Anthony R. Lusvardi, S.J., teaches sacramental theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He writes on a variety of theological, cultural, and literary topics.
Readers of this blog might be interested in this articleAmerica asked me to write on the Last Supper Olympics controversy. A bit of historic context and a bit of tongue-in-cheek… I may have had a warrant issued for my arrest in France.
I think Solzhenitsyn’s critique of the French Revolution is particularly important and something I hope to follow up on in the next book project.
And speaking of books, if you haven’t already ordered your copy of Baptism of Desire and Christian Salvation, do so quick. They’re selling like hotcakes here in Rapid City…
If there were an Olympic event for complaining, the ancient Israelites just might take the gold medal. Today, after being liberated from slavery, they ask to go back, forgetting the oppression they suffered in Egypt and remembering the country as an ancient Olive Garden with fleshpots and never-ending bread sticks. Hearing their complaint, God sends them manna and quail to eat, but we know that soon enough they’ll start complaining again—“Manna again? We want leaks and onions, not these leftovers!” And they’ll attack Moses: “Why’d you have to lead us out here? Weren’t there enough graves in Egypt?”
The preaching of St. Paul, Rabat, Malta
But, if complaining were an Olympic event, the competition would be fierce. I suspect there’s something deep in our human nature—some survival mechanism from caveman days that made our ancestors less likely to be eaten by sabretooth tigers or stomped on by wooly mammoths if they were quicker to see the negative than the positive, more inclined to fear than to gratitude. The problem is if you’re not being stalked by a sabretooth tiger, this instinct for the negative sometimes results in clubbing our friends or retreating into the darkness of our own self-constructed caves.
Miracle of the Loaves from the Triptych of the Miracles of Christ, Master of the Legend of St. Catherine, Flanders 1491-5, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Today’s readings give a prominent place to leftovers. In the hands of the prophet Elisha, twenty barley loaves manage to fill a hundred people, with some left over. When Jesus feeds the five thousand, the leftovers—twelve baskets—exceed the amount of bread there was to begin with—just five loaves.
It’s worth noting that the disciples go to the trouble of collecting the leftovers after the impromptu meal. Living in an age of abundance, perhaps we are used to throwing leftovers out or letting them molder in the back of the fridge, but letting leftovers go to waste is a luxury most people in history didn’t have. Certain recipes popular today were originally invented to use stale bread—bread pudding, for example, or the Tuscan bread soup known as ribollita. The funny thing about ribollita is that what started out as a peasant dish today is served in pricey and fashionable restaurants. What was once leftovers has become high cuisine.
There’s something deeply Christian in this transformation. Ours is a faith, after all, in which the stone rejected by the builders becomes the cornerstone, the last become first, the meek inherit the earth, the poor are filled with good things while the rich go away empty, the blood of martyrs becomes the seed of faith, and in dying we are born to eternal life. We believe not just that leftover bread can be transformed into a savory dish, but that utterly ordinary bread and wine are, in the sacrament of the Eucharist, transformed into the body and blood of Jesus. Moreover, if we approach the sacrament in faith, we too are transformed into the body of Christ; our weak and too often sinful flesh becomes the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.
I have a friend, a Filipino Jesuit who comes from a family of restauranteurs and is an amazing chef. He has a particular genius for being able to walk into any kitchen, open the refrigerator, glance over whatever leftovers are inside, spend half an hour spicing and mixing and reheating, and produce a feast that was better than the original meal. Our Christian faith is something like this. At its heart is belief in the possibility of transformation.
Last month the Gregorian Jesuits took our spring community outing to L’Aquila, capital of the Abruzzo region. L’Aquila was most recently in the news for a 2009 earthquake that tragically killed over 300 people. Most buildings in the city have been restored, though construction still abounds.
Highlights of the trip were two churches. The first, the Basilica of St. Bernardino of Siena, is dedicated to the Franciscan preacher (1380-1444) with a great devotion to the name of Jesus. In fact, in images of St. Bernardino one frequently sees the IHS Christogram–using the Greek letters for the name of Jesus. The “IHS” was later taken up, of course, by the Society of Jesus. The IHS sunburst with the three nails of Christ’s passion is prominently displayed all over the Basilica of San Bernardino. The saint died in L’Aquila and is buried in the basilica.
Tomb of Pope St. Celestine V, L’Aquila
L’Aquila’s other iconic church is Santa Maria di Collemaggio, burial place of Pope Celestine V (1215-1296). It is known as the Church of Pardon because of the plenary indulgence Celestine attached to the church–what locals refer to as an annual Jubilee. Celestine’s papacy, however, could hardly be considered a success, and he resigned after only a few months in office. He was a holy hermit, perhaps never really cut out to be pope.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned the time I spent in Maracalagonis, Sardinia during Holy Week this year. I thought I’d follow up with a few pictures of Cagliari’s Cathedral, certainly one of the city’s highlights. The building is well kept up and contains a number of artistic gems. Among these are the two sides of what was once a single pulpit, which now flank the main door. These were sculpted by Guglielmo of Pisa around 1160 and later sent to Cagliari when the city was ruled by that merchant city-state.
The question of invalid baptisms has been in the news recently. In my commentary on the question in La Civiltà Cattolica, I pointed out that the Vatican’s most recent document on the question, Gestis verbisque, gives renewed attention to the minister’s intention. For a sacrament to be valid, a minister must intend to do what the Church does when celebrating that sacrament. And that means that if he changes what the Church prescribes in her official liturgical texts–by inserting his own words or deleting something required to be there–then he manifests an intention to do something else. It’s just as straightforward as it sounds. The proof is not in the pudding, but in the action.
Baptismal font, St. Peter’s Basilica
Last week, however, another question was sent to the Vatican about what sort of intention might invalidate a sacrament, this time an ordination. The question proposed the distasteful case of a bishop who ordained a man with whom he had engaged in an illicit sexual relationship. Could he possibly have the right intention? Wouldn’t such a sinful situation invalidate the ordination?
The article in which this question was raised described it as “potentially explosive.” Fortunately, this grenade was defused by St. Augustine in the fifth century. The great theologian was responding to controversy about the validity of baptisms, whether the sinfulness of a minster invalidated the sacrament. He responded no. Augustine’s principle has remained a bedrock of sacramental theology ever since. It is really Christ who baptizes, Augustine said, and he can do so even through profoundly imperfect human instruments. The same goes for ordinations. Augustine sagely realized that if perfection were required of ministers in order for sacraments to be valid, then we simply wouldn’t have sacraments.
So how does Augustine’s principle fit with the requirement that one has to have the right intention to celebrate a sacrament validly? Here we have to make what might at first seem like a rather technical distinction but is, once you’ve thought the question through, also rather straightforward. The distinction is between intention and motive.
Earlier this month, after delivering ten copies of Baptism of Desire and Christian Salvation to Sant’Anselmo at Easter time, I walked up the Aventine Hill to pick up my diploma–the last formality involved in earning my doctorate. The last act, I suppose, of my formal education! It’s a walk I made many times before while a student. I haven’t been back to Sant’Anselmo for a while now, but am grateful for the studies in sacramental theology I did there.
When I received my copies of Baptism of Desire and Christian Salvation, I had one more reason to be grateful — the insightful words of endorsement on the back cover from my dissertation director Prof. Andrea Grillo, who read many draft versions of the tome and managed to remain in good humor throughout! Here’s his review:
Lusvardi offers a historical reconstruction of the ‘baptism of desire’ that traverses the entire arc of the Christian tradition, starting from the origins. A straightforward work, expressed in a language endowed with finesse, irony and acumen. Baptism of Desire and Christian Salvation is singularly effective in pointing out the fact that in the modern reception, a series of priorities is imposed on the issue that empty its meaning.
Andrea Grillo, Pontifical Atheneum of Saint Anselm, Rome
Also last week, I was delighted to see Rachel Lu’s review of the book at Word On Fire. Rachel’s review had a particular significance for me since, as she points out, I was there when she was baptized as an adult 19 years ago.
Though I still have a few weeks of grading exams to go, summer is definitely here in Rome. To celebrate the end of classes, I took a morning off last week to visit a special exhibit at Rome’s Capitoline Museum. The Capitoline is one of several museums in the Eternal City that would be the top attraction anywhere else but gets overshadowed by the Vatican Museums and the Borghese Gallery. It contains a number of impressive ancient Roman sculptures and a couple of Caravaggios — antiquity and baroque being the two periods Rome is known best for. When it comes to Renaissance art, Rome takes second place to Florence (though, given the work of Michelangelo and Raphael in the Vatican, the competition is still stiff).
In any case, the Capitoline is hosting an exhibit this summer dedicated to the work of Filippo Lippi (1406-1469) and his son Filippino (1457-1504). I mentioned Filippo before for his wonderful frescoes in Spoleto’s cathedral depicting the life of the Virgin. Filippo grew up an orphan and very poor. He was raised in a Carmelite monastery in Florence and became a monk. His superiors noticed his talent and encouraged his artistic career. He proved, in fact, to be a better artist than a monk. While executing a commission in a monastery in Prato, he ran off with a 17-year old novice, Lucrezia Buti, who became the model for some of his most beautiful female figures. Filippino, you might have guessed, was the fruit of their union.
Today’s readings are bloody. Some years the readings for Corpus Christi emphasize the bread that becomes the body of Christ, and they remind us that the Eucharist is our nourishment and also the source of our unity. A single loaf of bread is formed from many individual grains of wheat.
Moses, Michelangelo
But today’s readings are full of blood. This is not a Sunday for the squeamish. Blood sprinkled, blood shed, blood poured out, drinking blood. If we are tempted to imagine that worship is something abstract or comfortable or safe, the blood-spattered images in today’s readings should give us second thoughts. In the ancient world and in the time of Jesus, worship was a matter of flesh and blood, of life and death. Entering the Temple of Jerusalem would have been a shock to the senses—crowds of visitors both from Judea and from the Jewish diaspora; animals—birds, sheep, goats, bulls—and all their animal noises and smells; the sounds of these animals being slaughtered; the smell of blood; and the songs of prayer, of the psalms rising to heaven, with the smoke of burning incense and roasting meat. Worshipping God was not for the squeamish.
I think the fact that today’s readings speak rather vividly of the blood of goats, heifers, and bulls—bowls of blood—is perhaps a way of reminding us that Christianity—following Jesus—requires a certain courage. In one way or another we all have to overcome our squeamishness, whatever form it might take. The perfect act of worship, after all, the sacrifice which is the model for all other acts of worship, the death of Jesus on the cross, was not only bloody, but brutal. There was nothing abstract or comfortable in the scrouging and beating, in the nails, the crown of thorns, or the agonizing hours on the cross. And yet this was not, in the final analysis, merely an act of violence or a miscarriage of justice but an act of self-giving love. The blood of the new covenant was shed for those Jesus calls to be his friends and disciples.
But why blood? What is the meaning, for example, of what probably seems to us the very strange gesture of Moses who, to seal the covenant between God and his people, splashes blood upon the altar and then sprinkles it on the people. When I read this passage one of my first very modern, very practical thoughts is, “How are the Israelites going to get all that blood out of their clothes? What a mess!” But we are told, in the letter to the Hebrews, that it is blood—the blood of Christ—that cleanses.
Just a friendly reminder that if you haven’t yet ordered your copy of Baptism of Desire and Christian Salvation, at a mere 20 cents/page, it remains a bargain. And each page is jam-packed with non-stop theological action.
You might think I’m biased, but you don’t have to take my word for it. When the book came out, I was thrilled to see that CUA Press had arranged a review and endorsement from Fr. José Granados. Attentive readers will recall that I mentioned Fr. Granados’s superb Introduction to Sacramental Theologyhere before. (It’s now available in Italian under the title Teologia dei sacramenti: Segni di Cristo nella carne.)
Here’s his verdict:
Offers a very accurate historical analysis of the doctrine of baptism of desire, starting with St. Ambrose and St. Augustine up to Vatican II. Lusvardi does not only give information about the different Fathers and theologians but delineates a clear leading thread that allows us to follow the development of the idea. The analyses are precise, the bibliography is abundant and well chosen, the documentation is excellent, the theological approach very sound.
José Granados, author of Introduction to Sacramental Theology: Signs of Christ in the Flesh
Tony Lusvardi, S.J. 