I think of the beginning of the Book of Genesis: God fashions man out of the dust of the earth; he breathes in his nostrils the breath of life, and man becomes a living being (cf. 2:7). God is the source of life; thanks to his breath, man has life. God’s breath sustains the entire journey of our life on earth.
--Pope Francis
Showing posts with label creation doctrine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creation doctrine. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Thought for the Day
Friday, May 10, 2013
Quote of the Day
The Book of Genesis tells us that God created man and woman by entrusting to them the task of populating the Earth and subjugating it, which does not mean to exploit it, but to cultivate and guard it, to care for it with their own labour (cf. Gen 1:28; 2:15). The work is part of the plan of God's love; we are called to cultivate and safeguard all the goods of creation and in this way we participate in the work of creation! The work is fundamental to the dignity of a person. Work, to use an image, "anoints" us with dignity, it fills us with dignity; it makes us similar to God, who has worked and works still, He is always acting (cf. Jn 5:17); it gives the ability to maintain oneself, one's family, to contribute to the growth of one's nation.
--Pope Francis
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Catholic Biblical Fundamentalism v. the Church's Teaching on Creation
Well over a year ago, in a tweet on my Twitter page, I praised Father Victor Warkulwiz's book The Doctrines of Genesis 1-11 as an "excellent book" and "highly recommended." Today, after having done a bit more research on what the Catholic Church actually teaches about the creation of the world, I am forced in good conscience to retract those compliments and warn other Catholics about the dangers that Catholic biblical fundamentalism presents to a proper understanding of Catholic creation doctrine. During my first few months of studying this book beginning in September 2010, I thought it was an excellent work entirely faithful to the Church's Magisterium, and as such I was willing to heartily endorse it. However, a year later and halfway into the book, my initial impression had begun to change significantly. I was starting to find myself in disagreement with some of the things Fr. Warkulwiz was saying and having some misgivings about the book. The claim I found most disturbing of all--and which is really fundamental to the thesis of the whole book--is that, for a Catholic, the only reasonable interpretation of the Hebrew word yom in Genesis chapter 1 (which means "day") is a strict literal interpretation. This bothered me so much that I wrote the following essay about it, which I sent to Fr. Warkulwiz:
Fr. Warkulwiz did send me a written response, which I reprint below for the sake of fairness and out of respect for a Catholic priest:
I think my original argument stands. Note that I was NOT saying that Catholics are free to interpret yom any way they want to but that they should interpret it as the Church does--and the Church, in her own official Catechism, has unambiguously sided with the symbolic interpretation of yom. The Church will never formally affirm the literal interpretation of yom as binding doctrine of the faith because it isn't. The Immaculate Conception, on the other hand, is a binding doctrine of the faith, so comparing it to the meaning of yom is comparing apples to oranges. Fr. Warkulwiz claims that "the Catechism must be read in the light of Catholic Tradition," but the Catechism itself does not say this. The Catechism itself is a synthesis of 2,000 years of Catholic tradition; it contains exactly what the Church teaches and has always taught, and as an authoritative text of the Magisterium it can stand on its own.
The actual content of the Church's creation doctrine is pretty basic and succinct. The Church teaches that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1); that God created "all things visible and invisible," including the universe, angels, and human beings; and that He brought them into existence ex nihilo (out of nothing). That is the literal and historical truth about creation that the Church has always upheld and will always uphold. However, the Church leaves open the question of how God accomplished his work of creation. He could have done it instanteously, or in six literal days, or in six thousand years, or in six million, or even in six billion years. After all, He is God. He is all-powerful. The point is that He did it. That is our faith. How He did it is a mystery. We don't know for sure how he did it because we weren't there. Only God was there. The divinely inspired Genesis creation account is not meant to give us scientific data or to satisfy our curiosity about how it happened, but to teach us the essential truth that God created the world. It's not the business of the Church or of science to explain how God created the world. That is purely a matter for philosophical speculation, theological opinion, and personal preference. I personally happen to be a young-earth creationist who favors the literal six-day creation scenario. Many Catholic leaders today happen to be theistic evolutionists who believe that God carried out His creative work through gradual evolutionary processes over an immensely long period of time. Both positions are ultimately opinions, neither of which affects the basic principle of our faith that God created the world and holds it continuously in existence.
Many atheists today use the theory of evolution as scientific support for their absurd idea of the universe having come into existence without a Creator. But the theory of evolution no more proves their atheism than young-earth creationism proves my faith in God the Creator. How the world came into existence is irrelevant to the central issue here. The crux of the matter is: Do we believe in an all-powerful God who created the world, or do we not? That is the important question facing us, the crucial choice we must make.
It's not the theory of evolution that threatens the faith of individual Catholics. It's the godless, radically secular social and political ideology of evolutionism that does that. As Cardinal Christoph Schonborn (a leading theistic evolutionist) has pointed out, the problem is not Darwin, but Darwinism. Darwin chose to believe in the Creator of the world. The Darwinists, by contrast, have chosen to reject faith in God the Creator.
Catholic biblical fundamentalists and traditionalists like Fr. Warkulwiz are certainly well-intentioned and sincere. They are passionately devoted to Catholic doctrine and anxious to carefully preserve and vigorously defend that doctrine, and their writings have a certain appeal to those of like mind. The problem is, they have a flawed understanding of some of the teachings of the Church and they look to their own flawed understanding, rather than to the Magisterium (the Pope and the bishops in union with him), as the ultimate authority on what the Church teaches. Deep down they don't really trust that the Holy Spirit is continuing to protect the modern Church from teaching error in the post-Vatican II era, and they see themselves as the few faithful guardians of true Catholic doctrine. The danger of Catholic biblical fundamentalism as exemplified by a book like The Doctrines of Genesis 1-11 is that ordinary lay Catholics in union with Rome will become subtly and unconsciously infected by the traditionalist mentality and begin to distrust the Magisterium, listening more to what the traditionalists are saying than to what the Church is saying. By devouring traditionalist literature and neglecting official magisterial texts like the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a person's Catholic faith can become seriously distorted and he or she may end up breaking off from full communion with the Catholic Church due to refusal to accept certain binding Church teachings (such as that the Holy Spirit protects the Church from teaching error).
Due to the immense importance of us Catholics being properly formed in our faith, I would strongly discourage reading Fr. Warkulwiz's book. Instead I would like to recommend Chance or Purpose? Creation, Evolution, and a Rational Faith by Cardinal Schonborn. Another great read is The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Dr. Francis Collins, a convert to Christianity and world-renowned DNA expert who was appointed a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI.
The Meaning of Yom in Traditional Catholic Creation Theology
by Justin Soutar
September 14, 2011
In his well-researched book, The Doctrines of Genesis 1-11: A Compendium and Defense of Traditional Catholic Theology on Origins, Father Victor P. Warkulwiz, M.S.S. strives to faithfully transmit the essentials of Catholic creation doctrine as drawn from Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and Magisterial teaching; he also delves into the theological exploration of this doctrine by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church over the centuries. Father Warkulwiz presents this doctrine and theology in the form of sixteen theses drawn from the first eleven chapters of Genesis, which he interprets literally, and he assembles an impressive array of theological, philosophical and scientific arguments to defend them.
Although I have been enjoying my study of Father Warkulwiz’s scholarly work, there is one part of it that really bothers me. It’s where he insists that the Hebrew word yom (“day”) in Genesis 1 can only be reasonably interpreted to mean a literal natural day, in opposition to two of the greatest Doctors of the Church, Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas, who preferred a symbolic interpretation of yom. Father Warkulwiz takes this position in support of his sixth thesis, “God created the world in six natural days,” and defends it on the following grounds: 1) The word yom is never used in Sacred Scripture for a period of time of a definite length other than a natural day. 2) A literal interpretation of yom in Genesis 1 is in accordance with the hermeneutical principle of Pope Leo XIII, originally formulated by Saint Augustine, that Scripture must be understood in its literal and obvious sense except where reason or necessity force us to do otherwise. 3) Nearly all of the Church Fathers and Doctors held a literal interpretation of yom in Genesis 1. 4) The creation day is the prototype of the natural day, which sets the rhythm for our lives and life in general. 5) The natural sciences are unable to confirm or refute the idea that God created the world in six literal natural days.
The key point here is whether the interpretation of yom is a matter of doctrine or of theological opinion. A reliable test to distinguish between the two is this: 1) If the Church Fathers and Doctors are in perfectly unanimous agreement on a certain point, it is a doctrine of the faith. 2) If they are not in unanimous agreement on a certain point, it is a matter of theological opinion. Most, but not all, of the Church Fathers and Doctors believed in a literal six-day creation. The outstanding exceptions were Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas, who held that God created the world instantaneously and that the six days of Genesis 1 are symbolic. So the idea that God created the world in six natural days is a traditional, widely held, non-binding theological opinion within Catholicism, not a compulsory doctrine of the faith.
Father Warkulwiz concludes that “it is not reasonable to take the word yom in Genesis 1 to mean other than a literal natural day.” (p. 171) But Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas took it to mean other than that, and their reasons for doing so seemed quite reasonable to them. Augustine interpreted the word “day” in Genesis chapter 1 as referring to the creation of light and of the angels. The following quotation from his commentary on Genesis 1 appears in Father Warkulwiz’s book:
The obvious conclusion is that if the angels are among the works of God of those days, they are that light which received the name of “day.” And the unity of that day is underlined by its not being called “the first day,” but “one day.” Thus the second day, and the third, and the rest are not different days; the same “one day” was repeated to complete the number six or seven, to represent the seven stages of knowledge [in the minds of the angels], the six stages comprehending the created works, and the seventh stage embracing God’s rest….Thus, the angels, illuminated by that light by which they were created, themselves became light and are called “day” by participation in the changeless light and day, which is the Word of God, through whom they themselves and all other things were made.And Saint Thomas sided with Saint Augustine:
(p. 166)
…Ambrose and other saints hold that there was an order of time by which things were distinguished. This opinion is indeed more generally held, and seems to accord better with the apparent literal sense (of Scripture). Still, the previous theory (that of Augustine) is the more reasonable, and ensures a better defense of Holy Scripture against the derision of unbelievers. To this, insists Augustine, must the fullest heed be given: “the Scriptures are so to be explained that they will not incur the ridicule of unbelievers”; and his theory is the one that appeals to me.
(p. 167, footnote [bold added])
Aquinas not only did not interpret the word yom in Genesis 1 literally, he actually commended Augustine’s symbolic interpretation as being more reasonable! And he did this with full awareness that he was swimming against the tide of most of the Church Fathers and Doctors before him, who held a different and more literal view of this same Scripture passage. Augustine, moreover, who first laid down the general rule of sticking to the literal sense of Scripture, himself did not apply it to the word yom in Genesis chapter 1. Father Warkulwiz appears to have taken Saint Augustine’s principle out of context in order to justify a strict literal interpretation of yom that the saint himself opposed.
Unfortunately, the logical breakdown doesn’t end there. Father Warkulwiz goes so far as to state unequivocally in the preamble to his sixth thesis that “there is no justification for a Catholic to deny that God created the world in six natural days.” (p. 164) This is insulting to the intelligence of the reader as well as to the two great saints and Doctors quoted above. Is Father Warkulwiz implying that two of the most renowned minds in Church history had no justification for their positions?
The Church, the ultimate authority for teaching the truth and interpreting Sacred Scripture, has not formally defined the meaning of yom in Genesis 1; rather, she has opened it to discussion. In 1909, the Pontifical Biblical Commission issued a statement (which is still in force) authorizing Catholic biblical interpreters to freely discuss the question of whether the word yom in Genesis 1 means strictly “a literal natural day” or less strictly “a certain space of time.” Yet while admitting in his book that the Church has permitted discussion of the meaning of yom in Genesis chapter 1 (and that Augustine and Aquinas held symbolic interpretations of it), Father Warkulwiz effectively negates this permission by arguing that the hermeneutical principle of Pope Leo XIII forbids a less strict interpretation of yom. This raises the question of the proper application of that principle. How is one to decide which passages of Sacred Scripture must be interpreted in the literal and obvious sense; which must be understood symbolically; and which may be interpreted either way? The answer is that no individual Catholic has the authority to make such decisions on his or her own. Only the Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, can infallibly guide the interpretation of Scripture by the faithful.
In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 337, we are told: “Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine ‘work,’ concluded by the ‘rest’ of the seventh day.” As Father Warkulwiz correctly points out (p. 164), this does not mean that the six days and the work of the six days weren’t real. However, in this passage the Church is clearly and officially teaching a symbolic interpretation of Genesis 1 that in no way denies the literal and historical truth of that Scriptural text—that God, at the beginning of time, created the world and everything in it. Father Warkulwiz opines that the Church “could someday declare that yom in Genesis 1 means a literal day because that interpretation has strong support in Scriptural exegesis and in Tradition.” (p. 189) But the Church cannot make a doctrinal declaration that contradicts the teaching of her own Catechism. The Catechism is a “statement of the Church’s faith and of catholic doctrine” (Pope John Paul II, Fidei Depositum, § 3), not a handbook of theological opinion. As “a sure norm for teaching the faith” (Ibid), it is free from error in matters of faith and morals.
For the benefit of his Catholic readers, out of respect for the Church and her Doctors, and for the sake of logical consistency, I hope that in a future edition of his book Father Warkulwiz will concede the validity and reasonableness of less than strictly literal interpretations of yom in Genesis chapter 1. It is not reasonable to oblige Catholics to accept a particular theological opinion, whatever merits it may possess. Maintaining the proper distinction between binding Church doctrine and matters of non-binding theological opinion is essential to an accurate and fair presentation of traditional Catholic creation doctrine and theology.
Copyright © 2011 by Justin D. Soutar.
Fr. Warkulwiz did send me a written response, which I reprint below for the sake of fairness and out of respect for a Catholic priest:
Reply to J. Soutar on the Meaning of Yom in Genesis One
Mr. Soutar seems to be saying that since St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas felt free to deny the interpretation of yom in Genesis One as a literal natural day, we are free today to interpret yom in any symbolic way that we please. That is simply not so. First of all, Augustine and Aquinas held that everything in the universe was created at once. That is not the interpretation pressed on us today. Today we are told that yom means an immensely long undefined period of time because the universe as we see it today was not created that way but slowly evolved from an amorphous state over billions of years. St. Augustine and St. Thomas would have certainly found that interpretation outrageous. Augustine castigated those who stretched the length of the history of the world beyond its biblical limits.
Second, we do not necessarily have the same freedom of interpretation today that Augustine and Aquinas had. Influenced by the false science of his day, St. Thomas also denied the Immaculate Conception. The Church eventually declared that such denial is not merely unreasonable and unjustifiable but heretical. That is not an insult to St. Thomas. It is a development of doctrine. I am saying that the issue of the meaning of yom has reached the point in development that no one can provide a theological, philosophical or scientific reason good enough to justify denying its literal interpretation as a natural day. One must have a very good reason, not just an opinion, for denying that God created the world in six natural days because the literal interpretation is the one favored by the Church in light of the hermeneutical principle of Leo XIII. The 1909 decree of the Pontifical Biblical Commission did not nullify that principle but presumes it. The Catechism of the Catholic Church in saying that the six days are symbolic is not affirming that a purely symbolic meaning (as opposed to a symbolic meaning superimposed on the literal meaning) is permissible because the Catechism must be read in the light of Catholic Tradition, which was formally elucidated by Leo XIII. I did not say that such denial is heretical but that it is unreasonable and unjustifiable. But it is possible that some time in the future if the Church may formally affirm the literal interpretation of yom as she did the Immaculate Conception. Its denial would then be heretical. This issue is immensely important because denial of the six natural days of creation lends support to the atheistically-inspired notion of universal evolution; which has poisoned the faith of many Catholics, leading them eventually to declare that there are errors in genuine passages of Sacred Scripture.
Rev. Victor P. Warkulwiz, M.S.S.
October 2011
I think my original argument stands. Note that I was NOT saying that Catholics are free to interpret yom any way they want to but that they should interpret it as the Church does--and the Church, in her own official Catechism, has unambiguously sided with the symbolic interpretation of yom. The Church will never formally affirm the literal interpretation of yom as binding doctrine of the faith because it isn't. The Immaculate Conception, on the other hand, is a binding doctrine of the faith, so comparing it to the meaning of yom is comparing apples to oranges. Fr. Warkulwiz claims that "the Catechism must be read in the light of Catholic Tradition," but the Catechism itself does not say this. The Catechism itself is a synthesis of 2,000 years of Catholic tradition; it contains exactly what the Church teaches and has always taught, and as an authoritative text of the Magisterium it can stand on its own.
The actual content of the Church's creation doctrine is pretty basic and succinct. The Church teaches that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1); that God created "all things visible and invisible," including the universe, angels, and human beings; and that He brought them into existence ex nihilo (out of nothing). That is the literal and historical truth about creation that the Church has always upheld and will always uphold. However, the Church leaves open the question of how God accomplished his work of creation. He could have done it instanteously, or in six literal days, or in six thousand years, or in six million, or even in six billion years. After all, He is God. He is all-powerful. The point is that He did it. That is our faith. How He did it is a mystery. We don't know for sure how he did it because we weren't there. Only God was there. The divinely inspired Genesis creation account is not meant to give us scientific data or to satisfy our curiosity about how it happened, but to teach us the essential truth that God created the world. It's not the business of the Church or of science to explain how God created the world. That is purely a matter for philosophical speculation, theological opinion, and personal preference. I personally happen to be a young-earth creationist who favors the literal six-day creation scenario. Many Catholic leaders today happen to be theistic evolutionists who believe that God carried out His creative work through gradual evolutionary processes over an immensely long period of time. Both positions are ultimately opinions, neither of which affects the basic principle of our faith that God created the world and holds it continuously in existence.
Many atheists today use the theory of evolution as scientific support for their absurd idea of the universe having come into existence without a Creator. But the theory of evolution no more proves their atheism than young-earth creationism proves my faith in God the Creator. How the world came into existence is irrelevant to the central issue here. The crux of the matter is: Do we believe in an all-powerful God who created the world, or do we not? That is the important question facing us, the crucial choice we must make.
It's not the theory of evolution that threatens the faith of individual Catholics. It's the godless, radically secular social and political ideology of evolutionism that does that. As Cardinal Christoph Schonborn (a leading theistic evolutionist) has pointed out, the problem is not Darwin, but Darwinism. Darwin chose to believe in the Creator of the world. The Darwinists, by contrast, have chosen to reject faith in God the Creator.
Catholic biblical fundamentalists and traditionalists like Fr. Warkulwiz are certainly well-intentioned and sincere. They are passionately devoted to Catholic doctrine and anxious to carefully preserve and vigorously defend that doctrine, and their writings have a certain appeal to those of like mind. The problem is, they have a flawed understanding of some of the teachings of the Church and they look to their own flawed understanding, rather than to the Magisterium (the Pope and the bishops in union with him), as the ultimate authority on what the Church teaches. Deep down they don't really trust that the Holy Spirit is continuing to protect the modern Church from teaching error in the post-Vatican II era, and they see themselves as the few faithful guardians of true Catholic doctrine. The danger of Catholic biblical fundamentalism as exemplified by a book like The Doctrines of Genesis 1-11 is that ordinary lay Catholics in union with Rome will become subtly and unconsciously infected by the traditionalist mentality and begin to distrust the Magisterium, listening more to what the traditionalists are saying than to what the Church is saying. By devouring traditionalist literature and neglecting official magisterial texts like the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a person's Catholic faith can become seriously distorted and he or she may end up breaking off from full communion with the Catholic Church due to refusal to accept certain binding Church teachings (such as that the Holy Spirit protects the Church from teaching error).
Due to the immense importance of us Catholics being properly formed in our faith, I would strongly discourage reading Fr. Warkulwiz's book. Instead I would like to recommend Chance or Purpose? Creation, Evolution, and a Rational Faith by Cardinal Schonborn. Another great read is The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Dr. Francis Collins, a convert to Christianity and world-renowned DNA expert who was appointed a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Easter Reflection from Pope Benedict XVI
Alleluia! He is risen! He is truly risen.
Once again our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI offers a profound and beautiful theological reflection on the meaning of Easter. The pope focuses on the themes of creation, specifically the creation of light, and Easter as the new creation. He also warns of a "darkness that poses a real threat to mankind," identifying this as "[t]he darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values," and presents its antidote, faith, as the "true enlightenment." Here is the full text of his homily given at the solemn celebration of the Easter Vigil in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome on April 7, 2012. Like most of what Pope Benedict writes, it's very rich in content and well worth the ten minutes or so it takes to read. This is from a Vatican translation published by ZENIT.
***
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Easter is the feast of the new creation. Jesus is risen and dies no more. He has opened the door to a new life, one that no longer knows illness and death. He has taken mankind up into God himself. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God", as Saint Paul says in the First Letter to the Corinthians (15:50). On the subject of Christ’s resurrection and our resurrection, the Church writer Tertullian in the third century was bold enough to write: "Rest assured, flesh and blood, through Christ you have gained your place in heaven and in the Kingdom of God" (CCL II, 994). A new dimension has opened up for mankind. Creation has become greater and broader. Easter Day ushers in a new creation, but that is precisely why the Church starts the liturgy on this day with the old creation, so that we can learn to understand the new one aright. At the beginning of the Liturgy of the Word on Easter night, then, comes the account of the creation of the world. Two things are particularly important here in connection with this liturgy. On the one hand, creation is presented as a whole that includes the phenomenon of time. The seven days are an image of completeness, unfolding in time. They are ordered towards the seventh day, the day of the freedom of all creatures for God and for one another. Creation is therefore directed towards the coming together of God and his creatures; it exists so as to open up a space for the response to God’s great glory, an encounter between love and freedom. On the other hand, what the Church hears on Easter night is above all the first element of the creation account: "God said, ‘let there be light!’" (Gen 1:3). The creation account begins symbolically with the creation of light. The sun and the moon are created only on the fourth day. The creation account calls them lights, set by God in the firmament of heaven. In this way he deliberately takes away the divine character that the great religions had assigned to them. No, they are not gods. They are shining bodies created by the one God. But they are preceded by the light through which God’s glory is reflected in the essence of the created being.
What is the creation account saying here? Light makes life possible. It makes encounter possible. It makes communication possible. It makes knowledge, access to reality and to truth, possible. And insofar as it makes knowledge possible, it makes freedom and progress possible. Evil hides. Light, then, is also an expression of the good that both is and creates brightness. It is daylight, which makes it possible for us to act. To say that God created light means that God created the world as a space for knowledge and truth, as a space for encounter and freedom, as a space for good and for love. Matter is fundamentally good, being itself is good. And evil does not come from God-made being, rather, it comes into existence only through denial. It is a "no".
At Easter, on the morning of the first day of the week, God said once again: "Let there be light". The night on the Mount of Olives, the solar eclipse of Jesus’ passion and death, the night of the grave had all passed. Now it is the first day once again – creation is beginning anew. "Let there be light", says God, "and there was light": Jesus rises from the grave. Life is stronger than death. Good is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Truth is stronger than lies. The darkness of the previous days is driven away the moment Jesus rises from the grave and himself becomes God’s pure light. But this applies not only to him, not only to the darkness of those days. With the resurrection of Jesus, light itself is created anew. He draws all of us after him into the new light of the resurrection and he conquers all darkness. He is God’s new day, new for all of us.
But how is this to come about? How does all this affect us so that instead of remaining word it becomes a reality that draws us in? Through the sacrament of baptism and the profession of faith, the Lord has built a bridge across to us, through which the new day reaches us. The Lord says to the newly-baptized: Fiat lux – let there be light. God’s new day – the day of indestructible life, comes also to us. Christ takes you by the hand. From now on you are held by him and walk with him into the light, into real life. For this reason the early Church called baptism photismos – illumination.
Why was this? The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil. The darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values is the real threat to our existence and to the world in general. If God and moral values, the difference between good and evil, remain in darkness, then all other "lights", that put such incredible technical feats within our reach, are not only progress but also dangers that put us and the world at risk. Today we can illuminate our cities so brightly that the stars of the sky are no longer visible. Is this not an image of the problems caused by our version of enlightenment? With regard to material things, our knowledge and our technical accomplishments are legion, but what reaches beyond, the things of God and the question of good, we can no longer identify. Faith, then, which reveals God’s light to us, is the true enlightenment, enabling God’s light to break into our world, opening our eyes to the true light.
Dear friends, as I conclude, I would like to add one more thought about light and illumination. On Easter night, the night of the new creation, the Church presents the mystery of light using a unique and very humble symbol: the Paschal candle. This is a light that lives from sacrifice. The candle shines inasmuch as it is burnt up. It gives light, inasmuch as it gives itself. Thus the Church presents most beautifully the paschal mystery of Christ, who gives himself and so bestows the great light. Secondly, we should remember that the light of the candle is a fire. Fire is the power that shapes the world, the force of transformation. And fire gives warmth. Here too the mystery of Christ is made newly visible. Christ, the light, is fire, flame, burning up evil and so reshaping both the world and ourselves. "Whoever is close to me is close to the fire," as Jesus is reported by Origen to have said. And this fire is both heat and light: not a cold light, but one through which God’s warmth and goodness reach down to us.
The great hymn of the Exsultet, which the deacon sings at the beginning of the Easter liturgy, points us quite gently towards a further aspect. It reminds us that this object, the candle, has its origin in the work of bees. So the whole of creation plays its part. In the candle, creation becomes a bearer of light. But in the mind of the Fathers, the candle also in some sense contains a silent reference to the Church,. The cooperation of the living community of believers in the Church in some way resembles the activity of bees. It builds up the community of light. So the candle serves as a summons to us to become involved in the community of the Church, whose raison d’être is to let the light of Christ shine upon the world.
Let us pray to the Lord at this time that he may grant us to experience the joy of his light; let us pray that we ourselves may become bearers of his light, and that through the Church, Christ’s radiant face may enter our world (cf. Lumen Gentium, no. 1). Amen.
***
Once again our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI offers a profound and beautiful theological reflection on the meaning of Easter. The pope focuses on the themes of creation, specifically the creation of light, and Easter as the new creation. He also warns of a "darkness that poses a real threat to mankind," identifying this as "[t]he darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values," and presents its antidote, faith, as the "true enlightenment." Here is the full text of his homily given at the solemn celebration of the Easter Vigil in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome on April 7, 2012. Like most of what Pope Benedict writes, it's very rich in content and well worth the ten minutes or so it takes to read. This is from a Vatican translation published by ZENIT.
***
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Easter is the feast of the new creation. Jesus is risen and dies no more. He has opened the door to a new life, one that no longer knows illness and death. He has taken mankind up into God himself. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God", as Saint Paul says in the First Letter to the Corinthians (15:50). On the subject of Christ’s resurrection and our resurrection, the Church writer Tertullian in the third century was bold enough to write: "Rest assured, flesh and blood, through Christ you have gained your place in heaven and in the Kingdom of God" (CCL II, 994). A new dimension has opened up for mankind. Creation has become greater and broader. Easter Day ushers in a new creation, but that is precisely why the Church starts the liturgy on this day with the old creation, so that we can learn to understand the new one aright. At the beginning of the Liturgy of the Word on Easter night, then, comes the account of the creation of the world. Two things are particularly important here in connection with this liturgy. On the one hand, creation is presented as a whole that includes the phenomenon of time. The seven days are an image of completeness, unfolding in time. They are ordered towards the seventh day, the day of the freedom of all creatures for God and for one another. Creation is therefore directed towards the coming together of God and his creatures; it exists so as to open up a space for the response to God’s great glory, an encounter between love and freedom. On the other hand, what the Church hears on Easter night is above all the first element of the creation account: "God said, ‘let there be light!’" (Gen 1:3). The creation account begins symbolically with the creation of light. The sun and the moon are created only on the fourth day. The creation account calls them lights, set by God in the firmament of heaven. In this way he deliberately takes away the divine character that the great religions had assigned to them. No, they are not gods. They are shining bodies created by the one God. But they are preceded by the light through which God’s glory is reflected in the essence of the created being.
What is the creation account saying here? Light makes life possible. It makes encounter possible. It makes communication possible. It makes knowledge, access to reality and to truth, possible. And insofar as it makes knowledge possible, it makes freedom and progress possible. Evil hides. Light, then, is also an expression of the good that both is and creates brightness. It is daylight, which makes it possible for us to act. To say that God created light means that God created the world as a space for knowledge and truth, as a space for encounter and freedom, as a space for good and for love. Matter is fundamentally good, being itself is good. And evil does not come from God-made being, rather, it comes into existence only through denial. It is a "no".
At Easter, on the morning of the first day of the week, God said once again: "Let there be light". The night on the Mount of Olives, the solar eclipse of Jesus’ passion and death, the night of the grave had all passed. Now it is the first day once again – creation is beginning anew. "Let there be light", says God, "and there was light": Jesus rises from the grave. Life is stronger than death. Good is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Truth is stronger than lies. The darkness of the previous days is driven away the moment Jesus rises from the grave and himself becomes God’s pure light. But this applies not only to him, not only to the darkness of those days. With the resurrection of Jesus, light itself is created anew. He draws all of us after him into the new light of the resurrection and he conquers all darkness. He is God’s new day, new for all of us.
But how is this to come about? How does all this affect us so that instead of remaining word it becomes a reality that draws us in? Through the sacrament of baptism and the profession of faith, the Lord has built a bridge across to us, through which the new day reaches us. The Lord says to the newly-baptized: Fiat lux – let there be light. God’s new day – the day of indestructible life, comes also to us. Christ takes you by the hand. From now on you are held by him and walk with him into the light, into real life. For this reason the early Church called baptism photismos – illumination.
Why was this? The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil. The darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values is the real threat to our existence and to the world in general. If God and moral values, the difference between good and evil, remain in darkness, then all other "lights", that put such incredible technical feats within our reach, are not only progress but also dangers that put us and the world at risk. Today we can illuminate our cities so brightly that the stars of the sky are no longer visible. Is this not an image of the problems caused by our version of enlightenment? With regard to material things, our knowledge and our technical accomplishments are legion, but what reaches beyond, the things of God and the question of good, we can no longer identify. Faith, then, which reveals God’s light to us, is the true enlightenment, enabling God’s light to break into our world, opening our eyes to the true light.
Dear friends, as I conclude, I would like to add one more thought about light and illumination. On Easter night, the night of the new creation, the Church presents the mystery of light using a unique and very humble symbol: the Paschal candle. This is a light that lives from sacrifice. The candle shines inasmuch as it is burnt up. It gives light, inasmuch as it gives itself. Thus the Church presents most beautifully the paschal mystery of Christ, who gives himself and so bestows the great light. Secondly, we should remember that the light of the candle is a fire. Fire is the power that shapes the world, the force of transformation. And fire gives warmth. Here too the mystery of Christ is made newly visible. Christ, the light, is fire, flame, burning up evil and so reshaping both the world and ourselves. "Whoever is close to me is close to the fire," as Jesus is reported by Origen to have said. And this fire is both heat and light: not a cold light, but one through which God’s warmth and goodness reach down to us.
The great hymn of the Exsultet, which the deacon sings at the beginning of the Easter liturgy, points us quite gently towards a further aspect. It reminds us that this object, the candle, has its origin in the work of bees. So the whole of creation plays its part. In the candle, creation becomes a bearer of light. But in the mind of the Fathers, the candle also in some sense contains a silent reference to the Church,. The cooperation of the living community of believers in the Church in some way resembles the activity of bees. It builds up the community of light. So the candle serves as a summons to us to become involved in the community of the Church, whose raison d’être is to let the light of Christ shine upon the world.
Let us pray to the Lord at this time that he may grant us to experience the joy of his light; let us pray that we ourselves may become bearers of his light, and that through the Church, Christ’s radiant face may enter our world (cf. Lumen Gentium, no. 1). Amen.
***
Friday, August 19, 2011
Where Have I Been Lately?
Answer: I've been busy, busy, busy! Which is a whole lot better than having nothing to do.
The former program director of Catholic Relief Services let me know that he has almost finished reviewing my book and answering my questions about his experiences with Mother Teresa. When he's done, he'll send the manuscript back to me so I can incorporate his answers, fix any errors and then finalize the manuscript. Then, finally, I'll be able to submit it to a publisher. I have been looking forward to this for years. It was truly an inspiration from God to write this book, and the Holy Spirit has been guiding the project from its inception in 2008. This book recounts an amazing true story that has never before been written about in detail or published: how Mother Teresa and Catholic Relief Services helped save the lives of ten million Bangladeshi refugees in India in 1971. This former program director, whom I am honored to call my friend, oversaw this vast relief effort for CRS. I am also honoring his wish to remain anonymous for as long as possible--that is, until the book comes out. I'll be sure to let you know when the book comes out, and where you can get it.
Meanwhile, I've been busy with other writing projects. In May, my comprehensive article on the new Roman Missal translation entitled "Missale Romanum, Third Edition: Liturgical Renewal as Envisioned by Vatican II" was conditionally accepted for publication by Inside the Vatican--the condition being that the article length should be cut in half (it was over 8,000 words). So I cut 3,000 words and the editor took out another thousand. In the end I was happy with the result--the essay still contains most of the essential information that I wanted to convey to readers. The editor said it would be placed in the August/September issue of the magazine. I recently obtained a subscription to the magazine, and am looking forward to getting that issue and seeing if my piece is in there. In the meantime, I've also submitted my original 8,000-word article (with ITV's permission) to other Catholic publishers, since I would like to get the whole thing published somewhere if I could. We're now only three months away from the full implementation of the new Roman Missal. Catholics need to be prepared for it.
I've also been writing some material dealing with Catholic creation doctrine and theology as I continue to work my way through Father Warkulwiz's tome, The Doctrines of Genesis 1-11. While I've found that this book has a lot of good information about Catholic teaching on creation and the importance of preserving and handing on the Church's creation doctrine, I disagree with some of the opinions expressed. So I'm writing down respectfully what I disagree with and why.
Another piece I have in the works challenges the conventional scientific wisdom about the planet Mars having once been a very wet place. This is a really interesting subject. I've been doing some research, and I've found that most of the evidence planetary scientists use to claim past oceans of liquid water on Mars can be readily and more accurately explained by non-hydrological processes in the Red Planet's past that scientists already have proof of such as volcanism, geothermal activity and impact cratering.
I'm also gradually getting more into music writing. I love creating new solo piano arrangements of traditional Catholic hymns. The last couple days I wrote my own arrangement of "O Holy Night," which is the second Christmas carol that I've written a piano arrangement for. The first was "We Three Kings" back in late 09/early 10. I haven't published any of my scores yet, but I'm hoping to do so soon. I recently acquired an account on ScoreExchange.com, which is a website where you can sell music, but I don't have a PayPal account yet. You have to have that before you can sell music on the site. I need to find out 1) how you get a PayPal account and 2) how it works--how the website will pay me through PayPal.
Earlier this month, here at Terra Patris we had a celebration in honor of the proposed feast day of God the Father. Our landlord has been holding this event annually for several years now on the first Sunday of August. This year we had a procession with an image of God the Father from the parking area into a tent in the riverside park, along with songs and a few prayers. (Good thing we had the tent, because it rained a little.) Then we had a dinner including a lamb roast, hamburgers, hot dogs and covered dishes that people brought to share. We had people come from Ohio, Virginia, Michigan, Alabama, Tennessee and Florida this year. Our local priest came as he usually does to lead us in the prayers and bless the image of God the Father. This painting was commissioned by Saint Margaret d'Youville, a Canadian nun who lived in the 1700s. The idea for a feast day in honor of our Heavenly Father came from the Heavenly Father himself in messages given to an Italian nun, Mother Eugenia Ravasio, in the 1930s. These messages have been approved by the Church. Sadly, God the Father has often become "the forgotten Person of the Trinity" these days. It is our hope to remind people how much God the Father loves us and to rekindle devotion to Him, hopefully leading eventually to the Church's formal institution of a feast day in His honor.
My sister and Dad went to the EWTN Family Celebration in Birmingham, Alabama last month. They really enjoyed it. My sister got to meet Raymond Arroyo (for the second time) as well as Father Frank Pavone, Johnette Benkovic, Father Anthony and Father Mark. Both my Dad and sister got to meet Bishop Baker as he was coming in to say Mass. It's phenomenal how EWTN has grown in the last thirty years. When we started watching it in 1993, the network was reaching 18 million homes. Today it reaches 160 million homes through television alone and many millions more through radio (AM/FM, shortwave, Sirius) and the Internet, proclaiming the truth of the Catholic faith to the whole world.
Well, I better get going--I've got to rest, too. Good night!
The former program director of Catholic Relief Services let me know that he has almost finished reviewing my book and answering my questions about his experiences with Mother Teresa. When he's done, he'll send the manuscript back to me so I can incorporate his answers, fix any errors and then finalize the manuscript. Then, finally, I'll be able to submit it to a publisher. I have been looking forward to this for years. It was truly an inspiration from God to write this book, and the Holy Spirit has been guiding the project from its inception in 2008. This book recounts an amazing true story that has never before been written about in detail or published: how Mother Teresa and Catholic Relief Services helped save the lives of ten million Bangladeshi refugees in India in 1971. This former program director, whom I am honored to call my friend, oversaw this vast relief effort for CRS. I am also honoring his wish to remain anonymous for as long as possible--that is, until the book comes out. I'll be sure to let you know when the book comes out, and where you can get it.
Meanwhile, I've been busy with other writing projects. In May, my comprehensive article on the new Roman Missal translation entitled "Missale Romanum, Third Edition: Liturgical Renewal as Envisioned by Vatican II" was conditionally accepted for publication by Inside the Vatican--the condition being that the article length should be cut in half (it was over 8,000 words). So I cut 3,000 words and the editor took out another thousand. In the end I was happy with the result--the essay still contains most of the essential information that I wanted to convey to readers. The editor said it would be placed in the August/September issue of the magazine. I recently obtained a subscription to the magazine, and am looking forward to getting that issue and seeing if my piece is in there. In the meantime, I've also submitted my original 8,000-word article (with ITV's permission) to other Catholic publishers, since I would like to get the whole thing published somewhere if I could. We're now only three months away from the full implementation of the new Roman Missal. Catholics need to be prepared for it.
I've also been writing some material dealing with Catholic creation doctrine and theology as I continue to work my way through Father Warkulwiz's tome, The Doctrines of Genesis 1-11. While I've found that this book has a lot of good information about Catholic teaching on creation and the importance of preserving and handing on the Church's creation doctrine, I disagree with some of the opinions expressed. So I'm writing down respectfully what I disagree with and why.
Another piece I have in the works challenges the conventional scientific wisdom about the planet Mars having once been a very wet place. This is a really interesting subject. I've been doing some research, and I've found that most of the evidence planetary scientists use to claim past oceans of liquid water on Mars can be readily and more accurately explained by non-hydrological processes in the Red Planet's past that scientists already have proof of such as volcanism, geothermal activity and impact cratering.
I'm also gradually getting more into music writing. I love creating new solo piano arrangements of traditional Catholic hymns. The last couple days I wrote my own arrangement of "O Holy Night," which is the second Christmas carol that I've written a piano arrangement for. The first was "We Three Kings" back in late 09/early 10. I haven't published any of my scores yet, but I'm hoping to do so soon. I recently acquired an account on ScoreExchange.com, which is a website where you can sell music, but I don't have a PayPal account yet. You have to have that before you can sell music on the site. I need to find out 1) how you get a PayPal account and 2) how it works--how the website will pay me through PayPal.
Earlier this month, here at Terra Patris we had a celebration in honor of the proposed feast day of God the Father. Our landlord has been holding this event annually for several years now on the first Sunday of August. This year we had a procession with an image of God the Father from the parking area into a tent in the riverside park, along with songs and a few prayers. (Good thing we had the tent, because it rained a little.) Then we had a dinner including a lamb roast, hamburgers, hot dogs and covered dishes that people brought to share. We had people come from Ohio, Virginia, Michigan, Alabama, Tennessee and Florida this year. Our local priest came as he usually does to lead us in the prayers and bless the image of God the Father. This painting was commissioned by Saint Margaret d'Youville, a Canadian nun who lived in the 1700s. The idea for a feast day in honor of our Heavenly Father came from the Heavenly Father himself in messages given to an Italian nun, Mother Eugenia Ravasio, in the 1930s. These messages have been approved by the Church. Sadly, God the Father has often become "the forgotten Person of the Trinity" these days. It is our hope to remind people how much God the Father loves us and to rekindle devotion to Him, hopefully leading eventually to the Church's formal institution of a feast day in His honor.
My sister and Dad went to the EWTN Family Celebration in Birmingham, Alabama last month. They really enjoyed it. My sister got to meet Raymond Arroyo (for the second time) as well as Father Frank Pavone, Johnette Benkovic, Father Anthony and Father Mark. Both my Dad and sister got to meet Bishop Baker as he was coming in to say Mass. It's phenomenal how EWTN has grown in the last thirty years. When we started watching it in 1993, the network was reaching 18 million homes. Today it reaches 160 million homes through television alone and many millions more through radio (AM/FM, shortwave, Sirius) and the Internet, proclaiming the truth of the Catholic faith to the whole world.
Well, I better get going--I've got to rest, too. Good night!
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Faith in God Begins With Creation
Pope Benedict XVI is getting us back to the basics of our faith. In his Easter Vigil homily at Saint Peter's, he reminded us that faith in God begins with creation. We're not the product of random evolution in some tiny corner of the cosmos, but the product of divine creative love and reason. This is part of our Christian faith and it makes sense. However, such a statement is highly controversial in a culture where faith in God is weak and evolutionary propaganda controls the minds of many people, even many Christians. Thus I wasn't surprised that this article I seeded on Newsvine about the pope's homily drew 147 comments:
Faith in God Begins with Creation
It goes to show that once you abandon the truth of sound creation doctrine, you leave a vacuum to be filled by the errors of materialistic evolutionism.
Faith in God Begins with Creation
It goes to show that once you abandon the truth of sound creation doctrine, you leave a vacuum to be filled by the errors of materialistic evolutionism.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Quote of the Day
Catholics must not allow themselves to be intimidated into abandoning biblical chronology and accepting the speculations of modern astronomers concerning the age of the universe. The conclusion that the universe is ancient is not the scientific certainty that many of them assert it to be. They interpret data and construct models with the preconceived notion that the universe is ancient, but there is significant scientific evidence that it is not. The facts of modern astronomy do not make it a "necessity" to "depart from the literal and obvious sense" in the interpretation of Genesis' chronology. Rather the opposite is true. A correct interpretation of astronomical data agrees with the literal rendering of Genesis' chronology.--Fr. Victor P. Warkulwiz, The Doctrines of Genesis 1-11: A Compendium and Defense of Traditional Catholic Theology on Origins (Caryville, TN: The John Paul II Institute of Christian Spirituality, 2009), p. 196.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Want to Take a Tour of Noah's Ark?
Now you can!
NOAH'S ARK - THIS IS EXTRAORDINARY!!!
Working Replica of Noah's Ark opened In SCHAGEN, Netherlands .
Man Builds Noah's Ark to the exact scale given in the Bible.
The massive central door in the side of Noah's Ark was opened and the first crowd of curious townsfolk beheld the wonder. This replica of the biblical Ark was built by Dutch Creationist Johan Huibers as a testament to his faith in the literal truth of the Bible.
The ark is 150 cubits long, 30 cubits high and 20 cubits wide. That's two-thirds the length of a football field and as high as a three-story house.
Life-sized models of giraffes, elephants, lions, crocodiles, zebras, bison and other animals greet visitors as they arrive in the main hold.
A contractor by trade, Huibers built the ark of cedar and pine. Biblical scholars debate exactly what the wood used by Noah would have been.
Huibers did the work mostly with his own hands, using modern tools and with occasional help from his son Roy. Construction began in May 2005. On the uncovered top deck .... not quite ready in time for the opening .... will come a petting zoo, with baby lambs and chickens, and goats, and one camel.
Visitors on the first day were stunned.
'It's beyond comprehension', said Mary Louise Starosciak, who happened to be bicycling by with her husband while on vacation when they saw the ark looming over the local landscape.
'I knew the story of Noah, but I had no idea the boat would have been so big! ' There is enough space near the keel for a 50-seat film theater where kids can watch a video that tells the story of Noah and his ark. Huibers, a Christian man, said he hopes the project will renew interest in Christianity in the Netherlands, where church going has fallen dramatically in the past 50 years.
Now that I am old and gray....give me the time to tell this new generation (and their children too) about all of Your mighty miracles.
Psalm 71:18
In the midst of so much negative news here is a positive story about a devout Christian man wanting to share the story of Noah with this and the next generation hoping he will bring their faith alive. Amazing isn't it?
------------------------------
Yes, it's wonderful to see someone like this undertaking such a project for the greater glory of God. The above story and pictures are making the rounds of the email sphere, and apparently generating a lot of interest. A friend dropped them into my email box, and I decided to share them with my readers who may not have seen the story yet.
By the way, I am a "Catholic Creationist," who also believes in the literal truth of Genesis chapters 1 through 11 in accordance with the Fathers of the Church and traditional Catholic theology. It is my fervent wish to help revive this rich theological doctrine of creation which, as former Cardinal Ratzinger has lamented, has been all but lost in our time. Its revival and rediscovery will enrich our Catholic faith, greatly advance ecumenism and lay the foundation for a correct modern science. It will also give great honor to God our Heavenly Father, the Creator and Origin of all things.
NOAH'S ARK - THIS IS EXTRAORDINARY!!!
Working Replica of Noah's Ark opened In SCHAGEN, Netherlands .
Man Builds Noah's Ark to the exact scale given in the Bible.
The massive central door in the side of Noah's Ark was opened and the first crowd of curious townsfolk beheld the wonder. This replica of the biblical Ark was built by Dutch Creationist Johan Huibers as a testament to his faith in the literal truth of the Bible.
The ark is 150 cubits long, 30 cubits high and 20 cubits wide. That's two-thirds the length of a football field and as high as a three-story house.
Life-sized models of giraffes, elephants, lions, crocodiles, zebras, bison and other animals greet visitors as they arrive in the main hold.
A contractor by trade, Huibers built the ark of cedar and pine. Biblical scholars debate exactly what the wood used by Noah would have been.
Huibers did the work mostly with his own hands, using modern tools and with occasional help from his son Roy. Construction began in May 2005. On the uncovered top deck .... not quite ready in time for the opening .... will come a petting zoo, with baby lambs and chickens, and goats, and one camel.
Visitors on the first day were stunned.
'It's beyond comprehension', said Mary Louise Starosciak, who happened to be bicycling by with her husband while on vacation when they saw the ark looming over the local landscape.
'I knew the story of Noah, but I had no idea the boat would have been so big! ' There is enough space near the keel for a 50-seat film theater where kids can watch a video that tells the story of Noah and his ark. Huibers, a Christian man, said he hopes the project will renew interest in Christianity in the Netherlands, where church going has fallen dramatically in the past 50 years.
Now that I am old and gray....give me the time to tell this new generation (and their children too) about all of Your mighty miracles.
Psalm 71:18
In the midst of so much negative news here is a positive story about a devout Christian man wanting to share the story of Noah with this and the next generation hoping he will bring their faith alive. Amazing isn't it?
------------------------------
Yes, it's wonderful to see someone like this undertaking such a project for the greater glory of God. The above story and pictures are making the rounds of the email sphere, and apparently generating a lot of interest. A friend dropped them into my email box, and I decided to share them with my readers who may not have seen the story yet.
By the way, I am a "Catholic Creationist," who also believes in the literal truth of Genesis chapters 1 through 11 in accordance with the Fathers of the Church and traditional Catholic theology. It is my fervent wish to help revive this rich theological doctrine of creation which, as former Cardinal Ratzinger has lamented, has been all but lost in our time. Its revival and rediscovery will enrich our Catholic faith, greatly advance ecumenism and lay the foundation for a correct modern science. It will also give great honor to God our Heavenly Father, the Creator and Origin of all things.
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