The Bible...It's Easy As 1, 2, 3!

On various Reformed blogs, I have read in one form or another an argument that goes like this:

• The Bible is perspicuous (easy to understand), therefore
• If you practice the rules of good reading comprehension you can glean from it right doctrine
• The reason people don't get right doctrine is many times a defect of reading comprehension, thus
• Through discursive dialog one person should be able to convince another what the right interpretation of Scripture is. However,
• If that person disagrees, they do so at their own peril because the Bible is sufficiently clear so as to be understood by anyone willing to attend his or her intellect to its meaning

Did you catch that? Denominations that disagree with basic Reformed tenets (denominations like the Disciples of Christ, Pentecostals, etc.) suffer from a deficiency in reading comprehension. (You credo-baptist Zwinglians, hold your breath) Here's my problem. This view of Scripture turns the Bible, inevitably, into a math book, God the Great Mathematician, and us, apparently, in dire need of prime number remediation. 

Among other problems*, one glaring problem is that this reduces the Sacred Scriptures to merely fined tuned intellectual jargon. However, if God were wanting to accomplish that end, poetry, metaphor, parables, and so forth are hardly the best methods for so doing. Now, in no way do I think that Sacred Scripture is not marvelously composed -- I just think the Reformed requirements for it make it almost completely meaningless. Scripture is far more than finely tuned intellectual jargon. Not to mention that it makes every person meaningless.

Okay, since I brought it up...

...in another place, I have said that sola scriptura robs us of our unique dignity. This particular take on sola scriptura raises the ante. It creates, of necessity, a caste system of the intelligentsia. M.Div., pass go, select possible leadership position of a Christian sect. Simpleton, like St. Therese of Lisieux, go directly to the jail of the theological flash cards.

Repeat:

"No works, just faith, no works, just faith"

Catholic Theologian

St. Therese: "But, didn't Jesus say, "Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven?"

Poor Therese. She just needed to go over her flash cards more. Repeat after me:

"No works, just faith, no works, just faith"

All right, now every denomination in the world let out a big, "Wait a minute!"

That felt good didn't it? (especially you Arminians out there)

Full Stop.

This particular Reformed argument is reckless, wrong-headed, and another word that starts with "w" that I can't think of right now. Seriously, the 490-plus year math problem has never been solved. A new theorist is born every day, and a new "school of math" founded every month. It appears that there is no dawn in the horizon, no hope that the engineers will come back with an answer. The edifice, or rather theory, is collapsing.

Peter's barque is still here.

Be. Catholic.

Protestant Mathema...I mean Theologian

*I could see the Reformed having something on the Evangelicals and Pentecostals back when both contemporary forms were kind of resistant to formal education. However, both communities now have scholars, peer reviewed journals, etc. You would expect that by now, given the Reformed thesis, that each community would have discovered the magical Reformed doctrines buried away in Scripture, like a new geometry student proving CPCTC for the first time.

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Celebrating Repentance

Did you know that in every Catholic Church there is a room dedicated to celebrating repentance? They literally take an entire space in their churches and dedicate it exclusively to embracing the prodigal son who comes home.

See! I told you so. 

Now let's think about the story of the prodigal son. The son leaves. He spends his inheritance, and finds himself in the pigsty. He comes to his senses and realizes that he must return. The son does not make amends in the pigsty. Instead, he knows he must go back to his father's house because his sin is not just against God but against his father. Sometimes we miss that fact in the parable because we are so focused on the father acting as a type for God, but the parable makes it clear that his sin is against both God and his father:

"I will arise, and will go to my father, and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee" -Luke 15:18

Last night started First Communion classes for my eldest child. The first four sessions are about Confession, and last night the priest made the point that the Church, in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, celebrates the repentant sinner. That thought really struck me as profound. Like the father in the parable of the prodigal son, the Church is literally waiting (v.20) to embrace any of her sons or daughters who have wandered away. However, that embrace is not impotent.

The Church's embrace is not impotent because she does not embrace the repentant sinner in Her own strength. As St. John records:

"He said therefore to them again: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. -John 20:21-23

God breathed upon the first Adam and made him a living soul. Yet through the first Adam's disobedience, all the sons and daughters of Adam were led into destruction and death. However, the Second Adam, God the Son, breathed upon his new creation -- the Apostles -- so that through their ministry all the sons and daughters of Adam could be made alive! This ministry is not in addition to the ministry of Christ, but is precisely His ministry. You see, when a priest receives you in Confession who has received his ministry by the laying on of hands through a succession that goes back to Christ, he absolves you not under his own authority but in virtue of a gift he has received. This gift is a gift given by Christ to make all things new.

Sons of Adam, come home! 

There is a room waiting for you...

Eucharistic Reflection

People lived with God Incarnate and thought him only a nice teacher, carpenter or prophet. St. John said, though, that when we beheld Christ we beheld “the glory of the only begotten of the Father” (John 1:14). Even at the Cross, the soldiers were casting lots while the salvation of the world was happening above their heads. Do you fail to perceive the glory of God in the Eucharist? Of course, this cannot be the fault of the Eucharist; in the same way that it was not Christ’s fault that one woman touched his garment and was healed while the crowds thronged around him unfazed. Let us now consider the words of the holy ones regarding the most August Sacrament of the Altar: 

“Do grant, oh my God, that when my lips approach Yours to kiss You, I may taste the gall that was given to You; when my shoulders lean against Yours, make me feel Your scourging; when my flesh is united with Yours, in the Holy Eucharist, make me feel Your passion; when my head comes near Yours, make me feel Your thorns; when my heart is close to Yours, make me feel Your spear.” -St. Gemma Galgani

“This food we call the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake except one who believes that the things we teach are true, and has received the washing for forgiveness of sins and for rebirth, and who lives as Christ handed down to us. For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God’s Word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the Word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus.” -St. Justin Martyr

“And just as He appeared before the holy Apostles in true flesh, so now He has us see Him in the Sacred Bread. Looking at Him with the eyes of their flesh, they saw only His Flesh, but regarding Him with the eyes of the spirit, they believed that He was God. In like manner, as we see bread and wine with our bodily eyes, let us see and believe firmly that it is His Most Holy Body and Blood, True and Living. For in this way our Lord is ever present among those who believe in him, according to what He said: “Behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world.” (Mt. 28, 20)” -St. Francis of Assisi

Peace to you on your journey!

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I Am Giving Up _______ For Lent...

...because what you give up should be between you and God. 

May God richly bless you during this season of Lent. May you enter into the profound mystery of the passion of our Lord, obtaining the graces you need for victory over sin, true piety and a gentle spirit.

Pray for me and I will pray for you.

Go to Mass. Get Ashes. He Does.

The Canon Made Impossible...

Most Protestants love Jesus. These Protestants are “Jesus people,” and this love for Jesus gives them something in common with Catholics. Catholics, as the people who partake of Jesus’ body, blood, soul and divinity, cannot help but be endeared to them. Enter Bart Ehrman. A seeming enemy of both Jesus-loving Protestants and Catholics alike, Ehrman and his associates attempt to “debunk” the Sacred writings that we both hold in high regard...

You can read the rest here at Called to Communion...