Enchiridion Patristicum

St. Clement of Rome and the development of the early Church

2011-09-26T10:15:00.001-07:00

I'm sorry for the lack of posting. That was my biggest fear in starting this blog, was that I would neglect it because of other priorities. A few things are going on in my life that I believe will help me in transforming this blog into what I hope it can be. First, I am in Chicago now and two of my classes this year are Patristics courses. One deals with the history of the Church up through 600, and the other is a patristic studies class that consists extensively of primary text readings. Two, my spiritual director at the moment is Greek Orthodox, and he is deeply rooted in the holy fathers, obviously with an emphasis on the Eastern Fathers, an emphasis which will help me tremendously, in my own spiritual life, but also as relates to this blog. Three, as a profession gift I received an iPad, and among the many benefits, I have been able to download either free or cheap a wonderful variety of patristic texts. For instance, for less than $40 I was able to get the Kindle version of all nine volumes of Philip Schaff's Ante-Nicene Fathers. Many other similar discoveries have been made.

In my Patristics class last week we read St. Clement of Rome's Epistle to the Corinthians. This is a very interesting text, filled both with beautiful prayer and doctrinal exhortation. It provides a nice insight into how the early Church began to develop in terms of theology as well as structure. I thought I would just examine a few of those developments.

This text in particular is one that people typically look to in examining the historical development of the authority of the See of Rome. For one thing, Clement is writing as the bishop of Rome, the third bishop since the martyrdom of Peter. Some people read this text as an indication of the already established authority of that episcopal see. I tend to look at it a bit more conservatively. A few questions need to be asked, I think, in order to allow us to see underneath this epistle and what we can extract from it.

The first question is, why is Clement writing to the Corinthian community at all? Do they not have their own bishop? If not, why would it be Clement's responsibility to address the concerns of this community? The biggest concern that this letter addresses is a rebellious group of Corinthian Christians who have basically overthrown certain presbyters, and perhaps the bishop, as well. So Clement, on behalf of the Church, writes to the Corinthians and exhorts them - quite strongly, a la St. Paul - to respect the apostolic succession that confers divine authority upon the bishops, presbyters, and deacons.

Depending on how we answer the question of why Clement undertook the responsibility for this writing will influence how we understand this text to speak of the authority of Rome at this time. It is possible, and I think at least to some extent almost certain, that Clement is indeed writing as someone who feels responsibility not only for the Church in Rome, but indeed for the entire Church. To the extent that this influences his decision to write, the text is at the very least an indication of the beginnings of the understanding of the primacy of Rome.

What causes me to hesitate in overstating this case is the possibility, explored by Schaff among others, that Clement had a previous relationship with the Corinthian church. There are some who believe that Clement had been present with Paul on certain missions there, and it as at least possible that Clement is writing as much as a friend and trusted father to that church than as an understood leader of the universal Church because of his position as bishop of Rome. Again, if it is true that he did have such a relationship with the Church at Corinth, it is even possible that they wrote to him seeking advice. We just don't know, and while we can't assume any of is to be true, neither can we assume it to be false. We just don't know, so we have to be careful, I believe, in overstating the importance of his writing to a church outside of his own see.

That said, Clement is explicit, in a truly fascinating way for a letter written so early in the history of the nascent Church (this letter was written around AD 90), about the importance of apostolic succession, in a very literal sense. Let's look at what he writes:

The apostles have preached the gospel to us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ [has done so] from God. Christ therefore was sent forth by God, and the apostles by Christ. Both these appointments, then, were made in an orderly way, according to the will of God. Having therefore received their orders, and being fully assured by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and established in the word of God, with full assurance of the Holy Ghost, they went forth proclaiming that the kingdom of God was at hand. And thus preaching through countries and cities, they appointed the first fruits [of their labours], having first proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons of those who should afterwards believe. Nor was this any new thing, since indeed many ages before it was written concerning bishops and deacons. For thus says the Scripture in a certain place, I will appoint their bishops in righteousness, and their deacons in faith."

What is interesting about this passage, aside from its explicit articulation of apostolic succession and the authority due to those successors, is that he situated this passage in the middle of a reflection on the divine order of creation itself, and how all of creation not only works according to God's plan and wisdom, but that it also works in a way that gives witness to the economy of salvation. Thus the movement of apostolic succession is seen within the context of this divine ordering of the universe, prefigures under the old covenant as well as in the created order.

It is because of this that Clement is able so strongly to exhort the Corinthians to obedience, such as when he writes that they are to be "obedient to those who [rule] over you, and [give] all fitting honour to the presbyters among you."

As I said, the context which prompted this letter was a rebellion in the Church whereby a small group, some believe a gnostic group though I'm not sure that's clear, have dismissed certain leaders from the Church, presbyters and perhaps the bishop, as well. Clement on numerous occasions in this letter refers to this action not just as rebellion, but indeed as sedition. For Clement, to disobey the authority of the successors of the apostles and to overthrow them in such a way is to rebel against the divine instituted order of the Church. Regardless of what this letter says specifically about the authority of Rome as such, it is quite clear that before the end of the first century, indeed before several of the New Testament writings had yet been written, the theology of apostolic succession was firmly founded, a fact that will be even more clear within twenty years when St. Ignatius of Antioch writes his important epistles.

For Clement, and this is I believe an important insight into the development of the understanding of the primacy of Rome, apostolic succession not only relates to the divine order of the Church, but also constitutes an essential sign and effectual protection of the unity of the Church, in accord with the desire expressed by Christ in his high priestly prayer in the Gospel of John. Clement reminds the Corinthians of a time when "every kind of faction and schism was abominable in your sight," in order to show them how their current sedition goes against the virtue in which they had been built up.

The importance of this Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (there are others attributed to him but it is almost certain that this alone is authentic) cannot be understated. While I take a conservative position regarding how explicitly it lays out the authority of the Roman see at this stage in the Church, even a conservative position clearly sees the groundwork laid already, and when this is compared to the letters of Ignatius we can see how quickly and thoroughly this development was taking place.

Regarding the development of the primacy of Rome, one further point needs to be made. It is certainly true that this was a development that took place over time, and while the importance not only of Peter's but also Paul's presence there figures significantly into this development, another often overlooked factor is simply the strength of the faith of that community right from the beginning. We clearly see this in Paul's letter to the Romans, where he gushes over their faith and how solidly the Gospel has taken root there. Rome was also the place where right from the beginning the leaders of the Church there clearly demonstrated a willingness to be martyred for the faith. Peter and Paul both were martyred there, and Clement became the fourth bishop of Rome very soon after Peter's death because the first two successors, Linus and Cletus, died for the faith under the persecution of Nero. So it was not only the succession of Peter himself that led to this development, but also the strength of the witness of this Church right from the beginning. If a tree is known by its fruits, that the Church in Rome was ordained to be the leader of the universal Church is evidenced by the strength of their witness.

In the next post I hope to begin an examination of the letters of Ignatius so that we can continue to take up the historical development of the Church. Until then, S. Clemens Romanus, ora pro nobis.

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St. Ambrose on the Mystery of the Eucharist

2011-07-25T14:37:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned previously, the treatise from St. Ambrose that we are currently discussing, On the Mysteries, originally was a sermon that he delivered to new Catholics just baptized at the Easter Vigil. After their baptism, which took place in a baptistry in a building separate from the church, they were led in solemn procession into the church, and there would receive their First Holy Communion. In the last post we left off right where Ambrose had finished talking about baptism and was now going to address to the newly baptized, as well as the whole congregation, about the inconceivable mystery of the Eucharist, that sacrament whereby ordinary bread and wine become the true Body and true Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord. Having received the gift of the Holy Spirit, the newly baptized are now ready to receive that gift which the Holy Spirit sanctifies. So Ambrose begins this part of the sermon:

The cleansed people, rich in these insignia [the gifts of the Holy Spirit], hasten to the altar of Christ, saying: 'And I shall go unto the altar of God who gives joy to my youth' (Ps 42:4). For the people, having put aside the defilements of ancient error, renewed in the youth of an eagle, hasten to approach that heavenly banquet. They come, therefore, and, seeing the sacred altar arranged, exclaim saying: 'Thou hast prepared a table in my sight.'

For Ambrose, the miracle of the Eucharist is the very same mystery as the miracle of the Incarnation. Just as conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary occurred in a way totally contrary to nature, but entirely through the action of the Holy Spirit, so too does the Word of God become incarnate in the bread and wine entirely contrary to nature, through the selfsame action of the Holy Spirit:

He it is Who is without mother according to His Godhead, for He was begotten of God the Father, of one substance with the Father; without a father according to His Incarnation, for He was born of a Virgin; having neither beginning nor end, for He is the beginning and end of all things, the first and the last. The sacrament, then, which you received is the gift not of man but of God, brought forth by Him Who blessed Abraham the father of faith, whose grace and deeds we admire.

Just as he did with regards to baptism, Ambrose continues to demonstrate how the actions of God among the Jews in the Hebrew Scriptures foreshadow the action of God according to Christ, particularly through the sacraments. The signs of God according to the Old Covenant were powerful indeed, yet mere shadows of the power of the sacraments whereby God is eternally present with us and to us in His Son. Comparing the manna in the desert to the Bread of Life in the Eucharist, Ambrose writes:

Now consider whether the bread of angels be more excellent or the Flesh of Christ, which is indeed the body of life. That manna came from heaven, this is above the heavens; that was of heaven, this is of the Lord of the heavens; that was liable to corruption, if kept a second day, this is far from all corruption, for whosoever shall taste it holily shall not be able to feel corruption. For them water flowed from the rock, for you Blood flowed from Christ; water satisfied them for a time, the Blood satiates you for eternity. The Jew drinks and thirsts again, you after drinking will be beyond the power of thirsting; that was in a shadow, this is in truth.

If that which you so wonder at is but shadow, how great must that be whose very shadow you wonder at. See now what happened in the case of the fathers was shadow: They drank, it is said, of that Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were done in a figure concerning us (1 Cor 10:4). You recognize now which are the more excellent, for light is better than shadow, truth than a figure, the Body of its Giver than the manna from heaven.

Precisely because the mystery of the Eucharist is so profound, and its truth is not visible to the senses but only through the enlightenment of faith, the gift of the Holy Spirit, a gift which our fallen nature so often impedes, Ambrose is sympathetic to the challenges this mystery presents to the Christian, and thus goes on to present a number of instances in which grace acts contrary to nature, so as to strengthen our trust that God does indeed work in this way. "Perhaps you will say, I see something else, how is it that you assert that I receive the Body of Christ? And this is the point which remains for us to prove. And what evidence shall we make use of? Let us prove that this is not what nature made, but what the blessing consecrated, and the power of blessing is greater than that of nature, because by blessing nature itself is changed." So Ambrose goes on through a series of miraculous actions in the Old Testament where something is changed into something else in a way that nature could never provide, but rather which could only be the action of grace, just as is the case of the Eucharist. He begins by recounting the many miracles of the Exodus:

Jos 3:16). Is it not clear that the nature of the waves of the sea and of the river stream was changed? The people of the fathers thirsted, Moses touched the rock, and water flowed out of the rock (Ex 17:6). Did not grace work a result contrary to nature, so that the rock poured forth water, which by nature it did not contain? Marah was a most bitter stream, so that the thirsting people could not drink. Moses cast wood into the water, and the water lost its bitterness, which grace of a sudden tempered (Ex 15:25).

I believe I mentioned in the biographical post that prior to his election as bishop Ambrose was trained as a lawyer, and that training serves him well here, as he moves through the evidence like a prosecutor confident in the strength and veracity of his case. He provides a further example of the miracle of Elisha and the axe, which contrary to nature floated to the surface of the water that Elisha might retrieve it - iron floating, contrary to nature. But Ambrose is hardly finished. So far he has simply demonstrated the miracles of the prophets, who as mere men consecrated to God offered blessings in which God Himself defied the laws of nature. With the Eucharist we are considering something very different, for it was the Lord God Himself, Jesus Christ, who consecrated the bread and wine, and who through his priests continues to do so now. Thus Ambrose continues:

We observe, then, that grace has more power than nature, and yet so far we have only spoken of the grace of a prophet's blessing. But if the blessing of man had such power as to change nature, what are we to say of that divine consecration where the very words of the Lord and Saviour operate? For that sacrament which you receive is made what it is by the word of Christ. But if the word of Elijah had such power as to bring down fire from heaven, shall not the word of Christ have power to change the nature of the elements? You read concerning the making of the whole world: He spoke and they were made, He commanded and they were created. Shall not the word of Christ, which was able to make out of nothing that which was not, be able to change things which already are into what they were not? For it is not less to give a new nature to things than to change them.

It is Christ's own words which effect the sacrament of the Eucharist, and it is according to His command that this same action is repeated in the liturgical celebration. The Eucharist is connected to the entire mystery of Christ - His incarnation through the Virgin Mary, His death on the Cross, and His resurrection and ascension into heaven. That God could be made man, that the author of life could die on the cross, that the dead could be raised, all of this is contrary to nature, and yet all of this is exactly what was done in Jesus Christ, and is done in the sacraments. Ambrose goes on:

But why make use of arguments? Let us use the examples He gives, and by the example of the Incarnation prove the truth of the mystery. Did the course of nature proceed as usual when the Lord Jesus was born of Mary? If we look to the usual course, a woman ordinarily conceives after connection with a man. And this body which we make is that which was born of the Virgin. Why do you seek the order of nature in the Body of Christ, seeing that the Lord Jesus Himself was born of a Virgin, not according to nature? It is the true Flesh of Christ which crucified and buried, this is then truly the Sacrament of His Body.

The Lord Jesus Himself proclaims: This is My Body (Matt 26:26). Before the blessing of the heavenly words another nature is spoken of, after the consecration the Body is signified. He Himself speaks of His Blood. Before the consecration it has another name, after it is called Blood. And you say, Amen, that is, It is true. Let the heart within confess what the mouth utters, let the soul feel what the voice speaks.

Having demonstrated clearly not only how it is possible for this mystery to be true, but that it is indeed according to the promise of God and the command of God that it takes place, Ambrose concludes his sermon by returning to the beautiful imagery of the Song of Songs, that the soul about to receive the very Body of Christ may see how powerful a gift this is for strengthening the soul, and how intimate a self-giving it is that unites the Bride to her beloved Spouse, and exhorting the Christian to live a life worthy of the gift received, the gift of regeneration in baptism and of divine intimacy in the Eucharist:

Christ, then, feeds His Church with these sacraments, by means of which the substance of the soul is strengthened, and seeing the continual progress of her grace, He rightly says to her: How comely are your breasts, my sister, my spouse, how comely they are made by wine, and the smell of your garments is above all spices. A dropping honeycomb are your lips, my spouse, honey and milk are under your tongue, and the smell of your garments is as the smell of Lebanon. A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed. By which He signifies that the mystery ought to remain sealed up with you, that it be not violated by the deeds of an evil life, and pollution of chastity, that it be not made known to thou, for whom it is not fitting, nor by garrulous talkativeness it be spread abroad among unbelievers. Your guardianship of the faith ought therefore to be good, that integrity of life and silence may endure unblemished.

Ambrose concludes by summarizing the two-fold mystery celebrated at the Easter Vigil, that of baptism and that of Eucharist:

Wherefore, too, the Church, beholding so great grace, exhorts her sons and her friends to come together to the sacraments, saying: Eat, my friends, and drink and be inebriated, my brother (Song 5:1). What we eat and what we drink the Holy Spirit has elsewhere made plain by the prophet, saying, Taste and see that the Lord is good, blessed is the man that hopes in Him. In that sacrament is Christ, because it is the Body of Christ, it is therefore not bodily food but spiritual. Whence the Apostle says of its type: Our fathers ate spiritual food and drank spiritual drink (1 Cor 10:3), for the Body of God is a spiritual body; the Body of Christ is the Body of the Divine Spirit, for the Spirit is Christ, as we read: The Spirit before our face is Christ the Lord (Lam 4:20). And in the Epistle of Peter we read: Christ died for us (1 Pet 2:21). Lastly, that food strengthens our heart, and that drink makes glad the heart of man, as the prophet has recorded.

So, then, having obtained everything, let us know that we are born again, but let us not say, How are we born again? Have we entered a second time into our mother's womb and been born again? I do not recognize here the course of nature. But here there is no order of nature, where is the excellence of grace. And again, it is not always the course of nature which brings about conception, for we confess that Christ the Lord was conceived of a Virgin, and reject the order of nature. For Mary conceived not of man, but was with child of the Holy Spirit, as Matthew says: She was found with child of the Holy Spirit (Matt 1:18). If, then, the Holy Spirit coming down upon the Virgin wrought the conception, and effected the work of generation, surely we must not doubt but that, coming down upon the Font, or upon those who receive Baptism, He effects the reality of the new birth.

Thus concludes Ambrose's treatise On the Mysteries. In the next post we will begin discussing his work The Sacrament of the Incarnation of the Lord. Until then, St. Ambrose, pray for us!

St. Ambrose on the Mystery of Baptism

2011-07-22T12:45:00.000-07:00

Though I suppose this is true of any generation, particularly in the early Church we get a sense of what the controversies were by what was being written. I don't know anything in particular about any serious Eucharistic controversies in the early Church, but the pains that St. Ambrose takes to argue for the reality of the transformation of the bread and wine into the true body and blood of Christ indicates to me that something must have been going on. In his work The Mysteries Ambrose makes some very interesting arguments demonstrating just how it can be that bread and wine can truly become body and blood, not mere symbols but the true presence of the risen Christ.

The crux of Ambrose's argument comes down to the fact that Scripture gives us an abundance of examples where grace works in a way that is contrary to nature - which, after all, is exactly what is suggested in the Eucharistic miracle. Grace acting contrary to nature is also at the heart of Ambrose's explanation of baptism, where a real and supernatural regeneration takes place by bathing in natural waters - natural waters altered by grace.

Ambrose uses primarily Old Testament allusions to make his points. He begins this homily - given to the newly initiated Catholics who have just been baptized and confirmed at the Easter Vigil, and are preparing to receive First Communion - by discussing baptism. First of all, he shows how the re-creation of baptism calls to mind the creation of the world, where the Spirit of God swept over the waters to impose order upon chaos: "Consider, however, how ancient is the mystery prefigured even in the origin of the world itself. In the very beginning, when God made the heaven and the earth, the Spirit, it is said, moved upon the waters (Gen 1:2) He Who was moving upon the waters, was He not working upon the waters?" Just as the Spirit of God worked upon the waters of the earth, so too does he work upon the waters of baptism, that a new creature might be born from them.

Ambrose next moves to the story of Noah and the flood, which has been seen as symbolic of baptism from the earliest days of the Church. For Ambrose, just as all sinful flesh was destroyed in the flood, and in that destruction the world was to be renewed, so too in baptism is our carnal nature put to death and regenerated in Christ. Ambrose also sees in the raven which did not return when sent out by Noah the fallen sinful nature of man which leaves him in baptism:

Take another testimony. All flesh was corrupt by its iniquities. My Spirit, says God, shall not remain among men, because they are flesh (Gen 6:3). Whereby God shows that the grace of the Spirit is turned away by carnal impurity and the pollution of grave sin. Upon which, God, willing to restore what was lacking, sent the flood and bade just Noah go up into the ark. And he, after having, as the flood was passing off, sent forth first a raven which did not return, sent forth a dove which is said to have returned with an olive twig. You see the water, you see the wood [of the ark], you see the dove, and do you hesitate as to the mystery? The water, then, is that in which the flesh is dipped, that all carnal sin may be washed away. All wickedness is there buried. The wood is that on which the Lord Jesus was fastened when He suffered for us. The dove is that in the form of which the Holy Spirit descended, as you have read in the New Testament, Who inspires in you peace of soul and tranquillity of mind. The raven is the figure of sin, which goes forth and does not return, if, in you, too, inwardly and outwardly righteousness be preserved.

I won't go through all the Old Testament allusions that Ambrose conjures, but the list is quite exhaustive. Two more, however, I would like to highlight. Ambrose sees in the account of Moses dipping a piece of wood into the bitter waters of Marah, thereby making it sweet, a prefigurement of the Cross, without which the waters of baptism would be ineffective. He writes:

Marah was a fountain of most bitter water: Moses cast wood into it and it became sweet. For water without the preaching of the Cross of the Lord is of no avail for future salvation, but, after it has been consecrated by the mystery of the saving cross, it is made suitable for the use of the spiritual laver and of the cup of salvation. As, then, Moses, that is, the prophet, cast wood into that fountain, so, too, the priest utters over this font the proclamation of the Lord's cross, and the water is made sweet for the purpose of grace.

The next Old Testament allusion is also one that is quite commonly used in patristic writings, the story of Naaman, whose leprosy was cured at Elisha's command that he dip seven times in the Jordan River. This is where Ambrose begins his argument that will carry over into the Eucharistic phase of this discourse, about grace acting contrary to nature. Ambrose writes:

Lastly, let the lessons lately gone through from the Kings teach you. Naaman was a Syrian, and suffered from leprosy, nor could he be cleansed by any. Then a maiden from among the captives said that there was a prophet in Israel, who could cleanse him from the defilement of the leprosy. And it is said that, having taken silver and gold, he went to the king of Israel. And he, when he heard the cause of his coming, rent his clothes, saying, that occasion was rather being sought against him, since things were asked of him which pertained not to the power of kings. Elisha, however, sent word to the king, that he should send the Syrian to him, that he might know there was a God in Israel. And when he had come, he bade him dip himself seven times in the river Jordan.
Then he began to reason with himself that he had better waters in his own country, in which he had often bathed and never been cleansed of his leprosy; and so remembering this, he did not obey the command of the prophet, yet on the advice and persuasion of his servants he yielded and dipped himself. And being immediately cleansed, he understood that it is not of the waters but of grace that a man is cleansed.
Understand now who is that young maid among the captives. She is the congregation gathered out of the Gentiles, that is, the Church of God held down of old by the captivity of sin, when as yet it possessed not the liberty of grace, by whose counsel that foolish people of the Gentiles heard the word of prophecy as to which it had before been in doubt. Afterwards, however, when they believed that it ought to be obeyed, they were washed from every defilement of sin. And he indeed doubted before he was healed; you are already healed, and therefore ought not to doubt.

Ambrose then moves on to the writings of the New Testament, where the Sacrament of Baptism as such is instituted. Here Ambrose discusses the necessary existence of the three elements of baptism: water, blood, and Spirit. The water is the material necessary for a sacramental act, the blood is the Cross of Christ which allows for the sacrament to actually signify something, and the Spirit is what allows the sacrament to actually be what it signifies. Thus Ambrose writes:

Therefore read that the three witnesses in baptism, the water, the blood, and the Spirit, 1 John 5:7 are one, for if you take away one of these, the Sacrament of Baptism does not exist. For what is water without the cross of Christ? A common element, without any sacramental effect. Nor, again, is there the Sacrament of Regeneration without water: For except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (Jn 3:5). Now, even the catechumen believes in the cross of the Lord Jesus, wherewith he too is signed; but unless he be baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, he cannot receive remission of sins nor gain the gift of spiritual grace.
So that Syrian dipped himself seven times under the law, but you were baptized in the Name of the Trinity, you confessed the Father. Call to mind what you did: you confessed the Son, you confessed the Holy Spirit. Mark well the order of things in this faith: you died to the world, and rose again to God. And as though buried to the world in that element, being dead to sin, you rose again to eternal life. Believe, therefore, that these waters are not void of power.

We see here also that Ambrose is balancing the effectiveness of the sacrament because of the fact of God's working through it, and also the faith that is necessary to allow God to work freely. It is grace alone which heals us, grace alone which restores us, and yet our faith is necessary to open us up to the grace that God desires to work in us. To illustrate this further Ambrose recounts the story of the angel who stirred up the pool so that the sick may enter into it to be healed. According to Ambrose, the angel provides a sign to the people, but the Christian has faith; the sick in Jerusalem here entered into waters stirred by an angel, but the waters of baptism are stirred by the Holy Spirit, and thus alone are effective for the regeneration of the human being:

Therefore it is said: An angel of the Lord went down according to the season into the pool, and the water was troubled; and he who first after the troubling of the water went down into the pool was healed of whatsoever disease he was holden (Jn 5:4). This pool was at Jerusalem, in which one was healed every year, but no one was healed before the angel had descended. Because of those who believed not the water was troubled as a sign that the angel had descended. They had a sign, you have faith; for them an angel descended, for you the Holy Spirit; for them the creature was troubled, for you Christ Himself, the Lord of the creature, works.

Though this story comes from the New Testament, as it precedes the death and resurrection of Christ, it still represents a prefiguring of the baptism to come:

Then one was healed, now all are made whole; or more exactly, the Christian people alone, for in some even the water is deceitful. Jeremiah 15:18 The baptism of unbelievers heals not but pollutes. The Jew washes pots and cups, as though things without sense were capable of guilt or grace. But do you wash this living cup of yours, that in it your good works may shine and the glory of your grace be bright. For that pool was as a type, that you might believe that the power of God descends upon this font.

At the time of this treatise, the Donatist controversy was at a peak, and so Ambrose necessarily spends some time addressing the central point of this issue: that it is the office of the priest, not his personal holiness, that makes the baptism effective, because grace is promised through it, and no man can impede the grace that God wills to work through His Church.

Ambrose connects the grace of the sacrament and the regeneration it effects with the faith that is professed by acceptance of the gift. On the one hand, the believer affirms the Catholic faith in order to be baptized; on the other hand, it is only through the grace of baptism that the faith may truly be affirmed. Furthermore, the Christian to be baptized does not profess this faith alone, and alone is not able to hold up its truth, but rather it is only by being initiated into the beautiful Bride of Christ, the Church as a body of believers, that faith may be sustained. And in all of this, all is possible only because of the humility of Christ, who descended from his spotless beauty to put on the garment of filth that we wear as part of our fallen humanity. By Him becoming ugly, we become beautiful; by Him becoming scarlet, we become white as wool; by Him become sin for us, we become doves for Him:

But Christ, beholding His Church, for whom He Himself, as you find in the book of the prophet Zechariah, had put on filthy garments, now clothed in white raiment, seeing, that is, a soul pure and washed in the laver of regeneration, says: Behold, you are fair, My love, behold you are fair, your eyes are like a dove's (Song 4:1), in the likeness of which the Holy Spirit descended from heaven. The eyes are beautiful like those of a dove, because in the likeness of a dove the Holy Spirit descended from heaven.
And farther on: Your teeth are like a flock of sheep that are shorn, which have come up from the pool, which all bear twins, and none is barren among them, your lips are as a cord of scarlet (Song 4:2-3) This is no slight praise. First by the pleasing comparison to those that are shorn; for we know that goats both feed in high places without risk, and securely find their food in rugged places, and then when shorn are freed from what is superfluous. The Church is likened to a flock of these, having in itself the many virtues of those souls which through the laver lay aside the superfluity of sins, and offer to Christ the mystic faith and the grace of good living, which speak of the cross of the Lord Jesus.
The Church is beautiful in them. So that God the Word says to her: You are all fair, My love, and there is no blemish in you, for guilt has been washed away. Come hither from Lebanon, My spouse, come hither from Lebanon, from the beginning of faith will you pass through and pass on (Song 4:7-8), because, renouncing the world, she passed through things temporal and passed on to Christ. And again, God the Word says to her: How beautiful and sweet are you made, O love, in your delights! Your stature has become like that of a palm-tree, and your breasts like bunches of grapes (Song 7:6-7).

Thus, through the grace of baptism and the regeneration it effects, the Christian is able to live fully in Christ, with the gifts of the Holy Spirit - these gifts are themselves the gift of regeneration, and it is for the Christian now to persevere in these gifts, in growing deeper and deeper into the mystery of Christ that baptism begins:

And then remember that you received the seal of the Spirit; the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and godliness, and the spirit of holy fear (Is 11:2), and preserved what you received. God the Father sealed you, Christ the Lord strengthened you, and gave the earnest of the Spirit in your heart (2 Cor 5:5), as you have learned in the lesson from the Apostle.

As this has already become quite lengthy, I will save a discussion of Ambrose's Eucharistic teaching in this treatise for another post. Until then, St. Ambrose, pray for us!

An Introduction to Saint Ambrose

2011-07-19T08:45:00.000-07:00

In the next several posts I am going to examine the sacramental theology of St. Ambrose, looking at three relatively brief texts: The Mysteries, The Sacrament of the Incarnation of Our Lord, and The Sacraments. In this post I will first introduce the man Ambrose, and then in the next several posts I will examine the writings themselves.

Ambrose was born in 339 in the modern Trier, Germany, then called Augusta Treveroroum. He was born into a distinguished Roman family, and he moved to Rome in 365, where he became well known for his skills in rhetoric, as an advocate in the Court of the Italian Prefecture. In 370 he became Governor of the province of Aemelia Liguria.

This was a time in the Church when the Arian controversy was at its height, and in 373, the Arian Auxentius was appointed as Bishop of Milan, but died before taking office. There was a violent clash among Catholics and Arians to name his successor, and somehow in the midst of that violence, a unanimous choice arose: Ambrose.

Ambrose was not at all happy about this, and had no desire to serve as bishop, and argued strongly against his appointment. In fact, at this time Ambrose had not even been baptized (his mother was a devout Catholic, but it was common practice at this time to delay baptism until much later in life, as there was no practice of the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the way that we know it today), but this would not stop the people's choice. So eventually Ambrose conceded, was baptized, then ordained priest and then bishop of Milan.

Once accepting this appointment, Ambrose dedicated himself completely to this worthy service, and great hours in prayer and in study, and became renowned as a magnificent preacher of the Gospel. He encouraged a strong devotional life among the people, exhorted the people to fasting, especially during Lent, and shunned the fine clothing that was often worn by the clergy at that time, opting for a simplicity in dress befitting of a vicar of Christ. He held daily audiences that were attended by throngs of people of all classes, and his reputation for oratory spread throughout many parts of the world.

It was this reputation that eventually attracted Augustine, who prior to his own conversion was a rising star of rhetoric in the Roman empire. He travelled to Milan with the hopes of learning some fine rhetorical tricks from Ambrose that might help him in his own political career. Augustine, however, could not win an audience with Ambrose, so was forced to learn by observation, and so he found himself regularly attending Mass, just for the sake of listening to Ambrose preach. Though he attended for the purpose of hearing how he spoke, it was the substance of Ambrose's preaching that pierced Augustine's heart, and ultimately led to his conversion. Ambrose then baptized Augustine in Milan at the Easter Vigil in 387.

It is perhaps Augustine's Confessions that provides us with the greatest resource into the man Ambrose, and it is clear that Augustine loved him deeply and respected him tremendously. Augustine writes of his going to Milan and encountering Ambrose:

And to Milan I came, unto Ambrose the bishop, known to the whole world as among the best of men, Your devout servant; whose eloquent discourse did at that time strenuously dispense unto Your people the flour of Your wheat, the gladness of Your oil, and the sober intoxication of Your wine. To him was I unknowingly led by You, that by him I might knowingly be led to You. That man of God received me like a father, and looked with a benevolent and episcopal kindliness on my change of abode. And I began to love him, not at first, indeed, as a teacher of the truth—which I entirely despaired of in Your Church,— but as a man friendly to myself (Confessions V.XIV.24).

The treatise The Mysteries which we will be examining today was first delivered to the newly baptized Catholics. At that time Catholics had a lengthy catechumenate - after which the modern RCIA is modeled - and would be dismissed from the liturgy just after the homily, prior to the recitation of the Creed. At the Easter Vigil, there would be a baptistry separate from the church itself, and the catechumans would be brought into the baptistry, with the bishop, priests, and deacons present, and would be baptized, full immersion, in very dramatic fashion. They were given no indication ahead of time as to what would happen, and so the drama of the entrance into the death of Christ and the rising with him was experienced quite profoundly. After all the candidates were baptized, they would be clothed in white garments and led in a solemn procession into the church, lit entirely by candlelight with the chanting of the people, and it would be there that they would receive the Holy Eucharist for the first time, after hearing the word of God proclaimed in Scripture, and the homily preached by the bishop. This is where we will pick up in the next post, examining Ambrose's homily to the newly initiated, having just been baptized and confirmed and about to receive the Eucharist for the first time.

The Religious Habit in the Early Church - Part II of II

2011-07-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

In yesterday's post I began looking at the thought of Evagrius Ponticus on the symbolic meaning of the religious habit. Today I want to look at the theology of his disciple, John Cassian, as expounded in Book I of his Institutes. Before I get into that, however, I should give just a brief background on these two men.

Evagrius was born in 345, and was tutored first by St. Basil the Great, and became great friends also with the other two Cappadocian Fathers, Sts. Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory Nazianzus, as well as St. Macarius of Egypt. He was extremely well educated, a gifted speaker and writer, and began on a promising ecclesiastical career, until he became embroiled in a scandal in which he fell in love with the wife of a prominent member of high society, and fled, ultimately to Jerusalem. He took refuge at a hospice attached to the monastery at the Mount of Olives founded by Melania and Rufinus. There he fell deathly ill, and no doctor could restore him to health. Melania came to understand that his illness was caused by his interior conflict over a promise of repentance he had made, and so she convinced him to join the monastery and dedicate his life to penance. He stayed there for some time, but then left for the desert of Egypt, to Scete, where he could live a greater life of solitude and prayer and asceticism. Evagrius died in Egypt in 399, only 54 years old.

After his death he was often considered controversial and even heretical because he was a devoted Origenist, and it would be many centuries before the Western Church truly rediscovered Evagrius and his wonderful writings. In the desert he mentored and influenced many people, including John Cassian. Cassian was born in 360 in modern-day Romania or Bulgaria, then known as Scythia Minor. He and a friend Germanus (another Desert Father) traveled to Scete as young men, and spent time among the monasteries there. He was ordained a deacon by St. John Chrysostom, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and when the Patriarch was exiled for a time, it was the Latin speaking John Cassian who pled his cause with the Pope. While in Rome he was invited to begin a monastery in Gaul modeled after that in Scete, where he had learned from Evagrius. He later made his way to Marseilles, and established the Abbey of St. Victor, a complex of monasteries for men and women. His writings deeply influenced St. Benedict, often called the father of western monasticism. Cassian died in 435.

Among two of Cassian's most popular and influential writings are his Conferences and Institutes, both meant as instructive guides for the monks. It is Book I of Institutes that we will be examining today in a discussion on the early Church's understanding of the religious habit. John describes especially what today we would call a sacramental understanding of the habit - that it serves as an exterior symbol of an interior reality, so that the sense can lead the soul inward to what is truly important. He opens the Institutes thus:

As we are going to speak of the customs and rules of the monasteries, how by God's grace can we better begin than with the actual dress of the monks, for we shall then be able to expound in due course their interior life when we have set their outward man before your eyes.

So in the book John will begin with the dress of the monk and then move to the monk's interior life, just as the habit itself helps to guide the monk to the interior reality it represents.

One of the things we discussed in yesterday's post was the idea tossed around that the monks of the early Church simply dressed in the manner and style of the day, and that they were not intentional about dressing in any way that would be considered different from ordinary people outside the monastery. We saw yesterday how Evagrius directly refutes that notion, and now we read from Cassian: "Lastly, let them be so far removed from this world's fashions as to remain altogether common property for the use of the servants of God." The idea is that the habits will be something that all the monks of the monastery can wear, that they can be passed down, that the can be shared in common, and that, in part for this purpose, they should be something altogether different from the clothing of the world, so that they are not subject to the changing fashions of the world.

In the early monasteries of the Church there were a variety of opinions as to how careful or attentive the monk should be to the care of the habit. Reading the Desert Fathers you will often get the picture of a monk whose habit is so dirty and ragged that he could leave it outside his cell without any fear of having it stolen, because it was so repulsive to people. Cassian takes a much more moderate approach, insisting that the habit should not be adorned in splendid colors and such, but also that it not be dirty and neglected. He writes that the habit should be "what may merely cover the body, not what may please the fancy by the splendour of the attire; commonplace, so that it may not be thought remarkable for novelty of colour or fashion among other men of the same profession; and quite free from anxious carefulness, yet not discoloured by stains acquired through neglect." Cassian

Cassian is also very clear that as regards the habit, he wants his monks to remain true to the tradition of the Fathers. This is especially relevant, I believe, in the debates about the habit going on today. Cassian writes, "Whatever models we see were not taught either by the saints of old who laid the foundations of the monastic life, or by the fathers of our own time who in their turn keep up at the present day their customs, these we also should reject as superfluous and useless." In this, Cassian again has an eye towards moderation, as he is not referring so much to those who would shun the habit, as is the case in modern times, but rather in the other direction, he is addressing those who would make the habit unnecessarily austere-looking, such as the wearing of visible sackcloth. Of these he writes:

But even if we hear of some respectable persons who have been dressed in this garb, a rule for the monasteries is not, therefore, to be passed by us, nor should the ancient decrees of the holy fathers be upset because we do not think that a few men, presuming on the possession of other virtues, are to be blamed even in regard of those things which they have practised not in accordance with the Catholic rule. For the opinion of a few ought not to be preferred to or to interfere with the general rule for all. For we ought to give unhesitating allegiance and unquestioning obedience, not to those customs and rules which the will of a few have introduced, but to those which a long standing antiquity and numbers of the holy fathers have passed on by an unanimous decision to those that come after.

Those two factors are always present in Cassian's thought here: moderation, and maintaining the tradition of the fathers. In addition, Cassian sees the uniformity of the habit as being a safeguard against vainglory and pride: "For where there is no special difference and all are alike no harm is done."

Like Evagrius, Cassian also goes into some detail about the meaning behind the different parts of the habit, highlighting the habit's rich imagery and sacramental value, though he often gives different meanings than Evagrius does. Cassian highlights the fact that not every part of the habit serves a practical value, but rather that its singular purpose is symbolic, and that the symbol might witness to the monk to live according to the true character of a monk, in simplicity and holiness. He writes, "There are some things besides in the dress of the Egyptians which concern not the care of the body so much as the regulation of the character, that the observance of simplicity and innocence may be preserved by the very character of the clothing."

Concerning the hood or cowl that the monks wear, Cassian describes them as "very small hoods coming down to the end of the neck and shoulders, which only cover the head, in order that they may constantly be moved to preserve the simplicity and innocence of little children by imitating their actual dress." He also says that the monks wear these cowls both day and night.

Like Evagrius, Cassian also describes the purpose of the monks going without covering on their hands, though he does so within the larger explanation of the symbolism of the tunic:

They wear also linen tunics which scarcely reach to the elbows, and for the rest leave their hands bare, that the cutting off of the sleeves may suggest that they have cut off all the deeds and works of this world, and the garment of linen teach that they are dead to all earthly conversation, and that hereby they may hear the Apostle saying day by day to them: Mortify your members which are upon the earth; their very dress also declaring this: For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God; and again: And I live, yet now not I but Christ lives in me. To me indeed the world is crucified, and I to the world.

John talks about what he calls the cord of the monk, but actually is much like what we would call a scapular. He doesn't go into much detail about the symbolism of the scapular, only to say that it is designed and worn in such a way that it can easily be pulled back so as not to interfere with the work of the monk, the manual labor that was his livelihood. He very briefly describes a cape, calld a mafor, which covers the neck, and which is to be both modest and inexpensive.

Yesterday I mentioned the sheep-skin that the monks wore, and Evagrius talked about it as being something very different from the daily wear of the lay people in Egypt, but rather something unique to the habit of the monk. Cassian too talks about this sheep or goat-skin, which is called melotes, or pera. He says that the sheep-skin is worn

in imitation of those who foreshadowed the lines of the monastic life in the Old Testament, of whom the Apostle says: They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being in want, distressed, afflicted; of whom the world was not worthy; wandering in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth. Hebrews 11:37-38 And this garment of goatskin signifies that having destroyed all wantonness of carnal passions they ought to continue in the utmost sobriety of virtue, and that nothing of the wantonness or heat of youth, or of their old lightmindedness, should remain in their bodies.

The staff that they carry is meant as a constant reminder of the spiritual warfare in which they are ever engaged, and also to remind them that it is the cross alone which is the weapon to defeat the enemies of the spiritual life:

And the carrying of the staff spiritually teaches that they ought never to walk unarmed among so many barking dogs of faults and invisible beasts of spiritual wickedness (from which the blessed David, in his longing to be free, says: Deliver not, O Lord, to the beasts the soul that trusts in You), but when they attack them they ought to beat them off with the sign of the cross and drive them far away; and when they rage furiously against them they should annihilate them by the constant recollection of the Lord's passion and by following the example of His mortified life.

As for the wearing of sandals, Cassian says that this is done only when weather conditions do not permit going barefoot, but that even in bad weather. He says that nothing more than sandals should be worn, however, no matter how bad the conditions, reasoning thus:

But refusing shoes, as forbidden by the command of the gospel, if bodily weakness or the morning cold in winter or the scorching heat of midday compels them, they merely protect their feet with sandals, explaining that by the use of them and the Lord's permission it is implied that if, while we are still in this world we cannot be completely set free from care and anxiety about the flesh, nor can we be altogether released from it, we should at least provide for the wants of the body with as little fuss and as slight an entanglement as possible: and as for the feet of our soul which ought to be ready for our spiritual race and always prepared for preaching the peace of the gospel (with which feet we run after the odour of the ointments of Christ, and of which David says: I ran in thirst, and Jeremiah: But I am not troubled, following You), we ought not to suffer them to be entangled in the deadly cares of this world, filling our thoughts with those things which concern not the supply of the wants of nature, but unnecessary and harmful pleasures. And this we shall thus fulfil if, as the Apostle advises, we make not provision for the flesh with its lusts (Rom 13:14).

From these two Desert Fathers and monks of the early Church, we can see how early on a theology of the monastic habit was developed, and how the manner of dress of religious was meant to bear a symbolic, sacramental value, witnessing first to the monk, and then to those whom the monk encounters, of the life of sacrifice and holiness to which all Christians are called. I hope that we modern day religious can look to the wisdom of those who went before us and established our long-founded customs of the religious habit and embrace the value that it brings to a people so starving for signs of God's work and presence in the world today. The habit only means anything if it corresponds to a deep interior life conformed to the life of Christ and His Passion, but in such a life, its meaning and value can be huge.

The Religious Habit in the Early Church - Part I of II

2011-07-14T17:51:00.000-07:00

Among the many exhortations to come out of Second Vatican Council was a call for the renewal of religious life. Religious institutes were encouraged to get back to their roots, to rediscover their authentic spirituality, to embrace the spirit of their founders. In doing this, many religious institutes also looked at the models of the early Church to see what they had to offer. One of the many changes that came about from this soul searching was the decision by many religious institutes to either abandon the religious habit altogether, or at least to dramatically minimize its usage.

One argument that was made in the decision to shun the habit was that in the early Church, monks and consecrated virgins and widows did not wear habits in the sense that we understand them today, but rather that they simply wore what was standard daily wear for the time period. So a monk wearing a tunic, belt and sandals wasn't doing so because of any symbolic value, but rather because that's simply what men in ancient times wore. The religious habit as a symbolic garb that was so very different from what lay people wore was thus considered to be a medieval innovation that therefore must be discarded in order to get back to an authentic expression of the simplicity of religious life. For now I'll leave aside the assumption that rests behind this argument, that if it's medieval it must be bad.

Instead, I want to examine the argument itself, that in the period of the early centuries of the Church, a habit was not a special garment deeply imbued with symbolism reflective of the way of life unique to consecrated religious. I will look at writings from two of the giants of ancient Christian monasticism: Evagrius Ponticus and John Cassian.

Evagrius Ponticus is most famous for his two treatises on prayer, The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer, and is particularly regarded in the Eastern Church, being included in the Philokalia. It is in the letter he wrote introducing The Praktikos that gives us a striking illustration of what the monastic habit meant in the early Church. His letter to Anatolius begins:

Recently you wrote to me here in Scete, Anatolius, my dearest brother, from the Holy Mountain to request from me an explanation of the symbolism of the habit of the monks who live in Egypt. You have well understood that not without purpose is this habit made in a form so very different from what other men employ for the style of their clothes.

Already two things are apparent: one, the idea of the habit carrying with it a symbolic value is understand beyond Scete, where Evagrius lived, but indeed is understood by the monks throughout Egypt. More importantly to this discussion, however, is the fact that Evagrius makes plain that the religious habit is very intentionally quite different from the dress of those outside the monastery. Evagrius goes on further to say that what he is about to explain, "I have learned...from the holy Fathers." In other words, the idea of the symbolic value of the monastic habit goes back to the very beginnings of monastic life in the Church, and seems always to have formed an important part of the monastic way of life.

You will notice as we go through the explanations that Evagrius and Cassian give regarding the various aspects of the habit that their explanations differ. This is particularly interesting since Cassian was a disciple of Evagrius, and I think it adds a certain richness to the developing theology of the monastic habit. In the letter we are taking up here, Evagrius goes on to explain the meaning of the various parts which comprise the habit. He explains the cowl (the hood which often forms a separate piece of clothing from the tunic itself) as follows:

The cowl is a symbol of the charity of God our Savior. It protects the most important part of the body and keeps us, who are children of Christ, warm. Thus it can be said to afford protection against those who attempt to strike and wound us. Consequently, all who wear this cowl on their heads sing these words aloud: "If the Lord does not build the house and keep the city, unavailingly does the builder labor and the watchman stand his guard." Such words as these instill humility and root out that long-standing evil which is pride and which caused Lucifer, who rose like the day-star in the morning, to be cast down to the earth.

The last part of this explanation is very important, because it highlights that the primary value of the religious habit is the witness it gives to the one wearing it. It is not foremost a matter of witness to others who will see the monk in the habit, but rather a constant reminder to the monk himself of the sort of life he is to live, especially to the humility to which he must always be striving. This emphasis on the witness-to-self aspect is further highlighted when Evagrius talks about the purpose behind the monks going about with bare hands, which he says symbolizes a life free from all hypocrisy and vainglory.

Talking about the scapular that the monks wore, Evagrius writes: "The scapular which has the form of a cross and which covers the shoulders of the monks is a symbol of faith in Christ." This faith in Christ, symbolized by the scapular, "raises up the meek, removes obstacles, and provides for free, untrammeled activity."

Common among most interpretations I've seen, ancient, medieval, and modern, of the belt or cincture worn by religious is its association with the chastity to which the religious are called. Evagrius writes, "The belt which they wear about their loins signifies their rejection of all impurity and proclaims that 'it is a good thing for man not to touch a woman.'" In addition to the belt, the monks of ancient Egypt also wore a sheepskin garment, which for Evagrius signifies "that they continually bear in their bodies the mortification of Jesus and check all the irrational passions." Evagrius goes on to describe the staff that the monks carry as representing "the tree of life that affords secure footing to those who hold on to it. It allows them to support themselves upon it as upon the Lord." Cassian will give quite a different interpretation of the sheepskin, which we will see in Part II of this series.

It is plainly clear here that for Evagrius, indeed for all the monks of the early Church, the monastic habit was something deeply imbued with rich symbolism. In fact, not only by this time in the early Church was there a variety of theologies regarding the habit itself, but Evagrius also tells us that there was a ceremony for the investiture of the habit for new monks:

We see then that the monk's habit is a kind of compendious symbol of all these things we have described. Whenever they confer this habit the Fathers speak the following words to the young monks: "The fear of God strengthens faith, my son, and continence in turn strengthens this fear. Patience and hope make this latter virtue solid beyond all shaking and they also give birth to apatheia*. Now this apatheia has a child called agape who keeps the door to deep knowledge of the created universe. Finally, to this knowledge succeed theology and the supreme beatitude."

Tomorrow we will examine Book I of Cassian's Institutes, which deals entirely with the monastic habit and its symbolism, and I believe helps to complete the picture of the understanding of the habit in the early Church, and hopefully therefore provide inspiration for young religious such as myself in considering our own relationship with the religious habit at a time when wearing it as a primary garment can often be a cause, unfortunately, for discord within communities.

*apatheia refers to a state of spiritual equanimity, which according to the Desert Fathers and Mothers is necessary for true agape love to grow in the soul.

A Retreat Hiatus

2011-05-28T19:57:00.001-07:00

Friends, I will be on retreat until next Saturday, and will resume the Basil writings when I return. Please keep the novices in prayer during this retreat. Thank you!

Augustiniana: The Feast of Saint Rita

2011-05-22T06:41:00.000-07:00

Though liturgically eclipsed in most places by it being a Sunday in Easter, today is nonetheless the Feast of St. Rita of Cascia. In his recent interview published in the book Light of the World (which I strongly recommend), Pope Benedict XVI talked about developing friendships with the saints. For me, there are few who are greater friends to me than St. Rita. She has been with me through some really difficult times, has inspired me by her own life, has prayed eternally for many people whom I have commended to her. She is a friend who will always remain very close to my heart and to my prayer.

Rita was born around 1380 in Cascia, Italy. From an early age she felt drawn to the Augustinian way of life, having often visited the monastery of St. Mary Magdalene, a convent of cloistered Augustinian nuns in her hometown, where she would pray with the sisters, tend to the sick who were brought there, particularly at a time when violence swept Italy in the era of the earliest crime families. Her parents, however, foresaw great difficulties in her entering the convent, and even feared that it was a dangerous place to be because of all the violence, from which even religious houses were not immune. So at the age of 14 they arranged for her to marry Paolo Mancini, a son of one of these powerful families who was violent, but also had a deeply hidden goodness in his heart.

Rita gave herself fully to her marriage, and continued to deepen her love for Christ. Her father was a notary and a well-known peacemaker in the town, often sought to settle disputes among rivals. He instilled in Rita the value of peacemaking as a call of the Gospel, and so in her own way she sought to lead her husband to peace and to reconcile the warring families. Through her patience and long-suffering and her holy way of living, eventually she was able to win her husband's heart for Christ, and they retired, along with their two sons (possibly twins), to a small country home owned by his parents, where he renounced the ways of violence and gave himself to prayer and good works.

It was not long, however, before violence came upon the family again, and as a vendetta of an old dispute, one night Paolo was murdered. Rita was devastated, as were her young sons, and she knew who his murder was. To everyone's surprise and amazement - and perhaps even angering some members of Paolo's family who did not have the faith that she did - at his funeral in the presence of everyone, including his murderer, Rita forgave the man who killed her husband.

Her sons, very young, perhaps not even yet teenagers, were not so forgiving, having been influenced by Paolo's family and believing that vendetta was both their right and their duty as sons. Rita prayed hard and sought through many tears and pleas for them to change their hearts, to learn the power of forgiveness which destroys the power of violence. She even prayed to God that she would rather they be taken from her than that they give in to their murderous rage. Eventually they began to see the truth in their mother's teachings, and very soon thereafter both sons became gravely ill, and died.

Rita was devastated, obviously. She struggled very deeply with all that had happened to her, knowing that she had always sought nothing but to love God and do His will, and she had done this in the most difficult of circumstances. She perhaps felt betrayed for a time, and angry, but she continued to pray and continued to seek comfort in the Lord, and guidance from Him. As time went on, her prayer continued to deepen, and once again she felt those old longings to join the convent stirring in her heart. She faced great difficulties, however, because the convent feared political repercussions and further violence by accepting the widow of the sons of one of the warring crime families. So Rita worked tirelessly to bring peace to the warring families, and eventually won them over just as she did her husband and her sons. Still the convent resisted, saying that they only accepted young virgins, not older widows.

There are several legends surrounding Rita's eventual acceptance into the convent. One says that she fell asleep just outside the walls of the convent, praying to God that she might be accepted, and while she was sleeping two angels lifted her up over the walls, and she awoke within the convent courtyard, which would have been impossible of her own effort, given the height of the stone walls. The other legend is that at her final appeal to the Mother Superior, as they were speaking Mother suddenly became aware that Rita was flanked by St. John the Baptist on one side and St. Augustine on the other, and thus she admitted Rita. Regardless of what happened, we know that Rita persevered through great difficulties and kept her heart intent on God's will, and finally the desire of her childhood was brought to fulfillment. She lived a very happy life and was devoted to prayer and to the Blessed Sacrament. Throughout all of her life Rita ever conformed herself to the Passion of Christ, seeking always to empty herself and live for Him and for others, seeking to convert souls through her own holy suffering.

During the last fifteen years of her life Rita bore the mark of the stigmata, receiving the wound of the thorn in her forehead. As her death was approaching, in the midst of winter with snow on the ground, Rita asked one of the young nuns to bring her a rose from the garden. The nun assumed she was hallucinating because there could be no roses in bloom in the middle of a snow-covered winter. But Rita insisted, and so to placate her the nun went out to the garden, and found a single rose bush in bloom. She cut one of the roses and brought it to Rita. So it is a tradition on her feast to bless Roses and distribute them to the faithful, as a sacramental reminder of the flower of virtue that blooms in the hearts of all those who place their trust in God and seek with all humility and all self-emptying the peace of Christ, won through the suffering of the Cross. She is a model for those who live in all states of life, and is known as the Peacemaker, and the Patron Saint of Desperate and Impossible Cases. Please join me and the Augustinians throughout the world who celebrate this special Feast of our Order, a true woman of the Church and a model for all Christians.

Father in heaven,
you granted to Saint Rita
a share in the passion of your Son.
Give us courage and strength in time of trial,
so that by our patient endurance
we may enter more deeply
into the paschal mystery of your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

St. Basil on Watchfulness

2011-05-20T20:26:00.000-07:00

One of the most important themes that comes up not only in St. Basil, but throughout the Fathers of the Church, is the idea of vigilance. Vigilance for the Fathers refers to that watchfulness of spirit that is an essential component of spiritual warfare. It means developing an ongoing awareness of our thoughts, what vices lie underneath many of our thoughts, and avoiding the subtle allurements that the devil will use to lead us into sin.

For St. Basil, the exhortation to vigilance is found throughout his ascetical writings. In the following passage he writes about the necessity for bodily discipline, but note how he then relates it to a matter of spiritual watchfulness:

Do not accumulate a heavy burden of sins for yourself by having too soft a bed or by the style of your garments, or shoes, or any other part of your dress; by variety in food, or a table too richly appointed for your stage of self-renunciation, by the way you stand or sit, or by being too negligent or too fastidious with regard to manual labor. All these things bring harmful results not only if they already exist in your life, but even if they are objects of your desire. Indeed, unless you quickly recognize them as a diabolical snare and root them out of your heart, they will lead you to defection from the life of Christ

Both the exercise of bodily discipline and spiritual watchfulness are related to our call to freedom in Christ. The slavery to sin from which all men suffer, called concupiscence, is a two-fold slavery, that of body and that of spirit. We are easily seduced to the luxuries of the flesh, but because of the flesh's weakness those seemingly harmless desires, when fed without check and without discipline, grow into an insatiable beast, and as our flesh begins to become more and more addicted to its various gratifications, soon our ego dominates our spirit, leading us to selfishness, forgetfulness of God, lukewarmness in charity, and all the other things that lead us down the path of perdition.

The manner of following Christ that is the subject of Basil's On the Renunciation of the World, addresses this two-fold slavery by commending a two-fold path of liberation. First the body needs to be deprived in a way that it no longer is enslaved to those worldly luxuries that led it down this road to begin with. This entails mortification - fasting, sleeping on hard beds, or other bodily disciplines. Our modern sensibilities should inform us that it is essential that we remain moderate even in our mortification, else we do harm to ourselves. Fasting is good, starving is not. Self-denial is good, self-annihilation is not.

As the body is being deprived, the soul must be fed. Just as the body can be harmed by being fed junk food but is strengthened by eating healthy food, so too it is with the soul. So part of this watchfulness for Basil is paying attention to what we allow our minds to receive and meditate on. Thus he writes:
Do not give ear to every babbler, nor a response to every trifler in conversations which do not comport with the ascetical life. Be attentive to worthy teachings and, by meditating on these, keep a strict watch over your heart. Refrain from listening to worldly tales, that you may not in any way stain your soul with the spattering of mud. Be not anxious to hear the sayings of others nor to thrust yourself into others' conversations, so that you may not be an object of ridicule and cause these others to commit slander. Be not inquisitive nor desirous of seeing everything, so as not to have in your mind the poisonous discharge of vice. Use your eyes to the purpose, use your ears to the purpose, speak to the purpose, answer to the purpose.
By guarding the heart, the soul is thus prepared to receive the grace of God and to grow in union with God. In this watchfulness, then, it is essential that the soul strive to keep its gaze ever fixed on God, in the conversation of prayer and in meditation on Sacred Scripture. In addition, this watchfulness must direct the soul to be ever mindful of the needs of one's neighbor, especially the poor, the lonely, the suffering. Through prayer and good works the soul seeks the grace of being set ablaze with the fire of divine charity. Basil urges those who minister to the needs of others not to do so merely as an act of service, but especially as an act of love:
When it is your turn to serve, add to your physical labor a word of exhortation and comfort for love of those whom you serve, that your ministry, seasoned thus with salt, may be acceptable.
In all of this, Basil tells us that he is exhorting us to nothing else than the imitation of Christ:
Knowledge of holy living is knowledge of meekness and humility. Humility is the imitation of Christ; highmindedness

St. Basil On the Renunciation of the World

2011-05-17T14:05:00.000-07:00

In this post I am going to examine a second treatise from St. Basil written for beginners in the ascetical life, called An Ascetical Discourse and Exhortation on the Renunciation of the World and Spiritual Perfection. One of the important themes that Basil draws out in this treatise is that holiness is not found in living a monastic life or in living the married life, but rather in living one's vocation in such a way that manifests the Kingdom of God. The key word is vocation - if someone isn't called to the monastic life but tries to live it anyway because he thinks it is somehow intrinsically holier, then disaster will follow, his monastic life will end in failure, and - and this is perhaps the most important point for Basil - he will cause great scandal to the Church by perhaps leading others to think that monastic life is impossible. As such, Basil recommends a period of serious discernment and testing of one's vocation before committing one's life to it.

It seems to me that this parallels greatly with the modern formation process of religious institutes, the notion of aspirancy, postulancy, novitiate, and temporary vows, all as a means of testing one's vocation before making a lifelong commitment to it in solemn vows. This should also be the same attitude, it seems, towards an engagement before marriage - a deepening of the commitment that still allows the couple to test their vocation before vowing before the Church and God to live in such a manner. Thus Basil writes:

But, I beseech you, let no man do this thoughtlessly nor promise himself an easy existence and salvation without a struggle. He should, rather, undergo rigorous preliminary discipline with a view to proving his fitness to endure tribulations both of body and soul, lest, exposing himself to unforeseen stratagems, he be unable to resist the assaults against him and find himself in full retreat to his starting point, a victim of disgrace and ridicule. Moreover, in returning to the world with a judgment of condemnation on his soul, he becomes a scandal to many, creating in the minds of all suspicions that the life in Christ is an impossibility.

After this initial exhortation, before getting into his advice for those who do then decide to enter into the monastic way of life, Basil first speaks to the need for a certain asceticism in married life, as well. He warns that there are perils in the married life as there are in the religious life, for the married person is more deeply rooted in the world with all its dangers and temptations. In many ways, Basil sees the married life as more dangerous than the monastic life, more wrought with peril and temptation. He writes:

Do not relax your efforts, therefore, you who have chosen the companionship of a wife, as if you were at liberty to embrace worldliness. Indeed, you have need of greater labors and vigilance for the gaining of your salvation, inasmuch as you have elected to dwell in the midst of the toils and in the very stronghold of rebellious powers, and night and day all your senses are impelled toward desire of the allurements to sin which are before your eyes. Be assured, then, that you will not escape doing battle with the Renegade nor will you gain the victory over him without much striving to observe the evangelical doctrines.

The truth of these observations I think are self-evident to anyone who lives in this world today with their eyes open. The temptations to sin are manifold, the attacks of the Enemy ubiquitous. Giving one's life to Christ in a life of holiness and fidelity to the Gospel is met on all sides with great opposition, and those bearing the name of Christian are likely to be the greatest obstacles and tempters against living a life of true holiness.

Basil goes on to suggest some of the initial temptations that will afflict those called to religious life - the first being an attachment to or opposition from blood relatives. Second, he exhorts those entering religious life to be adamant in the resolve with which one renounces the goods he possesses, "convinced that you are merely dispatching these goods to heaven in advance." As for the attachment to family, he goes on, "Moreover, be not cast down at having divested yourself of friends and relatives, since you are thereby united with Christ who was crucified for you; and what greater proof of love could be conceived than this?"

Now solidly founded in the religious community, having divested oneself of all attachments to the world, whether material or familial, Basil then entreats the new ascetic to find a holy spiritual director. The paradigm of a good spiritual director as set out by Basil is of the highest standard, for there is no more important help along the way of perfection than a good spiritual director - and perhaps no greater harm to one's spiritual life than a bad director. This later would be a theme taken up with great frequency by St. Teresa of Avila, because of her own experience with both terrible and excellent directors. In searching for a director, Basil writes:

[W]ith much care and forethought set about finding a man skilled in guiding those who are making their way towards God who will be an unerring director of your life. He should be adorned with virtues, bearing witness by his own works to his love of God, conversant with the Holy Scripture, recollected, pleasing to God, a lover of the poor, mild, forgiving, laboring hard for the spiritual advancement of his clients, without vainglory or arrogance, impervious to flattery, not given to vacillation, and preferring God to all things else.

Such a director is so important to one's spiritual life that Basil writes that any who finds such a one must "surrender yourself to him, completely renouncing and casting aside your own will." The virtues of the good director are so important because of how necessary it is to be able to submit to him (or her) in blind obedience as if he were in fact Christ Himself.

So important is a good director to the religious on the way to perfection that Basil indicates that the Enemy will exert great influence in trying to align the monk to a bad director. What follows is again admonishment that is particularly pertinent today given certain modern attitudes towards sin and holiness:

Whenever, therefore, our Adversary is not able to prevail upon us to remain amid the tumult and perdition of the world, he endeavors to persuade us not to devote ourselves to a life of discipline or surrender ourselves to a man who will place all our sins before our eyes to correct them. On the contrary, he urges us toward one who is bent on popularity and who puts a favorable light on his own vices under the pretext of indulgence to his associates, so that, when he has thus imperceptibly increased our vices a thousandfold, he may cause us to be fettered by chains of sin we ourselves have forged.

It seems to me that there is little the Devil likes more in a religious than mediocrity. Too often we are satisfied with doing "good enough," pointing to God's mercy as if that is a reason for us not to strive towards holiness - the perfect perversion of that mercy, which for us should be the very incentive towards holiness as an act of thanksgiving! Mediocrity is insidious precisely because those who seek nothing more than it will also often do everything in their power to dissuade others from seeking true holiness and asceticism, precisely because it would make them look bad in comparison, or at least so they think - as if holiness were some sort of a contest! But Basil's advice is sound: seek a director who is honest and virtuous, who lives a holy life and will not let you get away with mediocrity, who will call your sins and your shortcomings what they are, and will lovingly encourage you towards the life of holiness that Christ calls each of us to live.

As this post has already gotten quite lengthy, I will end it here. In the next post I will take up where I left of in this treatise of St. Basil the Great, which includes some very practical advice for those embarking upon the ascetic life.

St. Basil Introducing the Ascetical Life

2011-05-08T14:04:00.000-07:00

During these first several reflections on the writings of St. Basil I will be working from a collection of his called Ascetical Works from the Fathers of the Church series published in 1950. In this post I will look at a brief work he wrote called An Introduction to the Ascetical Life. This work is aimed primarily at those who are just entering the monastery and thus just beginning their journey in what he calls the ascetical life, which he calls "the life of lowliness and recollection."

In his Introduction to the Ascetical Life Basil compares the ascetic to a soldier serving a great King, and the orders coming to the ascetic being the commands of Christ. For Basil, like the soldier, the ascetic must possess certain virtues in order to be prepared for spiritual battle, to grow in perfection, and ultimately to be honored greatly by the King with the prize of eternal happiness. The soldier for Christ, like the soldier of a great earthly king, must possess the following characteristics and behaviors:

-Self-forgetfulness
-Determination in marching towards the goal
-Endurance of vigils and strict bodily and spiritual discipline
-Constant engagement and battle with the foe
-Excellent preparation and vigilance against the greatest of perils
-Celibacy and poverty that allows for detachment from the world

The ascetic, the soldier of Christ, must then set out on the path of renunciation, liberated from worldly care and anxiety, free from the dominion of bodily nature. He writes:

Come then, soldier of Christ, with the aid of these ordinary parallels drawn from human considerations conceive the desire of everlasting goods. Set before yourself a life without house, homeland, or possessions. Be free and at liberty from all worldly cares, lest desire of a wife or anxiety for a child fetter you. In the celestial warfare this cannot be. 'For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty to God' (2 Cor 10:4). Bodily nature does not exercise dominion over you, nor does it constrain you against your will; it does not make you slave instead of free. Desire not to leave behind you progent upon the earth, but to lead them to heaven; nor to cleave to fleshly unions, but to strive after spiritual ones - to exercise power over souls and beget sons in the spirit. Follow the Heavenly Bridegroom; withstand the onset of invisible foes; wage war against principalities and powers, driving them out first from your own soul that they may have no part with you and, thereafter, out of those who fly to you and, seeking the protection of your counsel, cast themselves at your feet as their leader and champion.

One of the characteristics of Basil's exhortation to ascetics and monastics is that their lives are never lived for themselves, that their austerity of living is not a matter of personal holiness or personal journeying towards God, but rather is always geared towards the ascetic's role in the greater Body of the Christ, the Church, and with that corporate identity. Furthermore, the reason why God calls certain persons to live this sort of life is precisely so that their holiness may be made manifest in such a way that others will seek them as spiritual guides, and thus that they may lead many others to Christ. Personal asceticism is always related to corporate holiness.

Finally, for St. Basil, the most important disposition that any person can have on their spiritual journey is that of total surrender to Christ. This life of asceticism is only possible through God's grace, and because God desires it and wills it for such persons, then God will always provide all one needs for growth in holiness. As such, not only sweetness and consolation, but more importantly trials and sufferings, will be seen as gifts from God and as part of His providential care for those souls who long to live for Him, as the wisdom of God will provide for each person according to their needs, and for many of us in this life holiness is achieved through great struggle. Thus he writes:

Place your trust, most of all, in the arm of the great King, the mere beholding of which makes His enemies fear and tremble. But whenever He wills that you also become holy through the endurance of perils and wishes to pit His own forces against the foe, then, in every struggle let your arms be invincible, your soul undaunted by every danger, and with ready will change your abode from land to land.

For those who endure these trials with trust in God and with total surrender to the Cross of Christ, the crown of everlasting life awaits, the great glory of a fearless soldier coming home victorious to His faithful and loving King. "Well done, good and faithful servant," Basil writes in the voice of Christ, "brave soldier and imitator of the Lord, follower of the King, I shall reward you with My own gifts and I shall pay heed to your words even as you did to Mine.

In his initial exhortation, Basil balances the exhortation to fidelity and the great trials that will await those who follow this path with the encouraging and hope-filled vision of what awaits those who valiently endure this struggle. In the next post I will examine another introductory writing which gives great practical advice to the beginner ascetic.

St. Basil the Great: An Introduction

2011-04-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

The first Father I will be examining will be St. Basil the Great. He's somewhat of a random choice, mostly because I've been wanting to read him all year and so now I'm finally sitting down to do so. This will serve as an introdocutory post to the saint's biography, and later in the week I will begin commenting on some of his writings.

Basil was the son of a saint, St. Basil the Elder, the grandon of a saint, St. Macrina, and the brother of two saints, St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Macrina the Younger. St. Basil the Great, along with his brother Gregory and another St. Gregory, of Nazienzus, comrpise a trio known as the Cappodocian Fathers, so named for the region of modern-day Turkey were they lived. Both Basil and his brother Gregory were bishops, and Gregory Nazienzen was Patriarch of Constantinople.

St. Basil wrote copiously, and has left us a great treasure of ascetical and theological works. His most famous is probably his work on the Holy Spirit, but perhaps his most influential was his Monastic Rule, which today is followed by most monasteries of the Eastern Church.

Basil was born around 329 and died on January 1, 379, only 50 years old yet accomplishing a great deal in his short life. The end of his life was filled with great personal sufferings, including the death of his older brother Gregory, the death of St. Athanasius, a close friend, and a sad estrangement from his dear friend St. Gregory Nazienzen. He fought tirelessly throughout his life against a variety of heresies, most notably the Arian heresy, and towards the end of his life much of his work seemed to be in vain.

In addition to his great ascetical, moral, and theological writings, we also have over 350 existing letters composed by this great doctor, and the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, which he composed and exists today in Greek and Coptic, is still used in some Eastern Churches today.

It is primarily St. Basil's ascetical works that I will be examining, beginning with An Ascetical Discourse and Exhortation on the Renunciation of the World and Spiritual Perfection. Until then, Sancte Basili, ora pro nobis.

St. Augustine on the Beginning of Lent

2011-03-04T04:10:00.000-08:00

Before I go offline for Lent, I want to share some wisdom from St. Augustine, from an early sermon of his (probably while he was a presbyter and before being ordained a bishop, according to Edmund Hill, OP), given on the beginning of Lent. Among other things you'll see here a common theme in Augustine's Lenten preaching, which is that what is saved by fasting should then be given as alms to the poor.

Following is the concluding paragraph of Sermon 210:

First and foremost, clearly, please remember the poor, so that what you withhold from yourselves by living more sparingly, you may deposit in the treasury of heaven. Let the hungry Christ receive what the fasting Christian receives less of. Let the self-denial of one who undertakes it willingly become the support of the one who has nothing. Let the voluntary want of the person who has plenty become the needed plenty of the person in want.

Again, let there be in mild-mannered and humble spirits a compassionate ease in forgiving. Let the one who has done an injury ask pardon; let the one who has suffered an injury grant pardon; so that we may not be possessed by Satan, whose triumph is the discord of Christians. And this, you see, is an almsdeed of great value and profit, to forgive your fellow servant a debt, so that you may be released from your debts by the Lord. The heavenly teacher recommended each sort of good work to his disciples, when he said, Forgive, and you will be forgiven; and it will be given to you (Lk 6:37-38). Remember that servant on whom the master piled back the whole debt he had forgiven, because the man didn't pay back to his fellow servant owing him a hundred dollars the same kindness as he had received over the ten billion which he had owed.

This kind of good work admits no excuses, because the means required consists solely of the will. Someone can say, "I can't fast, or my stomach will give me trouble." You can also say, "I would like to give to the poor, but I haven't got anything to spare"; or "I've only got so much, and I'm afraid of being left in want if I give anything away" - although even over these good works people often make false excuses for themselves, because they can't find genuine ones. Who, though, could possibly say, "The reason I didn't grant him pardon when he asked, is that my health prevented me, or because I didn't have a hand to hold it out to him with"? Forgive, in order to be forgiven yourself. Here the body isn't needed at all, no part of the body has to be brought to the assistance of the soul in order for what is being asked to be granted. It's all done by the will, completed by the will. Do it without worrying, give it without worrying; it won't give you a pain anywhere in the body, you won't find you have anything less in the house.

But now then, brothers and sisters, just see what kind of evil it must be not to forgive your repentant brother or sister, when you're commanded to go on loving your enemy. That being so, since it is written, Do not let the sun go down upon your anger (Eph 4:26), just ask yourselves, dearly beloved, whether people should really be called Christians, who at least in these days are unwilling to put an end to animosities, which they should never have indulged in the first place.

Enchiridion Patristicum - An Introduction

2011-03-03T17:08:00.000-08:00

Welcome everyone to Enchiridion Patristicum, a new blog project that I hope will be both exciting and informative. My goal with this blog is to discuss and exhibit three areas of great passion for me: the Fathers of the Church (hence the blog's title), Augustiniana (hence the blog's url), and the spiritual classics. The blog will be active and hopefully in full swing beginning during the Easter season of 2011.

I have some plans for the immediate design of the blog, and some ideas for eventual expansion down the road, within the context of the three pillars of the blog's content. In the beginning, what you can expect is something like this:

Church Fathers: Initially I will primarily offer a block of text from the various Fathers, and then some commentary of my own on how this wisdom might apply today. Eventually I hope to add certain features like a Friday Night Fight, where two Fathers will be pitted against each other in areas where they disagreed, and I will use their writings as a sort of debate (in some cases, their letter exchanges were just that, so it won't require much creativity on my part. In other cases, when no such correspondence exists, I'll have to work a little more). I also hope to have a feature where I present a modern issue in the Church or in the world, and enlighten that issue with the wisdom of the Fathers. I have some other ideas, as well, but that's good for starters.
Augustiniana: The Augustinians have been around since 1244, and we have perhaps the best history that no one has ever heard, other than knowing that Martin Luther was an Augustinian. So I'll use this blog as a means of introducing the readers to some really wonderful stories about our saints, blesseds, martyrs, missionaries, etc., and also introduce some of the fabulous writings from our friars over the years. And yes, I will also talk about Martin Luther.
Spiritual Classics: As an Augustinian friar, the contemplative life forms an essential part of my existence. Over the years the Augustinians have not only produced tremendous spiritual classics of our own, but also have engaged deeply the classic spiritual writers of the Church's history. For instance, Luis de Leon, an Augustinian friar who wrote the Spanish classic The Names of Christ, is also the first editor of St. Teresa of Avila's works, and is largely responsible for her works being made available outside of Carmelite circles. St. Ignatius of Loyala, founder of the Jesuits, used to tell his men that if they wished to learn how to pray, they should go to the Augustinians, and he would send his young Jesuits to Augustinian houses to learn prayer. So in this tradition, I hope to highlight some of the spiritual classics that have an impact on my own life, and through these classics offer some reflection on the life of prayer that is so important to every Christian.

That's basically how I expect it will go. During this Lent I will certainly pray about this, and I hope that this blog, as well as my other blog, can truly be mission-oriented and in some small way - or large way, of God so desires - can help to bring the light of the Gospel into the world.