Both Lungs

Theophan the Recluse (canonized by the Russian Orthodox in 1988) was a nineteenth century monk and bishop, who largely devoted himself to composing works of spiritual instruction - and while he fuelled the appetite of his countrymen for ghostly counsel by translating and editing the Philokalia (itself a Greek anthology of Patristic mystic texts), he also issued a book concerning the spiritual combat, which, as he happily stated, he drew from the writings of none other than St Alphonsus Liguori (whom he also imitated by relinquishing his diocese in order to pray, meditate, and labour as an evangelist via the printing press). Theophan was also notable for celebrating the Divine Liturgy each and every day - even in his hermitage! To the amazement of his contemporaries, he felt it right and salutary to offer the Holy Sacrifice daily, since he approved of the Western custom in this regard.

There are many more such unexpected crossovers between East and West - for instance, in Russian seminaries the training is not done by reading from the Fathers (despite Orthodox claims that they keep ever to their pure ancient teachings), but from manuals, which (but for such matters as the procession of the Holy Ghost and other famous points of disagreement) are most comparable to neo-scholastic manuals like those of Tanquerey et al.

I was just discussing all this and much else besides with my mate Justin this afternoon (using up a lot of mobile phone credit). It is vital to adhere to the Catholicity of the Fathers, to the Orthodoxy of the Fathers, seeing that the organic development of the Church over time must ever be true to its roots: for the Faith preached by Christ, by His Apostles, by the Fathers, by the Doctors, must be one and the same - after all, St Thomas Aquinas would have been horrified at the thought that he was an innovator: he would have described himself as an expositor of Sacred Doctrine, that is, of Holy Scripture, adhering to the teachings of Fathers; recall that his Summa was for beginners, and his commentaries on Scripture and on the sentences of the Fathers as arranged by Peter Lombard were his works for the proficient.

Nowadays, the Eastern Orthodox can appear trapped in their cultural milieu, even in ethnic chauvinism; but western Catholics merely imitate the anomie of their unchurched peers, alienated from their traditional cultures. While the Orthodox (without insult to their abiding in the Faith of the first millennium) can appear pre-modern in their attitudes, too often Catholics are contaminated by the post-modern retreat from reason into fuzzy-minded indecision, relativism, and indifference grading into unbelief. Orthodoxy is the desperate need of the west: we have it in Christ's Vicar, but all too often modern Catholics are ignorant of their religion, fearing and repulsed by Rome! The West must reacquaint itself with the Fathers (as Vatican II solemnly averred). We cannot expect the Orthodox to reunite with the Catholic Church, ending the age-old schism, if we remove not the beam from our own eye: our decadence, our dissent, our laxity, our abuses of the sacred liturgy - all of which the Orthodox abhor with horror and dismay.

As John Paul II said, the Church must breathe with both lungs.

Light from the East

Patricius over at Singulare Ingenium has an excellent post describing the dismay the Orthodox feel at the modern Roman Rite, which is to them a bare, stripped-down rite too often celebrated, not at a high altar, but a trestyl trist, a Cranmer table.

If the Western Church wishes to strive to heal the terrible schism that has cut off the East these thousand years, we could begin by removing the stumbling block that is our modern threefold affliction caused by the infamous hermeutic of discontinuity and rupture: impoverished liturgy, and too many abuses with it; doctrinal and moral deviations running riot, unchecked; and a complete abandonment of the discipline of fasting. The East prides itself on maintaining the glorious worship of the Fathers, their pure doctrine and practice, and the strict ascetical disciplines of the past ages - if we are to reëstablish their admiration and their trust, ut unum sint, it will not be by displaying our poverty, confusion and decadence.

With this in mind, I note that Saturday two weeks' hence I'll be joining some friends of mine at the local Greek Orthodox church here in Launceston (served only monthly, by a priest from Hobart) for the Sacred Liturgy on its titular feast day of the Dormition of Our Lady (according to the Julian Calendar).

Well, I'm Back

My trip to Hobart and environs went well; about 630 km covered, on 53 litres of petrol!

I must say, I feel tuckered out, having visited so many good friends, then driven back home this afternoon; it is nice to put on my new slippers and settle back in my downstairs study, contemplating a quiet evening after enjoying some good roast beef...

Of course, I have acquired seven books and two CD's during my brief visit down south: I've been engrossed each night in reading through the largest of them, William Pitt the Younger, a biography by William Hague: he's someone I've long wanted to learn about.

Yesterday morning, I called on some friends in Tinderbox who were "at home" having a Twelfth Night get-together, and made the acquaintance of a pleasant High Church fellow, who confirms for me all I've heard about how the local Anglican Bishop, lower than a snake's belly, is ruining what's left of the C. of E. in Tasmania; since Keith tells me he's been reading up on the mediæval Church and on Pugin, I feel he is heading in the right direction, tho' of course we warned him that the Catholic Church has its share of philistines and empty heads...

In the afternoon, some other friends of mine welcomed me to their temporary digs, and I learnt more about the current skulduggery and schism involving the local Greek Orthodox in an intestine struggle, and even dragging the poor old Anglicans into the mess, as the party loyal to the Greek Archbishop of Australia and N.Z. is negotiating with the aforementioned Low Church Anglican Bishop to buy a famous old Anglican church from under the noses of its remnants of anguished and routed High Church parishioners: my opinion is that all denominations in Tasmania must be evil!

On a more liturgical note, I can't recall why Epiphany Matins starts immediately with the first antiphon and psalm of the First Nocturn, with no prefatory versicles, nor Invitatory, nor Venite, nor hymn - the Venite (Ps 94) does get used in the Third Nocturn, but why so?  (I wish I had one of the mediæval commentators to hand, but unfortunately the nearest copy I know of is in the Dominican Library in Melbourne.)