The Sheepcat

Happy Leap Day!

Leap days date back to Julius Caesar, of course, but for our Gregorian calendar we can thank Pope Gregory XIII, as the Catholic Encyclopedia explains:

The necessity of a reform was continually urged, especially by Church authorities, who felt the need in connexion with the ecclesiastical calendar. It was accordingly strongly pressed upon the attention of the pope by the councils of Constance, Basle, Lateran (A.D. 1511), and finally by Trent, in its last session (A.D. 1563).

Nineteen years later the work was accomplished by Pope Gregory XIII (from whom the Gregorian reform takes its name) with the aid chiefly of Lilius, Clavius, and Chacon or Chaconius. There were two main objects to be attained: first, the error of ten days, already mentioned, which had crept in, had to be got rid of; second, its recurrence had to be prevented for the future. The first was attained by the omission from the calendar of the ten superfluous days, so as to bring things back to their proper position. To obviate the recurrence of the same convenience, it was decided to omit three leap years in every four centuries, and thus eliminate the three superfluous days, which, as we have seen, would be introduced in that period under the Julian system. To effect this, only those Centurial years were retained as leap years the first two figures of which are exact multiples of 4--as 1600, 2000, 2400--other centurial years 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, etc.--becoming common years of 365 days each.

Meanwhile, some Orthodox Churches celebrate most of the great feasts of the liturgical year according to the "New Calendar," while most have retained the Original Julian.

The Orthodox (some Orthodox?) refer to the calendar adopted in Catholic countries in 1582 as the "New Style" Julian Calendar, while in 1923 a conference of Orthodox bishops adopted the "Revised" Julian Calendar, which will coincide with the "New Style" until about the year 2200. In the 19th century, bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church seriously considered adopted of the "New Style."

Calendrical reform is a sensitive issue, I see; from the outside, I'm inclined to look at the cleavages rather sociologically, with the adoption or rejection of a Western calendar serving as a stand-in for all sorts of other issues. Really I'm just poking around into arcana I'm curious about, much akin to how I've quizzed Jewish friends about various observances of theirs.

All Orthodox Churches (except the tiny Orthodox Church of Finland--who knew!) still use the Old Calendar for the date of Easter. Sometimes Easter for the Orthodox (and for Ukrainian Catholics among others) falls as much as five weeks later than the date celebrated by Protestants and Roman Rite Catholics, as indeed happens this year, when it will be April 27 (in the Gregorian calendar).

So now you know. Happy leap day, everyone.

Dean Invites Graduating Seminarians to a "Bloody" Spiritual Adventure

From the Commencement Address at St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Westchester County, New York:

The first and most important thing is that we are boundlessly loved by God who blesses us to love Him boundlessly in return.

I can also tell you that we can love God as He loves us only by faith and grace, by His own divine power, and that we prove our love for Him by loving everyone and everything, beginning with our worst enemies, just as He does, with the very same love with which He loves us, the very Love that He Himself is.

And I can tell you that being loved by God, and loving Him in return, is the greatest joy given to creatures, and that without it there is no real and lasting happiness for humanity.

And I can also tell you, alas, that such loving is always a violent, brutal and bloody affair.

Read it all. The illusion of autonomy, the temptation to spiritual pride, C.S. Lewis's Abolition of Man – the Very Rev Thomas Hopko covers a lot of ground.

Link via CAEI.

Michael Liccione on Why Authority Is the Issue

An illuminating discussion over at Pontifications on Why Authority Is the Issue, starting from a post by Michael Liccione.

Many people past and present have tried to bypass that problem by insisting that only God, through the person of Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit who vivifies the Church, has the requisite authority and thus merits the requisite submission of mind and will. Jesus did after all say that “all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.” But so long as the question who teaches what Christ would have them teach is to be answered by human preference alone, then the question what is taught on earth with Christ’s authority is only a matter of opinion; and as I have argued before, opinions cannot be objects of divine faith. Of course there have always been theological opinions and always will be. That is not only inevitable but, to a certain extent, healthy. But if nobody on earth shares divine authority to say what is not merely a matter of opinion, but is rather revealed by God in Christ, then the question where to draw the line between theological opinion and divine revelation is itself, always and necessarily, a matter of opinion. And that effectively renders the entire subject matter one of opinion, not of revelation. As Newman so pithily put it: “No revelation is given, if there be no authority to decide what it is that is given.” Such an authority cannot of course decide on its own “what is given”; to serve its function, it can only do so with the authority Jesus Christ gives it. Hence “this teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission; and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed” (Dei Verbum 10).

And in response to a comment…

The reason that I need you to address this pathological tendency for Catholics and Orthodox to go for the throat whenever any subject common to them both is raised (I have been guilty here myself, I admit) is that while reading the comments on this blog for the last couple of years I have had these (until now secret) urges to re-consider the work of Pavlov and B.F. Skinner.

I can see it now. Pontificator posts an essay on old family recipes and an argument breaks out as to whether or not those recipes should be guarded and preserved by one of the family’s matriarchs, or by the whole group of matriarchs. Good grief.

… Liccione posts an interesting metaphor for the relations between the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Objections to Marian Dogma?

Over at Titus One Nine are some very stimulating discussions of reservations that very many Protestants (and more than a few "cafeteria Catholics") have toward the Catholic dogmas of the Assumption of Mary and the Immaculate Conception. (Also at Pontifications.) Some highlights:

The main theological point about Mariology is simple enough but seems to be curiously unmarked in most discussions: the Marian doctrines point up how Mary is always and pre-eminently what every disciple is called to be (#122).

* * *

I believe if more evangelical Protestants were to approach Marian devotion with an open mind (and an even more open heart), they would find that their fears are unfounded. For Mary leads us to Jesus - not to herself. This is the essence of the motto “Ad Jesum Per Mariam” - It is not “Ad Mariam per Jesum”! Can one be a good Christian without being devoted to Mary? Of course! However, an even better question is this: Can one be a good Christian without loving Jesus completely and totally? Of course not. And if we were to ask who, among all those who knew Him, who had the greatest love for Him, the answer is obvious - His mother. The more we honor her in song and devotion, the more we are reminded of her love for Him. This is the heart of the matter (#24).

* * *

John Henry Newman, … whose knowledge of the early Church was rivalled by few, had no problem declaring: 

“I fully grant that devotion towards the Blessed Virgin has increased among Catholics with the progress of centuries; I do not allow that the doctrine concerning her has undergone a growth, for I believe that it has been in substance one and the same from the beginning” (#134).

* * *

I finally felt myself drawn to Catholicism, but the Marian hurdle proved to be most difficult to overcome.

I can only share my testimony. Having admitted to myself that I was being drawn towards Catholicism, I earnestly prayed about my difficulties. Specifically, I prayed: “Lord, she is your Mother. I don’t know whether the Catholic Church is right to emphasize her so, but I only ask that you give me a love for her that mirrors your own. I want to love her as you love her - neither more nor less.”

That is still my prayer. And He has answered it. My appreciation of Mary’s faith, hope, and love has grown considerably. I have come to see her in an entirely new light, as the exemplar of Christian faith and discipleship. And my love for her, and devotion to her, as become central to my spirituality.

Does this detract from my devotion to her Divine son in any way? No - in a way that is hard to describe to those on the outside, it has deepened it. Mary constantly draws us closer to Christ (#59).

I found Scott Hahn's Hail, Holy Queen a good introduction to Marian doctrine. Someday I'll have to read Hugo Rahner's Our Lady and the Church, which has been highly recommended as a profound theological reflection upon the Blessed Virgin.