The Assumption by Murillo

August 15th, the Feast of the Assumption, dates to the 6th and 7th centuries. The official proclamation of the Assumption by Pope Pius XII in Munificentisimus Deus as an article of faith for Catholics occurred recently, on November 1, 1950. Objections to this teaching cite the absence of support for it in Scripture and in the Fathers of the Church. These same arguments are also made against the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which states that Mary received the benefit of the redemption in advance from the moment of her conception. However, since the theological significance of Mary is intertwined with that of Christ, as mother and son, much of what we say about Mary (Mariology) derives from what we say about the identity and meaning of Christ (Christology).

For most Catholics, Orthodox, Coptics, and Anglicans, images and veneration of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, are part of the very fabric of their faith. This emotional and doctrinal emphasis on Miriam of Nazareth gives many in the Anabaptist and Calvinist traditions emotional and doctrinal heartburn. Some evangelicals are strident in their belief that Marian devotion - at best - detracts from the key act of salvation, which they formulate as “accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.”

The notion of salvation in the apostolic churches is centered on the church community. Christ’s death and resurrection has saved all and we enter into this paschal mystery embodied in the church. Our salvation is entering the faith community, the Body of Christ. From the earliest days, the Fathers of the Church identified Mary as the model of the Church. The following excerpt, taken from Wikipedia’s article on Roman Catholic Mariology, summarizes the position and importance of the Blessed Mother. Please note that the words in parentheses are my own.

Pope Benedict XVI addresses the issue, why Mariology is related to ecclesiology (the theology of the Church). On first sight, he argues, it may seem accidental, that the (Second Vatican) Council moved Mariology into ecclesiology. This relation helps to understand what “Church” really is. The theologian Hugo Rahner showed that Mariology was originally ecclesiology. The Church is like Mary.^[96]

The Church is virgin and mother, she is immaculate and carries the burdens of history. She suffers and she is assumed into heaven. Slowly she learns, that Mary is her mirror, that she is a person in Mary. Mary on the other hand is not an isolated individual, who rests in herself. She is carrying the mystery of the Church.^[97]

Pope Benedict XVI lamented that this unity of Church and Mary was overshadowed in later centuries, which overburdened Mary with privileges and removed her into a far away distance. Both Mariology and ecclesiology suffered under this. A Marian view of the Church and an ecclesiological view of Mary in salvation history lead directly to Christ. It brings to light what is meant by holiness and by God being human.^[98]

It is interesting to note that Pope Benedict XVI laments the removal of Mary “overburdened … with privileges.” This is also the image of Mary lamented by the reformation. However, the close identification of Mary with the Church, in the sense that “Mary is carrying the mystery of the Church,” represents a notion of church that many of the reformers rejected. Consequently, they rejected the image and role of Mary, and with it, the redemptive grace and power of the feminine.

One hundred years ago, a group of Episcopalians - the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement - led by Fr. Paul Thomas Wattson and Sr. Mary Lurana White in Garrison, New York at Graymoors, started the observance of a week of prayer for Christian unity. The whole story is fascinating and encouraging since it traces the emergence of ecumenism in the 20th century. Fr. Wattson and the Franciscan Order of Atonement, which he co-founded, entered the Catholic Church in 1909 but continued to promote Christian Unity.

During the 1920s and 30s there was a growing movement for Christians to observe a week of prayer for Christian unity. During the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), interfaith dialogue and prayer received a new emphasis with the 1964 issue of the Decree on Ecumenism, which called prayer the core of the ecumenical effort and encouraged Catholics to observe a week of prayer. In 1966, the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches and the Vatican Secretariat for Christian Unity began working on a common set of prayers for the Octave. Since 1968, The Graymoor Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute has facilitated and published the international texts for use in the United States. In 1991, a Sunday was incorporated into the week of prayer. Each year’s theme is developed by an ecumenical group whose members are appointed by the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical (Catholic) Council on Ecumenism. The 2008 theme is “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thes. 5-17).

“A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.” (Mt 12:25) Many of the sayings of Jesus are hard to understand or accept. This one seems only obvious.

It is often said that the lack of Christian unity is a major hazard or stumbling block - scandolos or “scandal” in Greek - for those trying to enter the Kingdom or the Reign of God. The good news is that various groups have begun to treat each other as Christians and not as minions of the anti-Christ. The bad news is that major denominations are split over the existence of the brontosaurus in the sanctuary.

Some people say the beast is an elephant because people experience it differently - like the blind men in the fable. For some it is a rope, for others tree stumps, for a few it feels like a snake. The “elephant” school says that issues like same sex marriage, women’s issues, and diversity are actually the result of a single problem - the need to update Christian ethics and not to take the Bible literally. Christian behavioral norms, according to this school, should be influenced by more enlightened cultural norms and follow the primary mandate of compassionate love.

Others say that the beast is the “Beast” of the Book of Revelation and these challenges to traditional Christian behavioral norms are the beginning of the test of the faithful. According to the “Armageddon” school, the Beast will consume the compromisers like so much buttered popcorn. Those who have not “compromised” will be caught up in the rapture and spared the thousand year reign of the anti-Christ.

Between these two extremes there is a complete spectrum of different intellectual and emotional responses to these issues. Many people are inclined to think that all of this started in the 1960s, when the world got turned upside down. For many Catholics, the secular cultural upheaval of the 1960s was nothing compared to the tsunami of the Second Vatican Council. A few think that Pope Paul VI, in ratifying the declaration on religious liberty and changes to the liturgy, committed apostasy and left the Chair of Peter vacant - Sede Vacante. According to the sedevacantists, the bishops appointed by Paul VI and the popes elected by those bishops have no legitimate authority.

At the other end of the Catholic spectrum, there are those who see Vatican II as limiting and redefining the centrality of rule from Rome. Local churches, governed by lay people, with lay presiders at the Eucharist, are seen as an authentic restoration of the Church. In response, Restorationists - including many young people - think that all these problems will go away if we return to the Golden Age of the Catholic Mass in Latin, with everyone praying their rosaries while the sacred mysteries are performed.

The beast in question is actually a “brontosaurus”(or Apatosaurus), because it is a much older and more intractable species than the elephant. It is not the Beast of the Book of Revelation because it is all too confused and political - and it doesn’t have the gaping maw. The “brontosaurus” is the challenge of living the Christian life and being church in a rapidly changing and unstable world. This challenge actually dates back to the Enlightenment in the 1700’s. However, the major denominations could contain it until the industrial revolution. The urbanization of rural agrarian populations, the revolution in transportation and communication, as well as the emergence of history and the social sciences as academic fields of study, raised major questions that divided church thinkers - the theologians and philosophers. One of the most unsettling discoveries was that Christian philosophy and theology - like all human endeavors - have changed over the centuries.

The Catholic church responded by not only condemning the modern world, but also by rehabilitating the logical approach of Aquinas and Aristotle (See Arraj Chapter 2) as a means of presenting and logically defending the faith against any thought or political action that challenged it. Instead of the medieval spirit of inquiry, students got summaries of pre-digested questions and answers. Not all thinkers went along with this, but they were marginalized or condemned. This gave the appearance of well-being, but like a person with emphysema, the overuse of steroids provides comfort while it destroys the bones. On the positive side, Pope Leo XIII and other Christian leaders, led a social gospel movement to protect the interests of industrial workers. This movement continues today, with the “preferential option for the poor.”

When Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council, the Curia had prepared draft agendas and documents for the bishops. No one foresaw that the octogenerian pope, who had been elected as a caretaker, would encourage the bishops to take matters into their own hands in his opening address, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia.

Having chafed under the control of the Curia, the bishops set their own course. Theologians and philosophers who had been silenced or put to the side were chosen to fill the intellectual vacuum. One of the young superstars was Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI. The major problem was that this new school of thinking had never been tested in the open forum of discussion and debate. Conservatives did what they could to stem the tide, but the winds of Aggiornamento (updating) filled the sails of the bishops, the clergy, and more importantly, the people in the pews who now became the “laity.”

In the United States today there are approximately 3,300 men in seminary programs studying for the priesthood. There are also 33,000 men and women in graduate ministry and theological programs who are not studying for the priesthood. The vast majority of them share the same classrooms with the students for the priesthood. However, the newly ordained priests tend be in their 30’s and 50’s and are already formed as people. Many of them are more conservative and many bring with them an entrenched clericalism from their Philippine and Vietnamese cultures.

The growth of the Anglican Communion, the Catholic Church, and other denominations in Africa and Asia - the global south - has already created substantial tensions due to the immense cultural and economic differences which support more traditional behavioral codes and religious perspectives.

So the brontosaurus is alive and well - or at least it will be until we deal with these tensions so that others once again can come to know us as Jesus’ disciples by our love (Jn 13:34-35).

The feast of All Saints was originally celebrated as the feast of All Martyrs on May 13, beginning around 610, when it was established by Pope Boniface IV. The date coincided with an ancient three day Roman festival, Lemures, which ended on May 13. Lemures was a time when Romans attempted to appease the dead. The date was also celebrated as the dedication of the Pantheon in Rome to St. Mary and All the Martyrs. A feast commemorating All Martyrs was held as early as 270, but there is no record of the actual date. There is evidence that All Martyrs was observed in Antioch on the first Sunday after Pentecost in the 300’s. This tradition still continues in the Orthodox and Eastern Churches as All Saints Sunday. The feast of All Saints was proclaimed on November 1 when Pope Gregory III (731-741) dedicated a chapel within St. Peter’s for the relics of the apostles and all saints. The Irish church celebrated All Saints on April 20 throughout the early Middle Ages.

Devotion to the saints became a highly contentious issue during the Reformation. Reformers alleged - with some very good evidence - that the saints were being worshiped, as opposed to being venerated. The general criticism was that attention was not being focused primarily on Christ. The focus on relics, indulgences, and special novenas appeared to make these exemplars of the faith into demigods.

500 years later, and 40 years after the Second Vatican Council, our approach to the saints is more communal. The Mystical Body of Christ, as emphasized by Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis Christi (On the Mystical Body of Christ -1943), led to a broader understanding of the holiness and vocation we all share in the Communion of Saints. In keeping with the renewed emphasis on St. Paul’s vision of the church as the Mystical Body, the contemporary church has renewed the ancient Pauline tradition of referring to all Christians as “the saints” or those made holy in Christ. Some sermons today even extend the feast day greetings to everyone in the congregation.

Experiencing the Communion of Saints as more than an intellectual concept is difficult. Something of the reality can be experienced in the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. The largest church in the United States, Our Lady of the Angels has an enormous openness and can be somewhat overwhelming, until you start to walk down the aisle. The walls are covered with huge tapestries designed by John Nava and manufactured in Belgium. All of a sudden you are part of large community of saints who really look like people. The faces are not stylized in the traditional poses of rapture. The faces are all the more startling because in many cases they are the actual likeness of the saint. Paintings of the 136 saints and blesseds were first made from photographs. The paintings were then graphed and digitized and sent by e-mail to the looms for weaving. Nava’s art is described as neo-classical post-modernist, indicating a vision of the post-modern world returning to classical forms in a completely original way. This style might be a very apt inspiration for all of us post-modern saints.

October 11 is the feast day of Blessed Pope John XXIII (1881-1965). The son of Italian share croppers who worked in the fields with his brothers and served as a stretcher bearer in World War I, he became a Church diplomat, Cardinal Archbishop of Venice, and Pope. This might seem like enough for more than one lifetime. Yet Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli would launch an institutional and cultural revolution unprecedented in Church history. By convening the Second Vatican Council (1961 -1965) and calling for “aggiornamento,” a renewal and updating of the Catholic Church, Angelo Roncalli opened the door to the Post Modern Church. Although he did not live to convene the second session of the Council, it is hard to appreciate the depth of the change Pope John XXIII and his successor Pope Paul VI brought about.

It is not enough to say that the Mass changed from Latin to the everyday languages of the faithful, because the change in the liturgy only symbolized a much deeper change of mentality. Christ is present among His people in their signs and symbols, in their language. “The Church” referred not only to the leadership of the Pope and bishops, but to its body - the faithful. We now use the term “faith community” somewhat lightly, without realizing the complete change of thinking the term represents.

Pope John Paul II, who declared Pope John XXIII Blessed, represented a completely different mentality. The difference is aptly summarized by Tom Fox in the National Catholic Reporter.

“How seemingly different is the mood among the hierarchy in Rome today. If images speak, then in place of the smiling John XXIII, we see a pained John Paul II, his face grimaced, his tired body leaning on his crosier, carrying the world’s burdens on his shoulders. Pope John gave us Pacem in Terris, a map to worldwide human understanding. Pope John Paul II gives us an analysis of the “culture of death,” an acknowledgment of global human failure.

This is not to say John did not understand the cross or John Paul the resurrection. It is to say their views of how grace operates in the world are radically different. John saw the church as an instrument of cooperative acts. John Paul sees the church as a fortress tested by evil. John saw the world, the playground of God’s love, as primary. John Paul sees the church, instrument of salvation, as primary. Operating out of John’s vision, the church not only can but also must adapt. It changes because the world changes. Operating out of John Paul’s vision, the church must strengthen itself by purification. It must not adapt because to do so is to blur the sign of contradiction.”…

“The late NCR Vatican Affairs Writer Peter Hebblethewaite once said the deeper underlying problem with John Paul’s black and white assessment is not that the world is so black but it makes the church so white. So unrepentive. So resisting of change. The perfect instrument of God requires no change. Further, it must not change.”

- Tom Fox - Analysis - Second Special Synod for Europe, October 1999.

Blessed Pope John XXIII, pray for us.