Why God is "Father"
Paul writes "... for this reason I bow my knees to the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for whom is named all Paternity..."
"Paternity". Paul tells us that (whatever the Accidents of History that led to this situation) God the Divine Person the Father is "Father" before any men are "fathers". That is, it isn't (so far as the Naming of Things is concerned) that Men (or Women) are "More God-Like" or otherwise intrinsically Superior and so we compromise God with the name "Father" after human fathers: it is that All Human Paternity (and all Angelic Paternity... whatever that might be?) is called by (and thus, called unto imitating) the Divine Person the Father.
Since we are, with St. Paul, ignoring the Accidents of History so far as where human words come from, let us remark that Paternity, (rather than "paterity"...) is the Relation of being the Pattern (rather than the pater) of Something That Follows (or Proceeds). Let us remark that, so far as Human Paternity is concerned, not only are men-alone quite incapable of achieving this kind of Paternity, but Mothers Also Participate In Exactly the Same Paternity: that is, children resemble both their parents — in varying degrees and at different times, for Human skulls (weirdly!) change considerably as we mature. More importantly still, good fathers and mothers both provide patterns of living for their children to imitate.
In Brief: "Paternity-as-such" is a relation that both mothers and fathers participate in.
Now, there is, again, a reason that Mother and Father have different names. Mothers do more than pattern their children: they bear and birth them, at considerable hazard, and they feed them of their own living blood. There are different trends in the psychology of human motherhood vs. human fatherhood that follow from (or feed) this distinct role of Motherhood, but they do not obscure the Imago Dei that both men and women bear. The key point, for which cause we do not call God "Mother" is that: to the extent that we are "in God", we never leave ("in Him we move and have our being"), and to the extent that we are outside of God (distinct from... it is indeed a Considerable Extent...) we never were in Him. Or, to put it differently, the Specific Difference that separates Motherhood In Particular from Paternity In General is an Ephemeral Thing; but Nothing In God is changeful. Or again, Motherhood-as-such is a New Creation.
Why Ordinandi are Men
Even that great Falsifier the Worldly Orson Welles could wax lyrical about how Chartres Cathedral was, as are so many Gothic Basilicas, like "a Forest of Stone"; with St. Paul, let us put things backwards and say: The Forests of Old are Foretellings of the Cathedral. But a Cathedral of Stone is itself but a House for an Altar and an Ark. The Ark (in its Tabernacle) is for the Present Hidden God, of course. But what are altars for? Why, for Blood.
Human Priests, before and after Jesus Christ, are not to shed their own blood on God's Altar. Indeed, under the High Priesthood of Jesus Christ, there is only one Sacrifice on God's Altar, re-presented continually down through the Ages, resting only once a year on Good Friday... and it so happens that, shortly after the Forest (... or, perhaps, the Garden?... ) foretold the Cathedral, so too Woman foretold the Sacrifice and the Altar. That is, most women regularly shed their own blood, as a matter of course, and of keeping watch until the Master of the House Return, ... Woman portrays Sacrifice and Priesthood in her living flesh, more closely than we could bear to behold every day. Let these sacred things be veiled, but not eclipsed. Let not any think to Better that image of Man's duty of sacrifice unto God by imposing on a woman the work of sacrificing another's living blood, however great and holy. That were to make her less than she is, even the same which makes a man more than he was.
The priesthood of the lay faithful
There are, nonetheless, real and worthy sacrifices that all the faithful can make, and which No Priest can make for them. "If any man would come after Me, let him first deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me", says Our Lord; and St. Paul answers "with Christ, I am nailed to the cross; And I live, now, not I, but Christ liveth in me". As Abraham did sacrifice Isaac without shedding Isaac's blood, so we are called to sacrifice ourselves; and at the root of how we do that is to Repent of all our selfish sins, to Confess them through a Priest, doing Penance, and Receiving Holy Communion. Now-a-days, they even have wood boxes (usually, but not always, a bit larger than coffin-sized) in which to perform this Self-Immolation.
It takes an Ordained Priest with full Faculties to complete this work, to bind up the wound in Christ's Mystical Body, BUT no-one can begin this sacrifice on any other's behalf — and that is our priesthood; that is a Participatio Actuose!
From the Wilds of Urban Metropolis
0 comments:
Post a Comment