The question of Church authority

[sojo]

For Zhenia, in reply to your question, “On a personal note (and please don’t take this the wrong way), I have noticed that many Jews are stridently pro-abortion. My friend grieves over this, and so do I. Do you have any idea why this is? Orthodox Jews are pro-life, but as for most of the others…”

I’m no authority, but in my experience this might have to do with a totally different conception of life after death and the omnipotence of the Creator. I’m sure JR has a more educated handle on this.

But here goes - unlike Christians, Judaism does not have a firm history in the afterlife. Indeed, many Jews do not even believe in heaven. Most of my family comes from a long line of Jews that while not totally disbelieving in an afterlife, really just refused to entertain thought of it. It is a pragmatic religion centered on the here and now and leave the murky remainder up to the Creator. Growing up I asked my mother what happened when we die, did we go to heaven (influenced by my Catholic friends). She said, no, our faith doesn’t really believe in a heaven, but it would be nice. She believed that we just return to God, end of story. The Old Testament was not about heaven.

My family was very dedicated to works of charity, often to considerable sacrifice. But these mitzvahs, holy works of kindness, were pleasing to God NOW, not towards some holy accounting for how we would be treated after death. When you perform acts of kindness, you are modeling yourself after and in some tiny way joining yourself with the great Creator of all. And it was understood that was enough - no further promise of anything implied or required.

And if the Creator is all powerful and all knowing, there is no worries that a baby killed in the womb would be in any sense “wasted.” The soul would not be inbued into a baby that was going to be killed in the womb - end of story (at least for many of my relatives). So, no harm, no foul.

Finally, a long history of hardship, a lack of time spent worrying about the afterlife, and a firm dedication to keeping the Hebraic tribe - the Chosen People - alive at any cost, often throughout history through great pain, suffering and despair, has resulted in a very pragmatic culture. You do what you need to do to survive and prosper and carry on those all important tribal genes. At any cost. If you can’t afford a child, or that child would be a burden, it is “OK” to take care of that “problem.” Similarly, if you can’t have a baby, have one by your maid (Old Testament). Just very practical and all about dealing with the here and now.

Of course the orthodox Jews, who spend more time contemplating and debating the Torah have a more reasoned response and do abhor abortion. But for more modern Jews, the pragmatism remains long after the interest in what the Torah can teach us has dissolved.

Only my opinion - I’m no Hebrew scholar by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[sojo]

Sorry, I messed up that quote thingie.

 

[Zhenia]

That’s OK, sojo! Actually, I’ve studied Orthodox Judaism (long story!), and I know that they at least do believe, very firmly, in life after death. The next life is called the olam ha’ba, and the resurrection of the dead is called “techiyat ha’meitim”. In Maimonides 13 articles of faith that all Orthodox Jews recite during their daily worship, it says, “I believe with perfect faith in the resurrection of the dead, in a time and place when it shall please the Creator”. In fact a lot of Christian beliefs and practices came from Judaism (mikveh=baptism; resurrection of the dead, the afterlife, etc)

So in thinking of what you said and what I knew, it seems to me that since most modern Jews are no longer Orthodox, they have simply become secular and don’t even know that much of what Christians believe, their own faith traditionally also does!

In fact did you know that the Zohar, which is the largest part of the entire body of Jewish mystical writings known as the Kabbalah, speaks of the Godhead as being “three that are yet one”? I’ve studied the Zohar, and was very amazed to learn that ancient Judaism (that is, before the destruction of the Second Temple) believed in things very close to what Christianity does, but they changed the religion as a result of the Temple being destroyed which made animal sacrifice no longer possible.

You might be very interested in a wonderfully informative book called, “The Jewish Trinity–when rabbis believed in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit” by Yoel Natan (you can find it on Amazon.com)

 

[sojo]

Thank you Zhenia - I will check that out! Yes, many Christians don’t understand that there are many “sects” of Judaism. For example, my mother’s family absolutely abhorred the kaballah and all its teachings as forbidden, occult and evil. A boyfriend once gave me one of those “hand of God” charms and my mother was horrified.

Similarly, she was aware of that “some” Jews accept an afterlife, but that “they” were different from “us.” Most but not all my mother’s family kept kosher, so it wasn’t like they were totally secular. They just claimed that they came from Jews who predated the whole “Messiah and interest in life after death” movement that was occurring during Christ’s birth.

It is interesting how few Christians really appreciate the deep Jewish roots of most of our Catholic practices and rituals. My own mother (she is Jewish), with whom I was afraid to share that I was converting let out a very big sigh of relief after I hemmed and hawed. She said, “oh thank goodness, if you HAVE to be a Christian, at least you chose Catholicism - that’s really the closest religion to Judaism, after all.” My mom had a lot of education in the Catholic faith as my father was still practicing when they got married, and all her best friends were Catholic. She knew all the local priests and spent a good amount of money on Mass cards, LOL!

Life is funny, isn’t it?

 

[JReducation]

Do you have any idea why this is? Orthodox Jews are pro-life, but as for most of the others…"

The problem that Christians don’t understand is that our people have not reached the fullness of revelation. To the devout Jew, the idea of killing a child is repugnant. The issue has to do with the understanding regarding the implantation of the soul. In the Torah, there is no specific mention of the soul. It speaks about man and G-d. The notion of a soul developed much later, after the Torah was complete. Jews accepted it; however, there remained the question about when does a child acquire a soul. For many Jews, this does not happen until birth. Augustine struggled with this concept as well. The notion of a soul from the moment of conception was fully understood much later. It was not adopted by all Jews, because it sounded too Hellenistic.

I’m no authority, but in my experience this might have to do with a totally different conception of life after death and the omnipotence of the Creator. But here goes - unlike Christians, Judaism does not have a firm history in the afterlife. Indeed, many Jews do not even believe in heaven.

Actually, we do believe in heaven. But our people’s understanding of heaven is not as complete at the Christian understanding, because the fullness of revelation about heaven does not take place until the passion and resurrection of Jesus. Also, to the Jew, the Christian understanding of heaven sounds like an afterlife playground where everyone is having fun and doing all those things that make them perfectly happy.

Educated Christians and Muslims know this is not heaven. It’s a metaphor that we use to explain heaven to children and those who cannot grapple with the mataphysics involved in understanding heaven.

That being said, religious Jews do believe that there is an afterlife with G-d. Well . . . that’s heaven. The word is not used. What is taught is that we go back to G-d. Isn’t that heaven? Jewish theologians have always shied away from trying to explain the transcendent. There was always the fear of deviating in pagan philosophy. One has to remember the cultures that surrounded the Jewish people: Greek, Roman and Egyptians. When they ventured to explain the afterlife, they wandered off into pagan mythology. Ancient Jews were horrified a the remote possibility of contamination with the pagan Gentiles. This was a subject that was left a mystery.

Christians and Muslims feel much more comfortable with the subject for many reasons. First, it’s part of our theology. Second, we’re not threatened by pagan religions. Third, heaven is explicitly mentioned in our sacred books. Whereas in the Torah, prophets, Psalms, and other OT writings the word heaven refers to what is above us. G-d is not though of as being in heaven or on earth. God simply exists. Man comes from G-d and returns to him.

However, because this was part of Jewish theology, the incarnation, passion, and resurrection make perfect sense. Jesus reveals to us that the Father is the origin of all life. The Father breaks into human history through the Son. The Father restores to life that which was dead, through the Spirit. The first Jewish Christians saw what they had been taught. Jesus returned to G-d. But they now understood it in its fullness. In other words, they understood that we too will rise and live eternally with G-d.

My family was very dedicated to works of charity, often to considerable sacrifice. But these mitzvahs, holy works of kindness, were pleasing to God NOW, not towards some holy accounting for how we would be treated after death.

Actually, this is the basis of Christian Mysticism. Asceticism in the Christian life is based on the mitzvahs. We love because Love deserves to be loved, not because we running up points. Catholicism has never believe this. Many simple people do. Unfortunately, this confuses the heck out of non-Catholics. That’s why so many charge that we try to earn salvation through works. The truth is that our works of charity are based on the same teachings that were handed down through Judaism and brought into Christianity by the Apostles. When Jesus teaches about the final judgment, he does not tell them to score points to get into heaven. He siad, “As long as you did it for one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it for me.” He’s talking about pleasing God in the hear and now, not about accumulating points. You can’t clothe the naked and visit the sick in the next life. You do that in this life. But Jesus says that you do it for him. What he does is point out to the Jews that the mitzvahs are holy works done to him out of love for him. Those who love him, now, will not be forgotten at the last judgment. He brings to the Jewish people the rest of the story about the mitzvahs. That’s why he says that he came to fulfill the Law, not to abolish it. The law to which he refers is the law of faithfulness and love.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[sojo]

Thank you Br. JR. You explained it so much better than me.

I was always puzzled by my mother’s explanation of heaven and the afterlife. So I googled it and read and read and got more and more confused. Some Jews believe this and some believe that - there are no hard and fast teachings on heaven. For the most part… it is glossed over to the point of seeming irrelevant.

My mother’s form of Judaic belief was as you said - we die and return to God. When I asked if we would remain individual personalities and be self-aware, she said, “who knows? that is for God to know and us to find out.” I was about 12 or 13 and devastated. I had absorbed my mostly Catholic and a couple Baptist friend’s belief in an entirely different kind of “heaven.”

Cute story - when my grandmother died, I was 12 years old. My mom’s best friend was a lovely Italian Catholic who wanted to prepare our home for the returning guests after the funeral and burial. My mother gave her detailed instructions on how to serve out the “kosher” meal as best we could considering we weren’t a kosher household. My mother had purchased all the dairy foods and delicacies, and enough plastic utensils and plates not only to eat but to serve out the foods so as to keep kosher. And when we arrived back at the house, my “Auntie” Carol proudly showed us that she had correctly placed a bowl of “holy water” for the more devout, elderly relatives to do their purification after being at the burial before entering the house.

The first time I blessed myself in a holy water font after my baptism, I had a fresh memory from all those years back of that conversation. The extreme care and love my mother the Jew and her closest friends – all Catholics, showed each other over the various funerals and home preparations was quite significant to me, And the parallels between the faiths were striking.

 

[sojo]

Oops, forgot not everyone would understand. The bowl of water was not really “holy water.” It was a simple bowl of water for purifying oneself, which is a requirement for devout Jews after being exposed to a corpse at the burial. Such purification baths (full immersion for the truly Orthodox) were the forerunner of John the Baptist’s baptisms and later Christian baptisms and our modern holy water fonts as remembrance of our baptisms. What was funny was the fact that as a devout Catholic, she picked up on the symbolism and referred to the bowl of water as “holy water.”

 

[JReducation]

Thank you Br. JR. You explained it so much better than me.

I was always puzzled by my mother’s explanation of heaven and the afterlife. So I googled it and read and read and got more and more confused. Some Jews believe this and some believe that - there are no hard and fast teachings on heaven. For the most part… it is glossed over to the point of seeming irrelevant.

My mother’s form of Judaic belief was as you said - we die and return to God. When I asked if we would remain individual personalities and be self-aware, she said, “who knows? that is for God to know and us to find out.” I was about 12 or 13 and devastated. I had absorbed my mostly Catholic and a couple Baptist friend’s belief in an entirely different kind of “heaven.”

Cute story - when my grandmother died, I was 12 years old. My mom’s best friend was a lovely Italian Catholic who wanted to prepare our home for the returning guests after the funeral and burial. My mother gave her detailed instructions on how to serve out the “kosher” meal as best we could considering we weren’t a kosher household. My mother had purchased all the dairy foods and delicacies, and enough plastic utensils and plates not only to eat but to serve out the foods so as to keep kosher. And when we arrived back at the house, my “Auntie” Carol proudly showed us that she had correctly placed a bowl of “holy water” for the more devout, elderly relatives to do their purification after being at the burial before entering the house.

The first time I blessed myself in a holy water font after my baptism, I had a fresh memory from all those years back of that conversation. The extreme care and love my mother the Jew and her closest friends – all Catholics, showed each other over the various funerals and home preparations was quite significant to me, And the parallels between the faiths were striking./

That’s because they’re not parallels. The one logically leads to the other. When you have time, read the writings of Edith Stein. She’s incredible.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[JReducation]

Oops, forgot not everyone would understand. The bowl of water was not really “holy water.” It was a simple bowl of water for purifying oneself, which is a requirement for devout Jews after being exposed to a corpse at the burial. Such purification baths (full immersion for the truly Orthodox) were the forerunner of John the Baptist’s baptisms and later Christian baptisms and our modern holy water fonts as remembrance of our baptisms. What was funny was the fact that as a devout Catholic, she picked up on the symbolism and referred to the bowl of water as “holy water.”

I’m always amazed when I find a Catholic who understand the Jewish roots of Christian rituals, sybols, elements, sacraments, and sacramentals. It’s been my experience that they are very senstive, very spiritual and their very confident.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[sojo]

That’s because they’re not parallels. The one logically leads to the other. When you have time, read the writings of Edith Stein. She’s incredible.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

My bad - I mispoke! Not parallels at all, but forerunners. And there are so many! My mother as a Jew was always comfortable attending Mass as it was familiar to synagogue services. She was much less comfortable with attending say a Baptist church or an evangelical church.

Interestingly, the influence of Protestant worship services is so pervasive that some synagogues seem more Protestant in feel, as well.

 

[JReducation]

My bad - I mispoke! Not parallels at all, but forerunners. And there are so many! My mother as a Jew was always comfortable attending Mass as it was familiar to synagogue services. She was much less comfortable with attending say a Baptist church or an evangelical church.

Interestingly, the influence of Protestant worship services is so pervasive that some synagogues seem more Protestant in feel, as well.

Even though I’ve been Catholic for over 40 yrs, only a few of my relatives are Catholic. Jedaism dominates in my family. They range from devout to cultural Jews. But what I see is the same thing that you have just described, a move away from tradition, history, and law. I look as my Muslim friends and observe that Islam too is suffering the same problem. They find themselves pulled away from the basic tenets of Islam to an Islam that is highly secular, political, and at times very cruel, as we can see in terrorists. There is a history of war, invasion and conflict in Islam, which I believe has more to do with the cultures where Islam flourished than with the faith itself.

What has happened to us, monotheists, is that culture seems to be doing the driving instead of faith driving culture. This subject of Church authority or religious authority is very important, because as long as Jews, Muslims and Christians surrender to the authority of secularism we’re all in serious trouble. Faith is not in trouble and neither is G-d. Truth is unchangeable. It’s not going anywhere and it’s not going to change. We’re the ones who are doing the moving. Therefore, we’re the ones who are in trouble.

I just read an article by an Evangelical minister who is going on a tour denouncing an accord between the leadership of the World Council of Evangelical Churches and the Holy Father. I’ve seen Jews ignore Jewish leadership. We have seen it among Catholics and Muslims too. The real issue here is that modern more seem bent on taking control rather than seeking truth and letting truth be the guide. This decentralizes faith and unhinges society. At some point, in every system, there has to be an assent to authority, not because authority is wise and godly, but because authority has the right to lead toward the good and those rights are entrusted to authority by G-d.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[sojo]

Very insightful, Brother! I realize that a few things that have bothered me recently all tie into this same phenomena.

One day I saw a small gaggle of people clustered in front of the post office - leafleting or maybe doing voter registration. They had an enormous poster of President Obama with a Hitler mustache. I was really upset. It was so disrespectful. We can all have our opinion about the man’s views, but to resort to a childish prank like that shows enormous disrespect for the office of POTUS. The same people are furious if someone burns the flag, but they think nothing of defacing the leader of our country?

The other thing was the Casey Anthony trial. Agree or disagree with the particular outcome, but calling the jury “morons,” and saying the “entire” justice system is a farce, and encouraging, in some cases, vigilante justice… this is so sad. Our system of government, our civil society, relies on obeying authority, always acknowledging that sometimes the authority gets it wrong. A person of strong faith is disappointed, sad, but in the end believes that G-d has it all firmly in hand.

Now we have folks saying that unless they see the facts with their own eyes and have a chance to personally “judge” Fr. Corapi’s innocence that any decision made by his superiors or the bishop is just so much nonsense. It doesn’t count at all in their eyes. In the case of the Church authority, it is doubly damning as it belies our supposed belief that the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit. Mistakes have and will be made, sure, but in the end, all will be made right, and if we followed the Church’s authority, even if it was misguided at the time, we will not be held accountable (unless we knowingly supported an actual sin).

We have fostered so much individualism that now anyone with a 4th grade education feels entitled to be the world’s judge and jury in state, church or civil matters.

The other thing my husband often notes is the resentment towards the educated. The feeling is that a person who has studied law doesn’t really have any more right to make legal judgments than the average Joe. Likewise, who cares if you studied theology and cannon law for decades - your opinion holds no more weight than mine.

 

[JReducation]

One day I saw a small gaggle of people clustered in front of the post office - leafleting or maybe doing voter registration. They had an enormous poster of President Obama with a Hitler mustache. I was really upset. It was so disrespectful. We can all have our opinion about the man’s views, but to resort to a childish prank like that shows enormous disrespect for the office of POTUS. The same people are furious if someone burns the flag, but they think nothing of defacing the leader of our country?

This very poor judgment on the part of the individuals involved. A head of state can make mistakes and often does so. However, there are two things that must never be forgotten. First, the head of state is a human being. He or she does not forfeit human dignity when he becomes head of state. Therefore, his or her dignity is inviolable. Second, we can only judge what we can perceive with our senses. Conscience, mind and heart are not observable; therefore, we do not put people’s consciences on trial.

The other thing was the Casey Anthony trial. Agree or disagree with the particular outcome, but calling the jury “morons,” and saying the “entire” justice system is a farce, and encouraging, in some cases, vigilante justice… this is so sad. Our system of government, our civil society, relies on obeying authority, always acknowledging that sometimes the authority gets it wrong. A person of strong faith is disappointed, sad, but in the end believes that G-d has it all firmly in hand.

I think that some people made this an issue of faith. The fact is that this is not the case. The death of this child is a moral issue. That’s not in question here. Does the public have a right to judge and condemn Ms. Anthony? No. The prosecution failed to prove its case. That does not make her innocent and that’s why civil law uses the term “not guilty”. In addition, we go back to Jesus’ statement, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” Rather than promote vigilante justice, what we need to promote is a restructuring of our juridical to ensure that it complies with the moral law and with divine justice. Here is where we have a problem. As soon as you say that the civil system must comply with moral law and divine justice, the first to jump up and down and challenge this are Christians. We can’t have it both ways. We can’t have a moral society, divine justice and a legal system that excludes revealed moral truth.

Now we have folks saying that unless they see the facts with their own eyes and have a chance to personally “judge” Fr. Corapi’s innocence that any decision made by his superiors or the bishop is just so much nonsense. It doesn’t count at all in their eyes. In the case of the Church authority, it is doubly damning as it belies our supposed belief that the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit. Mistakes have and will be made, sure, but in the end, all will be made right, and if we followed the Church’s authority, even if it was misguided at the time, we will not be held accountable (unless we knowingly supported an actual sin).

My perception of this is that people are prone to make a judgment based on very little information. They knew Father’s message and they assumed that they knew the man. The truth of the matter is that a man can proclaim great truth and struggle to live according to the truth. Our preaching does not always represent our interior life. For most of us, our preaching is an expression of what our soul desires; but it does not meant that we’re there yet.

We have fostered so much individualism that now anyone with a 4th grade education feels entitled to be the world’s judge and jury in state, church or civil matters.

Our economic and political success has been misunderstood. We have interpreted it to mean that we deserve prosperity. Hence, we become entitled people. The truth of the matter is that our political and economic success is a gift that God gives us to share with the poorest of the poor. I’m always very moved by two stories, the first Passover and the multiplication of the fishes and the loaves.

The command to Moses was very clear. Each household was to prepare a lamb, but if a lamb was too much for a single family, it was to be shared. In the story of the fishes and the loaves, the young man doesn’t have very much. For all we know, that could have been his family’s meal for the next few days. However, he gives it over to feed the hungry. What are we seeing here? In both cases, the Lord calls on us to put what we have received at the disposal of our neighbor.

We have achieved certain political freedoms. But we fail to remember that these freedoms are the means that G-d gives us to do the small things that please him. Freedom does not give us the right to become our neighbor’s judge or our neighbor’s superior.

The other thing my husband often notes is the resentment towards the educated. The feeling is that a person who has studied law doesn’t really have any more right to make legal judgments than the average Joe. Likewise, who cares if you studied theology and cannon law for decades - your opinion holds no more weight than mine.

That’s because we have lost sight of the saints. Our saints were great respecters of knowledge. A few that come to mind are St. Dominic, St. Francis, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Ignatius, St. Francis de Sales, Bl. Teresa of Calcutta, and Bl. John Paul II. We need to go back and read them.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Peter_J]

What really bothers me is that some of my friends claim that what ever the “Vatican” says must be believed.

To quote a snippet from one of my favorite articles on traditional Catholicism,

TRADITIONALIST: One who challenges the novel practices and teachings of  Catholics (including bishops and priests) which appear to contradict  the prior teaching of the Church.  A traditionalist questions the  prudence of new pastoral approaches and holds the belief that those  things generally deemed objectively good or evil several decades ago  remain so today.

 "CONSERVATIVE": One who upholds and defends the current policies and  positions of the Church hierarchy regardless of their novelty. ** A  "conservative" extends the definitions of "infallibility" and  "Magisterium" to include most every action and speech of the Pope and  those Cardinals around him, but may exclude those Cardinals and bishops  outside of Rome.**  A "conservative's" opinion is also subject to change  depending on the current actions of the Holy Father.  "Conservative"  will be used it in quotation marks to avoid the misleading connotation  of being diametrically opposed to liberalism or on the far right of the  spectrum.  Also since there only exists a desire to "conserve" only  those traditions and practices of the past deemed appropriate at any  given time by the present Pope.  The quotation marks will also ensure a  proper dissociation between the actual conservatives active prior to and  during Vatican II (Ottaviani, Lefebvre, Fenton, etc.).

seattlecatholic.com/article_20011221_A_Brief_Defense_of_Traditionalism.html

 

[sojo]

Thank you for this give and take, Br. JR. It really has helped me to put so much in perspective.

And yeah, I’m a total Passover fanatic - a truly family centered, joyful but devout Passover is the closest thing I ever experienced to the transcendence of the Eucharistic celebration.

I plan to take my son to a Passover next year conducted by a Jewish ministry that serves the disabled and also has opens its door to share their celebrations with non-Jews with disabled children. (I know you are aware but for any non-Jews here, it must be understood that they are only sharing their joy and history, the Jews have no evangelical thrust at all). It is a bit unorthodox as so many children have truly serious disabilities and can’t conform to the regular ritual. But the historical basis is still there.

 

[estesbob]

That’s because they’re not parallels. The one logically leads to the other. When you have time, read the writings of Edith Stein. She’s incredible.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

Agreed. I helped start a new Parish in Texas and we were the first church in the world to take Edith Stein as our namesake. . She went from devout Jew, to atheist, to martyr and Dr of the Church . Quite a story.

“Hail Cross, Our Only Hope”
St Edith Stein

 

[JReducation]

Agreed. I helped start a new Parish in Texas and we were the first church in the world to take Edith Stein as our namesake. . She went from devout Jew, to atheist, to martyr and Dr of the Church . Quite a story.

“Hail Cross, Our Only Hope”
St Edith Stein

She’s not a Doctor of the Church, yet. I will not be surprised when it happens. She is a doctor. Her legal name is Dr. Edith Stein. She held a Doctorate in Philosophy. Like many philosophers, she became an exceptional theologian. She wrote a great deal on theology for women. She started the whole Feminist Theology Movement, which unfortunately got derailed.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[estesbob]

She’s not a Doctor of the Church, yet. I will not be surprised when it happens. She is a doctor. Her legal name is Dr. Edith Stein. She held a Doctorate in Philosophy. Like many philosophers, she became an exceptional theologian. She wrote a great deal on theology for women. She started the whole Feminist Theology Movement, which unfortunately got derailed.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

Well I knew there was Dr somehwere in her title

 

[Zhenia]

Agreed. I helped start a new Parish in Texas and we were the first church in the world to take Edith Stein as our namesake. . She went from devout Jew, to atheist, to martyr and Dr of the Church . Quite a story.

“Hail Cross, Our Only Hope”
St Edith Stein

I’m very familiar with the story of Edith Stein, but she was never a “devout Jew” by her own admission. She was an atheist.

 

[JReducation]

I’m very familiar with the story of Edith Stein, but she was never a “devout Jew” by her own admission. She was an atheist.

She does become an atheist at some point along her journey, if not a true atheist, at least an agnostic. However, I believe that she did grow up in a family of believers. In other words, she was not raised an atheist. There is every indication that her mother and sister were believers. So it would stand to reason that as a child she grew up in a home of believers.

She refers to herself as an atheist. Yet, her writings before her conversion never deny the existence of God. She goes in a different direction, more of a secular humanist and a modernist. The kind of philosopher who finds truth in reason, which actually worked to her advantage. This is what was called Actual Grace in classical Spiritual Theology.

It is in Teresa of Avila’s reasoned exposition of the way, that Edith finds God. Had someone thrown a catechism at her, she probably would have run in the opposite direction. But she met her match in Teresa. One of the beauties about Teresa is that she writes theology without without being pious. Teresa of Avila hated sentimentality in religion. She often told her nuns that they must be like men and avoid what I tend to call the “sweet” religious expressions. She did not mean for them to be harsh or aggressive. What she meant was that they were to approach God using reason, common sense, and avoiding popular piety. This strength and power of expression comes through in her writings. This would resonate with Edith who was a feminist. Teresa, like Mother Teresa in the 20th century, was a very independent thinker. She certainly caught Edith’s attention and gained her resepct and trust.

This actually works well under the heading of this thread, because Teresa of Avila wrote The Way of Perfection with authority and unapologetically. She’s not giving advice. She’s much more like Benedict, Augustine and Francis. She’s commanding. Her way of expressing herself, was more like “If you want to reach union with God, do this.” She does not make it optional. It’s either do it this way or you’ll never get there.

The Masters that came before her were very much of that same school. As humble as someone like Francis of Assisi was, when you read his rule and admonitions, you hear power and authority. These folks leaned on the authority of the Church and from that authority, they drew self-confidence to speak with authority. This was very powerful with Edit Stein. It was very different from the Church of the early 20th century.

Teresa of Avila was authoritative, but not authoritarian. She did not try to micromanage her nuns or anyone else. I think that this is what turned Edith away from religion. Religion was and still is, often communicated incorrectly. It is either too bland or too controlling. Neither are appropriate. Teresa was neither bland nor controlling. She was demanding, but very sensible and had a wonderful sense of humor that comes across in her writing.

One of my favorite people is Fr. Benedict G. He is very authoritative, but he’s also a comic. He makes fun of himself. Bl. John XXIII was also the same way. He made things happen and he also made people laugh. This is as authority should be, matter of fact, but with a smile.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF