Thank you, Father. For the past couple of years I've been immersed in Catholic books from before 1970. There is some excellent content therein; however, there are also assumptions about the culture that are now gone and never coming back. That goes both for the laity and clergy. In a book of short stories by J.F. Powers, for instance, we get glimpses into the common and parish life of the secular clergy that do not reflect a comparable life today. Instead of multiple priests for one parish, today it is usually one priest for multiple locations. (Not the case as much for religious priests or the SSPX.) On the other hand, I daresay that the celebration of the traditional Mass is undoubtedly more reverent than it often was in days past--there is rarely the situation of say six Masses on a Sunday and communion distributed outside the Mass to the throngs of Catholics who took their faith and accompanying obligations seriously. I know that amongst the Orthodox the notion of restoration is especially strong due to its being tied to national identity. The Russian restorationists hearken back to "holy Russia" of the 19th century, overlooking the fact that outside the well-known lavras, the priests and clergy in the hinterlands were often ill-treated, poor, ignorant, and their holiness dubious. Sure, it was the age of The Way of the Pilgrim and rebuilding of Mount Athos, but many of the common people were appallingly ignorant and superstitious and the upper classes increasingly infected by Western secularism. Let the dead bury the dead and let us deal with the problems at hand.
Restoration is a worthwhile goal, an orientation and a willed response to evil. Like others in this comment section I believe that we both proceed with this vision and acknowledge that time may be very short.
Therefore GET READY (as best we can discern) and STAY READY (witnessing to Divine Law and Divine Truth).
A nicely crafted essay, but I think this sentence, toward the end, isn't true: "Although human nature is no more infected by original sin at one period than another, the very fact of original sin means that actual sins tend to increase, and to press down on mankind with a greater weight, as history proceeds."
If this sentence were true, we would need to have been able to measure, somehow, the frequency and intensity of sin throughout the ages, from Day One onward. We should have been able to draw a chart with an ever-upsloping curve, a curve without any declines. We should have been unable to detect a time that saw less sin than did the time just before it.
But we have seen times (and places) that apparently had less sin than they did some time before. Example: Mexico under the Aztec religion vs. Mexico under the Catholic religion.
It seems to me that there has been something of a metric to sinfulness in our era. Fr. Ripperger has reported that exorcists active around the middle of last century all of sudden had the experience that their deliverance ministry was taking months instead of weeks to achieve liberation from demonic influence. Fr.Ripperger and others had their liberation efforts extend to a year or more. Lately exorcists have reportedly the that their efforts are not being effective in completely liberating souls from demonic influence. The rite of exorcism is a liturgical sacramental—-not a sacrament that is the direct cause of particular grace. Sacramentals are explained as indirect occasions of grace, i.e. they draw their potential efficacy from the stored treasure of graces merited by the mystical body. It appears that the treasure chest of graces is dreadfully barren. This could not be on behalf of the Almighty who desires to bestow upon us the full measure of his divine goodness. It seems the treasure chest is nearly depleted because of sinful failure, not merely society in general, but from members of what is to be the perfect society, the Catholic Church, the mystical body of Christ.
Thank you for such a cogent and beautiful essay. May I call the style "luminous"? The thoughts enlightening? May our Lord restore us in this barbarous age.
"The law of entropy does not of itself allow us to predict the future of the human race with any confidence, especially as God remains always free to do new things." - Problem is this is inherently false - yes, we do know the future of humanity, it is going to see its age on this Earth end in flame and fury as per the Revelations prophecy. The problem with Restorationalism is it is a basically human impulse. God is not going to 'restore' Eden, He is going to remake Creation in His image in the New Jerusalem in Revelations 21 and this tells us a truth - God, like us, can only move forward in time, never back. If God could move back in time He would be turning in on Himself as in a very real sense, He is the flow of time.
Absolutely fabulous engagement. Thank you for addressing this so systematically.
Thank you, Father. For the past couple of years I've been immersed in Catholic books from before 1970. There is some excellent content therein; however, there are also assumptions about the culture that are now gone and never coming back. That goes both for the laity and clergy. In a book of short stories by J.F. Powers, for instance, we get glimpses into the common and parish life of the secular clergy that do not reflect a comparable life today. Instead of multiple priests for one parish, today it is usually one priest for multiple locations. (Not the case as much for religious priests or the SSPX.) On the other hand, I daresay that the celebration of the traditional Mass is undoubtedly more reverent than it often was in days past--there is rarely the situation of say six Masses on a Sunday and communion distributed outside the Mass to the throngs of Catholics who took their faith and accompanying obligations seriously. I know that amongst the Orthodox the notion of restoration is especially strong due to its being tied to national identity. The Russian restorationists hearken back to "holy Russia" of the 19th century, overlooking the fact that outside the well-known lavras, the priests and clergy in the hinterlands were often ill-treated, poor, ignorant, and their holiness dubious. Sure, it was the age of The Way of the Pilgrim and rebuilding of Mount Athos, but many of the common people were appallingly ignorant and superstitious and the upper classes increasingly infected by Western secularism. Let the dead bury the dead and let us deal with the problems at hand.
It has been my personal observation that man works harder to regain something lost than to build something not yet attained.
Restoration is a worthwhile goal, an orientation and a willed response to evil. Like others in this comment section I believe that we both proceed with this vision and acknowledge that time may be very short.
Therefore GET READY (as best we can discern) and STAY READY (witnessing to Divine Law and Divine Truth).
Come Lord Jesus Christ the King
A nicely crafted essay, but I think this sentence, toward the end, isn't true: "Although human nature is no more infected by original sin at one period than another, the very fact of original sin means that actual sins tend to increase, and to press down on mankind with a greater weight, as history proceeds."
If this sentence were true, we would need to have been able to measure, somehow, the frequency and intensity of sin throughout the ages, from Day One onward. We should have been able to draw a chart with an ever-upsloping curve, a curve without any declines. We should have been unable to detect a time that saw less sin than did the time just before it.
But we have seen times (and places) that apparently had less sin than they did some time before. Example: Mexico under the Aztec religion vs. Mexico under the Catholic religion.
Mr Keating,
It seems to me that there has been something of a metric to sinfulness in our era. Fr. Ripperger has reported that exorcists active around the middle of last century all of sudden had the experience that their deliverance ministry was taking months instead of weeks to achieve liberation from demonic influence. Fr.Ripperger and others had their liberation efforts extend to a year or more. Lately exorcists have reportedly the that their efforts are not being effective in completely liberating souls from demonic influence. The rite of exorcism is a liturgical sacramental—-not a sacrament that is the direct cause of particular grace. Sacramentals are explained as indirect occasions of grace, i.e. they draw their potential efficacy from the stored treasure of graces merited by the mystical body. It appears that the treasure chest of graces is dreadfully barren. This could not be on behalf of the Almighty who desires to bestow upon us the full measure of his divine goodness. It seems the treasure chest is nearly depleted because of sinful failure, not merely society in general, but from members of what is to be the perfect society, the Catholic Church, the mystical body of Christ.
Thank you for such a cogent and beautiful essay. May I call the style "luminous"? The thoughts enlightening? May our Lord restore us in this barbarous age.
"The law of entropy does not of itself allow us to predict the future of the human race with any confidence, especially as God remains always free to do new things." - Problem is this is inherently false - yes, we do know the future of humanity, it is going to see its age on this Earth end in flame and fury as per the Revelations prophecy. The problem with Restorationalism is it is a basically human impulse. God is not going to 'restore' Eden, He is going to remake Creation in His image in the New Jerusalem in Revelations 21 and this tells us a truth - God, like us, can only move forward in time, never back. If God could move back in time He would be turning in on Himself as in a very real sense, He is the flow of time.
This, I believe, is what used to be called THINKING!
Short answer to an excellent piece: yes.