(Excerpt from a letter to a Pastor of a Church that was never answered.)
CONVERSION
CONVERSION
Definition
Any turning or changing from a state of sin to repentance, from a lax to a fervent way of life, from unbelief to faith, and from a non-Christian religion to Christianity. Since the Second Vatican Council the term is not used to describe a non-Catholic Christian becoming a Catholic. The preferred term is "entering into full communion with the Church." (Etym. Latin conversio, a turning, overturning, turning around; turning point; change.)
CHANGE
Definition
In general, any newness in a being or any origin of a difference. More properly, it is the passing from potency (or possibility) to actuality, which may be either substantial or merely accidental. Substantial change is creation, which means origin form previous nonexistence; or transubstantiation, which is complete change of a substance; or transformation, which occurs when a new living being comes into existence, when food is changed into the living organism that absorbs it, or when a living being dies. Accidental changes are all others.
Giving him the benefit of the doubt, maybe Fr. Olds was thinking a colloquial understanding of "change" when he told us in his homily that Jesus had a conversion while part of the Blessed Trinity when He because man and then He had a conversion in the garden of Gethsemane after He was fearful of death in the Garden.
Fr Olds defined conversion as a turning around, which is wrong when speaking abut Jesus who is the same today, yesterday, and always.
ABS had his restless Grandchildren with me today and so he didn't have the opportunity to speak with him afterwards.
But, we both know that Jesus had no conversion or change while part of the Holy Trinity for if God changes, He is not God.
And there was no conversion or turning around by Jesus in the Garden. Is this being taught at our seminary? Fr. Olds teaches at the local regional seminary
https://www.svdp.edu/administrationfaculty
https://www.svdp.edu/administrationfaculty
That aside, it seems Fr. Olds thinks Jesus had some sort of conversion/change (" turning around" as he put it) in the Garden of Gethsemane but that is contrary to Tradition as explained in the great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide:
My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me. Absolutely this was possible, but it was impossible according to God’s decree that man was to be redeemed by Christ’s death. Christ knew this, and therefore did not wish for it absolutely, and asks for nothing contrary to His own and the Father’s will. But He merely expresses His natural shrinking from death, His ineffectual and conditionated will, and yet freely submitted Himself to the contrary will of God, that He should die.
Let this cup pass from Me. Calvin here accuses our Lord of hastiness, forgetfulness, ignorance, darkness of mind, inconstancy, and opposition to the Divine will—in fact, ascribing to Him sin. But, as I before observed, Christ took all this upon Him voluntarily, yet in accordance with the will of God. His first act was subordinated to the latter act, and was therefore regulated and ordered by right reason; for nothing in Christ could be disordered and out of place. Reason, then, and the higher nature were justly unwilling that His inferior nature should feel sorrow and horror of death, as stated above. 2. S. Jerome understands by the “cup,” the sin of the Jews. I pray, 0 Father, that I may not suffer at the hand of the Jews, my kinsmen. For in killing Me they commit a most awful crime, and will be punished most severely in hell. But this is too restricted a meaning.
3. The full and adequate meaning is, that this cup of suffering should pass away, even though Thou hast decreed that I should drink it to the dregs; and thus (as Origen says) it should pass away from Himself, and the whole race of mankind.
4. S. Catharine of Sienna offered two other explanations, which she said were revealed to her by Christ. The first, that Christ most eagerly thirsted for this cup, to manifest His love to the Father, and to effect our redemption. He wished to die and suffer immediately. His love admitted not any delay. I wish the cup to pass away, and that I may return at once to Thee. This was the prayer of His spirit, though in His flesh He dreaded death. The two meanings are compatible. But why did He not effect His wish? It was (1) in order to give the martyrs an example of longing for the Cross; (2) Because so many would be unthankful for His Passion, and would die in their sins; and as this was His greatest sorrow, He prays that this “cup” might be taken away, and that all might be saved. But yet He chose to conform Himself to His Father’s will, “Not My will,” &c. So S. Catharine, not taking it literally, but expressing the holy and ardent affection of Christ.
Symbolically: S. Hilary says, “Christ took all our infirmities and nailed them to the Cross, and therefore that cup could not pass away from Him without His drinking it, for we cannot suffer except through His Passion.” May that cup, 0 Father, pass over to My own followers, that when enduring My suffering they may experience also through My gift My strength and power to endure.
S. Bernard (Serm. x. in Cant.) piously and wisely remarks, “The cup Thou didst drink, the mark of our redemption, makes Thee above all things lovely. It is this which readily claims our entire love. It both more tenderly attracts our devotion, more justly demands it, binds us to Thee the more firmly, and affects us the more vehemently. For great was the Saviour’s labour, greater than in the work of creation. For He spake and it was done. But here He had those who contradicted His words, watched His actions, jested at Him in His torments, and reproached Him in His death. Behold how He loved! Learn thou, 0 Christian, from Christ Himself, how to love Him. Learn to love Him sweetly, wisely, and firmly: sweetly, that we may not be allured away; wisely, that we be not deceived; and firmly, that we may not by force be drawn away from the love of the Lord,” &c.
Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt. Here it is plain, as against the Monothelites, that there are two wills in Christ: not only the Divine, to supply the place of the human will, as they said, but the will He had as man, by which He obtained our redemption. The Sixth Synod (Acts 4 and 10) proves that there were in Him two wills, and that the human was by obedience subject to the Divine; and this on the authority of SS. Athanasius, Augustine, Ambrose, and Leo. Nay, rather, though the human will was in itself one, yet in its power and action it was twofold, the one natural, with which it shrank from death; the other rational and free, with which He subjected Himself to the will of God. “Nevertheless, not what I will” naturally, “but what Thou wilt.” By My reasonable will I subject My natural will to Thee, 0 Father, and only will what Thou willest. And, accordingly, the natural will of Christ was conditional and of no avail, because it wished to escape death only under the condition that it pleased God. But His rational will was absolute and effectual, because He embraced death for the same reason that God willed it, that is, for man’s redemption. But the natural will of Christ seemed materially contrary to the Divine will. But by the rule of subordination it was conformable to it, as suffering itself to be guided by the rational will, and thus by the Divine will; and, on the other hand, the will of God, as well as the rational will of Christ, wishes on deliberate and just ground that His natural will should express this natural fear of death. In both aspects, therefore, was the will of Christ in all respects conformable to the Divine. Christ here teaches us, as a moral duty, that our sole remedy in affliction is submission to the Divine will, and that in every temptation we must betake ourselves to the aid of God, who alone can free us from them or strengthen us under them if we submit ourselves humbly, reverently, and lovingly to His will. “This voice of the Head,” says S. Leo, “is the salvation of the whole body; It taught the faithful, it inspired confessors, it crowned the martyrs. For who could overcome the hatred of the world, the whirlwinds of temptations, the terrors of persecution, had not Christ in all and for all said in submission to His Father, Thy will be done?”
Ver. 40. And He cometh to His disciples and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with Me one hour? To gain some consolation, little though it were, and also as having care for His people; thus teaching bishops and pastors to do the like, and to break off prayer in order to visit them. They were sleeping for sorrow, and He speaks to Peter as the head of the rest, and as having so boldly professed his allegiance to Christ.
But observe how gently and tenderly He reproves them. He does not reproach them with their grand promises; but He merely says, “Could ye not?” Ye wished indeed to watch, but I attribute your sleep not to your will, but to your weakness: arouse yourselves, overcome your infirmity, shake off sleep.
Mystically: “He signified,” says S. Irenæus, “that His Passion is the awakening of sleepers.”
Ver. 41. Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. Of denying and forsaking Me for fear of the Jews. If my dangers move you not, may your own do so. There hangs over you the great temptation of denying Me; watch and pray to overcome it. “The more spiritual a man is,” says Origen, “the more anxious should he be lest his great goodness should have a great fall.” Watchfulness and prayer are the great means of foreseeing and overcoming the arts of devils and men.
Enter into temptation. Be not ensnared, as birds in a net and fishes with a hook. Not to be tempted is often not in our own power, nor is it God’s will for us. He wills we should be tempted, to try our faith, to increase our virtue, and to crown our deserts. But we must not enter into temptation, so that it should occupy, possess, and rule over us. So Theophylact and S. Jerome.
The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. I know your readiness in spirit, but your weakness in the flesh. By the flesh is meant our natural feelings, which shrink from suffering and death. Pray, therefore, that your weak flesh may not enfeeble your spirit and compel it to deny Me; but may God by His grace so strengthen both your spirit and your flesh, that ye may not only be ready, but strong to overcome all adversities, so that for My sake ye may eagerly wish for death, and bravely endure it. “The more, therefore,” says S. Jerome, “we trust to the warmth of our feelings, the more let us fear for the weakness of the flesh.” Some understand (less suitably) by “spirit” the devil, by the “flesh” man. That is, the devil is powerful to tempt, man is feeble to resist. Origen, moreover, observes “the flesh of all is weak, but it is only the spirit of the saints which is ready to mortify the deeds of the flesh.” S. Mark adds, “And they knew not what to answer, for they were struck down by their grief, and oppressed with sleep, and had neither sense nor understanding.”
Ver. 42. He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, 0 My Father, if this cup may not pass away unless 1 drink it, Thy will be done. S. Mark says that He used the same words as before. But S. Matthew omitted the first part of the prayer as without efficacy or meaning, and in order to insist on the latter part in which the whole force of the passage consists, and set it forth for our imitation. For Christ absolutely wished and prayed to drink the cup of His Passion, which was decreed and destined for Him by the will of God. For He plainly and expressly asked that the will of God might be fulfilled in Him in and through all things.
ABS was profoundly irked and saddened to hear this claim made in his homily and other than to reject the claims entirely ABS has no idea what to do about this because he has heard many captious and quizzical theological claims made since Vatican Two which are offensive to pious ears and which savor of heresy.
These claims are not allowed by ABS to pitch their tent in his soul, with its aspects of Will, Intellect, Memory, but ABS fears for my Catholic brethren who have not become autodidacts and been learnt Catholic Tradition and who are likely to take these claims at face value and to believe them.
Last week, for instance, the good Msgr (can't remember his name), asked for a show of hands from those who knew what The Easter Duty was - and ABSwas the sole soul who raised his hand (church was packed at 9:30) and my neighbors asked me what it was and ABS told them.
Sadly, the good msgr did not tell the communicants what the Easter Duty was after seeing not a single had raised (IABSwas way in the back).
ABS doubts that ten of the faithful in this Parish can tell you what the different aspects/part of the Mass is.
Us old men were learnt (Baltimore Catechism) the four parts of the Mass by the acronym PART
Petition
Adoration
Reparation
Thanksgiving
but as one continues his autodidact strivings, one learns the more proper classification of the PARTS of the sacrifice
The Holocaust offered to God is a Sacrifice of homage to His sovereign greatness
Sacrifice of Propitiation is offered to appease His Justice arising owing to our sins
Sacrifice of Impetration offered to implore His bounty
Eucharistic Sacrifice offered to thank Him for His bounty.
ABS suspects that were you to ask the faithful to write down the Ten Commandments, less than 10% of them could do it accurately.
ABS will just stick with the Traditional Mass where he has never heard such objective heresies and where the Holy Sacrifice of The Mass is the continuing orthopraxis of Holy Mother Church actualised in a serious, solemn, and sacred atmosphere.
