The Homepage of Fr. Cornelius O'Brien

Easter 2006

It is surely not by chance that Easter is celebrated in the springtime. Christ chose His "Hour" fittingly during Passover. It seems certain to me that he who loved the lilies of the field and the mustard seed whose power would provide nesting places for the birds of the air, chose spring also for its symbolic beauty and significance.

Spring is the new flourishing of life, when the deepest vitality in all living things brings bloom and leaf and youth. Vitality is its name.

I fear that we, who should learn from spring's symbolism, respond instead with, sometimes, sad sentimentality. We, whose deepest vitality should ever be at work, are mostly satisfied with superficial levels of consciousness, sprinkled with occasional moments of prayer. Our act of existing, which is the deepest source of our vitality, rarely comes to mind. We exist at the surface levels of consciousness. We are hollow men, to use Eliot's phrase. If nature followed our example, instead of God's design, there would be no spring.

We, who are blessed with the gift of Intellect, should be at home in the house of Truth. We should know it and love it as our own place. Our lives should be shaped according to the principles of its sublime architecture. We should grieve when we dishonor it, and rejoice and experience real joy when we honor and obey it.

How are you and I to enter the house of Truth? Two brief sentences in Aquinas are fundamental. They are: "I am" and "Will it." The first pertains to the act of existence, which is God, and the other is the beginning of sanctity. To live in Truth I must command my mind to do the necessary spade-work. The "I" that I am springs directly from my act of existence, which is "the direct and proper effect of God's creative act." All that I am is constituted by it. All that is true in me flows from it. By nature I am made in the image of God and my life should and can consist of an effort to use mind and will, in co-operation with God, to bring about the unity and beauty which my very existence promises.

Because of sin, "by myself I can do nothing," but "I can do all things in Him who strengthens me." Christ did not come to replace our nature, but to fulfill it, and to raise it to levels of unity with His Father beyond our ability to understand. He prayed to His Father, after instituting the Eucharist, for His apostles and for us "that they all may be one as Thou Father in me and I in Thee, that they may be one in us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me." Today the world does not seem to believe. Our belief should therefore be the stronger.

During Easter let us ask God to give us deeper insights into the mystery of His love. Put aside our worldly concerns or, rather, put them in His Hands, lest we become like the man so fascinated with the bulb that he could not see the light.

Have a Blessed Easter.

Advent 2005

by Fr. O'Brien

It has been too long since my last communication with you. The reason is (among others!) that I have been reading St. Thomas deeply, and he makes my efforts to express the great truths of our faith so trivial in contrast to his splendid power. However, I must agree with Chesterton that "what is worth doing is worth doing badly."

Our Advent season is almost half way through its course. It is a time of great grace in the growth of our interior life, which is the perfection of our life. Of course, it is the calling to mind of the great event of our Redeemer's first breath of our daily air, and of the intimacy of His involvement with us that that breath expresses. It also involves memories of our childhood, mixed sometimes, I fear, with sadness—for we seemed more capable of joy then than now. For this the fault is ours, not His.

Our fault consists precisely in this: that we fail or, perhaps, refuse to see that Advent is an event in our own lives; that the Christ, through whom we exist and have our being, is, in a special way at this time, attempting an advent into our life of consciousness. He would show us the way to our full maturity, and enable us to achieve the joy of complete perfection—a joy that no one else can give and which no one else can take away. But like Jerusalem whose children he would gather "as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings," we procrastinate or refuse. Our excuses are many.

There is, first, the intimidating fact that many learned scientists not only reject Christ, but reject the very possibility of the existence of God. They have supporting them a mighty propaganda machine. But there are many other scientists, eminent in their fields, who know that their probes cannot reach even the internal structure of the atom. They know that there are vast areas of truth, including the existence of the atom itself, which cannot be touched by their methodology. These are the men who are guided by reason in their experiments and in their expressions. The others are children playing dangerous games in the marketplace of man. They need supervision.

The most formidable obstacles to our welcoming of Christ are within ourselves. They are our worldly and uncontrolled passions, and the sins that flow from them. Concupiscence leads us to prefer pleasures of the body and the table over God, and fear in the pressure of evil and the absence of anger to enable us to fight for the good result from the irascible passions. The capital sins are pride, covetousness, lust, abusive anger, gluttony, envy and sloth. In Eden these passions and sins were subject to reason. In our fallen state we are outgunned without Christ.

First, speaking to us as a fellow human being, He reveals to us the love of His Father, His own love for us, and finally His identity with His Father. The Gospels and the messianic prophecies must become part of our minds, for in them is revealed, more perfectly than Shakespeare could do, the Person and personality of Christ. St. John gives the reason: "these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in His name." In Him all things are centered; from Him all things flow: our existence, our gifts, all that we have and are, all the good that we do. Even our sins He took upon Himself on the Cross.

From the Cross through Mass and Sacraments He enriches and elevates us through the riches of His grace. Through the indwelling of His Spirit He makes us one with Himself as He and the Father are one. He raises us to the splendor of the supernatural through the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity. He enables us to be at home in the supernatural through the gifts of His Spirit. He give us delight in the things of God through the fruits of His Spirit. Through the indwelling of His Spirit, He also raises to the supernatural level of the acquired cardinal virtues, which we have tried to develop.

Because we are true secondary causes and His essential collaborators in the work of our salvation, we must make watchful efforts to avoid evil and embrace good in our daily lives. We cannot avoid all evil in a world as lost as ours is, but we must not, like fools, desire encounters with evil. They who willingly desire evil have exiled themselves from the love of God and from all that it involves. Choices determine the very structure of our nature, even the very "wiring" of the brain itself—according to recent scientific research.

As causes of our own state of being, we should read good spiritual writings, pray, study and practice the virtues, and thus permit the joy that our faith can bring to take root and to flourish in us. If we work as true partners of God our lives will be more orderly, i.e., more beautiful, our passions will learn obedience to the truth, and we will, even here on earth, become more like Christ, for we will begin to see Him as He is—a condition that St. John used to describe Heaven! St. Thomas teaches that if we permit grace, with its virtues, gifts and fruits of Christ's Spirit to come to us, we will be able to avoid sin completely. We may never reach that glorious state, but is should be our objective.

Christ's Advent is all that I have attempted to describe. Some of you may think that is a strange way to express Christmas joy. It is not. If what I have described were impossible, my world would be cruel. But the special joy of Christmas is found in the fact that all I have described is possible in Christ and, in fact, is described by Him as easy—for He said "my yoke is easy and my burden light." The child will grow to be a man, will suffer and die and rise from the tomb to show His love for us and to open for us the gates of heaven, closed by Sin.

Let the warmth of our hearts compensate for the cold of the stable, and so provide for Him the dwelling where He wishes to be.

May you truly be blessed this Christmas.

Priesthood

by Rev. Cornelius O'Brien

The most amazing thing about being a priest is that we were called by God from Eternity in Christ, as Peter was—and Judas. We were called to be transformed ourselves and to be the instruments of the transformation of others. Today, as we celebrate the anniversary of our calling, it is wise to recall how our Lord dealt with His first priests. The first thing to notice is that He called them by name. He did not wait to be introduced to Simon. He called his name and changed it. He saw Nathaniel under the fig tree and won his friendship immediately, and began already to reveal Himself as the Son of Man on whom the angels of God would ascend and descend. The establishing of a personal relationship with each of them is His first act in their formation.

It is so with each of us. The personal relationship with Him of faith and love is the first and essential element of our priesthood. As was the case with His apostles, the deepening of that personal bond with Christ must be the very heart of our seminary experience and of our priesthood. Otherwise, we are "sounding brass and tinkling cymbal."

Look again at the scripture story. See how He deals with those simple men, chosen by Him to be the foundation of His church. How He defends them; how He corrects and reprimands them; how He nicknames them—"Peter," after all, is partly a nickname, and James and John become "Sons of Thunder." Peter and Judas are the best subjects for our study.

Peter from the beginning is special. With James and John he is part of everything from their first meeting to his shameful denial during the trial. He participated in the Tabor experience and in the most dramatic miracles. He alone is involved in the humorous event of the fish with the gold piece in its mouth. He alone, during a nasty storm on the lake, says, "Lord, if it be you, bid me to come to you on the water," and Jesus says, "Come," and the "Rock" walked on the water—until he lost sight of the face of his Lord. It was Peter who boasted at the last supper that he would die for his Lord, and was warned by his Lord of the danger of vain boasting. "Simon, Simon, Satan has desired you that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith fail not." And it did not fail at the terrible moment of denial—but I am sure that ever afterwards his heart missed a beat when he heard a rooster crow. Every priest should know Peter very well.

Every priest should also know Judas. Judas is the career priest. He had his own plan. He was profoundly impressed by the great power of Jesus. He would use that power to free his people from Rome's tyranny. His faith in Jesus did not grow. He was too occupied with his own plans. He was the only one at the Last Supper who did not call Jesus, "Lord." St. Paul tells us that only through grace can one call Jesus, "Lord." Judas has refused both grace and friendship with Christ. When his plan failed and he saw that Jesus was submitting to death, he had nothing to save him from suicide. He should have known, after three years in His company, that Jesus would forgive him—but he had never really listened. He was too busy with his own plans. Yes, every priest should know Judas very well.

It was at the Last Supper, after He had instituted the Eucharist—and after Judas had left—that Our Lord reaches magnificent levels of eloquent love in His discourse and prayer when He speaks of union he seeks with His priests. "Do not let your hearts be troubled … In my Father's house there are many dwelling places … I go to prepare a place for you and I shall come back again and take you with me, that where I am you also may be." "I will not leave you orphans … I will ask the Father and He will send you another Advocate, the Spirit of Truth … You will know Him because He dwells with you and is in you." "I am the Vine, you are the Branches."

In His prayer He asks His Father to preserve His apostles from harm "that they may be one as We are one." "And not for these alone do I pray but for those also who through their words will believe in Me, that they all may be one as Thou, Father, in Me and I in Thee, that they may be one in Us, that the world may believe that Thou has sent Me."

The magnificence of our union with Him that He likens to His union with His Father is beyond our wildest imaginings—but we must realize that, simply because He wishes it, it is there for us, if only we open our minds and hearts. It is His gift, not our achievement. If we accept His great gift, then our lives are transformed, and our priesthood becomes an irresistible force for the transformation of our people. We are not effective if we are only channels of graces. We must be overflowing reservoirs. Our people will sense our love for Christ in the way we say Mass and preach and pray and live, and they will be moved by this, more than by any merely human eloquence.

On this, the anniversary of our priesthood, let us deepen our love for Him, and for the people whom He loves.

Liberty And Freedom

Rev. Cornelius O'Brien

---

The unabridged Oxford Dictionary, that nigh-infallible guide to proper usage, sees little, if any difference between the words liberty and freedom. They are considered to be practically interchangeable. If true, this is strange. It is a contradiction of a rather basic rule in language development. Fundamental things are expressed precisely in one exact term: love is love, hate is hate, belief is belief, opinion is opinion. Each is precisely itself. The rule governing proper usage of these terms is that they cannot be replaced in a sentence with a synonym without changing the sense of the sentence. If liberty and freedom are interchangeable, we are confronted by an awkward anomaly.

Since English is a hybrid language, we are dealing with words whose roots come from different linguistic sources. Liberty is from a Latin root meaning "unbound." Freedom is from a Welsh or Sanscrit root meaning "love"—hence "friend," meaning one who is loved. The roots of the words liberty and freedom clearly point to decidedly different things.

What we might call the "mood" of the words in common usage also suggests different meanings. Liberty suggests libertine, or uncommitted, or guillotine. Freedom suggests devotion and self-sacrifice. One could almost wish that Patrick Henry had said, "Give me freedom or give me death," especially since that is surely what he meant! It may be, however, that he saw beyond the superficial identity of the words. Then he would have known that although liberty may be given, freedom can only be achieved.

Yet another indication that there exists a real difference between liberty and freedom is found in the fact that whereas freedom is property predicated of God, liberty never is.

Liberty has the sense of being loose, unbound, unfettered. It is essentially a negative condition. In its better sense it means to be free of external restraint, as when the bird is uncaged or the man is loosed from bondage. In its worst sense it means to lack all restraint. This latter is the unqualified sense. We can call it absolute liberty. It excludes all relationships, all commitments. It denotes a world of mere possibility. To make room for reality, absolute liberty must be curbed.

In the real world, the existence and perfection of each thing involves a rejection of absolute liberty. Elementary chemical combinations shatter absolute liberty by expressing a law of relation. The world of living things, in its magnificent variety, destroys absolute liberty. It is this world and while it is so, it cannot be otherwise. It is for the moment at least, "committed," not "at liberty." Each thing within the world is also, for the moment at least, committed to its own nature or law. By an inner necessity, each thing reaches for its own perfection and has "appetite" only for that. It fights everthing which would distract or impede it. With remarkable concentration and industry, the DNA in each living thing, unique in each individual, conducts the symphony of life, relating and controlling molecules to produce this tree, this tiger, this flower. And if there is a larger symphony of relations between individually perfect things it is only because there is a wider law which is obeyed.

Cause of Beauty, Harmony

Beauty and harmony in things are caused by a tension of relatedness, we might say of commitment—a relatedness not found in the ordinary understanding of liberty. Liberty must be there as the matrix or atmosphere in which the beauty of the individual thing grows. But the formative energy is something other than liberty. It is the inner directed appetite of the thing itself. It is the "love" of its own perfection in being which drives and energizes every existing thing. This singularly non-libertarian passion for being is the law of the universe.

Man's physical life is governed largely by the laws of nature. The DNA works its magic in him as in the flower and the bee. The passion for being has built him to a wonderful perfection before he has a notion in his head of what perfection is. As the philosophers say, man finds himself already in existence. His liberty is limited by the fact that he had no choice in the matter of his coming into being. He lacks the liberty not to be. He is!

The world of consciousness has a beauty and depth compared to which the beauty of the animate world is mere shadow. Anyone who has experienced that resonance of spirit called joy in the grasping of a profound truth knows this. So does the one who has known the exquisite torture of love. It is a world whose beauty is achieved, as in the world around us, by transcending mere liberty. The passion for being throbs here, too, but here it takes the form of will or love. It is an intellectual power, therefore free, which consciously reaches for perfection.

Our ordinary experience is full of examples of the transcending of liberty in the interest of achieving maturity. When a man goes shopping for a stereo, he immerses himself in the vast variety that the market provides. By a process of elimination and decision, he chooses one. Before decision, he is in a state of liberty. Decision terminates that state. A similar thing happens when a man chooses a career or a vocation or a wife. Liberty matures into decision. The very word decision means "cutting off." One thinks of "pruning." Much cutting off is done in the journey to mature perfection. The alternative would be a sick dilettantish immaturity.

The pruning knife of decision is not wielded wildly in the life of consciousness. There is a law which guides it. It is a law written at the very deepest level of our being. The law of our physical being is written in the DNA. At the single-cell stage of our life, that law is fully written. Our biological life is a process in which we become what we already are.

Evidence of Transcendent Principle

Could it be that there is in us, from the beginning, a level of identity, a governing spiritual principle, which the DNA but manifests in time/space? Evidence for the existence of this transcendent principle of spiritual identity is available. Reflect on your own past. Remember when you were five. You were smaller then, different in many ways—but you were you! Your years have changed you in many ways, but your fundamental identity remains inviolate. Beyond time and space God spoke your name and you came into existence, in your perfect uniqueness. Your spatio-temporal experience began. You formed a body so that mind and will could grasp the world and yourself. Following the impulse which comes from God's creative act, you will prune and grow until, in quiet moments when the noise of the world is stilled, you will hear faint echoes of God's voice as He speaks your name. Then you will experience the "freedom of the children of God."

The historic life of man is rightly called a project. One might think of it as a projectile, a modern target-seeking missile. With built-in radar it seeks its target, who is God. This is expressed beautifully by St. Augustine when he says: "Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts will never rest until they rest in Thee."

Man does not select the goal of his strivings. He is made to walk the paths of truth and goodness which lead to God. Even if he is trapped in something other than God, it will be because he is persuaded that, for the moment at least, the trap is somehow good. St. Thomas says that the will chooses evil only sub specie boni, because it mistakes it for good or dresses it up as good.

It is only when God is being sought and means that lead to Him are being chosen that man's being resonates with the perfection of freedom, freedom that will be complete when we see God in the face and all liberty ends. Through real freedom, all the discordant and centrifugal elements of one's nature are brought together in harmony, as the idiosyncratic natures of the orchestra's instruments are united to sing the symphony. It takes much discipline and love, and obedience—and pruning!

The beauty and discipline of art and poetry are admirable in themselves; so are the courage of the hero and the self-abandonment of the martyr. All are admirable in themselves. Yet, they are but copies. They are copies of the Victim Christ Who cast aside all liberty so that He could sing His song of freedom and love: "Father, into Thy hands I give my spirit."

The purpose of this brief essay is to raise the problem of liberty and freedom in the mind of the reader. It seems that there is a very real difference in the meaning of the words. While liberty is necessary in human behavior, its necessity is precisely that of an atmosphere in which freedom can grow. Liberty is for freedom and reaches its maturity in freedom's transcending action. Like the Baptist, it must decrease while freedom increases. Its perfection is achieved in its death, when God is grasped with perfect freedom in the Beatific Vision.

With the genius of the poet, Francis Thompson has summed it all up in two lines:

Hardest servitude has he that's jailed in arrogant liberty
And freedom, spacious and unflawed, who is walled about with God.

"Ode to the English Martyrs"

---

Orignially published in The Linacre Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 4, November 1979

Vision

April 24, 2005

Vision

The mind is the eye of the soul. Like the lens of the camera, it can focus on the very near or the infinite. St. Thomas teaches that the mind is "capax infiniti"—capable of reaching the Infinite. In this he was translating the words of Aristotle. He was expressing a fundamental principle of the philosophy of the West.

Led by the Vienna School of Logical Positivism, the West has largely lost the conviction that the mind reaches for the Infinite. Knowledge is now confined to what the scientist discovers by his methodology. All else is faith or dream. Positivism, in fact, insists that nothing beyond the reach of science exists—a position that cannot be established by Positivism's limited methodology!

To place limits arbitrarily on the power of the mind is evil. It is evil because it limits man to the mere making and using of things, no matter how impressive this achievement. It is evil especially because it is itself a fabrication, a lie. Like all logical fabrications, it diminishes the significance of the person.

It is not a meaningless and casual thing that each of us is, visually, the center of the universe. It is the first great symbol that catches the attention of the mind. For man, as man, not as rich or genius or powerful, but as man, is the center of the universe and if he is not, it has no center. Nothing else suffices. He alone can grasp with his mind the totality of the universe, while he looks for something worthy of his full attention.

The above lines were written before the Holy Father's death. Let them stand. They serve as an introduction to what I now wish to express.

The world-wide response to the Holy Father's death gives evidence of a world-wide recognition that he was an extraordinarily complete man. That he loved his fellow human beings has become a refrain among commentators. I approve of that refrain if it is seen against the background of what Agathon says of Socrates in Plato's symposium: that Socrates is the greatest lover because he was wise, just, brave and chaste, i.e., that he has mastered the great Cardinal Virtues of Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance.

St. Thomas' anthropology, as expressed in the second part of the second volume of the Summa, can be summarized as follows: man has achieved his full maturity when he knows and loves perfectly, i.e., when mind, will and life are guided by the Theological and Cardinal Virtues.

The wisdom of the West has always rejoiced in Agathon's perceptive powers—for unaided reason can reach depths beyond measure. Thomas is cherished because he shows the heights which reach can reach, when aided by the Light of Faith. Credulity insults reason; faith enlightens it.

I am convinced that from the moment of his conception, John Paul II was destined to understand the problems of the 20th Century, to solve them and to exemplify their solution in his life. He was blessed by God and nature with exceptional intelligence, a strong will and many natural gifts. With poetic and dramatic force, he displayed from his early years a wonderful ability to plumb the depths of things and to convey his knowledge to others with bright words.

In his childhood and youth, he experienced the Mystery of the Cross. He lost his mother, his brother and his father. He was alone. Such suffering can wound or strengthen the victim. It deepened and strengthened him. There developed in him "an adamantine sense of his own self" as Robert Bolt says of Thomas More in the introduction to "A Man for all Seasons." As with More, this sense of self deepened John Paul's bond with Christ "in Whom all things Exist," and naturally flowed into its necessary consequence, namely, that every "self" has unassailable value.

The four tyrannies under whose dark shadow he lived only served to strengthen his vision of the inviolability of the person. First, he saw the savagery of Hitler who would establish a "superior race" on the dead bodies of millions; secondly, the communist regime which would establish an "Earthly Paradise" in a bath of human blood; thirdly, and perhaps most insidiously, atheistic evolution, which would reduce the existing human person to a mere momentary moiety in the production of some future superman; and finally, the reign of the pleasure principle, which reduces life to mere sensuousness, and blinds the soul to the things above. All these he saw and against them he taught and exemplified the "Splendor of the Truth."

"I die His Majesty's good servant but God's first." St. Thomas More's dying words express well the splendor of the human person. Man may serve, but he is slave to no man. His service to his fellows must not conflict with what he owes God. He is the "direct and proper effect of God's creative act," and the subject of God's special providence. He is the one for whom Christ lived among us, died and rose from the dead. Our pope frequently referred to the dual purpose of Christ's presence in our human world: to reveal to us the Father's love for us, and to reveal us to ourselves. "To which of the Angels did God say 'you are my Son, this day I have begotten you?" He said it to one of us, to the God-man Christ. Listening to Christ as He speaks of the love of the Father for us, as He does so eloquently in the discourse and prayer at the Last Supper, we are deeply moved to return love for love, unless we have become completely de-natured. If we truly listen, we will be led to understand with our mind, and to respond with strong will and so be led to live nobly, as He would have us do.

Freedom lies at the heart of our redemption by Our Lord. We are not saved by a victim helpless in the hands of his enemies. We are saved and taught by the majesty of His human mind's and will's submission to the Will of His Father. "Not my will but thine be done." "No man takes my life from me. It is I who will willingly lay it down, and I have the power to take it up again." To Peter: "Put up your sword. Do you not know that, even now, I could ask the Father and He would send twelve legions of angels?" And finally, to His Father from the Cross: "Father, into thy hands I give my Spirit." In the glorious freedom of His perfect humanity, He chooses to die and to rise for us, so that we might be able to choose and achieve freedom.

Humanity is a general term which, like many such terms, is needed because of the weakness of our minds. Humanity, strictly speaking, has existence only in the reality of the existing person. Christ did not die for humanity. He doesn’t speak to humanity. He speaks to the human person. He wishes communion with each of us directly. If you have not seen this in your reading of the Gospels, you have not really read them. His words, His actions as told in the Gospels have the quality of personal encounter. See his encounter with Nathaniel, with Peter, with tree-climbing Zachaeus, with the woman at the well, etc., etc. Even when addressing large groups, one has the impression that His eyes are looking into the eyes of each of His listeners. It is to you and to me that he speaks. It is for you and for me that He dies. We are His audience; we are the ones He would save.

"Simon, son of John, are you my friend? Lord you know all things; you know that I am your friend." In a very real way His relationship with Peter is paradigmatic. He waited for no introduction. He gave Simon a new name—part nickname, I think. He transformed a middle-aged Galilean fisherman completely—to be the Rock on which His Church would be built. He restored a youthfulness in Peter—how else explain the walking on the water? His warning and prayer enabled Peter to survive the agony of denial, and produced in him a spiritual maturity suggested, at least, in Peter's response to Our Lord's "feed my sheep": "but what of this man?" "This man" was John, scarcely twenty years old, who had stood at the foot of the Cross, and therefore more worthy of the honor bestowed on Peter. Is this not evidence in Peter of profound self knowledge, of deep unworthiness and of gigantic humility? It is wise to know Peter well.

In His encounters with all those He met, it is clear that He deals with each of us reverently, and with sublime condescension, He seeks our friendship. Surely here the special glory of the human person is found. St. Thomas says that friendship demands some sense of equality. Is it to be wondered at, then, that Our Holy Father, with his brilliance and his holiness, brought before our minds so frequently, the centrality and preeminence of the human person? With clarity he saw the implications of the Incarnation: that God so loved us that He gave us His beloved son, Who in His love gave His life for us—for each of us personally. In consequence of this Love no relativizing of the human person can in any way be justified. It is clear that the inviolability of the person is honored by God Himself. He will teach us the infinitude of His love, but He will respect our freedom to choose. He will encourage it, He will enable it, be He will not force it.

In God's dealing with Mary, Our Holy Father saw the delicacy of God's respect for us. Needing a way to slip unobtrusively into our world, He asked her for her cooperation. She consented and became Mother of God and later Queen of Heaven and Earth in her glorified state. She is the perfect expression of the glory of the human person. John Paul chose to be her devoted son. Let us imitate his wisdom.

Fr. Cornelius O’Brien

Christmas And The Circles Of Being

December 24, 2004

Christmas and the Circles of Being

The glory of the Incarnation becomes evident in Bethlehem, when God was born as man in a stable. It is the completion of the Circle of Providence: God, from Whom all things come, becomes one with man, the last of His creation. The beginning and the end are joined in the Person of the Incarnate God.

“Thee, God, I come from, to thee go,
All day long I like fountain flow”

-- Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.

Whether the Incarnation would have happened without man’s sin and his need for redemption, or not, is not important. Nothing causes God’s action but God Himself. It is the magnificence of the happening which must move us to knowledge, wonder and gratitude. It is a thing of infinite beauty, and deserves our deepest thought. Infinite Truth is infinitely beautiful.

There is another Circle of Being to consider. It concerns the Eucharist. The Incarnated God died as man, for man, on the Cross and, as man for man, rose from the dead. This is the supreme moment of Providence: when the Incarnate Son offers to His Father, through the love of the Spirit, apology for the discourtesy of His brothers and sisters. Time and space are made present in that supreme moment, through the Eucharist.

It happened thus: The night before his death Jesus reached into the dust of the universe, the humble Earth, and plucked there from its lowly products, the ear of wheat and the grape of the vine. He transformed them into Himself, making them, by the force of His Words, at once, bearers of His death and resurrection, and food and drink for our real lives. So the matter of the universe is joined in the Eucharist with the Person of the Son, Who as God and man is present in the Eucharist. The lowliest thing in creation, matter, is joined with Him from Whom all things flow. The Circle of Providence is redeemed.

It is fitting, and in a real sense, necessary that we should at Christmas remember the instrument through whose fiat the symphonic Circle of Providence was completed: the Galilean maiden who is now, body and soul, queen of Heaven and Earth, Mary our mother and model. She is sign and symbol of the nobility to which we are called.

Our wish and prayer for you and for us: May she who laid Him in the manager, and stood beneath His cross, intercede with her son for us that He may grant us the great gift to see ourselves as God sees us.

Amen Alleluia.

Fr. Cornelius O’Brien

The Mass, The Cross, The Empty Tomb

June 8, 2004

The Mass, the Cross, the Empty Tomb

Holy Week has again brought to our attention the three great events of human history: the Mass, Calvary and the Resurrection. Our deepest nature is drawn to that Great One who is the center and source of everything that matters in our lives. He is our spring. As spring fails if it does not produce the richness of summer and the harvest of the fall and, yes, the carnival of the darkness of winter, so will Christ fail if He does not produce in us the life which, through Him, we are invited to live. We must give him leave.

The Mass, the Cross, the Empty Tomb: they are not three. They are but two: for the Mass and the Cross are one. They are the cause of the empty tomb. It is most fitting therefore that Holy Week should begin with the institution of the Eucharist.

The washing of the disciples’ feet, featured on Holy Thursday, is not merely an act of sublime condescension. It is that, of course. Its deeper mean is indicated in the words of Jesus to Peter; “If I do not wash you, you will have no part with me.” The Old Testament High Priest washed the feet of the sons of Aaron when they were introduced to priestly functions in the Temple. Jesus, our High Priest, is about to ordain His priests. “Do this, in remembrance of Me.”

The splendid doctrine of the Eucharist and its associate doctrine of the ministerial priesthood are the very heart of our Catholic faith. In the Eucharist “the whole spiritual wealth of the Church is contained—namely Christ, our Paschal Lamb . . . it is the source and summit of the Christian life, and [it] lies as a causative force behind the very origin of the Church.” [Redemptionis Sacramentum 2004] We must do our best to grasp, with faith-aided minds, the profound wonder of Christ’s love for us, expressed in this gift of Himself.

Our Lord, “the Lamb of God,” chose the bread and wine of the Passover as the means of His victory over death for us, which the Passover foreshadowed. In this choice, He Who is the Promised One of the Prophets, brings to completion the Old Covenant and establishes the New and Eternal Covenant. The bread and wine of the Passover are eloquent symbols of the history of Israel.

Bread and wine have a universal symbolism—for they express our deep desire for life and our failure to achieve it. This is expressed in His words in Chapter 6 of St. John’s Gospel: “Labor not for the meat that perishes but for that which endures into life everlasting, which the Son of Man will give you.” Indeed, the meat which we eat to preserve life’s energy consumes that energy as we consume it. Shakespeare gives eloquent expression to this in one of his sonnets.

“In me thou seest the glowing of such fire;
which on the ashes of its youth doth lie;
as the death-bed on which it must expire;
consumed by that which it is nourished by.”

This eloquent bread Our Lord took into His Hands and said, “This is My Body, which will be given up for you.” Also, He took into His Hands the chalice of equally expressive wine and said, “This is the Chalice of My Blood, which will be shed for you.” With “the sword of the word” He separated Body from Blood, and lest we should miss the obvious, with words which cannot be misunderstood, He made the dreadful event of Calvary really present. The Church has always taught that His Mass and Calvary are the same event, differing only in this mode of being.

Our Lord’s choice of bread and wine, as the means of making the Sacrifice of Calvary present for us, reveals also His will to identify with our weakness and sinfulness. “He Who knew no sin became sin for us.” With His dying, then, we died with Him to weakness and sin—and with Him also we rose to life: a life so strong in Him that we lose it only if we choose.

The power which transforms our bread and wine at Mass into His Body and Blood are His words, spoken by Him, and made present to us through the instrumentality of His ministerial Priests, to who He uttered the command; “Do this in commemoration of me.”

In the presence of this great mystery, this “wondrous love,” we are all children. It is too high for our minds, and too deep for our loves. Like children, we must listen attentively and devoutly to Our Saviour’s words and observe His deeds—for if we are not like children we will not enter the Kingdom. So He has assured us. If we are attentive, we will find in the Mass a symphonic splendor and an exquisite beauty, in comparison with which Beethoven’s 9th Symphony will seem like sounding brass and clashing cymbal.

-Fr. O’Brien

The Journey

February 22, 2004

The Journey

Lent again shapes and forms the liturgy of the Church. Again, we walk with Christ as He approaches His terrible “Hour.” Again, we are asked to recognize the concise significance of His Passion for us and for the world, and to acknowledge the shocking fact of its continuing pressure.

Gibson’s disturbing movie displays the brutal nature of the Passion of the Lord – an experience physically brutal and spiritually overwhelming. It expresses, in the Person of Jesus, the horrible nature of sin. “He who knew no sin was made sin for us.” So said St. Paul, and so, inconceivably, it is.

We must not think that, for Jesus, suffering was easier to bear than it would be for us. It simply is not so. He could not benefit from ignorance of the future, as we can. His mind saw it all with dreadful clarity, and His sinless innocence made it physically more painful, for His boy was not “coarsened by sin,” to use a phrase of St. Thomas. Finally, who can imagine the great load of suffering He endured because of His knowledge of the vast numbers who would not benefit from this final expression of His Love?

As Christ walked His Way of the Cross what did He see when His eyes focused on 2004? He was much that gave him great pain: a serious attempt to reduce the purpose of life to purposeless pleasure; a serious attack upon Him and His teachings; the heart-shattering vision of some of His own priest guilty of crimes, which made the betrayal by Judas seem noble in comparison. All this He saw, and much more. Our sins were the load of the cross. They drove the nails. They were the devil’s cacophonous chorus around the saving cross.

At the foot of the cross stood Mary, His mother, her sword-pierced heart faithful still. He spoke to her. He spoke to John. He spoke to the thief who had miraculous vision. He prayed for His executioners. His plea was based on their ignorance. (Are we ignorant?) Finally, His great voice was lifted with a power and freedom which surely then should have been impossible: “Father, into Thy hands I give My Spirit.” Thus He gave for us the gift of His life. Remember: Earlier that week He had said “No one takes My Life from Me. It is I who will willingly lay it down, and I will take it up again.”

Dear ones, let us stand with the noble ones at the foot of the Cross. Young men and women, join John. Mothers join the great mother Mary. Women, join Magdalene and the other women. Men, remember the powerful thief who had miraculous vision. Somewhere inside he had the vision to see the great One beyond the suffering. So can you. So can we all.

Let us make this lent a time of conversion. Let us return to the beauty of truth and to the truth of beauty. Let us throw into the trash can all that is ugly and false. Our own nobility demands this. Our Church and our country need this. Christ needs this, for we are His hands, His feet and His voice.

Christ The King

December 14, 2003

Christ, the King
by Fr. O'Brien

The great feast of the Kingship of Christ crowns the ending of the liturgical year and prepares us for the beginning of a new year of grace. It was so ordained by Pius XI on December 11, 1925.

It is imperative that we reflect deeply on the deep significance of this feast. The word "King" itself reveals a deep meaning: its etymological root is the same as "kin." The king is kindred to his people. He is one of them. He carries in himself the identity of his people. It was not unknown, in ancient times, that the king personally fought with the leader of his peoples' enemies, and laid down his life for them. This was his "divine right" and duty.

When the title "King" is attributed to Christ - by scripture and, therefore, by the Church -- what is revealed is the great truth of the Incarnation of God. In Christ, God has taken unto Himself our human nature. God has become our kin. By His Incarnation, God has become our King in the Lord Christ. To no one else has that ancient title been applied more fully and perfectly than to Christ, our King.

St. Paul teaches, with great beauty, the doctrine of the Kingship of Christ in his letter to the Colossians: how He identifies with us, how we live because of His loving death and resurrection, and how we should respond. Please read the letter. It is brief.

The relation of kingship is personal. It is between the king and each of his subjects. It is not in any way "mediated." Even a slight knowledge of the character of Christ as He is described in the Gospels makes evident the personal quality of His style and speech. We must not miss this. It is the heart of the matter. He whose eloquence and power could have attracted and controlled millions, who could have brought the power of Rome to an end - ironically, Judas was convinced of this -- chose instead to spend thirty of His thirty-three years living the ordinary human life which we undervalue, teaching us thereby the unique lesson of the importance of personal human existence. When finally He began His public life, He spent most of it forming and directing the interior life of twelve simple men. That He failed with one of them only displays the tragic and terrible power of the individual man to go his own contrary way, even in the presence of Infinite Love.

It is obvious that the kingdom which our King wishes to build is within us. To restore in sinful man the beauty and innocence damaged by sin; to lead man away from folly to the greatness implied by his existence: it was for this that He came among us, for this He died and rose from the dead. It was for this that He established His Church, and endowed her with His authority to teach and to sanctify. It is for this that He remains with us in the Eucharist to be the powerful way -- bread of our journey.

The Gospels are full of examples of "His delight to be with the children of men," to encounter them and have discourse with them. This is evident in the delightful story of Nathaniel and the fig tree, in the encounter with Nicodemus and with the woman at Jacob's well, with Magdalene, with the woman taken in adultery, with sinners generally and even with those who chose to oppose Him. It is evident poignantly in His great sorrow over His rejection by the people of Jerusalem whom He would “have gathered as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings”-- but they refused.

His wonderfully personal approach is especially evident in the story of Peter, whom He names before being introduced, and then nicknames. He seems to pay special attention to the task of forming Peter, a middle-aged Galilean fisherman. Among many other examples we name the event of the coin in the fish's mouth, the promise of the primary and the reprimand that follows, the delightful scene of Peter walking on the water -- to the apparent delight of Jesus. There is Peter’s protestation at the Last Supper that he would lay down his life for Jesus only to be told that before cock-crow he would deny Him three times; and the cock crowed and "turning, Jesus looked at Peter, and Peter remembered," and his heart broke. There is the final scene at the lake where Peter will not dare say that he loves his risen Lord with any love greater than friendship, and his Lord finds it sufficient and bestows on Peter the "shepherding of His sheep." Then Peter shows a glorious maturity when he says: "But what of this man?" pointing to the young and faithful John, who had stood with Mary at the foot of the cross. But you must read this story for yourselves in John's Gospel and mine its gold for yourselves.

The chapters in John’s Gospel dealing with the last discourse with His apostles, and His prayer for them and us should be memorized by all of us. (see John, Chapters 13 -- 17) His love and concern for His small flock are beautifully revealed. But it is in His prayer to His Father that the completion of the Incarnation becomes clear. His becoming one of us leads to our becoming one with His Father through Him. We are included in that great prayer. Not for His apostles alone does He pray "but for those also who through their word will believe in me, that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee, that they may be one in Us." This is our destiny in Him: that we be drawn into a oneness with the Father which Our Lord compares to the oneness that exists between Him and the Father in the infinite life of the Trinity. That is the truly supernatural destiny that Jesus has intended for each of us.

Our destiny is offered, not imposed. God honors our liberty, with its dramatic responsibility to choose. St. Thomas says that God treats each of us with respect. Jesus used all His unlimited love to teach and persuade us to choose the road that leads to glory. His grace empowers us to make that choice. But we can refuse. We can choose our own road. Judas did. We must permit ourselves to be persuaded by the love of Our Lord to choose Him who is "the Way, the Truth and the Life." Two signposts mark His Way: "Repent" and "Believe." We must, with His grace, toss our sins on the refuse heap of the world's mistakes, and walk with Him the road of Virtue and Truth.

The fundamental realism of our faith is found in the Vision of Daniel, the Book of Revelation and in Christ's own words in Matthew, where Christ is seen as judge coming in divine majesty at the end of history, to show, as His final act of Love, that He honors our choice.

Glory to Christ Our King.

The Ascension

July 4, 2003

A word from your Pastor.

The splendor of the Ascension and of the descent of the Holy Spirit have shone upon us since my last electronic note. They must not pass unnoticed. To let them slip by without reflection would impoverish us.

"Where the Head has gone, there will the body go." So says St. Paul. And so it is. Christ came to reveal to us the love of the Father, and to reveal us to ourselves. He speaks with wonderful eloquence of the the Father's love in the last supper discourse to his apostles, and even more beautifully, in His prayer for them and us. Our minds and memories should be filled and deeply influenced by both. Chapters 13 through 17 of St. John's Gospel should be read by us frequently; should, indeed, be memorized.

His revelation of us to ourselves is only seemingly less obvious. "For, to which of the angels did God say 'you are my son; this day I have begotten you'?" [Hebrews 1:5] But He said it to one of us. In the Incarnation, the Word became man and dwelt among us. Our Lord Christ lives our human life. He reveals the hidden splendor of human existence. For thirty years the boy and man in Nazareth was to his neighbors indistinguishable from the other local lads. When He began his public life his neighbors were amazed. "Is this not Joseph's son?"

That Jesus loved the quiet life at Nazareth is, I think, revealed by His response to His mother at Cana. When informed by her of the need for wine, He said "Woman, what is that to me or to thee? My Hour has not yet come." At first glance, the response seems rather harsh, or, at least, impolite. This cannot be true. Is it possible that He is expressing real human regret that the end of the quiet life is about to occur, the life that He loves? The water will become wine, and the wine will become blood, and the Blood will flow on the Hill of the Skull. His own people will follow Him, will want to make Him King, and will cry for His Blood. For the first time, He speaks of His "Hour." He will speak of it again, many times. of course, He sees all this. Perhaps even His Mother suspects it.

His real response? He provides, it is estimated, 168 gallons of the best wine they ever tasted to people incapable of appreciating it, because their ability was dulled by the consumption of inferior stuff. Oh, indeed, in many ways, He reveals us to ourselves.

Through Christ, the good wine is ever within our reach. The wretched reality of our times is that many prefer the inferior stuff. Because of the love He has for us, and because of what He had in mind when He brought us into being, He is deeply saddened by our poor taste. "How often would I have gathered your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings." He said it over Jerusalem. He said it with tears.

Though saddened by our betrayal, He is not overcome by it. His purpose is to show us the glory to which we are called. So He goes His mysterious "Way," seemingly to failure, to death. Yes, to death; but really to the death of death's power over us. Life and death are engaged in mortal combat on the Hill of the Skull, and life is victorious. The brutalized Body on the Cross breaks free from death on Easter Sunday and ascends to our Father and His on the day of Ascension. The lordship of death over us is broken and with it all that leads to death: sin in all its hideous manifestations.

"Where the Head has gone, there will the body go."

It is not to be wondered at that the culture of death, so frequently mentioned by our Holy Father, is brought about by the rejection of Christ, our light and life.

Choose LIFE.

Pentecost will be our next subject.

- Fr. O'Brien