From a sermon by Saint Augustine

Our Lord’s words teach us that though we labor among the many distractions of this world, we should have but one goal. For we are but travellers on a journey without as yet a fixed abode; we are on our way, not yet in our native land; we are in a state of longing, not yet of enjoyment. But let us continue on our way, and continue without sloth or respite, so that we may ultimately arrive at our destination.

Martha and Mary were sisters, related not only by blood but also by religious aspirations. They stayed close to our Lord and both served him harmoniously when he was among them. Martha welcomed him as travellers are welcomed. But in her case, the maidservant received her Lord, the invalid her Savior, the creature her Creator, to serve him bodily food while she was to be fed by the Spirit. For the Lord willed to put on the form of a slave, and under this form to be fed by his own servants, out of condescension and not out of need. For this was indeed condescension, to present himself to be fed; since he was in the flesh he would indeed be hungry and thirsty.

Thus was the Lord received as a guest who came unto his own and his own received him not; but as many as received him, he gave them the power to become sons of God, adopting those who were servants and making them his brothers, ransoming the captives and making them his co-heirs. No one of you should say: “Blessed are they who have deserved to receive Christ into their homes!” Do not grieve or complain that you were born in a time when you can no longer see God in the flesh. He did not in fact take this privilege from you. As he says: Whatever you have done to the least of my brothers, you did to me.

But you, Martha, if I may say so, are blessed for your good service, and for your labours you seek the reward of peace. Now you are much occupied in nourishing the body, admittedly a holy one. But when you come to the heavenly homeland will you find a traveller to welcome, someone hungry to feed, or thirsty to whom you may give drink, someone ill whom you could visit, or quarrelling whom you could reconcile, or dead whom you could bury?

No, there will be none of these tasks there. What you will find there is what Mary chose. There we shall not feed others, we ourselves shall be fed. Thus what Mary chose in this life will be realized there in all its fullness; she was gathering fragments from that rich banquet, the Word of God. Do you wish to know what we will have there? The Lord himself tells us when he says of his servants, Amen, I say to you, he will make them recline and passing he will serve them.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

There are 18 major Rites in the Catholic Church, with 18 different ways to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, of which the Latin Rite is one. We should keep in mind that the Mass is essentially one and the same Apostolic Liturgy in all valid Rites. Aramaic was the common language of many Christians in the first four centuries of the Catholic Church. Syriac was one dialect of Aramaic and was used especially in the ancient Christian city of Edessa, at the same location on the Daysan River as the modern city of Urfa in Turkey. Edessa became a major Christian center of Greek and Syriac theological and philosophical thought but fell under Arab control in the middle of the 7^th century. From Edessa, the Christian evangelization of Armenia in the 3^rd century was very successful, and Armenia became the first Christian nation in 301. The Armenian alphabet was then invented at Edessa at the beginning of the 5^th century.

The Catholic Church grew through the language of Syriac and spread all the way to Persia and India, and even to parts of China, as did the ancient syncretistic religion of Manichaeism. The Armenian Rite in the 4^th century developed under the influence of the Syriac Rite. In the East, the territory of the ancient Syriac Rite was vast. The Syriac Orthodox Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Maronite Catholic Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Chaldean Syrian Church, the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, and the Malankara Orthodox Church, among others, are all rooted in the same ancient Syriac Apostolic Tradition. The Syriac Christians were very interested in Greek culture and translated much of Greek literature into Syriac.

An academic requirement for the study of Greek Patristics to this day is to learn to read Syriac as well as Greek. Syriac remained the language of most Christians in the East until the rise of Islam in the 6^th century, when Arabic became the vernacular. The success of Manichaeism and then Islam in the East led directly to the decline of Syriac Christianity. The early Syriac Rite was geographically much larger than both the Latin and Byzantine Rites, which naturally makes us wonder whether something similar could ever happen to our own Latin Rite in the West due to the ongoing success of the secularization of our culture. Could we culturally go into decline as a Rite? Yes, in fact we already have, but we know by faith that the Catholic Church as a whole is protected by Christ and will never completely die.

Saint Maron was a hermit monk who lived in the Taurus Mountains north of the Christian city of Antioch in Syria in the 4^th century. He was a friend of St John Chrysostom, with whom he studied at Antioch. He founded a school of monks which served the Catholic faithful in the Syriac Tradition and eventually became a Rite within the Church. At the time of the Arabic invasion in the 6^th century, the Maronite monks were defending Catholic doctrine against Nestorianism, which teaches that Jesus is a separate person from the Eternal Word and has a merely human nature. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 had condemned both the Nestorian and the Monophysite heresies. Nestorianism emphasizes the humanity of Jesus to the exclusion of his divinity and posits two distinct persons, one human and the other divine, having separate natures that are united accidently, while Monophysitism emphasizes the divinity of Jesus and maintains that he has only one nature, either essentially divine or a synthesis of divine and human attributes.

The Confession of Chalcedon provides a very clear statement on the human and the divine natures of Christ, hypostatically united in his divine Person: ^“We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach people to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and body, consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the manhood, in all things like unto us, but without sin, begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the manhood, one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably (ἐν δύο φύσεσιν ἀσυγχύτως, ἀτρέπτως, ἀδιαιρέτως, ἀχωρίστως – in duabus naturis inconfuse, immutabiliter, indivise, inseparabiliter), the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the properties of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person (πρόσωπον – prosopon) and one Subsistence (ὑπὸστασιν – hypostasis), not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only begotten God (μονογενῆ Θεόν), the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.”

Nestorianism is the antithesis of Monophysitism and had a significant influence on Mohammed and Islam. The Quranic name for Jesus, “Isa,” for example, probably derives from the earlier Nestorian Syriac name for Jesus, “Isho.” As Hilaire Belloc often pointed out, Islam originated in a Christian heresy. One virtue of Islam was to preserve monotheism in the face of paganism. The Maronites taught the Catholic truth about Christ and contributed to the preservation of the Apostolic Tradition in Syria, but they were oppressed by both the Monophysites and the Muslims. Many were martyred, but some compromised and were assimilated. The faithful withdrew into the mountains of Lebanon and were cut off from Rome until the Crusades, which they regarded as a liberation. Please note that modern cinematic dramas set in the time of the Crusades are often fictional even when they contain historical persons. In the 2^nd Crusade, for example, Balian of Ibelin was a very devout Christian nobleman of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, not some kind of secular agnostic hero. After the 2^nd Crusade, some crusaders settled on Mount Carmel as hermits and became the founders of the Carmelite Order. In 1182, the entire Maronite Church reaffirmed their full communion and obedience to the Bishop of Rome. They were all eventually overrun by the Muslims, and those Christian communities that did not escape to Europe lived under the Ottoman Empire from the 16^th to the 19^th centuries. Thousands of Maronites in the Near East were massacred in 1860, which led the French to intervene and take control of Lebanon and southern Syria until the 1940s.

The Armenians have had a long struggle with the Muslims as well. Armenian Christians are divided by various doctrines about Jesus that include Monophysitism, Miaphysitism, and Chalcedonianisn. Miaphysitism holds that Jesus is both fully divine and fully human in one essentially composite nature. The Armenian monk St Gregory of Narek (950-1003) was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Francis in 2015. During World War II from 1915 to 1917 about one million Armenian Christians were targeted and exterminated by Ottomans in Turkey, which is regarded as the first major holocaust of the 20^th century (the actual number of deaths is disputable, but the fact of the deportation and violence is undeniable). Many other such holocausts were to follow. Adolf Hitler, for example, imitated the pattern of extermination and used it against millions of Jews in Europe, calling it “The Armenian Solution.” We should not equate the various acts of violence carried out against different peoples in different contexts and circumstances, and we cannot justly implicate whole populations for violence that is typically carried out only by a minority and is often regretted by the majority, but sadly we must admit that the human tendency toward violence and oppression often triumphs over religious ideals and principles of peace and fraternity.

The Aramaic Maronite Antiochian Church is indeed a living branch of the Catholic Church and has always been intimately connected with the trunk, who is Christ the Lord. In 1828, in the region of Mount Lebanon of Jbeil in Annaya, some Maronite monks began building a monastery in honor of St Maron. That same year, Joseph Zaroun Maklouf was born and baptized in the Maronite Rite in the nearby Lebanese village of Beka-Kafra. When he was only three years old, his father died, and he was raised by an uncle. In 1841, the nearby monks completed the monastery church. At the age of 23, Joseph entered the Maronite monastery of Our Lady of Mayfouk, where he became a novice. After two years in the novitiate, he was sent in 1853 to the monastery and church of St Maron in Annaya, where he professed the monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, receiving the name Charbel in honor of a 2^nd-century Christian martyr from Edessa. He was then transferred to the monastery of Kfeifan, where he studied philosophy and theology and was ordained to the priesthood in 1859, after which he was sent back to the monastery of St Maron for the rest of his life. Soon there was the terrible massacre of Maronite Christians, after which Lebanon came under the control of the French.

Charbel lived a very ascetical life of self-denial, and in 1875 he began a strict observance of solitude and silence as a hermit monk, as St Maron and many other Maronite monks had done, but his reputation for holiness prompted many people to seek him out to receive his blessing and to be remembered in his prayers. He followed a strict daily fast and spent many hours in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Whenever his superiors asked him to administer the sacraments in nearby villages, he did so gladly. He died on Christmas Eve in 1898. Christians and non-Christians alike soon made his tomb a place of pilgrimage. People from many different religions and cultures have received miraculous cures at his tomb. St Paul VI beatified him in 1965 and canonized him in 1977.

After Charbel was beatified, the Maronite monks began to build a new church and facilities to receive the even greater number of people coming daily to visit his tomb and to seek his intercession. The new church was named St Charbel. Thanks to St Charbel, St Maron’s monastery in Annaya became an international shrine where thousands of people of various cultures and backgrounds made pilgrimages and sent letters to petition the assistance of the Maronite Saints. The monastery website is available at https://saintcharbel.com/ and contains some history with pictures and accounts of miracles.

Evil is always a corruption of something good. When we focus on error and evil to the exclusion of what is true and good, we often fall into error and evil ourselves in a misguided self-righteous attempt to preserve what is true and good and oppose what is false and evil. Even the best of motives can produce very evil consequences, especially when people fall into the tragic moral error of thinking that the end justifies the means. Faith and reason together must always insist that every human person by nature has inalienable moral rights that are authored and sanctioned by God against our human tendency toward violence and oppression. May the prayers of St Charbel obtain the grace of lasting peace in the Near East between all those who worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

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About Deacon Tracy Jamison, OCDS, PhD

Deacon Tracy Jamison was raised in a Christian family as the son of a Scotch-Irish evangelical minister in the Campbellite tradition. As an undergraduate he majored in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Cincinnati Christian University, where his parents had been educated. At this institution he met Joyce, who was completing a degree in Church Music, and after graduation they entered the covenant of Christian marriage in 1988. Through the study of philosophy and the writings of the Early Church Fathers, Tracy was received into the full communion of the Catholic Church in 1992. Under the influence of the theological writings of St. John Paul II he began to study the works of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross and entered formation as a Secular Carmelite of the Teresian Reform. In 1999 he completed the doctoral program in Philosophy at the University of Cincinnati, and in 2002 he made his definitive profession as a Secular Carmelite. In 2010 he was ordained as a permanent deacon of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Currently he is an associate professor of philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary of the West.

© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

When Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and did not find the Lord’s body, she thought it had been taken away and so informed the disciples. After they came and saw the tomb, they too believed what Mary had told them. The text then says: The disciples went back home, and it adds: but Mary wept and remained standing outside the tomb.

We should reflect on Mary’s attitude and the great love she felt for Christ; for though the disciples had left the tomb, she remained. She was still seeking the one she had not found, and while she sought she wept; burning with the fire of love, she longed for him who she thought had been taken away. And so it happened that the woman who stayed behind to seek Christ was the only one to see him. For perseverance is essential to any good deed, as the voice of truth tells us: Whoever perseveres to the end will be saved.

At first she sought but did not find, but when she persevered it happened that she found what she was looking for. When our desires are not satisfied, they grow stronger, and becoming stronger they take hold of their object. Holy desires likewise grow with anticipation, and if they do not grow they are not really desires. Anyone who succeeds in attaining the truth has burned with such a great love. As David says: My soul has thirsted for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God? And so also in the Song of Songs the Church says: I was wounded by love; and again: My soul is melted with love.

Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek? She is asked why she is sorrowing so that her desire might be strengthened; for when she mentions whom she is seeking, her love is kindled all the more ardently.

Jesus says to her: Mary. Jesus is not recognised when he calls her “woman”; so he calls her by name, as though he were saying: Recognize me as I recognise you; for I do not know you as I know others; I know you as yourself. And so Mary, once addressed by name, recognizes who is speaking. She immediately calls him rabboni, that is to say, teacher, because the one whom she sought outwardly was the one who inwardly taught her to keep on searching.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

Today is the Feast Day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Prayers and blessings to all my Carmelite friends.

Mount Carmel is celebrated in Scripture for its beauty, and it was there that the prophet Elijah was victorious through the power of the Lord, in his famous contest with the priests of the pagan god Baal.

In the late twelfth century AD, near a spring called after Elijah, a group of hermits were living a life of solitude, prayer and absolute poverty by a chapel dedicated to ‘Saint Mary of Mount Carmel’. In the early 13th century the tides of history made it impossible for them to continue there, and they made foundations in Cyprus, Sicily, France and England. They were the nucleus of what became known as the Order of Carmelites.

The Carmelites regard the Blessed Virgin as their Mother, and their model first of all in leading the contemplative life, and later in sharing the fruits of their contemplation with others. The Solemn Commemoration of Our Lady of Mount Carmel was first celebrated in England in the fourteenth century, but was gradually adopted throughout the Carmelite Order as an occasion of thanksgiving for the countless blessings which Our Lady had bestowed on the Carmelite family.

Source: Universalis - note: Universalis is a wonderful app.

It is possible to live the hidden life according to this Rule of Carmel as a Secular as well as a Religious.

The Rule of St. Albert of Jerusalem (1150-1214)

Albert, called by God’s favor to be patriarch of the Church of Jerusalem, bids health in the Lord and the blessing of the Holy Spirit to his beloved sons in Christ, B[rocard] and the other hermits under obedience to him, who live near the spring on Mount Carmel. Many and varied are the ways in which our saintly forefathers laid down how everyone, whatever his station or the kind of religious observance he has chosen, should live a life of allegiance to Jesus Christ—how, pure in heart and stout in conscience, he must be unswerving in the service of his Master. It is to me, however, that you have come for a Rule of Life in keeping with your avowed purpose, a Rule you may hold fast to henceforward; and therefore:

The first thing I require is for you to have a prior, one of yourselves, who is to be chosen for the office by common consent, or that of the greater and more mature part of your community; each of the others must promise him obedience—of which, once promised, he must try to make his deeds the true reflection—and also chastity and the renunciation of ownership. If the prior and brothers see fit, you may have foundations in solitary places, or where you are given a site that is suitable and convenient for the observance proper to your Order. Next, each one of you is to have a separate cell, situated as the lie of the land you propose to occupy may dictate, and allotted by disposition of the prior with the agreement of the other brothers, or the more mature among them. However, you are to eat whatever may have been given you in a common refectory, listening together meanwhile to a reading from Holy Scripture where that can be done without difficulty. None of the brothers is to occupy a cell other than that allotted to him or to exchange cells with another, without leave or whoever is prior at the time. The prior’s cell should stand near the entrance to your property, so that he may be the first to meet those who approach, and whatever has to be done in consequence may all be carried out as he may decide and order. Each one of you is to stay in his own cell or nearby, pondering the Lord’s law day and night and keeping watch at his prayers unless attending to some other duty. Those who know how to say the canonical hours with those in orders should do so, in the way those holy forefathers of ours laid down, and according to the Church’s approved custom. Those who do not know the hours must say twenty-five Our Fathers for the night office, except on Sundays and solemnities when that number is to be doubled so that the Our Father is said fifty times; the same prayer must be said seven times in the morning in place of Lauds, and seven times too for each of the other hours, except for Vespers when it must be said fifteen times.

None of the brothers must lay claim to anything as his own, but you are to possess everything in common, and each is to receive from the prior—that is, from the brother he appoints for the purpose—whatever befits his age and needs. You may have as many asses and mules as you need, however, and may keep a certain amount of livestock or poultry. An oratory should be built as conveniently as possible among the cells, where, if it can be done without difficulty, you are to gather each morning to hear Mass. [Note that this oratory was soon built by the brothers and named “Our Lady of Mount Carmel.”] On Sundays too, or other days if necessary, you should discuss matters of discipline and your spiritual welfare, and on this occasion the indiscretions and failings of the brothers, if any be found at fault, should be lovingly corrected. You are to fast every day, except Sundays, from the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross until Easter Day, unless bodily sickness or feebleness, or some other good reason, demands a dispensation from the fast, for necessity overrides every law. You are also to abstain from meat, except as a remedy for sickness or feebleness. But as, when you are on a journey, you more often than not have to beg your way, outside your own houses you may eat foodstuffs that have been cooked with meat, so as to avoid giving trouble to your hosts. At sea, however, meat may be eaten.

Since man’s life on earth is a time of trial, and all who would live devotedly in Christ must undergo persecution, and the devil your foe is on the prowl like a roaring lion looking for prey to devour, you must use every care to clothe yourselves in God’s armor so that you may be ready to withstand the enemy’s ambush. Your loins are to be girt with chastity, your breast fortified by holy meditations, for, as Scripture has it, holy meditation will save you. Put on holiness as your breastplate, and it will enable you to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. Faith must be your shield on all occasions, and with it you will be able to quench all the flaming missiles of the wicked one—there can be no pleasing God without faith, and the victory lies in this: your faith. On your head set the helmet of salvation, and so be sure of deliverance by our only Savior, who sets his own free from their sins. The sword of the spirit, the word of God, must abound in your mouths and hearts. Let all you do have the Lord’s word for accompaniment.

You must give yourselves to work of some kind, so that the devil may always find you busy; no idleness on your part must give him a chance to pierce the defenses of your souls. In this respect you have both the teaching and the example of Saint Paul the Apostle, into whose mouth Christ put his own words. God made him preacher and teacher of faith and truth to the nations; with him as your leader you cannot go astray. We lived among you, he said, laboring and weary, toiling night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, not because we had no power to do otherwise, but so as to give you, in your own selves, an example you might imitate. For the charge we gave you when we were with you was this: that whoever is not willing to work should not be allowed to eat either. For we have heard that there are certain restless idlers among you. We charge people of this kind, and implore them in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they earn their own bread by silent toil. This is the way of holiness and goodness; see that you follow it.

The Apostle would have us keep silence, for in silence he tells us to work. As the Prophet [Isaiah] also makes known to us: Silence is the way to foster holiness. Elsewhere he says: Your strength will lie in silence and hope. For this reason I lay down that you are to keep silence from after Compline until after Prime the next day. At other times, although you need not keep silence so strictly, be careful not to indulge in a great deal of talk, for, as Scripture has it—and experience teaches us no less—sin will not be wanting where there is much talk, and he who is careless in speech will come to harm, and elsewhere: The use of many words brings harm to the speaker’s soul. And our Lord says in the Gospel: Every rash word uttered will have to be accounted for on judgment day. Make a balance then, each of you, to weigh his words in; keep a tight rein on your mouths, lest you should stumble and fall in speech, and your fall be irreparable and prove mortal. Like the Prophet, watch your step lest your tongue give offence, and employ every care in keeping silent, which is the way to foster holiness.

You, brother B[rocard], and whoever may succeed you as prior, must always keep in mind and put into practice what our Lord said in the Gospel: Whoever has a mind to become a leader among you must make himself servant to the rest, and whichever of you would be first must become your bondsman. You other brothers too, hold your prior in humble reverence, your minds not on him but on Christ who has placed him over you, and who, to those who rule the Churches, addressed the words: Whoever pays you heed pays heed to me, and whoever treats you with dishonor dishonors me. If you remain so minded, you will not be found guilty of contempt, but will merit life eternal as fit reward for your obedience.

Here then are the few points which I have written down to provide you with a standard of conduct to live up to, but our Lord at his second coming will reward anyone who does more than he is obliged to do. See that the bounds of common sense are not exceeded, however, for common sense is the guide of the virtues.

See the Constitutions of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites (OCDS). – Deacon Tracy Jamison, PhD, OCDS

Let us pray.

May the venerable intercession of the glorious Virgin Mary come to our aid, we pray, O Lord, so that, fortified by her protection, we may reach the mountain which is Christ.

Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

Christ is both the way and the door. Christ is the staircase and the vehicle, like the throne of mercy over the Ark of the Covenant, and the mystery hidden from the ages. A man should turn his full attention to this throne of mercy, and should gaze at him hanging on the cross, full of faith, hope and charity, devoted, full of wonder and joy, marked by gratitude, and open to praise and jubilation. Then such a man will make with Christ a pasch, that is, a passing-over. Through the branches of the cross he will pass over the Red Sea, leaving Egypt and entering the desert. There he will taste the hidden manna, and rest with Christ in the sepulchre, as if he were dead to things outside. He will experience, as much as is possible for one who is still living, what was promised to the thief who hung beside Christ: Today you will be with me in paradise.

For this passover to be perfect, we must suspend all the operations of the mind and we must transform the peak of our affections, directing them to God alone. This is a sacred mystical experience. It cannot be comprehended by anyone unless he surrenders himself to it; nor can he surrender himself to it unless he longs for it; nor can he long for it unless the Holy Spirit, whom Christ sent into the world, should come and inflame his innermost soul. Hence the Apostle says that this mystical wisdom is revealed by the Holy Spirit.

If you ask how such things can occur, seek the answer in God’s grace, not in doctrine; in the longing of the will, not in the understanding; in the sighs of prayer, not in research; seek the bridegroom not the teacher; God and not man; darkness not daylight; and look not to the light but rather to the raging fire that carries the soul to God with intense fervour and glowing love. The fire is God, and the furnace is in Jerusalem, fired by Christ in the ardour of his loving passion. Only he understood this who said: My soul chose hanging and my bones death. Anyone who cherishes this kind of death can see God, for it is certainly true that: No man can look upon me and live.

Let us die, then, and enter into the darkness, silencing our anxieties, our passions and all the fantasies of our imagination. Let us pass over with the crucified Christ from this world to the Father, so that, when the Father has shown himself to us, we can say with Philip: It is enough. We may hear with Paul: My grace is sufficient for you; and we can rejoice with David, saying: My flesh and my heart fail me, but God is the strength of my heart and my heritage for ever. Blessed be the Lord for ever, and let all the people say: Amen. Amen!

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

The meritorious act of faith in the word of God is a supernatural act of the human person appropriating a divine grace infused into the human intellect and will. By nature it is impossible for any human person to make this act, but by grace a human person receives the temporary or habitual capacity to recognize and believe the word of God. The supernatural act of faith in the word of God can be partially understood by means of its similarity to the natural act of faith in the word of a credible human person. This analogy is very helpful for understanding the essential elements of a fully supernatural habit of faith. Supernatural faith is the infused form of virtue that is necessary for salvation and for an abiding union with God (Avery Cardinal Dulles, The Assurance of Things Hoped For: A Theology of Christian Faith, New York: Oxford University Press, 1994, pp. 274-277).

Whenever this virtue is infused by God into a human intellect, and the person then exercises the virtue, it begins to undergo a gradual development in accord with its own nature and the person’s disposition. Depending on the condition of the soul in which it is infused, the virtue of faith either lives or dies. If it is exercised sufficiently to remain a living presence, its powers can then be actualized at will. The person’s exercise of faith is always initially immature, but under the right conditions the virtue of faith will grow in the soul, gradually become mature and explicit, and thus begin to bear fruit (Dulles, pp. 278-281).

Our Lord Jesus Christ taught us these perennial spiritual truths very concretely and effectively in the form of parables, especially in the parable of the sower (Matthew 13; Mark 4; Luke 8). Seed that falls on the hard path cannot penetrate the soil, and therefore it is immediately lost. Seed that falls on rocky ground does not take firm root, and therefore it lasts only for a short while. Seed that falls among the thorns takes firm root and grows, but it is choked by the thorns that grow up with it and therefore does not bear fruit. But seed that falls on fertile and pure soil takes firm root and is able to produce an abundant harvest, in some thirtyfold, in others sixtyfold, and in others even a hundredfold. The seed is the word of God. The soil is the human heart. Whoever has ears ought to hear.

A mature act of supernatural faith in the word of God necessarily involves an explicit assent to propositions which originate in God’s knowledge and communication. In any act of faith, we charitably take someone’s word for something and assent to truths which are credible but not evident. Just as a natural, human act of faith involves an assent to propositions, so also a supernatural, graced act of faith involves an assent to propositions. A basic assumption of the various faith traditions is that the virtue of faith is a reasonable but mediated form of knowledge which can be either human or divine. Natural, human faith is the rational acceptance of a human testimony. Supernatural, graced faith is the rational acceptance of a divine testimony. Supernatural faith, like human faith, is essentially a matter of believing a credible testimony and becoming certain that some particular propositions are in fact true. These propositional truths can be formulated as articles of faith and expressed in the form of a creed (Fernando Ocáriz and Arturo Blanco, Fundamental Theology, Revised Edition, Woodridge, IL: Midwest Theological Forum, 2009, pp. 116-129).

Firm faith involves the acceptance of propositions on the basis of the credible word of those witnesses who are in a position to know that those propositions are true. Every human person is an authority in the sense of being in a position to know and bear witness to certain truths. And some persons are authorities in the sense of having specific knowledge that transcends general human experience. The objective basis for faith is the authority of the witnesses, not immediate evidence or rational inference, although evidence and reason are always required to judge the credibility of the witnesses. In the act of faith, the “evidence” is the testimony of witnesses about matters not directly known to those who are attempting to form a conviction. This seems to be the meaning of the description offered in Hebrews 11:1. Such evidence is like that which is used for judgment in a court of law or in historical research. It is “evidence that demands a verdict,” as many evangelical Christians put it.

In order for the virtue of faith to exist in a human soul, a credible testimony must be formulated and offered and then received and believed. The testimony normally consists of propositional truths, which are expressed in terms that can be understood. There must be a credible witness, or a group of credible witnesses, who asserts that the propositions are true. There must also be a person, or a group of persons, who hears the propositions, understands what is being asserted by the credible witnesses, and then believes that the propositions are true (Ocáriz and Blanco, pp. 136-141).

Faith is a common and natural mode of knowledge, a human mode of knowledge which can be elevated by grace to a participation in God’s revealed knowledge. As a natural human act, faith resides in the intellect, and it is always reasonable. Faith is thus an intellectual virtue, but the act of assent is virtuous only insofar as the testimony received and believed is actually credible. If the act is not reasonable, then it is not an act of faith, but an act of credulity. True faith is never gullible, but it is also never based on direct evidence or rational inference. Faith is a form of knowledge based not on our own personal experience but on the knowledge possessed by some other person whom we know to be trustworthy. Faith is a mediated form of knowledge, a kind of participation in someone else’s knowledge, and in any act of faith there is always a mediator (Ocáriz and Blanco, pp. 361-371).

Faith can be supernatural only if there has been a divine revelation of God’s knowledge. Divine revelation is in fact fundamental to human existence. As Moses and our Lord Jesus Christ put it, “We do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God” (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4). God exists, and he has not been silent. His existence can be known either by reason or by faith. In every word that God speaks to the human heart he reveals at the very least that he exists. From the very beginning of human existence he has been revealing himself to human persons in human terms and actively seeking to cultivate a personal relationship with them.

Christians believe that divine revelation was fulfilled and completed in the divine Person of Jesus Christ. The inspired author of Hebrews puts it this way, “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2). Christians in general have always recognized that Christ left his Apostles a deposit of divinely revealed truth and commissioned them to preserve that deposit, interpret it, and transmit it to the whole world.

Christians often disagree, however, in their understanding of the specific means by which Christ intended that deposit of divine truth to be preserved, interpreted, and transmitted. The Catholic understanding has always been that that the content of divinely revealed truth is perpetually preserved and transmitted by the Church through Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. A key element in the Catholic understanding of the Church is that the Church as a whole is an instrument through which Christ infallibly preserves and transmits the truth that he wants people to know for their happiness and salvation. Christ himself is a divine Person and is absolutely infallible as such. The Church possesses a participated infallibility by virtue of her mystical union with Christ. The Church’s participated infallibility pertains specifically to faith and morals. And the Church’s infallibility is part of her divinely revealed doctrine (Ocáriz and Blanco, pp. 58-61).

The Catholic view has also always maintained that the original Apostles received from Christ a special teaching authority in the Church, a teaching authority which has come to be called the “magisterium” of the Church. This special teaching authority is believed to have been transmitted by the Apostles to their successors, the bishops whom they ordained in apostolic succession. The infallibility of the Catholic Church, then, is understood as an organic relation between the beliefs of the faithful as a whole, the doctrines of the bishops who are ordained in apostolic succession, and the assertions of the inspired authors of Sacred Scripture. The faithful as a whole are infallible in believing the deposit of divinely revealed truth, and the bishops as a whole are infallible in teaching the deposit of divinely revealed truth (Ocáriz and Blanco, pp. 61-66).

Of course, individual members of the faithful are often mistaken in some of their beliefs, and individual bishops or groups of bishops do occasionally fall into error in some of their teachings. But the Catholic view is that the Church as a whole participates in the infallibility of Christ, and that it does so in accord with the conditions and the content that Christ has specified for the use of this gift. In accord with those conditions and that content, the bishops as a whole have the apostolic power to teach the deposit of divine truth infallibly whenever they are united in judgment with the bishop of Rome. The bishop of Rome possesses this apostolic power preeminently, but even he is limited to teaching infallibly only under certain conditions, and only with respect to divinely revealed truth and natural moral law (Ocáriz and Blanco, pp. 58-61).

A Catholic Christian should be a model of conscious and explicit assent to all Catholic dogmas and principles of faith and morals, even in the face of personal sacrifice, public ridicule, or martyrdom, as has been required of many of the faithful in every age. When the heart of a Christian is fertile and pure, the word of God that is sowed in it will not fail to take root firmly, mature fully, and produce an abundant harvest, perhaps thirtyfold, or sixtyfold, or even a hundredfold.

In many parts of the world, including the United States, vast numbers of people who received a fully Christian initiation in their youth are no longer practicing the Christian faith and now have a personal act of faith which is either incomplete, immature, unconscious, merely implicit, or even dead. Whenever supernatural faith dies in the heart of a society that was formerly Christian, the sentiment that typically takes its place is one that is consciously anti-Christian. One good thing that God often brings out of this kind of unhappy development is a greater doctrinal and pastoral unity among Christians in general. Through faithful Christian witness, hearts and societies can always be re-cultivated and re-planted with the word of God wherever it has been lost, uprooted, or neglected. May the Lord of the Harvest send many more faithful servants into his fields.

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About Deacon Tracy Jamison, OCDS, PhD

Deacon Tracy Jamison was raised in a Christian family as the son of a Scotch-Irish evangelical minister in the Campbellite tradition. As an undergraduate he majored in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Cincinnati Christian University, where his parents had been educated. At this institution he met Joyce, who was completing a degree in Church Music, and after graduation they entered the covenant of Christian marriage in 1988. Through the study of philosophy and the writings of the Early Church Fathers, Tracy was received into the full communion of the Catholic Church in 1992. Under the influence of the theological writings of St. John Paul II he began to study the works of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross and entered formation as a Secular Carmelite of the Teresian Reform. In 1999 he completed the doctoral program in Philosophy at the University of Cincinnati, and in 2002 he made his definitive profession as a Secular Carmelite. In 2010 he was ordained as a permanent deacon of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Currently he is an associate professor of philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary of the West.

© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

Whenever you begin any good work you should first of all make a most pressing appeal to Christ our Lord to bring it to perfection; that he, who has honored us by counting us among his children, may never be grieved by our evil deeds. For we must always serve him with the good things he has given us in such a way that he may never – as an angry father disinherits his sons or even like a master who inspires fear – grow impatient with our sins and consign us to everlasting punishment, like wicked servants who would not follow him to glory.

So we should at long last rouse ourselves, prompted by the words of Scripture: Now is the time for us to rise from sleep. Our eyes should be open to the God-given light, and we should listen in wonderment to the message of the divine voice as it daily cries out: Today, if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts; and again: If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. And what does the Spirit say? Come my sons, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Hurry, while you have the light of life, so that death’s darkness may not overtake you.

And the Lord as he seeks the one who will do his work among the throng of people to whom he makes that appeal, says again: Which of you wants to live to the full; who loves long life and the enjoyment of prosperity? And, if when you hear this you say, I do, God says to you: If you desire true and everlasting life, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from deceit; turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. And when you have done these things my eyes will be upon you and my ears will be attentive to your prayers; and before you call upon my name I shall say to you: Behold, I am here.What could be more delightful, dearest brothers, than the voice of our Lord’s invitation to us? In his loving kindness he reveals to us the way of life.

And so, girded with faith and the performance of good works, let us follow in his paths by the guidance of the Gospel; then we shall deserve to see him who has called us into his kingdom. If we wish to attain a dwelling-place in his kingdom we shall not reach it unless we hasten there by our good deeds.

Just as there exists an evil fervor, a bitter spirit, which divides us from God and leads us to hell, so there is a good fervour which sets us apart from evil inclinations and leads us towards God and eternal life. Monks should put this fervor into practice with an overflowing love: that is, they should surpass each other in mutual esteem, accept their weaknesses, either of body or of behavior, with the utmost patience; and vie with each other in acceding to requests. No one should follow what he considers to be good for himself, but rather what seems good for another. They should display brotherly love in a chaste manner; fear God in a spirit of love; revere their abbot with a genuine and submissive affection. Let them put Christ before all else; and may he lead us all to everlasting life.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

Today is the Solemnity of the Birth of John the Baptist

The Church observes the birth of John as in some way sacred; and you will not find any other of the great men of old whose birth we celebrate officially. We celebrate John’s, as we celebrate Christ’s. This point cannot be passed over in silence, and if I may not perhaps be able to explain it in the way that such an important matter deserves, it is still worth thinking about it a little more deeply and fruitfully than usual.

John is born of an old woman who is barren; Christ is born of a young woman who is a virgin. That John will be born is not believed, and his father is struck dumb; that Christ will be born is believed, and he is conceived by faith.

I have proposed some matters for inquiry, and listed in advance some things that need to be discussed. I have introduced these points even if we are not up to examining all the twists and turns of such a great mystery, either for lack of capacity or for lack of time. You will be taught much better by the one who speaks in you even when I am not here; the one about whom you think loving thoughts, the one whom you have taken into your hearts and whose temple you have become.

John, it seems, has been inserted as a kind of boundary between the two Testaments, the Old and the New. That he is somehow or other a boundary is something that the Lord himself indicates when he says, The Law and the prophets were until John. So he represents the old and heralds the new. Because he represents the old, he is born of an elderly couple; because he represents the new, he is revealed as a prophet in his mother’s womb. You will remember that, before he was born, at Mary’s arrival he leapt in his mother’s womb. Already he had been marked out there, designated before he was born; it was already shown whose forerunner he would be, even before he saw him. These are divine matters, and exceed the measure of human frailty. Finally, he is born, he receives a name, and his father’s tongue is loosed.

Zachary is struck dumb and loses his voice, until John, the Lord’s forerunner, is born and releases his voice for him. What does Zachary’s silence mean, but that prophecy was obscure and, before the proclamation of Christ, somehow concealed and shut up? It is released and opened up by his arrival, it becomes clear when the one who was being prophesied is about to come. The releasing of Zachary’s voice at the birth of John has the same significance as the tearing of the veil of the Temple at the crucifixion of Christ. If John were meant to proclaim himself, he would not be opening Zachary’s mouth. The tongue is released because a voice is being born – for when John was already heralding the Lord, he was asked, Who are you and he replied I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

John is the voice, but the Lord in the beginning was the Word. John is a voice for a time, but Christ is the eternal Word from the beginning.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

Although I know well, Margaret, that because of my past wickedness I deserve to be abandoned by God, I cannot but trust in his merciful goodness. His grace has strengthened me until now and made me content to lose goods, land, and life as well, rather than to swear against my conscience. God’s grace has given the king a gracious frame of mind towards me, so that as yet he has taken from me nothing but my liberty. In doing this His Majesty has done me such great good with respect to spiritual profit that I trust that among all the great benefits he has heaped so abundantly upon me I count my imprisonment the very greatest. I cannot, therefore, mistrust the grace of God. Either he shall keep the king in that gracious frame of mind to continue to do me no harm, or else, if it be his pleasure that for my other sins I suffer in this case as I shall not deserve, then his grace shall give me the strength to bear it patiently, and perhaps even gladly.

By the merits of his bitter passion joined to mine and far surpassing in merit for me all that I can suffer myself, his bounteous goodness shall release me from the pains of purgatory and shall increase my reward in heaven besides.

I will not mistrust him, Meg, though I shall feel myself weakening and on the verge of being overcome with fear. I shall remember how Saint Peter at a blast of wind began to sink because of his lack of faith, and I shall do as he did: call upon Christ and pray to him for help. And then I trust he shall place his holy hand on me and in the stormy seas hold me up from drowning.

And if he permits me to play Saint Peter further and to fall to the ground and to swear and forswear, may God our Lord in his tender mercy keep me from this, and let me lose if it so happen, and never win thereby! Still, if this should happen, afterwards I trust that in his goodness he will look on me with pity as he did upon Saint Peter, and make me stand up again and confess the truth of my conscience afresh and endure here the shame and harm of my own fault.

And finally, Margaret, I know this well: that without my fault he will not let me be lost. I shall, therefore, with good hope commit myself wholly to him. And if he permits me to perish for my faults, then I shall serve as praise for his justice. But in good faith, Meg, I trust that his tender pity shall keep my poor soul safe and make me commend his mercy.

And, therefore, my own good daughter, do not let your mind be troubled over anything that shall happen to me in this world. Nothing can come but what God wills. And I am very sure that whatever that be, however bad it may seem, it shall indeed be the best.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

Today is the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. The pierced Heart of Jesus reveals his love for us, and no one has greater love for us than Jesus does. In his divine Person is a perfect unity of divine Love and human love. He loves us with the divine Love that burns forever in the Heart of the Most Holy Trinity. He also loves us with the human love that he possesses as the Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary. His finite human Heart is completely filled with his infinite divine Love. The infinite divine Love that burns in the Heart of Jesus is productive of all the goodness that we possess, and the perfect human love that burns in the Heart of Jesus is receptive to all the goodness that we possess. In the Heart of Jesus we find nothing less than the source and eminence of Goodness Itself and Love Itself. His Love is both necessary and sufficient for true and everlasting human happiness.

In 1674 in France, the Heart of Jesus was revealed to St Margaret Mary Alacoque, a humble Catholic nun of the Visitation Order. Jesus told St Margaret Mary that he was manifesting his Heart in order to reveal the source of all true love and to call everyone to turn away from the path of damnation. That revelation is the reason why many Catholics strive to keep a Holy Hour on Thursdays and to receive Holy Communion on the First Friday of each month. It is also the reason why the whole Church celebrates this Solemnity today. The readings at Mass today speak of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, seeking and saving those who are lost. The Heart of Jesus is calling us all to repentance and to our true home, the joy and happiness of heaven.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is burning with infinite Love for us, but devotion to his Heart is also a devotion to his perfect human love, his emotional subjectivity, and his real relationality to us. God, who by his divine Essence is invisible, immovable, and impassible, has become visible, movable, and passible in the man Jesus Christ, who loves us with a human love as well as a divine love. The Heart of Jesus is thus wounded by rejection and indifference. In Jesus, God can truly relate to us. Through the Incarnation, God puts himself in real relation to us. He makes himself vulnerable to us and needs us in his humanity. He can die a human death. The flesh and blood of Christ can be separated from his human soul. The visible wound that pierces his physical heart and through which his blood pours reveals his sacrificial love and his emotional woundedness.

The Heart of Jesus is consoled by our devotion and contemplation. Christ has a human soul and a human self. The human self, in the sense being used here, is distinct from the person and the soul and is the inner world of conscious thoughts and desires. There is something that it is like to be Jesus. He has a human personality and experience. The greater capacity for love, the greater capacity for wounding. No human heart was ever more sorrowful than that Heart of Christ. The piercing of his heart is a revelation of his human subjectivity and true motivations. He really was full of love for us. He is meek and humble of heart, as he said, and he is literally wounded of heart. It is an analogy, not merely a metaphor. His physical heart is literally wounded, and so is his emotional heart. He suffers mental and emotional anguish. He truly has a broken heart.

It is not easy to judge another person’s motives. Motives must be revealed in actions. Jesus was continually misjudged among men. What was it like to be Jesus? He suffered constant mental and emotional anguish, which is the greatest possible human suffering. No human heart was ever more sensitive than the Heart of Jesus was. No human heart was ever more loving. For God so loved the world, he became man and loved us with a human love so that we might love him with a divine love. God’s Love is sacrificial, and Jesus wants to purify our love. We must sacrifice our hearts for others, as Christ did for us. We must love one another, as Christ has loved us. Jesus loves us, and we can believe it and trust in his love. Jesus will not condemn those who believe in him. God makes himself vulnerable in Jesus. The Heart of Jesus is full of charity, both created charity and uncreated Charity, namely, the Holy Spirit.

Christ heals the brokenhearted. The divinity of Christ is the source of all goodness, and the humanity of Christ is the source of all grace. He binds up our wounds and gives us salvation and protection. How precious is his love and his providence! We are made other christs through the Sacrament of Baptism. We must believe in God and trust in his love for us. He will not condemn us. Even if we sin mortally, he still loves us. God loves all people, even the people in hell. God loves even Lucifer. Nothing can separate us from the Love of God, except ourselves. Separation from God is brought about by mortal sin, which requires grave matter, full knowledge, and full consent. The Sacraments of the Church are offered for our salvation. The Heart of Jesus is the source of the Sacraments. As blood and water constantly flowed from the ancient Jewish temple in Jerusalem through the brook Kidron, so too do blood and water flow constantly from the side of Christ. Jesus is the divine Messiah, the new Adam, and the new Temple.

We should learn by experience how much Christ loves us, and then we should remember it. We can taste and see that the Lord is good. The fountain from the pierced Messiah cleanses the people of God from their sins. It is an atonement. Give him your time, talent, and treasure, and especially your loving attention. Happiness is the contemplation of God in Jesus Christ. We make reparation for the offenses against his love. On Judgment Day, Christ will ask us what we sacrificed for him and for his Church. This is the Christian duty of charity that he placed on his disciples: “Love one another.” Christ offered his heart for us, as did his mother Mary. His sacrifice makes the sacrifices of his disciples efficacious.

Christ wants to possess our hearts completely. Consider the lyrics to the popular song “I Will Possess Your Heart” by Death Cab for Cutie. It’s a beautiful and haunting song. Here is a religious interpretation. Benjamin Gibbard said that “it is basically about a stalker. It’s about this nice guy who wants this girl he can’t have, and he believes they’ll be together once she realizes how great he is--he just has to wait it out. That’s the part that makes the song really creepy, the delusion of thinking that they were meant to be together. It’s a really dark song.” It is a dark and creepy song, and yet the lyrics are open to a mystical interpretation. To some people the lyrics sound as if they are being sung by Christ, who is no delusion and is the true divine Spouse of the human heart. He eternally desires to possess it.

In the music video produced by the band for the song, an abstracted young woman travels to many different countries, as if looking for a religious solution. Perhaps the lyrics and the video are Christ-haunted. Perhaps Christ is following the young women and speaking to her heart. The lyrics and the video remind us of the poem by Francis Thompson, the English Catholic writer, mystic, and opium addict. His poem “The Hound of Heaven” describes Christ as the relentless divine stalker of the human heart, like a hound following a hare. As the Jesuit J. F. X. O’Conor puts it, “As the hound follows the hare, never ceasing in its running, ever drawing nearer in the chase, with unhurrying and imperturbed pace, so does God follow the fleeing soul by his divine grace. And though in sin or in human love, away from God it seeks to hide itself, divine grace follows after, unwearyingly follows ever after, till the soul feels its pressure forcing it to turn to him alone in that never-ending pursuit.”

Christ in his great Mercy wants to give us nothing less than his Heart, but to accept it requires true repentance, true contrition, and a firm purpose of amendment. In the Sacrament of Reconciliation we find the fullness of Christ’s Mercy. And in the Sacrament of the Eucharist we find the fullness of Christ’s Love. The Heart of Jesus forces us to decide what we really want. If all we want is to be affirmed in our errors and in our vices, then we will reject his Love because it is too severe and too demanding. But if we allow him to pick us up, to set us on his shoulders, and to bring us back home, then we will discover the joy of his infinite Love, the perfect Love that loves us more than we love ourselves, the divine Love that is source of all goodness and every virtue. Christ has provided everything that we need for true and everlasting happiness. And so as we enter into the Mystery of Holy Communion, let us pray: O Jesus, Meek and Humble of Heart, make our hearts like unto thine. Amen.

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About Deacon Tracy Jamison, OCDS, PhD

Deacon Tracy Jamison was raised in a Christian family as the son of a Scotch-Irish evangelical minister in the Campbellite tradition. As an undergraduate he majored in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Cincinnati Christian University, where his parents had been educated. At this institution he met Joyce, who was completing a degree in Church Music, and after graduation they entered the covenant of Christian marriage in 1988. Through the study of philosophy and the writings of the Early Church Fathers, Tracy was received into the full communion of the Catholic Church in 1992. Under the influence of the theological writings of St. John Paul II he began to study the works of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross and entered formation as a Secular Carmelite of the Teresian Reform. In 1999 he completed the doctoral program in Philosophy at the University of Cincinnati, and in 2002 he made his definitive profession as a Secular Carmelite. In 2010 he was ordained as a permanent deacon of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Currently he is an associate professor of philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary of the West.

© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

O Precious and Wonderful Banquet!

Since it was the will of God’s only-begotten Son that men should share in his divinity, he assumed our nature in order that by becoming man he might make men gods. Moreover, when he took our flesh he dedicated the whole of its substance to our salvation. He offered his body to God the Father on the altar of the cross as a sacrifice for our reconciliation. He shed his blood for our ransom and purification, so that we might be redeemed from our wretched state of bondage and cleansed from all sin. But to ensure that the memory of so great a gift would abide with us for ever, he left his body as food and his blood as drink for the faithful to consume in the form of bread and wine.

O precious and wonderful banquet, that brings us salvation and contains all sweetness! Could anything be of more intrinsic value? Under the old law it was the flesh of calves and goats that was offered, but here Christ himself, the true God, is set before us as our food. What could be more wonderful than this? No other sacrament has greater healing power; through it sins are purged away, virtues are increased, and the soul is enriched with an abundance of every spiritual gift. It is offered in the Church for the living and the dead, so that what was instituted for the salvation of all may be for the benefit of all. Yet, in the end, no one can fully express the sweetness of this sacrament, in which spiritual delight is tasted at its very source, and in which we renew the memory of that surpassing love for us which Christ revealed in his passion.

It was to impress the vastness of this love more firmly upon the hearts of the faithful that our Lord instituted this sacrament at the Last Supper. As he was on the point of leaving the world to go to the Father, after celebrating the Passover with his disciples, he left it as a perpetual memorial of his passion. It was the fulfillment of ancient figures and the greatest of all his miracles, while for those who were to experience the sorrow of his departure, it was destined to be a unique and abiding consolation.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

From Holy Communion to the Blessed Trinity

Fr Marie Vincent Bernadot, OP, The Newman Press, 1955

Explained by Deacon Tracy Jamison, OCDS, in relation to The Interior Castle of St Teresa of Avila

One of the main reasons why we fail to grow in holiness even though we may be daily or frequent Communicants is our lack of a correct understanding of the objective nature of Holy Communion. We need better instruction and deeper meditation. Greater comprehension of truth inspires greater devotion and self-sacrifice. The divine Life in our souls imparts divine Light to our intellects and divine Love to our wills, but these graces are not apparent to us at first. Our abiding personal union with God is from the Sacraments of the Church by grace. Baptism begins the union. Confirmation strengthens the union. Confession and Anointing of the Sick restore and refresh the union. Holy Communion gradually perfects the union in our souls. Holy Orders and Holy Matrimony sustain the union in the community. Ordinarily, we ascend to a conscious ineffable union with God by means of frequent Confession and Communion. Christ is the Vine. We are the branches.

We receive gifts at Holy Communion according to the degree to which we have disposed ourselves to them by the practice of asceticism and the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. The path to subjective mystical union is through the practice of self-denial and penance. Our spiritual poverty, chastity, and obedience must be absolute but also gradual and adjusted to our temperaments and state of life. We must spiritually give up everything we have, like the poor widow in the Temple in Jerusalem who gave her last two coins to God.

Holy Communion gives us the whole Christ, and through union with the Humanity of Christ we receive the Holy Trinity to dwell in our souls by grace. The soul then informs the heart. Holy Communion is a greater participation in the Life of the Trinity than sanctifying grace alone is. It is objectively a participation in the inner Life of the Trinity. In Holy Communion we receive this divine Life and are enabled to participate in it actively, knowing and loving God with the divine Knowledge and Love that we have received through Christ.

Holy Baptism, Holy Confirmation, Holy Confession, Holy Penance, and Holy Communion potentially give us a conscious supernatural state that already approximates the Beatific Vision. Carmelites call this state the Transforming Union or Spiritual Marriage (7^th Mansions). It is an apophatic and ineffable form of mystical knowledge which comes through our participation in divine love after Spiritual Betrothal (6^th Mansions), the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (as at Pentecost), and the sacrifice of oneself totally for the Mission of the Church. This state may or may not be accompanied by miracles. Confession prepares us for Communion by rendering us able to receive and actualize the gifts that Christ is giving us in Communion. Ordinarily, Christ limits himself to giving gifts according to the degree to which we have prepared ourselves for them. Going to Confession once per week is more perfect and more efficacious than going to Confession only once per month or less. We should add to the penances that we are assigned in order to satisfy the temporal punishment that is due our sins.

Eucharistic union is higher than the abiding union of sanctifying grace. Grace is an infused accident that flows into our souls from the Eucharistic union because of the substantial presence of Christ’s Body and Blood in it. Our souls are naturally consubstantial with our bodies. In Holy Communion, Christ enters both. Holy Communion is itself the highest possible union with the Holy Trinity. Engaging in it changes us both objectively and subjectively. After Communion, the grace of it remains in us, and thus we can remain united with Christ objectively in our souls above the level of our human consciousness. We receive and live the very Life of Christ to one degree or another. All the graces that we receive are given through and caused by the Sacred Humanity of Christ. Holy Communion is the closest possible union with the Humanity of Christ, and thus it gives us the most graces. It unites our bodies and souls to the Body and Soul of Christ so that the Body and Soul of Christ can act upon our bodies and souls directly and more perfectly. By grace, Christ acts upon our intellects and wills immediately, regardless of whether we are conscious of his action. God alone has the divine power to act through our acts without violating the freedom of our wills.

The Sacred Humanity of Christ, including his Sacred Mind and Sacred Heart, is present in the consecrated Host and Cup substantially through his Body and Blood. He becomes present in our souls mystically by sanctifying grace through his Humanity. We become mystically one because Christ is substantially one. Grace is the supernatural life of our souls. Our souls were created with the capacity to receive this higher kind of life. Holy Communion is the best means of establishing and augmenting this life in our souls. This life begins in us with Baptism and the grace of justification, either sacramentally or by desire or martyrdom.

Holy Communion increases God’s influence over our intellects and wills by increasing grace in our souls. Thus we grow in supernatural knowledge and love, knowing and loving with God’s own Knowledge and Love, which are given to us objectively in our souls and increase through the Sacraments. Through the transforming union of Spiritual Marriage, we eventually become subjectively conscious of this participation in the Life of the Blessed Trinity, if we are willing to sacrifice our own minds and hearts to it and to the Mission of the Church.

Our objective union with God is by sanctifying grace and does not require mental recollection or conscious awareness. Only mortal sin can destroy our objective union with God. But active and passive recollection perfect it by grace. Only God can complete the good work that he has begun in us. The union is given to us and is made subject to our will, which can either destroy it or cultivate it. God objectively unites our souls to himself but leaves it up to us how close to come to him subjectively. His influence upon our intellects and wills thus depends upon our active cooperation with it. We will gradually receive perfect contemplative union to the degree to which we dispose ourselves to receive it.

We must dispose and prepare ourselves for the reception of holy contemplation just as we must for the reception of Holy Communion. The practice of God’s presence in active recollection and mental prayer is the habit by which the self is brought into conformity with the action of God in the soul. It is also the means by which we dispose ourselves for the mystical nuptial union that is over and above the ordinary state of grace but is organically one with it as its perfection. If we respond properly and habitually to that which we have received, we are given more.

We must therefore endeavor to practice active recollection in the presence of God in our souls and in the tabernacles of our churches at all times. All our thoughts and desires must be directed to God. We must be constantly and mentally turned toward the Blessed Sacrament, as devout Jews were always mentally turned toward the presence of God in the Temple in Jerusalem. The unconscious personal union with the Blessed Trinity that we possess by Baptism, Confirmation, Penance, and Communion must become a conscious mental union. The practice of meditation and contemplation is the means by which to make the union more actual and perfect. God unites our souls to himself and expects us to strive to unite ourselves mentally and affectively to his presence in our souls. With his help, we can do it. Sacramental grace makes it possible for everyone.

The graced soul through Holy Communion attains and enjoys an abiding existential union with God. The self must strive to turn completely away from sin and vice and to participate fully in this abiding mystical union. Those who habitually engage in the battle of mental prayer and sacrifice themselves for others as Christ did will attain perfection, in which the self becomes totally united with the soul in the life of grace. The active practice of recollection is a necessary condition for perfect nuptial union and integration. Lack of recollection always leads to sin and spiritual immaturity or death. God requires the engagement of the whole person. Perfect union cannot be attained by those who culpably reject or neglect the Holy Sacraments, which make it generally available to all.

Mental prayer can become constant by grace and be habitually practiced at all times and in every circumstance. The three stages that we must pass through on the Way of the Cross are bodily suffering, grief of heart, and desolation of soul. For a description of this development, read the Book of Job or the Book of Tobit, or simply meditate on the Gospels. Wisdom is understanding the Cross of Christ, and holiness is embracing it. After a mystical encounter with the Cross of Christ always comes a greater participation in his Resurrection, along with a greater joy and happiness through contemplative union with God. Thus are we transformed to have a greater capacity for God. We are divinized through the Holy Cross, whether we recognize it or not.

The purpose of Eucharistic union is to unite us with Christ Crucified and to enable us to embrace the Cross as the means by which to become other Christs subjectively, as Mary and Joseph did. We lose ourselves in Christ, but we do not lose our souls or our faculties. We lose our own minds and hearts and gain the Sacred Mind and Heart of Christ by perfect participation in his divine Knowledge and Love through his Sacred Humanity. God offers this grace to all generous souls who by grace make him the absolute priority and motivation of their lives. We gain the Mind and Heart of Christ perfectly when we have completely lost our own minds and hearts. When our subjective selves are totally congruent with the objective presence of God in our souls, then we have perfect joy and finally discover who we were always meant to be.

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About Deacon Tracy Jamison, OCDS, PhD

Deacon Tracy Jamison was raised in a Christian family as the son of a Scotch-Irish evangelical minister in the Campbellite tradition. As an undergraduate he majored in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Cincinnati Christian University, where his parents had been educated. At this institution he met Joyce, who was completing a degree in Church Music, and after graduation they entered the covenant of Christian marriage in 1988. Through the study of philosophy and the writings of the Early Church Fathers, Tracy was received into the full communion of the Catholic Church in 1992. Under the influence of the theological writings of St. John Paul II he began to study the works of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross and entered formation as a Secular Carmelite of the Teresian Reform. In 1999 he completed the doctoral program in Philosophy at the University of Cincinnati, and in 2002 he made his definitive profession as a Secular Carmelite. In 2010 he was ordained as a permanent deacon of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Currently he is an associate professor of philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary of the West.

© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

Our thoughts in this present life should turn on the praise of God, because it is in praising God that we shall rejoice for ever in the life to come; and no one can be ready for the next life unless he trains himself for it now. So we praise God during our earthly life, and at the same time we make our petitions to him. Our praise is expressed with joy, our petitions with yearning. We have been promised something we do not yet possess, and because the promise was made by one who keeps his word, we trust him and are glad; but insofar as possession is delayed, we can only long and yearn for it. It is good for us to persevere in longing until we receive what was promised, and yearning is over; then praise alone will remain.

Because there are these two periods of time – the one that now is, beset with the trials and troubles of this life, and the other yet to come, a life of everlasting serenity and joy – we are given two liturgical seasons, one before Easter and the other after. The season before Easter signifies the troubles in which we live here and now, while the time after Easter which we are celebrating at present signifies the happiness that will be ours in the future. What we commemorate before Easter is what we experience in this life; what we celebrate after Easter points to something we do not yet possess. This is why we keep the first season with fasting and prayer; but now the fast is over and we devote the present season to praise. Such is the meaning of the Alleluia we sing.

Both these periods are represented and demonstrated for us in Christ our head. The Lord’s passion depicts for us our present life of trial – shows how we must suffer and be afflicted and finally die. The Lord’s resurrection and glorification show us the life that will be given to us in the future.

Now therefore, brethren, we urge you to praise God. That is what we are all telling each other when we say Alleluia. You say to your neighbour, “Praise the Lord!” and he says the same to you. We are all urging one another to praise the Lord, and all thereby doing what each of us urges the other to do. But see that your praise comes from your whole being; in other words, see that you praise God not with your lips and voices alone, but with your minds, your lives and all your actions.

We are praising God now, assembled as we are here in church; but when we go on our various ways again, it seems as if we cease to praise God. But provided we do not cease to live a good life, we shall always be praising God. You cease to praise God only when you swerve from justice and from what is pleasing to God. If you never turn aside from the good life, your tongue may be silent but your actions will cry aloud, and God will perceive your intentions; for as our ears hear each other’s voices, so do God’s ears hear our thoughts.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil

The Lord calls himself the vine and those united to him branches in order to teach us how much we shall benefit from our union with him, and how important it is for us to remain in his love. By receiving the Holy Spirit, who is the bond of union between us and Christ our Savior, those who are joined to him, as branches are to a vine, share in his own nature.

On the part of those who come to the vine, their union with him depends upon a deliberate act of the will; on his part, the union is effected by grace. Because we had good will, we made the act of faith that brought us to Christ, and received from him the dignity of adoptive sonship that made us his own kinsmen, according to the words of Saint Paul: He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.

The prophet Isaiah calls Christ the foundation, because it is upon him that we as living and spiritual stones are built into a holy priesthood to be a dwelling place for God in the Spirit. Upon no other foundation than Christ can this temple be built. Here Christ is teaching the same truth by calling himself the vine, since the vine is the parent of its branches, and provides their nourishment.

From Christ and in Christ, we have been reborn through the Spirit in order to bear the fruit of life; not the fruit of our old, sinful life but the fruit of a new life founded upon our faith in him and our love for him. Like branches growing from a vine, we now draw our life from Christ, and we cling to his holy commandment in order to preserve this life. Eager to safeguard the blessing of our noble birth, we are careful not to grieve the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, and who makes us aware of God’s presence in us.

Let the wisdom of John teach us how we live in Christ and Christ lives in us: The proof that we are living in him and he is living in us is that he has given us a share in his Spirit. Just as the trunk of the vine gives its own natural properties to each of its branches, so, by bestowing on them the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, the only-begotten Son of the Father, gives Christians a certain kinship with himself and with God the Father because they have been united to him by faith and determination to do his will in all things. He helps them to grow in love and reverence for God, and teaches them to discern right from wrong and to act with integrity.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

Today is the Feast Day of our beloved St. Catherine of Siena.

Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) became an important spiritual voice for the Catholic Church in crisis during her time. The papacy’s hold over European politics began to weaken as new western nations emerged. This was also the period of the exile of Dante and other conflicts. This prolonged crisis which started during this time eventually led to the papacy moving from Rome to Avignon in France (1309-1376). Catherine was instrumental in encouraging of the papacy’s return to Rome and carried out delicate missions on the pope’s behalf. She later became one of the first women declared a Doctor of the Church, along with Teresa of Ávila.

Catherine was a Dominican in the spirit of St. Thomas Aquinas and a stigmatist in the manner of St. Francis of Assisi. She dictated The Dialogue of Divine Providence between the years 1377 and 1378 during ecstasies. The youngest of 24 children of a wool-dyer, she experienced a vision of Jesus, with Saints Peter, Paul, and John blessing her when she was seven, and dedicated herself to Christ from that point on. At the age of twelve, her parents attempted to arrange her marriage. At fifteen, she became a tertiary in the Dominican Order.

Catherine experienced a mystical marriage with Christ in a vision in which the Infant Christ presented her with a wedding ring. Her visions led her to take part more fully in public life, and she acted as a counselor and correspondent to Popes Gregory XI and Urban VI. In 1375 she became a stigmatist and in 1376 lived in Avignon, France. In 1378 she went to Rome, Italy and lived there until she died. Her confessor and close friends supported her, notably Blessed Raymond of Capua. On October 4, 1970, she was declared Doctor of the Church.

From the Dialogue of St. Catherine

Tears - #88

It is therefore essential that the soul be constant in her charity for her neighbors and in true knowledge of herself. In this way she will feed the flame of my charity, that is, from the knowledge the soul gained by coming to know herself and my goodness to her, which made her see that I love her unspeakably much. So she loves every person with the same love she sees herself loved with, and this is why the soul, as soon as she comes to know me, reaches out to love her neighbors. Because she sees that I love them even more than she does, she also loves them unspeakably much.

Since she has learned that she can be of no profit to me, nor return to me the same pure love with which she feels herself loved by me, she sets herself to repaying my love through the means I established—her neighbors. They are the ones to whom you must be of service, just as I told you that every virtue is realized through your neighbors. I have give you these to serve, every one, both in general and individually, according to the different graces you receive from me. You must love with same pure love with which I love you. But you cannot do this for me because I love you without being loved by you, even before you existed (in fact it was love that moved me to create you in my own image and likeness) you cannot repay me. But you must give this love to other people, loving them without being loved by them. You must love them without any concern for your own spiritual or material profit, but only for the glory and praise of my name, because I love them. In this way you will fulfill the whole commandment of the Law, which is to love me above all things and your neighbor as your very self.

Note: If you are interested in reading St. Catherine’s Dialogue - read the Suzanne Noffke, O.P. translation.

Litany of St. Catherine of Siena

Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us. Christ hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.

God the Father of heaven, Have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, Have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit, Have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, Have mercy on us.

Holy Mary, Pray for us. (repeat after each line)
St. Dominic, glorious Patriarch,
St. Catherine of Siena,
Benevolent mother of the poor,
Merciful mother of the sick,
Refuge of the sorrowful,
Intercessor for sinners,
Rose of patience,
Model of humility,
Lily of chastity,
Vessel of graces,
Zealous promoter of the honor of God,
Luster of holiness,
Example of mildness,
Glory of the Order of Preachers,
Fruitful mother of spiritual children,
Promoter of peace,
Terror of the evil spirits,
Follower of Jesus,
St. Catherine, who did give the blossoms of your innocent youth to the service of your Heavenly Spouse,
St. Catherine, whom Jesus Himself did feed with His Body and Blood,
St. Catherine, who exchanged her heart with the Heart of Jesus,
St. Catherine, who was blest with His Holy Wounds,
St. Catherine, who was taken to Heaven to the celestial nuptials,
St. Catherine, who did receive a hundredfold, reward for all her labors and merits,

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, Spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, Graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, Have mercy on us.

Pray for us, O glorious Virgin, St. Catherine, That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray, O God, who gave St. Catherine, graced with the special privilege of virginity, patience to overcome the assault of evil spirits and to stand unshaken in the love of your Name. Grant we beseech you, that after her example treading under foot the wickedness of the world and overcoming the wiles of all enemies, we may safely pass onward to your glory. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Source: Kyrie Eleison — Two Hundred Litanies by Benjamin Francis Musser O.F.M., The Magnificat Press, 1944

Today’s Mass Collect

O God, who set Saint Catherine of Siena on fire with divine love in her contemplation of the Lord’s Passion and her service of your Church, grant, through her intercession, that your people, participating in the mystery of Christ, may ever exult in the revelation of his glory. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

St. Catherine of Siena, Pray for us.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

Today is a post from Deacon Tracy Jamison, OCDS, PhD. Deacon Jamison is a Catholic Philosopher. It is a long read, but well worth the effort. Grab some coffee, a quiet place, and ask for the intercession of Saint Anselm, as we explore Saint Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God.

Anselm was born in Aosta, in northern Italy, and became a monk of Bec in Normandy, where he taught theology and devoted himself to the spiritual life. After some years as abbot, he succeeded his master Lanfranc as archbishop of Canterbury. His bitter disputes with the kings of England over the independence of the Church resulted in his twice being exiled. He died at Canterbury on 21 April 1109. He is remembered for his theological learning and writings, and for organising and reforming church life in England.

Source: Universalis

Chapter II of St Anselm’s Proslogion

Deacon Jamison, OCDS, PhD

St Anselm’s so-called “ontological” argument for the existence of God (in Chapter II of the Proslogion) was clearly refuted by St Thomas Aquinas in several texts, though Anselm’s other arguments were recognized as sound. Immanuel Kant’s well-known criticisms of the ontological argument were simply repeating what St Thomas had already said about it. Thomists developed several lines of criticism against it, as they did against all a priori arguments for the existence of God. They pointed out that any argument that attempts to infer actual existence from conceptual existence commits the fallacy of equivocation by an invalid shift in supposition.

Some modern Catholic philosophers have defended St Anselm’s argument as presupposing mystical experience of the existence of God through prayer, rather than as attempting to prove God’s existence by reason alone, but the medieval philosophers did not interpret the argument in that manner. And traditional Thomists have kept pointing out that even in the mystical experience of God our knowledge of God is necessarily indirect. In order to infer God’s actual existence from God’s essence, we would first have to know the essence of God directly in itself, which is impossible in this life. Only in the Beatific Vision in heaven will we possess such knowledge and happiness.

Some commentators, Karl Barth for example, seem to argue along the following lines (here summarized):

Thomists reject St Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God specifically because they have a different understanding of the relation of thought to existence than that held by St Anselm and others. St Anselm’s main conclusion seems to be that God cannot be thought not to exist (hence, the “fool” says in his heart that there is no God). If this realization constitutes an answer to his prayer in the first chapter, then we are dealing with something along the lines of Platonic anamnesis. Hence, the “argument” (or better, the “prayer”) is more a matter of the mind utilizing reason to find the memory or trace of its Creator in itself and experiencing the intuition that rationally flows from that recovery. This would make sense of St Anselm’s quest of faith seeking understanding in a unique way of immanence. He is presupposing the existence of God in faith. The one who believes and follows the argument or prayer is thereby given an understanding of the necessity of God’s existence, but the foundation of this understanding is the grace of rational certainty infused in the human intellect by God. The human intellect is in a supernatural participatory relationship with God through the infused virtue of faith. (See Etienne Gilson, “The Meaning and Nature of St Anselm’s Argument.”)

In Chapter I of the Proslogion, St Anselm encourages us to pray to God as follows:

Up now, slight man! Flee, for a little while, thy occupations; hide thyself, for a time, from thy disturbing thoughts. Cast aside, now, thy burdensome cares, and put away thy toilsome business. Yield room for some little time to God; and rest for a little time in him. Enter the inner chamber of thy mind; shut out all thoughts save that of God, and such as can aid thee in seeking him; close thy door and seek him. Speak now, my whole heart! Speak now to God, saying, I seek thy face; thy face, Lord, will I seek (Psalms 27:8).

Teach me, O Lord, to seek thee, and reveal thyself to me, when I seek thee, for I cannot seek thee, except thou teach me, nor find thee, except thou reveal thyself. Let me seek thee in longing, let me long for thee in seeking; let me find thee in love, and love thee in finding.

Lord, I acknowledge and I thank thee that thou hast created me in this thine image, in order that I may be mindful of thee, may conceive of thee, and love thee; but that image has been so consumed and wasted away by vices, and obscured by the smoke of wrong-doing, that it cannot achieve that for which it was made, except thou renew it, and create it anew. I do not endeavor, O Lord, to penetrate thy sublimity, for in no wise do I compare my understanding with that; but I long to understand in some degree thy truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe, --that unless I believed, I should not understand. (Works of St Anselm, translated by Sidney Norton Deane, 1903)

Against the modern or Barthian line of interpretation, which still remains very much a minority opinion, most commentators take Anselm’s so-called ontological argument out of the theological context of faith and prayer and believe that it simply goes like this:

God is the greatest conceivable being, i.e. that being than which nothing greater can be conceived. But if (contrary to fact) he did not actually exist, then he would not be the greatest conceivable being, since we would be able to conceive a greater being, viz. one who actually existed. Thus, just from the fact that supposing that God lacks actual existence entails a contradiction, it follows by reduction to the absurd that God must actually exist.

In other words, God must actually exist, because actual existence uniquely belongs to the concept of God. It is true that God must exist, but St Anselm’s argument in Chapter II of the Proslogion seems to lack a good reason why this is so. The argument appears to be a fallacious oversimplification, because even though it is true that actual existence uniquely belongs to the concept of God, it is nevertheless logically possible that God exists not actually but only conceptually (in the mind, so to speak).

The fallacy can be described in various ways. Here are two ridiculous arguments that commit the same fallacy as Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God: (1) “Horse is a species, and Seabiscuit is a horse, therefore Seabiscuit is a species.” (2) “Humans subsist (by virtue of their immortal souls), and Santa Claus is a human, therefore Santa Claus subsists.” The first argument equivocates on the term “horse” signifying either a concept or an actual individual. The second argument is one that I made up to illustrate the fact that even when subsistence is a necessary element of a thing’s nature, it still does not follow that the thing actually exists. Only if the modern character of Santa Claus were an actual human person would his soul actually subsist.

These two arguments are not completely analogous to Anselm’s ontological argument, but they are unsound for the same reason. From the fact that the concept of God as the greatest conceivable being necessarily includes actual existence, it does not follow that God actually exists. Attempting to infer actual being from mental being is a confusion between that which is true simpliciter (absolutely) and that which is true secundum quid (in a certain sense). Actual being necessarily follows in a conclusion only if it is already present in the premises. And if the actual existence of God is implicitly assumed in the premises of an argument for the existence of God, then the argument begs the question. The fallacy in Anselm’s ontological argument is therefore a material fallacy, not a formal fallacy. The argument either contains an equivocation or begs the question, depending on what exactly the speaker is asserting.

In general, from the order of ideas alone, we cannot validly infer anything about the order of actuality. All sound arguments for the existence of God or the Uncaused Cause must therefore be a posteriori. This is an Aristotelian principle that Dominican theology after Aquinas consistently defended. Anselm had taken the existence of God as self-evident and then supposed that the denial of the existence of God was incoherent in itself a priori, even without recourse to truths known a posteriori. This line of reasoning assumes that being known in itself is the same as being known to us. But the assumption is problematic, as Aristotle pointed out, and Aquinas explicitly invoked Aristotle’s distinction against Anselm’s novel Proslogion argument.

Sometimes the subject of a proposition necessarily does contain the predicate of the proposition, thus making the proposition conceptually true, and yet the truth of the proposition might not be immediately known to everyone, since some people lack sufficient knowledge of the subject. Take, for example, the proposition “Water is H₂O.” If we innately had sufficient knowledge of the essence of water, we could just recollect (by anamnesis) and examine the contents of that knowledge, thus demonstrating to ourselves that water is H₂O. But we do not innately have sufficient knowledge of the essence of water, so we must demonstrate to ourselves that water is H₂O by reasoning from truths which are naturally more known to us. Similarly, Anselm, in order to make his ontological argument for God’s existence valid, had to assume that we already have innate or infused knowledge of God’s essence and just need to remember what we already know about God.

Every time in the history of philosophy someone advances the ontological argument, others who reflect on it raise the objection, “It is true that the greatest conceivable being must be conceived as having actual existence, but it does not follow that there is anything in reality that actually corresponds to this concept.” The existence of created material things is naturally more known to us than the existence of God is known to us, so we must reason to God’s existence from what he has created and made naturally known to us. Anselm’s famous line of reasoning works only on the assumption that we actually possess innate, intuitive, or infused knowledge of God’s essence. As we noted above, some theologians (e.g. Karl Barth) defend Anselm’s line of reasoning as presupposing the content of faith, but if Anselm’s reasoning is based on faith, then it accepts on the basis of testimony the very truth that it attempts to prove on the basis of reason, and thus it begs the question. This defense seems inadequate and misguided, especially since Anselm himself does not use it in reply when his contemporary Gaunilo of Marmoutiers interprets the argument in Chapter II of the Proslogion as based on reason alone.

Aquinas maintains that the existence of God can be demonstrated by reason alone, not a priori, but only from truths which are more known to us a posteriori. This approach does not beg the question. And for Aquinas, whatever is demonstrated and thus known by reason alone is no longer an object of faith per se. The truths of the faith per se are truths which transcend human reason and are thus not subject to rational demonstration. It seems to me that Aquinas in effect says to Anselm, “The novel argument that you give in Chapter II of the Proslogion is viciously circular, since it cannot make the existence of God known to us without assuming that the existence of God is already known to us either by faith or by reason. The existence of God can certainly be made known to us by faith, but the specific question is whether it can also be made known to us by reason alone. And any purely rational demonstration of the existence of God which takes the existence of God as a premise already known to us by reason alone is unsound and unconvincing.”

Aquinas proposes instead that there is no good reason to suppose that we actually possess an innate or intuitive knowledge of the existence of God. Anselm needs to prove that we have such knowledge, if he is not simply begging the question by invoking the content of the faith. Aquinas has no such need, and he does not believe that there is any such proof. He believes instead that we infer and come to know the existence of God from the existence of the material universe. Aquinas therefore rejects Anselm’s argument in Chapter II of the Proslogion and reasons to God’s existence by appealing to truths that are known to us simply from our ordinary experience of the way things are. Anselm himself appeals to such truths in the Monologion. Anselm’s arguments are quite similar to arguments offered by Augustine in the 4^th and 5^th centuries and by Boethius in the 6^th century. The writings of Augustine and Boethius deeply influenced both Anselm and Aquinas.

Note that there are at least five different texts by Aquinas which are relevant to his evaluation of Anselm’s so-called ontological argument for the existence of God:

1. Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Book I, Distinction 3, Question 1, Article 2

2. Disputed Questions on Truth, Question 10, Article 12

3. Summa Contra Gentiles, Book I, Chapter 11

4. Summa Theologiae, First Part, Question 2, Article 1

5. Commentary on De Trinitate of Boethius, Question 1, Article 3

If the Barthian or modern line of interpretation is correct, then Anselm’s ontological argument belongs to the phenomenological and subjective order of ideas, not to the metaphysical and objective order of essences, which is ironic given that it is called the ontological argument. As a dialectical form of prayer, such reasoning about the content of our ideas toward a better understanding is very helpful. Phenomenology and prayer are related forms of dialectical recollection (anamnesis). Prayer is the recollection of the mind, memory, and heart toward God in faith, hope, and charity. Like faith, prayer is a theological kind of virtue, but it resides in our conscious thoughts and desires. Just as the subjective self presupposes the objective soul, the subjective virtue of prayer presupposes the objective virtue of faith. It is a participation in God’s own knowledge, and it comes in degrees. It may be vocal, mental, or contemplative. It brings divine faith, hope, and charity to perfection. It tends towards looking and listening over speaking and petitioning. It facilitates a transformation of our thoughts and desires, so that we become preoccupied with the highest goods. Above all, through mental and contemplative prayer we become preoccupied with the presence of God. This activity of loving attention to God through faith, hope, and love is the highest human perfection.

Thomistic personalism is a synthesis of the medieval metaphysics of St Thomas Aquinas with the modern phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. Realist phenomenology maintains that the object of knowledge exists independently of our percepts, concepts, and conscious attendings and has an identity that transcends such acts of cognition and intuition. A Thomistic realist would maintain further that the object of knowledge has its own substantial and accidental forms which acquire an intentional mode of existence in being cognized, through which they can then be recognized or intuited. Pope St John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla), for example, insists that the intentionality of consciousness is not primary but secondary, and that phenomenology is a supplemental endeavor to recognize and understand intentions which have already been cognized fundamentally through percepts and concepts formed under the natural ontological attitude. See the arguments that he makes in The Acting Person.

Eidetic intuition should not be conflated with abstractive induction or divine illumination. The intuition attained dialectically through recollection in the phenomenological attitude is an indirect kind of knowledge produced by a reflexive act of identity synthesis. The entities thus known and formulated by phenomenological analysis are nevertheless formal identities, revealing and making explicit the necessary universals which are conceptualized directly in ordinary experience. Phenomenology operates in the order of second intentions, presupposing the intellect’s natural and spontaneous power to grasp the essences of things in the order of first intentions.

Phenomenology thus understood is a dialectical endeavor to recollect and understand explicitly and consciously that which we already know implicitly and unconsciously. It is indeed related to Plato’s dialectical method of recollection (anamnesis), but it clarifies and defines forms which exist in matter and are initially comprehended by a process of sensation, perception, abstraction, and induction. Forms impregnate the human faculties with percepts and concepts and can be grasped reflexively as acts having intentional content. In The Acting Person, John Paul II (Wojtyla) offers a workable synthesis of phenomenology with traditional Thomistic epistemology. Modern phenomenologists and transcendental Thomists who attempt to avoid or eliminate the scholastic postulation of impressed and expressed species as natural formal signs are necessarily left with an inadequate theory of meaning and truth, and they are sawing off the very branch on which they are sitting, so to speak.

Aristotelian scholasticism often opposes and attempts to suppress phenomenological existentialism, and modern phenomenological existentialism often opposes and attempts to suppress Aristotelian scholasticism. According to the synthesis of St John Paul II, the truth is that these two paradigms are not totally incommensurable, and any adequate anthropology must include both of them by holding them in continuity. John Paul II regards the antagonism as unnecessary, unfortunate, and counter-productive. The modern existentialist opposition to medieval faculty psychology is just as problematic as the Aristotelian opposition to modern existential psychology. We can grant that phenomenological existentialism can be a path toward sound metaphysics, but only when it remains adequately grounded in sound metaphysics. The lessons that Aristotle taught us must not be forgotten. The Aristotelian philosophical framework is not merely one scientific paradigm among many; rather, it is the prerequisite of scientific understanding itself. Those who abandon the realism of Aristotelian philosophy of science inevitably fall into pragmatism, idealism, or nominalism.

The synthesis of John Paul II facilitates a reconciliation between Anselm’s a priori ontological argument and Aquinas’s Five Ways to prove the existence of God a posteriori. Phenomenological and existential knowledge can be obtained when we reflexively direct our intellects to the dialectical recollection and conceptualization of our own subjective acts of sensing, perceiving, judging, understanding, valuing, remembering, imagining, and meaning. Our external and internal senses cannot sense their own acts, but our intellects by contrast are able to understand their own acts of understanding, along with our other acts of cognition, including those based on the infused content of faith, and thus we can recollect that content and formalize it in sciences of second intentions.

The unique reflexive power of the human intellect is what enables us to employ our memories and imaginations in the perfective mental activity of re-cognizing our own cognitions and re-evaluating our own valuations and attitudes in order to cultivate our comprehension and appreciation of truth, goodness, and beauty and to guide our practical and moral decisions and activities. Empirical and metaphysical knowledge is fundamental and objective, having no necessary dependence on phenomenological and existential knowledge, but by contrast phenomenological and existential knowledge is supplemental and subjective, always presupposing inductive empirical and metaphysical knowledge. Phenomenology can assist the empirical sciences and open a path to metaphysics, but it cannot replace or substitute for them.

The human person is essentially a potency for the actualization of two distinct but unified orders of being.

Co-essential principles always have a prior-posterior relation. The Catholic approach to philosophy is to distinguish in order to unify and integrate. Integration always requires the posterior to be congruent with the prior. As taught in traditional Carmelite anthropology and mystical theology, the human person has a cruciform constitution. Any adequate anthropology must distinguish the vertical and objective dimension of the human person from the horizontal and subjective dimension of the human person and must then unify and integrate them. Any lack of congruence is a disintegration of the human person. See Richard E. Dumont, OCDS, PhD, Commentary on the Writings of St John of the Cross: A Cruciform Mysticism and Christocentric Anthropology, https://www.amazon.com/Commentary-Writings-St-John-Cross/dp/1456497243/.

No demonstration of the existence of God is metaphysically neutral. All demonstrations of the existence of God objectively presuppose first principles such as the principle of non-contradiction, the principle of identity, the principle of sufficient reason, and the principle of finality. May the prayers of St Anselm of Canterbury and St Thomas of Aquino together come to the aid of modern culture, liberate it from the epistemological errors of pragmatism, idealism, and nominalism, and enable it to recover an understanding of the metaphysical principles which lead the human intellect to recognize the existence and goodness of God as the only adequate foundation of human happiness and authenticity.

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About Deacon Tracy Jamison, OCDS, PhD

Deacon Tracy Jamison was raised in a Christian family as the son of a Scotch-Irish evangelical minister in the Campbellite tradition. As an undergraduate he majored in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Cincinnati Christian University, where his parents had been educated. At this institution he met Joyce, who was completing a degree in Church Music, and after graduation they entered the covenant of Christian marriage in 1988. Through the study of philosophy and the writings of the Early Church Fathers, Tracy was received into the full communion of the Catholic Church in 1992. Under the influence of the theological writings of St. John Paul II he began to study the works of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross and entered formation as a Secular Carmelite of the Teresian Reform. In 1999 he completed the doctoral program in Philosophy at the University of Cincinnati, and in 2002 he made his definitive profession as a Secular Carmelite. In 2010 he was ordained as a permanent deacon of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Currently he is an associate professor of philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary of the West.

© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

The heavenly sacrifice, instituted by Christ, is the most gracious legacy of his new covenant. On the night he was delivered up to be crucified he left us this gift as a pledge of his abiding presence.

This sacrifice is our sustenance on life’s journey; by it we are nourished and supported along the road of life until we depart from this world and make our way to the Lord. For this reason he addressed these words to us: Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not have life in you.

It was the Lord’s will that his gifts should remain with us, and that we who have been redeemed by his precious blood should constantly be sanctified according to the pattern of his own passion. And so he commanded those faithful disciples of his whom he made the first priests of his Church to enact these mysteries of eternal life continuously. All priests throughout the churches of the world must celebrate these mysteries until Christ comes again from heaven. Therefore let us all, priests and people alike, be faithful to this everlasting memorial of our redemption. Daily it is before our eyes as a representation of the passion of Christ. We hold it in our hands, we receive it in our mouths, and we accept it in our hearts.

It is appropriate that we should receive the body of Christ in the form of bread, because, as there are many grains of wheat in the flour from which bread is made by mixing it with water and baking it with fire, so also we know that many members make up the one body of Christ which is brought to maturity by the fire of the Holy Spirit. Christ was born of the Holy Spirit, and since it was fitting that he should fulfill all justice, he entered into the waters of baptism to sanctify them. When he left the Jordan he was filled with the Holy Spirit who had descended upon him in the form of a dove. As the evangelist tells us: Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan.

Similarly, the wine of Christ’s blood, drawn from the many grapes of the vineyard that he had planted, is extracted in the wine-press of the cross. When men receive it with believing hearts, like capacious wineskins, it ferments within them by its own power.

And so, now that you have escaped from the power of Egypt and of Pharaoh, who is the devil, join with us, all of you, in receiving this sacrifice of the saving passover with the eagerness of dedicated hearts. Then in our inmost being we shall be wholly sanctified by the very Lord Jesus Christ whom we believe to be present in his sacraments, and whose boundless power abides for ever.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

Saint Paul rejoices in the knowledge that spiritual health has been restored to the human race. Just as death entered the world through Adam, so life has been given back to the world through Christ. And again: The first man, being from the earth, is earthly by nature; the second man is from heaven and is heavenly.

He adds the following: As we have borne the image of the earthly man, (that is, the image of human nature grown old in sin) so let us bear the image of the heavenly man: that is, human nature raised up, redeemed, restored and purified in Christ. We must hold fast to the salvation we have received. As the Apostle himself says: Christ is the beginning (that is, the source of resurrection and life); therefore those who belong to Christ (those who model their lives on his purity) will be secure in the hope of his resurrection and of enjoying with him the glory promised in heaven. As our Lord himself said in the gospel: Whoever follows me will not perish, but will pass from death to life.

Thus the passion of our Savior is the salvation of mankind. The reason why he desired to die for us was that he wanted us who believe in him to live for ever. In the fullness of time it was his will to become what we are, so that we might inherit the eternity he promised and live with him for ever.

Here, then, is the grace conferred by these heavenly mysteries, the gift which Easter brings, the most longed-for feast of the year; here are the beginnings of creatures newly formed: children born from the life-giving font of holy Church, born anew with the simplicity of little ones, and crying out with the evidence of a clean conscience. Chaste fathers and inviolate mothers accompany this new family, countless in number, born to new life through faith. As they emerge from the grace-giving womb of the font, a blaze of candles burns brightly beneath the tree of faith. The Easter festival brings the grace of holiness from heaven to men. Through the repeated celebration of the sacred mysteries they receive the spiritual nourishment of the sacraments. Fostered at the very heart of holy Church, the fellowship of one community worships the one God, adoring the triple name of his essential holiness, and together with the prophet sings the psalm which belongs to this yearly festival: This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad. And what is this day? It is the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the author of light, who brings the sunrise and the beginning of life, saying of himself: I am the light of day; whoever walks in daylight does not stumble. That is to say, whoever follows Christ in all things will come by this path to the throne of eternal light.

Such was the prayer Christ made to the Father while he was still on earth: Father, I desire that where I am they also may be, those who have come to believe in me; and that as you are in me and I in you, so they may abide in us.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

From the Catechesis by Saint John Chrysostom, bishop

If we wish to understand the power of Christ’s blood, we should go back to the ancient account of its prefiguration in Egypt. “Sacrifice a lamb without blemish,” commanded Moses, “and sprinkle its blood on your doors.” If we were to ask him what he meant, and how the blood of an irrational beast could possibly save men endowed with reason, his answer would be that the saving power lies not in the blood itself, but in the fact that it is a sign of the Lord’s blood. In those days, when the destroying angel saw the blood on the doors he did not dare to enter, so how much less will the devil approach now when he sees, not that figurative blood on the doors, but the true blood on the lips of believers, the doors of the temple of Christ.

If you desire further proof of the power of this blood, remember where it came from, how it ran down from the cross, flowing from the Master’s side. The gospel records that when Christ was dead, but still hung on the cross, a soldier came and pierced his side with a lance and immediately there poured out water and blood. Now the water was a symbol of baptism and the blood, of the holy Eucharist. The soldier pierced the Lord’s side, he breached the wall of the sacred temple, and I have found the treasure and made it my own. So also with the lamb: the Jews sacrificed the victim and I have been saved by it.

“There flowed from his side water and blood.” Beloved, do not pass over this mystery without thought; it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolized baptism and the holy Eucharist. From these two sacraments the Church is born: from baptism, “the cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit,” and from the holy Eucharist. Since the symbols of baptism and the Eucharist flowed from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church, as he had fashioned Eve from the side of Adam. Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the story of the first man and makes him exclaim: “Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh!” As God then took a rib from Adam’s side to fashion a woman, so Christ has given us blood and water from his side to fashion the Church. God took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us the blood and the water after his own death.

Do you understand, then, how Christ has united his bride to himself and what food he gives us all to eat? By one and the same food we are both brought into being and nourished. As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with his own blood those to whom he himself has given life.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.

The Lamb that was slain has delivered us from death and given us life

There was much proclaimed by the prophets about the mystery of the Passover: that mystery is Christ, and to him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

For the sake of suffering humanity he came down from heaven to earth, clothed himself in that humanity in the Virgin’s womb, and was born a man. Having then a body capable of suffering, he took the pain of fallen man upon himself; he triumphed over the diseases of soul and body that were its cause, and by his Spirit, which was incapable of dying, he dealt man’s destroyer, death, a fatal blow.

He was led forth like a lamb; he was slaughtered like a sheep. He ransomed us from our servitude to the world, as he had ransomed Israel from the hand of Egypt; he freed us from our slavery to the devil, as he had freed Israel from the hand of Pharaoh. He sealed our souls with his own Spirit, and the members of our body with his own blood.

He is the One who covered death with shame and cast the devil into mourning, as Moses cast Pharaoh into mourning. He is the One who smote sin and robbed iniquity of offspring, as Moses robbed the Egyptians of their offspring. He is the One who brought us out of slavery into freedom, out of darkness into light, out of death into life, out of tyranny into an eternal kingdom; who made us a new priesthood, a people chosen to be his own for ever. He is the Passover that is our salvation.

It is he who endured every kind of suffering in all those who foreshadowed him. In Abel he was slain, in Isaac bound, in Jacob exiled, in Joseph sold, in Moses exposed to die. He was sacrificed in the Passover lamb, persecuted in David, dishonored in the prophets.

It is he who was made man of the Virgin, he who was hung on the tree; it is he who was buried in the earth, raised from the dead, and taken up to the heights of heaven. He is the mute lamb, the slain lamb, the lamb born of Mary, the fair ewe. He was seized from the flock, dragged off to be slaughtered, sacrificed in the evening, and buried at night. On the tree no bone of his was broken; in the earth his body knew no decay. He is the One who rose from the dead, and who raised man from the depths of the tomb.

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© 2026, Lawain McNeil, Mission Surrender, LLC.