16 July 2020

Spiritus Sanctus in Sancta Ecclesia

The Holy Spirit is not Magic.

The"Holy Spirit" is not a magical incantation.

In fact, the Holy Spirit does work, and does work day by day, century by century, in the life of the Church. But, like a modest human being, He doesn't keep drawing showy attention to Himself. He doesn't parade around with banners proclaiming "I am the Holy Spirit and this is what I am ordering you to do". 

I offer you a passage by S John Henry Newman on how the Holy Spirit has so often guided the Ecclesia docens in past centuries.

"Perhaps a local teacher, or a doctor in some local school, hazards a proposition, and a controversy ensues. It smoulders or burns in one place, no one interposing; Rome simply lets it alone. Then it comes before a bishop; or some priest, or some professor in some other seat of learning takes it up; and then there is a second stage of it. Then it comes before a university, and it may be condemned by the theological faculty. So the controversy proceeds year after year, and Rome is still silent. An appeal perhaps is made to a seat of authority inferior to Rome; and then at last after a long while it comes before the supreme power. Meanwhile, the question has been ventilated and turned over and over again, and viewed on every side of it, and authority is called upon to pronounce a decision, which has already been arrived at by reason. But even then, perhaps the supreme authority hesitates to do so, and nothing is determined on the point for years; or so generally and vaguely, that the whole controversy has to be gone through again, before it is ultimately determined." 

I am aware that not every age calls for the same methods; but, so it seems to me, the Bergoglian approach ... this 'making of a mess' and this drawing of conclusions ... cronies claiming that the Holy Spirit is behind every innovation ... spokesmen assuring gullible dupes that, if the Holy Father realises he is running out of time, he will crank up the speed of his innovations ... all this seems to me to be, not only in degree but also in essence, different toto caelo from what S John Henry discerned in the history of the first Christian millennia. 

The whole notion of subjecting the Catholic Church to speedy transformatiion so that she becomes a sub-species of the Zeitgeist was tried in the 1960s, and we know what happened. Why are so many people so blind about the fact that the Enemy is trying the same tedious tricks again now?

There is one thing which is even worse than a Disaster: a boring Disaster. 

1 comment:

E sapelion said...

I don't see a great difference between what Newman describes and what you describe Father, except for the speed of modern communications, in days of yore news might travel slowly, if at all. The Chronicle of the Kings of Mann passes 1071 as an uneventful year except for the fall of King Harold at the battle of Hastings(!).
Pope Francis asked CDWDS to change the rubrics for foot washing on Maundy Thursday, he did not send a reminder for 18 months. And he did not even ask for a rule change until he had repeatedly demonstrated what he considers better practice.