Changing the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage is simply not up for discussion at the Synod on the Family

I am practically certain that  every priest has been asked, in some form, the question as to whether the Synod on the Family is considering "updating" the Church's doctrine of Sacramental Marriage.   

While much is being considered for the pastoral application of the doctrine of marriage, Pope Francis has made it clear that a revision of the doctrine of sacramental marriage is not only not on the agenda, it is not possible.

The recent motu proprio Mitis Iudex, sets out a revised process for the declaration of marriage nullity. Affirming that sacramental marriage is "until death do us part" the document sets out the requirement for carefully reviewing procedures dealing with civil and other marriages that do not meet the criteria for the bond of sacramental marriage. 

Reaction to Mitis Iudex has been mixed with  some welcoming it as a way of streamlining the process and removing legalism in favour of  a more pastoral way of helping couples. 

Some parties go too far if they are suggesting that the revised process for handling annulment cases curtails the  judicial process. Some have indicated that the tribunals will become a formality.  

Pope Francis has made it clear that the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage is simply not up for discussion.  The question of whether a  marriage is valid is essential to preserving the doctrine of sacramental marriage.

In light of this, the process for determining nullity must be treated with respect. If we imply that the annulment process is simply a formality then Christian anthropology is undermined along with the sacramental nature of the Church. 

Canon lawyers need to avoid this kind of misunderstanding. They must do the serious work of implementing the reforms while maintaining an open and efficient legal process with pastoral concern.

Mitis Iudex gives the outline of how the reformed process will work. It is up to the faithful working with canon lawyers to provide a pastoral yet rigorous judicial process for the good of the whole Church.  Making the system more efficient does not mean watering down the faith.

A CANADIAN THANKSGIVING REFLECTION (TRINITY 19 - 28B) Homily at STM Toronto, Oct. 11, 2015

“What shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

The rich young man in today’s Gospel wanted to know the answer to a question we all have: How are we to live now so that we may live with God forever? He sought what today’s reading from the Wisdom of Solomon calls “the spirit of wisdom” and what we may call the wisdom of the heart.

The young man learned that the wisdom he sought is not a programme of works to be completed or a list of rules to be followed or behaviours to be avoided. As Jesus tells him, observing the commandments is essential to walking the path of salvation—but it can only get us so far.

The Wisdom of God is not a precept, but a person — Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Incarnate Wisdom of God, the same Logos, the same spirit of wisdom sought by and given to Solomon.

Jesus is the Word of God spoken of in today’s Epistle. Jesus, as he reveals himself to the rich man, is God.

In Jesus we encounter Wisdom, the living and effective Word of God and just as Jesus looks at the rich young man, he looks upon each of us with love. That look of love, that loving gaze, is a personal invitation — to follow in his path of self-giving, to offer ourselves unreservedly – to follow him.

And Jesus gives us the answer. What is not possible for people, is possible for God. It is possible for Jesus. It is Jesus himself, who is God. As God with us (Emmanuel), he follows all the commandments, does the Father’s will.  Jesus himself, who is God, sacrifices himself totally— giving everything he has, even his life for us.

This self-giving love is the source of our thanksgiving, of our eucharist.

Jesus opens the floodgate of grace for us and makes our salvation possible. What Jesus did accomplishes what is not possible for any of us alone; he enables us, by grace, to carry out good works. This is our reason for thanksgiving to God, the incarnate God who is with us, for us, among us and offering eternal life for us and for others through us.

However, nothing is concealed from God’s gaze, as we hear in the Epistle. In God’s eyes, the thoughts of our hearts are exposed, and each of us must render an account of our lives. His sword of truth cuts through the lies and deceits of the world.

In order to pursue eternal life we need the attitude of Solomon, preferring Wisdom to all else, loving God more than even life on earth itself because life, and all we possess, is a gift, not to be clung to as Jesus saw the young man doing.  This choice, this love, requires a leap of faith and we will be persecuted for this faith (as we know to one degree or another having chosen the Catholic faith).

But, we trust in God’s promise—that all good things will come to us as we ask for them and as we require them, both now and forever. This is who we thank, not ourselves or fate but the incarnate Word, Jesus, who is at the source of all things.

What, then, are the “many possessions” that keep us from giving ourselves totally to God? What are we clinging to?  Are these material things, comfort zones, power, position, relationships? What will it take for us to live fully for Christ and the sake of the Gospel?

Let us pray for the wisdom to continue to walk into the kingdom of God.

The good news today is that we do not have to go away grieving like the young man. We don’t have to tune out the message Jesus challenges us with regarding out attitude towards possessions. We can embrace the gift of God’s grace with true thanksgiving.  

We cannot earn salvation on our own, anymore than a camel can pass through the eye of a needle; but Jesus has opened the path to eternal life, despite our failings, because what is impossible for us alone, is possible in and through our relationship with Jesus.

Our yearning for God is grace, what we do for God as our response is also grace, and whatever we do in co-operation with God bears fruit because of grace. That is good news indeed and is the answer to the question:

“What shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

Blessed John Henry Newman and the Synod of Bishops

Fr. John Hunwicke offers the following thoughts (excerpted) on Blessed John Henry Newman and the Synod of Bishops (bolding is mine):

Today, on this splendid Festum of Blessed John Henry Newman, I can think of no better, nor more relevant, topic for thought than our great Blessed's writings on synodical processes . .  ..

Early in 1870, Blessed John Henry received a letter from his bishop William Ullathorne about the disgraceful bullying going on at the [First] Vatican Council. He replied with words which became justly famous: "Why should an aggressive insolent faction be allowed to 'make the heart of the just to mourn, whom the Lord hath not made sorrowful?"

. . . Seven months later, on 23 July, Newman saw the Definition of papal infallibility five days after it had passed through the Conciliar Aula. He was relieved, even delighted, at its "moderation"; it afforded him no problems; but "does it come to me with the authority of an Ecumenical Council?"

Newman did not instantly accept it as such. wanted to know what the conciliar minority would do. This was important, because unanimity, at least 'moral' unanimity, was accepted as essential for the validity of a conciliar definition of doctrine. If the Fathers "allege in detail acts of violence and deceit  ... if they declare they have been kept in the dark and been practised on, then there will be the gravest reasons for determining that the Definition is not valid."

After Vatican II, Cardinal Heenan (who deserves rehabilitation; he was an Archbishop of Westminster a cut above most of them) noted (Sire pp 200-201) that "During the last two weeks of the council the fathers were called upon to cast their votes before they could possibly have studied the text and context, much less the implications, of the amendments".

Sadly, the Fathers of Vatican II, who were indeed subjected to acts of violence and deceit, kept in the dark and practised on, made no such corporate protest as would (in Blessed John Henry's view) have nullified the Council. Nor, indeed, did they make any individual protests. Even Archbishop Lefebvre's repudiations were not articulated until it became clear, well after the Council, whither the Church was being led. Let us not condemn these men; it is easy for us lesser men to be wise half a century after the event.

Not, of course, that this failure of protest mattered or matters too desperately, since Vatican II, unlike Vatican I, claimed to define no dogmas. Even less is formal repudiation a matter of crucial importance during a mere Synod of Bishops, such as the present Synod, since such bodies have no doctrinal or legislative authority whatsoever. In this respect, they are rather like the old Lambeth Conferences.

But those Lambeth Conferences played a crucial role in the downfall of the once-great Anglican Communion, because such bodies do have a moral influence in the Church, the World, and the Media . . . 

At Vatican II, the 'Rhineland Bishops', the 'Liberated Countries' (Sire), had organised themselves and their tactics even before the first moments of the Council, enabling them to execute a crude coup in its first minutes. The bulk of the Fathers floundered, disorganised, at the mercy of this aggressive insolent faction.  

But, during this last year 2015, orthodox cardinals and bishops and theologians have not made the same mistake that their predecessors made in 1962. Their voices have been heard, their pens have not been inactive . . .

Solemn High Masses: All Saints - Nov. 1 and Advent 1 - Nov. 29

St. Medard - Intercede for our friends and all in the track of hurricanes and related storms.

With the threat of bad weather related to Hurricane Joaquin, we pray for all those affected. 

Here is a prayer that you can use for this and other occasions. It is a prayer for the intercession of Saint Medard, a sixth-century bishop, preacher, and missionary (Memorial: June 8). He is the patron saint for protection from storms. 

Lord Jesus Christ, Saint Medard served as a bishop during very difficult times. His long life of spiritual leadership created a tremendous impression on the people. Because of his patronage against bad weather, we ask him to intercede during the storms of life as well as the storms in nature. Protect us and our homes. Lord, help the victims of hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural disasters. Send more helpers and multiply the supplies that are needed for their aid. You calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee; deliver us from the storms that are raging around us now.

Saint Medard, pray for us. Amen.

St. Michael and All Angels

Prayer for Saint Michael's Aid 

Feast Day: 29th September.  

Glorious St. Michael, Prince of the heavenly hosts, who standest always ready to give assistance to the people of God; who didst fight with the dragon, the old serpent, and didst cast him out of heaven, and now valiantly defendest the Church of God that the gates of hell may never prevail against her, we earnestly entreat thee to assist us also, in the painful and dangerous conflict which we must sustain against the same formidible foe. Be with us, O mighty Prince that we may courageously fight and wholly vanquish that proud spirit, whom thou hast by the Divine Power, so gloriously over-thrown, and whom our powerful King, Jesus Christ, has, in our nature, so completely overcome; to the end that having triumphed over the enemy of salvation, we may with thee and the holy angels, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, praise the clemency of God who has granted repentance and forgiveness to fallen man, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen.      

THERE WILL BE NO MARRIAGE IN HEAVEN - Augustinian Thoughts on Procreation and Same-Sex Partnerships

An interesting reflection on the nature of sacramental marriage by Dr. David Widdecombe:

For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

If there will be no marriage in heaven, then, if we knew more specifically what Jesus thought there would not be, we would know more specifically what marriage was. What do humans do that angels do not do? Or, more provocatively, what do heterosexuals do that angels do not do and what does it mean that they will one day do it no longer. 
According to St. Augustine, they will no longer procreate, although they will still have sexually differentiated bodies. This answer has several possible implications, among them the fact that procreative marriage grounded in creation has less and eschatologically grounded non-procreative sexual partnerships might have more significance after Christ than before. They are two overlapping but separate and non-identical vocations. The purpose of this paper is to explore what theological grounds there might be for such a view within Augustine's doctrine of marriage.

Before turning to his description of the goods of marriage, we should note that prior to Augustine there does not appear to have been anything like the consensus concerning the nature or spiritual value of material, non- angelic reality that there was after his time, largely on account of the widely accepted authority of his writings in the following centuries. We should briefly explore this issue since it relates to the possibility that we are now witnessing a return to an incipient Gnosticism or premature heavenly spiritualism in modern conceptions of the nuptial mystery in an otherwise estimable, though problematic, attempt to find an equality of status for same-sex partnerships.

Before Augustine there was a tendency, not shared by all early theologians but widespread enough to be a matter of concern, among Gnostics and Catholics alike to repudiate Judaism, in the one case denying the authority of the Hebrew Bible and in the other allegorizing away its material fleshly meaning. But, radicalizing the celebration of material bodily existence to be found in Justin Martyr and Tertullian, Augustine definitively expressed the ongoing historical and theologically positive role of the Jews as the incarnate fleshly people of God, as, in the words of Paula Fredriksen, 'God-given, as God-protected, and as good for the church' (Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism, 339). He underscored both the traditional, carnal Judaism of Jesus and his apostles and the continuity of Catholic sacraments with the body-oriented rites of the Old Testament. 

For Augustine an anti-docetic doctrine of incarnation and resurrection secundum carnem, according to the flesh, was related to a positive valuation of all things Jewish, including biological materiality, festivals of meat and drink, circumcision, sexual differentiation, procreation, and so forth. These basic Old Testament affirmations required him to de- materialize evil, locating it in the will rather than in the body. 'The cause of our being pressed down is not the nature and substance of the body' and consequently 'the procreation of children pertains to the glory of marriage, not to the punishment of sin' (The City of God, 14/3, 14/21).

Turning to marriage, this anti-Gnostic reluctance to embrace overly spiritualistic allegorical readings of the Old Testament led him to make five fundamental assertions about marriage, the first three of which have come down to us as definitive for the catholic tradition. First, and most important for this paper, by the time he came to write The City of God, Augustine was offering an unambiguous affirmation of the created goodness of sexual differentiation. In this he was opposed to those theologians who identified sexual differentiation with a fall from spiritual to material reality, if not in fact from an original state of androgyny. Indeed, he insisted, material sexual differentiation will still be present in the new creation and the sexual organs will be, if possible, more beautiful there than they are here. The other two dimensions are, of course, faithfulness in marriage as an antidote to the sexual disorientations that result from the introduction of evil into the world and the bond of permanence that becomes a sacrament of the union between Christ and his Church.

The other two Augustinian accents, like the first, deserve special notice in the context of my argument. In the opening paragraph to The Excellence of Marriage Augustine argues that sociality is at the heart of all human experience such that it 'has naturally the great benefit and power of friendship.' Noting that procreation is not always possible in marriage and that Jesus' presence as a wedding guest at Cana of Galilee is as important as his teaching about divorce, Augustine avers that natural sociability or companionship is one of the goods of marriage. Later in the same book, noting the pleasure involved in intercourse, Augustine follows St. Paul in allowing it where it is desired, even where there is no intention of procreation, arguing that marriage partners have a sexual duty toward one another even where one partner might prefer celibacy. Non-procreative sexual activity within marriage is not a mortal sin.

With these five Augustinian elements in mind, we may draw some tentative conclusions. What is not present in the resurrection? Procreation. Where there is no death, there is no marriage, to paraphrase St. Chrysostom. In The Excellence of Marriage Augustine makes a key move that many of his readers probably find surprising: the different circumstances of different times bear upon what is and is not good in relation to human sexuality. He implicitly divides history into four parts: creation, salvation history prior to Christ, salvation history after Christ, and the new creation. 

Procreation has a fundamental role in establishing the city of God in creation and in compensating for death during salvation history, but beginning from Christ celibacy points to a different reality that will come to fruition in the Kingdom of God. Sacrament, faithfulness, and perhaps desire (in some form - for the beauty of sexual differentiation will certainly continue, says Augustine, contrary to what we suppose his hyper spiritualist opponents might have thought), all of these remain. However, they remain only in the sense that they are fulfilled and in that sense we may suppose that for Augustine they cease to be themselves. 

They are destined finally to be realized and so to be overcome in the perfection of future bliss. Or perhaps we could say that they remain implicitly in the same way that they were implicit in creation while taking their reality fundamentally from the dynamics of salvation history. All three of these elements are more or less consistent with celibacy or other forms of human relationships like those contemplated in philosophical accounts of homosexuality. But sociality and procreation are different. Procreation, while it predates the fall, is the one original element of marriage that is not essential in the life to come, as Jesus and Paul intimate in their references to celibacy. 

Procreation is missing in the end state, as non-procreative relationships are missing in the original, while sociality binds beginning and end, fully present in both as ingredient to the meaning of human nature. Paradise then is not simply reduplicated in paradise regained; bodies remain in their male-female complementarity but procreation does not. There is a radical newness after the coming of Christ that Augustine does not hesitate to name though its implications puzzle him. Material creation and spiritual fulfillment both must receive their due.

Now if we develop a theology of the goods of homosexual unions as included in the 'revisionist' trajectory initiated both in the unambiguous affirmation of celibacy in the present and in the stated absence of procreation in the resurrection, we should have to grant that these goods are part of the new reality instituted in the coming of Christ but that they are not part of the original creation ordinance, just as we must grant that procreative marriage, although grounded in creation, is not unambiguously part of the new creation. That is, the Augustinian view necessitates an overlapping view of human sexuality, the procreative predating the non- procreative reality yet continuing into the future in its now non-procreative- sexual differentiation and, on the other hand, celibate and perhaps same-sex non-procreative relationships, anticipated in original creation-sociality but emerging into view in post-Christic salvation history, arriving upon their angelic destiny only in the final appearing of the city of God.

One of the problems with this view, however, is how to overcome the injustice, real and perceived, embedded in the fact that the waning reality of procreative marriage nevertheless, by virtue of its precedence in time, casts a shadow over non-procreative relationships - such that the status of marriage becomes a prize to be won or privilege to be denied - without an implicit Gnostic marginalization of procreation, and the sexual differentiation that makes it possible, despite its obvious necessity in this continuing realm of death. Furthermore, while justice is a fundamental Christian concern, equality is not. 'Same sex marriage on the liberal egalitarian model, whereby all difference is erased, might end up ironically being the most conservative of options' (Robert Song, Covenant and Calling: Towards a Theology of Same-Sex Relationships, Ch.5 Kindle ed.). 

Consider the inescapable logic of the male/female polarity: if the difference between attraction to the opposite sex and attraction to the same sex is a matter of indifference - if it is all the same, so to speak - then indeed sameness has triumphed over difference and we have ‘homosexualised’ our culture into a post-modern Gnosticism with its own potent spirituality. Where sexual differentiation is ignored then male same-sex relationships may in the long run smother the distinctive gifts that lesbians, transsexuals and intersex people, or heterosexual couples not wishing to have children may bring to the Church. For it does seem that some Christian gay advocates are tempted to purchase recognition at the price of an otherwise traditional conformism that comports uneasily with an earlier generation of gay activists who repudiated the bourgeois overtones of conventional church marriage. 

This conformism may also be, ironically, incapable of withstanding the renewed challenge to marriage presented by plural and incest marriage advocates, to name only two of the issues on the nearest horizon. If so, then the implicit conservatism inherent in the denial of difference will have betrayed us.

The view taken here is that there are a variety of legal remedies relating to the justice issue, including civil marriage with liturgical blessing, but that the felt need for symbolic equality should not be pursued at the cost of giving in to a possibly Gnostic repudiation of the procreative ontological reality of sexual difference. The price is too high. 

Gnosticism is seriously mistaken in its view of the created order and therefore, if procreation is lost to view as a defining good of marriage then, sooner or later, the Church will have to revisit the difference that children make under some other name than marriage. For, however it may willfully redefine marriage, the Church can do nothing to make non-procreative relationships procreative. Whatever technological innovations are brought to bear on the problem, by their very nature they will bear witness to a natural order they can only mimic and can never replace except, should pregnancy among humans become obsolete, by making parents 'among the barren so pitied in the Old Testament'. The natural order may be surmounted by technology but only upon the conditions that the natural order makes available (Oliver O'Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order, 37). Equality in the matter of procreation is not in the gift of the Church.

Therefore, while an account of the goods of same-sex relationships can be developed along Augustinian lines, without suggesting that he would himself have approved of this development, it is as impermissible to cast same-sex relations back into the prelapsarian state as it is to thrust procreative marriage forward into the future state of the Kingdom. 

The essential point of this brief sketch is that the procreative potential instantiated in sexual differentiation is a fundamental although necessarily time bound and limited ontological reality, whether we call it marriage or not, that has to be reckoned with as a matter of fact and as a matter of the utmost relevance when it comes to the understanding and care of children. 

The marriage canon should not be changed lest the Church in a moment of inadequate theological attention cast us back into a pre-Augustinian Gnosticism, our apparent appetite for bodily pleasure only a thinly veiled cover for the reproductive/technological revolt against the material conditions of our creation, an ill advised attempt to anticipate that freedom from child bearing, while desiring the gift of children, which can only be a life-giving reality in that coming kingdom where there will be no more death and where children will safely live within the embrace of Jesus. 

Attempting to ignore the crucial relevance of procreation in the Church's account of human sexuality is to ignore the only grounds on which there could ever be homosexual or any other relationships at all, the only grounds on which homosexual couples could offer their unique gift of love to adopted children, the only grounds on which there ever could be a kingdom in which it would make sense to say that celibacy and same-sex, and possibly other, unions are anticipations of the angelic like order that awaits humanity. And this would be a return to the Gnosticism that the Early Church doctrine of creation was intended to defeat. 

In that struggle the Bishop of Hippo was the most systematic and the greatest, if not the first, theologian to defend the flesh, indeed, the first and one of the very few theologians ever to have defended the flesh in order to defend the Jews, that historical people for whom procreation was and still is celebrated as the very gift and ground of existence and survival this side of the Messiah's return when, finally, marriage shall be no more because it will not be necessary. 

St. Thomas More Choristers begins new season.

STM Choristers have begun practice again. We have 10 children but would like 20 or more. 

Please share this poster with parents, families, teachers and schools.

STM Choristers will join the parish Choir to sing at the Solemn High Mass to inaugurate use of the new Ordinariate Missal on:

Sunday, November 29 

Advent 1 

4:00 p.m.

Photos from Reception following SOLEMN EVENSONG AND BENEDICTION in thanksgiving for Queen Elizabeth II

Albert Mahon (90) is a member of STM and a former cantor for Healey Willan.
He greets his new great-grandson at the reception.
Albert, a London paperboy, delivered newspapers to Buckingham Palace
before WW II  and served in HM Armed Forces during WW II,
coming to Canada following the war.

Lt. Col. the Rev. Paul Acton, the preacher at Evensong, greets Her Honour
Elizabeth Dowdeswell, L G of Ontario.

LG speaks with the Josipovic children at the reception.

Natalie Josipovic presents LG with flowers.

Novena for Boxer Bob

Bob Bozic boxing Larry Holmes in
Madison Square Garden, NYC

Our old friend, Bob Bozic, is a former street kid from Toronto who became a boxer and has worked (and fought) hard all his life. He now has a chance to inherit his family home in Serbia which was seized by the State during WW II. Under new laws in Serbia, families who have had property expropriated may apply for a legal decision to restore the land to them.

Needless to say, this has been a complex and fraught process which has been unsuccessful so far. Bob is travelling to Serbia this week one final time to ask for justice. It would mean that he could retire with a little comfort since he is now 65. 

We are asking those who will to join in a Novena with Our Lady Mary, recommended by Pope Francis -- Our Lady Undoer of Knots.

Miguel and Guadalupe, our Mexican friends, tell us that it was just after we joined in this novena for them that the log-jam in their immigration process broke and things began to come together. They arrived back in Canada last month after a three year wait. I also credit the prayers of Our Lady with getting my Mum into the Col. Belcher in Calgary.

Please join us with this simple prayer for nine days beginning today, September 14: THE EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS to Tuesday, September 22. Of course, you can add your own intentions and prayers for those "knotted" situations you are concerned about as we share in this devotion.

http://peregrinus-peregrinus.blogspot.ca/…/novena-mary-our-…

Thank you, God bless and Mary's prayers be with you.