E-scribe to Escrivá

"Read these counsels slowly.
Pause to meditate on these thoughts.
They are things that I whisper in your
ear--confiding them--as a friend, as a
brother, as a father.
And they are being heard by God.
I won't tell you anything new.
I will only stir your memory,
so that some thought will arise
and strike you;
and so you will better your life
and set out along ways of prayer
and of Love.
And in the end you will be
a more worthy soul."

--Prologue to The Way

St. Josemaría Escrivá is a 20th-century Spanish saint who founded Opus Dei (which has gotten an unfairly bad rap due to its inclusion in Dan Brown's infamous The Da Vinci Code). As the Wikipedia article states (bad source, I know), Opus Dei "teaches that everyone is called to holiness and that ordinary life is a path to sanctity." These teachings are found in the saint's writings, which I and may others have drawn inspiration from. His works are separated into many tiny sections, each with only a paragraph or two of writing. Yet these simple passages are profound and inspiring.

I'm offering you a chance to receive inspiration from St. Josemaría Escrivá. I have three of his works: The Way, Furrow, and The Forge. Each day (or as close to each day as I can: I'm not perfect!) I'll send out a passage from one of these works to provide inspiration for your spiritual journey with Jesus Christ. Just click the link below to send me an e-mail, and I'll add you to my list. I hope this project is helpful to you!

Due to copyright concerns, this mailing list is no longer active.  

St. Josemaría Escrivá, pray for us!

An icon of St. Josemaría Escrivá by Orthodox iconographer Alexander Sokolov (1960-2015), found in the Opus Dei centers in Moscow.  

Image Source: Pensar por libre
 

Nota Bene: I'll be using the Scepter Publisher's one-volume edition of the saint's three works listed above for this project.

St. Gregory Palamas on the Graven Images

"You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God" (Ex 20:4-5a).

God's forbidding of graven images is a part of the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) that I do not hear mentioned often among Catholics. Since the Decalogue does not have a strict division in the Scriptures themselves, there are multiple ways to divide them. The division commonly used by the Orthodox and most Protestants lists "I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before Me" and "You shall not make for yourself a graven image" as two separate commandments, while combining "You shall not covet your neighbor's goods" and "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife" into one commandment. The division commonly used by Catholics and many Lutherans, however, combines the first pair into one, while separating the second pair.

The Readings on the Memorial of St. Mary Magdalene

The Church is wise: this is a truth I am reminded of frequently, through various ways. One of these ways is through her selection of Scriptures for the Mass. One of the greatest reforms of the Mass during Vatican II, in my mind, is the ability of the Liturgy of the Word to now draw on all of the Scriptures, not only the Epistles, and to draw on more texts throughout its cycle. The Church has picked these readings carefully so that the Gospel often coheres with the other Scriptures immensely well, particularly on Sundays and solemnities.

The particular incident lately that reminded me of the Church's wisdom in her Scripture selection is the selection of readings for the memorial of St. Mary Magdalene, July 22. The readings for this day in the Proper of Saints are Sgs 3:1-4b (or 2 Cor 5:14-17, though the former is the one I discuss in this post), Ps 63:2,3-4,5-6,8-9, and Jn 20:1-2,11-18. The first reading is a selection from the Song of Songs in which the Bride searches for her beloved, yet cannot find him; after she runs into some watchmen, though, she finally finds her beloved. The response for the psalm is "My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God," a proper sentiment for this reading. The Gospel is the appearance of the risen Jesus to Mary Magdalene on Easter Sunday.

Typology is a fascinating technique of Scripture study in which, by the plan of God, persons and events described in the Old Testament are seen to be prefigurements of those in the New Testament. Two common examples are Adam being seen as a type of Christ (as Paul mentions) and the Flood being seen as a type of Baptism (as the Letter to the Hebrews discusses). (A sidenote: a "type" is that which prefigures; an "antitype" is that which is prefigured.)

In these readings (as the Church most likely intended), I see Mary Magdalene as an antitype of the Bride in the Song of Songs. In even more specific detail, I see the Bride's search for her Bridegroom as the type of Mary Magdalene's search for Jesus' body. Mary Magdalene is already seen as a follower of Christ in Lk 8:2, where she is among the women who accompanies Jesus during His ministry. Since the call to be a follower of Christ is the call to love Him, He is, at least in some sense, the beloved of her soul, as the Bride in Song of Songs often refers to her Bridegroom. Yet the really striking typology comes in the specific incidents selected for the day's readings.

The first reading is the lament of a Bride's fruitless search for her beloved:

"I will rise then and go about the city;
in the streets and the crossings I will seek
Him whom my heart loves.
I sought him but I did not find him."

In the Gospel, Mary Magdalene searches for Christ's body but cannot find it:

"On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, 'They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they put him.'"

In both incidents, the women run into others:

"The watchmen came upon me."

Like the Bride, Mary Magdalene found watchmen:

"Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there."

Though angels are technically messengers (the word "angel" comes from the Greek word for "messenger"), they can also be seen as "watchmen," watching for the arrival of Christ's apostles and disciples. (Another antitype could be seen in that, in Matthew's account, Mt 28:1-10, there are actually guards ("watchmen") at the tomb when Mary Magdalene, and later the angel, arrives.)

The last point is what really shocked me with the typology. The end of the first reading is the following:

"The watchmen came upon me,
I had hardly left them
when I found him whom my heart loves."

In the Gospel, when the angels ask Mary why she is weeping, she responds by saying someone has taken her Lord, and she does not know where she is. The next words, right after she speaks to the angels, are these:

"When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there."

This was a detail I had never noticed before. I always assumed Mary Magdalene walked a little down a path before she ran into Jesus in the guise of a gardener. Instead, it is immediately after she speaks to the angels. She literally turns around, and she is face-to-face with the risen Lord. It is hard to do a job of having "hardly left" someone better than by turning around. It is with this detail that the typology in these readings clicked, and I saw the Church's immense wisdom in selecting these Scriptures.

In conclusion, I urge you to be more conscious of the Church's wisdom in her selection of Mass readings. She put great care into showing how the Old Testament is not null and void, but instead it is enlivened in the New Testament. As St. Augustine said (though I am paraphrasing), "The New is hidden in the Old, and the Old is unveiled in the New." Keep watch of this truth as you listen to and pray with the readings at Mass. I think it will help you gain more of a sense of the cohesion of God's plan and of the Catholic faith.

St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us!

Text ©2011 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the author.

An Introduction to Mystery

The seeking of knowledge is something that has always captivated man. Man wished to know time, so he recorded it and created calendars based on his recordings. Man wished to know the patterns of the stars, so he watched them each night and grouped them into constellations based on what he saw. Man wished to know the workings of animals, plants, and men themselves, so he studied them and wrote books of anatomy and biology based on his observations. Yet even beyond the seeking of this knowledge and information, which can have value in a man's labors in the fields, man sought wisdom, which, as Aristotle says, "exists for its own sake"; "we do not seek [wisdom] for the sake of any other advantage" (Metaphysics, I.2, 982b24-27).

Aristotle remarks on why men philosophize, although his remarks can be broadened to refer to any seeking of wisdom: "It is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize" (ibid., 982b12-13). Men wonder about that which they do not know, for "a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant" (ibid., 982b17-18).

These comments on wisdom are merely the part of the preface to the topic of this post. For what is it that man wonders most about? That which he is most ignorant of. And what is he most ignorant of? That which he can know least. That is God.

A troubling concept that has become prominent is that man's knowledge is limitless: there are things man does not yet know because he has yet to learn them, not because he cannot learn them. Science, the main avenue of human knowledge, is, respectively, where this concept is seen the most. It can take a disturbing turn, for instance, in psychology, where schools such as behaviorism attempt to reduce the human person to a series of reactions and responses deriving from the brain, with no free will whatsoever.

This idea is not restrained to science, though: it sneaks into theology and spirituality as well. Theology is often speculative: there is only so much in theology that can be considered certain. There are dogmas and doctrines that the Church is certain of, yet there are other issues that will never be solidified. One such issue is the common debate whether God could have redeemed humanity without the death of His Son. While it is an interesting discussion, it must be remembered that it is only speculative: we cannot know God's thoughts for certain. That is thing many do not realize: we, as humans, can only know as much about God as He is willing to reveal: we cannot completely comprehend Him.

All this introduction leads to the concept I wish to discuss: the concept of mystery, specifically the mystery of God. God is mysterious. This is a fact. A mystery is something which must be revealed: it cannot be taken by force. If this applies to any mystery in general, how much more must it apply to God!

This post will not be my last on this topic, as the title shows. My goal in discussing mystery is to draw out and discuss this topic as it appears in theology and spirituality. It seems to have lost popularity recently, but it is not gone. "Since our knowledge of God is limited, our language about him is equally so...Our human words always fall short of the mystery of God" (CCC #40, 42).

Mystery appears as a concept more in the early Church and the Eastern Church, so that is where I will draw most of my material from. I do not know how many posts I will write about this: since the topic is the inability to completely know God, I do not think it is possible for me to completely encompass the topic, no matter how many posts I write. It will depend on how much the Spirit moves me to write, how much He wants to reveal to me and how much He wants me to reveal to others.

Now I think I have made this introduction long enough, so I will end with a quote that summarizes the point well. It is from Chapter 4 of the first book of St. John Damascene's De fide orthodoxa (An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith):

"God is infinite and incomprehensible. And there is one thing about the divine essence that can be comprehended: namely, that the divine is infinite and incomprehensible."

St. John Damascene, pray for us!




Nota bene: I quote from W.D. Ross' translation of the Metaphysics, from The Basic Works of Aristotle, edited by Richard McKeon. "CCC" stands for Catechism of the Catholic Church. The quote from St. John Damascene was quoted in St. Bonaventure's Disputed Questions on the Knowledge of Christ, Question VI, Argument for the Negative Position 1, translated by Zachary Hayes, O.F.M., D.Th.

Text ©2011 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the author.