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Church Teaching

Theological Anthropology 101: What does it mean to be a person?

Father Harrison Ayre

January 25, 2023 1:45 pm January 25, 2023

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If we were to ask the average person what it means to be a person, they would struggle to give an answer. It’s something we intuitively know, but struggle to…

If we were to ask the average person what it means to be a person, they would struggle to give an answer. It’s something we intuitively know, but struggle to define. Perhaps we will simply exclaim that to be a person is to be my “self.” It’s a possibility that adjectives about reason or free will may be thrown into the mix. Generally, though, it is often difficult for us to define.

The concept of personhood has developed over time and is rooted, not so much in philosophy, but rather in the debates around the Trinity in the early Church. It is here, in trying to explain how God can be both monotheistic, and yet also Father, Son and Holy Spirit, they developed the already existing word “person” — in Greek hypostasis — to equate to a particular relation within the Trinity. Thus Father, Son and Holy Spirit are unique “persons” because they are unique relations yet co-equal with the same substance.

For humanity, then, the idea of personhood, as well as our dignity as human beings, flows from our being rooted in being made in God’s image and likeness. As God is a relation between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, man, made in that image and likeness of God, exists to be in relation with each other. To be in relation means you need a body to relate to others, a soul with the powers of intellect and will. But personhood is also the guarantee of uniqueness. By virtue of my body, my soul, my temperaments, etc., I am positioned to be truly unique in the world. Thus, personhood is a word to speak to this unrepeatable uniqueness, while humanity speaks more broadly to our nature. To be a human and to be a person are not the same thing, but you cannot have one without the other, either (Please note: this is an important distinction to always keep in mind about Jesus and the hypostatic union).

To be in relation

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in fact, will go on to emphasize this idea that to be a person is to be in relation. It emphasizes that man isolated and alone is incomplete, that man and woman are created to be a communion of persons. This communion is only possible because a person is endowed with a body to give, a will that chooses the other and a reason that apprehends and knows the other. Thus, to be a person means we are made to give ourselves to and for another. The Catechism talks about this in regard to her social teaching as well: man is by nature a social animal, and therefore persons need to live in a society (No. 1879). Society is not something extraneous to man but is a core expression of who he is as a person. Only in relationship with other persons is the individual able to fully realize their potential.

Mutual gift

This mutual gift of persons — whether on the larger level of society or in the specific vocation a person receives — is rooted in the Trinity itself. There we see the eternal exchange of love, a totally giving for the other between all three Persons. This exchange of love is revealed in Christ on the Cross, where Christ, in giving himself over to death, is also revealing the inner heart of Trinitarian life. By seeing this love on the cross, we see the heart of God, and thereby see the very life we are created for, because it is in that image that we are created. If God is this eternal exchange of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, then it follows that man is most a person when he gives himself. This is known as the Law of the Gift, and it was formulated by John Paul II, especially when, as cardinal, he gave us one of the most beautiful passages of the Second Vatican Council: “Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, ‘that all may be one … as we are one’ (Jn 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God’s sons in truth and charity. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (Gaudium et Spes, No. 24).

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison. Read more from his Theological Anthropology 101 series here.

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Church Teaching

Theological Anthropology 101: Why Marriage is Between One Man and One Woman

Father Harrison Ayre

January 19, 2023 7:50 am January 19, 2023

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One of the more difficult truths about Christianity that we must navigate today is one of the most basic: the truth about what God has intended for marriage. The familiar…

One of the more difficult truths about Christianity that we must navigate today is one of the most basic: the truth about what God has intended for marriage. The familiar Genesis story explains how God established man and woman to be together in a covenant and how that covenant is affected in a negative fashion through the fall (see Genesis 1-3). We read in Matthew’s Gospel about Jesus’ reference to the beginning (Mt 19:8) and how marriage is not meant to end in divorce. Even in this context, Jesus is clear that marriage is constituted in a lifelong bond between one man and one woman.

While the permanence of marriage is something worthy of discussion all on its own, it is just as essential to uphold marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman. The covenant of marriage reveals certain truths about our humanity that would be lost if marriage were open to different definitions such as homosexual marriage, polyamorous marriage, etc.

Marriage reveals to us is that man is by his nature a communion of persons. So often we are inundated with the idea that we are atomized individuals in a society. That’s a fancy way to say that we often see life in very individualistic terms and that we determine our own vision of humanity. But marriage shows us that we aren’t created for isolation, but for communion. Even in the movements for the redefinition of marriage we see this implicit desire played out: we find our meaning only in communion with another.

The reason the Church insists on marriage between one man and one woman, though, is that communion has a goal, a mission, a purpose. The Church teaches that marriage is for the mutual enrichment of the spouses and the procreation of children. The term mutual enrichment is enlightening in and of itself: it is not about self-enrichment. Rather, enrichment only comes through and with another. Thus the communion of persons in marriage is only possible through self-gift, not self-fulfillment. To phrase it differently: marriage is not about seeking a personal, selfish fulfillment, nor is it about simple companionship. But it comes by the principle that the only way to gain life is the give it away for another. This is a fundamental truth revealed through marriage and one of the purposes marriage has: to be witnesses to love. To reveal that this form of love, which builds up communion, is what fulfills the humanity of every person.

This communion through self-gift is expressed sexually in marriage. Scripture is clear that procreation is a central purpose for the sexual act. It thereby follows, quite simply, that marriage must be between a man and a woman because only the conjugal act between the two can have as its end the possible procreation of a child. Indeed, the Church teaches what she does about the exclusivity of marriage to being between a man and a woman for two reasons. One is simple: it is how God has constituted things and revelation clearly states this. Second: we can see from nature that man and woman are made for each other. Our biology reveals that this communion only makes sense between a man and a woman. In this communion, too, the complementarity of man and woman fulfills and completes each other through the distinctive characteristics of their genders.

This is a hard teaching for the world to understand. The reasons are manifold why people often misunderstand the Church’s teaching. The moral character of her teaching on marriage depends on a moral framework that sees the purpose of things to be constitutive of moral action. The sexual biology of man and woman have specific ends or purposes that can only be completed in the context of a union with each other. Or the world does not see procreation as a necessary outcome of marriage. Here we often see that marriage is about companionship or that how one “feels” is what really matters. This is the line of argumentation often used by people who are pursuing the same-sex marriage agenda. Yet they’re ignoring the fundamental character of marriage that sex is both integral to it and has a specific purpose, even if that outcome is not always achieved, namely, both the enrichment of the spouses through self-gift and the related possibility of bringing about new life.

The Church’s understanding of this depends on a moral framework that is, at best, foreign to the mindset of most people. It is why we must not only witness with greater fervency to the life-giving nature of marriage, but show how it reveals what it means to be truly human, and thereby call the world back to this truth that is both inscribed in nature and revealed by God.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison. Read more from his Theological Anthropology 101 series here.

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Church Teaching

Introduction to Ecclesiology

Father Harrison Ayre

January 18, 2023 12:00 pm January 18, 2023

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One of the more contemporary fields of theological study in the last century has been the discipline of ecclesiology, which studies the Church. This is a vital area of study…

One of the more contemporary fields of theological study in the last century has been the discipline of ecclesiology, which studies the Church. This is a vital area of study because if Jesus intended to found a Church, then we must look to revelation to understand what this Church looks like and what Christ intended.

Ecclesiology, therefore, begins with the basic question: Did Jesus intend to found a Church? The New Testament, as well as early Church history, makes this abundantly clear, and it is relatively well-accepted among both Protestants, Catholics (and other Christians, like the Orthodox, for that matter) that Jesus did, in fact, establish a Church as a body of believers called to gather around his teachings and live them out as a manifestation of the Kingdom of God.

That is where Protestants and Catholics agree. But what the Church looks like — i.e. her external features — is where major disagreement begins. For Catholics, there are essentially two aspects that are necessary for a Church to be a Church. First, it must have a hierarchical structure, centered upon the bishops and pope; second, it must have the sacraments. These are the two essential features for an ecclesial structure to be called a Church.

The hierarchical structure is vital to the Church because without the bishops, there is no Church. The bishop of each diocese is the symbol of unity in his local diocese. Communion among the bishops comes from unity with the pope, as the one who holds the Church’s unity together in communion. The pope is the guarantee that we are all part of the same Church that Christ instituted. The bishops, then, exist as ministers of the Church’s unity. Through them we have apostolic succession, which means that their office is traced back all the way back to Jesus’ apostles. As presiders over the Church’s unity, the bishops oversee things such as the sacraments, which are at the core of the Church’s life. Without the bishops, there are no sacraments, and without both, there is no Church.

The Church’s hierarchy exists to facilitate the unity of the Church, which exists as a communion.This is to say that each member exists and lives for all the other members of the Church. Each of us has a mission in the life of the Church, called to be in service to one another. Episcopal leadership being solely defined by power has no place, since the power attached to the bishop’s office is only given to achieve and guarantee the Church’s unity.

There are other aspects of ecclesiology equally vital: What does it mean to say the Church is “one, holy, catholic,” too? How do we understand, for example, that the Church is holy when sinful at the same time? The Church’s holiness is possible only because her head, Jesus Christ, our Lord, is holy, and we are the members of his body. As sinners, clergy and laity can become holy through Christ alone.

The Church is first and foremost a sacrament — that is, a visible sign that makes effective and visible the invisible reality she signifies. The mission of the whole Church is a mission for the life of the whole world. All those who are baptized into Christ are to make Christ’s salvation not only visible but effective to all the world. This is because the Church is inherently missionary by nature, an idea reiterated time and again by Pope St. Paul VI. It is the task of every single Catholic, then, to be cooperators with Christ’s saving mission, through word and deed. The whole of our lives are to be defined by Christ. That means Christianity cannot be simply a hobby — an addition to one’s life — but a whole way of being. Because the Church is a sacrament, her members – always and everywhere — have the opportunity to be a sign by which the saving actions of Jesus are made effective in the lives of others.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison. Read more in the “Introduction to Theology” series here.

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Church Teaching

The Creed (Part 2): Jesus Christ, Only Begotten and Consubstantial

Father Harrison Ayre

January 12, 2023 1:56 pm January 12, 2023

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In speaking of Christ, the Creed uses two words that we are not used to: “begotten” and “consubstantial.” Although unfamiliar, these terms can help us appreciate who Jesus is. The…

In speaking of Christ, the Creed uses two words that we are not used to: “begotten” and “consubstantial.” Although unfamiliar, these terms can help us appreciate who Jesus is.

The Father eternally begets the Son, which means that for all eternity the Father gives his being to the Son. To put it differently, there is never a “moment” in which the Son doesn’t exist. He is not created, but eternally comes from the Father. The relationship that God has with his creation, therefore, is rooted more firmly and eternally in his relationship with his Son. This reveals to us that God is an eternal relationship. The Father exists for the Son, and the Son for the Father, through the bond of the Holy Spirit. Thus when God creates, all creation is rooted in this relationship of God.

The fact that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father is confirmed by the term “consubstantial.” The word “con” is rooted in the Latin for “with,” and substance refers to what makes up an entity. Consubstantial, as used in the Creed, refers to the Son as “with the same substance” of the Father. Substance is the very being of God. Whatever is of God is completely and totally in the Son as it is in the Father and the Holy Spirit.

This Son of the Father is the one who takes on human flesh so that he may come to rescue humanity from the bonds of sin and death. He takes on a humanity that is totally ours from his mother Mary. By entering into the world, the Son comes to repair what is broken, namely, that relationship with the Father. He comes to lift up creation once again into proper relationship with God, but this time with something new: to have by adoption what he has by nature: to share the substance, the very life of God.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison. Read part one in the series here.

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Creation

Health and Holiness Are Not Opposed

Father Harrison Ayre

December 21, 2022 6:25 am December 21, 2022

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There is a lingering, though prominent, tendency in the Church to pit the created realm against our eternal destiny. To put it differently, there are some who have a tendency…

There is a lingering, though prominent, tendency in the Church to pit the created realm against our eternal destiny. To put it differently, there are some who have a tendency to see eternity with God as the only thing that matters, and anything lower than this goal is at best unimportant and at worst impeding it. This mentality, often unrecognized and typically based in no ill will, suggests God is against his creation, creating a competition between us and God. By that is meant that whatever, or whomever, “wins out” will dominate over the loser. The problem with this view is that God, being God, will always win and, moreover, dominate. Furthermore, the competitive view of God and creation looks at the relationship through the lens of power, which means that promoting the eternal to the neglect of the created ultimately overwhelms the latter and removes any sense of importance.

A common misconception lies at the root of this false competition. While it is obviously true that God and our destiny toward him are the most important things in our lives, we often make an error in reasoning about the lesser goods — namely that we think “because this is the highest good, the lower goods are of no importance.”

Just because something is more important, it does not entail a neglect of the lower goods, but rather an orienting of them toward the highest good. For example, though our eternal destiny is our ultimate goal, part of achieving that goal is to look after our neighbors, which entails looking after their health, etc. These are all the means by which we achieve the eternal goal: through lower concrete goods that God has tasked us with.

Not looking at the hierarchy of goods with a properly Christian attitude can undermine some basic truths of Christian revelation. For example, the competitive view described above can undermine our understanding of the person of Jesus and the doctrine of the Incarnation. When the Word took on flesh in Jesus Christ, humanity was not overwhelmed, but rather was it lifted up and perfected. Jesus’ Incarnation has a reason and a purpose: to lift up all that is created — matter, time, spirit, indeed the entire cosmos — and put it all in right relationship with God. But this redemption happens in cooperation with and within the created order. Putting God and creation in competition portrays a view of the Incarnation that the only meaningful doctrine is the divinity of Jesus, that his humanity can be cast aside, at best, and at worst it is destroyed and overwhelmed by the presence of God. If the eternal is all that matters, then we have to put blinders on some key aspects of Jesus’ saving mission—– notably his death and resurrection. Yet, it is precisely in Jesus’ saving mission that God shows he has no desire to circumvent his creation. Rather, through Jesus, God embraces his creation, works through it and raises its dignity. What God has created good, he does not want to destroy, rather, he wants to save it.

The Christian understanding of the human person also shows how it is problematic to pit eternity against creation. So often we can forget that our eternal destiny happens by means of and through our created nature. Yes, we have an eternal goal, but that goal is achieved in and through creation — through time and space. The soul is not all that matters, but the body does, too, because, ultimately, our goal is more than heaven — it is the resurrection of the body. To say that the eternal is really all that matters facilitates in us the idea that our health, the poverty of our neighbor, or even the common good really are not all that important because they will dissolve in the eternal presence of God. Rather, though, we see life as a training for the resurrection, whereby God wants to redeem and redeem all that is good, including the body and all of creation. Our eternal goal is important, but it is done in and through the body. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and caring for them — in working to safeguard the health and wellbeing of ourselves and others and looking out for the material needs of those less fortunate — is vital practice for our share in the divine life.

And so, our higher goods are not in competition with the lower. Rather, it is through the lower goods that we actually come to achieve the final goal — our eternal destiny. God works through created things to draw us to himself, this is his primary mode of working. This means health and holiness are not opposed. Catholics would do well to stop looking at the hierarchy of goods as somehow in competition, but rather as the means to submit all things to Christ.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison.

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Mary

Two Lessons from Perpetual Virginity of Mary

Father Harrison Ayre

December 19, 2022 7:00 am December 19, 2022

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Hearing of the doctrine of Mary’s virginity, we often are satisfied with an explanation of the miraculousness of Jesus’ conception. Yet the doctrine goes further than this mere fact, dealing…

Hearing of the doctrine of Mary’s virginity, we often are satisfied with an explanation of the miraculousness of Jesus’ conception. Yet the doctrine goes further than this mere fact, dealing with his birth and Mary’s state after the birth of Jesus. As the Catechism states: “The deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary’s real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man” (No. 499). Thus the Church professes with absolute belief that Mary maintained her virginal integrity before, during and after the birth of Jesus.

When discussing such sensitive mysteries of faith, it is important to begin with humility and reverence toward the teaching. It can be easy to give way to questions of mechanics that become too personal and treads too far upon the holiness of the mystery of Jesus’ birth and Mary’s virginity. We can easily approach this question with very contemporary concerns, which, as valid as they might be, miss the heart of the doctrine that is vital for the life of the Church. Why, then, does the Church insist on it? There are two lessons to be gleaned: one is in reference to the fall, and thus to our salvation; the other is the connection between her role in the life of the Church.

Virginity and the Fall

We learn in Genesis that man and woman are commanded to multiply and fill the Earth (see 1:28). We also know that the fall of man brings about pain and suffering in childbirth (see Gen 3:16). The Bible’s first book reveals to us two facts here: that childbearing is part of God’s original plan, but that the fall has twisted this plan, and has had an effect on how childbearing takes place. The fathers of the Church talk about how procreation, while still a good, takes on a different reality because of the fall. It is clear from the biblical evidence that something changed in light of the fall, for the fall affected all of creation, including the body.

The virginity of Mary, then — because Mary is without sin — reveals something to us in her motherhood about what procreation and childbearing would have been like prior to the fall. This is still mysterious, and, looking at this through our own fallenness, we can struggle to see the reality clearly. But the perpetual virginity of Mary is meant to reveal something about why we were originally created. Since Mary is without sin, the effects of the fall do not affect her in the bearing of Jesus. Since her Immaculate Conception brings about her salvation, she is bearing in herself the effects of the Cross in time prior to its historical enacting. Mary is already redeemed in her conception, and so the effect of sin that affects all generations does not affect her. Her perpetual virginity is a sign of the victory of her Son and is a witness to the salvific efficacy of the Cross and Resurrection. Her virginity is the sign of the new creation, which is a fulfillment of the old represented in Adam and Eve. Thus, a new form of love is possible through Christ and embodied in Mary.

Mother of the Church

The doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity extends to her role and mission as regards the universal Church. By being the perpetual virgin — which is a sign of a universal love that is not exclusive but rather inclusive, Mary embraces the whole Church as her children just as she embraces her Son, of whose body we are members. The whole point of virginal love is to love with a full vision, to say that Christ’s way is the exclusive way by which life is to be lived. Mary’s perpetual virginity is a sign of our destiny where we are neither married nor given in marriage (cf Mt 22:30). Mary’s exclusivity makes her love universal, and is a sign of the universal love of Jesus to which she always says “yes.” By embracing her Son, she embraces the members of his Body, the Church. This perpetual virginity, therefore, points to her motherhood of the Church, as well as is a sign that she is always “giving birth” to Christ who is to be formed in us (see Gal 4:19). Her virginity is a constant openness to God in the Holy Spirit, a constant giving birth, and a constant love that cares for each one of us. Mary’s perpetual virginity is not a reduction of her sexuality, then, but is rather the fullest expression of love whereby she can love all people with an openness that has no limits.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison.

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