Dear Friends of the Kolbe Center
Glory to Jesus Christ!
The Holy Catholic Church recently celebrated the feast of St. Ephraim the Syrian, Doctor of the Church.
Although St. Ephraim was never raised above the rank of deacon, St. Basil the Great extolled the profundity of his understanding of the Hebrew text of Genesis:
From him [St. Ephraim] he [St. Basil] learned “that the Spirit was not to be conceived as being “carried upon” the waters (as the Septuagint represents); but (as the Peshitto more truly represents the Hebrew), as “brooding upon” them, to cherish them into life—as a bird on her nest. The verb thus variously rendered is common to the Hebrew with the cognate Syriac; and the explanation of it given by Basil is in fact found in Ephraim’s extant Commentary on the passage of Genesis . . .
St. Ephraim unequivocally interprets the days of Genesis 1 as 24-hour days and insists that everything in the first three chapters of Genesis should be understood in its literal and obvious sense. He writes:
No one should think that the Creation of Six Days is an allegory; it is likewise impermissible to say that what seems, according to the account, to have been created in six days, was created in a single instant, and likewise that certain names presented in this account either signify nothing, or signify something else. On the contrary, we must know that just as the heaven and the earth which were created in the beginning are actually the heaven and earth and not something else understood under the names of heaven and earth, so also everything else that is spoken of as being created and brought into order after the creation of heaven and earth [are] not empty names, but the very essence of the created natures corresponds to the force of these names.
With regard to the length of the days of Genesis 1, St. Ephraim is no less emphatic. Regarding the First Day of creation, St. Ephraim writes:
Although both the light and the clouds were created in the twinkling of an eye, still both the day and the night of the First Day continued for twelve hours each.
As we have demonstrated in various places, a straightforward reading of the Hebrew text of Genesis always leads to the same interpretation that St. Ephraim left us—and, with the exception of St. Augustine’s instantaneous creation, based on a faulty Latin translation—St. Ephraim’s has been the constant interpretation of the Church Fathers, always and everywhere, from the time of the Apostles.
What has been believed everywhere, at all times, and by everyone since the time of the Apostles constitutes a sure and coherent rule of Faith for all Catholics. Commenting on Vincent of Lerins’ Rule of Faith, as applied by the great defender of the Faith, Bishop Bossuet, the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia observed:
Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est; this was for Bossuet, in a manner, the absolute criterion of Catholic truth. He had no difficulty in deducing from it “the immutability of morality or of dogma”; and in this precisely, as is well known, consists his great argument against the Protestants. The “History of the Variations of the Protestant churches” is nothing more than a history of the alterations, if one may say so, to which the Protestant Churches have subjected dogma, and the adjustments or adaptations of dogma which they have pretended to make to circumstances that had nothing but what was transitory and contingent. But “the truth which comes from God possesses from the first its complete perfection”, and from that it follows that as many “variations” as there are, so many “errors” are there in faith, since they are so many contradictions or omissions of tradition.
Coherent Faith
One of the remarkable characteristics of St. Ephraim’s writings is its coherence. He never fails to see the Creator of the world in the Incarnate Word and the Judge of the living and the dead in the Crucified Savior. In a poem on the Passion of Our Lord, he writes:
The Fashioner of all things
The Lord Himself
Was today arraigned before Caiaphas
Like one of the condemned;
And one of the servants
Struck Him a blow.My heart trembles
As I think on these things. . .
Because the Creator
Who by His grace
Fashioned humanity from dust
Is struck.
St. Ephraim’s poetic hymns span the whole history of the world, but always with full awareness of the unchanging character and constant providence of God. The God who creates St. Adam from the dust of the Earth and places him in a garden on the First Friday of the world is the same God who allows Himself to be crushed for our sins in a garden and laid in the dust of the tomb on Good Friday. And He is the same God who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead at the end of the world. Only the Catholic Faith is a coherent Faith, maintaining all of the essential elements of the Deposit of Faith handed down from the Apostles. Those who try to reconcile the Catholic Faith with naturalistic accounts of the origins of man and the universe only succeed in destroying its integrity and making it incoherent. This incoherence of faith then begins to be reflected in an incoherence of culture, as liturgy, art, music, architecture, and manners lose their cohesion and begin to disintegrate.
The Genesis of Modesty
As explained in the article “The Genesis of Modesty” on the Kolbe website, the constant teaching of the Church on modesty has its roots in the sacred history of Genesis. Writing of God’s clothing of Adam and Eve with animal skins after the Fall, he writes:
One may suppose that the first parents, touching their waists with their hands, found that they were clothed with garments made of animal skins—killed, it may be, before their very eyes, so that they might eat their meat, cover their nakedness with their skins, and in their very death might see the death of their own body.
Of all the Doctors who preached on the duties of Christians in the family and in society, none holds a higher place than St. John Chrysostom, great preacher of Antioch and Patriarch of Constantinople. St. John preached with great fervor on the importance of modesty. According to Butler’s Lives of the Saints:
He was especially indignant at the immodest dress and conduct of women and their use of purple, silks, and jewels. He observed that “their veils were not worn as modest coverings and symbols of penance, but rather they wore thin veils in ways to attract the eyes of others.” St. John referred to these as, in some respects, “worse than public prostitutes: for these hide their baits at home only for the wicked: “but you”, he said: “carry your snare everywhere, and spread your nets publicly in all places.”
“You allege that you never invite others to sin. You did not by your tongue, but you have done it by your dress and deportment more effectively than you could by your voice. When you have made another to sin in his heart, how can you be innocent? You sharpened and drew the sword. You gave the thrust by which the soul is wounded.
“Tell me whom does the world condemn? Whom do judges punish? Those who drink the poison, or those who prepare and give the fatal draught? You mingled the execrable cup; you administered the potion of death. You are so much more criminal than poisoners, as the death which you cause is the more terrible; for you murder not the body, but the soul.
“Nor do you do this to enemies: not compelled by necessity nor provoked by any injury; but out of a foolish vanity and pride. You sport yourselves in the ruin of the souls of others, and make their spiritual death your pastime.”
It will be worthwhile to carefully study these few paragraphs, which sum up St. John’s views on the importance of modesty. In the first place, he condemns as “worse than prostitutes” women (but it could be men) who wear certain styles of clothing which attract attention to themselves as objects of lust. He rejects the common excuse that these women (or men) do not “invite” others to have lustful thoughts or to act on their lustful desires, arguing that a person who dresses in a way that excites lustful thoughts when he or she could avoid doing so is guilty of the effects of his or her immodesty. Finally, St. John exposes the root of immodest dress as pride and vanity-the desire to draw attention to oneself and away from God and other people-without regard for the spiritual harm that immodesty inflicts on other people.
But there is another aspect to Chrysostom’s teaching on this subject, which flows from his exalted view of marriage. He takes quite literally the teaching of St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians that a husband should love his wife “as his own body.” Any husband who takes this teaching to heart will lay down his life for his wife every day, doing all that he can to show her that she is precious in his sight. But he will also express his special love for her “as his own body” by encouraging her to dress modestly, by showing that he appreciates the fact that she saves her body for him and does not share it with the whole world by dressing immodestly. For her part, in the light of St. Chrysostom’s teaching, a Christian wife delights in belonging to her husband, in knowing that she has a faithful provider and protector, a spouse who will lay down his life for her again and again. Such a wife will want to show by the way that she acts and dresses that she belongs to her husband.
But the implications of Chrysostom’s beautiful teaching on modesty extend even beyond the marriage relationship to the modesty of children and young adults. In the light of his preaching of the Gospel, it is easy to see that young men and women should regard themselves first and foremost as “temples of the Holy Spirit,” and only secondly as future spouses and parents if God calls them to that vocation. Those who are called to the priesthood or religious life can only protect and discern their vocation by practicing modesty, but, in the light of Chrysostom’s teaching, young men and women who discern that God is calling them to Holy Marriage also have a special reason to dress modestly. The young man dresses modestly because he knows that his body belongs in a very real way to his future spouse. He does not want to share it with the whole world. The young woman also dresses modestly because she knows that her body belongs in a very real way to her future husband. When two young people marry who have lived with this attitude they know a joy that cannot be compared to any worldly enjoyment—the joy of giving and receiving the total gift of themselves! But nothing safeguards this joy like the practice of modesty before marriage.
If one looks at the standards of dress for men and women throughout the history of the Church, it is apparent that today’s fashions clash violently with the standards of modesty that prevailed from the time of the Apostles and Church Fathers until about sixty-five years ago. From the time of the Apostles until then, pants, sleeveless or low-cut dresses and short skirts for women have never been tolerated in Catholic society, much less in the house of God during divine worship. Nor have shorts, sleeveless shirts or other casual forms of dress for men ever been tolerated in the house of God.
It is worth noting that the Holy Theotokos has appeared on earth numerous times from the first century until the present time, and always in the same modest attire, clothed in a long dress. If the Holy Theotokos wanted to endorse the fashions of the modern world, surely she would have varied her style of dress at least once or twice in the last two thousand years. But from one end of the world to the other, from the time of the apostles until now, the Holy Theotokos has always abided by the guidelines set down by St. Paul two thousand years ago. Our Lord Jesus Christ has also appeared numerous times, but always in dignified attire that completely covers his upper and lower body. The abandonment of Biblical standards of modesty has been accompanied by a meteoric rise in the percentage of Catholics who are confused about their sexual identity, who approve of homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle, and who practice or tolerate fornication, contraception, abortion and divorce. It is high time that we abandoned this destructive experiment and returned to the coherent faith and practical guidelines handed down to us by our fathers in the Faith.
Even within traditional Catholic circles, it is not uncommon to see young people dress modestly for Holy Mass and church-sponsored events but change into immodest clothing when they go out into the world. This behavior offers an almost perfect material reflection of the theological incoherence of theistic evolution or progressive creation which take God at His Word in regard to His Incarnation and His Sacraments but subordinate His Word to the consensus view in fallible human science in regard to the age and origin of the universe. This kind of incoherence cannot transform the world. Only the coherence of a consecrated life—a life in which every thought, word and action is offered up to Our Heavenly Father with Jesus through Mary—can do that.
A Coherent Faith Requires Supernatural Charity
St. Therese of Lisieux is the most recent saint to be named a Doctor of the Church, and, like every other Father and Doctor of the Church, she was raised to believe in a recent fiat creation and in the geocentric-geostatic constitution of the cosmos. Moreover, as we have explained elsewhere, the Little Flower died as a victim soul for the many Church leaders, priests, religious, and laity who would be tempted to embrace a false naturalistic explanation for things that God had clearly revealed to be supernatural–most especially in regard to the fiat creation of all things less than ten thousand years ago.
But there is an even more important reason why the Little Flower deserves to be our special patroness and that is for the example she set of supernatural faith working through charity. Among the most moving accounts of the Little Flower’s intercessory activity after her death are those of her Carmelite sisters who testify to the way that the Little Flower helped them to grow in charity. For example, the Little Flower’s blood sister Celine (Sister Genevieve in religion) recalled that:
A sister took something from me that I needed, and I was just getting ready to recover it from her in a rather brusque manner when I distinctly heard the words “very humbly”! I recognized Therese’s voice and my heart was immediately transformed and inclined toward humility.
As we work and pray to restore the foundations of the faith and to regain the coherence of faith in our thoughts, words, and actions, let us ask the Little Flower to help us always to do so with charity and humility!
Through the prayers of the Mother of God, of St. Ephraim, of St. Therese, and of all the Saints, may the Holy Ghost guide and direct us in all that we think, say and do!
In Domino,
Hugh Owen
