One of several photos I took at our cathedral before the archbishop’s service for catechumens and candidates. We have over 400 people entering full communion with the Church this Easter! The light streaming in from on high could not have been more appropriate for this day. How awesome is God, and how beautiful is the Faith!
There are two ideas that I encounter over and over again in my conversations with non-Catholic Christians. The first idea is that, for whatever reason, the Catholic Church does not possess apostolic authority. The second is that Christians should only believe what can be explicitly found in scripture, because the Bible is the final authority. I would like to reflect on these two ideas that I myself once held.
If apostolic authority died with the last Apostle, then no one has apostolic authority. No Catholic, no Protestant, no Evangelical or Fundamentalist has apostolic authority. Hence, no one since the Apostles has had the authority to tell anyone what to believe or what not to believe about the Bible, including its contents.
The early Christians had to believe what the Apostles told them. But, the Apostles died. So, what happened to their authority? How could they continue to “tell” Christians what to believe? How would the Holy Spirit guide and unify the Church without the Apostles? Here are a few options: 1) Apostolic authority was transferred to the successors of the Apostles. 2) Apostolic authority was transferred to the Bible. 3) A combination of the two.
If authority was transferred only to the Apostles’ successors, then there would be little point in writing things down (like the Gospels, for example). So there must be at least some apostolic authority contained within the writings of the Apostles. After all, if the Apostle has authority, his writings will, too.
If authority was transferred only to the writings of the Apostles, then it would make sense to include that information in the writings. For example, the apostles should have written down something that says, “When we are all dead, our authority will reside only in these written documents” or, “Only believe what is explicitly written in this future collection of writings and nothing else,” or “The Bible is now your final authority.” The problem is that the Bible makes no claim that it is the final authority for the Christian upon the death of the last apostle or at any other point in time. Although the Bible claims to be “profitable” it does not claim to have “the final say” or to be entirely “sufficient.” Plus, the Church went 400 years without an officially assembled Bible.
Non-Catholic Christians (with few exceptions) have largely rejected the idea that the authority of the Apostles was transferred to successors. Therefore, unlike the early Christians, there are no men that these Christians are ultimately accountable to. They are essentially free to discern the Bible on their own and believe what they wish. If they disagree with one church, they can find a different one. While many of them claim submission to their respective church leadership, there is really no reason for them to do so in matters of faith and morals. Why submit to leadership when each Christian can decide what to believe? “Leadership” therefore becomes limited to the logistical and administrative needs of each church. In this scenario, apostolic authority on faith and morals (limited now to only the Bible) takes a back seat to the beliefs of individual Christians. Christians now tend to submit to leadership that aligns with what they believe. This is the opposite of the early Church where individual Christians were expected to line up with the unified teaching of the Apostles.
Catholics, believing that the Apostles transferred their Christ-given authority to successors, are expected to behave as the early Christians did. They are expected to fall in line with God’s written Word as well as the teachings delivered by men with apostolic authority. In this scenario, apostolic authority is still in the driver’s seat. Individual Christians are expected to remain in the back seat and submit to the teachings of Church leadership, just like when the apostles were alive. In other words, the apostles “live on” in their successors who are able to clarify their writings and apply them to the present day life of the Church. This has continued for 2000 years.
The authentic Catholic Christian, like the early Christian does not search for a church that aligns with his or her individual conclusions about the Bible. Rather, like the early Christians, the authentic Catholic is obedient to Christ through obedience to Christ’s Church (which includes the Bible). The Bible is not the “container” which holds all things Christian. The Church is the “container” which holds all things Christian, and the Bible is inside that container (aka the Deposit of Faith). The Bible points the Christian back to the Church as the “pillar and ground of the truth.” (1Tim 3:15) The Bible never places itself over and above the Church’s authority, or demands that the Christian reject the Church and submit only to the authority of Bible. The Bible and the Church together are a coordinated, apostolic authority. It is not either/or, it is both/and.
The Catholic Church must possess apostolic authority in order to have assembled and affirmed the contents of the Bible 400 years after the Apostles died. The Catholic Church declared which writings were inspired and which were not. It makes no sense to reject the apostolic authority of the Catholic Church and then claim that the Bible contains apostolic authority for the Christian. It is inconsistent to say, “I only believe what is in the Bible, but I don’t believe that the Church that assembled that Bible has apostolic authority.” That is akin to saying, “I believe the Gospel of John, but I don’t believe John had apostolic authority.”
Assembling the Bible was as important as writing the Bible. Without the Church’s apostolic authority, we could all pick and choose whether or not we think the book of James or the Gospel of Thomas belongs in the New Testament. Why not rely only on the words spoken by Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel? Why not accept Peter’s writings but reject Paul’s? When you dump the Catholic Church’s apostolic authority, everything else is up for grabs, including the Table of Contents of your Bible.
Apostolic authority was promised by Christ to the Church. It is not transient, it is permanent. It is not something that can be “lost” and then “picked up” by another church, for Jesus established only one Church and promised to remain with that Church. Bad people in the Church cannot cause apostolic authority to “go away.” It is the authority of Christ, given by Christ. Jesus never said that the authority given to the Apostles would someday go away or be confined to a book. The Apostles never taught that, either. They appointed new men to fill vacant offices (Acts 1:20-26).
If the Catholic Church does not have apostolic authority, then no one has apostolic authority. That authority died with the Apostles, and the Bible doesn’t have it, either. It’s just a collection of old writings that may or may not have been inspired by God, put together by a false religion that calls itself Christian. If that’s the case, it really doesn’t make sense to believe what is in the Bible. On the other hand, if the Catholic Church does have apostolic authority, then it is reasonable to believe the things that are explicitly stated in the Bible as well as all of the other official teachings of the Catholic Church. It’s all apostolic teaching.
Ultimately, for the Catholic, it comes down to trusting Christ to hold it all together in spite of our imperfections. “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” (2Cor 4:7) Jesus, I trust in thee.
Luke 6:37 tells us not to judge. But, we can’t stop there, because Matt 7:1-5 spells things out in more detail. The message is that we are not to be judgmental hypocrites. There’s no point trying to remove a speck from someone’s eye if you have a huge log in your own eye. First, take care of your own sins. Then, you have the proper perspective to help someone else grow spiritually.
When you make judgments about certain behaviors or attitudes, remember that you will be held to the same standard you are using. For example, there’s no point in judging someone’s lies if you yourself make a habit of lying. There’s no point in judging someone for watching or making pornographic videos if you yourself entertain pornographic thoughts and images in your own mind. Don’t look with disdain upon someone who gossips if you gossip, too. Clean up your own act before trying to help another clean up theirs.
Jesus took this to an even higher level in John 8 when he told an accusing crowd, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” After those who wanted to condemn her had all left, Jesus said to the woman who had sinned, “I’m not going to condemn you, either. Go, and sin no more.”
The crowd knew that the woman had sinned. Jesus also knew she had sinned. Jesus did not admonish the crowd for recognizing and hating sin. We are supposed to recognize and hate sin (otherwise we can’t get the logs out of our own eyes). Jesus admonished the crowd for not recognizing and hating their own sins and for wanting to condemn the woman for hers. So, Jesus showed us the better way. Recognize and hate sin, but treat sinners with love and mercy rather than condemnation. We’re all sinners. We all want love and mercy when we sin. We should apply the “Golden Rule.” Any condemnation is God’s decision, not ours.
“Go, and sin no more.” Victory over sin is the ultimate goal of God’s love and mercy. Notice, Jesus did not say, “I don’t condemn you, either, and I never will, so go ahead and keep sinning.” If we continue to prefer sin over God’s love and mercy, condemnation may very well be the result. Jesus left the woman with her free will and the choice to either obey him or ignore him.
In summary: Hate the sin but love the sinner. We are all sinners and need empathy for each other. Make sure you hate and address your own sins, first (regular confession and genuine repentance). Leave condemnation up to God (if you throw a stone it may bounce back and hit you). Don’t condone sin in yourself or in others (judge behaviors, not souls). The ultimate goal for all of us is to “go and sin no more.”
I’m beginning to think that someone will eventually file and win an anti-discrimination lawsuit that allows a cat to be entered in a dog show since the cat is, “after all, an animal with rights and it behaves so much like a dog. The cat should be given the chance to prove itself and the owner should be permitted the unalienable right to pursue happiness by entering it in the show.” Not all discrimination is bad or unjust, but I think we’re being conditioned to believe that it is.
The moment I place myself “up here” and someone else “down here,” lower than me, I have denied my faith. When I look upon any other human being with contempt, I have denied my faith. Regardless of what another’s sins may be, I have my own to repent of.
I must look up to everyone from a lower position, because I must see Christ in them. If I look down on them, I look down on Christ. Pride destroys the soul.
I must judge behaviors, for I must know right from wrong in order to strive for holiness. But I cannot judge souls. Only God knows the hearts of people. Only God judges the soul.
God does not raise us up by looking down on us. He raises us by lowering himself and looking up at us with love. This is what the Christian is called to do, because we are called to follow Christ.
Faith does not last. In Heaven we won’t need faith, for we will see everything. Hope does not last. In Heaven we won’t need hope, for we will have arrived. Only charitable love lasts forever, for God is love. Faith, hope and love; the greatest of these is love.
I cannot look down on others from a genuine vantage point of faith and hope. I can only look up to them in love. Otherwise, my faith and my hope are phony imitations.
Catholic prayers, liturgies and Sacraments begin and end with the sign of the cross and the words, “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen (so be it).” We do not simply tack these words on for dramatic effect. They indicate that we live and move and have our being in the Holy Trinity.
The claim that Catholic Christians somehow circumvent Jesus or do not go “directly to God” is a myth spread by ignorance of Catholicism and sometimes overt, anti-Catholic sentiments. Even when we ask Mary and the saints for intersession, we are only able to do so through the one mediator, Jesus Christ. We (including the saints in Heaven) boldly approach the throne of the Almighty Father through the mediation of the Son and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Yesterday I was on a men’s retreat at my parish. During lunch break one of the guys was looking at his phone and scrolling away. I asked him if he was looking at Facebook. “Yeah,” he said, “just killing some time.” I nodded my head. Then he said, “Facebook is kind of like standing in front of the refrigerator. You open it up and scan through it to see if anything looks good.” I laughed in agreement.
His comment reminded me of a talk I once heard from a priest who was teaching a class on Catholicism. The priest was introducing the idea that all of us have a built in longing for God, but we seek things other than God to appease that longing. He quoted St. Augustine as saying that “our hearts are restless, oh God, until they rest in you.” Then, he shared his own experience of something that is familiar to most of us. It is the tendency to open the refrigerator door and stand there looking for something, even when we’re not really hungry.
I think it was G.K. Chesterton who said, “Every man who ever knocked on the door of a brothel was looking for God, but he just didn’t realize it.” Whether it is the brothel door, the refrigerator door, the pantry door, the log in page of Facebook or any number of endeavors, we all look for something besides God to appease our longing for God. Actually, it’s not something but someone we are seeking. It is a longing that can only be satisfied by a relationship with God, for only God can provide the pure, unconditional love that we crave. If we seek that relationship in anything or anyone other than God, we will eventually find ourselves unfulfilled, frustrated or disappointed. We may even find ourselves addicted, constantly returning to that which can never fully satisfy, and that which ultimately leaves us empty and restless.
Close the refrigerator door. You’re letting all the cold air out.
I used to think that being Christian was all about leaving this world to be with God “up there” somewhere. In my mind, I had a vision of my soul leaving my dead body and floating up to Heaven to be with billions of other souls. There we would have an eternal, spiritual party worshiping God. At some point, my dead body would be all fixed up and reunited with my soul, but I didn’t really know why that mattered. The point of this present life was to leave this world behind and “get to Heaven.” Everything about the Christian life was “spiritual.” Matter didn’t really matter. In fact, matter was an obstacle that interfered with the spiritual. “Material” people were not “spiritual” people. I didn’t really see how the material and the spiritual were intimately connected by God’s design.
As a Catholic Christian, I now see things differently. Rather than focusing on me rising up to a spiritual Heaven, I see that Heaven has already descended and merged with the material world (including me). The incarnation is about God becoming a Jewish carpenter with a material, human body and human nature. Redemption is about all of material creation being made new. This transformation of creation is already happening. For example, it happens every time a person is baptized. The water (matter) is used by God to transform the person into a “new creature.” Baptism, like all the Sacraments, uses matter to affect God’s grace.
The connection of matter and spirit is also evident in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist in the Catholic Mass. Baptized Christians look the same as other humans even though they are new creatures. In a similar way, bread and wine appear to be bread and wine even though they have been transformed into the body and blood of Christ. This is Heaven descending into the world of matter to transform it and heal it. We are material and spiritual beings. It only makes sense that we need to be fed by food that is both material and spiritual. Why do people accept God being physically present in the form of a Jewish carpenter but balk at God being physically present in the form of bread and wine? A look at Jesus under a microscope would reveal human flesh, but he is God. Under the microscope we see bread and wine, but it is his glorified flesh and blood. He is here!
I no longer focus on “getting to Heaven.” I focus on Heaven coming into this material world to transform it and me. This is what the incarnation is all about. This is what the Holy Eucharist is all about. After God created everything He said it was good. It is still good, but it needs healing. Jesus came to heal all of creation, including you and me.
The incarnation did not suddenly stop after Jesus ascended to Heaven and sent the Holy Spirit. He promised to send the Holy Spirit as a teacher and a guide, but he also promised he would not leave us orphaned. He promised he would always be with us. He would never leave us or forsake us. If he is only here “in spirit” then his physical body is missing. The physical presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist means that Jesus is still the Word become flesh and he is still “God with us.”
During my many years in non-Catholic churches I often felt like something was missing. I realize now what it was. Most everything was spiritualized and subjective. There was less sense of how connected matter and spirit actually are. For example, The Lord’s Supper seemed like a very reverent Memorial Day ceremony. It was a time of remembering what Christ did 2000 years ago. Remembering is not a bad thing. Folks are typically quite moved during such services, as I was. Remembering is not the same as participating, however. Holy Communion is not ONLY for remembering what Jesus did, regardless of how moving it is to remember. Communion is for physical as well as spiritual communing with God and with each other.
The Mass is where Heaven descends to this material world and allows us to merge with it, not merely remember it. “…Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven…Give us this day our daily bread…” It is the will of God that we on Earth be physically and spiritually connected to Heaven through the incarnate Christ, the Bread of Life. This happens DAILY all around the world in the Catholic Mass. This connection between Heaven and Earth is an objective one. That is, it happens whether or not the believers “feel” it happening. It is not a subjective experience that flows from how moved or inspired the participants are. Christ makes it effective, not the feelings of the believers. A vaccine “works” by virtue of its objective, physical connection to the patient. Similarly, the Holy Eucharist “works” by virtue of its objective, physical and spiritual connection to the recipient (not our subjective feelings, strong as they may be). Jesus saying, “Take and eat, take and drink” is like a doctor saying, “Take this medicine.”
So, these days, I think less about us going to Heaven and more about Heaven coming to heal us daily. One day, all things will be made new. Right now, the process is underway. We simply need to accept it and participate in it. Going to the doctor includes following the doctor’s orders to take your medicine. Accepting Christ includes following his command to eat his flesh and drink his blood. That’s how the spiritual merges with the material every day. That’s the incarnation, “God with us.” Christianity is as much about the material as it is the spiritual, because we are material and spiritual creations. That’s why all seven Sacraments matter, and that’s why matter matters to the Christian.
I’m excited about something we’re doing at our parish this Christmas. One of the men in our men’s group has been able to procure low cost copies of Scott and Kimberly Hahn’s book Rome Sweet Home. Hundreds of these books will be gift wrapped and given to people at Christmas Mass. The plan is to also give more of these books away at Easter.
There are so many people that only come to church on Christmas and Easter. This book may help some of them appreciate their faith more. Listening to the stories of converts is a great way to avoid taking the Faith for granted. Cradle Catholics often lack zeal and knowledge about their own Catholicism. Many are “culturally Catholic” with little or no sense of the historical, spiritual, life-giving power of Christ’s Church. It can be very enlightening to hear the logical and spiritual reasons for actually wanting to become Catholic. There are thousands of people and hundreds of families in our parish. We hope to get at least one book to most of these families.
The book was written by a married couple. They take turns describing their path from anti-Catholic, Evangelical Protestantism to Catholicism. Scott Hahn has become one of the most respected biblical scholars of our day. It is refreshing to hear the perspectives of both Scott and Kimberly as they explain their individual struggles as well as the challenges the journey presented to their marriage. I highly recommend the book to Catholic and non-Catholic readers.
So many Catholics are drifting away from the Church or going through the motions of being Catholic without really being in love with Christ or his Church. My prayer is that, by reading what people go through to find their way home to Catholicism, many Catholics will realize how good it is to already be home. Then they will have more desire to invite others home, too. I also hope non-Catholics will read the book and be inspired to make the journey home.
The Reflective Revert 