are running on theoretical vapour,” he argues. There is a compelling need for “more tiresome and prosaic confirmation by experiment and observation”.

Those comments could have been made about a variety of disciplines. There is definitely an inordinate interest among certain historians in theoretical matters, to the detriment of actually doing the work of history. Frankly, I blame the literary critics from whom we picked up most of the mumbo-jumbo. Anthropology, sociology, politics and probably every other field in the humanities suffers in the same way. But they were in fact made by James Lovelock in his book The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning, and were quoted in Justin Marozzi's manifesto of an article, "Back to Nature," appearing in the Financial Times.

Marozzi, a fellow of the Royal Geographic Society (RGS), is a founding member of the Beagle Campaign, which is pushing the RGS to return to its original mission of mounting its own expeditions. In the last two decades the RGS has shifted its attention towards funding other people's projects or engaging in educational efforts. Both are important, but the net result, the Beagle Campaigners argue, has been a decrease in actual exploration and the hard data it brings.

The Beagle Campaign should probably serve as a warning to scholars of all stripes: at the end of the day, there is no substitute for the nitty gritty work of research. Failing that, we're just building houses of cards or castles in the clouds.

Choose What You Read

It seems every city with a subway system has free newspapers to go with it. This is definitely the case in Washington (the city of which I still consider myself a denizen, in many ways), whose Express and Examiner I find rather less than satisfying. It is the case in London as well, and as it turns out, Claire Wilson has no higher opinion of the free Tube dailies than I have of their Metro counterparts:

"They're just designed to depress, scare and sedate you. Page after page, there's nothing but paedophiles, stabbings, murders and drunk celebrities," she relates in today's Financial Times. "These papers aren't simply annoying, they're quite harmful."

So Claire and her friends decided to do something about it. Like all good young people of the modern age, they founded a Facebook group, Choose What You Read, dedicated to the proposition that commuters should consciously choose their morning reading, rather than passively accepting whatever is handed to them. But what made Choose What You Read more than just a Facebook protest was their decision to start handing out free books at Tube stations every first Monday of the month.

Their efforts are little more than a drop in the bucket when compared with the numbers of the free dailies, something Claire says she recognizes. (Well, she probably 'recognises' it...) But if even a handful of people are moved to think more consciously about what they read on their morning commute, she's willing to consider the effort a success.

If such a campaign were ever to come to the Federal City - and wouldn't it be great if it did? - I, for one, would be happy to help out.

Photo credit: "obama and hilary discussed .... (in bed)", by Pookalali08, courtesy of Flickr.

Natural Authority: A Short Exercise in Etymology

One of the hallmarks of modern political thought is the denial of natural authority. Just think of the social contract theory. According to John Locke, authority is not something natural, but is rather created by individuals who freely give up their sovereignty. For Aristotle, on the other hand, political communities are originally made up not of sovereign individuals but of family units, organized as households. The head of the household already has some kind of authority without having to enter into any supposed social contract with his children. Where, then, does his authority come from? A look at the very word “authority” in a couple languages shows that authority has always been regarded as something natural.

The English word authority comes from the Latin word auctoritas. A person’s auctoritas depends on the fact that one is, in some sense, an auctor. The word auctor entered English as the word “author”; in Latin, however, it is not restricted to a person who produces a written work. A better translation would be something like “originator.” It is in this sense that we call God the “author of life,” auctor vitae. God, then, is an authority because He is the author of life. If we extend by analogy the notion of God’s authority to human society, we can quickly see whence a paterfamilias derives his authority: a father has authority over his children because he has made his children.

Interestingly enough, even though German adopted the Latin word as Autorität, there does exist in German a more literal translation of auctoritas: Urheberrecht. Urheber corresponds to the Latin auctor, and Recht is a cognate of the English word “right.” This word, though, has become a purely technical term for “copyright.” Nevertheless, it still retains the idea that one who makes something unique retains a special right—authority—over it.

The Greek word for “authority” is also very interesting: exousia. This word is a compound of two words: ex + ousia, meaning “from nature” (ex natura). For Aristotle and the Greeks, then, an unnatural authority was by definition unthinkable. The word also has an interesting parallel usage to English. The plural form of this word means “authorities” such as civic officials, just as the English term does. For an example of this usage, see Rom. 13:1.

All this etymology should at least raise the inference that authority is not something artificially created by men when they enter into society by contract.

Finally, I would like to emphasize the importance of the analogy of being. Properly speaking, only God is authority, while any authority we have comes from Him. What we have is not absolute authority, but we call it authority by analogy. This philosophical doctrine, I think, helps explain why (besides Greek idiom) St. Paul speaks in Rom. 13:1 of God’s “authority” in the singular, but of human “authorities” in the plural. Only God’s authority is absolute and utterly unique, and thus necessarily singular. No single man, on the other hand, can possess absolute unfettered authority, and so his authority must coexist with other men’s authority.

John Paul II Novena - Day 9

Continued from Day 1.

READING FOR DAY 9:

From Ecclesia de Eucharistia (On the Eucharist), 3, 11, 14, 15, 25.

The Church was born of the paschal mystery. For this very reason the Eucharist, which is in an outstanding way the sacrament of the paschal mystery, stands at the center of the Church's life. This is already clear from the earliest images of the Church found in the Acts of the Apostles: “They devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (2:42).

The “breaking of the bread” refers to the Eucharist. Two thousand years later, we continue to relive that primordial image of the Church. At every celebration of the Eucharist, we are spiritually brought back to the paschal Triduum: to the events of the evening of Holy Thursday, to the Last Supper and to what followed it.

“The Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed” (1 Cor 11:23) instituted the Eucharistic Sacrifice of his body and his blood. The words of the Apostle Paul bring us back to the dramatic setting in which the Eucharist was born. The Eucharist is indelibly marked by the event of the Lord's passion and death, of which it is not only a reminder but the sacramental re-presentation. It is the sacrifice of the Cross perpetuated down the ages. This truth is well expressed by the words with which the assembly in the Latin rite responds to the priest's proclamation of the “Mystery of Faith”: “We announce your death, O Lord”.

The Church has received the Eucharist from Christ her Lord not as one gift – however precious – among so many others, but as the gift par excellence, for it is the gift of himself, of his person in his sacred humanity, as well as the gift of his saving work. Nor does it remain confined to the past, since “all that Christ is – all that he did and suffered for all men – participates in the divine eternity, and so transcends all times”.

When the Church celebrates the Eucharist, the memorial of her Lord's death and resurrection, this central event of salvation becomes really present and “the work of our redemption is carried out”. This sacrifice is so decisive for the salvation of the human race that Jesus Christ offered it and returned to the Father only after he had left us a means of sharing in it as if we had been present there. Each member of the faithful can thus take part in it and inexhaustibly gain its fruits. This is the faith from which generations of Christians down the ages have lived. The Church's Magisterium has constantly reaffirmed this faith with joyful gratitude for its inestimable gift. I wish once more to recall this truth and to join you, my dear brothers and sisters, in adoration before this mystery: a great mystery, a mystery of mercy. What more could Jesus have done for us? Truly, in the Eucharist, he shows us a love which goes “to the end” (cf. Jn 13:1), a love which knows no measure.

Christ's passover includes not only his passion and death, but also his resurrection. This is recalled by the assembly's acclamation following the consecration: “We proclaim your resurrection”. The Eucharistic Sacrifice makes present not only the mystery of the Saviour's passion and death, but also the mystery of the resurrection which crowned his sacrifice. It is as the living and risen One that Christ can become in the Eucharist the “bread of life” (Jn 6:35, 48), the “living bread” (Jn 6:51). Saint Ambrose reminded the newly-initiated that the Eucharist applies the event of the resurrection to their lives: “Today Christ is yours, yet each day he rises again for you”. Saint Cyril of Alexandria also makes clear that sharing in the sacred mysteries “is a true confession and a remembrance that the Lord died and returned to life for us and on our behalf”.

The sacramental re-presentation of Christ's sacrifice, crowned by the resurrection, in the Mass involves a most special presence which – in the words of Paul VI – “is called 'real' not as a way of excluding all other types of presence as if they were 'not real', but because it is a presence in the fullest sense: a substantial presence whereby Christ, the God-Man, is wholly and entirely present”. This sets forth once more the perennially valid teaching of the Council of Trent: “the consecration of the bread and wine effects the change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. And the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called this change transubstantiation”. Truly the Eucharist is a mysterium fidei, a mystery which surpasses our understanding and can only be received in faith, as is often brought out in the catechesis of the Church Fathers regarding this divine sacrament: “Do not see – Saint Cyril of Jerusalem exhorts – in the bread and wine merely natural elements, because the Lord has expressly said that they are his body and his blood: faith assures you of this, though your senses suggest otherwise”.

The worship of the Eucharist outside of the Mass is of inestimable value for the life of the Church. This worship is strictly linked to the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. The presence of Christ under the sacred species reserved after Mass – a presence which lasts as long as the species of bread and of wine remain – derives from the celebration of the sacrifice and is directed towards communion, both sacramental and spiritual....

It is pleasant to spend time with him, to lie close to his breast like the Beloved Disciple (cf. Jn 13:25) and to feel the infinite love present in his heart. If in our time Christians must be distinguished above all by the “art of prayer”, how can we not feel a renewed need to spend time in spiritual converse, in silent adoration, in heartfelt love before Christ present in the Most Holy Sacrament? How often, dear brothers and sisters, have I experienced this, and drawn from it strength, consolation and support!

John Paul II Novena - Day 8

Continued from Day 1.

READING FOR DAY 8:

From Rosarium Virginis Mariae (On the Most Holy Rosary), 1, 10-12, 15.

The Rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer. In the sobriety of its elements, it has all the depth of the Gospel message in its entirety, of which it can be said to be a compendium. It is an echo of the prayer of Mary, her perennial Magnificat for the work of the redemptive Incarnation which began in her virginal womb. With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love. Through the Rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer.

The contemplation of Christ has an incomparable model in Mary. In a unique way the face of the Son belongs to Mary. It was in her womb that Christ was formed, receiving from her a human resemblance which points to an even greater spiritual closeness. No one has ever devoted himself to the contemplation of the face of Christ as faithfully as Mary. The eyes of her heart already turned to him at the Annunciation, when she conceived him by the power of the Holy Spirit. In the months that followed she began to sense his presence and to picture his features. When at last she gave birth to him in Bethlehem, her eyes were able to gaze tenderly on the face of her Son, as she “wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger” (Lk2:7).

Thereafter Mary's gaze, ever filled with adoration and wonder, would never leave him. At times it would be a questioning look, as in the episode of the finding in the Temple: “Son, why have you treated us so?” (Lk 2:48); it would always be a penetrating gaze, one capable of deeply understanding Jesus, even to the point of perceiving his hidden feelings and anticipating his decisions, as at Cana (cf. Jn 2:5). At other times it would be a look of sorrow, especially beneath the Cross, where her vision would still be that of a mother giving birth, for Mary not only shared the passion and death of her Son, she also received the new son given to her in the beloved disciple (cf. Jn 19:26-27). On the morning of Easter hers would be a gaze radiant with the joy of the Resurrection, and finally, on the day of Pentecost, a gaze afire with the outpouring of the Spirit (cf. Acts 1:14).

Mary lived with her eyes fixed on Christ, treasuring his every word: “She kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2:19; cf. 2:51). The memories of Jesus, impressed upon her heart, were always with her, leading her to reflect on the various moments of her life at her Son's side. In a way those memories were to be the “rosary” which she recited uninterruptedly throughout her earthly life.

Even now, amid the joyful songs of the heavenly Jerusalem, the reasons for her thanksgiving and praise remain unchanged. They inspire her maternal concern for the pilgrim Church, in which she continues to relate her personal account of the Gospel. Mary constantly sets before the faithful the “mysteries” of her Son, with the desire that the contemplation of those mysteries will release all their saving power. In the recitation of the Rosary, the Christian community enters into contact with the memories and the contemplative gaze of Mary.

The Rosary, precisely because it starts with Mary's own experience, is an exquisitely contemplative prayer. Without this contemplative dimension, it would lose its meaning, as Pope Paul VI clearly pointed out: “Without contemplation, the Rosary is a body without a soul, and its recitation runs the risk of becoming a mechanical repetition of formulas, in violation of the admonition of Christ: 'In praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think they will be heard for their many words' (Mt 6:7). By its nature the recitation of the Rosary calls for a quiet rhythm and a lingering pace, helping the individual to meditate on the mysteries of the Lord's life as seen through the eyes of her who was closest to the Lord. In this way the unfathomable riches of these mysteries are disclosed”.

It is worth pausing to consider this profound insight of Paul VI, in order to bring out certain aspects of the Rosary which show that it is really a form of Christocentric contemplation.

In the spiritual journey of the Rosary, based on the constant contemplation – in Mary's company – of the face of Christ, this demanding ideal of being conformed to him is pursued through an association which could be described in terms of friendship. We are thereby enabled to enter naturally into Christ's life and as it were to share his deepest feelings. In this regard Blessed Bartolo Longo has written: “Just as two friends, frequently in each other's company, tend to develop similar habits, so too, by holding familiar converse with Jesus and the Blessed Virgin, by meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary and by living the same life in Holy Communion, we can become, to the extent of our lowliness, similar to them and can learn from these supreme models a life of humility, poverty, hiddenness, patience and perfection”.