Jesus is the Bread of Life, His Blood is Real Drink

I believe the Scriptural support for the Catholic belief that in Communion the bread and wine really do become the body and blood of Christ is very strong. Yet, John chapter 6 was exactly where my parish priest took me when I was leaving the Catholic Church, and it didn’t convince me. After God led me back to the Catholic Church, I studied John 6 and thought, “How could I have missed that? What standard am I holding Jesus to if I’m not going to accept His words ‘My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink’ as literal? What would He have had to say? How could He put it any more bluntly?”

Read John chapter 6 and pay attention to the questions posed by the crowd. At one point, they say “How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven.’?”

Jesus replies in v. 51: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

Then they argue among themselves, “how can this man give us his flesh to eat.” Notice that they are taking Jesus literally in vs. 52. But Jesus doesn’t correct them and explain that He was only referring symbolically to His sacrifice on the cross, or in belief in His words. Rather, He reiterates even more strongly:

53 - 55. Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.

After that, many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed him. They understood Him to be speaking literally, and they couldn’t accept it.

Check out 1 Corinth 10:16 & 1 Corinth 11:23 – 29 (especially vs. 27)

John 6:55-56 & 1Corinth 11:27 both talk about the body & the blood of Christ. Some other verses could easily be symbolic instead of literal, since the Church is the Body of Christ, the Word of God is the bread of life that we could feed on, etc. But here, Jesus not only says to feed or ‘chew’ on His flesh, which could be symbolic of Scripture – His Word, but He also says to drink His blood. I am not familiar of any similar metaphors or symbolism for the blood of Christ.

Also, the context of 1 Corinth 11 is indeed the problem of some believers taking more than their share during Communion and others are left without. Verses 33-34 bear that out quite clearly. However, that doesn’t preclude the possibility that they were not only sinning against each other (the Body of Christ in one sense), but also against the Body and Blood of Christ present in the wine and the bread. The double meaning makes more sense to me, because St. Paul does not only accuse them of sinning against the body of the Lord, but also the blood of the Lord in vs. 27. It’s clear that there is more going on here than just lack of consideration for other believers.

The Road to Emmaus

A beautiful connection between Scripture and the Catholic Mass is shown in Luke 24, the encounter with Christ on the Road to Emmaus. vs. 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. …. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"

In a Catholic Mass, the Scriptures are always opened in the first half of the liturgy, the Liturgy of the Word. We always begin in the OT and move into the NT to point to Christ. The second half of the Mass is the Liturgy of the Eucharist (or the Liturgy of Thanksgiving, since Eucharist means thanksgiving). In vs. 30, it mentions that Jesus gave thanks. So the pattern of the Mass follows the pattern of the encounter on the road to Emmaus. It’s also informative that exactly when their eyes were opened and they recognized him, He disappeared from their sight. That was immediately following Jesus giving them the bread. It helps explain a lot about why Jesus related to them the way He did (hiding Himself) and then disappearing. He was showing that now He was “hidden” in the bread.

God With Us
A beautiful thought was shared with me soon after I returned to the Catholic Church by another convert. I may have asked why we would need the presence of Christ in the Eucharist when as a Christian, we are a temple of the Holy Spirit and God is always with us. He observed that the Holy Spirit is God’s way of being with us spiritually, and the Eucharist is God’s way of coming close to us physically. We are spirit and body, and God relates to us that way.

Idolatry?

To a non-Catholic Christian, the thought that God could become present in a piece of bread, or that the bread can become the flesh of Jesus seems blasphemous. However, it occurred to me that 1^st Century Jews thought the exact same thing about the Incarnation. It’s not that human flesh was worthy of Christ, but Jesus redeemed humanity by lowering Himself. It is certainly God’s prerogative if He chooses to use something even lower in importance to become present to us, and Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John seem to indicate that is the choice He has made. And just as no human can have faith that Jesus is God without the God revealing it to them, so also, one cannot believe that the bread in Holy Communion becomes the Body of Christ unless the Holy Spirit gives us that faith.

Recently, I was spending time in Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. I thought about the possibility of idolatry. If the Catholic Church is wrong on this teaching, than what I was doing was certainly idolatry, just as the golden calf in Exodus, or money, sports, technology or sex have become idols today. So I compared the fruits of those other idolatrous activities to the fruits I see in the lives of Catholics who spend time praying to our Lord in Eucharistic Adoration. I see the fruits of the Holy Spirit manifested more in my life when I pray in such a way, and in the lives of other adorers. I have found that it is a path to becoming more Christ-like.

This Is My Body

Jesus didn’t say, “this represents my body” and one might argue that doesn’t prove the Catholic position, and it doesn’t. That’s why I included everything above! Better than my reasoning from Scripture though, is the reasoning of the early church. Sacred Tradition is clear that this was the orthodox belief of Christianity from the very beginning. It wasn’t doubted until the 1500’s. Perhaps another day I will add a post on some of that evidence.

Random thoughts on Tradition (Part 4)

I heard someone comment once that if Protestants took a step back, they’d realize that they are not opposed to the idea that the Pope has the gift of infallibility. What they are opposed to is the idea that only the Pope has that gift. If I am not mistaken, the application of John 16:12 – 14 among non-Catholics is that all individual Christians can know without doubt what God wants them to know about a passage of Scripture if their heart is pure on the issue, and they ask the Holy Spirit to lead them. The reasons Christians have so many divisions and opposing opinions on Scripture is because of our sinfulness, if we were all pure of heart and truly open to the H.S. leading, we’d all have the same interpretation. So all Christians have the gift of infallibility if they humble themselves. So, theoretically, it’s possible that a pope can have that same assurance. So, it’s not a case of ascribing too much to the pope, but of individual Catholics not giving themselves enough credit, right?

That is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I think there’s something there to help us think about the issue. It took a lot of research to see, but I’ve become more impressed by the pope’s track record than individual Christians’ record. There are incredible cases of popes that, before they were pope, taught heresy. Events were orchestrated that they would become pope for the very purpose of advancing that heresy. But, once in office as pope, the pope would say they couldn’t teach it. Even to the point that they were exiled and starved to death for not teaching the heresy (the very thing they were gung-ho about before being pope.)

There have been sinful popes, but that did not preclude God from protecting the teaching office. Even though a pope was sinful, that pope never taught something officially that was incorrect. The same is true of OT scripture. Although David repented, at one time, his victim would have called him a ‘bad’ king for committing adultery and making sure the husband was killed. Even though he did that, it didn’t stop God from making sure that all Scripture that David wrote was infallible.

Sola Scriptura is not taught in Bible. Not taught during first 1500 yrs of the Church. I cited some Scripture above that is used to support the need for Sacred Tradition. To be fair, I should mention 2 Timothy 3:15 – 17 “holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is Godbreathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

The important note to me here is that it says All Scripture, not only Scripture. Perhaps one might argue that since it says you may be thoroughly equipped, it means fully equipped and therefore nothing else is needed. But then why does Paul speak favorably of traditions in Thessalonians and Corinthians? While an individual may happen upon a Bible and find everything they need to be saved right there, and more to equip them for good work, this does not exclude Tradition from being useful for the Church as a whole as well.

“Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:20-21) This positive affirmation of Scripture is also taught by the CC, but it does not speak against Tradition.

One last Scripture which is related but doesn’t prove the point for Catholics: “Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.

“How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.” (Acts 8:30-31) I fully acknowledge that people can and have just found the Bible and been saved without any human around to explain, but it is interesting that the Ethiopian says he can’t understand it on his own. Some Catholics try to claim this as a proof text against Sola Scriptura, but I don’t think it’s that strong. For one, the Ethiopian had at most the OT without any NT writings about Jesus, and possibly only the book of Isaiah which Acts says he was reading.

Sola Scriptura cannot answer all questions of faith because the Bible doesn’t self identify which books belong in the Bible. There is no table of contents. At one time as a Protestant, I heard a vague explanation that since the NT references verses in the OT, that is how we know which OT books Jesus & the Apostles considered scriptural. That may have been one factor the Church considered when the OT Canon was defined. However, if that was the only standard, then Esther & Song of Solomon among others would be out. The way we know what books belong in the Bible is by Tradition. The Church defined the Canon. If this were not true, every Christian would have to decide for themselves whether the books that are in the Bible belong there. They’d also have to consider whether the so-called ‘Lost Gospels’ of Thomas or whatever, should have been included in the Bible. So, although there is disagreement on the OT canon, the acceptance among non-Catholic Christians of the 66 books of the Protestant Bible is a form of Tradition.

I know that Catholics think Luther removed the 7 ‘apocryphal’ books of the OT and other Christians think the Catholic Church added them in the 1500’s. While it would be easy to write another big paper just on this issue, I was interested to learn that Luther also wanted to remove James, Hebrews, and Revelation, among others. He was overruled by other Reformers. It was interesting to me that if it is true that Luther removed them, then the previous image of a 3-legged stool is very appropriate. When you remove one leg of the stool, all three can fall. Is it possible that by removing the Magisterium from it’s authoritative role, Luther opened himself up to the error of discounting 7 books that really are the Word of God, as well as discounting Sacred Tradition. If this is true, how is what Luther did different from the Jesus Seminar does today, or Thomas Jefferson who cut out the parts of his bible that he didn’t like?

A few times I’ve heard Protestant preachers comment on the 500 years (or so) of silence from God in between the OT and NT. That state that God stopped speaking publicly through the prophets or through OT scripture. It’s very interesting that some of the 7 books disputed fill in that gap of time. For instance, Sirach was written around 200 – 175 B.C., Judith, Wisdom, 1 & 2 Maccabees around 100 B.C. Maybe God wasn’t silent after all.

I was discussing this issue with a friend who went to Bethel Seminary (Baptist General Conference). I was shocked to hear him say he thought it was possible that the Canon is not set in stone even today. That if we found some different evidence in some archeological dig, it could change the Church’s opinion on the Canon.

The Church could exist without the Bible and did exist without the New Testament, until it was written. But the Bible wouldn’t exist without the Church.

Does an infallible source require infallible interpretation? How important is it to have an infallible source if you don’t have infallible interpretation? I guess we’d agree that the Holy Spirit is that infallible interpreter. The question is how does the Holy Spirit accomplish this? Through each individual? Or though the Church, using individuals.

I understand how one might think, well – the concept of Tradition might be okay, but still not trust the fruits of it. Or to think the CC doesn’t follow it’s own claims. She might say there is no new revelation in the Catechism., but then in practice seem to claim new revelations about Mary or infallibility which contradict Scripture. It took me a while of study to see what the Catholic actually taught about those things, rather than my misunderstanding, and then to see that those teachings were either supported by Scripture, or at least did not contradict Scripture. The most important, but misunderstood doctrine, in my opinion, is salvation. I used to think that Protestants taught salvation by faith alone and the CC taught we are saved by faith and works. Ask many Catholics about their possibility of getting into heaven and they’ll talk about how they’ve been a pretty decent person. It’s a travesty that so many Catholics don’t even understand Catholic doctrine on the issue. What I learned is that the CC teaches not that faith is primary, nor that works are primary, but that God’s grace is primary. We are saved by God’s grace, and our faith AND works are our response to God’s grace. Just as you could not have saving faith in God without his grace, so you could not have works that counted for anything unless God’s grace made it possible. (A Christian’s works of charity have an entirely different eternal effect for themselves than someone who does the same good deeds but has rejected Christ.) And that faith must come before works. But the only place in the Bible where the two words faith and alone appear next to each other is in James, where he says that we are NOT justified by faith alone. (Although I’ve read that in his German translation of the Bible, Luther inserted the word alone after faith in Rom. 3:28. It is not there in modern Protestant Bibles.)

Examples of Tradition now accepted by all Christian churches (Part 3)

The Divinity and Humanity of Christ

For at least the first 500 years of the Church there were many heresies that arose about whether Christ was fully man and fully God – or when He became God or what have you. Gnostic Docetism, Nestorianism, Monophysites. Sincere followers and members of Christian churches used the Bible to defend these heresies and believed that’s what the Bible taught.

The Trinity

The word trinity is not in the Bible. The Trinity is not explicitly taught, which is why there was, again, much confusion on this topic in the early Church, causing many splits. Even today, this is part of the reason why Jehovah’s Witnesses fall into the error of denying the Trinity.

People died for these beliefs on both sides of the issue. It was huge. Both sides believed they had the Bible on their side. The Church held councils and made dogmatic statements about these issues hundreds of years after the Apostles died. Did they come up with ‘new’ man-made traditions? No, all Christians today believe that this was the truth from the beginning. But they clarified and defined what the Church as a whole always knew. Even if the earliest Christians didn’t have the same vocabulary and that had to evolve, the truth of the matter was always present.

Now, all Christians take this for granted. We don’t think we need a Catholic dogma or doctrine to tell us, it’s right there in the Bible. Well, it is in the Bible, but it took a few hundred years for the Church to teach and expound this truth to get to the point where it is taken for granted like today. I remember in high school math textbooks, sometimes we’d have little math history snippets. It would describe how some guy came up with something like the Pythagorean Theorem. In a triangle, a squared + b squared = c squared. At the time, it was this huge revolutionary breakthrough. To us in the 1980’s it was no big deal. Big deal, I learned that in 7^th grade! But it was easy to know because generations of math understanding being built upon math understanding got us to that point. Another one was the concept of numbers you could write down. At first, mathematicians for years or generations just talked about numbers, but they couldn’t write them down. Then, years later, they came up with the idea of zero. This ‘institutional memory’ is similar to sacred Tradition. I guess you could also call it orthodoxy. If it was instantly taken away and all we had was the Bible, we’d be back to arguing about whether or not the Holy Spirit is a distinct ‘person’ or not. It’s not trivial, it’s been revealed to us by God through the Church.

Bigamy & Polygamy are not allowed.

I am not aware if and where bigamy and polygamy is condemned in the Bible. We understand that it was something God allowed in the OT, but now we know God intended for one man & one woman. We don’t see God condemning multiple wives in the OT, and some great men of God had multiple wives. In the NT, Jesus forbade divorce, but didn’t speak of multiple wives. I’m not at all sure on this, but my sense is that this practice had fallen by the wayside by this time. Nevertheless, I don’t think the Bible ever condemns polygamy. I could be wrong.

Martin Luther, because he bound himself to sola scriptura, recognized this. When speaking on polygamy, Luther said “I confess, I cannot forbid it, when someone wants to take several wives. It does not contradict the Scriptures. Only among Christians I would not like to see such an example introduced, because one, for the sake of avoiding scandal, should avoid even what is allowable!” [From Rebuilding a Lost Faith, John L. Stoddard, p. 128.]

What Sacred Tradition IS (Part 2)

What Tradition Is:

The statements in the previous posts about no new revelation (CCC 66, 73) are based on Heb 1: 1-2 and echo the first lines of John “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….. and the Word became flesh.”

The last lines in the Gospel of John:

²⁴This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true.
²⁵Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

The Bible & Catechism teach that Jesus was the full revelation of all Truth from God. There is nothing new that God needs to tell us that He didn’t tell us with Jesus. This is called the Deposit of Faith. There are two ways that this is passed down to us. One is the Bible. Tradition is everything else.

So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us. (NASB 2 Thess 2:15)

Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you. (1 Corinth 11:2) (this is NASB version, traditions is translated as teachings in NIV. NASB is also a Protestant version and is known to be a more literal translation)

Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us. (2 Thess 3:6) (this is NASB version, traditions is translated as teachings in NIV. NASB is also a Protestant version and is known to be a more literal translation)

In order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave them their own position of teaching authority. Indeed, the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved in a continuous line of succession until the end of time.

This living transmission, accomplished in the Holy Spirit, is called Tradition, since it is distinct from Sacred Scripture, though closely connected to it. Through Tradition, the Church, in her doctrine, life, and worship perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes.
(CCC 77 & 78)

One thing I think about is that Jesus spent 3 years teaching the Apostles. That is much more teaching than is contained in the Scripture of the NT. If the Holy Spirit could preserve the teaching and cause it to be infallibly written in Scripture 10 to 40 years later, then the Holy Spirit can also preserve Sacred Tradition infallibly in the Church down to this day.

I also tend to think of Tradition as what other Christians might call orthodoxy. What has been the accepted interpretation of scripture throughout the history of the Church? If all Christians have been in agreement on a certain issue (such as Jesus both man & God, the Trinity, etc.) through time, then one is not free to come up with their own pet doctrine.

A great example of Sacred Tradition would be that Jesus was not married and didn’t have any children. This isn’t specifically taught in Scripture. But, imagine if the DaVinci Code book spawned heretical movements about that. If it got to the point where a large segment of the faithful were led astray, the Magisterium could establish a “new” dogma that Jesus was never married. This dogma would have always been there in Sacred Tradition and not a new revelation from God.

Magisterium

The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living, teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.

Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication, and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith.
(CCC 85 – 86)

How can the CC make this claim?

²⁵"All this I have spoken while still with you. ²⁶But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. (John 14: 25 – 26)

Some apply this to all believers, and by extension, you could make that argument. But here Jesus is speaking directly to the Apostles and says they’ll be reminded of everything Jesus said to them. Jesus hasn’t spoken directly to most individual believers since that time (with the exception of possible encounters with Jesus like Paul had). Most of us have heard the Holy Spirit speak to our hearts, but we are not in the position to be reminded of what Jesus spoke to us, like the apostles were. I guess you could say this applies to when the Holy Spirit brings Scriptures back to our minds at the perfect time, but that doesn’t seem to fit the context.

Bishops are successors of the Apostles. The CC contends that every bishop today has a direct line of succession back to one of the 12 Apostles, with the teaching authority and the promise of John 14:26 also handed down.

¹²"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. ¹³But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. ¹⁴He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. (John 16:12 – 14)

¹⁵"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"
¹⁶Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
¹⁷Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. ¹⁹I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." (Matthew 16:15 – 19)

Around the time I stopped practicing Catholicism, I heard the explanation that in the Greek petros is used for Peter and petra is used for rock. Petros means small stone & petra means rock. The conclusion drawn from that was that Jesus was drawing a distinction between Peter (small stone) and petra (rock – which could be Jesus or could be a profession of faith) and not actually saying Peter was the Rock the Church was built on.

However, in coming back to the CC, I read this opinion: When Jesus said this He was speaking Aramaic, not Greek. In Aramaic, there is only one word used for rock, which was kepha. This is why Peter is sometimes referred to as Kepha or Cephas in other parts of NT. So Jesus said something more like: I tell you that you are Kepha and on this kepha I will build my Church. When Matthew translated and recorded it in Greek, he chose not to use petra for Peter, because petra was a feminine gender noun. That would be like giving Peter a female name. Instead, he chose the masculine petros for the translation. I am not a Greek or Aramaic scholar, so this opinion could be wrong, but to me it does seem consistent with the context of the rest of the passage where Jesus gives the keys of the kingdom to Peter.

Eph. 2:20 states that God’s household is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone. So although Jesus is the chief cornerstone, the apostles were the foundation and the Church was indeed built upon them (and Christ). So it would not be incongruent to say that Peter was the rock the Church was built upon. In fact, it could be both. Instead of saying the rock was either Jesus or it was Peter or it was Peter’s profession of faith, it could be that it is all of those things in different senses

There is much more that could be said about apostolic succession & primacy of Peter (John 21:15-17 as just one example), but I’ll put that aside for now.

Ask most Christians what the Bible teaches is the pillar and foundation of truth is and what will they instinctively say? What would you say?

I would have guessed Scripture. But the Bible says it’s the Church.

¹⁵if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. (1 Tim 3:15)

Tradition’s relation to Scripture:

Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium form a 3-legged stool.

It is clear therefore that, in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others. Working together, each in its own way, under the action of the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.
(CCC 95)

Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.
(CCC 82)

What Sacred Tradition is NOT (Part 1 in Tradition series)

(Anytime I footnote something with CCC and a number, it stands for Catechism of the Catholic Church followed by the paragraph referenced. CC will mean Roman Catholic Church, specifically. If I just say Church, we can look at that as the universal ‘invisible’ Church – the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ. If I say Christians, I mean all Christians whether they be Baptist, Catholic, non-denominational, Lutheran, etc.)

A Protestant friend once asked me about what Sacred Tradition was. I decided to research it and give a detailed answer. After all that work, I figured it was worth posting on my blog.

I did not have a good understanding of what sacred Tradition was until the last couple of years. Many Catholics probably couldn’t give you an accurate description of what it is. And even as I researched a bit to prepare for this answer, I learned more about it. I may get off track and go into other issues, but that’s unavoidable with Catholic theology because like the Bible, everything is so inter-related and closely connected and beautifully deep and consistent, so bear with me.

What Tradition is Not:

Not tradition in the sense most Americans think of tradition.

Ask the average American or even yourself or myself what they think of when you say tradition, and they may think of having turkey on Thanksgiving, or putting up a Christmas tree. Why do we eat certain foods on holidays or do certain public ‘rituals’? Well, ‘cuz that’s what we’ve always done. This is what many people may think of for reasons why we do or believe certain things in the Catholic Church. This idea creates the perception that much of what we believe has crept in gradually sometime during the Middle Ages and little by little steered us off course from what Christ set up and the apostles taught about how ‘church’ is done. And now, maybe the cultural reasons for doing certain things has changed, but we still do the rituals or whatever, ‘cuz that’s what we’ve always done.

A better statement to make about why we do or believe certain things is “that’s what the early Church did and believed and has been passed down through the centuries to us.” The Mass is a good example of this.* In a letter that Justin Martyr wrote to the pagan emperor Antoninus Pius around the year 155 that explained what Christians did, he says that on Sunday we gather and,

-The memoirs of the apostles (New Testament) and the writings of the prophets (OT probably)
-Admonishment (sermon/homily)
-Prayers for ourselves and for all others (Prayers of the faithful)
-Someone brings bread and water and wine to him who presides over the brethren. (Offertory)
-Presider offers praise and glory to the Father…. (Liturgy of Eucharist)
-When he has concluded the prayers… all present give voice to an acclamation by saying: “Amen”. (The great Amen)
-The eucharisted bread, wine and water are distributed (Communion)
CCC 1345

I didn’t want to type out his whole letter and just abbreviated each line, but as you can see, it’s very close to the liturgy at Mass that we have today. There are some short prayers that have been added centuries later, but if it was this well established by 155 A.D., chances are that they did this even earlier, in the lifetime of the apostles. In fact the Didache also gives strong support to this. This means the Mass was not something that crept into practice through the ages, but something the apostles and their successors instituted. If you read other writings of Church fathers at that time, you see that the belief in the actual body and blood of Christ being present in the bread and wine was widely held and taught – you don’t see it disputed. Combine that with John chap 6 (the whole chapter but esp. vs. 55 & 56), 1 Corinth 10:16, & 1 Corinth 11:23 – 29 (especially vs. 27) and Luke 24:30-31, 35 (the road to Emmaus, being made known in the breaking of the bread), and you can see why the C.C. is so ‘stuck’ on the Mass. It took me a while to understand. I thought they were just stuck in their ways. Why not update the Sunday celebration and not be so ritualistic? Now, though, I have been to Masses where the people are on fire and full of faith and the Mass is a totally different experience. It’s what God intended.

* Not trying to add confusion, but the Mass itself contains both traditions in the sense of changeable practices AND it is a part of our Sacred Tradition.

Not new revelation

…. And no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet even if Revelation is already complete, it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries.
(CCC 66)

God has revealed Himself fully by sending His own Son, in whom He has established his covenant forever. The Son is his Father’s definitive Word; so there will be no further Revelation after Him.
(CCC 73)

Not above Scripture

My whole attempt at trying to explain this stemmed from a comment my friend made about what a priest said to him about Tradition. His understanding of what the priest said was that if Scripture says one thing and Tradition says another, then Tradition wins out. However, CCC 80 says “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out of the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing and move towards the same goal.”

If that’s true, then they cannot contradict.

Perhaps what the priest meant to say is that if the first glance interpretation of Scripture says one thing, but Tradition says another, then we go with what Tradition teaches about that Scripture. Scripture says something like judge not lest you be judged. Does that mean, as most Americans will say about their favorite verse today, that we shouldn’t judge sin as sinful? That we shouldn’t work against abortion, euthanasia, homosexual marriage? Or, when Jesus says if your eye causes you to offend, pluck out your eye, does that mean we should pluck out our eyes? If so, we’d all be blind. You don’t need me (or the CC) to give any lessons to you about when to take the Bible literally and when it’s figurative on a verse like that. But what about verses about the Eucharist, infant Baptism, faith alone saving you vs. grace saving you, etc.?

A Protestant might look at the CC and say Tradition & Scripture contradict, therefore they are not in harmony. But, a non-Christian skeptic will say the same thing about Scripture in and of itself. They think Scripture contradicts itself. The problem is not Scripture; the problem is a lack of understanding on their part of the whole of Scripture.

Examples of Catholic small ‘t’ traditions:

Sacred Tradition aka Apostolic Tradition, like Scripture, cannot change. However, small ‘t’ traditions can. These are more like disciplines. In the past, you couldn’t eat meat on any Friday of the year. Now, that just applies to Lent. However, Catholics are supposed to choose their own form of fasting or self-denial on the rest of the Friday’s of the year. This is more of an issue of obedience to the wisdom of your elders. Similar to if a senior pastor in a Protestant church asked the church to fast one day/month for an upcoming church outreach event. You could do more than that if you’d like – but it probably would not be good to blow him off and not do it at all. Maybe the following year, God leads him to call for 2 hours/week of group prayer instead of fasting. Is it inherently sinful not to fast one day a month, even though you did the previous year? No, but is it sinful to disobey those with God-given authority? Same with Lenten fasting & abstinence. It’s not inherently sinful to eat meat on Fridays, but it is to disobey legitimate authority.

Married priests is another example. At one time they did have married priests. Plus, today, some eastern Catholic rites allow married clergy. And even in the Latin rite (which is what most of the Catholic churches in the U.S. are) there are about 100 married priests in America. These are men that were already married and ordained Lutheran or Anglican ministers before they converted to Catholicism. So, this could change, depending on what the leadership in the CC decides.

I bring these up because if Sacred Tradition is part of how the CC defines Truth or dogmas, then it cannot and does not change. However, these things are not a matter of defining truth, they are practices. These are more like the typical American understanding of tradition. I think the lack of distinction between these traditions and Sacred Tradition is the reason many Catholics are confused about what sacred Tradition is.

CCC 83 states this as well.

Bella the movie - Christian imagery

My wife & I went to see Bella. We knew going in that it was a more subtle movie, with the pro-life message not being up-front and in your face. In discussing the movie afterward with friends, we all agreed that we liked the movie and discussed some of the obvious symbolism. It wasn't until we were going to bed that night that we started to see another whole level to the movie. You may want to watch the movie first, I don't want to give anything away. If you watch it first, just look for the Christ figure, God the Father figure, Holy Spirit figure, and the Blessed Mother figure.

There is tons of Christian imagery in this movie, which makes it one of my favorite.

Jose has multiple roles. He is the primary Christ figure. After the accident, it seems odd that he should be sent to prison for what truly seemed like an accident. Yet it would have been easy for the director to clean up that storyline. They could have stopped for a celebratory beer before getting in the car. So why didn't the director do that? I think the audience was supposed to be troubled by the outcome and think he was innocent. Because Jesus was innocent, and yet paid the penalty on the cross. At the accident scene, the child's mother is extremely angry at Jose, just as we are sometimes angry with God when tragedy happens. Jose and the mother alternated between embracing (Jose grieving with her and trying to reach out to her), and the mother pushing Jose away, yelling in effect "How could you do this!?!?!" Jesus takes our penalty, grieves with us, and yet we sometimes blame God for the bad things that happen and push Him away.

Jose & Nina, while riding on the subway, represent Adam & Eve - and are eating apples. (by the way, Jesus is the new Adam) The next scene....

God the Father - Jose & Nina join Jose's dad who is building a garden. He says "when it's finished, it'll be paradise."

The Holy Spirit - Jose's younger brother is a free spirit, laughing and dancing. He teaches Veronica to pray in a tongue unknown to her.

The Blessed Mother - The line from the dad "whatever you say my Queen", hints at the intercessory role of Mary. The mother at one point is standing next to a large image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. When Jose weeps in his mother's arms, it is reminiscent of The Pieta.

Jose's manager is representative of the devil. He had red hair. He tempted Jose to leave the scene of the accident. He pulls the mother away from Jose.

An interesting line is when Manny says "How could you walk out on your own flesh and blood" to Jose, when we find out later that Manny was adopted. It obviously speaks to the gift of adoption, but also to our own adoption into the family of God.

After Jose & Manny have their falling out, Jose seeks out Manny for reconciliation. He makes breakfast for Manny. This reminds me of the scene in the Gospels after the crucifixion & resurrection when the disciples go back to what they knew, back to fishing. Jesus is on the beach and makes breakfast for them and calls them in from their boats to eat.

The scene where Nina & Jose are riding on the subway, there is dialog at times even while their lips are not moving. Does this symbolize our conversation in prayer with God? It could have just been an artistic technique of the director with no deeper meaning. Other imagery around hearing God is the two times that Jose whispers, once to Nina at the abortion clinic and once to Manny when he presumably tells him that he's going to adopt the baby.

At his family's house, Jose says to Nina, "I promised you a bath." During her bath, she goes all the way under water and rises up out of the water. This is symbolic of baptism.

During the movie, I imagined that nationwide there could be many pregnant women pondering abortion and this movie would be something they could relate to. Nina's reservations about having a child when she wasn't ready to give her what she felt the child would need, etc. But possibly, there could be even more post-abortive women that watch the movie. I wondered what the message could be for them. The director left the question of whether or not Nina goes through with the abortion ambiguous until the end. At the end, you see Jose on the beach with Bella, roughly five years later. Nina is reunited with her daughter. She says "I'm sorry.... thank you" to Jose. Sorry for disappearing after having the baby and depending on Jose to provide what she needs during that time. However, if she had gone through with the abortion, and later repented, she could be entering heaven at this point. Jose then, in this scene, could really be Jesus, and Bella the baby would have gone on before Nina to heaven. Nina's words to Jesus, would then also be "I'm sorry.... Thank you."

My wife and I suspect there must be some meaning behind the younger brother Eduardo's girlfriend's name of Veronica. Eduardo says repeatedly, "her name is Veronica, don't forget." Could it be related to Veronica who wiped the face of Christ on the way of His passion? I also notice that Eduardo invites Jose to join the dance, but he declines. I don't remember his exact response. If Veronica of the movie, not the legend, is to signify the bride because Eduardo says he thinks he'll marry her, could the invitation to dance mirror the end of the Book of Revelation when the Spirit and the Bride say to Jesus "Come". This one is probably the biggest stretch on my part, it depends somewhat on what Jose said in response.

Butterflies are symbolic of the resurrection.

If anyone comes across this post and you have more insights from this movie, please post them.

We specifically wonder about the meaning of Jose's earlier girlfriends, and possibly the story Nina told Jose about her unhappy childhood.

John Paul the Great - 1920 - 2005

Goodbye, good Father. Pray for us.

What a gift he was to us in this time. It is surreal to see him go. He struggled for so many years, the fact that his earthly tent finally gave out doesn't seem real yet. I got to see him in 2002 at World Youth Day in Toronto. We were wondering beforehand whether he could make it to that event. Yet he labored on for 3 more years.

I wish I could have seen more of him in his younger days. I was aware of him and admired him even in my youth, but there wasn't much occasion to hear him speak. I love seeing footage now of him when he was young.

There has only been 3 popes canonized for sainthood in the last 400 - 500 years. I'm sure this man will be as well. It is an honor to have been alive at the same time as great people like Mother Theresa of Calcutta and Pope John Paul II.

How poignant that he went to be with the Lord on the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday. It is the feast for the devotion that began in Poland with St. Faustina, reminding us of the great mercy Jesus has for us. "Jesus, I trust in You." JPII promulgated the Sunday after Easter as the Feast of Divine Mercy and also was the one to approve the canonization of St. Faustina.

I also feel sadness for his friends, his collaboraters, the other bishops and cardinals that worked with him in the Vatican. They are not only co-workers, but friends and family. It was sad to heard of them choking up with emotion when speaking with the press. But, we are all happy for him, now in the arms of the beloved Savior. His last words that he wrote to his bedside companions were "I am happy, be it yourselves as well.... Let us pray together in joy". We are happy for you, Papa.

Jesus, I trust in You.

I'm confident that the Holy Spirit will guide the college of cardinals to elect the pope we need for the next several years, just as JPII was so ideally suited for the last 25 years.

Jesus, I trust in You.

I remember his first words to us: "Be not afraid!"

He leaves us with the feast day where we pray, "Jesus, I trust in You."

Purpose of this Blog

Well, based on the time elapsed since I started this blog until now, I see that I won't be able to keep up with current events. Oh well. Much has happened, but I've spent all my computer time reading and posting on other blogs. I may link to one in particular here that I spent a lot of time posting on.

But it did make me think more about my goal with this blog. For a while, I've wanted to record my reasons for coverting back to the Catholic Church. I may as well publish it here. Since I started this blog, I've come across dozens of Catholic blogs that are way better than mine will ever be, so I'll get around to linking to them, or putting them on my blogroll, as they say. First, I've got to learn more about working these templates. Anyway, I don't need to try to reinvent the wheel, but I'd like to record my own thoughts and reasons and observations about the similarities and differences between Catholics and Protestants.

Many of our perceived differences are based on our different vocabularies. Sometimes, we agree, but we don't know that we agree because we're using the same words to mean different things. Othertimes, a Catholic teaching is not fully understood, even by Catholics, which causes difficulty in the discussion with a non-Catholic Christian. My greatest prayer is for the spread of the Gospel and for Christian unity. I believe unity which does not compromise on Truth can do much for what ails the Church and ails the world.

Having experienced both worlds, I know there is so much that Protestants can offer that Catholics can learn from, and likewise so much that Catholics can offer to Protestants. I believe that someday God will do more than we can imagine to heal the divisions in the Church. I don't know how it will look, but Jesus is making us ready, to present us to Himself as His pure and spotless Bride. (see Eph 5:25-27)

"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ–to the glory and praise of God." (Phil 1:9-11)

"I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." (John 17:23)

Jesus' last prayer before his crucifixion was for unity among us. Unity is clearly important. So that is logically Satan's main thrust of attack against the Church. I know more about the Protestant split than the older schism between east and west, so for now, and for most of this blog, I'll limit myself to the split of the 1500's. Regardless of what human players were at fault on both sides, division was a temporary partial victory for Satan. A Catholic would say that the split shouldn't have happened at all. A Protestant Christian would say that the better outcome would have been a complete reform within the Catholic Church without the need for a split, but that the RCC was not willing and the issues at hand were more important than unity. Either way, disunity arose which is NOT what Christ prayed for. Would we agree that it's what Satan wanted?

However, Satan will never outdo God. It has taken us 400 years or so to get to this point of disunity. But I believe we have turned a corner. Both sides are getting better at stepping back from the finger pointing, taking a deep breath, and searching Scripture, seeking God, and seeing where it brings us. We're no longer defining ourselves by what we are NOT. "Well, we don't do this or that because that's what the other side does." Instead, we're just seeking truth, and if it happens to look like the people on the other side of the Cath/Prot divide, so be it. As a result, we're starting to look more like each other. And if it took Satan 400 years to get us as divided as we were, I believe God will bring us back together in a much shorter period.

I was in high school in the 1980's during the clash between Reagan and the "Evil Empire". I have vivid memories of working in the barn and hearing my Dad's favorite radio station on the radio. It was 1150 AM, the "Polka Station of the Nation" from Albany, MN. They only had a daytime license, and every night before they signed off they would broadcast the Rosary. I remember that they would pray for the fall of Communism and the conversion of Russia. Who would have thought at that time that the Iron Curtain would fall without a shot being fired (figuratively) within a few years? Maybe you would have said it would be more likely for the Protestants and Catholics to get back together.

What that will look like, I can't say. I don't think it will be as simple as every individual going through RCIA and becoming Catholic. That'll be part of it, but, in the short run, I think it even means individual Catholics becoming Protestant. Maybe there will be some concessions made by the institutional RCC that haven't even been thought of yet. Just as the Bible says that we couldn't even have saving faith in Christ's resurrection without the Holy Spirit enabling us, I don't believe one can believe the doctrines of the Catholic Church without a special gift of grace from God. It's not because I was so wise and insightful in Scripture study that I became Catholic, but it was due to an enormous outpouring of God's grace. Yet I see God pouring His grace out on non-Catholic Christians and their ministries in a different way than I am currently experiencing. So, while I will present on this blog some of my understanding of why Catholic doctrines are Biblical, I don't expect that many will decide to become formally Catholic unless it is God's will at this time. Yet I don't doubt in any way that God is active in their life, and even if they aren't given the grace to become Catholic in their lifetime, we will meet again in heaven. I believe if God shows you that the RCC is the physical church Jesus established, you better enter it. But that doesn't preclude God from guiding His children home in different ways until that time that He fully unites us again...maybe in 50 years, maybe in 200.

I will try to highlight conciliatory stories or little known but important points of agreement. I will try to be honest in presenting both sides, so hopefully this will help me understand Prostantism even better than I did after seven years of being Protestant and also help me grow in my faith and understanding today as a Christian and a Catholic.

When we speak of unity, we Catholics have our own issues to deal with in the RCC. In America anyway, I think we've too easily let ourselves be divided into two camps: Liberal and Conservative. I heard someone say that these are very poor labels, since being Catholic isn't a political position. It means being part of a family. Would you ever describe yourself as a liberal father or a conservative mother or daughter or son? The adjective doesn't fit the noun. How about Traditionalist or Orthodox or Progressive? In a way, these are better terms since they disassociate with the dominant American political movements, but looking back on that sentence, why did I capitalize them? Our identity is in Christ as a Christian Catholic. We are baptized into the Name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, not into Tradition or Scripture or the Magesterium or social justice. We are baptized into Christ, that is what we must keep primary.

With that disclaimer, I do identify and associate with more traditional Catholics that DON'T think the heirarchy of the Church is hopelessly out of date or out of touch. Many so-called liberal or progressive Catholics contend that the teachings of the Church need to change. I don't agree with that, yet I know many of them have a more generous heart toward the poor and oppressed than I do and I need to learn from them on many issues. Sometimes I wish the bishops would just excommunicate the biggest "troublemakers", but maybe sometimes I'm more deserving of the boot myself. We need to preserve unity even within the RCC and edify each other, help each other in our weaknesses, and lean on each other's strengths. With this blog, if I have time, I will try to understand these issues better.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

In honor of St. Patty's Day, I offer this prayer attributed to him, for the sake of Terri Shiavo:

I bind unto myself (and to Terri) today the power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay, His ear to hearken to my need:
The wisdom of my God to teach, His hand to guide, His shield to ward;
The word of God to give me speech, His heavenly host to be my guard.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise.

Christ in the heart of all who think of me,
Christ in the mouth of all who speak of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today through a mighty strength: the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,Through confession of the oneness,
Of the Creator of Creation.

Amen

(Without intending too, I realize I just continued on my music/Rich Mullins theme. His band, The Ragamuffins, put out a cd after his passing which includes a song entitled "Make Me An Instrument" that combines this prayer with the prayer of St. Francis.)

Higher Education and the Book of Love OR How Not to Care for Suffering Babies

This shocking story about baby killing in Holland has gotten me very distressed. It's part of my inspiration for starting this blog. We need to fight this type of
utilitarian thinking before people get desensitized to even this kind of violence. More later, but for now I'll post the words of an introduction to the song "Higher Education and the Book of Love" by Rich Mullins the article reminded me of. It bemoans education from a worldview that leaves God out. This is just the intro, not the song:

What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be human?
I cannot help but suspect that at one time in the history of thinking, that people believed that it meant that we were spiritual -
that we could make choices -
and were capable of aspiring to higher ideals... like maybe loyalty, maybe faith... or maybe even love.

But now we are told by people who think they know, that we vary from amoeba only in the complexity of our makeup and not in what we essentially are. They would have us think as Dysart said, that we are forever bound up in certain genetic reigns -that we are merely products of the way things are and not free - not free to be the people who make them that way.
They would have us see ourselves as products so that we could believe that we were something to be made - something to be used and then something to be disposed of. Used in their wars - used for their gains and then set aside when we get in their way.

Well, who are they? They are the few that sit at the top of the heap - dung heap though it is - and who say it is better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven. Well, I do not know that we can have a Heaven here on earth, but I am sure we need not have a Hell here either.

What does it mean to be human? I cannot help but believe that it means that we are spiritual -
that we are responsible -
and that we are free -
that we are responsible ... to be free.

Hello Blog World

Don't try setting up a blog when you're in a hurry to get off the computer if you haven't thought of a name and some backups previously. I had thought of Splendor of Truth, named after an encyclical by JP II. After typing it, I got excited that maybe I'd get some extra hits by people searching for someone a lot smarter than me, but fate didn't like that idea and the name was rejected. So - we get BigBogBoys. Named after a song I wrote while goofing off way back in a high school geography class. There is a Big Bog in northern MN. And hey, BigBog... BigBlog - it works. Elwood is drawn from the Blues Brothers, and if he ever made it to northern MN - he wouldn't sing the song, but he'd hang out with the boys it describes.