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ContentsObsculta volume 2

2009

Editorial Comments 2

Tribute to Dietrich Reinhart, OSB, Dale Launderville, OSB 3

A Voice in the Wilderness, Victor Klimoski 4

Saint John Chrysostom and Social Justice, Joel Cassady 5

Divided Land, Jacumba, CA, December 2008, Jeffrey P. Regan (photo) 12

Goodness Gracious, Athanasius, Chris Ángel 13

Wisdom Christology in Origen and Elizabeth Johnson: A Supplementary Discourse, Adam Paul Koester 14

Vista d’una cupola dal cortile del doge, Ælred Senna, OSB (photo) 19

Variation on a Theme: Intertextuality in the Illuminations of the Gospel of Luke, Laura Kelly Fanucci 21

You Were Chosen, Kelly Marie Prosen 31

Gospel: Feast of the Holy Family (Luke 2:22-40), Kathryn Janssen 32

Blue Waters of the Atlantic, Watch Hill, RI, July 2008, Jeffrey P. Regan (photo) 33

All Creation Groans: A Comparison of Feminist and German Existential Theology of Romans 8:18-25, Jeffrey R. Reed 34

All the World is Church: The Christian Call in Henri de Lubac, Benjamin M. Durheim 38

Evening Prayer at the Chapel of Holy Wisdom, Natalie Perl Regan 43

We Cannot Give If We Do Not Have, Peggy Kelley 44

Companions, Ælred Senna, OSB (photo) 47

Forgetful But Not Forgotten: Parish Pastoral Care of Dementia Sufferers, Annette Kestel, PBVM 48

List of Contributors 56

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Jason Ziegler, Genevieve L. Mougey, Lauren L. Murphy

Those of us who spend a little time at Saint John’s School of Theology•Seminary live charmed lives. Our time here is filled with recognizing the im-portance of intentional relationships: with others, with the world, with God. Our relationships, when done well, nourish us and give us life. We recognize these encounters as sacramental because the com-mon thread through all of these relationships is our constant seeking after God, our attentiveness to the movement of the Spirit in our lives.

Obsculta is a vision of people coming together with the express purpose of intentionally sharing ideas, resources, and insights with their peers. This sharing provides solidarity and it strengthens rela-tionships. The works in these pages are not intended to be stale papers; they are here to encourage us, to challenge us, to affirm us. Our theological inquiry, when done well, fosters relationships, whether this is done over the dinner table as we compare notes for papers, during times of shared prayer when we keep the needs of others in mind, or after gradua-tion when our acquired knowledge is put to use in whatever ministry we pursue. Because of this, our scholarship and our ministry are also sacramental.

As we give to you this second issue of Obsculta, there is much to be thankful for, much to truly be grateful for!

Kathleen, you continue to inspire and amaze us with your ability to be so thorough! We greatly ap-preciate your guidance and assistance.

Rose, thanks so much for continuing to be our editing and marketing guru!

Vic, grateful hearts recognize what you have done to make this journal a reality! Thank you for your ability to see what this means to current stu-dents, graduates, faculty, staff, and our board.

SOT•Sem faculty and staff, your support for this publication means so much. In the classroom you encourage us to listen with the ears of our hearts. This journal presents the effects of that listening.

Finally, to the students of the SOT•Sem, you are the inspiration for this journal. Your work inspires and empowers. Thank you for sharing the results of your attentiveness.

As you read these works, may you be nourished.Obsculta.

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My memories of Brother Dietrich’s involvement in the School of Theology•Seminary revolve around his ongoing care for the well-being of this part of the university. He was committed to the mission of the SOT•Sem and would quietly support it during times of stress and strain. As a historian, Dietrich valued the deep roots of the SOT•Sem in the culture of Saint John’s. From the founding of the educa-tional apostolate in 1857 with the chartering of Saint John’s Seminary, theological education was part of the soul of this place. Dietrich knew this in terms of lived history as well as of historical facts. Experientially, he knew that the way in which Saint John’s understood what it means to be Catholic arose out of the way worship and work, reading and reflection, and care for one another happen in this place. For Dietrich, the SOT•Sem was part of the fabric of Saint John’s. As president, he was obliged to be attentive to the whole of the university and not privilege one part over another. He did this admirably, but at the same time always stepped forward with energy to help the SOT•Sem when problems arose.

Dietrich is legendary for his capacity to monitor details while keeping his sights on the bigger picture. Perhaps it was his aptitude and formation as a histo-rian that cultivated this dual gift of vision and atten-tiveness. No doubt his heightened awareness of the facts on the ground landed him in many dilemmas. Characteristically, he was able to move the people involved to help find solutions. He had a way of challenging people to stay involved and do their best for the sake of those to be served. In dealing with faculty and administrators, he repeatedly kept before their eyes the needs of the students. His underlying premise seemed to be the following: this educational

operation serves monks or teachers or administra-tors to the extent that their primary goal is to serve students; the only goal superseding this attention to students is service of God. Dietrich’s hierarchy of values made him a ready ally of the SOT•Sem.

As a monk, Dietrich was devoted to the liturgy. His tenure as liturgy director for the abbey was high-lighted by a massive revision of the Office books for the Liturgy of the Hours. His knowledge of lit-

urgy was shaped in no small way by his studies in the SOT•Sem. His care in getting others involved in the pro-cess and of taking extra steps to get it right has enhanced the worship of the monastic community in ways that continue to manifest themselves.

Community is a word that we frequently hear from undergradu-ate and graduate students as well as from staff, faculty, and administra-tors. Dietrich exemplified commu-nity in a compelling way. He paid attention to the people with whom he was conversing. He knew how to draw them out. The energy he ex-pended in doing this seemed to arise from his commitment to Saint John’s

as a place in which the people count. At monastic table, he frequently was one of the last to leave the gathering because he had engaged those around him in a discussion about matters of the common life. He was adamant about keeping business out of the monastic refectory so that the other dimensions of community life might unfold in conversation. In his social gatherings with administrators and faculty, he demonstrated a genuine interest in their well-being as members of the community.

Dietrich loved monastic life and the educational apostolate of Saint John’s. The SOT•Sem benefited greatly from his superb leadership of the university and his unwavering commitment to Saint John’s. His legacy will live on in the SOT•Sem for many years to come.

Tribute to Dietrich Reinhart, OSB Dale Launderville, OSB

Photograph courtesy of Saint John’s Abbey

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A Voice in the Wilderness

Some impliedhis was a secondhand role,a job for any walk-on.But intent from the start,he studied all the partsunder a stern paternal eye.He observed the rites, said the prayersand one day slipped out of townwith a walking stick and no change of shirt.What happened next no one knows,years re-forming himfrom the inside out,emptying the chambers of his heartfor visions even he feared.

When he returned to the world,his squareness was at odds with its roundness and its loveof simple, clever answers.He was a fright to see,a nest for hair, a buckskin shift,feet hard as stone.Thin as a reed, his voice thunderedyielding no compromise.People listened, then squirmed.Some turned his way, most not.Many hoped he would eventually find steady work.

Victor Klimoski

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Since the beginning of Christianity, Christ’s fol-lowers have been challenged to stand up for the rights of the poor and to serve them. Indeed, Christ tells his disciples, “You always have the poor with you” (John 12:8). Early Christians faced many of the same issues of poverty that modern Christians confront today. Then, as now, Christians were called upon by religious leaders to change the very structures that took advantage of the poor or kept them in poverty. One such voice was John Chrysostom. Chrysostom firmly believed that in order to call oneself Christian, one must be mindful of one’s neighbors and care for their needs. Chrysostom’s strong words moved the people of his time into action on behalf of the poor, and those same words can inspire Christians today. The intent of this paper is to focus on Chrysostom as a champion for the poor and to allow his words to challenge Christians today to act on their behalf.

Sources put Chrysostom’s birth between 345 and 347 in Antioch, Syria, which at that time had be-come one of the prominent cities in the Roman Em-pire. His father, Secundus, was magister militum of the Syrian imperial army.1 His mother, Anthusa, was an intelligent and religious woman who was widowed at the age of twenty, not long after Chrysostom’s birth. As she never remarried, she raised by herself John and his elder sister, who died while still a child.2 Chrysos-tom was very close to his mother, and his religious and moral upbringing can be attributed to her.

Despite the difficult circumstances in which he grew up, Chrysostom received a fine education. His most notable teacher was the famous orator Liba-nius, who, at the time, was also one of the most “tenacious adherents of the declining paganism.”3 Chrysostom was one of Libanius’ best pupils and took an initial interest in law, no doubt looking to-ward a path of wealth and high public office.4 He would likely have had a successful career. Libanius

1 Donald Attwater, St. John Chrysostom: The Voice of Gold (Milwau-kee, WI: Bruce Publishing Company, 1939), 9.2 Chrysostom Baur, “St. John Chrysostom,” in The Catho-lic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton Company). See New Advent, Kevin Knight, ed.; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08452b.htm (accessed December 3, 2008).3 Baur, “St. John Chrysostom.”4 Attwater, St. John Chrysostom, 13.

himself, when asked on his deathbed to name a suc-cessor, commented, “It would have been John, had not the Christians stolen him from us.”5

Partially due to the urgings of a close friend he studied with who had himself become a religious, and partially due to a meeting with Bishop Meletius of Antioch, Chrysostom began to withdraw from his study of law and pursued an ascetic and religious life.6 He was baptized in about 369 by Meletius and ordained a lector soon afterward. Above all, Chryso-stom desired to become a monk and live the full as-cetic life. At his mother’s request, however, he waited until her death before he retreated to the hills out-side Antioch, spending four years within a monastic community and two more as an anchorite in a cave.7 Palladius, his fifth-century biographer, says of those two years that Chrysostom “never relaxed . . . not in the days nor at night, and his gastric organs be-came lifeless and the proper functions of the kidneys were impaired by the cold.”8 As a result, Chrysostom was forced to leave, and, referring again to Palladius, “This is proof of the Savior’s providence that he was taken away from the ascetic life . . . forcing him to leave his caves for the benefit of the Church.”9 Chrysostom returned to Antioch, where he was or-dained a deacon by Meletius in about 381. In 386, he was ordained a priest by Meletius’s successor, Fla-vian, and spent the next twelve years in Antioch as a priest. Palladius says that as a priest in Antioch, Chrysostom, “Shed great glory on the priesthood . . . by the strictness of his lifestyle. . . . It was all smooth sailing with Christ as pilot.”10

As a priest, Chrysostom immediately put his skills of oration to work from the pulpit, so much so that in 553, almost 150 years after his death, Pope Vigilius gave him the surname “Chrysostom,” or “golden-mouthed,” and the appropriate title has stuck ever since. Though his theological and exegeti-cal contributions are overshadowed in the West by

5 Ibid., 13.6 Baur, “St. John Chrysostom.”7 Ibid.8 Palladius, Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom, ed. and trans. Robert T. Meyer (New York: Newman Press, 1985), 35.9 Ibid.10 Ibid., 36.

Saint John Chrysostom and Social Justice

Joel Cassady

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one of his contemporaries, St. Augustine of Hippo, Chrysostom is a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church and highly revered to this day in the East-ern Church as one of the Three Holy Hierarchs, the other two being Basil the Great and Gregory of Na-zianzus. He was well known during his time for his theological and exegetical work, receiving the title vir illustris from St. Jerome.11 But while his theology and doctrine are sound, Chrysostom is best remembered for his sermons.

Chrysostom’s sermons typically consisted of a biblical passage that he progressively explored, let-ting it speak to him and, through him, to his audi-ence.12 His method of exegesis, the “grammatico-historical,”13 was common to Antioch, and differed from the allegorical and mystical methods of exege-sis common to Alexandria. Chrysostom Baur con-siders Chrysostom “the chief and almost the only successful representative of the exegetical principles of the School of Antioch.”14 His sermons were elo-quent and extraordinary, even among the Greeks.15 He was quick to improvise, and would not hesitate to divert his message when appropriate. According to Baur, with “whole-hearted earnestness and con-viction, he delivered the message . . . which he felt had been given to him.”16 The people loved hearing him, and frequently responded to his sermons with applause, for which he would admonish them:

When you applaud me as I speak, I feel at the moment as it is natural for a man to feel. . . . I am delighted and overjoyed. And when I go home and reflect that the people who have been applauding me have received no benefit . . . I feel as though I had spoken altogether in vain. . . . And I have often thought of laying down a rule prohibiting all applause, and urg-ing you to listen in silence.17

Chrysostom’s skills from the pulpit were put to the test early in his career as a priest. During Lent of 387, Emperor Theodosius, in order to pay for war and for an upcoming celebration the following year, raised taxes in the wealthy cities of the Eastern Em-pire, one of which was Antioch. The people, enraged

11 Attwater, St. John Chrysostom, 47.12 Stephen Neill, ed. and trans. Chrysostom and His Message: A Selec-tion from the Sermons of St. John Chrysostom of Antioch and Constanti-nople (London: Lutterworth Press, 1962), 17.13 Baur, “St. John Chrysostom.”14 Ibid.15 Ibid. 16 Ibid.17 Neill, Chrysostom and His Message, 80.

at the news, formed a mob and stormed through the city. They made it to the imperial governor’s praeto-rium, and found he had slipped out a back door. 18 What were present were statues of the imperial fam-ily. The mob proceeded to destroy the statues, leav-ing some in the house and carrying some pieces out to the streets. The rioting lasted three hours, after which the governor was able to round up his troops to disperse the crowd.

Once all the dust settled, the people realized what had happened, and were fearfully anticipating the emperor’s response. Though Christian, Theodo-sius took such actions as a great offense. The bishop Flavian went to Constantinople to reason with the emperor, and in the meantime, Chrysostom was left to comfort the anxious people of Antioch.

Chrysostom was not a major player in calming the response of Theodosius. Nor was he, accord-ing to the sources, involved in interceding with the soldiers the emperor sent immediately upon hearing of the incident. Chrysostom was, however, front and center in urging his people to repent and to pray for mercy. The people, and the city, responded. In the end, Flavian was able to play to the emperor’s Christianity, and Theodosius was merciful to An-tioch. Chrysostom, as any good priest would, turned the event into a learning experience, even praising God for the lessons the people could take away, “Let us always give thanks to God who loveth man; not merely for our deliverance from these fearful evils, but for their being permitted to overtake us. . . . He ever disposes all things for our advantage, with that loving kindness which is His attribute, which God grant, that we may continually enjoy.”19

Donald Attwater calls the issue of the statues a major point in Chrysostom’s life, where he first saw the impact he could make and the abilities he pos-sessed.20 He spoke words of comfort, and people lis-tened and responded. But Chrysostom used the pul-pit for more than comforting purposes. Throughout his time in Antioch, and beyond, Chrysostom’s pri-mary subject of discourse was the poor, and it was on their behalf that the golden-mouthed preacher called the people to action.

Chrysostom primarily targeted those who were wealthy without being charitable. He said:

18 Attwater, St. John Chrysostom, 38.19 John Chrysostom, “Homily XXL,” Twenty-One Homilies on the Statues, vol. 9, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publish-ers, 1995), 489.20 Attwater, St. John Chrysostom, 47.

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Many reproach me saying continually thou fas-teneth upon the rich: while they on the other hand fasten upon the poor. Well I do fasten upon the rich: or rather not the rich, but those who make a bad use of their riches. For I am continually saying that I do not attack the char-acter of the rich man, but of the rapacious. A rich man is one thing, a rapacious man another: an affluent man is one thing, a covetous man is another. Make clear distinctions and do not confuse things which are diverse.21

For Chrysostom, wealth itself was not the root of evil. The overzealous desire for money—greed—was what led one to evil.22 This evil manifested it-self in the wealthy who took advantage of and over-looked the needs of the poor.

Nowhere is this stance by Chrysostom more ap-parent than in his homilies regarding the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). For Chryso-stom, greed overtook the rich man, who, though he daily walked by Lazarus, was blinded by his avarice so that he did not see Lazarus’s poverty and was not moved to help him:

If we suppose that he passed the man by on the first day, he would probably have felt some pity on the second day; if he overlooked him even on that day, he surely ought to have been moved on the third or fourth or the day after that, even if he were more cruel than the wild beasts. But he felt no such emotion, but be-came harder-hearted and more reckless. . . . The very appearance of the poor man was pitiful, as he was overcome by hunger and long illness. Nevertheless, none of this tamed that savage man. This cruelty is the worst kind of wicked-ness; it is an inhumanity without rival.23

When the avarice that blinded the rich man in Je-sus’ parable blinds those who are rich, they hurt only themselves by neglecting the poor. “Don’t you real-ize,” Chrysostom told his people, “that, as the poor man withdraws silently, sighing and in tears, you ac-tually thrust a sword into yourself, that it is you who received the more serious wound?”24

21 John Chrysostom, “Homily II,” Two Homilies on Eutropius, vol. 9, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. W. R. W. Stephens (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995), 254.22 Attwater, St. John Chrysostom, 60.23 Catharine P. Roth, ed. and trans., John Chrysostom: On Wealth and Poverty (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984), 21–22.24 On Matthew: Homily 35,5; quoted in William J. Walsh and John P. Langan, “Patristic Social Consciousness—The Church and

In order to avoid the rich man’s fate, Chrysos-tom called the rich to use their wealth to the benefit of the poor: “All the wealth of the world belongs to you and to the others in common, as the sun, air, earth, and all the rest. . . . Do not say ‘I am using what belongs to me.’ You are using what belongs to others.”25 Almsgiving, for Chrysostom, was a duty for the rich.26 This duty not only manifested itself in the lavish giving of money,27 but also in opening one’s home to the poor:

Make yourself a guest-chamber in your own house: set up a bed there, set up a table there and a candlestick. . . . Have a room to which Christ may come. Say, ‘This is Christ’s cell; this build-ing is set apart for him.’ Even though it is just a little insignificant room in the basement, he does not disdain it. Naked and a stranger, Christ goes about—all he wants is a shelter. Make it available even though it is as little as this.28

If the rich of his time were unable to grasp the concept that their wealth in fact belonged to the poor, Chrysostom found other ways to show that the poor needed assistance. One such way was by acknowledging Christ’s presence in the poor. In re-sponding to requests for more church decorations, Chrysostom replies:

Do you really wish to pay homage to Christ’s body? Then do not neglect him when he is na-ked. At the same time that you honor him here with hangings made of silk, do not ignore him outside when he perishes from cold and naked-ness. For the One who said, ‘This is my body’ . . . also said ‘When I was hungry you gave me nothing to eat.’ . . . For is there any point in his table being laden with golden cups while he himself is perishing from hunger? First fill him when he is hungry and then set his table with lavish ornaments. Are you making a gold-en cup for him at the very moment when you refuse to give him a cup of cold water? Do you decorate his table with cloths flecked with gold, while at the same time you neglect to give him what is necessary for him to cover him-self ? . . . The conclusion is: Don’t neglect your

the Poor,” in The Faith that Does Justice: Examining the Christian Sources for Social Change, ed. John Haughey (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1977), 118.25 1 Corinthians: Homily 10.3; quoted in ibid., 129.26 Ibid., 142. 27 Ibid.28 On Acts: Homily 40.2; quoted in ibid., 132.

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brother in his distress while you decorate his house. Your brother is more truly his temple than any church building.29

Writers after Chrysostom have shared in his vi-sion of Christ within the poor. Saint Vincent de Paul, a seventeenth century priest who founded an order of priests and brothers to serve the poor of France, tells us, “It is from your hands that Our Lord, in the person of the sick, seeks relief.”30 Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the twentieth-century figure of saintliness, points out that “we should not serve the poor like they were Jesus. We should serve the poor because they are Jesus.”31

Jesuits William J. Walsh and John P. Langan tell us that Chrysostom “recognized the poor as privi-leged members of the body of Christ, and took upon himself the task of defending them against their wealthy oppressors. . . . Never perhaps had the poor possessed so eloquent a public defender.”32 The recognition of Christ within the poor and the acknowledgment of the poor’s privilege within the body of Christ give to the poor a dignity that neither their status nor their treatment by others can take away. In his fifteenth homily on Matthew, Chrysos-tom explored Jesus’ choice to call the subjects of the beatitudes “blessed,” saying:

And he doth not introduce what he saith by way of advice or of commandments, but by way of blessing, so making his word less bur-thensome, and opening to all the course of his discipline. For he said not, ‘This or that person,’ but ‘they who do so, are all of them blessed.’ So that though thou be a slave, a beg-gar, in poverty, a stranger, unlearned, there is nothing to hinder thee from being blessed, if thou emulate this virtue.33

The church today maintains Chrysostom’s belief in the dignity of humanity, particularly the poor. In the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ letter Economic Justice for All, the bishops note that:

The basis for all that the Church believes about the moral dimensions of economic life is its vision of the transcendent worth—the sacred-

29 On Matthew: Homily 50.4; quoted in ibid., 131.30 Vincent de Paul, Spiritual Insights from the Letters of St. Vincent de Paul, June 5, 2008, http://www.vincentians.ie/quotes.htm (ac-cessed December 8, 2008).31 Jose Luis Gonzalez-Balado, Mother Teresa: In My Own Words (New York: Random House, 1996), 30.32 Walsh and Langan, “Patristic Social Consciousness,” 142.33 Jaroslav Pelikan, ed., The Preaching of John Chrysostom (Philadel-phia, PA: Fortress Press, 1967), 43.

ness—of human beings. The dignity of the human person, realized in community with others, is the criterion against which all aspects of economic life must be measured. . . . When we deal with each other, we should do so with the sense of awe that arises in the presence of something holy and sacred. For that is what human beings are: we are created in the image of God (Gn 1:27).34

Mother Teresa takes the idea of dignity even further, claiming the poor are the ones who truly understand human dignity: “All my years of service to the poor have helped me to understand that they are precisely the ones who better understand human dignity. If they have a problem, it is not lack of mon-ey, but the fact that their right to be treated humanly and with tenderness is not recognized.”35

Once one understands and acknowledges the dignity within each person, the next step is action. For Chrysostom, action on behalf of one’s neighbor is the true testament of what it means to be a Chris-tian. “There is nothing more chilling,” he says, “than the sight of a Christian who makes no effort to save others, from which effort we are exempted neither by poverty nor lowliness nor bodily infirmity. To make weakness an excuse for hiding our Christian light is as insulting to God as to say that He could not make the sun shine.”36 For Chrysostom, even the poor had enough to give:

You say that you are yourself too poor to help others. If that is what is worrying you, listen to me when I tell you that poverty is not a bar to almsgiving, for were you a thousand times poorer than you are you would still not be poorer than the woman who had only a hand-ful of flour or that other who had only a cou-ple of pennies. These, by giving all that they had to the poor, showed that great poverty is not incompatible with great generosity. . . . To strip oneself of all is to become rich; a small gift may earn a crown of glory.37

The poor were not Chrysostom’s only focus. At a time when slavery was commonplace culturally,

34 United States Council of Catholic Bishops, “Economic Justice for All (1986),” in Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage, David J. O’Brien and Thomas A. Shannon, 572–664 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992), no. 28.35 Gonzalez-Balado, Mother Teresa, 29.36 On the Acts, XV; quoted in Attwater, St. John Chrysostom, 50.37 No One Can Be Harmed Except by Himself, VI; quoted in ibid., 65.

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Chrysostom, according to Donald Attwater, more than once showed himself “exercised in mind as to how such an unnatural institution had arisen in the world.”38 Chrysostom points out to his people:

For to that end did God grant us both hands and feet, that we might not stand in need of servants. Since not at all for need’s sake was the class of slaves introduced, else even along with Adam had a slave been formed; but it is the penalty of sin and the punishment of disobe-dience. But when Christ came, he put an end also to this, ‘For in Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor free’ (Gal 3:28).39

In looking at Chrysostom’s homilies, it is not al-ways easy to discern where he is presiding and to whom he is orating. What is sure is that the message he gave to the people in Antioch was similar to the message he would give to the people in Constantino-ple. After bishop Nectarius of Constantinople died in 397, Emperor Arcadius, under the suggestion of his minister Eutropius, appointed Chrysostom to fill the vacant seat. In order to avoid a riot in Antioch, his removal from the city was done in secret, and he was informed of the imperial decree upon his arrival in the capital.40 Chrysostom was ordained bishop of Constantinople on February 26, 398, by Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, who had had his own can-didate for the seat in the capital, and was less than happy that his candidate was not selected.

Chrysostom immediately went to work reform-ing the church in Constantinople. He started by cut-ting expenses and ending the frequent banquets of the episcopate. The new bishop himself lived “little less strictly than he had formerly lived as a priest and monk.”41 Luxury items that adorned the bishop’s palace were sold and the money given to feed the poor.42 Chrysostom then went to work reforming the clergy, calling his priests to an austere life, do-ing away with the “spiritual sisters” who lived with some of the priests who claimed celibacy,43 and even dismissing deacons who had committed grave

38 Ibid., 67.39 John Chrysostom, “Homily XL,” First Corinthians, vol. 12, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Talbot W. Chambers, trans. Hu-bert Kestell Cornish and John Medley, 244–249 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995), 248. 40 Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, vol. 1, The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation (New York: Harper Collins, 1984), 196.41 Baur, “St. John Chrysostom.”42 Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, 196.43 Ibid.

penalties against the church (one for murder, another for adultery).44 Chrysostom next turned to the la-ity, preaching against the extravagance of the rich, particularly against the absurd finery in the dress of women.45 Some responded with offense to the new bishop’s demands, but others responded posi-tively. It is said he had intimate friends even among the wealthy classes in the city, and that his flock as a whole never forgot his care for the poor.

Regardless of how favorably or unfavorably his people looked upon him, his message stayed the same. He had little patience for the ridiculous spend-ing habits by the wealthy of Antioch and Constan-tinople:

Don’t envy the man whom you see riding through the streets with a troop of attendants to drive the crowds out of his way. It is absurd! Why, my dear sir, if I may ask, do you thus drive your fellow creatures before you? Are you a wolf or a lion? Your Lord, Jesus Christ, raised man to Heaven: but you do not condescend to share even the market place with him. When you put a gold bit on your horse and a gold bracelet on your slave’s arm, when your clothes are gilded down to your very shoes, you are feeding the most ferocious of all beasts, ava-rice: you are robbing orphans and stealing from widows and making yourself a public enemy.46

In another sermon, he admonishes those who use expensive silks in making footgear:

Ships are built, sailors and pilots engaged, sails spread and the sea crossed, wife and children and home left behind, barbarian lands tra-versed and the trader’s life exposed to a thou-sand dangers—what for? So that you may trick out the leather of your boots with silk laces. What could be more mad? . . . Your chief con-cern as you walk through the public places is that you should not soil your boots with mud or dust. Will you let your soul thus grovel while you are taking care of your boots? Boots are made to be dirtied: if you can’t bear it, take them off and wear them on your head. You laugh!—I am weeping at your folly.47

Homilies such as these rightfully called the people of his time to task, but as the bishop of

44 Baur, “St. John Chrysostom.”45 Ibid.46 On the Psalms, XLVIII; quoted in Attwater, St. John Chrysostom, 62.47 On Matthew, IL; quoted in Attwater, St. John Chrysostom, 62–63.

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Constantinople, his enemies used such sermons to demonstrate to members of the court, particularly the empress Eudoxia, that Chrysostom was insulting them and their lifestyles. Palladius says that Chrysos-tom’s enemies “pretended that certain homilies were really making sport of the Empress and of others of the court.”48 It is not certain if the empress had this impression before being influenced by Chrys-ostom’s enemies, nor is it certain that Chrysostom indeed intended to make an example of the royal court. What is certain is that while the relationship between the bishop and the empress was at first “true friendship,”49 she eventually became one of his harshest enemies. The story commonly pointed to in highlighting this change took place in about 401 and consisted of the empress depriving a widow of land. Chrysostom considered this unjust and sided with the widow; Eudoxia took offense. Though relations between the bishop and the empress were never again friendly after this incident, there is evidence that Chrysostom had begun to fall out of royal favor even before the issue with the widow.

The year 399 was a year of turmoil in Constan-tinople. The first thing to take place was the fall of Eutropius. Though only a minister in the court, Eu-tropius had a significant amount of power, which he wielded rather tyrannically. Many of the people he went after sought asylum in the church, and Chrys-ostom granted such requests and stood up against Eutropius. After a series of political events, the details of which are not entirely known, Eutropius found himself running from a vengeful mob. Ironi-cally enough, the minister fled to the church, and in a significant display of integrity, Chrysostom de-fended his “erstwhile enemy”50 from the mob, from the army, and eventually from the emperor himself. Eutropius lost faith in the safety of the church, how-ever, and tried to escape in the night. He was later caught, exiled, and put to death.51

Within a few months of the incident with Eu-tropius, an even more significant event took place. An imperial general, Gainas, was sent to subdue a re-volt led by a man named Tribigild. Gainas eventually united with Tribigild, and in order to restore peace, Arcadius was forced to name Gainas commander in chief of the Imperial Army. Two of Constantino-ple’s highest ranking officials were sent to Gainas as

48 Palladius, Dialogue, 40.49 Baur, “St. John Chrisostom.” 50 Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, 199.51 Baur, “St. John Chrysostom.”

prisoners, likely to be put to death. Chrysostom in-tervened, apparently accepting a mission to Gainas. Chrysostom not only saved the officials’ lives but also was able to get them liberated.52 Not long af-ter, Gainas, who was an Arian Goth, demanded for himself and his troops a Catholic Church within Constantinople. Chrysostom again intervened, and Gainas again acquiesced.53 Gainas was eventually de-feated and slain by the Huns, and full power was re-stored to the emperor. These two events—the fall of Eutropius and the revolt by Gainas—gained Chrys-ostom a great deal of prestige and influence among the people of Constantinople, but also resentment from the imperial court.

Eventually, Chrysostom’s enemies became weary of his challenging sermons, tired of the re-forms he brought to the capital city, and jealous of the power he had acquired. Eudoxia found an ally in Theophilus, who helped drum up false charges against Chrysostom, and ordered Chrysostom to ap-pear before a synod of forty-two bishops and arch-bishops. This order was backed by imperial decree. Chrysostom would not present himself, refusing to recognize the legality of a synod formed of his open enemies.54 Theophilus gave Chrysostom three sum-mons, and, after the third, armed with the emperor’s decree, Chrysostom was deposed.55

The people erupted in anger. Bishops and priests from neighboring areas pledged their support. As Justo L. Gonzalez says, “One word from the elo-quent bishop, and the entire conspiracy against him would crumble. Arcadius and Eudoxia were aware of this and made ready for war. But Chrysostom was a lover of peace.”56 Chrysostom’s punishment was exile, and three days after being deposed, he surren-dered himself to the soldiers who took him away.

According to Palladius, however, “Scarcely had a single day passed when a calamity occurred in the royal bedroom. This caused such an alarm that a few days later they called John back through a house notary, so he was brought back to his own throne.”57 Fearing this “calamity” to be a sign from God, Chrysostom was reinstated, to the rejoicing of the people, and Theophilus and his parties retreated quickly from the capital.

52 Ibid.53 Ibid.54 Ibid.55 Ibid.56 Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, 199.57 Palladius, Dialogue, 57.

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But once the fear of heavenly punishment faded, Eudoxia again clashed with the bishop, and summoned Theophilus to return to banish Chryso-stom once again. Theophilus, though he refused to travel to Constantinople, encouraged the emperor, along with other bishops, to sign a new decree of ex-ile.58 According to Baur, there were two attempts on Chrysostom’s life, both of which failed.59 Finally, on June 24, 404, Arcadius signed the decree to banish Chrysostom for a second time.60 Again Chrysostom had the support of the people and neighboring cler-gy and bishops, but again Chrysostom surrendered himself, and was exiled this time to Cucusus,61 a re-mote village in Armenia. The second exile, however, instigated large riots in the city. In the disturbance, the cathedral and neighboring public buildings caught fire and were destroyed. The causes of the fires were never discovered, but several of Chryso-stom’s supporters and friends were tortured or ban-ished as a result.62

In his exile, Chrysostom took up the pen, and wrote to friends that he still had in the city and also to Pope Innocent, who, in response to Chrysos-tom, pledged his support. Others in the area joined the pope, and the actions of both the emperor and Theophilus were condemned throughout the em-pire. Though Chrysostom never gave up hope of returning, no action taken would result in his return. With its new famous inhabitant, however, “the little town of Cucusus seemed to have become the center of the world.”63

Due to fears about his influence from afar, Chrysostom was moved in the summer of 407 even further from Constantinople. His new destination was to be Pithyus, a town on the eastern bank of the Black Sea near the Caucasus. The journey was rug-ged and made worse by his two soldier escorts, who caused the bishop “all possible sufferings.”64 On September 14, 407, Chrysostom was marched to the point of death. The party returned to Comana, the town in which they started the day, and it was there that Chrysostom received his last Holy Communion, ending, according to Palladius, with “his usual for-mula: ‘Glory to God for all things.’ Then he signed

58 Baur, “St. John Chrysostom.”59 Ibid.60 Ibid.61 Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, 199.62 Ibid.63 Ibid.64 Baur, “St. John Chrysostom.”

himself at the last Amen.”65

In looking at Chrysostom’s legacy as bishop, some historians are apt to compare him with Am-brose of Milan, who was consecrated bishop of Milan about fifteen years before Chrysostom was consecrated in Constantinople. As bishop, Ambrose, like Chrysostom, had many battles of power with the emperor of the West, Theodosius. Unlike Chrys-ostom, Ambrose used his authority and humbled the emperor into submission. As history compares the two bishops a connection is seen between the future courses of the churches in the East and the West and how they relate to the secular authority of the area. As Gonzalez points out, Theodosius was not the last Western emperor to be humbled by a Lat-in bishop, and Chrysostom was not the last Greek bishop to be banished by an Eastern emperor.66 But it would seem that this correlation in the lives of the bishops could inaccurately imply a weakness on the part of Chrysostom. As can be seen by his life and his words, Chrysostom’s primary care as bishop was for the well-being of his flock. Like the Good Shep-herd modeled by Christ, Chrysostom was not willing to sacrifice any of his flock on his behalf. Instead, Chrysostom became the martyr Palladius painted him to be, giving himself for the sake of his people and for the integrity of his message.67 Far from be-ing weak, Chrysostom became one of the strongest examples of the sacrifices often required of a life devoted to social justice.

Stephen Neill writes that Chrysostom “is above all a preacher of the Christian life; gently and pa-tiently he tries to lead his hearers forward in the way of holiness; they are to learn to reproduce in daily word and action the very life of Christ Himself.”68 Chrysostom’s words can inspire and call our world to action, just as they did to the ancient Greek world that Chrysostom lived in and critiqued. The poor to-day still need a defender like the “golden-mouth.” He calls Christians through his sermons to recognize the dignity Christ places within those who are the least among us. He calls Christians to live their faith by loving their neighbor, and gives Christ’s follow-ers an example. Indeed, he speaks from experience and calls Christians to that same experience when he says, “If you have love, you will not notice the loss of your money, the labor of your body, the toil

65 Palladius, Dialogue, 73.66 Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity, 200.67 Palladius, Dialogue, 73.68 Neill, Chrysostom and His Message, 17.

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of your words, your trouble or your ministering, but you will bear everything courageously.”69

Bibliography

Attwater, Donald. St. John Chrysostom: The Voice of Gold. Milwau-kee, WI: Bruce Publishing Company, 1939.

Baur, Chrysostom. “St. John Chrysostom.” In The Catholic En-cyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. New Advent. Kevin Knight, ed. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08452b.htm (accessed December 3, 2008).

Gerald Bray. Romans. Vol. 6, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scrip-ture. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998.

Chrysostom, John. First Corinthians. Vol. 12, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, edited by Talbot W. Chambers, translated by Hubert Kestell Cornish and John Medley. Peabody, MA: Hendrick-son Publishers, 1995.

———. Twenty-One Homilies on the Statues. Vol. 9, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff, translated by W. R. W. Stephens. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995.

———. Two Homilies on Eutropius. Vol. 9, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff, translated by W. R. W. Ste-phens. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995.

de Paul, Vincent. Spiritual Insights from the Letters of St. Vincent de Paul. June 05, 2008. http://www.vincentians.ie/quotes.htm (accessed December 8, 2008).

Gonzalez, Justo L. The Story of Christianity. Vol. 1, The Early

69 Homilies on Romans XXI; quoted from Gerald Bray, Romans, vol. 6, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 314.

Church to the Dawn of the Reformation. New York: Harper Collins, 1984.

Gonzalez-Balado, Jose Luis. Mother Teresa: In My Own Words. New York: Random House, 1996.

Neill, Stephen, ed. and trans. Chrysostom and His Message: A Se-lection from the Sermons of St. John Chrysostom of Antioch and Constantinople. London: Lutterworth Press, 1962.

Palladius. Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom. Edited and translated by Robert T. Meyer. New York: Newman Press, 1985.

Pelikan, Jaroslav, ed. The Preaching of John Chrysostom. Philadel-phia: Fortress Press, 1967.

Roth, Catharine P., ed. and trans. John Chrysostom: On Wealth and Poverty. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984.

United States Council of Catholic Bishops. “Economic Justice for All (1986).” In Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage, by David J. O’Brien and Thomas A. Shannon, 572–664. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992.

Walsh, William J., and John P. Langan. “Patristic Social Con-sciousness—The Church and the Poor.” In The Faith That Does Justice: Examining the Christian Sources for Social Change, edited by John Haughey, 113–51. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1977.

Divided Land, Jacumba, CADecember 2008

Jeffrey P. Regan

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Goodness Gracious, Athanasius!

Goodness gracious, Athanasius! How you fought that Arius! “Christ’s a creature—but, he’s featured,” was his claim nefarious.Arius yelped, “God needs no help. He’s the only source of stuff.Christ is fine, but not divine, well, not quite fully, but enough.”

Goodness gracious, Athanasius! This, your bold, insightful stance:“It is not odd; Christ must be God to effect deliverance.If he’s not, then problems we’ve got; hon’ring idols ain’t our style.Don’t start Christ’s fate with his birth date! He existed all the while.”

Goodness gracious, Athanasius! For you we’ve affinity;Your thoughts precious: how God meshes human with divinity.At Nicea, your ideas were the answer to the fuss.Athanasius, so loquacious, now from heaven, pray for us.

Goodness gracious, Athanasius! So you didn’t write your creed.All your writing, wrong indicting, gave the church the Christ we need.You did not live to see us give your ideas their recompense;Still we study you, good buddy: thanks for your obedience.

Chris Ángel

Note: This hymn text was inspired by Cathy Salika and was written for the hymn tune Hymn to Joy.

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Wisdom’s influence on the creation of the New Testament and early Christology is unmistakable. Origen, in the third century, sees this connection to the Wisdom personified in the Old Testament and understands Christ’s ontology in a way that in-cludes Wisdom fundamentally. As a modern scholar, Elizabeth Johnson reconstructs the process through which Wisdom came to be personified and traces her shadow through the New Testament. If we see Origen’s theology through what we know from cur-rent Wisdom scholarship would it be is possible to open many more avenues of examination within various areas of theology? The conjoining of Ori-gen’s Sophia-centered Christology and current Wis-dom scholarship found in Elizabeth Johnson enables a cosmological and feminine-oriented ontology for the second person of the Trinity.

Elizabeth Johnson’s work, Jesus, The Wisdom of God, traces the historical and scriptural basis for the personification of Wisdom in the Old Testament into its transformation into a Sophia-centered Chris-tology found throughout the Christian writings. While there is no consensus among scholars about the complete personification of the person Sophia in ancient times, Johnson argues that it was based on the Old Testament texts. She states, “This much is obvious: the figure of Wisdom is the most developed personification in the Jewish tradition, much more acutely limned than the figures of the Word, Spirit, Torah, or Shekinah.”1 By stating that this tradition is linked to the Egyptian cult of Isis and showing that Judaism did not incorporate Wisdom as a sepa-rate deity alongside Yahweh as the cult of Isis would have preferred, Johnson provides the framework for understanding how Wisdom was immensely influen-tial to early Christology and not a step away from monotheism.

With Wisdom already personified as a being not separate from God but with distinct attributes not directly claimed by God, she was perfectly placed to exemplify how Christ related to God as both deity and person. This distinction also represents a shift in Wisdom theology made by Paul. Johnson says,

1 Elizabeth A. Johnson, “Jesus, the Wisdom of God.” ETL 61 (1985): 264.

By so implicating divine Sophia with Jesus Christ he also implied that God’s wisdom is now to be read off not from nature or the To-rah, but from the history of Jesus culminating in the cross. Here is the transvaluation of val-ues so connected with the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus: divine Sophia is manifest not in glorious deeds or esoteric doctrine, but in the cross and the preaching of the cross.2

This conception is clearly illustrated in the christo-logical hymns Paul often intertwines with his own letters. One in particular, which will be discussed in greater detail later, is found in the letter to the Colos-sians (Col 1:15-20). Johnson says of these verses that until one reads the verses concerning the crucifixion and resurrection “there is nothing that could not be said of Sophia; change ‘he’ to ‘she’ and the hymn’s reliance on wisdom texts becomes obvious.”3

Johnson’s conversation around Matthew, Q, and John shows the influence of Wisdom literature on these texts. Johnson finds that Matthew “puts So-phia’s words in Jesus’ mouth so that Jesus is presented as Sophia speaking”4 and in Q, “Jesus issues Sophia’s call and promise, assumes her role of sending proph-ets, performs her deeds, enjoys her intimate knowl-edge of God, utters her lament. . . . He is not simply Sophia’s child or envoy, but her embodiment.”5

John conversely gives attributes of Wisdom to Jesus’ ministry, but the prologue, which, based on imagery and function, one would assume to be a prime example of Wisdom Christology, uses the im-age of Logos instead of Sophia. Many scholars, says Johnson, find that these images have “striking paral-lels” and that they are “almost interchangeable.”6 Yet the question still remains of why one would use the image of Logos instead of Wisdom. Johnson sug-gests Philo’s theology as a strong candidate for in-fluencing the switch to the use of Logos in the pro-logue. Johnson then states the conclusions of many scholars that it is possible the reason for this switch is that the image of a male Logos was more comfort-

2 Ibid., 277–78.3 Ibid., 279.4 Ibid., 281.5 Ibid., 283.6 See ibid., 285, for full list of conclusions.

Wisdom Christology in Origen and Elizabeth Johnson: A Supplementary Discourse

Adam Paul Koester

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ably applied to Christ than a female Sophia. Thus, Johnson concludes the discussion of the prologue with a question:

The point is, however, that Christian reflection before John had not found it difficult to apply insights associated with the figure of Sophia to Jesus, not only to the risen and exalted Christ but even to the historical Jesus as he was being portrayed in his ministry. Could the shift to the Logos concept be associated with the broader shift in the Christian community toward more patriarchal ecclesial structures and the blocking of women from ministries in which they had earlier participated?7

While no conclusions on this are made by Johnson at this point, she brings the paper to a close with the fact that while Logos is used to talk about Jesus in the prologue of John it is still heavily intertwined with Sophia’s roles from the Old Testament.

Finding these possibilities in Scripture, Johnson arrives at four conclusions, two of which I will focus on before moving into Origen’s theology. First, one basic ontology of Jesus can be understood in terms of Wisdom personified. This connection allows the many attributes of Wisdom to be directly applied to Christ and give the most solid foundation for talking about the incarnation.8 Second, Johnson argues that any Logos-centered Christology should automati-cally make the connection to a Wisdom-centered understanding of Christ. She states, “When we read that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (Jn 1,14), we can rightly think of Sophia, the creative and saving presence of God in the world, coming definitively toward us in Christ.”9 Knowing that So-phia has had such an enormous impact on the con-ception of Christ, it is impossible to view Christ as fully human simply in maleness. Johnson writes, “To say then that Jesus is the image of God (Col 1,15) means not that he is the image of God as male, but that he embodies God’s compassionate love, inclu-sive justice, and renewing power in the world. In the second place, use of wisdom categories calls into question the distorted theological use of the male-

7 Ibid., 288. This question absolutely needs to be asked of con-temporary culture when reflecting on women’s role in the church today compared with men’s. While it is not necessarily going to be the case, our communities need to engage carefully in theo-logical reflection regarding the issues raised by Wisdom Christol-ogy and questions regarding women’s role in ecclesial structure.8 Cf. ibid., 292.9 Ibid., 293.

ness of Jesus.”10 In this way Wisdom Christology of-fers a pathway to understanding Christ as a figure who can relate to both sexes equally and inclusively.

The theological premises of Origen similarly of-fer a pathway into realizing who Christ is as a being who holds within its personal ontology both the fig-ures of Logos and Sophia. Origen’s understanding of Christ finds Christ’s main identity confirmed in multiple epinoiai, or aspects. These aspects are named as a mechanism that Origen uses to explain how “God, therefore, is altogether one and simple. Our Savior, however, because of the many things, since God ‘set’ him ‘forth as a propitiation’ and firstfruits of all creation, becomes many things, or perhaps even all these things, as the whole creation which can be made free needs him.”11 The foundation of these epinoiai “rests on Origen’s understanding of the function of Christ as the mediator between God and creation.”12 The order and complete interworking of this idea is found most clearly in the second chap-ter of Origen’s De Principiis. Origen says here, “Our first task therefore is to see what the only-begotten Son of God is, seeing he is called by many different names according to the circumstances and beliefs of the different writers.”13 Recognizing that many different images are used, Origen sets out to under-stand Christ through them, the primary one being Wisdom.

By stating that Wisdom is the primary under-standing of the Son, Origen must then go on to say exactly what this means when understanding God. Wisdom is the first born of creation, as Paul says in Colossians 1:15,14 not with a physical body but rather as a being who “makes men wise by reveal-ing and imparting itself to the minds of such as are able to receive its influence and intelligence.”15 The

10 Ibid., 294.11 Origen, Commentary on John: Book I, par. 119 as found in Origen: Commentary on the Gospel According to John, Books 1-10, trans. Rob-ert E. Heine (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1989). Following, the location as found in Origen’s work will be cited.12 John Anthony McGuckin, ed., The Westminster Handbook to Ori-gen (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2004), 93. 13 Origen, First Principles: Book I, chap. II, par. 1 as found in G. W. Butterworth and Paul Koetschau, Origen on First Principles, Being Koetschau’s Text of the De Principiis Translated into English, Together with an Introduction and Notes (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1936). Following, the location as found in Origen’s work will be cited.14 Ibid.15 Ibid., par. 2. See also: footnote 4, Butterworth and Koetschau, 15. It is important here to take into account Origen’s theology

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incorporeal nature of God in all three forms is nec-essary for Origen’s understanding of cosmology. While this implies that it is impossible to think of Wisdom as actually female, Origen retains the use “She” when talking about her—the same as he does when speaking about the Son and using “he”—thus, he retains her femininity despite God’s incorporeal nature. Also, accepting Wisdom as the primary way of understanding the Son makes impossible the thought that the Son had a beginning. Origen states this belief in the Son as eternally begotten and thus states of Wisdom, “Wisdom, therefore, must be be-lieved to have been begotten beyond the limits of any beginning that we can speak of or understand. . . . Solomon . . . says that she was created as a ‘be-ginning of the ways’ of God, which means that she contains within herself both beginnings and causes and species of the whole creation.”16 Understand-ing Wisdom as the beginning of all creation, Origen equates these attributes to the Son of God as the Son is Wisdom.

of the incarnation and of preexistence. Stephen Thomas, in an article in John Anthony McGuckin, ed., The Westminster Handbook to Origen, describes Origen’s speculation of the preexistence of souls to account for their physical nature. Thomas finds that Origen implies that in order to understand the fall and the “plac-ing in bodies” of Gen. 2, it is possible to see the souls as pre-existent—not just momentarily but with an entire life of deci-sions—where they would have made mistakes and fallen away from God at different levels. When a soul is placed in a body then, it is not as punishment for these sins, but rather for the possibility that the soul would be rehabilitated and returned to God (56). One can compare this to what it is like to put on ex-tra, warm clothing in order to go outside in cold weather. The clothing itself is not harmful, though it may be encumbering to the person, but rather represents the state of the person be-ing away from a comfortable environment. This fall created a tiered spiritual universe of demons, humans, and angels. These souls, all with their original purpose identical, find their place now in the separate dimensions of corporality and noncorpo-rality. There was one soul, however, that did not stray from its original created intent of contemplation of God; that soul is the soul of Christ. In another article in the same anthology on Origen, Charles Kannengiesser states, “It was this soul, Jesus, preexistently chosen by the divine Logos for his own descent to earth at the decisive moment of the universal need for salvation. According to Philippians 2:7-8, the Son of God volunteered to deny himself in such a rescue mission. . . . Using the soul like a space suit (in the present case one should rather call it an ‘earth suit’), the uncreated Logos of God encapsulated himself inside a created spiritual nature, a unique case of intimacy in which the creature instantly gave itself away to its creator”(76–77). This al-lows Origen to overcome the dualism between the spiritual and physical world. It is also important to note that Origen does not speak of the human soul being eliminated by the Logos, but rather integrating with it (77). 16 Origen, First Principles: Book I., par. 2.

Once Origen has established Wisdom as the Son, his next task is to incorporate Logos into the Christology. Origen’s heavy incorporation allows a clear link between Logos and Sophia as he writes about the introduction to the Gospel of John. The reasoning for this link is shown in Origen’s commen-tary on John when he states,

But it is as the beginning that Christ is creator, according to which he is wisdom. Therefore as wisdom he is called the beginning. . . . It is wisdom which is understood, on the one hand, taken in relation to the structure of the con-templation and the thoughts of all things, but it is the Word which is received, taken in rela-tion to the communication of the things which have been contemplated to spiritual beings.17

And later, “But consider if it is possible also for us to take the statement, ‘In the beginning was the Word,’ in accordance with this meaning, so that all things came to be in accordance with the wisdom and plans of the system of thoughts in the Word.”18 While it can be assumed that Origen makes this con-nection based on scriptural analysis of John—So-phia being the beginning19 and Logos being in the beginning20—it is also highly likely that it is by their respective economies and their interrelated, comple-mentary relationship to creation that Origen makes the connection. This relationship between Sophia and Logos seems to be one of “creator”/”order-er” as seen in First Principles: “For wisdom opens to all other beings, that is, to the whole creation, the mean-ing of the mysteries and secrets which are contained within the wisdom of God, and so she is called the Word, because she is as it were an interpreter of the mind’s secrets.”21

Here, Origen stops to examine his conclusions about Christ and Wisdom based on Scripture. In do-ing this, he makes the scriptural connection between Wisdom 7:2622 and the hymn in Colossians 1:15-20.23 Moving from talking about Wisdom directly to this hymn, Origen, with his own preconceptions, finds that the Father and the Son are distinguishable yet one being. He states, “the Father’s image is repro-

17 Origen, Commentary on John: Book I, par. 111.18 Ibid., par. 113.19 Cf. Prov 8:22-23.20 Cf. John 1:1.21 Origen, First Principles: Book I, chap. II, par. 3.22 “For she is a reflection of the eternal light, / untarnished mir-ror of God’s active power, / and image of his goodness.”23 Specifically Col 1:15, “He is the image of the unseen God, / the first born of all creation.”

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duced in the Son [just as Adam begat Seth], whose birth from the Father is as it were an act of his will proceeding from the mind,”24 and later states on the unity of God, “Rather must we suppose that as an act of will proceeds from the mind without either cutting off any part of the mind or being separated or divided from it, in some similar fashion has the Father begotten the Son, who is indeed his image.”25 Origen continues this line of thought in understand-ing the relationship between the Father and the Son as he examines more closely the attributes of Wis-dom in chapter 7. He makes the distinction between why the text says Wisdom, and thus the Son, is a breath of the “power” of God26 and not the “glo-ry,” “eternal light,” “working,” and “goodness” that Solomon also mentions of Wisdom. Origen’s con-clusion here is that in being the “power” of God it is proven that “there always has existed that breath of the power of God, having no beginning but God himself. Nor indeed could it have fitly had any other beginning except from whom it takes its existence and birth, that is, God.”27 For Origen, it is clear that the Son cannot have been thought to have never ex-isted and the attributes exhibited thus far prove that the Son is one with God and without beginning.

Just as Origen concludes through Wisdom that the Son is equal to the Father in power, so does Wisdom allow him to conclude that the Son necessarily represents the Father clearly. For if Wisdom is the “untarnished mirror of God’s ac-tive power” (Wis 7:26), then she works as a result of the Father working, “whether in his acts of creation, or of providence, or of judgment, or in the ordering and superintendence of every detail of the universe at his own appointed time.”28 Ori-gen’s thoughts here lead him to conclude that it is only the Father who is good. He defends this by stating that, “as if these words were to be taken as a denial that either Christ or the Holy Spirit is good; but, as we said before, the original good-ness must be believed to reside in God the Father, and from him both the Son and Holy Spirit un-doubtedly draw into themselves the nature of that goodness existing in the fount from which the one is born and the other proceeds.”29

24 Origen, First Principles: Book I, chap. II, par. 6.25 Ibid.26 Cf. Wis 7:25.27 Origen, First Principles: Book I, chap. II, par. 9.28 Ibid., par. 12.29 Ibid., par. 13.

Through his incorporation of Wisdom into Christology, Origen is able to make these conclu-sions about Christ. What must be understood at the same time as this ontological significance of Wis-dom and the Son is the soteriological significance Wisdom allows Christ to have in the world. Conse-quentially, this possibility stems also from the con-nections made in Colossians 1:15-20. In reference to John 1:29,30 Origen states the following:

He [John the Baptist] does not say he who will take it away but is not already also taking it away; and he does not say he who took it away but is not also still taking it away. / For the “taking away” affects each one in the world until sin be removed from all the world and the Savior de-liver to the Father a prepared kingdom which permits the Father’s rule and again admits all things of God in its whole and total self.31

This process is done so that God may be “all in all.” Thus Christ’ saving significance can reach to the end of creation. This is made possible because in Wis-dom all creation was made and “It is because of this creation [the creation of Wisdom] that the whole creation has also been to subsist, since it has a share in the divine wisdom according to which it has been created, for according to the Prophet David, God made ‘all things in Wisdom.’”32 Thus connections, which will be explored shortly, are easily drawn be-tween creation and salvation.

When examining the thoughts of Elizabeth Johnson on the evidence of Wisdom imagery in forming Scripture, one can quite easily see correla-tions between these possibilities and Origen’s theo-logical construction of Christology. Origen’s most basic attributes of Christ—equality with the Father, begotten of the Father, creator and sustainer of creation—all come as a result of reflection on the correlation between Wisdom’s attributes and simi-larly built passages in the New Testament. The con-struction found in Origen and the reconstruction of historical situation leading to the personification of Sophia in Johnson lead to three deeply intertwined possibilities for imagining Christology.

First, Johnson’s two conclusions mentioned earlier are reinforced by Origen’s foundation that Sophia and Logos are two necessary pieces of the

30 “The next day, he saw Jesus coming towards him and said, ‘Look, there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.’”31 Origen, Commentary on John: Book I, par. 234–35.32 Ibid., par. 244.

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ontology of Christ the Son. The combination of Logos as “order-er” and Sophia as “creator” allows in Christ what Rosemary Radford Ruether imagines for earth healing in her book, Gaia and God: An Eco-feminist Theology of Earth Healing. Ruether states in imagining the possibilities in healing that the “two voices of divinity from nature”33 need to come to-gether and remain in communion. The first imaged as “God” is the being who we find communicating in “thunderous masculine tones of ‘though shalt’ and ‘though shalt not.’ It is the voice of power and law, but speaking (at its most authentic) on behalf of the weak, as a mandate to protect the powerless and to restrain the power of the mighty.”34 The other voice, imaged throughout the book in contrast to the “God” of history, “has been silenced by the mascu-line voice, but today is finding her own voice. This is the voice of Gaia. Her voice does not translate into laws or intellectual knowledge, but beckons us into communion.”35 Ruether’s conclusions lead to the ex-hortation to bring the feminine voice and masculine voice back together in order to bridge the gap that causes the destruction explained through the rest of the book. Thus, as Ruether imagines God with both these masculine and feminine voices contributing to theological understanding, so Origen’s Christology shows how both Sophia and Logos are integral to Christ’s ontology and thus divine attributes.36

Following this conclusion, and intertwined with it, is the possibility for a deep connection to the physical, created world. Here, both Johnson’s and Origen’s reliance on the Colossians christological hymn—itself heavily dependent on the Wisdom tra-dition—is seen clearly. Through Wisdom, Christ is the creator and sustainer of the cosmos—seen clear-ly in Origen’s theology—and added to this nature by the Colossians hymn, Christ is also the redeemer of the entire cosmos that Christ created by becoming a part of it. The integral relationship found here al-

33 Rosemary Radford Ruether, Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theol-ogy of Earth Healing (New York: Harper Collins, 1992), 255.34 Ibid.35 Ibid.36 To contrast with another current which can be found in Gerald Bostock’s article, Origen’s Doctrine of Creation, where he suggests a return to Logos-centered Christology. While his suggested re-sults are agreeable, I believe the premise is inherently flawed in that it does not go far enough to correct the problem. Logos-centered Christology—being centered in Wisdom, as Bostock argues—does not have the potential that a dual-natured Christ has nor does it recognize Wisdom with the importance she finds in Origen’s Christology.

lows the possibilities found in Ruether’s, as well as other ecotheologians’, hopes for realizing the direct relationship between spirituality, intellectuality, and theology of the created order that has had Christ’s Gospel preached to it as well.37 Not only is creation integral to our existence, but its presence suggests that God’s relationship with it is deeper than we can understand. It is to the ecotheologians and ecologists that we must look to help redefine humanity’s rela-tionship with the rest of creation after having ex-ploited it so long.

Finally, as Johnson finds in her conclusions and again directly linked to the previous two conclusions, the possibilities for women’s roles in the church de-mand at least a further look. If it is possible for Scripture as well as for some of the church’s earli-est theology to envisage Christ’s basic composition to include both male and female parts, intertwined and integral to each other, then we must find what it means to be fully human as Christ revealed. Though it may have consequences on the meaning of mar-riage or on celibate life (not in any way saying that celibate life is unnecessary) it certainly does seem that a completely male hierarchical structure within the Catholic Church is lacking half of the conver-sation when making decisions that affect the whole body of the church. With only the male half of the voices speaking for the body of the church, of which Christ is the head, half the basic makeup of Christ as we understand Sophia/Logos is missing and thus Christ is underrepresented.

Elizabeth Johnson’s christological basis allows one to see the historical framework through which the feminine figure of Wisdom came to influence the writers of the New Testament. Origen’s writ-ings show recognition of these themes as he builds a Christology that is Sophia-centered but is also de-pendent on Logos to understand completely who Christ is cosmologically and soteriologically. The characteristics attributed to Christ by way of Sophia allows for many interesting possibilities in the cur-rent topics of humanity’s relationship with the cos-mos, Wisdom Christology, and women’s position in church hierarchical structures. By taking Sophia-centered Christology seriously, it is possible to see that many relationships are lacking half of the indi-viduals needed to fully understand it and be in true dialogue. Seeing Christology as dependent on Sophia is integral to understanding the trinitarian reality, as well as its individual persons, correctly.

37 Cf. Col 1:23.

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Bibliography

Bostock, Gerald. “Origen’s Doctrine of Creation.” The Exposi-tory Times, 118, no. 5 (2007): 222–27.

Johnson, Elizabeth A. “Jesus, the Wisdom of God.” ETL, 61 (1985): 261–94.

McGuckin, John Anthony, ed. The Westminster Handbook to Origen. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2004.

Origen. Commentary on John. In Origen: Commentary on the Gospel According to John, Books 1-10, translated by Robert E. Heine. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1989.

Origen. First Principles. In Origen on First Principles, Being Koetschau’s Text of the De Principiis Translated into English, Together with an Introduction and Notes, edited by G. W. Butterworth and Paul Koetschau. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1936.

Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theol-ogy of Earth Healing. New York: Harper Collins, 1992.

Vista d’una cupola dal cortile del doge

Ælred Senna, OSB

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Birth of Christ, Donald Jackson, 2002, The Saint John’s Bible, Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota, USA. Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, Copyright 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Variation in music is a technique in which as-pects are altered slightly with repetition, woven through changes in melody, harmony, counterpoint, or rhythm. Variations on a theme have long played a part in classical compositions, yet the method of developing playful or serious variations to highlight or deepen aspects of a work’s main theme is not a concept limited to music; numerous visual artists have also worked to portray variations on a theme. A fascinating example of such visual variation-on-a-theme methodology is found in The Saint John’s Bible, a contemporary handwritten, illuminated manuscript. The illuminations from the Gospel of Luke in par-ticular present a visual intertextuality that functions “musically” as variations on a theme that give an aes-thetic and theological cohesion to the narrative. An examination of the four main elements of the visual intertextuality that unites the Lucan illuminations—the use of color, the presence of written text, the internal sense of movement, and the repetition of shapes, figures, or geometric patterns—reveals how the illuminations interpret the gospel text to produce an aesthetic and theological encounter to which the reader-viewer responds in a deeper manner than to the words of the biblical text alone. These four aesthetic elements are present in each Lucan illumi-nation, and the interweaving of these aesthetic ele-ments contributes to an overall synesthetic experi-ence of variations on a theme.

A few elementary comments on musical com-position may be enlightening before embarking on an aesthetic and theological interpretation that relies heavily on musical principles. Musical themes are the basic elements of any work, and their development can be seen as analogous to the process of writing. This comparison between musical and literary com-position is especially helpful when approaching a given work synesthetically:

The theme is the first in a series of musical events, all of which must grow out of its ba-sic idea as naturally as the plant does from the seed. . . . This process of expansion has its par-allel in prose writing, where an idea stated at the beginning of a paragraph is embroidered and enlarged upon until it has been explored as

thoroughly as the author desires.1As in the writing of text, the creation of visual art follows an organic process: themes are proposed and then elaborated upon as they grow and weave to-gether to produce the overall effect and depth of meaning imagined by the artist. Donald Jackson, head calligrapher of The Saint John’s Bible, has de-scribed this process as part of his imaginative cre-ation: “I am always looking for links, visual meta-phors linking each illumination to the others.”2 The illuminations of The Saint John’s Bible thus follow a pattern of development analogous to that of musi-cal composition: themes are introduced, expounded, and interrelated to create a layered, multisensory ex-perience of reading the images, hearing the words, and seeing the texture of the biblical narrative in a new light.

The Nativity: Presentation of Main ThemesAs the title page of the Gospel of Luke, the illu-

mination of the birth of Christ introduces the main themes of the intertextual variations to follow, both aesthetically and theologically. Through each of the four main aesthetic elements, the illumination sets the tone for the narrative. First is the use of col-or, through which the nativity shines in gold, blues, and reds, focusing in particular on the brilliant gold that lights the scene of Jesus’ birth. In illuminated manuscripts, gold plays a central role related to the theological meaning of the illuminated text: “Strictly speaking, there can be no illumination of a manu-script without gold. . . . It is gold that reflects the light to the viewer. In this way, the light is meant to come out of the illumination, not reside in it.”3 The viewer’s eye is immediately drawn to the dazzling gold leaf of the solid vertical beam that seems both

1 Joseph Machlis and Kristine Forney, The Enjoyment of Music: An Introduction to Perceptive Listening (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999), 26. 2 Donald Jackson, quoted in Christopher Calderhead, Illuminating the Word: The Making of The Saint John’s Bible (Collegeville, MN: Saint John’s Bible, 2005), 179.3 Susan Sink, The Art of The Saint John’s Bible: A Reader’s Guide to Pentateuch, Psalms, Gospels, and Acts (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2007), 9.

Variations on a Theme: Intertextuality in the Illuminations of the Gospel of Luke

Laura Kelly Fanucci

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to descend from heaven and to burst forth from the manger as it illuminates the scene. This prominent gold shaft clearly forms the vertical beam of a cross, with the winged figures in gold at the top of the page creating the horizontal beam—thus hinting at the crucifixion that awaits the child in the manger. Yet the golden column that links heaven and earth is also a sign of the link between God and humanity, seen in the incarnation. The people crowded around the manger are shown in gold as well, their wondering expressions reflecting the light of Christ.4 The use of gold in the nativity illumination therefore func-tions theologically to represent not only the divin-ity of the newborn Christ Child but also the gospel writer’s concern for the poor and his exaltation of humanity, “the coexistence of the earthly and the spiritual in this event.”5

The second aesthetic element of the nativity illumination is the presence of written text. Three “callouts” from Luke 1:78, 1:79, and 2:14 are written in gold, proclaiming their importance; each is also written in a different script, indicating the multiplic-ity of voices singing out at the birth of Christ—both Zechariah whose canticle foretold the coming of the Messiah and the angels whose heavenly song trum-pets out news. This visual interplay of word and im-age is significant; the distinction between text and illumination is transcended as “images are read, and texts are imaged.”6

A third aesthetic element of the nativity illumi-nation that sets the theme for later Lucan intertex-tuality is the internal sense of movement within the illumination. The nativity scene is structured with strong horizontal and vertical elements: the inter-section of the shaft of Christ’s light with the band of golden figures in the heavens creates a cruciform

4 This use of gold in the Lucan illuminations in a sense “democ-ratizes” the use of gold in illuminated manuscripts. Christopher De Hamel describes the traditional use of gold leaf in medieval manuscripts: “Gold became a major element in defining status in the hierarchy of ornament within a manuscript. . . . Gold [also] had fundamental medieval associations with financial status and the distribution of largesse: any section of a text introduced by the actual presence of gold was endorsed as a giver of wealth” (De Hamel, The British Library Guide to Manuscript Illumination: History and Techniques [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001], 67). Yet in The Saint John’s Bible, gold is used not simply to designate hierarchy or wealth (either of the patron or of God whose glory is the subject) but to exalt humanity as well.5 Sink, The Art of The Saint John’s Bible, 76.6 Suzanne Lewis, Reading Images: Narrative Discourse and Reception in the Thirteenth-Century Illuminated Apocalypse (New York: Cam-bridge University Press, 1995), 2.

shape that prefigures the death for which the child in the manger was born. The fourth aesthetic ele-ment—the repetition of shapes or geometric pat-terns—is related to these angelic figures that form the horizontal beam of the cross, since their pres-ence will continue to be found in later illuminations. Susan Sink’s reading of the nativity illumination notes how the repetition of such figures evokes illu-minations from throughout The Saint John’s Bible and thus contributes to the unity of the biblical narrative:

The illumination has many sections that you can “read,” finding echoes to other illumina-tions: the angels from Jacob’s ladder, the fili-gree from the Transfiguration, the stars from Abraham’s covenant. All that has been prom-ised is being fulfilled; God is revealed to hu-manity; the two worlds are bridged.7

The golden celestial shapes are not the only significant figures in the nativity illumination, for the animals gathered around the manger scene also prefigure central events in the Lucan narrative. In particular, the presence of the ram—a sacrificial ani-mal—evokes the notion of Christ as paschal sacri-fice and adds yet another link between the birth of Jesus and his crucifixion. The prominent black bull in the foreground also demonstrates the symbolic, and not simply illustrative, nature of the illumina-tion. Modeled on Neolithic cave paintings from Las-caux, France, and suggestive of the ox that has tradi-tionally been identified with the evangelist Luke, the bull can either be viewed as an ominous presence, foreshadowing the passion of Christ, or as a celebra-tion of Jesus’ strength. Donald Jackson describes the bull’s symbolism thus: “The bull expresses the vital-ity and power of earthly life, as well as the humble circumstances of Christ’s birth. It contrasts with the ethereal wonder of the flying angels and heavenly light descending into the world.”8

Overall, the nativity illumination can be un-derstood musically as the exposition of the main themes—setting the essential melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic lines that will be woven throughout all subsequent illuminations in Luke. Its use of gold to exalt both divinity and humanity, its blending of text and image, its internal cruciform structure, and its presentation of figures and patterns that will be repeated in later illuminations all contribute to the stately importance of this opening page of the gos-

7 Sink, The Art of The Saint John’s Bible, 76.8 Calderhead, Illuminating the Word, 112.

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pel. Image and text sing out the birth of Christ so that visual and auditory callouts will continue to res-onate throughout the book.

The Canticles: Development of Word as ImageImmediately following the nativity illumination

is a series of special treatments of texts from Luke 1–2: Mary’s Magnificat, the Canticle of Zechariah, the Gloria, and the Canticle of Simeon. Although these callouts do not contain any figurative elements like the nativity scene, they still play a significant role in the intertextuality of the Lucan illuminations. The fact that two of these texts—the Benedictus of Zechariah and the Gloria of the angels—are fea-tured in the preceding nativity illumination illustrates the interweaving of texts throughout the narrative as variations on a theme. As with the verses in the nativity illumination, the Magnificat, the Benedictus, and the Gloria are illuminated in gold—an example of chyrsography, the technique of “writing in gold” used for the elaborate treatment of texts.9 The use of gold to exalt the holy words of Scripture has a long history in illuminated manuscripts: “Illumina-tion refers etymologically to light playing on gold. The gold leaf is meant, quite literally, to throw light upon the words that surround it and, in doing so, cause us to read these words more deeply.”10 Gold therefore has an inherent illuminative quality that heightens the meaning of the biblical text.

Beyond the use of gold, the presence of other colors in these callouts is also significant. Mary’s Magnificat is written against a deep blue back-ground, the traditional hue associated with the Vir-gin, while the Canticle of Zechariah is proclaimed from an earthier background of brown and orange. The angels’ Gloria is illuminated with a mosaic that borrows its colors from the preceding canticles of Mary and Zechariah on the facing page, representing visually how all human songs of praise are caught up in the angels’ chorus. Finally, the Canticle of Sime-on stands alone on the following page in pale blue, suggesting the fading life of the elderly man, yet it remains clear, like his vision of the savior that the infant Jesus would become.

All four of these callouts are also important for a “musical” reading of the gospel of Luke because they themselves are central liturgical hymns of the church: the Benedictus at Morning Prayer, the Mag-

9 Sink, The Art of The Saint John’s Bible, 78.10 Jason Byassee, “Beautiful Words: The Saint John’s Bible Project,” Christian Century 122, no. 16 (August 9, 2005), 21.

nificat at Evening Prayer, the Canticle of Simeon at Compline, and the Gloria at the Eucharist. These vi-sual callouts therefore connect text with liturgy, so that the words are heard or sung by the reader-view-er: “The ‘special treatments’ of certain texts, such as . . . the Magnificat, literally rise from the page and fill the viewer’s field of vision. . . . . It is closer to liturgy, as the pages flash, and praise is almost demanded of the viewer, who sees long-loved words shining anew.”11 Michael Patella, OSB, chair of the Commit-tee on Illumination and Text that has worked with Donald Jackson in the creation of The Saint John’s Bible, underscores this connection between the illu-minated book of Scripture and the church’s liturgical life: “No biblical book can be removed from the set-ting of the Liturgy of the Hours or the Eucharist.”12 The visual representation of the relationship be-tween Scripture and liturgy, text and song, is thus illustrated by these four Lucan callouts whose inter-play between word and image offer another impor-tant musical theme for ensuing variations.

The Anointing Woman: Exposition of Sub-themesThe next illumination is the anointing of Jesus

by the woman in Luke 7:36-50.13 Understood “mu-sically” as both a variation on established themes and an introduction of an important sub-theme, the anointing illumination stands at the thematic center of the Lucan illuminations. The four main aesthetic elements of the use of color, presence of text, inter-nal movement, and geometric or figural repetition are woven anew in this visual interpretation of the theo-logically significant episode. The first element—the use of color, primarily gold, blue, and red—is seen most strikingly in the figure of the woman herself. Dressed in vibrant colors, the woman wears a head-piece that suggests Native American beading, and the band on her brow is blue and red, evoking Mary’s headscarf in the nativity illumination. The woman’s status as “other” is designated by her dark skin, her stooping stature, and her lowered gaze: “The woman

11 Ibid.12 Michael Patella, “The Saint John’s Bible: Biblical Authority within the Illuminated Word,” Word & World 26, no. 4 (Autumn 2006): 387.13 See, on the following page, Dinner at the Pharisee’s House, Donald Jackson, 2002, The Saint John’s Bible, Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota, USA. Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Ver-sion of the Bible, Catholic Edition, Copyright 1993, 1989 Na-tional Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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is represented as unconventional, wildly dressed, her hair in green and pink.”14 The use of color thus unites this illumination with others and distinguishes it as a distinct variation on a theme.

The second element is the presence of writ-ten text, found in the first illumi-nated words of Je-sus in this gospel, standing in gold at the center of the illumination: “Her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love” (Luke 7:47). Jesus’ declaration of great love and forgiveness stands in sharp contrast to his harsh words to the Pharisee (“You gave me no kiss,” Luke 7:45), which float in grey outside the edges of the illumination. Sink notes that this pericope was chosen by the Committee on Illumination and Text precisely “because of the themes of forgiveness and salvation, and the charge made against Jesus that he too often associated with sinners.”15 The presence of Christ’s own words thus stands as a clear witness to the importance of these themes of love, forgiveness, and compassion for the poor that are central to Lu-can theology.

The third aesthetic element—the movement within the structure of the illumination—is a text-book illustration of a variation on a theme: it echoes previous materials and introduces a new element to subsequent illuminations. Within the anointing illu-mination, the reader-viewer perceives a strong ver-tical beam, like the shaft of light in the nativity il-lumination. The words of Christ himself form this column at the center of the illumination, dividing the scene between the anointing woman on the left and the angry red of the Pharisees’ reaction on the right. Sink affirms this reading of the illumination’s inner structure: “The strong black line dividing the illumination represents the chasm between the world

14 Sink, The Art of the Saint John’s Bible, 80. 15 Ibid., 79.

of the sinful woman and that of the Pharisees.”16 As in the nativity scene, the symbolic figure of Christ (here in words of gold rather than shaft of light) stands at the center, mediating between the chaos the woman has brought into the household and the re-sulting outcry from the Pharisees. Yet this illumina-tion also presents a new sense of movement in the upward diagonal from the woman bending over at the lower left, through the messy chaos of the table and its bowl of oranges spilling off the table, up to the angry crimson smeared in the upper left. This diagonal movement up and to the right will become a rhythm throughout later Lucan illuminations, per-haps suggesting humanity’s movement “up” toward Christ who is the “right.”

The fourth and final aesthetic element found in the anointing illumination is the repetition of shapes or geometric patterns. An instance of each is found in this illumination, although their full meaning will not become evident until later in the Lucan narra-tive. The vase and cup on the table foreshadow the green and gold vessels that will be found in the il-lumination of the Last Supper; the presence of pur-ple grapes and red wine likewise evoke the paschal sacrifice. Another connection is forged through the geometric pattern of brown and orange of the table-cloth’s fabric that reappears in the illumination of Mary and Martha, thus uniting the three women and the two domestic scenes. Both the Eucharistic ves-sels and the patterned cloth only become meaning-ful for the reader-viewer on later reflection, but they

16 Ibid., 80.

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stand as visual expressions of the intertextuality of the biblical narrative.

The Parable Anthology: Recapitulation of the Main ThemeBuilding on the anointing illumination’s themes

of compassion and forgiveness is the “parable an-thology” of Luke 15.17 Within a single illumination that spans an entire page and a half, five parables as well as the story of Mary and Martha are united in a complex reflection on love and forgiveness. The parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep, the Good Samaritan, the prodigal son, and Lazarus and the rich man thus become variations on a theme, as well as a cohesive recapitulation of the main theological and aesthetic themes in Luke: “It is the idea of God showing himself in his divine love for humanity that

17 Donald Jackson describes the parable illumination with this literary analogy: “It was truly an anthology. How do you sum up Luke’s Gospel? . . . There is a lot going on and the onlooker has to hunt” (quoted in Calderhead, 175). Luke Anthology, Donald Jackson with contribution by Aidan Hart and Sally Mae Joseph, 2002, The Saint John’s Bible, Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota, USA. Scrip-ture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, Copyright 1993, 1989 Nation-al Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

the Gospel of Luke emphasizes.”18

The first important aesthetic element—the use of color—is seen in the swirling reds, whites, and blues that compose the diagonal frames of the par-able anthology. An attentive reader-viewer of The Saint John’s Bible may recall glimpsing these exact colors earlier, in the menorah of the Matthean ge-nealogy. The visual link between Matthew and Luke creates an additional layer of intertextuality that un-derscores the unifying message of the gospels: that Jesus Christ has come to usher in a new law of love and forgiveness. Another intertextual reference (be-tween the Old and New Testaments) is suggested with the brightly colored robe that the father in the parable of the prodigal son pulls behind him as he runs to embrace his child. The multicolored robe

immediately evokes the gar-ment given by Jacob to his beloved son Joseph, thus creating a visual connection between the two stories and deepening the meaning of a well-known parable.

As throughout the Lu-can illuminations, gold is again a powerful and mean-ingful color element in the parable anthology. Three different manifestations of gold in the parable anthol-ogy offer visual variations on this theme. In the upper left corner, the same golden angels from the nativity il-lumination enter the parable anthology from beyond the frame. Directly opposite these angelic shapes, in the upper right corner of the panel with Mary and Martha, stands the figure of Christ, haloed and glowing in gold.

In the middle of the main parable illumination, the twin towers of the World Trade Center stand out in simple, striking gold as a powerful contemporary application of the ancient message of the parable of the prodigal son. Taken together, these three con-centrated areas of gold offer an aesthetic interpreta-tion of a central theological principle: “Each place

18 Sink, The Art of The Saint John’s Bible, 87.

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that Jesus reveals his divinity, gold leaf was used [in the illumination of The Saint John’s Bible]. In the an-thology of Luke, also, where God’s radical love is taught, Jesus appears in . . . dazzling gold leaf.”19 Vi-sual variations on a theme thus continue to deepen the meaning of the scriptural text by engaging the reader-viewer’s senses and imagination.

The second main aesthetic element that contin-ues to be woven throughout Luke is the presence of written text within the illumination. Two striking examples are found in the parable anthology. At the center of the entire illumination is the parable of the Good Samaritan, depicted only in text rather than figuratively. Since words are often what divide peo-ple, “these quotations draw attention to the sectarian nature of the tale.”20 Yet the unexpected presence of words where one expects to find images also draws attention to the visual center of the illumination and the theological center of these parables—the forgiv-ing love of agape. Similarly, in the illumination of Mary and Martha’s story, Jesus’ words in gold declare, “there is need of only one thing” (Luke 10:42). This is the central message of all the parables illuminated in the anthology: that God will seek out with selfless love one lost coin, sheep, son, stranger, or poor man. The reader-viewer thus “hears” Jesus’ words sum-marizing all that has been depicted visually.21

The third aesthetic element—the internal sense of movement within the illumination—is conveyed visually and rhythmically. Each parable is depicted in a successive diagonal band that leads up and to the right, thereby evoking both the strong beams of the nativity illumination and the diagonal movement of the anointing illumination. These diagonal divisions create rhythm and lend an overall compositional uni-ty to these variations on a theme.22 It is also signifi-cant to note the unusual position of the figures of Mary and Martha in the right-hand panel: their backs are turned to the reader-viewer as they gaze at Jesus. While this positioning of figures may seem unortho-dox from a traditional illustrative angle, the theologi-

19 Ibid., 87.20 Ibid., 81.21 Christopher De Hamel makes the point that “all writing is only a way of representing the sounds of human speech” (De-Hamel, The British Museum Guide, 21). Therefore any instance of written text within an illumination can be rightly perceived or interpreted as an oral utterance.22 The use of diagonals to depict the parables could also be un-derstood as a commentary on the challenging or enigmatic na-ture of parables, in which the goal is, to quote Emily Dickinson, to “Tell all the Truth, but tell it slant” (No. 1129).

cal symbolism is significant: Mary and Martha create a turn toward the figure of Jesus as they model the perspective of the reader-viewer. This turn to the real subject of the parable anthology shapes the en-tire visual structure as well as the internal movement of the illumination.

The fourth aesthetic element—the repetition of geometric patterns and shapes—parallels the first main element, the use of color to evoke inter-textual connections with other biblical books. Bro-ken pieces of a geometric pattern that are woven or echoed throughout the framework of the parable anthology suggest the central mandala from the Matthean genealogy: “They are meant, according to Donald Jackson, to suggest the way the mind and intelligence work to interpret and understand con-cepts, like teasing out the meaning of parables and applying them to our contemporary lives.”23 Another geometric pattern that reappears in the parable an-thology is the fabric of Martha’s dress. The brown and orange circles and squares are the exact geomet-ric pattern found on the table of the home where the woman anointed Jesus’ feet in Luke 7, illustrat-ing “the recurring theme of textiles” which Jackson has noted as a key visual link between illuminations.24 The visual and tactile unification of these important female figures through a common textile pattern of-fers a theological commentary on the Lucan text: the author’s attention to women, his concern for the poor and marginalized, his affirmation of humanity, and the central theme of God’s loving forgiveness that is woven through every illumination. As varia-tions on a theme within the overall composition of the Lucan illuminations, the parables draw connec-tions between seemingly unrelated scriptural stories, as well as contemporary applications, offering a rich theological and aesthetic interpretation for the read-er-viewer’s imagination.25

23 Sink, The Art of The Saint John’s Bible, 84. 24 Jackson quoted in Calderhead, Illuminating the Word, 179.25 As chair of the Committee on Illumination and Texts for The Saint John’s Bible, Michael Patella, OSB, has remarked on the use of both contemporary imagery and musical compositions in the creation of the illuminations: “There are references to the Christian liturgy and its chant in the Psalms; to the music of Bach, Beethoven, Prokofiev, Vaughan Williams, and Pärt in the gospel narratives; and even to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in the parables. The point is that the word of God does not exist in the sanctuary alone; it touches every part of the human condition, and every part of the human condition finds its resolution in the word of God” (Patella, “The Saint John’s Bible,” 390).

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The Last Supper: Symbolic Exposition of Central ThemesThe theological and narrative center of the illu-

minations is the Last Supper in Luke 22. This small-er illumination is simpler in its symbolism than the complex parable anthology, but it recapitulates im-portant themes suggested in the nativity illumination (with its sacrificial ram) and the anointing illumina-tion (with its Eucharistic vessels). These themes are treated to full exposition in the Last Supper illumina-tion, which functions as a structural and theological capstone for the Gospel story—linking the preced-ing illuminations with the impending crucifixion.

The first aesthetic element is apparent in the use of symbolic colors that have been featured in earlier illuminations, including gold for the glory of God and red for the blood of Jesus. While the sec-ond aesthetic element (written text) is not present, its absence is equally significant since it is the only illumination thus far in Luke not to incorporate the written word. Instead, the symbolic power of the eucharistic vessels is placed front and center as the visual manifestation of Jesus’ words of loving sacri-fice at the Last Supper. The three vessels echo each other’s similar shapes, yet each stands independently. On the left is a jug filled with red wine in front of a gold cup etched with grape vines, suggesting ei-ther the food and drink of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples or “the unconsecrated bread and wine . . . brought as a sacrificial offering” at the Eucharist.26 In the middle, a slain lamb bleeds into a cup or chal-ice, while a stately gold ciborium stands on the right.

The three vessels create a clear tripartite division, fol-lowing the third aesthetic element of the internal sense of movement within the illumination. The sections func-tion visually like a triptych, a popular art form in early Christianity (as well as in the medieval era when the il-luminated manuscript flourished). The clear sense of horizontal movement from left to right also mirrors the Western reader-viewer’s natural inclination to scan as if reading—yet another instance of the blending of text and image in illumination. Following the lead of Jesus’ own action in the Last Supper narrative, this triptych therefore acts as both word and gesture, both explana-tion and invitation. Suzanne Lewis’s perspective on the relationship between word and image is illuminating here: “Images are readings . . . not a re-telling of the text but a use of it; not an illustration, but, ultimately, a new text. The image does not replace a text; it is one.” 27

26 Sink, The Art of The Saint John’s Bible, 85. 27 Lewis, Reading Images, 2.

The repetition of geometric patterns, the fourth aesthetic element, contributes to this internal sense of movement. The middle panel containing the bleeding lamb is flanked by two columns containing Stars of David on the left and Greek crosses on the right, visually representing the shift from Jewish to Christian ritual. The transformation of the Passover feast (symbolized in the sacrificed lamb) to the Chris-tian Eucharist (represented by the ciborium) broad-ens the understanding of sacrifice. The presence of food and drink as seen in the anointing illumination evokes a synesthetic sense of taste that deepens the sacramental meaning of the Last Supper as encoun-ter with the true Paschal Lamb. The reader-viewer is thus invited to enter into a profound symbolic re-flection on the Last Supper. Visual connections with earlier illuminations unify this variation on a theme, while the deliberate development of sacrificial and eucharistic imagery sets the scene for the remainder of the Lucan narrative.

The Crucifixion: Recapitulation and Climax of Main ThemeWhile the Last Supper illumination took up only

a portion of the page, the next illumination bursts forth in full-page glory, echoing the opening of the gospel both aesthetically and theologically. The cru-cifixion recapitulates the main themes established in the nativity scene: just as the shape of the cross was evoked by the golden shaft of Christ’s light intersect-ing with the heavenly hosts above, so does the same brilliance of gold seen in the massive and majestic crucifix dominate the illumination. The cruciform shape of Jesus’ life suggested at his birth is now set ablaze in gold at his death. The first aesthetic ele-ment—the use of color—is thus focused again on gold as a sign of Christ’s glory. This is no gruesome scene of bloodied death; “the crucifixion in all its pain does not diminish the glory of God.”28 Theo-logically, the aesthetic element of gold once again defines the illumination’s theme. As with the shep-herds of the nativity scene whose wondering faces are lit by the gold of the manger, the crowd gathered in the distance to witness the death of Jesus is also lit in gold. Following Luke’s concern for humanity, these eyewitnesses do not appear implicated in the death of Jesus but instead reflect the radiance of his glory.

As in the Last Supper illumination, there is no written word included as part of the crucifixion. Je-

28 Sink, The Art of The Saint John’s Bible, 88.

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sus instead stands as the definitive expression of the gospel text, ending the Lucan illuminations as they began, in a celebration of his simple humanity and his divine glory. But there is a special treatment of the last words of Jesus at the bottom corner of the page immediately preceding the crucifixion: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). In gold lettering set against the same celestial imag-ery as the nativity scene and the background of the crucifixion illumination, Jesus’ words provide the only fitting introduction for the crucifixion, which is displayed in wordless majesty once the page is turned. Thus word and image still combine in the multipage exposition of the crucifixion, which re-capitulates all the theological themes of previous illuminations: selfless sacrifice, loving forgiveness, tender service of humanity. Both aesthetically and theologically, the crucifixion stands as the climax of the Lucan illuminations.

The two remaining aesthetic elements of the crucifixion illumination are not as visually arresting as the first two, but still play a significant role. The internal sense of movement echoes the strong verti-cal beam of the nativity illumination, though now slightly askew. The off-kilter sense of the scene is felt by the reader-viewer, who will also notice how “the entire image breaks through the frame, a sign of how the crucifixion broke through the limits of the human world and of time.”29 The final aesthetic element also plays off this notion of the crucifix-ion transcending normal human existence and time. The repetition of shapes and patterns is seen in the dark celestial imagery of golden moons and stars that made up the background of the nativity scene and in the last words of Jesus on the preceding page. This pattern of heavenly shapes has both immediate and far-reaching implications, simultaneously sug-gesting the passage of time during the three hours of darkness while Jesus hung on the cross and his transcendence of earthly time and space through the resurrection that is to come. As with the climax of a musical composition, the crucifixion illumination thus recapitulates the central themes of earlier Lu-can illuminations and also hints at a resolution still to come—which is evident as soon as the reader-viewer perceives the resurrection illumination on the facing page, an important visual, narrative, and theological juxtaposition.

29 Ibid.

The Resurrection: The Coda that Changes EverythingThe final illumination of Luke’s gospel is no sur-

prise, like the coda that concludes a musical composi-tion. Yet its subject matter—a return from the death that destroys death itself—is no simple denouement. The resurrection recasts the entire narrative of Jesus’ life and ministry in a new light. The transformative nature of the resurrection is shown in the thematic material chosen for illumination, namely, the story of the road to Emmaus in which the disciples’ eyes are opened to the presence of the risen Christ. A fit-ting end for the synesthetic encounter with Scripture through the Lucan illuminations, the resurrection il-lumination looks back on all that has come before and sends the reader-viewer forward to Acts like the disciples sent forth in mission.

All four main aesthetic elements are present in this final illumination. The use of color highlights a shift in portrayal of the figure of Jesus following the resurrection. In the lower right of the illumination stand two cloaked disciples who gaze up at a figure shrouded in red with hints of gold. The identify of this figure remains mysterious until the gaze of the reader-viewer, like the disciples themselves, moves up to the scene of breaking bread at Emmaus in the upper left of the illumination. Here Jesus is once again arrayed in gold, the cruciform halo behind his head echoing the crucifixion on the facing page. The glory of Christ’s resurrection shines forth through this use of color, in contrast to the reds, blues, and greens that symbolize the swirling confusion of the disciples following the crucifixion.

The presence of written text is the second main element that adds to the multisensory experience of the illumination. Verses that describe Jesus’ breaking bread with the disciples at Emmaus are written in gold at the bottom of the illumination, a final in-stance of chyrsography with the Lucan text (Luke 24:15, 30-31). The text’s eucharistic language evokes the Last Supper, but again, all prior understandings of Jesus have now been transformed with the resur-rection, as evoked in the final words of the illumi-nated text: “and he vanished from their sight” (Luke 24:31). This unique coda to the narrative ultimately changes everything, ending on a note of mystery, wonder, and conversion.

The third aesthetic element of the internal movement within the illumination recapitulates the theme of transformation. Powerful diagonals are present throughout, especially in the golden swaths

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Road to Emmaus, Donald Jackson, 2002, The Saint John’s Bible, Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, Order of Saint Benedict, Colleg-eville, Minnesota, USA. Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, Copyright 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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that move up and to the right—the same motion from the anointing illumination and the parable an-thology. Moving up from the text in gold at the bot-tom of the illumination, the reader-viewer is pulled by the reaching brushstrokes to be sent forth as the disciples. This upward-reaching movement of the illumination can be understood as symbolic of the entire Lucan narrative and its portrayal of human-ity’s movement up and towards the divine.

The final aesthetic element that contributes to the overall composition of the illumination and its theological meaning is the repetition of figures from previous illuminations. In the resurrection narrative the two figures of the disciples are shown from the back, in the exact same position as Mary and Martha in the parable anthology. The reader-viewer is invited again into the illumination, to assume the same posi-tion of looking on the figure of Christ. Ultimately, then, the biblical narrative becomes the narrative of the reader-viewer, whose encounter with the text has engaged all the senses of perception. The aesthetic encounter offered by the illuminations allows for a deeper understanding of the scriptural theology. The reader-viewer’s response to the synesthetic experience of perceiving the visual and musical variations within the illuminations gives rise to a more embodied un-derstanding of the core truths of Luke’s gospel.

The Music of Word and Image as Sacramental EncounterIn the final analysis, The Saint John’s Bible is both

an aesthetic and a theological project. The sacra-mental nature of embodied knowing lies at the heart of the illuminated manuscript, according to Abbot John Klassen, OSB: “The Word becomes sacramen-tal. It is not just a text. It is like the Eucharist: a vi-sual image of the Word.”30 The visual gives way to a deeper vision as distinctions between image and text, reader-viewer, and illumination are ultimately transcended: “In an illuminated Bible, the art attends to the revelation in the words. Text and image both reflect God’s presence, both reveal God’s mystery.”31 No longer passive, the reader-viewer is invited to en-gage actively with the text in dynamic, multisensory ways as an encounter with the divine.

The notion of putting word into image is al-ready synesthetic; the intentional weaving of mul-tiple aesthetic elements throughout the illuminations of a particular book of the Bible creates a sense of

30 Calderhead, Illuminating the Word, 21.31 Sink, The Art of The Saint John’s Bible, 9.

unity in diversity that can justly be compared to mu-sical variations on a theme: “Spinning out a theme, weaving and reweaving its lines is the essence of mu-sical thinking.”32 Analogous to music’s ability to sus-tain multiple melodic and harmonic lines simultane-ously, the Lucan illuminations create a multifaceted aesthetic and theological experience that provides a profound interpretation of the scriptural text. The visual, acoustic, and tactile sensations evoked by the illuminations invite the reader-viewer to engage both the senses and the imagination in order to understand the biblical narrative: “Sensory experience provides the raw material from which the intellect grasps the reality of universals and thus its understanding of God.”33 The intertextuality of illuminations in Luke ultimately opens up a broader meaning for the depth and inexhaustible meaning of the gospel, made fresh for yet another millennium of curious, skeptical, and faithful alike to approach the text with new eyes and consider its truth for the sights, sounds, smells, and taste of a new era.

Bibliography

Byassee, Jason. “Beautiful Words: The Saint John’s Bible Project.” Christian Century 122, no. 16 (August 9, 2005): 20–23.

Calderhead, Christopher. Illuminating the Word: the Making of The Saint John’s Bible. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005.

De Hamel, Christopher. The British Library Guide to Manuscript Illumination: History and Techniques. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001.

Gospels and Acts: The Saint John’s Bible. Handwritten and illumi-nated by Donald Jackson, et al. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005.

Lewis, Suzanne. Reading Images: Narrative Discourse and Reception in the Thirteenth-Century Illuminated Apocalypse. New York: Cam-bridge University Press, 1995.

Machlis, Joseph, and Kristine Forney. The Enjoyment of Music: An Introduction to Perceptive Listening. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999.

Patella, Michael. “The Saint John’s Bible: Biblical Authority within the Illuminated Word.” Word & World 26, no. 4 (Autumn 2006): 383–91.

Sink, Susan. The Art of The Saint John’s Bible: A Reader’s Guide to Pentateuch, Psalms, Gospels, and Acts. Collegeville, MN: Litur-gical Press, 2007.

32 Machlis and Forney, The Enjoyment of Music, 26. 33 Lewis, Reading Images, 235–36.

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That wasn’t how it happened.You’re supposed to think that it was as simple as an angel, and a yes,a donkey ride, and a manger.Some stars and wise men and gifts.It wasn’t. Instead, it was a fourteen year oldand tears and an angry betrothed, and more tears.A quick visit to family in the country and then a freezing cold, terrible night in a pile of straw.No better than an animal. Joseph was never sure how to act around the baby.Instead, he made things.He would let the little one watch himas long as he didn’t talk or ask questions.Under other circumstances, we might have been happy. But Joseph refused to touch me.Maybe that’s where they got ever-virgin from. He built tables and chairs.Cabinets and houses and chests.They were beautiful.People would walk from neighboring townsand congratulate him on his work and his lovely family.He would smile a strained smile and bend over his work.I would take the boy into the house and make bread.We always ended up with extra when he helped. Joseph was never really happyunless he was making something out of nothing.Creating something that would be entirely his.Something I or the boy’s real father weren’ta part of. When he finished something new,say a bench, or a cart, he might come insideand ruffle the boy’s hair and say something kind to me.More often, he put his tools away, washed, and sat in silence at the table. You can get used to anything after a while.We went along, if not happy,civil at least, until the boy became a man,and left his father’s work for Jerusalem. We thoughthe was going to be a teacher. After an incident with Pilate and the other occurrence a few days later, I tried to convince Joseph thatI had been telling the truth.But before I could explain myself,someone came to see him about a new kitchen table.

Kelly Marie Prosen

You Were Chosen

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I love the readings that surround our celebration of Christmas. Besides the Advent candles, wreaths, Christmas lights, and manger scenes, I revel in the beautiful and humbling reminder that our God loves us so intensely that instead of just leaving some set of instructions for us to follow, this human family re-ceives a savior. Emmanuel. Yet, Emmanuel comes to an engaged couple, not yet living together. Amid the preparations for their marriage and the merging of families, Mary is found to be with child: impregnated by the Holy Spirit. We are familiar with this story, with this family—it is the Holy Family, of course!

Now, before I give the impression that I am go-ing to tell you what you already know about these characters, I ask you to humor me by imagining the average family in Lakeville, Minnesota, or, if you are visiting, wherever you are from. Statistics show a decreasing number of children per family, but in general, the rule of four members per family applies; I think it might be 1.4 children, so let’s just round up to 2. This, I would argue, is a broadly overgener-alized rule for family size and construction. But by what else do we “measure” ourselves, our families? Economic status? Social or civil involvement? Surely not the Holy Family!

What are our preconceived notions about the Holy Family?

Pius? Perfect? Unrealistic?We celebrate Mary’s immaculate conception, and

thereby acknowledge her sinlessness. Joseph is a bit hesitant to join in on this venture, but with the coax-ing of an angel in a dream, he is convinced that he too is called to this vocation to raise the Son of God. Add to that Jesus, the Savior of the world, and, if you are anything like me, the angelic visit eliminated any resemblance of my family about thirty seconds ago! I’ll admit, the Griswold family from the movie Christmas Vacation seems a bit closer to my own expe-rience. I am going out on a limb to take a guess that the “average Lakeville family” seems a far cry from this very holy bunch that we have come to identify as the Holy Family. Before today I might have agreed with you, but I’ve looked at it a different way this time and I invite you to do the same.

What if I told you that I think God chose this family, in this arrangement, not to intimidate us by their goodness, but to illuminate the Holy in our or-dinary: to enable people to see their family reflected in what it means to be a holy family?

Most obviously, we honor this family because they lovingly agreed to raise the Christ Child. Mary conceived as a virgin and gave birth to Jesus; there were shepherds, wise men, angels, and a star—true. But there’s more to it than that.

How do we read the story of the Holy Family and what questions might that raise for us? I propose that there are four approaches.

First, do we celebrate the unity and oneness of family, enhanced by the life of this child, and by Jo-seph’s tremendous capacity to love and care for Jesus as his own Son through adoption? And as a commu-nity, how do we celebrate this vocation of love with those who choose adoption?

Second, believing that Mary and Joseph had no other children, we can ask this question: Did their hearts ever ache because together they would not be cocreators in bringing a baby into the world (Cat-echism par. 500)? I imagine it was more than enough of a shared vocation to parent the Savior of the world, don’t get me wrong—but after Jesus went to bed, do you suppose Mary and Joseph ever talked about this?

Third, Mary certainly experienced the gift of life. Perhaps in a way that no other woman will fully understand; yet Mary too experienced the loss of a child. It is a scenario that nears the top of “what if ” fears for any parent: the suffering of a child. How can we learn from Mary and Joseph’s experience of loss to support those in our parish who have lost a child?

Finally, unlike Mary, after the finding of Jesus in the temple, Joseph is no longer mentioned. Many biblical scholars conclude that this suggests that Jo-seph passed away sometime after Jesus was born. Although Mary continued to be a strong and active presence in the life of her son, she appears to be doing it alone. This is a tremendous role for her to have played in a culture that saw a woman without a husband or son to be powerless. Do we take op-portunities to see and affirm the work and love pro-

Gospel: Feast of the Holy Family (Luke 2:22-40)

Kathryn Janssen

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vided by those who are single? Do we remind them or single parents of the likeness these hard-working men and women share with Mary? Those who pro-vide pillars of love and faith to this community and others, single-handedly?

I will admit, this was a revelation for me! Have you ever seen the Holy Family this way;

through the phases of their lives as Jesus’ parents?I am convinced that the ebb and flow in the lives

of the members of the family we honor today mod-el a much broader and more human family than we might give them credit for at first glance, certainly more than the census statistics. All at once we see:

- that at the same time Mary might celebrate the joy of motherhood through childbirth, Jo-seph may celebrate with you in the seamless-ness and joy of adoption- that they might ache with you and your spouse who cannot conceive- that Mary could relate to the despair of losing a child to injustice—be that terminal illness,

gang violence, drunk driving, war, or fetal loss- that Mary was likely both widow and single mother

By the Lord’s wisdom and intricate design, Je-sus was welcomed into the world in a way that every person can relate to. What seemed like one specific model is actually multidimensional and very close to home.

It is understandable that for the many of us who do not fit into this “average family,” or cannot relate to the traditional story of the Nativity, these times of family gatherings where dreaded questions of children and family inevitably arise can be pain-ful. In the spirit of Luke’s gospel, and at this time when family and friends gather together with nostal-gia over Monopoly and eggnog or, in true Griswold fashion, snowy roads and delayed flights, it seemed a particularly fitting time to look for and acknowledge the “holy families” in our lives, including our own.

Blue Waters of the Atlantic, Watch Hill, RI July 2008

Jeffrey P. Regan

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I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing

of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to the futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of

the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and

not only creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved.

Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for

it with patience. (Romans 8:18-25; NRSV)

Conventional exegetical and theological ap-proaches to the understanding of the Pauline Epistles have been dominated by androcentric views of Paul, largely due to the fact that males have dispropor-tionately done theology. Arguably, one of the most influential writings on New Testament theology in the last 150 years is Rudolf Bultmann’s Theology of the New Testament. First published in 1951, Bultmann’s anthropological view of New Testament writings and particularly those of the apostle Paul typify an androcentric view of Pauline theology. For nearly two thousand years, this has been the approach to virtually all exegetical reviews of Scripture. As more women have entered into theological endeavors, they have brought with them alternative ideas on how to view Scripture. There are any number of examples in Scripture where a female perspective is more than warranted, however, none more so than Romans 8:18-25, a pericope in which Paul describes “all of creation groaning with labor pains.” Perhaps there is no better lens to view a pericope regarding child-birth, even if it is understood to be metaphoric, than through the eyes of a woman. In this paper I ex-amine Bultmann’s interpretation of creation with a comparison to his more traditional views to those of several feminist interpretations regarding Paul’s theology of creation.

Bultmann’s view of the Pauline Epistles, particu-larly Romans, is complex. Bultmann emphasizes the Gnostic influence on Paul and more specifically on Paul’s view of creation.1 He also makes reference to Paul’s pantheism (Rom 11:36)2 and his use of what would currently be termed natural theology (Rom 1:19).3 Most intriguing is Bultmann’s view on how Gnostic and Old Testament traditions combined to form Paul’s view of creation. Bultmann explains that according to Paul, creation is from the Creator (the use of Creator indicating the Old Testament in-fluence) and humankind is excepted from creation but certainly belongs to it.4 Since humankind is no longer part of creation yet is endowed by God with “special dignity and responsibility” (1 Cor 11:37) to-ward it, humanity stands between God and creation and must choose between the two. The earth and its creatures are subordinate to humankind and are not influenced by the cosmic powers Paul refers to in Romans 8:38-39:

neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

As Bultmann notes, this gives creation an ambiguous character, on one hand the earth has been placed at humanity’s disposal for his use and benefit by God (1 Cor 10:26), while on the other hand creation is the field of activity for evil and demonic powers. It is from here that Bultmann sees Paul’s Old Testa-ment tradition flow together with his appropriation of Gnostic mythology. It is through this Gnostic mythology that creation becomes a destructive pow-er and humanity chooses it over God. Paul’s view that all humankind is in sin (Rom 1:18-3:20) can therefore be traced to humankind basing life upon creation rather than the creator. As such, creation owes to humanity just as it owes to God. This view

1 Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (Waco, TX: Bay-lor University Press, 2007), 227–32.2 Ibid., 229.3 Ibid., 229.4 Ibid., 230.

All Creation Groans: A Comparison of Feminist and German Existential Theology of Romans 8:18-25

Jeffrey R. Reed

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of Bultmann is also evident in his writing regard-ing “Gnostic Motifs,” where he again claims Paul to have appropriated the Gnostic myth of creation’s fall as well as that of Adam.5 Therefore, according to Bultmann, humanity’s plight in the world is “as a life which by its origin is destined for destruction, a life that is prone to be ruled by demonic powers.”6 It is particularly interesting that Bultmann continu-ally sets humankind in opposition to creation. When Paul does hint at humankind and creation being related or at least dependent on each other (1 Cor 15:28) he commonly dismisses the pericope as ei-ther Gnostic or pantheistic. Perhaps even more tell-ing is that Bultmann makes no mention of “all of creation groaning” (Rom 8:22). Here Paul has indi-cated that humankind and creation are one in their groaning in desperation for a new order, and again Bultmann makes no mention of the passage in his treatise. One can only speculate about why he does not mention this female imagery; imagery that seem-ingly ties humanity and creation together in such a way that creation is as dependent on Christ’s death and resurrection as is humankind. In §31 Bultmann makes no mention of creation being reconciled with humankind.7

The lack of attention paid to creation in Bult-mann raises the question of whether Paul was at all concerned about creation and if so, in what sense. According to W. D. Davies, Paul’s concern for land and creation was based on his view that the new movement the world was experiencing—that is, Christianity—was the next step from exile to land.8 As a result, Davies contends the land was largely dis-missed by early Christians. Combined with an im-mediate sense of revelation due to their apocalyptic views, early Christians found no reason to maintain balance with creation.9 Conversely, Walter Bruegge-mann contends that while creation wasn’t perhaps a central focus of Pauline theology, it was much more common and integral to Christianity than Davies is willing to acknowledge.10 Brueggemann finds land,

5 Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 174.6 Ibid., 230.7 Ibid., 235–38.8 W. D. Davies, The Gospel and the Land. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1974), 396–404. 9 Revealing a Gnostic influence that both Davies and Bultmann consider important in the development of Pauline theology of creation.10 Walter Brueggemann, The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Chal-lenge in Biblical Faith, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2002), 166.

and creation, integral to the Pauline mission.11 In par-ticular, Brueggemann notes the importance of the apocalyptic view that land was essential to complete the cycle from exile to “rightness” with Torah and God’s will. Central to Brueggemann’s argument is Romans 8:17, which refers to “heirs” and the prom-ise to the descendants of Abraham that they inherit the world (cosmos) not through the law but by faith. As those who gather around Christ are heirs, all will find freedom from exile and a new creation.12 While Brueggemann fails to mention “groaning” specifi-cally, it is very likely that those who follow Christ will be those groaning with creation for the fulfill-ment of prophecy. Neither Bultmann, Davies, nor Brueggemann reflect on the portion of the pericope that mentions “groaning with labor pains.” Perhaps they were deferring that exegesis to feminist theolo-gians, several of whom we now turn our attention to.

The mere idea that Paul could be seen as an ally to feminist theology is nearly laughable. Paul lived in a decidedly androcentric culture and his writings arise from a fundamentally androcentric viewpoint.13 Examining the Pauline corpus from a feminist per-spective is, of course, somewhat dangerous in that it is quite easy to fall into a revisionist trap. If we are to look at how the Pauline corpus will influence our current theology and spiritual lives, however, it is imperative to examine this literature from all per-spectives, particularly from those who are affected by these writings.

A feminist view of Paul and creation begins with an “immersion into the apocalyptic tradition that Paul uses and a disassociation from the andro-centric blueprint most often used in the interpreta-tion of Paul.”14 Accordingly, Luzia Sutter Rehman defines her views on Paul and creation based on her interpretation of apocalyptic literature. Rehman sees such literature as that of resistance, written by people who with all their might and hope are wait-ing for transformation of existing conditions. She goes on to note, however, that waiting isn’t neces-

11 For the purposes of this paper, I consider land as an integral part of creation as alluded to by Brueggemann. It can also be considered a political property.12 Brueggemann, The Land, 167.13 Sheila E. McGinn, “Feminists and Paul in Romans 8:18-23: Toward a Theology of Creation,” in Gender, Tradition and Romans: Shared Ground, Uncertain Borders, eds. Cristina Grenholm and Daniel Patte (New York: T & T Clark, 2005), 21. 14 Luzia Sutter Rehman, “To Turn the Groaning into Labor: Romans 8:22-23,” in A Feminist Companion to Paul, ed. Amy-Jill Levine (New York: T & T Clark), 74.

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sarily a passive exercise; in fact, they are reaching out for redemption. She also questions the “Christian patience” for salvation, asking rhetorically if patient waiting actually brings relief in times of distress. On the contrary, Paul says to cry out loud, protest, demand abundant life and justice. Rehman demon-strates how this apocalyptic imagery shows that hope and resistance are interwoven into the metaphor of laboring creation: “Birthing, labor, is not an impo-tent whispering of poor female bodies, nor is it pas-sive suffering. . . . It is above all active!” She goes on to note that when viewed metaphorically and from a feminist understanding, the laboring and groaning is working toward a whole new life, beyond the andro-centric view of birth that associates it with pain and suffering and the “production of sons.”15

Contrary to Bultmann’s view of creation as be-ing created for humanity’s disposal and use, Rehman contends that Paul does not put Christians in oppo-sition to creation. Paul does not isolate community and creation from Christ’s death and resurrection; this event has overtaken all of creation. Huankind and creation groan together with hope for beginning and new life. Groaning binds them together.

Somewhat similar to Bultmann, Rehman does note that Paul is using mythic images from Old Tes-tament images to develop his metaphor. Paul ex-pands this myth in his discourse; obviously creation has no mouth from which to groan, nor a head or eyes to look out into the future. The myth, while incorporating Old Testament influences, certainly must be considered a metaphoric image of a woman in childbirth.

Rehman’s view on sin is considerably different from Bultmann’s.16 Whereas Bultmann places the cause of humankind’s sin as a choice between cre-ation and God, Rehman claims Paul’s interpretation of sin results largely from the economic and military oppression that resulted from Roman domination in the Mediterranean region. This oppression led to sin. Consequently, with sin present, Jews could no longer uphold God’s will (Torah), resulting in a life far apart from God. Rehman also adds that all creation suf-fers as a result, and rather than being the source of evil as Bultmann’s theology would assert, creation is subjugated to the same cosmological powers that are hostile to God; just as is humankind.

Rehman concludes by rhetorically (or perhaps

15 Rehman, “To Turn the Groaning into Labor,” 75.16 Ibid., 78.

not) questioning what this female imagery in Romans 8:22-23 would have meant to the female companions that Paul had acknowledged as coworkers. Could it be that Paul saw them as vital to our understand-ing that they are giving birth to a new creation in a matter that required pain and suffering but above all, active participation?

Similarly to Rehman, Sheila McGinn begins her analysis of Romans 8:18-23 from an apocalyptic understanding of Paul, also claiming this leads one to discern gender relations in a new creation or es-chatological perspective.17 McGinn takes great issue with the tradition surrounding the Pauline corpus and chastises female exegetes for being slow to ana-lyze Paul’s letters for the various theological themes and questions their male counterparts have been do-ing since antiquity. Still, while not approving of the tradition, McGinn notes that neither the androcen-trism present in Paul’s writings nor the misogynism that has resulted are enough to reject them entirely.

According to McGinn, Paul’s theology of cre-ation begins with the assumption that it is a result of a divine act and therefore creation is a divine object. Unlike the previously mentioned authors, McGinn notes that Paul is greatly interested in the nature of creation. Because he views it as a divine act, he is particularly interested in the role creation will play in God’s plan for salvation. In her view, however, Paul’s view of creation has been misappropriated by a “malestream theology” that at its very best has viewed creation as subordinate to humankind. From this platform nature has been denigrated and viewed in dualistic fashion in opposition to a spiritual real-ity, that is, nature is evil, corrupt, and a source of temptation for the “spiritual man.” Although not mentioned specifically, Bultmann’s legacy and view on creation certainly does come very close to Mc-Ginn’s description. She goes on to argue that because women are so closely tied to nature (e.g., Rehman’s claim that creation giving birth to a new creation is a metaphor for a woman in labor) through their roles in gestation, childbirth, and lactation, women have similarly been denigrated; the earth and women have both been relegated to subordinate roles. For exam-ple, she notes that imagery often associates women and nature and that they are both capricious and ir-rational. This is contrary to man and spirit, which are seen as trustworthy and rational. Interestingly, Wen-dell Berry has made a similar observation on the re-

17 McGinn, “Feminists and Paul in Romans 8:18-23,” 22.

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lationship between how women and land have been treated. He writes:

I do not know how exact a case might be made, but it seems to me that there is an historical parallel . . . between the treatment of the land the treatment of women . . . interested in both mainly for what they could produce, crops and dollars, labor and sons.18

Berry’s words give life to McGinn’s argument and even more reason to seriously consider the feminist viewpoint.

From her exegetical work and apocalyptic un-derstanding of Paul’s theology, McGinn constructs a feminist theology of Romans 8:18-23. Accordingly, the universe is a creation of God and as a creature it has a purpose. Creation is not static, but rather a dynamic entity that is continually seeking fulfillment. As a dynamic entity with purpose, creation is meant to work with humanity and God. Through the web of life, McGinn notes that creation, humanity, and Creator are intimately bound with each other. From that bond, creation is eager for human salvation and human and creation fulfillment are dependent on each other. She goes on to say that the fulfillment of creation will reveal a nature that is connected to what currently exists but is qualitatively different. McGinn contends that she and Paul begin at the same place, with a loving deity who generated the universe. Yet she also notes that Paul’s encomium on creation goes even further than her feminist model. In the spirit of Rehman, McGinn notes that Romans 8:18-23 de-picts creation as an active, live force that is seeking to achieve a goal it shares with humanity. Paul’s theolo-gy of creation is therefore intertwined with his view of the eschaton; creation, like humankind, is actively pursuing the goal of eternal salvation. McGinn notes that the eschatological view is troublesome for femi-nists in that it more often than not requires “redemp-tive violence” and the acceptance of the annihilation of the earth, disdain for the human body, and human salvation through cosmic holocaust.

These observations are particularly striking, as they are supportive of Bultmann’s claim of Gnostic influences in Paul’s theology of creation. Paul, how-ever, never mentions a cosmic holocaust or anything being destroyed in his eschatological vision. Rather, he envisions a liberation of creation so that it may achieve its full potential. When human salvation is

18 Wendell Berry, Recollected Essays, 1965-1980 (San Francisco, CA: North Point, 1981), 215.

complete, creation likewise will find its fulfillment in God’s glory. When humanity’s deficiency is overcome and humans are adopted as heirs to God’s freedom and glory, creation will also find its fulfillment. In light of this, McGinn closes by suggesting feminist theologians would be well served to reconsider the role of eschatology in their theology. Feminist theo-logians embrace humanity’s relationship with cre-ation. Ironically, that same embrace is what has kept them subordinate since antiquity.19 It is appropriate for feminist theologians to examine, perhaps even embrace Paul’s theology of creation. They stand in stark contrast to Bultmann and those he influenced who have made faith existential to the point that na-ture and community are left out of the equation. 20

Christianity, similarly theology, can be seen as a closed system with well-defined boundaries, estab-lished ways of examining Scripture and strict dogma. Conversely, it can be fluid, boundless, and under-stood, as creation can be, as a dynamic reality. As Bultmann’s work was likely seen as pushing boundar-ies when it was first published, feminist theologians are doing likewise; pushing boundaries and creating new vantage points from which we can examine the theological landscape of Scripture and how it, and consequently we, affect creation.

Bibliography

Anderson, Bernhard W. From Creation to New Creation: Old Testa-ment Perspectives. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994.

Berry, Wendell. Recollected Essays, 1965-1980. San Francisco, CA: North Point, 1981.

Brueggemann, Walter. The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Chal-lenge in Biblical Faith. 2nd ed. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2002.

Bultmann, Rudolph. Theology of the New Testament. Reprint. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007.

Davies, W. D. The Gospel and the Land. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1974.

McGinn, Sheila E. “Feminists and Paul in Romans 8:18-23: Toward a Theology of Creation.” In Gender, Tradition and Romans: Shared Ground, Uncertain Borders, edited by Cristina Grenholm and Daniel Patte, 22–38. New York: T & T Clark, 2005.

Rehman, Luzia Sutter. “To Turn the Groaning into Labor: Ro-mans 8:22-23.” In A Feminist Companion to Paul, edited by Amy-Jill Levine, 74–84. New York: T & T Clark, 2004.

19 McGinn, “Feminists and Paul in Romans 8:18-23,” 34.20 Bernhard W. Anderson, From Creation to New Creation: Old Tes-tament Perspectives (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994), 115.

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IntroductionFor Henri de Lubac, the fundamental problem

with humankind is its disunity; the original state of humankind was one in which each person was in unity with his or her neighbors and the entire race.1 Sin disrupted that unity, however, and the current ruptured state is irreparable by human means. The only way humans may reenter that original unity with one another—the only way they may be saved from their present disunity—it to allow themselves to be aided by the one who entered history from without in order to effect just such a salvation. For de Lu-bac, salvation—which is the restoration of the unity of all with God and each other—comes from Jesus Christ and through his church.2

This essay explores the meaning and social im-plications of de Lubac’s theology. Beginning with his notions of the natural and supernatural, this essay briefly surveys de Lubac’s anthropology, followed by the social aspects of his ecclesiology.3 Finally, this paper draws some social and political implications from de Lubac’s theology and argues that in light of his work, Christians are called to view the entire world as church.

De Lubac’s AnthropologyDe Lubac begins his work Catholicism: Christ and

the Common Destiny of Man by citing the views of the church fathers, in which the restoration of the pri-mordial unity between the human race and God and the unity among its members was a central escha-tological hope.4 To understand de Lubac’s view of human unity, however, one must first understand his view of the human. For de Lubac, the human per-

1 Dana L. Dillon, “Public Order, the Common Good, and Our Supernatural Destiny,” Samford University, Birmingham, AL, http://www.samford.edu/lillyhumanrights/papers/Dillon_Public.pdf (accessed July 9, 2008): 7.2 Henri de Lubac, Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man, trans. Lancelot C. Sheppard and Elizabeth Englund. (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1988), 223.3 A wealth of literature has been produced both by de Lubac and commentators on his sacramental theology and its interplay with his ecclesiology. For the most part, however, this subject matter is beyond the scope of this paper, and so deliberately receives little attention.4 Ibid., 35.

son is a synthesis, or more correctly, a paradox—a joining of the natural and supernatural.5 The natural aspect is easily apparent; humans live in a natural, physical world, and can manipulate their surround-ings and themselves. They depend on natural things for life, they reproduce by a natural process, and they perish away through natural courses. De Lubac, however, standing squarely on the shoulders of the Christian tradition, argues that the entirety of hu-man existence is also connected to a supernatural order.6 Humans were made in unity with God their creator, and though through sin that unity has been disrupted, the call to that unity remains, and the way back to that unity has been restored in Christ. The supernatural, according to de Lubac, is not simply an aspect of our humanity; it is rather the very “mystery of our divine destiny.”7

De Lubac is very careful to avoid any defini-tion of the supernatural that would suggest that it is merely out-of-the-ordinary experiences, like mir-acles.8 The supernatural is not simply a force, an event, or some unexplainable phenomenon. Instead, the supernatural is an order of existence, which is offered to humankind gratuitously through a relation-ship.9 In fact, this relationship cannot be said to have a definite beginning or end; rather, the human is al-ways in relationship with the supernatural. The prob-lem is that, unaided, the relationship can only be one of opposition and disunity between the natural and supernatural.10 The nature of humans is not utterly separated from their call to unity with the supernatu-ral. Rather, the natural-supernatural relationship has been corrupted into one of opposition and disunity, which no human can rectify on his or her own.

This disunity with the supernatural—with God the Creator—can then only translate into the dis-unity of humans with one another. The one who

5 See Henri de Lubac, The Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. Rose-mary Sheed (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1998), 101–18.6 Ibid.7 Ibid., 167.8 Henri de Lubac, A Brief Catechesis on Nature and Grace, trans. Richard Arnandez. (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1984), 22–24.9 Ibid., 32.10 Ibid., 49.

All the World is Church:The Christian Call in Henri de Lubac

Benjamin M. Durheim

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created human nature must be the ultimate source of the unity of human nature, so to be in a relation-ship of opposition to the supernatural (as all humans are as a result of sin), necessarily allows opposition to flood into the natural realm of humankind. In de Lubac’s words, “any breach with God, is at the same time a disruption of human unity.”11 In this way, human unity is tied inseparably to the human race’s unity with God. True human unity is impos-sible apart from the reconciliation (or reunification) of the natural and supernatural.

Another way de Lubac speaks of the human con-dition is in the language of image seeking likeness. Humans were created in the image of God, that they might also bear God’s likeness.12 As humans sinned and corrupted the image, however, they were no longer able to attain the likeness of God that is the fullness of the image, which means that though they are still called to bear the likeness, they can only be moved toward the likeness of God through Christ. For de Lubac, Christ reveals the likeness of God to which humans are called, and that call echoes to the very foundations of human nature.13 As the human race was created—in unity with God and with unity among its members, and as an image of God bearing God’s likeness—to such an end it is destined. The healing of God’s image, the bearing of God’s like-ness, and the reunification of the natural and super-natural—these are different ways of speaking about the same salvation, but de Lubac’s point with all of them is that the entire human race is oriented toward this one common end.14 As de Lubac articulates, “The whole universe cries out for its delivery and it is sure to obtain it. Its groaning is begotten by hope.”15

It is important to note that for de Lubac, Christ alone provides this hope and effects any true reuni-fication. Only Christ, as a sharer in the substance of both the supernatural and natural orders, can bring the two out of opposition and into unity. In de Lu-bac’s words:

Whether humanity knows it or not, it needs Christ. Emerging with difficulty from the cos-mos that gave it birth, the human spirit, an ir-reversible force, needs the irreversible victory of Christ to achieve its divine destiny. His mys-

11 De Lubac, Catholicism, 33.12 David Grumett, De Lubac: A Guide for the Perplexed (New York: T & T Clark, 2007), 16.13 Ibid., 102.14 De Lubac, Catholicism, 232.15 Ibid., 143.

tical body must be the incarnation of human-ity, thus allowing humanity to enter into God. Humanity has been adopted by the Father in the person of Jesus, the Son. Its purification and transfiguration must be accomplished by modeling itself on him and receiving his life. It must ‘take the form of Christ.’16

Here de Lubac makes the point that humankind needs Christ for two main reasons. First, Christ heals the broken unity between God and the human race. Second, Christ both shows humans (by his example) how to model themselves in a way that reflects true unity, and provides humans (by his self-gift) with the means of “receiving his life”17: the church and the sacraments. This is the beginning of de Lubac’s ec-clesiology. If Christ restores unity between God and humans in any real way, then a human community must be the expression and proclamation of that unity, or at least of the earthly pilgrimage toward that final unity. In a sense, the church is the community of humans that is striving to become more fully that which it already is, though imperfectly: a comm-unity of humans. Both to be “adopted by the Father”18 and to receive Christ’s life entail living to the greatest degree possible in the unity that was originally meant for humankind—that is, living in such a way as to become more fully human. As Susan Wood has pointed out, “Christ is not a particular instance of humanity, but . . . to be fully human is somehow to be related to Christ, as at once the cause of humanity and the restorer of human unity.”19 Unity between the natu-ral and supernatural is constitutive of unity between humans, and more fundamentally, of authentic hu-manity. Because Christ wrought this unity, and be-cause it is through Christ that one may access this unity, the human is dependent on Christ for his or her humanity. For de Lubac, anthropology really is, in this sense, Christology.

De Lubac’s Social EcclesiologyThough humans rely completely on Christ for

any true unity with God and each other, this reliance for de Lubac is never in an individualistic context. Unity between humans makes no sense if the ulti-

16 Henri de Lubac, The Church: Paradox and Mystery, trans. James R. Dunne (Staten Island, NY: Ecclesia Press, 1969), 7.17 Ibid.18 Ibid.19 Susan Karaus Wood, “The Church as the Social Embodiment of Grace in the Ecclesiology of Henri de Lubac” (PhD diss., Marquette University, 1986), 271.

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mate category is the individual rather than the hu-man race, and since it is the human race that was cre-ated in unity with God, and it is the human race that is destined to return to that unity through Christ, de Lubac finds it exceedingly important to realize that the context for salvation (reunification) is not the individual but the church.20 For de Lubac, since his theological springboard was the original unity of hu-mankind and the problem of its current disunity, and since his notion of salvation is the restored unity of the human race with God and between its members, the pilgrimage to that salvation can only take place in history as a communal trek. Unity cannot be re-stored if there is no one with whom to be unified; the church provides the matrix in which Christ’s sav-ing action occurs.

Just as one cannot understand de Lubac’s the-ology in an individualistic manner, neither can one understand his vision of unity as melting away dif-ference and distinction between humans. For de Lu-bac, the unity of the church does not connote an objective ideology separated from the reality of the persons who make it up.21 Instead the church, as the place that fosters authentic human unity, also fosters authentic human diversity. In his words, “the distinc-tion between the different parts of a being stands out the more clearly as the union of these parts is closer.”22 For de Lubac, the unity of humankind is a result of the shared image of God, which is ex-pressed in a diversity of ways and relationships.23 This unity is still only achievable in its fullness through Christ, but unity in and through Christ does not mean uniformity in and through Christ.

In addition to a rejection of individualism and an affirmation of human diversity, de Lubac is also careful to emphasize that the church does not already contain the final unity that is its goal in Christ. As Wood explains, “the unity of the human race is analo-gous to the unity of the Church,”24 but the complete unity of the human race is not produced fully in the church. For de Lubac, the mystery of salvation “ex-presses itself in historical forms and . . . always tran-

20 Paul McPartlan, The Eucharist Makes the Church: Henri de Lubac and John Zizioulas in Dialogue (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1993), 14–15.21 See Henri de Lubac, The Motherhood of the Church, trans. Sergia Englund. (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1982), 153–68.22 De Lubac, Catholicism, 328.23 McPartlan, The Eucharist Makes the Church, 19.24 Wood, “The Church as the Social Embodiment,” 274. Italics mine.

scends these forms.”25 The most concrete historical forms in which Christ’s saving action is present are the community and sacraments of the church. The church is in this light a powerful spiritual entity and even necessary for salvation,26 but Christians must never confuse the church itself with the kingdom of God toward which the church is oriented.27

This pilgrimage of the church leads to the im-portance of history in de Lubac’s theology. For him, “the stages of history . . . are in reality stages of an es-sentially collective salvation.”28 History provides the stage for the drama of salvation, and consequently for de Lubac the church, as the temporal vehicle by which humans travel to that final reunification with God and each other, is also extremely important as the channel to salvation.29 Without the church, salva-tion would be impossible.30 De Lubac does not ex-plicitly affirm Cyprian’s famous axiom that “outside the church there is no salvation,” but neither does he deny it.31 Instead, he takes great pains to nuance that claim, by identifying the universal human yearning for the lost original unity, and exploring how that yearning may unfold in light of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.

De Lubac acknowledges that “outside Chris-tianity . . . humanity tries to collect its members into unity”32 on its own. Humans attempt, socially and sometimes even spiritually (e.g., through non-Christian religions), to restore the lost unity among themselves. The debilitating effects of sin are easily discernable, but mere human agency cannot correct those effects. Therefore, it is only Christ through the church that can bring one to salvation. But what may happen to those outside the visible church on earth? De Lubac’s answer to this question may not be para-phrased as either “they will not be saved” or “they may be saved.” Instead, de Lubac rejects the founda-tions of the question itself. Salvation is communal—it is the restoration of unity of the human race with God and among its members—so if the church is that community that is consciously on a pilgrimage

25 Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Theology of Henri de Lubac, trans. Joseph Fessio and Michael M. Waldstein (San Francisco, CA: Ig-natius Press, 1991), 102.26 See discussion below.27 Henri de Lubac, The Catholic and His Church, trans. Michael Mason (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956), 72.28 De Lubac, Catholicism, 148.29 Ibid., 236.30 Ibid.31 Ibid., 234.32 Ibid., 225.

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to Christ who makes salvation possible, the church is therefore necessary for the very possibility of salva-tion itself.33 The necessity of the church for salva-tion is not about which humans are saved and which humans are not; it is about the fact that the church rightly sees the goal of salvation and cooperates in history with the saving initiative of Christ. Put simply, if there is no community to cooperate with Christ, then Christ’s work reaches no one.

Implications of de Lubac’s TheologyThis paper is now in a position to answer the

following questions: If the church is the vehicle of salvation traveling through history, how should its members interact with their human surroundings? What social implications may one draw from this theology? For de Lubac, the answer to these ques-tions can only effectively be given by someone within the context of Christianity to Christians living within that same context.34 The question of Christianity’s relationship with and to the world has relevance only if the answer is given to those whose actions put the answer into practice. Since the question is posed from a Christian context (the church’s relationship to the world), Christians are the ones who must be concerned with the answer. De Lubac’s explanations, though they may be coherent to the world outside Christianity, are meant to be effective specifically in and through the lives of Christians.

For de Lubac, the question of Christians’ roles in the world ultimately hinges on the drama of the lost unity of humankind seeking reunification, and thereby the drama of the relationship of the natural and supernatural. If the natural and supernatural are always in this relationship—even a relationship of opposition—then one’s actions in the natural order necessarily affect one’s relationship with the super-natural order.35 What this essentially means is that for de Lubac, social/political matters and spiritual matters should never be separated from each other, even if the social/political situation were to be near-ly perfect: “The happiest and most perfect form of social existence would be the most inhuman of con-ditions if it were not ordered to the spiritual life.”36

33 Wood, “The Church as the Social Embodiment,” 248.34 See Henri de Lubac, “The Light of Christ,” in Theology in His-tory, trans. Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1996), 201–20.35 Henri de Lubac, Theological Fragments, trans. Rebecca Howell Balinski (San Fransisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1989), 214–15.36 De Lubac, Catholicism, 360.

One must be careful about de Lubac’s claim here that the matters of the world should be “ordered to the spiritual life,”37 however. By this he does not mean that the church should in any way exercise temporal power over or even in conjunction with the state.38 The purpose of the church is not to attempt to es-tablish the kingdom of God on earth. The church’s purpose is instead to work for the kingdom of God in heaven, which entails fostering, through and by Christ, unity among humans and between humans and God. The task of the church, however, does car-ry into the affairs of temporal powers. Unity among humans is not merely a supernatural hope; it has a natural aspect, and where that aspect is absent, there also is the unity with the supernatural absent.

One of the best examples of de Lubac’s pre-scription for the interplay of the spiritual and so-cial realms is his concept of “spiritual resistance.” Faced with the horrific events resulting from the rise of the Nazi regime, de Lubac claimed that the so-cial crisis was not simply one relegated to the social realm, but one that was essentially spiritual.39 By this he meant that though the Nazi party was a political entity, its actions were directly contrary to the spirit of Christianity, and so resistance to the Nazis was not a mere social choice, but rather was a moral man-date. Nevertheless, de Lubac adamantly refused to allow his work on that specific issue to become a political tool.40 He did not want Christianity to be-come an instrument of the state, any more than he would have wanted the state to become a tool of the church. Instead, he claimed that Christians must stay true to the spirit of Christianity,41 which included re-sisting the Nazi regime and helping those whom it oppressed.

This example suggests that for de Lubac, while the church should not directly—or even indirect-ly42—exert any formal political power, the church as a community must act in the political and social are-na according to its salvific, reunifying goal. The com-mon destiny of humans that is reunification with

37 Ibid.38 Grumett, De Lubac, 29.39 Ibid., 38.40 Ibid., 42.41 Henri de Lubac, “Spiritual Warfare,” in Theology in History, trans. Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1996), 500–501.42 This is a technical term taken from Robert Bellarmine, the concept of which de Lubac ultimately rejects as incorrect to de-scribe the church’s proper role in society (de Lubac, Theological Fragments, 199–233).

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God and each other is not simply a religious hope. It is additionally a social directive, because the unity of humans with one another and their unity with God are inseparable.43 Since the church is on a pilgrim-age through history, the actions of its pilgrims take on a “special dignity and an awful gravity,”44 in that the historical, social actions of Christians are always done within the context of the drama of salvation.45 This means that one’s Christian identity necessarily shapes and is shaped by one’s actions in the public realm. To argue otherwise would be to drive a wedge between the natural and supernatural, because one would assume one’s actions in the natural order do not affect one’s relationship with the supernatural. In this way, the church must shape not just the reli-gious actions of a human, but must instead shape all actions of a human, insofar as they affect unity be-tween humans and God, and among humans themselves. Put another way, all public actions are religious actions because all public actions in some way or another affect the unity of humankind among its members themselves and of its members with God.

Finally, if all public actions are religious actions, and the church is the pilgrim community striving to live in and after the example of Christ, then from a Christian perspective that affirms the fundamental unity and common destiny of the human race, all the world is, in effect, church. This should not be mis-interpreted to suggest that the entire world is con-fessionally or sacramentally Christian. Of course it isn’t. Instead, the entire world is church in the sense that all of creation is part of the same story, and that is the Christian story of reunification—of sal-vation. Every action the Christian takes is done in the context of church. There is no place where the relationship of natural and supernatural is unreal or irrelevant. All the world is church, insofar as no ac-tion occurs outside the drama of salvation.

This paper, after briefly exploring Henri de Lu-bac’s anthropology and the social aspects of the ecclesiology, argues that the relationship of the natu-ral and supernatural ultimately bears on every action

43 See n. 10 above.44 De Lubac, Catholicism, 332.45 Of course, all actions of all people are always done within the context of the drama of salvation, because by virtue of hu-mans’ common origin and common destiny, all humans are part of the same story. This paper simply wishes to make the point here specifically that Christians’ actions never occur outside their relationship to the supernatural, or outside the context of their Christian identity. Recall that de Lubac’s discussion is primarily aimed from the context of Christianity to Christians themselves.

humans take. Humankind is in a broken state of disunity, and trapped in an oppositional relationship between their nature and the supernatural, but in Christ that disunity is healed and that opposition re-lieved. The church, as the presence on earth through which Christ and his salvific acts are accessed, is necessary for the communal salvation of the human race. Humankind shares a common destiny in Christ, and because all of creation is part of this drama of salvation, no human action is outside the Christian story. In this way the entire natural order is in rela-tionship with the supernatural, and so as the locus of the Christian pilgrimage (of which the whole human race is more or less a part), all the world is church.

Works Cited

de Lubac, Henri. A Brief Catechesis on Nature and Grace. Translated by Richard Arnandez. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1984.

———. Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man. Trans-lated by Lancelot C. Sheppard and Elizabeth Englund. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1988.

———. “Spiritual Warfare.” In Theology in History, 488–501. Translated by Anne Englund Nash. San Francisco, CA: Ig-natius Press, 1996.

———. The Catholic and His Church. Translated by Michael Ma-son. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956.

———. The Church: Paradox and Mystery. Translated by James R. Dunne. Staten Island, NY: Ecclesia Press, 1969.

———. “The Light of Christ.” In Theology in History, 201–20. Translated by Anne Englund Nash. San Francisco, CA: Ig-natius Press, 1996.

———. The Motherhood of the Church. Translated by Sergia En-glund. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1982.

———. The Mystery of the Supernatural. Translated by Rosemary Sheed. New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1998.

———. Theological Fragments. Translated by Rebecca Howell Ba-linski. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1989.

Dillon, Dana L. “Public Order, the Common Good, and Our Supernatural Destiny.” Samford University. Birmingham, AL. http://www.samford.edu/lillyhumanrights/papers/Dillon_Public.pdf. Accessed July 9, 2008.

Grumett, David. De Lubac: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: T & T Clark, 2007.

McPartlan, Paul. The Eucharist Makes the Church: Henri de Lubac and John Zizioulas in Dialogue. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1993.

von Balthasar, Hans Urs. The Theology of Henri de Lubac. Trans-lated by Joseph Fessio and Michael M. Waldstein. San Fran-cisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1991.

Wood, Susan Karaus. “The Church as the Social Embodiment of Grace in the Ecclesiology of Henri de Lubac.” PhD diss., Marquette University, 1986.

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Everything for evening prayer is set. Candles are lit, musicians playing, lectors in place, hospitality greeters at the chapel doors. Everything except me. I try on an alb—too big; I am swimming in white folds. I try on another—too small; it pulls at my neck. I feel like Goldilocks in the sacristy. I go for the mid-sized one, which is not just right but it will do. I find a cord to cinch at the waist. I look in the full-length mirror attached to the door, jutting out diagonally from the closet. My alb is pouffy, bunchy, a white potato sack that flows over the tops of my shoes. If it weren’t for the lipstick, they might not even notice I am a wom-an, which, in all actuality, would not be terrible. But I am a woman indeed; it is important for me to do well tonight. It is gift for me to be here, in this giant pillowcase, held together by an oddly knotted cord. I look myself in the eye, at this odd angle, and take a deep breath. What the hell am I doing here, again? It’s an odd feeling—out of place, out of character, out, really, of context. Now it is time. I move out of the sacristy to the presider’s chair and sit down in the moments before the prayer begins. I concentrate on avoiding the eyes of my sarcastic friend, one of the many seminarians in habit tonight, ever attempting to evoke a face or laugh from me. I look up toward the high ceiling across from me. It is dark outside, a deep, dark blue through the tall and narrow window slats that pierce the high walls of the chapel. And in this darkness, the half moon shines through one of the slats like a pearl, glowing, reminding me of my center. It takes me beyond the mirror and reminds me into whose face I need to be looking this evening. And I know that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

Evening Prayer at the Chapel of Holy Wisdom

Natalie Perl Regan

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Our Lord speaks to us in Matthew’s gospel of love: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself ” (Matt 22:39).1 As spiritual caregivers to neighbors, we offer a safe place to fall, an ear that receives with nonjudgmental confidence, and an active advocacy toward healing, all while working in endless, health-giving creative ways.

To be able to give we must have. In the challeng-ing and rewarding world of a female spiritual care-giver, how do we care for ourselves? In what ways can we offer ourselves the spiritual care we need so we can continue to care for others? It is a most im-portant task, for if we do not take good care of our-selves, we do a great disservice to our spirits, minds, and bodies. This disservice can easily lead to burn-out. Psychologist Christina Maslach defines burnout as “a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, deperson-alization, and reduced personal accomplishment that can occur among individuals who do ‘people work’ of some kind.”2

Spiritual care is not only “people work,” but is also God’s work. If we do not offer ourselves proper self-care, this can accentuate a deeper level to the burnout experienced. I know firsthand the work it takes to find that necessary self-care. When I was training to become a chaplain, I thought I was doing “just fine” day after day witnessing loss, pain, and suffering. I thought the cases that turned out well were enough to balance the resid-ual hurt I felt from the others. Well, after gaining ten pounds, discovering my hair was falling out, and experiencing bouts of insomnia, I frequently began to isolate myself. Eventually, I found my-self on my knees asking God to strengthen me so I could continue to do his work. The problem with my request was that I did not realize that I played a huge part in strengthening myself. Diet-rich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.”3 God is there as my partner in self-care, offering many tools, but just as I must be willing to receive his grace to do spiritual care, I have to be willing

1 All Scripture references are taken from the NAB.2 Christina Maslach, Burnout: The Cost of Caring (Mahwah, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982), 3.3 Geoffrey B. Kelly and Nelson F. Burton, A Testament to Free-dom: The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (San Francisco, CA: Harper, 1990).

to receive his tools. In other words, he asked me to pitch in—and I did!

Returning to Matthew’s gospel, we can find the first step toward self-care. When I take these words into myself, my integrated self, and reflect further on them using lectio divina, a message of loving kind-ness comes through. Lectio divina can be a conduit through which scriptural passages can become truly one’s own. For me, thoughts of equality also come up, equality of honor and need between the love I offer others and the love I offer myself. What I heard was that I needed to offer myself loving kindness. Lectio divina is a practice we can all use in spiritual care for ourselves. Inviting lectio divina into our self-care can help shape the mind as it offers food for prayer.

Let’s Feast! As Christian women, we base our practice of

spiritual care on our faith in and love for Christ and his teachings. Basing our work in spiritual care on Christ and the belief in his promise of his kingdom, we can turn to him with our questions of self-care. If we feel called to imitate Christ in our service to oth-ers, it only makes sense to try to imitate him in our self-care. What spiritual care did Christ offer him-self during his ministry? One thing I know is Christ feasted during his mission—Christ was a feaster! Jesus went to parties, weddings, feasts, and celebra-tions—even graciously turning water into wine, en-suring the feast could continue. This may seem a too literal or simple version of this miracle, but Christ enjoying himself while sipping the superior wine is a token of loving kindness, not only for the guests, but also for himself. A feast can be a wonderful way to rejuvenate our mind, body, and spirit after we feel taxed from work and giving. Feasting allows us to “take in,” to enjoy a healthy indulgence of the gifts of food, wine, fellowship, and pleasure. There is a spiritual significance to food. At the Lord’s table, the joyful feast nourishes us, and it is a meal of renewal. Saint Paul writes to the Corinthians, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food” (1 Cor 6:13). In our feasting, when we enjoy and relish how our food and drink taste and how they nourish us, we say “yum” with gratitude for the God-given gift of the senses, all while being present to our humanness.

We Cannot Give If We Do Not Have Peggy Kelley

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Feasting is not simply what we take into our bodies but also what we take into our minds, hearts, eyes, ears, and the entirety of our beings. Feasting on the arts is a wonderful feast for healing and self-care. The art to which I refer is both art of the created world and art humans create. Using visio divina—fo-cusing our eyes on art to see God—is a piece of self care, a piece of feasting that can slow us down, calm our spirits, and bring the compassion of Christ we dearly need in front of us, whether our focus is on a sunset or a sculpture. One of my favorite pieces of art to feast on while using visio divina is an oil paint-ing by Thomas Carey, OSB, titled “Mary Magdalen Washing the Feet.” This piece depicts the ease and truth of Mary’s choice to love Christ, giving what she had of herself to let him know how much she loved him. She has a serene look on her face and places a gentle touch to his feet. We only see Christ’s feet; this tells me that just this much of him, just a foot is enough for her to remain in his love. For me, being a woman in service to Christ, this piece has been of great comfort to me. I encourage you to welcome feasts into your self-care plan. Mother Teresa believed, “We must feed ourselves. We can die from spiritual starvation. We must be filled continu-ally like a machine. When one little thing in the ma-chine is not working, then the whole machine is not working properly.”4 Christ encouraged all to come to the feast; he excluded no one. The only time we are excluded is when we choose to exclude ourselves, when we do not feel worthy and grateful to accept God’s generosity. Graciously accepting this generos-ity imitates Christ and brings us closer to him as we care for ourselves. Honoring Our Bodies

The female body is a wonderfully complicated gift, sometimes overutilized in our service of spiri-tual care. Being a true listener is part of our work as spiritual caregivers. Our bodies try to talk to us all the time: “I’m thirsty. I need a bite. I am wiped out. My feet hurt, etc.” These simple physical needs, if not met can aid burnout’s arrival. There are serious physical side effects of burnout: migraines, muscle tension, belly problems, sleeplessness. Psalm 127:2 gives us some direction on how to honor the holy mystery that is our bodies: “It is vain for you to rise early / and put off your rest at night, / To eat bread

4 Mother Teresa, Everything Starts with Prayer: Mother Teresa’s Medi-tations on Spiritual Life for People of All Faiths (Ashland, OR: White Cloud Press, 1998), 14.

earned by hard toil— / all this God gives to his be-loved in sleep.” Jesus in Mark’s gospel, after his apos-tles tell him about all the work they have done for him, instructs them to rest, go somewhere quiet, and rest. Jesus recognized the burden of physical stress and its need to be lightened so that our bodies can begin to recover.

Psychology and Spiritual DirectionDietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “To endure the cross

is not tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ.”5 There are times when experiences in our ministry can be pro-foundly painful and gruesome to witness on many levels. Walking with God in the moment of these painful experiences offers great strength and sup-port, but we may need to take a second walk so we are able to process the pain we witness. Sitting at the foot of the cross of suffering and death is a privilege that language cannot express. When we walk with those being brought home to Christ, witness them seeing Christ, it can leave us in complete humility, landing us completely in our true self, which can be haunting. This haunting can be beautiful and terri-fying all at once, affecting our entire being. These experiences can be self-transcending. Dr. Don Sa-liers has said that “a sense of transcendence in and through the finitude of the world will appear, if at all, precisely amid the contrasts and the connections between terror and beauty.”6

Self-transcendence is the raw material through which the Holy Spirit works. The beginning of our spiritual self-care requires us to attend to the rawness of what we were present to. Profound moments in my own ministry have called me, not only to mari-nate in the grace of them, but also to share them, to tell my story, to transcend them. The more we walk and share what we witness with Christ and oth-ers, we can rejuvenate our work with hope and make peace with a memory that haunts us.

The combination of psychology and spiritual direction in our self-care plan can be wonderfully complimentary, addressing the whole that we are. It offers us a chance to look both ways at our human journey; our secular side and our base of faith come together in this dual care to be served.

5 Kelly and Burton, A Testament to Freedom.6 Don E. Saliers, “Where beauty and terror lie: the poetics of everyday life,” class lecture, Saint John’s University, Collegeville, MN (November 13, 2008).

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This combo approach to self-care addresses the apophatic and cataphatic pieces of our work. Apophatically we dig in and learn to accept and em-brace what we are not, what our limits are as care-givers. Then there are also moments of cataphatic knowing, learning what the team of God and us can do. Ultimately, this leads to the realization and the comfort that God is in charge.

We receive spiritual care in hopes to know and be known. Integrating psychology and theology, by seeing them as two complementary interpretations of this hope (which is a radical drive of the human spirit), they become a collective care approach, not a dual one. By moving beyond ourselves in creative understanding, realistic judgment, responsible deci-sions, and generous loving kindness, we both realize our authentic being (true self) and our ability to re-spond to Matthew’s gospel call to loving service of the neighbor. If you find a psychologist who under-stands therapy (self-realization) as self-transcendence and a spiritual director who recognizes the gospel as also a call to self-transcendence, your care will not require a connecting bridge. The only requirement needed will be our discovery and acceptance of their intrinsic unity as our same fundamental human drive (hope) for self-transcendence.

Embracing the Wisdom in our AngerSophia Wisdom is the personification of the di-

vine feminine and has been depicted as sister, moth-er, lover, chef and hostess, preacher, judge, liberator, and establisher of justice. This is a very strong list of what female spiritual caregivers are called to be and this list is by no means exhaustive. Sophia brings power to women when we invite her symbolism into ourselves and experience affirmation of every aspect of our being. Through Sophia, we can claim power as our right, exercise it creatively, share it, and be sustained by its growth. As creator, as respected nurturer, as a strong, angry, assertive, and sometimes prophetic woman, Sophia provides us with an alter-native to the traditional behaviors into which many of us have been socialized.

I am sure I am not alone in the telling of a piece of my story. When I was a girl, I was told that anger was not okay to feel and the expression of it was not an okay behavior because anger was the opposite of love. Working in spiritual care, we are witness-es to much injustice and abuse. If we suppress the legitimate feeling of anger that arises when we are present to injustice and wrongdoing, it can lead to

compassion burnout. Detachment and cynicism are symptoms that present themselves when we begin to move toward this state.

I believe we need to relearn our views on anger. Anger can be a gift. If we learn how to use it in a healthy way, it can be a form of self-healing and heal-ing for others. Jesus was a healer, but he spoke up when he witnessed injustice. Jesus did not withdraw or make false peace; he pushed to be heard and to bring justice to people who suffered. Jesus has shown us that anger is not the opposite of love, but anger may be required of us to love our neighbors and ourselves. It can also be a conduit to get to that love.

To use anger constructively, we need to be able to utilize other aspects of self-care. Feasting can give us a break from anger. Therapy and spiritual care can be a safe place to bring and sit with anger. Trust-ing we have the strength of Sophia Wisdom, we can take action that is productive. Anger reveals to us that something is wrong in our world and it needs to be examined. Anger calls for change—social and individual. The Little and the Fun

I end my encouragements for self-care with “the little and the fun.” There is no such thing as a small gesture that does not have meaning. So many little things we do in our lives can be forms of self-care when done with loving kindness. Being a spiritual caregiver asks much from us and often gives more than what is asked. Remembering these gifts can be a wonderful way to care for our souls. I frequently write down memories from my ministry, little mo-ments in time I want to remember. I write down quotes from patients, friends, a cashier at the grocery store, and the words I want to remember.

Loving the little things in our lives includes lov-ing the child inside us, that little one that walks with us even as we walk home to God. Mother Teresa has a wonderful view of the power of little children: “You should go to God like a little child. A child has no difficulty expressing his/her mind in simple words that say so much.”7 Letting the child in you become a part of your self-care means seeing God in all little things, from a french fry to a sunset. It also means letting “the fun” be a big part of your life. Laughter and silliness can only serve you, lift you, and heal you in the challenging work of spiritual care. The Old Testament reveals, “A cheerful glance brings joy to

7 Mother Teresa, Everything Starts with Prayer, 38.

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the heart; good news invigorates the bones” (Prov 15:30). Welcoming the child in your heart to laugh and be silly means welcoming the child too young to self-judge, the child that is so rawly present that pure joy feels free to surround her. Honor that little girl that chased butterflies for a second look because they were too pretty to look at only once. Welcome back the little girl that looked in the mirror dreaming about how beautiful she would be someday, because now you are that dream.

Offering ourselves self-care based in loving kind-ness is a core need in our work as spiritual caregivers. Many factors of our work may lead to burnout when we do not address the needs of our whole integrated selves, bodies, souls, and hearts. We are creative and gifted daughters of God, lifting ourselves up to the light of grace, so it illuminates every part of our be-ing, imitating Christ’s life and mission. We choose to serve God because we love him; honoring ourselves is a beautiful healing way to show that love in action. We cannot give if we do not have, so allow yourself to indulge, feast, and love!

Bibliography

Dumm, Demetrius. Cherish Christ Above All: The Bible in the Rule of Benedict. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1996.

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Pacifist, Nazi Resistor, DVD. Journey Films, 2003.Kelly, Geoffrey B., and Nelson F. Burton. A Testament to Freedom:

The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. San Francisco, CA: Harper, 1990.

Maslach, Christina. Burnout: The Cost of Caring. Mahwah, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982.

McMinn, Mark R., and Timothy R. Phillips, eds. Care for the Soul: Exploring the Intersection of Psychology and Theology. Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001.

Paulsell, Stephanie, and Lani Wright. Honoring the Body: Meditations on a Christian Practice. San Francisco, CA: Jose-Bass, 2001.

Saliers, Don E. “Where beauty and terror lie: the poetics of ev-eryday life,” class lecture. Saint John’s University, Colleg-eville, MN (November 13, 2008).

Stevenson Moessner, Jeanne, ed. Through the Eyes of Women: In-sights for Pastoral Care. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Press, 1996.

Teresa, Mother. Everything Starts with Prayer: Mother Teresa’s Medi-tations on Spiritual Life for People of All Faiths. Ashland, OR: White Cloud Press, 1998.

Ælred Senna, OSBCompanions

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During May of 2005, I participated in a field ed-ucation practicum in parish ministry in a rural parish community. My supervisor was the parish pastoral associate. Part of her ministry includes pastoral care of the sick and elderly. She regularly takes Holy Com-munion to homebound parishioners, as well as those residing in assisted living and care centers. In my first week of practicum, I accompanied my supervisor in visiting a few of the homebound parishioners, the three care centers, and the two assisted living centers in the community. I went unaccompanied the second week. One of my first solo care center visits included leading a Communion service for a small group of residents able to come to the activity room, going to the rooms of residents unable to attend the group service, and going to the Alzheimer’s unit to visit three other residents.

The group service went well. I was grateful to see two residents I had visited the previous week with my supervisor. Next I went to the rooms of two other residents physically unable to come to the service. I enjoyed the opportunity to visit and get acquainted with them. Both women were very alert and eager to chat. My last stop was the Alzheimer’s unit. I felt a little uneasy as I walked down the cor-ridor to the unit. I was not quite sure where to go, so I asked for help from a staff person I met in the hall. She took me to the door of the unit. I was ac-customed to the concept of a unit for residents suf-fering from dementia because my father had lived in one in northwest Iowa for four years before his death. A key difference now was that I was entering the unit for the first time as a minister and not as a family member. I was nervous because I was not sure how to minister to persons suffering from dementia. I did not know exactly what I would do if they were not aware enough to receive Communion.

As I entered the unit I noticed the keypad just inside the door. I knew I would need assistance when I was ready to leave because the doors automatically locked to prevent residents from wandering and be-ing injured. As I walked down the hall of the unit, I came to a nurse’s desk located in what appeared to be the activity and dining center. I identified my-self as being from the local Catholic Church and that I had brought Communion for three resident

parishioners. The nurse directed me to another nurse nearby working with residents sitting in a circle. Two of the women I needed to see were seated in the circle. I was told that the third woman was in her room because she was not feeling well but that I could certainly visit her. The nurse took me to the two women. I introduced myself and asked them if they would like to receive Communion. Thankfully they said they did, so the nurse took us to a nearby table. I used the Rite for Communion in a Hospital or Institution. They participated and prayed with me when appropriate. After I concluded the prayers, I gave the two women artwork created by their first- and second-grade buddies from the parish Catholic school. They were delighted and read aloud the notes written by each student on the back of the artwork. Since they were occupied, it seemed like a good time to excuse myself and to find the room of the other woman.

The nurse directed me to the room of Marian. Marian’s room was one of the first two-occupant bedrooms inside the door of the unit. Her bed was closest to the window, so I had to walk through an-other resident’s area to see Marian. The curtain be-tween the beds was pulled. I could not see Marian until I walked past the curtain. Her roommate was not in the room at the time, and the room was dark-ened except for the light from the open door and the small amount of light coming from the shade-drawn window. When I reached the curtain I could see that Marian was in bed and her eyes were closed. I spoke her name softly, and she opened her eyes rather star-tled. I introduced myself and asked her how she was feeling. Marian said that she was not having a very good day and that her arthritis was bothering her. I asked her if she wished to receive Communion. She said she did. I asked her if she wanted me to help her sit up, and I turned on a small lamp by her bed so I could read the prayers of the rite. With more light in the room, I could see the bruised right side of her face. I surmised that Marian had fallen recently. The fall would also explain her complaints of feeling stiff and sore. I helped her sit up, and I prayed with her. When I gave her Communion she struggled a little chewing and swallowing the host, so I offered her some water. I read the concluding prayers, gave her

Annette Kestel, PBVM, ‘06Forgetful but Not Forgotten: Parish Pastoral Care of Dementia Sufferers

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the student artwork, and helped her back into bed. At that point I did not know what else to say or do. She was not talkative, and I felt at a loss for words. She seemed fairly lucid, but I knew from experience with my father that the lucidity could come and go quickly. I told her I hoped she felt better soon, and I excused myself. I walked back to the nurse’s desk and asked for help to leave the unit. As I walked out the door of the unit I felt a wave of relief that I was leaving, but I also felt a nagging sense that some-thing was lacking in my interaction with these three women.

Personal and Spiritual MaturityAs I have reflected on my experience of last

summer, I have considered the impact my personal and spiritual maturity had on this pastoral setting. In general, I felt comfortable visiting with the el-derly when they could communicate verbally, but my experiences of my father’s dementia were both a benefit and a detriment. I knew from personal ex-perience the need for and the operation of an Al-zheimer’s unit, and I felt relatively comfortable walk-ing into the unit. I had an idea of what to expect from the perspective of someone visiting. But I was also concerned, knowing that a resident suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or another condition that causes dementia could exhibit behavior anywhere from pleasant and lucid to agitated or completely unresponsive. I knew from experience with my fa-ther that a person suffering from dementia could be calm one moment and very upset the next moment. My anxiety level was heightened wondering how the three residents of the Alzheimer’s unit would re-spond to me.

As I remembered my father’s experience of liv-ing in an Alzheimer’s unit I was saddened to think that he did not have access to more pastoral care from his parish. Ecumenical worship services were offered at the care center on a weekly basis. A non-ordained pastoral minister on staff at the care center did offer other forms of individual or small group pastoral care services at the facility. The local parish pastor came once a week to celebrate Mass with the Catholic residents who wished to attend. Catholic residents also received the sacrament of anointing of the sick twice a year. During my father’s last two years in the care center, he was not considered alert enough to attend the Mass. To my knowledge Com-munion and anointing were the only forms of pasto-ral care offered to my father in his years of residency

in this care center. Until my experience with these women, I never questioned whether there were other Catholic pastoral care services available to my father. I hate the thought of him having been isolated from the parish community and pastoral care in the same way that these three women are.

I felt helpless being in the presence of these three vulnerable women and with my attempts to minister to them. They became a mirror reflecting my own fear of isolation. I did not know how to respond to them in their need, but I realized that these women deserved competent, compassionate pastoral care from the parish. I did not know what this care should include, but I knew that as a pasto-ral minister I should have something more to offer them. Concern for the vulnerable is one of the foun-dational themes of Catholic social teaching.1 Respect for life and human dignity and concern for the poor and vulnerable are foundational to parish pastoral care of the elderly, especially those suffering from dementia. Moving from this church teaching to ac-tual practices is a major challenge. I was not prepared spiritually to meet the pastoral care needs of these women. I did not even have a sense of what their needs were. This realization moved me to reflect on my religious congregation’s history of care for the elderly and vulnerable.

Nano Nagle, the Irish foundress of my religious congregation, the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, lived during penal times in eigh-teenth-century Ireland. During the day she risked im-prisonment and death by teaching Irish children, and in the evening by lantern light she visited and cared for the elderly and sick in Cork City. Her concern for the poor and vulnerable sparked into flame the ministry of a small group of women that grew over time and spread throughout the world. The history of Nano Nagle’s desire and efforts to minister to the elderly has recently inspired me to view the pastoral care of people suffering from dementia as an aspect of my religious vocation to vowed membership in her community and to my own pastoral ministry to the poor and vulnerable. Nano discerned the needs present in her situation and generously used her gifts in service to the poor. In my field education experi-ence I discerned a need, but I did not yet know how to use my gifts to address the pastoral care needs of the women in the Alzheimer’s unit.

1 Catholic Social Teaching; available from http://www.mncc.org/Catholic%20%Teaching.htm/; internet (accessed February 4, 2006).

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Part of what was missing was prayer. I thought I knew how to pray with these women because I knew the proper Communion rites for the sick, but I needed to be able to do more to reach them in their personal and spiritual isolation. Bringing Eucharist to them was one good way to reunite them spiritu-ally with the parish faith community, but I also felt the need and desire to do more. During my visit with them I could have been more conscious about pray-ing for and with them as I visited them. In doing so I may have been more open to the Spirit’s guidance and may have been better able to be more present to these women and less conscious of my discomfort with the situation.

Lay Ecclesial Ministry IdentityI have experienced my religious vocation as a

call from God to ministry in the church, a call rooted in my baptism. I had no difficulty considering my former position as a Catholic elementary school teacher as ministry within the church. My summer field education practicum was my first concrete ex-perience of offering parish pastoral ministry. I did not have anywhere near the same amount of training and experience in pastoral ministry. Since this type of ministry was a new venture for me, I was just beginning to consider myself as called by God to pastoral ministry. Due to my lack of experience I did not feel like a minister. At the time of this pasto-ral visit, the only physical proof I had was a plastic name tag identifying me as a staff member of the parish. My experience of ministry to these women moved me to consider more deeply my vocation as pastoral minister and made me aware of my need for this call to be confirmed by the parish community I represented.

Before my arrival in the parish, my supervisor had prepared a written introduction for the parish bulletin to make parishioners aware of my presence and work in the parish. Each week I wrote a general summary of my ministry experiences for the bulle-tin. The pastor also introduced me at all of the week-end Masses my first weekend in the parish. I felt an attachment to the parish as well as a sense that I had been temporarily commissioned by the pastor to do this ministry. The parish community could recognize me as a pastoral minister through these means.

Catholic TheologyScripturally, ministry to the vulnerable and in

particular those suffering from dementia could be

grounded on several passages, but one particular passage stands out. In Luke 5:12-16, a man suffering from a serious skin disease approaches Jesus seek-ing healing from his suffering. Jesus willingly listens to the needs of this man and heals him of the skin disease. In New Testament times people suffering from skin diseases were labeled as lepers and were ostracized to the point of being required to live apart from the community so as to avoid infecting others. People suffering from these skin diseases also were prohibited from participating in public worship. Je-sus breaks through these cultural and societal barri-ers and heals the man by his listening, his words, and his touch.2 Jesus’ healing ministry brings the man back into the community. Once again the man is rec-ognized and included in the worshiping community.

This gospel story of Jesus’ healing offers a poi-gnant image for the pastoral care of people suffer-ing from dementia. Whether they are residing in care centers or living at home, dementia sufferers, like lepers, become increasingly isolated from the parish community. As they sink further into memory loss, interaction with family, friends, and particularly the parish community become more difficult. At some point the individual is no longer able to attend the parish Sunday eucharistic celebration. Memory loss and decreased ability to communicate make it dif-ficult for family and friends to spend time with and talk to the person. Like the leper, the dementia suf-ferer gradually becomes out of sight and out of the mind of the parish community.

When the leper approaches Jesus and asks for help Jesus listens and responds with comforting words and human touch. These same gestures can become important aspects of ministry to people suf-fering from dementia. Parish pastoral care for these individuals needs to include the desire to listen to the person being visited and the desire to meet the person’s needs to the best of the pastoral caregiver’s abilities. Comforting words will include conversation as well as words of prayer with and for the dementia sufferer. In the middle to later stages of dementia, conversation can range from very difficult to im-possible, but it is important to recognize the dig-nity of the individual with kind words and physical presence. Words of prayer spoken silently as well as aloud are always appropriate and necessary. Sponta-neous prayer for the individual and her or his family

2 Robert J. Karris, ed., The Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testa-ment (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992), 947.

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are a source of comfort and strength. Human touch is another key component of this pastoral care. A gentle touch of the hand or shoulder can often com-municate more to the dementia sufferer than the spoken word.

In the gospel story Jesus heals the man of his skin disease. He is relieved of his physical and spir-itual infirmity. Regretfully, there is no cure for the mental or physical diminishment of dementia, but ensuring good pastoral care can help to make the parish community more present to the dementia sufferer as well as make the dementia sufferer more present to the parish community. I believe this pres-ence of the community and presence to the commu-nity can bring the healing word and touch of Jesus to the person suffering from dementia.

Another source of the Catholic Church’s care for and ministry to the elderly is found in Bless-ings of Age: A Pastoral Message on Growing Older Within the Faith Community. This document pub-lished by the Unites States Conference of Catholic Bishops addresses all age groups of the faith com-munity and expresses the great dignity of and the importance of respect for the elderly. In this regard the document states:

We are all growing older, not just as individu-als but as members of a faith community. The spiritual growth of the aging person is affected by the community and affects the communi-ty. Aging demands the attention of the entire Church. How the faith community relates to older members—recognizing their presence, encouraging their contributions, responding to their needs, and providing appropriate oppor-tunities for spiritual growth—is a sign of the community’s spiritual health and maturity.3

The bishops’ document wisely notes that recog-nizing and responding to the needs of the older members of the faith community are extremely important, as well as an indication of the spiritual health of the entire community. This document encourages the faith community to recognize the presence of the elderly, respond to their needs, and provide opportunities for their spiritual growth. Even though it is difficult, good parish pastoral care of people suffering from dementia, one of the

3 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Blessings of Age: A Pastoral Message on Growing Older Within the Faith Community (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Confer-ence, 1999), available at http://www.usccb.org/laity/blessings/English.shtml/; internet (accessed February 10, 2006).

groups of elderly needing care, can help to achieve these goals.

Pope John Paul II provides another ethical source for ministry to aging parishioners in his Letter to the Elderly written in 1999. He recognizes through his own experiences of age and failing health the experi-ences of other aging members of the church. John Paul II notes the witness of elderly people suffering with patient acceptance.4 Their witness is a power-ful example for the rest of the faith community and deserves to be recognized and valued. Their suffer-ing is redemptive and can be united with the suffer-ing, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus does not escape his suffering—neither do dementia sufferers. They will bear this cross to death. They should not be abandoned. These sources state clearly the need for the parish community to take responsibility for the spiritual care of the elderly. Pastoral Praxis

My coursework over the last year had given me a good knowledge base for taking Communion to the sick, as well as visiting with people. Last spring, in Pastoral Liturgy II, we studied the various rites for taking Communion to the sick and homebound. After taking the course and receiving instruction and modeling from my supervisor regarding the use of the rites, I knew I could use the appropriate rites at the appropriate times. During my fall semester I had also taken a course in pastoral care that focused more on the skills of nondirective pastoral counseling and specifically reflective listening. The listening required for pastoral care of dementia sufferers is different from that needed in other forms of pastoral care. In the earlier stages of dementia the individual would likely still be able to talk, but in the later stages the dementia sufferer loses the ability to communicate verbally. The listening needed for this type of pasto-ral care may range from listening to actual speech to listening in the silent presence of one no longer able to speak. Although I had a good introduction into the area of pastoral care of the sick, I was not pre-pared for using my skills to minister to persons suf-fering from dementia. The topic of pastoral care of persons suffering from dementia was not addressed specifically in my pastoral coursework.

A general definition of dementia is needed be-fore moving further into the discussion of pastoral

4 Pope John Paul II, Letter of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to the Elderly (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1999), no. 13; available at http://www.vatican.va/; internet (accessed February 10, 2006).

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care of persons suffering from dementia. Nancy L. Mace and Peter V. Rabins, authors of a family guide to care for dementia sufferers, offer this salient defi-nition:

Dementia is the medical term for a group of symptoms. It indicates a decline in several areas of intellectual ability sufficiently severe to in-terfere with daily functioning in a person who is awake and alert. . . . This decline in intellec-tual functioning means a loss of several kinds of mental processes, which may include math-ematical ability, vocabulary, abstract thinking, judgment, speaking, or physical coordination. It may include changes in personality.5

Dementia is the symptom or effect of a number of possible diseases or causes. Exploring all of the known diseases or causes of dementia is beyond the scope of this case study. Here I will address the two most common causes of dementia in adults. It is im-portant to note that some of the less common causes of dementia can be reversed with proper medical di-agnosis and treatment. The two most common are irreversible,6 but at times the progression of demen-tia may be slowed with proper medical care.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia. The late onset form of this disease commonly affects individuals sixty-five or older. Younger people may develop the disease, but this early-onset form is less common. Scientists believe genetic as well as environmental factors may increase the likelihood of someone developing Alzheimer’s disease.7 The disease progresses through the destruc-tion of neurons; these nerve cells are a basic element of the structure of the brain.8 Gradually the loss of neurons progresses throughout the brain, causing increased loss of memory, intellectual abilities, and eventually physical abilities.9 A person suffering from Alzheimer’s disease may survive anywhere from two to twenty years after the first signs of the disease become apparent.10

Some physicians categorize the progression of

5 Nancy L. Mace and Peter V. Rabins, The 36-Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring for Persons with Alzheimer Disease, Related Dementing Illnesses, and Memory Loss in Later Life (New York: Warner Books, 1999), 410–11.6 Ibid., 8.7 Ronald Peterson, ed., Mayo Clinic On Alzheimer’s Disease: Practical Answers On Memory Loss, Aging, Research, Treatment, and Caregiving (New York: Mayo Clinic Health Information, 2002), 41–42.8 Ibid., 27.9 Ibid., 29.10 Ibid., 27.

Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause, into three stages. The first stage is described as mild and may include some short-term memory problems, disorientation, and sudden mood changes.11 The sec-ond stage of moderate Alzheimer’s disease includes more noticeable changes in memory loss and behav-ior.12 The severe stage is characterized by the inability to think and reason. An individual at this final stage needs help with all aspects of personal care. He or she is susceptible to other illnesses that may cause death in the person already weakened by Alzheimer’s disease.13

Multi-infarct or vascular dementia is the second most common cause of dementia. It causes “repeat-ed strokes that destroy small areas of the brain.”14 The continuation of the strokes will eventually lead to dementia symptoms. These symptoms can vary according to the areas of the brain affected. If the cause of the strokes is diagnosed and treated, further damage to the brain may be prevented. Someone suffering from multi-infarct dementia often experi-ences the progression of the disease in a step-like manner.15 Knowledge of these common diseases and their progressions can assist pastoral caregivers in offering appropriate and meaningful spiritual care to dementia sufferers.

Knowledge of the staged progression of the most common causes of dementia offers a frame-work for providing appropriate parish pastoral care. Ministry to someone experiencing the mild stage of Alzheimer’s disease requires a sensitivity to and un-derstanding of the memory problems and disorien-tation the person may be experiencing. One at this stage would likely be able to talk about her or his diagnosis and the accompanying emotions related to grief and acceptance. She or he is probably still attending Mass, and a spouse or family member is caring for her or him at home. Often people are not diagnosed until the moderate stage. Ministry to someone at the moderate stage would require more flexibility in being present to the person. At times she or he may be quite alert and able to talk, and at other times she or he may be disoriented and agitated. She or he may or may not be in a care facility. Minister-ing to someone at the severe stage requires the most experience and comfort with sitting in prayer with

11 Ibid., 32–33.12 Ibid., 35.13 Ibid., 36–37.14 Mace and Rabins, The 36-Hour Day, 415.15 Ibid., 415–16.

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the person. Both silent and vocalized spontaneous prayers for and with the individual are needed. One at this stage is most likely in a care facility and is ex-periencing the most isolation.

Through my experience, reading, and reflection I have learned that isolation is a key issue for de-mentia sufferers living in care centers as well as for those still living at home. The local parish commu-nity can easily forget about or be unaware of fellow parishioners residing in care centers or at home and unable to go out any longer. This isolation prevents parishioners from being physically and emotionally present to these individuals by visiting them, remem-bering them, and supporting them in prayer. Often people stop visiting dementia sufferers when they no longer recognize the visitor. If the parish community is unaware of the unmet pastoral care needs of the dementia sufferers, they cannot help to meet these needs. Their geographical isolation contributes to their spiritual isolation from the community.

I believe these forms of isolation contribute to three main areas of need for dementia sufferers. The first area of need is a pastoral presence to address the problem of physical isolation, someone from the parish community who regularly visits the person at home or in the care center. The pastoral caregiver needs a basic knowledge of the common diseases that cause dementia as well as the progression of de-mentia. This knowledge will help the pastoral minis-ter to be more sensitive to the needs of the person suffering from dementia and will help the minister to feel more at ease visiting.

A second area of need for those suffering from dementia is the spiritual support of prayer to address the problem of spiritual isolation. The pastoral care-giver needs to pray before, during, and after the visit. Prayer may take whatever form is most helpful to the dementia sufferer and aids the minister in being attentive. It may be silent prayer, vocal spontaneous prayer, or traditional memorized prayer. Prayerful remembrance at parish eucharistic celebrations is an-other aspect of prayerful support of the larger par-ish community.

The third area of need to be met is that of eccle-sial isolation, isolation from the sacraments of the church. People suffering from dementia deserve to have access to the sacraments most helpful to them. Reception of the Eucharist may be very important to one who has received this sacrament weekly or more frequently throughout life. The sacraments of reconciliation and anointing of the sick can bring a

sense of healing and peace to the dementia sufferer. These sacraments can be very consoling to one in the earlier stages of dementia.

The fourth area of need comes from the isolation from self that one experiences gradually through the stages of dementia. The dementia sufferer progres-sively forgets who she or he is. Parish pastoral care can assist the dementia sufferer in being able to retain her or his self-identity longer. Once the person can no longer remember, the pastoral caregiver and faith community remember for the person and keep the memory of the person alive in the faith community.

Family caregivers are another group needing and deserving good parish pastoral care, but I have cho-sen to limit my focus to the pastoral care of people experiencing dementia.

Professional PracticeI now believe that local parish communities have

a responsibility to make efforts to better meet these four areas of need of the elderly and in particular those suffering from dementia. First, the parish needs to be aware of parishioners experiencing dementia and their caregivers. A sensitive way of doing this is to regularly include general prayers of intercession for the elderly members of the parish in the prayer of the faithful at the parish eucharistic liturgies. Sec-ond, all of the parish committees need to consider how their individual committees might be of service to the elderly members of the parish. It is not just one committee’s responsibility to minister to their needs. For example, the liturgy committee can minister to this particular group by making sure there are trained and commissioned eucharistic ministers regularly tak-ing Communion to them. The social concerns com-mittee might be able assist by finding volunteers who could help with transportation difficulties of family caregivers or respite care. Third, the parish staff needs to know how to contact local agencies that may offer aging services in the event that a parishioner comes seeking help or to be able to suggest these services in a pastorally sensitive manner. It would be helpful to have a duplicated list of resources and/or organi-zations, their addresses, phone contact numbers, and web site addresses available for individuals seeking this type of assistance. Some examples of these orga-nizations are the Administration on Aging (AOA), the Alzheimer’s Association, Alzheimer’s Disease Educa-tion and Referral Center (ADEAR), and local area agencies on aging.16

16 Peterson, Mayo Clinic On Alzheimer’s Disease, 199–200.

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These suggestions are all relatively easy to ac-complish, but they lead to a more challenging pri-ority and task. Parishioners suffering from dementia need and deserve good personalized pastoral care. This challenge is a clear call to acknowledge the hu-man dignity and worth of this easily isolated parish population.

One possible way to help meet the pastoral needs of dementia sufferers would be to seek the help of interested parishioners who could be trained to visit parishioners suffering from dementia living in local care centers as well as those living at home with family caregivers. They would be assigned to visit particular individuals on an ongoing basis to facilitate developing significant relationships. Once parishioners are trained they would go with a parish staff member for the first four visits, allowing the staff member to model good pastoral care and men-tor the parish visitor. Continued individual supervi-sion by the staff member would facilitate growth in each visitor’s pastoral skills and also offer the visitors the opportunity to process their experiences of of-fering pastoral care to others. There are many helpful areas and techniques in which they could be trained, but I will focus on three areas and some correspond-ing techniques.

The first area of training would include general education about the staged progression of the most common causes of dementia and the engagement of religious memory in people suffering from demen-tia. Parish pastoral care of dementia sufferers would most often be for those in the moderate or severe stage of dementia, so the training would focus on these stages. Typically, people are in the moderate stage by the time they are diagnosed.

Author Jolene Brackey describes practical ideas for dementia caregivers that can easily be adapted for use by parish pastoral caregivers. Many of her sug-gestions would be helpful in visiting with someone in the moderate stage who is still able to speak. In her book Brackey urges the caregiver to capitalize on the dementia sufferer’s long-term memory to find a memory that gives the person a moment of happi-ness or joy.17 People suffering from dementia lose ac-cess to short-term memory first, and generally com-munication can be facilitated more easily through the use of long-term memory. The treasured memories of joy may be related to childhood, family, hobbies,

17 Jolene Brackey, Creating Moments of Joy for the Person with Al-zheimer’s or Dementia (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2003), 13.

or a former work profession. They are moments be-cause the dementia sufferer at this stage only knows the present moment. Once a favorite story or topic is discovered, it is likely to be repeated over and over. The caregiver can use this story to trigger the mem-ory and joyful moments during future visits.18

Trained parishioners offering pastoral care can make use of this knowledge to creatively engage long-term religious memory. One technique to do so is through the use of a Catholic reminiscence packet. It can include all or a combination of the following articles: a crucifix, a Bible, a rosary, a booklet of tra-ditional prayers, prayer cards of individual prayers, small religious statues, a scapular, or a Sacred Heart badge.19 The packet of materials could be taken by the person offering pastoral care to the dementia suf-ferer and allow her or him to look at and talk about the contents of the packet. Seeing these familiar re-ligious articles can stimulate the religious memory and imagination of the one being visited. A pastoral caregiver should keep a list of the memory triggers of the dementia sufferer. These can be used during future visits to bring joy to the one being visited.

At the severe stage there will be fewer moments of recognition. The list of memory triggers can still be used. The dementia sufferer may not be able to talk about the memory any longer, but it still may cause some form of recognition and an experience of joy. The person may still be able to talk, but the caregiver might not be able to understand. The care-giver can still patiently listen and affirm the dignity of the person struggling to communicate.20

The second area of training is learning the im-portance of and techniques for being physically pres-ent to the person suffering from dementia. Brackey notes that being silent with the person can still bring great comfort and joy to the dementia sufferer.21 The challenge for the pastoral visitor is to learn to be comfortable with sitting in silence and prayer. The pastoral visit does not need to be filled with con-tinual conversation.

Touch is an important aspect of physical pres-ence and a technique of ministry to dementia suffer-ers at all stages. A gentle touch of the hand, arm, or

18 Ibid., 16.19 David P. Wentroble, “Pastoral Care of Problematic Alzheim-er’s Disease and Dementia Affected Residents in a Long-Term Care Setting,” Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy, 8, no. 1/2 (1999): 70.20 Brackey, Creating Moments of Joy, 81.21 Ibid., 227.

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shoulder can make the person aware of God’s caring presence through the minister. Brackey notes:

Touch can reach through the fog, confusion, and fear of dementia. Reassuring touch grounds those who are spatially disoriented, brings peo-ple back to their bodies, and increases their awareness in present time and space. One touch can affirm that they are not alone and they are valued by the person who is beside them.22

Jesus was not afraid to touch the man with the skin disease. This kind of touch can be a way for the minister or pastoral caregiver to communicate the compassionate, healing ministry of Jesus. People suffering from dementia deserve pastoral visits even if they are unable to respond or seem unaware of the presence of others. Knowing their loved one is receiving this type of care can provide a great con-solation to the caregiver and other family members.

The third area of pastoral care training would include providing helpful listening opportunities for the person suffering from dementia. The use of music can be comforting and helpful for dementia sufferers, but music can be especially helpful for reaching someone in either the moderate or severe stages of dementia. Traditional religious hymns can be used to connect with someone struggling to re-member and sometimes even speak.23 Simply singing a favorite hymn can offer a few moments of peace and joy to one who struggles to remember. Praying the traditional Catholic prayers or reading familiar Scripture passages can also be comforting experi-ences of listening. If the person has a devotion to praying the rosary, she or he might appreciate listen-ing to someone pray this prayer form even if she or he is no longer able to speak the prayers aloud.

Reading Scripture and offering Communion during a pastoral visit are another aspect of pro-viding opportunities for listening. Training in the Catholic rites for pastoral care of the elderly and sick would be required of the parish visitors, so even when people suffering from dementia are no longer able to speak, they are still given the opportunity to listen to the Word and receive Communion as they are able. Thus they are included in the parish eucha-ristic celebration.

Pastoral care of persons suffering from demen-tia is an important but often unrecognized and un-met need in local parish communities. Pastors and

22 Ibid., 101.23 Wentroble, “Pastoral Care,” 65.

parish staff members have the responsibility of providing spiritual care and discovering new ways to offer this care with the help of the parish faith com-munity. From my experience of my father’s lack of pastoral care and my experience of trying to minister to the three women in the Alzheimer’s unit, I have learned and believe very strongly that people suffer-ing from all stages of dementia still deserve good parish pastoral care. They deserve to have the parish community listen and respond to their needs. They deserve to have the spiritual and physical presence of the parish community touch them. Although they become forgetful, they do not deserve to be forgot-ten by the parish community.

Bibliography

Brackey, Jolene. Creating Moments of Joy for the Person with Alzheim-er’s or Dementia. 3rd ed. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue Univer-sity Press, 2003.

Catholic Social Teaching. <http://www.mncc.org/Catholic%20%Teaching.htm/>.

Karris, Robert J., ed. The Collegevile Bible Commentary: New Testa-ment. 946–47. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992.

Mace, Nancy L., and Peter V. Rabins. The 36-Hour Day: A Fam-ily Guide to Caring for Persons with Alzheimer Disease, Related Dementing Illnesses, and Memory Loss in Later Life. New York, NY: Warner Books, 1999.

Peterson, Ronald, ed. Mayo Clinic On Alzheimer’s Disease: Practi-cal Answers On Memory Loss, Aging, Research, Treatment, and Caregiving. New York, NY: Mayo Clinic Health Informa-tion, 2002.

Pope John Paul II. “Letter of His Holiness Pope John Paul II to the Elderly.” Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1999. <http://www.vatican.va/>.

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Blessings of Age: A Pastoral Message on Growing Older Within the Faith Community. Washington, DC: United States Catho-lic Conference, 1999. <http://www.usccb.org/laity/bless-ings/english.shtml/>.

Wentroble, David P. “Pastoral Care of Problematic Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia Affected Residents in a Long-Term Care Setting.” Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy. 8, no. 1/2 (1999): 59–76.

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Chris Ángel, a native of San Luis Obispo, CA, has served as a church musician for over twenty years. He holds degrees in mathematical and computational science and music from Stanford University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and is currently a student in the master of arts in theology (liturgy) program.

Joel Cassady is pursuing a master’s degree in theology (church history). He is from Arvada, CO, and graduated from Colorado State Universtiy with a degree in politi-cal science.

Benjamin M. Durheim is a current systematics student at Saint John’s SOT•Sem. In 2007 he graduated from Saint John’s University with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and theology. Following graduation this May, he plans to pursue a PhD in systematic theology at Boston College.

Laura Kelly Fanucci will graduate from the SOT•Sem in May 2009 with a master of divinity degree. She is a 2003 graduate of the University of Notre Dame where she studied French and art history. She currently resides with her husband in Elk River, MN.

Kathryn Janssen graduated from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota with a major in human services and minor in theology. She is from Apple Valley, MN, and will gradu-ate with a master’s in pastoral ministry.

Peggy Kelly is originally from Bloomington, MN, and is an oblate of St. Benedict’s Monastery in St. Joseph, MN. She spent last seven years in LA pursuing acting and CPE and is now pursuing a master of divinity degree at the SOT•Sem. She is a pediatric chaplain and hopes to use her degree to make children feel safe, loved, and heard.

Annette Kestel, PBVM, received an undergraduate de-gree in elementary education from Clarke College in Dubuque, IA, an MS in education from the University of Dayton in Dayton, OH, and an MA (pastoral min-istry) from Saint John’s SOT•Sem in 2006. She taught in Catholic elementary schools in the archdiocese of Dubuque, IA, for nineteen years before attending Saint John’s. Currently she is the associate director of faith formation/pastoral associate at Saint Elizabeth Ann Se-ton Parish in Hiawatha, IA.

Victor Klimoski graduated from the SOT•Sem in 1976 and is director of Conversatio Lifelong Learning at the School of Theology and former dean of the Saint Paul School of Divinity at the University of Saint Thomas.

Adam Paul Koester grew up in the Minocqua, WI, area. His undergraduate degree was in religious studies and philosophy from Viterbo University in La Crosse, WI, in 2008. He is pursuing an MA in theology (Scripture) at the SOT•Sem.

Dale Launderville, OSB, graduated from the SOT•Sem in 1979 and received his PhD from The Catholic Uni-versity of America in 1987. From 1989–1999 he served as dean of the SOT•Sem and currently is chair of the Department of Theology for Saint John’s University. Fr. Dale is also the chaplain of the SOT•Sem and an associ-ate professor of theology.

John Meoska, OSB, is from Bloomington, WI. He is a graduate of Saint John’s University (’78) and SOT•Sem (’82). He is currently in the novitiate at Saint John’s Ab-bey and has been writing icons since 1999 in both the Russian and Greek traditions.

Kelly Marie Prosen graduated from the College of Saint Benedict in 2007 with a dual BA in English and theol-ogy. She is pursuing an MA in theology (systematics) at the SOT•Sem. Interested in the intersection between theology and poetry, her writing reflects themes of doubt, the sanctity of the ordinary, and the undertold stories of New Testament women. She looks forward to continuing to explore her passion for theological aes-thetics in her academic and creative writing.

Jeffrey R. Reed lives in Alexandria, MN, and works for the Minnesota DNR as a Fisheries Research Biologist. He has degrees in ecology (BS) from the University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh and Fisheries Biology (MS) from Auburn University. He is in his second year at the SOT•Sem and is a candidate for ordination as a deacon in the United Methodist Church.

Jeffrey P. Regan is a first-year MA candidate in liturgy and systematic theology. A native of Newington, CT, he re-ceived his BA in history and music from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. Before enrolling at the SOT•Sem, he spent eight years as a policy aide in the United States Senate specializing in transporta-tion, homeland security, appropriations, and health care issues.

Natalie Perl Regan transferred from Washington Theo-logical Union to complete her master of divinity degree. She graduates from WTU in May, and hopes to con-tinue studying Scripture at the SOT•Sem. She graduated with an English major and religious studies minor from the University of San Diego (her hometown), and lived in Washington DC for eight years prior to moving to Collegeville with her husband, Jeffrey.

Ælred Senna, OSB, professed his first monastic vows in September 2008. Currently, his assigned work is at Litur-gical Press. His pastimes include cooking, baking, knit-ting and, occasionally, photography. He looks forward to participating in the Holy Land Study Tour program in May–June 2009, and he may be quoted as follows: “I LOVE monastic life . . . I’m just sayin’!”

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