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11:01pm | Feast of Divine Love |
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11:01pm |
Posted a tweet on Twitter.
New blog post: Feast of Divine Love http://tinyurl.com/6cgrsu
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10:56am |
Scrobbled 5 songs on Last.fm. (Show Details)
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From Holy Name Parish in South Deerfield, Massachusetts and Fr. Randy Calvo: Don’t Let It Pass Unobserved
December 8th is one of those sacred days on our church calendar that is unique to the National Catholic Church. That it is unique bothers some people because they associate it with separation, that if no one else has it and we do, then we are different, and different implies separate. I never appreciated the logic of this reasoning. I know when studying the four Gospels, for example, that the unique materials in each one of them are invaluable in our attempts to understand the perspective and purpose of the author. The unique materials do not separate the Gospels from each other; they enhance one another so that we can have a fuller understanding of the Good News. They look at Jesus from different angles, not giving us separate pictures of Him, but rather a more developed one.
The Feast of Divine Love is unique, but that is part of its importance. It could only have arisen in a church such as ours, from a perspective such as ours. It says much about who we are, and also in that process about how God has revealed Himself to us. This feast day replaces the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which refers to a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church issued by Pope Pius IX in 1854. The same Pope associated this teaching and feast with his resistance to the emerging democracies of the modern world. He issued the Syllabus of Errors intentionally on this date in 1864. This official document ridicules the authority of human reason, intellectual progress and science, freedom of religion and ecumenism. It states that the church should have temporal power, even military power, and that not only should there be no separation of church and state, but that the church should stand above the state.
The feast of the Immaculate Conception was also used by this Pope to sanction his own infallibility. He opened Vatican Council I on this date in 1869. This Council declared in 1870 that the Pope’s authority is universal and infallible. This new proclamation set off a series of events that led to the creation of the Old Catholic Church. Old refers to the old ways of the church before the Pope had himself newly declared infallible. In 1907, Fr. Francis Hodur was consecrated a bishop by the Old Catholic Church in Utrecht, Holland. With his consecration, Bp. Hodur signed the Declaration of Utrecht, which was promulgated in 1889, in direct opposition to the theology of Vatican Council I. With that act, Bp. Hodur, on behalf of our church, formally and specifically rejected the new theology of papal infallibility.
By this same act, he also endorsed the Old Catholic rejection of the new dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and for fundamental theological reasons. Mary is the source of Jesus’ human nature. If her human nature is not our full human nature, that is, if she is born free of —original sin— and we are not, if, in other words, she is born —immaculate— and we are born sinful, then the nature she passes on to Jesus is not ours. If that is the case, then Jesus’ incarnation and thus His act of salvation, is compromised. We, therefore, must reject the theology of the Immaculate Conception.
We have been and are a progressive, democratic Catholic church, and since we have formally rejected the theology of this day and the theological pronouncements associated with it, it is only logical that we would replace the Feast of the Immaculate Conception with a theologically more tenable celebration. That celebration is the Feast of Divine Love. The Feast of Divine Love speaks about creation as a testament of God’s love. The physical universe is a wonder to be marveled at, not one to be ridiculed as inherently sinful. We are stewards of creation when made in the likeness of God, not its masters. This being the case, reason, science and progress are not to be fended-off in fear or anger, but embraced as part of God’s revelation (see Romans 1:20). Likewise, reason and free will are how we are created in God’s image as an act of divine love. For these to flourish we must advocate for democracy in the state and the church. This is our feast day in a practical and profound way. This is our perspective that we alone share with the world about God to better understand God. Don’t let it pass unobserved.
Have we, brute beasts that we are, ever done the like? Why, we yawn if we read for over an hour; we rub our foreheads and vainly try to suppress our languor. And then, after this great feat, we plunge for relief into worldly business once more.
I say nothing of the meals with which we dull our faculties, and I would rather not estimate the time that we spend in paying and receiving visits. Next we fall into conversation; we waste our words, we attack people behind their backs, we detail their way of living, we carp at them and are carped at by them in turn. Such is the fare that engages our attention at dinner and afterwards. Then, when our guests have retired, we make up our accounts, and these are sure to cause us either anger or anxiety. The first makes us like raging lions, and the second seeks vainly to make provision for years to come. We do not recollect the words of the Gospel: —Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?— The clothing which we buy is designed not merely for use but for display. Where there is a chance of saving money we quicken our pace, speak promptly, and keep our ears open. If we hear of household losses —” such as often occur —” our looks become dejected and gloomy. The gain of a penny fills us with joy; the loss of a half-penny plunges us into sorrow. One man is of so many minds that the prophet’s prayer is: —Lord, in thy city scatter their image.— For created as we are in the image of God and after His likeness, it is our own wickedness which makes us assume masks. — Letter XLIII. To Marcella.