Peter Kreeft on "The Great Divorce"

At the end of the 2024 Fall semester, our book club welcomed Professor Peter Kreeft to speak on C.S. Lewis. Professor Kreeft teaches philosophy at Boston College and has authored over eighty books covering topics ranging from Zen Buddhism to Martin Heidegger, as well as philosophical dialogues featuring Marx, Socrates, and John F. Kennedy. When he arrived at Holy Cross donning a suit and purple tie, I asked him if he had done so intentionally as a nod to our school colors. He quickly insisted the tie choice was mere coincidence. Although Peter Kreeft is a giant in the Catholic philosophical world, he knew perfectly how to relate to an audience of college students. 

The lecture was attended by twenty philosophically and theologically inclined students, the majority of whom had been attending weekly meetings covering C.S. Lewis’s 1945 classic, The Great Divorce. In the three weeks leading up to Kreeft’s talk, the group met for one hour on Fridays to share food, fellowship, and thoughts provoking discussion on the chapters we had read. The novella follows an unnamed narrator as he makes the journey (via cosmic bus) from a dull and grey Purgatory to the ethereal outskirts of Heaven. The narrator witnesses souls balk at the idea of entering Heaven, preferring to distance themselves from God and return back to Purgatory (or Hell, depending on how you look at it). Up at the podium, Kreeft expounded effortlessly about the book, crystalizing and deepening the insights we had made together during club meetings. He included jokes and anecdotes that kept the audience engaged, and drew connections between the Bible, Dante, and other works by Lewis. Kreeft covered the main themes of the book: free will and God’s judgment of sin. God in his infinite patience and wisdom, Kreeft said, allows his stupid children to make the same mistakes over and over again so that we may come to him and ask for forgiveness. This gets to the heart of C.S. Lewis’s book: the shades in Heaven are given ample opportunity to accept God’s love, only to turn it down in favor of prideful pursuits. 

After the talk, Professor Kreeft stayed for a while to talk to the students, a courtesy we were all grateful for. 
Book club meetings will continue later this month, copies of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment will be provided for any Holy Cross student interested. Feel free to contact me at tgange26@g.holycross.edu.

Encountering “the Lonely and Afflicted” – A Catholic Approach to Mental Health

In June and July, I had the opportunity to take a summer session course with Prof. Peter Fay titled “Christian Ethics and Mental Illness.” It was a revelatory experience – one that enriched my limited understanding of how Catholicism presents itself to stand for and with the afflicted.  

In Genesis 1:27, God created human beings in His image and likeness to be happy, whole, and life-giving. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus gently invites all who labor and are burdened to find rest in Him (Matthew 11:28-30). Similarly, in John’s Gospel, Jesus emphasizes the relationship He seeks with His followers (John 15:4-5). Grounded in God’s Word, Catholics must look to His example to welcome with love and openness all men and women who suffer from mental illness. 

Mental illness is a common and pervasive aspect of human life. Over the last decade – especially since the COVID-19 pandemic – we have seen an alarming increase in depression and suicidal tendencies. In 2023, the CDC estimates that forty-six thousand people died from mental illness. Most were young, most died unnecessarily, and many were among the most gifted that we as a society have. However, despite the ubiquity of mental illness, those who suffer often remain associated with shame and embarrassment, which can prevent people from seeking medical help. 

Indeed, the subject of mental illness tends to bring out a complex humanity. It is an unfortunate fact that public awareness lags behind extensive clinical and scientific progress. Although many respond with kindness and generosity, it too often hits a deep vein of fear and prejudice. The vitriol and irrationality of such people can be disturbing. It also advances the conceptualization of mental illness as a spiritual flaw or shortcoming in character. It is appalling to encounter such attitudes more associated with the Middle Ages than with the progressive twenty-first century. 

As followers of Christ, mental health stigma contradicts the theological foundation of the One True Church. Saint Augustine of Hippo – arguably the greatest genius among the Church Fathers – considers the gift of the human intellect in his book City of God. He writes: “What a wondrous thing it is that we have been given the ability to know our world, ourselves, and even, with the help of grace, our God.” He continues: “[Those with mental illness] say and do many incongruous things, things for the most part alien to their intentions and their characters, certainly contrary to their good intentions and characters; and when we think about their words and actions or see them with our eyes, we can scarcely – or possibly we cannot at all – restrain our tears if we consider their situation as it deserves to be considered” (Volume II, Book XXII). 

St. Augustine’s stance on mental illness – and that of Catholic tradition – is clear. He earnestly urges Christians to empathize with those who struggle with mental illness and recognize that their actions often arise from pain and confusion rather than malice or moral deficiency. All too often, lost years and relationships cannot be recovered. The damage done to oneself and others cannot be put right. A person’s desire and will to live gradually erodes into a loss of meaning. Mental illness is a heavy burden, and adding other burdens of shame and dismay onto it only makes it heavier. Rejecting a person because of prejudice is like rejecting the broken and bloody Jesus hanging on the Cross. Therefore, we are each called to love and advocate for the least among us, in all their pain and fragility – just as Christ took all human suffering on Himself. 

Fifteen hundred years later, Saint John Paul II makes a similar point. At an international conference for healthcare workers in 1996, the Pope expressed: “Whoever suffers from mental illness ‘always’ bears God’s image and likeness in himself, as does every human being.” Nothing – not a criticism, experience, or a person – can diminish a person’s God-given dignity. Mental illness readily conforms that person to Christ and gives him a share in His redeeming passion. 

Catholic and Orthodox Christians can look primarily to the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist – the source and summit of God’s radical love. The Sacrament, just like the Resurrection, can transform mental illness from an end to a beginning. The disarming simplicity of the Host is His promise to be with us “always, until the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). 

As the Messiah, Jesus Christ restored meaning to people’s lives. He not only served as a profound teacher but also as a healer to those He encountered. His ministry was marked by healing deeds that transcended mere physical ailments – He addressed the deep emotional and spiritual wounds that too often accompany His beloved children. The Gospel of John challenges all disciples – past and present alike – to do the works Jesus did and “greater [works] than these” (John 14:12). As Catholics, we must ask ourselves what deeds we find ourselves engaged in. Do we restore those around us, or do we rob them of the love given to us by the Divine Physician? 

All this is to say that Prof. Fay’s course was a reminder of what the Church can and does do for those with mental illness and that the Church is called to do more. We are all – as Lord Byron put it – differently organized. We each move within the restraints of our mind and live up only partially to its possibilities. However, it must be noted that some face more hardships than others.

That being so, we are each called to extend our arms wider in openness. We must embrace that same sense of love and inclusion found in the Eucharist for those who suffer from mental illness. If we learn to wholeheartedly walk alongside those who suffer, we can then be models of Christ. No longer confining our ministry to the sick toward those with physical ailments uplifts those with invisible – albeit no less important – illnesses. It is not just His work to love. It is ours. 

Bibliography 

Augustine of Hippo. City of God. Translated by Henry Bettenson, Penguin Classics, 2004.

John Paul II. “International Conference for Healthcare Workers: Illnesses of the Mind.” 1996. 

https://www.ncpd.org/resources_and_toolkits/mental-illness-theological-framework 

Pope Francis. “Homily on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.” 2020.

“Mental Health.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and 

Human Services, 2024, www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/mental-health.htm.

“Mental Illness Statistics.” National Institute of Mental Health, 

www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness.

Charity, Queen of Dialogue

Last year, Holy Cross began a long-awaited dialogue about dialogue. Through social media spats, abrupt confrontations, and general tension on campus, the student body demonstrated that it was struggling to come together and engage in constructive discussion about its opposing worldviews. This is the sort of problem that does not befit a liberal arts college, a place whose purpose is the exchange of ideas. In order to remind students of this purpose, the administration had to ask itself, how can Holy Cross foster dialogue? And, are there some subjects that do not merit dialogue?

True to its liberal arts tradition, the College proposed a structured medium for students to voice their views on controversial issues. The administration, in conjunction with the newly founded group SPEECH (Students Promoting Empathy, Expression, and Civic Harmony), began a series called “Dialogue Dinners,” two-hour events during which students could come together and discuss current issues over a meal. These dinners offered students a casual, friendly setting to alleviate the tension of disagreement, but also enforced structure and civility through rules and the presence of administrators and student peer educators. 

One of the rules of the Dialogue Dinners comes directly from the Presupposition of St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises: “Be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor’s statement than to condemn it. If one cannot interpret it favorably, one should ask how the other means it.” Ignatius’ advice calls for patience and cordiality, two necessary qualities of any decent conversation. They certainly have their place at a Dialogue Dinner.

Though the rest of the advice of the Presupposition was not included in the rules of the Dialogue Dinners, it is equally valuable. Still referring to the statements of one’s neighbor, St. Ignatius continues, “If he cannot save it, let him inquire how he means it; and if he means it badly, let him correct him with charity. If that is not enough, let him seek all the suitable means to bring him to mean it well, and save himself.” Notice the key principle here: charity.

St. Ignatius established these guidelines at the beginning of his Spiritual Exercises as a framework for the relationship between the spiritual director and the retreatant, the former of whom is essential to the growing prayer life and discernment of the retreatant. This quote from the Presupposition shows that spiritual direction is impossible without charity, the queen of virtues which Christians also call “love.” For, as Ignatius points out, love seeks understanding. Charity enables the spiritual director and the retreatant to truly listen to and understand one another. Charity disposes of presumptions and self-righteousness. Only with charity can the two engage in constructive dialogue. St. Paul said, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13, ESV). No matter how learned the spiritual director may be, his advice bears no fruit without love for God and the retreatant. The same can be said for the retreatant’s reception of his advice.

Although the Presupposition was originally intended for this pairing, its content can easily be extended beyond the Spiritual Exercises to the rest of us undergoing daily life. Should we not also desire to nourish each other’s souls, knowing one another as fellow beloveds of God? Is this not what we owe one another as neighbors, or in Holy Cross language, as “men and women for and with others”?

St. Ignatius understood the essential role of charity for fruitful dialogue. This idea from our familiar Ignatian tradition takes its roots all the way back to the moment of creation, and is fulfilled by Christ in the New Covenant.

The Gospel of John paints creation as a dialogue between God and His creatures. The first chapter of John explains how Christ was present at the beginning of time, not yet enfleshed but as the “Word,” through Whom “all things were made” (1:3). Creation was made through the “Word,” which in the Greek also translates to “reason” or “logic.” John shows that God’s creation of the world was an act of reason, and that creation was brought about by the speech of God.

The original Greek makes clear that the act of creation was a dialogue. John 1:3, which begins “All things were made through Him,” tells us that the world was made “dia autou,” with the pronoun autou referring to the Logos, the Word. The preposition dia and the noun Logos form the Greek word “dialogos,” where we get our word for “dialogue.” Through his clever wielding of language, John reveals that creation is a dialogue between itself and its Creator.

Christ further exemplifies His life-giving nature as the Word in the miracles He performs during His ministry. In the three cases where he brings people back to life, He uses the power of speech. He famously brings Lazarus back to life when He commands him, “Lazarus, come out!” (John 11:43). He commands the twelve-year-old daughter of the synagogue leader back to life with the words, “‘Talitha cumi,’ which means, ‘Little girl, I say to you, arise.’” (Mark 5:41). Finally, He revives the son of the Naim widow with the command “Young man, I say to you, arise” (Luke 7:14). In each of these instances, Christ revives His creatures through speech. Through the miracles He performs during His ministry, Christ continues His creative act as Logos, culminating in His death and resurrection, by which human beings are constantly being redeemed and brought into new life.

Christ’s crucifixion fulfills creation, since it is by this act that man is able to do what he was made for; namely, enter into an eternal relationship with God. Man was made and given his purpose at the moment of His creation, when God breathed His own life into him – not only biological life, but life in the Spirit, as indicated in the Greek by the word “zoe” (Genesis 2:7) as opposed to “bios.” Man was uniquely made to be like God and to be one with Him. The Fall ruptured this relationship, but Christ’s willing sacrifice revives it and welcomes us back to life in the Spirit. St. Athanasius, a fourth century Church Father, understood creation and salvation as consistent events: “There is thus no inconsistency between creation and salvation; for the One Father has employed the same Agent for both works, effecting the salvation of the world through the same Word Who made it at the first” [1]. The Logos gave man life in the beginning, and He renews this life through His death and resurrection.

Why did Christ give up His life for humanity? St. John says that it was out of love. “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 8-10). Love is at the essence of God and therefore the essence of the Logos. It was because of love that God formed man from clay and later sent His Son to die for him.

John continues, relaying a social message about how we ought to love one another: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 11-12). As John says, Christians are called to love others in a way that parallels God’s love for man.

This poses a heavy demand. God’s love permits no exceptions. Christ’s sacrifice was for every member of the human race. This is a radical truth which dissolves divisions and calls us to love through difference and in difference. According to St. Paul, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). All people have a shared identity in Christ, in their purpose as human beings. 

Creation was a dialogue, with love at its center. Considering the nature of this first dialogue, what can we say of the dialogue at Holy Cross?

Holy Cross’ mission statement is rooted in dialogue. The following is a short excerpt: “Because the search for meaning and value is at the heart of the intellectual life, critical examination of fundamental religious and philosophical questions is integral to liberal arts education. Dialogue about these questions among people from diverse academic disciplines and religious traditions requires everyone to acknowledge and respect differences.” Though in secular language, this quote somewhat mirrors Paul’s advice to the Galatians. Our calling to be one in Christ demands respect in spite of differences. Since we are called to love one another as God loves His creation, dialogue is incomplete without love.

As the Gospels show, Christ’s speech gives life. In being made like God, destined for relationship with Him, we are given the ability to co-create, materially, spiritually, and intellectually. We participate in the perpetual dia Logos between God and man. Knowing the crucial role God has for us in His creation, we ought to do our best to ensure that our speech is also life-giving.

Endnotes 

[1] Athanasius, On the Incarnation, (St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, 1982), 26. 

Some Considerations on the Rosary

The Most Holy Rosary is, in some sense, the unofficial official prayer of the Church. Though technically speaking, the Divine Office (in addition to the sacred liturgy itself) is the official public prayer of the Church, the Rosary is by far the most well known and most practiced devotion in the West. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that this act of piety has the unique privilege of being celebrated with its own feast day in the Roman Rite. While it is not the only devotion to ever be granted such an honor, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary (which has changed names several times since its institution by St. Pius V after the victory of the Battle of Lepanto in 1571) is the only one of such feasts to be universally inscribed on the traditional liturgical calendar. And indeed, it continues to be so within its inclusion on the calendar of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite as an obligatory memorial. This great feast is celebrated on October 7th, and the entire month of October is dedicated to the Rosary. For this reason, it seems fitting to consider this most beloved of Catholic devotions.

The structure of the Rosary should be familiar to most Catholics. Its recitation consists of “decades”; that is, sets of ten recitations of the Angelical Salutation, a prayer more commonly referred to as the Hail Mary. Between each set the Lord’s Prayer is prayed, more commonly referred to as the Our Father. Given the amount of time that is taken to invoke the Blessed Virgin Mary, one could easily conclude that the Rosary is a Marian devotion. And of course, it is a Marian devotion, and chief among them. However, the Rosary is a devotion primarily oriented not toward the Lord’s mother, but toward the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Of course, this could be said of every act of devotion since all prayer is ultimately oriented toward God. However, what is intended here is not a simple fact regarding the nature of prayer, but a commentary on the true virtue of the Rosary. Whereas other forms of prayer, such as the Angelical Salutation itself, are primarily oriented toward the Blessed Mother in so far as they are simply petitions or acts of love made to her, the Rosary’s main focus is not vocal prayer at all, but meditation. What is the most integral part of the Rosary is also at times the most forgotten: the pious meditation on the mysteries that accompany it. 

The “mysteries” of the Rosary refer to particular events in the life of Christ that are especially fruitful for meditation given their significance in the Gospel. Each of the mysteries is assigned to a decade of the Rosary. Traditionally they are fifteen in number; however, St. John Paul II added five new mysteries, collectively called the Luminous Mysteries, to be recited in addition to the original Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries [1]. Nowadays, the Rosary is typically prayed as one set of mysteries at a time, with the particular set changing according to the day of the week. The original number of fifteen mysteries, which correspond to a total of fifteen decades, is not accidental. The devotion most likely arose from a modification of the Psalter, the collection of all one hundred and fifty psalms found in Scripture. The Psalter was traditionally recited in its entirety every week by the monks, but it soon became an object of attraction to the lay faithful as well. Of course, reciting all of the Psalms in a single week is nearly impossible for the average person given the amount of time required as well as the necessity of literacy (which was not nearly as common in the era when the Rosary began to develop). So the Church, ever mindful of the barriers that life in this world burdens upon the poor and always concerned with the accessibility of the full arsenal of her prayer, naturally developed the simplified version of the Psalter that is known today as “Our Lady’s Psalter:” the Most Holy Rosary. Rather than having to learn to read or memorize an entire collection of texts, the faithful would only have to make use of the most common prayers which were known and memorized by all the baptized and be familiar with the most central mysteries of the Gospel in order to participate in this prayer of the Church. 

Among the mysteries are the Annunciation of Our Lady, her Assumption into Heaven, the Nativity of Our Lord, his Crucifixion and Death, his Resurrection, his Institution of the Most Holy Eucharist, etc. Each of these mysteries finds its origin in Sacred Scripture, and all have lengthy narratives associated with them with the exceptions of only the Assumption and the Coronation of Our Lady as Queen of Heaven. It is for this reason that the Rosary has colloquially been referred to as “the Bible on a string.” In this way, the Rosary is a sort of lectio divina, the ancient method of the prayerful reading of Scripture made accessible to a universal audience. Although the reading of Sacred Scripture ought to always constitute a central part in the Christian’s devotional life, it is the case that the Rosary presents a summary of the Gospel in a manner that is simple, accessible, and easy for all people. Indeed, the Rosary is truly the prayer of the masses. Whereas some devotions are better suited to the more or less educated, others to the devout or the lukewarm, and others to children or adults, the Rosary is a prayer that is both easy and efficacious to all people who approach it in faith. Just as the stained glass windows, pictures, frescos, and statues that adorn medieval churches served to teach the central truths of the Christian religion and the lives of the saints to a mostly illiterate population, so can the Rosary serve to instruct those who either cannot or do not regularly read Sacred Scripture about the mysteries of the Gospel. And what is more, this instruction is done by means of meditation in union with the prayers of the mother of Jesus herself. So, if praying the Rosary is a method of instruction, then the question is raised: who is the instructor? 

Really there are two instructors of those who pray the Rosary: the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother. It is fitting to recall the intimate union that the Holy Spirit and Mary share as spiritual spouses, and the Rosary can help to do so. At the Annunciation, the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and in doing so caused the Incarnation of Christ in her womb. So the two are called “spiritual spouses”; “spouses” because the one effected the conception of Christ in the other, and “spiritual” because the virginity of Mary remained intact and she remained truly conjugally married to her most chaste spouse, St. Joseph. As also demonstrated by the Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit once again came to sow seed to blossom into good fruit. Descending upon the Apostles in the presence of Mary, the Holy Spirit officially began the Church on that day. From these examples can be drawn this maxim concerning the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Virgin Mary: wherever the one is, so is the other. And when both are at work, holy fruit is born. So as the Spirit of Truth, who teaches all truth, reveals the secrets hidden in the mysteries of the Rosary, his blessed spouse hears the prayers of her devotees and prays for their sanctification as she reveals more and more of her Divine Son.

There is much more that can be said about this beautiful devotion. For those who are interested in beginning to pray it or mastering it, consider this simple course of action: firstly, memorize the prayers that constitute the Rosary. Secondly, become familiar with the mysteries by reading their respective passages from Scripture. Thirdly, begin to pray the Rosary according to a guide or with someone else who knows how to pray it. Fourthly, intimately meditate on the mysteries as you pray. And finally, pray the Rosary regularly, even every day. I must admit my own hypocrisy in this regard: while I recommend to everyone to pray the Rosary every single day, I myself hardly ever do so. Although I cannot say that I am someone who never skips a day, I can wholeheartedly say that even the regular recitation of the Rosary has completely revolutionized my life. In a time when so many are imprisoned by habitual sin, a prayer like the Rosary is the perfect remedy. Habitual prayer conquers habitual sin. So as we hail our Holy Queen while still in this valley of tears, and as we meditate upon the mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary, may we imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Endnotes: 

[1] Pope John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, Apostolic Letter, October 16, 2002. https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/2002/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20021016_rosarium-virginis-mariae.html. 

On Swiss Cheese

I don’t like Swiss cheese, and this isn't an issue of taste or texture. I don’t like that every slice is really less than a slice on account of the fact that it's spotted with holes. Allow me now to digress from my introductory digression so as to maintain the time honored tradition of silence towards the subject of cheese [1]. In early September of this year, I was enjoying the company of an Eastern Orthodox friend of mine when he mentioned to me his frustration with the Catholic Church’s allowance of abbreviating scripture readings in Mass. He mentioned that he had learned about this when he accidentally happened upon a Catholic liturgical aid with brackets around part of the text and the words “optional” over the second reading of the day. He was scandalized by what he viewed as “censorship” of the scriptures. Our discussion then evolved into a larger discussion about the reform of the Church’s lectionary following the second Vatican Council, work which was ultimately carried out by the Consilium ad Exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia between 1964 and 1969. The lectionary of the traditional Roman Rite [2] dates its origins to time immemorial whilst the lectionary of the reformed Roman Rite [3] has its origins in the 1960s. The reformed lectionary is quite larger than the traditional and contains more scripture passages on account of its multi-year cycles of readings. This is a laudable accomplishment, but not every aspect of the reform was necessarily for the better. The reformed lectionary of 1969 can at times unfortunately be marred by an insistent suppressio veri. Frequently it abruptly omits or, through the allowance of short form options, allows the celebrant to omit difficult or controversial passages in the scriptures which have enjoyed a place in the Latin lectionary for centuries prior [4] [5] [6].

Perhaps the most (in)famous example of omission in the new lectionary is the missing verses of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians warning them not to unworthily take the body and blood of Christ. The reformed rite curiously omits the verses that read as follows:

27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. 30 For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. 31 But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. (1 Corinthians 11:27-32, NRSV-CE) 

These verses appear thrice in traditional lectionary: Maundy Thursday, Corpus Christi, and the Votive Mass of the Holy Eucharist. This repetition typifies the nature of the sacred cycle of readings. To be clear, the Catholic Church still professes Paul’s words to be true (CCC 1385). Removal from the lectionary does not equate to denial of belief, nor does it indicate a removal from the canon of scripture itself. But, the law of prayer is the law of belief, lex orandi lex credendi, and removal from the lectionary is, in my opinion, a serious matter because it at the very least creates an edifice of disbelief. Omissions in the lectionary are themselves an indirect communication. Since we still profess the words of Paul to be true, we are even more so left to answer for our refusal to solemnly proclaim them in the liturgy. 

To cite another example of this phenomenon in the lectionary, let us look to October 2nd, the feast of all Holy Angels, where the Gospel reading is rather omissive. While the traditional rite assigns the entirety of Matthew 18:1-10 to be read, the reformed rite curiously lists the reading as Matthew 18: 1-5, 10 (i.e. read verses 1-5, skip verses 6-9, read verse 10). This is what the new lectionary omits:

6 “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. 7 Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling block comes! 8 “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into the hell of fire. (Matthew 18: 6-9, NRSV-CE)

Not only do these verses not appear in the reading for the feast of the Holy Angels, they appear nowhere in the reformed lectionary at all [7]. Scripture passages like this are difficult and intense, even when the distinction between the literal and the spiritual sense is established. Despite sacred scripture's array of difficult and challenging passages, the council fathers at Vatican II still wrote: “The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord” (Verbum Dei, 21). Passages like these would otherwise occasion pastors to instruct their flocks on how to read the scriptures, both the easy and the hard passages. The censoring of them in the liturgy presents a distortion of our Church’s scripture.

The importance of difficulties like these verses from Matthew’s Gospel reminds me of Kierkegaard’s “socratic task” described by the Boston College philosopher Peter Kreeft in his lecture series, The Great Debates of Philosophy. Kreeft begins by analyzing a passage from Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript, wherein he concludes that “Out of love for mankind, therefore… I conceive it my task to create difficulties everywhere” [8]. Kreeft summarizes Kierkegaard’s task as “making things harder in a world that was trying to make things easier” [9]. Kreeft then goes on to note that “the one thing that Kierkegaard wanted to make harder above all was Christianity,” [10] the meaning of which Kreeft then clarifies by saying “not that he wanted to change it into something harder than it is, but that he believed his culture had changed it into something easier than it is, easier than Christ made it” [11]. The canon of scriptures, indeed, contains passages with difficult messages, but in an age where almost everything has been made easy for us, religion must remain difficult, just as Christ left it for us. Let us, then, earnestly encounter the difficult passages of scripture in the Church’s lectionary. 

There are many verses missing from the new lectionary, but these two examples suffice to illustrate the point. A reform spurred by a desire for there “to be more reading from holy scripture” in the Mass (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 35), should answer to the fact that it removed a multitude of verses that had been prayed by the Church for time immemorial. It almost bears no repeating, but, lex orandi lex credendi. To pretend by way of omission that the Church no longer believes what she still claims to believe is dishonest to the faithful, and not only to the Catholic faithful, but indeed to all Christians. Rather than assisting the Church in “scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel” (Gaudium et spes 4.), the new lectionary tiptoes around difficulties; scrutinizing what should be read and what should be omitted according to the signs of the times. Like a slice of Swiss cheese, the new lectionary is full of unnecessary holes.

Endnotes 

[1] See Chesterton: “Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of Cheese.” 

[2] Also called the Extraordinary Form, usus antiquior, the Missal of Pius V, the Missal of John XXIII, or simply “the Traditional Latin Mass.”

[3] Also called Ordinary Form, usus recentior, Missal of Paul VI, or “Novus Ordo.” 

[4] Peter Kwasniewski, “Not Just More Scripture, But Different Scripture — Comparing the Old and New Lectionaries,” Rorate Caeli, January, 11, 2019, https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2019/01/not-just-more-scripture-but-different.html. 

[5] For more on short form readings see: Matthew Hazell, “Short Forms of the Readings: Distorting the Gospel?,” New Liturgical Movement, October, 18, 2017, https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2017/10/short-forms-of-readings-distorting.html. 

[6] For a complete side by side comparison of the traditional and reformed lectionaries see: Matthew Hazell, Index Lectionum: A Comparative Table of Readings for the Ordinary Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite, (Lectionary Study Press, 2016). 

[7] Matthew Hazell, Index Lectionum, 66. 

[8] For the full passage and context see: Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 186-7. 

[9] Peter Kreeft, “Kierkegaard vs. Hegel on Religion and Individuality,” Word on Fire Institute, April 20, 2023, YouTube video, 25:49-54, https://youtu.be/9QHNodY8Ki8?si=cdJEoK_nACxAucaa.

[10] Ibid. 28:03-7

[11] Ibid. 28:08-18

Thoughts on Our Jesuit Inheritance, Part II: An Interview with Fr. Keith Maczkiewicz S.J.

In my endeavor to discover what makes us Jesuit, I had a helpful conversation with Father Keith Maczkiewicz, S.J., who serves as Associate Vice President for Mission and Ministry, and is a Jesuit priest on campus. I will include here the comments I found especially helpful.

First, I asked Father Mac what distinguishes Jesuit education from other forms of education, Catholic or secular, and what ways Holy Cross lives out that charism. His first point was the mission-driven nature of Holy Cross.

“Holy Cross has a distinct mission. It’s even different than Boston College down the road, even though that’s a Jesuit university, because of the unique mode of what we’re doing here in terms of undergrad-only, liberal arts… In a place like Holy Cross, the focus on the humanities is a huge aspect of what we’re trying to do here.” He compared our college to other Jesuit universities like Fairfield, where a large portion of undergraduates study things like finance, marketing, and nursing. Holy Cross, on the other hand, maintains the historical tradition of Jesuit colleges to pursue the liberal arts and humanities.

He continued that Holy Cross provides the opportunity for spiritual formation,

“I think that the phrase in the mission statement that carries a lot of weight is the phrase, ‘for those who wish.’ Because we have a lot of non-Catholics here. We have non-Catholic students or formerly Catholic students, that’s a huge number... And I think that in general the College is pretty good about providing opportunities for those who wish. Numbers at Mass the last several weeks have been pretty great. There’s the devotional life here. The fact that you can go to confession five days a week says something. There’s still Mass here twice a day… The fact that you can make the Spiritual Exercises four times a year, that the chaplains make themselves available for spiritual direction, that you can become Catholic while you’re here. There are all these opportunities for formation for students.”

In light of the diminishing number of Jesuits, I asked Father Mac if, hypothetically, Holy Cross could retain its Jesuit charism and identity with no Jesuits present. He reminded me that it is not just a hypothetical,

“The Jesuits on the East Coast are currently involved in a conversation about what they’re calling an “Apostolic Plan…” We [The Society of Jesus] are currently in 11 colleges and universities, 47 high schools and pre-secondary schools, 19 parishes and four retreat houses. We can’t stay in all those places… Every institution is going to have to do a deep dive into what it wants. First of all they’ll have to affirm that they actually want to remain a Jesuit school. There might be some places, I don’t think Holy Cross is one of them, who are like ‘yeah, I think we’re done with the Jesuit thing.’”

He said of Holy Cross, regarding our first lay president, “There is more conversation about mission and Catholicism with a lay president than there was with a Jesuit president, because there’s a recognition that, in some people’s minds it doesn’t sit in the person in the president’s office who is wearing a collar, even though president Rougeau is an active, practicing Catholic… Because of that, there are a lot of conversations about mission here. I think there are going to be gradations of things… could a place be ‘Ignatian,’ inspired by Ignatius and his spirituality, but no longer a Jesuit school?... We [Jesuits] haven’t really wrestled with this totally.”

Finally, I asked Father Mac what I consider to be the most important question. That is, whether Holy Cross could retain its Jesuit charism or identity if the majority of the community no longer believed in or practiced the Catholic faith. He pointed out Pope John Paul II’s imperative that the majority of faculty at Catholic institutions should be Catholic. But, he says, “the horse has left the barn, at almost every Catholic school.” He continued with a clarification of what the mission of a Catholic institution is, primarily,

“The thing about Catholic higher education is that it’s not a parish… When I speak to new faculty, I say to them, ‘we do not relate to you as if you are a parishioner here, you’re not a parishioner at Holy Cross.’ Their job is to teach, to teach well, and contribute to the Catholic intellectual tradition, which says: ‘ask really good questions about your discipline. Let’s bring them to a dialogue with what we believe in the Catholic faith’… That’s how we maintain ourselves as an authentically Catholic place.”

At the same time, he cautioned adamantly against a separation between “Jesuit” and “Catholic,”

“I think we have to be really diligent because we can be very quick to say ‘Jesuit, yay, Catholic, boo.’ And I think we see that in multiple areas… People love the Jesuits, people don’t love the Church all the time, and I would say that Saint Ignatius is rolling over in his grave when he hears that. Because you could not conceive of the Jesuits outside the Church. Even just a few years ago, we said in a document coming out of our General Congregation, that the Jesuits are “for, with, and of the Church.” We can’t conceive of ourselves any other way. I think we run into problems when we try to divorce the two, to try to make people happy.

He brought up the example of the Jesuit response to the Dobbs decision,

“The overturning of Roe v. Wade is a good example. I think people were shocked when the Jesuit Conference of the U.S. and Canada put out a statement in support of the Dobbs decision… I think people felt shocked and betrayed by that. But that would say to me that we, Jesuits, have done a poor job reminding people that we’re also Catholic. These two things can never and should never have been divorced. And if we stress ‘Jesuit’ over ‘Catholic,’ we’re doing a disservice to the Church.”

As a final thought, Father Mac reminded me of our privileged position at Holy Cross,

“I think sometimes in these conversations around identity and mission, what I sometimes want to say to people is that we are in a privileged place to be able to have them. Because if you’re aware of the higher ed. landscape in general, there’s basically one institution closing a month… Three colleges in Pennsylvania closed in one month over the summer. The atmosphere for Catholic higher ed. right now… is punishing. So the fact that we can have these conversations means that Holy Cross is doing really well… It’s a privilege to be able to debate these things. Because many places are worried about keeping the lights on and not having paper in the photocopier.”

We are truly privileged to be in the position that we are in. It is a privilege that Holy Cross can focus on its Jesuit mission at all. Idealist Catholics like myself must recognize and appreciate that. At the same time, with the privilege of our resources comes the responsibility to use them well. This responsibility demands Holy Cross to use its resources in service of its Jesuit mission; service which is not just an exterior decoration or mere good works, but truly flowing from and aiming for the living Catholic Faith. Holy Cross has the ability, and thus the responsibility, not only to produce great scholars and successful alumni, but to produce saints. It can, and therefore must, not only work for academic excellence and social change, but labor ad majorem Dei gloriam, for the greater glory of God.

Thoughts on Our Jesuit Inheritance, Part I

Two summers ago, there was a display of lamppost banners around the Hoval, each one advertising a value related to Holy Cross’ Jesuit identity. At the top of each banner was the phrase: “Jesuit Heritage.” It did not say “Jesuit values,”  “Jesuit mission,” or “Jesuit identity.” The word heritage may mean a few different things, but it certainly suggests something received from the past [1]. It may or may not refer to something still living. A man may speak of his “Catholic Heritage,” but this does not guarantee that you will see him at Mass next Sunday. The question, then, is whether this inheritance continues as a living identity, a decorative heirloom, or something in between. Is Holy Cross “Jesuit,” or merely “raised Jesuit?”

The word “Jesuit” is often thrown around at Holy Cross, but there is not a clear understanding of what it means, especially as it relates to our college. If you asked a member of our community a hundred or even fifty years ago what made Holy Cross a Jesuit college, they probably would have looked at you strangely and replied, “Why, the Jesuits, of course!” Today the answer is not so obvious. One needs only to walk from Loyola to Ciampi, then to the new Jesuit residence to get a visual impression of the decline in the number of actual Jesuits who live at Holy Cross. The average student interacts with Jesuits rarely, if at all. We no longer have a Jesuit president, and few Jesuits remain in administration. There are only a handful of Jesuit professors, mostly in Religious Studies. And perhaps most surprisingly, only one out of our dozen chaplains is a Jesuit. This should not be surprising, considering our Church’s vocation shortage, but it makes the answer to our question much less obvious. Our “Jesuit-ness” is no longer incarnate in the collared figures who walk around our campus. It is now more abstract; we cannot point to it. We must recognize first, then, that it is unclear what makes a college “Jesuit” if not Jesuits, and that we are at risk of losing whatever that is.

What does Holy Cross herself have to say? The “Jesuit, Catholic Tradition” section of our website [2] identifies three ways “we honor the Jesuit legacy” (again, suggesting the past). They are: “humanistic studies,” “solidarity with the poor and disenfranchised,” and “a diverse community of participants.” These are good and desirable things. They surely do flow from the Jesuit charism and tradition. But they cannot be what makes Holy Cross Jesuit; non-Jesuit colleges are just as capable of these things. Do we do them better? Maybe. But they are exterior. They are what we do, not who we are. They are, in soteriological language, Holy Cross’ “works.” Just as we are not saved by works [3], we are likewise not “made Jesuit” by them either. Holy Cross is made Jesuit by its faith, none other than the Catholic Faith, expressed through the particular Jesuit charism.  

It may seem obvious to some, but the Jesuits (the Society of Jesus) are a religious order within the Catholic Church. As a clarifying note, this means that “Jesuit” has a narrow meaning that does not apply to us students or the wider college community, despite the applicability of broader categories like “Jesuit charism.” More importantly, this means that Jesuits exist in the context of the Catholic Faith, and any identity that is not properly Catholic cannot, by definition, be a Jesuit identity. This means that when Holy Cross departs from the Catholic Church (not only in explicit matters of faith but also in ethical matters), it separates itself that much from its Jesuit identity. This is not to say that non-Catholics are or should be unwelcome at Holy Cross, but merely that any institution whose core is not Catholic cannot be Jesuit. With this in mind, I do not think it is controversial to say that Holy Cross largely departs from the Catholic Church on matters of faith in thought and practice, and a still larger portion departs on ethical matters. Insofar as this is the case, Holy Cross can only pretend to be authentically Jesuit. The name “Holy Cross” is not enough, our statues of saints are not enough, and the fact that many of our students grew up going to Catholic school is not enough when we are not Christians. As long as we are not Christians, our Jesuit heritage remains merely that, heritage.

But is that it? Shall we use the Jesuits rolling in their graves in our cemetery to power the PAC? Shall we Catholics be content complaining as Holy Cross becomes increasingly “progressive,” increasingly secular, and thus less Jesuit? Shall we be cynics, satisfied with our laughter when our friends and family ask, “So is your school, like, really religious?” A pessimist may say yes, but pessimism is not Christian. Any Fenwick Review writer could write a long and provocative article about all the ways Holy Cross fails to be authentically Catholic and thus fails to be Jesuit. Maybe that is necessary. But it is not enough. What we need is to identify where Holy Cross lives out its Jesuit Charism well, and work to strengthen these points. We need to claim our Jesuit inheritance. We must participate in and promote the sacramental life of the Church at Holy Cross. We must adopt authentic Ignatian modes of prayer. We must preach the Gospel. We must pursue academic excellence, and scholarship which seeks truth and advances the cause of faith, rather than subversion. We Catholics must live in such a way that reveals the fruits of the Jesuit charism so that Holy Cross will see what it means to be authentically “Jesuit.”

Endnotes

[1] The OED defines Heritage as “the condition or state transmitted from ancestors.” Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “heritage (n.), sense 4,” June 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/5778821977.

[2] “Jesuit, Catholic Tradition,” College of the Holy Cross, accessed November 5, 2024, https://www.holycross.edu/about-us/jesuit-catholic-tradition. 

[3] According to the Council of Trent, session six, canon 1: “If any one saith, that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature, or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema.”

Thanksgiving for Summorum Pontificum Almost 17 years Later

           In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI signed a groundbreaking motu proprio which affirmed the right of all Latin rite priests to offer the sacraments according to the books in place before the second Vatican Council, restoring a liturgical unity within the Latin church and reconciling her to the principles of liturgical continuity. What comes to most peoples’ minds will be the liberty given to offer the old Mass (the 1962 Missale Romanum or Usus Antiquior), but it must also be noted that Summorum Pontificum (SP) gifted the Church all the traditional sacrament books (which includes all the traditional forms of the sacraments, breviaries, etc.) that were in use prior to the Second Vatican Council. Even other traditional Latin rites (e.g. the traditional Dominican, Carmelite, or Ambrosian rites) have since experienced their own revivals in the aftermath of SP. The heart of the Holy Father’s philosophical justification was articulated in his letter accompanying SP in which he wrote: 

What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.  It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.

As we see in  many of his liturgical writings and reflections, this principle of valuing what came before as sacred permeates Pope Benedict’s understanding of liturgy and the Church itself. Even in his pre-papal memoirs, “Milestones: Memoirs: 1927-1977”, then-cardinal Ratzinger, reflecting on his first hand-missal, writes of the Church’s sacred Liturgy: 

It was becoming more and more clear to me that here I was encountering a reality that no one had simply thought up, a reality that no official authority or great individual had created. This mysterious fabric of text and actions had grown from the faith of the Church over the centuries. It bore the whole weight of history within itself, and yet, at the same time, it was much more than the product of human history. Every century had left its mark upon it. The introductory notes informed us about what came from the early Church, what from the Middle Ages, and what from modern times. Not everything was logical. Things sometimes got complicated, and it was not always easy to find one's way. But precisely this is what made the whole edifice wonderful, like one's own home.

It is precisely this organic development which gives, and continues to give the liturgy her unity, beauty, and depth. Liturgy is not something static, but ever slowly developing and shaping the Church. Likewise, Liturgy, properly understood, is not the product committee or community, but rather of centuries of tradition and development. By reading the same readings and by praying the same orations over centuries it bridges Catholics of the past and the present. This unity of prayer between Catholics over history is both a beautiful and fitting characteristic of our traditional liturgy. It is what marks us as truly “Catholic;” that is, universal. 

           Because of the principles outlined in SP and its accompanying letter, Tradition was no longer to be relegated to a few isolated chapels and banished from diocesean life. Instead, it could be a part of the heart of the Church’s worship. SP served to normalize tradition, welcoming it back into the mainstream of Catholic life. What the Church regarded as sacred and great was once again recognized as “sacred and great for us too.”

           Benedict also had the foresight to see how the Church’s youth would be attracted to what were her normative liturgical rites for over 500 years. He wrote in his letter accompanying SP: “It has clearly been demonstrated that young persons too have discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist, particularly suited to them.” Here I hear the Pope speaking about young people like myself who, until encountering the traditional liturgy, experienced a great deal of difficulty participating in and praying the Holy Mass. I can say from my own experience that I find the older liturgical books to be more accessible and that they communicate to me more clearly, both verbally and non verbally, this Fons et apex (Source and Summit) of Christian life. I’m not claiming that every young person prefers the traditional rite, but from my own experience I have noticed that there is both greater interest in and greater tolerance for the traditional rite among the youth. Despite the prejudices of some septuagenarians, I am certain that, under God’s providence, this trove of liturgical treasures opened up by Summorum Pontificum will survive for generations to come.

References: 

Ratzinger, Joseph. Milestones: Memoirs: 1927-1977. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998.