Faith and Faithfulness

We may be unfaithful, but he is always faithful, for he cannot disown his own self.

— II Tim. ii, 13 (Jerusalem Bible)

I always give thanks for the unmerited gift of faith; I always wish I were a good deal more faithful!  I often reflect that "the devils believe, and tremble"(James ii, 19); for "faith without works is dead", as the next verse of that Epistle reminds me.  It always seems a mystery to me that "the good which I will, I do not; but the evil which I will not, that I do." (Rom. vii, 19)  Indeed, with the Apostle, I say "Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"(Rom. vii, 24) But with him I do go on at once proclaim that my deliverance is "The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord." (Rom. vii, 25)

Thanks be to God, God is so good as not only to give us the gift of divine faith by the Holy Ghost, but forgives us when we fail to be faithful – He always remains faithful, for He is God.

At this Advent season, I do turn in trust and faith to Christ, begging Him come into my life and rule: Veni, Domine Jesu.

Wedding and First Communion

The bride was stunning (as all brides are), her dress complementing her beauty (like a fool, I forgot to take a photo): how blessed John is to have Laura, and she him; and what a wonderful thing to see Mr and Mrs Macaulay united in holy wedlock before the altar, and kneeling side by side for the ensuing Solemn High Mass.  (John told me later on that friends of his unused to the Traditional Liturgy could only stammer to praise this as an "A-grade Mass"!)

I am delighted to see my old mate John make such a match: two persons of such talents, both committed Catholics, gifted by nature and grace, and deservedly praised, as they were at the reception afterwards.  As Laura is Mexican, they had the Cardinal's permission for a Votive Mass of Our Lady of Guadalupe yester-day, in anticipation of the feast.  The Irish and the Hispanic get on very well it seems...  I hope readers will join me in hearty prayers for these newly-weds, who are off on a honeymoon cruise to New Caledonia as I write.

Mass this morning at Maternal Heart Lewisham was a pleasure unexpected in one respect: for this Gaudete Sunday, nine youngsters made their First Holy Communion there.  What was notable was that there was no foolish dumbing-down of the liturgy (as too often happens in the Ordinary Form), but rather an uplifting of the children to these holy mysteries clad in such wonder and awe with a full Missa cantata.  (The choir sang the chant splendidly: the Rorate cæli at Offertory and the Tantum ergo in Corsican polyphony at Communion were real gems.)

I will not soon forget Fr Wong's sermon, especially when in its second part he addressed the first communicants in especial – for having explained that at baptism the seed of glory is planted in our souls, then holding up a white flower, he compared our souls to this, plucked off a few petals to illustrate the uglifying effect of venial sin, and, oh woe! destroyed the flower utterly to display the hateful disaster that is mortal sin.  This exhortation to live as becomes saints, flying sin, and hieing oneself to the confessional as need be, was most sobering.

An amusing point: arriving at my accommodation on Friday afternoon, I was amused to note the Great Synagogue directly opposite – then agog to read on the sign outside that my hotel, the Castlereagh, is wholly owned and operated by the Masonic Club of New South Wales!  Heavens!  Talk about conspiracy theories featuring these, ahem, minorities (other friends tell me that they have stayed there, and even prelates of the Church, so I needn't give in to crazed paranoia).

Finally, some news just in: may I congratulate another friend of mine, Justin, who has just announced his engagement to Lydia.  I pray every blessing for this impending union.

Illumina oculos meos, ne unquam obdormiam in morte

הָאִירָה עֵינַי, פֶּן-אִישַׁן הַמָּוֶת.

Φώτισον τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς μου μήποτε ὑπνώσω εἰς θάνατον.

Illumina oculos meos, ne umquam obdormiam in morte.

(Give light to mine eyes, lest I ever sleep in death.)

—Psalm 12:4b

Lord, "give light to mine eyes, lest I ever" (ne umquam) - or rather, "that I never" (ut numquam), never ever "sleep in death".  Umquam...  What does this mean?  It cannot be taken in the direct literal sense - for mortal man can hardly expect never to suffer death, let alone presume to remain alive for ever by sole reason of having light to see by!  Aquinas does, however, give a note about the literal meaning:

This literally corresponds to David fleeing from the presence of Saul, of whom he often had to beware, lest at some time he might fall into his hands and be killed. Similarly, as long as a man is conscientious in resisting sin he does not fall into death, but when he sleeps he is killed. Thus in 2 Kings (II Sam. iv,5), When Isboseth hath fallen asleep, and the handmaid was cleansing the wheat, he was killed; and Eph. 5 (v, 14), Rise thou that sleepest.

Based upon this, but questing to understand how being enlightened may preserve one from death forever, one must seek for a deeper level of signification.

Evidently one must interpret the light as not material but spiritual illumination; and "to sleep in death" must mean "to be deprived of spiritual life by reason of sin", cut off from true awareness, deprived of the state of grace by mortal sin.  Horror of horrors, it may mean to sleep in death forever, "to fall into the second death of eternal hell".

Contrariwise, if we are ever enlightened and never lost in darkness, we need not fear the second death: fear not him who slays the body, but him who slays the soul; thus, after the death which to the Christian is but to fall asleep, we will enter not into endless death but into eternal life and light.

Only if one is enlightened by God's beneficient light, with one's intellect illuminated and one's will inspired, can one avoid falling into the disastrous nightmare that is to sleep in sin.  For sleep is a time when one is unaware, unconscious, when one's reason is not in control; one's mind drifts in dreams; therefore, sleep is an apt image of sin, when one is not in charge, but enthralled to phantoms; and to sleep in death is not merely to slumber, but to be trapped in deadly sin – perhaps for ever.

Neale notes what Thomas says of Psalm 12 relative to this verse: "Christ always lightens our eyes that we should not sleep in death".

The full verse, in the Prayer Book Version (approved since the Anglican Use Book of Divine Worship was approved), reads as follows:

Consider, and hear me, O Lord my God: lighten mine eyes, that I sleep not in death. 

—Ps 13:3 (Hebrew numbering)

God indeed considers us with His all-pitying Eye of compassion, and therefore in saying "Consider", we remind ourselves of this and comfort ourselves that God will indeed hear us, He, the Lord our God.

How are eyes enlightened by God through Christ?  To ask is to answer: by Christ's Incarnation, as the Light to enlighten the Gentiles, according to Simeon's prophecy.  It is the eyes of the inner man that Christ enlightens, He, the true Light that enlighteneth every man born into this world: He illuminates the understanding and the affections, turning them from darkness to His wonderful light.

As Cassiodorus says of this, "Eyes we must here interpret as those of the heart, which sleep in death when the light of faith is buried, and they are closed through pleasure of the flesh".  By our faith, that infused supernatural intellectual virtue, we may apprehend the things of God, and come nigh unto Him, all by His grace; as is notorious, immorality destroys faith: heresy arises from moral turpitude.

If by Divine illumination we are kept awake, we may keep watch with Christ and rest with him in peace, as the Church sings at Compline-time.  We may avoid the shameful sleep of sin, and instead sleep with wakeful hearts turned Godward.  Sleep is an image of death; dying we shall die, but how we die, in what state we die, makes all the difference: to enter into eternal death, or into eternal life?  That is the question!

By God's grace we are saved, through faith.

Long ago, a prayer was composed as a thanksgiving after Mass; here is one paragraph:

O lux vera! quæ illuminas omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum, illumina oculos meos, ne umquam obdormiam in morte.

O true Light! Who enlightenest every man coming into this world, enlighten mine eyes, lest I ever sleep in death.

The Greek Liturgy turns this verse into poetry that Neale englished thus: "Lighten mine eyes, O Saviour, or sleep in death shall I".  As a metrical psalm paraphrases it, "Lest sleep of death enfold me, / Enlighten Thou mine eyes."

Illumina oculos meos, ne umquam obdormiam in morte.

The Wages of Sin

A dreadful murder case in Melbourne: a millionaire businessman, a happy husband and family man, fit and successful - yet who, it has now been revealed, was leading a double life, with another woman, and moreover had an addiction to sleazy gratification by swapping partners with other couples in seedy suburbs far removed from his comfortable home.  It appears his latest confederates in vice turned on him and killed him.

The wages of sin is death - and we must all add, There but for the grace of God go I: not (God help us) in so uniquely horrible a fashion, but in the realization that all of us suffer divided hearts, and through our own fault fall often into sin, sin in which we would die were the Lord not to preserve us to repent and get up and go on by His grace and absolution found in the sacraments of the Church.

As at Septuagesima we reflect on the Fall of Man from original justice, let us pray, for this poor fellow, for his bereaved family, for his murderers and associates, for all compassed by infirmity, and for ourselves.