Theological Articles


In the mystery of the Unity and Trinity of God we believe that,
  1. from all eternity and before material creation and even outside of time itself, the One God who desired a perfect communion of love expressed Himself in a perfect Word, containing all that He is. 
  2. The Word God uttered was and is a perfect self-expression, also perfectly possessing what the Speaker possesses: being, omniscience, omnipotence, truth, beauty, and even personhood.
  3. So, from all eternity there were always two divine Persons, the God who spoke and the Word who was spoken, the God who Generates and the God who is Generated, true God with and from true God, Begetter and Begotten, Father and Son.
  4. There was never a time when this was not so.
  5. These two Persons eternally regard and contemplate each other.
  6. From all eternity they knew and loved each other, each offering the other a perfect gift of self-giving.
  7. Since the self-gift of these perfect and divine Persons, distinct but sharing one divine nature, can be nothing other than a perfect self-gift, perfectly given and perfectly received, the very Gift between them also contains all that each of the Persons have: being, omniscience, omnipotence, truth, beauty, and even personhood.
  8. Therefore, from all eternity there exist three distinct divine Persons having one indivisible divine nature, Father, Son and the perfect self-gift of love between them, the Holy Spirit.
This is a foundational, saving doctrine we believe in as Christians. At the core of everything else we believe in and hope for, we will find this mysterious doctrine of divine relationship, the Triune God.
  1. By baptism we images of God are brought into a new relationship with this Triune God.
  2. We become the adoptive children of the heavenly Father, members of the Son our Lord Jesus Christ in the Mystical Person of the Holy Church which He founded.
  3. The Holy Spirit makes of us His dwelling so that all the divine Persons are present to us and in us, informing all that we are, do and say.
  4. Our membership in the Church opens the way to an eternal relationship of glory and praise with the Trinity.
  5. The promise and token of this eternal reward is how we, as members of a Church of believers professing a common Faith, can take into our bodies, and thus into our souls, the already transformed Body and Blood of the Second Person, the one who unites in His divine Person both the eternity divinity of God and the finite two-fold nature of man.
  6. For this to have taken place, and to make it possible for us to “return back” to the Father, the Second Person “went forth” from the Father in a new way, this time in the context of time and space.
  7. In taking us up in our human nature, He made an act of self-empyting. In filling us with divine gifts in Holy Communion, Christ renews (not re-sacrifices) His Sacrifice, His giving forth and His taking back up again.
Fr. John Zuhlsdorf
Quoted by The Right Reverend Monsignor Carl Reid, PA
Ordinary, Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross.
Formatted by Gilbert.



Beauty in the Spoken Word and Ministerial Action - Most Reverend Steven J. Lopes

What Do Catholics Really Believe?


CHRISTIAN unity has various meanings within the Catholic Church, but for two former Anglican Bishops and one Catholic Bishop it is more than just “working together”.

Monsignor Harry Entwistle, Monsignor Keith Newton and Catholic Bishop Steven Lopes are the world’s first Ordinaries for the extraordinary canonical structure that allows former Anglicans to be in full communion with the Church while retaining key aspects of their distinctive identity.

The Personal Ordinariate is the answer to the prayers of thousands of Anglicans who after thoughtful discernment have sought full communion with the Catholic Church.

For the three ordinaries, the Personal Ordinariate is the first real example of true Christian unity and ecumenism.

“I have no doubt that if you read the Decree on Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio) that actually the ordinariate is the first occasion where that vision of that document has been fulfilled,” Msgr Newton said.

“When people are looking for what ecumenism really is, here it is, in a living form.”


Catholic Belief in Eucharist Helped by Fellowship, Beauty of Worship, says Ordinariate Bishop

Bishop Steven Lopes of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter told the Register that Catholics need more than catechesis: they need experiences of Jesus’s real presence in the Mass and through fellowship with the members of Christ’s body.

Peter Jesserer Smith

HOUSTON – What do Catholics need to believe that Jesus Christ is really present in the Holy Eucharist? While some say better catechesis is needed, the bishop of North America’s youngest diocese says Catholics need to experience the real presence of Jesus through worship and fellowship in the beauty of holiness.

Bishop Steven Lopes, a former official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, leads the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, a Catholic diocese with Anglican traditions for North America created by Benedict XVI in 2012 under the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus. The Ordinariate has more than 40 Catholic parish communities throughout the U.S. and Canada, which emphasize both worship and fellowship in parish life as key to following Jesus Christ.

In this interview with the Register, Bishop Lopes discusses how the theology of fellowship draws from union with Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, brings Catholics deeper into the Eucharist, and gives vitality to Catholic discipleship and evangelization.

Bishop Lopes, Pew has come out with a new survey about Catholics and the Eucharist, whether the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. One of the interesting things about the survey is that it links Catholic belief in the Real Presence with regular weekly attendance at Mass. If they were not regularly at Mass, most Catholics think the Eucharist is a symbol. But is greater catechesis going to address the issue, if the people who need to hear it are not going in the first place? How do people understand what the Eucharist means for parish or church life?

I am sympathetic with the idea that we need better and more effective catechesis. I remember the catechesis before the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and catechesis after the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. So in other words, the resources are there, the catechesis is there. The catechesis today is in really much better shape. So there’s a “yes, but …” if you will, when I hear “well, we need better catechesis.” Well yes, but we can't make it an intellectual thing alone. Because God and Christ's gift of himself in the Eucharist is not an idea. It’s not an idea to be captured by the mind. It is a true self-gift. It is a personal gift of Christ to his Church, to the soul of the believer.

And therefore, as a personal gift, it has to be understood and received as a real person, which involves so many more aspects of the person rather than the mind. So worship – “the worship of God in the beauty of holiness,” as we say in the Psalms, has to involve the whole person. It has to capture all of the senses: sight, and smell and touch and even taste. That beauty in worship takes the faith in the real presence and makes it experienced; it makes it something that can be experienced. So the Ordinariate’s accent on beauty in worship — they all say we take worship very seriously and we do because it's a very serious thing — it is the appearance of God on Earth, and receiving the gift of Christ’s self-gift is a tremendous thing.

Now in the experience of many Catholics, once Mass is done, there's a general stampede out to the parking lot. Is that really the Church’s real vision for Catholic worship: we’ve had this individualistic experience of the Eucharist, so now it’s time for us all to get out of here?

It's the appropriation of a more Protestant “me and my Jesus thing” whereas the Catholic understanding has put equal accents on the seriousness of worship and the seriousness of fellowship. Again, another thing that's true about the Ordinariate is that there's a real emphasis on spending time together, not just getting to Mass and then going home. A lot of Ordinariate parishes will have a very serious fellowship, not just “here, there’s a cup of coffee in a Styrofoam thing,” but several of our parishes try to do lunch every Sunday. Several of our parishes do a really big reception after Evensong [Evening Prayer] or something like that. Because if what happens at Mass is that the Holy Spirit descends and is called down upon the altar to transform what it touches into the Body of Christ.

And that's true of the bread and wine: that through the operation and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the bread and wine are transformed into the body of Christ. Well, that same Holy Spirit is called down upon the church and the Holy Spirit does, if you will, the same thing. It transforms that assemblage of people into the body of Christ. So it's the same action of grace that is transformative in the Eucharist, in Mass, where we start to recognize each other, not as strangers, not as individuals who have nothing to do with my life, but as members of the same body. Again, the Church isn't an idea. It is something that is brought about by the Holy Spirit in the self-giving of Christ to the Father in the Mass. This is what happens at Mass. And so to celebrate Mass means of course to reverently receive the Eucharist, but also reverently to receive your neighbor as members of the same body of the church. So the worship fellowship dynamic goes hand in hand.

So then parish fellowship after Mass is intimately connected with Holy Communion, with our Eucharistic worship?

Right. Absolutely. It flows from [the Eucharist], and then it leads back to. So [parish fellowship] flows from [the Eucharist] in that it's only in the Mass – because otherwise, otherwise church is just the gathering of like-minded individuals, who may or may not enjoy each other’s company. Well, that’s a sociological thing. That's the Elks Club. And we do that in the Church, but it’s called the Knights of Columbus or the St. Martha’s Guild or something like this. But no, this is deeper. This is more. This is actually the operation of grace in what God is doing. So fellowship begins by recognizing your fundamental identity as brothers and sisters in Christ through the operation of the Holy Spirit. And then that fellowship leads you back. So it begins in the Eucharist, and it leads you back to the Eucharist. Because once you're interacting with your brothers and sisters in Christ, you're going to be more aware of their needs, more aware of the human brokenness and relationships and what not. And then out of love for them, of course, when you go back to Mass, you’re bringing their prayers, their intentions and your concern for them. And then it informs your prayer; these are the things we pray for at Mass.

How then would you say that this experience of parish fellowship, following the Eucharist, relates to evangelization and the proposal of the Gospel?

Well, I think it relates very directly, honestly, to the largest driver of people who stopped going to church. We call it people who “leave the church.” Well, almost to my mind, to say that someone “leaves the church” involves an active intention. Most people just “stopped going.” For them, it's not ever like “I left the church” or “I stopped being Catholic.” And you might go to Mass on Christmas, or you might go to Mass on Easter, or to get your palm on Palm Sunday or something like this. But you’re not practicing your faith regularly. The biggest driver of that is the feeling of anonymity, the feeling of “that if it doesn't matter if I’m there, then it doesn't matter if I’m not there.”

As we look at this, of course, not being in church to hear the gospel or to be catechized, is a great way to lose contact with the faith, which seems to be what Pew is indicating. Now drawing on own experience and what you've seen happen in the Ordinariate, what are ways that parishes can maybe revitalize a theology of fellowship and gear it toward an evangelization that invites people back into the church?

I think the largest challenge in Catholic life across the board, outside of the Ordinariate, is simply the size of parishes. Ordinariate communities are smaller, but that's not just a circumstance, that's not happenstance. We would be intentional about that. The Ordinariate, even in places where we would have larger parishes like in Houston and Baltimore, well now we have three parishes in Houston and three parishes in Baltimore. Why? Because you need to manage that [size] somehow. And larger parishes have to be a lot more creative on how they form that sense of intentional community and intentional discipleship around the Mass. And parishes who have taken on that challenge directly through prayer groups, through social groups, through various initiatives of the parish, have reaped the benefits of it. They’re not experiencing the same kind of bleed as other parishes, mega-parishes are.

Is it because a person can say “I can see my identity here in this parish. I'm not an anonymous person?”

Exactly: “I am a member of this parish. And even just by my presence, it contributes something.”

You mentioned intentional discipleship. What is the relationship of fellowship then to discipleship?

I think it’s naive and perhaps overly clerical to think that it's going to be the priest who awakens in you the sense of where you can serve the community. That somehow volunteerism, that somehow participation in the life of the parish only happens if the pastor invites you to do something. That doesn't work. Where you learn not only what the needs are, but where your particular gifts and talents could be leveraged — that’s not quite the right word — but leveraged is in fellowship with your fellow Catholics. They're going to tell you; they're going to invite you, and because there's that sense of “we're all in this together.” That’s what intentional discipleship means: we're all in this together, and so therefore take responsibility with each other.

Because if you're waiting for the priest to ask you, you might be waiting a while. Because he's too stretched. In most places he's got 10,000 other things and 10,000 other people.

Where would you say clergy begin to empower their people to live this vision. Should they have a “catechesis of the coffee hour?”

That's a broad question and there's no one answer. I mean there’s thousands of initiatives, but also it just always can’t be the priest himself. There has to be other lay leadership in the parish, deacons and laypeople in the parish, who really kind of take responsibility and come up with initiatives. Because what's going to work for you — like a Theology on Tap, or catechesis between Masses or adult forum — what’s going work for you is going to drive me crazy. But this other thing over here is going to work for me. So it’s about understanding the variety of needs and addressing them in various ways. There’s not just one answer.

The Church of the living God - the pillar and the bulwark of the truth. (1 Tim 3:15) 

The Crusades Were An Act of Love
Declaration of the truths relating to some of the most common errors in the life of the Church of our time.

The Fundamentals of Faith 

1. The right meaning of the expressions ‘living tradition,’ ‘living Magisterium,’ ‘hermeneutic of continuity,’ and ‘development of doctrine’ includes the truth that whatever new insights may be expressed regarding the deposit of faith, nevertheless they cannot be contrary to what the Church has always proposed in the same dogma, in the same sense, and in the same meaning (see First Vatican Council, Dei Filius, sess. 3, c. 4: “in eodem dogmate, eodem sensu, eademque sententia”).

2. “The meaning of dogmatic formulas remains ever true and constant in the Church, even when it is expressed with greater clarity or more developed. The faithful therefore must shun the opinion, first, that dogmatic formulas (or some category of them) cannot signify truth in a determinate way, but can only offer changeable approximations to it, which to a certain extent distort or alter it; secondly, that these formulas signify the truth only in an indeterminate way, this truth being like a goal that is constantly being sought by means of such approximations. Those who hold such an opinion do not avoid dogmatic relativism and they corrupt the concept of the Church's infallibility relative to the truth to be taught or held in a determinate way.” (Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Mysterium Ecclesiae in defense of the Catholic doctrine on the Church against certain errors of the present day, 5).

The Creed

3. “The Kingdom of God begun here below in the Church of Christ is not of this world whose form is passing, and its proper growth cannot be confounded with the progress of civilization, of science or of human technology, but it consists in an ever more profound knowledge of the unfathomable riches of Christ, an ever stronger hope in eternal blessings, an ever more ardent response to the love of God, and an ever more generous bestowal of grace and holiness among men. The deep solicitude of the Church, the Spouse of Christ, for the needs of men, for their joys and hopes, their griefs and efforts, is therefore nothing other than her great desire to be present to them, in order to illuminate them with the light of Christ and to gather them all in Him, their only Savior. This solicitude can never mean that the Church conforms herself to the things of this world, or that she lessens the ardor of her longing of her Lord and of the eternal Kingdom” (Paul VI, Apostolic letter Solemni hac liturgia (Credo of the People of God), 27). The opinion is, therefore, erroneous that says that God is glorified principally by the very fact of the progress in the temporal and earthly condition of the human race.

4. After the institution of the New and Everlasting Covenant in Jesus Christ, no one may be saved by obedience to the law of Moses alone without faith in Christ as true God and the only Savior of humankind (see Rom 3:28; Gal 2:16).

5. Muslims and others who lack faith in Jesus Christ, God and man, even monotheists, cannot give to God the same adoration as Christians do, that is to say, supernatural worship in Spirit and in Truth (see Jn 4:24; Eph 2:8) of those who have received the Spirit of filial adoption (see Rom 8:15).

6. Spiritualities and religions that promote any kind of idolatry or pantheism cannot be considered either as “seeds” or as “fruits” of the Divine Word, since they are deceptions that preclude the evangelization and eternal salvation of their adherents, as it is taught by Holy Scripture: “the god of this world has made blind the minds of those who have not faith, so that the light of the good news of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, might not be shining on them” (2 Cor 4:4).

7. True ecumenism intends that non-Catholics should enter that unity which the Catholic Church already indestructibly possesses in virtue of the prayer of Christ, always heard by His Father, “that they may be one” (John 17:11), and which she professes in the Symbol of Faith, “I believe in one Church.” Ecumenism, therefore, may not legitimately have for its goal the establishment of a Church that does not yet exist.

8. Hell exists and those who are condemned to hell for any unrepented mortal sin are eternally punished there by Divine justice (see Mt 25:46). Not only fallen angels but also human souls are damned eternally (see 2 Thess 1:9; 2 Pet 3:7). Eternally damned human beings will not be annihilated, since their souls are immortal according to the infallible teaching of the Church (see Fifth Lateran Council, sess. 8).

9. The religion born of faith in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God and the only Savior of humankind, is the only religion positively willed by God. The opinion is, therefore, wrong that says that just as God positively wills the diversity of the male and female sexes and the diversity of nations, so in the same way he also wills the diversity of religions.

10. “Our [Christian] religion effectively establishes with God an authentic and living relationship which the other religions do not succeed in doing, even though they have, as it were, their arms stretched out towards heaven” (Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, 53).

11. The gift of free will with which God the Creator endowed the human person grants man the natural right to choose only the good and the true. No human person has, therefore, a natural right to offend God in choosing the moral evil of sin, the religious error of idolatry, blasphemy, or a false religion.

The Law of God

12. A justified person has the sufficient strength with God’s grace to carry out the objective demands of the Divine law, since all of the commandments of God are possible for the justified. God’s grace, when it justifies the sinner, does of its nature produce conversion from all serious sin (see Council of Trent, sess. 6, Decree on Justification, c. 11; c. 13).

13. “The faithful are obliged to acknowledge and respect the specific moral precepts declared and taught by the Church in the name of God, the Creator and Lord. Love of God and of one’s neighbor cannot be separated from the observance of the commandments of the Covenant renewed in the blood of Jesus Christ and in the gift of the Spirit” (John Paul II, Encyclical Veritatis Splendor, 76). According to the teaching of the same Encyclical the opinion of those is wrong, who “believe they can justify, as morally good, deliberate choices of kinds of behavior contrary to the commandments of the Divine and natural law.” Thus, “these theories cannot claim to be grounded in the Catholic moral tradition” (ibid.).

14. All of the commandments of God are equally just and merciful. The opinion is, therefore, wrong that says that a person is able, by obeying a Divine prohibition - for example, the sixth commandment not to commit adultery - to sin against God by this act of obedience, or to morally harm himself, or to sin against another.

15. “No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God, which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church” (John Paul II, Encyclical Evangelium Vitae, 62). There are moral principles and moral truths contained in Divine revelation and in the natural law which include negative prohibitions that absolutely forbid certain kinds of action, inasmuch as these kinds of action are always gravely unlawful on account of their object. Hence, the opinion is wrong that says that a good intention or a good consequence is or can ever be sufficient to justify the commission of such kinds of action (see Council of Trent, sess. 6 de iustificatione, c. 15; John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation, Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, 17; Encyclical Veritatis Splendor, 80).

16. A woman who has conceived a child within her womb is forbidden by natural and Divine law to kill this human life within her, by herself or by others, whether directly or indirectly (see John Paul II, Encyclical Evangelium Vitae, 62).

17. Procedures which cause conception to happen outside of the womb “are morally unacceptable, since they separate procreation from the fully human context of the conjugal act” (John Paul II, Encyclical Evangelium Vitae, 14).

18. No human being may ever be morally justified to kill himself or to cause himself to be put to death by others, even if the intention is to escape suffering. “Euthanasia is a grave violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written word of God, is transmitted by the Church's Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium” (John Paul II, Encyclical Evangelium Vitae, 65).

19. Marriage is by Divine ordinance and natural law an indissoluble union of one man and of one woman (see Gen 2:24; Mk 10:7-9; Eph 5:31-32). “By their very nature, the institution of matrimony itself and conjugal love are ordained for the procreation and education of children, and find in them their ultimate crown” (Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, 48).

20. By natural and Divine law no human being may voluntarily and without sin exercise his sexual powers outside of a valid marriage. It is, therefore, contrary to Holy Scripture and Tradition to affirm that conscience can truly and rightly judge that sexual acts between persons who have contracted a civil marriage with each other, can sometimes be morally right or requested or even commanded by God, although one or both persons is sacramentally married to another person (see 1 Cor 7: 11; John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 84). 

21. Natural and Divine law prohibits “any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means” (Paul VI, Encyclical Humanae Vitae, 14).

22. Anyone, husband or wife, who has obtained a civil divorce from the spouse to whom he or she is validly married, and has contracted a civil marriage with some other person during the lifetime of his legitimate spouse, and who lives in a marital way with the civil partner, and who chooses to remain in this state with full knowledge of the nature of the act and with full consent of the will to that act, is in a state of mortal sin and therefore can not receive sanctifying grace and grow in charity. Therefore, these Christians, unless they are living as “brother and sister,” cannot receive Holy Communion (see John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 84).

23. Two persons of the same sex sin gravely when they seek venereal pleasure from each other (see Lev 18:22; Lev 20:13; Rom 1:24-28; 1 Cor 6:9-10; 1 Tim 1:10; Jude 7). Homosexual acts “under no circumstances can be approved” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2357). Hence, the opinion is contrary to natural law and Divine Revelation that says that, as God the Creator has given to some humans a natural disposition to feel sexual desire for persons of the opposite sex, so also He has given to others a natural disposition to feel sexual desire for persons of the same sex, and that God intends that the latter disposition be acted on in some circumstances.

24. Human law, or any human power whatsoever, cannot give to two persons of the same sex the right to marry one another or declare two such persons to be married, since this is contrary to natural and Divine law. “In the Creator's plan, sexual complementarity and fruitfulness belong to the very nature of marriage” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons, June 3, 2003, 3).

25. Unions that have the name of marriage without the reality of it, being contrary to natural and Divine law, are not capable of receiving the blessing of the Church.

26. The civil power may not establish civil or legal unions between two persons of the same sex that plainly imitate the union of marriage, even if such unions do not receive the name of marriage, since such unions would encourage grave sin for the individuals who are in them and would be a cause of grave scandal for others (see Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons, June 3, 2003, 11). 

27. The male and female sexes, man and woman, are biological realities created by the wise will of God (see Gen. 1: 27; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 369). It is, therefore, a rebellion against natural and Divine law and a grave sin that a man may attempt to become a woman by mutilating himself, or even by simply declaring himself to be such, or that a woman may in like manner attempt to become a man, or to hold that the civil authority has the duty or the right to act as if such things were or may be possible and legitimate (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2297).

28. In accordance with Holy Scripture and the constant tradition of the ordinary and universal Magisterium, the Church did not err in teaching that the civil power may lawfully exercise capital punishment on malefactors where this is truly necessary to preserve the existence or just order of societies (see Gen 9:6; John 19:11; Rom 13:1-7; Innocent III, Professio fidei Waldensibus praescripta; Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent, p. III, 5, n. 4; Pius XII, Address to Catholic jurists on December 5, 1954).

29. All authority on earth as well as in heaven belongs to Jesus Christ; therefore, civil societies and all other associations of men are subject to his kingship so that “the duty of offering God genuine worship concerns man both individually and socially” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2105; see Pius XI, Encyclical Quas primas, 18-19; 32).

The Sacraments 

30. In the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, a wonderful change takes place, namely of the whole substance of bread into the body of Christ and the whole substance of wine into His blood, a change which the Catholic Church very fittingly calls transubstantiation (see Fourth Lateran Council, c. 1; Council of Trent, sess. 13, c. 4). “Every theological explanation which seeks some understanding of this mystery must, in order to be in accord with Catholic faith, maintain that in the reality itself, independently of our mind, the bread and wine have ceased to exist after the Consecration, so that it is the adorable Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus that from then on are really before us under the sacramental species of bread and wine” (Paul VI, Apostolic letter Solemni hac liturgia (Credo of the People of God), 25).

31. The formulations by which the Council of Trent expressed the Church’s faith in the Holy Eucharist are suitable for men of all times and places, since they are a “perennially valid teaching of the Church” (John Paul II, Encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 15).

32. In the Holy Mass, a true and proper sacrifice is offered to the Blessed Trinity and this sacrifice is propitiatory both for men living on earth and for the souls in Purgatory. The opinion is, therefore, wrong that says that the sacrifice of the Mass consists simply in the fact that the people make a spiritual sacrifice of prayers and praises, as well as the opinion that the Mass may or should be defined only as Christ giving Himself to the faithful as their spiritual food (see Council of Trent, sess. 22, c. 2).

33. “The Mass, celebrated by the priest representing the person of Christ by virtue of the power received through the Sacrament of Orders and offered by him in the name of Christ and the members of His Mystical Body, is the sacrifice of Calvary rendered sacramentally present on our altars. We believe that as the bread and wine consecrated by the Lord at the Last Supper were changed into His Body and His Blood which were to be offered for us on the cross, likewise the bread and wine consecrated by the priest are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ enthroned gloriously in heaven, and we believe that the mysterious presence of the Lord, under what continues to appear to our senses as before, is a true, real and substantial presence” (Paul VI, Apostolic letter Solemni hac liturgia (Credo of the People of God), 24).

34. “The unbloody immolation at the words of consecration, when Christ is made present upon the altar in the state of a victim, is performed by the priest and by him alone, as the representative of Christ and not as the representative of the faithful. (…) The faithful offer the sacrifice by the hands of the priest from the fact that the minister at the altar, in offering a sacrifice in the name of all His members, represents Christ, the Head of the Mystical Body. The conclusion, however, that the people offer the sacrifice with the priest himself is not based on the fact that, being members of the Church no less than the priest himself, they perform a visible liturgical rite; for this is the privilege only of the minister who has been Divinely appointed to this office: rather it is based on the fact that the people unite their hearts in praise, impetration, expiation and thanksgiving with prayers or intention of the priest, even of the High Priest himself, so that in the one and same offering of the victim and according to a visible sacerdotal rite, they may be presented to God the Father” (Pius XII, Encyclical Mediator Dei, 92).

35. The sacrament of Penance is the only ordinary means by which grave sins committed after Baptism may be remitted, and by Divine law all such sins must be confessed by number and by species (see Council of Trent, sess. 14, can. 7).

36. By Divine law the confessor may not violate the seal of the sacrament of Penance for any reason whatsoever; no ecclesiastical authority has the power to dispense him from the seal of the sacrament and the civil power is wholly incompetent to oblige him to do so (see Code of Canon Law 1983, can. 1388 § 1; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1467).

37. By virtue of the will of Christ and the unchangeable Tradition of the Church, the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist may not be given to those who are in a public state of objectively grave sin, and sacramental absolution may not be given to those who express their unwillingness to conform to Divine law, even if their unwillingness pertains only to a single grave matter (see Council of Trent, sess. 14, c. 4; Pope John Paul II, Message to the Major Penitentiary Cardinal William W. Baum, on March 22, 1996).

38. According to the constant Tradition of the Church, the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist may not be given to those who deny any truth of the Catholic faith by formally professing their adherence to a heretical or to an officially schismatic Christian community (see Code of Canon Law 1983, can. 915; 1364).

39. The law by which priests are bound to observe perfect continence in celibacy stems from the example of Jesus Christ and belongs to immemorial and apostolic tradition according to the constant witness of the Fathers of the Church and of the Roman Pontiffs. For this reason, this law should not be abolished in the Roman Church through the innovation of an optional priestly celibacy, either at the regional or the universal level. The perennial valid witness of the Church states that the law of priestly continence “does not command new precepts; these precepts should be observed, because they have been neglected on the part of some through ignorance and sloth. These precepts, nevertheless, go back to the apostles and were established by the Fathers, as it is written, ‘Stand firm, then, brothers and keep the traditions that we taught you, whether by word of mouth or by letter’ (2 Thess. 2:15). There are in fact many who, ignoring the statutes of our forefathers, have violated the chastity of the Church by their presumption and have followed the will of the people, not fearing the judgment of God” (Pope Siricius, Decretal Cum in unum in the year 386).

40. By the will of Christ and the Divine constitution of the Church, only baptized men (viri) may receive the sacrament of Orders, whether in the episcopacy, the priesthood, or the diaconate (see John Paul II Apostolic Letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, 4). Furthermore, the assertion is wrong that says that only an Ecumenical Council can define this matter, because the teaching authority of an Ecumenical Council is not more extensive than that of the Roman Pontiff (see Fifth Lateran Council, sess. 11; First Vatican Council, sess. 4, c. 3, n. 8).

May 31, 2019

Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, Patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta 
Cardinal Janis Pujats, Archbishop Emeritus of Riga 
Tomash Peta, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana 
Jan Pawel Lenga, Archbishop-Bishop Emeritus of Karaganda 
Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana

What is Truth?

Truth is the conformity of mind and reality. The truth about God is understood when we accurately grasp the nature and purpose of His creation (natural theology), and when we believe in any supernatural revelation He may make. Jesus told us that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. All truths have their origin in the Truth who is God made man. The Christian understands that the truth is a Person.

Dogmatic and moral truths come from and lead to God. The truth banishes error, especially idolatry, because all truth is found in the Word made flesh. What is true is good and beautiful because it unites us to the good and beautiful God. He created us so that we may know Him by knowing the truth that He is.

If truth could ever lose its quality of being the means to know the will of God, and become something false, and thus evil, then mankind is lost. Without immutable truth, we have no way to live in unity with God, with reality, and with one another.

The good news is that truth can never be false. It’s not an idol, and to defend the truth is not to lead people away from God towards false worship, but rather to invite them to embrace what is, in fact, their deepest desire for goodness, happiness, and peace.

The truth will set you free, it will not enslave you in error and darkness. Those who seek to be healed by coming close to Christ in his sacraments will only realize that goal by knowing and doing what Jesus asks of them. To reject in practice his words about the permanence of marriage and the obligation to avoid adultery, and then assert a right to receive the sacraments risks making an erroneous opinion into an idol.

—Fr. Gerald E. Murray



The Order of Mass (Divine Worship) was designed pursuant to the provisions of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus for a rite of Holy Mass to be fashioned “according to the liturgical books proper to the Anglican tradition” insofar as compatible with Catholic doctrine and receiving the approval of the Holy See. Accordingly, this order was devised in light of the following principles and objectives:

(a) to preserve in the Catholic Church the worthily Anglican liturgical patrimony, understood as that which has nourished the Catholic faith throughout the history of the Anglican tradition and prompted aspirations towards ecclesial unity;

(b) to maintain for Catholic worship such features and elements that are representative of the historic Anglican books of Common Prayer (in the first place) and the Anglican missals (in the second place), in conformity with Catholic doctrinal and liturgical norms;

(c) to provide an Order of Mass at once distinctively and traditionally Anglican in character, content and structure, whilst also being clearly and recognizable a form of the Roman Rite, in both its modern and traditional expressions, safeguarding thereby the substantial unity of the Roman Rite;

(d) to combine, consolidate, and harmonize wherever possible the diversity of Anglican liturgical usage for the sake of assuring the continuity, integrity, and pastoral utility of the rite for the Ordinariates in England and Wales, the United States, Canada, and Australia;

(e) to minimize the number of options, except where clearly justified by the need for pastoral flexibility in respecting the various constituencies coming together in Catholic unity, to preserve worthy Anglican patrimony, or to suit the dignity of the celebration according to the quality of the day or season;

(f) to offer an instrument for the sanctification of the faithful who come to the Catholic Church from the Anglican tradition whilst promoting their unity with one another, with their fellow Catholics in the wider Church, and with the See of Peter.


EPIPHANY 3
YEAR B – January 21, 2018
Very Rev. Fr. Carl Reid, VF
Blessed John Henry Newman Catholic Church

Three things to consider today from three different dates; the first two purely exegetical in terms of explaining perhaps puzzling passages from today’s readings, the third eschatological.

First, from approximately 2,000 years ago, as our Lord was walking on this earth, and as recorded in the Gospels. Are any of us here today wondering why we have, apparently, the identical episode, first in the Gospel according to John last Sunday, and then in the Gospel according to Mark today, that of our Lord meeting Andrew and Simon?

In actual fact, though it appears that both are recording the first meeting of Jesus with the brothers, there is a chronological key in the opening words of the respective Gospel passages. Last week from the Gospel according to John, John the Baptist, during his active time of ministry, pointed out our Lord to Andrew, and we presume John the brother of James, who then went and brought his brother Simon, soon to be known as Peter, to Jesus. In Mark’s Gospel, even though it is very near the beginning of his record, Mark states, “After John was arrested”, which is to say, the time of his public ministry had ended, as we know that, from his arrest to his beheading, John was never released by Herod, once again to exercise freely his ministry. Therefore, the calling recorded in today’s passage from Mark happened sometime after the first meeting as recorded in John’s Gospel.

And this also helps to explain the apparent incongruity of Jesus just having met two fishermen, spontaneously calling them, and they immediately dropped everything on the spot to follow Him? No, they already knew Him, and as John recorded in last week’s Gospel passage, knew Him further to be the long-awaited Messiah. Therefore, at this second (or perhaps even more? we don’t really know) meeting, the call would not have come as a complete surprise to the two fishermen – neither it should be mentioned of James and John, who are recorded also in Mark’s passage to have done the same in apparently suddenly abandoning their father Zebedee to follow Jesus.

End of first exegesis.

Second, from approximately 2,800 years ago, during the time of the prophet Jonah. As we heard, after Jonah had proclaimed God’s message to the Ninevites, they repented in sackcloth, and, “God repented of the evil which he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.” 

“Wait a minute”, one might ask, “how can God, Who is immutable, unchanging, change His mind; and, if He is all goodness and incapable of evil, how can He have planned to do something evil?” To explain this fully would take a full, rather lengthy sermon; but I shall try, briefly, to explain how the limitations of our human nature and language result in these apparent disconnects as regards God’s nature and actions. Almost by default, we talk about God in human language as if He were a human being, a creature rather than the Creator; however, when philosophers or theologians such as St Thomas Aquinas speak of God and His nature, they are quite precise, making it very clear that, in His essence, God cannot change. In a given episode, what might change is the effect. To the Ninevites, God tells them that if they don’t repent, this is what’s going to happen; however, when they do repent, then it doesn’t happen. Metaphorically, therefore, we speak of God having changed, or having repented, of what He was going to do with them in response to their repentance. It might help if we turned things around: God did not change; He changed the minds of the Ninevites, but who naturally would have concluded, even though it was themselves that had changed, that God had in fact changed His mind.

And what of the phrase that God “repented of the evil” that He had intended. This is to a large extent a language issue, one that affects perception. The particular Hebrew word ra’ah, for evil, is also the word for suffering, or misery, or distress. In our English context, we understand that evil is always something that is wrong, quite bad. Suffering does not have the same connotation. In his apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris (redemptive suffering), St John Paul II, points out that in the Old Testament, because there is no word for misery or suffering or distress, sometimes it will say that God himself “does evil”, when what it means is that God can cause suffering, God can cause distress through his punishments, as when he punishes human beings for turning away from him. In this case, that's what's being described here. It's describing the suffering and the misery that is going to come upon the Ninevites if they don't repent; but, because they do repent, that “evil,” that suffering, that misery does not come upon them, God does not inflict a punishment on them. That's what the expression means, “God repented of the evil which he intended to do to them.”

We might expand that further into that very important acknowledgement of human culpability in suffering, thinking perhaps of C. S. Lewis’ observation, “There are two types of people in the world: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done;’ and those to whom God says, ‘OK, thy will be done’.” Which is to say, it is not always a situation of God causing suffering, often for our own good and the process of our sanctification; but rather, God will most certainly, if we so choose, allow us to suffer – so much of which is the result of our own sinfulness.

End of second exegesis, and which brings us to the third date, and eschatology – the happy consideration of death, judgement and the final destiny of the soul and humankind – and it should be happy for faithful, practising Christians as we look through Purgatory to joy and eternal bliss. The time? Place yourself, eight days ago, in the city of Honolulu, more specifically in the International Marketplace in the heart of Waikiki. Suddenly everyone’s cell phone issues a warning that a nuclear warhead is on its way, and there are but minutes left. Minutes, not being 38, which is how long it took for the person that pushed the button to issue an “Oops, false alarm” message; but nonetheless, only minutes left to live.

What would we have done? Many people scrambled without much thought; others, resignedly decided to have one last cappuccino, realizing there was nothing they could do. Or is that true? Jonah, gave the city of Nineveh, not 38 minutes, but 40 days warning. In their case, that would have been time enough to flee (but not from God, of course). Not enough time however, for the people in Honolulu. 

St Paul today, “the appointed time has grown very short; from now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away.” Isn’t that frighteningly prophetic as regards Honolulu?

Our Lord hits the nail right on the head, if we take His opening words and apply them to His Parousia (Second Coming), “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the Gospel.”

Quite unlikely, were we to have been in Honolulu, that we would be in the company of a priest who could hear our last confession; still, there could not possibly be anything better to do for a Christian than, repentantly, to fall to one’s knees and pray, eschatologically, “Thy will be done.”

+ + +

TRINITY 19
(27TH OT) YEAR B 2018
Very Rev. Fr. Carl Reid, VF
Blessed John Henry Newman Catholic Church

Today is one of those few Sundays in the Church year where we have the option of two celebrations: either Harvest Thanksgiving, or the particular Sunday after Trinity. We’ve chosen the latter, not least as we don’t own this building, and therefore haven’t presumed to decorate it for Harvest Thanksgiving; and, after preaching for 30 consecutive years on Thanksgiving… Still, our hymns today are Thanksgiving themed.

Truly, the primary reason for choosing the 19th Sunday after Trinity is the perhaps too often glossed over theme as presented in the Old Testament reading and the Gospel passage. Well, perhaps not glossed over, but rather not completely understood in that, as well-known readings, they may not have been thoroughly explained to the faithful.

Let us see if we can perhaps expand our individual and collective understandings. I might, of course, be preaching to the choir; nonetheless I pray, a worthy reminder.

First the challenge to our Lord by the Pharisees concerning divorce as we heard in the Gospel reading. It does bear mentioning that, although we might think, with soaring divorce rates in our current society, we have suddenly slid from a flourishing Christian model of the family, such is not actually true. Throughout much of history, the institution of marriage has been in somewhat of a mess.

To wit: there were at least two schools of rabbinical thought concerning divorce at the time of Our Lord’s incarnation. At one extreme was the school of Rabbi Shammi which held that in order to divorce one’s wife, she had to be guilty of some kind of sexual infidelity or adultery – we might equate that with the mid-twentieth century zenith of the model family. At the other extreme, Rabbi Hillel’s followers were very open about divorce – if your wife burned your dinner, that was legitimate grounds for putting her away.

Jesus asks the questioners what Moses commanded. And, likely thinking of a passage from Deut. 24, they responded that it was allowed. Said passage in Deut. being, “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favour in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house...” The difficult to translate Hebrew word for indecency meaning some truly shameful deed. Which is to say, not a trivial thing; divorce by Moses’ standards should have been very infrequent.

Even so, Jesus lowers the boom: “For the hardness of your heart…” laying out that divorce, instigated by either the man or the woman, is most assuredly not at all part of God’s plan. In so doing, He quotes from an even earlier part of the Torah, specifically the Pentateuch – the first five Books. He may even purposely have snared the Pharisees by asking them what Moses commanded, and they quite naturally thought of the passage in Deut., the Fifth Book of Moses. And then, Jesus takes them right back to the beginning, Ch 2 of Genesis, the First Book of Moses to what God commands.

Now before we dismiss our Lord’s having chosen a very early part of the creation story, and therefore of questionable historical value to enlightened 21st century Christians, let us remind ourselves once again that the proper approach to the early Chapters of Genesis is not primarily “how and when” but rather, “Who and why” – to which our Lord points exactly, “But from the beginning of creation, 'God (Who) made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one.' So they are no longer two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder." 

In the middle of that, an often overlooked but profoundly important why. “So they are no longer two but one.” But expanding a little on that, let us consider the first reading, from which our Lord quotes, in order, hopefully, to broaden even further our understanding.

“Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’” Two things here: “it is not good that the man should be alone” points to our creation for the purpose of communion. We shall return to that thought also as it pertains to “they are no longer two but one.”

“I will make him a helper” – the Hebrew word for helper meaning “corresponding to or complementing him.” Note, not a servant or handmaid. The Hebrew term for help or helper ‘ezer is neutral in terms of social standing – God is often called the ‘ezer, the helper of those who call upon Him. God is going to make the man an ‘ezer, a helper, not unlike Himself.

First God brings the animals to Adam (the man) for him to name them – the first time in the creation account that someone other than God performs the authoritative act of naming. The man is being deputized with divine authority; we might say Adam was the first prophet. In passing it is worth noting that where the RSV states, with respect to this naming, that God brought “the beasts of the field” to Adam, other English translations say “wild beasts.” Unfortunate lack of attention to the Hebrew and what Jewish scholars say about this: beasts of the field implying animals that have the potential of being domesticated in that the word field suggests plots of land as established for that purpose, versus wild beasts which has a very different connotation that doesn’t really make sense with the immediately following words, “but for the man there was not found (among the animals) a helper fit for him.”

And then the profoundly important and symbolic creation of the first woman. For the “suitable partner” or “fit helper” to come forth, Adam is going to have to cooperate and even to suffer. So, in a typological foreshadowing of Jesus’ death on the cross, Adam falls into a deep sleep and must give his flesh and blood for his bride to come forth. God takes Adam’s flesh from his side – like Jesus’ pierced side – literally “builds” (Hebrew banah) the flesh into a woman. The woman is “built” in Hebrew, rather than formed or made, because she is a temple.

When Eve the bride is brought to Adam at last, he bursts out into the first recorded human words in Scripture, as well as the first poetry in the Bible: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” This is covenant-making language in the sense of a family relationship formed by an oath. These words of Adam constitute an oath. The subsequent change of her name (in this case, giving of a name) is common in covenant rituals, because covenants create a family, and one often gets a new name when joining a family, to denote the new relationship that one now has with the other members of the family.

The closing words of the passage from Genesis are where we left off with Jesus in the Gospel passage, “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh” to which I promised we would return. As we have considered, Genesis underscores that each person is made for the purpose of communion. God himself is a communion of Persons that share a nature: so God creates Man as both male and female, and when they unite as “one flesh”, a third person comes into being. Marriage therefore is a natural icon of the Trinity.

In passing, another easily understood but rarely explained part of the marriage ceremony as we understand it today, “Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?” is most often viewed as some sort of medieval concept of the woman being nothing more than chattel or property. The passage from Genesis lays that to rest, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother” which is to say, the man has already left his family. In the marriage service, the apparently controversial question is simply asking the bride’s family if they are prepared to similarly alter the familial covenant so that the woman may also leave her father and mother and enter a new covenantal relationship with the groom.

In the Gospel, our Lord doesn’t leave it off at the end of the Genesis passage. He underscores the covenantal meaning and understanding of marriage, “What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”

When we think of the modern, callous, shallow understanding, even perversion of marriage – to be sure, social engineers have pushed the discussion into frighteningly novel waters – we might all most certainly pray that society will return to some sort of common sense, ultimately of course to the understanding of the typologically divine nature of the marriage covenant. Even more importantly, are we prepared for persecution as promised by our Lord, if we, as we should, defend that which Jesus has so profoundly taught us about marriage?






Homily of the Most Rev. Steven J. Lopes, STD
On the Occasion of the Mass of Installation of Monsignor Carl Reid, PA
(as Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of The Southern Cross, 27AUG2019)

Your Grace, Archbishop Fisher,
Your Grace, Archbishop Coleridge,
My Lord Bishops,
Monsignor Reid,

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

On these days of great celebration and significance, there is always a bit of pressure on the preacher to give adequate expression to the joy and anticipation in our hearts. God, whose grace at work in us can accomplish infinitely more than we can ask or even imagine, is doing great things in the Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross, and in the priestly heart of her new shepherd, Monsignor Carl Reid. My task is to give voice to that grace and to our gratitude at what God is doing. Happily for me, Monsignor Reid has already indicated a direction in the choice of his motto Lux benigna duce, Lead kindly light, taken from the writings of the soon-to-be-Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman. As this phrase opens up onto an entire vista of faith, we would do well to reflect on it and see where it leads.

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the gloom. Lead Thou me on!

Himself an accomplished preacher of the Gospel, Newman wrote major influential works on themes like Truth, the Church, Dogma, the Development of Doctrine, University Education, and the relationship between faith and reason. His was also a poet’s heart, and Lead, kindly light is the opening line of his poem entitled “The Pillar of the Cloud” that was only later made into a popular hymn. The prose is charged with Newman’s own profoundly personal sense of the presence and action of God amidst the changes and vagaries of life. Indeed, Newman has a rather high view of how we can come to know God by the use of reason. He also has a high view of the Church as the pillar of cloud that leads us with the kindly light of truth revealed in Jesus Christ. For Newman the light of truth is the context for coming to know God, not as a notion, or an idea, nor even a philosophical construct, but as a Heart that speaks unto our hearts.

Thus, seeking the truth and loving all that is good and beautiful is the surest pathway by which we may know, love, and serve God, and so gain happiness with him in this world and the next. The light of revelation is a beacon, drawing us out of shadows and imaginations and into the surpassing beauty of a real relationship with the Father, in the Son, through the Holy Spirit. Stepping into the light—allowing it to embrace us with its warming rays and then sharing the light with others—well, that’s the Christian life, the response of faith. Lead, kindly light, lead Thou me on. This becomes the prayer of those human hearts who are not content with merely knowing something about God, but whose desire to know God shares in the desire of Him who so deeply desires to be known and to share communion with us. Heart speaks unto heart.

Lead, Kindly Light — The night is dark, and I am far from home — Lead Thou me on!

In the eyes of the world, Monsignor Carl, you and your wife Barb are far from home. You hear it said in the Church that discipleship is an adventure, and the deeper your vocational “yes” to the Lord, the greater the adventure! It’s fine to say that God’s grace at work in us can accomplish infinitely more than we can ask or even imagine, but it’s another thing when “not imagining it” means so many unanticipated twists and turns in life, changes in career, ministerial demands on our families, or being asked to move across Canada or even across the world! But, through it all, God’s grace is always at work. To meet that grace with openness of heart can bring superabundant richness and lasting happiness.

Husbands and wives know this, as marriage is a veritable master class in the unforeseen! As husbands and wives confront these twists and turns together, united and strengthened by grace from on high, the unforeseen can become the place where God’s loving presence is most intensely experienced and welcomed. And priests certainly know this too, as ministry always seems to push them out of what is comfortable and familiar, stretching them and revealing their utter dependence on God in the sometimes-utter futility of their human efforts. Faith is an adventure, yes, though sometimes we experience it more like wandering in the desert (though hopefully not for 40 years).

One thing we celebrate this evening in the inauguration of Monsignor Reid’s ministry is how the transformative power of God’s grace can be experienced through the humble response of faith. Taking up ministry in the Ordinariate dedicated to Our Lady of the Southern Cross, Monsignor has chosen to adorn his personal coat of arms with the lily evoking the Annunciation. This is both a reminder to himself and a pledge to you, the clergy and faithful of the Ordinariate, that he must always echo in his pastoral ministry the fiat of Mary. Her humble attitude of willing, docile faith would indeed take her far from home. She would experience herself stretched by the implications of her “yes” and her Son’s public ministry. She would know too the full darkness of night beneath the Cross of her son. And through it all she prays: fiat, be it done unto me according to thy word. Through that prayer, Mary gave the world its redeemer. What will Monsignor Carl give the Ordinariate through his daily fiat? What will the Ordinariate give to the whole Church if only her clergy and faithful embrace the adventure of discipleship?

Lead, kindly light — Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see the distant scene — one step enough for me. Newman was a man of tremendous faith. I don’t know about you, Monsignor Carl, but I for one ask the Lord to see the distant scene all the time! But in his mercy the Lord seems to ignore that frequent petition of mine.

The Ordinariate is young, very young in the sweep of Church history. As we approach the 10th anniversary of the promulgation of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, the ecumenical vision of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis is only beginning to take shape. At the same time, rather fundamental questions still loom. We are only beginning the demanding process of laying a foundation for the future flourishing of our mission diocese. The Ordinary and the Governing Council have to tackle seemingly innumerable questions of finance, policy, development, structure, real estate, and personnel. And all of this is so that our parochial communities can grow into the full stature of parish life envisioned by the Apostolic Constitution. My predecessor, Monsignor Jeffrey Steenson, compared life in the Ordinariate to building an airplane while also trying to fly it…it takes a lot of duct tape! It is not always easy or even possible to see where this is all headed.

We in the Ordinariate have been given a privileged share in the Church’s mission of communion and evangelization. I would therefore like to propose that we are to engage that mission one step at a time precisely as the way forward. An essential facet of that mission is preserving and promoting the patrimony of Anglican and English Christianity. Another essential part of the mission—one dear to the heart of Pope Benedict, I might add—is the ecumenical value of the Ordinariate. On the personal level, the Ordinariate provides people with a welcome reception into full communion with the Catholic Church in a way that is perhaps not so overwhelming to people coming out of a Protestant tradition. More globally, the Ordinariate demonstrates that unity with the Catholic Church does not mean assimilation and uniformity. Rather, unity in the expression of the truth of the Catholic faith allows for a vibrant diversity in the expression of that same faith. The Ordinariate does essentially that.

Pope Francis has gone to great lengths to underscore the missionary and evangelical character of the Ordinariate as well, and I would urge you to see his appointment of a new Ordinary here in that light. We have been given extraordinary tools for evangelization: the confidence of Catholic doctrine and sacramental Order; the profound beauty of our liturgy; the rich heritage of our English patrimony; the transparency and accountability built into our governance structure; a joyful narrative about the communion of the Church that we extend to our brothers and sisters who long for the abundant life of Christ without even knowing it. We would, on the other hand, betray our mission and our very identity if we thought that, once in the Church, our work is done. No. The Ordinariate may yet be small but we have been equipped in every way to be mighty. We might not be able to see the future, but if we use the tools we have been given to make more and better Catholics for the glory of God, we will be an enlivening presence in the Church with a bright future indeed.

Lead, Kindly light — I was not ever thus, nor pray'd that Thou shouldst lead me on. I loved to choose and see my path, but now lead Thou me on!

Only by following the Gospel path of ongoing conversion will the mission of the Ordinariate and the ministry of its new Ordinary be shown to be authentic and authentically Catholic. Indeed, the first words of our Lord’s public ministry as given by both the Evangelists Matthew and Mark are the call to conversion: The Kingdom of God is at hand—repent and believe in the Gospel! This is no casual phrase, but rather the key that unlocks all of Jesus’ preaching and teaching. Repent, metanoiete in the Greek, is not simply a renunciation of something but a radical change of mind and heart, a literal turning (a con-versio) of the whole of our self towards God, a turning that involves a reordering of our priorities, a reevaluation of our human relationships, and most fundamentally a purification of our desires. If we take the Gospel seriously, conversion is central to what it means to be a Christian. And, as this call inaugurates Gospel preaching, so too is it woven through the end of St. John’s Gospel which we heard proclaimed just moments ago.

The Risen Lord appears to his disciples and says to Peter: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Then feed my sheep.” Three times the Lord asks, and three times Peter responds positivity and is given the added admonition to pastor the flock of God. Several of the Fathers of the Church saw great significance in Peter’s three-fold profession of love, repairing in some way the damage of his three-fold denial of Christ on the night of Holy Thursday. There is something deeper at work, something that evidences Peter’s own ongoing conversion to the Lord. English uses the word “love” both for the Lord’s question and Peter’s response. But, as you may know, Greek has several words for love: agape, philia, and eros principally, which denote different expressions of love and varying degrees of intensity. Pope Benedict XVI offers a profound reflection on the meaning of these words in his Encyclical Letter Deus caritas est, noting that philia expresses the love of friendship, while agape is the new and distinctly Christian word for love, one charged with all the power and totality of self-gift revealed in the Lord’s cross. For our purposes, it is enough to notice that Jesus and Peter are using different words, as if they were talking past each other.

Essentially, Jesus says to Peter, do you agape me, Peter? The response is: yes, Lord, you know that I philia you. And so also the second time. Only the third time does the Lord “condescend” to Peter’s level and ask Do you philia me, Peter? so that the question can meet an adequate response.

Now, I have a very high regard for the Prince of the Apostles… my Ordinariate in North America claims him as our principal patron. I would like to think that in his response to the Risen Lord he is expressing the highest aspirations of the human heart. Yet a further conversion is needed for Peter to express in his own person the totality of self-gift, the sacrificial love of Christ for the Church. It is a conversion that, yes, even transcends the highest aspirations of the human heart, which is perhaps why we see the interplay of these two words for love at this point in the Gospel. You see, this exchange occurs before Pentecost. Peter needed the gift of the Holy Spirit for this conversion to be accomplished in him. The Spirit, poured out from the throne of God and the Lamb, is the divine fire that transforms what it touches into Christ. This Holy Spirit, who conforms our hearts to Christ in Baptism and Confirmation, works in the further configuration of Holy Orders. Conversion to Christ is not something we do or can accomplish. If we were to try, we would only wind up talking past the Lord. Conversion happens in us when we open our hearts to the grace of God, freely given, and to what the Holy Spirit can accomplish in and through us when, like Mary, we stand before the Lord in docility and say “yes.”

So tonight is also about conversion, about celebrating what the Holy Spirit is accomplishing in and through us as he draws us closer to the Eucharistic heart of Christ Jesus the Lord. It is a celebration of what the Holy Spirit is accomplishing in and through the Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross. We offer thanksgiving for the new vitality of the Church in this land through the fulsome expression of Catholic faith in the new and felicitous idiom that the Ordinariate offers. Conversion leads to an urgent sense of mission, because conformity to Christ includes an interiorization of his mission drawing people into the communion of the Blessed Trinity. Even our missional desire—to make more and better Catholics—is born of our conversion to Christ.

Tonight we celebrate what the Holy Spirit is accomplishing in and through Carl Reid, in his personal discipleship and in his priesthood lived always in and for the Church. Monsignor, this Gospel reading for your installation day will resound in your ears each and every day: Do you love me, Carl? Your life and ministry among the clergy and faithful of this Ordinariate is a concrete response to that question, precisely the tending of the sheep that the Lord demands. For this, your heart will need daily conversion, supported by our daily prayers. May your love for the Lord be ever purified, so that it authentically expresses the agape of Christ on the cross.

Lead kindly light… So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still will lead me on, o'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till the night is gone; and with the morn those angel faces smile which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

Dear friends, we are engaged together in seeing a new thing, a great work of God’s Providence. His power having blessed the beginnings of this Ordinariate, has worked through the wise and capable leadership of Monsignor Harry Entwistle, and has chosen to bless even now Monsignor Carl Reid at this inauguration of his pastoral ministry in Australia. Do not be afraid of the darkness of night nor overwhelmed by the seeming difficulties on the road ahead. Look rather to the Light, to Christ risen from the dead, and let the joy of his presence animate your discipleship and your mission.

Know also that you are supported by your brothers and sisters in the Ordinariate in North America as well as in the UK. As together we advance this privileged vision of Catholic communion, we pray together and with confidence: Lead, kindly light! Lead Thou me on!

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His Exellency Steven J. Lopes
Bishop Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter

Homilies 2020 Holy Week

Maundy Thursday

What makes this night different from all other nights? That’s the ritual question with which every Passover supper for the last three millennia has begun. From the Passover celebrated today, and the Passover celebrated at Jesus’s own last supper with his disciples. The youngest asks it of the oldest. And so, we imagine in the tradition that it fell to John the Apostle to ask the question of Peter. What makes this night different from all other nights? It’s a retelling, a ritual retelling of the most important event in the entire history of Israel, woven through the entire history of God’s people. This is the night in which God saved and redeem His people and delivered them from slavery in Egypt. It is, therefore, their foundational experience, and it tells them everything they need to know about who God is, about who they are in God, and therefore their relationship with the world. It all comes down to that night, and the experience of the God who led them out from slavery to freedom.

But in leading them out, that relationship God forged on that night had to be formed, and reformed, again and again. How quickly his people forgot. How quickly they went astray. They had to be, in many ways, stripped down and rebuilt by the Lord Himself. When we read the accounts of Exodus over these three sacred days, this is what we come back to, again and again: That being stripped down to the foundations of faith, and allowing the Lord to rebuild our own faith, is essential in order to live the new and eternal relationship with the Father. Because in Exodus, they had to come to rely on God’s power, not their own. They were utterly powerless and forsaken. In the great revelation of God that they would experience on Mount Sinai, they had to come and embrace His law, not their own, His holiness, certainly not their own.

Even in the gifts of of manna from heaven and quail that they asked for and the Lord gave in their time in the desert with Him, even that was a stripping away and a learning. Exodus is filled with such wonderful detail: no matter how long they gathered that bread from Heaven, or collected the quail that descended upon the camp, they only ever wound up with enough for one day: Total, utter reliance on the providence of God, and not their own ingenuity. The strength of God, and not their cunning, when it came to the hostile nations around them. Forty years, they would wander in the desert, not knowing where they were going, and always seemingly reaching dead ends and starting again. This is the spiritual experience of Israel. This is the Passover. This is what makes this night different than all other nights, because God has stripped it all away and laid it bare in order that He might redeem them, by His power and not theirs, in order that they might rely on His providence, and not theirs. And that hard lesson has been enshrined at the heart of Israel’s faith, and it is at the heart of our celebration this Holy Thursday, what makes this night, different than all other nights.

Now, I’ll admit to you freely that I come to this reflection on Passover and the spirituality of Exodus in a new way and with new eyes, because I’ve experienced something of my own hard lessons from God recently. Since February 21st, when I broke my leg rather dramatically, I’ve had to learn everything again. “And why do you say that?” My experience post break and surgery—oh, it’s a stripping. It is a most profound stripping, in the ways that you would imagine, right? Mobility. I cannot walk, and I will not walk for another month. But more than that, things like independence, self-reliance, self-determination, freedom, privacy—All of those things that you and I take for granted every single day. [Snaps] Gone in an instant. That’s hard. But, as I reflect on how hard it is for me, experiencing this for the first time in my life, I can’t help but think of all of those people, all of our fellow parishioners all of our family and friends who experience this every day of their life: the elderly, the homebound, those who suffer from chronic illness. Those who are in constant pain. It becomes a prison, where everything that they once took for granted is taken away. And in that time, that kind of stripping, religious platitudes will not suffice.

Oh, we can talk about having to learn humility. Fine. And humility is a tremendous virtue, but the path to humility is most often humiliation. That’s the reality. You can talk about docility and tranquility of spirit as the fruits that can grow out of this kind of experience with God, but those wonderful things are washed, bathed by tears.  And all of the other virtues that one would like to see developed in such a circumstance—generosity, charity, gratitude, magnanimity—well, you realize very quickly that these things do not well-up naturally. These are not perhaps the first thoughts of your heart. But these are things that have to be chosen, that have to be willed, that have to be practiced at day in and day out. Illness, infirmity, and pain are as formative an experience as what Israel experiences in the Passover and the Exodus, and it is just as hard. And everything about the illusions that we tell ourselves, about our own “immortality,” our own power, and our own independence are simply blown away like so much smoke. And we realize that, actually, no, we are in the hand of an almighty and merciful God.

When you’re left to the thoughts of your own heart in illness and in pain, uncluttered, and look at them, almost just with that clear-eyed vision, I propose that you don’t often like what you see there. You realize how quickly you are inclined to sin: judgement, impatience, uncharity, unchastity. You do not exactly see in yourself the reflection of the Sacred Heart of Christ. And then, what grace does is it turns the mirror. And, all of a sudden, you begin to see these things—charity, incredible generosity, patience, magnanimity—not in yourself, but in all of the people who come to your aid and come to your assistance. That’s where you see it. The compassion you see in others spurs you somehow to dig a little bit deeper, to, in a word, be better.  To choose virtue: because you owe it to the people who have given so much for you. That, too, is the experience of Exodus. That is also part of the Passover journey. It resembles a sense of seeing the holiness of God reflected, not in yourself first, but in those around you. And, in desiring that, being attracted to that, we begin to build something of our own personal virtue and holiness.

The truth is, all of us, in this rather difficult and extraordinary Lent, have experienced this time of austerity, of stripping away. We’re celebrating Holy Thursday Mass on the Internet—for the love of heaven! This is not how it’s supposed to be. This is not some extra thing that has been taken away from us. This is exactly the essential thing that has been taken away from us: Jesus’ ultimate gift of Himself in the Holy Eucharist, that which He shares at that pivotal moment, to interpret and to sacramentalize what He would assume in the Cross. That is the key to our entire relationship with God, and that is exactly what has been taken from us, for weeks now. And, as the Prophet says, we do not have one among us who will tell us when it will end. That spiritual stripping away, of not something additional or extra, but something seemingly so central, brings us right back to that experience of asking ourselves: who is God, who am I, and what makes sense of my life?

Because what we miss, what has been stripped, is not just the familiar rhythms of worship: not just the music, not just the hymns, not just the comforting words of Scripture. What has been stripped away is not only the fellowship of our family and friends who gather on Sunday, for Mass and breakfast and adult forum and everything else—that wonderful community of faith that we have built, and that we hold so dear, and sustains us. That’s not the only thing that has been pulled away. What has been stripped away is nothing less than the sacramental Food of our salvation. And we are being invited, now, into the desert, into a peering deeply into the mystery of who God is, and how He reveals Himself to us. We’re being invited into a new understanding of communion, and what communion means, and why it’s important. And yes, of course, we might be tempted to ask God, “Why this, why now?” But really, that’s the wrong question. It’s the dumb question that I’ve asked myself every day for the last six and a half weeks. Why did I break my leg? There is no good answer to that question. Because this is not a matter simply of God’s permissive will. This is a matter of His provident will. There is something in this, now, that the entire Church across the world is experiencing; not just us in the Ordinariate, not just us in our individual parishes.

And so, what is it that God is revealing in this desert experience, when even the essentials are taken away from us? We are with Israel in the desert. We are wandering about and not knowing where we’re going. We are going, literally, from day to day, being beset, not by the howling winds, but by the 24-hour news cycle, when everything is coronavirus all day. And we’re asking ourselves, “who is God?” and “where is God?” This is communion! There’s something being built, there’s something being established here that will be—that will be lasting, that will be different, when we finally come out of it. Because we do know that this is not going to go on for 40 years—thank God. Just as I will eventually walk again—thank God. But before we go back to normalcy too quickly and forget all of it, and put it all behind us as quickly as possible, we would do well to be attentive to the formation that the Lord is giving us in this desert, because a formation it is.

You know, when I listen to the doctors and the nurses and the physical therapists and all of those who have been so involved in my care, they say words ‘over you’, like, you know, they say them in front of you to others, so really around you. And sometimes, you’re meant not to hear it exactly, but you do. I hear the phrase, “well, you know, when he learns to walk again.” And, of course, as I watch now the muscles in my legs start to wither away and atrophy, I realize that, yeah, okay: When this thing comes off, and there is weight and there is movement, it’s not going to be one of these things that you pop the boot off and go skipping home merrily. I will have to, literally, learn to walk again.  And that is the image of where the entire Church is right now. Spiritually, theologically, we have been set back, and we will have to learn to walk again with the Lord.

Because there is a road ahead of us. We might not see it clearly now, but we do know this, because we know the God of Exodus, and we know the God of the Passover: that God walks with His people. And it is in the walking with His people, that He reveals Himself to them, that He teaches them who He is. They don’t have to invent Him. He shows them who they are—they don’t have to invent it. That revelation is always that step forward with Him, in Him, so that we come to that better sense of communion. That, my friends, is what makes this night different from all others.

Good Friday

I freely admit that silence may indeed be the best response to the reading of the Passion. And yet, we engage this meditation together precisely so that we do not see the story that we have just heard as some sort of distant memory, an exercise of religious nostalgia, but rather as the drama of human salvation—the pivotal moment in not only the history of our species, but of our personal histories as well. This is what it means to be saved, and, in order to enter into that saving act of our Lord, we enter together into this meditation on the Passion.

He was blindfolded by wicked men. He submitted to the plait of thorns. His side was torn open by a lance. He was nailed to rough-hewn wood. The violence of the narrative, though hauntingly  beautiful in chants, the violence is astounding when you listen to the detail. But the violence isn’t the only thing that comes forward, is it? There’s Pilate’s inability to grasp the truth, even though truth itself was standing in front of him. And as the Lord gave Himself up to the mocking and the scourging, to the cross to the gall, to all of the bitter humiliation, the other thing that comes forward is His serenity. He seems to be the only person in the entire narrative of the Passion that isn’t taken off-guard by what is befalling Him.

And yet more: Scripture records not only His serenity, but it records also His prayer. And that’s where I think we start today, the prayer of Jesus in the Passion. According to St. John, He prays from beginning to end that those who are visiting this violence upon Him be forgiven. It’s not enough just to pray for their forgiveness in some sort of generic sense—the Lord goes a step further. He actually makes excuses for those who are doing this to Him: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Those words did not come from Pilate or from the guards or from the chief priests and scribes. It came from the mouth of the Incarnate Word Himself: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

We can unpack that prayer almost mystically, as it has been done in the history of the Church. “Father, forgive them, because they have been taken in by the lies of others. They do not know what they’re doing. They nail Me to the cross because they do not see My glory. In assuming the frailty of human flesh, I have hidden your face from them, so they do not know what they are doing. They’re torn by grief. They have suffered in unimaginable poverty and humiliation and hardship at the hands of a Roman occupation—and so they think I’m going to completely overturn that governmental order and visit that violence upon them again. They do not know what they are doing.” The prayer for forgiveness is a prayer where He continues to make excuses for us.

The entire account of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday is shot through with the prayer for forgiveness. But that’s not entirely surprising, is it? The entire Gospel is shot through with the prayer for forgiveness, with teaching about forgiveness. So much so that, when the disciples ask the Lord, “how should we pray to the Father?” He enshrines that very petition for forgiveness, right in the center of what he teaches them: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” How often you and I pass over those words of the Our Father and that petition for forgiveness. God, who is all good and all merciful, will forgive us freely. We put condition on God. “Forgive us as we forgive.” It is a powerful prayer. It is a Christian prayer. It’s the prayer that can only come as fruit of the Passion.

And if we simply stopped there on Good Friday, that might be enough. It would be enough to contemplate just how much the forgiveness of our sins stands at the center of not only what Christ taught, but in the very gift of Himself on the cross. But, of course, we shouldn’t stop there. You see, it’s a double-sided coin. If the prayer for our forgiveness is at the center of the drama of the Passion, well, that can only mean one thing: that our sin is at the center of the drama of the Passion. We have to be honest about our need for the forgiveness Christ so perfectly pays for.

We have this idea, I think, generically, that sin is bad. We like to gloss over just how bad it is. We have this sense that it leads us to this or that bad action, this or that bad fruit in a relationship. But it’s easy to miss just how pernicious, how truly deadly sin is. Personal sin, the sin that you and I commit, always seems accompanied by that nasty thought, that wicked temptation that is not really that deadly. It’s not really that bad. There’s that wonderful line: “The most successful lie that Satan ever told was to convince people that he doesn’t really exist.” It’s not really that bad.

When we sin against another person, we generally know that we’ve done it. Oh, sure, we may minimize it: “It wasn’t really that bad. It was just a little harmless bit of gossip. It was just a little judge-y or catty comment. It really didn’t hurt that other person so bad.” And in that minimization, especially when our sin against another person comes out of a place of exhaustion or loneliness or hurt or a myriad of other emotions we experience, it’s easy just to kind of set it aside. But if we’re honest in our quiet moments, we generally know that we’ve done it—when we sin against another person.

When we sin with another person—Ah, now you see, that’s a little more hard to discern, because that kind of sinning— well, let’s be honest. It’s exhilarating. It’s pleasurable. And that’s the kind of sinning, sinning with another person, that we also can rationalize. Not by minimizing it, so much as making it appear its opposite: “Oh, this is really good for our relationship. This is going to help us learn intimacy and trust and transparency.” No, actually, it isn’t. It’s sin, and sin wounds and sin hurts and sin demeans and sin destroys, every time, no matter if we say A is B and B is A. It still wounds. There’s a thing that comes out in the Liturgy of the Easter Vigil, tomorrow night. The Church’s preferred title for Satan is “The Father of Lies.”  He must be a really good liar if he can sow into our hearts that rather pernicious thought, that we can wound and endanger not only our own immortal soul, but someone else’s…and call it “love.” Sinning with another person—that’s harder to discern.

And then there’s the sinning that we all do by ourselves, the sinning that we do in the quiet of our own hearts and minds. We go on thinking that “we’re not really hurting anyone,” because we’re not necessarily doing anything, we’re not necessarily saying anything, but if we keep thinking that, then Satan has his day. Because it glosses over the communal nature of sin, that every sin has consequences and, perhaps, especially the ones that we keep bottled up inside. You see, we believe—you will find this eloquently described in the Catechism—we believe that all of human suffering, all the suffering that the world endures, is the consequence of sin.

That is where evil in the world comes from. God didn’t make it, so it has to come from somewhere. Evil arises out of sin. And so, when I choose to participate in sin, even the private ones, I participate in the very evil that afflicts the world and, what’s more, I add to it because I deprive the world of the exercise of my virtue and the witness of my personal holiness. See, it’s not just what you do, it’s what you deprive the world of: virtue and holiness. All of these things, sinning against someone, sinning with someone, sinning by yourself, this is what swirls and animates the drama of the Passion.

And so, on Good Friday, in this liturgy, what do we do? We take the cross and we solemnly unveil it. We have to look at the cross of Christ clearly and to acknowledge that, “I did that. My sin caused that.” And as painful as this clear-eyed look can be, as humiliating as it is to see the consequence of our sin—that, by the way, is what the Final Judgment looks like, to see the consequence of our sin revealed–the cross of Christ and the prayer of Christ in His Passion give us some comfort, because it reveals something.  Not just our sin, but his sovereignty, and God’s love. That was the extent He was willing to go out of love for you and me.

And so, when it comes to forgiving, Christ goes first. He always goes first. That’s the message of the cross. He does it, not because we deserve it, not because we have merited it, but because He is all good. Because He is Love incarnate. Christ’s forgiveness outstrips our meager definitions of what is good and what is just and what is fair.  Because God became Man, and we nailed Him to a tree. And He still loves us. There’s a new standard of love, that is revealed in the cross, a new standard of forgiveness, that is supposed to mark Christ’s disciples, you and me. When we look at Jesus crucified, that is what forgiveness is supposed to look like.

And yes, dear friends, if we take forgiveness seriously, that is also sometimes what it is going to feel like. True forgiveness is not looking at the other person and trying to see the good in them. True forgiveness begins by looking at yourself, by looking at your own sinfulness, your own unattractiveness, your own weakness, your own brokenness, and knowing that Christ loves you and has forgiven you so, you know what, forgiving that other person isn’t so hard after all. That’s what forgiveness is, because Christ gave us everything.

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” This on Good Friday must become, in a certain sense, our response. We, all of us today, have the opportunity to pray before the crucifix. Not in the way we would like to on Good Friday, as we are still prevented from worshipping together. But, as we pray before the crucifix today, have in your heart those from whom you need to ask forgiveness. Carry in your heart those whom you still have to forgive. We are bringing them to the cross. Present them before the mystery of God’s love revealed, and leave them there. Walk away a forgiven person. Walk away with the healing that only Christ’s love can bring. Pray for them, pray for yourself, and pray with confidence. Because the cross is not just God’s judgement upon the world, it is the revelation of His love, and the ultimate sign of how we are forgiven.

Holy Saturday

We find ourselves, once again, at the Church’s most solemn Vigil, the mother of all Vigils, where we welcome and watch for the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. His resurrection from the dead is so new and an event so unparalleled in the history of the preceding world, that there’s no one word, no one phrase, no one image that could possibly encapsulate it. In fact, it was part of the Church’s tradition for the first millennium that images of the Resurrection were forbidden—because what could possibly capture this singular event?

This Easter Vigil takes up four movements, four facets, if you will, of the gemstone of contemplation, and applies it to the Resurrection of the Lord.  First is the service of fire and light, where we recognize Him as the light that shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.  Then we have the great sweep of the scriptural readings, as we recount seven lessons from the Old Testament and one epistle to lead us deeper and deeper into the mystery. Then there is the Baptismal Liturgy, where we bless water, we renew our baptismal promises: And it is on this night that the Church, for centuries, has welcomed her newest members. And then, of course, the Eucharist, that Easter communion with our Lord who has risen from the dead, as He draws us into his own body and offers us to His own Father.

Usually, in the celebration of the Easter Vigil, it is the sacraments of initiation, Baptism and Confirmation, that seem to get the most attention, because our joy is overwhelmingly with these newest members to the life of the Church. This year, when our celebrations across the Church are again pared back, when they are veiled and have to be transmitted, because we cannot gather together, it gives us an opportunity to consider some of those other facets of the Easter Vigil. We all know the great sweep of those readings which we have heard, the narration of our Salvation History, the narration of the history of God with the human race. Seven readings from the Old Testament, and one Epistle, that build one on top of the other and are unique in their ability to communicate the mirabilia Dei, the great works of God, for us men and for our salvation.

The arc of readings we heard tonight is no mere casual collection or a compendium of past remembrances. Nor is it intended to impart merely some sort of knowledge or understanding or information about God. The history of our salvation passes, if you will, before our eyes, before the eyes of the Church. From Creation to Redemption, from Exodus to Mount Sinai, and to the truth from the Old to the New Testament. And on this night, the great work of God reveals fulfillment, that what has been promised of old in signs and figures has been brought about in Christ, not only for humanity in some general sense, but in our own personal histories as well.

The Church takes these seven Old Testament texts every year, in order to refine her vision, a vision that was crafted over centuries of God’s direct relationship and revelation to this people, so that, together, reflecting on these, we can see what God has been about in order to see better what God is about. And we can trace the dying and rising of Christ in our own bodies. In our own bodies, because Christ is risen from the dead. He is alive. In Him, there is only now the present tense, and His word, which He speaks, pierces more surely than a double-edged sword. The readings, then, bring us into direct contact with Him, and with the promise of eternal life that is at the heart of the Resurrection, and the power that He has, singularly, to save us not only from our sins, but even from death itself.

If you knew no other texts in the Bible heard only these seven readings and this one Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, it would lead you straight into the heart of the Gospel. This is the compendium of all the Scriptures which we have heard tonight. It is the story of God’s promises, now fulfilled in His Son. And so, there is a certain solemnity in the way that the Church preserves and proclaims these readings, especially on this most sacred night. Tonight at the Cathedral, we follow the ancient tradition that the readings themselves were sung in this wonderful rhythm of the Vigil. A chanted reading, a sung response, a spoken prayer asking for some promise prefigured in that reading to be fulfilled. This is not just to give some formality, this is not to just drag it out a little bit longer, since, well, “we have to do something special on Easter Vigil.” But it responds better to the Church’s intuition that these readings must engage the whole person, not just our minds. This is an exercise of the Church’s own poetic manner, a liturgical life that engages the mind and the heart and the soil, so that heart and soul might be fed on the banquet of God’s word.

When we hear a phrase sung, we hear it differently. A chant resounds. Its very voice lingers, if you will, in the echo, particularly in an empty church. And, from ancient times, it was not enough just to read a text, but to proclaim them aloud, even to sing them, to let the word itself play in rhythm and in pitch.  As St. Augustine would say, it plays to the ear of the heart. All of this is because Christian faith, the biblical faith that we profess, is incarnational. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father. We know Him, we recognize Him, and tonight, once again, we hear His voice. In assuming the lowliness of our mortality, Christ exults it to the heavens. In a regal body, He confronts death itself. Through real, tangible things, grace is transmitted to us. The waters of Baptism do really wash away sin and impart the light of God. Bread and wine are really transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit into the body, blood, soul, and divinity of the risen Lord. And ours is also a real participation in His body, the Church. So that, through our real faith, our imperfect hope, and our ever-striving love, the Gospel, the Word, is proclaimed in season and out to new generations, to people who have never heard it, to people who heard it and have forgotten it.

And his loving salvation, that plan for our flourishing and happiness is extended to every generation, through every time, and into every place. Tonight, we keep vigil at the tomb, and welcome the light of the Resurrection which dispels the darkness. He who is risen is a person, not a proposition. And so, we will keep vigil, we wait for a person, to be embraced by Him, so as to embrace Him. To be loved by Him, so as to love Him. To be called by Him, so as to respond. And to be saved by Him because, without Him, sin and death reign. The Resurrection is simply too big, too wonderful, and too new to encapsulate one word, one phrase, one image, one gesture. But, with the poetic memory of the Church, tonight set free, we can trace His rising to our communal and our personal history. This is how He speaks to us. This is how He has always spoken to us. This is how He reveals Himself and calls us into a relationship. So embrace the risen Lord. Trace your finger into the wounds from the Passion. Doubt no longer, but believe. For He who has died for our offenses lives. He is risen, as He said.

238 Infallible Dogmas of the Catholic Church

Father David Nix
De Fide: defined by the Catholic Church as infallible
Sent. Certa: infallible by corollary

The following 238 dogmas are clearly not exhaustive since the Catholic Church holds everything asserted in Scripture as articulated faith and morals to be infallible, as well as anytime the early Church Fathers speak unanimously on any such interpretation of Sacred Scripture. But the following list of 238 De Fide items are probably the most important ones.

An asterix below indicates definitions found in the first Seven Ecumenical Councils.

238 Infallible dogmas of the Catholic Church
  1. God, our Creator and Lord, can be known with certainty, by the natural light of reason from created things.
  2. God’s existence is not merely an object of natural rational knowledge, but also an object of supernatural faith.
  3. God’s nature is incomprehensible to men.
  4. The blessed in Heaven possess an immediate intuitive knowledge of the Divine Essence.
  5. The Immediate Vision of God transcends the natural power of cognition of the human soul, and is therefore supernatural.
  6. The soul, for the Immediate Vision of God, requires the light of glory.
  7. God’s Essence is also incomprehensible to the blessed in Heaven.
  8. The Divine Attributes are really identical among themselves and with the Divine Essence.
  9. God is absolutely perfect.
  10. God is absolutely simple.
  11. There is only One God. *
  12. The One God is, in the ontological sense, The True God.
  13. God is absolute veracity.
  14. God is absolutely faithful.
  15. God is absolute ontological Goodness in Himself and in relation to others.
  16. God is absolute Moral Goodness or Holiness.
  17. God is absolute Benignity.
  18. God is absolutely immutable.
  19. God is eternal.
  20. God is immense or absolutely immeasurable.
  21. God is everywhere present in created space.
  22. God’s knowledge is infinite.
  23. God knows all real things in the past, the present and the future.
  24. By the knowledge of vision God also foresees the future free acts of the rational creatures with infallible certainty.
  25. God’s divine will is infinite.
  26. God loves Himself of necessity, but loves and wills the creation of extra-Divine things, on the other hand, with freedom.
  27. God is almighty. *
  28. God is the Lord of the heavens and of the earth. *
  29. God is infinitely just.
  30. God is infinitely merciful.
  31. In God there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each of these Three Persons possesses the one (numerical) Divine Essence. *
  32. In God there are two Internal Divine Processions. *
  33. The Divine Persons, not the Divine Nature, are the subject of the Internal Divine processions (in the active and in the passive sense).
  34. The Second Divine Person proceeds from the First Divine Person by Generation, and therefore is related to Him as Son to a Father. *
  35. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son as from a Single Principle through a Single Spiration. [N.B. Orthodox Church rejects this.]
  36. The Holy Spirit does not proceed through generation but through spiration. *
  37. The Three Divine Persons are in One Another.
  38. All the ad extra Activities of God are common to the Three Persons.
  39. All that exists outside of God was, in its whole substance, produced out of nothing by God.
  40. God was moved by His Goodness to create the world.
  41. The world was created for the Glorification of God.
  42. The Three Divine Persons are one single, common Principle of Creation. *
  43. God created the world free from exterior compulsion and inner necessity.
  44. God has created a good world.
  45. The world had a beginning in time.
  46. God alone created the world.
  47. God keeps all created things in existence.
  48. God, through His Providence, protects and guides all that He has created.
  49. The First Man was created by God.
  50. Man consists of two essential parts-a material body and a spiritual soul.
  51. The rational soul is per se the essential form of the body.
  52. Every human being possesses an individual soul.
  53. God has conferred on man a supernatural destiny.
  54. Our first parents, before the Fall, were endowed with sanctifying grace.
  55. Our First Parents in Paradise sinned grievously through transgression of the Divine probationary commandment.
  56. Through sin our First Parents lost sanctifying grace and provoked the anger and the indignation of God.
  57. Our First Parents became subject to death and to the dominion of the Devil.
  58. Adam’s sin is transmitted to his posterity, not by imitation, but by descent.
  59. Original sin is transmitted by natural generation.
  60. Souls who depart life in the state of original sin are excluded from the Beatific Vision.
  61. In the beginning of time God created spiritual essences (angels) out of nothing.
  62. The nature of angels is spiritual.
  63. The Devil possesses a certain dominion over mankind by reason of Adam’s sin.
  64. Jesus Christ is True God and True Son of God. *
  65. Christ assumed a real body, not an apparent body. *
  66. Christ assumed not only a body but also a rational soul. *
  67. Christ was truly generated and born of a daughter of Adam, the Virgin Mary. *
  68. The Divine and human natures are united hypostatically in Christ, that is, joined to each other in one Person. *
  69. In the Hypostatic Union each of the two natures of Christ continues unimpaired, untransformed and unmixed with the other. *
  70. Each of the two natures in Christ possesses its own natural will and its own natural mode of operation. *
  71. The Hypostatic Union of Christ’s human nature with the Divine Logos took place at the moment of conception. *
  72. The Hypostatic Union will never cease. *
  73. The Hypostatic Union was effected by the Three Divine Persons acting in common.
  74. Only the Second Divine Person became Man.
  75. Not only as God but as man Jesus Christ is the natural Son of God.
  76. The God-Man Jesus Christ is to be venerated with one single mode of Worship, the absolute Worship of Latria which is due to God alone. *
  77. Christ’s Divine and Human characteristics and activities are to be predicated of the one Word Incarnate. *
  78. Christ was free from all sin, from original sin as well as from all personal sin.
  79. Christ’s human nature was passible.
  80. The Son of God became man in order to redeem men.
  81. Fallen man cannot redeem himself.
  82. The God-Man Jesus Christ is a High Priest. *
  83. Christ offered Himself on the Cross as a true and proper sacrifice. *
  84. Christ by His Sacrifice on the Cross has ransomed us and reconciled us with God.
  85. Christ did not die for the predestined only.
  86. Christ, through His Passion and Death, merited reward from God.
  87. After His Death, Christ’s soul, which was separated from His body, descended into the underworld. *
  88. On the third day after His Death Christ rose gloriously from the dead. *
  89. Christ ascended body and soul into Heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. *
  90. Mary is truly the Mother of God. *
  91. Mary was conceived without stain of original sin.
  92. Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit without the co-operation of man. *
  93. Also after the Birth of Jesus Mary remained a virgin. *
  94. Mary was assumed body and soul into Heaven.
  95. There is a supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul, which precedes the free act of the will.
  96. There is a supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul which coincides in time with man’s free act of will.
  97. For every salutary act internal supernatural grace of God is absolutely necessary.
  98. Internal supernatural grace is absolutely necessary for the beginning of faith and of salvation.
  99. Without the special help of God the justified cannot persevere to the end in justification.
  100. The justified person is not able for his whole life long to avoid all sins, even venial sins, without the special privilege of the grace of God.
  101. Even in the fallen state, man can, by his natural intellectual power, know religious and moral truths.
  102. For the performance of a morally good action Sanctifying Grace is not required.
  103. In the state of fallen nature it is morally impossible for man without Supernatural Revelation, to know easily, with absolute certainty and without admixture of error, all religious and moral truths of the natural order.
  104. Grace cannot be merited by natural works either de condigno or de congruo.
  105. God gives all the just sufficient grace for the observation of the Divine Commandments.
  106. God, by His Eternal Resolve of Will, has predetermined certain men to eternal blessedness.
  107. God, by an Eternal Resolve of His Will, predestines certain men, on account of their foreseen sins, to eternal rejection.
  108. The Human Will remains free under the influence of efficacious gracious, which is not irresistible.
  109. There is a grace which is truly sufficient and yet remains inefficacious.
  110. The sinner can and must prepare himself by the help of actual grace for the reception of the grace by which he is justified.
  111. The justification of an adult is not possible without Faith.
  112. Besides, faith, further acts of disposition must be present.
  113. Sanctifying grace sanctifies the soul.
  114. Sanctifying grace makes the just man a friend of God.
  115. Sanctifying grace makes the just man a child of God and gives him a claim to the inheritance of Heaven.
  116. The three Divine or theological virtues of faith, hope and love are infused with sanctifying grace.
  117. Without special Divine Revelation no one can know with the certainty of faith, if he be in the state of grace.
  118. The degree of justifying grace is not identical in all the just.
  119. Grace can be increased by good works.
  120. The grace by which we are justified may be lost, and is lost by every grievous sin.
  121. By his good works the justified man really acquires a claim to supernatural reward from God.
  122. A just man merits for himself through each good work an increase of sanctifying grace, eternal life (if he dies in a state of grace) and an increase of heavenly glory.
  123. The Church was founded by the God-Man Jesus Christ.
  124. Christ founded the Church in order to continue His work of redemption for all time.
  125. Christ gave his Church and hierarchical constitution.
  126. The powers bestowed on the Apostles have descended to the bishops.
  127. Christ appointed the Apostle Peter to be the first of all the Apostles and to be the visible Head of the whole Church, by appointing him immediately and personally to the primacy of jurisdiction.
  128. According to Christ’s ordinance, Peter is to have successors in his Primacy over the whole Church and for all time.
  129. The successors of Peter in the Primacy are the bishops of Rome.
  130. The Pope possesses full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church, not merely in matters of faith and morals, but also in Church discipline and in the government of the Church.
  131. By virtue of Divine right the bishops possess and ordinary power of government over their dioceses.
  132. Christ is the Head of the Church.
  133. In the final decision on doctrines concerning faith and morals the Church is infallible.
  134. The primary object of infallibility is the formally revealed truths of Christian Doctrine concerning faith and morals.
  135. The Pope is infallible when he speaks ex cathedra.
  136. The totality of the Bishops in infallible, when they, either assembled in general council or scattered over the earth, propose a teaching of faith and morals as one to be held by all the faithful.
  137. The Church founded by Christ is unique and one. *
  138. The Church founded by Christ is holy. *
  139. The Church founded by Christ is catholic. *
  140. The Church founded by Christ is apostolic. *
  141. Membership of the Church is necessary for all men for salvation.
  142. It is permissible and profitable to venerate the Saints in Heaven, and to invoke their intercession.
  143. It is permissible and profitable to venerate the relics of the Saints.
  144. It is permissible and profitable to venerate the images of the Saints. *
  145. The living Faithful can come to the assistance of the souls in purgatory by their intercessions.
  146. The Sacraments of the New Covenant contain the grace which they signify, and bestow it on those who do not hinder it.
  147. The Sacraments work ex opere operato (operate by the completed sacramental action).
  148. All the Sacraments of the New Covenant confer sanctifying grace on the receivers.
  149. Three Sacraments, Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders, imprint a character, that is, an indelible spiritual mark, and for this reason, cannot be repeated.
  150. The Sacramental Character is a spiritual mark imprinted on the soul.
  151. The Sacramental Character continues at least until the death of its bearer.
  152. All Sacraments of the New Covenant were instituted by Jesus Christ.
  153. There are Seven Sacraments of the New Law.
  154. The Sacraments of the new Covenant are necessary for the salvation of mankind.
  155. For the valid dispensing of the Sacraments it is necessary that the minister accomplish the Sacramental Sign in the proper manner.
  156. The minister must further have the intention at least doing what the Church does.
  157. In the case of adult recipients moral worthiness is necessary for the worthy or fruitful reception of the Sacraments.
  158. Baptism is a true Sacrament instituted by Jesus Christ.
  159. The material remota of the Sacrament of Baptism is true and natural water.
  160. Baptism confers the grace of justification.
  161. Baptism effects the remission of all punishments of sin, both the eternal and the temporal.
  162. Even if it be unworthily received, valid Baptism imprints on the soul of the recipient an indelible spiritual mark, the Baptismal Character, and for this reason, the Sacrament cannot be repeated.
  163. Baptism by water is, since the promulgation of the Gospel, necessary for all men without exception, for salvation.
  164. Baptism can be validly administered by anyone.
  165. Baptism can be received by any person in the wayfaring state who is not already baptized.
  166. The Baptism of young children is valid and licit.
  167. Confirmation is a true Sacrament properly so-called.
  168. Confirmation imprints on the soul an indelible spiritual mark, and for this reason, cannot be repeated.
  169. The ordinary minister of the Confirmation is the Bishop.
  170. The Body and Blood of Jesus Christ are truly, really and substantially present in the Eucharist.
  171. Christ becomes present in the Sacrament of the Altar by the transformation of the whole substance of the bread into His Body and of the whole substance of the wine into His Blood.
  172. The Accidents of bread and wine continue after the change of the substance.
  173. The Body and Blood of Christ together with His Soul and His Divinity and therefore the Whole Christ are truly present in the Eucharist.
  174. The Whole Christ is present under each of the two species.
  175. When either consecrated species is divided the Whole Christ is present in each part of the species.
  176. After the Consecration has been completed the Body and Blood are permanently present in the Eucharist.
  177. The Worship of Adoration must be given to Christ present in the Eucharist.
  178. The Eucharist is a true Sacrament instituted by Christ.
  179. The matter for the consummation of the Eucharist is bread and wine.
  180. For children before the age of reason the reception of the Eucharist is not necessary for salvation.
  181. Communion under two forms is not necessary for any individual member of the Faithful, either by reason of Divine precept or as a means of salvation.
  182. The power of consecration resides in a validly consecrated priest only.
  183. The Sacrament of the Eucharist can be validly received by every baptized person in the wayfaring state, including young children.
  184. For the worthy reception of the Eucharist the state of grace as well as the proper and pious disposition are necessary.
  185. The Holy mass is a true and proper Sacrifice.
  186. In the Sacrifice of the Mass, Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross is made present, its memory is celebrated, and its saving power is applied.
  187. In the Sacrifice of the Mass and in the Sacrifice of the Cross the Sacrificial Gift and the Primary Sacrificing Priest are identical; only the nature and the mode of the offering are different.
  188. The Church has received from Christ the power of remitting sins committed after Baptism.
  189. By the Church’s Absolution sins are truly and immediately remitted.
  190. The Church’s power to forgive sins extends to all sin without exception.
  191. The exercise of the Church’s power to forgive sins is a judicial act.
  192. The forgiveness of sins which takes place in the Tribunal of Penance is a true and proper Sacrament, which is distinct from the Sacrament of Baptism.
  193. Contrition springs from the motive of fear is a morally good and supernatural act.
  194. The Sacramental confession of sins is ordained by God and is necessary for salvation.
  195. By virtue of Divine ordinance all grievous sins according to kind and number, as well as those circumstances which alter their nature, are subject to the obligation of confession.
  196. The confession of venial sins is not necessary but is permitted and is useful.
  197. All temporal punishments for sins are not always remitted by God with the guilt of sin and the eternal punishment.
  198. The priest has the right and the duty, according to the nature of the sins and the ability of the penitent, to impose salutary and appropriate works of satisfaction.
  199. Extra-sacramental penitential works, such as the performance of voluntary penitential practices and the patient bearing of trials sent by God, possess satisfactory value.
  200. The form of the Sacrament of Penance consists in the words of Absolution.
  201. Absolution, in association with the acts of the penitent, effects the forgiveness of sins.
  202. The principal effect of the Sacrament of Penance is the reconciliation of the sinner with God.
  203. The Sacrament of Penance is necessary for salvation to those who, after Baptism, fall into grievous sin.
  204. The sole possessors of the Church’s Power of Absolution are the bishops and priests.
  205. Absolution given by deacons, clerics of lower rank, and laymen is not Sacramental Absolution.
  206. The Sacrament of Penance can be received by any baptized person, who, after Baptism, has committed a grievous or a venial sin.
  207. The Church possesses the power to grant Indulgences.
  208. The use of Indulgences is useful and salutary to the Faithful.
  209. Extreme Unction is a true and proper Sacrament instituted by Christ.
  210. The remote matter of Extreme Unction is oil.
  211. The form consists in the prayer of the priest for the sick person which accompanies the anointing.
  212. Extreme Unction gives the sick person sanctifying grace in order to arouse and strengthen him.
  213. Extreme Unction effects the remission of grievous sins still remaining and of venial sins.
  214. Extreme Unction sometimes effects the restoration of bodily health, if this be of spiritual advantage.
  215. Only bishops and priests can validly administer Extreme Unction.
  216. Extreme Unction can be received only by the Faithful who are seriously ill.
  217. Holy Order is a true and proper Sacrament which was instituted by Christ.
  218. The consecration of priests is a Sacrament.
  219. Bishops are superior to priests.
  220. The Sacrament of Order confers sanctifying grace on the recipient.
  221. The Sacrament of Order imprints a character on the recipient.
  222. The Sacrament of Order confers a permanent spiritual power on the recipient.
  223. The ordinary dispenser of all grades of Order, both the sacramental and the non-sacramental, is the validly consecrated bishop alone.
  224. Marriage is a true and proper Sacrament instituted by God.
  225. From the sacramental contract of marriage emerges the Bond of Marriage, which binds both marriage partners to a lifelong indivisible community of life.
  226. The Sacrament of Matrimony bestows Sanctifying Grace on the contracting parties.
  227. In the present order of salvation death is a punishment for sin.
  228. All human beings subject to original sin are subject to the law of death.
  229. The souls of the just which in the moment of death are free from all guilt of sin and punishment for sin, enter into Heaven.
  230. The bliss of Heaven last for all eternity. *
  231. The degree of perfection of the beatific vision granted to the just is proportioned to each one’s merits.
  232. The souls of those who die in the condition of personal grievous sin enter Hell.
  233. The punishment of Hell lasts for all eternity.
  234. The souls of the just which, in the moment of death, are burdened with venial sins or temporal punishment due to sins, enter Purgatory.
  235. At the end of the world Christ will come again in glory to pronounce judgment. *
  236. All the dead will rise again on the last day with their bodies. *
  237. The dead will rise again with the same bodies as they had on earth.
  238. Christ, on his second coming, will judge all men. *

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The opinions expressed herein are largely those of the blog author. Every effort is made to conform to Church teaching. Comments are welcome.