What I Never Learned, Part VII: Authority

Years ago, I sent out some "catechesis emails" to interested friends and family. They, like me, never really learned much in Catholic religious education and CCD classes (I was catechized in the 1970s and '80s). What I wrote was pretty basic stuff, and I thought some of the Bubble readers might like the overview. 

Part I: The Fall

Part II: After the Fall

Part III: The Trinity

Part IV: Why it had to be Jesus, and Why He Had to Die
Part V: Jesus as the "Lamb of God"
Part VI: Jesus, the Mass, and the Eucharist

It all comes down to the "A" word: Authority.

Many years ago, my friend Kim and I were on the phone one evening, having a friendly debate about the Pope. She, a Protestant, asked me a sincere question about something that made no sense to her: “America was built on the idea of freedom and independence, and the right of a person to think for himself. So, how, as an American, can you submit yourself to the authority of the Pope? How can you give up your own will in obedience to a mere man?”

Coming from an American Protestant perspective, she was understandably perplexed. And frankly, many American Catholics have acquired the same sentiments, rejecting the idea that they owe filial obedience to the Pope ("Papa") when he speaks as the head of the universal Church. He is, in the minds of many American Catholics, just one more opinion among many. Perhaps he deserves greater respect than others, they might say, but to submit in pure and humble obedience to his teachings? Um, no thanks.

However, let’s look at what God thinks of authority and our obligation to submit to it.

From the very beginning (remember the Garden and the Fall?), man’s big problem has been the refusal to submit to legitimate authority. Pride is the culprit, of course, as pride makes us believe that we are somehow above authority, and that we are able to declare what is good and evil for ourselves, which is exactly what Adam and Eve attempted to do. Humans are always forgetting their place in the hierarchy of created order (yes, God is the author of hierarchy!), and that is what gets us in trouble.

Let’s look at a specific incident in the Bible which really illustrates the point well. If you read Numbers chapter 16 (Numbers is one of the Old Testament books), you will read the story of Korah’s rebellion. Korah was a man who had that streak of stubborn independence that we tend to admire here in America and which is good in proper context; however, that rebel attitude doesn’t always fly with God Almighty. Korah and his supporters decided that they did not like being under Moses’ authority and were upset with his leadership. They confronted Moses and said, “Enough of you! The whole community is holy! Why should you set yourself over the Lord’s people?” (Today we might say it more like this: “We are all equal, and you are no better than us. You can't tell me what to do!”)

In reply, Moses warned Korah and his supporters that if they were conspiring against Moses, then they were really conspiring against God Himself. After all -- and this is key -- it was God who gave Moses authority over His people.

Sooooooooo, to make a long story short (although it’s really not that long of a story, and I highly recommend you go to Numbers 16 and read the entire account), some pretty dramatic things transpired, and God made quite clear whose side He was on by making the earth open up and swallow Korah and his followers whole. Yep, the earth swallowed them up with all their possessions and closed over them and they were never to be seen again. Let's just say that God is not a big fan of open rebellion against those He sets in authority.

God's delegation of that kind of authority is not unique to Moses. In fact, there is never a time when God does not delegate authority from the top down. We see that in every covenant He makes with mankind over the course of history, the Lord always works through mortal, sinful men, setting those men apart and giving them the power and jurisdiction to govern the people in God's name.

Consider these powerful words of our Lord Jesus (speaking of the sinful, hypocritical religious leaders of His day): 

“The scribes and the Pharisees have succeeded Moses as teachers; therefore, do everything and observe everything they tell you. But do not follow their example.”  -- Matt. 23:2-3

Think about that for a minute! Jesus Christ (i.e., the Lord God, the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity) is saying that even if God's appointed teachers are great sinners, we still must submit to their legitimate authority. We must not follow the example of their sin, but we must obey their teachings because their authority to teach comes from God. Therefore, when we obey them, it is really God Whom we obey.

The moral of today’s catechesis is: Don’t be a Korah! Prideful disobedience, rebellion, and a refusal to submit to legitimate authority are not attributes of a faithful child of God. Obedience and humility are, as every saint's life can attest.

Oh, and by the way, my friend Kim became a devout Catholic within a year of our "authority" discussion. She went on to teach the Catholic faith formally for six years after that, at the parish level and beyond. She was able to remain a great American patriot as well. :)

Next time, we will talk more specifically about the establishment and the authority of the Church. Finally understanding what the Church is really blew me away and kept me Catholic when I was ready to bolt.

+++++++

PS: If you still balk at rules, check out this past post:

What the heck is so bad about "rules" anyway?

.

What I Never Learned, Part VI: Jesus, the Mass, and the Eucharist

Years ago, I sent out some "catechesis emails" to interested friends and family. They, like me, never really learned much in Catholic religious education and CCD classes (I was catechized in the 1970s and '80s). What I wrote was pretty basic stuff, and I thought some of the Bubble readers might like the overview. 

Part I: The Fall

Part II: After the Fall

Part III: The Trinity

Part IV: Why it had to be Jesus, and Why He Had to Die
Part V: Jesus as the "Lamb of God"

Last time, we talked about Jesus as the sacrificial lamb (“Behold, the Lamb of God!” said John the Baptist about Jesus, pointing ahead to Jesus' sacrificial death).

We discussed how the Old Testament stories always point to the future, to fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Remember that when something in the Old Testament foreshadows, or points to, something in the New Testament, we call that a "prefigurement" or a "type". Typology (studying the prefigurements in the Bible) is the most exciting way to look at Scripture.
  
So let's go back to a famous Old Testament event, the Passover in Egypt, and discover how it prefigured both Christ’s sacrifice and the Eucharist.

Approximately 1,500 years before Christ, Moses was set to liberate the Hebrew people and lead them out of Egypt, where they had been oppressed and enslaved by Pharaoh. (If you are unfamiliar with the story, then you haven't watched Academy Award winner The Ten Commandments lately! Rent it!) Moses instructed each Hebrew family to select a young male goat or lamb without blemish. They were to sacrifice the animal and then smear its blood on the doorposts and lintel of the house in which they were eating. They had to eat the flesh of the sacrificed lamb or goat that night, along with unleavened bread (there would be no time for leavening). The Hebrews were given other instructions as well, but for our purposes, we will focus on the lamb’s blood, the eating of the lamb’s flesh and the unleavened bread (are you thinking Eucharist yet??).

God sent an angel of death over all the households of Egypt that night to punish the oppressors (the Egyptians), while those whose houses were marked with the blood of the sacrificed lamb would be saved. God said: “When I see the blood, I will pass over you and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you.” (Exodus 12:13)

Now you know why it’s called Passover!

In a nutshell:

The Hebrew people were saved by the blood of the lamb, just as Christians are saved by the Blood of the Lamb.

The Hebrew people were required to eat the flesh of the sacrificed lamb, just as Christians must eat the Flesh of the Sacrificed Lamb.

Read the Gospel of John chapter 6 to hear Jesus’ own words on the subject, which are unambiguous and oft-repeated. (For those tempted to regard Jesus' words as mere symbol, recall that every New Testament fulfillment is always bigger, better and more miraculous by far than the Old Testament prefigurement that pointed to it.)

After that original Passover in Egypt, the Hebrew people were commanded to celebrate it annually, as a memorial. To this day, Jews celebrate a Passover (or seder) meal every year.

You may note that the Catholic Mass looks a lot like a Passover meal, and that's because it is the fulfillment of the Passover meal. It is no coincidence that Jesus instituted the Eucharist during a Passover meal on the night before He died. As the Gospel accounts of the Last Supper tell us, Jesus made some substitutions and revisions at that Holy Thursday Passover: From that night on, He Himself would be the sacrificed Lamb to be eaten under the appearance of unleavened bread, and it would be His Precious Blood that would liberate God’s people (not from the bondage of slavery, but from the much more terrible bondage of sin). The flesh to be consumed and the blood to save us would from now on be Jesus' own, offered for the life of the world.

"Lamb of God, You take away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us."

Christ did not come to abolish the Old Testament, He came to fulfill it. You can see why it’s so important that we Catholics understand the Jewish roots of our Faith. From there, everything starts to come alive for us, and we begin to see the beauty of the whole tapestry of Truth, and how it all fits together.

There are many more Old Testament prefigurements of Christ, His Passion and His Crucifixion, and there are many more Old Testament prefigurements of the Mass and the Eucharist. I hope this whets your appetite for more.

See you next time for Part VII: Authority!



.

What I Never Learned, Part V: Jesus as the "Lamb of God"

Years ago, I sent out some "catechesis emails" to interested friends and family. They, like me, never really learned much in Catholic religious education and CCD classes (I was catechized in the 1970s and '80s). What I wrote was pretty basic stuff, and I thought some of the Bubble readers might like the overview. 

Part I: The Fall

Part II: After the Fall

Part III: The Trinity

Part IV: Why it had to be Jesus, and Why He Had to Die

Okay, let's get cracking with the next installment!

In the Gospels, we read some explosive words spoken by Jesus’ cousin, St. John the Baptist. John had been baptizing people in the Jordan River, preparing them for the Messiah (Jesus) who was to come:

The next day he [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” -- John 1:29

And then:

The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples; and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said: "Behold, the Lamb of God!" -- John 1:35-36

Why is this title so important, shocking, explosive? Because calling Jesus the "Lamb of God" implies that Jesus was to be sacrificed. John the Baptist was actually making a prophesy that Jesus would die as a sacrificial offering. Lambs were routinely sacrificed by the Jews in the worship of God, as you'll recall from the last installment, and that fact is of great significance to Christians.

"As an old saying put it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New" (CCC* 129). When something in the Old Testament foreshadows, or points to, something in the New Testament, we call that a prefigurement or a type. Typology (studying the prefigurements in the Bible) is the most exciting way to look at Scripture. I could give you a zillion examples, but today I want to show you some prefigurements of Christ as the Lamb of God.

Let’s look back a couple thousand years before Christ, to the story of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis, chapter 22).

Abraham and his wife Sarah were a very elderly couple who were finally blessed with a son, Isaac, whom they adored as you can imagine. One day, when Isaac was a boy, God tested Abraham’s faith. He asked Abraham to take Isaac to Mount Moriah and offer him (yep, his son!) as a sacrifice.

So, Abraham took his son (who had no idea that he was to be sacrificed -- yikes!) and went up the mountain. Isaac carried the wood for the sacrifice upon his back. Isaac was puzzled and asked his father, “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb.”  When they arrived, Abraham built an altar, placed the wood in order, tied up Isaac and laid him upon the wood, then lifted his knife to slay his son. At that moment, an angel of God called to him from heaven and told him, “Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” Just then, Abraham saw a ram in the distance that was caught in the thickets by its horns, and he offered the ram as a sacrifice instead of his son. After this, God made His profound covenant with Abraham.

Of course, there are oodles of things to analyze and discover in this passage, on many levels. But let’s see how it prefigures Jesus, as the Lamb of God:

In the Old Testament story, Abraham is to sacrifice his beloved son on Mount Moriah.
In the New Testament fulfillment, God’s beloved Son (Jesus), is sacrificed on the hills of the same mountain range as Mount Moriah (Jerusalem).

In the Old Testament story, Isaac carried the wood for his own sacrifice on his back.
In the New Testament fulfillment, Jesus carried the wood for His own sacrifice on His back.

In the Old Testament story, Abraham said that “God will provide the sacrifice.”
In the New Testament fulfillment, God did provide the real and perfect Sacrifice – Jesus.

In the Old Testament story, Abraham did not withhold his only beloved son from God.
In the New Testament fulfillment, it is God Who did not withhold His only beloved Son from us.

As we see from the story, God would never require us to sacrifice our own children as an offering to Him.** He tested Abraham to see if Abraham would put anything, even his dearly beloved son, before his love of God. When Abraham's actions proved that he loved God above all else, God blessed Abraham and all of his descendants (that’s us, by the way!).

When God and Abraham had this exchange, God already knew that one day, far in the future, He would provide His Son as the Sacrifice -- a willing Victim Who, for love of poor sinners, would take on our sins and save us. When we understand Jesus as the "Lamb of God", we can read this Old Testament passage with new eyes.

This story of Abraham and Isaac was really about Jesus Christ all along.


Next time, I’ll give you another powerful prefigurement of Jesus as the Lamb of God.  And it ties into the Mass and the Eucharist as well. Go here for Part VI.




*Catechism of the Catholic Church

**This episode certainly showed to Abraham and all his descendants that child sacrifice was never to be part of the worship of God; this was one of the many ethical truths that separated the Jews from the pagans. 






.

What I Never Learned, Part III: The Trinity

Years ago, I sent out some "catechesis emails" to interested friends and family. They, like me, never really learned much in Catholic religious education and CCD classes (I was catechized in the 1970s and '80s). What I wrote was pretty basic stuff, and I thought some of the Bubble readers might like the overview. Part one of this series can be found here. Part two, here.

Today is the Feast of the Holy Trinity, and that seems a fitting time to talk about, well, the Holy Trinity! 

The Trinity is the trickiest thing in the world to try to explain, because it is impossible to explain the unexplainable. The Trinity is the greatest mystery of all. But let's go over the basics of what we can know.

The fundamental belief of all Christians -- both Catholic and Protestant*-- is that God is a Trinity. 

The Holy Trinity consists of three Persons in One God. Not three Gods, but one God. Yet in the one Godhead, we have three Persons, all co-equal, all co-eternal, and all with the same divine nature. 

• The first Person of the Holy Trinity is the Father 
• The second Person of the Holy Trinity is the Son
• The third Person of the Holy Trinity is the Holy Spirit (sometimes called the Holy Ghost)

There has never been a time when one of these Persons existed without the other two, and there is not one Person who is “superior” to the others. They have existed together from all eternity, they have always been equal in power and glory, they share the same divine nature, and yet the Three are still distinct Persons. 

The big question, of course: Why is God a Trinity? Why isn't He just one Person?


Answer: Because of the nature of love.  


Remember, God is perfect truth, perfect goodness, and perfect beauty. Most of all, He is perfect love. But think about the very nature of love: Can love be solitary? Can love be one person, alone? No. By it’s very nature, love must have an object. There must be someone to receive love, or else it isn’t love.  


If God weren’t a Trinity, if He were solitary, then God would, in a sense, just sit around "loving" Himself. But think if you just sat around, alone, "loving" yourself. Can you imagine this being the icon of "true love" or a compelling "love story"? Of course not; such a scenario is not an image of love at all.  


Love must go out, go forth to another. And in the case of perfect love, it goes out, is received and accepted by the other (who is the object of the love), then returned in fullness to the first lover.  


It is an endless cycle of love that is given out, received fully and returned, and given out, received fully and returned, in perfection, in fullness, for eternity! 

So, wait…. Then why isn’t God a Duo, instead of a Trinity? Why not just two divine Persons? 


Again, we go back to the nature of love: Love is, by its very nature, generative, fruitful, and life-giving.  


True and perfect love cannot be contained even between the two Lovers! The love between the Father and the Son is so powerful, true, perfect and good that it overflows in an abundance of Life! And this Life is so real that He is a distinct Person. We call Him the Holy Spirit.

So, we can take tentative steps to understanding: The Father’s love is poured out for the Son; the Son receives the Father’s love and returns that perfect love back to the Father; and the Holy Spirit, then, is the overflowing, the outpouring of that love, which cannot be contained, which is spinning forth from the Father and the Son. Catholics acknowledge this every Sunday, when we profess in the Nicene Creed that The Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son”.

Because we humans are finite, and because we exist in space and time, we tend to want to think that the Father preceded the Son, and the Holy Spirit came after the other Two. In fact, however, none is more important than the others, none was there “first.” 


It helps to remember that God exists outside of time and space. God actually created time and space, and since time and space are creations, they do not have any bearing on Who God is. Time and space mean an awful lot to us humans, however, and so as we sit here in time and space, we can talk about the ways that the Persons of the Trinity have been revealed to us, or manifested: 

The Old Testament of the Bible is the part of “the story” which came before Christ. It covers the important points of salvation history from the time of Creation to just before the time of Jesus. The New Testament is the part of the Bible that covers the life and ministry of Jesus Christ and the early Christian Church. 

We see God the Father revealed to us in a profound way in the Old Testament, in all that history before the coming of Christ. We see Him creating the world and all its inhabitants, we see Him interacting with Adam and Eve, promising a Savior when they fall from grace. We see Him making covenants with His people: He had relationships with Noah, Abraham, Moses and all those other wonderful Old Testament biblical figures.

God the Son was certainly right there with the Father when all those Old Testament events took place, but He was not yet revealed to us. We see the Son revealed to us in the New Testament. God the Son took on a human nature (this is known as the Incarnation) and from the time of His Incarnation, we call Him Jesus Christ. The four Gospels in the New Testament (the Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), tell us all about His birth, life, and teachings, the establishment of His Church, His death, resurrection and ascension into Heaven. 

God the Holy Spirit was also with the Father and the Son all along (after all, He is the one Who “has spoken through the Prophets” as we say in the Nicene Creed). After Jesus Christ left this earth (forty days after His resurrection), we begin to see more clearly the action of the Holy Spirit, Whom Jesus sent to the world to ensure that we would “not be left orphans.”  The Holy Spirit descended upon the young Christian Church at Pentecost, and He has been guiding and sanctifying the Church ever since, especially through the sacraments.


So, first the Father was revealed to us, then the Son, then the Holy Spirit. How each was revealed helps us know the Persons better, thus bringing us closer to our goal: Union with God.

Untold volumes have been written about the Holy Trinity over the past two millenia, and yet this legend of St. Augustine might be the most illustrative of all:


The scene is the seashore, where there is a small pool, a little boy with a seashell, and a sandy beach on which St. Augustine, clad in his episcopal robes, is walking, pondering with difficulty the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. 


“Father, Son, Holy Spirit; three in one!” he muttered, shaking his head.

As he approached the little boy who was running back and forth between the sea and the pool with a seashell of water, Augustine craned his neck and asked him: “Son, what are you doing?”

“Can’t you see?” said the boy. “I’m emptying the sea into this pool!”

“Son, you can’t do that!” Augustine countered. 

The boy replied: “I will sooner empty the sea into this pool than you will manage to get the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity into your head!”

Upon saying that, the boy, who was an angel according to the legend, quickly disappeared, leaving Augustine alone with the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.

*Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are not technically Christians, because they do not believe in the Trinity. They have a completely different understanding of God the Father, of Jesus, and of the Holy Spirit. Although they do not accept the traditional Christian understanding of God, these groups do consider themselves to be Christian.

Part IV: Why it Had to Be Jesus, and Why Jesus had to Die

.

What I Never Learned, Part II

Years ago, I sent out some "catechesis emails" to interested friends and family. They, like me, never really learned much in Catholic religious education and CCD classes (I was catechized in the 1970s and '80s). What I wrote was pretty basic stuff, and I thought some of the Bubble readers might like the overview. Part one of this salvation history overview can be found here.

Welcome back!

So, what happened to humanity after Adam and Eve’s fall from grace and banishment from the Garden of Eden?

Well, life got pretty rough (it always does when humans are separated from God). When sin entered the world, so did toil, suffering, disorder and death. Everything that was easy in the Garden was now difficult and required great effort. Adam now had to work the land, laboring and sweating, in order to bring forth food (whereas in the Garden, food was abundant and available). Eve would have to bear children in pain and suffering (whereas in the Garden, childbirth would have been painless and effortless).

The things that bring forth life (tending the fields; giving birth) became works of great suffering and sacrifice. It is significant that when Jesus Christ came later to clean up our mess, He gave us the gift of eternal life through His great suffering and perfect sacrifice.

Please keep that in mind: In our fallen world, the things that are truly life-giving require suffering and sacrifice. It doesn’t sound pleasant, does it? In our fallen state, we humans have a disordered inclination to seek pleasure and comfort above all else, and we are uneasy when we think of suffering and sacrifice. And yet, we are called to endure suffering patiently and offer ourselves sacrificially.

Yep, there's a reason Jesus calls His way the “narrow road” that is not often willingly traveled! But that narrow road leads to abundant and eternal life. It is our suffering and sacrifice (offered to God in union with Christ's suffering and sacrifice) that sanctifies us, and it is in our sanctification (i.e., holiness) that we attain the perfection of Heaven.

But, I digress!

Adam and Eve went about their lives outside the Garden, they were “fruitful and multiplied,” and they taught their children about God. But because of sin and its effects (concupiscence), human thoughts became confused, consciences dulled and hearts hardened. It wasn't long before the first human blood was spilled: Adam and Eve's son Cain murdered his brother Abel, out of envy. And things spiraled down from there.

Essentially, what happened back then still happens today: People get caught up in their lives and do not think of God, Who becomes less and less important. As His memory fades from their minds and hearts, sin increases (sin darkens the intellect and weakens the will, so this downward spiral happens quite easily). Some deny His existence completely, while others acknowledge Him but keep Him far enough away so that He doesn’t interfere with their lives. Others resent and defy God when life is difficult and full of pain. However it happens, God is rejected, and we put ourselves in His place.

He doesn’t abandon us, we abandon Him.

So, way back then, as the generations marched on, most folks eventually abandoned God. However, then – as now – there was a handful of people who remained faithful and obedient to the Lord. God worked closely with those faithful ones throughout the generations, planning an opportunity for all of mankind to be saved. (It's been said that God’s mercy is His most beautiful attribute, and I tend to agree!)

Within every soul -- even the souls who do not love God or who do not believe in Him -- God has left His “echo” or his “thumbprint.” Deep down, every soul knows of God, every soul is hurting because of separation from God, and every soul is trying to find its way back to God. God alone knows what each of these souls needs, and He alone can provide it. Like a loving Father, He patiently waits for His children to reach for Him.

He waits now, He waited then.

Back in the ancient centuries, those who still remembered the God of the Garden tried to work their way back to Him….


Part III here.