The Word: Certain and Sure in all His ways
Edward Holloway
When we say ‘word’ in English we stress first a sound, a written sign, and only afterwards acknowledge that it has a meaning. Not so for the wonderful culture which was ancient Greece. In Greek the word is ‘Logos’ from which our word logic comes. The Greek stresses first of all that the word is mind, the content of a man's wisdom, the content also of his personality, of that good and noble balance of the truth in which the attraction of his living person stands.
So for St John: in the Beginning was the WORD, the DIVINE MIND, the Personal Mind and Wisdom who is God. Through that MIND - the conscious purpose of a love which is all joy - all things were conceived and made. This is the MIND most certain and most sure. This MIND or WORD which is God is the measure of all things. In the spawning of the universe all things were gathered up in that Mind in certainty of nature and of goodness, of purpose and of plan. And we too were there. So before the Christmas crib we can come to rest in sweet peace, for we know our place and through him we have a place and a home indeed. "In my Father's House there are many mansions, and I am gone before, to prepare a place for you." (Mt )Kneeling at the Crib we take heart. Creation is founded through the very Being of THE WORD. Therefore it is founded upon clear meaning, sharply defined truth and bountiful joy. It is founded upon Truth. It is not built upon the sand of agnosticism, human opinion and uncertainty. If there is in our time a phenomenon of uncertainty, hesitancy and doubt in theology and catechesis, which some have dubbed "The Uncertain Church", then it is not his Church. For he is THE WORD.Those who sow the seeds of doubt and make all truth provisional have been among us, but they were never of us, or they would not have gone out from us (cf. 1John 2:19). This Uncertain Church is in fact the age old phenomenon of human error and human sin. Why do we never learn? It has happened again and again in the history of mankind. Why do we presume that we are better than our fathers and are beyond error, sin and the leprosy of heresy? There is nothing to preserve us from sin except humility under the mighty hand of God.This Uncertain Church is the ‘dual magisterium’, the voice of dissent, but a voice against the Church which is built into the Body of the WORD who is GOD. This Body of Christ will not be vanquished by the virus nor will the sickness be unto death, for the Gates of Hell, (i.e. principle of death and sin or "Sheol" in Hebrew), will not prevail against her. This is the promise of the WORD, whose human birth we sing in happy Christmas hymns and carols.
A Christmas Certainty
"In the Beginning was THE WORD ... and The WORD was made flesh, and dwelt among us."
So MIND and REASON, definite and absolute, has framed the universe. And it is not hard to believe it, for all the wisdoms and sciences of man's modern world are gathered up into a unity of meaning; and the patterns of the laws of the sciences run over, one into another. There is no mindlessness here; and it is foolish to be an Atheist, or even an Agnostic. Nothing was ever discovered, used or purposed except through MIND, through the principle of THE WORD. The universe is full of it and it gives witness to him.In the Crib we look with joy upon the consolation of God's certainty, given to us and given for us. Our lives have meaning and from that recognition joy fills our heart. This joy spreads out over hearth and home. There is no toil that is without meaning, nothing so menial that it does not matter. For the tasks of daily life - the cleaning, the washing and the bathing and the infant demands - all of them are gathered up, together with the very explosion of the universe of which they are all part, into the meaningful Dispensation of the Loving God.He is loving because he first knows that he loves and brings it to perfection in that balance of truth which we call holiness. Holiness is the perfect good and to proclaim the perfect is to proclaim the true. We have no deep and faithful love without spiritual truth, stability and certainty of principle - the way of living of that truth. Come to think of it, it was written at the end of the marriage service before it was revised, "and thereto I plight thee my troth", which means: "and to these vows I pledge you life-long truth".There is no life-long love without that spiritual truth which subjects and subdues all that belongs to the body to the law and commandment of spiritual truth. The truth of the spirit is not uncertain, for the spirit is made to the likeness of the Eternal Word. The birth of Jesus Christ is the marriage of God with human nature; and in Him - God Incarnate, Emmanuel - we have the pledge of betrothal, the ultimate Truth, the certainty of the Divine Love in the unchanging wisdom of the Divine Mind. How it lifts up our lives and our loves and bursts into those familiar, lovely songs which we call Christmas carols - the most beautiful of true folk music in every tongue and in the culture of every nation! There would be no Christmas joy except for the certainty of the Word made Flesh: the certainty that this Child is Son of Man and Eternal Son of God. He is the Word "most sure in all his ways", to quote the hymn of Cardinal Newman, who, as a writer of hymns, was a most prescient because a most saintly soul.
Expecting the Word
We must expect the Word. Throughout Advent and up to the Christmas Midnight Mass we should live in expectation and longing for the Word and the Coming of the Lord. Our very nature is built upon that expectation. The meaning of our existence is defined towards that coming and our lives are explained through that longing.Look for 'The Word' in the starry sky around you. At his creative command it exploded from not-being into reality. At the word of the WORD it put on meaning like a garment and wove itself, ascending in majesty through the ages, as a monument to MIND and a song of praise and love to the Creator. This lovely universe, which is also his footstool, and this world of ours into which he has mostly certainly come is his very Advent.Life on this earth is his Advent because it is made for him, foretells him and gives of its own in the womb of Mary to welcome Him. And so Advent ends in the crib, when the Woman - "clothed with the Sun, crowned with the stars, with the moon at her feet" - lays in the manger the Son of God and the Son of Man. The certainty of God, which is predestined from before the Foundation of the World, has triumphed in the event. For despite the Fall of Man, the Sacrament of Creation and its Holy Order is realised in the Body and Blood of Jesus the Christ. There is no uncertain word in the Living Word of God.Expect the Word in truth and in joy. Expect His certainty in your own mind and heart, for you are the reflection of God Almighty and have been made as 'son' through the Logos. Expect Him in a certain craving of your being to know Him and to love Him. You must expect to pray, you must expect prayer to burst through your soul, upwards to Him. A baby cries out for mother's love and mother's milk and mother's redeeming care. So too we are told "My little children like new born babes, seek your natural milk, without guile" (1. Peter. 2: 1). The very law of life and the cry of our very being is for the certainty which is the Life and the Love of God.Expect to hear the word as it rises in human life and culture. It is thrown up in king and counsellor, in patriarch and sage, in the senior of the people and the wise women of the tribes. Expect the words of The Word much more, then, in priest and prophet too, for He will strive to get through. This is His Advent in history.Expect Him to give some sign of His coming. You will find it. Layer after layer of scripture and tradition, prophet after prophet, great priest after great priest. You will find as well the littleness and the sin, the uncertainty of doctrine, the lusts of the heart; yes, you will also find the foreshadowing of the Crucifixion. But over it all is the certainty of The Event, as the Word of scripture and tradition rises majestically over the forces of sin and death to arrive at the Incarnation of the Son of God. His Body and His Blood must then share in all the work of his Divinity, so expect Him, also, upon the Cross and in the Resurrection from the Cross.Christmas is the Feast of the Word Most Certain. And be sure, as certainly as He came, as He said He would, and rose in the transfigured flesh of His suffering body, so He Will Come Again, as He has said He will. For the Word of God is terrible in His utter certainty. Let His enemies know it and tremble while there is yet time for a change of heart.
Expect the Eucharist
Expect the Word to come not just in words and teaching, scripture and institution, but as the Bread and Wine of human life, for He is the food of life and immortality. His Being is the Vine, the grapes of which are the Blood that inebriates and gives life. Expect Him in His Christmas Gift upon the Altar, for He is all your life.Therefore expect Him and know Him in the Breaking of Bread, for the Eucharist is the Incarnation again - the Enfleshment of the Word of Life and Joy, descending upon matter as first He descended into the Virgin's womb. ‘Praise Him for His Grace and Favour’. So He must come upon the Bread and the Wine and incorporate them to himself and incorporate us who receive along with it, for He is the very source of life - the epitome, in the Incarnation, of the supernatural destiny of Man.Expect Him in the changing of Bread and Wine into his very self. For he is God and in all the work of man's transformation into God, the fulness of the Word Made Flesh must share. Know him also in the abiding gift of the Altar - the Blessed Sacrament - as the sum of all the attributes of blessedness. Recognise him there with great hope. Recognise in the Eucharist that matter is good and made without sin and that God has gathered it around himself and made it His own Body.Expect the Lord of the Word with your greatest longing and joy in the Mass of Christmas Midnight. For this, (rather than the Vigil of Easter), is the original Supper which the King made for His Son and Heir. This is a fact of liturgy and of doctrine which is attested by the sensus fidelium - the common consent of the people of God - without a doubt. For on this night and to this Mass there come not those who were invited, - the theologians of the contradictory magisterium, the sophisticated chaplains of the rich and pampered, and prelates of the Word Uncertain and ambiguous - there come instead the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.They come compelled by the urge of the Holy Spirit from the highways and byways, the hedges and crossroads of life - the laspsed and the lost, a motley crew. This is the very driftwood of life, yet sudenly in the burst of lights and the pealing of the Angelus, there is raised up to God in voice and in aspiration of spirit a Palace of Cedar wood, all the splendour of Lebanon. ( ? ) This is the Jerusalem of God, built of the living souls of men: "Jerusalem, strip off the garment of your sorrow and affliction and put on for ever the glorious majesty that is the gift of God. Wrap about you his robe of righteousness; set on your head for diadem the splendour of the Everlasting: for God will show your radiance to every land under heaven. You shall receive from God for ever the name of righteous Peace, City of Godly Splendour". (Baruch 5:1-4)
The Word Certain and Everlasting
Expect the Word, then, enfleshed in Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Expect the certain, everlasting truth and witness of Mind which is the Word Eternal. His truth and his teaching are from age to age, his certainty is everlasting, his promise and his prohibition do not change with times and cultures.For Man is made to the likeness of this Word; and the likeness is first in the soul and the soul is immaterial and changeless in nature. Through the spirit of a man God the Word has given one wisdom, and one Law to matter and sense, and that law and that truth do not change. The spirit can only grow and deepen in its own powers , grow in a straight line of constant ascent. Matter can change its forms and its laws, but Man, who is made to the likeness of The Word Eternal has one law and one truth of life, from Adam to the Second Coming of the Christ. The wisdom of the Word Made Flesh is measured by the divine name of Everlasting. There is can be no dissembling when we come before Him; only the pathetic bleat of the sheep which has lost its way.When we gaze at the baby lying in swaddling clothes in the manger we must expect and anticipate from his lips the Word of Infallible Magistracy. It will stand in lasting Good News throughout all times and cultures. The truth may hurt at times, but the truth is always-good news. Expect the same inerrant magistracy also in the word of the Church in which He lives and speaks, till the end of the ages. From the office of the Divine Christ within her it must be a certain word. It will ring out in Council and in Pope, for to speak with this voice of certainty is of the very commission of the Word Incarnate:
"Oh Thou Word uttered and proceeding from the mouth of the Most High, command of beginnings and of ending,: orderer of all things with sweetness yet with power, come unto us, Word and Wisdom of our life and our way". (Office of Advent. Dec. 17th)
Edward Holloway
When we say ‘word’ in English we stress first a sound, a written sign, and only afterwards acknowledge that it has a meaning. Not so for the wonderful culture which was ancient Greece. In Greek the word is ‘Logos’ from which our word logic comes. The Greek stresses first of all that the word is mind, the content of a man's wisdom, the content also of his personality, of that good and noble balance of the truth in which the attraction of his living person stands.
So for St John: in the Beginning was the WORD, the DIVINE MIND, the Personal Mind and Wisdom who is God. Through that MIND - the conscious purpose of a love which is all joy - all things were conceived and made. This is the MIND most certain and most sure. This MIND or WORD which is God is the measure of all things. In the spawning of the universe all things were gathered up in that Mind in certainty of nature and of goodness, of purpose and of plan. And we too were there. So before the Christmas crib we can come to rest in sweet peace, for we know our place and through him we have a place and a home indeed. "In my Father's House there are many mansions, and I am gone before, to prepare a place for you." (Mt )Kneeling at the Crib we take heart. Creation is founded through the very Being of THE WORD. Therefore it is founded upon clear meaning, sharply defined truth and bountiful joy. It is founded upon Truth. It is not built upon the sand of agnosticism, human opinion and uncertainty. If there is in our time a phenomenon of uncertainty, hesitancy and doubt in theology and catechesis, which some have dubbed "The Uncertain Church", then it is not his Church. For he is THE WORD.Those who sow the seeds of doubt and make all truth provisional have been among us, but they were never of us, or they would not have gone out from us (cf. 1John 2:19). This Uncertain Church is in fact the age old phenomenon of human error and human sin. Why do we never learn? It has happened again and again in the history of mankind. Why do we presume that we are better than our fathers and are beyond error, sin and the leprosy of heresy? There is nothing to preserve us from sin except humility under the mighty hand of God.This Uncertain Church is the ‘dual magisterium’, the voice of dissent, but a voice against the Church which is built into the Body of the WORD who is GOD. This Body of Christ will not be vanquished by the virus nor will the sickness be unto death, for the Gates of Hell, (i.e. principle of death and sin or "Sheol" in Hebrew), will not prevail against her. This is the promise of the WORD, whose human birth we sing in happy Christmas hymns and carols.
A Christmas Certainty
"In the Beginning was THE WORD ... and The WORD was made flesh, and dwelt among us."
So MIND and REASON, definite and absolute, has framed the universe. And it is not hard to believe it, for all the wisdoms and sciences of man's modern world are gathered up into a unity of meaning; and the patterns of the laws of the sciences run over, one into another. There is no mindlessness here; and it is foolish to be an Atheist, or even an Agnostic. Nothing was ever discovered, used or purposed except through MIND, through the principle of THE WORD. The universe is full of it and it gives witness to him.In the Crib we look with joy upon the consolation of God's certainty, given to us and given for us. Our lives have meaning and from that recognition joy fills our heart. This joy spreads out over hearth and home. There is no toil that is without meaning, nothing so menial that it does not matter. For the tasks of daily life - the cleaning, the washing and the bathing and the infant demands - all of them are gathered up, together with the very explosion of the universe of which they are all part, into the meaningful Dispensation of the Loving God.He is loving because he first knows that he loves and brings it to perfection in that balance of truth which we call holiness. Holiness is the perfect good and to proclaim the perfect is to proclaim the true. We have no deep and faithful love without spiritual truth, stability and certainty of principle - the way of living of that truth. Come to think of it, it was written at the end of the marriage service before it was revised, "and thereto I plight thee my troth", which means: "and to these vows I pledge you life-long truth".There is no life-long love without that spiritual truth which subjects and subdues all that belongs to the body to the law and commandment of spiritual truth. The truth of the spirit is not uncertain, for the spirit is made to the likeness of the Eternal Word. The birth of Jesus Christ is the marriage of God with human nature; and in Him - God Incarnate, Emmanuel - we have the pledge of betrothal, the ultimate Truth, the certainty of the Divine Love in the unchanging wisdom of the Divine Mind. How it lifts up our lives and our loves and bursts into those familiar, lovely songs which we call Christmas carols - the most beautiful of true folk music in every tongue and in the culture of every nation! There would be no Christmas joy except for the certainty of the Word made Flesh: the certainty that this Child is Son of Man and Eternal Son of God. He is the Word "most sure in all his ways", to quote the hymn of Cardinal Newman, who, as a writer of hymns, was a most prescient because a most saintly soul.
Expecting the Word
We must expect the Word. Throughout Advent and up to the Christmas Midnight Mass we should live in expectation and longing for the Word and the Coming of the Lord. Our very nature is built upon that expectation. The meaning of our existence is defined towards that coming and our lives are explained through that longing.Look for 'The Word' in the starry sky around you. At his creative command it exploded from not-being into reality. At the word of the WORD it put on meaning like a garment and wove itself, ascending in majesty through the ages, as a monument to MIND and a song of praise and love to the Creator. This lovely universe, which is also his footstool, and this world of ours into which he has mostly certainly come is his very Advent.Life on this earth is his Advent because it is made for him, foretells him and gives of its own in the womb of Mary to welcome Him. And so Advent ends in the crib, when the Woman - "clothed with the Sun, crowned with the stars, with the moon at her feet" - lays in the manger the Son of God and the Son of Man. The certainty of God, which is predestined from before the Foundation of the World, has triumphed in the event. For despite the Fall of Man, the Sacrament of Creation and its Holy Order is realised in the Body and Blood of Jesus the Christ. There is no uncertain word in the Living Word of God.Expect the Word in truth and in joy. Expect His certainty in your own mind and heart, for you are the reflection of God Almighty and have been made as 'son' through the Logos. Expect Him in a certain craving of your being to know Him and to love Him. You must expect to pray, you must expect prayer to burst through your soul, upwards to Him. A baby cries out for mother's love and mother's milk and mother's redeeming care. So too we are told "My little children like new born babes, seek your natural milk, without guile" (1. Peter. 2: 1). The very law of life and the cry of our very being is for the certainty which is the Life and the Love of God.Expect to hear the word as it rises in human life and culture. It is thrown up in king and counsellor, in patriarch and sage, in the senior of the people and the wise women of the tribes. Expect the words of The Word much more, then, in priest and prophet too, for He will strive to get through. This is His Advent in history.Expect Him to give some sign of His coming. You will find it. Layer after layer of scripture and tradition, prophet after prophet, great priest after great priest. You will find as well the littleness and the sin, the uncertainty of doctrine, the lusts of the heart; yes, you will also find the foreshadowing of the Crucifixion. But over it all is the certainty of The Event, as the Word of scripture and tradition rises majestically over the forces of sin and death to arrive at the Incarnation of the Son of God. His Body and His Blood must then share in all the work of his Divinity, so expect Him, also, upon the Cross and in the Resurrection from the Cross.Christmas is the Feast of the Word Most Certain. And be sure, as certainly as He came, as He said He would, and rose in the transfigured flesh of His suffering body, so He Will Come Again, as He has said He will. For the Word of God is terrible in His utter certainty. Let His enemies know it and tremble while there is yet time for a change of heart.
Expect the Eucharist
Expect the Word to come not just in words and teaching, scripture and institution, but as the Bread and Wine of human life, for He is the food of life and immortality. His Being is the Vine, the grapes of which are the Blood that inebriates and gives life. Expect Him in His Christmas Gift upon the Altar, for He is all your life.Therefore expect Him and know Him in the Breaking of Bread, for the Eucharist is the Incarnation again - the Enfleshment of the Word of Life and Joy, descending upon matter as first He descended into the Virgin's womb. ‘Praise Him for His Grace and Favour’. So He must come upon the Bread and the Wine and incorporate them to himself and incorporate us who receive along with it, for He is the very source of life - the epitome, in the Incarnation, of the supernatural destiny of Man.Expect Him in the changing of Bread and Wine into his very self. For he is God and in all the work of man's transformation into God, the fulness of the Word Made Flesh must share. Know him also in the abiding gift of the Altar - the Blessed Sacrament - as the sum of all the attributes of blessedness. Recognise him there with great hope. Recognise in the Eucharist that matter is good and made without sin and that God has gathered it around himself and made it His own Body.Expect the Lord of the Word with your greatest longing and joy in the Mass of Christmas Midnight. For this, (rather than the Vigil of Easter), is the original Supper which the King made for His Son and Heir. This is a fact of liturgy and of doctrine which is attested by the sensus fidelium - the common consent of the people of God - without a doubt. For on this night and to this Mass there come not those who were invited, - the theologians of the contradictory magisterium, the sophisticated chaplains of the rich and pampered, and prelates of the Word Uncertain and ambiguous - there come instead the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.They come compelled by the urge of the Holy Spirit from the highways and byways, the hedges and crossroads of life - the laspsed and the lost, a motley crew. This is the very driftwood of life, yet sudenly in the burst of lights and the pealing of the Angelus, there is raised up to God in voice and in aspiration of spirit a Palace of Cedar wood, all the splendour of Lebanon. ( ? ) This is the Jerusalem of God, built of the living souls of men: "Jerusalem, strip off the garment of your sorrow and affliction and put on for ever the glorious majesty that is the gift of God. Wrap about you his robe of righteousness; set on your head for diadem the splendour of the Everlasting: for God will show your radiance to every land under heaven. You shall receive from God for ever the name of righteous Peace, City of Godly Splendour". (Baruch 5:1-4)
The Word Certain and Everlasting
Expect the Word, then, enfleshed in Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Expect the certain, everlasting truth and witness of Mind which is the Word Eternal. His truth and his teaching are from age to age, his certainty is everlasting, his promise and his prohibition do not change with times and cultures.For Man is made to the likeness of this Word; and the likeness is first in the soul and the soul is immaterial and changeless in nature. Through the spirit of a man God the Word has given one wisdom, and one Law to matter and sense, and that law and that truth do not change. The spirit can only grow and deepen in its own powers , grow in a straight line of constant ascent. Matter can change its forms and its laws, but Man, who is made to the likeness of The Word Eternal has one law and one truth of life, from Adam to the Second Coming of the Christ. The wisdom of the Word Made Flesh is measured by the divine name of Everlasting. There is can be no dissembling when we come before Him; only the pathetic bleat of the sheep which has lost its way.When we gaze at the baby lying in swaddling clothes in the manger we must expect and anticipate from his lips the Word of Infallible Magistracy. It will stand in lasting Good News throughout all times and cultures. The truth may hurt at times, but the truth is always-good news. Expect the same inerrant magistracy also in the word of the Church in which He lives and speaks, till the end of the ages. From the office of the Divine Christ within her it must be a certain word. It will ring out in Council and in Pope, for to speak with this voice of certainty is of the very commission of the Word Incarnate:
"He who hears you, hears Me, and he who hears Me, hears the One who sent Me".From the very nature of the Economy or Sacrament of the Incarnation, we should expect to find it in the formulas by which the Church for the most part defines her solemn doctrines; and we find indeed what we expect: "Auctoritate Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, Sanctorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli, ac Nostra, definimus, declaramusetpromulgamus." - "By the Authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and Our Own, we define, declare and promulgate . . ." Here is the One Authority of Christ, living among men in Peter, Paul, and Us. Here is no uncertain word. For The Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us; and the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory is His - the Kingdom of The Most Certain Word for ever and ever.
"Oh Thou Word uttered and proceeding from the mouth of the Most High, command of beginnings and of ending,: orderer of all things with sweetness yet with power, come unto us, Word and Wisdom of our life and our way". (Office of Advent. Dec. 17th)