Mission Born Of The Transcendentals: Renewal, Revival and Restoration.

[Estimated Read Time: 8 minutes]

Disclaimer

By "Ordinariate flavour," one should not attribute to this author final say nor conclusive authority.  This blogger is merely an agent (member, messenger) gathering treasures from primary sources and distributing those pearls to a wider audience to celebrate the shared Catholic charism localized in the Personal Ordinariates, to stimulate awareness of the transcendentals, and to foster zeal for the Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ for the salvation of souls.

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Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul. | Saint Augustine

The radiant season of Christmas invites us through the transcendentals to mission.  The story of the Incarnation and birth of Christ inspires a wonder, joy and peace that leads us beyond narrow perceptions to the glory of the ultimate reality of salvation in Jesus Christ, a renewal, a revival and a restoration in Christ now and for eternity.

The great theologians teach us that grace does not abolish the good things of this world. Christ brings them, rather, to their fulfillment.  Our faith is incarnational.  All truth, all beauty, and all goodness, are “through him” and “for him.” These things are part of God’s redemptive plan. Truth, beauty, and goodness are integral to our salvation.

Faithful Catholics care about truth: like our Lord, we want all people “to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” We care, too, about goodness—especially moral goodness, the life of virtue so often spurned by contemporary culture.

Bishop James D. Conley's comments give us the specifics we need to help us focus on the three R's: restoration (in the beauty of holiness), renewal (in truth), and revival (in charity).

A. Renewal in the truth. Recapitulation in Christ is already and constantly happening. To what degree do our actions acknowledge dependence upon the revealed and emerging anakephalaiosis?

Ephesians 1:3-10.  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.  He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us.  For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

[3] Εὐλογητὸς ὁ Θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὁ εὐλογήσας ἡμᾶς ἐν πάσῃ εὐλογίᾳ πνευματικῇ ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις ἐν Χριστῷ, [4] καθὼς καὶ ἐξελέξατο ἡμᾶς ἐν αὐτῷ πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου εἶναι ἡμᾶς ἁγίους καὶ ἀμώμους κατενώπιον αὐτοῦ, ἐν ἀγάπῃ [5] προορίσας ἡμᾶς εἰς υἱοθεσίαν διὰ ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς αὐτόν, κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ, [6] εἰς ἔπαινον δόξης τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ, ἐν ᾗ ἐχαρίτωσεν ἡμᾶς ἐν τῷ ἠγαπημένῳ, [7] ἐν ᾧ ἔχομεν τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ, τὴν ἄφεσιν τῶν παραπτωμάτων, κατὰ τὸν πλοῦτον τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ, [8] ἧς ἐπερίσσευσεν εἰς ἡμᾶς ἐν πάσῃ σοφίᾳ καὶ φρονήσει, [9] γνωρίσας ἡμῖν τὸ μυστήριον τοῦ θελήματος αὐτοῦ κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν αὐτοῦ, ἣν προέθετο ἐν αὐτῷ [10] εἰς οἰκονομίαν τοῦ πληρώματος τῶν καιρῶν, ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι τὰ πάντα ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ, τὰ ἐπὶ τοῖς οὐρανοῖς καὶ τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, ἐν αὐτῷ(.)

B. Revival in charity: keeping Christ's commands.

St John 15:12-17.  “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command you.  No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.  This I command you, to love one another.

Easier said than done?  Christ provides us with the grace to model His commands, to embody His truth and love.  We need but ask for His grace, and attend the wellspring that He offers us - the sacraments.

Sacraments are described as "efficacious signs of grace".  This means that they not only symbolize grace but also actually confer it to those who receive them with the proper disposition.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church emphasizes that the sacraments bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions, indicating that the recipient's openness and faith play a crucial role in the sacramental economy

The Role of Faith. Faith is integral to the reception of the sacraments.  The sacraments presuppose faith, as they are signs that require a response from the believer.  This reciprocal relationship between faith and the sacraments is essential; the sacraments not only communicate grace but also nourish and strengthen the faith of the recipient.  The act of celebrating the sacraments is a formative experience that deepens one's understanding and commitment to the Christian faith.

Bishop Conley has asked, "Where is the place for beauty in our evangelization of the culture?"

C. Restoration in the beauty of holiness (Ps. 96:9).  The baptized are beautiful because Jesus has redeemed us and through His sanctifying grace is restoring our likeness to God and bringing people into a deepening relationship, into an eternal communion with the Holy Trinity.

Bishop James D. Conley, STL. In fact, those two concerns—salvation and culture—are deeply related. The Gospel involves more than our individual salvation: it is also a universal mandate to, as Pope St. Pius X said, “restore all things in Christ.”  Such a mandate extends beyond our own personal sanctification.

When we speak of evangelization, we mean not only the conversion of individuals, but also the transformation of culture. Christ is Lord of the public square, and our common life, just as he is the Lord of our homes and hearts. Thus, the Church’s evangelistic mission is also a mandate for cultural conversion.

The Second Vatican Council confirmed this cultural mandate, in its decree on the lay apostolate. Chapter II of Apostolicam Actuositatem taught that “Christ’s redemptive work, while essentially concerned with the salvation of men, includes also the renewal of the whole temporal order.”

“Hence,” the council said, “the mission of the Church is not only to bring the message and grace of Christ to men but also to penetrate and perfect the temporal order with the spirit of the Gospel.”

We have seen the past year in the United States and elsewhere a celebration of the Holy Eucharist, a call to Catholics to renewal in the Blessed Sacrament given for us to work in us God's holiness.  This call to revival is a call to beauty and goodness, to allow God to beautify us, and for us to beautify our relationships and to invite others into beauty typified by virtue.

• https://learn.eucharisticrevival.org/ordinariate-of-the-chair-of-st-peter-and-eucharistic-revival

Cultural renewal is essential, because the Catholic Faith is not just a private conviction. The mystery of the Incarnation changes everything. Our faith is meant to be the basis of a culture—a shared way of life that uses the things of this world to glorify God. | Conley.

1 Peter 5:10. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, and strengthen you.

Take a moment to reflect on the following sentences by Bishop Conley.

Beauty is both ancient and new: we are at once surprised and comforted by its presence.  Beauty exists in a sphere beyond time.  And so beautiful things expose us to the timelessness of eternity.

This is why beauty matters, in an eternal sense.  Beauty was part of God’s creative plan in the beginning, and it is just as much a part of his redemptive plan now.  God has placed the desire for beauty within our hearts, and he uses that desire to lead us back to himself.

Truth and beauty are both gifts from God. So our New Evangelization must work to make truth beautiful.  By means both ancient and new, we must make use of beauty—to infuse Western culture, once more, with the spirit of the Gospel.

By means of earthly beauty, we can help our contemporaries discover the truth of the Gospel.  Then, they may come to know the eternal beauty of God—that beauty Saint Augustine described as “ever ancient, ever new.”

Sources

• RSVCE Second Edition
• CCC 1131
• The Reciprocity between Faith and Sacraments in the Sacramental Economy 57 / International Theological Commission
• Sacrosanctum Concilium 59 / Vatican Council II
• https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/ever-ancient-ever-new-the-role-of-beauty-in-the-restoration-of-catholic-culture
• https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/does-christs-church-need-to-be-restored
• Catholic Encyclopedia

"Beauty is both ancient and new: we are at once surprised and comforted by its presence.  Beauty exists in a sphere beyond time."

We in the Personal Ordinariates, immersed in the grandeur of Divine Worship, the Mass of the Ordinariate, are blessed with an overwhelming communion of truth, goodness, and beauty, the gifts of the Holy Ghost for a new chapter in the mission of the Church.

BENEDICT XVI, APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION ANGLICANORUM COETIBUS. III. Without excluding liturgical celebrations according to the Roman Rite, the Ordinariate has the faculty to celebrate the Holy Eucharist and the other Sacraments, the Liturgy of the Hours and other liturgical celebrations according to the liturgical books proper to the Anglican tradition, which have been approved by the Holy See, so as to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared.

https://learn.eucharisticrevival.org/ordinariate-of-the-chair-of-st-peter-and-eucharistic-revival/videos/eucharist-and-evangelization

A Cautionary Note

There may be a temptation to get caught up in polemics when the word 'restoration' appears in a conversation. Some contemporaries are of the opinion, and they are not the first to hold the idea, that restoration means a recovery from some kind of apostasy. It is far too easy, when fearful or irresistibly glued to one's passions, to claim the Roman Catholic Church, which we in communion with the Successor of Peter simply call the Catholic Church, has apostatized completely or to varying degrees, summarized as follows:

1. The Second Vatican Council taught heresy, produced a corrupt version of the Mass, and is therefore an illegitimate council.  Adherents to the preceding convictions are sometimes called hyperbolic or radical traditionalists.  Too often they are defined by protest and polemics instead of faith, facts, and reason.
2. Because point #1, the Roman See is vacant. There has been no valid pope since, for example, 1958 and the death of Pius XII. Adherents to the preceding claim are referred to loosely as sedevacantists.
3. The "Great Apostasy", i.e., that the true Church was lost early on in the first centuries and Jesus restored the Church through Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), in the 19th century. A simple read of the early Church Fathers' writings proves the apostolicity, catholicity, unity, and orthodoxy of the Catholic Church and that, contrary to the claims of the Mormons and others, no apostasy occurred.  The apostolic succession preserved in the Catholic Church and among the separated Eastern Churches exposes the factual inaccuracy of the Mormon claim.
4. The Roman Church was so corrupt it required reformation, i.e., re-establishment, a view held by Protestants in the 16th century. Martin Luther (1483–1546), John Calvin (1509–1564), and Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) in Switzerland and John Knox (1513–1572) in Scotland. Consequently, many heretical innovations developed among the Protestants. The Council of Trent (1545 to 1563) addressed pastoral abuses (e.g., the selling of indulgences), affirmed true doctrine, and condemned false teachings promoted by Protestants.
5. The Roman Church is in schism and is heretical, a view largely held by the Eastern non-Catholic Churches, who accept only the first seven ecumenical councils and whose representatives, after initially accepting the Council of Florence (1431 to 1449) that sought to reconcile the schismatic Eastern Churches with Rome, bowed to pressure and rejected the Council.