Abbot Eugene, Canon Lawyer
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Volume 2 Issue 7 Official Publication of the St. Thomas More Society July 1997 SPECIAL RELIGION: SPEAKER: NOTHING TO GET ENTHUSIASTIC Abbot Eugene, ABOUT By: Fr. Hugh Barbour, O. Praem, Ph.D Canon Lawyer Our Chaplain This month we are blessed to have a Enthusiasm: a quality we often associate special speaker: Abbot Eugene Hayes from with the pursuit of a particular hobby or avoca- St. Michael’s Abbey who has a doctorate tion, meets with our approval often enough when degree in Canon law! Abbott Eugene re- we share the area of interest with the enthusiast. When we do not, however, then the zeal of the sided in Rome and was the legal representa- enthusiast can be a bit trying to our patience, es- tive of the Norbertine Order in the Church pecially when he tries to convince us to join him. courts for a number of years. He will What makes life more engaging for him fills us speak to us on “A Spirituality of Canon with a certain boredom, and we find ourselves Law”. Please see the article on page 3 looking for some polite way of escaping the room about Abbott Eugene and Canon Law. when the topic of the enthusiast’s passion comes up. Sometimes the matter actually holds some REMINDER: NEW LOCATION FOR real interest for us, but the extreme concentration DAYTIME MEETINGS! of the expert makes us want to avoid what we would ordinarily find interesting at least to some Saint Thomas The noon meeting of the Society regularly moderate degree. Our imagination can fill in the More pointed out scheduled for the third Thursday of each month has blanks; the enthusiasm can be for some sport, that pride that has being relocated to Village Farmer’s Restaurant in some luxury commodity, political issue, or area been allowed to the South Coast Village behind Planet Hollywood. of entertainment. Those close to the enthusiast develop “carries The address is 1651 Sunflower, Costa Mesa. The sometime can notice in him a certain lack of at- with it a blindness telephone number is 557-8433. We have reserved tention to other and more important areas of life: almost incurable”. the back room. work, family, friends, religion. Thomas More: A (Continued on page 2) Enthusiasm Portrait of Cour- JULY MEETINGS: age Gerard Wegemer Inside This Issue: TOPIC: A Spirituality of Canon Law Chaplain’s Message Page 1 SPEAKER: Abbott Eugene Hayes, O. Abbott Eugene, Canon Lawyer Page 3 Praem, Canon Lawyer DAYTIME MEETING: Noon on From the Writings of More Page 4 Editor’s Note: Thursday, July 17th @ Village Farmer’s “Ad Veritatem” Little Flower Power Page 5 is Latin for Restaurant in South Coast Village. “toward the truth”. EVENING MEETING: 7 p.m. on For Your Information Page 9 Monday, July 21st @ St. John Neumann Page 2 Ad Veritatem (Continued from page 1) Enthusiast life, the enthusiast makes them the focus of his interest and at- tention to things divine. In fact, the enthusiast makes them the Religion. Now, can someone become an enthusiast test, as it were of the authenticity and depth of his own and his about religion? Every religion provides its followers with mo- neighbor’s life of faith. tivations for making its teachings the guiding influence, indeed Monsignor Knox noted how particularly susceptible the principal guiding influence in life. A devout practitioner to religious enthusiasm were his American cousins. Of our of any faith does just that. Religious enthusiasm, however, is continent he said “In these days, it is the last refuge of the en- something more. Monsignor Ronald Knox, Catholic chaplain thusiast.” Our Church, particularly with the upheavals she has at Oxford University during the period between the two world been undergoing in the last thirty-some years, has suffered wars, and perhaps the greatest priest author of this century, from a radical ‘de-supernaturalization.’ There is barely an wrote a masterful study entitled Enthusiasm: A Chapter in area of her tradition and practice in catechetics, liturgy, devo- the History of Religion. Published by Oxford University tional life, and religious institutes which has not been turned Press in 1950, the work represented over thirty years of re- upside down in attempts, well-intentioned, perhaps, but often search, spanning the history of Christianity from apostolic misguided, to bring her into line with the expectations of the times to the present century. In this work, he describes the prevailing culture. The practical secularization of the atmos- fascinating and very enlightening history of the various move- phere of Catholic worship, preaching, and education in the ments and figures in the history of the Church which have faith has left a real vacuum which must be filled. If ‘‘nature ended up parting with her common teaching and practice as abhors a vacuum” how much more must the supernatural! The found among the devout and ordinary faithful, to pursue what extreme reaction in this dialectic is not a renewal and return to are thought, or rather often felt to be more perfect, more spiri- the authentic roots of religious observance (this was the real tual, more personal and interior experiences of religion. He is desire of Vatican Council II), but the ‘ultrasupernaturalism’ of thus able to detect general tendencies which characterize all the religious enthusiast. these movements. The conclusions he draws are of great prac- There are many movements in today’s Church. All tical value for the reader, and in two directions. On the one of them can be of some help to one’s faith, otherwise the hand, one can see what is to be avoided in order to be free Church would not approve of their existence, or give them any from spiritual self-deception , and on the other, one can see encouragement. Even so, the primary emphasis of one’s life how necessary it is for one to persevere in the wholehearted as a Catholic should follow the paths traced by our forebearers profession and practice of the faith, so as not to give an excuse in the faith, many of whom were saints. The practice of per- for the dissatisfaction of the zealot who wants to go beyond sonal prayer, worthy and frequent reception of the sacraments, the limits of the true faith and discipline of the Church because study of the catechism, works of charity: all these should far of the lukewarmness he finds among the ordinary, orthodox exceed in importance any interest in or even experience of the faithful. extraordinary or evidently supernatural. If we hope to win our Let us hear Monsignor Knox’s description of the phe- neighbor to the faith, there is no surer way than by the exam- nomenon of religious enthusiasm: “If I could have been cer- ple of a holy life. In the end, this way is more truly supernatu- tain of the reader’s goodwill, I would have called my tendency ral than the extraordinary ways found in various movements in ‘ultrasupernaturalism’ for that is the real character of the en- today’s Church. thusiast; he expects more evident results from the grace of St. Therese of Lisieux, the “Little Flower” as she is God than we others. He sees what effects religion can have, called, was named by Pope Pius XI “the greatest saint of mod- does sometimes have, in transforming a man’s whole life and ern times.” Her life was one of hidden prayer and contempla- outlook; these exceptional cases (so we are content to think tion, full of merits, hard work, and suffering in the practice of them) are for him the average standard of religious achieve- what she called her “little way” which was nothing less than ment. He will have no ‘almost Christians,’ no weaker breth- the wholehearted pursuit of Love. It is this highest of God’s ren who plod and stumble, who (if the truth must be told) gifts, which the Apostle Paul values above all extraordinary would like to have a foot in either world, whose ambition is to manifestations of the Spirit, that should really fuel our practice qualify, not to excel. He has before his eyes a picture of the of the faith. This will protect us from the exaggerations of the early Church, visibly penetrated with supernatural influences; enthusiast, and lead us to real holiness of life. Religion, after and nothing less will serve him for a model. Extenuate, ac- all, is not a hobby, it is rather as simple and earnest, as well as commodate, interpret, and he will part company with you.” dramatic and passionate as life itself. What is real cannot be Even though the enthusiast does not necessarily reject made more so by exaggeration, or improved by enthusiasm. the ordinary sacramental practice of the Church, his religion That which is real simply is like the God who made it. Per- concentrates on the experience of the assurance of salvation haps this is the lesson which most of all needs to be learned by and direct contact with God, unmediated by priest, sacrament the religious enthusiast: that religion is about God more than it or community. Visions, revelations, inner voices, extraordi- is about us, about Him, more than about our experience of nary manifestations of the power of God, all become the focus Him. of his practice of religion. Whereas the ordinary, orthodox be- “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe.” V liever accepts the possibility and reality of these things, while pursuing the time-tested practice of the faith in his day-to-day Ad Veritatem Page 3 The Right Reverend Eugene Hayes, O.Praem A Lawyer of the Church By: Michael Shonafelt, Esq.