Fathers and Sisters

In vocations circles, you will often hear priests speak about the religious sisters who inspired them to pursue joining the ranks of the presbyterate. If you listen and watch with well-attuned senses, you will notice a deep and abiding affection accompanying those stories. This is not by mere chance. It is a product of both who and what they are, and it comes from the deepest wells of self-identification.

The priest accepts, by the imposition of the bishop's hands, not just a new job or sacrament, but also the imposition of a new personal identity. The priest never needs to be introspective or searching in order to find himself; he needs only to look at the cross. He accepts the identity of an alter Christus, another Christ. The priest's personal self-realization is not in finding whom he was born as, nor even whom he was born again as, but rather in finding the deeper reality of the Great High Priest. The priest seeks out the profundity of the person who gave order to the universe and freely gave his life to reconcile sinners to God the Father. In the Son of God actively dying on the cross, gloriously Resurrected, and mercifully present to us in the Sacraments, the priest learns all he needs to know about himself. The innate gifts that the Lord has placed within him will shine forth and be all the more effective the more he allows himself to be filled with and acted through by the Life of God the Son.

The religious sister likewise has little to question when it comes to her calling. From the earliest days of the Church, young women sought to cleave to Christ as a more evangelical calling than that of Christian Matrimony, to live in that total consecration to God in which all the Church will share in the Heavenly Kingdom. Throughout the ages, from Ambrose and Augustine to Pius XII and John Paul II, the Church has called the religious sister forth with the Veni Sponsa Christi and affirmed that the consecrated virgin is a true spiritual bride to Christ. This, then, is her calling: to be about the life of the Bride of Christ, the Church. It is not surprising, then, that we find the consecrated virgin laboring in all the aspects of the life of the Church, especially in the care of God's children and in tending to the wounds within the Body of Christ. Whether in schools, hospitals, or homes for the aged, religious sisters everywhere are giving themselves devoutly to their spiritual families for the sake of their Heavenly Spouse. As the sister gains clarity from this understanding, we, the rest of the Church, gain clarity of vision as to our own identity as the Church.

We regularly parrot that the Church is not structures, hierarchies, and buildings--though She does employ them for the salvation of souls, but rather the Church is the spiritual reality of all those faithful who are united to Christ, most fully in Heaven, but also those of us below united to Him through the sacraments and ardent love. The joy, peace, and love that radiate from religious sisters is instructive to us. Though, in fidelity to our own callings, we may be bound by earthly labors, our hearts should be just as fervently devoted to the Lord.

To get back to our original topic, remember that the priest takes upon himself the identity of another Christ. Likewise, the consecrated virgin or religious sister takes upon herself the identity of another Bride of Christ. Though their deepest love and exemplar is in Heaven, the deep and abiding affection priests and sisters have for one another, collectively and individually, is logical given the personal realities that penetrate their lives. Though this chaste, vicarious love is rationally sensible, the innocence and joy with which it radiates is also profoundly beautiful and continues to stir my heart each and every time I encounter it.

20110416 New (Nicene Creed 3)

For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate; He suffered, died, and was buried. On the third day, He rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures; He ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.

Even though He was betrayed, tried, convicted, and executed by earthly authorities (the Romans, Pontius Pilate specifically, King Herod, the Jews of Jerusalem in general, and the Sanhedrin and Judas Iscariot in particular), these parties are not the only ones involved in the death of Jesus.

Firstly, Jesus freely offered Himself. Jesus had within Himself the power to escape, but He chose to endure His sufferings so that He might redeem us. It is in this that the awesome power of God becoming man is shown. As a man, Jesus is able to be truly obedient and sinless but is able to suffer the evil and die the death that all of us sinners are due. As God, His self-sacrifice is an infinite gift: to all men in all places at all times.

If sacrifice is the main principle of worship, then the main principle of priesthood is offering the sacrifice for the people and sharing the grace of the sacrifice with them. Jesus is our great highpriest. He is our greatest teacher, He is our greatest king, and He offered the greatest sacrifice, His own life, and continues to share with us the grace of that sacrifice.

When Jesus appointed His twelve disciples (Apostles) to continue His ministry on Earth, He did so at the Last Supper. In blessing the bread, He said that it was now His Body, given up for us. In blessing the wine, He said that it was now His Blood of a new covenant. He then told His disciples to do the same. Jesus sacrificed His Body and Blood to make a new covenant with us. The Eucharist that we celebrate at Mass is that sacrifice brought into our lives, to each one of us in churches throughout the world for the last two thousand years and on into the future.

Even despite all the miracles Jesus worked, we might still doubt Him if not for one thing. Jesus rose from the dead. He showed us that He is truly from God, and, then, at His Ascension into Heaven, He showed us where He is going. Remembering that Jesus is man, we see as well that if we accept that He died in our place, we can rise to new life with Him and find our destiny in Heaven as well.

We must commit ourselves to Him and to righteousness, however. We all have some guilt for His death because He died for all our sins. As such, our lives are His alone to judge.

20100707 New (Lord's Prayer 1)

Lord's Prayer Part I

"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

God created us to love and serve Him and to be happy with Him in Heaven. At the end of our lives, we hope that is where we shall go. We only know a few things about Heaven, but we know that God loves us and knows what is best for us, therefore we trust that Heaven will be the greatest thing possible for us.

To be able to go to Heaven, however, we must observe God’s law on Earth. God created the whole universe good. In the beginning, some of the angels rebelled and thus were expelled from Heaven. We recognize therefore, that following God’s will is necessary for us to enter Heaven.

Thankfully, we can recognize God’s law, not only in Scripture, but also, using our God-given intellect, in the world around us. This is what we call the “natural law.” Everyone, whether Christian or not, is required by God to observe these laws because they are available to all of us.

As persons who long to be with God in Heaven, we must do all we can to love God and one another on Earth. We must also do what we can to make sure that people treat one another as they should be treated. This is called “justice.” While we cannot make people love each other, we can do things to help make sure that they do not treat one another with injustice. This is part of what we must do to bring a little bit of Heaven’s ways to Earth.

20100503 Question: The Final Battle

9: In the final fight portrayed in Revelation, who would be the soldiers on each side? I figured for God, he would have all his angels and his saints fighting with him. But, if the angels aren't really alive, how can they die? So will the fight just go on forever, because angels can't die? I was also wondering, regarding Guardian Angels, do they feel our pain? That is, if we get hurt, in anyway, can they feel it?

9. The references in the book of revelation to the angels waging war are actually referring to two different times. some of it is referencing the original fall of the angels who refused to love and serve God. Then, partially in reference to the end of the world, there is a lot of eschatological imagery (images used to talk about future events, mostly symbolic).

It is true that angels are not alive like we are (we are souls that animate, or "make alive" human bodies). When we die, our souls are separated from our bodies, and we await the resurrection when our bodies will be restored and glorified. Angels experience none of this. They do not have senses in the same way we do. They do not suffer death like we do. They do not suffer pain in the same way we do.

But they are alive in that they are able to chose their own way. Inanimate objects have no power of choice, nor of knowledge, nor of love. We know that angels can learn and do have knowledge and can sense things, though in a different way from us. We even know--in the case of demons at least--that they can feel pain, but it is a spiritual pain, whereas ours is usually a physical pain.

But the battle we are concerned with primarily is the war for men's hearts. The angels, saints, and we members of God's church here on earth are constantly at war with the forces of evil in men's hearts as well as those powers possessed by the devil and his angels. the message of Revelation is primarily that the end of time comes for each of us at different times (often without notice) and that we need to be on the right side of the battle whenever that time comes...

I do not know if they feel pain that corresponds to our pains... I know that the life of God, His grace, His blessing, is painful to the demonic angels that truned away from God... I have not found a reference anywhere as to whether God's angels feel pain, but I am thinking about how Heaven is to be devoid of suffering and sadness... I'm going to present the opinion that angels probably look on things with God's perspective: rather than suffering and sin being things that cause them pain, they probably perceive them as obstacles to overcome for the greater glory of God...