These Forty Days

Some scattered reflections from a scattered mind.

The Glory of these Forty Days
Easter season rolls along, even as nature today provides us with melodious thunder and gentle rains. This portion of the paschal season, which permits a unique sacramental and liturgical encounter with the risen-but-not-ascended Christ of the Forty Days, is such an extraordinary time of grace.

Because these Forty days are so transparent and dangerously thin to God-with-us, the Church feels bold enough to introduce the texts of St. John's Gospel into the Mass. That Gospel, which reveals so clearly in exquisite poetic rhythm the heart of the Word-made-flesh, is as close as the paper and ink of the Scriptures come to being transubstantiated by the inspiring Spirit. If it is true that in Paradise the Scriptures will pass away before the vision of God, I might venture to say the Gospel of John will still remain…


Missal Mania and Theo-speak
I have been thinking lots about the New Roman Missal of late, especially after the diocesan Missal Mania two weeks ago.

The new translation of the Mass will offer us a more augmented lexicon of faith. More theologically dense words that will give a sense of 'otherness' from our day-to-day idiom. Liturgy is meant to disrupt our 'normal' experience of life and break open in us again and again fresh wonder over God's wonderful works. Liturgy, which is meant to orient our whole life toward God, should be disorienting for those whose lives have wandered from faith's pilgrimage toward Christ rising in the East.

Con-what?
Let's take the example of the newly translated Creed. Interpreting it presents a challenge!

Consubstantial with the Father. What? Exactly. What.

A word that does not enter our day to day conversations. But we know 'substantial' in colloquial speech – it usually means something that possesses depth of meaning, enduring significance, and is satisfying. Now, that's not what the word means in a theological context, but the reference to our common use is useful and important. It is indeed a word that bears within it great depth of meaning, enduring significance, and is satisfying for a faith in quest of deeper understanding.

So, simply said – what does consubstantial mean? While trying not to get too detailed, in Greek philosophy the word substance generally was used to define the essential and unchanging "what-is-it" of particular real objects in human experience. (Real – as opposed to imaginary or potential – but not actual reality.) The inverse of substance is 'accident,' which defines the changeable, but not essential, qualities of a particular substance. So, if we define the substantial qualities of a human (e.g. body and soul), we can also define accidents (e.g. tall, old, gray hair). Hence, substance is simply the essential meaning of whatever-it-means-to-be-X; "X" being a particular real object in the world.

"Whatever-it-means-to-be-God"
In God, substance means "whatever-it-means-to-be-God;" which we really know very little about because God is in-finite (no limit) and thus beyond definition (definition is about de-finite). What we do know, we know mostly by God's revelation of Himself; though even that revelation is only an inkling of what God is in His "substance."

So, if we say that God's substance is what God is, then, as Christians, when we talk about Jesus we say – or better, we believe – that Jesus the Son of the Father is everything-that-the-Father is; whatever that might be. So, Jesus is con-substantial with the Father; he shares ("con-") with the Father "whatever-it-means-to-be-God."

This point is reemphasized differently in the other lovely creedal phrases: God from God, Light from Light; Begotten, not made; born of the Father before all ages. Whereas we creatures came to be as a result of God's free choice, the Son ever-is as a result of God's very substance. "Whatever-it-means-to-be-God" inextricably includes in its meaning the begetting of the Son from the Father's substance. Hence, we call the Father the "eternal Father" precisely because He never has been without His only-begotten Son.

"Whatever-it-means-to-be-human"
We can add one last point to this. Because the Son at a certain moment in time became human in Mary's womb, God is now also consubstantial with humanity. For whatever-it-means-to-be-human now is inextricably included in whatever-it-means-to-be-God. The difference in these two consubstantials? The "consubstantial with the Father" has no point of origin, as God has eternally "been" Father and Son. The "consubstantial with humanity" has a point of origin, located in the time and space of Mary's "yes" to the Archangel.

The Spirit, too?
Now, the Holy Spirit; is he "consubstantial" also? The answer is: yes. But in the formulation of the Creed that addresses the Spirit's identity (done in 381 A.D.), the Bishops thought it best to avoid the use of the technical term "substance" (the Greek word they used was homoousios) as they learned from the previous debates over Jesus' identity that the term carried much divisive baggage. Therefore, they chose to make the same point by using a Scriptural text from John ("proceeds from the Father"), and a liturgical argument ("who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified") that makes the same point: the Spirit is one God with the Father and the Son.

Did I promise a simple, lucid explanation?

I lied.