Jansenism takes its name from Cornelius Jansenius, a Dutch theologian who died in 1638. His writings gave rise to a complex movement in Catholic thought and practice that prevailed, principally in France, in the seventeenth century. Its adherents adopted a view of Original Sin, grace, and predestination that was said to arise from the teachings of St. Augustine but was ultimately condemned by the Church. The Jansenists rejected free will and man’s ability to cooperate with God’s grace. Their pessimistic view of the human condition led to a rigorist approach to participation in Holy Communion. They taught that most people, even those free from mortal sin, were unworthy to receive Communion. This rigorist position concerning reception of the Sacrament, although not central to Jansenist thought, came to typify Jansenism in the public mind.
In His private revelations to St. Margaret Mary, Jesus decried the indifference and sacrileges hurled against Him in the Most Blessed Sacrament. Could it be that the theological thought, now a heresy of the Jansenists was what Jesus' had in mind, that the very Love of God in the Divine Person of Jesus Christ was being denied to Christ's Faithful out of a fear of God not a love for Him or an embrace, by our free will, of that Love in the Most Blessed Sacrament received as Food for our pilgrimage to heaven. Was not receiving Holy Communion frequently the sacrilege, even when in a state of Grace?
When priest and laity combined declare six times in The Extraordinary Form of the Mass and only once in the Ordinary Form, "Lord I am not worthy..." we are not doing so in a rigorist way, but simply stating the fact that despite our unworthiness, Christ makes us Holy, makes us Worthy, through his Love made concrete in the Sacrifice of the Cross and our incorporation into the Church He founded through the Sacraments of Initiation and our sacramental life. There is no rigorism intended in the Church's classic or modern liturgy.
Jansenism made its way from France to Ireland by way of Catholic priests who studied in France and took on a particularly virulent form that affected healthy sexuality by corrupting this gift and repressing it. It also affected the Liturgy. Does anyone know how?
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'It also affected the liturgy.' See the Jansenist synod of Pistoia (1786). Its decrees were annulled by Pius VI in 1794.
However, the Jansenists prevailed in the end, since their liturgical aberrations were officially adopted following Vatican II.
That is a very interesting remark by John N. I would like this thread to explore it further, please.
Jansenism was no doubt a disaster. But will the good priest explain why devotion to Christ's Sacred Heart has decereased over the past 50 years? Christ's Heart is after all eternal. Our sexuality lasts from puperty to menopause. So what gives Father?
Speaking of the Sacred Heart: I recalled yesterday how the prayer "Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, I trust in You" literally saved my life from agony and addiction withdrawal, alcoholism, etc.
I had a rough adolescence. By the time I turned 18 and just graduated from high school I was known by name in TWO liquor stores. I used 2 different ones because it was embarrassing to visit same one each day. Plus drugs... surviving getting over this was hard.
Dan, Praise the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of our Blessed Mother! I love these kinds of testimonies!
Devotions in general have decreased over the last 50 years, although there has been a resurgence in devotions since the 1980's with Pope John Paul. And certainly Pope Francis has emphasized these, thanks be to God. I think unhealthy attitudes about human sexuality do not help young people to grow and develop as they should in the moral sphere. Jansenism contributed to this in Europe, especially Ireland.
The liturgical reforms decreed by the late-Jansenist synod of Pistoia included the following.
1. The rites were to be simplified. 2. There should be only one altar in any church. 3. Images should be reduced to the minimum. 4. The vernacular should be employed. 5. The breviary should be revised and simplified.
There was also a strong suggestion that the authority of the clergy was delegated to them by the laity, and that the participation of the laity was required for the Mass.
It was a mixture of Enlightenment rationalism, puritanism and selective archaeologism. Does it ring any bells?
There was also the question of what might be called 'regalism'. The 1780s saw the reign of Joseph II in the Austrian Empire. 'Josephinism' was an extreme form of Gallicanism, and the emperor sought to bring the Church under his control. One of his henchmen was Archbishop Colloredo of Salzburg, a familiar figure to those who have read the life history of Mozart, who was in his employ before he was peremptorily dismissed.
Joseph even took it upon himself to impose a vernacular liturgy. It didn't last.
Remember the Sacred Heart of Jesus on many counter-revolutionary causes. The Vendee in particular.
To say devotion have decreased, Father, is simply to say that the grace received from the sacramental life of the Church has decreased. Let us not blame Jansenism for that because the bitch that bore it was in heat long before it appeared. By the same token the Sacred Heart of Jesus was/is present in St Paul. Only an Augustinian hermeneutic distorted our interpretation so after the ill-fated Vatican Council 2 people began to reduce the Heart of Jesus to an psychological organ of sentiment. Of course in St. Paul 1st Cor. 2: 11-16, where the Apostle says: "The psychikos anthrōpos man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him." "Psychikos anthrōpos" is translated as "natural man," which recalls the dualism of natural and supernatural to modern Catholic minds. However. Paul says that the psychic stands opposed to the noetic, i.e., the nous Christou, i.e., in a Semtic framework the 'heart" of Christ. For the Jew the heart corresonds to what Greeks called "nous." That heart the same that is in us as a work (ergon) of the Incarnation by which we share everything with Jesus save sin then is what is open to the operations of the Holy Spirit. The devotions and pledges of which you speak serve to intensify our awareness of this matter, not necessarily by their words but by the silences the words fashion. With every heart beat there is a silence. We use the words of our devotion to form an objective correlative of that point of silence between heart beats. It is there that the sustaining Spirit can enter in and transform us by Her grace. I say "Her" because in Hebrew and Aramaic the Spirit is feminine as in Genesis, where it speaks of the Ruaḫ Elōhīm hovering over the face of the deep. Cf. Robert Murray, SJ Symbols of Church and Kingdom, who discusses depiction of the Holy Spirit in the Aramaic speaking churches. Your advice to Dan is well-taken but only if he applies it constantly with every heart beat, as it were. Then he will see the results, although he will need a trained spiritual director. But not to worry, when he is ready the director will come just as St Margaret Mary appeared, when affairs in France had reached the pitch of imbalance at Port Royal. Please Father tell us about how Port Royal was a harbinger of Vatican Council 2, which all but ruined my life had it not been for Père Jean-Marie Charles-Roux and Father Gervase Matthew, OP.
Thank you, John. So now I wonder if this was simply a previous attempt by a school of pop theology that eventually succeeded with Vatican II or if It is a vestige of paganism and Original Sin that must be forever guarded against.
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