QUAE SURSUM SUNT SAPIAMUS! NON QUAE SUPER TERRAM! RESURREXIT! ALLELUIA!

Deluded? No!

Looking back, with all the benefits which hindsight confers, it was ridiculous to imagine that the Pope would release a motu proprio during the Easter Triduum. That we did imagine it shows just how desperately hopeful we are! (Pardon the oxymoron - I am a sharp fool!) However, there is no smoke without fire, and I am quietly confident that the announcement will indeed come, when the pilgrims go. In all stillness. We should offer the pain of our disappointment, frustration, and impatience to the Lord as an acceptable sacrifice, to gain a speedy realization of what we so much long for, for the good of the Church.

Papal Evolution

Pope Benedict made some very interesting references to the theory of evolution during his Easter Vigil homily. Explicitly borrowing 'the language of the theory of evolution', he spoke of Christ's Resurrection as a 'mutation'. Note, he never said the 'theory' is more than that, a 'theory'; but he implicitly recognised its basic validity. However, the 'theory' has a famous weakness. How do we account for the gaps in the 'chain' of evolution? Plants and animals may adapt to their surroundings, but how did chemical being become biological being? How did the grunting chimp become the thinking man? Evolutionists have recourse to the idea of the 'mutation' - an exceptional and mysterious transformation. This, of course, is very 'unscientific', a cop-out. But it is the point at which faith may, and must, enter in. Such 'gaps' can only be filled by the power of God. And if we allow God into those gaps, we in fact allow him into the whole process of 'evolution', and that process ceases to be a purely natural one, and becomes one divinely guided at every stage. Pope Benedict's point was made in that perspective. The transformation of the Resurrection was the definitive 'mutation', the final development of the creation, and again a thing inexplicable in terms of natural development. I believe the Pope was challenging us to interpret the 'theory' of evolution backwards, as it were, beginning with the Resurrection. If we believe that the transformative power of God was at work in that event, we may go on to believe that it was his power which raised up each level of the created world from a lower level. The Resurrection is the final stage; the greatest 'mutation'; and it is our destiny.

I should like to make a general comment on 'evolution'. The word is objectionable, since it suggests that a higher form 'unfolds' from a lower form, and that by its own innate power. But surely we can accept that the various levels of being arose over time, and were not all created at once? Even Genesis chapter one, read at the Vigil, does not suggest an instantaneous creation: it took six 'days'. The earth brought forth plant life, and animal life, and the waters brought forth fish and birds, all at God's word and by his making. Over time, but always by an intervention of God's power, the creation advanced, until the ultimate advances of the Incarnation and Resurrection.

Let us also remember Pope Benedict's words at his Inauguration: 'We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.'

The Pain of Waiting

So we await the liberation of the Mass. They say it may be tomorrow, Holy Thursday, and that would be wonderful; almost too good to be true. But we wait, and hope, and pray. And we imagine what that Papal pallium would look like worn over a Roman chasuble...