We’ve been hearing a lot lately about women in the diaconate. This is a difficult issue that extends well beyond the question of Church discipline and “small-t tradition.” It touches on dogma, and if we get it wrong, we’ll have a theological disaster to clean up. What would that disaster involve? The diaconate is seen in Church teaching as a major order. Ancient tradition associates it with the Levitical priesthood, now recognized as an anticipation
At Pentecost, we celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and the Virgin Mary in the Upper Room, fifty days after the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. This great feast marks the end of the Church’s most joyful and longest season: Easter. Whatever else we may say about this great mystery, one thing is certain: The Church, constituted by Christ, is enlivened by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost, the Holy
In the contemporary West, we’ve become used to a rather perverse and un-Scriptural idea: that real virtue depends on seeing ourselves democratically. People of good-will, it’s thought, eschew the idea of privilege or advantage as something inherently unfair—an injustice to be rectified. When we adopt this perspective, however, we end in denying that our un-earned, undeserved Covenant with God really gives us anything unique. It’s offensive to modern sensibilities to think that Christians have been
“He is risen!” This Easter proclamation encapsulates the basis of faith in Jesus Christ. It’s a sine qua non of the Christian faith. Without the resurrection of Christ, there’s no Christianity. St. Paul puts it like this: “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14). The word we translate here as “vain” is κενόν (kenon), which means something like “empty,” “devoid of content” or
In the Gospels, Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Christ, is depicted as a man generally disposed to underhanded activity. Though he was entrusted with the treasury by which Christ’s earthly mission had been funded, it’s said that he stole from it for his own purposes (John 12:6). It was Judas, as well, who disparaged the thought of emptying an expensive bottle of perfumed oil over Jesus’ feet. The bottle could have been sold and the money
