Instruction of St. Robert Bellarmine: The mysterious wisdom of divine government

 

Instruction of St. Robert Bellarmine: The mysterious wisdom of divine government

 

The depth of divine wisdom shines in the providence, predestination and judgements of God. First it is admirable, because it governs all created things without any intermediary, and so directs them to their end. He that made great and little alike, cares alike for all, says scripture. There is no exception: not a sparrow falls to the ground without the permission of God, as the Savior says. And it is not only actual beings which are each individually the object of the care of God's Providence, but bold is her sweep from world's end to world's end, and everywhere her gracious ordering manifests itself. If God is the King of all ages, it is because he, Creator of time, has established from all eternity the succession of kingdoms, the alternation and diversity of epochs. Nothing can be to God a novelty, a surprise, something unthought of. So hesitating our human thoughts, so hazardous our conjectures, the Wise man says, since the future deceives all our conjectures; but God sees the future as certainly as the past and present and therefore is infallible in the decrees of his Providence, as our holy Mother, the Church, does not hesitate to chant solemnly.  But the order of this Providence is the most hidden thing in the world and his judgements are like the deep sea, from which it comes to pass that some, seeing evil so common among men and so often going unpunished, fall headlong into the ruinous mistake of believing either that human affairs are not governed by God, or that God wills the evil; a twofold blasphemy. Men are misled into this error by their seeing only one part of the plan of God, the other part being inaccessible; whereas they ought to wait for the result of all history and the general manifestation which will be made at the last Judgement ; they judge rashly too and this leads them to fall into great errors.

 

However, unfathomable as may be the divine secrets as to the temporal lot of man, far deeper still are the reasons for man's predestination and eternal reprobation. For why God fills many of the wicked with temporal goods and leaves their sins unpunished in this life; why on the contrary he allows many innocent people to be in want, unjustly troubled, sorely tried and given over to death, we cannot search out in detail, but it is possible to assign with probability some general cause. When God gives the wicked temporal  goods in abundance, he rewards them for what they have done well,  though he will not give them a reward in eternity, or else he seeks, by means of temporal benefits, to convert them by the hope of eternal blessings; and if he does not punish their sins it is because they will be amply punished in hell. As for the just, he uses poverty, shame and trials to purify them, or to render their crowns more glorious which they will receive in heaven for their patience and their humility, and all their merits.

 

But why God loved Jacob and hated Esau2 before they had done either good or evil, who can tell? Who can fathom this mystery? Who will not remain astonished before a man who, after long perseverance in good works and at the end of life, failed and perished like Judas, while an evil-doer, not less persevering in evil, was converted just before he died and stole Paradise, like the good thief? Who can explain why God takes some to himself suddenly, like Enoch, whom he wishes to keep from evil, while he lets so many others fall into sin and die therein?

 

All that we are allowed to know is that with God there is no trace of injustice and at the last day there will not be found anyone who cannot make his own these words of the Psalmist: Thou art just, O Lord, and just is thy judgement. Moreover, this secrecy is profitable to us all, for it hinders both the wicked from despairing of salvation and the just from presuming on it, thinking themselves secure; also good men should not be hopeless about the conversion of the impenitent, but pray for all, carefully seeking the salvation of all men; and again, in his ignorance of the morrow, no one can presume on his strength, however perfect, however holy he may be, but all are led to work out their salvation in fear and trembling.

St. Thomas Aquinas: Commentary on the Psalms: 10

 

St. Thomas Aquinas: Commentary on the Psalms: 10

 

This psalm can be explained literally of David, or mystically of Christ, or allegorically. Morally it concerns the just man, and heretics, as the Gloss explains.

 

Therefore, David first sets forth his confidence, In the Lord I put my trust: as liberated by God's righteous judgment, weighing sinners down and lifting up the poor.

 

Some people counseled David when he was fleeing so that he would go to a fortified place and indeed to the mountains; or, so that he would hide there as a sparrow would. For (what reason)? Lo, the wicked have bent their bow, etc. This can be explained in two ways. First, so that these words are not David's, but (instead are those) of others: and so, Get thee away, because They (the wicked) have bent their bow. Or, (second), these words are David's, as if he were saying, In the Lord I put my trust:...for they have bent their bow, they have prepared their arrows etc. And (with respect to the second of these), he does three things. First, he sets forth their perverse solicitude, second, their perverse intention, at, to shoot, and third, their unjust activity, at, For, they have destroyed the things which thou hast made.

 

(This could can also be said) mystically of Christ. And so, "I, the Christ, In the Lord I put my trust: how, then, do you, the pharisees, say...get thee away...to the mountain, that is, to the observances of the law given on Mount Sinai. Deuteronomy 33:2: The Lord came from Sinai, and from Seir he rose up to us; and unless you do this, Lo, the wicked have bent their bow etc, that is, they have readied themselves to kill you and your disciples; For they have destroyed the things which thou hast made, that is, they have killed.

 

For, lo, the wicked, that is the heretics, Have bent their bow, that is, have drawn (or "turned") sacred scripture towards themselves, just as those who aim a bow: They have prepared their arrows, eloquence full of poison, In the quiver, that is, in memory and knowledge: Jeremiah 5:16: Their quiver is as an open sepulcher. To shoot the upright of heart, that is the just, In the dark, that is, deceitfully: Jeremiah 9:8: Their tongue is a piercing arrow.

 

"These (wicked men) have acted so; but what does the just Lord, seeing this, do in his might?" Jeremiah 33:16: This is the name that they shall call him, The Lord our just one. He answers (his) question, and sets down what the just one does. First, (he sets forth) his judicial power, or the rank of the judge, second, the judge's examination, at, His eyes, and third, the condemnation of those closely examined, at, He that loveth iniquity.

 

If a judge always punishes, he is cruel; if he always pardons, he is remiss. God, however, both pardons and punishes; for that reason, the judgment seat of mercy has a place, and this is the temple.

 

His eyelids examine the sons of men. By eyelids is signified discernment, for just as the eyelids direct the sight of the eye, so too does discernment regulate human wisdom. Sometimes he punishes, other times he spares, sometimes he gives kindnesses, and at other times he bears (these gifts) away.

 

He examines the sons of men, because by these very (examinations), some are made better, while others (are made) worse; or, by the scriptures, some are made better, others worse: for some understand (scriptures) well and are not tired (by the effort), but are engaged busily (by them), while the evil do the contrary.

 

He shows that as much as it is on the part of God, He is not the ruin of wicked (men), but rather (this ruin) is on our part; whence he says, He that loveth iniquity, that is, sin: John 3:20: Every one that doth evil, does iniquity, because sin is iniquity. (Such a person) hates his own soul: Wisdom 16:14: A man through malice hates his own soul.

 

 

But it is asked, how could anyone hate himself?

 

It is to be said that the sinner after a fashion hates himself; but simply (speaking), no one hates himself: Ephesians 5:29: No man ever hates his own flesh.

 

But that the evil hate themselves in a way, and that even the good hates themselves after a fashion, is made clear in this way: Our soul has two faces (so to speak); one turned to God in accordance with reason, the other turned to flesh in accordance with the sensitive nature, which comprehends things in so far as they are bodily. And as everything delights in its proper good, so too does man delight in that which he considers to be his soul. Sinners consider their soul to be that which they principally aspire after. For everything is (identified with) that which is pre-eminent in it, just as a king is his kingdom, or his rule. Therefore, the former having a sensitive nature delight in it; however, the latter, having an intellectual nature, love it. And so, no one hates his soul insofar as it is that which he principally considers. The good, therefore, hate their souls with respect to its sensitive nature, while the evil hate its intellectual aspect.

St Antoninus of Florence GREGORY DIPIPPO: New Liturgical Movement

 New Liturgical Movement

St Antoninus of Florence

GREGORY DIPIPPO

The Dominican Order celebrates quite a few of its own Saints within a very short period in late April and early May. On the traditional calendar, St Agnes of Montepulciano is kept on April 20th, Peter Martyr on the 29th, Catherine of Siena on the 30th, Pope Pius V on May 5th, and St Antoninus of Florence on the 10th. In the OF, Peter Martyr has been moved to June 4th, the day of the translation of his relics; Catherine is on his old day, and Pius on hers, leaving the 5th vacant for St Vincent Ferrer. Antoninus, who was canonized in 1523, remains on his traditional day; he was added to the Roman general calendar in 1683, but removed from it in 1969.

The St Dominic Altarpiece, by Girolamo Romanino, 1545-8. The Saints standing in the lower part of the painting are the Apostle Paul, Thomas Aquinas, Peter Martyr, Dominic, Antoninus, Vincent Ferrer and the Apostle Peter; the two kneeling are Ss Faustinus and Jovita, the patron Saints of Brescia, where the painting was originally commissioned for the Dominican church, now destroyed. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons)

He was born in Florence in 1389, and christened “Antonio”, but because of his small stature, was always known by the diminutive form “Antonino”, even in the liturgical books. A famous story is told of how he was admitted into the Order. The prior of Santa Maria Novella, the Dominican house in Florence, was the Blessed John Dominici, one of the leading churchmen of his age, and particularly active in reviving the original spirit of austerity within the order’s Italian houses, which had very much fallen into laxity. Thinking to dissuade the fifteen-year old Antoninus, whom he deemed too frail for the rigors of religious life, he ordered him to wait, and come back when he had memorized the Decretals of Gratian, the canon law text book of the Middle Ages. A year later, the boy returned, having duly memorized the massive tome, and after answering several questions about it, was received with no further hesitation.

St Antoninus and Bl. John Dominici, by an anonymous Florentine artist, ca. 1600-30, from the Dominican convent at Fiesole. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

In accordance with Bl. John’s plans, Antoninus was destined for the future founding of a reformed house at Fiesole; when the project was eventually realized, it would also count the Blessed Fra Angelico, who was a great friend of his, among its first members. He also knew at least three other Dominican Blesseds, Lawrence of Ripafratta, Constantius of Fabriano, and Peter Capucci.

The young friar was not only a brilliant scholar, as demonstrated by this episode, but also a natural leader, and within a short time of his priestly ordination, began to occupy one position of governance after another. He served as prior of several houses, including three of the largest, Santa Maria Novella, Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, and San Domenico Maggiore in Naples, bringing the reforming spirit to each of them. In 1436, he helped to found the second Dominican house in his native city, San Marco, together with Fra Angelico, many of whose works are still housed there to this day.

In addition to his work as a preacher and religious reformer, Antoninus was a great scholar of canon law, in an age which valued canonical process within the Church very highly indeed. As such, he was frequently consulted by the Popes; he is believed to have served on the Roman Rota, and by order of Pope Eugenius IV, attended the various sessions of the Ecumenical Council of Florence. In 1446, when the archbishop of his native city died, he was appointed to the office, very much against his will; like so many other saintly bishops (Gregory the Great, for example) he first attempted to hide, in his case, by fleeing to the island of Sardinia. Having been discovered, he pleaded to the Pope that he was too physically weak for the job, but Eugenius would not be put off, and finally forced him to accept episcopal consecration by threatening to excommunicate him for disobedience if he did not.

Proving the truth of the common maxim that power is best given to those who don’t want it, Antoninus was an exemplary bishop in every way, a father to the poor, and so well regarded for his prudence and wise judgment that he was popularly known as “Antoninus of Counsels.” The year after his appointment, he was summoned to Rome to administer the last Sacraments to the Pope, who died in his arms. Eugenius’ successor, Nicholas V, forbade any appeal to be made to Rome against his decisions; Pius II appointed him to a commission for the reform of the Roman courts, and the Florentine Republic made him one of its ambassadors on various occasions. (Pictured right - a statue of St Antoninus on the façade of Florence cathedral; image from Wikipedia by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

Despite the endless cares which fall upon a man in his position, he was also assiduous in his prayer life, frequently celebrating Mass and preaching, reciting the full Divine Office (in an age when dispensations were easily granted to busy prelates), and often attending it in choir at the cathedral. He also found time to write an important treatise on moral theology, a widely-circulated manual for confessors, a chronicle of world history, and the biography of John Dominici. It was a common thing for prelates of wealthy sees (and Florence was very wealthy indeed) to keep a large stable for the travels of their retinues, but Antoninus had only one mule, which he sold several times to raise money for the poor; just as often, benefactors would buy it back and return it to him.

In the later part of his time as archbishop, Florence suffered from a series of disasters – a year-long outbreak of plague, followed by famine, and then, in 1453-55, a series of earthquakes. Through all of this, Antoninus was boundless in his charitable expenditures and his personal efforts to care for the victims, leading many others to do the same by his example. Cosimo de’ Medici, who had contributed a good deal of the money to found San Marco, said of him “Our city has experienced all sorts of misfortunes: fire, earthquake, drought, plague, seditions, plots. I believe it would today be nothing but a mass of ruins without the prayers of our holy archbishop.”

The Alms of St Antoninus, by Lorenzo Lotto, 1542; from the Dominican church in Venice, Ss John and Paul. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Antoninus died on May 2 of 1455, and his funeral was attended by Pope Pius II in person. He was canonized by Pope Adrian VI (1522-23) as a model reformer in an age very much in need of reform, a fact which Adrian was the first Pope to really grasp. (He might well have achieved on a larger scale within the Church some of what Antoninus achieved within his order and city, had he not died less than two years into his reign, the last non-Italian Pope before John Paul II). In 1559, his body was discovered to be incorrupt, and translated to the chapel where it still rests in the church of San Marco in Florence.

FÉLIX MARÍA AROCENA: Why "Latin" hymns?

 

FÉLIX MARÍA AROCENA

 

 

Why "Latin" hymns?

 

It would be legitimate to ask why Notker de Saint-Gall († 912), for example, and others like him, wrote their hymns in Latin. This question could be answered by saying that the Latin language was not strange to them. They simply learned it because it was the language of their homeland, the Church. It was their only Christian medium of expression, the only one that suited the experiences they tried to express. Notker of Saint-Gall did not versify for an audience, whether this was a Latin or Germanic speaking, but for his Lord. The Scriptures, the hymns of the Church, everything that deeply moved his soul and lifted him above himself, he received in Latin. When he wanted to shout his joy, to express his enthusiasm, when he had to sing something that was beautiful, sublime, there was only Latin. He sang to the Church and to the Church the Mysteries that Christ had entrusted to the Church. Since they were printed in their soul in Latin, in that same language they were to be expressed. In fact, the quality of Latin is a good index of the intellectual level of the high Middle Ages. The ninth - century Latin has no less than that of the sixteenth century humanist quality.  Capable of evoking in our minds high and beautiful thoughts, the stanzas of the Latin hymnbook are vehicles of the lyrical voice of the Church that praises, implores, glorifies, moans and enjoys in the presence of the Holy Trinity. This flexible Christian and clear, rhythmic Latin music at Notre Dame was to Notker what the Parthenon was to Horace.

 

SCRIPTA THEOLOGICA / VOL. 44/2012 / pp. 9-44

Mary Gonzaga Haessly in her seminal, though virtually unobtainable, work on Rhetoric in the Sunday Collects of the Roman Missal:

 

Liturgical prayer is a form of public speech, and hence it

is not surprising that in Christian antiquity, the threefold

officia of classical rhetoric were applied to it as well. The

reasons for this are presented succinctly by Mary Gonzaga

Haessly in her seminal, though virtually unobtainable, work

on Rhetoric in the Sunday Collects of the Roman Missal:

All these devices of the art of language are necessary for us, for

they enable us: (r) to grasp clearly the lessons embodied in the

Prayers (docere); (2) to make these lessons more acceptable to

us through the charm of diction and structure, in a word,

through their appeal to our aesthetic sense (delectare); (3) to

persuade us (movere) to mold our conduct in accordance with

the principles of faith set forth in the Prayers. This explains

why rhetoric is, and must be, found in the liturgy: it is to dis-

pose us to pray "ut oportet," as we ought to pray.'

From the Horologium Sapientiae of Blessed Henry Suso.

 

From the Horologium Sapientiae of Blessed Henry Suso.

 

Consider now, all you hearts, who love God with a pure mind. For something similar happens to us when the fruitful Virgin clothed with sun, the chosen Queen of heaven, enters like the sun into the confines of our hearts and the memory of her penetrates our minds more brightly than the sun penetrates a cloudless sky. Immediately every difficulty vanishes before the intensity of such a light. Darkness is put to flight, a new dawn arises, and innumerable reasons for rejoicing are provided. Therefore, to you, O our hope, the joy and happiness of our hearts, we wretched sinners break forth in a shout of greeting. We salute you most affectionately from the bottom of our hearts with sighs and tears and with sighs and tears and the devout genuflection of our hearts, O mother of grace. The children shout for joy at the sound of the pipes and every heart is gladdened by those happy shoes And so at the most sweet remembrance of you I am all on fire with fervor of divine love, desiring to praise you whom the world and its fullness, the heaven of heavens and every power within them praise.

 

Indeed, the goodness of every creature compared to your dignity is the weak glow of the moon compared to the immense brilliance of the sun. For the divine wisdom so excellently adorned you with grace and so abundantly clothed you with goodness that this incomprehensible wisdom reflected in you becomes more desirable to us through your splendor.

 

O precious treasury for us wretched ones! Behold, when through our sin we lost the supreme king, when we offended the angels, when we are burdensome to ourselves and know nothing at all about what we ought to do, then this recourse alone remains for us wretches. We should raise eyes of our heart and of our body to you, seeking counsel and begging, O exultation of my heart, singular hope and joy of my life, you know often with bitter soul, troubled heart, and tearful face I have raised my to you, most holy Virgin, when I have offended God and considered myself destined for hell, when I have been besieged on all sides by enemies. And with your help, blessed Virgin, I have escaped all dangers, Some rejoice over their innocence, others over the abundance of their merits, others may exult in the speedily-given mercy of God, You, my mother. are the hope and the only solace of my life! When I totally despair of God and of myself, by thinking of you, by remembering you, my spirit revives as of the deepest darkness. You are my glory, my salvation, my honor, and my life.

Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert

Douglas Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert

 

Simple practice of Scripture, then, was a necessary first step for deepening one's grasp of the meaning of the monastic life. It was also an incomparable means for learning the meaning of those texts. We see this in an encounter that Antony had with some visitors who came to ask for a word. He began by telling them in a general way simply to look to the Scriptures for guidance. But when they pressed him for more specific advice, he told them they should follow the words of the Gospel of Matthew: "If anyone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also (Mt 5:39). " The brothers protested: "We cannot do that " Antony then reduced the requirement somewhat, instructing them, ' 'If you cannot do that, at least allow one cheek to be struck." The brothers again replied, "We cannot do that. " So Antony revised his teaching a third time, saying "If you are not able to do that, [at least] do not return evil for evil [Mt 5:39]." But once again, the brothers complained: "We cannot do that either. " Antony, realizing the futility of this line of argument, refused to proceed any further. Instead, he instructed one of his disciples to "make . . . a little porridge," for the visitors—because "they are ill." Finally, he said to his visitors, "If you cannot do this, or that, what can I do for you? What you need is prayers”.

 

This episode reveals a great deal regarding the monks' attitude toward the practice of Scripture. There was obviously no question of proceeding further with discussion of the text or its meaning, for, as he says, there is nothing more he can do for them if they will not engage in practice themselves. The preparation of the porridge revealed in symbolic terms the enfeebled condition of the brothers, who were not able to take even the smallest steps of scriptural practice on their own. Yet there is no harshness here. The preparation of porridge also manifested Antony's compassion for the brothers in their frail condition. He not only recognized their need to recover their health in small measures but expressed his own willingness to aid in that recovery. One element of this story stands out clearly: to the extent that the Scriptures reveal the way to salvation, something must be done, if the meaning of salvation is to be realized.