Edward T. Oakes –the tributes

Edward OakesSince our Fr Edward T. Oakes, SJ, died yesterday morning at the Jesuit residence, St Louis, MO, several people have paid tribute.

Pray to Our Lady of the Way and to the Jesuits and beati for Edward T. Oakes’ peaceful repose.

Here is a sampling:

John Farrell, “Eloquent Critic Of Creationism Passes Away” (Forbes)

R.R. Reno, “Goodbye, Friend” (First Things)

Thomas G. Guarino, “Edward T. Oakes, S.J.: An Appreciation” (First Things)

Carl E. Olsen, “Fr. Edward T. Oakes, S.J., Requiescat in Pace” (The Catholic World Report blog)

Kevin J. Jones, “Jesuit theologian remembered for scholarship, joyfulness” (Catholic News Agency)

my own, “Edward T. Oakes, SJ -RIP” (Communio)

Some of the articles are mere puff pieces publishing because that’s what the establishment does; others say something important. You make a judgement.

Edward T. Oakes, SJ –RIP

Edward T. Oakes FT picToday, one of the Church’s faithful sons died: Father Edward Talbot Oakes, S.J.  He was a true and dear friend to me for many years. Edward turned 65 in May and was diagnosed very shortly thereafter with stage 4 pancreatic and liver cancer; he, like his late brother, were a-symptomatic creating a crisis of health without knowing it until it was late.

One of his many God-given gifts Ed shared with us was his vocation to be a public intellectual, a calling he fully embraced. Just a few weeks ago the Catholic journal on faith and culture, Logos (16.4), published his “Lab Life: Vitalism, Promethean Science, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” But in the past year Ed also published these articles: “Pope Benedict XVI on Christ’s Descent into Hell,” Nova et Vetera (Volume 11, Number 1, Winter 2013) and “Reason Enraptured,” First Things,  (Number 232, April 2013).

Ed’s last significant work was on nature and grace that he finished in late summer and that I had the privilege of reading and acting as one his editors. It is titled, The Candle Within A Theology of Grace as Seen Through Six Controversies (expected from CUA Press).

While the world mourns Nelson Mandela, more locally –in various parts of the USA– many are mourning the loss of the person of Edward Talbot Oakes, a man who changed lives by revealing the face of Jesus Christ.

David Mills of First Things contributed this tribute to Ed.

Thank you, Ed, remember me (us) to the Lord of Life.

The following is the obituary published by the Socius of the Missouri Province of Jesuits. Much more can and will be said and appreciated.

… Father Edward T. Oakes, S.J. died this morning at the Fusz Pavilion in St. Louis, Missouri. He was 65 years old and a Jesuit for 47 years. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, on May 18, 1948, Ed entered the Society of Jesus at St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant, Missouri, on September 1, 1966. He completed a B.A. and an M.A. in Philosophy at Saint Louis University. After teaching English and Theater at St. Louis University High School from 1973 to 1976, Ed earned an M.Div. at Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. He was ordained to the priesthood at St. Francis Xavier (College) Church in St. Louis on June 15, 1979.

From 1980 to 1987, Ed studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he earned a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology. Ed loved studies and pursued them with great eagerness. In 1987 he accepted a visiting professor position at New York University where he taught Theology and the History of Christianity until 1994.

After tertianship at Peter-Faver Kolleg in Berlin, Ed joined the Religious Studies faculty at Regis University in Denver, where he taught for six years. Ed’s enthusiasm for the intellectual life and his joyful personality were appreciated by members of the Jesuit community and his colleagues in the Religious Studies department.

Ed was a prolific writer. His works include Pattern of Redemption: The Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar (New York: Continuum, 1994) and Infinity Dwindled to Infancy: A Catholic and Evangelical Christology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011). The latter work, which provides a survey of doctrinal and historical issues in Christology, won the 2012 Book Prize from the Center for Catholic-Evangelical Dialogue. Ed contributed essays to numerous collections in Theology and regularly published articles in both refereed journals and Catholic periodicals.

In 2002, Ed became a professor of Theology at University of St. Mary of the Lake – Mundelein Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois. His colleagues on the faculty and the seminarians very much appreciated his presence there.

In May 2013, Ed was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. At the time he wrote to his fellow Jesuits, spoke of his strong hope in God and quoted St. Paul: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” For several months, Ed received chemotherapy to slow the growth of the cancer. He finished a writing project and returned to teaching for the fall semester. When his health began to worsen, Ed moved to St. Louis and joined the Pavilion community. He is survived by his sister, Elizabeth D. Oakes, and his sister-in-law, Joanne Oakes. May this joyful and dedicated man rest in peace.

Oakes on nature and grace

Just finished reading and editing a terrific and challenging book on nature and grace yet to be published by my friend Jesuit Father Ed Oakes. It is  tentatively titled, The Candle Within: A Theology of Grace as Seen Through Six Controversies (expected from CUA Press). Oakes is writing this text as a seminary and university text. The Candle Within is likely to be his last significant work, save an essay, since he is battling pancreatic and liver cancer.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for Edward.

Servant of God Father Augustus Tolten, pray for Edward.

No need for a Protestant Giussani today: a brief response to Archie Spencer

Worshipping, preaching and witnessing Jesus Christ as the unique and only Savior of the world is a complicated issue for some Christians today.

A good refresher course in the study of Christ as Savior and Redeemer would be situated in the CDF document Dominus Iesus (2000), or something more substantive as Jesuit Father Edward Oakes’ recent book, Infinity Dwindled to Infancy: A Catholic and Evangelical Christology (Eerdmans, 2011). There are other books to recommend but I am not writing to make those suggestions.

Archie Spencer,ThD, an Evangelical Christian theologian wrote a piece titled: “We stand in need of Protestant Giussani today.” Dr Spencer is a competent theologian with interests in a wide variety of reformed and evangelical matters including Christology. He teaches Systematic Theology at Northwest Baptist Seminary (Canada). In fact, he’s interested in the Christological controversies Christianity faced in the first three centuries of salvation history, particularly the Alexandrian type. Spencer is also versed in the method of Communion and Liberation and its founder, Father Luigi Giussani.  In my opinion, Spencer wrote a well thought-out essay (noted above); Catholics and mainline Protestants ought to read Spencer’s article (and then re-read it) for he clarifies the key point of what it means to be saved by Jesus Christ. He, however, opens a can worms that many in the Protestant world find difficult to preach today: Truth is objective, personal, merciful and exclusive.

It can be argued that orthodox Catholics converge with the Evangelicals in ways (e.g., Christology) many mainline Protestants do not today. I appreciate much of what he proposes: Jesus Christ is either the center of my life, or He’s not; either Christ is my only Savior, or He’s not. Right-believing, right-worshipping and right-living Christians can’t utilize other methods for Christian life. BUT Dr Spencer doesn’t complete the case.

Respectfully, I note two glaringly missing points in Spencer’s article: (1) Christians can’t be satisfied with the separation of the Body of Christ (the Church) with various ecclesial communities; the divisions among Christians is a scandal for those baptized in Jesus Christ. The other matter missing (2) is the issue of right-worship –the sacred Liturgy and sacraments administered by a valid priesthood is the only realistic way to make Christ known, lived and proposed to the world. Protestant worship is missing some very essential matters of right belief. The lex orandi tradition is very limited in Evangelical, Lutheran and Anglican (Protestant) worship.

Hence, I would never be able to support the idea that Christians in other ecclesial communities need a “new” Giussani without wrestling in a more direct way with the fact that unity among Christians and a proper, that is, faithful worship are non-negotiables and that we can’t be satisfied with the religious status quo. To love Luigi Giussani and his Christocentricism is to be catholic and to live the Catholic faith. Christians, including Catholics and Orthodox have Luigi Giussani pointing the way, and exhorting us to live under the banner of Jesus Christ in a Church that lives properly the faith handed down to us from Apostolic times. I doubt that Giussani would say that it is a good thing to keep the divisions in Christianity alive and to worship without the Eucharist and the other sacraments as a reasonable proposal. Giussani always points in an uncompromising way to the fullness of truth as lived in the Roman Church (even to the point of accepting the Church of the millennium).

It is theologically and humanly incoherent to believe otherwise.

Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

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The generosity of the young Virgin Mother of our Savior is honored today. As the prayer below says, Mary was moved by the promptings of the Holy Spirit, we also ought to make God’s greatness known, loved and imitated.

On this feast I want to pray for 4 things:

1. for Giovannimaria, 7, who died yesterday after a prolonged illness;

2. for my friend Fr Edward Oakes, SJ, who was recently diagnosed Type-4 pancreatic and liver cancer;

3. for the Order of the Visitation

4. for those who need visit from a person and who lives a lonely existence.

Mary tells us of God’s mercy given to all generations.

With the Church we pray,

Almighty ever-living God, who, while the Blessed Virgin Mary was carrying your Son in her womb, inspired her to visit Elizabeth, grant us, we pray, that, faithful to the promptings of the Spirit, we may magnify your greatness with the Virgin Mary at all times.

“Building a New World”: exploring human and spiritual issues through film

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“Building a New World” is new initiative Interdisciplinary Centre  for Social Communications of the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome, Italy) beginning today, Friday, 2 March.

This project is focused on film and the power film has in our lives. The premise is: a good film liberates, forms and calls us to a new way of seeing and engaging in reality. Therefore, the good people at the Gregorian are exploring how a good movie or documentary can invite people to greatness through the imagination and research how a poorly written movie with mediocre images can severely handicap one’s openness to the true, the beautiful and the good. Just think of the good Father Robert Barron’s “Catholicism” project is doing for those learning the Catholic faith for the first time or those renewing their faith; or how damaging “The Deputy” was to to the person of Pope Pius XII and the rest of the Church.

Jesuit Father Lloyd Baugh, a professor of film,  told Vatican Radio that the initiative honors the 30th anniversary of the University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Study. It is popular these days to get at human, theological and philosphical issues by the use of film. Friends of mine do it regularly in the schools in which they instruct young minds: Benedictine Father Bede Price teaches a theology and film course at his abbey’s Priory School (St Louis, MO) and Jesuit Father Edward Oakes does so at Mundelein Seminary (outside Chicago, IL). Father Baugh he teaches theology using film as the text for class: Christology through the “Jesus films,” moral issues through the “The Decalogue” of Kieslowski, interreligious dialogue through a whole series of films from different religious traditions and so on.

The current cycle of films starting today will be inaugurated by the Gregorian University Rector Jesuit Father Dumortier, Archbishop Claudio Celli, President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, of Jesuit Father Savarimuthu, director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies at the Gregorian University, and Father Baugh.

The first film is “Welcome.” which focuses on a young Kurdish boy who attempts to illegally enter England, and in doing so encounters other people changing their vision of the world, and ultimately their lives. “Welcome” is a award 2009 winning film directed by Philippe Loiret.

Other films include

March 23: “Water” (2005 Deepa Mehta film) focuses on Asia and on “the right to Freedom” drawing attention to the tragic reality of millions of young girls in India who are promised in marriage to elderly men and widowed shortly thereafter, leaving them destitute for the rest of their lives.

April 20: “La Zona” (2007 Roderigo Pla film) dedicated to the “Americas” and to the “right to Justice”, highlighting the persistent and ever-growing disparity between rich and poor particualrly in Latin America.

May 4: “Son of Man” (2006 Mark Dornford May) looks at the plight of the African continent and its “right to Hope”. May directs a narrative of the Gospel and situating the contemporaneous of the biblical reality of a township outside of Cape Town. The desire for peace is continuously punctuated by violence. It is a look at how Jesus would respond to the human reality before his eyes and what he does to change people’s hearts.

Screenings are free and everyone is welcome. For more information visit: www.unigre.it

Infinity Dwindled to Infancy –reviewed by George Weigel

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Over the summer Jesuit Father Edward Oakes published his latest book, Infinity Dwindled to Infancy.

I posted a blog piece about the Infancy here.

Father Oakes’ book was reviewed by George Weigel on First Things: read it (actually, read the review and the book).
You can now get the book in paper and on Kindle at Amazon.

Infinity Dwindled to Infancy: A Catholic and Evangelical Christology, NEW book by Father Edward Oakes

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Infinity Dwindled to Infancy: A Catholic and Evangelical Christology (Eerdmans, 2011) is due to be released in July. If you pre-order now, there is a discount on Amazon.
Father Oakes utilizes a wide range of works taken from Scripture, theology and literature to explore the questions on the lordship of Jesus Christ. He’s attentive to the Magisterium. The concern is to know what the we, as Christians, believe and teach about who Jesus Christ is, and why. In this book the author is wants to answer this question: what does it mean for an infinite God to become man?
The title of this book is taken from a poem of Jesuit Father Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe.” There the poet says:
“This air, by life’s law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise,
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast,
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race.”
Infinity Dwindled to Infancy has three parts: the data, the history and the teaching on the identity and work of Christ. The work carries an Imprimatur from Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago and the Nihil obstat from Capuchin Father Thomas Weinandy, theologian for the US Conference of Bishops.

Father Edward T. Oakes, SJ, is a professor of systematic theologian teaching at Mundelein Seminary. He is a member of the some time meeting of the Dulles Colloquium (a theological discussion group that was organized by Father Richard J. Neuhaus and Cardinal Avery Dulles) and he is a member of the ecumenical theological discussion group Evangelicals and Catholics Together. Oakes is a frequent writer for First Things and several other periodicals. Oakes is the author of Pattern of Redemption and a co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Hans Urs Von Balthasar. There are several translations done by Father Oakes of Balthasar to note.

Hans Urs von Balthasar: 21 anniv of death

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Just two days before he was to receive the cardinal’s red hat from Pope John Paul II (an honor he declined to accept before) the Swiss theologian Father Hans Urs von Balthasar died. He was preparing to celebrate the morning Mass when the Lord called him home.

Von Balthasar was a prolific author of articles and books. He’s widely known as the kneeling theologian, the starting point from he believed theology ought to be done. With Cardinals Henri de Lubac, Walter Kasper and Joseph Ratzinger he founded the Communio journal (which is published in a numerous languages).

O Lord, we pray Thee that the soul of Thy priest. Thy servant Hans Urs von Balthassar, which, while he abode in this world, Thou didst adorn with sacred gifts, may ever rejoice in a glorious place in heaven. Amen.

A short biography of Father von Balthasar can be read here.

Those wanting a fine  and accessible introduction into the thinking of Hans Urs von Balthasar ought to read Jesuit Father Edward T. Oakes’ book, Pattern of Redemption.