What would it take? (response to Mr. Roger Olson)

Mr. Roger Olson, an Evangelical historical theologian who, over the past several years, has demonstrated the political intoxication of American Evangelicalism from the "never-Trump side", blogged recently about the reaction to Trump's conviction by a Manhattan jury. My main response to his question is perceived fairness. When Democrats tell you in 2016 that Hillary Clinton shouldn't be prosecuted because that's prosecuting political opponents, then open an investigation in 2017 on their political opponent over "collusion with Russia" which was proven never occurred, then in 2020 complain about Trump attempting to investigate Biden, then start cheerleading over the conviction of a President, any effort to lecture the general populace on democracy, fairness, rule of law, is moot. Now, one could insist that it was a "jury of his peers" to defend said "fairness", but that ignores the fact of how Manhattan voted in 2020 (85-15 pro-Biden). This is a district where you are almost guaranteed to get a jury of your peers that's 10-2 Democrat, with strong Democrat ideologues, where Democrat bullies can bludgeon the other two to render in the desired verdict. Does that seem "fair"?

Mr. Olson also complains that Trump is a bully though. In his efforts to condemn people who still support Trump to Hell after this. Right. Trump is a bully. I've been abused by both people on the right and people on the left for solely being autistic. Now, Mr. Olson can deny my personal experience (which is called gaslighting and a form of bullying), or Mr. Olson can take my personal experience into account for why I find the left more venomous. Because even though I've been abused for my autism by people on both sides of the court, none has abused me more than those who are Biden-voters. While Joe Biden himself may not be a bully, his failure to control and stabilize his voting base is telling. When a significant portion of Biden-voters found on social media tell you things like you're a moron because you're autistic or that you shouldn't vote or be allowed to drive because you're autistic, you definitely have a much different perspective. Trump might be a bully but who he bullies are people who deserve it. I would rather have a President who refers to Biden-voters who abuse people based on their disability as human scum than what we currently have.

Mr. Olson, despite being an Evangelical, apparently has no concern for the Left-wing agenda. No one may sway his opinion on this, but I'm fully aware that Christians, even Evangelicals, are opposed to the Left-wing agenda of tax-funded trans surgeries for minors, tax-funded abortions, tax-funded overseas wars, gay marriage, abortion up to the point of birth, etc. Since Mr. Olson is a Christian and against all of that, I do find it curious he thinks the Left-wing agenda is no threat. Now, he does contradict himself a lot though. For instance, he will unequivocally support Liz Cheney who supports overseas wars but supports Robert F. Kennedy because he does not support overseas wars. To be honest, I've never honestly believed Mr. Olson was anything other than a hypocrite and a false Christian. But that's irrelevant. That the Left-wing agenda is dangerous, is something that I continue to have a lot greater concern about than anything Trump has said or done.

What would it take? What would it take to get me to see that a Trump Presidency should be feared? Okay, here's a good list: Masses of liberals who aren't ghoulishly promoting abortion but at least view it as a tragedy. Masses of liberals who can hold an intellectual conversation with someone who doesn't agree with them on a political issue. Masses of liberals who don't foolishly drift tot the argument that being an orthodox Catholic makes someone a pedophile-supporter. Masses of liberals who have a respectful tolerance for the beliefs of Christians who aren't shouting "HOMOPHOBIA!". Basically, liberals behaving like the opposite of human scum would have me much more inclined to see eye-to-eye with Mr. Olson that a second Trump term would be a very evil thing. Instead, we have just the opposite of that. I'm an independent voter and still undecided. I don't know if I want to vote for Kennedy right now or not. Kennedy has said some good things in the past. Trump had a lot of objectively good policies. What I think America needs more than a President is an exorcism and a mass conversion to orthodox Catholicism.

But I think that Mr. Olson shows overall a significant problem with Evangelicalism today. A lot of Trump's most bitter critics and supporters are among Evangelical Christians and self-described Evangelicals. Evangelicalism, without anything sacred to look toward in the Church, has effectively satiated its lack of the sacred with the sacred within the State. It's a very sad state that Evangelicalism is in. Mr. Olson's posts frequently dunk on the Evangelical Trump-supporters, and safe to say, they aren't listening to him, but he still dunks on them anyway. Never-Trumper Evangelical critics will certainly act like they aren't political but when 9 out of 10 of your posts each week are all about the political state of America and Trump, you don't really give a good impression to an outsider that you are in favor of that. Maybe it's the idea of having a god who responds to Mr. Olson's every call that makes him lose focus on the sacred. That kind of god is being advanced by many Evangelicals nowadays. I don't see much of a future for Evangelicals. For Catholics, apostasies will come and mass conversions will come. With the death of Evangelicalism as it inclines itself more toward replacing the sacred with the political, I think that we might see an objectively good thing for this country in a mass conversion to Catholicism.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose: Review

I had been wanting to watch The Exorcism of Emily Rose for a while and last night, it went on sale via the Apple Store and so I didn't hesitate to get it. I was not disappointed. It is partially a supernatural horror and partially a legal drama with a heavy focus on the question of exorcism and the overlap between the possible realm of the spiritual and the naturalist. The movie ends up pitting the spiritual against the naturalist, the Truth against the lie, and the Church against the State. It is a State that is hostile to the Church that must be convinced of the spiritual reality of the Victory of Christ over the demonic, but the State refuses to see itself as subjected to the demonic. Right from the beginning, we see the spiritual battle unfolding.

The movie opens up right after the death of Emily Rose, the titular character, most of her story will be shown in flashback during the court questionings of the witnesses involved in the story. The priest, Fr. Moore, is at the house and a medical examiner comes in to give his conclusion of cause of death to the officer. The officer then charges Fr. Moore with negligent homicide. It now must be determined who shall prosecute. The prosecution calculates the prosecutor must be a Christian, preferably a Catholic, and that he must be seen as Church-going and friendly toward the Faith. While this is a calculative decision, it is remarkable as to how in the real world such Satanic thinking operates. We are often presented with a "devoutly Christian" politician presented to us by the media who happens to have firm agreements with the faithlessness of the World because it is only under such an appearance of light that Satan could ever deceive us. How many times have we heard the drivel that Nancy Pelosi or Tim Kaine or Joe Biden are "devout Catholics" while they openly oppose every single Church doctrine?

It so happens that the prosecuting attorney picked is a regular Church-going Methodist. A Protestant. The defense attorney is an agnostic with doubts about her own past. And it is in that remarkable mixture that we are presented with the conversion power of the Church over a heresy. Throughout the course of the trial, we see the defense attorney come under both spiritual attack and receive spiritual protection in her own time of need as she becomes more and more open to the idea that there are spiritual powers that we come into conflict with. The priest, Fr. Moore, is more focused on presenting the Truth of the story of Emily Rose and he does not fear being portrayed as a madman.

Throughout the trial, we see the materialistic side presented by the prosecution to prove the case of negligent homicide. When I consider my old Protestant views and how much of it favored the idea of syncretism of the materialistic viewpoint with Christian theology even when both were incompatible, I see the manifestations of the Enlightenment mindset which Protestantism has given birth to. The "man of faith" is ultimately seen as the faithless and the skeptic. It is he who is exposed as the unbeliever. Whereas the agnostic is shown to have much more faith than she even realizes throughout the movie. It is something that many people don't recognize among our current world how faithless those they present as faithful are. It is the Satanic nature of today's world to present as faithful those who oppose the very Faith that is claimed to represent in an effort to undermine the very essence of the Faith. And that is where the real spiritual battle in the movie lies.

The priest, we find, does not intend to defend his own self. He only intends to present what he believes is the Truth. That is the very Truth of the Victory of Christ. He wants to make it known to the jury, not that he is a martyr, but that Emily Rose is a saint. He does not fight the battle but he puts the battle into the hands of God and the saints and lets them fight the battle. The movie also contains quite a theodicy in it where Emily Rose relates in a note to the priest a brief encounter she experiences with the Virgin Mary prior to her death and how it is in that which she ultimately chose to accept her continued sufferings so that others may come to belief.

The movie is based on the real life exorcism of a German girl named Annelise Michel. Annelise Michel was a college student who went through the exact same struggles as Emily Rose. It was presumed by the Church and the clergy that she was possessed and needed exorcism. The overlap between the spiritual and the material was forgotten and she was ultimately left malnourished and died. The priests involved, and her parents, were convicted of negligent homicide by German authorities. But today, the grave site of Annelise Michel is a place of pilgrimage among many German Catholics who even ask for her intercession as a saint. Through the sufferings of Annelise Michel, many have been brought to Faith. I won't reveal the ending of the trial of Fr. Moore in the movie as that would be a spoiler, but I would strongly recommend it. There are scenes that can be frightening so I would not recommend children see it, the theological message is very important.

Why modern day modalist doctrine rejects God's oneness

Divine Simplicity is a doctrine often times brought up to challenge the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity which is believed by all Christians and denied by non-Christians. I go so far to say that because, simply put, without the Trinity, there is no salvation. Not that invincible ignorance might lead to damnation. I cannot make judgments on that as I am not God, but that unless God is Triune, the doctrine of salvation as taught by the Church is incoherent. Christ's Mission on Earth was to defeat Death and Hell and He did exactly that. To those denying that He is Divine in and of Himself, they would posit that a mere mortal could do such. And to those confounding the Persons of the Trinity, well...

A large problem is there is ample literature on Trinitarian doctrine and Trinitarian apologetics and the Church's classical doctrine and teaching are often times buried in the philosophical mumbo-jumbo that modern day anti-Trinitarians accuse Trinitarians of holding. The philosophical mumbo-jumbo about the Trinity in modern day Trinitarian apologetics is rarely seen or observed in classical orthodox dogmatics. That is because that mumbo-jumbo never even occurred to the Church. I see a lot of anti-Trinitarians using the word "Godhead" to refer to the Trinity as if "Godhead" is the same as God or even the famed "Trinity Delusion" website. They mostly respond to the anti-cult hunters and the Trinitarian apologists who are divorced from classical Christian doctrine.

The Trinity Delusion website is a class example. In the article I linked, it enforces modern understanding of the terminology upheld at Nicaea to arrive at the conclusion that the "nature" cannot be a "Who" but a "What". This is echoed strongly among Trinitarian apologists and lends itself to the greatest anti-Trinitarian strawman attack ever. I used to be an anti-Trinitarian and that was the dogma I attacked. But it was not the doctrine taught in historical Christian theology. In fact, in order to understand what Trinitarians mean by "ousia" and "persons" and "beings", a knowledge of the historical controversies has to be gathered. In Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's Introduction to Christianity, he has an entire chapter dedicated to proving the point that the Trinitarian doctrine is built on a graveyard of heresies. It was Sabellians who first used terms such as "ousia" and "persons" and "beings" and this was why the Church was reluctant at first to adopt Nicene orthodoxy.

And that brings us to Sabellians of the modern day who are mostly found among a group called "Oneness Pentecostals". When contending with an upholder of this modern day Oneness philosophy, a variant of modalism which insists that Jesus is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, much appeal is made to the hypostatic union doctrine. Of course, it is not. Sabellians will say that their doctrine is consistent with Divine Simplicity because they misunderstand the proper Trinitarian theology regarding the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is not a "group" deity nor is the Trinity a conglomeration of "parts" and the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not parts of God either. Rather the Father is wholly God, the Son is wholly God, and the Holy Spirit is wholly God. If God was divided into parts, this would violate Divine Simplicity. But God's Oneness is found in His infinitude. Infinity is the only thing which cannot be divided into parts. God is infinite in nature, indivisible in nature, hence, the three persons of the Trinity can never be acknowledged as divided or in parts.

But when confronted, what you will notice with "Oneness theologians" is that they frequently separate the Son from the Father. How else will they get two witnesses (John 8)? How else do they explain the baptism of Christ or the Transfiguration? Either the Son and the Father are two persons or the Son and the Father are two entities which are not united as one together. The Son would have to be a projection created by the Father. This exceeds the hypostatic union doctrine of Chalcedon. While the hypostatic union differentiated between a human nature and divine nature had by Christ, it never denied that Christ was wholly talking as God. There are many places in Scriptures where Christ conceals His deity, but He never denies it. Matthew 24:36 is often times brought up by anti-Trinitarians on both sides and the Church has never accepted the interpretation that it marks Christ as "ingorant". There are many senses of "knowing". In knowing the day and hour, Christ does, but it is not to the benefit of His Mission. He is fully aware of the events that shall lead up to that hour and so He does know the hour. What is not of His earthly Mission is to judge the world. St. Augustine writes: "That He says that the “Father knoweth,” implies that in the Father the Son also knows." (Serm. 97, 1)

Further, St. Hilary of Poitiers elaborates on the text by indicating that "in all cases, in which God declares Himself ignorant, He is not under the power of ignorance, but either it is not a fit time for speaking, or it is an economy of not acting." (On the Trinity, IX) Therefore, we see that it is in the humanity, of being contained in finitude and time, that the Son is not here eternally acting, and therefore confesses not knowing. For is in such that He is not at act that He states His ignorance in figurative language. For both the Arians and the Modalists, the omniscience of the Son is denied outright by this text. And the Modalists have such a perverse view that they will proceed to differentiate the man Jesus Christ from God. But if Jesus Christ is the Father in their theology, then Who was incarnated? And that is where the Modalist position collapses. In essence, in denying that the Son is the Father and yet insisting that Jesus is the Father and the Son, the modern day Modalist or Oneness position gives itself over to philosophical reasonings in a desperate attempt to preserve it's anti-Scriptural theology. And it splits God into two - a man and a god. Oneness doctrine therefore cannot uphold in any matter the doctrine of Divine Simplicity. For their "Oneness" of God is a Jesus that is split into the Son and the Father who are both Jesus but not each other, meaning Jesus has a conversation with Himself, declares Himself His own God, prays to Himself, declares Himself to be His own Son, etc.

Triune Oneness posits the infinitude of God which cannot be divided. The Trinity is not merely a "Godhead". The Trinity is God. And the Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. The Father is the only true God. The Son is the only true God. The Holy Spirit is the only true God. The Trinity is the only true God. Those statements cannot all be true unless they are wholly, uniquely, God, in and of themselves, and are indivisible. The "Oneness" deity is divided against himself.

Why dispensationalism is not Scriptural

I've been noticing on social media lately, a lot of Christians, particularly Protestant Christians, trying to defend the claims of the State of Israel unconditionally on the grounds of the theology of dispensationalism. Dispensationalism is a philosophy rooted in the more extremes of Protestantism. It is an attempt to take literally all the texts of Scripture that refer to Israel and apply them literally to the "people of Israel". It has gained more ground since the founding of the modern State of Israel. And herein lies the fundamental distinction and the most significant flaw of dispensationalism. Even from a literalist reading of Scriptures, it does not compute. This is why Catholic and Orthodox theologians have never held to such a theological position and why the Reformed Christians in Anglicanism and Lutheranism have also refused to accept the position.

Dispensationalists caricature the historic orthodox position of the Church as "replacement" or "supercessionist" theology, but as one looks through Scriptures, it's actually neither. In fact, it's a theology of the fulfilment of the covenant. The Scriptures are divided into two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. But the word "Testament" is generally criticized as a bad translation. The more accurate translation, and what is more revealing, is "Covenant". In Genesis, God made a covenant with Abraham (Gen. 15-17). At the Last Supper, Jesus declared that what His Apostles were drinking was "the Blood of the New Covenant" (Matt. 26:28). Everything in Scripture about God's relationship with humanity centers around the idea of covenants. God makes multiple covenants in Genesis with Noah and with Abraham, and then He becomes a man and makes a New Covenant with the shedding of His own Blood. The Covenant establishes His bond with His people.

When He makes a covenant with Abraham, He promises that Abram will be a father of many descendants and describes the boundaries of their lands, that his descendants will number the stars of the Heavens, and that they will be held in captivity for four hundred years (Gen. 15:4-21). Then, God changes the name of Abram to Abraham and declares that Abraham will be the father of many nations (Gen. 17:7). Abraham is not to be the father of one nation only, but of multiple nations. We can see that there are many peoples throughout the world who confess the name of Christ. God foreshadows an everlasting covenant to be made with the descendants of Abraham. This is not just referring to one nation of Israel or one specific group of people. God's intentions, from the beginning, with Abraham, was to use the descendants of Abraham according to the flesh, to be a light for the whole world.

There are multiple instances where "Israel" is referred to in Scriptures. It is referred to in Scriptures as Jacob the Righteous, the son of Isaac. It is referred to in Scriptures as the Kingdom of Israel. It is referred to in Scriptures as the people of Israel, the people of the Kingdom of Israel. Even dispensationalists have to acknowledge that the modern State of Israel is not a Kingdom but a democratic parliamentary republic. But there are already is a King of Israel according to Scriptures! In the Davidic line of descent, the Messiah is born to the Virgin Mary and becomes King of Israel! Moreover, it is revealed in the fulfilment, that this King was to come, not just to the Hebrews but to all nations. Such was the mission work of Christ. He clarifies that He has come for the Hebrews first, but with full intention to incorporate the Gentiles. This became an early question for the Church (Acts 15:3-21). In this controversy over the question of the circumcision of the Gentiles, the Holy Prophet Amos is referenced, "I will raise up the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down ... [a]nd all the Gentiles who are called by name" (Am. 9:11-12).

So even in the Old Covenant, it is explained that Gentiles were to be included in the promises of Israel! As St. Paul declares, "Now to Abraham and his Seed [Christ] were the promises made" (Gal. 3:16). Those who are included in the promise are of Israel, the Seed of Israel, because Christ is the firstfruits of Resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20). Christ has established Himself as firstborn of a brotherhood and this includes those who find Faith in Christ. Christ establishes Himself as King over all nations in the glory of His Resurrection and the splendor of His Godhood. The Kingdom of Israel, therefore, must be the Church. But St. Paul also recognizes that there is a remnant of Israel according to the flesh.

In Romans 9-11, where many dispensationalists come away with the understanding that their opponents' theology is somehow a "replacement" theology, they miss on key concepts that St. Paul speaks of the remnant of Israel (Rom. 9:27-28). The point is to show that Abraham has descendants according to the flesh, but that the flesh will account for nothing in the judgment from God. Much the same, even Jesus makes note of this in His dispute with the Pharisees where He declares that they are not the children of Abraham but of the Devil (Jn. 8:44). St. Paul is much aware of the statements made by Christ and is making an argument showing that the Gentiles are indeed apart of the Covenant, but how the Covenant is not superceded at all. Ironic that fulfilment theology is often termed "supercessionist" because it is anything but!

When I went to a non-denominational church when I was younger, the pastor once informed us that Paul was a "Jew" and emphasized in his lecture the Jewishness of Paul. I was both disturbed and perplexed. This is because the distinguishing of Judaism and Christianity as a religion nor the ethnic distinction was actually applied. But if we look at Scriptures, we do come across the statements made by St. John that there are Jews who say they are Jews but are of the Synagogue of Satan (Rev. 2:9, 3:9). It is not the replacement of Israel that we are looking at in Scriptures, but the fulfilment of Israel. The writers of the Catholic epistles want us to come away with the understanding that we are indeed correctly called Israel, have the promises of Israel, and are included in that. They cite the Old Testament's references that include the Gentiles in that Covenant and show the intent to incorporate the Gentiles into that Covenant. The Gentiles are restored with the tabernacle of David. That is the Church. Anything that contradicts is actually supercessionist and replacement. Was St. Paul a "Jew"? He was a Jew who was a Jew in reality. But that is because the true Jewish religion is not that of Rabbinic Judaism, but that of the Messianic following of Christ in the Sacrament of the Blessed Eucharist. Both "Christian" and "Jew" is appropriate for Christians are Jews of the New Covenant. Those tied to the Old Covenant stand in rejection of Christ. They deny that Christ came in the flesh and are Antichrist (1 Jn. 2:22, 4:3; 2 Jn. 1:7). Thus, St. John distinguishes between Jews who are of the Synagogue of Satan and practitioners of the true Faith (called Christians).

The word "Christian" was first applied to those who followed Christ as the Messiah by the opponents of Christianity and not by Christians themselves. The first Christians more than likely would have viewed themselves as a sect of Judaism at the time. When we sort through the anachronisms, and understand the texts according to the way the early Christians saw it, we see that they viewed Jewishness far differently than it is understood nowadays, Israel is a Kingdom of which the Church (Ekklesia - gathering) is the standing army, and the Eucharist is the sacrifice. Because many Protestants have rejected that the Eucharist is sacrifice and that Jesus's pouring Himself out on the Cross once and for all is infinitely offered on the Holy Altars, they miss out on this. That's how dispensationalism is arrived at. Because Lutherans and Anglicans haven't dismissed that theology of the Eucharist, they have retained the same views as historic Christianity. Dispensationalism is, effectively, replacement theology because it throws the Gentiles out of the Covenant and replaces the Kingdom of Israel with the modern State of Israel. Dispensationalism, therefore, is heretical.

The Theotokos in Pauline Theology

One common attack by Protestants is the overwhelming absence of the Theotokos in the writings of the New Testament. If she is so central a figure in Christianity, why isn't she mentioned in Scriptures? The argument is an argument from silence, yet she is very much central in Pauline theology. It is difficult for someone to see who is not used to the centrality of the Theotokos in Christianity, but we see her presence there loudly. St. Paul is often times confused as to whether it seems he supports women in leadership positions in the Church or if he is simply just a male chauvinist. It is very clear from a myriad of writings that St. Paul is abundantly supportive of the role of women in the Church, yet feminists like to attack him as being against women on the basis of one or two texts that suggest otherwise. This is because they silence the Theotokos, the most important woman of all. The most controversial text on women in St. Paul's theology is 1 Timothy 2:11-15,

Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.

Looked at in an isolated manner from Tradition, we can see how Protestant exegetes would turn this into bickering about what the proper role for women in tradition is. Yet we know from experience that the Catholic and Traditional view of the role of women is great and high. We have seen women as Empresses commanding their kingdoms such as Pulcheria, Irene of Athens, and Theodora the wife of Theophilos, Tamara of Georgia, the Old Testament shows women as heroes and as great leaders of the Israelites such as Deborah, Esther, and Judith, and St. Paul shows a respect for women such as Priscilla, Junia, and Phoebe. We cannot isolate one text and presume it as the whole. Even further, St. Paul's commentary on the origin of sin show it coming not from Eve or a woman but through Adam, the first man (Rom. 5:12).

When we go back all the way to the text of Genesis, we note that it is through the descendant of the woman that the serpent's head is to be crushed (Gen. 3:15). The pangs of childbearing would come upon the woman. And in Galatians 4, St. Paul draws an allegory between the descendants of Hagar and Sarah in comparing the children of the promise to the children of bondage (4:21-31) and also elaborates on the importance of Christ's birth to a woman (4:4-7). The key is not in that the woman is to be saved through a physical birth-giving. St. Paul is actually in fact elaborating quite a Marian theology in 1 Timothy 2.

It is through man in Pauline theology that sin comes into the world. Yet here, he recognizes the woman's involvement in sin coming into the world as well. It is in this acknowledgment that he is able to unite man and woman together. Without the Theotokos in the Christian Church, we come to a conclusion that is both a-theological and we place an artificial cultural restraint on St. Paul. Yet this is not the case. The Theotokos, in her humility, while alive, did not allow anyone to speak of her directly. Yet here, St. Paul speaks of her indirectly, but with loud and concise clarity for the Christian believer. It is through birth-giving that the woman is saved. Through her birth-giving of Christ. Eve led Adam to sin, but the obedience of the Theotokos, the humility of Our Lady, led to the God-Man coming into the world through her birth-giving of Him. Where we see the First Adam, we must also look to the Second Adam. Christians must also look to the Second Eve when we see the First Eve. Thus, when St. Paul references the First Eve, we must also look for the Second Eve, the Theotokos.

The Organic Development of the Liturgy, by Alcuin Reid

I just completed this book and thought it was a well-thought-out historical assessment of the issues concerning liturgical development in the Latin Mass. Alcuin Reid begins his historical assessment with the Middle Ages and progresses through the Liturgical Movement to the moments leading up to the liturgical revolution of Vatican II. He finishes his book there not wanting to make too controversial an assessment on the subject of the issues regarding the fall-out of the still controversial Council. As a Byzantine Catholic, I was intrigued by what he writes about and also a little baffled about how the Latin Mass develops compared to how the Byzantine liturgy develops. Reid also discusses what constitutes a legitimate development and legitimate change in liturgical practice in contrast to what constitutes an invalid change in liturgical development. That the liturgy has changed over the years can be seen throughout the history of the Divine liturgy, both in the East and in the West. I approach this book as a Greek Catholic.

There was call for reforms of the liturgy during the Protestant Reformation and that was when Cardinal Quignonez suggested certain changes in the liturgy. A significant portion of the first part of the book deals with Quignonez's efforts to change the liturgy with a discussion as to their legitimacy. The key in Reid's assessments is to investigate whether a change can be deemed organic or artificial. For instance, a practice could develop among the people which is deemed beneficial to the Divine liturgy and that would constitute a valid liturgical development that is organic, not imposed, contributes to the growth of the liturgy. It could also arise from a pastoral necessity. Quignonez's liturgical changes did not succeed in this. They were artificial, provided no benefit overall to the development of the liturgy or enhancement to the Mass, and were detrimental to the growth of the liturgy.

Throughout this work, Reid emphasizes the character of the liturgy as one like unto that of a garden. A garden, as it grows, will need pruning, and it will need direction in its growth. It will need water and sunlight, and the plants that are beneficial to the growth of the garden. The growth is tended by humans, this is the pastoral care that is involved. Pastoral necessities is another key point in determining the legitimacy of the organic nature of the liturgical development. If something is deemed to be pastorally detrimental to the Church, then the pastoral care needs to be taken to weed the garden and make certain the practice does not change. This prevents the arising of liturgical abuses to spread throughout the liturgical garden.

One of the things condemned by Alcuin Reid in the liturgical development is the desire for liturgical antiquarianism. It is the idea of trying to seek out what the most ancient usage of the liturgy was and insisting that the most ancient practice of the liturgy is the best. This is problematic because as the liturgy develops overtime, certain abuses cannot be allowed to stand. Further, certain liturgical practices that have been abolished were usually deemed harmful to the faith and substance of the liturgy. One practice I've read about is the usage of the deacons' hands to form an altar for the priest. Nobody would insist that it would be beneficial to go back to such a practice. Or the house churches that the early Christians gathered in is another issue that comes to mind. No one would insist that we ought to continue the practice of gathering in our own homes as opposed to a church that can gather more of us together on a given Sunday. Such desire for liturgical antiquarianism often times leads to the clinging onto of harmful traditions, though it may seem sound at first. Ironically, it is also very Protestant as it was the Protestant doctrine to dig through and try to find the most ancient form and practice of the faith, wasn't it?

Alcuin Reid seems to be a strong Traditionalist, favoring the Traditional Latin Mass. He speaks negatively of the vernacularisation of the liturgy. One thing that I have always found convincing in the arguments of the Latins for the Traditional Latin Mass is the argument against the vernacularisation of the liturgy. Many Easterners assume that the vernacular liturgy is an inherent part of Eastern spirituality, but the language of Church Slavonic became bound to us through a natural process to unite the Slavic peoples together. The vernacular ends up dividing us. It is no wonder when the Orthodox abandoned the usage of Church Slavonic in the Divine liturgy that they started to divide themselves along the lines of ethnophyletism. I have never been convinced of the insistence upon the vernacular among the East. That said, there is one major issue I point out.

Despite all of this, I find that Alcuin Reid's assessment of the organic development of the liturgy is wanting in one key area. There seems to be so much allowance of pruning in the Traditional Latin Mass that there is a danger for Traditionalists to fall into a trap of favoring the ideas of the bare minimum over and above all else. It is one divergence between East and West. In the Byzantine rite, when we find a hymn we like, we typically tend to throw it into our liturgy and build upon it. The Byzantine liturgy is an organic growth that flourishes on its own without a gardener. Whereas the Traditional Latin Mass prunes out what it determines bad growth or excess growth and contains the plant artificially. Both are capable of being beautiful in their own rights. For instance, a sycamore tree isn't going to gain much from the excess pruning. There comes a time when the tree simply must be left to be and contribute to the domain of the forest. It is an entirely natural growth. But if you are tending a garden, you need to prune back the plants so they don't cover so much area as to present themselves ugly and unattractive. Catholics should be grateful that both liturgies are accepted in our Holy Tradition.

Trinity in the Scriptures

The Trinity's existence is challenged today by heretics who seek to blasphemy the One Holy God, some of them even call it a teaching of three gods because they are so filled with hatred for the Trinity. They assert it is a philosophical position derived at only from philosophical speculations. That is not true. Trinitarians have used language that is not directly taken from the Scriptures to explain the doctrine to the bewildered and as tools to help explain the doctrine, but the core principle of the doctrine is there all the same. The Modalist, ironically, tells us that his doctrine is without philosophical speculation, but this will be shown to be entirely fallacious. His doctrine requires more philosophical speculation than Trinitarian theology. The core of Trinitarian teaching is that there is one God. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father. They are wholly, infinitely God, in a way that our human minds cannot fully comprehend. Any attack made on the Trinity that is "three god" worship is subsequently anti-Christian behavior for it bears false witness. Any anti-Trinitarian claiming to be a Christian who makes this claim has already exposed himself as a non-Christian for a Christian would never make a lying claim about someone, regardless as to how mistaken he thinks they are.

The Trinity is progressively revealed in the context of Scripture. We see first intimation that there exists a Divine plurality in the Oneness and Infiniteness of God in Genesis 1 when God speaks, "let Us make man in Our image". The heretics usually try and explain that God is either using the royal "we" which would be the first and only time in Scriptures that such a royal we is used, or that He is consulting with His myriad of angels. If He is consulting with His myriad of angels though, then angels have become involved in the creation narrative. There may be other times in the book of Genesis where such an interpretation may withhold in the context, but in the creation narrative of Genesis, it does not. God's plurality is intimated.

In Genesis 18-19, we see three men, in the appearance of angels, come to visit Abraham. These three men are traditionally held up to be the Trinity itself. Abraham addresses them as "My Lord! (Adonai)" In Scriptures, Adonai, was instructed to be read out in replacement of the Divine Name, the Tetragrammaton, which is typically spelled out "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" or even "YHWH". It is confirmed that at least one of these angels was YHWH when the narrative speaks of the LORD raining fire from LORD in Heaven. It is difficult for an anti-Trinitarian to flippantly dismiss this evidence.

We see that the Son and the Father are distinct in the Messianic texts of Psalm 2 where it is spoken of the enemies of God coming against the LORD and His anointed. King David is speaking prophetically of the Messiah, not of Himself. Then in Psalm 110, King David speaks of the LORD who said to his Lord, sit down on my right hand. This is conversation between two beings, regardless as to whether one takes the term "right hand" metaphorically" as the Modalists do. Not to mention Psalm 45, speaks of God having a conversation with God. Anti-Trinitarians force this text to apply to Solomon, ignoring that the core of the text is subsequently again applied to the Messiah in Hebrews 1. Daniel 7, a Messianic text, also shows a man coming on the clouds, ascending to the Ancient of Days. This is a reference to the Messianic judgment. We see two, not one.

The evidence that the Father and the Son are not each other is so overwhelming, it is remarkable that the Modalists would be so pigheaded to continue in their insistence that they are the same being when clearly, the Scriptures have revealed they are no. In Matthew 3, the Holy Spirit descends from Heaven and a voice speaks saying "This is my Son." Either Jesus is a ventriloquist or Jesus is lying, or the Father is not the Son. Whether or not this text contains the full revelation of the Trinity is once again irrelevant. It shows clearly the Father is not the Son. Likewise does the Transfiguration narrative in Matthew 17 and Luke 9. You would have to believe in an egregiously duplicitous God to assert that Modalism is what God intended to communicate in either of these texts. Not to mention in John 8, Jesus asserts that the Father is one witness and Himself is another witness because the testimony of two witnesses is true. In Revelation 3, Jesus references that He has a God, which is problematic for Modalists, but not for Trinitarians who understand that the Person of God the Father is Jesus's God, which is possible because they are not each other. Revelation 4-5 also shows clearly that the three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are not each other. The final greetings in 2 Corinthians 13 show also that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct.

John 1 proves definitively that Jesus is God. The Word was God and the Word was with God and the Word became flesh. Socinians are dubious in that they insist Jesus was the Word Who became flesh but not the Word Who was God. Are there two Words that are being talked about in the Johannine prologue? No. John 8:58 shows that Jesus claims to be God. The Arian response is that Jesus was only asserting that He existed before Abraham which is not in continuity with the Greek grammar. The Greek grammar does not use the past-tense. Jesus is essentially saying, "Before Abraham was, I exist". That is a claim not to be taken lightly. In Philippians 2, Jesus enters into God's glory, a glory which God does not share with another. It is not problematic for a Trinitarian, because when the three are together, They can speak as a single "I" or as a "We" as in Genesis 1. Revelation 3 also shows Jesus claiming to be the arche of God's creation. Though Arians insist that this holds Jesus as the first of God's creations, this interpretation is mistaken for the Greek word arche initially used by Aristotle to refer to his prime mover, indicates not so much as the first but a beginning in the sense of an origination. Jesus is the beginning of God's creation in the sense that He is the origination. If we understand beginning as the Greek word arche is intended to use, then Jesus is calling Himself not the first creation but the prime mover of God's creation. Jesus also references Himself as Alpha and Omega, which is what God references Himself as.

The Holy Spirit is God as the Great Commission indicates in Matthew 28. Why would Jesus include the Holy Spirit under the baptismal formula if it was not an equal authority with the Father and the Son? Acts 5 also details the account of Ananias and Saphira who lied to the Holy Spirit and by doing so, lied to God. A blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the unforgivable sin. How can it be unforgivable to blaspheme something that is not God but is an active force?

Objections to the Trinity are numerous but cannot withstand scrutiny. Further, the objections do not provide a same level of solution to Christian monotheism as the Trinity does. The attackers of the Trinity are so numerous and diverse, we cannot really address them all other than to say that the facts that the heretics and the enemies of God cannot agree on which alternative Trinity to uphold shows that there is nothing that can be held as an alternative to God. Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered! Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and unto the ages of ages, Amen!

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Under the imperial rule of Constantine, his mother Helena, on a visit to the Holy Land, discovered the Holy Cross on Golgotha after a Jewish man named Judah revealed it to her. It had been hidden under a Temple of Venus built by the Emperor Hadrian and the Empress ordered the Temple to be razed. Below it, were three crosses. As a funeral processed, the Patriarch Macarius told the Empress to have each of the three crosses placed upon the dead man. The first two did nothing. The third resurrected the dead man and by this, it was revealed which one was the true Cross of Christ. The Cross was set in a silver case the Empress made for it. Later, it was captured by the Emperor Chozroes who took the city of Jerusalem. The Persian Emperor held the Cross for 14 years before the Greek Emperor Heraclius defeated Chozroes and returned it to Jerusalem. He carried it back to Jerusalem but was suddenly unable. Patriarch Zacharias saw an angel blocking him. Patriarch Zacharias revealed this vision to the Emperor and told the Emperor that he could not bring the cross back to Jerusalem unless he walked the path barefoot and humiliated. Hearing this, Heraclius took of his raiment and in ragged attire, he carried the Cross the rest of the way to Jerusalem, placing it in the Church of the Resurrection.

The Cross is a fundamental part of every day Christian life. Many of us have had a cross with us since our baptism. These are given as gifts by parents, godparents, or friends. Some of us still wear the cross we are given from our baptism around our necks or around our wrists. Mine is too small for that. I have it held on a rosary holder. I was also given another cross before I was baptized which I carry with me in my pocket. Christians generally always keep crosses with them. Jesus told his followers that unless one take up their cross and follow Him, they cannot be His disciple. The cross was an execution device in the ancient world used by the Roman government to punish those who were not citizens. No citizens could be executed on a cross. It was reserved for slaves and traitors. The cross was an execution device utilized for the lowliest of criminals. Yet the Lord of glory was crucified and accepted death upon the cross.

St. Paul speaks of the Cross as being foolish to the Gentiles and a stumbling block to the Jews. The Gentiles cannot understand how one could devote themselves to a King who had received the death of a slave. To the Gentiles, such a man is no King. Maybe a martyr at best, but no King. To the Jews, they cannot accept the reality of the Messiah as the Son of God who came to accept the lowliest of deaths. They believe any one who is hanged on a tree is accursed. St. Paul talks about this in Galatians. It is through the Cross that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. St. Gregory Palamas distinguishes between heretics and Christians based solely on their attitude toward the Holy Cross.

"The heretics say that because Christ died nailed to the Cross, they cannot bear to see the form of the wood on which He was put to death. But where was the handwriting nailed which was drawn up against us because of our disobedience, when our forefathers stretched out his hand to a tree? How was it taken out of the way and obliterated, enabling us to return to God's blessing? ... Surely we should honor and use this divine trophy of the freedom of the whole human race. Its appearance alone puts the serpent, the originator of evil, to flight, triumphs over him and disgraces him, proclaiming him defeated and crushed. It glorifies and magnifies Christ, and displays His victory to the world. If it were really necessary to disregard the Cross because Christ suffered death on it, then His death too would be neither honorable or salutary. So how can we have been baptized into His death, as the apostle tells us (Rom. 6:3)? And how can we share in His resurrection, if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death (Rom. 6:5)?" (Homily On the Precious and Life-Giving Cross)

During the iconodulist controversies of the early medieval Church, one notable position remained consistent between those who championed the orthodox faith and those who opposed the orthodox faith of the veneration of icons. Both parties could unanimously concur that the Cross was to be venerated and was indeed a most acceptable icon to venerate. The orthodox rightfully concluded that the Cross was essential to the incarnation which had redeemed all and made every icon venerable through humanity of Christ, which could properly be represented in iconography.

"[W]e decree with full precision and care that, like the figure of the honoured and life-giving cross, the revered and holy images, whether painted or made of mosaic or of other suitable material, are to be exposed in the holy churches of God, on sacred instruments and vestments, on walls and panels, in houses and by public ways, these are the images of our Lord, God and saviour, Jesus Christ, and of our Lady without blemish, the holy God-bearer, and of the revered angels and of any of the saintly holy men." (Second Council of Nicaea)

Recently, I had a conversation with someone and asked them about why God would lay such a heavy burden upon someone even though He insists that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. They responded to me that it maybe was because He wanted to carry the burden with them. Which turned me toward reflecting upon this Feast Day. Consider Christ's walk to Golgotha. How He fell under the weight of the Cross and Simon the Cyrene was called upon by the Roman soldiers to lift the Cross and carry the Cross that Christ would be crucified under. Jesus did not have to carry His Cross alone. This was at a time when all of His apostles had fled and hidden in embarrassment and as He cried out on the Cross, "My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken me?" The only apostle remaining with Him was John. His Mother remained with Him as well as His other women disciples. And strangers were left with Him. Isolation is certainly a heavy burden, but it was a burden that He shared. He tells us to pick up our Cross and follow Him. But He didn't carry His Cross alone. His yoke is easy and His burden is light not in terms of the actual weight, but in terms of the relative weight. Because when we let Him carry our Cross, we will make it to Golgotha with Him. And when we make it to Golgotha, we will then be with Him in Paradise.

Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness: An Homage to Our Lady

This chapter of the book really only makes sense in light of the Western liturgy. Some contend that the Church has lost its masculine touch. If anything, the Church has lost its feminine touch and has embraced this effeminate masculinity that is so degrading it might as well be barbaric and bland. This is the Protestant abuse of the Novus Ordo. But proper reflection on Our Lady is something that is brought to our attention by the Tridentine Mass. Peter Kwasniewski talks about his devotion to the rosary in this second to last chapter of the book. How does the Mass compare to the rosary in his perspective? Although I pray the rosary, it isn't generally considered an Eastern devotion so for someone reading this book as a Greek Catholic, this is the chapter that makes the least sense to me in favor of the Tridentine Mass but it certainly makes a strong case for it from a Western perspective.

The purpose of the rosary is repetitive meditation that intends to lead us inward toward the mystery of God. In the East, we have repetition too. We pray "Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner!" We pray that constantly. We make certain it is constantly on our lips and ingrained into our hearts. When it comes to critics of the Tridentine Mass, they hate the repetition of prayers that occur within it. Why do they hate it so much? Repetition is a key to remembering things, to grafting things into the mind. That is why repetition is so important. When it comes to a song, we hear the chorus over and over again so that by the end of the song, the chorus is ingrained into our heads. This is why music can be such a bad influence on us. If we are hearing toxic sludge, our mind is repetitively filled with toxic sludge. The Apostle Paul calls us to think on the things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, yielding kindness, these things think upon. Repetition is a mental meditative tactic to turn our minds toward what is important.

Thus, repetitive prayers in Mass are far from being tedious, they are what cements our minds to bask in the glory of God. They train our minds to be elevated toward holy things. This is why the prayers of the rosary are repeated. They also call us toward mystery. They call us toward participation in the Life of Jesus. When we go through the rosary, we start with the Annunciation. This is the beginning of the earthly Life of Jesus. This is the beginning of his humanity and our godliness. This is the point in which man and God become one inside the Virgin. As we go through the mysteries, we finally end up at the coronation. The Virgin Mary is both a type of the Church as a type of the Ark of the Covenant. She is both the Church and the Ark of the Covenant. We enter into the Virgin Mary's life because we are the Church as well. At the end of our life with God on Earth, we are called up into death with Him so that we are then raised from the dead and we become crowned with the glory of Heaven. This is how the rosary is much like the Mass.

Kwasniewski reflects on three things that if we are to forget about them, will result in the collapse of Catholic theology. Reverence for the Fathers and Doctors, reverence for the sacredness of the liturgy, and reverence for the Christian society these things seek to build. With the modern liturgical revolution, all three of these things are lost and stripped away. I don't imagine it possible to have the Tridentine Mass with the theology of Pope Francis. In fact, many of these recent Popes sound rather foreign when one becomes basked in an Eastern perspective, but Kwasniewski does speak from a Western perspective. But the Tradition, overall, encapsulates so much of the lives of the saints that it is impossible to revere them while not thinking that something is missing currently. We have seen how lack of reverence for the saints has been something that the Novus Ordo has produced. Thus, to embrace their theology, one cannot refuse to worship as they did.

Reverence for the sacredness of the liturgy has become optional these days. The more extraordinary ministers, the more the Eucharist seems to be degraded. I remember the treasurer at the Anglican Mission I went to telling me how some of these Traditionalist Catholics don't think that their own brethren even believe in the Eucharistic theology of the Church any more the way the body of Our Lord is handled. How can one be so casual about Our Lord's body and yet still profess the belief in transubstantiation? It doesn't make sense. If one believes what they are fed is truly divine, then one must treat it as God. If one treats God so poorly thinking that it's just a wafer or even just any other normal object, then reverence for the holiness of the Tradition is lost.

Reverence for the Christian society that our fathers sought to build has been lost. In today's Church, the theology has been so consumed with focusing on the dignity of man and the rights' of man, one wonders if man has become God too soon. It really does look that way given the attitude and current theological trends of the clergy. I have seen more clergy this past year standing up for democratic values and condemning even the classical values of the ancient traditions in favor of democratic values. Whether they are doing this for money or not is uncertain but it really seems to be the former. Since when does the Church stand for democratic values? Never. At least not until now. The overwhelming trend in the Church has not been toward the glorification and promotion of Christendom, far from it. The trend in the Church has been toward the glorification of man, man's rights, and man's free will. This is an idolatrous form of humanism.

All three of these have been lost. Is it any wonder why the liturgy has been crumbling apart, the Church is rife with scandals and schisms, or that ravenous wolves have taken the place of shepherds? May we all recollect on who we are. May we all wake up from this amnesia. May we look backwards so that we may look forwards. O Lady and Theotokos, Ever-Virgin Mary, pray for us!

Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness - The Peace of Low Mass and the Glory of High Mass

In this chapter, Peter Kwasniewski discusses the most notable differences between low Mass and high Mass. When I had first heard of these words, I was confused by the terminology thinking that a low Mass was a Novus Ordo Mass. It's not. A low Mass is a Mass where the prayer is done without chanting. Whereas the high Mass is done with chanting. This chapter of Kwasniewski's is a matter of meditation. He shares his personal observances and how they apply. I feel similarly in my experiences with the Divine Liturgy as well. Though I have never been to a Tridentine Mass as I refuse to attend a parish where a sketchy Mass has been observed, I have experienced both chanting and non-chanting liturgies. I have noticed that many of things Kwasniewski meditates on, I can relate to here as well.

For instance, in the low Mass, where no chanting is done, the prayers bring us to a state of silence. We observe our own silence with God and we are confronted with the noise of our thoughts. We are attuned to the reality that God is not to be found in the clamoring noisiness of life, the earthquake or the wind or the fire, but in the soft whisper. We are brought to a sense of aloneness where we are not truly alone but find ourselves instead with the angels, looking at our Creator, and observing together the saints who look longingly toward the Creator. God becomes our only desire. There is a self-emptying taking place. This is where the soul is led to in silence because it now sees that it must do battle against its thoughts. It is in thought where sin initially blossoms. We cannot always control our thoughts but we can control our actions. It is in the silence where we are forced to confront our thoughts and the confrontation against thoughts leads to the self-emptying.

I have been to many Anglican Masses and most of them have been of the low Mass. It is here, that the only noise that permeates seems to be the priest's prayers, the chirping of birds, and the woodpecker. I am confronted with my thoughts. Early in the morning, if I have not slept well, I am confronted with the temptation of wanting to fall asleep. I am forced to confront myself. This self-confrontation leads the cult of self-worship and humanistic individualism to an uncomfortable position in their livelihoods. This is why most of the opponents of the Tridentine Mass typically also favor some form of humanistic liberalism. They want no desire to bring their thoughts inward or to meditate upon their own fallenness. The Novus Ordo brings them comfort and they desire not to break from their comfort zone. The Novus Ordo has left the Catholic faith with a dead meditative practice.

I also notice the same when in the Ukrainian Catholic parish I visit on occasion. Sometimes, when they have no cantor, they cannot have a liturgy as is typical, but must do it without chanting. There is again that confrontation with the self. Even as I follow along with the liturgy, my senses are brought inward and I confront the thoughts I have had this week. I bring myself toward conviction. I stand as a condemned man in need of the grace I will be offered by the blood of my Lord. It is the desire for God's grace that ultimately is lost by the noisiness, the hustle and bustle, of the world that we are living in. It is the confrontation with the self, the realization that the self is not to be worshiped but handed over to God and offered as sacrifice, that is what the Novus Ordo cult of self-worship opposes.

On the other hand, the high Mass, which is chanted, invites the soul to enter into the communion of all saints. It shows that the soul is not isolated on an island but enters into the chorus of angels. Salvation is not something that occurs by one's own will power, though it is worked out in fear and trembling at an individual level, this must happen within the communion of those who have handed down tradition. Tradition is not what we have of our own but instead is handed down to us. To annul tradition is to embrace the most radical form of individualism. In the liturgy, we enter the chorus of angels, of saints, of those who came before us in the faith, and enter into the communion with our brethren. I remember writing a note to my godmother back in January wishing to leave the liturgy and asking if I could do so. She wrote a note back saying that if I need to I may but I would miss communion with Christ and with my brethren.

There is on the one hand, silence. A silence that forces one to confront the noise of the mind. That is a low Mass. And on the other hand, there is a form of loudness, not noise, but loudness which calls the mind to communion with God and with angels, saints, and the entirety of the Church. Though I have not been to a Tridentine Mass, I find the livestreams of Tridentine Mass services to be beneficial for exploration and I have found the high Mass to be extremely beautiful. It is everything I know of what the liturgy really ought to be. In the Byzantine rite, we regularly chant our liturgies. It is in the sole exception of the Ukrainian Catholic parish where I've noticed that a non-chanted liturgy has occurred. In many Orthodox churches too, the law requires that all liturgies be chanted. This is because it provides a loudness that elevates and frees the soul from being a prisoner of its own thoughts and recalls the mind to God. God is supremely loud and superbly quiet as the Crazy Church Lady testifies.

In my experience as an Anglican, I have also been to the high Mass where the liturgy is chanted and hymns are exuberantly sung during different intervals. These liturgies are much longer but there is an inherent beauty that is elaborated by the length. Once again, the soul finds itself confronted with its individual thoughts but rather remaining enslaved to them fighting its own battle, the high Mass is where the soul is allowed to elevate itself to the thoughts of the angels and saints. There are more bombastic liturgies and much more mellow liturgies too. The liturgies, in essence, are without mood. The tone reflects only the level and type of angelic joy that one is brought to. I find Russian chant to be most beautiful. The Slavonic tone is far more mellow the Arab tone of my Melkite parish. The Gregorian chant is incredibly beautiful too. But there is benefit from the Arab tone. All of these elevate the soul to untold communal levels of joy. If we liked every single part of the liturgy though, then it would be of our own creation and we would never be saved.

Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness - Different Visions, Contrary Paths

In this chapter, Peter Kwasniewski looks at the liturgical emphasis made by the Jesuits and the Benedictines. It developed in the early twentieth century that the Benedictines placed a heavy emphasis on the centrality of the liturgy in the spiritual growth and theology of the Church's life. The Jesuits, on the other hand, placed more of an emphasis on the intellectual growth with the liturgy being merely just a tool useful for spiritual growth. In the last section, I talked about this unfortunate side effect of scholasticism. The Benedictines insisted on the primacy of the liturgy in the life of the Church while the Jesuits insisted on a re-envisioning of the liturgy to a mode of private devotion. These two came into fusion at the Vatican II Council "as if new Jesuit wine had been poured into old Benedictine wineskins" (Noble Beauty, 118). It is in this chapter that Kwasniewski also seems to depart from any mask of sympathy he may hold toward Vatican II.

The Benedictines certainly hold a more fundamentally correct view, however, like the Jesuits, they also abandoned the liturgy of the ancient rite. They favored the concept of the private character of the Novus Ordo. Some people may think in reading this that I attack the Novus Ordo too much but when fully considered, there is a very limited sense in which the Novus Ordo can accurately be deemed a Catholic Mass. Certainly, if emphasis is placed on reverence and these formats are not made optional, it may be able to be deemed a Catholic Mass and a vernacular translation of the Old Mass, but if these are left optional, the Novus Ordo fails to merit anything of Catholic value. The centrality of the liturgy in Catholic life though is not optional. Lex credendi lex orandi! is the old dogma and the old dogma will remain. Liturgy is not distinct from our theology and prayer is not distinct from our belief. This disconnect between the two brought upon by the Jesuit strain of theology in the Church's life was a blunder. How could the two have been so blatantly disconnected and the liturgy allowed to become objectified like this?

There is a desire among proponents of the Novus Ordo to retrace back to "antiquity" and claim the tradition in antiquity once again. But this leads them to a selective mode of antiquarianism. They want their cake and eat it too. Kwasniewski notes how the great liturgical theologian, Dom Prosper Guéranger saw in these heretical and schismatic movements always a burning desire to retrace their own claims to antiquity. (124) Of course, there was no validity in it and what was always neglected was the organic nature of certain developments and growths. St. Vincent of Lérins comments much on how doctrine appropriately develops. But what we often see instead of a love for antiquity is a rejection and a repudiation of orthodoxy that leads to a selection of what we want to believe about antiquity and what we do not want to believe about antiquity. How many Novus Ordo proponents view the mandate for women to wear headcoverings as effective? How many Novus Ordo proponents would wash their hands before receiving the Eucharist? How many Novus Ordo proponents would actually go back to practicing baptisms by full immersion with the catechumen in the nude? The fact of the matter is not many of them.

Was Protestantism not started by a man who desired to bring Catholicism all the way back to the Scriptural era? Yes! We see that antiquarianism does not actually have roots in Catholicism but rather has its roots in the spirit of Martin Luther. The arch-heretic desired to find what the original Christians taught and found himself inside his Bible. Not coming to the conclusions even of the Bible, Martin Luther sought that Christians root themselves in the authority of Scripture alone. This of course led to a problem soon as more Protestant denominations began to spring up which Luther himself never intended but it was too late for Luther. The damage to the Western Christian tradition was already done, there was no way to end it. Eventually, Luther's doctrine found proponents in the Anabaptists who took it to the most literal level of all of the Protestant Christians at the time. They believed that all men could accurately understand the Scriptures and could effectively be their own authoritative pastors. But it was the antiquarian approach of Luther's that still retains dominance among Protestantism and liberal Christianity today. Even the ones claiming the most progressive standing are backwards and behind.

And here, Kwasniewski notes that the liturgy does undergo organic development in terms of its pruning. Like a tree when it grows in your yard needs its branches clipped on a regular basis. The garden needs to be weeded. The liturgy is growing like a tree. The Church has planted the seed of its faith in the liturgy and the necessary actions are to ascertain it grows properly by pruning the plant, making certain weeds are not growing, keeping the plant centered. If this does not occur, the plant will not grow properly. The garden will not flourish well. Overgrowth will occur. This pruning of the plant is not to show that there is an artificiality in the plant or even an artificial growth in the liturgy, but rather it shows that the liturgy is guided by the Church throughout the years, it undergoes no mutations turning it into a new plant like the Novus Ordo, and it shows that the Church has a spiritual garden in its liturgy. The liturgy is the life of the Church, it is the spiritual garden of the Church, and it is the prayer of the Church. The Church is all about the liturgy, and its theology is in the liturgy. Many proponents of the Novus Ordo deny this and they subsequently anathematize the Church in the process.

Kwasniewski states, "we retain the Roman liturgical tradition out of humility and not out of pride" (133) which could not be better well put. Too often, the Traditionalist Catholics are accused of acting in a spirit of pride by the false Novus Ordo Catholics. That they ought to accept the new liturgical changes, the private devotion in the "Mass" and the mutations done to tradition or they are not acting in obedience. But the Church is more than just obedience to a particular Pope at a given time. If we were to play that game, we could pit Popes against each other. The Church, instead, is the whole of the liturgical tradition and the liturgical garden that it has been planted in. No one can be acting in a spirit of pride by giving up their own selves in the liturgy as the Traditionalists who attend the ancient liturgies of the East and West do. Who can be acting in a spirit of pride are the ones who attend the liturgies because it's their preference, it's their way to connect with God, it's their private devotion. And these people are typically found in the Novus Ordo, not with the Tridentines.

Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness - Why Reverence is Not Enough

Peter Kwasniewski's next chapter tackles the question of reverence. Many efforts have been made to push the Novus Ordo into a reverential direction. These efforts are certainly commendable and could do a service in ensuring the survivability of the Novus Ordo, but only if such reforms are not made optional. The core problem here with the Novus Ordo then is not whether it can be reverent but that the Novus Ordo possesses the option to not be reverent. Therein lies the fallacy with the Novus Ordo as it exists today. Bp. Athanasius Schneider himself has proposed different ways to reform the Novus Ordo, all of them are very important for Catholics to consider. These reforms he proposes are the reestablishment of ad orientem priests in the liturgy, the reception of the Eucharist kneeling and on the tongue, not the hand, the reintroduction of the offeratory prayers that indicate the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist, the return of the calendar of the Old Rite, and the reintroduction of Latin into the liturgy. (Christus Vincit, 246-256) But wait, doesn't this eventually turn the Novus Ordo into a vernacularized version of the Traditional Latin Mass? Why yes, and that's exactly the point!

"I do not think it is realistic to abolish the Novus Ordo. You cannot accomplish this on such a large scale. We have to restore the constant traditional form of the Mass step by step, in a substantially organic manner. We cannot make another rupture but need to do it organically. Only those things that are absolutely necessary should be imposed in all Catholic churches of the Roman rite by pontifical authority: celebration ad Deum and Communion kneeling and on the tongue." (249)

I would further argue that the addition of the offeratories should be made mandatory as the Eucharist is not just a common meal but a sacrificial offering of the Lord's body. And any one insisting that the Novus Ordo's commitment to receiving the Eucharist standing is an example of its "Eastern" quality is sadly mistaken. In the East, standing is an act of reverence. In the West, kneeling is an act of reverence. In the East, we do not receive the Eucharist on the hand, we receive the Eucharist on the tongue just like the Traditional Latin Mass and not like in the Novus Ordo in which it can only be done by request assuming you currently still have a bishop in good standing with the Catholic faith.

Peter Kwasniewski talks about tradition as guiding us in our lives. Tradition is our culture and tradition is what we inherit. The Latin tradere means "to hand over". Tradition binds us into a culture that we fight to preserve. "Tradition comes to us from above, from God who providentially designed us as social animals who inherit our language, our culture, and our religion; it comes to us from our ancestors...the ones who have gone before." (Noble Beauty, 38) In contrast to tradition are the errors of modernity. Modernity seeks to topple tradition. Modernity is rooted in pride. It is a pride that says, "I know better than my ancestors who came before me!" It is a pride that turns one into a know-it-all and they become consumed with thinking that they have found the answers or that those who came before them fudged it all up. This pride is rooted deeply in the spirit of modern day democracies and it is rooted more deeply in the form of Protestantism. To speak of the adherents of the Old Liturgy as "Protestant" in mentality is not only a slanderous accusation to make but also an egregious fallacy of what Protestantism entails. Protestantism is a rejection of the authority of tradition. Protestantism didn't reject the authority of the Pope, it rejected the authority of tradition which the Pope's authority was rooted in. Protestantism didn't reject the authority of the bishops, it rejected the authority of the Church which the bishops carried their authority in. This golden calf of modern day liberalism, the Enlightenment philosophy, is deeply seeded in American culture and flourishes deeply in American Catholicism. Sometimes I wonder if we as Catholics have forgotten that we are the Church and have embraced the American culture over ecclesiastical culture. Kwasniewski further makes his argument against the Novus Ordo,

"the reformed liturgy, moreover, like modern liberalism itself, exalts choice, spontaneity, and diversity, whereas the historic liturgies of Christianity, both Eastern and Western, present the worshiper with a fully articulated act of worship to which we gratefully yield ourselves, taking on its features as an icon panel receives layer after layer of prescribed color until the beautiful image stands forth." (39)

Here, Kwasniewski has tied the spirit of the liturgical malform in with the spirit of modernist liberalism. It is the spirit of this change that the Neo-Catholic insists is genuinely Catholic, but the emphasis on choice presents him with error. Kwasniewski cites Martin Mosebach, "the very fact that it is possible [to celebrate it reverently] is the weightiest argument against the new liturgy" (45). Mosebach further draws a comparison between this attitude toward the liturgy with an attitude regarding treating a monarch as needing to be competent since it is the monarch's birth from which he draws his legitimacy. Tradition is handed down to us. Tradition is what is in contrast to modernity. Modernism embraces the emphasis of choice. It embraces spontaneity and diversity. Within Christianity, there is room for some diversity, but the limits are drawn with the terms of how and how can not a liturgy be conducted. Christianity is a broad, universal religion, uniting all ethnicities, but it is in the historic tradition of the liturgy that we are united. There are many ancient liturgies that, as Catholics, we celebrate, but they are rooted in the same essence. This rooting is in the Holy Sacrifice of the Eucharist. This is why we can look at the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and see how strikingly familiar the Liturgy of St. Basil is when we celebrate it. This is why when after looking at that, we can venture into the West and see the melodies of the Gregorian chant yet know that the liturgical pattern is the same. There might be different ways of expressing reverence through kneeling or through standing but the core essence is what unites us together. The Eastward direction of the priest, the liturgy of the catechumens and the liturgy of the faithful, the chanting, the Gospel readings, the offeratories, all of this is the same in both East and West. Only tradition frees us from the errors of Protestantism. Dead authoritarianism leads us to an even duller form of Protestantism than the one we anathematized at the Council of Trent.

Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness - Introduction

Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness is a timely work of Peter Kwasniewski's that deserves attention in recent times, especially with the vicious attack on tradition by our ecclesiastical hierarchy. Martin Mosebach begins the book with an introduction commenting on the issues at play in the current discussion of the liturgical "reform" (or rather malform) that has been brought about by the effects of Vatican II and how they have deteriorated the Western Catholic mode of thought and appreciation for beauty. I am a Byzantine Catholic. Why am I so interested in the deterioration of Western Rite Catholicism? I am interested in the deterioration of Western Rite Catholicism primarily because as a Catholic, if the West can suicide its own tradition as it has done in the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st century, what stops the Western hierarchy from doing this to the East? Indeed, even my own bishop has decided to take cues from the Western bishops when it comes to how to deal with the coronavirus pandemic specifically. We do not want to be governed according to Western precepts if the West has decided to suicide its own tradition!

This collapse in appreciation for the beauty of the Church's liturgy has become among the downsides of the reforms of Paul VI. Vatican II brought about numerous reforms (or malforms) to the Church which were already in the making but hadn't touched the core essence of the liturgy quite yet. It was in this context that the liberals would first strike at the principal concept uniting Christians together. The core of our prayer life in the liturgy was assaulted. No longer was there a sacrificial offering. Churches became bland and devoid of life. The liturgy became a mode of communion between individuals rather than a sacrificial communal meal tying Christians together. Thus, Martin Mosebach comments in the introduction, "The Church, unrestrainedly pushing ahead with her revolution, continued to lose both attractiveness and retentive capacity." (xiv) I would dispute that the Church was the one that went ahead with this revolution though. I would state it was the members of the Church that tried to cut the Church into pieces and instead became persecutors of the Church instead!

One of the common themes of the Novus Ordo is that the priest frequently faces the people. This reduces the liturgy to a virtual interaction between priest, whereas a liturgy is meant to bring the congregation's proper focus on Christ. "Klaus Gamber...had given the scholarly proof that in no period of the Church's history had the liturgical sacrifice been made facing the people instead of facing East, together with the people, to the returning Lord." (xviii) This Eastward direction was intended to emphasize that Christ is coming in the East. He will return from the East. The Holy Prophet Malachi refers to Christ as the Sun of Righteousness. The Sun rises in the East. There is an inherently Eastward emphasis in Messianic theology in the Jewish literature which as a consequence, extends into the Christian literature. To create a "liturgy" in which priest and people face each other is to turn the liturgy from a sacrificial offering to God to a communication among believers. Such an act deteriorates the liturgy.

One of the things that is cut out in the Novus Ordo typically tends to be the order of consecration. The Traditional Latin Mass, much like the Byzantine Liturgy, is divided into the Mass of the Catechumens and the Mass of the Faithful. The Mass of the Catechumens is where the Gospel is read, shortly afterward, the catechumens are dismissed for the catechumens, remaining uncleansed by their lack of baptism, are unfit to observe the sacrifice of the Mass which occurs during the Mass of the faithful. Nicholas Cabasilas, commenting on the order of consecration during the Byzantine Liturgy, makes this argument in defense of the Byzantine order of consecration. In his day, there were Latins attempting to minimalize the consecration of the Eucharist, claiming that after the words, "take and eat", the Eucharist was fully consecrated already (A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, 29). There was a certain strain of Latins already abusing the faith of both East and West, minimalizing these prayers. "Who does not know that is the death of Christ alone which has brought remission of sins to the world? But we also know that even after his death faith, penitence, confession, and the prayer of the priest are necessary, and a man cannot receive remission of sins unless he has been through these processes. ... To follow the innovations of these men would inevitably mean the total destruction of Christianity." (29)

Cabasilas's harsh words to these Latins may offend some Latin Catholics, but it is important to note he only references a strain of thought developing in certain Latins. A strain of thought that Kwasniewski will take issues with. Martin Mosebach, in his foreward to Kwasniewski's book makes note of the consecrations in various different rites (Noble Beauty, xxi-xxii). Cabasilas, though commenting on the Byzantine Liturgy, has already shown the commonality between the Byzantine and Latin Liturgies (A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, 30), something that I have seen many apologists for the Novus Ordo try to claim for the Novus Ordo. Their argument is only in the position that the Novus Ordo is in the vernacular. The vernacular will be brought up later though Mosebach has a grim statement to make about the universal return to Latin. It may be that the vernacular is here to stay. I can see arguments for both the vernacular and a universal language so I won't comment further until I get to that section in this series, but the proponents of the Novus Ordo who try to compare the Byzantine Liturgy to the Novus Ordo never address the ad orientem position of the clergy nor do they address the lack of consecrations in the Novus Ordo. Indeed, that the consecrations are only deemed "optional" in the Novus Ordo ends up separating those Catholic defenders of it from the main body of the whole of Tradition already. They ignore the warnings given by Cabasilas and they have distorted the Divine Liturgy by insisting that consecrations are not necessary. Both are an attack on the essence of the Catholic faith. With these statements, Martin Mosebach calls us back to our Catholic tradition in the Divine Liturgy and in the Mass of our ancestors.

Christians in Hell

There is a story related in the Gerontikon and also in the Evergetinos of Abba Makarios the Egyptian traveling through the desert and coming across a skull. The skull speaks out to him and identifies itself as having once belonged to one of the high priests of the Pagan religion. It describes its torments in Hell but when the Christians pray, there is a temporary moment in which the tormented in Hell are allowed for a moment to look at each other. Abba Makarios, curious for more about the fate of the damned, inquires the skull as to whether there are even greater sufferings than what the skull speaks of. The skull announces that there are indeed, below the Pagans, the souls of Christians who disobeyed the commandments of God and their sufferings are even worse for they knew what they ought to have done.

Yes, there will be Christians in Hell. I remember seeing this obvious truth in high school and going up to my non-denominational pastor who would quiz me on whether or not I believed that Jesus was the Son of God, risen from the dead, and that I was a sinner who he died for. I'd answer in the affirmative. He would tell me then that I was not going to Hell. But there was always those texts in the Scriptures that continued to disturb me. The thought of entering before Heaven, being one who would be denied for not all who say "Lord, Lord" will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Then there was the thought of the judgment in the Book of Revelation, every man being judged according to his works. Those who's names are not written in the Book of Life will be sent to the Lake of Fire for eternity. That faith without works is dead. But these were such Catholic doctrines, they couldn't have been real!

The problem with this strict definition of sola fide is that it ends up ultimately doing nothing more than turning faith into a work. For one must constantly, intellectually profess the same thing over and over again and the moment that one stops, faith departs. But faith is more than just intellectual profession. Faith comes in all shapes and sizes. It can be as tiny as a mustard seed but still move the largest of mountains. It can even be tinier than a mustard seed as emphasized by all who cannot move mountains. Faith is an action. Faith is not an intellectual profession. Faith is making it to church every Sunday morning. Faith is attending the Divine Liturgy attentively and with attunement of the soul to the Will of God. Faith is being entirely consumed by the Divine Will that there is nothing of your own human will left. The Catholic doctrine is not against sola fide but against the doctrine that faith is an intellectual profession. The Catholic doctrine is sola fide formata. Formed faith alone is the doctrine. This faith is formed through the acts of charity and repentance required of a Christian. Those Christians who practice wickedness will not make it to Heaven just because they intellectually professed to faith. Rather, they will be sentenced to Hell for a grueling eternity. And many Christians nowadays who proceed to persecute their fellow brethren for following the ancient tradition of the Church over the modernist infiltrations will be sentenced to far greater tortures than the Pagans who did the same.

I had a dream the other day. My confessor was in it. My godmother was in it. No one else was. We were talking together when my godmother told me to follow my confessor into the nave. I did. Only there was no narthex. Leading into the nave was a hall suspended in the air. The hall was sloped downward but it was so high above the ground, you could see the clouds below. I saw my confessor walk through this hall and leap into the nave. I walked through this hall and began slipping. Not certain as to whether to jump, I hesitated. I saw my confessor reaching toward me but I was too far. I began falling.

This is what the betrayal of the faith looks like. It is this eternal slipping and falling down through the clouds all the way to the ground. It is important that we always pay heed to the fact that we will all die some day. Man doesn't want to deal with this any more. He wants to create medical experiments that prolong his own life and make him immortal. You cannot do this though. You can never become immortal. You may try all you want but God will have the last say in things and His rules are final. It is important that we make the jump and reach for the hands of wise men. It is important we obey the advice of those who have been entrusted with spiritual care over us. They may not always be right, but unless they are telling you something that you know to be a violation of divine law, you ought to follow them. I am well aware that Crazy Church Lady would never tell me to do anything that would be a violation of divine law. And my priest will always be there to help me move up the ladder of divine ascent.

But there is always the possibility of Hell. The moment you turn away from God is the moment that you could then speedily repose and find yourself there for the rest of your eternity. A Christian who does this, paying no heed to the commandments, will suffer even worse pain than the skull which was encountered by St. Makarios as he walked through the desert of Egypt. The experience of Hell will be unbearable. They will be shocked to find themselves in Hell and they will be horrified by the fact that they were serving the legions of the Devil while dressed up as a Christian the entire time. The road to Heaven is narrow and few will make it, but the path to destruction is broad and many will be lost.