Venerable Fulton Sheen had a great influence on me as a teenager and young adult, through his books and cassette recordings of his conferences. His love for Christ and his Church, and his faithfulness to Peter is what most impacted me then and now. His life is a narrative of grace and tireless service. He helped many of my generation keep focused on the important things while there was a lot of craziness going on around us. And he did it without bitterness. Inevitably there will be efforts to make him say— out of context, or out of thin air— what people want him to have said. This is not a new phenomenon in the Church, but it wields more subtle power today. The great preacher can speak for himself, in a way we can understand. That was God’s gift to him, and his gift to us. I am grateful to God who in the providence of his servant Fulton Sheen, and many others, opened a way for me, and many others, into the priestly vocation. +df
As God Would Have It / Como lo quiere Dios Homily for Vespers,prior to the Ordination of +John Jairo Gómez 2nd Bishop of Laredo (29 June 2026)
(I wish first of all to offer a personal thanks to Bishop Tamayo.)
I have known the bishop-elect, John Jairo Gómez, since he entered the theological seminary in Houston quite a number of years ago. I was teaching there at the time, and I was younger then, though I’m not so sure he was. En los años que lo he conocido, me parece que no ha cambiado. Madurado, sí; pero sigue siendo el mismo: sencillo, cumplido, respetuoso, inteligente y sobre todo, hombre de caridad. Ama a Cristo y a su Iglesia.
A bishop has a lengthy job description, such that no one could really list it to him completely, nor explain its dimensions. This is so because the many preoccupations and responsibilities of a bishop are hidden within the first and primary charge given to him in 1 Peter 5,2: Tend the flock of God in your midst, (overseeing) not by constraint but willingly, as God would have it.
Apaciente el Rebaño de Dios, que le ha sido confiado; vele por él, no forzada, sino espontáneamente, como lo quiere Dios. Be a shepherd, as God would have it. Como lo quiere Dios. Secundum Deum, says the Vulgate, translating the Greek κατὰ θεόν. It is all there, in that simple phrase. If you know how God would have it, how he does things, then you implicitly have the rest of the job description.
Con esta breve agregación de palabras, apaciente como lo quiere Dios, el obispo recibe la totalidad de su carga. En el lenguaje de la fe, las formulaciones más sencillas contienen dentro de sí todo el desarrollo y detalle de la vida en Cristo. Así como cuando el Señor, dirigiéndose al mismo San Pedro, pregunta. ¿Me amas? Apacienta mis ovejas (Jn 21,17).
En la exhortación de San Pedro a los pastores percibimos su propia transmisión a las nuevas generaciones de lo que él había recibido del Señor. ¿Y cómo entendió San Pedro lo que había recibido del Señor? Tal vez como una carga especifica de lo que el Señor Jesus les había dicho a todos y a cada uno de sus discípulos: ámense unos a otros como yo los he amado (Jn 13,34).
Tal como lo quiere Dios equivale decir, tal como Jesús lo hizo. Se trata del contenido de su pastoreo, y también de su estilo y forma. En la vida de Jesús, su estilo es el contenido, y el contenido, el estilo.
When Simón Peter exhorts that the bishop love as God would have us love, como Dios lo quiere, he urges that we love as Christ has loved us. For the Church received from the Lord, and has transmitted through the ages, the simple truth that the manner of Christ’s love is the visible expression of the Gospel he announced. Through this he reveals the heart of the Father. This love of the Father has been spoken into the world in the flesh and blood taken up by the WORD, and then poured out to us during the course of his earthly life, culminating in his Passion, death, and Resurrection.
The charge, love as God would have it, is beyond us, and would be impossible to fulfill were it not for the fact that the Lord gives what he asks for. As for the whole Christian people, so also for their poor servant the bishop, we know that this manner of love is not something we must first perfect and give, but rather something he has first to us given, and which we must continually receive in order to give. The giving is expressed in the words of Scripture love one another, but is not precisely the same thing as the saying or receiving of these words. The words encase the mystery so that we never lose sight of them. St Paul speaks of this in Romans 5,5, the charity of God has been poured into our hearts.
The words name the thing, but the thing is the love beyond words. This love has been poured out to the whole body. And the receiving of it, the living and preaching, and conveying of it is the fruit of the Mystery of the Faith. The new and eternal covenant began with the speaking that is Christ’s flesh, and the outpouring into us that is his gift of the Spirit. Only after that were the disciples able to speak of it efficaciously, of what had been given, what has been and is being received and transmitted.
For a bishop this is central, because he must announce this Misterium fidei; teaching it, and enacting it in the Eucharistic sacrfice, he cultívates it in the ordered witness of each and every member that adorns Christ’s body the Church. The bishop, and the Church entrusted to him, are handing on the Paschal outpouring, a way of life that witnesses to the truth that the love of God, vibrant and alive, has been poured into our hearts.
The entire Church lives out the faith through the charity poured into our hearts. The bishop receives this charity in the communion of the Church, and he lives it within his particular vocation for the sake of the Church; yet, he does not live it alone; he always lives it in communion with and at the service of the whole People of God, just as God would have it. Caritas Christi urget nos, St Paul says (2 Cor 5,14). Indeed, the bishop serves so that this life, poured out upon us, may flourish within the body of believers. He gives his life to this flourishing that God so desires. Where charity is weak, he works to strengthen it, where it is strong, he learns and teaches from it and about it: Así como lo quiere Dios.
The Lord spoke to us about his love for the Father, and his love for us. We might sometimes think he was speaking of two different kinds of love. But no, the love of Christ is one, and it is present in its totality in everything he said and did. When he went to the mountains to pray, it was an act of love directed to the Father and yet simultaneously an act of love for us; for, unlike the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son, Christ Jesus loves what is in his Father’s heart; and we are in the Father’s heart. And so the bishop must go to his chapel, close the door and pray to the Father in secret. He must do this so that in the silent communion with the Father he might truly know the Father’s heart, revealed in the Son, received in the Spirit. He must know that his people are there.
And when the Christ of the Father stopped at the Samaritan well and healed the woman (figura de la Iglesia) waiting there of her fears, her guilt, and when he satisfied her deepest thirst, he was directing himself to her because he loves the Father, knows the Father, and thus desires that all might have life and have it abundantly. Porque así lo quiere Dios. This is summed up in Jn 10,15, where the Lord says: As the Father knows me, so I know the Father; and I lay down my life for my sheep. St Gregory the Great explains this passage beautifully in one of his homilies: [the Lord Jesus speaks] As if to say openly, “The proof that I know the Father and the Father knows me is that I lay down my life for my sheep; that is to say: in the charity with which I die for my sheep, I demonstrate my love for the Father.”(1)Here, then, in the gloss of St Gregory, is the job description of the bishop, and of his people, each living it within the circumstances God provides.
The bishop must know the Father. And to know the Father, he must know Christ. He must feel in his bones how the charity with which Christ lays down his life for the sheep, shows his love for the Father. This is what it means to say to a bishop that be must tend to the sheep as God would have it / Así como Dios lo quiere. Within this magnum sacramentum we realize that the life of God poured into our hearts is not so much a list of specific things to do, but a rather a way of doing all the good things we are called upon to do. The way for us in Christ is to love God with all our mind, heart and soul, knowing that this is inseparable from the love and service we give one another. If we love the Father in the charity of Christ, we will love and serve one another in the charity of Christ, espontáneamente, de buena gana, as God would have it.
A bishop must know his people, he must know the poverty of our human riches, and the riches found in our human poverty. He must weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice. He must touch the lepers to heal and console, and be willing to stand firm in the face of threats to his flock. He must speak a word to the weary lest they lose heart. His pastoral priorities are already given to him in the answer the Lord gave to the disciples of the Baptizer: Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me” (Mt 11, 4-6). Our blindnesses are many, our deafness severe. The bishop must help us love one other, for Christ’s sake.
In closing, Most Reverend Father, a Word to your people, to your priests, and to you. Al pueblo de Dios, oren por su obispo, como lo quiere Dios. Pray that he may know the intimate love of the heart of Jesus, and thus know the heart of the Father. Pray that in darkness he might have firm faith, and in sorrow the consolation of the Holy Spirit. And that by his obedience to Christ, he may know joy in his self-giving service to you, in his daily laying down of his life for you. (2)
To the priests: Padrecitos, tengan paciencia con su obispo, no porque sea joven, sino porque es obispo; y por oficio les dará aún más razones para pedir paciencia. I ask that you be patient and forebearing. We are only men, who need to beg for God’s mercy and light to govern wisely. Help him by praying for that same mercy, light and wisdom. You are his principal support in the work of shepherding. Juntos con su obispo, les pido que no se olviden de los pobres, los pequeños y maltratados, porque olvidar de ellos es olvidar a Cristo, y a los que él ama en el corazón del Padre. Apacienten el Rebaño de Dios, que les ha sido confiado; velen por él, no forzada, sino espontáneamente, como lo quiere Dios.
Señor obispo-electo, mañana se consagra. La totalidad de la Iglesia, cuerpo y alma, se une en oracion con usted y por usted. El Pueblo de Dios sabe de la caridad de Cristo, y sabe que esa caridad sostiene la misión y carga que Dios y el Santo Padre León XIV le han confiado. Con la mitra llega una cruz de dimensiones misteriosas. Tengan valor: dice el Señor, yo he vencido al mundo (Jn 16,33). Respáldese en la fe de la Iglesia, esa fe que encuentra fuerza en la victoria del Resucitado. A causa de esa fe, y la caridad por la cual opera, el Pueblo de Dios a su alrededor, comparte con usted y su familia la alegría de este momento. Que Dios le dé valor para apacentar a este pueblo, con caridad, tal como Dios lo quiere. Amén.
+df
——
Notes
1. Gregory the Great: in Evangélia (Hom. 14, 3-6): Unde et in hoc loco Dóminus prótinus subdit: Sicut novit me Pater, et ego agnósco Patrem, et ánimam meam pono pro óvibus meis. Ac si apérte dicat: In hoc constat quia et ego agnósco Patrem, et cognóscor a Patre, quia ánimam meam pono pro óvibus meis; id est, ea caritáte qua pro óvibus mórior, quantum Patrem díligam osténdo.
2. See Augustine, Tract in I Ioannem, Sermo 7,10: Qualem faciem habet dilectio? qualem formam habet? qualem staturam habet? quales pedes habet? quales manus habet? Nemo potest dicere. Habet tamen pedes; nam ipsi ducunt ad Ecclesiam: habet manus; nam ipsae pauperi porrigunt: habet oculos; nam inde intellegitur ille qui eget: Beatus, inquit, qui intellegit super egenum et pauperem (Ps 40,2). Habet aures, de quibus dicit Dominus: Qui habet aures audiendi, audiat (Lc 8,8). Non sunt membra distincta per locos, sed intellectu totum simul videt qui habet caritatem. Habita, et inhabitaberis; mane, et manebitur in te.
Ofrecí esta breve reflección dentro de un seminario de web sobre la encíclica Magnífica Humanitas, organizado conjuntamente por CELAM, la USCCB, y la Pontificia Comisión para América Latina.
Magnífica Humanitas: desafios pastorales frente la mística de la objetividad
El papa León XIV publicó su primera encíclica, «Magnifica Humanitas», el 25 de mayo. La encíclica ofrece un análisis considerado de los desafíos y las oportunidades que plantea la tecnología de la inteligencia artificial. En la enseñanza del papa, el ámbito amplio y apropiado para discernir y decidir sobre el buen uso de las tecnologías avanzadas es la de la identidad y dignidad del ser humano, y su propio bien.
***
Unas semanas antes de que se publicara la encíclica Magnifica Humanitas participé en un encuentro con estudiantes universitarios en mi diócesis sobre el tema de la inteligencia artificial. La gran mayoría de los alumnos son de ascendencia mejicana, viviendo en los EEUU, y para muchos de ellos son de la primera generación en sus familias con oportunidad de llegar a la universidad. Hubo mucho interés en el tema. Aprendí mucho esa noche. Mencionaré tres puntos: que los jóvenes conocen lo de AI en cuanto lo encuentran cómo fuente de información útil para el progreso de sus estudios. También, que lo conocen como sombra que pueda influir sutilmente la dinámica de los medios sociales. La realidad del “fake news” les preocupa. Y, tercero, no estaban fuertemente conscientes de las implicaciones sociales de las nuevas tecnologías. Es decir, de las ramificaciones que puedan tener sobre el bienestar de la sociedad, y los más vulnerables dentro de la sociedad.
También en mi diocesis tenemos las instalaciones de SPACEX, donde se ha desarrollado recientemente mucha actividad alrededor de los cohetes y satélites comerciales destinados a misiones con fines de llegar a marte, y avanzando mejores sistemas de comunicación y distribución de datos informáticos. También he llegado a conocer y dialogar con los jóvenes adultos, Católicos, empleados en ese ámbito científico y comercial. Ellos conocen más a hondo las tecnologías avanzadas, y tienen muchas preguntas sobre sus responsabilidades frente este tipo de trabajo. Pero tampoco se han enfocado en la dimensiones sociales de lo que estamos afrontando con las nuevas tecnologías.
La encíclica habla de estas cosas y mucho más. El Papá Leon XIV nos ha regalado una perspectiva amplia y coherente para colocar y responder a lo que se va desarrollando en nuestros tiempos. Y pienso que me orienta como pastor a enfocarme en promover y ampliar el diálogo y la formación de las nuevas generaciones precisamente para que ellos puedan dialogar y influir la cultura que ellos habitan diariamente. Creo que el primer punto que debemos enfatizar con ellos es esta: ¿que, precisamente, es un ser humano?
La urgencia de nuestra situación radica en la integración silenciosa, en gran medida por manos invisibles, de métricas basadas en datos en el proceso de la toma de decisiones. Este aspecto de la inteligencia artificial afecta a todos, sean jóvenes en la universidad, ingenieros recientemente empleados por las grandes empresas de tecnología, y los pobres que dependen de asistencia pública para navegar cuestiones de alimentación y salud.
El acceso rápido a los datos ofrece grandes ventajas; sin embargo, medir datos no es lo mismo que tomar una decisión humana, y el análisis estadístico por sí solo no genera prudencia ni sabiduría. Las decisiones son hechos sumamente humanos y, por esa razón, también asuntos morales. Implican consideración y responsabilidad.
Yo oigo la voz del papá pidiéndole al mundo humano de no ceder a la tecnología aspectos importantes de la toma de decisiones humanas. El Papa propone que debemos reflexionar sobre el factor humano y su autoridad sobre las métricas de los datos informativos.
Hay un misticismo que envuelve la Inteligencia Artificial, y reside en el aura de autoridad objetiva que rodea la información generada. Esto influye a las nuevas generaciones. Creo que nos incumbe profundizar y purificar lo que significa la objetividad. La palabra objetividad tiene dos sentidos que, si se confunden o combinan sin pensar, nos causan problemas.
Hay un sentido que se entiende como opuesto al favoritismo: Esa persona es mi amigo entonces mis juicios siempre van a su favor. En este uso de la palabra, objetivo se entiende como no afectado por criterios de emoción o gusto. El otro sentido de la palabra se opone a la realidad del sujeto, o sea, la perspectiva personal desde la cual vemos la realidad. Como seres humanos es inevitable que tomemos el punto de vista del propio “yo” para relacionarnos con las realidades a nuestro alrededor.
El misticismo del AI se respalda con el primer uso de la palabra objetivo. La métrica y el análisis de la información agregada disfrutan de una autoridad científica. La frase “esto es lo que dicen los datos” apela a una obiectividad que pretende eliminar el peligro de prejuicios y favoritismos humanos.
De todos modos el Papa señala que la verdad es otra. Detrás del programa hay un editor remoto de criterios, o un editor inconsciente de sus propios prejuicios ideológicos. No podemos delegar al programador, en gran parte anónimo, la autoridad de organizar datos objetivos con criterios de importancia que puedan influir decisivamente decisiones sobre el bien del individuo y la comunidad.
Consideremos, por ejemplo, un programa que recopila información sobre qué constituye un objetivo militar legítimo. ¿Qué criterios se incluyen en la programación predeterminada? O si se establecen programaciones sobre quién tiene acceso a asistencia alimentaria o sobre quien califica para recibir una cirugía mayor, ¿quienes determinan los criterios? Sobre este punto el Papa León dirige nuestra atención sobre los prejuicios humanos que ineludiblemente entran en la programación técnica, incluso la más avanzada y sofisticada. Creo que necesitamos enfatizar este aspecto social de lo que estamos viendo y viviendo.
Y aquí entra en juego la responsabilidad de una sociedad de organizar con transparencia procesos políticos adecuados para llegar a acuerdos y consensos políticos sobre el bien humano y cómo proteger los más vulnerables del uso manipulado e injusto de la tecnología. El papa habla mucho sobre este tema. Pero aquí hay un desafío grande, porque un cinismo fuerte sobre el valor de los procesos políticos ha afectado la apertura, específicamente de los jóvenes, a participar en los procesos políticos.
Soy realista, y por eso digo que parte del cinismo político tiene que ver con las desconocidas influencias de AI en los medios de comunicación. Los desafíos que enfrentamos giran precisamente en torno a este problema en nuestra cultura social. Los resúmenes generados artificialmente, mezclados con fragmentos fabricados o truncados, inevitablemente simplifican los discursos, generan indignación y se reducen a mera información estadística sobre cuántas personas están de acuerdo o en desacuerdo con lo que han escuchado.
En este contexto, el timbre y el tono de la voz humana, del pensamiento y de la emoción, del corazón, se erosionan dentro de una concepción programada para el consumo general. Esto reduce y disminuye la manifestación de la grandeza de la humanidad, del ser un humano.
***
Quisiera terminar con unas indicaciones sobre el segundo sentido de la palabra objetivo. La objetividad no es en sí misma el árbitro de la verdad sobre el bien humano. El sujeto humano toma decisiones normativamente en función de su impacto en las vidas de otros sujetos humanos. La justicia, la misericordia y el amor no son programables; se disciernen humanamente. No podemos reducirnos a métricas matemáticas objetivas, a la suma total de los datos. Somos los autores y receptores subjetivos de las recopilaciones métricas que creamos y consideramos. Las consideramos, pero podemos tener buenas razones humanas para elegir algo distinto a lo que produce la métrica.
El ser humano siempre está presente en lo que piensa, siente y inventa. Y querer superar el propio “yo” de la persona, y el propio “nosotros” de la comunidad no es una meta humana digna de perseguir. Al contrario, el problema de malas decisiones humanas requiere respuesta humana y divina, desde la perspectiva del sujeto. Nos apremia cultivar las virtudes de prudencia, caridad y justicia, y las perspectivas de misericordia y compasión, porque lo que creamos y organizamos no puede más que reflejar imagen de nosotros mismos.
Perspectives on the Aims of Synodality: Remarks to the Catholic Theological Society of America (13 June 2026)
+Daniel E. Flores, STD, Bishop of Brownsville
Introduction
Synodality as an ecclesial initiative shepherded by Pope Francis and continued by Pope Leo XIV has an initial track record upon which theologians can now reflect. The temptation is to say we have a great deal of data that can be analysed; but that would be a mis-stating on many levels. What is needed is an authentic theological “noticing” of what has manifested itself from the recent ecclesial experience of listening in the Holy Spirit, discernment, decision making and implementation, all within the communion of the Church. Embedded in this theological cognizance, this “noticing” is a constant reference to participation, communion, and mission.
What I propose to do this morning is to make modest gesture towards some things I’ve noticed while participating in the Synodal dynamic at the most local levels, and at regional, national, continental and universal synods in Rome presided over by the Successor of Peter. My remarks may at times seem peripheral, but synodality itself suggests that the peripheral is often more central than we might first think.
1. Why synodality at this time?
Pope Francis spoke often of this change of epoch we are living. I think he gave us a lot to think about in this key, but he also invited us to consider it as it continues to unfold. There are impulses of synodality deeply rooted in the tradition informing the pastoral vision of Vatican II. But the current prominence of the synodal concern of the Church also has to do with the age we ourselves are living and making. Theological self-awareness requires we attend to the fact that our age is living a free-fall in the human capacity to live in terms of an embodied and therefore inherently relational universe. Our children spend more time facing screens than playing in the backyard; their work is automized, school libraries and malls are largely empty; and even at sporting events, when they choose to attend them, young people often report anxiety about being around so many strangers. Communication between friends is a group-regulated engagement, media driven, and rejection from the group can be devastating. Games and enjoyment, learning and thinking, friendship and family are increasingly isolated and isolating experiences.
Whether we realize it or not our change of epoch is making us socially awkward, fearful of spontaneity, and severely limited in our exposure to real people living life in conditions different from our work and social circles. Thus the unborn, the poor, the immigrant, the elderly and the walking wounded are sidelined much more pervasively in this environment. They are more invisible than ever.
With this in mind, Synodality presents itself providentially as a voice crying in the wilderness of our age’s gradual acquiescence to a social retreat into ourselves. We ask people to gather and take the time to pray together. They gather with a small group of others they probably don’t know very well, and they listen and talk about the struggles and joys of trying to be a follower of Jesus in their daily life. Synodality, at its most basic, is specifically a purposeful humane encounter with others for what is aptly termed conversation in the Spirit. It does not aim initially to seek immediate resolutions, or winners and losers. If cultivated, it can build into a sense of discovery that controlling the conversation is not the principal aim of human communication; the joy of being and thinking together is.
Humanly, the being together is a bodily experience. That we might think a screen can habitually substitute for a local encounter of parishioners tells us how seductive disembodiment has become. From this perspective, local parish festivals may be the most evangelical / synodal thing we do right now. At least people across generations gather, talk, sing, eat, laugh and sweat in a largely outdoor setting. Very human, that.
Magnifica Humanitas is not a document particularly about Synodality. But it is about Synodality in a wider sense, and signals to us why synodality is providentially important right now: the Church has to witness to what authentic human relationships look like, in an age of artificial and superficial human relating. Thus, unless we deliberately work to humanize our relationships, the epoch will eclipse human conscience about responsibilities to one another. The encyclical is about this, and at root so is synodality.
2. Subsidiarity and Synodality
In MH nos 86-88, Pope Leo XIV makes specific connection between the principle of subsidiarity and the practice of synodality. The first term is drawn from the tradition of the Church’s Social Doctrine; the second term is at home in the field of ecclesiology. I think most of us have been aware of the analogous relation of the two terms. Yet, I think Pope Leo’s explication is particularly noteworthy. It strikes me that the framework he uses there can help address a question I have heard a lot from active participants of great good will in the Synodal processes at every level: “What exactly is synodality?
The question, and its near ubiquitous manifestations along the Synodal path, reflects in part that it is a new term to many people. It may not be new to theologians, but it is to the larger body of the baptized, the ones the synodal dynamic most desires to reach.
Pope Leo says in MH 87 that subsidiarity expressed as synodality “involves recognizing and supporting the faithful and intermediary ecclesial organizations as they carry out their responsibilities, valuing charisms and skills and avoiding any form of paternalism that suffocates evangelical freedom”. Here, he gives us a valuable link to the ensoiled roots of the term synodality. This can help us as we go forward, and keep us focused on what are authentic Synodal priorities.
Certainly, the task of promoting active participation in supporting the faithful and intermediary ecclesial organizations as they carry out their responsibilities rises to the surface, in my view, as the first priority. If local engagement in matters that matter most locally is lacking, then the reports and syntheses that run up the line do not contribute what is most vital. Here we are talking about parishioners taking the time to gather, listen, speak and pray together on a regular basis, for the sake of the mission, and to do this in communion with their pastors and bishops. Speaking frankly, a major threat to this hoped for flowering of Christian communities of authentic human relating is a programmatic paradigm: “Do this, and then this will happen”. The paradigm is missionarry conversion not programmatic efficiency. Conversion to Christ is by nature missionary, and it is moved by grace operating in the hearts of believers. And it takes prayer and time.
Thus the spirituality of Synodality is not a secondary formational concern. Cultivating lectio divina, a sacramental reading of Scripture and life, together with a recovery of the humanly graceful dynamism of gathering, of sharing common silence in the contemplative reception of the Word, sustains the fruitfulness of this renewal. It is a walking together in Christ, to Christ, as Augustine would say. (1)
When we prayerfully face our local patterns of service and mission, our local habits of communion and participation, the local church comes face to face with its own poverty. It is an evangelical poverty. Upon the health of this local root that encounters its poverty and invites the Lord into it, depends the realism of subsequent syntheses as the Synodal path moves through regions, episcopal conferences, continental consultations and more universal ecclesial assemblies.
The local root does not simply mean dioceses, parishes and missions. The intermediate institutions, in the Americas especially, include theological societies, hospital associations, charitable organizations, etc. It is fair to ask dioceses and parishes to examine their progress in integrating Synodal habits of graceful human relating into Church life. It is also legitimate to ask theological societies and other intermediate organizations to ask themselves the same kinds of questions. We must re-encounter the gracefully human space of participation and communion.
3. Participation
Participation in the New Testament is a word that flows into the tradition carrying metaphysical weight. I refer to the fact that we speak of graced participation in the mystery of Christ by virtue of Baptism and the work of the Holy Spirit. It also carries what we would call today “sociological weight”.
We say, for example, that by participating in the Sunday Eucharist we are made into active participants in the passion, death and resurrection of Christ, by the Holy Spirit. We realize, though, that the defacto contemporary use of the term is on the sociological side. We ask “how many participated in the Mass” before we think to ask how are we enacting participation in Christ.
The two senses of the term are distinct yet related. We are a religion where the bodily presence of the Lord manifested in the act of handing himself over is the central sacramentum. Our bodily proximity to each other other while in proximity to him in his self-gift is basically where Christology and Ecclesiology converge. On this the tradition is unanimous.
But there is more. The historical assembly sacramentally signifies and makes present the members not present. This is true of the Church in a way it is not in other organized bodies. This is part of our being in Christ. This sense of the whole present in the body of the Church, because we are united to the head, is ubiquitous in Augustine’s commentaries on the Psalms, for example.(2) Wherever we gather by the Spirit in the Lord, within the communion of the Church, there is a physical embodiment that carries and signifies the larger whole.
From this perspective, the idea of participation in the assembly of the Church gathered has a numerical / statistical sense, and it has a metaphysical / sacramental sense. The latter sustains the viability of the former. We will never get everybody in one room. Yet the communion of those in the room with those not present is possible by the Spirit’s gift of communion in the one Body of Christ. This vantage point helps protect us from adopting a democratic paradigm, something Pope Francis warned us about.
4. Reports and Relations
The process of preparing synthetic reports from the local diocese takes time and gets much attention. We in our professionalized US environment are report-minded people. So I think we need to recognize our biases and inclinations in this regard. Our reports can become like the aim of the local process. Phrases at all levels like “we barely got our report in on time”, can suggest images of school essays written to prove we read the book. Nothing in the Synodal instructions from the Secretariat suggest we look at it that way; but our engrained habits influence us despite ourselves. It is true, deadlines can move the reluctant, but they often discourage the committed.
I think we must admit that emphases on submitting reports, and controversies about what national and continental reports contain can distract from emphasis on what is a prior concern: how robust is local engagement in matters that most matter locally? The quality of the relations built within the local church, the spiritual depth of renewed decision making processes, and (most of all) the quality of missionary conversion, are at the heart of ecclesial subsidiarity.
For this reason I have advised my own Synodal animation team in the Diocese of Brownsville that we wait to discern how to configure a diocesan assembly until we have a more realistic (ie synodal) assessment of our poverty, that is to say, where lack of active participation in the communion of the local church impedes the mission. Then we will know better how the assembly can both help evaluate our progress and plan our next steps. I do not see why it need be more complicated than that.
For my part, speaking as a local bishop, the narrative we trace should reflect the realism of the struggle and the hope for a local church more engaged at all levels to the mission. For us this means we have work to do to develop a Synodal relationality among the priests, humanizing the cultural, generational and theological diversities. This seems to me is both prior and simultaneous to a cohesive parochial participation to advance the local mission. Diocesan structures impacting both formation and decision-making need to be adapted to what better serves the mission. The mission involves varied activities, but it is always outwards from our self-preoccupations. And this is not programmatic, it is the manifestation of ongoing conversion.
5. Bishops and Assemblies
Intermediate structures of deciding are needed to help the Church decide well. But the local bishop cannot delegate everything. In the end he is responsible for putting into motion the Synodal pathways of wider participation, and for discerning at what level things are best decided in a spirit of subsidiarity and solidarity. Here, we have to pray for him.
The earlier mention of the theological senses of the term participation gives us a way also to think about the ministry of the bishop in the midst of the local Church. The bishop gathered with a local synodal assembly is representative more in a sacramental sense than in any mere statistical or political sense. The voices of many are represented in the witness of those who who participate. For the bishop to preside a synodal assembly in his diocese, he listens for the faith of his local church, expressed both in its sufferings and in its joys, its popular religiosity, its missionary and charitable preoccupations. He also teaches, discerns and with the help of many, decides.
It comes to be a question of particular relevance to the the bishop himself. How does he understand his role as embodiment of the faith, hope and charity, of the local Church? Charity is where the mission flows from. Hope is where the perseverance flows from; and faith is where the conversion flows from. His voice is literally formed by the quality of his listening coupled with the earnestness of his discerning what he hears; and the soul-searching of his decision making.
From a sacramental perspective, the bishop bears in his flesh the body of the whole local Church, such that if he were to participate in a provincial, national or universal synod, he speaks as one who is witness to, and carries within himself, the faith, hope and charity of his local church. That would seem to follow from Ignatius of Antioch, Augustine and other patristic witnesses. (3) It is witnessed to historically by the Synodal actions of the local churches on the road to Nicaea.
6. Subsidiarity and the solidarity of communion.
It appears to me, though it may be too early to say, that Pope Leo XIV is looking to establish ways for the Episcopal conferences to be drawn into a consultation with the pope regarding larger issues of pastoral priority and response. There are planned already two consultations with presidents of Episcopal conferences, one on synodal implementation and the other on Amoris laetitia. This approach highlights the inherent link between collegiality and synodality. Now then, for the bishops at the level of the national conferences of the world to come together to listen and discuss these things rests on the premise that the bishops present witness to the life and faith of the local churches represented (in a sacramental sense) in the conferences. This, in turn, rests on the quality of the synodal and human dynamic at the level of a local churches exercising a synodal communio that is expressed at the level of the national conferences. One could reasonably say that the more local process leading to this kind of consultative communio has in practice been uneven. But, I think the picture of the dynamic intended is clear. Similarly, the ecclesial assembly that will take place in October 2028 will be a different expression of the synod dynamic ordered to communio.
I would like to note particularly that the synodal dynamic outlined by Pope Francis and Pope Leo has introduced the consultative moment at the level of the continent. I am happy to say that Bishop Faubert and I have witnessed how this continental consultation is opening pathways of a synodal solidarity as a fruit of synodal subsidiarity.
The fact is that many other continents, such a as CELAM for example, have much longer experience of continental structures than we. We are just beginning to act and think our way to this in a North American context. Clearly, a synodal link at the level of the bishops of Canada and the United States is a gift aimed at making our communion more actual. Yet this is not sufficient in and of itself. Stronger ties between intermediate institutions present in each country must be cultivated. This would include religious life, universities, theologians, seminaries, charitable and missionary organizations, hospitals, and catechetical institutions, apostolic and charismatic movements.
We can only benefit from hearing and speaking in a synodal fashion with our sisters and brothers to the north, this improves the quality of the continental witness in North America. But the particular situation in the Americas requires further that we cultivate a deeper relationship with Mexico and the rest of Latin America, between the north and the south, and this for the sake of a coherent witness to the Gospel across national boundaries. I am also happy to say that there is recognition of this special relational bond between the North American churches and the reality represented by the churches represented in CELAM.
It is vital to the credibility of our common witness that we strengthen the continental solidarity between North and South, addressing, for example, the human dignity of migrants across the geographical, economic and political divides that stretch from the north to the tip of the south, Canada to Chile. Our ecclesial lives are distinct yet in some way, we must work to speak with a united and common voice about the same concerns affecting our peoples. We are all addressing in different ways a diversity of ecclesial patterns of life, influenced by different historical, political, economic and social contexts. But the witness is to the same struggle to protect human dignity and to give space for the voices of the vulnerable.
This in itself witnesses to the Church as a mystery that is not primarily identified along national boundaries and identities. The witness of the Americas is strengthened by our bonds of obedience and affection for the successor of Peter. Hence, these links, conversations, and witnesses to the faith heard and expressed by our people across the whole of the Americas is indispensable as we navigate a change of epoch. This too has a sacramental / representational signification in the light of Gaudium et spes, and Lumen gentium.
The mission involves testimony to the inherent goodness of Christ. The efficacy of this witness, its persuasiveness, depends upon the realism of our communion in faith and in hope, mercy and charity. It is a witness of steadfastness in defense of the poor, and of defenselessness in the face of opposition. I use the word defenseless – not unrelated to Pope Leo‘s use of disarmed – to signal a renunciation of the power of the world to accomplish our ends. For our ends are not our own. They are Christ’s. In this regard, my concluding reflection has to do with pneumatology and Christology, as we consider the ever present protagonists of the church’s life as we move through history.
7. Pneumatology, Christology and Mission
One of the consistent phrases I heard at all the levels of my participation in the Synodal process was “we are not talking about Jesus Christ enough”. Sometimes this was said in relation to remarks about being open to where the Holy Spirit leads us as a Church, sometimes not. But I detected in the mentions of this a deeper unease with the way we often talk about synodality. I think a deeper listening to the unease suggests a concern about a path forward unmoored in anything beyond our own reflections on Scripture and any emerging consensus. We tend to speak in abstractions, unconnected to flesh and blood. Now, I don’t think the guidance of Pope Francis, Pope Leo, or the Secretariat suggests that the discernment is governed by the abstracted consensus of the prayerfully dialogic assemblies. The documents speak of the role of the magisterium in guiding the appropriation of Scripture and the sensus fidelium. But the question presents itself: If the Holy Spirit is the principal protagonist of synodality, and if the People of God in the hierarchically constituted communion of the Church are the discerners of the voice of the Spirit (which is true), what is our regula discernendi?
The question about “where is Christ Jesus, Crucified and Risen from the dead?” in this process was in important ways the practical expression of a desire for a more explicit mooring in the the regula that is the person of Christ himself. This, in turn, prompts us to ask if our rhetoric has been perceived at times as a partial eclipse of the Christ by the Holy Spirit, and this because it opens up freer paths to innovation at the expense of authentic tradition. I am not saying this is the case, or that the Final Synodal Report does this. In fact I’m sure it does not, but I am saying many participants in the local synodal processes and many quasi-interested bystanders, have expressed concern about this along the way.
This should prompt theologians to renew the perception of the patristic age, especially the Cappodocians and Augustine, that the Trinitarian interventions in history follow a pedagogical order. The Spirit aims to illuminate our understanding of the sacramentum of Christ’s flesh. The patristic age and medieval doctors speak of this with great insistence. The Spirit’s guidance of the Church in history is at the same time a guidance more deeply into conformity to Christ.
The younger Ratzinger heard this strain echoed in Bonaventure’s Hexameron. For Bonaventure, the Church’s move toward the finality of history, towards the fullness of eternal life, is through greater conformity by grace to Jesus’ poverty and humility, engendered by a more profound grace of contemplation. Bonaventure saw in St Francis and St Dominic the enfleshed prophetic signs of the Church transformed by moving in history toward greater conformity to the Crucified. Ratzinger painstakingly points out that this is Bonaventure responding to the disorder caused by followers of Joachim of Fiore who saw a dawning age of the Spirit distinct from the current age of Christ with the Spirit.(4)
I’ll not go further into this now. If you are interested in the topic you know where to look. My point is that the issue of ecclesial movement forward and Christological / Pneumatological faith of the Church go together. The Spirit leads us to deeper apprehension of Christ in poverty, humility and defenselessness.
I do not think our people can apprehend an ecclesial dynamism with the Holy Spirit as principal protagonist without at the same time looking upon Christ as principal agent and visible manifestation of where the Spirit leads. In Christ are inexhaustible depths, by the Spirit we are led and encountered by these depths. The guidance of Word and Spirit are literally grasped, physically and in spiritual understanding, in the person of Christ and through his body. To insist on this is to refuse to try to transcend the body for the sake of the Spirit. The Body of Christ is the magnumSacramentum, in the sense of the term as used by St Leo the Great. (5) The Spirit flows from the mysterium, and leads us back to it, in the poverty of his resurrected flesh. Yet always deeper, always more. Always, and still with us, in his wounded flesh. In this conformity to Christ the Father is glorified.
This leads me back to the issue of authentic human relations, with which I began. So I’ll stop here.
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1. Augustine, Sermo 141,4: Filius Dei qui semper in Patre veritas et vita est, assumendo hominem factus est via. Ambula per hominem, et pervenis ad Deum. Per ipsum vadis, ad ipsum vadis.
2. Augustine on Psalm 60: Hæc ergo Christi posséssio, hæc Christi heréditas, hoc Christi corpus, hæc una Christi Ecclésia, hæc únitas, quæ nos sumus, clamat a fínibus terræ.
3. Augustine, Tract 124 on John, (focusing on the part after the brackets on the primacy of Peter. [Hoc agit Ecclésia spe beáta in hac vita ærumnósa], cuius Ecclésiæ Petrus apóstolus, propter apostolátus sui primátum, gerébat figuráta generalitáte persónam.For Augustine the figure of Peter applies to the other apostles and their successors.
5. For example, Leo the Great, Ep 31,3: De hac autem participatióne mirábili sacraméntum nobis regeneratiónis illúxit, ut per ipsum Spíritum, per quem Christum et concéptus est et natus, étiam nos spiritáli rursus orígine nascerémur.
El peso de la hostia es sólo el peso del Verbo y su mezquina humanidad, entregando en lenguaje de gesto el sacramentum de su alta divinidad. ¿Qué pesa un fragmento, tanto y tanto que nos da? La mente teme morir si de ello prueba, y sabe bien morirse si con ese hambre quedará.
El peso de la Hostia no es menos que la del Cuerpo que levantaron a la Cruz sin saber al hacerlo que él mismo nos llevaba en pos. Es decir, ni menos que el peso del hombre por quien llegamos a Dios, siendo él, el Cristo, quien nos une a los dos. +df
7 de junio, 2026. Solemnidad del Cuerpo y Sangre del Señor
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Dios no se llama Padre porque nos creó, se llama Padre eterno porque Hijo eterno siempre ha tenido; el Hijo, Dios verdadero de Dios verdadero, haciéndose hombre, su ser Hijo nos ha mostrado y compartido, porque al Hijo le conviene dar lo que siempre ha sido; el Espíritu Santo no se llama Santo sólo porque nos santifica, nos santifica porque Él es la caridad eterna entre Padre e Hijo, comunicándonos lo que viene de por dentro del Dios uno, eterno y Vivo.
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31 mayo, 2026. Solemnidad de la Santísima Trinidad
I attempt here to pull together some themes I have long thought of vital theological and thus necessarily pastoral importance and with which I have long wrestled. My hope is that my thinking is a little clearer now than it used to be. +df
Fra Angelico – Crucifixion with the Blessed Virgin, St Mary Magdalene, Sts Dominic and Thomas Aquinas, c. 1395, Museo Nazionale di San Marco
In an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, entitled “Darmok”, Picard encounters the Temarians, a people who communicate only by making reference to landmark events engrained in their historical memory.[1] “Shaka, when the walls fell”, evokes a tragic loss, which then serves to situate in the mind of the hearer to how the speaker understands the present moment. “Temba, his arms wide”, signifies the giving of a gift. It takes Picard and the crew an hour episode to figure out how this language works, but the moment of understanding (“Sokath, his eyes uncovered”) comes too late to save Dathon, Picard’s interlocutor, from a heroic death. Still, a sort of breakthrough occurs (“Darmok and Jalad on the ocean»), so the sacrifice is not in vain.
There is a fair amount of internet commentary, some of it good, some of it just weird, on the suggestiveness of this episode. What to my mind most intrigues, though, is that front and center, we are presented with an obscure way of communication, problematic not due to vocabulary or grammatical structures, but because of references to events not present at the current moment, though for the Temarians they are present in the current moment. The language is based on the act of understanding the sense of present events by remembering and amplifying the sense of past events. In this kind of language, without knowing the references to past significant events, the words remain unintelligible, and the sense of the present moment lost to the hearer.
Now then, from Genesis through the Psalms, to Malichi and Maccabees, from Matthew through to Acts and the Apocalypse, there are constant reference to events that are intelligible in light of other events. “Moses, with his arms upheld”; “Israel, with unmoistened foot”; “As at Meribah, when they hardened their hearts”. The Old Testament itself depends on these kinds of historical invocations in order to understand its later historical moments. In the late books of the Old Testament, the invocations of the Exodus event and the Davidic promises appear in carefully nuanced ways and help interpret the later moments of Israel’s history of exile and return. These understandings speak both of judgment and of hope in God’s fidelity. Overall, this kind of thinking in the present moment, in turn, expands Israel’s perception of the meaning of the earlier foundational historical events. Later events are figured in the foundational events, and the implications of the foundational events are made present, so to speak, in the subsequent history.
Insofar as the Catholic Tradition of Scriptural apprehension and transmission is concerned, the dynamic invocation of the history through subsequent figurative readings happens under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit who is auctor operating in the work of the Scriptural authors. Or, in what amounts to the same thing, the Scriptural words and sense are generated by the WORD, who authored the first Word-Events and guides the later prophetic and wisdom traditions into subsequent figurative amplifications, culminating in the literal / historical manifestation of the WORD made flesh. Dei verbum numbers 11 and 13 situates this theological datum admirably. Differences in interpretation of foundational events, internal to Scripture, need not be read as competitive, although historical criticism, either deliberately or by unreflected habit of mind, often leans towards reading them so. I will not pursue that quarrel here. Instead, I want to direct some attention to how the Church has thought about the near ubiquitous presence of figuration in her preaching, teaching, and liturgy.
Stated succinctly, a unified super-intelligible requires a multiplicity of explications. These explications can be in tension, but that is not to say they are mutually exclusive. Granted, this way of looking at things operates with a metaphysics of knowing in its background; it is not for that reason, though, to be discounted in how we can think about figuration. Thus, events understood a certain way in earlier traditions and subsequently elaborated with different emphases can, from this perspectives, witness to a super-intelligibiliy present in the founding, that is to say, an intelligibility more or less hidden, though not for that reason extraneous to the events themselves. Depending on one’s place in the unfolding history, hidden signification is more or less intelligible. That, at least is what underlies much of patristic preaching around the magnum sacramentum of Christ’s identity and salvific work. The medieval expositors of Scripture developed this trajectory within their specific commentaries and more systematic theological elaborations. And, of course, the various liturgical traditions in the apostolic churches witnesses to this kind of communicated understanding.
St Thomas’ commentary on the Psalms provides some help here. Thomas is a careful reader of the prior tradition of Scriptural exposition, and a particularly vigorous synthetic conveyor of how to understand this tradition. He is not the only one who conveys a way of understanding the givenness of figuration, but it is never a good thing to sideline him. For Thomas, most of the Psalms are primarily about what the psalmist was going through or is recalling: the Psalms are literally situated in Israel’s history. Thomas respects this, and in his commentary on the Psalms shows remarkable dexterity in locating, or in wanting to locate, the historical references. He talks about everything from creation, to the Exodus, to troubles with Absalom, thanksgiving for victory in battle, to psalms composed to accompany cultic worship, etc. After locating the history, he then goes on to read those events as figuring some aspect of the life and mission of Christ.
St Thomas is a disciplined commentator, and he is not given to dwelling on elaborate allegories transmitted through the prior tradition. He knows quite well Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos, for example, but is more disciplined than Augustine in exposing the history. Thomas lets us know when he thinks the earlier tradition’s focus on the mystical sense of the Psalms witnesses to the mystery intimated by the events and descriptive words. But Thomas the commentator on Scripture focuses far more on elaborating what he takes to be the primary theological conviction guiding the way the Church understands figuration: Israel’s history was governed by a special providence, a grace that orders its signification in a way that is anticipatory of, and preparatory for, the final revelation of God’s historical intent in Christ. Dei verbum 15-16 teaches in similar terms.
Thus, Old Testament self-understandings vía the Exodus figurations and the happenings surrounding the Davidic kingdom are also anticipatory figurations of Christ’s coming. This in turn serves as the basis for a Christian reading of the psalms that respects the history of the psalmist. Figuration, in this tradition, is rooted in history, not in words; in events understood in a certain way, not in literary congruence. Thomas thus allows for a fluidity of readings in a text, so long as they do not oppose the rule of faith and the obvious intention of the human author. This way of speaking is not unrelated to what DeiVerbum 12 will call “the intention of the sacred writers” understood in relation to the “content and unity of the whole of Scripture.”
In large part Thomas sees in King David’s persecution by Saul or Absolom events that by their unfolding pattern bear the marks of Christ’s kingship resisted or opposed, and thus they adumbrate and anticipate the Paschal Mystery. These are events that, in retrospect, carry a Christological imprint. The intimation is not so clear until the the actual appearing and moving about of Christ himself. These are examples of the enigmas of Scripture that Thomas and many before him describe as having been made more intelligible by the coming of Christ and the preaching of the Gospel. By theological shorthand we could call this kind of exposition a discernment of Christ figured in history.
But, for St Thomas, this kind of signification does not fully account for the received tradition of reading the Psalms. There is something more in the Old Testament than events within which the history of Christ is figured. There is also a specifically prophetic intentionality that describes Christ in advance in quite literal terms. This datum of the tradition points not to Christ figured in history, but rather history figured in Christ. Christ is conveyed by more than simply reading the history of Abraham, Moses, David, Job etc as bearing the signs of Christ in their histories: there are also words that are spoken prophetically by King David (for example) that refer principally to Christ, and only secondarily to David’s remembered history.
We see this distinction most clearly in Thomas’ notes on Psalm 21. Somewhere in his thirsty pursuit of Greek texts translated into Latin, St Thomas encountered the decrees of the Second Council of Constantinople (553), and it’s condemnation of Theodore of Mopsuestia.[2] Both in the prologue to his commentary on the Psalms and in his exposition of Psalm 21, Thomas explicitly cites the Council as having condemned Theodore for denying that the Old Testament prophets ever spoke literally of Christ. Thomas never uses condemnatory language lightly, but he does apply it to Theodore’s reported teaching. It is another question whether Theodore of Mopsuestia actually taught this. Thomas thinks that Constantinople II judges he did, and that such a teaching is a grave error.
This helps to account for the fact that in his commentary on Psalm 21, Thomas makes a crucial distinction. He insists that the literal sense of the psalm refers to Christ’s passion. The history narrated in the Psalm is not about David primarily, it is about Christ. This is its literal sense. On this reading, David (the psalmist) has a vision of the Passion, and wrote of it. The psalmist’s own sufferings are secondarily referenced in the psalm, but only to the extent they bear similarity to and are figured in Christ’s sufferings. David saw himself in Christ; he did not see Christ in himself. Here is how Thomas states the matter:
«And among others, specifically this Psalm treats about the passion of Christ. And thus, this is its literal sense. Hence, specifically He spoke this Psalm in the passion when He cried out Heli Heli Lammasabactani: which is the same as God, my God, etc. as this Psalm begins. And thus, granted this Psalm is said figuratively about David, nevertheless specifically it refers to Christ ad litteram. And in the Synod of Toledo (sic) a certain Theodore of Mopsuestia, who exposed this Psalm about David ad litteram was condemned, and [he was condemned] on account of this and many other things. And, thus, [this Psalm] is to be exposed about Christ. [3]»
Now, we may think this is a distinction without a difference. But in fact, it implies a whole theological understanding of personal and historical spiritual progress. It is good to see creation as a reflection of God’s wisdom and power, but it is more perfect to see creation as present within God’s wisdom and power. This is, of course, the eschatological promise. More to the present point, however, it is more perfect to see oneself figured in Christ than it is to see Christ figured in oneself. This is because Christ is the supreme locus of intelligibility, and we understand ourselves better if we see ourselves figured in him. This is the distinction Thomas wishes tenaciously to preserve: Israel’s history pre-figures New Testament events, yet the prophets had moments of vision that saw the Christian history, and read their contemporary events as figured within the history of Christ.
St Thomas perceives that this specific element in the Church’s reading of the Psalms and other prophetic texts witnesses to the Church’s faith that at certain moments the history of Old sees and speaks quite literally of Christ and the final end of all things. This is a pedagogical preparation by literal anticipation. Israel was being taught to hope in more explicit ways as her history unfolds. One of the signs of this kind of prophecy is what St Thomas calls the principle of exceeded conditions. St Jerome seems to be Thomas’ principal guide in this kind of expository perception (4).
Now then, after the full revelation of Christ’s historical appearance, the Church has access to the aim of history. Hence, all the faithful now have the capacity by spiritual instinct and knowledge of the Gospel to see themselves in Christ. This, together with the gift of the Spirit guiding our reception of the history of Christ, is what is new about the New Testament revelation. And this is why the Fathers of the Church, following Saint Paul, call the definitive revelation in Christ an “unveiling”. What is unveiled? The aim of human living and all of history. This is a datum in the tradition which witnesses to what Ratzinger called the laying bare of the intelligibility of history by the revelation of its end in Christ.[5] For us who live after the foundational events of the Christian revelation, the figurations are clearer, though not perfectly so. And the literal prophecies of Christ now verified by New Testament authority root the unity of the two Testaments. Lc 24: 44-45: quóniam necésse est impléri ómnia, quæ scripta sunt in Lege Móysis et Prophétis et Psalmis de me. Tunc apéruit illis sensum, ut intellégerent Scriptúras.
This acknowledgment of the enigmatic made clearer looms large in St Thomas’ exposition of the Gospels. In those expositions of the littera of Christ’s life, Thomas occasionally uses the term ‘allegory”, but he prefers the term mystice; the mystical sense is what is figured in the literal history of Christ. Thus, the ecclesiological sense of a text is the figure of the Church as body present in the person of Christ the head; the moral sense of a text is the norm of Christian living present in Christ’s teaching and actions; the eschatological sense is the destiny of the Christ as preparatory and anticipatory of the final destiny of the human race. All of this flows from the super-intelligibility of Christ. After all is said and done, the intelligibility of the Word-events of Israel’s history, our present moment, and our future history, are made manifest in the person of the WORD made flesh in history. [35]
This way of reading is rooted in a theology of participation by grace. Grace effects a participated likeness to the Christ who is source and summit, beginning and end of grace. The likeness is in turn progressively intelligible. There is a metaphysics of human sanctification implicit in this perspective. But then, metaphysics is always present in theology; we are just not always clear about what kind it is. I’ll leave that for another time. Nonetheless, one of the often overlooked aspects of this theology of participated likeness is Thomas’ conviction that the history of Israel narrated in the Scriptures is suffused with the grace of anticipation and preparation. The prior covenant histories could figure Christ because the grace of election effected a likeness by prior conformity to him. Such likenesses may well have been present in other nations, but compared to Israel, they are hardly and only tentatively discernible. Psalm 147,20 : Non fecit taliter omni nationi.
Christian theology breathes of figuration or it dies, as a thought dies when severed from living minds. The root of all figurative meaning is the Gospel history of Christ. The Christological truth revealed in Scripture is the living basis for all subsequent figurative readings. And this is to be understood in two principal ways. First, our understanding of the paschal sacrifice of Christ is embedded in the historical memory of the Exodus, and in the Old Testament’s progressive showing (by figuration and literal prophecy) of the WORD’s intententions when preparing and enacting those events. And secondly, the Paschal Mystery anticipates, figures and participates in the finality of the Kingdom yet to be finally enacted in history. The former is Christ figured and perceived in prior history, now made more manifest. The latter involves history figured in Christ moving towards its historical finality.
This helps us to understand the ecclesial tradition of reading Scripture in a way inextricably linked and transparent to the Eucharistic sacrifice. Sacramental enactment flows from the salvific economy itself. The re-presentation of Christ’s Sacrifice of praise is the manifestation of the final and definitive Word-event, revealed now as the source of the earlier foundational events; this occurs after the reading of the Scriptures and is thus the making actual of the fundamental ratio through which the Scriptures just read are understood. In the intensity of the Sacrifice, all things are figured. The Eucharist itself is the paramount mediated immediacy available to us, conveying the magnum sacramentum of Ephesians 5. Here, made manifest, is the sense of all that went before, what is now, and what is sure to come. The grace the Church and each of her members asks for is the grace to see, to taste, to understand, and to love according to the pattern of what has been manifested. Luke 18,41: “Quid tibi vis faciam?”. At ille dixit: “Domine, ut videam”. This is the ongoing work of the Spirit. [6]
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Notes
[1] Star Trek: The Next Generation, episode 102, (season 5, episode 2).
[2] I had occasion to write more extensively on the topic in “Thomas on the Problem of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Exegete” in The Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review, 69 (2), 251-277, 2005.
[3] Super Psalmo 21: Et inter alia specialiter iste Psalmus agit de passione Christi. Et ideo hic est ejus sensus litteralis. Unde specialiter hunc Psalmum in passione dixit cum clamavit, Heli Heli lammasabactani: quod idem est quod Deus Deus meus etc. sicut hic Psalmus incipit. Et ideo licet figuraliter hic Psalmus dicatur de David, tamen specialiter ad litteram refertur ad Christum. Et in synodo Toletana quidam Theodorus Mopsuestenus, qui hunc ad litteram de David exponebat, fuit damnatus, et propter hoc et propter alia multa; et ideo de Christo exponendus est…
[4] In Psalmis, Prologus: […] beatus ergo hieronymus super ezech. (sic) tradidit nobis unam regulam quam servabimus in psalmis: scilicet quod sic sunt exponendi de rebus gestis, ut figurantibus aliquid de christo vel ecclesia. ut enim dicitur 1 cor. 10: omnia in figura contingebant illis. prophetiae autem aliquando dicuntur de rebus quae tunc temporis erant, sed non principaliter dicuntur de eis, sed inquantum figura sunt futurorum: et ideo spiritus sanctus ordinavit quod quando talia dicuntur, inserantur quaedam quae excedunt conditionem illius rei gestae, ut animus elevetur ad figuratum. et ideo spiritus sanctus ordinavit quod quando talia dicuntur, inserantur quaedam quae excedunt conditionem illius rei gestae, ut animus elevetur ad figuratum.
Blessed Jerome, therefore, [in his commentary] on Ezechiel (sic) handed on to us a rule which we will use in the Psalms: namely that concerning things done, they are to be exposed thus, as figuring something about Christ or the Church. As, indeed, it is said in 1 Corinthians 10, [11]: all these things happened to them in figure. Prophecies, moreover, were sometimes said about things which were of the time then, but [the prophecies] were not principally said about those things, but, in fact, [the prophecies were said about those things] inasmuch as they are figures of future things: and thus the Holy Spirit ordered that when such things are said, certain things are inserted which exceed the condition of that thing done, so that the soul might be raised to the thing figured.
[5] Ratzinger, “Biblical Interpretation in Conflict” in Joseph Ratzinger and the Foundations of Biblical Interpretation edited by Josë Granados, Carlos Granados, Luis Sánchez-Navarro (Eerdmans, 2008). Electronic format, pos 466: “When things have reached their goal, one can discover cover the true sense that so to say lay hidden in them. This sense appearing at the end of the movement transcends whatever sense might be inferred from any given section of the now completed path. «This new sense thus presupposes the existence of a divine Providence, the existence of a (salvation) history arriving at its destination.»» God’s action thus appears as the principle of the intelligibility of history. The unifying principle of the whole of past and present «history, which alone confers sense on it, is, however, ever, the historical event of Christ.”
Words and Things 