King, Martin Luther

Image by The U.S. National Archives via Flickr

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68) was an African American Baptist minister and Ph.D. born in Atlanta, Georgia.

King advocated civil rights and won the Kennedy Peace Prize and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. In the southern states he spoke out against the legal segregation of blacks and whites in public places.

Perhaps his most famous words, caught live on film during one of his many public addresses, were delivered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C in 1963:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.¹

King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee by James Earl Ray, who was arrested in London, tried in Memphis and sent to prison with a 99-year sentence in 1969.

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¹ Martin Luther King, Jr: The Peaceful Warrior, New York: Pocket Books, 1968.

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Martin Luther

The 95 Theses, circa 1517. Written in protest by Martin Luther against Church abuse via Wikipedia

Martin Luther (1483-1546) was the son of a copper miner, born at Eisleben, and the founder of the German Protestant Reformation.

After a traditional education, Luther entered an Augustinian monastery in 1505. He was ordained as a priest in 1507 and in 1512 earned the title of Doctor of Theology and Professor of Scripture at Wittenberg.

Luther became widely known as a reformer after visiting Rome in 1510-11, where he was appalled by the Catholic Church’s sale of indulgences. In 1517 he denied the Pope‘s authority to forgive sins by posting his 95 theses on the Church door at Wittenberg.

Apparently intended as a mere theological argument, intense controversy followed this pivotal act.

Luther was called to Rome to defend his theses. He ignored the summons and continued to challenge the papacy even more forcefully, publicly setting to flames the papal bull that condemned his activities.

A Church order was given to destroy his written works. Luther was called before the Diet at Worms and expelled from the Empire. His Augsburg Confession, where the character Melanchthon represents his own views, is a benchmark for the German Reformation (1530).

Luther married a nun and had six children, one of whom died young. In his later years he showed definite signs of antisemitism, which has lead to his controversial status.¹

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¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_and_antisemitism

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Johann Sebastian Bach

series of stamps of the German Empire, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) :*Ausgabepreis: 50 Pfennig :*First Day of Issue / Erstausgabetag: 1. November 1927 :*Michel-Katalog-Nr: 396 (Deutsches Reich) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a German composer and musician born in Eisenach. He’s often described as one of the greatest Western classical composers.

Orphaned at the age of 10, Johann Sebastian was raised by his brother, Johann Christoph (1671-1721), who taught him the organ and clavier.

A devout Lutheran, biographers note that Bach was a perfectionist to the point of beating his students when they made mistakes. Nevertheless, his polyphonic inventions raised the existing Baroque tradition to a new and unsurpassed level of magnificence.

In 1711 he was kapellmeister (orchestra leader) to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, composing the Brandenburg Concertos (1721) and The Well-tempered Clavier (1722). In 1723 he was cantor (director of church music) of the St Thomas School in Leipzig, writing cantatas, including the St Matthew Passion (1727), the Mass in B Minor and The Art of Fugue.

Pianist Angela Hewitt notes that the move from kapellmeister to cantor was a professional step down for Bach, “but he knew that Leipzig would be a better place to educate his children.” She adds that Bach wanted better instruments and performing musicians but his requests were repeatedly refused by authorities in Leipzig who didn’t appreciate his rare genius.¹

Almost entirely blind at his death, his work as a composer was not fully recognized until the following century. During his lifetime he was known mostly as an organist. This oversight is ironic as many today speak as if he snatched music from heaven for the benefit of mankind.

Wanda Landowska (July 5, 1879 – August 16, 1959) was a Polish (later a naturalized French citizen) harpsichordist – Image via Tumblr

His influence reverberates throughout classical, jazz, and even pop music. The Canadian pianist Glenn Gould came to love Bach over all the other composers. Gould recorded the Goldberg Variations twice, once in analog and later in an early digital studio. Sales of those records, especially the analog recording, reached all-time highs for classical music.

A 1934-36 recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations BWV.988, Italian Concerto BWV.971 and Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue BWV.903 by keyboardist Wanda Landowska has been marketed by EMI records as a “great recording of the century,” despite the sound quality being subpar. And Landowska’s rendition of The Well Tempered Clavier – tinny sound and all – makes a lasting impression on anyone sensitive to great moments in recorded music.

Along with Mozart and Beethoven, Bach stands out as one of The Big Three, whose works Polish composer Henryk Górecki described as the “bread and butter” of the classical repertoire.

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¹ Angela Hewitt, liner notes from Bach, The Six Partitas, Hyperion: 1997. This CD has a soft but definitive touch that makes Hewitt my favorite contemporary Bach pianist. (MC)

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Consubstantiation

English: The Lord’s Supper. Christ standing at an Orthodox altar, giving the Eucharist to the Twelve Apostles. Frescoes in the upper church of Spaso-Preobrazhenski cathedral. Valaam Monastery Русский: Алтарная апсида верхнего храма Спасо-Преображенского собора Валаамского монастыря. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Consubstantiation is the teaching about the Lord’s Supper that says Christ is “in, with, and under” the bread and wine, which themselves are not altered in substance.¹ It’s often associated with Martin Luther, even though he spoke in terms of “sacramental union.”

The teaching, however, resonates with Luther’s view that Christ’s divine and human aspects are so closely united that he is omnipresent within all of creation.

Wikipedia outlines the, perhaps, first visibly historical incidence of consubstantiation:

In England in the late 14th century, there was a political and religious movement known as Lollardy. Among much broader goals, the Lollards affirmed a form of consubstantiation—that the Eucharist remained physically bread and wine, while becoming spiritually the body and blood of Christ. Lollardy survived up until the time of the English Reformation.²

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¹ An alteration of substance but not of form is key to the Catholic belief in transubstantiation.

² http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consubstantiation#History_and_culture

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Confirmation

A girl is blessed by the priest during her confirmation in the Norwegian state church. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Confirmation is the Christian rite in which the Holy Spirit is conferred or renewed to those already baptized. Confirmation began as a unique rite around the 4th century, involving the laying on of hands or anointing with oil.

Today’s Catholic Church usually confirms believers just after the age of seven. But adults who are converting to Catholicism and have successfully completed the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults are baptized and confirmed during the Easter Vigil by either a bishop or a priest.

If the converting adult has already been baptized through a recognized Christian denomination, they’re confirmed without having to be baptized again. For Catholics it’s not possible to be baptized twice because, as Deacon Ed puts it, baptism imparts and “indelible mark on the soul.”¹

Lutheran, Anglican and other Protestant confirmations are similar, usually not allowing a person to receive Holy Communion until after their confirmation.  Within all Churches the confirmed become full members of their Church.

There is also a Jewish understanding of Confirmation. Details for the peculiarities among Christian denominations and the Jewish faith can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation.

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¹ http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=196262

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Catholic

Soufrière Catholic Church by waywuwei via Flickr

The term “Catholic” (Greek: katholikos = universal) was initially applied to the Christian Church by St. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 100 CE) in a letter to the Church at Smyrna:

Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church.

The term became widely used to denote both clergy and lay members of the Christian Church. In the 4th-century CE St. Pacianus writes

Christian is my name; Catholic is my surname.

Today it refers to any member of the Roman Catholic Church. However, the following shows some of the complications around this term.

The Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, and some Methodists believe that their churches are “Catholic” in the sense that they are in continuity with the original universal church founded by the Apostles. However, each church defines the scope of the “Catholic Church” differently. For instance, the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox churches each maintain that their own denomination is identical with the original universal church, from which all other denominations broke away.¹

Some materialistic psychologists and sociologists view this in terms of a kind of individual and cultural relativity. In other words, all the churches are both right and wrong in that their supremacist claims give adherents a sense of personal meaning and social belonging (each person and group according to their unique profiles). But all the churches are essentially wrong because God and the afterlife don’t exist. And even if God did exist, such a being wouldn’t favor one path over others.

English: St. Mary’s Maternity Roman Catholic Church in Trzebiatów, Poland Polski: Kościół Macierzyństwa Najświętszej Marii Panny w Trzebiatowie – widok z przedmieścia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Others believe that God surely does exist, and God’s truth doesn’t stoop to psychological or postmodern style theories. So one Church is right and all the others are wrong.

A third way of looking at the problem sees some spiritual truth in each Church but also cultural biases. These spiritual truths are not necessarily the same, conceptually or experientially. For instance, a Catholic entering an Orthodox church might intellectually balk at theological differences over, say, the filioque.² They may also feel a spiritual presence, but the numinosity might not be of the same quality as experienced within the Catholic Church (and vice versa, with the Orthodox believer entering into a Catholic church). In this way of understanding, one path is right for one type of person, while another path is right for another type of person. Accordingly, one path to salvation is not necessarily better than another. Just as a frog likes a pond, a bird likes the air.

And yet a fourth way of seeing the issue is to say that one path is, in fact, closer to ultimate truth than the others but still contains cultural bias and is, therefore, imperfect.

This last way seems to be the way of the Catholic Church in the 21st century. Catholics are taught that other religions may contain elements of truth, but the Catholic Church is the best expression of God’s mysterious being, creation and plan of salvation—even if the Catholic Church’s articulation of belief remains imperfect by virtue of our human limitations.

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_term_Catholic

² http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filioque

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Capricorn

Capricorn by verseguru via Flickr

In astrological belief Capricorn (December 22-January 21) [Latin caper: goat + cornu: horn] is the 10th sign of the zodiac. It’s symbolized by the Goat and associated with the planetary ruler of Saturn.

Capricorn’s astrological element is Earth. Believers maintain that Capricorn is the organizational person. Practical, regular, and at times doggedly stubborn, Capricorn’s apparently get things done and do them well. They achieve whatever they see as important, be it in battle, business or public service.

Notable Capricorns are Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King, Jr., Elvis Presley and the American radio host and actor Howard Stern.

In astronomy Capricornus is the Sea Goat, a large but faint constellation located between Sagittarius and Aquarius. Wikipedia outlines some of Capricorn’s ancient mythological associations:

Despite its faintness, Capricornus has one of the oldest mythological associations, having been consistently represented as a hybrid of a goat and a fish since the Middle Bronze Age. First attested in depictions on a cylinder-seal from around the 21st century BC,^[4] it was explicitly recorded in the Babylonian star catalogues as ^MULSUḪUR.MAŠ “The Goat-Fish” before 1000 BC. The constellation was a symbol of the god Ea and in the Early Bronze Age marked the winter solstice...^[5]

In Greek mythology, the constellation is sometimes identified as Amalthea, the goat that suckled the infant Zeus after his mother Rhea saved him from being devoured by his father Cronos (in Greek mythology). The goat’s broken horn was transformed into the cornucopia or horn of plenty.^{[citation needed]} Capricornus is also sometimes identified as Pan, the god with a goat’s head, who saved himself from the monster Typhon by giving himself a fish’s tail and diving into a river.^{[2] †}

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† http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capricornus

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John Calvin

John Calvin

John Calvin (1509-64) was a French Protestant lawyer, reformer and theologian born in Picardy. He broke with the Catholic church around 1530.

Calvin’s growing sympathy for the Reformation movement led him to flee Paris in 1533 to Basil, Switzerland for fear of persecution from the Church. In Switzerland he began to reform the church of Geneva, at the request of the evangelist, William Farel.

An extremely rational thinker, his early writings reveal affinities with both Martin Luther and Erasmus.

His extensive commentaries on the New Testament and to some degree the Old Testament were highly influential to the development of Protestantism. As a reformer, he remains a leading figure in that diverse (some might say fractured) movement.

Calvin’s authority was practically uncontested during his final years, and he enjoyed an international reputation as a reformer distinct from Martin Luther.^[62] Initially, Luther and Calvin had mutual respect for each other. However, a doctrinal conflict had developed between Luther and Zurich reformer Huldrych Zwingli on the interpretation of the eucharist. Calvin’s opinion on the issue forced Luther to place him in Zwingli’s camp.¹

Learned, literate, and theologically imaginative, works like his Institutes exhibit the complex theological scholarship and discursive style characteristic of his era.

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¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin#Final_years_.281555.E2.80.931564.29

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The Reformation Wall in Geneva. From left: Farel, John Calvin, Theodore Beza, and John Knox (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Calvinism

John Calvin (Photo credit: jimforest)

Calvinism is a theological system found in the writings of the Protestant John Calvin, having much in common with those of Martin Luther but differing on some key issues.

Common beliefs among Luther and Calvin include:

• Scripture is the ultimate authority on matters of faith
• Free will is enslaved by original sin
• The doctrine of justification by grace through faith

Calvin believed that the authority of scripture is twofold. Scripture is divinely inspired but, at the same time, believers subjectively experience its divine authenticity through the “internal testimony of the Holy Spirit.”

Calvinism differs most dramatically from Lutheranism by having a:

• radical dependence on scripture for church doctrine and practice
• emphasis on predestination

According to Calvinism, an omnipotent God predestined some (called “the elect”) for heaven and others, (called “the dammed”) for hell.

Signature of John Calvin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Unlike Luther, Calvin believed in a theocracy (church rule over national, regional and civic affairs) while Luther defended the separation of Church and State.

Calvin believed in the Eucharist but like many churches, had his own spin on just what goes on while believers partake in this holy meal.

The Reformed churches, following the teachings of John Calvin, believe in an immaterial, spiritual (or “pneumatic”) presence of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit and received by faith.¹

Although Calvin believed that all works outside the Christian faith are evil (even good works), he stressed the importance of good works among the Christian community.

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¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharist

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Discernment

Mysticism by gianluca.nastasi via Flickr

One Aspect

In Catholic theology one aspect of discernment is the use of reason and experience coupled with divine gifts to distinguish between true and false interior perception.

As Henri Martin P.S.S. puts it:

The charism of discernment is “a kind of supernatural instinct by which those who have it perceive intuitively the origin, either divine or not, of thoughts and inclinations submitted to them.” (J. de Guibert, Lecons, p. 306). It is to be distinguished from revelation of the secrets of hearts, properly so called, made directly by God. In such revelations, which is extremely rare, objective certitude is absolute. In the case of discernment the chances of error lie in the subjective interpretation and use of the supernatural light received. Lacking an infused charism, ordinarily “God will assist by special interior light a gift of discernment acquired by experience and prudence in the application of the traditional rules of discernment.”¹

On the need for seekers to be sincere, humble and rational in the discernment process, the scholar of mysticism, Evelyn Underhill, says:

Ecstasies, no less than visions and voices, must, they declare, be subjected to unsparing criticism before they are recognized as divine: whilst some are undoubtedly “of God,” others are no less clearly “of the devil.”²

Likewise, the Protestant William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience, suggests that some lower forms of mysticism may have “proceeded from the demon.”³ The Lutheran Rudolf Otto also talks about different types of mysticism. See, for instance,  “An Outline of Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holy,” Chapter XVI – The ‘Cruder’ Phases.

In Protestant and Catholic Churches discernment is described as a gift and developed ability where a person learns to differentiate among

• divine spiritual influences
• evil spiritual influences
• one’s truest self.

But a problem arises in that many religious people claim to discern. And often different religious and New Age enthusiasts discern differently on the very same issue, citing the “Holy Spirit,” “Allah,” “Angels” or “Objective Truth” as their source of authority.

Discernment often seems to mean taking an alarmist, knee-jerk view of issues that one doesn’t understand, projecting bad habits and transferring the unsavory contents of the unconscious onto scapegoats. This can happen on an individual level or through a kind of institutionally reinforced hypocrisy, as we’ve seen time and again in the history of religions, cults and spiritual movements.

Indeed, unconscious anger, resentment and unresolved psychological complexes may color discernment. And it seems that psychological pain, immaturity and the potential influence of fantasy or evil influences can all be intertwined.

Another Aspect

Another related meaning of the term discernment is to discover what God wants an individual to do in life, to find one’s calling, as it were. This relates to the first meaning of discernment because we can’t do the right thing in life if we’re following imaginary voices, fantasy desires or the promptings of an evil power.

Thomas H. Green S. J. notes that, within Catholicism, this second form of discernment of finding one’s calling was once premised on sheer authority. A spiritual director would simply tell a religious what to do. Today, however, the relationship between discernment and spiritual directors has evolved. Emphasis is now given on “co-discernment” and, in the larger sense, communal discernment. Authority figures only provide general guidelines, as plainly evident in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Ultimately it’s up to each individual to flesh out God’s will for his or her life.⁴

A Synthesis

Father Edward Malatesta, S. J. definition of discernment combines the two previous aspects:

By the discernment of spirits is meant the process by which we examine, in the light of faith and in the connaturality of love, the nature of the spiritual states we experience in ourselves and in others. The purpose of such examination is to decide, as far as possible, which of the movements we experience lead us to the Lord and to a more perfect service of Him and our brothers, and which deflect us from this goal.⁵

Interestingly, some believe that a higher power or spiritual gift can override personal biases, enabling an imperfect person to make perfect discernments. This dynamic may, indeed, occur from time to time but for the most part it seems that the development of accurate discernment is a lifelong process.

And, quite possibly, we may continue to sharpen our powers of discernment in the afterlife.

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¹ (ibidem). (Jacques Guillet, Gustave Bardy et. al. (trans.) Sister Innocentia Richards, Ph.D., Discernment of Spirits. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1970, p. 104.)

² Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism, New York: New American Library, 1955, p. 361.

³ London: Penguin, 1985, p. 423.

⁴ Thomas H. Green S. J., Weeds Among the Wheat - Discernment: Where Prayer and Action Meet, Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1984, pp. 11-17).

⁵ Cited in Green, p. 41.

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