Sainte-Chapelle

One of the great joys I have in teaching is learning from my students.  In our course on The Catholic Imagination, at University of Mary (Tempe Campus), I gave an assignment to the students for a synthesis project to analyze a church building or a specific text in respect to the course goals.

The main thesis we are exploring in this class is the way that the believer perceives God and lives the Catholic faith in the fullness of our humanity and in the fullness of the created order. It is about the way God created us to know him: body and soul, intellect and senses, memory and imagination; it is about the symbolic meaning of the natural order by which God speaks to us; and it is about the way Christ and the Church use these symbols and sacraments to lead us to the Kingdom of God.  Sweeping themes, but in so many ways central to the very core of Christianity because it comes down to one main notion that pervades all of Catholic theology: relationship.

In the first presentation of the class, on the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of Durandus of Mende, a late medieval text on the symbols that inform the Catholic sacraments, liturgy, architecture, and art,  the student gave us a beautiful gloss on Durandus' treatment of stained glass. She suggested that from outside the church stained glass appears dull and indistinct, but when we are inside the church, the stained glass comes to life in the radiance of the sun's light. And in that illumination we find joy and meaning.

The theological implications are clear, and central to the core theme of the course: that outside the Church much of the world seems dull and grey, indistinct and only dimly intelligible. Yet from within the Church, illuminated by the light of Christ and by grace, all things take on beauty and meaning, and move our hearts and minds. 

As Abbot Suger of St-Denis wrote in the century before Durandus, "The dull mind rises to truth through that which is material and, in seeing this light, is resurrected from its former submersion." In Christ and in his Church we suddenly perceive the relationship between beauty and order through form. The whole world is illuminated for us to see ever more clearly, beginning the process of which St Paul speaks, "We see things now in a confused way, as if through a darkened mirror, but then we shall see face to face" (1 Cor 12:13).

This insight is at the heart of the Catholic sacraments: that through the material order, and only through the material, do we connect to the spiritual realm. We come to God not as mere "mind" in some rationalist fashion, nor as only "spirit" apart from the body and the material order as would the Gnostics both ancient and modern have it. Rather, it is in the fullness of our humanity, both body and soul, that we come to God. This is the way we were made, and this is the way God ordered creation: to speak of relationship. This is the incarnational principle of the Catholic faith: it answers the question of St Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, why God became man.

In fact, we cannot get to God any other way but through our bodies and our senses fully cooperating with our hearts and minds and working in union with the grace of God. Only in Christ can we look upon what seems to be bread and wine and understand that it is now the Body and Blood of Christ-- simply because Our Lord declares it to be so. Only in Christ can we look upon the corpse of our beloved and have hope that he or she now lives in Christ, because of Christ's promise to bring us to eternal life. Only in Christ can we understand that to feed the poor, and to clothe the naked, and to visit the imprisoned is to do so for Christ, since in the words of Blessed John Paul II, "Christ has united himself for ever through this mystery" with every person. To do a work of mercy, to love on another, is to love Christ. We can do it no other way, and if we don't do it through love we simply do not do it.

This splendid insight about the power of light through stained glass, and how grace illumines our hearts and minds to see more clearly, was followed up in the next presentation by a student presenting the Sainte-Chapelle, the magnificent reliquary chapel built in Paris by St Louis the King to house, among other items of devotion, the Crown of Thorns.  Louis IX was an exact contemporary of Durandus, about 15 years his elder, and we ought to assume was completely informed architecturally and theologically by the same sacramental and architectural understandings that Durandus worked so diligently to catalog in his magisterial Rationale. 

Sainte-Chapelle is uncontested as the epitome of the Gothic rayonnant style -- where all the technology of the age:  the pointed arch, flying buttresses, the ribbed vault, and exacting mathematical proportions: allowed for massive expanses of stained glass windows. This was not a mere stylistic exercise, but rather the application of architectural skill to dematerialize the stone building, to create the effect of being in a soaring building of glass. But even more than that: the theological vision of the Gothic builders was not to create a mere building of glass, but more "the city of pure gold, that seemed like transparent glass" (Rev 21:21). It is the Heavenly Jerusalem that has, "no need for sun or moon, since the Lamb gives it light."

This heavenly Jerusalem is perhaps the more important inspiration for architects, at least from the fourth century when Eusebius commented on the new Cathedral at Tyre,

But the region above the heavens, with the models of earthly things which are there, and the so-called Jerusalem above, and the heavenly Mount of Zion, and the celestial city of the living God, in which innumerable choirs of angels and the Church of the first born, whose names are written in heaven, praise their Maker...

The celestial city is the architectural setting for the heavenly liturgy, where the angels and saints eternally worship the Trinity, "day and night they cried unceasingly, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who ever was, and is, and is still to come" (Rev 4:8).

How appropriate it was that in this presentation that the student brought to my attention a beautiful piece of contemporary sacred music, a hymn by Eric Whitacre based on a poem by Charles Anthony Silvestri, commissioned in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Tallis Scholars. The hymn interlaces a simple story of a young girl who is lifted up mystically into the heavenly liturgy with the words of the Mass as the angels sing through the radiant stained glass at Sainte Chapelle.

Sainte-Chapelle

© 2013 Charles Anthony Silvestri

Castissima virgo                              An innocent girl
Advenit in capellam;                       Entered the chapel
Et angeli in vitro                        And the angels in the glass
Molliter cantaverunt,                      Softly sang,

"Hosanna in excelsis!"                    “Hosanna in the highest!”

Illa castissima                                  The innocent girl
Susurravit,                                        Whispered,

"Sanctus! Sanctus! Sanctus!"          “Holy! Holy! Holy!”

Lux implevit spatium,                     Light filled the chamber,
Multiformis colore;                         Many-colored light;
Et audivit vocem suam                   She heard her voice
Resonare,                                         Echo,

"Sanctus! Sanctus! Sanctus!"         “Holy! Holy! Holy!”

Molliter angeli cantaverunt,          Softly the angels sang

"Dominus Deus sabaoth,              “Lord God of Hosts,
Pleni sunt coeli et terra                  Heaven and earth are full
Gloria tua!"                                      Of your glory!”

"Hosanna in excelsis!                      “Hosannah in the highest!
Hosanna in excelsis!"                      Hosannah in the highest!”
Vox in lumine transformat,            Her voice became light,
Et lumen canit,                                 And the light sang,

"Sanctus! Sanctus! Sanctus!"          “Holy! Holy! Holy!”

Lumen canit molliter,                      The light sang softly,

"Dominus Deus sabaoth,               “Lord God of Hosts,
Pleni sunt coeli et terra                   Heaven and earth are full
Gloria tua!"                                       Of your glory!”

Castissima virgo                              An innocent girl
Advenit in capellam;                       Entered the chapel
Et angeli in vitro                              And the angels in the glass
Molliter cantaverunt.                      Softly sang.

Almost 800 years after King Louis IX, the message of the chapel still speaks to us. The building is indeed sacramental, and still has the power to move us to have some glimpse of the relationship between heaven and earth, between the order of music and poetry and architecture, between the body and the soul, between God and his creation.

The notion of relationship appears to be developing as the main theme of Pope Francis' pontificacy. I am becoming more and more convinced that within this understanding all the strange and quirky, and even troubling and bothersome, things he says, suddenly make perfect sense. For this is what the Gospel is about: Emmanuel, God with Us, sharing in our humanity that we might share in Christ's divinity.  This is what it is all about: the Incarnation, the Church, the Sacraments, the call to evangelize, the meaning of human relationships, our final destination in the Heavenly City, even the architecture of a tiny chapel in the middle of Paris where the angels eternally sing Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus.

That awkward moment when Obama says something that challenges the pro abortion Left...

h/t Frank Beckwith.

The problem of "consent"

Nowadays ethics, especially those regarding the "pelvic issues", are reduced to mere matters of consent. As long as two people can consent to an action, then no one has any business telling them they cannot, ought not, or must not do that action.

This point was brought sharply home in an essay by Ms. Betsy Karasik, a "former lawyer", in the Washington Post, concerning the case of Stacey Dean Rambold, the Montana high school teacher who raped a 14 year old student who later killed herself at the tender age of 16 while the prosecution was mounting its case against Rambold.  The whole legal proceeding was so grotesque that even Dan Savage -- a career homosexual and sex advice columnist who bullied teenagers and insulted Christians as part of his anti-bullying campaign -- was incensed by the verdict and judgment that gave the offender 31 days in jail for this crime. Savage, of course, relies on "consent" to determine sexual ethics regarding any sort of activity, but for some reason he draws a line with regard to sex with minors for now.

The victim, Cherice Morales (center), flanked by her rapist Stacey Dean Rambold (right) and the "Honorable" G. Todd Baugh (left) who effectively told us that the rape of the late Miss Morales was not really worth his court's time or that of the Montana prison system.

The whole Rambold affair is grotesque of course -- not only the actual crime, but the verdict and judgment as well. The Honorable Judge Baugh all but let Rambold walk free since he considered that the late Cherice Morales was "older than her chronological age" and somehow was "as much in control of the situation" as Rambold, and therefore was presumably a consenting partner. He perhaps gave the minimum sentence that  he could get away with (15 year with 14 years 11 months suspended)  for an actual crime of this class of felony against the laws of Montana. I can't speak to the sentencing requirements or guidelines in Montana, but it seems clear from the sentence that he considered the whole case to be de minimis, something that is really too trivial and insignificant to really bother his court with.

But the grotesquerie just keeps getting more grotesque. In defense of Rambold and Baugh, Betsy Karasik argues that generally, "consensual sexual activity between teachers and students should not be criminalized."  Karasik thinks that society responds to such cases of high school teachers raping their pupils with "utter hysteria", and rather than prosecute perpetrators they ought to merely be "removed from their jobs and barred from teaching unless they prove that they have completed rehabilitation."  That was, essentially, the same advice given to the Catholic bishops in the 1960s and 70s by clinical psychologists who thought that predatory sex offenders could be rehabilitated and restored to their ministry working with in parishes among children. I'm not sure how little more I can say about what a failure it was for the bishops to rely on that advice.

Karasik calls it a matter of "unintended consequences" that laws against statutory rape of minors cause damage in the intensity of prosecution and requiring the victims to endure "the pressure they put on participants, the stigma, the community and media scrutiny, and the concurrent shame and guilt they generate."  Without saying so, she seems to be implying that Cherice Morales took her life because of the fallout from the crimes against her, "unintended consequences", and that the sex between her and her 49 year old teacher was perfectly natural and consensual. She knows this of course because she herself was once a 14-year-old girl, and she knew of her high school friends who had sex with teachers:

To the best of my knowledge, these situations were all consensual in every honest meaning of the word, even if society would like to embrace the fantasy that a high school student can’t consent to sex. Although some feelings probably got bruised, no one I knew was horribly damaged and certainly no one died.

For Karasik, it society's bad handling of sexual consent that causes 16 year old rape victims to kill themselves. Duh.

The real question behind 'consent'

This general question of "consent" is timely and crops up again in Mark Shea's blog on National Catholic Register.

And so we stand at the place now where it is taken for granted that consent between two (or more) people is the sacred and sole criterion for whether or not a moral act is good.  If two (or more) people wish to engage in any consensual activity, who are we to say otherwise?  It's the one and only thing that matters, because the choice of the individual is the only sacred thing there is--goes the current narrative.  Indeed, the current wisdom is that getting rid of the Judeo-Christian tradition to make room for a secular culture free from all that old mystical religious junk can only result in more freedom!

Shea rightly notes the unintended consequences of the argument from consent, when even consent goes out the window.  Yale University has now determined that "nonconsensual sex" (you know, what we used to call "rape") is not that big of a deal.  The school apparently now deals with accusations mostly by a written reprimand.  Given the "he said, she said" nature of college hookups gone sour, Yale is perhaps more interested in getting on with the well paying business of education than serving as judge and jury and executioner for its well paying clientele.

Shea's main point in this concerns the power dynamics of privilege among the ruling elite, and their children being educated at places like Yale: 

Yale is a hatchery for members of the post-Christian Ruling Class.  That class, being increasingly post-Christian, is less and less enamored of ideas like "consent" as being sacred.  That's because, apart from the influence of the Christian tradition, the normal, room temperature state of fallen man is slavery for the mass of human beings and mastery by a few. Why does an enormously powerful person who faces no consequences for doing so have to care about the consent of the defenseless human being for whom he feels an itch for "nonconsensual sex"? In such circumstances, don't expect women to fare well.  When the powerful are trained to think "What's so special about consent?" it's just a matter of time till it moves beyond "nonconsensual" imposition of their will on Yale women to non-consensual imposition of their will on the rest of us. The final apotheosis of a civilization in which consent is the sole criterion of the good will be slavery.  Because the only consent that will matter will be the consent of the slavedriver.

Yet there is perhaps a deeper point in all of this. Yale no longer sees consent as that significant;  an interesting parallel to how Judge Baugh and Betsy Karasik no longer see presumptive lack of consent as significant for statutory rape. Yet for the modern physicalist/ materialist/ atheistic modern what can "consent" even be?  Nothing more than a pattern of electrochemical activity in a brain. 

The human being is completely reducible in the modern age to a rational, self-aware, deliberate thing that is purely physical – an electrochemical life form comprised of matter and energy that operates due to, and only in conformance with, the laws of physics, chemistry, electromagnetics, thermodynamics, etc. – just material “stuff”.  There is no soul, no spirit, no metaphysical component, no common human nature (which is a metaphysical construct), no purpose, no inherent meaning or value, no "end".

We are nothing but autonomous, conscious, independent biomachines that somehow can reflect back on ourselves. But even this "consciousness" and our understanding of "mind", and judgment, and valuation, and "human dignity", and "compassion" and "right or wrong", "good or evil", and such are likewise reducible to electromagnetic patterns and biochemical processes in the brain. We can't even rely on these to tell us anything about how we ought to act.

Consent is just another physical process -- entirely governed by the laws of physics, the result of physical forces, and in theory is understandable and controllable through scientific investigation. In fact, both slavery and roofies, as well as more socially acceptable electromagnetic experiments and legal pharmaceuticals, demonstrate that the human will is controllable through physical forces. Physical forces have no ethics.

And any attempt to construct a scientific morality or ethic in the human biomachine is just another application of biochemistry and is likewise beholden to the laws of physics as an output or a response to stimuli. Chemical reactions have no morality, they just are.

In short, if "consent" is reducible in the post-Christian scientistic worldview to some pattern of electrochemical activity, then it can not serve as any sort of moral consideration for determining what is right or wrong. Chemicals can act no other way than the ways that they do. They are properly speaking amoral.

So life becomes nothing more than a battle of competing physical forces. Whichever stronger force dominates and overcomes the weaker force is all that matters.  "The victors write history" is simply taken to its logical, molecular level of material stuff inexorably governed by the laws of physics.