Not all who wander are lost.

Even so, lest the disarray of musings on this site confound, I’ve added some hints for you, the reader, as to what you can find here. (These hints will also serve me in helping me to tidy up and discern what belongs on this site as I continue writing here). Thus, you’ll find two tables of contents below. The first table (“Contents at a Glance”) is a high-level breakdown of some main topics I write on, with each topic linking down to an entry in the second table. This second table (“Contents in Depth”) lists the articles I’ve written that fall under that topic heading. (Note that each of the posts linked will have a link back to the general contents table.)

Finally, a word as to the unifying theme of these articles. This website is intended to be a collection of answers to questions that people have about theology, philosophy, and spirituality within the Roman Catholic tradition. More specifically, I take for my starting point an outlook that people generally call “thomistic.” (Even more specifically, I give special privilege and weight in my own musings to the musings of a set of thinkers whom I group together under the label “Dominican Thomism.” I hope to give some indications of what that means in an article down the line)

Happy wandering!

Contents at a Glance

• Sacraments

Contents in Depth

Sacraments

• Does God Forgive and Forget?

Back to Contents at a Glance

A time-tested definition describes prayer as the lifting of our mind to God. We ask God for our needs, we praise his greatness, we contemplate at his goodness. In each of these (and in the other modes of prayer) our minds are caught up to the God whom we dare to meet in the most sacred and secret places of the mind.

Prayer is this meeting place of the human and the divine. Truly what we assent to by faith, we encounter in prayer. Thus another time-honored description can note that, in prayer, we look at God and God looks at us.

As the saints bear witness to so beautifully, prayer is an essential hallmark of the Christian life. The saint longs for prayer. Yet the desire to pray is really nothing less than the desire to be with God.

Whenever I’ve been asked to speak about the sacrament of reconciliation, a story inevitably comes to mind—a story that has personally inspired great confidence in God’s mercy through confession.

There was once a religious sister who was receiving revelations from God, and the bishop wanted some kind of proof that these visions were legitimate. So he told the sister to ask God what the bishop’s most recently confessed sins were. When the sister returned to the bishop, he asked, “Well? What did God tell you?” “He said he doesn’t remember,” responded the sister. Thus the bishop came to realize that the sister truly was receiving revelations from God.

Now I’ve heard this story told both about Saint Mother Teresa and Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, so it’s possible the account is fictitious. However, even if the story is made up, the point it conveys is a real one. It’s the point that Paul makes when he notes that love does not “count up wrongs" (1 Cor 13:5).

Instead of keeping tallies as to the wrongs we’ve done, the Father rushes out to us as the father to the prodigal son. This is the encounter we get to experience in the sacrament of reconciliation.

Back to Table of Contents: Sacraments

Our last two posts were explorations of faith, under the guidance of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Today, March 7th, actually marks the anniversary of his death. (In fact, this day, referred to as his “dies natalis” or “birthday” into eternal life, used to be celebrated liturgically as Saint Thomas’ feast day.) So let’s take a moment to reflect on this great teacher of the Christian faith.

One of the titles given to Saint Thomas is “Doctor Communis”—“the Common Doctor.” One reason I find this title fitting is because Saint Thomas took truth to be common.

To understand what I mean, take Saint Thomas’ discussion on why the Apostle Paul could preach with pagan ideas:

Unde Apostolus in pluribus locis recitat dicta gentilium, sicut in II [sic] Corinth., XV, 33: Corrumpunt bonos mores colloquia mala; item Act. XVII, 28: In ipso vivimus, movemur et sumus. Nec propter hoc approbatur tota eorum doctrina, sed eligitur bonum, quia verum a quocumque dicatur, est a Spiritu sancto, et respuitur malum.

---

As a result, the Apostle in many places quotes the sayings of the gentiles, as in 2 Corinthians 15:33: “Bad conversations spoil good character.” Likewise Acts 17:28: “In him we live, move, and are.” Yet not on account of this fact is the entirety of their teaching regarded acceptable, but rather the good is plucked up (since truth, by whomsoever it is spoken, is from the Holy Spirit), and the evil is spit out.

(The Latin text is from Aquinas’ exposition on Titus 1 found in the Opera Omnia edited by Stanislaus Fretté, vol. 21, Paris: Vivès, 1876, pp. 538ff. Interestingly, a number of older editions of the commentary cite the nonexistent 15th chapter of Second Corinthians. Obviously, they are referring to First Corinthians.)

Saint Thomas was convinced that all truth is God’s truth, a truth gifted to people of all times and places. This conviction was so great that Saint Thomas could dare attempt synthesizing the tremendous and daunting wealth of truth bequeathed to the 13th century. Greek pagans, Muslim and Jewish philosophers, and Christian forebears alike lay before Saint Thomas as precious stones to be turned over in the noble quest for truth.

Truth is truth. Nobody has a monopoly on truth, and anyone can be truth’s mouthpiece. Would that we were so desirous of truth, no matter where it’s from.

Yesterday, we covered the gratuitous aspect of grace. The story about Volta reminded me of a great thinker in more recent times who has a more humorous anecdote about the gratuitous nature of grace. The thinker was Mortimer J. Adler, a tireless educator who’s perhaps best known for his work on the Great Books of the Western World.

Yet most people probably wouldn’t recognize Adler as a serious thomist (even being a collaborator with the Dominican Friar, Father Walter Farrell). Yet even while being considered an excellent thomist, Adler wasn’t a Catholic for many of his thomist years (though he did end up converting later in life). Asked about this apparent discrepancy, Adler is said to have remarked something along the lines of, “I take Saint Thomas seriously; faith is a gift, and I haven’t been given it.” (This story can be found in the 1998 book, The Millennium, by the Norbertine canon, Alfred McBride)

This story highlights the radical nature of the gift of faith. But can’t we do anything to gain faith? Can’t you just go listen to sermons or seek persuasive arguments for the faith? Surely then you would make yourself a believer. Yet, following Saint Thomas Aquinas just as Adler did, we see that such human efforts aren’t sufficient for faith. As Aquinas notes,

videntium enim unum et idem miraculum, et audientium eamdem praedicationem, quidam credunt et quidam non credunt. Et ideo oportet ponere aliam causam interiorem, quae movet hominem interius ad assentiendum his quae sunt fidei.

---

For people see one and the same miracle, and hear the same preaching, but some believe and some do not believe. Therefore there must be another, interior cause that moves man interiorly to assent to the things of faith.

(The Latin text is from Saint Thomas’ Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 6, a. 1, as found in the Opera Omnia edited by Stanislaus Fretté, vol. 3, Paris: Vivès, 1872, p. 117.)

So faith needs some interior motion, a motive force deep within that we ourselves can’t cause. What then can we do to get faith? The best way is to pray for faith, to ask the Lord, “Help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). For faith is that gift of light that comes down from the very Father of lights (James 1:17).

Today marks the 199th anniversary of the death of Alessandro Volta, an Italian scientist known primarily for his work on electricity (so much so that the standard unit for electric potential—the volt—is named in his honor). However, another aspect of this man’s life was his faith. Apparently, a canon by the name of Giacomo Cierci sought to convert an unbeliever who was adamant that religion was for the unintelligent. Thus, the canon referred to Volta, the believer scientist, who provided a profession of his own faith. I was able to track down this story and an Italian text of this profession in Christianity and the Leaders of Modern Science (London: Herder, 1911), by the German Jesuit priest, Karl Alois Kneller, but I couldn’t come up with anything when searching through the collected works of Volta that I have access to. So perhaps the story is merely anecdotal. (Though if anyone has intel as to the story’s authenticity, please let me know!)

However, whether or not the profession is authentically Volta’s, it does highlight for me a special aspect of belief, for it refers to faith as “a pure gift of God, a supernatural grace.” The gratuitous aspect of faith can sometimes be misunderstood. So now, like the canon in our story, I’ll take my turn in referring you to a person exemplifying the union of faith and reason. Enter Saint Thomas Aquinas.

When discussing how faith is given to man (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 6, a. 1), Aquinas takes as his guiding light the words of Paul: “Faith is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8). Yet Aquinas distinguishes. Faith isn’t simply a gift in the sense that the truths to be believed are beyond man’s power to grasp (though many such truths of faith indeed are above man’s grasp). Rather, the gratuity of faith is found even on the side of man’s assent, since man can’t believe unless God interiorly moves the human will. (Otherwise, as Aquinas notes, we would be Pelagians.)

The assent of faith isn’t merely thinking about this or that thing. It’s not knowing in the sense that a religious studies student might “know” the truths of faith by taking a course on Christianity. If such a student isn’t a believer, he might say, “Jesus Christ is God,” without really taking the statement to be the truth. It’s different with faith. The assent of faith entails a kind of firm one-sidedness or stable adhering (Saint Thomas uses terms like “declinare” and “adhaesio”) such that a person holds the statement to be true and its contradictory to be false. The believer says, “Jesus Christ is God,” and could even bet his life on it (as in the case of the martyrs). Thus, on account of the believer’s alignment toward the truths of faith, the Angelic Doctor, though careful not to call faith certainty (otherwise it wouldn’t be faith), does note that it’s much closer to knowledge than to an ambivalent uncertainty (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 2, a. 1).

Thus, even if Volta never actually described faith as a gift, it’s fitting that such a description should be ascribed to a scientist, an investigator of nature. For the faith touches on truths that science never could. Faith gives us insight into a reality beyond the realm of nature. It elevates us to a whole new dimension. It’s the gift of peering (although dimly, as if in a glass) into the life of God himself.

One particular phrase in yesterday’s translation piece gave me particular trouble. The phrase was “ore cordis,” which I ended up translating as “with the mouth of the heart.” Now the particular difficulty I had in translating the phrase had more to do with the context of the passage. Radulphus Ardens is clearly playing on the more generic connotations of the Latin word “os” to signify the whole face instead of just the mouth. (The passage later goes on to describe how the face is downcast during contemplation—much like the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration—and how to direct the “pupil of our contemplation” on our Savior.)

However, even apart from the context in which the ardent preacher uses the phrase, “os cordis” is definitely something to ponder. It reminds me of Aquinas’ discussion on the two ways of receiving the eucharist, one sacramental and the other spiritual (Summa Theologiae, III, q. 80, a. 8). The first is the mere reception of the sacrament. The second is the reception of the sacrament along with its fruit, or effect, which is a special union with Christ. The first is an eating with the body’s mouth, and the second—to use the phrase we saw in Radulphus—is an eating with the heart’s mouth. The bodily eating of the sacrament is for the sake of the spiritual eating, for the sake of nourishing of the heart.

Like anything with a mouth, the heart hungers. Yet the heart is very privileged, for before it lies a sacred banquet, in which Christ himself becomes its food.

This translation piece aims to be a faithful yet fresh presentation of the original it represents. As such, while remaining close to the original meaning of the text, unfitting equivalences are avoided in favor of words and phrases that bring forth the author’s meaning. The text in its original language is presented after the translation.

The text is just a small excerpt from a Latin homily on the Transfiguration of the Lord. The work was composed by a certain clergyman named Radulphus, a preacher who was granted the epithet “Ardens”—“the Ardent”. The text can be found in Migne’s Patrologia Latina, Volume 57 (1854), column 1417.

Translation:

“But lifting their eyes, they saw no one but only Jesus” (Mt 17:8). From this event they were certain that the voice from the cloud had designated only Jesus and bore witness to him alone. What then happens afterwards to the apostles happens daily in us, my brothers. For when, with the mouth of the heart in contemplation by divine inspiration or by sacred reading, we hear the power and magnitude of God, our conscience fears and trembles, irresolute as we are. Met face-to-face with—that is to say, in the awareness of—our own particular inconstancy, we are cast down to the ground. However, lest there be dejection unto despair, Jesus is present with his familiar kindness. He approaches us by suffering with us, he touches us by granting us his grace, he raises us up to things divine by setting right our longings, he comforts us by providing us the pledge of his love. So, lifting our eyes we see nothing but only Jesus—that is to say, lifting the pupil of our contemplation towards God, we don’t see in him anything but salvation, with which he desires that all men be saved (1 Tim 2:4). Hence, we ought to love him more than dread him.

Original Text

Levantes autem oculos neminem viderunt nisi solum Jesum. Ex quo certum habuerunt vocem de nube solum Jesum demonstrasse, et ei soli testimonium perhibuisse. Porro quod tunc contingit apostolis, quotidie, fratres mei, contingit in nobis. Cum enim in contemplatione ab inspiratione vel lectione divina ore cordis, Dei audimus potentiam et magnitudinem, nostrae fragilitatis conscientia timet et concitatur, et in faciem, id est in notitiam propriae infirmitatis humiliatur; sed ne usque in desperationem dejiciatur, adest Jesus solita clementia sua, et accedit nobis compatiendo, tangit nos, gratiam suam nobis conferendo, erigit nos ad coelestia desiderium nostrum dirigendo, consolatur nos, fiduciam sui amoris nobis praestando, ut levantes oculos nostros non videamus nisi solum Jesum, id est aciem nostrae contemplationis ad Deum levantes, non videamus in eo nisi salvationem qua cupit omnes homines salvos fieri (I Tim. II). Unde eum magis diligere quam horrere debemus.

La La Land was released back in 2016, but it was only this past week that I took the time to enjoy it. One aspect of the film’s story that I want to highlight is its depiction of human aspiration and how dreams might not always be what they seem.

Very early on in the film, the goals of our main characters, Mia and Seb, are clearly laid out. Mia wants to be an actress, and Seb wants to save jazz.

The film proceeds to show what kinds of major conflicts our characters meet in pursuing their dreams, how they question and reassess their aspirations, and where our dreamers’ resulting decisions end up leading them.

The film ends with Mia again dreaming, but this time, she’s not dreaming about the future. She’s dreaming about the past. The question “What if” drives the thread of the dream. The stark and somber colors that close the film hint at regret. Mia’s resolute aspirations for the future seem to have led her to a place where she now longs for the past and perhaps even longs for the possibility to change how her future would have played out. It’s a longing for another dream that wasn’t clearly seen by Mia at the time. It’s a longing for a dream obscured by the dream she held too tight.

Dreams are powerful forces indeed. They’re forces not to be taken lightly. Heedless of us, they drive us on. So, the question—always as valid as it is challenging—remains: “Is this really my dream, or am I just living in La La Land?”

Today was a busy day. I had intended to finish a translation piece, but time got away from me; there was an infant to attend to, a dishwasher to fix, and meetings with students to go over logarithms. It was, undoubtedly, a busy Sunday, and even so, I didn’t get everything done that I wanted to.

It’s so easy to fill up our days with todos and agenda items. How important, then, is the Lord’s commandment to rest once a week!

Yet, to dedicate a day to the Lord has to be a conscious effort. Otherwise, the cares and obligations of our lives creep in and take even that minimal piece of time asked of us.

Now of course, some tasks really do need immediate attention (e.g. feeding an infant). In many cases, though, Sunday’s rest is encroached upon by works that could have been accomplished some other day of the week.

So, with some forethought and some dedication, the weekdays can actually be spent in service to the Lord’s Day. The command to rest can thus be kept throughout the week, as we order our days with a view toward the Lord’s Day.

Back in high school, I was part of a book club, a small group of friends who would meet at a local Bojangles. It was the perfect spot for the club since it not only served sweet tea, but also played classical music. Such, then, were the circumstances in which we discussed the book Introduction to Christianity, written by the man who would become Pope Benedict XVI, of happy memory. Seeing as today marks the thirteenth anniversary of his farewell address to the cardinals in Rome, it seems fitting to share a reflection from that first contact of mine with the great pastor’s thought.

I still vividly remember my interest being piqued at the very outset of the book, where Ratzinger presents a few main lines of thought that Westerners of the last thousand years or so have adopted in approaching truth. To get an answer to the question “What is true?” you can’t simply start with a list of statements a person knows to be facts. Rather, you need to begin with what a person takes the truth to mean.

For the medieval scholastics, truth was identical to being: “verum est ens,” as Ratzinger put it. The truth is what is real, even if that reality is unseen or inconsequential to your day-to-day life. It’s this focus on reality that drove scholastics to disputations parodied today by the question, “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”

Ratzinger notes a shift that took place from this outlook. The focus in this next phase wasn’t so much on what reality is, but on what actually had been done. Something is true because it has actually been accomplished: “verum quia factum,” in Ratzinger’s phrasing. Such is the inspiration behind historical studies, trying to establish the facts of the world. The real isn’t just anything, but only that which touches upon our experience of artifacts left in the world.

Yet there took place another shift, where the outlook, in Ratzinger’s formulation, was “verum quia faciendum”—the true, or the real, is that which is to be done. We thus have the outlook of the technical age, where experiments are to be repeatable, products are to be fashioned, and the world is what you make it.

As I said earlier, I was captivated when I encountered this presentation of shifting outlooks. I had never considered looking at the last millennium like that. I hadn’t ever really considered examining the different criteria for truth that people (including myself) used. In fact, when it came to my own outlook, I leaned more into that last camp, where the standard for truth is what you can actually scientifically produce with repeatability in a controlled setting.

What I received from the great pastor Ratzinger wasn’t simply a pastoral instruction on belief; it was a framework for beginning to examine my own outlook on what’s true. Reflecting critically on my own criteria for truth would later flourish in unexpected ways for me personally, as little by little science and technology began to take a backseat role in my overall approach to truth (though I leave the discussion of what’s now in the front seat for another time). For now, I recommend to you this pastor of Christ’s flock, and not simply because he was pope (be that as it may, a good reason for recommendation). Rather, I recommend him because he so clearly shows Christians how to seriously and tirelessly reflect on the truth—an activity that can be put into practice whether you’re at Saint Peter’s Basilica or just your local Bojangles.

The saints want Christ. Yet they don’t simply want Christ. They want Christ and they also come to be like the object of their desire. That’s the hallmark of every saintly life. One example that sums up this union of desire and conformity is found in the life (and especially the death) of Saint Julian, the martyr of Brioude. His feast was celebrated on August 28th (and can still be found in the Roman martyrology for that day) but is now quite overshadowed by the great doctor Saint Augustine. However, Julian was such an important figure for French Christianity that a fellow Frenchman, Saint Gregory of Tours, wrote an entire work on Julian.

I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to unearth the treasures of the full work for yourself, but I do want to highlight one statement that Julian makes as he decides (against the counsels of others) that he will not hide from persecution.

‘Nolo,’ inquit, ‘diutius commorari in hoc saeculo, quia sitio tota animi aviditate iam Christum.’

---

‘I wish not,’ he said, ‘to linger any longer in this world, for already I thirst for Christ with all the desire of my soul.’

(The Latin text is from Gregory’s De Passione et Virtutibus Sancti Iuliani Martyris found in the Gregorii Turonensis Opera edited by Wilhelm Arndt and Bruno Krusch, Pars II, Hannover: Hahn, 1885, p. 564.)

“I thirst,” he says. This expression belong to the crucified Christ (John 19:28) and is placed upon the lips of Julian. The conformity is clear. The saint longs and thirsts for Christ. The saint’s life, as Saint Gregory of Tours so clearly perceives, is indeed the life of Christ. It’s just the way things are in Christianity, as Paul wrote long ago: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20, RSV).

A favorite story of mine from Ovid’s Metamorphoses is the tale of Philemon and Baucis. The specific lines I have in mind are ones I got to read, reflect on, and cherish way back when. In fact, it was during my honeymoon. Fitting for a newlywed to read, as I hope you’ll soon see.

Before I give the text, I’ll give a few important notes of context. (Though if you don’t know the story of Philemon and Baucis, go take a moment to experience it for yourself! Their story is found in the eighth book of the Metamorphoses.) Philemon and Baucis are an elderly Phrygian couple who have been married from their youth. They live an extremely humble life, but they are cheerful, hospitable folk. When Jupiter and Hermes visit the Phrygian village in the guise of mere sojourners, no one shows them any hospitality, except of course for Philemon and Baucis. The couple’s reward—spoiler alert!—is that, at the end of their lives, they become trees together, so as never to be without the other.

The specific lines I have in mind for today are from near the beginning of the story (lines 635-636 to be precise):

nec refert, dominos illi famulosne requiras: / tota domus duo sunt, idem parentque iubentque.

---

It makes no difference should you seek lords there or slaves; / the two are the whole house, the same obey and give command.

(The Latin text I’m using is from the OCT, edited by R. J. Tarrant, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

While many romances feature wealthy lovers who can afford to spend all their time with one another, Philemon and Baucis are lovers who must perform their duties. In making preparations to host the gods, Philemon and Baucis are shown separately attending to pressing matters, like prepping meat and setting the table.

To me, these lovers seem to have the upper hand when it comes to romance. Poverty itself can’t diminish the life of love they live. Quite the opposite! Their impoverished situation itself fosters their unity. Unable to keep servants, the couple must rely and lean on one another for the upkeep and management of the home. Their mutual reliance, subservience, and resulting unity thus directly plays into the story’s climax, where Philemon and Baucis are united forever.

Fitting, very fitting, I should say, for reading on a honeymoon.

Yesterday (February 24th) was the anniversary of the 1582 papal bull Inter Gravissimas, a famous declaration that brought about the Gregorian Calendar. (Consider this a nudge to read my related post from yesterday.) But that was yesterday. Why think about it again today? Well, if we’re a day late for commemorating the papal bull’s anniversary, then it now seems fitting to consider people of the 1500s saying, “I guess I didn’t get the memo.”

The process of calendar reform surrounding Inter Gravissimas was no simple operation: it required diligent study and review, it took protocols for adjusting to the new changes on the ecclesiastical and civil levels, and it had to be flexible enough to account for the limitations of human modes of communication available at that time.

That last aspect I listed—flexibility in light of human limitation—is what I want to focus on right now. The bull was issued in late February and took effect in early October. That’s seven full months for the whole Catholic Church to adopt the change. That kind of notice seems pretty short when we consider that communication wasn’t what it is today. Pope Gregory XIII couldn’t simply call the bishops and civil lords on Zoom or set up Teams reminders for “Remember: New Gregorian Calendar!” (And even if he could, he would have to consider those inaccessible missionaries without signal.)

Yet the brief notice outlined in Inter Gravissimas highlights the importance of the calendar reform for the life and unity of the church. (Consider the fact that even way back in 325 at Nicaea, the First Ecumenical Council, the church deemed setting a unified date for celebrating Easter an important issue to settle.) So this change wasn’t one to be put off unnecessarily. Even so, the problem of communication stood in the way. So, just as any reasonable declaration of such importance might, the bull had a special provision.

Iis vero, qui adeo longinquas incolunt regiones, ut ante praescriptum a nobis tempus harum litterarum notitiam habere non possint, liceat, eodem tamen octobri mense insequentis anni MDLXXXIII vel alterius, cum primum scilicet ad eos hae nostrae litterae pervenerint, modo a nobis paulo ante tradito, eiusmodi mutationem facere.

---

But for those who inhabit regions so far off that they can’t have awareness of this letter before the time prescribed by us, let it be permitted to make such a change in the way conveyed by us a little earlier, though still in the same month of October but of the following year, 1583, or of the next, whenever first, of course, this letter of ours should arrive.

(This Latin text from Inter Gravissimas can be found in the Bullarum Diplomatum et Privilegiorum Sanctorum Romanorum Pontificum Taurinensis Editio, Tomus VIII, Augustae Taurinorum: Seb. Franco et Henrico Dalmazzo, 1868, p. 389.)

Thankfully, the protocol for implementing the calendar reform could be done with ease even if one happened to get the memo late. The explicitly mentioned window for implementation is of note: not only does the bull anticipate having stragglers who need to catch up the next year (1583), but it even lays out that a second year past the intended time is allowed. That means the bull accounted for the letter taking two full years to make its way to remote regions.

Many of us today probably don’t need to account for time frames as wide as the one dealt with in Inter Gravissimas. In fact, the constraints imposed on many of us by time and space are increasingly being diminished today: you can get to your remote work space by walking a couple of yards from your bedroom, you can get your groceries delivered to your doorstep within a few hours, and you can video call your loved ones at the push of a button. This immediate access to people and things isn’t bad, but it does carry with it the potential for us to foster a negative disposition of immediacy. We can start thinking everything in our life needs an immediate reaction: that email I sent needs a response right now, I have to take advantage of this bargain right now, you need to get on FaceTime so we can talk right now.

Of course, some items on our agendas really are urgent and need to be handled as such. Yet in many cases, especially for the most important tasks (think of your own personal equivalent to reforming the calendar), we need to give ourselves, and also the people we’re interacting with, time: time for handling the practicalities that our request might entail, time for emotions to settle before taking concrete action, time for taking the matter to the Lord in prayer.

On this day back in 1582, the papal bull Inter Gravissimas was promulgated, thus setting out Pope Gregory XIII’s famous calendar reform. The details of the bull are quite interesting (like how the annual dating of Easter served as a motive force for the reform or how the review process for the new calendar’s method was accomplished). One detail I want to focus on is the directive that 10 days (October 5th through October 14th) were to be taken out for the year 1582.

This removal of 10 days raises some issues. What are you to do if your monthly payment to your landlord falls on October 10th? Are you off the hook for that month? Well, the bull specifies that due dates for payments are to be extended to make up for the ten days. So that’s that. Surely, there wouldn’t be any other matters to be settled.

Not so fast! Even before the bull handles due dates for monetary payments, there are some other due dates that need to be dealt with: the dates due for celebrating the feasts of the saints. In a section three times as long as the section on payment dates, the bull lays out quite carefully how the specific feast days are to be paid their due.

Take as an example the pope and martyr Saint Callixtus. His feast was, and still is, celebrated on October 14th. Since October 14th was to be excluded from the calendar for 1582, when would his feast be celebrated? Well, the bull moves the celebration to October 16th for this situation. Similarly with other feasts that were affected by the removal of the 10 days.

Yet this solution begs the question, “Should any affected feasts be kept or should they just be skipped that year?” Obviously, they were deemed to be important enough to keep, even at the cost of having to shift them around to appropriate dates.

So why was keeping them so important? Fr. Thomas Nicholas Burke, a great Dominican preacher of modern times, sheds some light on the matter. Preaching on his own national patron, Saint Patrick, the Dominican friar notes, “One of the great duties of God’s Church, to which she has ever been most faithful, is the celebration of her saints.” (The text is from Fr. Thomas’s Lectures and Sermons, New York: P. M. Haverty, 1872, p. 9.)

The keeping of the feasts, the celebration of the saints, is nothing less than a duty for God’s holy church. Still, why is this duty so important? Like the Dominican he is, the friar preacher is quick to anticipate the objection and thus he makes a distinction.

The saints were the living and most faithful representatives of Christ our Lord, of his virtues, his love, his actions, his power, so that He lived in them, and wrought in them, and through them, the redemption of men; therefore the Church honors, not so much the saint, as Christ our Lord in the saint.

The keeping of the feasts isn’t merely a celebration of a person who did good things. The festal celebrations of the church are days owed to the Lord, days of celebrating the Christ who saved his people. This Christ didn’t save in the abstract; he saved real, concrete individuals. He saved Saint Callixtus, and that’s something worth celebrating.

I was struck the other day by a prayer at Mass. It’s the Prayer after Communion that the church presents to us every year on the First Sunday of Lent—only a few days into the Lenten observances. In it, the priest asks that the Lord teach us to hunger, not for regular food, but for Christ the true bread. What a prayer for Lent!

Lenten practices can sometimes feel distant from Christ, like a mere set of New Year’s resolutions: spend quiet time in prayer, gain discipline through fasting, let go of material things by almsgiving. Yet as we take up our disciplines, the church makes sure our priorities are straight by pointing back to her constant touchstone: Christ. Pray, fast, give alms. Do these, but in doing so, hunger and long for Christ.