If I am to begin, I must delay in advancing the explanations for why an early and regular waking time is desirable, which anyway are felt by even those most devoted to lying late abed, immediately to answer the dominant objection: what if I am not tired at 9 or 10pm, but am in fact most awake and productive at that hour? Phrased in general, the content of this objection is this. All people, let us agree, have different personal circadian rhythms, such that their hours of most pronounced wakefulness and sleepiness are different. Some are chipper and alert upon arising, while others are torpid until late afternoon. I in no way wish to deny this, but I believe this objection is less final than those who make it think. To see this plainly, we need only consider the phenomenon of jet lag. That is, our bodies have clocks: when that clock is mismatched to the astronomical clock of the sun, we are confused and have difficulty sleeping and waking at the hours measured locally, at least until our body has readjusted. That this readjustment occurs, and it does, is the key to unraveling this objection. Even the most inveterate night owl can change the absolute time of his night owling if the driving stimulus — the sun and its course through the sky — are changed. Thus it is untrue that a person on a late schedule is unable to adjust his schedule: the preference for late hours is measured relative to a local waking time and, presumably, to some degree to the local sunrise and sunset times.

If it were not for the existence of artificial light, computer monitors, and curtains, I believe this phenomenon of late schedules would be very rare indeed. A brief tour of the physiology of sleep will help explain. Light –particularly bright light, like sunlight or a computer screen — causes our brains to release chemicals that causes wakefulness; we build up some of these chemicals throughout the day, which eventually trigger sleepiness. Exposure to light of any kind causes this phenomenon. Insufficient light can cause difficulty waking up and, thereafter, in sleeping, whereas excess light, especially into the night, can disrupt our ability to feel tired. Individuals vary on how sensitive they are to light inhibiting sleepiness, and it is my contention that many who consider themselves night owls are, in fact, night owls because of their sensitivity to light, particularly to the very bright and very white light of a computer monitor. For myself I know this largely to be true: if I do not limit my exposure to bright lights and computer screens for at least an hour before the time I wish to fall asleep, sleep is very difficult for me. There is sufficient internet literature on this point to convince me that this is no Ambrosian peculiarity.

If all of this is true, then what the “night owl” phenomenon mostly is is a circadian rhythm that is most active at the end of the wakeful day. But as we have established, the clock hours of the wakeful day are adjustable. Hence, if one is free to set one’s schedule — ie, leaving out the cases of shift workers and students writing to deadlines — there is simply no reason why even the late-alert person’s period of alertness cannot be moved freely, within some limits, through the day as measured by the clock.

Why move your schedule at all?

Why, though, is moving to an earlier schedule desirable at all? If a man be happy with his schedule as it is, why should he change it? To this I have two answers. The first is social. The world at large has decreed a particular schedule, shared by most and convenient to most. Many benefits accrue to one who lives on this widely adopted schedule: meeting people is easier, planning simpler. The late risers I have known habitually complain about scheduled appointments driving them out of bed before they have gotten sufficient rest. If I am right, this need not be so.

The second answer regards the spiritual life, and it is here that I finally make contact with this blog’s usual subject matter. This argument has two components, which are interrelated. The first is the givenness of the day: the sun shines during the socially normative schedule, and it is the sun that God gave us as our great light, materially speaking. To be driven from God’s day — and here we find where this post’s title came from — the day the Lord has made is something to avoid if possible; to be able to rejoice and be glad in the day, the given day, is a thing devoutly to be wished. The final reason has to do with self-discipline, denial, and sacrifice. The ease of awaking whenever, sleeping whenever, and damning the impinging perkiness of the morning person is on the face at odds with the life of that habitual death to self that is called for by Christ. As I have attempted above to show, this need not rob anyone of their most productive hours, even the late-alert person. By moving one’s schedule to an earlier time, it is possible to relocate those hours of alertness — not to morning, but to evening instead of midnight or later. This is not to say that such a change is simple or easy. It does in fact require much discipline from those who don’t nod off easily the moment that dinner is done. It is, however, and purely practically speaking, well known that a regular schedule is conducive to easier, better, and more restful sleep.

If you can’t wait till tomorrow, or don’t have the pleasure of a gregorian chant schola at your parish, you can also hear an .mp3 of this passage here

Aside from advertising this government service — and certainly not to encourage you all to run to their website to order yourself one –I was glancing through my new copy today and was surprised and pleased to note that they mark August 15th as “The Assumption of Our Lady.” Now, this is gratifying, but I should note that they also mark Kwanzaa and the birthday of, for instance, William Rowan Hamilton with the same font and placement, so it’s not exactly triumphalist Catholicism, but it’s better than nothing.

June 6th, 2008 at 6:30PM
Presented by
The Oratory of the Sacred Heart
at The Church of the Guardian Angel
193 Tenth Avenue at 21st Street
NYC (West side)

Celebrant: Very Reverend Msgr. Gilles Wach
Superior General of the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest
Deacon: Father Andreas Hellmann
Subdeacon: Father Cyprian La Pastina

Please join us at a convivium in the church hall immediately following Solemn Benediction

1, V, F, C, E trains to 23rd Street Station
M23 Bus to 10th Avenue

For information: (917) 535-2054

May 2nd, 2008 at 6:30 PM

Presented by
The Oratory of the Sacred Heart
at
The Church of the Guardian Angel
193 Tenth Avenue at 21st Street
Manhattan

C, E trains to 23rd Street Station
M23 Bus to 10th Avenue
For information: (917) 535-2054

flier here

Mosebach is a novelist, in Germany, and thus writes with an author’s eye and pen, rather than with a philosophers sharp quill and deduction. Which is not to say the book is fluffy or poorly reasoned; in fact, quite the opposite. Unlike many of the diatribes of traditionalists bewailing the failed state of things today — and despite the sad necessity of such cris du coeur — Mosebach takes his reader on a journey through the affective dimension of contemporary Catholic life as viewed by one steeped in the broad tradition of the West and thoroughly transformed by Christ and his Church.

There is argument here, but not the typical kind. Mosebach’s evident purpose is to give a warm robe to the sometimes dry subject of correct liturgical praxis and theological orthodoxy. We need excoriators of the false in the new and scholars of the minutiae of the old; but we also need compelling testaments to the life of beauty and joy that follow from the humble heart guided by the age-old practices of the Faith. It’s similar to the 118th psalm: a book-length celebration of the joy of a life lived according to the new law, written for today’s Church, which has fallen into a state of affairs not unlike Judaism just before King Josiah reformed it, where everything seems to have been forgotten.

One of the most winning and compelling points that he makes is to admit what a sad state of affairs it is, for a well-lived Catholic life, to have to be debating these matters at all. How ridiculous and destructive it is, he points out, that ordinary folk merely trying to live in Christ should have to pore over liturgical documents and become amateur scholars merely to retain the heritage that is theirs by right.

In short, this is a fine book to read: for those who already agree, to be consoled and informed, yes, but also to be reminded of what the wonderful fruit of final success in restoring tradition shall be. But it is perhaps even a better book for the literate and well-meaning but dubious modern who wonders what all this traditionalism business is about. If I had the guts or position, I might ask someone like George Weigel to give it a read (though Fr. Fessio’s rather lame Foreword suggests that some good people just won’t “get it”). But, my dear reader, what are you waiting for? Buy it yourself!

“To young people today, Vatican II reposes in a haze with Nicaea II and Lateran II. Their guileless ignorance at least frees them from the animus of some aging liturgists who thought that the Second Vatican Council defined a whole new anthropological stage in the history of man. The prolix optimism of many interpreters of that council has now taken on a patina—not that of fine bronze but more like the discoloration of a Bauhaus building.”

“[T]his thin, even epistemologically anorexic, book will long be of interest to ecclesiologists as they study its awkward ballet of resentments and vindications of the sort commonly found in youthful diaries that were not burned in maturity.”

“Prescinding from the claim that the liturgists did their preparatory work “patiently and humbly since October 1963 with the pope’s support” in order to be “more pastoral,” Marini fuels the suspicions of conspiracy theorists by admitting: “Unlike the reform after Trent,” the liturgical reform after Vatican II “was all the greater because it also dealt with doctrine.””

“Marini is not a slave to the principle of noncontradiction. ”

“Marini complains about “a certain nostalgia for the old rites.” In doing so, he contradicts Pope Benedict’s distinction between rites and uses, and he also fails to explain why nostalgia for the 1560s is inferior to nostalgia for the 1960s, except for the dentistry.”

The point, if I may expand, is that in this present darkness we humans can easily reach firm convictions and comprehension in our intellectual considerations that utterly fail to penetrate our lives generally. While this is an old theme, I return to it now because of late there has been some back-channel discussion among this site’s contributors about what does and doesn’t constitute prudent matter for discussion in this forum. I don’t want to address that question directly, though readers may leave their thoughts if they wish. Rather, I think a more interesting question is how a Christian views himself, his intellect, and his work in light of the demands of virtue, living under the shadow of the cross.

For the self-styled orthodox, the “remnant saved by grace,” the traditionally minded fighting the foes of modernity: us, in short — and I, in particular — this is a live and fraught question. What insalubrious effects proceed from knowing oneself to be better informed than the common lot, including the even more puffed up so-called scholars of liberal pseudo-Faith? There is a real danger here of becoming satisfied with one’s own orthodoxy, and a twin danger of being too consciously critical of the smug orthodoxy of your fellows in the foxhole: pride, in short, is not banished by accurate knowledge of theology, history, and pious praxis. “You believe that there is one God? You do well: the devils also believe and tremble.”

The parable of the prodigal son is relevant here. A generally pious and obedient lad, I spent much of my youth sympathizing with the apparently blameless elder brother, wondering at the injustice of showering that good-for-nothing second son with gifts after he’d squandered a fortune! It came then as something of a shock when, upon becoming really conscious, through grace, of the pervasiveness of my own sin during my entry into the Church, I realized that my sympathies had been misdirected all along.

The blockades to accurate self-knowledge are innumerable. One of the most haunting passages I know of is one in CS Lewis’ writing, where he drives home the point that everyone — and thus, necessarily, even I! — have at least sometimes, perhaps often, been that person who is standing in the way of someone’s desire, or plan, or dream, without knowing it. That each sin we have committed, a victory for Satan, has led to some general privation of good far beyond our knowing.

The only answer, then, is of course to return again and again to the cross of Christ, to the font of virtue, to the life of grace. It’s no good to be content with things as they are, or to excuse in ourselves the shortcomings common to those of our type, or position, or our personality. The sainthood that every one of us is called to is not of grandiose proportions; like St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, we may simply be asked to watch a door in plain obedience. We can be sure we are not doing the right thing if it is not painful, because we do love ourselves and our own image of ourselves so very much. But of course, we can always hope, since we similarly know that we would be lost were we doing it alone: but we are not.

But is that all there is to it? The image of the devout ancient filipina tearing through rosary 8 or 17 before cutting ahead of you for communion, or the cruel eyed unreconstructed monk scrupulously reading his office while living a pharisaical and joyless vocation? I hardly think so.

What is the first command God always made of His people in the old Testament? To sacrifice. To take a perfectly good animal — the best, in fact — that could be food, milk, hide, and money, and burn it up. A sacrificed animal was utterly destroyed, and it took a long time to build the altar of sacrifice too — time that could have been usefully spent, I don’t know, gutting a Philistine or at least composing a psalm. But God wanted sacrifice first, and even though they were accounted useless once they got routine, or if they were done with a wicked or impassive heart, He didn’t revoke their necessity until, of course, He Himself died in sacrifice.

We don’t have to burn our animals anymore, but what is sometimes forgotten, I think, in all this otherwise very good and fruitful talk about sanctifying work and making the Liturgy meaningful and prayerful and what not is that prayer is our sacrifice. To be close to God, to show that we trust Him, part of what we do is take a chunk of time each day and try to pray in it. We shouldn’t be doing this because it feels good, or because we learn new things, or even for emotional satisfaction — at least, not primarily. We should be doing it because God gave us everything, our lives and minds and world, and — like the Hebrew bull-burners of old — part of how we remind ourselves of that fact is by “wasting” a bit of it by giving it back to God in a way that only God can receive: by rendering it useless to any Earthly purpose. And that can be done any time, and in most states of mind. Time given to God is always good and graceful for us, even when we waste it and don’t really pay as close attention as we ought, so long as we’re giving up our own wills and doing some ridiculous thing — like kneeling uncomfortably in an ugly chapel or reading those long ornate passages that we can’t really get emotionally moved by — because it helps us to sanctify that space of time, to give it up to God.

On February 2, there will be a traditional Solemn Mass at Our Lady of Good Counsel in New York City. The church is located at 230 East 90th Street, between 2nd & 3rd Ave.

The traditional blessing of candles will start at 1pm. There will then be a procession inside then church before the beginning of the Solemn Mass.

Fr. Richard Trezza will be the Celebrant, Fr. Matthew Talarico (ICK) will be the Deacon and Fr. James Miara will be the Subdeacon.

All are welcome to attend! And may I say that Candlemas, or the Feast of the Purification, is the end of the Christmas season, and I can think of no better way to close out this holy Season of our Lord’s Birth than by attending such a celebration.

The cruelty that did not spare her youth shows all the more clearly the power of faith in finding one so young to bear it witness. There was little or no room in that small body for a wound. Though she could scarcely receive the blow, she could rise superior to it. Girls of her age cannot bear even their parents’ frowns and, pricked by a needle, weep as for a serious wound. Yet she shows no fear of the blood-stained hands of her executioners. She stands undaunted by heavy, clanking chains. She offers her whole body to be put to the sword by fierce soldiers. She is too young to know of death, yet is ready to face it. Dragged against her will to the altars, she stretches out her hands to the Lord in the midst of the flames, making the triumphant sign of Christ the victor on the altars of sacrilege. She puts her neck and hands in iron chains, but no chain can hold fast her tiny limbs.

A new kind of martyrdom! Too young to be punished, yet old enough for a martyr’s crown; unfitted for the contest, yet effortless in victory, she shows herself a master in valour despite the handicap of youth. As a bride she would not be hastening to join her husband with the same joy she shows as a virgin on her way to punishment, crowned not with flowers but with holiness of life, adorned not with braided hair but with Christ himself.

In the midst of tears, she sheds no tears herself. The crowds marvel at her recklessness in throwing away her life untasted, as if she had already lived life to the full. All are amazed that one not yet of legal age can give her testimony to God. So she succeeds in convincing others of her testimony about God, though her testimony in human affairs could not yet be accepted. What is beyond the power of nature, they argue, must come from its creator.

What menaces there were from the executioner, to frighten her; what promises made, to win her over; what influential people desired her in marriage! She answered: “To hope that any other will please me does wrong to my Spouse. I will be his who first chose me for himself. Executioner, why do you delay? If eyes that I do not want can desire this body, then let it perish”. She stood still, she prayed, she offered her neck.
You could see fear in the eyes of the executioner, as if he were the one condemned; his right hand trembled, his face grew pale as he saw the girl’s peril, while she had no fear for herself. One victim, but a twin martyrdom, to modesty and to religion; Agnes preserved her virginity, and gained a martyr’s crown.

from On Virgins by Saint Ambrose. I’ve always had a special devotion to St. Agnes and to St. Ambrose, so this seemed like something I should post.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season’d timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

– Geo. Herbert

Up to our own times, it has been the constant concern of supreme pontiffs to ensure that the Church of Christ offers a worthy ritual to the Divine Majesty, ‘to the praise and glory of His name,’ and ‘to the benefit of all His Holy Church.’

Since time immemorial it has been necessary – as it is also for the future – to maintain the principle according to which ‘each particular Church must concur with the universal Church, not only as regards the doctrine of the faith and the sacramental signs, but also as regards the usages universally accepted by uninterrupted apostolic tradition, which must be observed not only to avoid errors but also to transmit the integrity of the faith, because the Church’s law of prayer corresponds to her law of faith.’ (1)

Among the pontiffs who showed that requisite concern, particularly outstanding is the name of St. Gregory the Great, who made every effort to ensure that the new peoples of Europe received both the Catholic faith and the treasures of worship and culture that had been accumulated by the Romans in preceding centuries. He commanded that the form of the sacred liturgy as celebrated in Rome (concerning both the Sacrifice of Mass and the Divine Office) be conserved. He took great concern to ensure the dissemination of monks and nuns who, following the Rule of St. Benedict, together with the announcement of the Gospel illustrated with their lives the wise provision of their Rule that ‘nothing should be placed before the work of God.’ In this way the sacred liturgy, celebrated according to the Roman use, enriched not only the faith and piety but also the culture of many peoples. It is known, in fact, that the Latin liturgy of the Church in its various forms, in each century of the Christian era, has been a spur to the spiritual life of many saints, has reinforced many peoples in the virtue of religion and fecundated their piety.

Many other Roman pontiffs, in the course of the centuries, showed particular solicitude in ensuring that the sacred liturgy accomplished this task more effectively. Outstanding among them is St. Pius V who, sustained by great pastoral zeal and following the exhortations of the Council of Trent, renewed the entire liturgy of the Church, oversaw the publication of liturgical books amended and ‘renewed in accordance with the norms of the Fathers,’ and provided them for the use of the Latin Church.

One of the liturgical books of the Roman rite is the Roman Missal, which developed in the city of Rome and, with the passing of the centuries, little by little took forms very similar to that it has had in recent times.

It was towards this same goal that succeeding Roman Pontiffs directed their energies during the subsequent centuries in order to ensure that the rites and liturgical books were brought up to date and when necessary clarified. From the beginning of this century they undertook a more general reform.’ (2) Thus our predecessors Clement VIII, Urban VIII, St. Pius X (3), Benedict XV, Pius XII and Blessed John XXIII all played a part.

In more recent times, Vatican Council II expressed a desire that the respectful reverence due to divine worship should be renewed and adapted to the needs of our time. Moved by this desire our predecessor, the Supreme Pontiff Paul VI, approved, in 1970, reformed and partly renewed liturgical books for the Latin Church. These, translated into the various languages of the world, were willingly accepted by bishops, priests and faithful. John Paul II amended the third typical edition of the Roman Missal. Thus Roman pontiffs have operated to ensure that ‘this kind of liturgical edifice … should again appear resplendent for its dignity and harmony.’ (4)

But in some regions, no small numbers of faithful adhered and continue to adhere with great love and affection to the earlier liturgical forms. These had so deeply marked their culture and their spirit that in 1984 the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, moved by a concern for the pastoral care of these faithful, with the special indult ‘Quattuor abhinc anno,” issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship, granted permission to use the Roman Missal published by Blessed John XXIII in the year 1962. Later, in the year 1988, John Paul II with the Apostolic Letter given as Motu Proprio, ‘Ecclesia Dei,’ exhorted bishops to make generous use of this power in favor of all the faithful who so desired.

Following the insistent prayers of these faithful, long deliberated upon by our predecessor John Paul II, and after having listened to the views of the Cardinal Fathers of the Consistory of 22 March 2006, having reflected deeply upon all aspects of the question, invoked the Holy Spirit and trusting in the help of God, with these Apostolic Letters we establish the following:

Art 1. The Roman Missal promulgated by Paul VI is the ordinary expression of the ‘Lex orandi’ (Law of prayer) of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite. Nonetheless, the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V and reissued by Bl. John XXIII is to be considered as an extraordinary expression of that same ‘Lex orandi,’ and must be given due honour for its venerable and ancient usage. These two expressions of the Church’s Lex orandi will in no any way lead to a division in the Church’s ‘Lex credendi’ (Law of belief). They are, in fact two usages of the one Roman rite.

It is, therefore, permissible to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass following the typical edition of the Roman Missal promulgated by Bl. John XXIII in 1962 and never abrogated, as an extraordinary form of the Liturgy of the Church. The conditions for the use of this Missal as laid down by earlier documents ‘Quattuor abhinc annis’ and ‘Ecclesia Dei,’ are substituted as follows:

Art. 2. In Masses celebrated without the people, each Catholic priest of the Latin rite, whether secular or regular, may use the Roman Missal published by Bl. Pope John XXIII in 1962, or the Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1970, and may do so on any day with the exception of the Easter Triduum. For such celebrations, with either one Missal or the other, the priest has no need for permission from the Apostolic See or from his Ordinary.

Art. 3. Communities of Institutes of consecrated life and of Societies of apostolic life, of either pontifical or diocesan right, wishing to celebrate Mass in accordance with the edition of the Roman Missal promulgated in 1962, for conventual or “community” celebration in their oratories, may do so. If an individual community or an entire Institute or Society wishes to undertake such celebrations often, habitually or permanently, the decision must be taken by the Superiors Major, in accordance with the law and following their own specific decrees and statues.

Art. 4. Celebrations of Mass as mentioned above in art. 2 may – observing all the norms of law – also be attended by faithful who, of their own free will, ask to be admitted.

Art. 5. In parishes, where there is a stable group of faithful who adhere to the earlier liturgical tradition, the pastor should willingly accept their requests to celebrate the Mass according to the rite of the Roman Missal published in 1962, and ensure that the welfare of these faithful harmonises with the ordinary pastoral care of the parish, under the guidance of the bishop in accordance with canon 392, avoiding discord and favouring the unity of the whole Church. õ 2 Celebration in accordance with the Missal of Bl. John XXIII may take place on working days; while on Sundays and feast days one such celebration may also be held. õ 3 For faithful and priests who request it, the pastor should also allow celebrations in this extraordinary form for special circumstances such as marriages, funerals or occasional celebrations, e.g. pilgrimages. õ 4 Priests who use the Missal of Bl. John XXIII must be qualified to do so and not juridically impeded. õ 5 In churches that are not parish or conventual churches, it is the duty of the Rector of the church to grant the above permission.

Art. 6. In Masses celebrated in the presence of the people in accordance with the Missal of Bl. John XXIII, the readings may be given in the vernacular, using editions recognised by the Apostolic See.

Art. 7. If a group of lay faithful, as mentioned in art. 5 õ 1, has not obtained satisfaction to their requests from the pastor, they should inform the diocesan bishop. The bishop is strongly requested to satisfy their wishes. If he cannot arrange for such celebration to take place, the matter should be referred to the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei”.

Art. 8. A bishop who, desirous of satisfying such requests, but who for various reasons is unable to do so, may refer the problem to the Commission “Ecclesia Dei” to obtain counsel and assistance.

Art. 9. The pastor, having attentively examined all aspects, may also grant permission to use the earlier ritual for the administration of the Sacraments of Baptism, Marriage, Penance, and the Anointing of the Sick, if the good of souls would seem to require it. õ 2 Ordinaries are given the right to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation using the earlier Roman Pontifical, if the good of souls would seem to require it. õ 2 Clerics ordained “in sacris constitutis” may use the Roman Breviary promulgated by Bl. John XXIII in 1962.

Art. 10. The ordinary of a particular place, if he feels it appropriate, may erect a personal parish in accordance with can. 518 for celebrations following the ancient form of the Roman rite, or appoint a chaplain, while observing all the norms of law.

Art. 11. The Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei”, erected by John Paul II in 1988 (5), continues to exercise its function. Said Commission will have the form, duties and norms that the Roman Pontiff wishes to assign it.

Art. 12. This Commission, apart from the powers it enjoys, will exercise the authority of the Holy See, supervising the observance and application of these dispositions.

We order that everything We have established with these Apostolic Letters issued as Motu Proprio be considered as “established and decreed”, and to be observed from 14 September of this year, Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, whatever there may be to the contrary.

From Rome, at St. Peter’s, 7 July 2007, third year of Our Pontificate.

(1) General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 3rd ed., 2002, no. 397. (2) John Paul II, Apostolic Letter “Vicesimus quintus annus,” 4 December 1988, 3: AAS 81 (1989), 899.
(3) Ibid. (4) St. Pius X, Apostolic Letter Motu propio data, “Abhinc duos annos,” 23 October 1913: AAS 5 (1913), 449-450; cf John Paul II, Apostolic Letter “Vicesimus quintus annus,” no. 3: AAS 81 (1989), 899. (5) Cf John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Motu proprio data “Ecclesia Dei,” 2 July 1988, 6: AAS 80 (1988), 1498.

There are two other notable things about today. First is that pictured in the chant above — the hymn from the Second Vespers of this feast is the origin of the note-names for the Solfege system, the famous Ut (later Do)-Re-Mi naming of notes, immortalized in that favorite film of a certain, slightly unbalanced, bishop of some uncertain amount of schismatism. For the full text of the hymn to St. John the Baptist from which the notes come, click here. Sing it today for the Forerunner!

Finally, today is traditionally known as Midsummer’s day, since starting today (actually, a couple of days ago), the days of the year start getting shorter — an echo in the natural world of the Baptist’s saying, Illum oportet crescere, me autem minui, He must increase, and I must decrease.

There’s too much in the book to summarize its contents usefully, and since I have only the audio version thus far (I plan on buying the book itself soon), it is hard for me to pull direct quotes. In brief, the book’s goal is to expose Jesus to us as He — God — presented Himself to us. That is to say, through the mediation of scripture, tradition, and the Church. The pope early on dismisses most tracts concerned with the so-called “historical” Jesus as being mere portraits of their authors and their authors’ preconceptions, rather than giving any insight into the real Jesus.

So what does Pope Benedict give instead? Well, after a lot of talk about “scientific” criticism at the front, and the limits thereof, the Pope reverts to talking about Christ in a largely traditional way, albeit with not a few insights or comments drawn from modern critical methods. But these are put at the service of the narrative, not treated as ends in themselves. A lot of the book is in a format reminiscent of a series of really good sermons: there are many sub-sections, each addressing a particular point (The title “Son of Man,” say, or Christ’s calling of the Apostles). Each of these is fairly self contained, and a typical section does three things: (1) references the Fathers and modern exegetes (2) discusses various ways in which modern scholarship has failed to understand the point and (3) puts the particular question at hand into the context of Jesus’ mission and life.

The book did two things that I thought were really great. The first is the obvious one that you would hope for: Pope Benedict has helped us to know Jesus better, to understand what it meant for the eternal Word to become flesh and to enter history, to save us: the King regnavit a ligno crucis, ruling from the wood of the cross. This is the part of the book I can’t summarize, because the book itself is a quite compact read as it is: you should read it for yourself. A major theme, though, I can say is that the book tells the story of how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament, how He must be understood as the new and greater Moses — Moses, who was great because “he talked with God as one talks to a friend, face to face,” never actually saw God face to face, but only was permitted to see God’s back, and so he could only show us “God’s back”; whereas Jesus Christ, eternally begotten of the Father, can show us God as he truly is, to show us “God’s face”, because He is in eternal conversation with His Father, truly face to face. There’s a heck of a lot more, of course, but I think that the Pope quotes the thing about Moses seeing God’s back about twelve times in the text: he must really like that story.

The second marvelous thing that Pope Benedict has done in this book is to give the Christian world an answer to the scads and scores of modern “scholars” who seem to have nothing better to do than to undermine each and every aspect of Christ’s mission through “scholarship” and misreadings of the Gospel text, history, and tradition. Here, Pope Benedict’s history with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith must have helped, as he seems to be an authority on all the myriad ways in which the Gospels can be misread and abused. He manages to do this through a finely balanced combination of scholarship and common sense. For instance, concerning the question of the dating and composition of the Gospel of John, which nearly any scholar twenty years ago would have sworn to be a “Jesus poem” from the 3rd century with basically no historical reliability, since (1) it’s so different from the synoptics (2) no fisherman from Galilee (John) could have written in its theological Greek (3) its Christology is so well developed, so “incarnational” and (4) it seems to disagree with the earlier Gospels on several points. The pope, instead of ducking all this, confronts it head on, noting that even more modern scholarship has displaced the older stuff and pointed back to tradition: that Zebedee, John’s father, was probably a priest of the temple himself (hence explaining why the high priest knows John, and why John is allowed into the trial of Jesus), whose land was in Galilee and who probably just ran a fishing business on the side, which his sons helped with. Thus the upper room of the last supper would have been in John’s family’s Jerusalem house, and John would have in fact been steeped in the theological Greek that was spoken and written by the priestly class of the time. He addresses the other points as well, arguing that, while the Synoptic gospels give the parables and sayings of Christ to the crowds of Galilee, John’s discourses are reproductions of the teachings of Christ in Jerusalem concerning himself, hence their longer and more erudite form. He also asks how scholars can claim that the author of John is some school of Second Century theologians whom we should trust, if they so consistently lie in the text of the Gospel, saying “he who writes this was witness to it, and knows it to be true,” as John’s gospel so often does.

Thus, scholarly learning is used, but at the service of and as a complement to the traditional understanding, rather than as an excuse to toss out tradition altogether; and common sense, too, so often lacking in scholarly texts, is brought to bear. The pope does this throughout the book, not infrequently citing some modern exegete as having a good explanation of A, B, or C, but then going on to say that he is “wrong in his conclusions on X, Y, and Z, since ….” It’s refreshing, and a marvelous antidote to so much of the trash out there today, which we all have heard — too often, even from the pulpit. I know, for myself, that I had heard most of the silliness that the Pope refutes in my own Catholic high school and, naturally, frequently in the Episcopal church in which I was raised. I would have been a very happy young lad if I had had this book in my hands as a sixteen or twenty year old, who knew that this liberal theology was wrong, but who couldn’t really express why. The pope, here, does exactly that: he pierces these errors to their rotten hearts, but in a gentle way that has one constantly learning, rather than standing outside and cheering on, as a more polemical approach might have done. At the close of a section, one knows not only what is wrong, but why it’s wrong, and just how wrong it is! Because the pope so ties each point, too, into the whole of Christ’s mission, it becomes obvious that many of the erroneous statements of modern scholarship just can’t be, since they destroy the integrity of Christ’s whole life, an integrity and whole so stunning in its complete majesty and mystery.

To give a further taste, here are — paraphrased — some comments and insights from the text that stand out in my memory:
No “pious moralizer” would have been turned over to the Romans to be put to death. If the Messianic Christology that the Gospels put on Christ’s lips wasn’t developed until after his crucifixion, who are these brilliant theological minds who came up with all this amazing novelty, if they had only from Christ himself an utterly conventional understanding of Messianic hope? Barabbas = bar abbas, son of the father: the people of Jerusalem were asked to choose between one Son of the Father and another: they chose the earthly one, not the heavenly one. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, isn’t the reaction of fear from the priest and Levite natural? And so can we not see that they are typical of human nature, whereas the outsider, the Samaritan, can be said to represent Christ, who anoints us, heals us, and pays the price of our salvation?

Now, there are some bits that are less thrilling, and the pope (or his translator) uses the phrase “Christ’s preferential option for the poor” once too many times (Ie, he uses it once, which is one time too many); and could someone tell him that the prepositional phrase “in a certain way” gets tiring after a while? But these are mere quibbles. Buy and read this book, and then buy copies for some other folks too — particularly for any young person who’s going off to college or who is attending a Catholic high school. It will inoculate them against the poisons of so much modernistic distortion of Christ’s mission.

In certain countries of Europe the natives consider themselves as a kind of settlers, indifferent to the fate of the spot upon which they live. The greatest changes are effected without their concurrence and (unless chance may have apprised them of the event) without their knowledge; nay more, the citizen is unconcerned as to the condition of his village, the police of his street, the repairs of the church or of the parsonage; for he looks upon all these things as unconnected with himself, and as the property of a powerful stranger whom he calls the Government. He has only a life-interest in these possessions, and he entertains no notions of ownership or of improvement. This want of interest in his own affairs goes so far that, if his own safety or that of his children is endangered, instead of trying to avert the peril, he will fold his arms, and wait till the nation comes to his assistance. This same individual, who has so completely sacrificed his own free will, has no natural propensity to obedience; he cowers, it is true, before the pettiest officer; but he braves the law with the spirit of a conquered foe as soon as its superior force is removed: his oscillations between servitude and license are perpetual. When a nation has arrived at this state it must either change its customs and its laws or perish: the source of public virtue is dry, and, though it may contain subjects, the race of citizens is extinct. Such communities are a natural prey to foreign conquests, and if they do not disappear from the scene of life, it is because they are surrounded by other nations similar or inferior to themselves: it is because the instinctive feeling of their country’s claims still exists in their hearts; and because an involuntary pride in the name it bears, or a vague reminiscence of its bygone fame, suffices to give them the impulse of self-preservation.

Nor can the prodigious exertions made by tribes in the defence of a country to which they did not belong be adduced in favor of such a system; for it will be found that in these cases their main incitement was religion. The permanence, the glory, or the prosperity of the nation were become parts of their faith, and in defending the country they inhabited they defended that Holy City of which they were all citizens. The Turkish tribes have never taken an active share in the conduct of the affairs of society, but they accomplished stupendous enterprises as long as the victories of the Sultan were the triumphs of the Mohammedan faith. In the present age they are in rapid decay, because their religion is departing, and despotism only remains. Montesquieu, who attributed to absolute power an authority peculiar to itself, did it, as I conceive, an undeserved honor; for despotism, taken by itself, can produce no durable results. On close inspection we shall find that religion, and not fear, has ever been the cause of the long-lived prosperity of an absolute government. Whatever exertions may be made, no true power can be founded among men which does not depend upon the free union of their inclinations; and patriotism and religion are the only two motives in the world which can permanently direct the whole of a body politic to one end.