Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 328

Breaking news: Our understanding of God influences our actions!

Yep, it's true. Don't scoff. Here's part of the story, from my local newspaper:

In experiments involving 100 students at UBC, the researchers found that a belief in God doesn't deter a person from cheating on a test, unless that God is seen as mean and punishing.

Students who believed in a caring, forgiving God were more likely to cheat — as likely, in fact, as students who professed no belief in God.

"When you look at the division between nonbelievers and believers, there was no difference in cheating," Shariff said. "It doesn't matter so much whether you believe in God, but what God you believe in."

Shariff said he wasn't necessarily surprised that students who believe in a punitive God would be less likely to cheat. That's consistent with a "supernatural punishment hypothesis" that has long recognized that societies can "outsource" the time-consuming task of promoting moral behavior to a supernatural agent, he said.

"Rulers have known for a long time that God is an incredibly effective way of keeping people in line," he said.

Shariff said he was more surprised that students who believe in a forgiving God were more likely to cheat.

"It almost gives people license to act in an immoral way because they have a supernatural agent who will forgive them regardless of what they do," he said. "They'll think, 'It's OK to do this because I won't be judged too harshly because my God is a forgiving God.' "

All joking aside, the rest of the article is rather revealing, perhaps as much about the research criteria itself as the results. The piece reports: "Students rated God on 14 traits, half loving, half punitive, and could express belief in a God who was at once highly loving and highly punitive. On the whole, students were more likely to believe in a loving God than a mean-spirited God, Shariff said."

Without having seen the study, it sounds as if students had to choose between polar opposites that are, from the standpoint of orthodox Christian theology, quite misleading and misrepresentative. Further, it sounds as if the notion of "loving" in the study equates, at least in the minds of many of the students, to "letting me get away with cheating", or at least "will forgive me for cheating without asking for anything in return". That, needless to say, isn't a loving God, but a Dr. Spock-inspired, coddling, spineless enabler. And, on the other end, the belief that punishment is somehow part and parcel of being "mean-spirited" is equally misguided. After all, how many of the students, I wonder, believe that criminals should get away with, say, murder, rape, or molestation without being punished in some way?

A basic problem is that "love" is too often divorced from a sentiment-free view of reality that is rooted in the belief of an objective, moral order. If no such moral order really exists, then "love" simply becomes a matter of sliding-scale sentiment, in which one's subjective affections become the arbitrary and voluntaristic basis for relationships, order, and community. Not surprisingly, when people adopt this basic perspective, they read it back into their notion of God. Of course, as Benedict XVI pointed out in his Regensburg address, it was a voluntaristic understanding of God that led, step by logical step, to a relativizing of morality and the creation of a false love severed from any transcendent source:

In all honesty, one must observe that in the late Middle Ages we find trends in theology which would sunder this synthesis between the Greek spirit and the Christian spirit. In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which, in its later developments, led to the claim that we can only know God's voluntas ordinata. Beyond this is the realm of God's freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazm and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God's transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions. As opposed to this, the faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason there exists a real analogy, in which - as the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 stated - unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language. God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love, as Saint Paul says, "transcends" knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is Logos. Consequently, Christian worship is, again to quote Paul - "λογικη λατρεία", worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).

The understanding of God as love requires a proper grasp of two concepts not mentioned in the newspaper article: justice and mercy. God is love, indeed, but he is also the God of justice and mercy. John Paul II, in his 1980 encyclical Dives in misericordia, reflected at length on the relationship between these three—love, mercy, and justice—and showed that far from being in opposition to one another, they are intimately related one to another, even while being distinct:

In this way, mercy is in a certain sense contrasted with God's justice, and in many cases is shown to be not only more powerful than that justice but also more profound. Even the Old Testament teaches that, although justice is an authentic virtue in man, and in God signifies transcendent perfection nevertheless love is "greater" than justice: greater in the sense that it is primary and fundamental. Love, so to speak, conditions justice and, in the final analysis, justice serves love. The primacy and superiority of love vis-a-vis justice - this is a mark of the whole of revelation - are revealed precisely through mercy. This seemed so obvious to the psalmists and prophets that the very term justice ended up by meaning the salvation accomplished by the Lord and His mercy. Mercy differs from justice, but is not in opposition to it, if we admit in the history of man - as the Old Testament precisely does-the presence of God, who already as Creator has linked Himself to His creature with a particular love. Love, by its very nature, excludes hatred and ill - will towards the one to whom He once gave the gift of Himself: Nihil odisti eorum quae fecisti, "you hold nothing of what you have made in abhorrence." These words indicate the profound basis of the relationship between justice and mercy in God, in His relations with man and the world. They tell us that we must seek the life-giving roots and intimate reasons for this relationship by going back to "the beginning," in the very mystery of creation. They foreshadow in the context of the Old Covenant the full revelation of God, who is "love."

Man will, with a certain skewed logic, pit the "love" of God against the "punishment" of God unless he contemplates and encounters the reality of the Incarnate Word, who is the author of perfect justice but also the Lover of mankind. Benedict, in Deus Caritas Est, wrote:

We have seen that God's eros for man is also totally agape. This is not only because it is bestowed in a completely gratuitous manner, without any previous merit, but also because it is love which forgives. Hosea above all shows us that this agape dimension of God's love for man goes far beyond the aspect of gratuity. Israel has committed "adultery" and has broken the covenant; God should judge and repudiate her. It is precisely at this point that God is revealed to be God and not man: "How can I give you up, O Ephraim! How can I hand you over, O Israel! ... My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger, I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst" (Hos 11:8-9). God's passionate love for his people—for humanity—is at the same time a forgiving love. It is so great that it turns God against himself, his love against his justice. Here Christians can see a dim prefigurement of the mystery of the Cross: so great is God's love for man that by becoming man he follows him even into death, and so reconciles justice and love. (par. 10)

He takes up the same essential thought in Spe Salvi:

God has given himself an "image": in Christ who was made man. In him who was crucified, the denial of false images of God is taken to an extreme. God now reveals his true face in the figure of the sufferer who shares man's God-forsaken condition by taking it upon himself. This innocent sufferer has attained the certitude of hope: there is a God, and God can create justice in a way that we cannot conceive, yet we can begin to grasp it through faith. Yes, there is a resurrection of the flesh. There is justice. There is an "undoing" of past suffering, a reparation that sets things aright. For this reason, faith in the Last Judgement is first and foremost hope—the need for which was made abundantly clear in the upheavals of recent centuries. I am convinced that the question of justice constitutes the essential argument, or in any case the strongest argument, in favour of faith in eternal life. The purely individual need for a fulfilment that is denied to us in this life, for an everlasting love that we await, is certainly an important motive for believing that man was made for eternity; but only in connection with the impossibility that the injustice of history should be the final word does the necessity for Christ's return and for new life become fully convincing. (par. 43)

To say, in essence, that it is better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission to sin is to miss the key point: it is better to love, which includes loving truth and justice, which means loving others and avoiding actions—cheating, stealing, lying, etc.—that are violations of both human and divine love. God does not punish sin because he is "mean-spirited", but because he is holy and just. But because he is love, God does not stop with rightful punishment, but offers mercy and grace for those who are willing to accept the gift in faith and humility:

To protest against God in the name of justice is not helpful. A world without God is a world without hope (cf. Eph 2:12). Only God can create justice. And faith gives us the certainty that he does so. The image of the Last Judgement is not primarily an image of terror, but an image of hope; for us it may even be the decisive image of hope. Is it not also a frightening image? I would say: it is an image that evokes responsibility, an image, therefore, of that fear of which Saint Hilary spoke when he said that all our fear has its place in love[35]. God is justice and creates justice. This is our consolation and our hope. And in his justice there is also grace. This we know by turning our gaze to the crucified and risen Christ. Both these things—justice and grace—must be seen in their correct inner relationship. Grace does not cancel out justice. It does not make wrong into right. It is not a sponge which wipes everything away, so that whatever someone has done on earth ends up being of equal value. Dostoevsky, for example, was right to protest against this kind of Heaven and this kind of grace in his novel The Brothers Karamazov. Evildoers, in the end, do not sit at table at the eternal banquet beside their victims without distinction, as though nothing had happened. (Spe Salvi, par. 44)

If we only obey God because we fear damnation, we will be better off than those who misjudge or spurn the justice of God, but we will also be missing out on the true love of God, who, like the father of the prodigal son, waits for us to admit our need for him, our desire to be in his presence, our longing to come home and to be filled with the divine love of the Triune God.

Cardinal Schönborn's comments on catechisms and the YOUCAT

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn's Introduction to the April 13th Presentation of the YOUCAT (Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church) at the Vatican has been translated into English by Michael J. Miller (who also translated the Youth Catechism):

Presentation of YouCat
Wednesday, April 13, 2011, 12:30 p.m., Sala Stampa, Vatican

Introduction to the Presentation of YOUCAT
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn

In 2006 the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church was presented in Vienna.  At the news conference one woman stood up and said, "This book is not suitable for young people."  I think that she was right.  Somehow or
other I then expressed the idea:  Let's try therefore to make something for the youth.  And with that my part in it was already almost finished.  For the work on the book itself was done entirely in Germany.  Of course we could not have guessed that something would really come of this project.  In the following remarks you will hear how the project was planned and how it was carried out.  First, though, I would like to give a brief historical retrospect. 

In 1985 I served the Synod of Bishops as a "theological assistant";  at that time I was still a professor of dogmatic theology in Fribourg, Switzerland.  The Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Bernard Law gave a speech in Latin, and the key sentence read:  "Iuvenes Bostonienses, Leningradienses et Sancti Jacobi in Chile induti sunt 'blue jeans' et audiunt et saltant eandem musicam."  In English:  "Young people from Boston, Leningrad and Santiago de Chile wear blue jeans and listen and dance to the same music."  Starting from that observation, Cardinal Law meant to say:  It must be possible after all in a globalized world to give expression to the faith, too, in a common language.  Against all objections, the project was successful.  Pope Benedict XVI, in his magnificent Foreword to YouCat reminds us of the objections that he himself had too.  And so the Catechism of the Catholic Church came to be, which no doubt, despite all the objections and all the misgivings, became a success worldwide.  Nevertheless it was clear from the start that we must make room also for local catechisms, for catechisms aimed at a specific readership, and YouCat is one such attempt at a catechism for youth. 

Why have a catechism in the first place?  Vatican II commissioned no catechism, unlike the Council of Trent.  Twenty years after the end of the Council the World Synod of Bishops determined that the work of handing on the faith had come to a standstill!  Therefore there had to be something like a clearinghouse [Vermittlung] of the major doctrinal teachings of the Council and of the whole Church in a didactic form, which would be oriented once more to the old catechism.  The great model for this catechism was the catechism of Trent from the year 1566, in its structure as well as in its irenic style and tone.  Peter Canisius, the only Saint to have occupied the episcopal see of Vienna, although only as administrator of the Archdiocese, composed his great catechism in Vienna, and also his "Minimus", his Little Catechism.  Is the literary genre "catechism" still justified today even after Vatican II?  The Catechism of the Catholic Church encouraged us to think so.  YouCat is once again a catechism in the question-and-answer format.  The Compendium was already an attempt at this format—in my opinion, a not entirely successful attempt.  I believe that this is a successful attempt.  We will see. 

Continue reading at YouCat.us.

Meanwhile, in an alternative universe...

A quick (and sad) little quiz:

The following public remarks were recently made by a Catholic: "First and foremost, [the Church] doesn't say anything in particular about homosexuality, per se. It does say that we are created in God's image, male and female created in God's image ... Homosexuality is not condemned [by the Church] in any way, shape or form..." (ht: Cardinal Newman Society).

Who said it?

a. A priest
b. A director of University Ministry at a Catholic university
c. A Jesuit

Ding, ding, ding! Any and all of those answers are correct.

Another quiz: what religious body/group has stated the following in official documents:

a. "Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.'"
b. "[Homosexual acts] are contrary to the natural law. ... Under no circumstances can they be approved."
c. "[D]eep-seated homosexual tendencies [are] objectively disordered..."

Yes, that's correct: the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Now, perhaps the priest was misquoted. Perhaps he meant to say, as the Catechism does, that those who have homosexual tendencies "must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition."

And perhaps he, in making light of the USCCB document, "Always Our Children", wishes to ignore that the document states, "Although the gift of human sexuality can be a great mystery at times, the Church's teaching on homosexuality is clear." Which would likely account for him saying (in the words of the reporter), "that certain perceptions of homosexuality in the Catholic Church do exist"—as if "Church teaching" is nothing more a "certain perception".

But, hey, I don't live and work in the alternative universe that exists in many Catholic universities, so I can't say for certain...

UPDATE: A student responds to the misleading remarks of the priest/director of ministry/Jesuit.

Related:

• Is Gonzaga still a Jesuit, Catholic university? | Dr. Eric Cunningham

The Pope answers questions about suffering, persecution, and the Resurrection

On Good Friday, Benedict XVI appeared on the pre-recorded Italian television show "In His Image" and answered seven questions submitted by folks from different parts of the world. The first:

Q. Holy Father, I want to thank you for your presence here,which fills us with joy and helps us remember that today is the day in which Jesus showed His love in the most radical way, that is, by dying on the cross as an innocent. It is precisely on this theme of innocent sorrow that is the first question that comes from a seven-year-old Japanese child who says:"My name is Elena. I am Japanese and I am seven years old. I am very frightened because the house where I felt safe really shook a lot and many children my age have died. I cannot go to play at the park. I want to know: why do I have to be so afraid? Why do children have to be so sad? I'm asking the Pope, who speaks with God, to explain it to me."

A. Dear Elena, I send you my heartfelt greetings. I also have the same questions: why is it this way? Why do you have to suffer so much while others live in ease? And we do not have the answers but we know that Jesus suffered as you do, an innocent, and that the true God who is revealed in Jesus is by your side. This seems very important to me, even if we do not have answers, even if we are still sad; God is by your side and you can be certain that this will help you. One day we will even understand why it was so. At this moment it seems important to me that you know "God loves me" even if it seems like He doesn't know me. No, He loves me, He is by my side, and you can be sure that in the world, in the universe, there are many who are with you, thinking of you, doing what they can for you, to help you. And be aware that, one day, I will understand that this suffering was not empty, it wasn't in vain, but behind it was a good plan, a plan of love. It is not chance. Be assured, we are with you, with all the Japanese children who are suffering. We want to help you with our prayers, with our actions, and you can be sure that God will help you. In this sense we pray together so that light may come to you as soon as possible.

And a question about the Resurrected body of Christ:

Q. The next question is also on the theme of Resurrection and comes from Italy. "Your Holiness, when the women reach the tomb on the Sunday after Jesus' death, they do not recognize their Master but confuse him with another. It also happens to the apostles: Jesus shows them his wounds,breaks bread, in order to be recognized, precisely by his actions. He has a true body, made of flesh, but it is also glorified. What does it mean that His risen body didn't have the same characteristics as before? What, exactly, does a glorified body mean? Will the Resurrection also be like that for us?"

A. Naturally, we cannot define the glorified body because it is beyond our experience. We can only note the signs that Jesus has given us to understand, at least a little, in which direction we should seek this reality. The first sign: the tomb is empty. That is, Jesus dead not leave his body behind to corruption. This shows us that even matter is destined for eternity,that it is truly resurrected, that it does not remain something lost. But he then assumed this matter in a new condition of life. This is the second point: Jesus no longer dies, that is, He is beyond the laws of biology and physics because He endured this one death. Therefore there is a new condition, a different one,that we do not know but which is shown in the fact of Jesus and which is a great promise for all of us: that there is a new world, a new life, toward which we are on a journey. Being in this condition, Jesus had the possibility of letting himself be felt, of offering his hand to his followers, of eating with them, but still of being beyond the conditions of biological life as we live it. We know that, on the one hand, He is a real man, not a ghost, that he lives a real life, but a new life that is no longer submitted to the death that is our great promise. It is important to understand this, at least as much as we can, for the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, the Lord gives us His glorified body, not flesh to eat in a biological sense. He gives us Himself, this newness that He is in our humanity, in our being as person, and it touches us within with His being so that we might let ourselves be penetrated by His presence,transformed in His presence. It is an important point because we are thus already in contact with this new life, this new type of life, since He has entered into me and I have gone out of myself and am extended toward a new dimension of life. I think that this aspect of the promise, of the reality that He gives Himself to me and pulls me out of myself, toward on high, is the most important point. It is not about noting things that we cannot understand but of being on a journey to the newness that always begins again anew in the Eucharist.

Read the other five questions and answers on EWTNnews.com. For a book-length interview with the Holy Father, see Light Of The World The Pope, The Church and The Signs Of The Times , with Peter Seewald.

A short introduction to St. Mark the Evangelist

On this, the Monday in the Octave of Easter, a brief introduction to St. Mark the Evangelist, whose feast is today:

Who was Mark? And what does he emphasize? According to an old tradition, he is supposed to have come from Jerusalem. His mother was called Mary. The first Christian congregation used to meet at her house for prayer and worship (cf. Acts 12:1-17). We find Mark as the companion of Barnabas in the first "mission team" led by Paul. And thereby "there arose a sharp contention" between Paul and Barnabas concerning him. This conflict even led the two great missionary apostles to separate for a while. Barnabas took Mark with him to his homeland of Cyprus, to carry on the mission there (Acts 15:36-40).

There was certainly a reconciliation later. Mark became a faithful assistant and brother to Paul, in prison in Rome. And Peter, too—already in Rome by that time, like Paul—calls Mark "my son" (1 Pet 5:13).

So we are not surprised that later tradition sees Mark as Peter's "interpreter", carefully writing down whatever he heard about Jesus from Peter. According to tradition, Peter sent Mark to Egypt, where he became "chief shepherd", the first bishop of the new Christian community.

Did Mark know Christ personally? Probably, at least at the end, when he was taken prisoner and suffered his Passion (cf. Mk 14:51f.). He certainly belonged to the milieu of the first congregation in Jerusalem. I wonder whether his picture of Jesus is not strongly influenced by Peter. For no other evangelist talks about Jesus in such a "human" way as he does. Anger and sorrow, Jesus' passionate emotional responses, are more clearly mentioned in Mark than in the other Gospels.

However human Jesus may appear here, it is Mark in particular who also strongly emphasizes his divinity. The climax of the whole Gospel is the witness of the Roman centurion, a pagan, looking at Jesus, who has died on the Cross: "Truly this man was the Son of God!" (Mk 15: 39) .

Everything Mark tells us about Jesus is intended to lead us to the same confession of faith as made by this soldier, who was in charge of putting Jesus to death in this agonizing way. Through his Gospel, Mark intends to bring about what he himself experienced with Paul and with Peter: that through stories about Jesus, people come to believe in him. Belief is what the Gospel is about; it is not simply a biography of an interesting person. The first of Jesus' sayings that Mark reports is an urgent challenge to believe: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel" (Mk 1: 15).

Changing the way we think, changing our way of life and converting, that is what the Gospel is about. The new way that Jesus shows us is not wide and comfortable. It demands our assent to our own cross. It costs a lot, but it gives us much more. Giving up the old way and walking in this new way is a good bargain.

From the Introduction to Behold, God's Son: Encountering Christ in the Gospel of Mark (Ignatius Press, 2007), by Christoph Cardinal Schönborn.

The Three "R's" of the Resurrection

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Easter Sunday, Solemnity of the Resurrection of The Lord | April 24, 2011 | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Acts 10:34a, 37-43
• Psa. 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23
• Col. 3:1-4 or I Cor. 5:6b-8
• Jn. 20:1-9 or Mt. 28:1-10

"Hidden first in a womb of flesh, he sanctified human birth by his own birth. Hidden afterward in the womb of the earth, he gave life to the dead by his resurrection." This beautiful reflection on the Resurrection is from the pen of Hesychius of Jerusalem, a fifth-century priest, monk, and theologian revered in the Eastern churches.

Throughout the Gospels there is much about Christ that seems hidden, mysterious, and difficult to comprehend. The disciples are repeatedly depicted as misunderstanding Jesus, in constant need of further explanation about the deeper meaning of His parables and teachings—especially as they related to His approaching Passion, death, and Resurrection. Their three years with Jesus were filled with fits and starts of understanding, as though the light of their Master's words would sometimes break through and briefly burn away their limited, lacking notions of who He was and what He meant to do.

And yet, until what seemed to be the very end, the glorious, stunning truth about their Master's death was beyond their grasp.

This is evident in today's Gospel reading, from the Fourth Gospel. It was Mary of Magdala who went to the tomb "while it was still dark." Why? Perhaps to mourn. Perhaps she was sent by some of the Apostles. We don't know for certain. But the mention of darkness is deliberate, pointing as it does to the darkness of vision still afflicting the followers of the Crucified Christ.

Seeing that the stone was moved, Mary Magdalene ran back to Peter and John, "the beloved disciple." We can surmise that by the time they arrived at the tomb there was some morning light in the sky, for Peter is able to see inside. And yet, the Evangelist points out, "they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead." After they had returned home, it was Mary—"weeping outside the tomb"—who saw the two angels before seeing Jesus, who she initially mistook for a gardener (Jn 20:10-18).

This Gospel reading and the reading from the tenth chapter of Acts make a clear and vital connection between belief and witness. Belief in the Resurrected Lord is not just intellectual assent or sentimental longing, but a way of seeing, living, and acting rooted in complete communion with God the Father, made possible through the Son's work and the power of the Holy Spirit. And this belief, by God's grace, is based on witness. "How does one arrive at this present of the past, at this always of the once and for all, at the today of Easter?" asked Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in Images of Hope (Ignatius, 2006). "As a first ground rule we can say: on this path we need witnesses. … [Jesus] shows himself to witnesses who accompanied him on a part of his path to death. In accompanying them, one can encounter the truth."

There are, to borrow from the realm of education, three "R's" that flow in succession here.

First, there is the reality of the Resurrection—the fact that, as Peter proclaimed, "this man God raised on the third day."

Secondly, there is the reliability of the witnesses, the men and women who were there and who saw, touched, and spoke with the Risen Lord: "We are witnesses of all that he did."

Third, there is the responsibility that each of us is given as a follower of Christ. "If then you were raised with Christ," Paul exhorted the Christians in Colossae, "seek what is above." That includes living as though there really is an "above"—that is, heavenly glory—and not as though this world is all that exists or matters.

"On this day," wrote Hesychius of Jerusalem, " the divine call is heard, the kingdom is prepared, we are saved and Christ is adored." The life-changing, soul-saving reality of Easter is hidden to many. May we, filled with love like Mary Magdalene, Peter, John and all the saints, be light-bearing witnesses to the truth of the Resurrection.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the March 23, 2008, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

• The Truth of the Resurrection | Excerpts from Introduction to Christianity | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• Balthasar, his Christology, and the Mystery of Easter | Introduction to Hans Urs von Balthasar's Mysterium Paschale | Aidan Nichols O.P.
• The Cross — For Us | Hans Urs von Balthasar
• The Question of Suffering, The Response of the Cross | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• The Resurrection Puts Everything Together Again | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• Easter: The Defiant Feast | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• Immortality, Resurrection of the Body, Memory | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• Easter Delivers Us From Evil | Carl E. Olson
• The Easter Triduum: Entering into the Paschal Mystery | Carl E. Olson
• The Paradox of Good Friday | Carl E. Olson
• The Mystery at the Center of Our Faith | Hans Urs von Balthasar
• The Divinity of Christ | Peter Kreeft
• Jesus Is Catholic | Hans Urs von Balthasar

"The liturgical celebration of the Easter Vigil makes use of two eloquent signs."

First there is the fire that becomes light. As the procession makes its way through the church, shrouded in the darkness of the night, the light of the Paschal Candle becomes a wave of lights, and it speaks to us of Christ as the true morning star that never sets – the Risen Lord in whom light has conquered darkness. The second sign is water. On the one hand, it recalls the waters of the Red Sea, decline and death, the mystery of the Cross. But now it is presented to us as spring water, a life-giving element amid the dryness. Thus it becomes the image of the sacrament of baptism, through which we become sharers in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Yet these great signs of creation, light and water, are not the only constituent elements of the liturgy of the Easter Vigil. Another essential feature is the ample encounter with the words of sacred Scripture that it provides. Before the liturgical reform there were twelve Old Testament readings and two from the New Testament. The New Testament readings have been retained. The number of Old Testament readings has been fixed at seven, but depending upon the local situation, they may be reduced to three. The Church wishes to offer us a panoramic view of whole trajectory of salvation history, starting with creation, passing through the election and the liberation of Israel to the testimony of the prophets by which this entire history is directed ever more clearly towards Jesus Christ. In the liturgical tradition all these readings were called prophecies. Even when they are not directly foretelling future events, they have a prophetic character, they show us the inner foundation and orientation of history. They cause creation and history to become transparent to what is essential. In this way they take us by the hand and lead us towards Christ, they show us the true Light.

Read Pope Benedict XVI's entire homily for Easter Vigil, given at Saint Peter's Basilica.

"The waters of baptism and death"

From the essay, "The sacrament of baptism as a participation in the death of Christ", by Owen Vyner (Homiletic & Pastoral Review, April 2011):

For the early Christians, the Old Testament understanding of water in the events of salvation was the foundation for the symbolism of water in the baptismal rite. While there is clearly a link between water and cleansing in the Old Testament (just think of Naaman the leper in 2 Kings 5), the stories of the Flood and the Red Sea also reveal that water is connected with destruction and death. In the story of the Flood, water is a symbol of destruction. Water is the instrument of judgment through which God destroyed the sinful world (cf. Gn 6:17). The other principal reference to the destructive nature of water is in God executing judgment on the Egyptians and his defeat of the Egyptian army as they crossed the Red Sea in pursuit of Moses and the tribes of Israel (cf. Ex 7:4-5).

In the Psalms, we witness the man who, drowning in deep water, is in dire need of God's rescue: "I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me" (Ps 69:2). We also read, "Deep calls to deep at the thunder of thy cataracts; all thy waves and thy billows have gone over me" (Ps 42:7). Later the fate of this suffering individual, who seems to be abandoned, will be allegorically attributed to Christ and his cry for help on the Cross (cf. Mt 27:45-46).

In the Old Testament, just as water is linked with death, it is simultaneously connected with victory and salvation. The sinful world is destroyed in the Deluge, but at the same time, Noah is spared to be the principle of the new creation (cf. Gn 9:1-15). With the crossing of the Red Sea, there is death and judgment, but there is also God's victory over Pharaoh and the salvation of the tribes of Israel (cf. Ex 15:1). In his work, The Bible and the Liturgy, Jean Danielou argues that underlying this notion of a victory through the waters is the ancient myth of a serpent that dwells in the depths of the sea (cf. Is 27:1; 51:9-10).2 Thus, the victory which is to be obtained through the waters also follows a great struggle with the forces of evil.

In the New Testament, these images of descent into water, judgment, and victory through a physical wrestling with a great power are typologically applied to Christ's crucifixion. The stories of the Flood and the Red Sea are seen as being fulfilled by the promised salvation won by Christ on the Cross. First Peter establishes a connection between Noah's salvation through water and Christ's victory over death communicated to the Christian through baptism (cf. 1 Pt 3:20-21), while St. Paul interprets the crossing of the Red Sea as a prefiguring of Christian baptism. Paul understands the crossing of the Red Sea as a type of baptism, which is then typologically applied to the Christian, who, passing through the waters of baptism, is baptized into Christ (cf. 1 Cor 10:11-12).

In St. Paul's theology of baptism, there are images of descent, burial, and immersion (cf. Rom 6:4, Col 2:12). However, he also links baptism with a sharing in Christ's victory over the powers of evil (cf. Rom 6:9). Just as God overcame the tyranny of Pharaoh through the waters of the Red Sea, Christ overcomes Satan in the life of the Christian through the waters of baptism. These themes of death and victory are taken up with the baptismal liturgy in the early Church: "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?" (Rom 6:3). Therefore, through baptism into Christ, the Christian undergoes a configuration to Christ dead and risen signified by immersion in and emersion from water. Taking their lead from St. Paul, the Church Fathers developed these themes within the context of the baptismal liturgy, associating baptism with Christ's death and explicating the Christian's participation in that death.

Pope Benedict XVI speaks of this victory when he refers to Christ's struggle with Satan in his baptism. Referring to this struggle, Benedict states that Christ descends in the "role of one whose suffering-with-others is a transforming suffering that turns the underworld around, knocking down and flinging open the gates of the abyss."3 In Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict refers to the iconographic tradition that depicts Jesus' baptism in the Jordan as a liquid tomb with the form of a dark cavern, which is a symbol of hell. Benedict quotes St. Cyril of Jerusalem's allegorical reading of Christ's baptism and its connection with his descent into the dead: "Jesus' descent into the watery tomb, into the inferno that envelops him from every side, is thus an anticipation of this act of descending into the underworld: 'When he went down into the waters, he bound the strong man.'"4 St. Cyril also refers to the triple immersion as symbolic of Christ's three days in the tomb: "For just as our Savior spent three days and nights in the hollow bosom of the earth, so you upon first emerging were representing Christ's day in the earth, and by your immersion his first night…. In one and the same action you died and were born."5 St. Ambrose develops the connection between baptism and Christ's death even further when he likens the baptismal font with the grave: "[I]t is not earth which washes, but water. So it is that the font is a kind of grave."6 It is interesting to note that many baptismal fonts in the early Church were often shaped like tombs.7

The early Church saw the liturgy of baptism as a real participation in Christ's death and resurrection. In the Apostolic Constitutions (late fourth century), we find a prayer for the blessing of water so that the baptized person may be crucified with Christ: "Sanctify this water so that those who are baptized may be crucified with Christ, die with him, be buried with him, and rise again for adoption."8 St. Gregory Nazianzen expresses something similar: "We are buried with Christ in baptism so we may rise again with him."9 As mentioned earlier, St. Cyril sees the three immersions as a symbol of the three days of the Paschal Triduum and therefore, through his immersion, the Christian is plunged into Christ's death and resurrection. In responding to those who hold that baptism only forgives sin and procures divine adoption, but is not a participation in the sufferings of Christ, St. Cyril maintains: "We well know that not merely does [baptism] cleanse sin and bestow on us the gift of the Holy Spirit, it is also the sign of Christ's suffering…. So in order that we may realize that Christ endured all his sufferings for us and our salvation actually, and not in make believe, and that we share in his pains."10 Finally, for St. Ambrose there is a mystical union between the Christian and the Crucified Christ brought about through baptism, so that in baptism the Christian can be said to have received a "sacrament of the cross."11

Thus, in examining the symbolism of water in the Scriptures and in the liturgy of the early Church, water is clearly linked with the death of Christ. For the Christian, baptism means the participation in this death. At the same time, water is connected with a struggle and victory over the powers that threaten God's Chosen People. Therefore, it can be said that the baptized share in Christ's victory over sin and death.

Read the entire essay at www.HPRweb.com.

The mystery of atonement, the silence of Holy Saturday

In living out the Gospel and in suffering for it, the Church, under the guidance of the apostolic preaching, has learned to understand the mystery of the Cross more and more, even though ultimately it is a mystery that defies analysis in terms of our rational formulae. The darkness and irrationality of sin and the holiness of God, too dazzling for our eyes, come together in the Cross, transcending our power of understanding. And yet in the messag of the New Testament, and in the proof of that message in the lives of the saints, the great mystery has become radiant light.

The mystery of atonement is not to be sacrificed on the altar of overweening rationalism. The Lord's response to the request of the sons of Zebedee for seats at his right hand and at his left remains a key text for Christian faith in general: "The Son of man ... came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mk 10:45).

— Pope Benedict XVI, from Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem To The Resurrection, p. 240.

The silence of Holy Saturday is the whole earth's attitude of expectation. It reminds us of the silence before the creation of the world (Gen 1:2), when everything was waiting for God to act in power. So it is here, too. Christ has come into the world, and his earthly work, his life among men, and his death for sin have been achieved. To illustrate that, the preacher [Epiphanius of Salamis; cf. CCC, par. 635] recalls for his listeners the connection of pain and death with the conception of the Son of God in Mary's womb. But Christ's mission on earth is not yet quite completed; he has not yet gone to the dead. Not all the righteous have yet been redeemed, and the "shepherd" has not yet gathered together all of the "sheep". The righteous from the Old Testament are still not there—above all, Adam, the common ancestor. They have entangled themselves in sin through their misconduct, and on that account they are suffering "pains" in the underworld. For them, too, Christ came into the world to lead them home.

— Christopher Cardinal Schönborn, God Sent His Son: A Contemporary Christology, p. 307.

"Thus the shift from Good Friday to Easter must be two things at once..."

Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar on the readings for Easter Vigil:

1. With Jesus' death the word of God ends. In the weariness of Mary, pierced by every possible sword of suffering, the Church mutely holds vigil at the grave. All living faith, all living hope is deposited with God. No premature Alleluia sounds. The watching and waiting Church takes the time to recall the long path through all stages of salvation history that God has followed with his people since the creation of the world: seven events unfold before the Church's spiritual eyes. She sees salvation even in the most difficult of all events: in Abraham's sacrifice, in the narrow escape across the divided sea, in the homecoming from exile. And she understands that they were nothing but occurrences of grace. The sacrifice of Isaac ultimately confirmed both Abraham's obedience and God's promise; apparent submersion in the sea proved to be Israel's salvation and the burial of its enemies; exile itself was Israel's lengthy purification and return to God.

2. Thus, in the second reading, the Church recognizes that her own death in baptism is a dying with Jesus, a dying into eternal salvation in him, a dying into resurrection with him toward God, into a new sinless and deathless life. No mere ceremony can accomplish this miracle; only a genuine "co-crucifixion" with Christ of the old, sinful man, a co-crucifixion that permits a co-dying and co-burial to take place, can accomplish this. This is essentially a gift given by God to the person baptIzed, a gift that is also a lifelong challenge to make the gift come true in the Christian's existence. The two belong inseparably together if the gift given in Christ is to prevail in the Christian's life: he must become what he is, he must unfold what he has. Thus the shift from Good Friday to Easter must be two things at once: joy at the most sublime gift and determination to keep one's baptismal promises. It is fitting to renew these promises while celebrating the Easter Vigil.

From Light of the Word: Brief Reflections on the Sunday Readings (Ignatius Press, 1993), pp. 69-70.