A reflection on the life and priesthood of Saint John Vianney: Model for parish priests By Dana Nussberger
In a time where the priesthood is treated as an honorary status, St. John Vianney show us that the priesthood is all about sacrifice. If spiritual fathers are true shepherds, they must be ready to take a beating to protect their sheep. Once St. John Vianney was tormented all night by demons when he went to exercise a house with one of his parishioners, but inflamed with love of God and manly courage shook it off like it was nothing (the parishioner ran away after enduring one night). St. John Vianney regularly withstood violent physical and psychological attacks such as these from evil spirits. Although not every priest is called to this highest level of priestly courage and endurance they all can learn from his example.
St. John Vianney gives us a picture of what it means to be a “slave” of the Church and the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 1:1). One time I read this fascinating explanation of what a priest’s white circular or tab color means. It actually was an Anglican priest/spiritual father give me a whole new perspective on this. He explained that the white circle the priests were around their neck is a representation of a “slave collar”. How different our Church would be if we understood that, St. John Vianney’s whole lifelong ministry embodied this voluntary slavery to the people through his total availability to the people of God. Although not every priest will actually be called to this type of living slavery, he should consider that in truth his priesthood means at least theoretically all of this time 24/7 has already been donated any time he gets back should be counted as a great extra blessing. St. John Vianney gave up all of his time. He could have enjoyed many simple pleasures of life but instead he was available anytime of the day to pray on behalf of his people, to be available to the Lord in personal prayer, or to be available to the people for their needs.
Certainly, in the early days of the Church it was true that the best, the holiest, most determined and most intelligent/ capable persons were chosen to be priests or at least deacons. This pattern even continued in a modified way for the first few centuries of the Catholic church’ s history. Then it was natural to see the best rise to the top of the hierarchy. All the best theologians were actual bishops and indeed as scholars today note, the original model for the ministry of theologian is not an academic/scholar but a bishop.
Because of the great expansiveness of St. John Vianney’s heart he was able to hear confessions for hours each day sometimes even 16 hours a day. Tens of thousands of People came to him and received God’s love and felt free and deeply happy after giving him their sins but he drank in sorrow for their sins. This sorrow was a participation in Christ’s own sorrow for sin . This was also a way of helping St. John Vianney fulfil the priestly task of interceding for sinners. All practicing Catholic disciples also have a priestly task as intercessors. And we can learn from St. John Vianney that real intercession involves sacrifice for example prayer and fasting. Perhaps even more so it is the power of intense desire of the interceding heart draws down God’s graces.
The proper mass readings for Saint John Vianney draw attention to the priest’s preaching role as herald of the gospel. Still many Catholics need to realize that Christians within non-priest orders of the Church are just as qualified for preaching and prophecy as ministerial priests. Particularly at the beginning of the Church (33AD-110AD) the priest was expected to be the primary proclaimer of the gospel and teacher and the best and holiest rose to the priesthood. But now the Holy Spirit has richly endowed many other orders of Christians with these same prophetic gifts for ministry of the word. Unfortunately, in many regions like Our Lady of Fatima many Catholics tragically think that a non-ordained minister is second class or no minister at all. This overgrown Catholic clericalism which says that only priests (and to the lesser extent deacons) have anything meaningful to say or do within the Church must end not just for the good of women but for the good of every family and ministry.
Sometimes we forget that just as the priest is commanded to be a “watchman” for the people the people also must insert themselves into the priest’s life to sanctify them. We have a right to watch out for the priest just as he watches out for us. Certainly, prayer comes first and foremost. Also, we don’t want to intimidate or bully the priest but when things that are clearly both dangerous and wrong are constantly taught the lay faithful must consider how they can leverage their position to make the priests holy. Because we have received the Holy Spirit as the apostles did at Pentecost in the sacrament of confirmation, we are capable of this prophetic ministry of watching. Finally sometimes we forget but even though priests have a great honor and many blessed opportunities for tranquility, they also face great struggles. Even good “praying” priests can experience loneliness, or have a crisis of faith, just to name two possible crisis.
Let us become watchmen and watch women for each other.
Special guest post by Diana Nussberger July 23th 2023 Sunday Mass reflection
In Matthew 13:24-43 Jesus speaks three more parables to the crowd gathered on shore while sitting in a boat. First, Jesus spoke the Parable of the Weeds Among the Wheat which refers to Jesus’ words in Matthew 24:14 “this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come.” We (the children of God) will co-exist with the children of darkness until Jesus returns for His Church and everyone is sent to heaven or Hell. Followed by the Parable of the Mustard Seed and the Parable of the Yeast which show the fruitfulness (growth) of the word of God sown in a willing and believing heart. Children of God apply what Jesus teaches to every aspect of their life not perfectly but with faith, determination, and perseverance they grow stronger and stronger throughout their life. In the Parable of the Mustard Seed the word sown in our heart dwells unseen but not unfelt. As we persevere in the Faith it continues to grow until it “becomes a large bush” that supports the life around it: “birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.” People are drawn to us and brought to Christ by His love that dwells in our hearts and actions. The Parable of the Yeast is the word sown in our hearts (bread dough) that is kneaded (distributed throughout) until we are “leavened.” Leavened dough is dough that has risen to its final form. The word has achieved the purpose for which is was sent!By Dana Nussberger July 23th 2023 Sunday Mass reflection
Today’s readings are all about the awesome loving mercy of God and what is required of us to enter into his Kingdom. The first reading touches on one of my favorite themes in the Bible. God’s might as creator of all things both “visible and invisible” is the source of his incredible loving kindness and patience. The community’s response to the Psalm prayer emphasizes this truth, “Lord, you are good and forgiving.” Sometimes it helps me to contemplate that God is stronger than the devil because he is is the creator of all things. God doesn’t fall into snits of rage as we sinners are accustomed to, because of our impatience.
When someone tries to take away my freedom or makes me feel bad for no good reason, I have often unfortunately fallen into a snit of rage and tried to get revenge. But as I contemplated how much God has forgiven me despite being annoyed and much more hurt by my offenses than I was by my neighbor’s offences.
So, I’ve become more like God by forgiving and becoming more patient. His gentle and good nature should encourage us to ask for God’s mercy always. In the Catholic tradition we can experience forgiveness in a special way by confronting our sins in light of the warmth and the intimacy of the sacrament of forgiveness. In fact going with the right mindset is one way we are merciful with ourselves.
Those who are “just must also be kind” the key take away here is be merciful to others always which is why we must always be merciful to others beginning with those who caused those snits of rage that lead to vengefulness.
“Everyone is called to enter the kingdom. First announced to the children of Israel, this messianic kingdom is intended to accept men of all nations.251 To enter it, one must first accept Jesus’ word:
The word of the Lord is compared to a seed which is sown in a field; those who hear it with faith and are numbered among the little flock of Christ have truly received the kingdom. Then, by its own power, the seed sprouts and grows until the harvest.252
544 The kingdom belongs to the poor and lowly, which means those who have accepted it with humble hearts. Jesus is sent to “preach good news to the poor”;253 he declares them blessed, for “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”254 To them – the “little ones” the Father is pleased to reveal what remains hidden from the wise and the learned.255 Jesus shares the life of the poor, from the cradle to the cross; he experiences hunger, thirst and privation.256 Jesus identifies himself with the poor of every kind and makes active love toward them the condition for entering his kingdom.257
545 Jesus invites sinners to the table of the kingdom: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”258 He invites them to that conversion without which one cannot enter the kingdom, but shows them in word and deed his Father’s boundless mercy for them and the vast “joy in heaven over one sinner who repents”.259 The supreme proof of his love will be the sacrifice of his own life “for the forgiveness of sins”.260
546 Jesus’ invitation to enter his kingdom comes in the form of parables, a characteristic feature of his teaching.261 Through his parables he invites people to the feast of the kingdom, but he also asks for a radical choice: to gain the kingdom, one must give everything.262 Words are not enough, deeds are required.263 The parables are like mirrors for man: will he be hard soil or good earth for the word?264 What use has he made of the talents he has received?265 Jesus and the presence of the kingdom in this world are secretly at the heart of the parables. One must enter the kingdom, that is, become a disciple of Christ, in order to “know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven”.266 For those who stay “outside”, everything remains enigmatic.267
The signs of the kingdom of God
547 Jesus accompanies his words with many “mighty works and wonders and signs”, which manifest that the kingdom is present in him and attest that he was the promised Messiah.268
548 The signs worked by Jesus attest that the Father has sent him. They invite belief in him.269 To those who turn to him in faith, he grants what they ask.270 So miracles strengthen faith in the One who does his Father’s works; they bear witness that he is the Son of God.271 But his miracles can also be occasions for “offense”;272 they are not intended to satisfy people’s curiosity or desire for magic. Despite his evident miracles some people reject Jesus; he is even accused of acting by the power of demons.27″
(CCC 543-548)
““Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds
you might uproot the wheat along with them.
Let them grow together until harvest;””
So God’s great patience is on display here too. God the father is reluctant to chastise even the most wicked world through wars or other destruction for fear of killing, hurting, or disturbing those who have chosen to follow Jesus. Who are the light of the world.
The problem of evil: The parable of the Wheat and Weeds reminded me of British theologian N. T. Wright’s theology which frames good and evil in terms of creator/created forces (good) versus anti creation (evil). This re frames the problem of evil in terms of our willingness to accept and enter into the beauty of God’s creation against evil anti creation forces who try to use the image of God we have received by exchanging it for becoming “like God” in the sense of impressing our own will, our own specialness onto the created goods around us. God reigns supreme in mighty power over all because he is the creator of all that is including the spiritual bodies belonging to evil spirits, but he is not the creator of their evil nature they are the creators of their own evil nature.
I get a strong sense of this in Jesus’s parable of the wheat. Only good seed is sown by God but mysteriously an evildoer sneaks in by night and transforms some of the good seed into weeds. The weeds are modified into the evil image and likeness of the enemy. Still for anyone who’s willing to completely trust in God’s mercy they remains hope of God’s forgiveness, for his creation is not so easily destroyed! For every murderer, adulterer, and liar and whatever else there may be there is hope where there is life.
“The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire,
so will it be at the end of the age.
The Son of Man will send his angels,
and they will collect out of his kingdom
all who cause others to sin and all evildoers.
They will throw them into the fiery furnace,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”
So we can see that the collection of evil doers first seems to suggest that angels will sweep away evil doers in a final chastisement at Jesus’s second coming.
“Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears ought to hear.”
Saint Paul offers one of the most beautiful inspired commentaries on this.
“But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39 For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.
42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.”
(1 Cor 15:35-44 ESV)
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Special guest post by Diana Nussberger July 16th 2023 Sunday Mass reflection
Special guest post by Professor Andrew Boyd “Is it true that the Catholic Church approved abortion in the early stages in the past?”
No.
The Church has never approved abortion.
However, the Church has made a distinction of the moral gravity of abortion based on different stages of development in the past.
Generally speaking, abortion after “quickening” (when you can start to feel the baby moving in the womb, usually around 16–20 weeks), was considered morally and legally equivalent to infanticide/homicide.
But abortion prior to that point of development, while still condemned, or at least not condoned, was not seen as a sin with the same level of severity. Often it was seen as a sexual sin, not as a sin against life.
And there were individual theologians, such as Thomas Aquinas, who, because of their limited understanding of biology at the time, thought life began sometime after conception, usually 30–60 days, when it was thought the soul was infused into the body, in which case an abortifacient taken in the first few weeks, that would have been like the ‘morning after pill’, would not have been understood as abortion.
Modern science changed these views when it demonstrated that life begins at conception/fertilization, at which point the Church responded to make clear that protection of that life should begin at that time.
From the precis of an article on the history of Catholic thought on abortion:
The chronology starts with a sketch of events in the first six Christian centuries when Christians sought ways to distinguish themselves from pagans who accepted contraception and abortion. During this period, [some] Christians also decided that sexual pleasure was evil. Early Church leaders began the debate about when a fetus acquired a rational soul, and St. Augustine declared that abortion is not homicide but was a sin if it was intended to conceal fornication or adultery.
During the period of 600-1500, illicit intercourse was deemed by the Irish Canons to be a greater sin than abortion, Church leaders considered a woman’s situation when judging abortion, and abortion was listed in Church canons as homicide only when the fetus was formed. St. Thomas Aquinas declared that a fetus first has a vegetative soul, then an animal soul, and finally a rational soul when the body was developed.
The next period, 1500-1750, found anyone who resorted to contraception or abortion subject to excommunication (1588), saw these rules relaxed in 1591, and banned abortion even for those who would be murdered because of a pregnancy (1679).
From 1750 to the present, excommunication was the punishment for all abortions (1869). This punishment was extended to medical personnel in 1917, but the penalty had exceptions if the woman was young, ignorant, or operating under duress or fear. In 1930, therapeutic abortions were condemned, and, in 1965, abortion was condemned as the taking of life rather than as a sexual sin.
By 1974, the right to life argument had taken hold and became part of a theory of a “seamless garment” representing a consistent ethic of life. The current magisterium recognizes that the moment of ensoulment is unknown but condemns abortion in all cases (except as the unintentional byproduct of another medical procedure).
Footnotes
“Was Jesus born of God the Father, or created by God the Father? God the Father created all things through Jesus. ” Is my statement true?
This is described in scripture and the Trinitarian relationship between Father and Son came to be more profoundly understood in 325 AD at the first council of Nicaea.
In a real sense Jesus is the “first born of all creation” because outside of the created order outside of time and space he proceeds from meaning the Son finds his source and origin in the Father’s person. The second reason the Son is called the “first born of all creation” is because Jesus’s nature meaning his wisdom and goodness are stamped into each of his creations. Creations which exists in our world of time and space. But the Trinity is different. The Trinity exists transcendently meaning outside of time and space.
Understanding this is crucial to understand the teaching of first Nicaea that the divine Son is Co equal and Co eternal with the Father.
First Nicaea was convened to deal with two issues first to make a doctrinal discernment on the teaching of a controversial priest / preacher named Arius. The second issue was eminently important from a disciplinary standpoint how to integrate a newly legalized Christianity into a broader world and evangelize a pagan world. Arius’s preaching emphasizes the subordination of the Son to the Father. He argued that if the Father is the source of the Son then there must have been a time when the Father was in existence but the Son was not.
It’s clear to see why this is a clever intuitive argument. First Nicaea in 325 AD responded with this astonishing insight that there was no time before the Son because the Trinitarian progression is separate from and outside of created time and place/space. This discernment based on scripture and a theological tradition seemed absurd to many educated people at the time but would be confirmed by modern observational science and theoretical physics calculations 1600 years later!
For example St. Augustine of Hippo applied the teaching of first Nicaea to a new context of apologetics when non Catholics asked him, “What God was doing before the creation of the world?”
“Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg, “Book XI of Augustine’s Confessions contains a famous discussion of the nature of time, and it seems to have become a tradition to quote from this chapter in writing about quantum cosmology.” 6
St. Augustine’s reflections on time started with the fact that time is a measure of change. As such, it presupposes the existence of things that change — which, of course, must be created things. Consequently, he said, “there can be no time without creation.” 7 Time is thus an aspect of the created world and is itself a creation of God: “What times would there be that were not made by you, [O Lord]?” 8 And this led St. Augustine to a most remarkable insight, which is that it is meaningless to speak about “times before creation.” For if time is passing, then something created is already in existence, namely changing things and time itself, meaning that all times must be times after creation. As St. Augustine wrote,
“You [O Lord] made that very time, and no time could pass by before you made those times. But if there was no time before heaven and earth, why do they ask what you did ‘then’? There was no ‘then,’ where there was no time.” 9
God was not waiting around for infinite ages before the beginning of the world, because there were no such ages: the beginning of the created world was the beginning of time itself. That was the profound answer that St. Augustine gave to the question of the pagans.
Modern physics arrived at essentially the same insight in the twentieth century. Whereas St. Augustine began with the notion that time is something created, modern physics starts with the notion that time — or space-time — is something physical. Einstein’s theory of General Relativity (his theory of gravity) tells us that space-time is a dynamic entity: it can bend and have ripples in it. One of the most dramatic scientific breakthroughs of recent years was the detection of such “gravitational waves” by the LIGO experiment in 2015.10”
Sunday Mass, July 9nd 2023 reflection
Today the common theme behind the Mass readings draws the listener’s attention to Jesus as a gentle and humble Shepherd who gives lasting freedom to his followers. The fact that Jesus is a humble self sacrificing leader is actually breathtaking the good news for us! Why? Because it means that as long as we live in accord with Jesus’s moral law we are guaranteed long term happiness even if we don’t choose the best and noblest path in life.
However here the scripture lesson is meant to touch our hearts more than our minds. “I will praise your name for ever, my king and my God”. What is our response to God’s goodness? Is it to offer our selves back to God saying to the Lord “take and receive” all my freedom which you have given me including my opportunity to enter marriage or consecrated life/ordained ministry And pick the option that glorifies your big picture plan for creation the most. Most of us can see some areas where our decisions may fall into both categories.
In the ancient near east kings were called shepherds. And indeed that same logic is behind the idea of a priest as the one who governs or shepherds in the Church.
“yoke is easy and his burden light” First Jesus has given us relief many of us have been healed spiritually and psychologically by Jesus.
Second, God’s law meaning his yoke is well fitting because it is not a limit on our freedom but an enhancement of our virtue, which leads to an even higher type of freedom.
See, your king shall come to you;
a just savior is he,
meek, and riding on an ass,
One of the most beautiful things about God is that our father in heaven will continue to love us and act in our best interest regardless of whether we offer our whole selves back to God.
God is not like and authoritarian Father who demands that his child marry or not marry in accordance with the interest of the father’s political and personal business.
Being a shepherd after Jesus’s heart by its very nature means that the shepherd must lay down his or her life to give life and light to the sheep. It most definitely does not mean that sons and daughters must lay down their lives for their shepherds by catering to their dreams and wishes for their children this is why the catechism states that “When they become adults, children have the right and duty to choose their profession and state of life. They should assume their new responsibilities within a trusting relationship with their parents, willingly asking and receiving their advice and counsel. Parents should be careful not to exert pressure on their children either in the choice of a profession or in that of a spouse. This necessary restraint does not prevent them – quite the contrary from giving their children judicious advice, particularly when they are planning to start a family. ”(CCC 2230)
When we enthrone Jesus as king of our hearts we realize he is not calling us to observe a baroque legal system but to the freedom of knowing the truth! And living in accordance with it.
Saint Paul and Saint Peter sometimes uses this metaphor the “yoke of the law” of Moses in contrast with the great freedom of the spiritual law given to the Holy Spirit. This was a broad system of ancient laws handed down in writing or through oral instruction (oral Torah) that included hundreds of sacrificial and ceremonial regulations governing what to eat, sexual behavior, and every other facet of someone’s life right down to the sacrifices to be made to atone for sins and the laws governing divorce as an option for someone who has fallen short of the spirit of the law, that is captured in the biblical story of Tobit. Even someone who fell short of this spirit of the law could still observe the letter of the law almost all the time by “following the Lord unreservedly” this way.
No one has spoken more in recent years about governance as service and counteracting self aggrandizing leadership styles then the current successor to Peter, Pope Francis I. I find that Jesus’s great humility is a source of sweetness when I experience it as mercy and love for me. But when Jesus’s humility calls me to be humble to sometimes is experienced as a jarring call to humility. Because leadership cannot be about what I get out of it what about who I gain through it, that is God himself and a greater share in his divine life through becoming cruciform.
That is why the original meaning of the word “cleric” can be traced back to the base meaning of “someone whose inheritance is the Lord”.
Another Special Guest Post by Diana Nussberger Sunday, July 9nd 2023 reflection
“Receive the Holy Spirit” what does “forgiving” sins in the person of Christ look like based on the Bible
“Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.”
22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20:21-22 RSV)
The forgiveness of sins is so extraordinarily important to the risen Jesus that he wants it at top of his Apostles’ agenda as soon as Jesus is risen from the dead. But what does it mean to “forgive” sins? Historically Catholics have viewed this as the Jesus instituting what we call the sacrament of reconciliation or priestly confession. This was a normative way to look at the passage until the 1500s. With the Protestant Reformation a new theory was formulated. The new theory was that “forgiving” sins must be understood as the apostles preaching the gospel. According to this theory when the apostles preached the gospel those who believed would receive the forgiveness of their sins and in that sense the apostles would “forgive” sins. But are there any scriptural passages that might help us decide which theory is correct or if both are wrong? As a matter of fact, there are. The New Testament clearly explains what “forgiving” sins in the context of Jesus’s ministry means.
Two passages in the gospel really illuminate what it means for Jesus to “forgive” sins. Much of the acts of the apostles it’s actually about Jesus’s apostles continuing his ministry so it makes sense that he could have passed on the ministry of forgiving sins in a delegated manner as well.
“44 Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.
45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet.
46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.
47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.”
48 And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
49 Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?”
50 And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”” (Luke 7:44-50)
In this case we can tell which interpretation of forgiving sins is the correct one by considering how the people at table reacted to what Jesus was doing. They are shocked that anyone would say words such as these and wonder who can possibly forgive sins but God. In the Old Testament there was the possibility of God forgiving sins through the Old Testament priesthood. God’s forgiveness was dispensed through temple priests who would offer a sacrificial animal and or someone would confess their sins to the priest in the line of Aaron. But now Jesus is claiming God’s own prerogative to forgive sins and saying that people can come and receive forgiveness of sins through him rather than the temple sacrifices and priesthood.
next passage
“2 And behold, they brought to him a paralytic, lying on his bed; and when Jesus saw their faith he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.”
3 And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.”
4 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?
5 For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?
6 But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins” –he then said to the Paralytic–“rise, take up your bed and go home.”
7 And he rose and went home.
8 When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.
9 As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax office; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him. (Matthew 9:2-9 RSV)
https://www.biblestudytools.com/rsv/matthew/9.html
So these passages are linked together by the common activity of Jesus “forgiving” someone in the sense of releasing them from their sins in a direct and personal manner. In this case two statements stand out first “the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins” and the crowd “glorified God who had given such authority to men”. In accord with traditional Jewish thought the forgiveness of sins is seen as another type of healing that is linked with physical healing. Still Jesus does not speak of having authority over diseases or demons in this case but specifically the “authority” to forgive sins, the very same authority that he entrusted to the apostles at the end of John’s gospel. That Matthew adds a statement to the effect that God had given such authority to men in the plural form strongly indicates that men within Matthew’s community were claiming the same authority to “forgive” people’s sins just as Jesus had done.
A counter explanation might be that Jesus is only declaring people to be forgiven who already are forgiven. However, this does not make sense considering the reaction from the religious leaders. Why would they say that Jesus is blaspheming and in another gospel ask “who but God alone” can forgive sins if in fact Jesus was only making a prophetic declaration that God had already forgiven someone’s sins?
They would have known this from the Old Testament story of Nathan the prophet coming to David and offering a prophetic declaration stating that God had forgiven his sin. Furthermore as we saw in Luke’s gospel there was an expectation from Jews in Jesus time that a prophet who communicates directly with God would be aware of people’s sins and would therefore be able to do what Nathan did, that is communicate an Oracle directly from God to the effect that the Sinner has already been forgiven. However Jesus clearly goes beyond even this prophetic practice by actually claiming the authority to forgive sins that is to reconcile someone with God and with the community by actually speaking words that cause the sin (in virtue of his future sacrifice) to be forgiven!
It seems that Jesus was doing something exceptionally different from communicating God’s decision. He was actually reconciling someone with God by forgiving their sins.
How do you become a good Catholic evangelist online? How do you make people want to listen to you, and is it worth it?
Yes, it’s worth it. If you have the calling it is very rewarding. You cannot force people to listen to you. Ultimately it is the Holy Spirit who will change people’s minds, open their hearts, and give them a fresh perspective. Your first task is not to create a spreadsheet of online spaces/ministries and answers to questions but to surrender yourself to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. As multiple Popes have reiterating there is no true evangelism/evangelization apart from the Holy Spirit’s action. This is also clearly taught in the Acts of the Apostles.
One practical way to get people interested is to know what you are talking about and deliver high quality content. To do that you first have to understand what interests your audience or the individual that you are conversing with. That means picking the right social media platform to begin with and then listening to the persons whom you converse with online. Ask yourself, what really stops them from believing the Gospel and trusting in and obeying Jesus Christ?
Online evangelist Fr. Rob Galea shared his own advice on starting an online ministry here.
How do you become a good Catholic evangelist online?
First and foremost, it’s important to draw a hard distinction between evangelism and catechesis. Evangelism is primarily about helping someone understand who Jesus Christ is as well as basic foundational doctrines. An evangelist is called to primarily focus his or her message on sharing the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ so that someone who has been properly disposed by the Holy Spirit can accept the gift of faith and began a living relationship with Jesus Christ and the Triune God. Catechesis overlaps considerably with the concept of “making disciples” (Matthew 28:19). Catechesis covers how we are to follow Jesus in the long term. Almost every one of Fr. Francis Marsden’s serious answers on Quora is an example of catechesis. There will be many times when catechesis and evangelism can happen during the same conversation or on the same platform but you must be clear on the difference in purpose.
As a Catholic I always recommend the Catholic Church. When it seems prudent, I also defend her doctrines (which takes some study). But I understand if people can’t fathom/accept the Catholic Church at first and therefore find themselves entering into a separated ecclesial community. I am aware that there are many good non-Catholic Christians in these separated ecclesial communities. The Catholic Church considers these ecclesial communities to be “means of salvation” (CCC para. 819).
Letting the Holy Spirit lead is more than a pious sentiment. If I am doing what I need to do for example in prayer and in my daily life to surrender and/or unite my will to the Lord’s will then the Holy Spirit will lead me to the people and situations where I will be an effective evangelist. This does not necessarily mean being a flawless model of virtue but having a firm resolution to surrender my will to God’s will when it comes to my personal interests and doctrinal matters. As you work you should monitor your long-term results to see if what you are doing is working.
It’s important to understand that one of your most important tools is called the Kerygma.
I have my own one paragraph summary of the Kerygma of Christianity or the Gospel. One way to evangelize people is to share this proclamation/story with them in the context of their own conversation discussion with you.
I received some helpful training from Saint Paul’s Street Evangelization and although it’s not strictly required, I recommend taking a few workshops with them.
I also highly recommend Fr Robert Spitzer’s SJ teaching, apologetics, and spiritual direction content and also Catholic author Sherry Weddell’s books about discipleship, ministry and evangelization in today’s world.
Special Guest Post by Diana Nussberger Sunday, July 2nd 2023 reflection
Today’s gospel (Mt 10:37-42) focuses on the conditions and rewards of discipleship. The responsibilities of the calling to the office of apostle are uniquely interwoven into the supporting role for rest of the body of Christ. One cannot exist without the other. Jesus teaches his apostles to leave their old responsibilities and life behind because their office will require a complete commitment to spreading the gospel of Christ. Their calling to Christ must come first. Before their mothers, sons, and daughters. It may have meant leaving the family behind in the care of relatives. Some families traveled with the apostles, but they could not come before their work for God. The apostles must take up their cross and follow Jesus. The cross included self-denial, suffering, and the possibility of death. Finding your life meant choosing your earthly life over the calling of Christ resulting in the loss of heaven. Losing your life for Jesus’ sake was living every moment of it for Him and gaining eternal life.
The rewards from our Lord are the same for the person that holds the office as for the person that supports that office. Whoever received the apostles received Jesus, and whoever received Jesus received God. Jesus understood the apostle, prophet, and righteous man would be served by other Christians making it possible for them to complete their duties. He assigned the same value to these Christians by giving them the same reward as whoever (apostle, prophet, or righteous man) they helped. With the unfathomable generosity of God, Jesus reveals whoever gives “only a cup of cold water” to one of these children of God because they are my disciple will surely not lose his reward.
The gospel is all about how we welcome God through His messengers and people. Hospitality and service should be practiced until it is our first response. Do we refresh others? Are they encouraged, uplifted, assisted, appreciated, and valued? “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb 13:2). Our response to the clergy and all Christians matter and will someday be rewarded. Our reward is heaven. Depending on who we served and the offices they held there will be some difference in what is allotted but all will be beyond our highest expectation. How are you treating God’s messengers?
Today the Catholic Church has a wonderful optional memorial celebrating the sacrifice of the first martyrs of Rome. These courageous men and women perished in the same persecution in 60s AD Rome that claimed the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul. By their blood these men and women together with their chief shepherds St. Peter and Paul consecrated the very heart of a Pagan empire to become the seat of Saint Peter’s successor. The Church of Rome was always an outstanding Christian Church as Saint Paul mentions in his letter to the Romans and it was fitting that so outstanding a Church could conquer the heart of the ancient world for Christ. Pope St. Clement I a second or third generation Bishop testifies about these martyrs in a moving way.
“To these men who spent their lives in the practice of holiness, there is to be added a great multitude of the elect, who, having through envy endured many indignities and tortures, furnished us with a most excellent example. Through envy, those women, the Danaids and Dircæ, being persecuted, after they had suffered terrible and unspeakable torments, finished the course of their faith with steadfastness, and though weak in body, received a noble reward. Envy has alienated wives from their husbands, and changed that saying of our father Adam, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. Genesis 2:23 Envy and strife have overthrown great cities, and rooted up mighty nations.
These things, beloved, we write unto you, not merely to admonish you of your duty, but also to remind ourselves. For we are struggling on the same arena, and the same conflict is assigned to both of us. Wherefore let us give up vain and fruitless cares, and approach to the glorious and venerable rule of our holy calling. Let us attend to what is good, pleasing, and acceptable in the sight of Him who formed us. Let us look steadfastly to the blood of Christ, and see how precious that blood is to God which, having been shed for our salvation, has set the grace of repentance before the whole world. Let us turn to every age that has passed, and learn that, from generation to generation, the Lord has granted a place of repentance to all such as would be converted unto Him. Noah preached repentance, and as many as listened to him were saved. Jonah proclaimed destruction to the Ninevites; Jonah iii but they, repenting of their sins, propitiated God by prayer, and obtained salvation, although they were aliens [to the covenant] of God.”
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1010.htm
Solemnity of the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul reflection
The gospel reading draws my attention to the link between faithful discipleship and faithful teaching ministry. Before one can teach one must first be captured by the “surpassing” value of “knowing Jesus Christ” of God’s fatherhood, God’s love. That is why Peter’s faith was always grounded in his personal love for Jesus, which was expressed in his confession of Jesus’s Messiahship. Jesus says this confession was inspired by the Holy Spirit. This well-grounded personal faith is why Peter was strong enough to “strengthen the faith of his brothers”.
In the first reading we hear about the need to protect our shepherds by praying for them. Early in Acts of the Apostles, Peter was taken away and was primed to be crucified as Jesus Christ had been crucified before him. He seemed all but dead even to his sheep, but still even though it seemed hopeless the sheep gathered together to pray with tears and burning desire for what seemed impossible, to see the chief shepherd again. God intervened miraculously and Peter was saved from death that day. Likewise Acts also tells us that Paul after about 15 yours into his apostolic teaching ministry was arrested because of the people of Jerusalem’s rejection of Christ and of Paul as Christ’s apostle. He was taken into Roman custody for his own protection and his Roman citizenship protected him, ensuring that he would be able to appeal to Caesar/the Roman emperor for a fresh trial. His trial gave him the greatest pulpit in the ancient world to proclaim this message from. And because of the prayers of his people, of his sheep, the Roman emperor was disposed to render a just verdict. He released Paul. Paul spend many more years in ministry and grow more and more to become one of the greatest Saints that the Church has ever known. However the Roman emperor and Roman empire were being progressively corrupted. So the difference between the Kingdom of Christ and the Kingdom of Caesar was increasingly marked out, eventually persecution of Christians and the stripping away of their judicial rights began. In this way the luminously holy Paul went back to Rome to witness one more time to Jesus and to free lay down his life in imitation of his master, Jesus. This is why Paul was
“already being poured out like a libation,
and the time of my departure is at hand.
I have competed well; I have finished the race;
I have kept the faith.
From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me,
which the Lord, the just judge,
will award to me on that day, and not only to me,
but to all who have longed for his appearance.”
Both Peter and Paul possessed such great holiness and practiced such faithfulness to the Lord for years that they received a special blessing. A blessing that is open to each one of us. Even during their passion and martyrdom it was not something that was happening to them by accident or because of others. Just as Jesus said “no one takes my life” from me but I “freely lay down” Peter and Paul freely laid down their lives in witness to Christ because they actually wanted to. The humiliation of being treated like a criminal was turned into a great blessing. One of our first Popes St. Clement of Rome a disciple of St. Peter offers us this impeccable description of their martyrdom.
“But not to dwell upon ancient examples, let us come to the most recent spiritual heroes. Let us take the noble examples furnished in our own generation. Through envy and jealousy the greatest and most righteous pillars [of the church] have been persecuted and put to death. Let us set before our eyes the illustrious apostles. Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labors; and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him. Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned. After preaching both in the east and west, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, and come to the extreme limit of the west, and suffered martyrdom under the prefects. Thus was he removed from the world, and went into the holy place, having proved himself a striking example of patience. “ (1 Clement)
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1010.htm
“The Church is apostolic because she is founded on the apostles, in three ways:
– she was and remains built on “the foundation of the Apostles,” the witnesses chosen and sent on mission by Christ himself;
– with the help of the Spirit dwelling in her, the Church keeps and hands on the teaching, the “good deposit,” the salutary words she has heard from the apostles;
– she continues to be taught, sanctified, and guided by the apostles until Christ’s return, through their successors in pastoral office: the college of bishops, “assisted by priests, in union with the successor of Peter, the Church’s supreme pastor”:
You are the eternal Shepherd
who never leaves his flock untended.
Through the apostles
you watch over us and protect us always.
You made them shepherds of the flock
to share in the work of your Son. . .” (CCC 857 )
Today’s reading contains the famous “the gates of hell will not prevail against my church” promise from Jesus. Again this should remind us that as individuals our faithfulness to Jesus is the prerequisite for our prevailing over “the gates of hell”. However as a community we can we rejoice greatly because Jesus promised that his church will be indestructible! Generation after generation of crisis Arianism Monothelitism etc. have threatened to overwhelm and destroy the doctrinal purity of the Catholic Church but have never prevailed! In the final calculation all we have to do to
share in Christ’s infallibility and indestructibility
is follow the pattern and tradition of the apostles within the Church that is solidly planted on the rock of the Apostolic priesthood! This does not mean there will not be errors stemming from church leaders nor does it mean everything will be perfect within the Church. But even if we should fail God’s faithfulness calls the whole Catholic Church back to himself.
Question for my Catholic friends. How influential have the following verses (John 6:56, 20:23 and 21:15) been on Catholic theology regarding transubstantiation, the confessional, and Peter’s primacy among the apostles and leadership of the Church?
Extremely, the reason why the Catholic Council of Trent focused so much on scripture for example John 20:23 was because they were trying to capture the Tradition handed down across the board by all communities / leaders of Christian communities.
Even though the disciplines and rules governing the system changed a lot the Catholic sacramental system/apostolic priesthood comes straight from Jesus and the New Testament. It was also part of the everyday life of eastern and western Christians going back to the 100s 200s AD. Yes add or subtract one or two significant differences in belief here or there but prior to the Protestant Reformation almost every group of Christians was Catholic.
June 25th Sunday 2023 reflection
“Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed nor secret that will not be known.” This refers to Jesus revealing the truth about each person’s actions and the results of their choices when he stands as judge of all. What does Jesus say to do about this? First and foremost, he has entrusted the good news, the gospel of God’s loving action of mercy for the entire world for the world to his Church. If Jesus’s disciples are silent “the stones will cry out”. We as a community at OLOF Catholic parish should refocus on reforming ourselves first! Then we will we truly be Jesus’s priestly and prophetic agents of reconciliation for the world! Do we have a approach to religion that focuses on directing all of our energy all of our thought inward to ourselves or our pariah’s ministries? Are we asking God for the grace of guidance or discernment of right and wrong in our political and work environments? It’s truly a matter of life or death. We can no longer afford to live without discerning the truth about how the ancient war between God and the devil is playing out globally today! We must ask ourselves and pray about the very many special interest groups and politicians who are leading today’s global social movements that promise unprecedented benefits through new technologies. How do powerful technologies like CRISER CAS 9 genetic modification and artificial intelligence affect someone’s relationship with God or spirituality? The ultimate choice is between the community of God or the community of the devil (Gehenna) and this choice is forever.
“What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;
what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;
rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy
both soul and body in Gehenna.”
This gospel is one of the places where Jesus predicts what his disciples will suffer for him and for proclaiming his gospel his “word of salvation” (Acts 13:26). A history lesson from the 1st century has much to tell us about the ongoing battle between Christ and the spirit of the Antichrist today. For example, Jesus made it clear that he did not come as a political Messiah to overthrow Caesar but rather to restore the image of God in man. Still Jesus was the rock prophesied by Daniel which ultimately destroyed the Roman empire. Why? Didn’t he come saying that his Kingdom is “not of this world”? And yet restoring the image of God in man set up a tension between Jesus and his followers and Caesar’s followers. You see by changing their souls, Jesus changed the way that they live their lives, and that changed the entire Roman empire forever. Jesus was a threat to the demonic forces standing behind the worldly Caesars.
At first Saint Paul and other Catholic evangelists were protected by the institutional laws of the Roman Empire because they may have been fortunate enough to possess Roman citizenship or because of the privileges accorded to the Jewish religion by Rome. But in only a period of 30-40 years the spiritual actors hiding behind the wings of world history had radically altered the political order, as part of their war on Christ. Rome become an increasingly corrupt society, propped up by a slave class, a man named Nero rose to power and started stripping away judicial rights from Christians. He ultimately became so barbarous that his own Pagan Roman autocrats removed him from power. But not before St. Peter and St. Paul were executed for their faith by the once great empire that has become “Babylon” “the mother of harlots” source of the “abominations of the earth”.
Knowing that the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church the comments of some Catholics and even a Deacon surprise me. The Church has consistently taught that Rev 11-21 Are a divinely revealed prophecy of the events that will happen immediately before the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ.
Still people always protest what about the 1st century, Jesus prophesied about the temple in Jerusalem being destroyed in 70AD. That’s true he did prophecy about it, and he even linked it to his second coming prophecies. how can the “little apocalypse” chapters speak of our future if they refer to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 AD? Well the trick is to understand that Jesus is building a prophetic image or picture of his second coming by describing God’s coming in judgment on on the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD.
“Since the Ascension Christ’s coming in glory has been imminent,566 even though “it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.”567. This eschatological coming could be accomplished at any moment, even if both it and the final trial that will precede it are “delayed”.568 (CCC 673)
The glorious Messiah’s coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by “all Israel”, for “a hardening has come upon part of Israel” in their “unbelief” toward Jesus.569 St. Peter says to the Jews of Jerusalem after Pentecost: “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.”570 St. Paul echoes him: “For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?”571 The “full inclusion” of the Jews in the Messiah’s salvation, in the wake of “the full number of the Gentiles”,572 will enable the People of God to achieve “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”, in which “God may be all in all”.573(CCC 674)
The Church’s ultimate trial
675 Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.574 The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth575 will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.576(CCC 675)
676 The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism,577 especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism.578(CCC 676)
677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection.579 The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven.580 God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.581”(CCC 677)
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c2a7.htm#675
Still some Catholics come up to me believing that the Antichrist is an impersonal force like the spirit of the times. They even indicated to me that this is the teaching of the Catholic Church. However let us look a little deeper by looking up the citations that the catechism offers on the “Antichrist”. Footnote 576 leads to 2 Thess 2:4-12; 1 Thess 5:2-3; 2 Jn 7; 1 Jn 2:18,22.
“18 Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. Thus we know this is the last hour.”
So you see that there were individuals named antichrist active in the 1st century and yet another Antichrist is expected. St Paul speaks of the same thing when he talks about how the “mystery of lawlessness is already at work.”
“We ask you, brothers, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our assembling with him, 2 not to be shaken out of your minds suddenly, or to be alarmed either by a “spirit,” or by an oral statement, or by a letter allegedly from us to the effect that the day of the Lord is at hand. 3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For unless the apostasy comes first and the lawless one is revealed,[c] the one doomed to perdition, 4 (C)who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god and object of worship, so as to seat himself in the temple of God, claiming that he is a god— 5 do you not recall that while I was still with you I told you these things? 6 And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his time. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. But the one who restrains is to do so only for the present, until he is removed from the scene.(D) 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord [Jesus] will kill with the breath of his mouth and render powerless by the manifestation of his coming,(E) 9 the one whose coming springs from the power of Satan in every mighty deed and in signs and wonders that lie,(F) 10 and in every wicked deceit for those who are perishing because they have not accepted the love of truth so that they may be saved. 11 Therefore, God is sending them a deceiving power so that they may believe the lie, 12 that all who have not believed the truth but have approved wrongdoing may be condemned.”
So you see the citation proves that the Antichrist this is a specific individual “he” not an impersonal force. One of the key themes in the New Testament is that because everyone alive is under God’s judgment and under the fearful prospect of burning in eternal anguish in Gehenna which is the community or body of wicked men we also are also given time over and over again with an overflowing measure of God’s mercy. Still remember “7For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God.” This is why we all must convert ourselves deeply, without such conversion we will end up being the agents or ministers who shut the door to the Kingdom of heaven to others by our hypocrisy.
We are the “first fruits” of those who have been ransomed from a world corrupted by sin and therefore we are God’s priestly people so we are charged with bringing the rest of the world to reconciliation and relationship with the Father of all men and women.
Part of this is also being prophets by teaching and announcing the good news the gospel. The gospel is as the Bible says a “word of salvation” because by accepting it we come to intimately know both the truth about ourselves and “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” concerning human nature and the one God who is the truth itself. In the second reading St. Paul celebrates how quickly and powerfully this word of salvation overtakes and outpaces the work of the disease of sin. The sin of Adam spread the disease of death throughout the entire body of mankind. But how much more quickly life and “immortality” are given through Jesus Christ spreading through the word of salvation. But this “word of salvation” must be guarded by it’s prophets and preachers or it can be lost to our generation.
June 18th Sunday 2023 reflection
Have you ever considered how entering into an intimate relationship with God could be considered a part of the priesthood? In the old covenant the Temple was meant to teach the people how to reenter God’s intimate presence. The moral law expressed in the law of Moses taught the people how to begin to live as the friends of God in the concrete decisions of everyday life and so be able to see “his face”. Many scholars also tell us that when a Jew entered the Temple or its predecessor the portable Tabernacle Moses set up in the wilderness, this person was asked to symbolically retrace the steps of the exile of Adam and Eve.
In recent years biblical scholars like N.T. Wright have explored this theme of exile a great deal by research and meditation. Specifically, he explains how the biblical narratives reveals that Israel’s exile from the land of the promise echoes Adam and Eve’s exile from the paradise of the garden of Eden. N.T Wright explains that this exile is in the background of the big picture story about good, evil, and our relationship with God that God is telling us through out the Old Testament. God’s master rescue plan to bring Israel first into right relationship/intimate communion with him and then bring the rest of humanity out of this worldwide exile would only be realized in Jesus Christ.
Now this return to the garden is not to be confused with what Jimi Hendrix sang at Woodstock “we’ve got to get back to the garden”. Here a return to the garden doesn’t mean that we can or should to reenter the garden looking for a pleasure palace where everyone has the leisure to pursue unlimited creature comforts. Instead, the end of exile means enjoying “the one thing necessary” the peace, joy, and the happiness produced by our being in right relationship with God. As beautiful as the created joys and pleasures which God gives us are they cannot become our “All in all” our everything otherwise our thirst for the infinite God will outpace any creature comforts.
There were always two forms of participation in God’s priesthood one based on this bond of intimacy with God which leads to service to others. In the first reading God speaks about the Israelites as a “Kingdom of priests” in this sense meaning that the entire nation of Israel had been consecrated by God for a priestly role to the other nations. We can understand by looking at a similar situation a shepherd or a ministerial priest living and ministering among the people. The people of Israel are to show forth and model communion and intimacy with God and evangelize by encouraging the other nations to gradually enter into this relationship. The other form of participation or type of priesthood is the priesthood of the shepherds that is of servant leaders charged with what the bible describes it “judging” or making decisions concerning the implementation of God’s law and the well-being of God’s people.
The new covenant participation in Jesus Christ’s priesthood common to all the faithful vastly surpasses the Old Testament’s common priesthood. In the former only high priests, priests, judges, and prophets shared in the wisdom, charismatic gifts, and intimate communion of God’s Spirit. Yet there was another promise spoken to the prophet Isaiah that one day all of God’s people will be “priests ministers of the Lord you shall be called”. This would be fulfilled fully through Pentecost and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
In the gospel today Jesus began to train the apostles to carry on his work by giving them the sacred power or “authority” to drive out demons and heal all diseases. This reminds me of minor orders and how valuable it is for seminarians to would learn to make their ministry a gift rather than a form of benevolent egotism. This is a good time to ingrain humble service as seminarians receive sacred power/authority gradually one order at a time.
In many ways this was Jesus’s training mission for the apostles, whom he had already elected to be the chief shepherds up his flock. Jesus gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and heal all diseases. And yet the Bible itself lets us know but despite the number of miracles it was not always so simple through Jesus himself was called in to exercise a demon from a child after his apostles could not drive it out.
Since we all are members of Jesus ‘s royal priesthood we also have the sacred power and authority to preach and work in his name? Indeed, spiritual gifts are given to each of us after our baptism confirmation for these purposes.
And yet what does the Lord Jesus say to those who thirst for spiritual gifts for the wrong reasons “do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you but rejoice because your names are written in heaven”. Let us consider what the Church teaches about healing.
“The sick person before God
1502 The man of the Old Testament lives his sickness in the presence of God. It is before God that he laments his illness, and it is of God, Master of life and death, that he implores healing.99 Illness becomes a way to conversion; God’s forgiveness initiates the healing.100 It is the experience of Israel that illness is mysteriously linked to sin and evil, and that faithfulness to God according to his law restores life: “For I am the Lord, your healer.”101 The prophet intuits that suffering can also have a redemptive meaning for the sins of others.102 Finally Isaiah announces that God will usher in a time for Zion when he will pardon every offense and heal every illness.103 (CCC 1502)
“Christ the physician
1503 Christ’s compassion toward the sick and his many healings of every kind of infirmity are a resplendent sign that “God has visited his people”104 and that the Kingdom of God is close at hand. Jesus has the power not only to heal, but also to forgive sins;105 he has come to heal the whole man, soul and body; he is the physician the sick have need of.106 His compassion toward all who suffer goes so far that he identifies himself with them: “I was sick and you visited me.”107 His preferential love for the sick has not ceased through the centuries to draw the very special attention of Christians toward all those who suffer in body and soul. It is the source of tireless efforts to comfort them. (CCC 1503)
1504 Often Jesus asks the sick to believe.108 He makes use of signs to heal: spittle and the laying on of hands,109 mud and washing.110 The sick try to touch him, “for power came forth from him and healed them all.”111 And so in the sacraments Christ continues to “touch” us in order to heal us. (CCC 1504)
1505 Moved by so much suffering Christ not only allows himself to be touched by the sick, but he makes their miseries his own: “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.”.112 But he did not heal all the sick. His healings were signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God. They announced a more radical healing: the victory over sin and death through his Passover. On the cross Christ took upon himself the whole weight of evil and took away the “sin of the world,”.113 of which illness is only a consequence. By his passion and death on the cross Christ has given a new meaning to suffering: it can henceforth configure us to him and unite us with his redemptive Passion. (CCC 1505)
“Heal the sick . . .”
1506 Christ invites his disciples to follow him by taking up their cross in their turn..114 By following him they acquire a new outlook on illness and the sick. Jesus associates them with his own life of poverty and service. He makes them share in his ministry of compassion and healing: “So they went out and preached that men should repent. And they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them.”.115 (CCC 1506)
1507 The risen Lord renews this mission (“In my name . . . they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”116) and confirms it through the signs that the Church performs by invoking his name.117 These signs demonstrate in a special way that Jesus is truly “God who saves.”118 (CCC 1507)
1508 The Holy Spirit gives to some a special charism of healing119 so as to make manifest the power of the grace of the risen Lord. But even the most intense prayers do not always obtain the healing of all illnesses. Thus St. Paul must learn from the Lord that “my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” and that the sufferings to be endured can mean that “in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his Body, that is, the Church.”120 (CCC 1508)
1509 “Heal the sick!”121 The Church has received this charge from the Lord and strives to carry it out by taking care of the sick as well as by accompanying them with her prayer of intercession. She believes in the life-giving presence of Christ, the physician of souls and bodies. This presence is particularly active through the sacraments, and in an altogether special way through the Eucharist, the bread that gives eternal life and that St. Paul suggests is connected with bodily health.122 (CCC 1509)
1510 However, the apostolic Church has its own rite for the sick, attested to by St. James: “Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders [presbyters] of the Church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”123 Tradition has recognized in this rite one of the seven sacraments.124” (CCC 1510)
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c2a5.htm#IV
People always ask if the priesthood continues the apostles’ work why can’t ministers do these same things today. There are several observations worth pointing out. First such miracles actually do happen today as I have written about before. They happen each day especially in missionary dioceses and countries. Still remember that even Jesus was only able to do a few healings in his own hometown because of the residents’ lack of “faith”. Large chunks of the world like that today. But an even more important reason why, is that these healings are sustained completely by the prayer and holiness of the Church. That is actually why historically nuns and other consecrated religious have been so sought after to obtain countless healings, miracles, and other graces that otherwise would not have been given. Healings and miracles are not to be credited to the ordained or lay minister acting in the person of Christ alone.
Ex 19:2-6a
You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.
In those days, the Israelites came to the desert of Sinai and pitched camp.
While Israel was encamped here in front of the mountain,
Moses went up the mountain to God.
Then the LORD called to him and said,
“Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob;
tell the Israelites:
You have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians
and how I bore you up on eagle wings
and brought you here to myself.
Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant,
you shall be my special possession,
dearer to me than all other people,
though all the earth is mine.
You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”
“Rom 5:6-11
If we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more will we be saved by his life.
Brothers and sisters:
Christ, while we were still helpless,
yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly.
Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person,
though perhaps for a good person
one might even find courage to die.
But God proves his love for us
in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood,
will we be saved through him from the wrath.
Indeed, if, while we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son,
how much more, once reconciled,
will we be saved by his life.
Not only that,
but we also boast of God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
Mt 9:36—10:8
Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and sent them out.
At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them
because they were troubled and abandoned,
like sheep without a shepherd.
Then he said to his disciples,
“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few;
so ask the master of the harvest
to send out laborers for his harvest.”
Then he summoned his twelve disciples
and gave them authority over unclean spirits
to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness.
The names of the twelve apostles are these:
first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew;
James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John;
Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector;
James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus;
Simon from Cana, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.
Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus,
“Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town.
Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons.
Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”
http://www.ibreviary.com/m2/letture.php?s=letture
An Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion is someone who is trained and formally commissioned to distribute Communion to the assembly. What sort of person is this minister typically? By Dana Nussberger
It actually varies from place to place. Typically, an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion is a church volunteer who can pass a simple background check. The roots of the ministry of distributing the Eucharist inside and outside the assembly go back to the Deaconship (1 Timothy 3: 8-13) and traditionally Saint Stephen the Deacon and Saint Tarcisius who received the minor order of acolyte. Saint Tarcisius is without a doubt a role model and inspiration here. I believe he is even the patron Saint of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.
Now to be very specific an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion isn’t much on paper. He or she is basically a new legal category that was created after Pope Paul VI (the 6th) announced his decision that the minor orders were no longer to be thought of as ordinations. In most Catholic dioceses the acolyte or lector who is instituted is considered to be more of an official minister than an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion. Some communities go well beyond the letter of the Universal Canon law and actually turn “eucharistic ministers” into what would be better described as an instituted ministry, but one that has jurisdiction only in the parish. Perhaps changing the universal law to designate these people as acolytes or a new minor ministry would help eliminate the habitual violations of universal law surrounding the daily and regular use of “Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion”. Additionally changing universal law to make acolytes ordinary ministers of communion would agree with the Bible and tradition and would help meet our needs better.
There are a lot of pros and cons with lay Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion or instituted Eucharistic Ministers. One problem is clericalism which tends to direct the parish’s energies inward rather than outward to evangelization and active apostolate. I see this happening in my parish which has a lot of laypersons who are living in that gray area. They are increasingly looked on by other lay persons as de facto ordained ministers who are technically still laypersons according to universal Canon law. In other places they have a three year term and their ministry is not viewed as historically rooted in the minor orders or the deaconship.
An instituted Extraordinary Minister of holy Communion trying to follow the tradition of minor orders and Paul VI at the same time with rather confusing results. (the clerical stole is not common in most Catholic dioceses in the USA)
Pope Pius IX Clearly and accurately explains what reparation is and how to make reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
“But to all these duties, more especially to that fruitful Consecration which was in a manner confirmed by the sacred solemnity of Christ the King, something else must needs be added, and it is concerning this that it is our pleasure to speak with you more at length, Venerable Brethren, on the present occasion: we mean that duty of honorable satisfaction or reparation which must be rendered to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. For if the first and foremost thing in Consecration is this, that the creature’s love should be given in return for the love of the Creator, another thing follows from this at once, namely that to the same uncreated Love, if so be it has been neglected by forgetfulness or violated by offense, some sort of compensation must be rendered for the injury, and this debt is commonly called by the name of reparation….
Now though in both these matters we are impelled by quite the same motives, none the less we are beholden to the duty of reparation and expiation by a certain more valid title of justice and of love, of justice indeed, in order that the offense offered to God by our sins may be expiated and that the violated order may be repaired by penance: and of love too so that we may suffer together with Christ suffering and “filled with reproaches” (Lam. iii, 30), and for all our poverty may offer Him some little solace….
But we must ever remember that the whole virtue of the expiation depends on the one bloody sacrifice of Christ, which without intermission of time is renewed on our altars in an unbloody manner,….”
“Wherefore, even as consecration proclaims and confirms this union with Christ, so does expiation begin that same union by washing away faults, and perfect it by participating in the sufferings of Christ, and consummate it by offering victims for the brethren. And this indeed was the purpose of the merciful Jesus, when He showed His Heart to us bearing about it the symbols of the passion and displaying the flames of love, that from the one we might know the infinite malice of sin, and in the other we might admire the infinite charity of Our Redeemer, and so might have a more vehement hatred of sin, and make a more ardent return of love for His love…..”
“”Behold this Heart” – He said – “which has loved men so much and has loaded them with all benefits, and for this boundless love has had no return but neglect, and contumely, and this often from those who were bound by a debt and duty of a more special love.” In order that these faults might be washed away, He then recommended several things to be done, and in particular the following as most pleasing to Himself, namely that men should approach the Altar with this purpose of expiating sin, making what is called a Communion of Reparation, – and that they should likewise make expiatory supplications and prayers, prolonged for a whole hour, – which is rightly called the “Holy Hour…..””
But how can these rites of expiation bring solace now, when Christ is already reigning in the beatitude of Heaven? To this we may answer in some words of St. Augustine which are very apposite here, – “Give me one who loves, and he will understand what I say” (In Johannis evangelium, tract. XXVI, 4). For any one who has great love of God, if he will look back through the tract of past time may dwell in meditation on Christ, and see Him laboring for man, sorrowing, suffering the greatest hardships, “for us men and for our salvation,” well-nigh worn out with sadness, with anguish, nay “bruised for our sins” (Isaias liii, 5), and healing us by His bruises. And the minds of the pious meditate on all these things the more truly, because the sins of men and their crimes committed in every age were the cause why Christ was delivered up to death, and now also they would of themselves bring death to Christ, joined with the same griefs and sorrows, since each several sin in its own way is held to renew the passion of Our Lord: “Crucifying again to themselves the Son of God, and making him a mockery” (Hebrews vi, 6). Now if, because of our sins also which were as yet in the future, but were foreseen, the soul of Christ became sorrowful unto death, it cannot be doubted that then, too, already He derived somewhat of solace from our reparation, which was likewise foreseen, when “there appeared to Him an angel from heaven” (Luke xxii, 43), in order that His Heart, oppressed with weariness and anguish, might find consolation. And so even now, in a wondrous yet true manner, we can and ought to console that Most Sacred Heart which is continually wounded by the sins of thankless men, since – as we also read in the sacred liturgy – Christ Himself, by the mouth of the Psalmist complains that He is forsaken by His friends: “My Heart hath expected reproach and misery, and I looked for one that would grieve together with me, but there was none: and for one that would comfort me, and I found none” (Psalm lxviii, 21).
“To this it may be added that the expiatory passion of Christ is renewed and in a manner continued and fulfilled in His mystical body, which is the Church. For, to use once more the words of St. Augustine, “Christ suffered whatever it behoved Him to suffer; now nothing is wanting of the measure of the sufferings. Therefore the sufferings were fulfilled, but in the head; there were yet remaining the sufferings of Christ in His body” (In Psalm lxxxvi). This, indeed, Our Lord Jesus Himself vouchsafed to explain when, speaking to Saul, “as yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter” (Acts ix, 1), He said, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest” (Acts ix, 5), clearly signifying that when persecutions are stirred up against the Church, the Divine Head of the Church is Himself attacked and troubled. Rightly, therefore, does Christ, still suffering in His mystical body, desire to have us partakers of His expiation, and this is also demanded by our intimate union with Him, for since we are “the body of Christ and members of member” (1 Corinthians xii, 27), whatever the head suffers, all the members must suffer with it (Cf. 1 Corinthians xii, 26).
Now, how great is the necessity of this expiation or reparation, more especially in this our age, will be manifest to every one who, as we said at the outset, will examine the world, “seated in wickedness” (1 John v, 19), with his eyes and with his mind. For from all sides the cry of the peoples who are mourning comes up to us, and their princes or rulers have indeed stood up and met together in one against the Lord and against His Church (Cf. Psalm ii, 2). Throughout those regions indeed, we see that all rights both human and Divine are confounded. Churches are thrown down and overturned, religious men and sacred virgins are torn from their homes and are afflicted with abuse, with barbarities, with hunger and imprisonment; bands of boys and girls are snatched from the bosom of their mother the Church, and are induced to renounce Christ, to blaspheme and to attempt the worst crimes of lust; the whole Christian people, sadly disheartened and disrupted, are continually in danger of falling away from the faith, or of suffering the most cruel death. These things in truth are so sad that you might say that such events foreshadow and portend the “beginning of sorrows,” that is to say of those that shall be brought by the man of sin, “who is lifted up above all that is called God or is worshipped” (2 Thessalonians ii, 4)”
https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19280508_miserentissimus-redemptor.html
The common theme running through this week’s daily mass readings is the idea of law. Whether it be the moral law, the eternal law, the natural law or the law of Moses so often mentioned by St. Paul we were encouraged to reflect on the role of law in life and perhaps even to go further by learn the parts of our Catholic faith which deal with law. CCC 1950-
Corpus Christi Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ Message 2023
As Father James Blount recently said all priests of the Catholic Church must be familiar with supernatural and miraculous events, simply put they should be living and breathing the supernatural. Miracles happen every day in response to prayers made in the name of Jesus. Incurable ailments are cured instantly, broken bones miraculously knit back together while a minister prays in the name of Jesus, a child’s severely burned flesh is miraculously healed as good as new within a few moments, demons are still cast out and sometimes we even seen the raising of the dead.
All these are real life examples of miracles done in the name of Jesus. These examples come from Dr. Craig Keener’s book Miracles Today. In that book he proves that despite what television and movies are determined to convince us miracles actually do happen in response to Christian prayer, for people across all denominational backgrounds and around the whole world. They happen more often than many of the faithful think.
The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is one of the distinctive core beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church. His true presence is also miraculous! In contrast, the vast majority of Protestant Christian groups believe that Holy Communion symbolizes Christ’s body and blood in the same non miraculous way that for instance that the Easter candle symbolizes Christ during a Catholic Easter liturgy, but it doesn’t actually become Jesus or connect us with him directly.
But we as Catholic Christians believe this because Jesus said this “is” my body not this “represents” my body. Although on some level they acknowledge that the Eucharist is partaking or participating in Christ’s own sacrifice on the Cross they do not believe that the Holy Communion/ Eucharist has a miraculous or supernatural element. Their belief continues that the bread and wine remain bread and wine while grace including greater freedom from sin is granted when a believer eats the symbol of Jesus’s sacrifice. The Catholic Church distinctively teaches that the bread becomes Jesus’s own flesh and the wine becomes his blood.
“The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: “Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.”” (CCC 1376)
Jesus is truly personally present so that when the consecrated body of Christ is taken in the hand it is Jesus himself who is taken in the hand. But how is that possible given that it still has the weight, shape, and size and taste of bread? The simple answer is that God is God, his power is not limited by the rules of observation or even physics, and Holy Spriest is capable of creating a link between the risen and glorious body of Christ who is with the Father and the Holy Spirit in Heaven and the sacrament, so that Jesus Christ personally present within a consecrated host. Jesus looks out from the consecrated host (accidents of bread). We in turn touch him when we receive the Eucharist even though we don’t have the experience of seeing him. Jesus’s sacramentally presence is a foretaste of the relationship of personal care that he will have with each one of us forever if we come into eternal heaven. If we are attentive and receive this sacrament with reverence give the Lord our attention for a few minutes afterward in silence how much better will our eternal relationship with him be?
Even the demons believe in Jesus’ real substantial presence. One of the most powerful things an exorcist can do is bring a possessed person into the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. So why does Jesus call one part of the sacrament the spiritual food, “his body”, and the other the spiritual drink “his blood”? First off, later on we should take a few minutes to ponder and meditate on these words because they are loaded with an incredible weight. Then let us consider the priesthood of Jesus Christ as it relates to what he did at the Last Supper, the last Passover. The Apostolic priest at the Mass is acting as an “icon” or a visible and physical means of making present the reality of Christ the high priest’s act of re-presenting during the heavenly liturgy the one sacrifice that he made in history. When we attend the earthly liturgy it is as if “the roof opens up” and we are caught up into the heavenly liturgy as Pope Benedict the 16th used to write.
So, in all the Last Supper passages, as the Council of Trent observes Jesus says “do this in memory of me” thereby delegating to them a special authority or to use Trent’s term “sacred power” to do what Jesus had just done at the Last Supper. Beyond that they also had been delegated sacred power to govern (including excommunication) and teach in Jesus’s place before the Last Supper. These ministries would only be solidified after the Last Supper. The idea of the Last Supper as an “unbloody sacrifice” that is a sacrifice in the sense of making present in a different historical moment the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus’s blood shed on Calvary is certainly implicit in “this is my body” and “this is my blood”. This becomes when you see that in the Jewish language and mindset “blood” is thought of as life and here Jesus is saying that his body and his blood are separated to form a Messianic banquet. Certainly, this account is placed where it is in the Gospels because the Last Supper was of central importance as the primary biblical way in which Jesus interprets his own death, as a priestly offering.
Many philosophers want to separate the Creator from his creation making him into a kind of divine watchmaker who leaves the creation of alone after creating it. But that is not the god of the bible. Today many people are swept up in the anti-christic deceptions of this day and age, so even ordained ministers are losing their sense that God regularly acts directly and even miraculously in our lives. Yet if we look to God’s Word the Bible, into our own sacred history what do we see? We see that miracles of healing and deliverance for a normal part of the first apostles’ ministry of evangelizing. We also see intermittent periods throughout the OT where prophecy hearing of the word of God are scarce likewise with scarcities of miracles. But if we believe that Acts is a historical record of real life events which it is then we will find it easier to believe that Jesus’s personally and substantially present under the form of bread and wine. He does this out of the great extravagance of his love and his desire to “abides in me, and I in him.” (John 6:56 ESV).
An extensive presentation on scientifically tested proof of transubstantiation.
Yes, Catholics have their own scrupulously validated eucharistic miracles backing up Transubstantiation as a straightforward scientific explanation of our Lord’s words of institution. For evidence I would look at 39:30 minutes to 73:30 minutes on this video.
Fr Francis Marsden a faithful priest who also holds a PhD in chemistry from Cambridge wrote this enlightening explanation of the change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. I personally like his explanation a little bit better than prof. Andrew Boyd’s explanation.
“How do Catholics support transubstantiation?
Do you know what transubstantiation means?
It doesn’t mean change of substance in the sense of modern physics and chemistry.
It is a term drawing on Aristotelian philosophy, via St Thomas Aquinas.
Substantia in that philosophical system means that which makes a thing what it is e.g. the tableness of a table. A table may be of wood or metal or plastic, it may have various numbers of legs, and be of any colour and various heights and sizes. Those changeable properties are called the “accidents”.
But you can recognize what is a table because of its substantia, its tableness, though its accidents may vary widely.
When at Mass the priest speaks Jesus’ words over the bread and wine, we Catholics believe that what Jesus said, happens. “This is my Body. This is the chalice of my blood…”
So although the physical appearance of the bread and wine does not change, the substantia, the essence of what is there, is henceforth the Body and Blood of Christ. It’s a mystery, sure, but somehow Christ is truly present there, under the appearance of bread and wine.
If you read John 6 you will find Jesus speaking about giving us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink. “Whoever eats me will draw life from me.”
As Catholics we take Jesus’ words in the Gospel seriously, and do not dismiss them as mere symbolism.
If God Himself, who by his Word made the whole Universe, tells us that bread and wine become His Body and Blood, then we accept it, strange though it is. We are not so arrogant as to contradict the Almighty.”
In view the feast of Corpus Christi I decided to share this riveting conversation with Pontifical theologian Andrew Boyd exploring transubstantiation.
Andrew Boyd Professor of Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue wrote
“The concept or truth that the word attempts to communicate was present from the begining, literally from the moment Jesus said “This is my body, take and eat” and “Do this in memory of me”, Christians believed he meant what he said. The Church has always had a belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
The focus of this presence was not much debated until about the 9th century. Then various understandings of it were debated, from the physical to the merely commemorative and various degrees in between. The settled theology that would latter be called transubstantiation emerged over some decades.
However, the term transubstantiation was not adopted to explain this in philosophical terms until the medieval adaptation of Aristotelean philosophy by the Church in the 13th century. The word makes no sense outside that context.
And it literally means that the “substance” of the bread and wine changes, while the material “accidents” do not, using the language of Aristotle.
In other words, the bread and wine remain physically bread and wine. Taste, smell, chemical composition, all unchanged. What changes is the “spirit” or “soul”, the essence, the spiritual reality, of the elements.”
Dana Nussberger wrote
- Feb 11
“The focus of this presence was not much debated until about the 9th century.”
I’ve read a little bit about that debate but would like to understand historical development a little bit better. In a nutshell what you call the “merely commemorative” would be the historic Protestant understanding that was condemned that the council of Trent.
To me it seems like Thomas Aquinas took a very literal reading of John 6 and then used the best scientific analysis he had which was Aristotelian to shed light on how that presence was possible. To me it seems that St Thomas Aquinas actually believed Jesus’s blood was physically present under the appearance of wine. But God disguises it as wine because our nature cannot drink blood etc. Is that correct, historically speaking?
“in other words, the bread and wine remain physically bread and wine.”
I think that the reason why this bothers me a little is that it seems like you’re saying that the bread and wine remain bread and wine but are endowed with a spiritual power to make Christ present.
Is that what you really mean? I’m just wondering if you would give me a little explanation of how transubstantiation is developing. So, what is the difference between how the chapters of the council of Trent explained Jesus’s presence and how you describe the substance of the elements after consecration? Yes I’m familiar with the rudiments of the Aristotelian terms accident and substance form and matter.
Andrew Boyd
- Feb 12
Transubstantiation is precisely that the material properties – accidents, in Aristotle/Aquinas – remain unchanged while the substance – the spiritual or essential nature of the species – changes.
So by all scientific and observable measures, there is no change. What changes is a deeper reality than mere physical manifestation.
That’s transubstantiation. If we had a physical change, it would be something else entirely. Substantial realism, or transaccidentalism, or some other neologism would have to be coined.
And the “merely commemorative” was not the Protestant view, but specifically Zwinglian. Protestantism includes a wide spectrum of Eucharistic theologies, many of which are basically Catholic, or at least adhere to the dogma of the Real Presence.
Dana Nussberger
- Feb 12
Thank you for your reply Andrew, so did St Thomas Aquinas believe that the elements really transformed into the body and blood of Christ in the sense of “physically” transforming into the body and blood of Christ? It seems the explanation you gave is different than his explanation.
Andrew Boyd
- Feb 12
Thomas addresses this in the Third Part, question 75. Articles 1–4 and 6 deal with the change of substance (essence), and article 5 with the fact that the accidents (material/physical) remains unchanged.
“It is evident to sense that all the accidents of the bread and wine remain after the consecration” we can also say, the physical properties and all scientific and observable characteristics, remain bread and wine.
I’m just paraphrasing him, but we are saying the same thing.
Dana Nussberger
- Feb 13
OK so thanks for directing me to take a closer look at St Thomas’s teaching. I’ve read part of it before but it’s probably time to read his entire explanation of the Eucharist. So there seem to be two different definitions in an encyclopedia of philosophy for substance 1) the essence or identity of a thing, it’s being 2) a compound object of form and matter which together answer the question, What is this subject or object in question?
Substance (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Specifically for Saint Thomas he often seems to be working off of that second definition. For him all the sacraments and everything are composed of form and matter. Although he does add his own insights onto the philosophical definitions of substance from a theological or spiritual perspective. So basically when St Thomas speaks about the concept translated as “matter” in reference to the Eucharist he is speaking about the individual atomic or molecular complexes and building blocks within bread. That is those things that are the obvious answer to the question What is bread made of at the most elemental level?
So am I understanding what St Thomas means by “matter” correctly? He basically means the smallest constituent molecules which when formed together take shape into something that has the “accidents” or physical taste and other effects of bread.
“And consequently, as the accidents are preserved by Divine power when the substance is withdrawn, so, when matter is withdrawn, the qualities which go with matter, such as rarity and density, are preserved by Divine power.
Reply to Objection 1. Since it belongs essentially to corruption to take away the being of a thing, in so far as the being of some form is in matter, it results that by corruption the form is separated from the matter. But if such being were not in matter, yet like such being as is in matter, it could be taken away by corruption, even where there is no matter; as takes place in this sacrament, as is evident from what was said above.
Reply to Objection 2. Although the sacramental species are forms not in matter, yet they have the being which they had in matter.”
The accidents which remain in this sacrament (Tertia Pars, Q. 77)
Dana Nussberger
- Feb 13
Reading further into the encyclopedia article it does say that matter is one candidate for substance but it is disputed whether form is actually the essence of substance.) if form is the best description of substance then your explanation would make more sense as the matter of the molecular building blocks and their physical properties would ultimately have to be classified as accidents. But again the article indicates that even Aristotle scholars don’t know for sure.
Dana Nussberger
- Feb 12
I had the opportunity to think about your theory extensively last year and I do understand what you’re expressing. I like you am interested in a clever innovative development of doctrine that would give a clear modern rational explanation for the real presence.
It would be so very clever perhaps probably even brilliant if we could explain that the elements are the essence of Christ in substance but apply the idea of accidents not in reference only to appearances but rather to physical properties.
However, It will only work within the Catholic Church’s view of the infallibility of the anathemas of Trent if this is a new idea is not simply a restatement of the “middleway” proposed by the Anglican church in the middle of the 1500s that uses modern terms. For example they have an idea very similar to transubstantiation but as their apologist explained to me not the same. Some type of spiritual power enters into the bread and so does Christ’s presence. Still the bread is still substantially bread in it identity and being.
I’m not sure that you can keep the idea of “substance” completely separate from physicality. For me eucharistic miracles are instructive on that point. And of course doctrinally the main challenge is reconciling this explanation with the anathemas of the council of Trent.
The way I remember St. Thomas’s understanding of the substance of the Lord’s body it included all physical properties. It’s true that the Aristotelian concepts of accident and substance don’t perfectly correspond to our modern scientific categories of perception through our senses and atomic and molecular composition of an object. The idea of “substance” does sometimes include the idea of matter and form which seems to relate directly to physical categories. Substance (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Dana Nussberger
- Feb 22
The more I think about it the more I like your explanation but I do think you should avoid saying that the spiritual essence of the bread is what changes “the “spirit” or “soul”,”. The simple reason why is that I don’t think you can fully disentangle Aristotelian substance from our concept of physicality e.g. a specific form that requires matter.
On the other hand, a catechist should always emphasize that Christ is neither physically nor spiritually present in the Eucharist but sacramentally present. Through this mysterious sacramental presence it comes about that Jesus Christ is personally present in the Chapel during adoration of the sacrament while simultaneously being fully and physically and spiritually present at the right hand of the Father in Heaven.
The problem is that for us living in our part of seen and unseen reality we are only familiar with being physically present with someone when he/she is personally present with us online or in person.
I think it’s opportune to emphasize that the sacramental presence is a special mode of Jesus’s presence that doesn’t necessarily play by the same rules that we are familiar with as part of visible creation. The mystery is illuminated but not eliminated by these discussions.
Anyway the idea that Christ is sacramentally present not physically present or spiritually present is what I was taught by the deacon during the class I took before my Confirmation. At least to me the references you make to “spiritual” internal transformation make it sound as if Christ is only spiritually present.
Feel free to weigh in on the debate in the comment section concerning how to explain the change that takes place over the bread and wine.
May you have a blessed and happy feast of Corpus Christi!
Trinity Sunday and summary of the Gospel of Jesus message 2023
Everyone thirsts for love. It seems everyone dreams of a perfect father who will embraces his child as he or she are and also helps him or her become the best that he or she can be over time. The Lord is that perfect father “slow to anger” and “abounding mercy”. That thirst for love is why John 3:16 “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish, but might have eternal life.” is so popular as a summary of the Gospel. And yet John immediately continues with this profound observation, “and this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.”
This is the bible’s way of affirming that our hearts determine whether or not our intellects can receive the truth about Jesus. To put it into Catholic terminology our “cooperation” with the Holy Spirit is necessary for our salvation even before we ever hear the good news. that is why although the intellect, commonly known as the mind, processes the same evidence in two different persons, one person, will become convinced while another will protest that this Gospel is ridiculous. Why? The will, commonly known as the heart, must “cooperate” with the Holy Spirit by seeking good values. If our “works are evil” because the values of our heart are opposed to who Jesus is in his essence than people reject the good news and the salvation that Jesus offers. With the wrong set of values, a hardened wicked heart will poison the mind’s ability to comprehend and accept God’s love and the good news. Indeed, the council of Trent taught this very truth.
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/decree-concerning-justification–decree-concerning-reform-1496
Still many people reject our message. Too often people imagine God the Father the same way Frederick Nietzsche did, as a bullying tyrant clamping down on normal “life affirming” pleasures and stamping out artistic and scientific creativity. But why do they imagine our God that way? Is it simply ignorance of theology or scripture? Education is important but a lack of it doesn’t explain why we so often “prefer darkness to light”. St Pio (Padre Pio) once spoke to the effect that that the dividing line between good and evil runs directly through the center of every human heart.
What is the dogma of the Trinity? What does it look like?
G.K. Chesterton observed that the dogma the Trinity is a very elaborate way of explaining that “God is love”. Similar to how God can only be fully God as more than one person united together into one God by love, “it was not good” for the first man “to be alone” at the Genesis of the human race. As Christians have reflected on that scripture they realized that the communion of persons that is most like the Trinity is the human family. Likewise as Chesterton’s reflection on scripture went because “God is Love” and the creation did not exist before God made it, there must be a community of persons capable of knowing and loving one another and uniting together into the one Godhead itself without losing the diversity of each individual person.
A fuller understanding of that line cutting through each and every heart touches on the very nature of what it means to be a person. The connection between the heart and the mind determines if we return to God or fall away forever. Few people understand how far God goes in accommodating our most important and fundamental hopes, and desires.
Still that does not mean that everything that can be done by man should be done. “She is the book of the precepts of God, the law that endures forever; All who cling to her will live, but those will die who forsake her.” (Baruch 4:1)
God the Father by his Word also called the Son only forms natural and positive laws for our own good. And natural laws are there for the sake of bringing God’s creation as a whole universe into the full form of what he intends creation to be. God goes so far for us, to made us happy, still we cannot abandon God’s law because God’s eternal law is impressed on every creature, as a similarity between the Word who is with the Eternal Father and the creature. This impression is in us by our very nature(s) to reject it is ultimately to reject who the Word of God is in his essence and also ultimately to reject our true identity our true “name” to use a biblical expression.
Maleness and femaleness within the Trinity
It is commonly accepted and taught in our catechism that the essence of both masculinity and femininity are found within the Trinity. Theologians debate if each of three persons being Spirit reflect the pure essence of both masculinity and femininity in all three or if in face there is a sense of maleness and femaleness within the Trinity. For example, there is a rediscovery of the idea of the second person, the Son as the female part of the Trinity or the “feminine face of God” as some theologians have written.
How are the persons of the Godhead related to one another?
The Father is the principal and source of the entire Trinity, hence his relational name Father. Sometimes the Father is called “the Lover” because his gaze or his act of loving the second person the Son plays a role in the procession of the other two persons. The Word, more commonly referred to as the Son is the perfect reflection or mirror image of God the Father “light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made” as the Catholic Church confesses in the Nicene Creed. The Catholic Church gathered in 325 AD to examine the question of whether the Father made the Son as a creature. If this were true the Son would be inferior in wisdom and power to the Father. After much searching the council discerned with the Holy Spirit’s assistance that the Father and the Son are “consubstantial” with one another, meaning that both Father and Son so to speak are made of the same stuff. They share the same wisdom, power, and all other quality’s like reflected images or clones of one another. Bp. Robert Barron covers St. Augustine’s insight into this part in the sermon linked to below.
“253 The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the “consubstantial Trinity”. The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire: “The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e. by nature one God.” In the words of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), “Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature.”
254 The divine persons are really distinct from one another. “God is one but not solitary.” “Father”, “Son”, “Holy Spirit” are not simply names designating modalities of the divine being, for they are really distinct from one another: “He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the Son.” They are distinct from one another in their relations of origin: “It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds.” The divine Unity is Triune.
255 The divine persons are relative to one another. Because it does not divide the divine unity, the real distinction of the persons from one another resides solely in the relationships which relate them to one another: “In the relational names of the persons the Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both. While they are called three persons in view of their relations, we believe in one nature or substance.” Indeed “everything (in them) is one where there is no opposition of relationship.” “Because of that unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son.”
256 St. Gregory of Nazianzus, also called “the Theologian”, entrusts this summary of Trinitarian faith to the catechumens of Constantinople:
Above all guard for me this great deposit of faith for which I live and fight, which I want to take with me as a companion, and which makes me bear all evils and despise all pleasures: I mean the profession of faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I entrust it to you today. By it I am soon going to plunge you into water and raise you up from it. I give it to you as the companion and patron of your whole life. I give you but one divinity and power, existing one in three, and containing the three in a distinct way. Divinity without disparity of substance or nature, without superior degree that raises up or inferior degree that casts down. . . the infinite co-naturality of three infinites. Each person considered in himself is entirely God. . . the three considered together. . . I have not even begun to think of unity when the Trinity bathes me in its splendor. I have not even begun to think of the Trinity when unity grasps me. “. . https://www.usccb.org/sites/default/files/flipbooks/catechism/68/
We should all know a bit about the central message of Christianity sometimes called gospel or the Kergma so that we can interpret Jesus’s mission when he came to earth to evangelize others.
This is my short summary of the Gospel which basically means the core message of Christianity.
God the Father sent his Son as savior of the world. His only begotten Son the one person whom the Father delighted in loving more than anyone else was given to us by taking on flesh as a man. Jesus came to be our “high priest” that is our representative before God and to bridge the gap between the Triune God and the human race. By becoming Incarnate in human flesh the God-Man Jesus Christ gave God the Father all the love that the good creator deserved but did not receive from ungrateful humans. Ever since the fall of Adam and Eve we have been unable to fix the problem of sin because it’s embedded in our bodies and souls, but Jesus dealt with this problem by atoning for the sin of the world, because it is a ransom that we cannot pay because no one is perfectly free from personal sin except Jesus and Mary. So, God who created us out of love decided to become one of us in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Only, Jesus Christ was completely free from the powers of darkness who were controlling us through our sinful decisions. Jesus fought a valiant battle and eventually wrestled us away from Satan’s power but in the most unusual and shocking way possible his own Passion and Death. So, by forgoing the reward of righteousness which was a happy and peaceful life and instead offering himself as an atoning sacrifice for sin he undertook the penalty (wage see Romans 6:23) of all sins which was a terrible death and the worst physical, spiritual, and psychological suffering. Jesus did not have to do this (for you and me) in the sense that his Father was pressuring or forcing him to do this. Additionally, he could have forgiven our sins from Heaven or offered something that would have been less painful to obtain forgiveness. But this was the only way for Jesus to completely reach his greatest potential as the God-Man in terms of self-giving love. He freely laid down his life in this manner for each and every human being individually and for the race collectively because giving up everything and suffering everything for the sake of the beloved was his definition of agape love in the highest degree. He alone was mighty enough to accomplish this feat of mercy. So, he went to his horrible passion and suffering looking to all the world like a spectacle of defeat, but he was in reality the victorious warrior who subdued all the powers of death and darkness and obtained liberty for his people, his children. But now Christ is risen from the dead and we are invited to find our own highest purpose and happiness in him and in imitating him. If we agree to this mission, we will be changed to be more like him in this life and glorious later in the Resurrection. There will be many benefits and blessings given only to those who participate in life in Christ along with some challenges and times when people reject us. In the end, we will experience being partakers in his divinity. The son of God became man so that men could become sons of God (CCC 460)
We have countless rock and pop songs celebrating the love stories of a man and a woman who found each other, but we find that a lot of sin and selfish behavior, ends up layered over our desires to be loved and to love others. Throughout, popular music, academia, and literature desires for joy, human love, success, and acceptance electrify our culture. The Lord is the answer to all of those implicit prayers. God himself gives us the perfect love story in the sending of the Son as the savior of each individual and of the whole world.
How can we learn that it is in giving of ourselves that we truly receive? How can we become more like God and evangelize so that more people will accent the truth?
Mary Mother of the Church message 2023
Mary was exalted by God because of her great voluntary humility. For me it’s possible to envision Mary’s great humility through this image. I envision her kneeling in prayer leading up to Pentecost lost in gratitude and contemplation of God the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit lost in contemplation of God’s goodness. Mary was one of the most brilliant individuals who has ever lived but she did not contemplate her own greatness or seek power. Instead, she was caught up in contemplation of God. Mary did not set out to conquer the world, instead she set out to love God above all everyone and love everyone. And because of this God did everything for her. Ultimately after the redemption event God entrusted the entire world to her prayerful care placing everyone in her heart. She prayed for the apostles to gain the strength to preach and teach. In a world where the quest for power is an epidemic her example is most needed.
Fr Chad Ripperger realized something after years of contemplation and study. One of the greatest reasons that Mary is honored by God is that the sacrifice of Mary’s motherly heart was similar to the sacrifice of God the Father. Both gave up Jesus their Son to death their beloved. They consented to this path to salvation and Jesus also freely chosen immolation on the Cross. Indeed, as the Church teaches Mary “lovingly consented to the immolation of this victim” (Lumen Gentium). Mary’s decision to focus on and choose the will of God resembles Abraham’s decision to sacrifice his son of the covenant promise with trust in God. God stopped Abraham from sacrificing, his son the son who was an image meant to give us an idea of the Father’s sacrifice and gift of the Incarnate son of God.
Sin entered humanity through a woman, Eve who broke the unity of the two which God the good creator had originally given to Adam and Eve. Eve made the decision to eat the forbidden fruit on her own without consulting Adam or considering how her relationship with God affected him. She was not “her brother’s keeper” because she followed the devil’s path of self seeking and envy. Henceforth the union of man and woman would be “cursed” by man’s abusive dominion over his helpmate. God’s original good plan was almost completely obscured. Life became miserable for women because the dominion of men who are naturally physically stronger. Also the life of men became miserable because God’s larger creation was changed and broken by the original fall. This had a effect on the world’s ecology too. For many thousands of years both man and women were miserable for different reasons. But just as sin entered the world through one women Eve so redemption entered the world with Mary’s yes on behalf of all humanity when Jesus was conceived in her womb by the Holy Spirit.
Mary’s participation in the redemption accomplished by Jesus Christ is said to make her a co-redemptrix in a unique way. The co-redemptrix concept is one traditional Catholic way of looking at Mary’s motherhood of the church. Just as Eve open the door to sin and participated in Adam’s eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, so also Mary plays a vital part in recreating and redeeming mankind.
The doctrine of Mary co-redemptrix is found within the papal teaching magisterium but the exact details of Mary’s role in redemption are hotly contested. Pope Francis accused theologians who proposed that the traditional co-redemptrix theology be defined as a 5th Marian dogma of confusing the roles of Jesus and Mary in the salvation/redemption of mankind. Similarly, Fr Chris Alar points out that the Latin word standing behind “Co” does not mean “equal to” but “with”. A detailed explanation of the “co- redemptrix” dogma or doctrine is likely to be one of the most controversial of all debates concerning the mother of God. Perhaps the greatest Marian controversy of our lifetime.
The Catholic Church sees great importance in Jesus’ words “behold your mother”. Not only did Jesus entrust Mary to John for the sake of providing for his mother’s needs but he actually establishes a spiritual relationship between the two. John is not just to treat Mary as if she is his mother but Mary has actually become his spiritual mother and he her son because Jesus designated it to become so. When the church has traditionally reflected on John 19:25-34 John is seen as a representative of all disciples who seek to follow Jesus. John replaces Jesus in Mary’s life on earth. Mary also loves each one of us who wish to follow Jesus as if we were her natural born child whom she gave birth to.
“The Virgin Mary “cooperated through free faith and obedience in human salvation” (LG 56). She uttered her yes “in the name of all human nature” (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 30, 1). By her obedience she became the new Eve, mother of the living.”
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/511.htm#:~:text=Catechism%20of%20the%20Catholic%20Church%20-%20Paragraph%20%23,became%20the%20new%20Eve%2C%20mother%20of%20the%20living.
“We stand silently on Golgotha. At the foot of the Cross is Mary, Mater dolorosa: this woman who is heartbroken with grief, but prepared to accept the death of her Son. The sorrowful Mother recognizes and accepts in the sacrifice of Jesus the Father’s will for the redemption of the world. Of Mary the Second Vatican Council says: “The Blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith, and loyally persevered in her union with her Son unto the Cross. There she stood, in keeping with the divine plan (cf. Jn 19:25), suffering grievously with her only- begotten Son. There she united herself with a maternal heart to his sacrifice, and lovingly consented to the immolation of this Victim which she herself had brought forth. Finally, the same Christ Jesus, dying on the Cross, gave her as a mother to his disciple. Thus he did when he said: “Woman, behold your son” (Lumen Gentium, 58).”
https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/1998/april/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_10041998_via-crucis.html#:~:text=There%20she%20stood%2C%20in%20keeping%20with%20the%20divine,this%20Victim%20which%20she%20herself%20had%20brought%20forth.
https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/1998/april/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_10041998_via-crucis.html#:~:text=There%20she%20stood%2C%20in%20keeping%20with%20the%20divine,this%20Victim%20which%20she%20herself%20had%20brought%20forth.
in ” a 1918 commemorative letter of Pope Benedict XV to a Roman sodality:
As the Blessed Virgin Mary does not seem to participate in the public life of Jesus Christ, and then, suddenly appears at the stations of his cross, she is not there without divine intention. She suffers with her suffering and dying son, almost as if she would have died herself. For the salvation of mankind, she gave up her rights as the mother of her son and, in a sense, offered Christ’s sacrifice to God the Father as far as she was permitted to do. Therefore, one can say, she redeemed with Christ the human race.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-Redemptrix
Pentecost Sunday 2023 Message
Today we remember the first apostolic Pentecost and ask the Father to renew in us the gifts which the Lord gave us in baptism and confirmation so that we may bear “fruit that will remain”. In the gospel (Jn 20:19-23), Jesus twice says to the apostles “Peace be with you.” Next, while the disciples are rejoicing Jesus mysteriously breathes on them saying: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” First, Jesus forgives the apostles by filling them with the Spirit of Love. Second, he empowers them to continue his mission of forgiveness and reconciliation.
He immediately fulfills his promise of the fullness of love, life, and peace by breathing the Holy Spirit into the apostles. This infusion of the Spirit is like the “baptism in the Holy Spirit” that the apostles and disciples would receive a few weeks later during the Jewish feast of Pentecost. St. John connects this powerful transformation caused by the presence of the Holy Spirit with the apostles’ special ministry of forgiving sins in the person of Christ.
As the Church teaches this presence of the Holy Spirit technically called “communion of the Holy Spirit” restores to the baptized the “divine likeness lost through sin” (CCC 734). The apostle’s hearts were transformed to be like Jesus Christ’s heart as the Holy Spirit makes the apostles know the depth of the crucified and risen one’s love. This process of seeing the depth of one’s sinfulness met with God’s perfect love helps explain why Saint Luke calls this a “baptism in the Holy Spirit” (Sacrament of Confirmation). Like water baptism immersion in the Holy Spirit’s presence washes and purifies us as he fills us. What is purified away is the old man/women wounded by sin together with the fearfulness and timidity that characterized the apostles before. Before they were fearful of death and persecution now, they have discovered something better than this world!
God’s love has been “poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5), but besides the personal relationship between yourself and the risen Lord there is another relationship here between myself and others. “As the Father sent me so I send you”. All of us are Jesus’ apostles. St. Luke assures us of this when he describes how the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles and holy women at Pentecost. This outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon “all flesh” can mean only one thing that the” end times” of Jewish expectation have arrived. As of 2023 we have been in the end times for the last 2000 years. The apostles and their successors priests continue Christ’s mission of reconciling and giving the Holy Spirit in the sacraments. “Thus the Church’s mission is not in addition to that of Christ and the Holy Spirit but its sacrament” we all continue the mission of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. In “all her members the church is set to announce, bear witness, make present, and spread the mystery of the communion of the Holy Trinity” (CCC 738).
What does apostleship mean in your life?
Ascension 2023 Message
Do you agree that the Church of Rome emerged from the pagan Roman Empire?
Christianity had the difficult task of evangelizing and catechizing a huge population of Pagan non believers in only a century. The church “inculturated” the Gospel into that Pagan society to use a modern term. The Church tried to make the Judeo-Christian system more understandable and palatable to a Pagan system by explaining that Jesus before his incarnation was the author of all that was good, true, and beautiful in Greco-Roman philosophy and culture.
The bishops at first Nicaea in 325 AD were not Constantine’s “yes men’. Constantine did not threaten anyone with death for being an Arian or Nicaean (his two sons would do (one is an Arian and one as a Trinitarian Nicaean). But Constantine demanded that there be an agreement binding on all the citizens of the empire so that they wouldn’t start a theologically/culturally based civil war.
This whole modern idea that religion is a private hobby and therefore not worth arguing or fighting about was absolutely alien to human culture before the 1800s. As The Cambridge historian Eamon Duffy put it “religion was culture” in ancient times.
The majority of Bishops would have been willing to die for the preservation of the uncompromised truth about the nature of the Son of God anyway. And believe me dying by martyrdom was pretty much the normal fate of a Christian Bishop before the council, so it wouldn’t have been something exceptionally heroic, but rather a sacrifice that was expected of them as a duty of office. Coming out from hiding offered the Church great reward but also presented a great risk. The reward was that Christians could be full citizens and enjoy the goods of participation in society. The risk was that the Church would compromise it’s purity by catering to the whims of the Emperor or the Roman Elite. Even though the Pope did start to act more like a Roman aristocrat after the legalization of Christianity, the fundamental meaning of the Christian Church’s worship and teaching never changed. This can be clearly seen by comparing Christian literature before and after. Obviously the Catholic / Christian belief system is not completely static. The Church continued to learn more about Mary for example.
Catholic beliefs about how we are saved and “made righteous” with God through Christ explained by Pope Clement I
Post Vatican II most Protestants and Catholics have moved past the old anathemas and excommunications.
If you want to hear the honest to goodness truth about justification from a Pope putting it in New Testament language please just read St. Clement I’s breathtaking interpretation and synthesis of the New Testament in his famous “letter of the church in Rome to the church in Corinth”.
Here are a few samples from the public domain translation from the Greek. (100 AD)!
“These things, beloved, we write unto you, not merely to admonish you of your duty, but also to remind ourselves. For we are struggling on the same arena, and the same conflict is assigned to both of us. Wherefore let us give up vain and fruitless cares, and approach to the glorious and venerable rule of our holy calling. Let us attend to what is good, pleasing, and acceptable in the sight of Him who formed us. Let us look steadfastly to the blood of Christ, and see how precious that blood is to God which, having been shed for our salvation, has set the grace of repentance before the whole world. Let us turn to every age that has passed, and learn that, from generation to generation, the Lord has granted a place of repentance to all such as would be converted unto Him. Noah preached repentance, and as many as listened to him were saved. Jonah proclaimed destruction to the Ninevites; Jonah iii but they, repenting of their sins, propitiated God by prayer, and obtained salvation, although they were aliens [to the covenant] of God.”
“Abraham, styled the friend, was found faithful, inasmuch as he rendered obedience to the words of God. He, in the exercise of obedience, went out from his own country, and from his kindred, and from his father’s house, in order that, by forsaking a small territory, and a weak family, and an insignificant house, he might inherit the promises of God…. On account of his faith and hospitality, a son was given him in his old age; and in the exercise of obedience, he offered him as a sacrifice to God on one of the mountains which He showed him.”
“For thus He spoke: Be merciful, that you may obtain mercy; forgive, that it may be forgiven to you; as you do, so shall it be done unto you; as you judge, so shall you be judged; as you are kind, so shall kindness be shown to you; with what measure you measure, with the same it shall be measured to you. By this precept and by these rules let us establish ourselves, that we walk with all humility in obedience to His holy words. For the holy word says, On whom shall I look, but on him that is meek and peaceable, and that trembles at my words? Isaiah 66:2”
“Let us reflect how free from the wrath He is towards all His creation.”
“Let us cleave then to His blessing, and consider what are the means of possessing it. Let us think over the things which have taken place from the beginning. For what reason was our father Abraham blessed? Was it not because he wrought righteousness and truth through faith? Isaac, James 2:21 with perfect confidence, as if knowing what was to happen, cheerfully yielded himself as a sacrifice. Genesis 22:6-10 Jacob, through reason of his brother, went forth with humility from his own land, and came to Laban and served him; and there was given to him the scepter of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Whosoever will candidly consider each particular, will recognize the greatness of the gifts which were given by him. For from him have sprung the priests and all the Levites who minister at the altar of God. From him also [was descended] our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh. Romans 9:5 From him [arose] kings, princes, and rulers of the race of Judah. Nor are his other tribes in small glory, inasmuch as God had promised, Your seed shall be as the stars of heaven. All these, therefore, were highly honored, and made great, not for their own sake, or for their own works, or for the righteousness which they wrought, but through the operation of His will. And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
What shall we do, then, brethren? Shall we become slothful in well-doing, and cease from the practice of love? God forbid that any such course should be followed by us! But rather let us hasten with all energy and readiness of mind to perform every good work. For the Creator and Lord of all Himself rejoices in His works. For by His infinitely great power He established the heavens, and by His incomprehensible wisdom He adorned them. He also divided the earth from the water which surrounds it, and fixed it upon the immovable foundation of His own will. The animals also which are upon it He commanded by His own word into existence. So likewise, when He had formed the sea, and the living creatures which are in it, He enclosed them [within their proper bounds] by His own power. Above all, with His holy and undefiled hands He formed man, the most excellent [of His creatures], and truly great through the understanding given him — the express likeness of His own image. For thus says God: Let us make man in our image, and after our likeness. So God made man; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:26-27 Having thus finished all these things, He approved them, and blessed them, and said, Increase and multiply. Genesis 1:28 We see, then, how all righteous men have been adorned with good works, and how the Lord Himself, adorning Himself with His works, rejoiced. Having therefore such an example, let us without delay accede to His will, and let us work the work of righteousness with our whole strength.
The good servant receives the bread of his labor with confidence; the lazy and slothful cannot look his employer in the face. It is requisite, therefore, that we be prompt in the practice of well-doing; for of Him are all things. And thus He forewarns us: Behold, the Lord [comes], and His reward is before His face, to render to every man according to his work. He exhorts us, therefore, with our whole heart to attend to this, that we be not lazy or slothful in any good work. Let our boasting and our confidence be in Him. Let us submit ourselves to His will. Let us consider the whole multitude of His angels, how they stand ever ready to minister to His will. For the Scripture says, Ten thousand times ten thousand stood around Him, and thousands of thousands ministered unto Him, Daniel 7:10 and cried, Holy, holy, holy, [is] the Lord of Sabaoth; the whole creation is full of His glory. Isaiah 6:3 And let us therefore, conscientiously gathering together in harmony, cry to Him earnestly, as with one mouth, that we may be made partakers of His great and glorious promises. For [the Scripture] says, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which He has prepared for them that wait for Him. 1 Corinthians 2:9
How blessed and wonderful, beloved, are the gifts of God! Life in immortality, splendor in righteousness, truth in perfect confidence, faith in assurance, self-control in holiness! And all these fall under the cognizance of our understandings [now]; what then shall those things be which are prepared for such as wait for Him? The Creator and Father of all worlds, the Most Holy, alone knows their amount and their beauty. Let us therefore earnestly strive to be found in the number of those that wait for Him, in order that we may share in His promised gifts. But how, beloved, shall this be done? If our understanding be fixed by faith towards God; if we earnestly seek the things which are pleasing and acceptable to Him; if we do the things which are in harmony with His blameless will; and if we follow the way of truth, casting away from us all unrighteousness and iniquity, along with all covetousness, strife, evil practices, deceit, whispering, and evil-speaking, all hatred of God, pride and haughtiness, vain glory and ambition. For they that do such things are hateful to God; and not only they that do them, but also those that take pleasure in them that do them. Romans 1:32 For the Scripture says, But to the sinner God said, Wherefore do you declare my statutes, and take my covenant into your mouth, seeing you hate instruction, and castest my words behind you? When you saw a thief, you consented with him, and made your portion with adulterers. Your mouth has abounded with wickedness, and your tongue contrived deceit. You sit, and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son. These things you have done, and I kept silence; you thought, wicked one, that I should be like to yourself. But I will reprove you, and set yourself before you. Consider now these things, you that forget God, lest He tear you in pieces, like a lion, and there be none to deliver. The sacrifice of praise will glorify me, and a way is there by which I will show him the salvation of God.
This is the way, beloved, in which we find our Savior, even Jesus Christ, the High Priest of all our offerings, the defender and helper of our infirmity. By Him we look up to the heights of heaven. By Him we behold, as in a glass, His immaculate and most excellent visage. By Him are the eyes of our hearts opened. By Him our foolish and darkened understanding blossoms up anew towards His marvelous light. By Him the Lord has willed that we should taste of immortal knowledge,”
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1010.htm
Will food shortages ultimately lead to the mark of the beast in the tribulation?
The people who may cause food shortages will find some way of prohibiting God’s holy people from participating in the economy unless they take the mark of the beast. I really like this simple paragraph from Wikipedia because it explains the background for how to interpret the Book of Revelation very well.
“Eastern Orthodoxy treats the text as simultaneously describing contemporaneous events (events occurring at the same time) and as prophecy of events to come, for which the contemporaneous events were a form of foreshadow. It rejects attempts to determine, before the fact, if the events of Revelation are occurring by mapping them onto present-day events, taking to heart the Scriptural warning against those who proclaim, “He is here!” prematurely. Instead, the book is seen as a warning to be spiritually and morally ready for the end times, whenever they may come (“as a thief in the night”), but they will come at the time of God’s choosing, not something that can be precipitated nor trivially deduced by mortals.”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation#Eastern_Orthodox
In the 1st century there were massive man-made famines caused by wars. In the USA we are on the verge of having our first real food shortage in many decades, but we are still in the time frame where there is no final mark of the beast only something that is a little bit like the mark without actually being the mark as a few brave Roman Catholic bishops e.g. Bishop Athanasius Schneider and Archbishop Vigano have pointed out.
More than one Roman Catholic an Eastern Orthodox Bishops have warned (Based on the Book of Revelation) that when and if it happens in our lifetime the final fulfillment of the mark of the beast will likely come as something that is meant to initiate you into the Beast system the way that Baptism initiates someone into the Christian community. Think Satan’s version of baptism except cloaked in a new benign looking humanist religion that promises peace and justice. The Mark may even come with a promise of good health or a significantly longer life.
NCR’s headline “Pope Francis Admits Women to Ministries of Lector and Acolyte” could be better phrased as Pope Francis Admits Women to the Sacrament of Order! (without Realizing It)
We should certainly revere the Catholic Church because it is the “pillar and foundation of truth”(1 Tim 3:15). The Church is the deepest wellspring of wisdom from our Lord Jesus Christ anyone could ask for. She is always addressing the challenging new situations in faith and morals with wisdom from Jesus Christ. We can be proud of the Church for leading an unjust world to righteousness on many global issues throughout history. For example, the Catholic Church paved the way to the abolition of legal slavery in North and South America and the Atlantic, to care for the poor, and more recently to providing citizens with principles for a more humane and just system of healthcare and economics in accord with our Lord Jesus Christ’s will. The Church also provides a voice for the voiceless calling for the protection of the rights of unborn human persons, and calls every Christian to become an icon of the compassionate Christ for every Sinner no matter how far from God he or she may be.
As a concerned baptized Catholic I wanted to create a space where open dialogue could happen on the topic of how all Catholics can work better to understand their faith and also to make the Catholic Church conform better to Jesus Christ’s perfect wish and plan for it , to become in fact what he already has called us to be the spotless bride of Christ.
Personally, I don’t think we have experienced the rich fruits of a complete method for doing theology. I don’t think we ever will unless Catholics at the grassroots level learn to assess the current state of the Church in light of our own history, our own scripture, and the development of the doctrine of our tradition so that we can identify and resist corruptions of doctrine. This is not about the “liturgy wars” of a few years ago or the left- right partisanship that we see on display today. It’s not about a scrupulous need to get every detail of our liturgy in perfect conformance with some Platonic ideal of how a perfect liturgy should be, is about evaluating the trustworthiness of teachings coming down to us from our ordained ministers and learning concrete examples of our traditions that will help us understand how to do theology and so better understand how we can advance in holiness and fulfill Jesus Christ’s mission. It is in that spirit of love for the Church that I write and in the same spirit that I ask you all to evaluate what I am saying concerning minor orders.
For 1600 years in between the 3rd century (200s AD) and the 19th century (1800s AD) the Catholic Church’s official teaching magisterium unambiguously counted minor ordination as true sacramental ordination. Meaning that after ordination the person was said to be stamped with a new indelible seal and gift of the Holy Spirit for the ministry of the biblical diaconate (1 Tim chapter 3). Each one of these minor ordinations included three key aspects, a verbal instruction in duties of office, a prayer of blessing read over the candidates to delegate diaconal authority and in the Western church, presentation with the symbol of office. Pope Paul VI’s intention in Ministeria quaedam was clearly not to abolish the minor orders but to reclassify them, as lay ministries which is what he judged them to have originally been all along. Without a doubt a great deal of his assessment was likely based on the “Apostolic Tradition” (AT) a document that Pope Paul VI thought described the liturgy of the 3rd century Catholic Church in Rome and is sometimes attributed to Hippolytus of Rome. However, the description of minor orders in AT does not agree with ancient historical sources. There are also numerous strange liturgical practices, for example one involving a ritual cup of milk during the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist). Daniel G. Van Slyke published research that has value for discussion of minor orders in the 3rd century Roman church.
“Bishop Cornelius of Rome (251–3) provides the earliest evidence for the order or grade of acolyte. In a letter written to Bishop Favian of Antioch and preserved by Eusebius, Cornelius places exorcists in their proper place among the clergy. “
“The acolytes Saturus and Felicianus, the latter of whom Cyprian describes as a close acquaintance and ‘cleric’, similarly appear as trusted couriers of letters. In the aftermath of the Decian persecution,”
https://www.academia.edu/2100146/Consecration_to_the_Office_of_Acolyte_in_Historical_Perspective
Although the claim that minor orders continue in the modern mainstream Church today might seem unsupportable to most traditionalists. It like the only logical conclusion to draw from the words of the institution/ordination themselves. It seems clear to me that if the intention of the Church had been to abolish minor orders in the 1970s it has in fact failed miserably, as the modern rite of ordination “institution” is very similar to and conveys the same intention as the 8th century western minor ordination rites.
The modern rite of acolyte actually explains the spiritual meaning of the “institution” in this way.
“Brothers and sisters, let us ask God our Father to bless this servant who has been chosen for the ministry of acolyte. Let us ask him to fill this human being with his blessing and strengthen (him/her) for the faithful service of his Church.” (excerpted from the Roman Pontifical)
So, the intention of the rite is the same as the traditional rite. The Church’s intention is still one of strengthening or empowering a new minister for a specific diaconal function, not primarily an intention of celebrating the minister’s personal vocational charism or profession of commitment to the Church.
St. Thomas Aquinas is often considered the doctor of doctors because the method of doing theology that he used exemplifies much of what orthodox Catholic theologians strive to be. Saint Thomas achieved several significant things in his career one of which was explaining the doctrine of sacramental character more precisely and so St. Thomas is well qualified to witness to the Church’s mature understanding of the character created by sacramental ordination and the meaning of sacred power.
Saint Thomas Aquinas considers that the indelible character is
“In like manner it is not a habit: because no habit is indifferent to acting well or ill: whereas a character is indifferent to either, since some use it well, some ill. Now this cannot occur with a habit: because no one abuses a habit of virtue, or uses well an evil habit. It remains, therefore, that a character is a power.
I answer that, As stated above (Article 1), the sacraments of the New Law produce a character, in so far as by them we are deputed to the worship of God according to the rite of the Christian religion. Wherefore Dionysius (Eccl. Hier. ii), after saying that God “by a kind of sign grants a share of Himself to those that approach Him,” adds “by making them Godlike and communicators of Divine gifts.” Now the worship of God consists either in receiving Divine gifts, or in bestowing them on others. And for both these purposes some power is needed; for to bestow something on others, active power is necessary; and in order to receive, we need a passive power. Consequently, a character signifies a certain spiritual power ordained unto things pertaining to the Divine worship.”
“As has been made clear above (Article 1), a character is properly a kind of seal, whereby something is marked, as being ordained to some particular end: thus a coin is marked for use in exchange of goods, and soldiers are marked with a character as being deputed to military service.”
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/4063.htm
Pope John Paul II affirmed the continuity of the post 1970s ministries of acolyte, lector, and extraordinary minister of Holy Communion with the minor orders of the past.
“May this be a Year of grace also for you, deacons, who are so closely engaged in the ministry of the word and the service of the altar. I ask you, lectors, acolytes and extraordinary ministers of holy communion, to become ever more aware of the gift you have received in the service entrusted to you for a more worthy celebration of the Eucharist.”
https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/2004/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20041008_mane-nobiscum-domine.html
Likewise, we can learn that St. Thomas Aquinas understood sacred power as flowing from and directly caused by the “strengthening” from the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit given for a specific purpose pertaining to the economy of salvation.
“ I answer that, As stated above (III:63:2), a character is a spiritual power ordained to certain sacred actions. Now it has been said above (Article 1; III:65:1) that, just as Baptism is a spiritual regeneration unto Christian life, so also is Confirmation a certain spiritual growth bringing man to perfect spiritual age. But it is evident, from a comparison with the life of the body, that the action which is proper to man immediately after birth, is different from the action which is proper to him when he has come to perfect age. And therefore by the sacrament of Confirmation man is given a spiritual power in respect of sacred actions other than those in respect of which he receives power in Baptism. For in Baptism he receives power to do those things which pertain to his own salvation, forasmuch as he lives to himself: whereas in Confirmation he receives power to do those things which pertain to the spiritual combat with the enemies of the Faith. This is evident from the example of the apostles, who, before they received the fulness of the Holy Ghost, were in the “upper room . . . persevering . . . in prayer” (Acts 1:13-14); whereas afterwards they went out and feared not to confess their faith in public, even in the face of the enemies of the Christian Faith. And therefore it is evident that a character is imprinted in the sacrament of Confirmation.”
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/4072.htm
And the modern Catechism (1997) certainly agrees with Saint Thomas’s assessment of the inseparable link between the grace given to strengthen a person for a specific service in divine worship in this case “to confess” Christ publicly and the indelible character created by the same Holy Spirit in order to exercise the actions proper to the person’s new responsibility.
So, the question remains if the acolyte rite confers substantially the same spiritual gift as the medieval minor order rite, for substantially the same office/ diaconal ministry does it make sense to classify the, as other than the sacrament of Order? If the church leaders above all Pope Paul VI could have failed to properly evaluate the teaching tradition that minor orders are sacraments because the view that they are not sacraments was taught to them in seminary how should we modify our evaluation of traditions handed on to prevent a similar mistake?
Is Pope Francis trying to teach that sacramental marriage can be dissolved?
Put very simply Cardinal Bellarmine was probably wrong in this assessment a Pope who is a “manifest heretic” per the Roman Catholic legal standards of Bellarmine’s time. The whole theory is built on his own inflated understanding of the Pope’s lofty grasp of doctrine and unimpeachable faith (Presumably that tells us something about how the Cardinal understood papal infallibility).
The idea that the bishops can judge a corrupt or obviously heretical Pope who refuses multiple fraternal corrections makes perfect sense to me in terms of history. All of these things are known to be somewhat unsure as the Catholic Church does not have an infallible list of Popes, but there was certainly a local council during the Middle Ages that successfully removed a corrupt Pope (John XII) and replaced him with another Pope Leo VIII (.(although his predecessor died of a heart attack after which moment Leo VIII is considered a valid pope)) who is currently recognized by the Roman Catholic Church as an authentic Pope.
I think that removing a corrupt Pope could be a legitimate use of Episcopal authority assuming they are not overreaching their power by imposing their own pastoral vision on the Church. For example, today some Roman Catholic bishops think that Pope Francis’s adoption of the principles of “oikonomia” reveal him as a manifest heretic and that this disqualifies him from leading. On the now famous footnote in Amoris Laetitia (AL), I can only say that I think the Pope attempted to do the right thing and the wrong way. The means by which Francis communicated his change in a footnote within a much longer teaching document makes made it seem as if he was clandestinely trying remove the requirement for spouses to remain in a valid sacramental marriage. Whether this is actually his intention was more ambiguous. But that is the point a decision on church doctrine so vitally important to so many people should not be unclear.
https://www.usccb.org/committees/ecumenical-interreligious-affairs/orthodox-teaching-remarriage
Again let us be clear the Council of Trent defined that a valid sacramental marriage (which has special conditions to be valid more exacting than civil marriage) can never be annulled / divorced. Questioning that would involve reevaluating all the ecumenical councils leading back to 325 AD. Still it does not tell us how to discern whether a marriage was actually valid in a sacramental sense nor how to legislate a situation like the one we have today where there are 10,000s of civil marriages which fall into the category of “might be valid sacraments or might not be”. The Catholic Church is still the ark of salvation and everyone’s greatest chance to live out Jesus’s teachings and ultimately get to heaven. The sacraments are still the ordinary means of receiving the grace of forgiveness conversion and ultimately eternal life. Therefore, Pope Francis’s pastoral vision of a Church that makes it easier for the divorced and remarried men and women to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church and receive Eucharistic communion is a Godsend but the way that he implements that vision in AL can only be described as counterproductive. Once again based on history and Scripture I think that it’s clear that Popes have to be allowed some room to make doctrinal mistakes is part of the ordinary teaching office without losing their office.
In Part 2 of this post we can consider some of the discussion among highest level leaders in the Catholic Church about Amoris Laetitia’s now infamous footnote and divorce and remarriage more generally.
A Reflection on the Gospel Message for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Dana’s Christmas message
Someone online asked this question on Quora. What if a Pope denies a Catholic dogma? Can he be excommunicated?
I’m not aware of canonical proceedings for a heretical Pope. Popes (Like everyone else) have to be allowed to make a few theological mistakes without getting fired or having their lives ruined. However, it’s clear based upon the Bible (Galatians 2:11) and Sacred Tradition expressed by the early theologians (church fathers) that being Pope is not something that places you as a dictator above the essence of the Law of Christ. It is not something that renders you the only valid interpreter of public revelation and therefore everything you say or do is considered unimpeachable. At the same time the Pope’s dissenters can’t just latch onto any doctrinal mistake that he says or prints in an Apostolic letter as an excuse to remove the Pope.
St. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine does an excellent job of exploring how a person in good conscience should act in two different theoretical situations related to the Pope.
In the first scenario a Pope is destroying the Church through corrupt actions and/or obviously mistaken leadership choices. This person is destroying “killing” souls that is leading them down the path to perdition.
St. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine offers this insight.
“Just as it is licit to resist the Pontiff who attacks the body, so also is it licit to resist him who attacks souls or destroys the civil order or above all, tries to destroy the Church. I say that it is licit to resist him by not doing what he orders and by impeding the execution of his will. It is not licit, however, to judge him, to punish him, or to depose him.” ( De Romano Pontifice, Book II, Chap. 29)
In St. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine’s second scenario.
“a pope who is a manifest heretic automatically (per se) ceases to be pope and head, just as he ceases automatically to be a Christian and a member of the Church. Wherefore, he can be judged and punished by the Church. This is the teaching of all the ancient Fathers who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all jurisdiction.” ( St. Robert Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice, II, 30.)
In the Part 2 of this series of posts on the possibility of a heretical Pope we will get into what a “manifest heretic” is and what impact such a person has on the church.
Someone online asked this question on Quora. What if a Pope denies a Catholic dogma? Can he be excommunicated?
Explaining what qualifies as a “manifest heretic” is probably more difficult now in the 21st century than Bellarmine could ever have known. For instance, Vatican II brought an avalanche of change with a view toward restoring the original meaning of scripture in the liturgy. In my view is unlikely that a simple definition of objectively heresy (publicly denying some infallible teaching but without a malicious intention to act against what you know to be divinely revealed) could be enough to remove a Pope. Even going beyond what St. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine thought of a heretical Pope, it’s probable that many popes and bishops have held and publicly taught ideas that (rightly or wrongly) theologians today are describing as heresies. So which ones are correct? Think of the ongoing disagreement about the sacramentality of minor orders as an example. Maybe it’s not that one camp or the other is completely wrong and the other completely right on doctrine. Instead, I think that both are making valid points and need to pray for discernment to understand the full picture.
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=3444
“No doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident.” (Can. 749 §3)
“Each and every thing which is proposed definitively by the magisterium of the Church concerning the doctrine of faith and morals, that is, each and every thing which is required to safeguard reverently and to expound faithfully the same deposit of faith, is also to be firm-ly embraced and retained; therefore, one who rejects those propositions which are to be held definitively is opposed to the doctrine of the Catholic Church. Can. “ (750 §2)
“Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.” (Can. 751)
The way I see it there’s a strong possibility that popes have made significant mistakes in their understanding and implementation of certain doctrines in the past. However, would it be worse or better for the salvation of souls if such a person were no longer able to exercise governance over the universal church? I think it’s a fine line. Now I think that it is actually partly mistaken to think that any small mistake that contradicts the deposit of faith removes someone from jurisdiction. Might not that destroy more souls than the initial error in the first place?
Therefore, in a nutshell in my or judgment if a Pope is going to lose the power of governance and be removed it has to be for something a lot more damaging to immortal souls than holding a few mistaken ideas about some political matter or non-essential church doctrine. My educated guess is that the manifest heretic who loses all jurisdiction that the church fathers had in mind is a Pope who makes himself the enemy of the Church by teaching something contrary to the central doctrines of the faith something that could lead to the loss of salvation for believers.
I have discussed a little bit of this issue on Quora before but it’s such a hotbed of contention and threats of excommunication that I have to be very careful what I say.
In Part 3 of this discussion the possibility of a heretical Pope we will talk about some contemporary allegations that Pope Francis is a “manifest heretic” and some possible avenues of intellectual and spiritual discernment related to freedom of conscience and the responsibility to form conscience among faithful Catholics today.
Someone online asked this question on Quora. What if a Pope denies a Catholic dogma? Can he be excommunicated?
Now we talked a lot about freedom of conscience and what to do if there is a heretical Pope. Now let’s look at the other side of the story from the point of view of defending the current Pope. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who mistakenly believe that Pope Francis is a “manifest heretic” because they (the dissenters) simply don’t understand certain things. For example, they don’t understand how it’s possible that someone can be canonically in grave sin (Read civilly divorced and remarried) without actually being “divorced and remarried” in a sacramental sense.
Another problem comes when traditionalists for example the editors of One Peter Five latch onto a few mistakes or disagreements as proof that the Pope should be removed.
On the one hand, I just mentioned that One Peter Five has a serious penchant for traditionalist ideas and not all of them are correct. On the other hand, this article about when to disobey the Pope seems to be pretty thorough and correct in my view.
https://onepeterfive.com/disobey-pope/Similarly, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano (God bless him for his courage on other issues of our time!) mistakenly has latched onto one or two of the Pope’s mistakes as a proof of his own extreme and false claims about the Church in general. For example, the same holy Bp. Vigano has mistakenly claimed that
- the Second Vatican Council was a terrible mistake and probably instigated by Satan.
- the current Pope (Francis I) is somehow in league with the devil and doing his bidding by intentionally trying to destroy the Church
Those two extreme and false claims are a big part of the reason why Bp. Vigano is basically informally excommunicated at this particular moment in time.
Let me be perfectly clear in my view none of those criticisms are correct. But the concerned Catholic faithful, bishops, and theologians need to be free to make such criticisms even when their criticisms are wrong. (Although almost everyone probably knows in their own conscience that they should have been more charitable when making public statements) Clearly, we all need to be able to follow our conscience inside the Roman Catholic Church but if large numbers of Roman Catholics have mistakenly formed their conscience on certain issues, well, that’s not going to be good for the Church or freedom of conscience.
Someone online asked this question on Quora. What if a Pope denies a Catholic dogma? Can he be excommunicated?
The idea that a validly ordained Bishop can be prevented from exercising his sacramental ministry and from exercising the power of governance within his office is actually an infallible teaching of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. This is actually why the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD ruled that Paul of Samosata’s clergy would have to be re-ordained and his parishioners would have to be re-baptized (Canon 19). Paul of Samosata (300s AD) a Bishop started teaching some of the most accursed forms of heresy, particularly damaging were his views on the Trinity. It’s important not to overstate how frequently this suspension of powers happens. It does not happen over changes in Liturgy like the ones after Vatican II. It also does not occur over minor doctrinal disagreements or even major differences of opinion about the articulation of important doctrines. We can know this with certainty because we have dogmatic judgments and Eucharistic Miracles as proofs that the Eastern Orthodox and Armenian bishops are validly ordained to ministry and conferring valid sacraments.
This suspension even applies to his Sacramental power to ordain. In the case of Bp. Paul of Samosata, the suspension of this Bishop’s powers was not a judicial act of the Church but rather an acknowledgment that a Bishop has lost the power to exercise the powers of his office when he falls into this situation, because he is no longer attempting through his public teaching and sacramental ministry to carry out the sacraments which Christ instituted but to change Christ’s sacraments into a creation of his own. Much of this is traceable to Paul of Samosata’s views on the Trinity.
Eusebius an early historian of the Christian church recorded a historical document that helps shed light on the matter of the loss of Paul’s office. Eusebius includes quotes from a letter drawn up by bishops against Paul of Samosata. Eusebius observes this concerning their decision in Ecclesiastical History, Book 7, chapter 30
“As Paul had fallen from the episcopate, as well as from the orthodox faith, Domnus, as has been said, became bishop of the church at Antioch.”
Once again, it’s clear that not all disagreements about doctrine fall into this most serious category of heresy. After all, if all disagreements about doctrine fell into this category, we wouldn’t have any Eastern Orthodox or Armenian bishops today.
Someone online asked this question on Quora. What if a Pope denies a Catholic dogma? Can he be excommunicated?
Explaining what qualifies as a “manifest heretic” is probably more difficult now in the 21st century than Bellarmine could ever have known. For instance, Vatican II brought an avalanche of change with a view toward restoring the original meaning of scripture in the liturgy. In my view is unlikely that a simple definition of objectively heresy (publicly denying some infallible teaching but without a malicious intention to act against what you know to be divinely revealed) could be enough to remove a Pope. Even going beyond what St. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine thought of a heretical Pope, it’s probable that many popes and bishops have held and publicly taught ideas that (rightly or wrongly) theologians today are describing as heresies. So which ones are correct? Think of the ongoing disagreement about the sacramentality of minor orders as an example. Maybe it’s not that one camp or the other is completely wrong and the other completely right on doctrine. Instead, I think that both are making valid points and need to pray for discernment to understand the full picture.
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=3444
“No doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident.” (Can. 749 §3)
“Each and every thing which is proposed definitively by the magisterium of the Church concerning the doctrine of faith and morals, that is, each and every thing which is required to safeguard reverently and to expound faithfully the same deposit of faith, is also to be firm-ly embraced and retained; therefore, one who rejects those propositions which are to be held definitively is opposed to the doctrine of the Catholic Church. Can. “ (750 §2)
“Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him.” (Can. 751)
The way I see it there’s a strong possibility that popes have made significant mistakes in their understanding and implementation of certain doctrines in the past. However, would it be worse or better for the salvation of souls if such a person were no longer able to exercise governance over the universal church? I think it’s a fine line. Now I think that it is actually partly mistaken to think that any small mistake that contradicts the deposit of faith removes someone from jurisdiction. Might not that destroy more souls than the initial error in the first place?
Therefore, in a nutshell in my or judgment if a Pope is going to lose the power of governance and be removed it has to be for something a lot more damaging to immortal souls than holding a few mistaken ideas about some political matter or non-essential church doctrine. My educated guess is that the manifest heretic who loses all jurisdiction that the church fathers had in mind is a Pope who makes himself the enemy of the Church by teaching something contrary to the central doctrines of the faith something that could lead to the loss of salvation for believers.
I have discussed a little bit of this issue on Quora before but it’s such a hotbed of contention and threats of excommunication that I have to be very careful what I say.
In Part 3 of this discussion the possibility of a heretical Pope we will talk about some contemporary allegations that Pope Francis is a “manifest heretic” and some possible avenues of intellectual and spiritual discernment related to freedom of conscience and the responsibility to form conscience among faithful Catholics today.
Someone online asked this question on Quora. What if a Pope denies a Catholic dogma? Can he be excommunicated?
Now we talked a lot about freedom of conscience and what to do if there is a heretical Pope. Now let’s look at the other side of the story from the point of view of defending the current Pope. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who mistakenly believe that Pope Francis is a “manifest heretic” because they (the dissenters) simply don’t understand certain things. For example, they don’t understand how it’s possible that someone can be canonically in grave sin (Read civilly divorced and remarried) without actually being “divorced and remarried” in a sacramental sense.
Another problem comes when traditionalists for example the editors of One Peter Five latch onto a few mistakes or disagreements as proof that the Pope should be removed.
On the one hand, I just mentioned that One Peter Five has a serious penchant for traditionalist ideas and not all of them are correct. On the other hand, this article about when to disobey the Pope seems to be pretty thorough and correct in my view.
https://onepeterfive.com/disobey-pope/Similarly, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano (God bless him for his courage on other issues of our time!) mistakenly has latched onto one or two of the Pope’s mistakes as a proof of his own extreme and false claims about the Church in general. For example, the same holy Bp. Vigano has mistakenly claimed that
- the Second Vatican Council was a terrible mistake and probably instigated by Satan.
- the current Pope (Francis I) is somehow in league with the devil and doing his bidding by intentionally trying to destroy the Church
Those two extreme and false claims are a big part of the reason why Bp. Vigano is basically informally excommunicated at this particular moment in time.
Let me be perfectly clear in my view none of those criticisms are correct. But the concerned Catholic faithful, bishops, and theologians need to be free to make such criticisms even when their criticisms are wrong. (Although almost everyone probably knows in their own conscience that they should have been more charitable when making public statements) Clearly, we all need to be able to follow our conscience inside the Roman Catholic Church but if large numbers of Roman Catholics have mistakenly formed their conscience on certain issues, well, that’s not going to be good for the Church or freedom of conscience.
Matthew 2:13-18
Thank you Fr Showri for your words of wisdom; “Rachel Weeping for Her Children Who can explain suffering, especially the suffering of innocent children? Herod’s massacre of children who gave their lives for a person and a truth they did not know seemed so useless and unjust.
What a scandal and stumbling block for those who can’t recognize God’s redeeming love. Why couldn’t God prevent this slaughter? Suffering is indeed a mystery. No explanation seems to satisfy our human craving to understand. First martyrs for Christ These innocent children who died on Christ’s behalf are the first martyrs for Christ. Suffering, persecution, and martyrdom are the lot of all who chose to follow Jesus Christ.
There is no crown without the cross. It was through Jesus’ suffering, humiliation, and death on a cross, that our salvation was won. His death won life – eternal life for us. And his blood which was shed for our sake obtained pardon and reconciliation with our heavenly Father. Suffering can take many forms – illness, disease, handicap, physical pain and emotional trauma, slander, abuse, poverty, and injustice. Paul the Apostle states: We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called to his purpose (Romans 8:28)? Jesus exclaimed that those who weep, who are reviled and persecuted for righteousness sake are blessed (Matthew 5:10-12).
The word blessed [makarios in the Greek] literally means happiness or beatitude. It describes a kind of joy which is serene and untouchable, self-contained and independent from chance and changing circumstances of life. Supernatural joy in the face of sufferingThere is a certain paradox for those blessed by the Lord. Mary was given the blessedness of being the mother of the Son of God. That blessedness also would become a sword which pierced her heart as her Son died upon the cross. She received both a crown of joy and a cross of sorrow.
But her joy was not diminished by her sorrow because it was fueled by her faith, hope, and trust in God and his promises. Jesus promised his disciples that “no one will take your joy from you” (John 16:22). The Lord gives each of us a supernatural joy which enables us to bear any sorrow or pain and which neither life nor death can take way. Do you know the joy of a life fully given over to God with faith and trust?