On Retreat This Week

Every year, at the start of the spring semester, each class at Kenrick-Glennon seminary goes on a silent retreat. This means that I'll be out of pocket this week, at Our Lady of the Snows (which is living up to its name). If you've already read the most recent posts, here are a few older ones that you may appreciate:

• A brief look at the historical case for Catholicism, based upon arguments made by Hilaire Belloc, in Europe and the Faith. Key point: “even if we had no evidence whatsoever of what the Christians of the first or second century believed, the mere fact that we do have historical evidence that there was a stable Christian community obsessed with doctrinal accuracy, loathing theological novelty, and holding fast to what they claimed was Tradition into the early third century would make it quite likely that theres was the authentic Apostolic Faith. ”
  
• One of the first posts on this blog, arguing that St. Paul learned the truth about the Church from his conversion on the Road to Damascus, and that this conversion helps explain his emphasis on the Church as the Body and Bride of Christ.
  
• Where in the Bible is the Trinity?
  
• And finally, three things you may have missed from John 9.

See you next week! God bless.

Taking a “People First” Approach to Homosexual Attraction and Actions

I want to spend this, my first blog post of 2014, addressing how we think about the subject of homosexual attractions and actions. For what it's worth, much of this applies to heterosexual attractions and inclinations, as well. I think an overhaul in our thinking on the subject is long overdue. Hear me out, then let me know what you think.

Lothar Meggendorfer, illustration from
What Should I Be? (1888)

In a piece arguing against the use of the phrase “the mentally ill,” Carey Goldberg advocates for “people first” language, because it avoids defining people by their diagnosis:

Some newly minted peer specialists sat me down and re-educated me about the wrongness of using “the mentally ill” and the rightness of using “people first” language. A person is not defined by a diagnosis, they said. If you have a mental illness it doesn’t define you any more than your heart disease defines you if you’re a cardiac patient. A person is a person who happens to have depression or schizophrenia; the correct term is “people with mental illness.”

That’s the phrase I’ve used ever since, and I’ve come across “people first” language in other contexts. I once referred to patients as “diabetics” in a story about diabetes, but quickly converted it to “people with diabetes” when a specialist corrected me.

When I was writing recently about obesity and the increasingly widespread concept that it is a chronic disease, it made instant sense to me when advocates told me that I should write “people who have obesity” instead of “the obese” or “obese people.”

Yes, “people first” language is less concise. But a couple of added words seem a small price to pay for according greater dignity to people facing extra challenges.

As Goldberg notes, the AP style guide has tried to move towards such “people first” language in several areas. It explained its decision in this way:

The AP’s decision to stop using “illegal immigrant” is part of a larger shift away from labeling people and toward labeling behaviors. For example, the new entry on mental illness says to refer to people “diagnosed with schizophrenia” instead of “schizophrenics.”

The drawback of “people first” language is that it is clunky: adjectives typically precede nouns in English, so it can be cumbersome to reword. Plus, much of the “people first” language is obnoxiously euphemistic, like referring to people with mental illness “people with mental health experiences,” an apparently-meaningless jumble of words (do people without mental illness not have “mental health experiences”?).

Still, while the approach is not without its drawbacks, it's a healthy reminder of who we are at heart. Most fundamentally, we are persons, not “the obese,” or schizophrenics, or “illegal immigrants” ... or “homosexuals.” 

There's a reason that the Catechism uses the phrase “men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies” (CCC 2358) instead of “gays,” and it's not because it sounds better. It's because, just as it's not fair (or accurate) to define a person by their weight, or diagnosis, or immigration status, neither is it fair to define a person by their sexual attractions or orientations.

Here are three reasons to reject the standard way we speak (and more importantly, think) about sexual orientation:

(1) The popular view is reductionist, and defines us as our sexual impulses.

Fr. Paul Scalia put this brilliantly by arguing that GLAAD and the Westboro Baptist Church are, in many ways, two sides of the same coin. Both take a reductionist view of the human person to a bundle of sexual impulses. Instead of being men and women who are attracted to the same (or opposite) sex, we're “heterosexuals” or “homosexuals” (etc.), and we're not fully ourselves unless we're expressing this “identity,” by acting upon these sexual impulses and attractions.

This has obvious implications, of course. If we are our sexual urges, then we're not really “us” unless we're acting on those urges. And you'll hear this sort of loose language thrown around: people defending their lifestyle choices by saying that they have to “be themselves,” etc.

But a few moments reflection will show the absurdity, even insanity, of such a view. Within this view, the person most fully themselves is the person who mindlessly indulges all of their sexual impulses, without regard for their actions' impact on others – or indeed, on themselves.

And the implications of such a view are particularly troubling: the American Psychiatric Association recently caused a stir by listing pedophilia as a “sexual orientation,” a decision it quickly walked back. Surely, we can all agree that some people have urges that shouldn't be acted upon, right? If so, it certainly seems that a view that defines us as our urges is dangerous and wrongheaded.

(2) This reductionist view obscures the distinction between attractions and actions. 

“'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone,
'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'”
Peter Newell, illustration to
“Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There” (1902).

In the words of T.S. Eliot, “Between the idea / And the reality / Between the motion / And the act / Falls the Shadow.” Terms like “gay,” used as nouns, tend to bridge this chasm between attractions and activities through a sort of slight of hand.

Does it mean a person who is attracted to members of the same sex? Or does it mean a person who acts upon that attraction? For example, does it make sense to speak of people living a celibate life as “gay” (or, for that matter, “straight”)? Conversely, would a male prostitute who engages in homosexual actions, but is not same-sex attracted, be considered “gay”?

Often, it seems to simply mean whatever it is most politically expedient for it to mean. So, for example, when Human Rights Campaign says that “being gay” is not a choice, I trust that they're not claiming that all homosexual activity is rape. Rather, they are claiming that homosexual attractions are innate. So “being gay” is about one's attractions, right?

Not so fast.

When Human Rights Campaign claims that a principal was fired for “being gay,” they don't mean that she was fired for her attractions. They mean that she was fired after board members raised concerns about her “lifestyle,” that is, about the decisions she made in response to her sexual attractions. They're using the same term to mean two radically different things.

This obfuscation is widespread, but surely, the distinction is incredibly significant when speaking of the morality of homosexuality. Our inclinations are often outside of our control, and to that extent, aren't within the realm of moral analysis. But our actions, to the extent that they are within our control, are within the realm of moral analysis.

(3) This reductionist view treats it as impossible to love the sinner, and hate the sin.

One of the common reactions to Phil Robertson's recent comments on homosexuality was that his “homophobia clearly extends beyond the 'love the sinner, hate the sin' framing that opponents of LGBT equality use to sugarcoat their bigotry.”

This sort of reaction was widespread, and it shows that many people who disagree with the Christian view of homosexual activity simply don't believe us that we still love people who are same-sex attracted (and indeed, people who engage in same-sex behavior).

Anonymous, Drunken Old Woman (c. 200 B.C.)

Part of this is probably our fault: that we haven't done a good enough job of expressing that love, or showing that our opposition to homosexual activity is precisely because we think it's dangerous and harmful to the individuals involved. Our opposition to the lifestyle is based upon our love of the individuals involved, and our concern for their well-being. When we fail to express that underlying love, our opposition looks incoherent and hateful.

But part of the reason that message is hard to convey is because of our culture's muddled thinking about same-sex attractions and actions.

With a “people first” approach, the distinction between sinner and sin is plain, because it distinguishes between individuals and their actions and attributes. After all, you agonize over your uncle's excessive drinking precisely because of your love for him. You worry about your pastor's obesity because you want the best for him. You plead with your son to get health insurance, because you care about his well-being. You confront your husband about his adultery, because you love him.

Your hatred of alcoholism, obesity, being uninsured, or adultery doesn't translate into a hatred of the people living these lives. Rather, hatred of the situation is born out of love of the people. If you didn't care about them, you'd let your uncle drink himself to death. You'd take the easy road, and indulge your pastor's obesity. You'd avoid mentioning your son's lack of insurance or your husband's lack of fidelity.

Of course, you wouldn't be doing them any favors with your silence or indulgence: you'd just be taking the easy road. The truly loving response is to intervene, to address the situation that needs addressing, even if it damages your relationship with the ones you love.

But to the extent that people with homosexual attractions are defined by those attractions, to hate the attraction looks like hating the individual. We wouldn't dream of doing that with any of the other cases. We wouldn't use, for example, one's genetic predisposition for alcoholism or obesity as a justification of a lifestyle that aggravates those predispositions. We wouldn't accuse anyone anti-alcoholism or anti-obesity of hating the individuals struggling with (or indulging) excessive food and drink.

For that matter, if your husband acts upon his sexual orientation by cheating on you with another woman, you don't praise him for “embracing his identity.” You (hopefully) challenge him for embracing a destructive and unhealthy lifestyle.

So the reductionist view imagines that loving people means that we have to support the decisions that they make, an assumption that we rightly reject in every other area of area of our life.

Alternative: A People-First Approach to Homosexual Attraction and Actions

A healthier approach, a “people first” approach, to homosexual actions and attractions starts by rejecting the lie that people who are defined by their sexual urges or history. Reject the narrative pushed by GLAAD and by Westboro Baptist, because it's a fundamentally false one.

This rejection probably should involve eschewing terms like “gay,” since they are reductionist, and obscure more than they express. Admittedly, most other terms (“persons with same sex attraction,” etc.) sound clunky and clinical, so I understand the hesitation with making the shift. But it's worth the effort, because words matter.

As a friend of mine said: “it is the underlying attitude which is most important, but I believe that is best expressed through proper terminology, and I am not a "gay man who is celibate," but rather a Catholic Christian man who has same-sex tendencies. And, for the most part, I am simply a Catholic man.” Of course, it's even more important to make the mental shift: to keep that distinction clear and present in your mind, and not to fall into the trap of obfuscating inclinations, actions, and individual identities.

Jacopo Pontormo, Madonna and Child with Saints (1518).
Welcome to the family.

But this shift is more than a rejection, much more. Most especially, it involves an affirmation: that what defines us is that we are sons and daughters of the Most High God. As 1 John 3:1 says, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”

That is, there's something much more important, much more exciting, about you than your sexual preferences: you are a child of God. The world doesn't tell you this, and doesn't see this about you, because it doesn't know God. But once you come to see this – once you learn more about God, and about yourself – this fact should be the bedrock of your identity.

Do you have attractions and temptations towards a lifestyle contrary to what's fitting for a child of God, contrary to what's pleasing to God? Join the club. Have you fallen, done things you know displeased God, things which harmed you and those you loved, things you desperately wish you could take back? Do you continue to struggle with sins? Again: join the club.

We're not children of God because we're so good. We're children of God because He's so good.

Of course, this isn't a call to go “sin boldly.” It's a call to turn our lives over to God, to give Him even our sins, that they may be burned up in the fire of His Mercy.

Always remember that you are loved by the All-Powerful God of the Universe. But more than that, you are a child of this God, and have been promised a divine inheritance and eternal life with Him, if you but persevere through the tough times (Romans 8:15-17):

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!”it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Your lifestyle should reflect this. You should live in a way that reflects your royal status: “And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming” (1 John 2:27).

That's who you are, at heart, and that's what you're called to. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.

Making Sense of One of the Most Shocking Verses in Scripture

James Tissot, Jesus Found in the Temple (1890)

Yesterday's Gospel has one of the most shocking verses in the New Testament, Luke 2:51, “And he [Jesus] went down with them [Mary and Joseph] and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart.” Is there any Marian hymn in the world with a more scandalous message than that? Scripture is telling us that the God of the all the Universe, the omnipotent, omniscient Second Person of the Trinity, chose to lower Himself and become obedient to Mary and Joseph.

The point of the occult, of every bit of black magic throughout every age of history, has been fixated on one thing: bending the supernatural or Divine to our wills. Instead of obeying God, the occult seeks to make God obey us (or, barring that, settling for working with one of His fallen angels). Yet Jesus Christ takes the initiative, and gives this most coveted authority to a poor Jewish couple. If this weren't explicitly in Scripture, can there be any doubt that Protestants would accuse Catholics of idolatry for believing this about Mary and Joseph?

This affirms that Mary and Joseph are true parents to Jesus Christ, as shocking and upsetting as that might be. There is a tendency amongst some Protestants to reduce them to something much less: to treat Mary like some sort of human mason jar that happened to hold the Christ, but who can be discarded after Christmas along with the tree, or to treat Joseph like an imposter. A Protestant reader actually accused Mary of being a liar for calling Joseph Jesus' father (Lk. 2:48), yet that's exactly what Scripture says of him (Lk. 2:41). True, he's not Jesus' biological father, but that's how adoption works. And since all of us are adopted (since Christ is the only-begotten Son, as John 3:16 says), who are we to complain?

And the timing of this verse is significant. It comes just two verses after Jesus says to His parents (Lk. 2:49), “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

That is, Jesus doesn't trade obedience to God the Father for obedience to Mary and Joseph. Rather, in obeying His parents, He is obeying the Father; and in obeying the Father, He is obeying His parents (since this is their greatest desire for Him). There's no tension or competition between the two. The Father isn't jealous of Joseph for doing the very thing He placed him on earth to do, for example. Loving and honoring Mary and Joseph isn't somehow contrary to loving and honoring the Father.

So we, who are adopted into the Holy Family by virtue of our Divine adoption (cf. Ephesians 1:5), must follow our Lord's example. Love, honor, and obey Mary and Joseph with abandon, with the knowledge that you are doing the will of God, and following the example of Jesus Christ.

Did St. Joseph Suspect the Virgin Mary of Adultery?

Carravagio, Annunciation (1608)

The Gospel at tonight's Christmas Vigil Mass begins (Matthew 1:18-19):

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the Holy Spirit.  

Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly.

These two verses are chock full of misunderstood information. Let me propose three major points of inquiry for careful reflection:

1. What is the marital status of Mary and Joseph? Are they betrothed? Or is Joseph already her husband?
   
   
2. What is the connection between Joseph's justice and his unwillingness to expose Mary to shame?
   
   
3. What is the connection between Joseph's justice and his decision to quietly divorce the Virgin Mary? (Why does Matthew choose to include this detail here?)

These are questions that Christians often get incorrect. For example, to the first question, the Douay-Rheims  version of Matthew 1:18 says that “Mary was espoused to Joseph,” while the New International Version of the same passage says that “Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph.” That's not a slight difference: is Mary an unwed mother or not?

As for the second question, there is another significant translation difference. The Douay version of v. 19 describes Joseph as “being a just man, and not willing publicly to expose her” (Mt. 1:19 DRA), while the NAB describes him as “a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame” (Mt. 1:19 NAB). Again, that's a significant difference. The NIV splits the difference, putting “was a righteous man yet” in the text, with a footnote that says “Or was a righteous man and.”

Again, this is a significant difference. If the NAB is right, Joseph's justice appears to be in tension with his goodness: he wants to do what is right, but he also wants to be gracious towards Mary. A seeming conflict emerges: will Joseph violate the Law or his conscience? In the DRA, there's no such tension: he wants to do the right thing and the gracious thing.

Finally, what's the connection between Joseph's justice, and his plan to quietly divorce the Virgin Mary? John Piper, a prominent Evangelical leader, has a generally-good position paper on divorce and remarriage that includes this line:

But most important of all, Matthew says that Joseph was "just" in making the decision to divorce Mary, presumably on account of her porneia, fornication.

This is also the assumption that the NAB footnotes makes, and that I imagine most readers make: that Joseph the Just suspected the Virgin Mary of fornication, and decided to divorce her instead of confronting her about it.

Using Verbum Plus Library to Resolve All Three Questions

Michelino da Besozzo, The Marriage of the Virgin (1430)

A few weeks ago, Aric Nesheim at Logos Bible Software gave me a review copy of the new Verbum Plus Libraries to play with. It struck me that a good way of testing out the software would be to tackle these sort of questions, giving me the chance to simultaneously review this cool software and clear up some confusions about the Nativity account.

Since the reading in question is from tonight's Gospel, I typed “today” into the lectionary search bar: it let me choose whether I meant the Mass in the morning or tonight's Vigil, and then which reading I want. This is a quick way of finding the passage, if you heard something in Mass, but can't remember the chapter and verse. Of course, you can also start the search by looking up a specific chapter and verse or doctrine (e.g., looking up everything about baptism).

Once I chose the Gospel for the Vigil, Matthew 1:18-25, four things came up: the Scriptural text (in RSV:CE, my preferred translation); the relevant passage of “A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture,” a “cited by” window listing places in which this passage has been referenced, and an “explorer” bar tying the events mentioned in the passage with similar events from Scripture (like the birth of the Old Testament Patriarchs, etc.).

The Scriptural commentary that came up, “A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture,” happened to have quick answers to all three questions. The section begins:

Betrothal (qiddûšîn) in Jewish law conferred the status of husband and wife (hence the terms of 19 f.). A child conceived during this period was regarded as legitimate unless disowned, but the marriage was regarded as incomplete until the husband formally ‘took possession’ (the niśśû’în) of his bride by taking her to his home. This he was free to do at any time, 2 Kg 3:14; cf. Edersheim, I, 353–5.

A few years ago, when I explored this question for the first time (after hearing about it in a homily), I eventually discovered this. But it took quite a bit of research on Jewish wedding practices, and I had a hard time finding anything directly addressing the question of whether sexual intercourse was permitted after qiddûšîn, or how children born during this interim period were treated. Here, I have the answer almost instantly, and more thoroughly than I had achieved on my own.

Robert la Longe, Saint Joseph (17th c.)

In the program, most of the citations are hyperlinked, so if you want to read the people your sources are quoting, you can, very easily. In this case, the citation is to a two-volume work, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, by Rev. Alfred Edersheim. It doesn't come standard, but I got a preview, and the option to buy. If it were a capstone project, I could easily see this tool coming in handy (even if it meant paying for a few additional sources).

The answers to the latter two questions came just as easily, from the same commentary:

That denunciation was a legal duty in the circumstances cannot be proved; nor does the text suggest that Joseph sacrificed legal scruples (‘and’—not ‘but’—‘not willing to make her case public’). It suggests rather (Lagrange) that precisely because Joseph was ‘just’ (i.e. aware of duties to God and neighbour and, in this case, to Mary) he did not place the matter before the village-court. Such a course, though not necessarily involving condemnation (a woman might be pronounced blameless in such cases, Deut 23:25 f.) meant publicity for Mary, unwelcome and evidently incompatible with Joseph’s ‘justness’. 

In other words, the Douay-Rheims translation is superior to the NAB on this score, and there is no basis to conclude that Joseph's justness was incompatible with the mercy he showed his wife. Under the law, Joseph had three options: divorce Mary publicly, accusing her of adultery; divorce her quietly, before two witnesses; or acknowledge the child as his own. The first of these options doesn't just seem unkind, but unjust. Particularly if Joseph has reason to believe that Mary is a Virgin, it would be unjust to publicly denounce her. This gets to the third question, showing why Piper's interpretation is erroneous:

Why incompatible? Presumably because ignorance of the facts coupled with knowledge of Mary’s character made of mere publicity an injustice. St Joseph’s attitude is to be observed: there is no word of complaint or even of inquiry. The evangelist leaves us with the impression of a patient instrument of God. [...] His delicacy is admirable—communicated to him, no doubt, from his knowledge of Mary. He cannot believe her blameworthy; he knows nothing of the Annunciation (Mary had been silent and absent for three months, Lk 1:39 ff.); he can think only of some unknown cause, perhaps supernatural, certainly consistent with Mary’s character.

In Piper's explanation of the text, Joseph doesn't assume that Mary was the prophesied Virgin of Isaiah 7:14, or even that she might be an innocent rape victim. Rather, without consulting her, he assumes the worst: that she has cheated on her new husband. And for this, Piper tells us, “Matthew says that Joseph was 'just'.” This explanation manages to besmirch the reputations of both Mary and Joseph, despite the clear Biblical evidence that both of them were holy and devout believers.

The explanation that Jones gives in the commentary that I've been quoting does a much better job of accounting for the evidence, and the character of the individuals involved.

Nevertheless, this is just a single source. So what else can we pull from the Verbum Libraries?

Anton Raphael Mengs, The Dream of St. Joseph (1774)

Well, if you hover over the Scriptural passages, it tells us what the Greek word being translated is. You can then go from there to a Strong's lexicon. In this way, we quickly find out that the word in question in v. 18 is μνηστεύω: “mnēsteuō; from 3415 (in the sense of to court a bride); to espouse, betroth.” And the word in question in v. 19 is καί, a conjunctive generally meaning “and, even, also,” and only translated as “yet” nine ties in the NASB (compared to 535 times that it was translated as “even”). This supports our earlier conclusions.

But let's go even deeper: what do the Church Fathers say? The “cited by” window brings up 23 results in 18 separate places in 13 resources for Matthew 1:18, and about half that many for Matthew 1:19. Most of these are general references to the Virgin Birth, but there is some fruit. For example, St. Jerome's treatise The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary, Against Helvidius, lists a couple other areas in Scripture in which a betrothed spouse is called a wife (Deut. 20:7; Deut. 22:23-25).

The most helpful resource for Patristic opinions turned out to be the Catena by St. Thomas Aquinas, which contains Fathers arguing both sides of the question. Many of the Fathers, including Augustine and Chyrsostom, read the passage as Joseph suspecting Mary, and wanting to handle it quietly to preserve her reputation (or even her life). But Jerome proposed an alternative reading, that “this may be considered a testimony to Mary, that Joseph, confident in her purity, and wondering at what had happened, covered in silence that mystery which he could not explain.” Rabanus likewise says that Joseph:

beheld her to be with child, whom he knew to be chaste; and because he had read, There shall come a Rod out of the stem of Jesse, (Is. 11:1.) of which he knew that Mary was come, and had also read, Behold, a virgin shall conceive, (Is. 7:14.) he did not doubt that this prophecy should be fulfilled in her.

And Origen asked:

But if he had no suspicion of her, how could he be a just man, and yet seek to put her away, being immaculate? He sought, to put her away, because he saw in her a great sacrament, to approach which he thought himself unworthy.

All of this also explains why Matthew tells us that Mary and Joseph didn't consummate the marriage throughout her pregnancy, even after they moved in together, the second stage of the wedding (niśśû’în; see Mt. 1:24-25).

Hovering over any of the names tells us who these men were. For example, “Rabanus” refers to Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mayence, A.D. 847. The program also offers helpful doctrinal connections with a Catholic Topical Index, so I can explore how these verses are related to conception, Trinity, the Holy Spirit, Joseph, and a range of other topics. It also tipped me off to a wealth of Magisterial assistance, like Blessed John Paul II's encyclical Redemptoris Custos, which is all about St. Joseph. This encyclical has a whole chapter dedicated to how Joseph is a just man.

Conclusions

For the three questions proposed, we can safely conclude first that Mary and Joseph had undergone the first of the two stages of a Jewish wedding (qiddûšîn), and were husband and wife in the eyes of the Law, capable of having intercourse and bearing legitimate children. That they weren't having intercourse is ascribable to Mary's perpetual Virginity.

Second, we can conclude that Joseph's justness isn't incompatible with his desire to protect Mary's reputation, but consistent with it. This is particularly true if he is aware (given her character and perpetual virginity) that her conception couldn't have been the result of fornication. These conclusions are supported by some of the Church Fathers, and do a far better job accounting for the whole of the Scriptural evidence than the alternate interpretation.

Third, Joseph's desire for a quiet divorce is probably because he recognizes Mary as the Virgin Mother of the Messiah prophesied in Scripture, and a sort of "Great Sacrament," as Origen tells us. Anyone familiar with the Ark of the Covenant (so holy that it could not be touched) would have been justly frightened to be married to Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant.

Final Notes on Verbum Plus Library

Having put Verbum Plus Library, what are my reactions to it as software? Well, it's a large program running a lot of operations at once, and I was concerned about it working on my laptop (I bought the cheapest one that Best Buy sells), but it actually ran fairly well -- and it wasn't the only program running at the time, either.

I mentioned that it runs a lot of operations at once: this takes some getting used to. It has a large library that it downloads the first time you use it, and it periodically updates, indexes, etc. When you first use it, the whole experience can seem overwhelming: there are five windows, and each of these have multiple tabs you can flip through. After a while, it starts to feel more intuitive, once you know what you're trying to do with it. Still, I only scratched the surface of the available tools: there's everything from a Sentence Diagram tool to an image search feature.

All that said, this software isn't cheap. It's $934.95, although it's 10% off during Christmastime. Logos claims that the software has a print value of over $10,000, although I'm not overly persuaded by that figure. After all, if I weren't using Verbum, I wouldn't be buying $10,000 in books. I'd either be using online resources, or at a library. And many of the Patristic and Magisterial documents are freely available online (although the same isn't true of many of the modern resources that Verbum has). Still, they do boast a wealth of resources that are hard to find anywhere else, so I view the chief trade-off as time vs. money. With enough time and expertise, you could probably replicate Verbum's results without spending any money. It's just quicker and easier with Verbum. It's like going to the mechanic's instead of fixing the car yourself. 

So I enjoyed it, but I can't in good conscience tell everyone reading this to go spend a thousand dollars on a piece of software (even a very helpful piece of software). But I don't think it's intended for everyone. Rather, I think it's for universities, professors, theologians, grad students, apologists, perhaps seminarians and some undergrads. And in those cases, I think it's certainly worth the consideration.

Merry Christmas!

Day 7: O Emmanuel

Tonight's O Antiphon is the last one, and it's the most famous and probably the most beautiful.  It's “O Emmanuel.” The name Emmanuel.means “God with us,” and it's taken from Isaiah 7:13-14, in which Isaiah says,

“Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”

The most incredible insight to the name (and title) Emmanuel was one I discovered last year.  Here's what I wrote on it last Christmas:

Emmanuel is unique, in that it is prophetic, in a way, of the name of Christ. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, in Volume 1 of Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word (a particularly fitting book to quote from, since I started reading it after getting it for my dad for Christmas), spoke about the radical significance behind Matthew's translation in Matthew 1:24 of Emmanuel from Hebrew, the language the Jews considered sacred, to Greek, the language of the Gentiles and the world.  He sees in this translation a parallel between the Old and New Covenant, and how God is viewed under each.  From there, he says:

“On the subject of Jesus as "translator" of God, Fray Luis de Leon, the Spanish Dominican who was also a great writer, has left us an unforgettable formulation in his treatise on The Names of Christ. He says that the sacred Name of God in the Old Testament, יהוה, the unpronounceable tetragrammaton, is found again in the Hebrew name of Jesus, ישוע, with the addition of the radicals from the verb "to save" and the vowels necessary to pronounce the divine Name. In this way, while the Name of God is so holy, mysterious, and pure that it cannot be pronounced by a human mouth, the addition of Christ's divine will to save mankind "translates," that is, transfers, the sanctity of God to our level as creatures and at last makes it possible for us, too, to pronounce God's true Name, which cannot be any other than Jesus, and thus be saved,  All else that we subsequently come to know about God rests on this primary revelation: He is the One who saves us in Jesus.”

It's an amazing insight.  Now, go back to the prophesy in Isaiah 7:14.  The name Emmanuel means "God with us," and the name Jesus explains how and why God is with us.  That is, He's with us in the Person of Jesus Christ, and He's with us to save.

--------------------------------------------------------------

The traditional Latin Antiphon is:

O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster,expectratio gentium, et Salvator earum:veni ad salvandum nos,Domines, Deus noster.

Which means, in English:

O Emmanuel, our King and our Law-giver,
Longing of the Gentiles, yea, and salvation thereof,
Come to save us, O Lord our God!

It corresponds, of course, to the first verse of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel:

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.

And the English version used in the Antiphon today:

O Emmanuel, king and lawgiver,
desire of the nations, Savior of all people:
Come and set us free, Lord our God.

And finally, here are the Dominican student brothers at Blackfriars in Oxford singing the Latin plainchant:

Day 6: O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations)

Tonight's O Antiphon is “O Rex Gentium,” meaning “King of the Nations,” or “King of the Gentiles.” The idea is that the Messiah would be King, not only of the Jews, but the Gentiles as well: that is, of all nations.  For example, Isaiah prophesied of the Christ (in Isa. 2:4),

“He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

And God says, in the Messianic prophesy in Isaiah 48:6,

“I will also make You a light of the nations
So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

This latter prophesy is explicitly applied to Christ by the priest Simeon in Luke 2:32.  This fulfills a theme we see thought the Old Testament from Genesis onwards-- that the Jews are chosen as God's people not only for their own good, but for the good of the Gentiles as well, so that all nations can come to Christ (see, for example, Gen. 22:18). Christ clearly fulfills this by opening the covenant to the Gentiles, just as He promises throughout His earthly ministry (see, for example, John 10:16).  And this mission of bringing all nations to Christ continues in the Church (Mt. 28:19-20).

St. Matthew notes of Christ that it's “in His name the Gentiles will hope,” and that this is in fulfillment of “what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet.” (Matthew 12:15-21, referring to Isaiah 42:1-4).  And  St. Paul talks about this repeatedly, particularly in his Letter to the Romans. One of the best explanations comes from Ephesians 2:16-18,

“And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.”

So, ironically, it's right here on the Cross, with a plaque reading  “Jesus Christ, King of the Jews” above Him (John 19:20), that the doors of the Church were opened to the Gentiles in a radical way.

The traditional Latin Antiphon is:

O Rex Gentium, et desideratus earum,
lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum:
veni, et salva hominem,
quem de limo formasti.

Which means, in English:

O King of the Gentiles, yea, and desire thereof!
O Corner-stone, that makest of two one,
Come to save man,
whom Thou hast made out of the dust of the earth!

It corresponds to the final verse from O Come, O Come Emmanuel:

O Come, Desire of the nations, bind
in one the hearts of all mankind;
bid every strife and quarrel cease
and fill the world with heaven's peace.

And the English version used in the Antiphon today:

O King of all the nations, the only joy of every human heart;
O Keystone of the mighty arch of man:
Come and save the creature you fashioned from the dust.

And finally, here are the Dominican student brothers at Blackfriars in Oxford singing the Latin plainchant:

This series was initially posted in Advent 2011.

Day 5: O Oriens (O Rising Sun)

Tonight's O Antiphon is “O Oriens.”  The Latin word “Oriens” literally means “Dawn,” “Rising Sun,” or “East.”  The “O Oriens” prophesy comes from Isaiah 9:1-7,

Holman Hunt,
Christ the Light of the World (1854)

But there will be no gloom for her that was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zeb'ulun and the land of Naph'tali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.  

Thou hast multiplied the nation, thou hast increased its joy; they rejoice before thee as with joy at the harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.

For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, thou hast broken as on the day of Mid'ian.

For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. 

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” 

Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and for evermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

So the coming Messiah will arrive as a Child, will be associated with Galilee, and His Advent will be like the dawn breaking forth.  And this, of course, is exactly how the New Testament describes Christ.  Zechariah prophesies that his son, John the Baptist, will be a forerunner for the Messiah, proclaiming  (Luke 1:76-79),

“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,  to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, when the day shall dawn upon us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

And St. John's Gospel is quite clear on this identification of Christ (John 1:5-9):

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light. The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world.

But the clearest identification with Isaiah 9 is when Matthew explicitly tells us that Christ fulfills this prophesy (Mt. 4:12-16):

Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth he went and dwelt in Caper'na-um by the sea, in the territory of Zeb'ulun and Naph'tali, that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “The land of Zeb'ulun and the land of Naph'tali, toward the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles -- the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.”

By the way, this depiction of Christ as Oriens is also why Catholic churches historically face east: ad orientum.  It's from building churches to face towards the East, towards the Oriens, that we get the word “orientation.”

The traditional Latin Antiphon is:

O Oriens, splendor lucis aeternae,
et sol justitiae:
veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris,
et umbra mortis.

Which means, in English:

O Dayspring, Brightness of the everlasting light,
Son of justice,
Come to give light to them that sit in darkness,
 and in the shadow of death!

It corresponds to the sixth verse from O Come, O Come Emmanuel:

O Come, Thou Dayspring from on high,
and cheer us by thy drawing nigh;
disperse the gloomy clouds of night
and death's dark shadow put to flight.

And the English version used in the Antiphon today:

O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice:
Come, shine on those who dwell in darkness
and the shadow of death.

And finally, here are the Dominican student brothers at Blackfriars in Oxford singing the Latin plainchant: