Preview: Saint Thomas More on Devotion to the Body of Christ

As promised, we'll continue our discussion of Saint Thomas More's Treatise to Receive the Blessed Body of Our Lord on Monday, October 17 on the Son Rise Morning Show. 

We'll pick up where we left off last Monday after St. Thomas More urges his readers not to be discouraged: And verily it is hard but, that, this point deeply rooted in our breasts, should set all our hearts in a fervour of devotion toward the worthy receiving of that Blessed Body.

So I'll be on about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern in the last segment of the second EWTN hour (there's a local hour after that just on Sacred Heart Radio). You may listen live here.

Thomas More, who'd been serving a monarch for several years and knew about Court etiquette, etc., uses an example from life in Tudor England as a comparison to receiving Holy Communion:

But now having the full faith of this point fastly grounded in our heart, that the thing which we receive is the very Blessed Body of Christ, I trust there shall not greatly need any great information further to teach us, or any great exhortation further to stir and excite us, with all humble manner and reverent behaviour to receive Him. For if we will but consider, if there were a great worldly prince, which for special favour that he bare us, would come visit us in our own house, what a business we would then make, and what a work it would be for us to see that our house were trimmed up in every point to the best of our possible power, and everything so provided and ordered, that he should by his honourable receiving perceive what affection we bear him, and in what high estimation we have him. We should soon see by the comparing of that worldly prince and this Heavenly Prince together (between which twain is far less comparison than is between a man and a mouse), inform and teach ourself with how lowly, how tender loving heart, how reverent humble manner we should endeavour ourself to receive this glorious, heavenly King, the King of Kings, Almighty God Himself, that so lovingly doth vouchsafe to enter, not only into our house (to which the noble man Centurion [ac]knowledged himself unworthy), but His Precious Body into our vile wretched carcass, and His Holy Spirit into our poor simple soul.

Part of the ground of More's comparison is that if you know how to prepare and are ready, willing, and able to welcome a human prince to your house, you should know how to prepare and be ready, willing, and able to welcome the High Prince of Heaven to your body and soul. (It's interesting to note that More compares behavior when entering the presence of a prince or monarch or other authority to how we pray when entering God's Presence in The Sadness of Christ, noting that we wouldn't be distracted or inattentive in the first situation--so why are we in the second?)

We would use the same metaphor now--would you go meet the President of the United States of America wearing the same clothing you wear to mow the lawn? would you be distracted and inattentive when he spoke to you? Probably not. Then, if you do so such things when you go to Mass, why?

His Gospel--and Liturgical reference--also drives his message home: The Centurion's words from Matthew 8:8 ("Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof: but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed.") have become our prayer before receiving Holy Communion: "Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed."

Once we admit our unworthiness, we rely upon God to make us worthy, as only He can.

More continues, comparing all that God has done for us to the little we can do in return:

What diligence can here suffice us? What solicitude can we think here enough against the coming of this Almighty King, coming for so special gracious favour not to put us to cost, not to spend of ours, but to enrich us of His, and, that after so manifold deadly displeasure done Him so unkindly by us, against so many of His incomparable benefits before done unto us? How would we now labour, that the house of our soul (which God were coming to rest in) should neither have any poisoned spider, or cobweb of deadly sin hanging in the roof, nor so much as a straw or a feather of any light lewd thought, that we might spy on the floor, but that we would sweep it away.

" . . .coming for so special gracious favour not to put us to cost, not to spend of ours, but to enrich us of His"--I wonder if More is thinking of line from the Roman Canon that "we, your servants and your holy people, offer to your glorious majesty, from the gifts you have given us, this pure victim, the holy victim, this spotless victim" (our current approved translation). Or as More would have read it when attending Mass: "offerimus præclaræ maiestati tuæ de tuis donis ac datis hostiam puram, hostiam sanctam, hostiam immaculatam".

All we can offer to God is what God has given us.

His metaphor of our sins as spiders, cobwebs, straws, and feathers is not to be taken lightly except that as More reminded us earlier in the Treatise, "we can (with the help of His special Grace diligently prayed for before) purge and cleanse our souls by Confession, Contrition, and Penance"!

Next Monday (October 17): More from More on the Graces we receive at Holy Communion.

Soul of Christ, be my sanctification;
Body of Christ, be my salvation;
Blood of Christ, fill all my veins;
Water of Christ’s side, wash out my stains;
Passion of Christ, my comfort be;
O good Jesu, listen to me;
In thy wounds I fain would hide,
Ne’er to be parted from Thy side;
Guard me, should the foe assail me;
Call me when my life shall fail me;
Bid me come to Thee above,
With Thy saints to sing Thy love,
World without end. Amen. (Newman's translation of the Anima Christi)

Saint Thomas More, pray for us!

Preview: St. Thomas More on Unworthy Reception of Holy Communion

We'll continue our discussion of Saint Thomas More's Treatise to Receive the Blessed Body of Our Lord on Monday, October 10 on the Son Rise Morning Show. 

By the way, check out their new website, with show notes, an archive, and other information about the program; you can even sign up to receive an email notification of who is going to discuss what every morning! And, you'll see a picture of me and my bio when I'm scheduled to be on the air (as I was yesterday, Thursday, October 6, during the repeat of my segment from Monday, October 3)!

So I'll be on about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern in the last segment of the second EWTN hour (there's a local hour after that just on Sacred Heart Radio). You may listen live here.

Last week I mentioned that St. Thomas More was allowed greater freedom during his first months of captivity in the Tower of London; he was permitted to leave his cell to go outside and might have attended Mass in the Chapel in the White Tower, named for St. John the Evangelist. (License for the photo above of the Romanesque St. John's Chapel may be found here with permission granted under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license.)

We certainly know that he is buried in the crypt of the other Royal Chapel on the grounds of the Tower of London, St. Peter ad Vincula.

We also know that in 1535, after his interrogations by Thomas Cromwell and others, the books and writing materials he had with him were taken away (although he still had his Book of Hours). This is when Sir Richard Rich famously came to his cell with two other gentlemen to collect these books and materials--and Rich supposedly led More into the trap of denying the title of Supreme Head and Governor of the Church of England to Henry VIII--an event More vehemently, adamantly denied ever occurred at his trial on July 1, 1535: "In good faith, Master Rich, I am sorrier for your perjury than for mine own peril, and you shall understand that neither I nor any man else to my knowledge ever took you to be a man of such credit in any matter of importance I or any other would at any time vouchsafe to communicate with you. . . . Can it therefore seem likely to your honorable lordships, that I would, in so weighty a cause, so unadvisedly overshoot myself as to trust Master Rich, a man of me always reputed for one of little truth, as your lordships have heard, so far above my sovereign lord the king, or any of his noble counselors, that I would unto him utter the secrets of my conscience touching the king's supremacy, the special point and only mark at my hands so long sought for?"

Anachronistically speaking, that's a "mic drop". More has at once impugned Rich's integrity and the Court's integrity for presenting his perjured testimony as evidence of the crime More is accused of committing.

But in 1534, as More was writing about the Blessed Sacrament and had his books, and pens and ink and paper, we might be surprised that he starts with the dangers of receiving Holy Communion unworthily rather than the benefits of receiving it as worthily as possible:

In remembrance and memorial whereof, He [Almighty God] disdaineth not to take for worthy such men, as wilfully make not themselves unworthy, to receive the self-same Blessed Body into their bodies, to the inestimable wealth of their Souls, and yet of His High Sovereign patience, He refuseth not to enter bodily into the vile bodies of those whose filthy minds refuse to receive Him graciously into their Souls. 

Jesus does not stop us from receiving Him Sacramentally in Holy Communion when we should not: we have the free will to ignore what our Conscience tells us. But there are consequences:

But then do such folk receive Him only Sacramentally, and not Virtually, that is to wit, they receive His very Blessed Body into theirs under the Sacramental Sign, but they receive not the thing of the Sacrament, that is to wit, the Virtue and the Effects thereof, that is to say, the Grace by which they should be lively members incorporate in Christ's Holy Mystical Body: but instead of that live Grace, they receive their Judgment and their Damnation.

Further, More warns that without repentance and Confession, the dangers increase: 

till he [the devil] finally drive him to all mischief, as he did the false traitor, Judas, that sinfully received that Holy Body, whom the devil did therefore first carry out about the traitorous death of the self-same Blessed Body of his most loving Master; which he so late so sinfully received, and within a few hours after, unto the desperate destruction of himself.

So More advises anyone who desires to receive Holy Communion to 

consider well the state of our own soul when we shall go to the Board of God, and as near as we can (with the help of His special Grace diligently prayed for before) purge and cleanse our souls by Confession, Contrition, and Penance, with full purpose of forsaking from thenceforth the proud desires of the devil, the greedy covetousness of wretched worldly wealth, and the foul affection of the filthy flesh, and being in full mind to persevere, and continue in the ways of God, and holy cleanness of Spirit . . .

We should remember that in the sixteenth century most of the laity received Holy Communion only a few times each liturgical year. Even today, the precepts of the Church require us to receive Holy Communion only once a year, during the Easter Season. In More's time, that Easter Duty may have been the only time some Catholics received Holy Communion; they attended Mass on Sundays and Holy Days, but communed infrequently, so needed to be well prepared.

When they did receive Holy Communion, More reminded his readers, as Catholics, contrary to those who were introducing Zwinglian ideas about the Eucharist in England,

. . . we firmly believe that this Blessed Sacrament is not a bare sign, or a figure, or a token of that Holy Body of Christ: but that It is in perpetual remembrance of His bitter Passion, that He suffered for us, the self-same precious Body of Christ that suffered it, by His own Almighty power and unspeakable goodness consecrated and given unto us.

Supporting this deep concern of Saint Thomas More with the state of the soul of one receiving Holy Communion is this passage from St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians:

“And therefore, if anyone eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily, he will be held to account for the Lord's body and blood. A man must examine himself first, then eat of that bread and drink of that cup; he is eating and drinking damnation to himself if he eats and drinks unworthily, not recognizing the Lord's body for what it is. That is why many of your number want strength and health, and not a few have died. If we recognized our own fault, we should not incur these judgements; as it is, the Lord judges us and chastises us, so that we may not incur, as this world incurs, damnation.” (I Cor. 11:27-32) Ronald Knox translation.

When More reads St. Paul's words, he notes that this strong warning shouldn't discourage us, but increase our devotion:

Lo, here, this Blessed Apostle well declareth that he, which in any wise unworthily receiveth this most excellent Sacrament, receiveth It unto his own damnation in that he well declareth by his evil demeanour toward It, in his unworthy receiving of It, that he discerneth It not, nor judgeth It, nor taketh It, for the very Body of our Lord, as indeed It is. And verily it is hard but, that, this point deeply rooted in our breasts, should set all our hearts in a fervour of devotion toward the worthy receiving of that Blessed Body.

Next Monday, on October 17, we'll look at why Saint Thomas More thinks this is true.

Blessed be Jesus in the most holy Sacrament of the altar!
Saint Thomas More, pray for us!

Image Credit (Public Domain): Rembrandt van Rijn (and Workshop?) (Dutch, 1606 - 1669 ), The Apostle Paul, c. 1657, oil on canvas, Widener Collection

Preview: St. Thomas More's Eucharistic Revival on the Son Rise Morning Show

On Monday, October 3, we'll start a new series on the Son Rise Morning Show in keeping with the USCCB's Eucharistic Revival program. Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim and I will discuss Saint Thomas More's Treatise to Receive the Blessed Body of Our Lord each Monday during the month of October.

I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show at my usual time: about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern time. Please listen live on EWTN Radio.

 
In a 1999 article for Catholic Answer's magazine (which I think was titled This Rock at that time), James Monti wrote about St. Thomas More's works defending the unity and the teachings of the Catholic Church. 

For example, More defended prayer for the holy souls in Purgatory in the Supplication of Souls; in his Dialogue Concerning Heresy, More defended the consistent Catholic view that the Church preceded the Bible, teaching according to the oral tradition of Jesus Christ and the Apostles, and that the Church was therefore most qualified to interpret the Bible; after all, she wrote it (the New Testament), she canonized its contents, she read it and taught it; in the same work, he defended prayer and devotion to the saints, the veneration of images and relics, the practice of pilgrimages (while acknowledging errors and superstition), and other matters--all with some good humor and patience for his interlocutor, "The Messenger". He responded directly to Luther's response to Henry VIII's Assertio Septem Sacramentorum and Tyndale's attacks on Church teaching in his own works (as the Supplication of Souls was a response to Simon Fish's Supplication of Beggars).

More wrote these apologetic works while serving King Henry VIII--foregoing sleep to study and write them at the request of the bishops, having permission from them to read the dissenters' works--and continued to write and publish them after he resigned as Henry's Lord Chancellor. 

Monti, the author of The King's Good Servant but God's First : The Life and Writings of Saint Thomas More from Ignatius Press (1997), writes in this article about More's defense of the Catholic doctrine of Holy Communion as the Real Presence of Jesus Christ, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in several works:

It is in defense of the Church’s teachings regarding the Eucharist that Thomas More writes most effusively. He would devote three whole works to the subject: Answer to a Poisoned Book, in which he develops at length St. John Chrysostom’s assertions of the Real Presence of Christ in this sacrament; Letter against Frith, a shorter treatise published at the same time as the Answer (December 1533); and A Treatise to Receive the Blessed Body of Our Lord, a devotional work regarding the worthy and fruitful reception of Holy Communion. More’s scriptural commentary A Treatise upon the Passion includes an extended apologetic exposition on the Mass and the doctrine of transubstantiation.

The first two works might have found approval by Henry VIII, who upheld orthodox Catholic teaching about the Real Presence. Henry was present at the questioning of John Lambert, burnt at the stake for heresy in 1538 (three years after More's execution) and he attainted Robert Barnes for the same denial of the Real Presence, sending him to Smithfield along with William Jerome and Thomas Gerrard to be burnt at the stake on July 30, 1540. On that same day, Blesseds Thomas Abell, Edward Powell and Richard Fetherston, who all supported Queen Catherine of Aragon and refused to swear the oaths Henry VIII demanded, were hanged, drawn, and quartered at Smithfield.

The last two works, like The Sadness of Christ and A Dialogue of Comfort, were written while More was in the Tower of London, most scholars agree. From his letters to his daughter Meg we know that More had decided to spend his time in the Tower, where he presumed he would die, meditating on the Passion of Our Lord. The order of the Tower Works written in 1534, after he'd been arrested on April 17, likely is:

1. A Treatise upon the Passion
2. A Treatise to Receive the Blessed Body of Our Lord
3. A Dialogue of Comfort
4. De Tristitia (The Sadness of Christ)

But even as he was preparing for his death by such meditations, he was still dedicated to defending the teachings of the Catholic Church against the false teachings of the sacramentarians like Frith and Lambert, etc., who denied not only the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and Transubstantiation but the Lutheran idea of a sacramental union and Consubstantiation, and held that the Blessed Sacrament was just a symbol. Garry Haupt, who edited the Yale University Press edition of A Treatise to Receive the Blessed Body of Our Lord and A Treatise upon the Passion, notes that More may have meditating on the Passion in his own preparation for death but he wrote these works to help others increase their knowledge and devotion.

In this short treatise on Holy Communion, More connects true belief in the Real Presence (doctrine) with the devotionally and spiritually effective reception of Holy Communion, as he states at the very beginning:

They receive the Blessed Body of our Lord both Sacramentally and Virtually which in due manner and worthily receive the Blessed Sacrament. When I say worthily, I mean not that any man is so good, or can be so good, that his goodness could make him of very right and reason worthy to receive into his vile, earthly body, that Holy, Blessed, Glorious Flesh and Blood of Almighty God Himself, with His Celestial Soul therein, and with the Majesty of His Eternal Godhead: but that he may prepare himself, working with the Grace of God, to stand in such a state as the incomparable goodness of God will of His liberal bounty, vouchsafe to take and accept for worthy, to receive His own inestimable, Precious Body into the body of so simple a servant.

Immediately, More's concern is that a Catholic who plans to receive Holy Communion when attending Mass has done what she can to be sure she's as well prepared as she can be. She knows that she can't be worthy by her own efforts to receive the Sacrament--as More says no one "can be so good that his goodness could make him" worthy to receive the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. He has to cooperate with the "Grace of God". 

We can't do it alone, just as we can't save ourselves just by being morally good (Pelagianism!) This is a humbling thought, but remember that St. Thomas More was a Christian humanist: he believed in the innate dignity of the human person, made in the Image and Likeness of God. He believed that men and women could be educated in knowledge and wisdom, developing and practicing the virtues. He just didn't believe that we could do it all on our own.

Such is the wonderful bounty of Almighty God that, He not only doth vouchsafe, but also doth delight, to be with men, if they prepare to receive Him with honest and clean souls, whereof He saith, "Deliciae meae esse cum filiis hominum." [My delight and pleasures are to be with the sons of men.]

More quotes Proverbs 8:31 and then goes on to demonstrate how true that statement is:

And how can we doubt, that God delighteth to be with the sons of men, when the Son of God, and very Almighty God Himself, liked not only to become the Son of Man, that is to wit, the son of Adam, the first man, but over that, in His innocent manhood, to suffer His painful Passion for the Redemption and Restitution of man.

In this brief paragraph, More aligns the Incarnation, the Paschal Mystery, and Holy Communion! No wonder he was so concerned that Catholics understand as fully as they can, the immense gift of Holy Communion, and prepared themselves, as well as they can, to receive it with forethought and preparation.

Blessed be Jesus in the most holy Sacrament of the altar!

Saint Thomas More, pray for us!

Saint Thomas More for Corpus Christi (The Body of Christ)

While he was in the Tower of London, St. Thomas More wrote a treatise on Holy Communion: To receive the Blessed Body Of Our Lord Sacramentally and Virtually both. Since my last post was about Macaulay's wonder that St. Thomas More believed in the Real Presence of Christ in Holy Communion, I thought this was good follow up. This document written by More shows how devoutly he did believe in that Presence. You can read the entire treatise here.

And, therefore, have we great cause with great dread and reverence to consider well the state of our own soul when we shall go to the Board of God, and as near as we can (with the help of His special Grace diligently prayed for before) purge and cleanse our souls by Confession, Contrition, and Penance, with full purpose of forsaking from thenceforth the proud desires of the devil, the greedy covetousness of wretched worldly wealth, and the foul affection of the filthy flesh, and being in full mind to persevere, and continue in the ways of God, and holy cleanness of Spirit: lest that, if we presume so irreverently to receive this precious Margarite, this pure Pearl, the Blessed Body of our Saviour Himself, contained in the Sacramental sign of bread, that like a sort of swine, rioting in the dirt, and wallowing in the mire, we tread it under the filthy feet of our foul affections, while we set more by them than by It, intending to walk and wallow in the puddle of foul, filthy sin; therewith, the legion of devils may get leave of Christ so to enter into us as they got leave of Him to enter into the hogs of Genezareth; and as they ran forth with them, and never stinted till they drowned them in the sea, so run on with us, (but if God of His great mercy refrain them and give us the grace to repent) and not fail to drown us in the deep sea of everlasting sorrow. . . .

We must (I say) see, that we firmly believe that this Blessed Sacrament is not a bare sign, or a figure, or a token of that Holy Body of Christ: but that It is in perpetual remembrance of His bitter Passion, that He suffered for us, the self-same precious Body of Christ that suffered it, by His own Almighty power and unspeakable goodness consecrated and given unto us.

St. Thomas More urges both careful preparation before receiving Holy Communion and prayerful gratitude and meditation after:

Now, when we have received our Lord, and have him in our body, let us not then let him alone… and get us forth about other things, and look no more unto him (for little good could he… that so would serve any guest); but let all our busyness be about him. Let us by devout prayer talk to him, by devout meditation talk with him. Let us say with the prophet, “Audiam quid loquatur in me Dominus”—“I will hear what our Lord will speak within me.” (Psalm 85:9) For surely, if we set aside all other things… and attend unto him, he will not fail with good inspirations to speak such things to us within us… as shall serve to the great spiritual comfort and profit of 30 our soul. And therefore let us with Martha provide… that all our outward busyness may be pertaining to him: in making cheer to him, and to his company for his sake; that is to wit, to poor folk—of which he taketh every one… not only for his disciple, but also as for himself. For himself saith, “Quamdiu fecistis uni de his fratribus meis minimis, mihi fecistis”—“That that you have done to one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it to myself.” (Matthew 25:40) And let us with Mary also sit in devout meditation… and hearken well what our Savior, being now our guest, will inwardly say unto us. Now have we a special time of prayer: while he that hath made us, he that hath bought us, he whom we have offended, he that shall judge us, he that shall either damn us or save us… is, of his great goodness, become our guest, and is personally present within us… and that for none other purpose but to be sued unto for pardon—and so, thereby, to save us. Let us not lose this time, therefore; suffer not this occasion to slip… which we can little tell whether ever we shall get it again… or never.

I think that for a time More was allowed to attend Mass in the Tower and perhaps he received Holy Communion a few times--but he must have known that those opportunities would probably end. There's no record of him receiving any Sacraments (Confession or Viaticum) before his execution. 

Very appropriate reading for the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, celebrated in Catholic Churches today (on some calendars it was celebrated on Thursday, June 3).

Image Credit (public domain) Thomas Morus (1478-1535), based on Hans Holbein.

This Morning: St. Thomas More and the Arrest of Jesus

Just a reminder that I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show with Matt Swaim this morning (Monday in Holy Week) to conclude our Lenten series on St. Thomas More's The Sadness of Christ. 

I've offered him several topics to discuss as he chooses: More's wonder at the transformation in Christ from His soul being "sorrowful unto death" to being the Master of the situation when Judas and the cohort arrives; his concern about his contemporaries' methods of interpreting the Holy Bible without or even opposed to the Fathers and Tradition of the Church, leading to division; More's meditation on causing another to fall and die; and finally, his magnificent meditation on the verse from St. Luke's Gospel on the hour of power and darkness.

Listen live here or on your local EWTN affiliate at about 6:50 a.m. Central, 7:50 a.m. Eastern. 

Since More describes the practice of some of his contemporaries to think they know more than the Fathers or the teaching authority of the Catholic Church to interpret scripture, you may wonder by what authority Thomas More interprets these passages from the four Gospels, if he is doing it on his own or based upon the Fathers and Tradition. This article by Travis Curtright describes More's sources, which are the Fathers via St. Thomas Aquinas and Jean Gerson's harmony of the Gospels:

Imagine Thomas More's cell in the Tower of London, what he calls his "shop," and his books, what he refers to as his "implements." In such a shop and with these tools, More produces his "goods," among which we count his De Tristitia Christi. (2) On June 12, 1535, the King's Council determines More's books shall be taken away from him. According to More's early biographer, Thomas Stapleton, More keeps his blinds drawn down day and night after that. When his jailer asks why, More replies: "Now that the goods and the implements are taken away, the shop must be closed." (3) Less than a month afterwards, More's trial and execution occurs. (4)

What are these "implements" that More values so much? We know he uses both the Catena aurea of Thomas Aquinas and John Gerson's Monotessaron as his "basic tools" for composing De Tristitia. The Catena is a compendium of exegetical comments by Church Fathers, which Aquinas compiles and condenses. His Catena aurea thereby becomes a "golden chain" of linked biblical commentary on specific sections of the gospel. The subtitle of Monotessaron is Unum ex quattuor, or "one from four," which indicates how Gerson integrates four gospels into one "harmony" by combining corresponding verses. More's obvious interest in the passion of Christ and his own imprisoned state leaves him with limited access to books and so he chooses his texts very carefully. Gary Haupt surmises that "nothing could more appropriately express More's intense concern with the unity of Christendom" than his selection of Gerson's harmony and Aquinas's collection of Church Fathers. (5) Unity among evangelists and within the tradition is symbolized in More's selection of texts and in the cause of his imprisonment.

At the end of The Sadness of Christ when St. Thomas More enters the debate among the doctors about exactly when Jesus was arrested, More chooses to disagree with Gerson and some of the other authorities:

But . . . in this one place I have departed from [Gerson] and followed those interpreters (and they too are celebrated authorities) who are persuaded by the very probable inferences from the accounts of Luke and John to adopt the opinion that only after Judas had given his kiss and returned to the cohort and the Jews, after Christ had thrown down the cohort . . ., after the ear of the high priest's servant had been cut off . . ., after all the apostles had escaped by running away . . .--only then, after all these events, did they lay hands on Jesus. (pp. 113-114)

All the quotations are from the Scepter edition of The Sadness of Christ, presenting the Yale University translation. 

Sometime after St. Thomas More wrote those words Sir Richard Rich, Sir Richard Southwell, and Master Palmer came to his cell and laid hands on his book, pens, and, and paper and took them all away. At More's trial on July 1, 1535, Rich would perjure himself, but Southwell and Palmer would not back him up when he said that More had stated the Parliament could not declare Henry VIII Supreme Head and Governor of the Church of England. 

Saint Thomas More, pray for us!

Preview: Jesus Lets the Cohort Arrest Him (More and The Gospel of John)

In our last reflection for Lent on the Monday of Holy Week, Matt Swaim and I will discuss Saint Thomas More's commentary on the arrest of Jesus in The Sadness of Christ on the Son Rise Morning Show. Listen live here or on your local EWTN affiliate at about 6:50 a.m. Central, 7:50 a.m. Eastern on Monday, March 29.

St. John the Evangelist does not describe the Agony of the Garden in his Gospel. On so many Good Fridays, I've heard a priest explain how Jesus is totally in command in St. John's Gospel. The cohort, the Sanhedrin, even Pilate are the ones on trial, not Jesus. He is the King, He carries His own cross, He bows His head (first) and then gives up His spirit. All of this fulfills His statement in John 10:17-18: "No one takes it [His life] from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again. This command I have received from my Father.”

And Jesus' control over the events begins when Judas shows up with the cohort, as St. Thomas More, citing the Gospel of John, emphasizes that Jesus stuns the cohort as they seek "Jesus of Nazareth", stating "I am he". They draw back and fall to the ground--and More presumes that since Judas, who has just betrayed Him with a kiss, is standing with the cohort, draws back and falls to the ground too.

O saving Christ, only a little while ago, you were so fearful that you lay face down in a most pitiable attitude and sweat blood as you begged your Father to take away the chalice of our passion. How is it that now, by a sudden reversal, you leap up and spring forth like a giant running his race and come forward eagerly, to meet those who seek to inflict that passion upon you?

Then he applies this seeming change to us:

Hither, hither let all hasten who are faint of heart. Here let them take firm hold of an unwavering hope when they feel themselves struck by a horror of death. For just as they share Christ's agony . . . they will also share this consolation, undoubtedly they will feel themselves helped by such consolation as Christ felt . . .

More emphasizes that Jesus surrenders Himself at the same time He demands the cohort let the Apostles go: this is not a condition or a bargain. Just as He stuns them into collapsing to the ground by saying "I am he", Jesus commands them to let the others go. Thus He fulfills His statement to the Father, "Of those you have given me, I have not lost anyone" (John 18:19). Furthermore, More states: "He Himself by His hidden power had opened up a way for their escape." (pp. 79-80)

In the midst of his discussion of how Psalm 109:8 ("May his days be few, and may another take over his ministry"; also quoted in the Acts of the Apostles 1:20) foretells Judas' death, More writes a great defense of the Fathers of the Church and the Tradition of the Church in contrast to those who try to interpret the Bible on their own:

And nevertheless nowadays, first in one place, now in another, there are springing up from day to day, almost like swarms of wasps or hornets, people who boast that they are "autodidacts" (to use St. Jerome's word) and that without the commentaries of the old doctors, they find clear, open, and easy all those things which all the ancient Fathers confessed they found quite difficult. . . . But now these modern men who have sprouted up overnight as theologians professing to know everything, not only disagree about the meaning of Scripture with all those men who led such heavenly lives, but also fail to agree among themselves concerning great dogmas of the Christian faith.

More prays that they return to "the bosom of Mother Church" so that Christians will be united "in the true faith of Christ and joined in mutual charity as true members of Christ . . . " (pp. 81-82)

Another remarkable passage occurs when More meditates on the different fates of the Apostles and of Judas: Judas, "rejoicing and exulting", thinks himself safe, not knowing what will happen to him next (his remorse and suicide) contrasted with the Apostles, in danger of arrest, but destined to survive:

In this connection I am struck by the lamentable obscurity of the miserable human condition: often we are distressed and fearful, ignorant all the while that we are quite safe; often, on the other hand, we act as if we had not a care in the world, unaware that the death-dealing sword hangs over our heads.

Again, it's hard not to see More's own predicament in his next words:

Cruel is the appetite which feeds on the misery of others. Nor is there any reason why a person should rejoice and congratulate himself on his good fortune because he has it in his power to cause another man's death . . . For though a man may send someone else to his death, he himself is sure to follow him there.

More still holds out hope for the sinner's repentance and God's answering mercy--that no one would ever imitate Judas and refuse God's grace, "but rather may eagerly accept the grace God offers us and may be restored one more to glory through penance and mercy." (pp. 83-84)

There's a very long section (from page 85 to page 95) on the Severing of Malchus' Ear in which More describes St. Peter's history of trying to prevent his Master from suffering His Passion; whether or not it's ever right to commit violence to prevent the innocent from suffering, etc, but as More himself says when commenting on all the different meanings the Fathers of the Church had seen in this event, it would make "too long an interruption in the account of the historical events." (p. 95) 

So I'm skipping over that to highlight the great soliloquy More gives Jesus to offer an exegesis on the verse from Luke's Gospel: "But this is your hour, and the power of darkness." This is a real tour-de-force:

Explaining why the authorities didn't arrest Jesus in the Temple or in any public place when he was preaching, teaching, and debating with them, He states:

It was because the time and the hour had not yet come, the hour fixed not . . . by your cleverness, but rather by the unsearchable plan of my Father, to which I too had given my consent. . . .

And so this is your hour and the power of darkness. This is the short hour allotted to you and the power granted to darkness, so that now in the dark you might do what you were not permitted to do in the daylight . . . You are in the dark when you ascribe my death to your strength . . .

But this is the hour and the brief power of darkness . . . For you yourselves create your own darkness, you put out the light . . . This is your short hour. . . .

But this hour and this power of darkness are not only given to you now against me, but such an hour and such a brief power of darkness will also be given to the governors and other caesars against other disciples of mine. And this too will truly be the power of darkness. (p. 100)

And Jesus alludes to the persecution of his disciples in the future, the suffering of martyrs--all driven by the prince of darkness, but doomed to defeat by God's power. The prince of darkness and the tyrants (Nero, Henry VIII?, and others) will succeed for awhile, but God the Almighty will destroy them in the end. Their time is short:

And so this hour of yours and this power of darkness are not long-lasting and enduring but quite as brief as the present moment to which they are limited, an instant of time always caught between a past that is gone and a future that has not arrived. Therefore, lest you should lose any of this hour of yours which is so short . . . be quick about it . . .

And Jesus again demands that the Apostles go free, while He allows the cohort to take Him.

As I did last week, I've given Matt Swaim (and you, I hope) a great deal to think about in these wonderful passages and meditations from The Sadness of Christ. Saint Thomas More, in the Tower of London, facing his own death, was still thinking about the other Catholics in England who would suffer because of the division Henry VIII and his supporters were bringing to England and the Catholic Church. While the majority had signed the oaths Henry VIII demanded, More had faith in Jesus that this hour of darkness would be brief in the eyes of God and His Providence. Therefore he was providing them with consolation and hope in the face of persecution, exile, and even death.

All the quotations are from the Scepter edition of The Sadness of Christ, presenting the Yale University translation.

This Morning: Thomas More on Angels, Bishops, and Judas

Just a reminder that I'll be on the Son Rise Morning Show with Anna Mitchell this morning to talk about St. Thomas More's The Sadness of Christ. 

I've offered her several topics to discuss as she chooses: More's interpretation of the significance of the angel comforting Christ and the blood Jesus shed like sweat in His anguish; More's excoriation of the bishops sleeping while the faithful facing so many dangers; More's eloquent litany of the mercies Jesus extended to Judas for repentance.

Listen live here or on your local EWTN affiliate at about 6:50 a.m. Central, 7:50 a.m. Eastern. 

So why do I have a picture of Newman on this post? Because as I read Michael Pakaluk's The Voice of Mary in the Gospel according to John, I discovered a Parochial and Plain Sermon by St. John Henry Newman, "A Particular Providence as Revealed in the Gospel."

In this sermon, Newman writes about the mercies Jesus showed to those He encountered depending upon their needs. Judas needed Jesus too, and as St. Thomas More commented in 1535 on all the mercies and opportunities He'd offered to Judas Iscariot, in 1835 St. John Henry Newman reminded his congregation of the"particular providence[s]" Jesus offered to His traitor:

The most winning property of our Saviour's mercy (if it is right so to speak of it), is its dependence on time and place, person and circumstance; in other words, its tender discrimination. It regards and consults for each individual as he comes before it. It is called forth by some as it is not by others, it cannot (if I may say so) manifest itself to every object alike; it has its particular shade and mode of feeling for each; and on some men it so bestows itself, as if He depended for His own happiness on their well-being. This might be illustrated, as is often done, by our Lord's tender behaviour towards Lazarus and his sisters, or His tears over Jerusalem; or by His conduct towards St. Peter, before and after his denial of him, or towards St. Thomas when he doubted, or by His love of His mother, or of St. John. But I will direct your attention rather to His treatment of the traitor Judas; both because it is not so commonly referred to, and, also, because if there was a being in the whole world whom one might suppose to be cast out of His presence as hateful and reprobate, it was he who He foresaw would betray Him. Yet we shall find that even this wretched man was followed and encompassed by His serene though solemn regard till the very hour he betrayed Him.

Judas was in darkness and hated the light, and "went to his own place;" yet he found it, not by the mere force of certain natural principles working out their inevitable results—by some unfeeling fate, which sentences the wicked to hell—but by a Judge who surveys him from head to foot, who searches him through and through, to see if there is any ray of hope, any latent spark of faith; who pleads with him again and again, and, at length abandoning him, mourns over him the while with the wounded affection of a friend rather than the severity of the Judge of the whole earth. For instance, first a startling warning a year before his trial. "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" Then, when the time was come, the lowest act of abasement towards one who was soon to betray Him, and to suffer the unquenchable fire. "He riseth from supper, and ... poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet," [John vi. 70; xiii. 4, 5.] and Judas in the number. Then a second warning at the same time, or rather a sorrowful lament spoken as if to Himself, "Ye are not all clean." Then openly, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray Me." "The Son of man goeth as it is written of Him; but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born. Then Judas, which betrayed Him, answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou hast said it." Lastly, when He was actually betrayed by him, "Friend, wherefore art thou come?" "Judas" (He addresses him by name), "betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?" [Matt. xxvi. 24, 25, 50. Luke xxii. 48.] I am not attempting to reconcile His divine foreknowledge with this special and prolonged anxiety, this personal feeling towards Judas; but wish you only to dwell upon the latter, in order to observe what is given us by the revelation of Almighty God in the Gospels, viz., an acquaintance with His providential regard for individuals, making His sun to rise on the evil as well as on the good. And, in like manner doubtless, at the last day, the wicked and impenitent shall be condemned, not in a mass, but one by one—one by one, appearing each in his own turn before the righteous Judge, standing under the full glory of His countenance, carefully weighed in the balance and found wanting, dealt with, not indeed with a weak and wavering purpose, where God's justice claims satisfaction, yet, at the same time, with all the circumstantial solicitude and awful care of one who would fain make, if He could, the fruit of His passion more numerous than it is.

This solemn reflection may be further enforced by considering our Lord's behaviour towards strangers who came to Him. Judas was His friend; but we have never seen Him. How will He look, and how does He look upon us? Let His manner in the Gospels towards the multitude of men assure us. . . .

I'm sure you noticed that 300 years separated these works.

Great minds--great saints--think alike!

What a particular providence I read Pakaluk's book while engaged in this series for the Son Rise Morning Show!

Saint Thomas More, pray for us!

Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Preview: Angels, Bishops, and Judas in "The Sadness of Christ"

On Monday, March 22, Anna Mitchell and I will continue our discussion of Saint Thomas More's The Sadness of Christ on the Son Rise Morning Show. 

Listen live here or on your local EWTN affiliate at about 6:50 a.m. Central, 7:50 a.m. Eastern.

When Saint Thomas More--who had been writing Catholic apologetics against certain Lutheran errors being introduced into England--addresses the verse from the Gospel According to Luke (22:43) describing the Angel from Heaven who came to strengthen Jesus, he brings up an objection some were raising at the time. This is an objection we Catholics still face: that we should not pray to angels and saints to intercede with us for favors from God, but always and only pray to God alone.

More's response reminds us that he was a great defender of the teachings and traditions of the Catholic Church in these early days of the Reformation, as Lutheran ideas were being imported (through books and those who'd read them) into England. Some of the good bishops in England had even given him permission to read these books to refute them. His Dialogue Concerning Heresies and Supplication of Souls are two examples of More's apologetic works. In the former, among other issues, he defended the Catholic practice of intercessory prayer to the saints and angels; in the latter, prayer for the dead and the doctrine of Purgatory. He also wrote works defending the ministerial priesthood and the Real Presence of Jesus, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in Holy Communion.

This response reminds us that in the midst of his own preparation for death, More was still concerned about the state of the Church and divisions introduced by Lutheran teachings, as his comments below about the bishops of his own time also demonstrate.

He calls these ideas that it's "futile for anyone to seek the intercession of an angel or departed saint" "pernicious nonsense" and "trivial and groundless arguments" in the face of the fact that Jesus was, as He told the Apostles and His Mother after the Resurrection, comforted by an angel in His Agony. More further points out that angels had ministered to Jesus after He conquered the devil's temptations in the wilderness. (pp. 38-39) If angels ministered and supported Jesus, why can't we ask them to help us with their prayers?

In the next section, with the heading of another verse Saint Luke's Gospel (22:44), St. Thomas More explores the meaning of Jesus sweating blood in His anguish, answering objections to those who say that some martyrs faced their deaths with greater courage, it seems, that the King of Martyrs. More responds: Jesus faced sufferings greater than any martyr because of His mental anguish: "even the presentiment of it [His Good Friday sufferings] was more bitter to Christ than such anticipation has even been to anyone else." (pp. 39-40)

Next, More takes on the third and final visit Jesus made to the disciples and notes the contrast between the sleeping disciples and the active and determined traitor, Judas. It is in this section that More sees "a clear and sharp mirror image (as it were), a sad and terrible view of what has happened through the ages . . . even to our own" especially in regard to the leadership of the Catholic Church in the sixteenth century: the bishops.

As Anna Mitchell might say, here's the 'money quote':

Why do not bishops contemplate in this scene their own somnolence? Since they have succeeded in the place of the apostles, would that they would reproduce their virtues just as eagerly as they embrace their authority and as faithfully as they display their sloth and sleepiness! For very many are sleepy and apathetic in sowing virtues among the people and maintaining the truth, while the enemies of Christ in order to sow vices and uproot the faith (that is, insofar as they can, to seize Christ and cruelly crucify Him once again) are wide awake . . .

More goes on to say that some bishops are not just asleep through sadness but are "numbed and buried in destructive desires . . . drunk with the new wine of the devil, the flesh, and the world" (p. 46)--harsh words! But remember that of all the bishops of England, only one was in the Tower of London because he refused to swear the oaths Henry VIII demanded, the former Bishop of Rochester, future cardinal and saint, John Fisher. (He'd been stripped of his title of bishop by Henry VIII; Pope Paul III gave him the title of Cardinal; Pope Pius XI proclaimed him a saint.)

From the bishops, More turns to Judas, "an apostle turned traitor", noting that Jesus had offered him "many opportunities of coming to his senses":

He did not deny him His companionship. He did not take away from him the dignity of his apostleship. He did not even take the purse-strings from him, even though he was a thief. [John 12:6; 13:29] He admitted the traitor to the fellowship of His beloved disciples at the last supper. He deigned to stoop down at the feet of the betrayer and to wash with His innocent and most sacred hands Judas' dirty feet . . . Moreover, with incomparable generosity, He gave him to eat . . . that very body of His which the betrayer had already sold . . . [and] He gave him that very blood to drink which . . . the traitor was wickedly scheming to broach and set flowing. Finally . . . Christ received him calmly and gently . . .

when Judas betrayed Him with a kiss--thus "God showed His great mercy . . ." and More concludes from this litany of mercy that we should pray for each other's renewed conversion and repentance, that God will continue to present us with opportunities "to come to [our and each other's] senses". (pp. 49-50) And More even says that if we see a Judas, a traitor, among us we should pray for his repentance and reconciliation, just as Jesus gave Judas every opportunity to return to His company and His love. 

St. Thomas More told Sir Thomas Cromwell that he prayed for Henry VIII and he wished even those who condemned him to death that they would all meet merrily in Heaven. He was praying for their repentance and reconciliation, that they should return to Jesus' company in the Church and heal the wounds of division, brought about by Henry VIII's false claim to leadership of the Church of England.

Obviously, I've given Anna Mitchell much to think about this weekend as she prepares for our discussion Monday morning! All the quotations are from the Scepter edition of The Sadness of Christ, presenting the Yale University translation.

Saint Thomas More, pray for us!

Saint John Fisher, pray for us!

Saint Joseph, Terror of Demons, pray for us!

This Morning: Sleeping Apostles on the Son Rise Morning Show

Just a reminder that I'll be on the Son Rise Morning with Matt Swaim this morning to talk about St. Thomas More's The Sadness of Christ. The theme of sleepiness may all too appropriate for the early risers on the Son Rise Morning Show. I've named today "Spring Ahead Monday", celebrated with coffee, lots of coffee!

Listen live here or on your local EWTN affiliate at about 6:50 a.m. Central, 7:50 a.m. Eastern. 

We certainly won't have time for this during our short segment, but Thomas More pauses in his comments about sleepiness and inattentiveness in prayer--not just by Peter, James and John--among his contemporaries (and now us) in the midst of his explication of the story of Jesus's Agony in the Garden.

He admits that he's been rather hard on his fellow Catholics, "attacking that sort of prayer in which the mind is not attentive but wandering and distracted among many ideas" and then proposes "an emollient from [Jean/John] Gerson to alleviate this sort point, lest [he] seem to be like a harsh surgeon touching this common sore too roughly," and even making the reader feel hopeless about her ability to pray without distraction. (p. 56)

John Gerson (1363–1429) was chancellor of the University of Paris, a defender of St. Joan of Arc's innocence after her execution, and a promoter of devotion to St. Joseph. He worked hard to destroy the Great Schism of 1378 (with the competing anti-popes) and was known as the Doctor Consolatorius--like More's good friend John Colet, he did not use the scholastic method of exploring theological themes, but wrote more simply and directly.

More tells his readers that in Prayer and Its Value (De Oratione et ejus Valore) Gerson says there are three aspects to prayer: the act of praying, the virtue of praying, and the habit of praying. Using the example of a pilgrim on the way from France to Compostela, Gerson says that the pilgrim starts out with the act: being a prayerful pilgrim, devoted to Saint James, and meditating on the saint. He develops this virtue of praying throughout his pilgrimage, but sometimes he gets distracted, perhaps by the practical matters of blisters, rain, and other troubles. He's still on pilgrimage; he's still enduring all the trials and dangers of the journey, because it's become a habit. So the pilgrim just needs to persevere on the pilgrim trail, devote himself again to meditating on the saint to continue the act of praying, its virtues and his good habit. Only if he decides to break off his pilgrimage, go home, and decide never to complete it will he forfeit the benefits of the pilgrimage.

As More concludes, Gerson says it's same with prayer: "once it has been begun attentively it can never afterwards be so interrupted that the virtue of the first intention does not remain and persist continuously--that is, either actually or habitually--so long as it is not relinquished by making a decision to stop not cut off by turning away to mortal sin."

Thus More, calling Jean Gerson "the most learned and virtuous man" offers some respite to his readers, as long as they don't try to use this explanation as an excuse "for those who out of careless laziness make no effort to think about their prayers." (p. 58)

This emollient that More pauses to provide in the midst of his meditation on The Sadness of Christ could be a good pick me up for our mid-Lenten devotions. 

Nunc coepi! Now I begin!

Image Credit (Public Domain): Jean Gerson, 1714 Engraving By: Bernard Picart

Preview: "Simon, Are You Sleeping?"

On Monday, March 15, Matt Swaim and I will continue our discussion of St. Thomas More's "The Sadness of Christ" on the Son Rise Morning Show. 

Listen live here or on your local EWTN affiliate at about 6:50 a.m. Central, 7:50 a.m. Eastern.

As More notes, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John with Him to be closer during His Agony. More also reminds us that these three Apostles were with Jesus on Mount Tabor during the Transfiguration and at the raising of the daughter of Jairus. 

Jesus selected them to be with Him at crucial times and we know that He had selected Peter, formerly Simon, to be the leader of the Apostles and the Rock upon which He founded His Church.

Yet, these three, the Rock and the Sons of Zebedee, failed Jesus at this crucial time. 

As you may expect, St. Thomas More finds special significance to this failure, especially since they had seen Jesus in His Glory and at His most powerful, raising a little girl from the dead.

As all three Synoptic Gospels note, Jesus asks Peter, James and John to come along with Him and stay awake while He goes further away to pray, and then He comes back and finds them asleep.

Citing Matthew and Mark, More quotes this passage at the beginning of the next section: 

And He said to Peter, "Simon, are you sleeping? Could you not stay awake one hour with me? Stay awake and pray that you may not enter into temptation. For the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."

Noting how "forceful" this brief speech is, More offers another imaginary soliloquy of Jesus:

Simon, no longer Cephas [Peter/Rock], are you sleeping? . . . I singled you out by that name because of your firmness but now you show yourself to be so infirm that you cannot hold out even for an hour against the inroads of sleep.

And the soliloquy repeats the question"Simon, are you sleeping?" again and again: Jesus has honored him; Simon Peter had boasted that he would die with Jesus, that he would never betray or abandon Jesus; he should know that the betrayer is coming soon (or at least that Jesus is in danger), but "Simon, are you sleeping?" (pp. 25-27)

More notes that the rest of Jesus' actual words apply to John and James as well--and to us:

Here we are enjoined to be constant in prayer, and we are informed that prayer is not only useful but also extremely necessary--for this reason: without it, the weakness of the flesh holds us back . . . until our minds, no matter how willing to do good, are swept back into the evils of temptation. . . .

Christ tells us to stay awake [not for pleasure or play] for prayer. He tells us to pray not occasionally, but constantly. . . . He exhorts us to devote to intense prayer a large part of that very time which most of us usually devote entirely to sleep. . . . Finally our Savior tells us to pray . . . that we may not enter into temptation. (pp. 27-28)

More answers objections that some might raise to how Jesus prays three times to the Father to take the cup away from Him but will certainly do the Father's will if He must drink from the cup; how He  returns to the three Apostles three times to find them asleep and remonstrates with them, by noting that "nothing He did was done in vain". (p. 33)

It is in this context of the sleeping Apostles that More mentions their successors, the Bishops, saying that by checking on the Apostles three times and hoping to find them awake Jesus 

demonstrated His anxious concern for His disciples and also by His example gave to the future pastors of His church a solemn injunction not to allow themselves the slightest wavering, out of sadness or weariness or fear, in their diligent care of their flock but rather to conduct themselves so as to prove in actual fact that they are not so much concerned for themselves as for the welfare of their flock. (p. 33)

The Bishops should be like Jesus; in the midst of His suffering He is still vigilant over His flock, the Apostles. More will later contrast the sleeping Apostles (and their successors the Bishops of his own day) and the active and alert Judas, on his way to the Mount of Olives with a cohort to betray the Son of God with a kiss.

Saint Thomas More also devotes a few paragraphs to how we even know from the Gospels about the sadness of Christ. He declares that all these details about the prayers and the checking on the sleeping Apostles had to come from Jesus Himself. Since the three Apostles couldn't stay awake, they could not hear His prayers and they certainly did not see the blood which flowed like sweat, or the Angel who came to comfort Him. 

Therefore, More reasons, after the Resurrection, He must have given the Apostles and His Mother "a detailed account, point by point, of His human suffering". Otherwise, we would not know those details: ". . . which no one could have recounted except Christ Himself. . . . in His kindness [He] made known His own affliction . . ." for their meditation and ours. (pp. 31-32)

As we've noted before, St. Thomas More had obviously meditated often on these passages from the Gospels describing the Agony Jesus endured. He had considered the objections some readers might raise--often because of confusion about the Mystery of the Incarnation and the Person of Jesus--and considered answers to those objections. He had thought out the implications of each action and prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane in the context of the events of the Passion and in their moral and spiritual meaning and application to himself and his contemporaries. 

Saint Thomas More, pray for us!

Image credit (Public Domain): The Transfiguration (Pietro Perugino, c. 1500)

Image credit (Public Domain): The Raising of the Daughter of Jairus (William Blake)

This Morning: The Divine Person in Human Agony

Just a reminder that I'll be on the Son Rise Morning with Anna Mitchell this morning to talk about St. Thomas More's The Sadness of Christ. Listen live here or on your local EWTN affiliate at about 6:50 a.m. Central, 7:50 a.m. Eastern. 

If we have time, I'd like to highlight an aspect of More's meditation on the Agony in the Garden: he creates speeches by Jesus to explain what His actions in Gethsemane should mean to us.

For example, when More interprets Jesus's Agony in the Garden as an example for those in the Church who may be weak and fearful, advising them to persevere in spite of that weakness, he writes:

To such a person as this Christ wanted His own deed to speak out (as it were) with His own living voice: "O faint of heart, take courage and do not despair. You are afraid, you are sad . . . Trust me. I have conquered the world, and yet I suffered immeasurably more from fear, I was sadder, more afflicted . . .  follow my leadership; if you do not trust yourself, place your trust in me . . ."

This is a remarkable device for More to use as he enters "(as it were)" the mind of Christ and to speak in Our Savior's "own living voice"! More weaves phrases and images from Scripture into these speeches: "I have conquered the world" (John 16:33); "have me alone as your shepherd" (Matthew 26:31), etc. More even incorporates passages from St. Paul's letters into this speech: "I will give you together with the temptation a way out that you may be able to endure it" (1 Cor 10:13) . . . "this light and momentary burden of tribulation will prepare for you a weight of glory which is beyond all measure." (2 Cor 4:17)

St. Thomas More is certainly taking seriously St. Paul's statement to the Corinthians that "we have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor 2:16) in this passage and others that occur throughout the text.

If you want to read more than we can discuss in these brief segments,The Sadness of Christ, with an excellent introduction by Gerard Wegemer, is readily available from Scepter Publishers.