Today's commentary from Fr Peter Dresser is the conclusion to the entire argument he has slowly been unfolding over the previous twenty-six segments of his book that we've serialised. WARNING: If you believe theology was something invented by God back around the time of Adam and Eve, or even at the time of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and the only people allowed to interpret it is the pope and some "committee" in Rome, this commentary will probably be very upsetting to your cosmos. For the rest of you who have been perplexed by the seeming collapse of belief in the world, and trying to sort out your own spirituality in this challenging millieu we are now in, this commentary today may come as a huge breath of fresh air. Today's conclusion to Fr Peter Dresser's book God is Big. Real BIG! will more than probably cause the intelligent reader to go back and re-examine their own theological beliefs at the most profound level: what is your fundamental understanding of the nature and purpose of Jesus in giving us insight into the Spirit of God in our lives? Is our concept of God one of someone who wants to be appeased or is our concept of God one who invites us into a sharing of the Divine insight not so much through sacrifices to the deity but through learning and our endeavouring to understand the nature of the Divine?

Series Navigation: Prologue & Preamble | Chapter One: The Thinking of Pooh | Orthodoxy | Who or What is God? I | Who or What is God? II | God and Jesus I | God and Jesus II | Jesus the Avatar I | Jesus the Avatar II | Religion & Literalism I | Religion & Literalism II | Religion & Literalism III | Religion & Literalism IV | Religion & Literalism V | Religion & Literalism VI | Our Universe I | Our Universe II | The God of Our Universe I | The God of Our Universe II | God, Our Universe & Ourselves I | God, Our Universe & Ourselves II | God, Our Universe & Ourselves III | God, Our Universe & Ourselves IV | Ourselves & Prayer I | Ourselves & Prayer II | Ourselves & Prayer III | Ourselves & Prayer IV | Epilogue

Chapter Ten (Part 4): Ourselves and Prayer

Other Liturgical Prayers...

Whilst the Sacraments can be seen as enriching and nourishing a healthy cosmic based spirituality, the same cannot be said regarding other prayers used in the liturgy and particularly the liturgy of the Eucharist as they are presently understood. It is reasonable, if not demanded, that the language we use in our liturgy be in accord with our understanding of science and nature, and in good harmony with a theology that avoids violating our intelligence and a theology well attuned to the full humanity of the man Jesus.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacramentary

Having said this, it is disappointing that although evolution is now a scientific fact, the word evolution does not appear in the prayer books of the Church. I can understand why the word would not occur in the sacred Jewish and early Christian Scriptures or any other texts — but one would expect that some allusion to evolution be made in the present Sacramentary and other liturgical texts and prayer books of the Church. It is the same with other fundamentals of living in the third millennium. It is called enculturation and was an aspect of our church life and prayer life that Vatican II asked us to explore as meaningfully as possible. We have to tie our Christian message with the culture and scientific beliefs of the world in which we live otherwise they become separated and ultimately disconnected.

An underlying problem is that our liturgical prayers are mostly based on the old fall and redemption theology. We somehow fell from God's favour, were thrown out of the garden during one of his greatest tantrums, and then God sent his Son to atone for our fault by being crucified on a cross as a sacrifice to Him. Doesn't say a great deal of positive things about God, does it? In effect, it turns God into some kind of monster. Once again we come across the word sacrifice and immediately interpret it literally as some kind of conciliatory action whereby we make recompense for some wrong doing. In the fall and redemption theology, because God was infinite, the action of Adam and Eve caused Him infinite pain and grief. So in order to appease this God, another infinite person was needed as sacrifice. And so Jesus, being God, underwent the sufferings of the cross to be our saviour. This theological framework has become the basis and foundation of our prayers — especially the liturgical prayers of the Mass which the majority of people and priests see as the re-presentation of Calvary, the sacrifice of Calvary being re-enacted in the here and now. The Sacred Triduum — Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday — is replete with this theological infrastructure. Such theological thinking is well summed up in the Exsultet, the Easter Message proclaimed by the Deacon during the Easter Vigil:

It is truly right
that with full hearts and minds and voice
we should praise the unseen God, the all-powerful Father,
and his only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

For Christ has ransomed us with his blood,
and paid for us the price of Adam's sin
to our eternal Father!

This is the night when Christians everywhere,
washed clean of sin
and freed from all defilement,
are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.

This is the night when Jesus Christ
broke the chains of death
and rose triumphant from the grave.

Father, how wonderful your care for us!
how boundless your merciful love!
to ransom a slave
you gave away your Son.

O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam,
which gained for us so great a Redeemer.

I really cringe at the words O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam.

Such thinking is also at the basis of the various prayers used at Eucharist, the Opening and Closing Prayers, and the Acclamations after the Words of Institution:

Lord by your cross and resurrection you have set us free.
You are the saviour of the world.

Analysing the concept of sacrifice...

I have no problem with the notion of sacrifice provided the word is properly understood and is made meaningful in the celebration of the liturgy.

The word itself comes from the Latin word sacrificium which means to make holy. And the way that we make ourselves holy is to associate and relate ourselves more closely with our God. The closer we consciously align ourselves with our God, the holier we become because we will consciously and reflectively make ourselves one with Him. In order to draw themselves closer to God, primitive peoples actually offered a sacrifice — usually something they needed themselves or wanted for themselves. In doing without, they actually relied more upon God and came closer to Him if you like. Their sacrifice, usually in the form of an immolation of wheat or livestock or something necessary or important in their lives, provided an occasion for a ritual handing over of themselves in trust and confidence to their God. The less we rely on ourselves, the more we will rely on God. This would seem to be the essential characteristic of sacrifice. Giving to charity and fasting and all manner of sacrifice should give expression to this essential characteristic. Actually this understanding of sacrifice is similar to that espoused by the man Jesus and indeed by the prophets of the Old Testament. And as we have seen, the ultimate sacrifice we will offer will be our lives at death because then we will become completely holy because we will become completely one with our God. If anything, our whole lives should be lived within this sacrificial framework of thinking. Our spirituality should try to connect us with the God of the cosmos, the Soul of the Universe. It was a spirituality that was at the heart of Jesus who lived his entire life in this sacrificial mode and ended his life in this same sacrificial manner. His death heralded a new life with his God. We Christians are also asked to live our lives sacrificially. It is apposite to note the words contained in Eucharistic Prayer IV:

"Lord, look upon this sacrifice which you have given to your Church;
And by your Holy Spirit, gather all who share this one bread and one cup
into the one body of Christ, a living sacrifice of praise."

Thus the sacrifice on Calvary was indeed a real sacrifice, a total giving of oneself to God. And in a sense it was a redeeming sacrifice not only for Jesus but for us as well. But it was not a redeeming action in the literal sense of saving us from the snares of the devil and opening up the gates of heaven for us. When we read the liturgical texts, we should read them in a religious or analogous way. Just as Jesus lived his ordinary simple life with a great sense of dependence on his God (and one only has to read The Lord's Prayer to sense the sacrificial nature of this life), he also died with that same great hope and dependence on his God. In this regard it should be noted once again that his last great cry from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" [Mark 15:34] is the beginning of Psalm 22, a Psalm that sings of trust and faith, a Psalm of hope that praises the concern and closeness and strength and support of God in our lives.

I consider that this notion of sacrifice will make our religion and its liturgy more meaningful and relevant. It needs to see Jesus in terms of Wisdom literature that we referred to earlier. Jesus is the Word of God, one with God in life and in death. At Baptism we are initiated into the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and we share his sacrificial life and death and so, with him, come to the resurrection, the full flowering of a close relationship with our God.

And so Jesus liberates and frees us and shows us the way. He liberates and heals us with God's Spirit that he gives expression to and redeems and saves us by showing us the way to live — and the way to die, even in the most painful of situations. As Christians who are initiated into his person at Baptism, we share his life, death and resurrection. He is our saviour and redeemer. In the words of one of the newer Eucharistic Prayers:

Through your eternal Word you created all things
and govern their course with infinite wisdom.
In the Word made flesh
you have given us a mediator
who has spoken your words to us
and called us to follow him.
He is the way that leads to you,
the truth that sets us free,
the life that makes our joy complete.

The continuation of that same Eucharistic Prayer urges us to be conscious of our duty to share this truth and life with everyone, especially those who live at the coal face of human endeavour:

Keep your Church alert in faith to the signs of the times
and eager to accept the challenge of the gospel.
Open our hearts to the needs of all humanity,
so that sharing their grief and anguish,
their joy and hope,
we may faithfully bring them the good news of salvation
and advance together on the way to your kingdom.

It is important to read and pray the Eucharistic Prayers with the mindset of Wisdom theology rather than Redemption/Fall theology, which as we have seen makes nonsense of God and does violence to our intelligence. This presents a problem because the language of the liturgy is written in the latter theological framework. It therefore becomes necessary for us to read the language of the texts with a religious interpretation and symbolic meaning, and attempt to view Jesus as the Word of God rather than the victim of God!

Wisdom Theology...

Wisdom theology adds a special dimension to our liturgical prayers. As stated in the previous chapter, it is the Cosmic Christ, the Wisdom of God that penetrates and pervades all reality that we should try to identify with in the contemporary world. Everything came into being through and with and in him. Everything that exists is intimately bound up with this divine Spirit. As followers of the Christian tradition we understand that ultimately all reality will be reconciled through, with and in the Cosmic Christ, our Avatar Jesus. This was the great vision of the catholic priest and scientist Teilhard de Chardin [1881-1955]. Teilhard envisaged the entire universe finding its ultimate fulfilment in the person of Jesus, the Cosmic Christ. This has significance for our Christian Eucharist when we gather to remember this man Jesus and to see in the transformation of the bread and wine a much greater transformation of the entire universe into its ultimate completion in Jesus Christ. The bread and the wine become symbols representing the entire cosmos. During the Eucharist the bread and wine become the sacramental presence of Jesus Christ, his body and blood. At the same time, the totality of all that is becomes the person of Jesus Christ, his body and blood. This idea commands even greater respect when we understand that everything in the universe is connected. We have noted this interconnectedness in earlier pages. What happens during the Christian Eucharist at the transformation of the bread and wine cannot be viewed as an isolated event. What happens during the Christian Eucharist is but a hologram containing within itself the entirety of the cosmos. During the Christian Eucharist the entire universe becomes symbolically united with the Cosmic Christ. The dancer becomes one with the dance.

To say all this is really to utter nothing really new. The theology of St. Paul has as its basis the fullness of our life in Christ. At the heart of his message is that through Christ, God created the world and through him he is bringing it back to himself. This message rings strongly in all his Letters. It speaks to us very clearly in Ephesians:

Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! For in our union with Christ he has blessed us by giving us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world. Even before the world was made, God had already chosen us to be his through our union with Christ, so that we would be holy and without fault before him. Because of his love God had already decided that through Jesus Christ he would make us his sons — this was his pleasure and purpose. Let us praise God for his glorious grace, for the free gift he gave us in his dear Son! For by the sacrificial death of Christ we are set free, that is, our sins are forgiven. How great is the grace of God, which he gave to us in large measure!

In all his wisdom and insight God did what he had purposed, and made known to us the secret plan he had already decided to complete by means of Christ. This plan, which God will complete when the time is right, is to bring all creation together, everything in heaven and on earth, with Christ as head. [Ephesians 1:3-10]

Various liturgical hymns also give expression to this Wisdom theology such as the following:

The Father's glory, Christ our light,
With love and mercy comes to span
The vast abyss of sin between
The God of holiness and man.

Christ yesterday and Christ today,
For all eternity the same,
The image of our hidden God;
Eternal Wisdom is his name.

He keeps his word from age to age,
Is with us to the end of days,
A cloud by day, a flame by night,
To go before us on our ways.

We bless you, Father, fount of light,
And Christ, your well-beloved Son,
Who with the Spirit dwell in us;
Immortal Trinity in One.

If we can get away from literalism and interpret the language of the liturgy in a religious sense, it will have a greater resonance with the cosmic spirituality that I have suggested to you. It will reinforce the constant presence of God's Spirit in our universe and in our daily lives. Moreover it will nourish and refresh the awesomeness and the wonder that we should experience when consciously united with our God.

Other liturgical prayers and hymns should be viewed as beautiful poetical descriptions of the mutual relationship existing between God and the Cosmos, between God's Spirit and our lived experience. The First Eucharistic Prayer for Children contains much of this poetry:

God our Father,
You have brought us here together
So that we can give you thanks and praise
For all the wonderful things you have done.

We thank you for all that is beautiful in the world
And for the happiness you have given us.
We praise you for daylight
And for your word which lights up our minds.
We praise you for the earth
And all the people who live on it,
And for our life which comes from you.

So much of our liturgical prayer is filled with poetry. Poetry fills much of the Old Testament Psalms and other Books and is very much present in the hymns that we find in the Daily Prayer of the Church. As an example, look at the beautiful poetry in this hymn:

Alone with none but thee my God
I journey on my way;
What heed I fear, when thou art near,
O King of night and day?
More safe am I within they hand,
Than if a host did round me stand.

My destined time is fixed by thee,
And death doth know his hour.
Did warrior strong around me throng,
They could not stay his power;
No walls of stone can man defend
When thou thy messenger dost send.

My life I yield to they decree,
And bow to they control
In peaceful calm, for from thine arm
No power can wrest my soul.
Could earthly omens e'er appal
A man that heeds the heavenly call!

The child of God can fear no ill,
His chosen dread no foe;
We leave our fate with thee, and wait
Thy bidding when to go.
'Tis not from chance our comfort spring,
Thou art our trust, O King of kings.

A degree of superstition here if taken literally, and somewhat heretical. Poetically, however, it can only enhance our cosmic spirituality and our conscious awareness of the strong and intimate relationship we have with our God.

Within the official liturgical prayers and other prayers of the Church there are numerous examples of religious and poetical language which can nourish and nurture. But we must not pray such prayers with a literal mindset. To do so would not only be unhelpful; it could be downright detrimental to any kind of relationship we might have with the Cosmic Spirit. When they were first composed, all these prayers and hymns were intended to be taken literally. But with a developing theology and a new cosmological outlook, these same prayers and hymns must be prayed within a different theological framework. This is where the difficulty lies to a large extent. We have prayers originally meant to be taken literally (because they represented the theology of the time) that now have to be taken in a kind of religious or analogous sense or to be viewed poetically (in order to reflect the theology of the present time). In a rather beautiful way the prayers with all their history and accumulated theology and tradition can add a deeper dimension when read within a contemporary theological understanding. The tradition takes on a new embellishment. No need to change any of the words — just some aspects of their meaning! Jesus is still our redeemer, he is the divine Son of God and the Virgin Mary is his mother. Jesus rose from the dead and is now with his Father in Heaven and through Him, with Him and in Him we are one with our God.

Other Prayers...

There are some strange prayers doing the rounds at the moment — and some of them have been doing the rounds for some time. Prayers which are clearly offensive to both God and mankind and which do a great deal of violence to contemporary spirituality, science and theology, should be avoided.

One prayer I have in mind is that little kind of aphorism which many people still use when saying the Rosary:

O my God, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell,
and bring all souls to Heaven especially those most in need of thy mercy.

This idea of hell fire and souls is quite bizarre and surely has no place in our modern world. In any case, Jesus has already saved us from the fires of hell and has brought us all into a heavenly relationship with our God. All of us incidentally; not just our souls!

There are other prayers that are not only inappropriate in the Third Millennium but which cause fear and confusion. Some people still pray that St. Michael the Archangel will thrust down Satan into hell and with him all the other wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. And so on. In addition to all of this there has accumulated a plethora of strange novenas, invariably Marian in content, and a strange collection of medals, scapulars and the like.

Lourdes Arch at Galong Retreat Centre. Click image to enlarge and link to more photos and the Galong Retreat Centre website.

Claims of apparitions, usually of Mary, in recent times have done harm to the freeing and healing spirit of God. These appearances of Mary invariably contain magical instructions and tasks so that God will make his presence felt in the world. If we do this, then God will do that. At Galong retreat house in Southern NSW there is an arch erected in remembrance of the appearance of Mary at Lourdes in 1858. In addition to claiming that she was the Immaculate Conception, Mary issued some strange requests such as tell the priests to build a chapel here, drink at the spring and wash in it, and perhaps the most bizarre of all, eat the plant growing by it. Marian apparitions have hardly fostered an intelligent and reverent respect and love for our Catholic faith. Indeed a great deal of damage continues to be perpetrated by Marian zealots both in Australia and overseas. Mary must retain the highest possible respect we Catholics can give her because through her was born our Christian saviour. She is to be held in the highest regard by anyone claiming to be a disciple of Jesus. She must never be allowed to fall in dignity and grace because of the strange rantings of some of her adopted children, the brothers and sisters of Jesus.

There currently abounds a vast array of superstitious prayer saying and a resurfacing of some older ideas such as Purgatory. As I write, I have in front of me a document giving some details of this place of suffering. The writer actually talks of the location of Purgatory:

Although faith tells us nothing definite regarding the location of purgatory, the most common opinion, that which most accords with the language of Scripture, and which is the most generally received among theologians, places it in the bowels of the earth, not far from the hell of the reprobates. Theologians are almost unanimous, says St. Belarmin, in teaching that purgatory, at least the ordinary place of expiation, is situated in the interior of the earth, that the souls in purgatory and the reprobate are in the same subterranean space in the deep abyss which the Scripture calls hell.

This is an example of literalism at its best or worst! Journey to the Centre of the Earth indeed! I have just destroyed that document and other similar stuff that people keep sending or giving me. I find it all so offensive and am concerned that so many people are not being nurtured by good religion. They are not finding satisfaction and renewal and nourishment in the Eucharist and other liturgical actions of the Church and in the Scriptures, and so they have recourse to rather barbaric and bizarre devotions filled with superstitious nonsense such as the Nine First Fridays and the Five First Saturdays. Scapulars, medals, and a plethora of other artefacts are making claims that are essentially detrimental to the teachings of Jesus and do no justice at all to the freeing and healing Spirit of the Cosmic God. I recall hearing a story about a mother who could not get her son to come home before sunset. So she told him that ghosts who came out after dusk haunted the road to their house. By the time the boy grew up he was so afraid of ghosts that he refused to run messages at night. So the mother gave him a medal and taught him that it would protect him. Bad religion gave him faith in the medal. Good religion gets him to see that ghosts do not exist.

Many prayers such as the Rosary are not barbaric at all, because they pray a Christian mantra to the mother of Jesus and her son's saving mission, but they tend to supplant the principal prayers of the liturgy. The main Sunday liturgical focus for the Christian is the Eucharist when people gather together to remember the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Yet I find that people are gathering first of all to recite the Rosary! The sole reason Christians gather on Sundays should be for the celebration of the Eucharist. The Rosary or any other prayers for that matter should be prayed on another occasion. Perhaps a Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning! I stress that the language and liturgy of the Church must be made relevant and meaningful in today's world and must fulfil its role in nourishing people's spirituality. Because the liturgical prayers are not properly understood, people opt for Hail Marys and Glory Bes which they are more comfortable with. Perhaps another Reformation is needed, a reformation that will bring the Church and its prayers into some kind of harmony with the cosmological understanding of the present time, and with science, and with all the current signs of the times.

NEXT WEEK: Epilogue

Series Navigation: Prologue & Preamble | Chapter One: The Thinking of Pooh | Orthodoxy | Who or What is God? I | Who or What is God? II | God and Jesus I | God and Jesus II | Jesus the Avatar I | Jesus the Avatar II | Religion & Literalism I | Religion & Literalism II | Religion & Literalism III | Religion & Literalism IV | Religion & Literalism V | Religion & Literalism VI | Our Universe I | Our Universe II | The God of Our Universe I | The God of Our Universe II | God, Our Universe & Ourselves I | God, Our Universe & Ourselves II | God, Our Universe & Ourselves III | God, Our Universe & Ourselves IV | Ourselves & Prayer I | Ourselves & Prayer II | Ourselves & Prayer III | Ourselves & Prayer IV | Epilogue

IMAGE CREDITS:
Clicking on the images in the body of this article will take you to the original source and further information.

[Index of Commentaries by Fr Peter Dresser]