Revelation After Love

Last week in my Trinity and Incarnation theology class, it was noted that not until after His atoning suffering and death – His perfect expression of love – was Jesus fully revealed as the Christ. Numerous witnesses to His resurrection verified it. In other words, revelation came after a expression of love.

A question came to mind: “Is it consistent to say divine revelation always follows an expression of love?” I’ve concluded yes. Yet, further revelations of love followed gifts of divine revelation in pointing toward Christ. Major examples of love preceding revelation were God making covenants with the patriarchs of the Old Testament.

First, God created all things for love of humanity. Here, an expression or “initiative of love” preceded the revelation of creation. Creation was first of all revelation as it “revealed” the mind and will of God. After the fall to Original Sin came the revelation of the protoevangelium (“first gospel”), where God promised a coming Christ to crush Satan’s power of death.

God’s covenant with Noah initiated a “preservation of love” preceding eight persons being saved from a flood that revealed divine wrath over sin. Christ revealed that the flood prefigured sanctification in baptism.

God’s covenant with Abraham initiated an “expansion of love” preceding circumcision, revealing their union with God. As Abraham’s descendants increased the knowledge of God expanded. Christ revealed the Holy Spirit to “circumcize hearts.”

God’s covenant with Moses initiated an “exposé of love” by an “exposé of sin” preceding the law to Israel, revealing that “all have sinned” as “through the law comes knowledge of sin.” Christ fulfilled the law by perfectly keeping it, revealing Him as the spotless “Lamb of God.”

God’s covenant with David initiated a “reign of love” preceding the throne of a religious kingdom. Yet, not until Christ would David’s “reign of love” be fully realized and inaugurated as a “kingdom of love.” Now the grace of God is poored out to fulfill the “law of love.”

Theology discerns two types of revelation: private and public. Private cannot contradict public, as public is universal and accessible to all in Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. Private revelations either guide one toward public or “reveal” deeper truths of public revelation (e.g., answered prayer; mystical experience).

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That having been qualified, since 2000 I have enjoyed a progressive series of private revelations in my deepening conversion. In the spring of 2000, after a prayer for relief from overwhelming stress, I had an initiatial conversion experience of grace. I realized three core realities: human sin; salvation in Christ; vocational sanctification in Christ. Yet, raised Protestant, I wasn’t sure which church to attend to learn more or be baptized.

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By the fall of 2000, fully aware of this uncertainty, at work I said a prayer for guidance. Later that day a friend of mine, led by the Holy Spirit, invited me to the Catholic RCIA program for catechesis and baptism! I began studying the differences and histories of Catholics and Protestants, wherein I had the revelation of the ancient Catholic Church as the biblical and historical “Body of Christ.”

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After baptism in the spring of 2001 I was able to better discern my vocation. Due to the nature of my initial experience I wans’t sure if I was called to priesthood or married life. Having a sense of both, in the summer of 2004 I took two years off dating and made Saint Augustine patron of my vocation. After acceptance to seminary by the Diocese of La Crosse, WI, I was introduced to a diocesan spiritual director who helped me discern my deisre for spousal family and possible calling to the diaconate.

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I started dating again the summer of 2006 and set to enter the University of Wisconsin. In the the spring of 2007 I met Melissa. We dated a couple months and really enjoyed each other’s company. One afternoon, setting beside the pond, Melissa shared with me how much she suffered in a short period of time: parental tragety; grandmother died; discovered she had a mild case of Multiple Sclerosis.

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Seeing how Melissa dealt with her suffering with suble grace, what came out of my mouth still startled me: “I lo…” I caught myself about to profess my love for her. Not long after this I made the ultimate connection: her last name is Augustine! Did I not realize this right away because her family pronounced it the Anglicized way rather than the Latin way I was used to hearing in reference to my patron Saint? Or was it a divine case of forgetfulness for the sake of revelation after an expression of love? Maybe both, but I’d suggest the latter as more fitting. Otherwise I might have inappropriately made more of it at the outset before coming to recognize love first.

Beatification of John Henry Cardinal Newman

As many know, John Henry Cardinal Newman, patron of the university that I study theology at, was beatified last Sunday, September 19, by Pope Benedict XVI in Cofton Park in Birmingham, England. Newman is now to be called “Blessed John Henry Newman” or “Blessed Cardinal Newman,” as he is considered one of the blessed in heaven. Several of the university faculty and staff traveled to England for the beatification Mass. My family and I watched the EWTN broadcast of the Mass here on campus Sunday night.

National Catholic Register correspondent Edward Pentin called attention to the fact that “A rainbow appeared over Cofton Park as Pope Benedict arrived this morning for the beatification Mass of Cardinal John Henry Newman, the 19th century English theologian who has had a significant influence on the Holy Father’s own life.”

Commenting on the appropriateness of Cofton Park, Archbishop of Birmingham, Most Rev. Bernard Longley, said, “The finest recognition Cardinal Newman received was from the ordinary people of Birmingham whose lives were changed because of their contact with him. And more than 15,000 people spontaneously lined his funeral route from the Oratory to Rednal as a final tribute to this holy, caring parish priest.” Cofton Park is near both the Oratory where Newman lived and Rednal, his resting place.

What made the beatification possible was the first miracle assigned to Newman through the prayers and healing of Jack Sullivan from a serious back disorder in 2001. After his healing he was then capable to become a deacon of the Church. Being a deacon he was able to do the Gospel reading during the beatification Mass.

When asked by a reporter for the Boston Pilot, “Now that you have been cured, are you still devoted to Cardinal Newman?” Deacon Sullivan said, “I have so much, through my prayers to him. He has changed my life dramatically from one of total confinement. I probably would have never walked normally again or I could have been paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of my life. But with the healing I was able to realize my greatest strength, and that was to return to classes and be ordained. I was able to resume my work and provide for my family. Every morning, I say a prayer to him in thanksgiving. Since my healing, I have never missed a morning where I do not thank him with all my heart for his love and his concern.”

I am convinced that the intercession of the saints can have a powerful impact on the lives of Christians. Some are subtle. Others are not so subtle. As mention in my previous article, Saint Augustine’s influence in the lives of my wife Melissa “Augustine” and me was obvious. In contrast, Saint Bernard’s influence in our lives was more subtle. He was the patron saint of the parish of which I was received into the church in Madison, Wisconsin. He was also the patron saint of Melissa’s home church in which we got married in Abbotsford, Wisconsin, three hours away from the other. These being the only two “Saint Bernard parishes” I knew of, it was clear to my spiritual awareness that his intercession was guiding us as well – our secondary sign or “confirmation” saint for our vocations. Furthermore, my prayers in 2008 for which school to study theology at have also proved Blessed Cardinal Newman significant in my life: a convert to the Church beckoning another convert to his university.

Blessed Cardinal Newman’s influence in Deacon Sullivan’s life was also not so subtle, having received a miraculous cure. Though I would not classify my experiences of saintly intercession as miracles, regardless, it takes a personal measure of the theological virtue of faith to be able to recognize the intercession of the saints in one’s life.