What Not Complaining Is Not

Rushing in where angels fear to tread, I recklessly announced at the beginning of Lent that I had decided to give up complaining as my Lenten sacrifice. So how’s that been working for you? you ask. Like the old footage of Orville and Wilbur trying to get their plane off the ground, I answer, and for pretty much the same reason – excess baggage.

At first things were going well. On the morning of Ash Wednesday I was actually congratulating myself that I had not yet uttered a complaint. Of course, it was 6 a.m., and I had not yet gotten out of bed, either. By about 7:30, the situation was deteriorating. I found that the outfit that I had been planning to wear to work wasn’t ready. “Great!” I mumbled sarcastically, and then deflated. My first Lenten complaint.

As the day progressed, I made a discouraging discovery – I complain when I’m frightened, I complain when I’m worried, I complain when I’m flustered, I complain when I’m out-of-sorts, I complain when I’m aggravated, and I complain about complaining. Interestingly enough, the biggest obstacle in my quest for a grumble-free existence has been to pinpoint exactly what constitutes grumbling. All my life I have just let it all hang out, as far as griping goes, and now I’m sorting through every thought that strays through my mind and every word that crosses my lips, trying to distinguish the good from the bad and the ugly. So far there’s been a lot more bad and ugly, it seems. But mostly I’m just confused by all the unaccustomed decision-making. What actually constitutes “complaining”?

• I go to get gas in an early March blizzard, and a woman makes small talk with the question, “So, how ya liking the snow?” I answer, “I’m freezing to death!”
  

Was that a complaint? Should I have said, “What a brisk and beautiful way to start a fantastic day!!”? Should I just have smiled and said, “I’m fine; how are you?” Should I have burst into a chorus of “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad!”??

• I’m late for work, and a car pulls out in front of me which appears to have serious engine problems, because there’s no other explanation for the speed at which he’s driving. Of course it’s a one-lane road, and of course it’s the day of our monthly meeting at work, so I kind of need to be there on time today. The car ahead of me is going 20 in a 35; he gets up to 25, but the excessive speed scares him, and he slows back down. “Why me??” I whisper in desperation.
  

Was that a complaint?

• The doctor asks me how I’m feeling. I tell him, “I feel lousy.” Well, it’s true. That’s why I’m at the doctor’s office, for Pete’s sake!
  

Is that complaining??

Words cannot convey to you how hard it’s been for me to think straight these past few days of Lent as I strive to assess every thought and emotion while simultaneously attempting to live and breathe. And that’s not a complaint.

Is it?

Aww, gee….

One thing I have conveniently overlooked all my life is that telling the honest truth is not always a virtue. I have blurted out all kinds of complaints in the name of full disclosure, thinking that it is right, always and everywhere, to complain heartily as long as the sentiments expressed are true, as in “I can’t tell you how much I loathe giving up an hour of sleep because of Daylight Savings Time,” for example. That’s true. That’s also a complaint; no doubt about it. The Catholic Church is slowly but surely teaching me that it is right, always and everywhere, to give Him thanks, for Daylight Savings Time and for everything else that crosses my path, whether said occurrence happens to tickle my selfish little fancy or not.

Pretty much overwhelmed by all the insights and choices forced upon me by my Lenten sacrifice, I turned to the Sacrament of Penance, hoping to obtain the grace to abandon the ways of sin, specifically, the sin of Complaint. Fortunately, I have a very handy aid to confession, and used that to arm myself with a few apt descriptions of my failings. In the confessional I accused myself of ingratitude, of a lack of trust in God, and of a lack of humility (since I seem to think that I should have things my own way in all things). I also accused myself of spreading gloom (ouch). I abstained from confessing that I have pretty much raised sarcasm to an art form; I figured Father was getting my drift. He, for his part, graciously abstained from engaging in sarcasm of his own, like, “Well, it’s about time, Renée!“, simply asking me to make an Act of Contrition, which I did wholeheartedly. I came away from the experience with grace, hopefully enough grace to hold me till confession next Saturday afternoon. I am committed, by God’s grace, to change my lifelong habit of “stewing my life in the juice of my complaints,” as the Holy Father so aptly puts it.

So, I’m learning, and I’m changing. I’ve never been Little Mary Sunshine. I’m concerned that if I change too quickly, my kids may get creeped out like the poor Asian dry cleaning guy in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” the one who whispers “That not my wife!” Kids, I’m still your mom; I’m just better now.

Like I said, creepy.

I’ve made it my project to commit to memory the Magnificat, a passage that I as a Protestant never bothered with. Each time I complain, I try to stop short and pray as much of Mary’s Song as I’ve memorized so far:

My soul magnifies the Lord

And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;

Because He has regarded the lowliness of His handmaid;

For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed;

Because He who is mighty has done great things for me,

and holy is His name;

And His mercy is from generation to generation

on those who fear Him.

He has shown might with His arm,

He has scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.

He has put down the mighty from their thrones,

and has exalted the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich He has sent away empty.

He has given help to Israel, his servant, mindful of His mercy

Even as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his posterity forever.

Luke 1:46-55

It is my hope that the God the Holy Spirit will work in my heart to make the Blessed Virgin’s sentiments my own. As St. Ambrose put it, “Let Mary’s soul be in us to glorify the Lord; let her spirit be in us that we may rejoice in God our Savior.” Amen. If you think of it, you might offer up a prayer for this, my intention.

I wrote this post to try to explain what not complaining is not. Not complaining is not… easy. And that’s not a complaint.

Is it?

Aww, gee….

 

On the memorial of Bl. José Gabriel del Rosario Brochero

Deo omnis gloria!

Common Ground? The Sacraments

On Monday we asked whether Catholics and Protestants can agree on the all-important question of “What must I do to be saved?” Today’s question is related: Is there common ground between Protestants and Catholics on the subject of the Sacraments? Breaking this question down, what are the Sacraments, and are they necessary for salvation?

Once again, it depends on who you ask. Let’s begin with the Catholic position, since it is quite well-defined (we’ve had 2,000 years to think about it).

The whole liturgical life of the Church revolves around the Eucharistic sacrifice and the sacraments. There are seven sacraments in the Church: Baptism, Confirmation or Chrismation, Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony. “Adhering to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures, to the apostolic traditions, and to the consensus . . . of the Fathers,” we profess that “the sacraments of the new law were . . . all instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord.” Jesus’ words and actions during his hidden life and public ministry were already salvific, for they anticipated the power of his Paschal mystery. They announced and prepared what he was going to give the Church when all was accomplished. The mysteries of Christ’s life are the foundations of what he would henceforth dispense in the sacraments, through the ministers of his Church, for “what was visible in our Savior has passed over into his mysteries.” Sacraments are “powers that comes forth” from the Body of Christ, which is ever-living and life-giving. They are actions of the Holy Spirit at work in his Body, the Church. They are “the masterworks of God” in the new and everlasting covenant. CCC 1113-1116

So, those are the Sacraments in a pretty impressive little nutshell. There are quite a few different nutshells on the Protestant side of the divide, of all shapes and sizes. Some denominations will tell you there aren’t any sacraments, most will claim that there are two, and a few denominations will propose more than that. One thing most Christians can agree on is that the Sacraments are something that God does. And therein lies the rub….

A Lutheran confessional

For Lutherans, there are two, maybe three sacraments – Baptism and Eucharist (communion), with a dubious addition of Penance (confession) – Luther originally taught that there were three sacraments, then backed off on Penance, and thus there are few Lutherans who practice “Holy Absolution.” Affirmation of Baptism (Confirmation), Holy Matrimony and Anointing of the Sick are practiced, but are considered to be non-sacramental rites. Anglicans and Episcopalians recognize Baptism and the Eucharist as “dominical” (“of the Lord”) sacraments, and may or may not offer the “sacramental rite” of Reconciliation. In Presbyterian denominations, Baptism and the Eucharist are considered sacraments; Presbyterians marry and ordain (some confirm, others do not), but do not consider these to be sacraments. Methodists recognize Baptism and the Eucharist as sacraments; while they perform the rites of Confirmation, Ordination, Holy Matrimony, and Anointing of the Sick, for Methodists those are not sacraments. In other words, all of these denominations would agree that God works (in one way or another) through baptism and holy communion; this is why baptism and holy communion are considered sacraments. On the other side of the sacramental divide, Evangelical denominations (Baptists, nondenominational churches) believe that baptism and holy communion are not something that God does – they are, rather, something that Christians do in obedience to God. They therefore prefer to refer to baptism and communion as ordinances. Thus, if you ask Evangelicals how many sacraments they recognize, they will say “none,” even though they do baptize and participate in the Lord’s Supper. Some Baptists recognize foot washing (as performed in Catholic parishes on Holy Thursday) as an ordinance, and engage in it on a regular basis. Members of the Church of the Brethren do the same, and would add anointing to their list of ordinances. Quakers and members of the Salvation Army recognize no sacraments by any name; they do not baptize, nor do they receive communion.

And so we observe a gradual paring-down of the Sacraments, from the Catholic understanding of 7 Sacraments, to the mainline Protestant belief in 2 sacraments, to the Evangelical acceptance of 2, or 3, or 4 ordinances only, to no sacraments or ordinances whatsoever. All of this hinges, as I said, on the understanding of what a Sacrament is and what it accomplishes. To the minimalists, baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ordinances, not sacraments, meaning that they are commands that believers obey. No grace is conferred; the fulfillment of the ordinance merely symbolizes something important. Let’s examine the Catholic position again. To Catholics, while the Sacraments are symbols, they are at the same time much, much more than symbols:

Celebrated worthily in faith, the sacraments confer the grace that they signify. They are efficacious because in them Christ himself is at work: it is he who baptizes, he who acts in his sacraments in order to communicate the grace that each sacrament signifies. The Father always hears the prayer of his Son’s Church which, in the epiclesis of each sacrament, expresses her faith in the power of the Spirit. As fire transforms into itself everything it touches, so the Holy Spirit transforms into the divine life whatever is subjected to his power.

This is the meaning of the Church’s affirmation that the sacraments act ex opere operato (literally: “by the very fact of the action’s being performed”), i.e., by virtue of the saving work of Christ, accomplished once for all. It follows that “the sacrament is not wrought by the righteousness of either the celebrant or the recipient, but by the power of God.” From the moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the intention of the Church, the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through it, independently of the personal holiness of the minister. Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them. CCC 1127-1128

This is where the Protestant and the Catholic understanding of sacraments diverge. Calvin, who taught that Baptism and Holy Communion are sacraments, stated unequivocally: “The sacraments do not confer grace.” Adherents of Reformed theology found the theological concept of ex opere operato (“by the very fact of the action’s being performed”) to be superstitious, making out of the Sacraments “magical rites,” as R.C. Sproul calls them, “that people rely on for salvation instead of faith in Christ alone.” While pooh-poohing the belief that sacraments confer grace, Sproul writes that Calvinists “confess that baptism is a real means of grace wherein the Spirit strengthens our faith and reminds us of the work of Christ” (wrenching the whole discussion back to “faith alone,” the be-all and end-all of the Protestant experience). Believing that the Sacraments are outward or sensible signs instituted by Christ to give grace requires, apparently, too much faith. This Reformed devaluation of the Sacraments further devolved into the prevailing Evangelical belief that the Sacraments are not even somehow “a real means of grace,” but mere symbols that Jesus insisted that we reenact to remind ourselves and the world of His life, death and resurrection. The Lord’s Supper, as it is called, is seldom celebrated in Evangelical churches, simply because nobody quite knows what to make of this “symbol.” When I partook of the crackers and the grape juice as an Evangelical, I would become disgruntled, thinking guiltily that I could have come up with a better “symbol” than eating Saltines and drinking Welch’s. As Catholic Flannery O’Connor famously quipped, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.

The Church takes the Sacraments extremely serious, for obvious reasons. Jesus Himself stated that Baptism and Holy Communion are necessary for salvation:

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Jn 3:5

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. Jn 6:53-54

Of course, you can mock the literal understanding of these verses as superstition, or you can admit that you lack the faith to take Jesus at His word. To the Church:

Sacraments are “powers that comes forth” from the Body of Christ, which is ever-living and life-giving. They are actions of the Holy Spirit at work in his Body, the Church. They are “the masterworks of God” in the new and everlasting covenant.

Okay, you’ve got to admit that the whole Catholic explanation sounds grand, yet Evangelicals have one very compelling objection to the Catholic understanding of the Sacraments. There are Evangelicals who live at a level of spirituality that puts many sacrament-partaking Catholics to shame. How can this be, skeptical Protestants demand, if the Sacraments confer such incredible graces, and our ordinances are mere symbols?
If the Church is right about the Sacraments,
shouldn’t things be the other way around?

From the moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the intention of the Church, the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through it, independently of the personal holiness of the minister. Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them. CCC 1128

The subject under discussion has now shifted from the Sacraments and the graces they confer to the fruits of the Sacraments. The complaint that many Catholics bear no fruit is certainly a valid one. People can receive a sacrament and yet bear no fruit because they are not properly disposed. Let’s say I tootle into Reconciliation, confess all my sins and receive absolution, without repenting of those sins; in fact, I plan to go out and commit them all again next weekend. One thing the Catholic Church and our separated brethren can agree on is that the Sacraments aren’t magic – I can fool the priest with crocodile tears, but don’t expect to see me growing more Christ-like as a result of the sacrament! Another consideration would be that, while grace is always abundantly available in any given sacrament, sacrament-partaking Catholics are not forced thereby to automatically bear fruit. I can receive all the grace I need from my reception of the Holy Eucharist to aid me in showing forbearance towards irksome family members, but at the same time I can still choose to explode when they refuse to play Parcheesi with me. That explains unfruitful Catholics. How to explain non-sacrament-partaking, Christ-like Protestants? While the divine life of grace is primarily imparted to us through the Sacraments, it is not exclusively imparted through the Sacraments, explaining why an untold number of properly-disposed Protestants live faith-filled, God-honoring lives by availing themselves of the graces God grants them through spiritual communion, prayer and Bible-reading. Uninstructed Catholics may surmise that sacraments like Confirmation and the Holy Eucharist somehow work automatically, or that being Catholic is some kind of guarantee of being spiritually fruitful, neither fallacy being taught by the Church – or they may just not care. There are Protestants who, while rejecting the incredible outpouring of grace in the Sacraments, are at least sharp enough not to spurn the grace offered to them by other means. Those Protestants put fruitless Catholics to shame.

On the Catholic side of the aisle, the saints are the best example of the grace that flows freely through the Sacraments, wild, tumultuous, inexhaustible grace that sanctifies and produces holy fruit. With that wealth of grace available to us, Catholics have no excuse for living mediocre lives, just as the child of a billionaire has no excuse for wearing rags and eating out of garbage cans. The grace is there in the Sacraments, like a fortune in the bank, but remember – God’s never going to force you to make a withdrawal and spend it. What you do with your fortune is still up to you.

 

On the memorial of Sts. Cyril and Methodius

Deo omnis gloria!

The Bible-Only Zone

(Cue the bongo drums….)

Imagine, if you will, a world beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of sola Scriptura theology. You’ve just crossed over into… The Bible-Only Zone.

As an Evangelical Protestant, my beliefs all came “straight from Scripture.” If there was no “chapter-and-verse” for a particular doctrine, I felt myself to be under no obligation to buy into it. I looked down on groups which “added” to the Bible by attempting to integrate their own “man-made” theologies into the teachings of the inerrant Word of God to produce something other than what (I thought) the Bible actually said. Of course, I wished that God had been a tad more explicit on several occasions; some verses could be taken more than one way, and some – I had to admit – did not clearly state the case that I as an Evangelical was making. What really bothered me, though, wasn’t what the Bible didn’t state clearly enough; what bothered me were some of the things that the Bible stated all too clearly, things that should have been impossible, theologically speaking, if my Evangelical theology was actually correct. Sometimes the Bible said weird things, things that just gave me the willies….

It started way back in the Old Testament, in a book that is as old or older than those of the Pentateuch: the book of Job. Job’s tale is pretty familiar to most people. He was a man who loved and served God. God had blessed him immensely, and Satan claimed that Job loved God only because of those blessings. When God stripped Job of everything that made his life worth living, Job remained faithful to God. As an Evangelical I had no problem with that lesson! A great story of faith in God – “the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord!”

No, the problem lay in what that man of God was doing as the story opens:

His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” Thus Job did continually.

Job offered sacrifices; in other words, he made reparation for his children’s sins. This activity is presented as being part of what made him a righteous man. Now clearly this was before the establishment of the New Covenant, so we shouldn’t be shocked at the image of God’s faithful servant offering up burnt sacrifices for the sins of his offspring. The problem is, why did God allow that kind of loving parental intercession in the Old Testament, but not in the New? (For a poignant discussion of this, go here. A Protestant dad is wishing there were some way he could make reparation for the sins of his children as Job did – he is told that he can’t.) Isn’t the New Covenant superior in every way to the Old? And didn’t this pious act of Job’s fit in suspiciously well with John’s advice in the book of 1 John, advice that – I had to admit – did not really mesh with anything in my Evangelical belief system?

If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not leading to death. We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.

Why would John tell us that we can intercede for others and God will “give life” to them, just as Job was doing thousands of years earlier on behalf of his children, if that system of reparation had been “abolished,” as my theology told me?? And what was Paul muttering about in his letter to the Colossians?

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church….

Didn’t Jesus come to fulfill, and not to abolish the old system?

Weird….

(The bongos reverberate a little more insistently at this point…)

And speaking of fulfilling, not abolishing, what was the deal with the priesthood? In the Old Testament, God set up a hierarchical system of priests with a High Priest in charge. In the New Testament, Jesus is our High Priest – and the part of the ministerial clergy is played by the laity, as explained in 1 Peter 2:9.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

The Old Testament ministerial priesthood was replaced by something even better: the universal priesthood, something unheard of in the Old Testament!

But wait… What’s that verse in Exodus?

Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine, and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Every Israelite under the Old Covenant was a “priest” and yet still subject to the ministerial priesthood God established under the leadership of Aaron and his successors! The royal priesthood of believers existed in the Old Testament alongside the ministerial priesthood? Then how could the New Testament fulfillment of that system be the abolition of the ministerial priesthood?

(Hey, somebody needs to tell the bongo guy to take five….)

And there were equally spooky New Testament passages. John 20: 19-23 was pretty disconcerting to me as an Evangelical. Jesus appears to His apostles for the first time after His resurrection, He shows them His hands and His side, and He tells them to have faith alone – (wait, no.) He tells them that no matter how they live, they can’t lose their salvation – (no, that isn’t it, either.) He appears to His apostles and grants them the ability to forgive sins. Not only that, He gives them the prerogative of refusing to forgive sins!

So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. “If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”

Dearie me –
that can’t be right!

We had all kinds of ways of explaining that passage (away), each one as dumb as the next. But how could that verse be in the Bible when every Evangelical KNOWS that no man has the power to grant absolution???

(Sounds like the bongo guy must have downed a couple of Red Bulls before coming to work….)

Almost as spooky as Jesus’ announcement to his apostles were the priorities of those apostles in the first chapter of Acts. Jesus ascends into Heaven, and we find these men busily hashing out bureaucratic minutiae! Peter is insisting that Judas’ place MUST be filled. Why, pray tell? Aren’t there more important things to be doing? What is the thinking behind the absolute necessity of filling Judas’ position, as if it were an “office”? Oh, wait, the Bible actually says it was an “office!”

For it is written in the Book of Psalms, “‘May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it’; and “‘Let another take his office.'”

An “office,” meaning that when the man who held the office died, another man would fill the office, kind of like apostolic succession….

And then there was the infamous “Handkerchief Incident.” Handkerchiefs touched to Paul’s apron healed the sick. An Evangelical has got to draw the line very clearly, and that was where I drew it.  That sounds like the Catholic teaching on relics – the idea that an object in contact with the body of a saint can be used by God to perform a miracle!
Impossible!

So what was that verse doing there in Acts 19:12?

(Those bongos are plucking my last nerve!)

And don’t even get me started on the book of Revelation. We Evangelicals, with our “end-times” obsession, LOVED the book of Revelation – well, certain parts of it, anyway. There were parts that were distinctly un-Protestant in their theology, like Revelation 19:7-8

…the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

Now, seriously, every good Christian knows that we are “clothed in the righteousness of Christ,” (but where is THAT verse in the Bible?) not in our good works!! How Catholic can you get??? We tried to explain that away by pretending that the “righteous acts” were each believer’s decision to follow Christ. No, really – we actually stooped to that level of tortured exegesis, because the dang verse didn’t say what it was supposed to say….

Which sheds light on the decision by the committee of our New International Version of the Bible to translate the word “works,” which Jesus uses over and over again in chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, as “deeds.” Otherwise, those comments that Jesus made to the churches would read:

I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance (Rev 2:2)

I know your works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but you are rich) (Rev 2:9)

I know your works and where you dwell (Rev 2:13)

I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first (Rev 2:19)

‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. (Rev 3:1)

I know your works. (Rev 3:8)

I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. (Rev 3:15)

Talk about an obsession with “works!” But Jesus would never have said a thing like that!  Jesus wasn’t about “works!”  He was about “faith alone”!  Why, it is upon our faith alone that we will be judged!  All the New Testament judgment scenarios emphasize that fact!

Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.’ Mt 7:21-23

For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he shall reward everyone according to their works. Mt 16:27

But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. Mt 25:31-46

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. 2 Cor 5:10

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.” If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth; knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. 1 Pet 1:17

Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. Rev 22:12

So where’s the faith alone?? Nowhere to be found in any judgment scenario in the New Testament! How is it possible that Jesus never, ever made any mention of the most important theological principle of all – faith ALONE?

Ever.

That noise you just heard was me shooting the bongo player….

All of those “bizarre” verses and passages fell into the category of, well, not exactly paranormal activity, but still from an Evangelical Protestant standpoint, pretty darn weird. It was sufficiently strange to make me uncomfortable whenever I came across those verses. And if that wasn’t enough – the deuterocanonical books (which I would have called the Apocrypha) contained a particularly eerie passage. The Angel Raphael is explaining to Tobit:

“I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who stand and serve before the Glory of the Lord.” Tobit 12:15

Yawn! That’s not Holy Scripture – that’s just a fairy tale somebody made up.

Just a fairy tale? The supposedly uninspired author who made up this “fairy tale” about St. Raphael just happened to be right about this hitherto unknown fact – there are seven angels who stand before God’s throne. Hundreds of years later it is confirmed in the book of Revelation:

Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne (Rev 1:4)

And I saw the seven angels who stand before God…. (Rev 8:2)

If the hair isn’t standing up on your Bible-only neck yet, it should be….

There are passages in the Bible that defy Evangelical explanation; by rights, those verses and the theology that underlies them simply should not be there. Those passages are danced around, kept under wraps, and explained away by a belief system that fails to account for significant Biblical themes such as redemptive suffering, auricular confession, apostolic succession, the concept of relics, and the insistence on faith (as opposed to faith alone) – in short, things that shouldn’t exist, but do, in The Bible-Only Zone….

 

On the memorial of Blessed Maria Restituta

Deo omnis gloria!

Ultrasound

The world passed one dubious milestone in the year 1958 – my birth – and another far more significant one with the publication of the article entitled Investigation of Abdominal Masses by Pulsed Ultrasound by Ian Donald in the British medical journal “The Lancet.” Dr. Donald was a pioneer in the field of diagnostic ultrasound, and although ultrasound technology was in its infancy (as Dr. Donald put it: “…we are very far from satisfied with the crude results so far obtained”), it was evident that great things lay ahead.

If only Dr. Donald could see us now!

A colleague of mine recently conceived, and she shared with us the ultrasound images taken in her doctor’s office. I could not believe how the art of ultrasonography has progressed since my two pregnancies 20 years ago. Back then, when the technician presented me with a copy of the ultrasound, she had to explain to me, “Here’s the head, and here’s the left arm,” and I simply took her word for it. Looking at the ultrasonic images my colleague showed us, I could interpret them all by myself – they were that clear. What a priceless gift for the parents-to-be!

Of course, the ability to share ultrasound images with expectant mothers has proved priceless for the pro-life movement as well, for now a woman can actually see the baby whose life she is considering terminating. And that makes her decision in one way easier, and at the same time more difficult – easier because she is making a more informed decision, and harder for the same reason.

When Roe v. Wade went into effect 40 years ago, women who wanted to abort their offspring had it easier. It was easy to convince oneself that what one was doing was not wrong, because what was being aborted was a clump of cells, the products of conception. Nowadays at 2 months into the pregnancy, in other words, about the time that it’s dawned on a woman that she is pregnant, an ultrasound can introduce her to the baby she’s carrying inside her womb. It’s pretty hard to argue with those ultrasound images. It’s a baby, all right, not a clump or a product. And so the people who previously would have convinced themselves that on this side of the womb it’s – of course – a baby, but on that side of the womb it’s – of course – tissue, have had the issue clarified for them. Folks used to suspect that they might be killing somebody. Now they can see that “somebody” for themselves.

None of this would be necessary in a perfect world, but human beings have the most insane ability to deny whatever they don’t want to be true. This is not limited to the sin of abortion, however – hiding from the truth goes back as far as Adam and Eve ducking for cover when they heard the Lord asking where the apple went. If facing the truth can be avoided, human beings will somehow find a way to do it.

“You were gossiping,” your conscience informs you. “You need to go to confession.”

Who, me? Gossiping?
Okay, in the first place, I’m a good person. Everybody knows that. Several people at work have mentioned that I’m a kind of role model to them, and my neighbor credits my influence with convincing her to go back to church. So it hardly seems possible that I was committing the sin of gossip. I mean, define “gossip.” I was discussing my coworker’s marital situation, or lack of it. It’s not like I went looking for people to discuss this with; they came to me. And I wasn’t the one making the snide remarks. Everything I said was strictly factual. And didn’t I end the conversation with a pious “Well, I’ll pray for her; that’s all I can say”? And while we’re at it, define “sin”! It was venial at most. I’m lectoring at the Saturday Vigil Mass. I’d be embarrassed to stand up there and lector after confessing to Father that I was a gossip. What would he think? Other people commit far worse sins, and you never see them at confession! I’m not going to sweat this – I just have an overactive conscience. Maybe I need a vacation….

If facing the truth can be avoided, human beings will somehow find a way to do it….

It seems to me that what we sinners need is some kind of spiritual ultrasound, an experience that would serve to show us what is really going on inside of us, making it much, much harder to deny what we already suspect may be true….

 

Et voilà! Spiritual ultrasound.

Lay your life out before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and ask Him to show you what’s really going on. Truth penetrates to the heart of the issues that we prefer to keep hidden, and Light illumines the dark corners of the soul. Eucharistic adoration isn’t just about us telling Jesus how much we love Him; it’s also about listening to Him tell us how much He loves us. If you listen, He’ll love you right into the confessional, where you can get some of those wrinkled perspectives of yours ironed out.

Eucharistic adoration will make your life easier, and more difficult – for if you ask Him, Jesus will tell you what He sees when He looks at your heart. Then you will have to make some choices. For those yearning to follow more closely after the Truth and the Light, Eucharistic adoration is waiting. Don’t miss your chance – get your spiritual ultrasound today, and may His grace bestowed upon you be not in vain.

 

On the feast of the Nativity of Mary

Deo omnis gloria!

Evelyn Waugh, Pray for Us

Artur Rosman’s intriguing blog, Cosmos The In Lost, recently featured a beautiful, beautiful quote from Catholic convert Evelyn Waugh (you know, the guy who wrote what Father Barron called the greatest Catholic novel of the 20^th century – Brideshead Revisited). Apparently when his friend Nancy Mitford (who, like Waugh, was one of the Bright Young Things of 1920’s England) complained to Waugh that despite his conversion to Catholicism he was, well, still such a jerk, Waugh answered forthrightly, “You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being.”

That quote took me, oddly enough, right back to my college days, riding home from youth group with my Lutheran friend, Holly, whom I accompanied to church on occasion back then. “Why are Christians such jerks??” she ranted. She was complaining bitterly about one young man in particular, an enthusiastic Lutheran who held some pretty objectionable opinions and wasn’t shy about publicizing them. He drove her crazy with his gauche remarks and behavior. If he was a Christian, why didn’t he act like one???

So, it’s not just Evelyn Waugh, apparently. Why are Christians such jerks?

Yeah. Why?

Well, there are several possible explanations, the most obvious being that there is no God and therefore when one “gets religion,” basically no change occurs. Small wonder that there is little evidence of reform. Just t-r-y-i-n-g, by sheer force of will, to live up to all those pious expectations laid out in Scripture gets some people farther than others, but since there is no “supernatural aid” to be had, you may turn over a new leaf or two, but it’s nothing for the world to get excited about.

Protestants offer other perspectives on the conundrum. There is, of course, a God, and He does, of course, provide supernatural aid. So, how to explain the “jerk factor”? Some Evangelicals basically overlook sin in their lives and in the lives of their co-religionists, provided, of course, that the sin falls into certain pre-approved categories (which is to say, the sins of gluttony and gossip get a free pass, but swearing and alcohol abuse will not be tolerated; marital infidelity can be forgiven, but homosexual acts cannot; cohabitation is unthinkable, but divorce for just about any reason is no problem.) “Sanctification” isn’t a popular topic in these circles; “evangelization” is. Christians shouldn’t sin, but the important thing is evangelization – even if your “Christian walk” isn’t what it should be, you need to convince others of their need for a Savior. This perspective leads to the interesting personal anecdote told by Evangelical Bill Bright of how he took the opportunity to evangelize the police officer who pulled him over to give him a ticket for breaking traffic laws. Let’s not talk about my transgressions, officer – let’s talk about yours….

Many Protestants, of course, take a decidedly less cavalier approach. They are very, very serious about sin. Former Church of Christ minister Bruce Sullivan wrote about the torment habitual sins caused him:

We had a song in our Church of Christ hymnal entitled “Did You Fully Repent?” I would often reason to myself that, surely, if I had fully repented, I would not find myself so beset by habitual sins. I honestly cannot recall how many times I walked the aisle of a church seeking the spiritual strength I needed in order to live the faith I professed. More than once I thought that something was lacking at the time of my baptism. Consequently, I was baptized on three different occasions within the Church of Christ. (Bruce Sullivan, Christ in His Fullness)

As Sullivan (who was reconciled to the Church in 1995) explains it:

The problem, however, was not so much the ability to accept the forgiveness of Christ after initial justification as it was determining whether initial justification had actually been received based upon the reality of subsequent moral failure. This left me in the agonizing position of trying to determine whether my faith was truly a saving faith.

Translation: I’m still a jerk! Am I really saved???

How I would like to appear to others

This is where the sacraments come in. The Church teaches that we are born again in baptism; therefore, as baptized Christians we need never question the reality of our initial justification. The Catholic Church would never “rebaptize” someone who felt that “something was lacking” in his baptism. The truth is, though, that SINS are washed away in the baptismal font – habits are not. Grasping this distinction between sins and proclivities was a real problem for me when, as a new Catholic, I began frequenting the Sacrament of Reconciliation; I insisted on confessing tendencies, as in “When the going gets tough, I just tend to wimp out…” or “I’m not a very loving person, but I know God wants me to be,” leaving the poor priest muttering something that sounded like “Number and kind! Number and kind!” What I was trying to confess was that I was a sinner with sinful inclinations – what did I expect the priest to do for me?? Jesus gave His apostles (and by extension, their successors and those ordained priests by their successors) the authority to absolve penitents of their SINS: actual acts of disobedience against God. Sinful inclinations are a whole ‘nother kettle of concupiscence.

How I actually appear to others

The Catholic Church takes quite seriously St. Paul’s command to the Philippians, and instructs the faithful to work out their salvation. We are NOT a finished product. Our sins are forgiven when we receive the sacrament of Baptism; of that we can be sure. Through baptism we have entered the body of Christ. Our sinful inclinations, however, stay with us. We have accumulated habits aligned with those inclinations that come far more naturally to us than does Christ-like behavior. And so we often revert to type, and sin. For that reason, the sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Communion were instituted, whence the Christian, born again through baptism, receives the grace to begin chipping away at those nasty habits and to start the long, slow process of healing the self-inflicted wounds that our sins have left in their wake – and to stop sinning. This is what distinguishes our efforts from self-help programs, for as St. Augustine assures us:

Hence also that grace of God, whereby His love is shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us, must be so confessed by the man who would make a true confession, as to show his undoubting belief that nothing whatever in the way of goodness pertaining to godliness and real holiness can be accomplished without it.

You see, the question isn’t, are we perfect yet? There’s simply no question about that for the vast majority of us; the answer is NO. The question is, are we okey-dokey with the status quo? I’m okay – you’re okay? That’s NOT okay. If we are struggling against our tendencies towards gossip, lust and covetousness, availing ourselves of the Sacrament of Penance when we succumb, and sustaining the new life within us through our reception of Holy Communion, then we are actively working out our own salvation, as St. Paul commanded. Anything short of that struggle is not Christianity.

If you entered the Church in possession of, or rather, possessed by an ego the size of a barn, you won’t become instantaneously humble – that’s why we pray the Litany of Humility. Perhaps you’re best known at the time of your conversion as a major whiner; the notion that you’d best stop may not dawn on you for years. Praying the Psalms should help redirect that impulse. You may be – by nature or by upbringing – an inordinately suspicious person with a low threshold for frustration, someone who is not in the habit of keeping his promises and even less likely to admit his mistakes, a piker, a potty mouth, and a fraud. Join the club. The sacraments give us the grace to endure the rock tumbler into which are placed those ugly, common stones known as Christians. Through the seemingly endless process of tumbling and scraping known as “life,” we lose our rough edges. Some of us begin to shine a little, although it depends on what kind of stones we are to begin with, as well as our commitment to the process. Others of us keep hopping out of the tumbler because the polishing process hurts, particularly when we get scratched by other rocks in the barrel. How can they act like that? The jerks!!! And there are those who simply refuse to continue to participate because, since instant gratification (in the form of holiness) isn’t part of the package deal of “getting saved,” the claims for Christianity have supposedly been proved bogus by their own experience, or rather, lack of it.

Yet the Church has never touted instant holiness as a by-product of conversion, for the simple reason that the Church believes conversion to be a lifelong process. Catholics, in fact, believe this process to be so necessary yet so potentially lengthy that anything not fully addressed in this life will be completed after death in Purgatory. The Church openly advertises herself as a hospital for sinners, though what we all desperately want it to be is an art gallery – with saints on display. Saints are the finished product, the fruit of a life lived under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit Who indwells the sinner. There ARE saints in the Church, alongside the Evelyn Waughs, alongside the you’s, alongside the me’s. To those you’s and me’s, as well as to the saints, the author of Hebrews penned an urgent reminder:

Your protest, your battle against sin, has not yet called for bloodshed; yet you have lost sight, already, of those words of comfort in which God addresses you as his sons; My son, do not undervalue the correction which the Lord sends thee, do not be unmanned when he reproves thy faults. It is where he loves that he bestows correction; there is no recognition for any child of his, without chastisement. Be patient, then, while correction lasts; God is treating you as his children. Was there ever a son whom his father did not correct? No, correction is the common lot of all; you must be bastards, not true sons, if you are left without it. We have known what it was to accept correction from earthly fathers, and with reverence; shall we not submit, far more willingly, to the Father of a world of spirits, and draw life from him? They, after all, only corrected us for a short while, at their own caprice; he does it for our good, to give us a share in that holiness which is his. For the time being, all correction is painful rather than pleasant; but afterwards, when it has done its work of discipline, it yields a harvest of good dispositions, to our great peace. Come then, stiffen the sinews of drooping hand, and flagging knee, and plant your footprints in a straight track, so that the man who goes lame may not stumble out of the path, but regain strength instead. Your aim must be peace with all men, and that holiness without which no one will ever see God.

The Christian life is one long life of correction, one long “battle against sin” – some, enabled by grace, embrace the battle and flourish; some reject it and wither. But we must always bear in mind that when we lie, cheat and steal, no one can ask “Why don’t you act like a Christian???” We ARE acting like Christians – check out the epistles to the Corinthians if you doubt that. We ARE NOT acting like Christ.

Jesus is the Fount of all Holiness, and fortunately for us, He is also the Vine. When we branches are grafted onto the Vine, we begin to produce the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, in other words, the beginnings of “that holiness without which no one will ever see God.” I may not evidence much self-control, for example, when I first enter the Church. Check back with me later. After a while, I may still not evidence much self-control, but if I am grieved by this, if I still struggle, and pray, and work for this fruit, then I am still connected to the Vine and there is hope. As Hebrews puts it, I am protesting and battling against the sin in my life. The fact that I am not yet perfect simply illustrates that God’s work in me has not yet come to full fruition. If you are concerned about my continued lack of self-control, for Christ’s sake pray for me, as St. John advised:

If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death.

The stones in the tumbler have been commanded to pray for each other as the grit grinds down the imperfections. If you refuse to pray for me because you find my remaining imperfections off-putting, you clearly have a few remaining imperfections of your own that you need to address….

I have two children. My son was an easy baby who grew into an easy child. Gentle, polite, solicitous, well-mannered – I received no end of compliments about how well I’d raised my son. His sister, who suffered from full-blown obsessive-compulsive disorder in her youth (she is doing much better now, thank you), was a pain-and-a-half: difficult, uncooperative, bright as a penny but very, very hard to deal with. When people complimented me on my well-behaved son, I had a terrible urge to blurt out, “It’s none of my doing – that’s his nature. If you want to compliment me, compliment me on what a great job I’ve done raising his temperamental sister! You have no idea what a disaster she would be if it weren’t for me and my love for her!”

And God looks at me and says the same thing.

So pray for us, Evelyn Waugh – you who bumbled and grumbled your way to God, you who were also a work in progress, you who, like us, would have been “much nastier” had it not been for the redeeming power of Christ in His sacraments. Pray that our apathy may not make us appear to be evidence against the grace of God poured out through His Church. Pray for fervor, and for a horror of sin that stiffens our resolve. Pray for a daily, and even moment-by-moment commitment to the battle as we tumble in the barrel that is our life in Christ. And pray for perseverance, that with the aid of the sacraments we may be found, perhaps not perfect, but ready when the Bridegroom comes to call.

 

On the memorial of St. John Eudes

Deo omnis gloria!

Tom, Dick and Teri Talk Again

Tom, Dick and Teri are friends who all work at the same big company. Although each is a member of a different Protestant denomination, they meet for lunch to encourage one another in their Christian walk. On this particular day, Tom arrives last, and is surprised to find Teri and Dick glaring at each other over their macaroni and cheese.

“Hey guys! What’s up?

Dick looks down at his plate as Teri pipes up.

“Oh, not much! I just found out that Dick here is a heretic, that’s all.”

Tom does a double-take and seats himself across from Dick. “Dude,” he asks in a stage whisper, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Dick scowls as Teri chatters. “Well, don’t feel bad – he didn’t tell me, either. It seems our friend here is calling into question the reliability of the Word of God!”

Tom refuses to take the bait. “Aw, come on, Teri! You know that isn’t true. What are you talking about?”

Teri stabs at her mac-and-cheese as she continues to glare at Dick. “Our friend Dick is an evolutionist!”

Dick squares his jaw and struggles to keep his voice down. “You know that’s not what I said, Teri!”

“It most certainly is!” Teri shoots back. “You said the first two chapters of Genesis can’t be taken literally – that makes you an evolutionist!!”

“Whoa! Whoa!” Tom cautions. “Let’s just calm down here. Start from the beginning. What did you actually say, Dick?”

“Actually,” Dick emphasizes as he scowls at Teri, “what I said was that it isn’t absolutely necessary to take every word in the first two chapters of Genesis literally. In other words, when it talks about ‘days,’ it may not mean literal 24-hour days, just as Peter said that 1,000 years are like a day to the Lord….”

“Copout!” Teri calls out. “You don’t believe the creation account, and you’ve found some kind of ‘proof text’ in another part of the Bible to justify your unbelief!”

“That’s called ‘allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture!‘” Dick protests. “We know from the Bible that when God talks about a ‘day,’ He doesn’t always mean a 24-hour period!”

“Well,” Tom points out as his macaroni and cheese cools, “that’s not exactly what that verse says….”

Dick’s mouth drops open. “Are you siding with her?” he asks.

“I’m not ‘siding’ with anybody!” Tom protests, ” I’m just saying that 2 Peter 3:8 actually says ‘With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.’ That’s not the same as saying ‘When God talks about a day, He doesn’t always mean a 24-hour period!'”

“Of course it is!” Dick insists, but Tom holds up his hand and turns to Teri.

“So I believe what Dick is saying is that he’s a Day-Ager – he believes the Biblical account of creation, but thinks that the 6 ‘days’ of creation are much longer time periods than normal days. That doesn’t make him an evolutionist, Teri.”

Teri snorts. “People who believe that are already half-way down the slippery slope. Once you compromise the truth of the Scriptures, you start to question everything the Bible teaches.” She leans towards Dick, and her eyes narrow. “I bet you think it’s okay to baptize by pouring, don’t you?”

Dick’s mouth drops open. He starts to answer, but Tom interrupts. “Teri, no Christian takes every single word or phrase in the Bible literally. For example, you…”

Dick cuts him off. “It would be crazy to take every word of Scripture literally! You’d end up like the people who read Psalm 91:4 and think that God is a celestial chicken!!”

It is Tom’s turn to scowl. “Come on, Dick! Nobody believes that God is a chicken!”

“You know what I mean!” Dick insists. “People who take the last chapter of the book of Mark literally, with all the snake-handling and poison drinking!”

Teri stiffens. “My church takes the last chapter of Mark literally.”

Tom and Dick stare at Teri, glance at each other, and fall silent.

“If you’re a Christian, you HAVE TO take the Bible literally!!” Teri announces loudly, and several people at the surrounding tables glance in her direction. More quietly, she hisses at Dick, “The Bible says it – I believe it – that settles it!!”

“Teri, be reasonable!” Tom implores. “There are many, many passages in Scripture that you don’t take literally!”

“Name one!” Teri challenges incredulously.

“I can name several!” Tom responds. “1 Peter 3:21 – Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Dick grins at Teri. “Yeah, see, you have to take that figuratively, Teri. Baptism obviously doesn’t save us!”

“Yet that’s exactly what that verse says,” Tom comments softly.

Dick frowns. “Well, no, Tom – I mean, the verse says that baptism is an appeal to God for a clear conscience, so we understand that it’s our FAITH that saves us, and baptism is just the outward sign of our obedience!”

“It says,” Tom reiterates, “BAPTISM now saves you as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus.”

“Well, then, what’s that part about the appeal to God for a clear conscience?” Dick asks.

“In Greek it’s eperōtēma, and it refers to the formal acceptance of a contract or covenant in which the terms of the agreement were proclaimed and the compliance with the terms was solemnly promised. It’s like what the early Christians pledged in their baptismal rites. They were asked to publically reject Satan. They were asked ‘Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty? Do you believe in Christ Jesus, the Son of God?’ and the answer they gave, their rejection of Satan and their proclamation of faith, was their “I do,” their pledge, which then served as their ‘appeal’ to God for a clear conscience. The early Christians definitely did take this verse literally. They believed that ‘baptism now saves you.'”

Teri has whipped her King James out of her purse. “Are you sure that verse is even in the Bible?” she demands.

“Trust me on this,” Tom retorts wryly. “And how about John 20:22-23? ‘And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.’ Taken literally, this indicates that the risen Lord appeared to His apostles to confer the authority to forgive and retain sins!”

Dick is grinning broadly. “Whereas we all know that Jesus was just explaining to them that they could assure believers that their sins were all forgiven – past, present and future – because of their faith in Christ, and they could likewise assure unbelievers that their sins were NOT forgiven!”

“Thereby making a hash out of what Jesus actually said,” Tom comments. Dick’s eyebrows shoot up. “Why did He even bother to make this special appearance, Dick, and breathe on them, filling them with the Holy Spirit, just to pass on a trite observation like that?”

Dick does a double-take. “Are you kidding? What do you think Jesus meant, Tom?”

“I think He probably meant what He said,” Tom observes quietly.

Teri is flipping furiously through her Bible. “Is that verse in John or in 1 John?”

“And what about Paul’s command in Philippians 2:12?” Tom continues. ‘Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling!‘ Teri, you don’t take that literally.”

Teri’s mouth opens as she thinks. “But…” she stammers, “but, you can’t take that literally!”

“That’s the point, Teri!” Dick crows. “If you take that verse literally, you’re admitting that you might be able to lose your salvation!”

Tom’s not finished. “And Romans 3:23, ‘For all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God.’ You know you don’t take that literally.”

Teri looks up from her Bible, shocked. “I take every single word of that verse absolutely literally,” she announces.

Tom tilts his head as he questions her. “Really? Really? Every single word?”

Teri puts her Bible in her lap and leans forward in her chair. “EVERY SINGLE WORD. For ALL have SINNED, and FALLEN SHORT of the GLORY OF GOD.”

“All right,” Tom says quietly. “And you’ll agree that Paul is talking about actual sin here, not the original sin that we inherited from Adam.”

Teri nods emphatically.

“Okay, Teri – for ALL have sinned: Two-week-old babies.”

“Huh?” Teri and Dick respond in unison.

“Two-week-old babies – have they sinned?” Tom asks Teri.

There is silence as Teri and Dick contemplate this.

“Do you believe that infants sin?” Tom asks. “How about the profoundly mentally retarded – can they sin? How about the fetus in the womb? You would be the first to insist, Teri, that from the moment of conception the embryo is a living PERSON, and therefore falls under Paul’s blanket statement here. For ALL have sinned….”

Teri and Dick sit silently frowning, as Tom continues.

“Remember, when Paul was talking about Jacob and Esau in the womb of their mother, he said, ‘Yet before the children had been born or had done anything good or bad.’ He’s basically saying that the unborn can’t sin, right? So even if you do believe that newborns and the profoundly mentally handicapped can somehow sin, to say that an unborn child can sin contradicts Scripture. Teri, millions of those unborn children have lived and died without sinning! So how can you take Romans 3:23 literally?”

Before Dick or Teri muster up a reply, Tom goes on. “And then there’s John 6:22-71. Jesus emphasized over and over that we must eat His flesh and drink His blood, or we have no life in us. ‘Whoever eats this bread will live forever’ – ‘Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you’ – ‘Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life’ – ‘My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink’ – ‘Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them’ – ‘The one who feeds on me will live because of me’ – ‘Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.’ Teri, you don’t take one word of that literally.”

Dick is beside himself with glee. “Of course you don’t, Teri! This is a prime example of why certain verses just can’t be taken literally! Jesus Himself told us not to take this discourse literally when He said ‘It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life,” meaning that we are to take this passage FIGURATIVELY!”

Before Teri can answer, Tom retorts quietly, “And this is a prime example, Dick, of how you have decided not to accept the literal meaning of a passage because it would demand too much faith, so you have found a “proof text” to justify your unbelief.”

Dick and Teri both gasp. Teri grins broadly as she recognizes her earlier objection being used to demolish Dick’s assertion. Dick defends himself. “Jesus said, ‘the words I have spoken to you are spirit and life!’ That means that His words were meant to be understood in a spiritual, not a literal sense! ‘This is My body’ is a figure of speech!”

Tom explains, “When Jesus said ‘the words I have spoken are spirit and life,’ He couldn’t have meant ‘I have spoken metaphorically.’ You think you are using Scripture to interpret Scripture, but seriously, Dick, where in the Bible is the word ‘spirit’ ever used as a synonym for ‘symbolic’?? And if Jesus was saying ‘Take everything I’ve just said metaphorically,’ there’s another problem, because right in the middle of this supposedly metaphorical discourse Jesus mentions ‘My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.’ Is that a metaphor?? Did He not literally sacrifice His very flesh on the Cross for the life of the world?? How do you justify exempting the one passage you happen to believe from the metaphor?? And why, while we’re on the subject, didn’t Jesus take His disciples aside to explain this very hard saying in private? That’s what He did with every other hard saying – but with this one He just asked them ‘Are you leaving me, too?’ Kind of harsh, when He could’ve just explained the ‘metaphor’ to them….”

Tom leans back in his chair, pushing his untouched macaroni plate away. Teri, struggling to understand how her excellent argument has just been used to prove something she vehemently rejects, reaches for her water glass. Dick squints angrily at Tom. “Every one of your examples, but one, is a case in which we don’t take the Bible literally but Catholics DO, and Romans 3:23 is a case where we insist on a literal, rigid interpretation of the word “all” in order to disprove Catholic doctrine – an interpretation,” Dick admits uncomfortably, “which you’ve just shown to be unworkable.”

Teri chokes on her water, and Tom passes her a napkin.

“Cath-licks!” she gasps, and Dick pats her firmly on the back till she stops choking. “Catholics,” she repeats after she has cleared her throat, “don’t take the Bible literally! Catholics don’t believe a word the Bible says – the pope makes up Catholic doctrine! His worst fear is that people are actually going to read the Bible and find out what it really says!”

Ignoring Teri, Tom leans towards Dick. “My point is that all Christians take certain parts of the Bible literally while taking other parts figuratively. Every denomination does this. So the question isn’t ‘Should I take every word of Scripture literally?’ No, because then we’d end up with your ‘celestial chicken’ proposition. The question is, which parts of the Bible were meant to be taken literally, and which parts were meant to be taken figuratively,
and how can we know which are which?
It just so happens that Catholics take many passages of Scripture literally, which is what makes their doctrine distinctively Catholic – Protestants explain those verses away, claiming that they were meant to be taken figuratively. Yet, can we claim that we somehow know which verses were meant to be taken figuratively? We can’t even agree amongst ourselves on that! How can we be sure that we’re not taking these ‘Catholic’ verses figuratively because we lack the faith to take God at His word?”

“I wish you’d get off this Catholic kick,” Dick grumbles. Teri stands up.

“They’re not gonna believe me at church when I tell ’em,” she declares with a toss of her head as she picks up her tray to go. “I had lunch with TWO heretics!”

 

On the memorial of St. Jane Frances de Chantal

Deo omnis gloria!

Photo credits: Macaroni and cheese with panko topping and a Soju-based cocktail in a tumbler at Blue at 2337 Market Street in San Francisco, California. “Gourmet Mac & Cheese: Fresh mozzarella, sharp cheddar, Parmesan, elbow pasta, topped with Japanese bread crumbs.” Description from their online menu as viewed on 2007-05-27, by Rick Audet from San Francisco, California, United States /Wikimedia Commons

Psych!

Lean back, close your eyes, and travel down the paths of your mind to your college days, back to Psych 101. For some of us, that will be a long mental hike, so allow me to refresh your memory. Psych 101 consisted of an introduction to the broad topic of Psychology, with all its various sub-fields such as Developmental Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology, Clinical Psychology, and everyone’s favorite: Abnormal Psychology – the part of the course where you were granted insight into the behavior of certain family members for the first time. You learned to define such terms as operant conditioning, negative reinforcement, accommodation, catharsis, learned helplessness, actor-observer bias, and the hierarchy of needs. A lot of terminology that began as specialized psych vocab is now a part of our everyday way of expressing ourselves, terminology like “denial,” “fixation,” or “identity crisis.” A phenomenon that you encounter every day but don’t necessarily remember the psychological term for is “cognitive dissonance,” the “feeling of psychological discomfort produced by the combined presence of two thoughts that do not follow from one another.” You know, like when you’re a pulmonologist and a two-pack-a-day smoker – you’ve got some serious psychological discomfort going on there. In order to reduce that discomfort, you’ve got some choices to make. You can either quit smoking – easier said than done – or you can find some way to make yourself believe that smoking isn’t harming your lungs and shortening your life. Surprisingly, a lot of people go with the second option; the compulsion to continue smoking is that strong. So is the compulsion to continue doing a lot of other stuff. Self-justification is a very common way of dealing with a reality that just refuses to cooperate.

The reduction of cognitive dissonance is thought to be critical in achieving a sense of peace with oneself and with the world. So when things just don’t fit together, we come up with ways to make them fit….

I think one of the most oddly charming remarks I came across in my research on the discernment of the canon of Scripture was the quirky little comeback attributed to King James, he of the KJV. When asked why he supported separating the deuterocanonical books out from the rest of the books of the Bible, and segregating them in their own little section between the Old and New Testament, the king answered forthrightly:

As to the Apocriphe bookes, I omit them because I am no Papist.

There you go! Had King James kept the deuterocanonical books in their traditional places in the Old Testament, the places they had occupied from the 4^th century on down to his time, it would have opened up a whole new can of icky worms concerning who exactly has the God-given authority to discern infallibly which books belong in the Bible and which don’t, and that would have been massively inconvenient. The Catholic Church said (and still says) that the deuterocanonicals are Holy Scripture, and that she has the right to insist upon that fact. If the Catholic Church had that right, then King James was a heretic. But King James knew that he was a faithful Christian and an all-around great guy! Therefore, the deuterocanonicals ARE NOT Holy Scripture!

Good thing, too, because it would have been awkward for James to command that his Bible version be recalled!

This brand of illogic, popular since the dawn of time, is the justification behind the horrors of the pro-abortion movement: OF COURSE it’s not a baby! If it were a baby, I would be committing murder by aborting it! I’m no murderer – I’m a nice person! Therefore, it IS NOT a baby!

Thank goodness, because a baby would have majorly upset my plans for the future!

Some atheists also jump on this bandwagon, not all. Certainly many of those who refuse to believe that there is a God do so simply because they don’t feel they have ever been presented with any evidence of His existence (Romans 1:18-21 notwithstanding). I’m talking about the other kind of “atheist,” the kind concerning whom Psalm 14:1 was written, the atheist of convenience, someone who has every reason in the world to believe there is a God, but… if there’s a God, particularly if the Christian God actually exists, then I will be held responsible for my behavior. Someone is watching me, Someone Who made the rules and Who will not hesitate to hold me accountable for the way I’m ruining my life, accountable for the lies, the fornication, the recreational drug use and the reckless driving in which I engage. So… OF COURSE there’s no God! If there were a God, I would be sinning against Him! But… I’m not a sinner lost in his sins – I’m a good guy! Therefore, there IS NO God!!

Whew! Dodged that bullet – I can’t even imagine being forced to change my lifestyle!

This is a misbegotten logic, born of desperation. You can hear the echoes of the ostrich with its head in the sand muttering feverishly, “This HAS to work!!!” It HAS to work, because the alternative is just too gruesome to contemplate….

This logic accounts for the discrepancies between what the Bible actually says and what my nondenom/Baptist/charismatic churches said it says – the preaching that used to make me so antsy. There were certain verses that really seemed to point pretty clearly towards Rome. We made a big to-do over the fact that we were “Bible Christians,” insisting that Catholic doctrine had been made up by folks who had obviously never even sat down and read the Bible, but there were still those passages that said things that just sounded so darn Catholic…. You would think that we would have stopped to ponder that for a while, but we didn’t. We didn’t need to – we had an answer ready. The answer sounded weirdly similar to Good King James’ retort. Why?
We aren’t papists – that’s why!!

For example, we were familiar with Matthew’s description of the off-the-wall statement Jesus made to Simon Peter about being a rock:

‘Who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus replied, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’

Now, it was obvious that if you took Jesus at His word there, you would be duped into believing that it was Simon Peter upon whom Jesus built His Church! So, it was equally obvious that what Jesus actually meant to say was that Peter’s FAITH was the rock upon which Christ’s church is built.

Because it COULDN’T be Peter!

Because that what’s CATHOLICS believe.

This was weirdly similar to the passage that the apostle John messed up when he wrote:

If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.

Now, it’s as clear as day that if you understood this verse literally, it would appear that Jesus came to the apostles
to confer on them the priestly authority to absolve (or refuse to absolve) penitents of their sins! Therefore, it is clear that what Jesus was clearly actually saying was that the apostles could look believers in the eye and tell them honestly that all their sins – past, present and future – were forgiven because they had faith in Jesus Christ, and could look unbelievers in the eye and tell them honestly that their sins were not forgiven because they refused to believe in Jesus.

Because Jesus COULDN’T be conferring the authority to absolve people of their sins upon His apostles!

Because that’s what CATHOLICS believe.

And darned if even the apostle Paul didn’t flub sometimes, like when he was recounting the story of how he got saved. He said that the man sent to him by God asked him:

Now why do you delay? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name.

It is unmistakable that Paul got mixed up here when he talked about the “washing away of sins.” That would be confirmation of the Catholic teaching that “baptism now saves you (1 Pet 3:21)” – an unbiblical doctrine if we ever heard one! That’s why all true Christians just know in their hearts that what Paul meant by this was that we have to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Period. Baptism comes after that, as a sign that we have done what Paul told us to do, which was “believe.” And nothing gets washed away.

Because Paul COULDN’T be teaching that baptism actually does something like wash away sins!

Because that’s what CATHOLICS believe.

And this is similar to the misunderstanding engendered when Paul carelessly penned those words to the Corinthians:

Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

While it may sound like Paul is condemning the concept of “denominations,“ we all know that within 50 years of the founding of Lutheranism there were nearly 10 other denominations competing for a share of the Christian pie, and there are Lord-knows-how-many now. Denominations are synonymous with Protestantism. Why, even “nondenominational” churches are a denomination of Protestantism! Therefore, it is totally obvious that what Paul was trying to articulate was that Christians shouldn’t argue and fight over little things like baptism and Holy Communion, you know, little things like soteriology!

Because Paul COULDN’T have been insisting on the necessity of visible doctrinal unity!

Because that’s what CATHOLICS believe.

And that botched verse in the book of Acts, where handkerchiefs were touched to Paul’s body and taken to sick people – and the sick people were healed.

…so that handkerchiefs or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out.

Now there is very obviously an obvious way to explain why that sounds so much like the Catholic doctrine of relics, but obviously isn’t.

Because it CAN’T be.

Because that’s what CATHOLICS believe.

So there!

Yes, we were always ready with an answer as to why certain verses just sounded so darn Catholic – but WEREN’T. In that sense we Evangelicals had a lot more in common with King James than we guessed; our spiritual kinship with the old boy went far deeper than just an admiration for the Bible he commissioned. We shared with him the same cognitive dissonance and the same approach to the reduction of that dissonance. If it smelled Catholic, well – I am no Papist! DISSONANCE RESOLVED! Just keep your mind from wandering outside the backyard of your pre-existing belief system! Confirmation bias – there’s another psych term. Put in the vernacular by author Michael Shermer, it means, “Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.”

Chain-smoking pulmonologists that we were, I and my fellow believers at the Evangelical churches I attended in the 70s, the 80s and the 90s rationalized away all the Biblical evidence for the papacy, auricular confession, relics, the Real Presence, the efficacy of the sacrament of baptism, and more – we rationalized it right out of the Scriptures that we so loved. Because the most important thing is that nothing be allowed to conflict with the twin pillars of Reformation theology: faith ALONE and the Bible ALONE. The preservation of Christian doctrine from anything that resembles Catholic teaching is paramount, because the Reformers could not have committed the sin of establishing their own churches, leading people out of the Church that Jesus established. The Bible MUST be made to agree with what our predetermined doctrine teaches us to believe.

Right?

Of course right!

As we used to say in the 90s:

PSYCH!

 

On the memorial of St. Peter Julian Eymard

Deo omnis gloria!