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Saturday, March 26, 2016

Jesus' Death on the Cross

I. Return At that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
The significance of the tearing of the Temple curtain and the way in which it happened ought not to be underestimated. Consider that God had walked intimately with Adam and Eve in the garden in the cool of day (cf Gen 3:8), but that after sin, they could no longer endure His presence; they had to dwell apart from the paradise that featured God’s awesome presence. Consider, too, how terrifying theophanies (appearances of God to human beings) were after that time. For example, the appearance of God on the top of Mt Sinai is described in the Book of Exodus:
When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die” (Ex 20:18-19).
Had God changed? Was He different from when He walked with Adam and Eve in intimacy? No. We had changed and could no longer endure the presence of God.
Throughout the Old Testament, a veil existed between God and Israel. There was the cloud that both revealed God’s presence and concealed it. There was also the curtain in the sanctuary, beyond which the High Priest could only venture once a year, and even then in fear and trembling.
Sin had done this. Mere human beings could no longer tolerate God’s presence.
But with His Death on the cross, Jesus has canceled our sin. We once again have access to God through Christ our Lord. His blood has cleansed us and the ancient separation from the Father and from God’s presence has been canceled. But we will not encounter God in a merely earthly paradise; He has now opened the way to Heaven.
It is now up to us to make the journey there, but the way has been opened, the veil has been rent. Through this open veil the Father now says, “Come to me!”

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Friday, March 25, 2016

Embodying Mysticism

The Catholic tradition has a long history of faith seeking understanding. St. Thomas Aquinas, the most notable of Dominican friars, believed that philosophy can prove, through reason unaided by mystical experience, some truths proposed by Christian faith. Reason is also capable of clarifying truths that cannot be proved, and it can defend the principles of Christian faith against detractors. The mystical experience, it follows, because it can be explored through reason (in that reason can clarify truths which cannot be proved), must be approachable through some kind of intellectual activity. It is here, for Aquinas, and for Robinson as well, that the mystical experience becomes a special sort of theology.

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Monday, March 14, 2016

Priest as Victim

The priest has many vocations, but his primary calling is to offer sacrifice. Does he also understand that he himself is called to be the sacrifice?
Only when the man on his way to ordination comprehends his mission can he set out to fulfill his vocation well, to face the opposition that always comes when good men confront a world swamped with evil — and that vocation is one of suffering, of offering sacrifice and of himself being sacrificed. Seminarians must keep this understanding foremost in their minds.

In 1963, Abp. Fulton Sheen wrote a book titled "The Priest Is Not His Own." In it, he mentioned the various functions of the priest — leader, teacher, servant, spiritual father — but drove home the point that no role more truly defines the priest than that of victim.
Pagan people, without knowing it explicitly, sensed the truth that "unless blood is shed, there can be no remission of sins" (Heb. 9:22). From the earliest times, through the kings and priests, they offered animals, and sometimes even humans, to turn away the anger of the gods. As in the Levitical priesthood, however, the victim was always separate from the priest.The sacrifice was a vicarious one, the animal representing and taking the place of the guilty humans, who thus sought to expiate their guilt in the shedding of blood.
The separation of victim — who atones for sins — from priest — who offers the sacrifice — was the hallmark of pagan offerings. What distinguishes Christianity from the pagan cults is the union of the one being sacrificed with the one who offers sacrifice — in Jesus Christ, Who is both Priest and Victim.
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Monday, March 7, 2016

Path Less Taken

Evil spirits tempt, but when we succumb it is our fault
A devout Catholic friend of mine went to the doctor because she was feeling physically run down. She mentioned that she could be maliciously catty about others and that it drained her of energy, but that she felt lighter after confession. This was her remedy for mental exhaustion caused by being dragged down by the weight of her sins. Probing a bit further, the doctor asked her if she believed temptation may be the work of bad angels. My friend answered “yes.”
The medic, seeing that my friend was calm and collected, said he respected her religious views and he believe in God but that he had to warn her that thoughts of bad angels inspiring people to do bad deeds was dangerous fantasy. Furthermore he thought that people were blame-shifting- they ascribed blame to imaginary spirits and not to themselves.
My friend told her doctor that he had a point – people could blame the sources of temptation – but not take responsibility for themselves. She clarified that God has given each human enough grace to withstand temptations – and that when she spoke badly of others to the point where her listeners thought badly of the people she maligned – that she had been to blame because she had not relied on God’s grace to help her overcome her destructive longing to backbite. Thus she was the one who went to Confession, and not the fallen angel.
Perhaps the difference between feeling tempted and acting on temptation is like the man who becomes violent after too much whisky. If he sees a flashy, provocative ad for hooch, and decides to get drunk, after which he beats his wife and kids, he may say the ad was to blame because it gave him the idea to pickle his brain in spirits.
When we only blame that which tempts us – we are not placing the emphasis on what would prevent us from falling in the first place – relying on God’s grace. My friend got it right when she said that she sinned because she had not sought God’s grace.
So few of us have such humility. We fall into sin often because we doubt God’s love for us – He loved each of us so much – that he has endowed each soul with enough grace to overcome the tailored set of temptations that each of us face.
There are as many temptations as there are sins, but I think there is one temptation that is particularly dodgy for anyone. It is when we use the sins of our past against ourselves. ‘I’m the person who did this and that, I am a hopeless case who may as well give up the fight to do better,’ is often our personal voice-over that accompanies flashbacks on our mind’s cinema of times when we’ve behaved badly.
Tim Stanley admirably tackled this problem of despairing on account of one’s sins when earlier in the week he appeared on Thought For The Day. Stanley shared how shortly after he converted to Catholicism, he went to confession and told the priest that he didn’t think he could make it because he was still sinning. The priest said to him, ‘by the very fact that you’ve come here to confess your sins, you’ve shown that you have changed.’
Taking Stanley’s example to heart, I suggest opening a dialogue with one’s conscience and relying on God’s grace. Seeking God’s grace can seem so lofty, but in urgency we can offer arrow prayers (“God help me”) and say to our favourite saint, “please pray for me.”
Something that I am starting is praying the Litany of the Holy Spirit, so that I am enlightened as to what might be a temptation.
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Friday, March 4, 2016

Caholic Practices

Practicing the faith given by Jesus helps people face their own sufferings and difficulties.  This is how the earliest Christians practiced their faith:

Those 2nd century Christians did some things that would never fly in an Evangelical community today. Check out these nine things that the people schooled by the apostles saw fit to do in their day, things they knew they had the authority to do.

1. There was no worship music

BOOM! (like the bass drum that didn’t get played at Christian services) Seriously, not only was “worship music” never heard in early Christian liturgy, but it’s also considered by some to be “unBiblical”. Say what?! Yeah, there are actually Christian groups today who don’t allow any instruments because the NT never mentions music in Christian liturgy.

2. They read The Maccabees in church

They did what?! Yeah, it just so happens that the early Christians accepted Scripture to include the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures), which contained all those books that Luther maligned as Apocrypha. They probably did this because, you know, the NT authors used the Septuagint for about 80% of all their OT quotes.

3. They baptized infants

“But Tertullian…” Ha, yeah, John Piper likes to tell people that the earliest explicit reference to infant baptism is from Tertullian, but Piper’s… not speaking the truth. Even setting aside the implicit mentions of baptizing whole households found in the NT, we have St. Irenaeus writing circa 190:
It was not for nothing that Naaman of old, when suffering from leprosy, was purified upon his being baptized, but [this served] as an indication to us. For as we are lepers in sin, we are made clean, by means of the sacred water and the invocation of the Lord, from our old transgressions, being spiritually regenerated as newborn babes, even as the Lord has declared: ‘Except a man be born again through water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven’ [John 3:5]”.

4. For adults, they delayed baptism until after catechesis

Now what made them think they had the authority to do that? Oh, right: “As the Father sent me, so I send you.” I guess when you have the authority of Jesus, you can do these things.

5. They excluded the unbaptized from congregational prayer

NO WAY!? Mm-hmm. Yeah, during those early Christian liturgies, they would welcome the uninitiated (the inquiring) to gather with them for the first part of their liturgy, which was the reading of OT and NT Scriptures and listening to the presbyter (AKA priest) give a homily. After that, they had to leave before the congregational prayers began.

6. They excluded the unbaptized from Holy Communion

Yep, they weren’t allowed to pray with the baptized inside the liturgy, and they couldn’t get anywhere near the consecrated bread and wine. Now why might that be? It’s almost as if the first Christians believed that there was a substantive difference between baptized and unbaptized persons — as though baptism DID something — and that the consecrated elements were now substantively other than bread and wine.

7. They did not pray the doxology

What’s the doxology? Oh, you know, that little bit at the end of the Lord’s Prayer (AKA the Our Father) that begins “For Thine is the Kingdom…”? While that appears in some Bible translations, it’s well known that it’s not original. Thus, it’s not part of the Lord’s Prayer. It’s – GASP! – extra-Biblical.

8. They celebrated Mass in catacombs surrounded by dead popes

Maybe hard to believe, but that’s history. Every Sunday, in the Catacombs of Callixtus, containing the Crypt of the Popes, a priest would celebrate the Eucharist. And it wasn’t unusual for a sarcophagus to serve as the altar, which is why even today the altars in Catholic churches usually have within or under them a bone fragment from a saint.

9. Sub Tuum Praesidium

Sub Tuum what-now? If you know it at all, you might know it by it’s English title, “Beneath thy compassion”. It’s the oldest extant prayer/hymn to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Admittedly, the earliest copy is from the mid 3rd century, but you’ll forgive me for believing that we didn’t manage to find the very first copy. The prayer is still used to this day in various Christian liturgies.
Beneath your compassion,
We take refuge, O Mother of God:
do not despise our petitions in time of trouble:
but rescue us from dangers,
only pure, only blessed one.
Want to read a little about what how the ancient Mass was celebrated? Check out this excellent article from Msgr. Charles Pope on “house churches” and what they did.
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