Tag Archives: Works-righteousness

Around this time of year many people’s thoughts turn to Christmas, if only to breathe a sigh of relief that five months still remain between them and figuring out what to get for Aunt Martha. Stores have “Christmas in July” sales to drum up business, and at this time of year my daughter, when she was younger, would always beg to be allowed to play Christmas carols. It’s been 7 months since the Big Day, and in the summer heat many hearts look back, remembering the joy that accompanies the celebration of the “miracle of Christmas.”

As we all know, the “miracle of Christmas” is supposedly the birth of the God-man. Close, but no cigar. The “miracle of Christmas” actually took place 9 months prior, at the Annunciation, for when Mary gave her “yes” to God, the Incarnation began. The so-called “miracle of Christmas” is the Incarnation.

Catholics dwell on the Incarnation (literally, the “enfleshment”) all year round. But why? With every recitation of the Nicene Creed we recall the moment when “for us men and for our salvation He came down from Heaven, and by the power of the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became Man.” In the Apostles’ Creed we do mention His birth, but only for the purpose of highlighting the fact that His mother was a virgin. That Jesus was born was no great surprise – He grew inside the womb of His mother for 9 months; birth is the expected outcome. It was His Incarnation that deserved to make headlines. As an Evangelical I was steeped in the life of Christ, His sacrifice on the Cross, His triumph o’er the grave and His soon-coming again (heavy emphasis on that last part). The Incarnation was a theological concept that I was familiar with, but it really didn’t play any kind of role in my daily Christian scheme of things. Yes, the second Person of the Trinity became a Man – how else could He have offered up His Life on the Cross to save me? End of story.

As a Catholic, I now realize that the answer to the question of the Incarnation is not just “Jesus became a Man so He could die on the Cross to save me.” Not by a long shot. The Incarnation is the beginning of the story of my redemption, the middle of the story, and the ongoing, never-ending story to which I as an Evangelical never gave a second thought. The theology of the Incarnation is the underpinning of all things Christian.

Take the story of the Good Samaritan, for example, a story exceedingly familiar to Evangelicals. We preached on it and taught it to our children. I could have recited it in my sleep. A man was travelling and got mugged. As he lay by the side of the road expiring, a priest came along. The priest knew, of course, that it was important for him to help his fellow man. He also knew that by touching the poor wretch that he would be rendered ritually unclean. He passed by. A Levite also came along and neglected to render assistance for the same reason. A non-Jew, a heretic, that is to say, a Samaritan, then came along and did what the priest and the Levite should have done, putting the man on his donkey and transporting him to safety at a nearby inn. He even paid for the man’s care, promising to recompense the innkeeper for any expenditures he incurred. The story teaches us that our “neighbor” is anyone in need. End of story.

But one day, as a Catholic, I was confronted with St. Augustine’s take on this story, beginning with the words, “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho; Adam himself is meant.”

Whoa – that’s a different way of looking at it!

Yet from an Incarnational point of view, that’s a very appropriate way of looking at it. For here we find the rationale for the Catholic emphasis on the Incarnation as it relates to Jesus’ odd statement:

Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.

As an Evangelical, that was something of a stumper for me. What did Jesus mean by that? Obviously, Jesus didn’t mean that He saw the Father being born in a manger, preaching the Gospel to men, eating with tax collectors and sinners, healing blind Bartimaeus…. Yet, what did He mean? And did it have any implications for the way I lived my life?

St. Augustine got it. He approached the story of the Good Samaritan not from my Evangelical “go out and help your neighbor – Jesus said so” understanding of the parable, but from the Incarnational “here’s why you are helping your neighbor” point of view – because “Adam himself is meant.”

According to St. Augustine, an alternate reading of the parable begins with God, Who comes upon fallen man lying by the side of the road. He binds man’s wounds, takes him to the Inn (which symbolizes the Church) and instructs those who work there to take care of this man, promising to compensate them for their expenditures when He returns. And it is in light of that Incarnational reading that we understand why we love our neighbor – because God loved us first, and as His body we do what He is doing.

And how could we not? For as Augustine explains in another context:

All men are one man in Christ, and the unity of Christians constitutes but one man. Let us rejoice and give thanks. Not only are we to become Christians, but we are to become Christ. My brothers, do you understand the grace of God that is given us? Wonder, rejoice, for we are Christ! If He is the Head, and we are the members, then together He and we are the whole man.

Jesus became Man so that man might become a part of His body. As a part of His body, you love as He loves, and lovingly do the works that He does, even as He does the works that His Father does. Jesus’ eyes are always seeking the lost, and His ears listening for their cries that His feet might hasten to where they have fallen, His hands raising them from the dirt and His arms embracing them, His shoulders bearing them until they grow strong enough to walk on their own. Got that? That’s you and me – His eyes, His ears, His feet, His hands, His arms, His shoulders. As St. Paul told the Corinthians, “You are not your own!” There is simply no other way to be a member of the Body. The judgment stories that Jesus tells emphasize this fact: there will be people who flaunt their faith (“Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord!'”) and even their miracles (“Did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?”) Yet Jesus fails to recognize those who are clearly not members of His body, doing what He is doing. Waving in His face His supposed “Lordship” in their lives and the miracles they have worked in His Name but independent of Him is to no avail – “I don’t know who you are!” is His answer to them.

So my Evangelical understanding that I had to love God above all things and my neighbor as myself was correct – as far as it went. But lacking an Incarnational insight into the situation, I did not understand that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us so that I, a creature of flesh, could be made a member of His body, and as a member I can do nothing of myself; I can only do what He is doing.
Through me, Jesus would tenderly raise the dying man from the side of the road and carry him to the Inn where he could be brought back to life. That the Second Person of the Trinity was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became Man is far from being the mere flashpoint of the ongoing, never-ending story of my life as a partaker of the divine nature. The Incarnation means more than I ever could have guessed, for it is the key that unlocks the mystery of all those “works” that we Protestants avoided like the plague, the works upon which the Church insists, the works on which the churches in the book of Revelation are judged (Rev 2:2, 2:9, 2:13, 2:19, 3:1, 3:8, 3:15), the works which distinguish the sheep from the goats (Mt 25:33), the works by which a man is justified (James 2:24).

To paraphrase St. Augustine, what could be a better sign of how much God loves us than the Son of God deigning to share our nature? At Christmas we celebrate just one small (but glorious!) glimpse into what the Father is doing through the Incarnation of His beloved Son. And it is something to CELEBRATE, in December or even in July.

On the memorial of St. James the Greater

Deo omnis gloria!

Those Medieval Monks You Were Warned About

July 1, 2013

Apologetics, Holy Scripture

4 Comments

elieve me, medieval monks have gotten a bum rap. For far too long, most of us have thought of the Middle Ages as a time when Europeans wandered in the dark, constantly checking their calendars to see if it was time for the Enlightenment yet. The darkness, according to Protestants, was spiritual in nature, as the true Gospel was subverted by a power-hungry clergy which lived and breathed to keep layfolk subjugated to works-righteousness. “The church of that day taught that men must work hard to earn their salvation” is a quote I found on one Protestant website; it is representative of what many Protestants believe concerning medieval Catholic doctrine. As any historically ignorant person will insist, the Church of the Middle Ages had allowed the lamp of truth to burn so low that no one knew that it is by grace that we are saved through faith, or that we must be born again, or that Christianity is a relationship with a Person. Works-righteousness ruled, they will tell you. After all, former Augustinian monk Martin Luther claimed that no one read the Bible in those days. In fact, if you believe him, few people even knew what the Bible was!

Thirty years ago, no one read the Bible, and it was unknown to all. The prophets were not spoken of and were considered impossible to understand. And when I was twenty years old, I had never seen a Bible. I thought that the Gospels or Epistles could be found only in the postills [lectionaries] for the Sunday readings. Then I found a Bible in the library, when I first went into the monastery, and I began to read, re-read and read it many times over and reread the Bible many times….

Immersing himself in Bible study as an Augustinian monk, however, seemed to exacerbate Luther’s fears of judgment:

I greatly longed to understand Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, “the justice of God,” because I took it to mean that justice whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. Therefore I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against him.

I was myself more than once driven to the very depths of despair so that I wished I had never been created. Love God? I hated him!

Luther tried as hard as he could to please this seemingly implacable God:

I was indeed a pious monk and followed the rules of my order more strictly than I can express. If ever a monk could obtain Heaven by his monkish works, I should certainly have been entitled to it. Of this all the friars who have known me can testify. If it had continued much longer, I should have carried my mortifications even to death, by means of my watchings, prayers, reading and other labors.

With claims like those, Luther succeeded in making himself the poster boy for recovering medieval Catholics. Reading these assertions, Protestants allow themselves to be convinced that it was a suppression of the Gospel perpetrated by the Catholic Church which pushed Luther to the brink of despair.

We must note at the outset that Luther’s story about the Bible being unavailable to the common man (before he himself translated it into German) has not held up very well. Historian Jaroslav Pelikan put it politely:

Partisans of Martin Luther and of his Reformation have sometimes given the impression that the translation of the Bible into German begins with him, an impression that his remark that the Bible had been lying “under the bench [unter der Bank]” before the Reformation seemed to foster. The historical situation is, of course, quite otherwise….. [Mentelin’s Biblia Germanica] was followed by seventeen other printed High German and Low German Bibles that appeared before Luther’s September Testament of 1522.

Eighteen different editions of the Bible in German printed before Luther translated his Bible – where did they go? Unless they were printed, boxed up and deep-sixed, those Bibles went somewhere – to someone, right? After all, the law of supply and demand mandates that if no one was willing to buy them, printers wouldn’t have kept printing them. Someone was buying those Bibles. University of Alberta historian Andrew Gow contends that “Luther’s Bible translation was a hit because burghers had been reading vernacular Bibles and biblical texts for so long, not because they had been denied access to the Bible.” Read Professor Gow’s article here; it contains fascinating quotes from other authors like these:

In 1494 a worthy merchant wrote in his diary: “My country abounds in Bibles, works on salvation, editions of the Fathers, and other books of a like sort.”

…Johannes Eck, claimed to have read almost the entire Bible by the time he was ten years old; and the Xanten chaplain Adam Potken had to learn the four Gospels by heart in his youth in the 1470s and read excerpts from the Old and New Testaments daily with his eleven- and twelve-year-old fellow pupils.

Rost notes that eighteenth-century scholars were often surprised to discover that German Bibles had been circulating in large numbers well before Luther’s translation, so steeped were they in the story of Biblical inaccessibility started by Luther himself.

Obviously, the “near-total absence of Bibles” story has to be taken with a grain of salt; since “Hyperbole” was Dr. Luther’s middle name, we should not be surprised. But Martin Luther was adamant when it came to his charge that he had never heard the true Gospel preached when he was a monk. And let’s face it, if monks believed and taught that one had to work one’s way into Heaven by means of “mortifications even to death, by means of watchings, prayers, reading and other labors” such as those Luther claimed to have practiced, then no wonder he exploded with such vehemence against the Catholic system!

Dr. Luther has presented his charges. Now, in the interest of fairness, let’s let his contemporaries, medieval monks and friars, speak for themselves. What did they know about grace, mercy, forgiveness, and the love of God? Did they get worked up over their inability to impress God with their righteousness? Did they despair? Did they even join Luther in periodically hating this God Who seemed impossible to appease? I’ve invited a panel of experts from the High Middle Ages to tell us in their own words what they believe about God, grace, Heaven and how to get there. We have representatives from three different religious orders, three centuries, and four countries: the 12^th-century Cistercian monk St. Bernard of Clairvaux (France), the 13^th-century Dominican friars Blessed Jordan of Saxony (Germany) and St. Thomas Aquinas (Italy), the 13^th-century Franciscan friar St. Anthony of Padua (Portugal), and the 14^th-century Franciscan friar St. Bernadine of Siena (Italy).

Gentlemen, thank you for being here! Let’s start with the works-righteousness charge. Tell me, St. Bernard, what’s your plan for working your way to Heaven?

What I need to enter Heaven, I appropriate from the merits of Jesus Christ who suffered and died in order to procure for me that glory of which I was unworthy. St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090- 1153), Cistercian monk

Really? I was told that medieval Catholic monks and friars trusted in their works to save them – with little interest in the Bible, they knew nothing about the necessity of being “born again.” Right? St. Thomas Aquinas, you wouldn’t be familiar with the concept of being born again, would you?

We must be guided and guarded by God, Who knows and can do all things. For which reason also it is becoming in those who have been born again as sons of God, to say: “Lead us not into temptation,” and “Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” and whatever else is contained in the Lord’s Prayer pertaining to this. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Dominican friar

St. Bernadine, are you men saying that one becomes a son of God through faith in Jesus Christ?

The Church is indeed built on the Name of Jesus which is its very foundation, and hence it is the greatest honor to cleave through faith to the Name of Jesus and to become a son of God. St. Bernadine of Siena (1380-1444), Franciscan friar

Hey, Blessed Jordan, help me out here – I’m trying to prove a point! If you were acting as a spiritual father to a group of impressionable young women who had their hopes set on Heaven, what would you teach them about works-righteousness?

See to it then, my dearest daughters, that you receive not this grace in vain, this matchless boon which is His gift, the perfect gift which took not its beginning from you but is from above, coming down from the Father of all light, who through His grace has shone in your hearts, calling you into His marvelous light! Bl. Jordan of Saxony (1190-1237), Dominican friar

Right, right….

But I’m sure you guys don’t understand the concept of asking Jesus into your heart. St. Anthony, what do you tell people who want to draw closer to God?

When God dwells in the soul, the soul becomes even more beautiful. For who can be more blessed or more happy than the one in whom God has set up His dwelling place? What else can you need or what else can possibly make you richer? You have everything when you have within you the One Who made all things, the only One Who can satisfy the longings of your spirit, without Whom whatever exists is as nothing. O Possession Which contains all things within Yourself, truly blessed is the person who has You, truly happy whoever possesses You because he then owns that Goodness which alone can make the human mind completely happy. St. Anthony of Padua (1195-1231)

That sounds weirdly like someone who has a personal relationship with Christ! St. Anthony, are you saying that you don’t believe that you have to work your way to Heaven? What do you say when you pray to God?

Dear God, what can I give to come to possess You? … O Lord, I already know Your answer. ‘Give me yourself,’ You say, ‘and I will give you Myself. Give Me your mind and you will have Me in your mind. Keep all your possessions, but only give Me your soul. I have heard enough of your words; I do not need your works; only give Me yourself, forever.

You gentlemen are making it awfully hard for me to pin a works-righteousness charge on you! St. Bernard, do you love God? Do you know how much God loves you??

The faithful know how much need they have of Jesus and Him crucified; but though they wonder and rejoice at the ineffable love made manifest in Him, they are not daunted at having no more than their own poor souls to give in return for such great and condescending charity. They love all the more, because they know themselves to be loved so exceedingly…. St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090- 1153), Cistercian monk

Oh, I give up!
Seriously, nobody who has read your writings can claim that you men don’t know that it is by grace that we are saved through faith, or that we must be born again, or that Christianity is a relationship with a Person. Yet that false charge is the prevailing Protestant wisdom….

Was the Augustinian monk Martin Luther (1483-1546) a confused soul who suffered from scrupulosity, or did all medieval monks believe they needed to work their way to Heaven while trembling in fear that they were headed to hell? Let’s get the opinion of one last monk – the Augustinian St. Thomas of Villanova, a Spanish contemporary of Martin Luther’s. St. Thomas, your fellow Augustinian Martin Luther is tormented by the thought that God is a strict and terrible Judge Who will condemn most of us to hell because we’re just not good enough for Heaven. Is that what you believe about God? What would you say to Brother Martin?

Fear not to approach Him with confidence, for He is called by the name of Jesus. He is the Savior and will not reject those whom He ought to save. If a man is condemned to hell, it is not because he has sinned but rather because he has rejected this so abundant and certain source of salvation. St. Thomas of Villanova (1488-1555), Augustinian monk

It seems to me that the Church, which was purportedly trying to replace the Gospel with a lethal combination of works-righteousness, fear, and ignorance of Scripture, certainly shot herself in the foot when she canonized men like you! Contrary to popular opinion, you medieval monks believe that your salvation is a gift from God, that you must be born again as sons of God, that you must have the One Who created all things living in your heart, that God has no need of your works but wants your soul, and that you will only go to hell if you reject this abundant and certain Source of salvation!

And Martin Luther’s problem was… what exactly? It’s certainly plausible that Luther had no idea what his Spanish contemporary St. Thomas of Villanova was teaching. But Luther claimed to be well-read, and all the other men on our panel pre-dated him – their writings were well-known. Yet he was unaware of the Gospel that they preached, and claimed that the Church taught him works-righteousness? Really?

The medieval Church taught exactly what she had learned from the apostles, that we are saved by grace and justified by faith. The witness of these medieval saints attests to that fact. These are the truths that the Church is still teaching today – our doctrine has not changed, though it is commonly misrepresented by the adherents of Luther’s faith ALONE heresy.

Now, were there medieval monks who set a terrible example, living sinful lives and besmirching the good name of their order? You better believe it! Chaucer’s contemporary, English poet John Gower, wrote a description of 14^th-century monks gone wild:

A monastic order is good in itself, but we say that those who betray it are evil. There are certainly monks whom ownership of property has made a claim on, men whom no religious order can hold in check through moral precepts. For some men of property seek the leisure of an order so that they cannot suffer any hardships. They avoid being hungry and slake their thirst with wine. They get rid of all cold with their warm furred cloaks. Faintness of the belly does not come upon them in the hours of night, and their raucous voice does not sing the heights of heaven in chorus with a drinking cup. A man of this kind will devour no less than several courses at table, and empties a good many beakers in his drinking. . . . And while you are bringing him wine, he allures women to himself; wanton monasteries now furnish these two things together.

But note how Gower prefaces his complaint: “A monastic order is good in itself, but we say that those who betray it are evil.” Amen! The entire history of the monastic orders depicts the cycle of foundation, decline, and reform. Following the Second Universal Law of Spiritual Thermodynamics, what began well often degenerated into an ugly mess. Spanish Carmelite friar St. John of the Cross, for example, devoted his adult life to reforming his order – the same St. John, by the way, who wrote:

I have said that God is pleased with nothing but love; but before I explain this, it will be as well to set forth the grounds on which the assertion rests. All our works, and all our labors, how grand soever they may be, are nothing in the sight of God, for we can give Him nothing, neither can we by them fulfill His desire, which is the growth of our soul. As to Himself He desires nothing of this, for He has need of nothing, and so, if He is pleased with anything it is with the growth of the soul; and as there is no way in which the soul can grow but in becoming in a manner equal to Him, for this reason only is He pleased with our love.

But prevailing Protestant wisdom says that medieval monks and friars were lazy, venial, hard-headed, hard-hearted and smelly, and that they were like that because they were ignorant of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

That would be news to St. Bernard, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Thomas of Villanova, St. Anthony, St. John of the Cross, St. Bernadine and Blessed Jordan, whose theology received the Catholic Church’s wholehearted support – she canonized them, didn’t she? If they were teaching something other than what she believed, why in the world would she give them her Good Faithkeeping Seal of Approval?

Dr. Luther, can you explain this discrepancy?

On the memorial of Bl. Nazju Falzon

Deo omnis gloria!

Surprise!

December 3, 2012

Why I'm Catholic

5 Comments

One item of profound concern to me back when I was contemplating entering the Church was the note of dire warning in the collective voice of Protestantism. No daughter was ever more seriously cautioned against rash elopement – he’s not serious about you, he’ll mistreat you, he’ll get tired of you, he’ll leave you, you’ll come crawling home, you’ll rue the day…. The gloom-and-doom prognostication is enough to give any would-be convert grave pause; after all, conversion is a serious step, and anyone who undertakes it lightly has no real comprehension of the potential eternal consequences. I was worried, especially since I was bringing children into the Church with me. What if the warnings proved true?

Next Easter will mark our 10^th anniversary as Catholics, and after nearly 10 years I think I can speak with some authority on this subject. Did the Protestant misgivings hold water? Let’s examine them one by one – you might be surprised:

Protestants warned that by submitting myself to the teaching of the Church I would make of myself an intellectual slave.

Surprisingly, since proclaiming that “I believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church teaches, believes and proclaims to be revealed by God,” I have been freed to ponder and explore doctrine like never before, securely tethered to “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15).

Protestants warned that by using set prayers, I would be putting a chokehold on my devotional life.

Surprisingly, written prayers proved to be the trellis upon which my frail prayer life has grown and borne fruit.

Protestants warned that by participating in the liturgy I would lose any sense of a personal relationship with Christ.

Surprisingly, by participating in the Church’s worship at Mass, my personal relationship with Jesus has been greatly strengthened, as I now have the assistance of the Church teaching me how better to pray and to worship my Lord, and the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist to change me from the inside out.

Protestants warned that when I began striving to obey the commandments of Christ, I would become bound up in works and lose sight of grace.

Surprisingly, in attempting to obey Christ’s command to love God and love my neighbor as the Church teaches us to do, I have been overwhelmed by the necessity of God’s grace to fit me for this otherwise impossible task.

Protestants warned that by embracing a belief system that proclaimed the existence of a ministerial priesthood, I would betray my understanding of the “priesthood of the believer.”

Surprisingly, when I accepted the idea of priests who offer up the once-for-all sacrifice of the Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist, I became profoundly aware of my own responsibility as a member of the priesthood of believers, most especially when I assist at Mass, and when I pray, “Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference by which He is offended. And through the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.”

Protestants warned that by confessing my sins to a mere man, I would forget that only God can forgive sins.

Surprisingly, by taking seriously my responsibility to confess my sins to a priest, I have become profoundly convinced of God’s love and forgiveness in the confessional.

Protestants warned that by forsaking their “once-saved/always saved” theology, I would lose all sense of “blessed assurance” and live in constant fear of hell.

Surprisingly, by admitting that the Bible does teach that we can lose our salvation, I have been freed to embrace a constant, trust-filled reliance on the only One Who can keep sin from ruling over me (Ps 119:133, Rom 6:12) rather than pretending that this One will turn a blind eye no matter what I do….

Protestants warned that my Christian walk would suffer as I embraced the notion of “a second chance” at salvation after death known as Purgatory.

Surprisingly, as I came to understand that the doctrine of Purgatory proclaims a final, thorough cleansing for those already headed to Heaven, I began joyfully offering up my sufferings in this life in cooperation with the God Who loves me too much to leave me the way He found me.

Protestants warned that I would be taught to consider 7 uninspired books to be Holy Scripture, books that the Church added to the Bible after the Reformation in support of false doctrines.

Surprisingly, the historical truth turned out to be the opposite of what I had been warned, and I began studying the 7 inspired books that Protestants removed from Holy Scripture, books that had been there since the New Testament canon was settled.

Protestants warned that I would end up praying to Mary and the saints rather than to God.

Surprisingly, as a faithful Catholic I have been taught to ask Mary and the saints to pray for me to the Lord our God that I would love Him above all things.

Protestants warned that I would lose sight of Christ when I cultivated a devotion to Mary.

Surprisingly, by drawing closer to Mary, my relationship to Christ has become deeper and wider and more profound than ever, as I ponder the events of her Son’s life through her eyes.

Protestants warned that I would become disillusioned with Catholicism when I found out what Catholics were really like.

Surprisingly, as I receive my Lord in Holy Communion Sunday after Sunday, I have been given special insight into the sins and failings of one Catholic in particular – myself. I am far too busy fighting to overcome that which displeases God in my own life to worry about what other Catholics are really like, although I suspect that they are for the most part a lot like me. “What is that to you? You follow Me.”

Protestants warned that I might get “left behind.”

Surprisingly, it turned out that the novel doctrine of the “secret rapture” so dear to Evangelical hearts is nothing more than theological speculation on their part, heavy on eisegesis and devoid of historicity. As a Catholic I await with the Church the glorious Second Coming of our Lord.

Protestants warned that I was leaving the Truth behind.

When I entered the Catholic Church, I left behind nothing that was true in all the Protestant denominations I had loved throughout my life. I entered into MORE truth, into the very Fullness of the Truth, when I was reconciled to the Church. After all, the Catholic Church is the Church established by Jesus Christ the Lord, and so there is

no surprise about that at all!

On the memorial of St. Francis Xavier

Deo omnis gloria!

My, How Things Haven’t Changed!

September 17, 2012

Justification

6 Comments

Over the years I have read claims that Catholic teaching has changed, that it has “learned from Protestant doctrine” over the nearly 500 years since the Reformation, becoming more “Biblical.” “Pope Benedict admits that Luther was right!” people crow, (pretending that the Holy Father said “Luther was right – period!” rather than “Luther was right, IF….). This reasoning originates with people who have bought into standard-issue anti-Catholic propaganda, along the lines of: “Romanists believe that you have to work your way to heaven, worship the Pope, the saints, and Mary, and pretend that a flat, tasteless wafer is God.” They then hear the Holy Father say something that sounds suspiciously “Christian” and, stymied, can only attribute the Pope’s “change of heart” to Protestant influence. Catholic doctrine is changing, they assume. Assumption is so much less trouble than research. I know that from first-hand experience….

Take the subject of justification. If you had asked me back when I was a Protestant why Catholics don’t agree with the Protestant doctrine of “faith alone,” I would have explained to you that the pernicious doctrine of justification by works had wormed its way into Church doctrine as man-made “wisdom” superseded the preaching of the Gospel. The clergy and religious brothers and sisters of the Middle Ages were steeped in ignorance of the Scriptures and in the traditions of men. That’s why God raised up Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk who came to realize that the Catholic Church was teaching error concerning justification. God called this simple monk to lead people back to the Bible, to teach them to have faith, and trust in the blood of Jesus Christ for their salvation!

Not that I actually did any research on this – I was just buying into the prevailing Protestant wisdom that permeated the teaching of the churches I attended. I now wish that I had actually tested these assumptions against the historical record. Here are some quotes taken from the High Middle Ages, the 11th to the 13th century. Is prevailing Protestant wisdom correct? Did Catholics know anything about salvation by grace through faith before the time of Luther?

St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090- 1153) What I need to enter Heaven, I appropriate from the merits of Jesus Christ who suffered and died in order to procure for me that glory of which I was unworthy.

St. Anthony of Padua (1195-1231) Christians must lean on the Cross of Christ just as travelers lean on a staff when they begin a long journey.

St. Bernadine of Siena (1380-1444) The Church is indeed built on the Name of Jesus which is its very foundation, and hence it is the greatest honor to cleave through faith to the Name of Jesus and to become a son of God.

These men all lived and died before Luther’s time. These are the guys your Protestant mother warned you about: medieval priests and monks. But those quotes sound suspiciously “Christian.” Is that a fluke?

Martin Luther lived from 1483 to 1546. Here is a sampling of quotes from the Catholic writings of that era:

St. Thomas of Villanova (1488-1555) Fear not to approach Him with confidence, for He is called by the name of Jesus. He is the Savior and will not reject those whom He ought to save. If a man is condemned to hell, it is not because he has sinned but rather because he has rejected this so abundant and certain source of salvation.

St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) Not for ourselves, Lord, for we do not deserve to be heard, but for the blood of Your Son and for His merits.

St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1584) In His infinite love for us, though we were sinners, He sent His only Son to free us from the tyranny of Satan, to summon us to heaven, to welcome us into its innermost recesses, to show us Truth itself, to train us in right conduct, to plant within us the seeds of virtue, to enrich us with the treasures of His grace, and to make us children of God and heirs of eternal life.

St. Thomas of Villanova’s timeline runs almost exactly parallel to that of Luther. St. Thomas was an Augustinian monk, as was Luther. Luther suffered from scrupulosity, and was plagued by doubts that his sins could be forgiven. Surely these words of St. Thomas, “If a man is condemned to hell, it is not because he has sinned but rather because he has rejected this so abundant and certain source of salvation,” address Luther’s fundamental concern. Yet Luther claimed that the Catholic Church knew nothing of salvation by grace through faith. It’s certainly hard to believe that St. Thomas was the only man of his time who preached these things….

St. Charles Borromeo, too, was a contemporary of Luther’s, and one of his fiercest critics. Borromeo seems to be awfully interested in Jesus and “the treasures of His grace” for someone who is trying to teach “works-righteousness” instead of salvation by grace through faith. Kind of counter-productive reasoning….

The Council of Trent, perhaps the heyday of anti-Protestantism, took place between 1545 and 1563, with its decisions being codified in the Roman Catechism (1566), the revised Roman Missal (1570), and a revised edition of the Vulgate Scriptures (1592). What were Catholics declaring about justification during that time period?

Council of Trent – But when the Apostle says that man is justified by faith and freely, [Rom 3:24, 5:1] these words are to be understood in that sense in which the uninterrupted unanimity of the Catholic Church has held and expressed them, namely, that we are therefore said to be justified by faith, because faith is the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and root of all justification, without which it is impossible to please God [Heb 11:6] and to come to the fellowship of His sons; and we are therefore said to be justified gratuitously, because none of those things that precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of justification. For, if by grace, it is not now by works, otherwise, as the Apostle says, grace is no more grace. [Rom 11:6]

That bears repeating: None of those things that precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of justification!

Some well-known Catholic saints lived at this time. What were they saying?

St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) It is by the merits of the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ that I hope to be saved.

St. Francis de Sales (1567–1622) He leaves us for our part all the merit and profit of our services and good works, and we again leave Him all the honor and praise thereof, acknowledging that the commencement, the progress and the end of all the good we do depends on His mercy by which He has come unto us and prevented us, has come into us and assisted us, has come with us and conducted us, finishing what He has begun.

He repairs all, modifies and vivifies; loves in the heart, hears in the mind, sees in the eyes, speaks in the tongue; does all in all, and then it is not we who live, but Jesus Christ who lives in us.

That could be a Protestant preacher talking! But St. John of the Cross was a Catholic mystic, and St. Francis de Sales was a Catholic bishop who, by God’s grace, brought some 70,000 converts to Protestantism back into the Catholic fold! Could it be that those reverts realized how wrong they had been about actual Catholic teaching on justification?

If the Catholic Church taught “salvation through works,” the saints of the 17th, the 18th and the 19th centuries seem not to have realized it:

St. Rose of Lima (1586-1617) Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.

St. Claude de la Colombiere (1641-1682) It is yours to do all, divine Heart of Jesus Christ. You alone will have all the glory of my sanctification if I become holy. That seems to me clearer than the day.

St. Louis de Montfort (1673-1716 ) Pray with great confidence, with confidence based upon the goodness and infinite generosity of God and upon the promises of Jesus Christ.

St. Paul of the Cross (1694-1775) I hope that God will save me through the merits of the Passion of Jesus. The more difficulties in life, the more I hope in God. By God’s grace I will not lose my soul, but I hope in His mercy.

St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696- 1787) And when the enemy represents to us our weakness, let us say with the Apostle: I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. Of myself I can do nothing, but I trust in God, that, by His grace I shall be able to do all things.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821) I will go peaceably and firmly to the Catholic Church: for if faith is so important to our salvation, I will seek it where true Faith first began, seek it among those who received it from God Himself.

St. Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897) In the evening of this life, I shall appear before You with empty hands, for I do not ask You, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is stained in Your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in Your own Justice and to receive from Your Love the eternal possession of Yourself. I want no other Throne, no other Crown but You, my Beloved!

This all seems a far cry from the perception of Catholics trying to earn Heaven through worthless good works, with no reliance on faith or trust in Christ’s blood. It seems to be a continuous stream of reliance on grace and faith in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. The 20th-century saints speak:

St. Edith Stein (1891-1942) His blood is the curtain through which we enter into the Holiest of Holies, the Divine Life. In baptism and in the sacrament of reconciliation, His blood cleanses us of our sins, opens our eyes to eternal light, our ears to hearing God’s word.

St. Maria Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938) I fly to Your mercy, Compassionate God, who alone are good. Although my misery is great, and my offences are many, I trust in Your mercy, because You are the God of mercy; and from time immemorial, it has never been heard of, nor do heaven or earth remember, that a soul trusting in Your mercy has been disappointed.

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997) Keep the light of faith ever burning, for Jesus alone is the Way that leads to the Father. He alone is the Life dwelling in our hearts. He alone is the Light that enlightens the darkness.

“Catholics sure have changed their tune!” is what a lot of folks claim when they read comments like the following from Pope Benedict:

Benedict XVI (1927- ) “Luther’s expression ‘by faith alone’ is true if faith is not opposed to charity, to love. Faith is to look at Christ, to entrust oneself to Christ, to be united to Christ, to be conformed to Christ, to his life. And the form, the life of Christ, is love; hence, to believe is to be conformed to Christ and to enter into his love.”

“Paul knows that in the double love of God and neighbor the whole law is fulfilled. Thus the whole law is observed in communion with Christ, in faith that creates charity. We are just when we enter into communion with Christ, who is love.”

You see, this is no capitulation to Protestant doctrine – it’s just the Catholic Church teaching what’s she’s taught all along. If by “faith” you mean “faith that creates charity,” then you understand the subject of justification the way the Council of Trent proclaimed it – faith without works is dead.

Realize, please, that the above-quoted individuals (Benedict XVI excepted – for now) aren’t just anybody; they are saints and blesseds. This means that the Catholic Church has set them up on a pedestal with a flashing neon sign proclaiming, “Pay attention to this person! Imitate her life! Listen to what he said!” Kind of counter-productive if the Church has secretly been cherishing the works-righteousness heresy all these centuries….

But as a Protestant, I didn’t know any of this, basically because I didn’t bother to do research on the subject. Prevailing Protestant wisdom was good enough for me. Little did I realize that Catholic doctrine cannot change!

Next time we’ll examine the prevailing Protestant wisdom on the subject of the Catholic Church and the Bible.

On the memorial of St. Robert Bellarmine

Deo omnis gloria!

Former Catholics

September 9, 2012

Uncategorized

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Baptist pastors in my neck of the woods will sometimes preach warning sermons on the errors of “Roman Catholicism.” The pastor will stand up and repeat the silly talk he heard in seminary about how Catholics worship Mary, the saints, statues, and pretty much everybody and everything but God. He will thunder against the nonexistent Catholic belief that a second chance at salvation, called “purgatory,” is extended to people after they die. He will rail against that supposed Catholic doctrine of “works righteousness.” And he will then sometimes point to certain members of the congregation who, by the grace of God, have escaped the “false Roman system” and have been born again. The pastor himself, in some cases, may be one of those people.

This kind of testimony, the “I was a member of the false, perverted cult known as Roman Catholicism” story, is generally given a great deal of credence in Evangelical circles. After all, why should we not believe someone who actually bought into those false doctrines before they got saved?

I know a woman who was raised in a predominantly Methodist family. In her youth she was indifferent to religious issues, but as she reached middle age she experienced a profound conversion. Her devotion to God grew by leaps and bounds when she discovered the charismatic movement. She was fond of telling people that Methodists had no concept of the Holy Spirit. Thank God she had found the truth in the charismatic assemblies she attended! If only Methodists knew about God the Holy Spirit – what a difference this would make to their theology!

That woman was a relative of mine, and she was very sincere in her belief that the Methodist church was completely ignorant when it came to the third Person of the Trinity. Of course, any Methodist with some theological background could have set her straight on that – John Wesley’s “The Witness of the Spirit,” “The First Fruits of the Spirit,” “The More Excellent Way,” and “Scriptural Christianity” come to mind. But by that point she no longer consorted with theologically knowledgeable Methodists. All her friends were now charismatics, most of whom also spoke disdainfully (and generally not too terribly knowledgeably) about the denominations they had left behind. It is not the Methodist denomination that has a deficient theological understanding of the Holy Spirit; it was my relative who had a deficient understanding of the Holy Spirit when she was a Methodist.

This needs to be borne in mind when one considers the number of former Catholics ready to swear on a stack of Bibles that they never heard the Gospel in the Catholic Church. I would be willing to grant them that – they never HEARD the Gospel in the Catholic Church. But I guarantee you, the Gospel was being preached. It is impossible for a Catholic parish not to preach the Gospel, as long as that parish sticks to the liturgy, for the liturgy contains all the elements of the Gospel. A youth minister at a Baptist church my daughter was visiting made the remark that, as a former Catholic, he had never been exposed to Bible stories when he was growing up. The loud snort issuing forth from my daughter’s nose caused several worshippers around her to nearly drop their King James Bibles. She had just come from Mass and had sat through several rather longish readings including the story of Moses striking the rock, a Psalm, a reading from St. Paul, and then the Gospel story of the woman at the well – pretty typical readings for a normal Catholic Mass. When she got home, she asked me, “What exactly was that guy doing when he attended Mass???” Not listening, that’s for sure.

Liturgy of the hours in a monastery of Carthusian nuns

The Internet appears to be full of stories by former priests and nuns who would have us believe that they were never exposed to a word of Holy Scripture till they became “Bible-believing Christians.” This, despite the fact that Catholics priests as well as members of male and female religious orders are required to pray the Liturgy of the Hours (click on the tabs at the top of the page which say “Invitatory Prayer,” Office of Readings,” “Morning Prayer,” “Daytime Prayer,” “Evening Prayer” and “Night Prayer” to see how much Scripture is involved). One would assume that these folks might attend Mass with some regularity as well. Between the two, it’s pretty obvious that they would be exposed to a considerable chunk of Scripture on a daily basis. What accounts for the discrepancy? I don’t care to speculate, but as they say, you do the math. There’s simply no way that they were never exposed to the Bible….

So, take these “I escaped the horrors of the false Romanist system” stories with a grain of salt. If you really want to know what the Catholic Church teaches, get a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church – it’s all right there in black-and-white. If you want to know how much Scripture is actually read at Mass, visit the nearest Catholic parish some Sunday morning. It never hurts to check things out for yourself!

On the memorial of St. Peter Claver

Deo omnis gloria!