The Poetic Priesthood

In much of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetry, "a terror lest natural beauty fade unharvested is the dominant note…With such statling clearness did he realize that only through man's mind is Nature made transitorily beautiful – 'quench this clearest-selved spark' and 'both are in an unfathomable dark drowned' – yet only in Christ by man's free will can both be made beautiful for ever." (Christopher Devlin, S.J.)

Hopkins saw and enacted the patristic notion that human beings are the priests of creation – our divine vocation is to turn creation toward God in a cosmic liturgy. Beauty sings to us, and we must redirect these songs of praise to God. In this sense, Hopkins' oeuvre is a eucharistic hymnal, and he shows us poetry as a quintessentially Christian act that is essential to the Church's mission in the world.

Apocalyptic Time

The book of Revelation is frequently misread, notes Raymond Brown (Introduction to the New Testament), as providing a coded history of the future. Such misreadings see the order of events in that final biblical book as – more (in some 'prophets') or less (as in Left Behind) symbolically – predicting the temporal order of events at the end times.

Brown provides a more detailed refutation of this point of view, but it is enough to note that the time line of at least one central character of the book – Jesus Christ – runs clearly against the historical order of his life. He is seen, already crucified, around the throne of God (5:6) a full seven chapters before he is born (12:5)!

This discrepancy alone should be enough to alert us to the fact that time and history, although central to John's Apocalypse, are not simply being mapped out in advance. God is breaking into history in such a way that history is radically called into question; the seer of Patmos forces on us an "awareness of the catastrophic nature of time itself, the element of discontinuity in it, of the termination and end of time" (Metz).

Every moment of history finds itself on the field of Armageddon, between two armies arrayed for battle. One must choose now: flock either to the banner of the Lamb who was slain or to the dragon who has been healed (13:3).

Confessing Sin and Praising God

"The Church does not profess its belief in sin, but in the forgiveness of sin – so much so that none discover themselves to be sinners unless they discover themselves to be pardoned sinners. The grace of forgiveness always offered is what reveals sin, just as the prodigal son discovered the true dimension of his sin in the arms of his father… The final authority for judging sin is not our consciences, as necessary as these may be – 'I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted' (1 Cor 4:4) – but the word of grace and mercy offered in Jesus. Sin is finally revealed only as taken away. Thus the 'examination of conscience' becomes a confession of praise at the same time it is a confession of sin to God."

(Louis-Marie Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament, p. 433)

Aphorism

An unnoticed type of the Church in the New Testament: the nails pinning Christ to the cross – we are only taken into Christ's body at the cost of the suffering which our cold non-love inflicts on him.

The Inequality of Heavenly Reward

    Near the end of the City of God, St. Augustine finds himself tangled in a paradox about the joys of heaven: the unending and unsurpassable vision of God will be common to all the blessed, and yet "it cannot be doubted that there shall be degrees" of honor and glory (XXII.30). If all enjoy the singular joy of the beatific vision, how could there possibly be degrees of reward in heaven?

    Augustine's discussion of the martyrs opens the possibility for an answer. In the resurrection, the martyr's wound "will not be a deformity, but a mark of honour, and will add luster to their appearance, and a spiritual, if not bodily beauty…we are not to reckon or name these marks of virtue blemishes" (XXII.19). In the resurrection, the glory of God which shines from these wounds will be seen in all its clarity, and the martyrs will be honored to show that beatific glory forth from their own physical bodies. All will see equally the same vision of God, but not all will be equally resplendent.

    Our resurrected bodies will display the glory which our loving exercise of freedom has won for God. The body bears the marks of love and love's suffering: worries and joys leave wrinkles in their wake, the back is bent from years of toil to support a family, the trauma of childbirth physically alters a mother, unuse leaves flesh virginal, hatred patiently endured stripes the skin, and so much more. From the mundane to the martyr, the body collects marks of virtue as cherished tokens of the love of the loving God. The different degrees of that love will be gloriously revealed in the resurrection, in which we will all see the glory of God pouring forth from the holes in the hands, feet, and side of Christ – who will "be the end of our desires…seen without end, loved without cloy, praised without weariness" (XXII.30).

Thoughts on Hell

    Last week I led a colloquium on hell for the other Master's students. The two most helpful comments came from the Australian Lutheran pastor who is my classmate.

1. He noted that the degree of comfort we have with the sensible punishments of hell seem to parallel the ways in which we structure our own temporal penal systems. Calvin and Luther could relish in the idea of eternal torment the same way that they delighted in watching witches burn. We squirm at the idea in the same way that we protest against the cruel and unusual punishments of criminals. The point is not, of course, to argue from historical contingency into a relativism equally happy with both forms of civil retribution – I am happy to declare our form absolutely better than the form in Calvin's Geneva. The point is that our ability to conceive of eternal eschatological punishment is perhaps too connected with our sense of temporal justice – both in the case of the Reformers and in our own – and too little determined by revelation.
   
2. Our Aussie also noted that, for himself, he has a far easier time imagining himself than imagining anyone else in hell. I can experience within myself the freedom which I know capable of rejecting God. I know how often I have courted perdition. But so far am I from being able to experience anyone else's freedom from the inside that I can more easily find external reasons and explanations for the sins of others. There is an echo here of all the saints who have declared themselves to be the greatest sinners – and of Balthasar's hope for everyone else before one's self.

The Phenomenon of God

    Kenan Osborne argues, in Heideggerian terms, that the human Jesus is an 'appearance' of God. For Heidegger, 'appearance' is contrasted to 'phenomenon.' Now, in an appearance, some thing, y, shows itself as an indication of some other thing, x, which does not and cannot show itself. This would be something like the observable symptoms of a hypothetical disease which could never itself be observed. In the appearance, the invisible x shows itself in the visible y. In the phenomenon, on the other hand, x shows itself in itself – it makes itself manifest and visible, without the use of some other mediating thing. Of course, a thing does not manifest all aspects of itself all at once: for instance, you can never see all six sides of a cube. The phenomenon includes aspects both manifest and hidden.

    In order to maintain the integrity of divinization and revelation, Jesus must be considered a phenomenon rather than an appearance. If Jesus is merely the appearance of a God who he is not, then the Word has not become flesh radically enough to save. In that wonderful exchange extolled by the Fathers, God has become human in order that humanity may become divine. If we are to partake in God's nature, then God must first become human in such a way that we be able to say that Jesus is God. Moreover, if Jesus cannot said to be God, then the revelatory power of the life of Christ has, at best, only a quantitative superiority over other revelation. Only the unity of the is can secure the qualitative difference required for Christ to be the definitive word about God. But this means that Jesus cannot be a mere appearance in which God is made manifest. Jesus is the event of God's self-manifestation in God's self – the divine self to which the humanity is now joined – and is therefore not the appearance but the phenomenon of God.

    

The Knowledge of the Damned

    At the end of Dare We Hope "That All Men Be Saved"? von Balthasar reviews some of the most notable theologies of apokatastasis – the universal restoration of creation to its Creator. He quotes Maximus the Confessor in a lengthy footnote:

"The third meaning [of apokatastasis] is used by Gregory especially in reference to the qualities of the soul that had been corrupted by sin and then are restored to their original state. Just as all nature will regain, at the expected time, its completeness in the flesh [at the resurrection], so also will the powers of the soul, by necessity, shed all imprints of evil clinging to them; and this after aeons have elapsed, after a long time of being driven about without rest [stasis]. And so in the end they reach God, who is without limitations [peras]. Thus they are restored to their original state [apokatastenai] through their knowledge [of God], but do not participate in [his] gifts. It also will appear that the Creator cannot be blamed for any sinfulness."

    Without knowing the original context for Maximus's assertion, I would like to suggest a biblical context of which his theory helps to make sense. Phillippians 2:10-11 (RSV) tells us that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." If one may read the "should" here as "will" – that is, as describing the ultimate and final consequences of God's exaltation of Christ (2:9) – the end of this hymn leaves us with an interesting picture of hell. In the end, all of creation will "confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" and bend the knee before him, even those who are "under the earth."

Whatever the rebellion of the damned consists in, they are here seen to acknowledge the Lordship of Christ at least intellectually. If Maximus is right, this acknowledgement is rooted in the restored knowledge of God ultimately returned to everyone. That such a restoration of knowledge is simultaneously a "restor[ation] to their original state" means that even in damnation there is something of divine blessing. This gratuitous blessing may explain the worshipful posture of the kneeling reprobate.