Why Read The Father's?
Fr Chris Doig writes on why we should read the writings of the Church Father's.
Upon entering St Peter's, one's attention is immediately grabbed by the huge bronze baldacchino that rests over the main altar in the middle of the Basilica. Progressing on towards it, one passes the Pietà, the tombs of some saintly popes, John Paul II, Pope Pius X and Pope John XIII, but it's only when you get deep into the basilica that you can see Bernini's masterpiece, The Chair of Peter up by the back wall. It is an impressive marble piece of four bishops holding up the wooden chair on which – as tradition tells us – St Peter taught the faithful, now enclosed in a gilded bronze throne. Above it, one can see the stained glass window of the Holy Spirit, and it looks as if he, in the form of a dove, were heading straight for us. It is more like He is the One who has drawn us there through the beautiful architecture, past the saintly popes, right back to the very sources themselves – seen in those four towering figures holding up the Chair. They are the Fathers of the Church. The two Bishops on the right hand side are St Athanasius and St John Chrysostom – representing sound Christology and preaching the Word of God. On the left are St Ambrose and St Augustine – who taught the truths about the Holy Trinity, anthropology and how interpret the Scriptures. They represent the two sides of the Church – East and West – or “the two lungs of the Church,” as John Paul II called them. They all come from the fourth century which is the very heart of the patristic period, the Golden Age. It was a time of flourishing in theology and literature. At least half of all patristic writings come from this century!
The four of them capture everything of the Patristic Age : antiquity, solid doctrine, inspiring examples to follow, fortitude, wisdom, knowledge, good writing and preaching but, most importantly of all, they stand as an unchanging body that has survived the test of time. Just as Bernini's masterpiece is heavy and not going anywhere anytime soon, even more so the Fathers of the Church stand as an unchanging and unmoveable authority – they laid the very foundations on which we stand.
The Fathers of the Church are like a good choir : a strong set of bass voices which create a warm, lasting and booming sound throughout the Basilica. We can hear them before we see them. We hear their voice especially in the Church's Saints who were deeply influenced by their writings. We will consider some: St Thomas Aquinas wrote his Catena Aurea which was a collection of commentaries by the Fathers on the Four Gospels; and his Summa Theologiae is filled with Patristic sources, St Augustine, as well as some of the Greeks, Gregory of Nazianzus and Dionysius whom he gets through the writings of St John of Damascus (when they were translated into latin) ; St Alphonsus de Liguori's Glories of Mary is a collection of all patristic thought on Our Lady; St Robert Bellarmine's apology on the Antichrist, in refutation of the errors of the reformers, depends a lot on the patristic sources. There was a revival of the Fathers in the nineteenth century and a figure whom we all know, St John Henry Newman, became a catholic because of these men of antiquity; these early voices pointed to the Catholic Church, because they are its voice! To be in communion with these men of antiquity is to be in communion with the Catholic Church. He also wrote many works on the Fathers, one called The Church of the Fathers (about 4th century Christianity).
The Fathers are also like a fleet of battleships just cruising off the coastline and, at the Church's orders, can fire their powerful canons from antiquity into the modern age. We see this when the Church makes the Solemn proclamation of a dogma, such as the Immaculate Conception in 1854. Pope Pius IX who proclaimed the dogma with Ineffabile Deus referred to the Fathers as an authority on this particular truth about Our Lady. The same went for Pius XII who proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary with Munificentissimus Deus in 1950 – again it was based on the early Tradition and writings of the Fathers, especially St. John of Damascus' three homilies on the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which witnesses the great heights of Patristic theology.
These solemn dogmatic proclamations show how much power the Church has in the Fathers; the five metres tall bronze statues in St Peter's certainly point to their weight in the Deposit of Faith.
If we want to have the patristic choir sing in the depths of our spirits and have them at our finger tips when we need to push the button for a theological artillery strike, then we need to imitate the saints and popes … and get to know the Fathers! They may seem far away but they are present in every aspect of the Faith we currently possess – Trinitarian theology, Christology, anthropology, the sacraments and how to interpret the Bible. It is all there in the Fathers, especially in the tall bronze four, also declared Doctors of the Church. The more we go back and renew our interest in the Fathers of the Church, the more resplendent the truths they once taught become.
The closer we get to them, the more they will show us how to seek the Lord, how to find Him and how to praise Him, so that our minds and hearts can truly rest in God. Let us see that in our desire to turn to the sources, it is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, who leads us there to uncover the beautiful Tradition which is ever ancient and ever new.
Fr Chris Doig, new Priest at St Sylvestors in Elgin, Moray.
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