As a convert to the Catholic Church from the Pentecostal tradition, there is something I have been pondering for some time that needs a solid teaching, and that is this whole idea that many Pentecostals and Charismatics have about "pleading the Blood of Jesus" over everything and anything. The question here is - is "pleading the Blood" even Biblical? That is what we want to explore.
Among Pentecostal and Charismatic circles, the practice of "pleading the Blood" is a common one, and almost a tradition among them. For years, I even prayed that sort of stuff myself even. But, even as I participated in it, something in the back of my mind - a still, small voice if you will - kept gnawing at me and asking, is this right to do? The more that voice asserted itself, the more I was coming to realize that perhaps the Holy Spirit was trying to say something to me about it, so I thought I had better explore the question a little more. And, so I did. Here is what I came up with.
When the Blood of Christ is mentioned in Scripture, it essentially is in reference to two things:
1. The forgiveness of sins through the Atonement.
2. Healing of the physical body as another promise of the Atonement.
The application of the Blood of Jesus then is tied to what we as Catholics would understand as sacramental grace - due to the fact it entails both the forgiveness of our sins and the healing of our bodies, for the Catholic the Blood is tied into at least three of the seven Sacraments of the Church - the Eucharist, Confession, and Unction. If that is the case then, why do so many of our Pentecostal brethren attempt to "plead the Blood" over their cars, finances, and other things then? That is where we need to consult the pages of Scripture to see where this idea comes from.
Many Pentecostals who engage in this practice point to one thing in particular that they can gain some justification for their idea from, and that is Exodus 12:7 - prior to the event of the Exodus itself, the Israelites in Egypt were instructed at the first Passover to slaughter an unblemished lamb and sprinkle its blood on the doorposts of every home to protect it from the judgment God was about to mete out on the Egyptians, in this case the death of the first-born son of every house. The Exodus was indeed a foreshadowing of the coming of Christ, but it doesn't mean that every event deserves repetition - what God told Israel to do literally at that time has no bearing on the promises of the Atonement, as rather we see it as a typology of the Atonement in that it symbolized God's salvation of His people from destruction, that is all. For the ancient Israelites, it was a literal deliverance and salvation from the bondage of Egyptian slavery, but for us as Christians it is the liberation from the effects of death and sin. It must be understood that everything that happened in the Old Testament were real events, but at the same time God used real events to point people to Christ - that is the bottom line of why Scripture is important to us in retrospect. Christ is at the center of all Scripture, and thus everything points to His personhood and His divinity. It doesn't mean though that we as modern Christians have to repeat every single action we read about in Scripture though, which is a major weakness with many faithful Pentecostal people.
Pentecostals often try to bring into the present a past event like the Exodus by pointing to some New Testament references for their justification, such as I Corinthians 5:7, where Jesus is rightly called our "New Passover Lamb." They also take passages such as Hebrews 12:24 and I Peter 9:26-28, both of which refer to the sacrifice of Himself Christ did for us to redeem us and forgive us our sins, as a model for their practice. Other passages, such as Romans 3:25, are used as well in speaking metaphorically of Jesus as a lamb, and these things are taken as a mandate by some Pentecostals to do exactly what the passage says - applying the Blood - to every aspect of life in order to gain some sort of special merit. They however fall short here, as the references in Scripture would more aptly point to the Passion of Christ, and thus would be more in line with the Catholic position of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, which is for our salvation. And, it therefore reduces the Precious Blood to a talisman or a mere pious superstition, which is what I want to talk about now.
It is important to understand that trivializing holy things and reducing them to some sort of magic act is tantamount to blasphemy, and many well-meaning Pentecostals who "plead the blood" over everything from their doorposts to their diamond rings don't realize what they are truly doing when they do that. It in essence reduces the Blood to a mere pious "tradition of men" and a quasi-occultic talisman and it makes those who do such things minimize the true benefits of Christ's sacrificial act for us. I have talked in the past of various manifestations of what is known as "charismatic witchcraft," and the more I understand how erroneous this whole "plead the blood" practice is, the more I am becoming convinced that it is a form of witchcraft. If anyone reading this is doing it, stop immediately - by denigrating the ultimate gift of God to save us in such a way, you commit blasphemy without knowing it. This leads to one final observation before I conclude.
Many people who are engaged in this practice of "pleading the blood" are often also some of the most virulently anti-Catholic individuals - they mock the Eucharist, and make allegations against Catholics by saying we supposedly "crucify Jesus all over again." In reality, that is not what the doctrine of the Eucharist is about, and as I explained in my studies on Scott Hahn's The Lamb's Supper, it doesn't have anything to do with that. But, to humor those who would say such a thing and make dumb accusations, let's say that it did - they criticize Catholics for the Eucharist, yet they throw the blood of Christ around like beads at a Mardi Gras parade, so who is being more disrespectful? As we have noted several times before, the Eucharist is Biblically-based, and it also has substantiation for its observance over two thousand years of Church history. The whole "pleading the blood" practice though does not - it is less than a century old, and many of those who teach it are also dubious in other areas as well, as they are mostly televangelists on religious television who do a number of other outlandish things and try to blame the Holy Spirit for it. Some Pentecostals and Charismatics like painting themselves as "spiritually elite," yet in this and so many other areas, they often show a woeful lack of spiritual maturity, and as a result many of them fall away fast when the pressures of life challenge them. A good recent example is a former classmate of mine from my undergraduate days who recently has taken a shocking turn in his life. When we were in school together over 20 years ago, this guy was noted for being a super-charismatic - he was on staff at one of the biggest megachurches around then, and he was so Charismatic in his practice that people got the impression that he was some sort of spiritual powerhouse. This guy was also a good friend back in the day too - we talked a lot about many things, and when he later became a priest in an Old Catholic group of some sort, he often would call me to "pick my brain" on things regarding the Eastern Church and such. However, only a few short years ago, it was almost as if he fell off the face of the earth, as I lost touch with him. When I found him on social media some years later, he had drastically changed - he ended up divorcing his wife, moving to Asia, and by all appearances he has embraced the "gay lifestyle" and spends a lot of time photographing semi-nude male models in weird poses. This was one of those people who engaged in the practice of "pleading the blood" at one point, and at this time he is engaging now in a sort of revisionism of the lives of the saints and of Christian doctrine itself by making it more "gay-friendly" - one of his recent things he wrote about was part of the whole "gay Christian" appropriation, for instance, of certain saints of the Church (in this case, Saints Sergius and Bacchus) by recasting them as "gay lovers" based on the mis-translation of some Greek word. One of what used to be the most on-fire Pentecostals I knew, in other words, is now an activist for the LGBT community and is resorting to blasphemy and historical revisionism to justify himself. It is a slippery slope to base faith and religious belief on emotions, as it can have some catastrophic consequences, and the whole "pleading the blood" idea sounds good, but in reality it can cause a lot of damage, as can any blasphemous or heretical practice.
I may have gotten a bit harsh toward the end of the last paragraph, but I do so with good reason - the miracle of salvation and of the fact that God Himself became man to save us is a precious thing, and I would even go as far as to say that the decision one makes to follow Christ is the most important life choice one could ever make, as it is for eternity (or, more correctly, has eternal consequence). Especially in a society that grows more irreligious and secular (the culmination of almost 400 years of Enlightenment influence), it is vital that we approach Christ with a spirit of humility and of reverence, two things sorely lacking among many who profess Christianity of any sort today. One reason I am no longer Pentecostal myself is due to that very thing - while there are many fine people who are devout Christians in Pentecostal groups to which this doesn't apply, there are also many more who display an arrogance and just a nasty attitude that in no way reflects the Lord they claim to serve, and also lacks the fruit of the Holy Spirit they claim to revere. They turn out to be obnoxious jackasses to be honest, and anyone who is around such people quickly picks up on that too - it nullifies any potential Christian witness that such people could have had. Often it is these sort of people who flippantly throw around the whole "plead the blood" schtick as part of their own little pious masquerade, and they don't understand the implications of their behavior. They will one day have blood, in other words - the blood of many people they could have reached but did not crying from their own hands. That blood will have a different sort of plea - the plea of those who died in their sins for justice against those who could have showed them the way but didn't. That is frankly not a plea one should desire to hear, as it is a hallmark of shame. On that note, I want to now conclude with a few challenges for some different groups of people.
If you are one of those Pentecostals, Charismatics, or even Evangelicals or Catholics who has gotten caught up in the whole "pleading the blood" practice, I challenge you as Saint Paul did young Timothy to "study to show yourselves approved" by educating yourself on what the true purpose of Christ's Blood is about. As you do so, renounce what you have been doing, and ask God to forgive you for it, as you need to get this right. If you are a person who has been hurt by this sort of thinking and either have come to your senses or maybe were at the receiving end of some Pentecostal nut throwing the Blood around flippantly, I first offer an apology to you on behalf of Christians as a whole, and also would ask that you not let this color your perception of Christians nor hinder you from examining the claims of Scripture and of Christ for yourself. "Traditions of men" such as "pleading the blood" over one's favorite shoes and other such nonsense have done more harm to the evangelistic mission of the Church than many realize, and it is important to discard those things and focus on true belief and faith instead. NO ONE should be hindered from receiving a chance to accept Jesus Christ and believe in Him, and no fruity, overly-pious, goofy Charismatic fad should hinder anyone in doing so either. The time has come for Christians to stop playing games with their faith and with the fates of others, as we live in a world that is increasingly hostile to the truth of God's Revelation, and we cannot afford any messing around, as that could create innocent martyrs. This was a tough message to write today, but hopefully it will impact others who read it. God bless until next time.
Thursday, July 18, 2019
Friday, July 12, 2019
The Three Promises
When someone accepts the claims of Christ and trusts in Him for the ultimate promise of salvation, a covenantal relationship happens. Christ promises several things based on that relationship to those who follow Him, and there are three promises, in particular, I wanted to deal with today. First, however, I wanted to clarify some things prior to getting into the actual discussion.
To begin, it must be understood that the promises I will be talking about are not contingent upon salvation, but are rather fruits of salvation. There are actually a couple of promises though that are contingent upon salvation, and they are made possible through sacramental grace - the first is forgiveness of sins (which is represented through both the sacraments of baptism and reconciliation) and healing of the whole person (primarily represented by the sacrament of unction). The two of those are always tied together, as they both represent a type of restoration that Christ fulfilled in His Atonement. As we go through our pilgrimage of faith though, it doesn't take a degree in rocket science to understand that we are still in this natural world, and thus are still subject to certain necessities that are warranted by the process of life and survival itself. Those promises are given by God throughout Scripture in many places we will be discussing, and they are the result of the covenantal relationship of faith we have in Christ. There are three of those promises that are specific to our discussion, and each will be discussed at length momentarily - provision for our needs, protection from damage of adversity, and direction for important decisions and choices we make. Upon those three promises are what rest our trust in God beyond the grace of salvation, and are not conditional to salvation but are residual benefits we receive.
Over the years, teachings on similar things have been taken out of focus, and we will deal with specific cases of that later as we discuss each of these three promises individually. However, the purpose of those three promises is to provide the stability to do that which God has called each of us to. Especially if you are in full-time service to the Church, these promises are crucial, as often a sacred vocation is not something that will land one in the "Fortune 500" or on a high-society registry. With that being established, let us now take each promise and initiate our discussion on them individually.
A. Provision of Needs
If you are like me, you often find yourself placing a priority on financial concerns and other needs in your daily prayers, and in this day and age finances seem to dominate our prayers for some reason. Does God grant material needs? Looking at Philippians 4:19, we see our first and pivotal verse about this - it says "God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory." Let us unpack this a little, as at times this is a big one which has generated its own plethora of misunderstandings and misapplications. The first thing that comes to mind for many is the stereotypical image of the televangelist on religious television programs making statements such as "if you sow a seed, you'll meet a need." The term for this type of "teaching" is either Positive Confession or "Word of Faith," and its detractors call it "Name it and claim it" or "blab it and grab it." This faulty application, as we discussed earlier, has its genesis in what is known as the New Thought movement, which itself was a derivative of Christian Science. In the early 1900s, a Baptist minister by the name of Esseck William (E.W.) Kenyon (1867-1948), who began teaching some ideas that were similar to the New Thought understanding of words creating reality (R.M. Riss, "Kenyon, Esseck William," in Burgess, Alexander, McGee, Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988. p. 517). This later entered the Salvation/Healing Movement among American Pentecostals via first Oral Roberts, who first taught the idea of "sowing seed," and later was more associated with Kenneth Hagin (1917-2003), who was a tent-revival Assemblies of God evangelist who later was considered the "founding father" of the Word of Faith movement. Hagin, and the dozens of his proteges such as Kenneth Copeland, Frederick Price, and others, emphasized a teaching that centered on an uncompromising faith via "positive confession" (meaning speaking things essentially into existence that are not there as a work of exercising that faith) in God's desire to bless in every area of life provided no doubt entered the picture. This has at its core a Biblical truth (based on Philippians 4:19 and other such passages) that was taken, twisted, and made to be something it was never originally intended. It is important to understand that the key word in the Philippians verse is needs. Over the years, Hagin and his myriad of successors and imitators (most prominent today being Joel Osteen) have twisted this idea in such a way that essentially they thought it was possible for God to even grant wants (or more aptly and rhythmically, greeds) and they taught people to treat this promise as if it were a quasi-occultic talisman or something, and that is where we have some serious problems. I want to spend a little time on this now, as it is pivotal to the discussion.
If what Hagin and others like him taught were true, a little common sense would dictate that results would be obvious - the mega-church parking lots where many of these people spout this stuff should be overflowing with Mercedes Benzes, Lamborghinis, and Lincolns, and instead of asking for more money, those preaching that message would supposedly have so much that they'd be giving it away and living by "sowing their own seeds," would they not? Sadly, this is not the reality - oftentimes, those who are sucked in by the heretical "Word of Faith" teachings are often among the poorest, and those who teach it are the only ones benefitting from it, as they fly around in multi-million dollar private planes and live in palatial estates that were financed by people who often cannot even afford a bicycle, much less an Oldsmobile. And, it also begs the question too - I am in no position to judge the hearts or intentions of such "teachers," but it seems to me that if they truly believed what they tell others, they would be handing out cash to everyone because they would have more of it than they know what to do with. Yet, I don't see that - people who "sow a seed" to these people are often on the verge of losing their homes, or cannot afford to feed their families or pay their bills, yet they are not seeing Kenneth Copeland knocking on their door to help them, do they? Hence, in the well-worn but appropriate axiom, the emperor has no clothes. However, there is a more balanced way to look at this, and that is where the crux of my teaching here rests.
In Philippians 4:19, we are told that God will supply all of our needs, and this generates some questions. First, what is a need? To answer that, a need is something that is vital to a person's stability and survival, while a want is a luxury that someone could actually live without. Needs like this include food, shelter, utilities, reliable transportation, and financial resources to cover those things. They may not be anything pretty - for instance, you may have a need for transportation, but God provides either a 1980 Chevy with a bad paint job or enough cash to provide a bus ticket - but it is a need that is met. When we look in Scripture, we see a lot of examples of that type of provision being made, notably in I Kings 17:2-16, where Elijah is fed by ravens in a cave, or in 2 Kings 4 where his disciple Elisha stays with a poor widow and she manages on meager rations to have enough to feed her son and Elisha while the latter stays with her. We also see it even with Jesus Himself, in the feeding of the five thousand - a couple of loaves and a few stinky fish feed a huge number of people and provide a need for satisfying a pang of hunger. These are examples of God supplying needs. One could also point out in Exodus the manna and quails God provided for the Israelites to eat in the wilderness - although they were not satisfied with it, those manna bits and quails supplied a need. These Scriptural examples are something that should show us the perspective God comes from on this - he does care for us, and because he created the natural order he knows very well those things we need to survive, and if we put our trust in Him, He will take care of us. And, that is the proper context of the idea.
Also in the context of supplying needs, there is a sort of meritocracy involved. This meritocracy has nothing to do however with our salvation, as that cannot be earned, but rather it has to do with being awarded the fruits of our labor. If you have a certain level of skill, education, or experience, then you deserve to have an occupation that provides dividends. To divert any confusion on this, it in no way is the same sort of nonsense that Kenneth Hagin and his successors proclaim - you don't just get something for nothing, as that is not how the natural order of things works. However, if you work toward something, then doors can open, and you deserve to harvest the fruits of your labor - this is reminiscent of a truth embodied in James 2:20 which is wrongly applied by some sects as being soteriological but rather is meritocratic - "faith without works is dead." It also doesn't mean the incorrect saying "God helps those who help themselves" either, as that comes from Enlightenment-era Deism and Freemasonry and is not Biblical, although there is a valid principle at its core. What it means simply is this - if you do your part, God will provide the increase to it, rewarding faithful labor. Personal success then doesn't get handed to someone on a silver platter - you work toward it, and thus it is cultivated fruit and not a "faith promise."
Noting all of these things, the provision of our needs then summarily consists of two dimensions:
1. Our basic necessities will be covered if we trust in God to do so, but they may not be luxurious provisions yet will meet the need we have.
2. Personal success cannot be "confessed," but rather is the result of merit in the area we are striving to achieve something, be it the promotion at work we have invested a lot of hard work into earning, or that graduate degree we have studied hard to achieve. This is not a "positive confession," but rather a cultivated fruit that will not be given to someone who doesn't invest the effort into it on a silver platter.
3. Provision of our needs is not a clause of our salvation, but rather is a fruit of walking in our salvation.
B. Protection From the Damages of Adversity
This is another interesting promise God has made, and again, what it entails is not freedom from adversity, but rather the strength to overcome it and come out better. Adversity is a fact of life we all face - as a consequence of the Fall, adversity is a sure bet at some point in all of our lives, and it is inescapable. The question is not if we face adversity, but rather when, and how we face it. The primary passage in Scripture that addresses this is the famous "Armor of God" passage in Ephesians 6:10-18, and accompanying that is another verse from Isaiah 54:17 - "No weapon formed against me will prosper." In my personal prayer time every morning, I always "put on" the armor of God based on the promise in Isaiah that weapons pointed at me will not take me down, and it's actually a good prayer to have. Let us unpack this some more, shall we?
What is the purpose of wearing armor after all? It is to protect the soldier in battle, not to help the soldier avoid battle. If the battle could be avoided, the armor would not be needed - that is just plain common sense, right? Within the passage of Ephesians 6 that deals with this, the reason for the armor is given from the outset, that we might stand in the "evil day." So, what is an "evil day" then? It is not a collective event, as every one of us faces an "evil day" at some point. If you are on social media, for instance, and you are standing up for your faith and traditional values, inevitably someone will get "triggered" and go on the attack - the moment that happens is an "evil day." Or, it could be while you are shopping and a thug attempts to mug you at an ATM - that also is an "evil day" when it happens. The "evil day" when is that moment when we face adversity of some sort, and it may scare and intimidate us. But, if we trust in God, eventually it works out, because as Romans 8:28, all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Even a bad situation can be clay in the Master Potter's hand, and He can use that to mold and shape our character. I want to now go to two prime examples of this in Scripture, and then I want to share how in retrospect this has worked in my life.
Let's first look at the story of Joseph, one of the progenitors of the Twelve Tribes of Israel and a son of Jacob (his favorite actually) which we begin to read about in Genesis 37 and continues until the end of the book, as the story of Joseph is even longer in some aspects than that of Abraham, his great-grandfather. Joseph is essentially spoiled rotten and protected by his father Jacob, so much so that he is given special treatment and even given a very expensive piece of clothing. This arouses the jealousy of his brothers, who actually entrap him and sell him to some Arab slave-traders who in turn sell him to Potiphar, a high official in the Pharaoh's government. God uses this experience to bring Joseph to where he wants him to be, as Joseph had a lot of bizarre dreams and they led him to this point. However, adversity strikes again when that hussey of a wife of Potiphar's tries to molest Joseph, and he flees but is falsely accused of trying to molest her - this lands him in prison, where he has a series of dreams that get the attention of the Pharaoh eventually (I am abbreviating details of the story of the butler and baker), and he ends up in effect becoming the Pharaoh's prime minister - not bad for a nomad's son from Palestine, is it? Adversity struck Joseph hard, in other words, but God preserved him. We also see a similar situation in the story of Job too, in which Job is attacked mercilessly by Satan to try to prove God wrong, but Job prevails and is abundantly blessed later for it. Again, that whole Romans 8:28 thing comes in.
It is true also in my own life too - when I was around 9 years old, my mother and I ended up in a chaotic situation that left us dirt-poor and destitute for a number of years. Yet, during that time, I worked at my studies, and eventually, I was able to complete both my Bachelor's and Master's degrees. God made the way possible, and often in lieu of less-extreme circumstances I admittedly forget that and get impatient with Him, but He reminds me of where I came from. One other aspect of adversity is that it is in a sense the fertilizer in which character grows. The sweet-smelling roses or succulent tomatoes we often enjoy from our gardens and flower boxes are often nourished by the foulest and nastiest fertilizer - ground-up cow dung, decaying animal carcasses, etc. Yet, out of that mess grows the beautiful rose or the succulent vegetable. That is how the adversity we face in life often works to our benefit. It is also why we pray for God to protect us - we don't pray necessarily for him to protect us from the adversity, but rather from being destroyed by the adversity. What often is meant for our destruction can actually be exactly what we need to grow us, and that is one reason God allows the adversity to happen, but he also will help us navigate through it.
In summary, there are two things to glean from God's promise of protection:
1. We are often not spared from going through the adversity itself but are equipped to go through it without lasting damage.
2. Adversity is not necessarily evil, although it may have initially been intended to be so - rather, it is a chance to cultivate and grow our character.
C. Direction for Important Decisions and Choices
Have you ever been in a position where a life-changing decision has faced you, and you are not sure what to do? If you go one direction, it may have one consequence, yet if you go another, it could have other consequences. The permanence of the consequences for whatever decisions we make can make or break us, and thus they are things that cannot be entered into lightly. As Christians, God has clearly promised to guide and direct us in all we do, and it is our responsibility to trust him to keep that promise. Again, Romans 8:28 comes into play, as all things do work together for our good. In this context, the rightness or wrongness of our decision is not the factor, as even when we screw up God can use that to bring us to the place he wants us. Rather, it is about relying on God to make the appropriate decision for the current situation, and in doing so it requires a lot of trust.
There are two main passages besides Romans 8:28 that relate to this promise. The first is in Psalm 119:105 - "Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." The second is Psalm 37:23 - "the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord." A third and very important verse is also related to this, in that we should expect and accept nothing less than clear spiritual direction, and that verse is in I Corinthians 14:33 - God is not the author of confusion. I am going to discuss various aspects of this now, as they are very important to the study.
We as human beings are limited, and as a result, bad decision-making at some point is inevitable. A bad choice or decision on an important issue can lead to a lot of negative impact for our lives and those of our family, so obviously these things are not to be taken lightly. When we rely on God for direction, we should pray for and expect nothing less than a clear answer. This has nothing whatsoever to do with His faithfulness, but rather with our own propensity to go on feelings and other misleading criteria. To see an example of how this works, we look at the story of Gideon in Judges 6:36-40. In that account, Gideon was the de facto leader (judge) of all of Israel, and as his people moved toward their Promised Land, they faced a lot of obstacles - hostile tribes such as the Midianites in this case. Gideon knew that based on his own wisdom he could not strategize successfully to battle the Midianites threatening his people's camp, so he did something interesting. In order to get God's direction, Gideon took a wool fleece, and based on whether it was wet or dry, he would take it as God's direction to render his decision. He wanted to be absolutely sure he was doing the right thing, so he did this test three times, and God did what he asked all three times. The result was a successful battle and a momentous win for the people of Israel, and it got them closer to their destination.
In my Pentecostal days, it was often a common practice to "put a fleece before the Lord" in order to discern the proper way to go about making a decision, something I still do today I might add. Many times it works, and I have been able to do some remarkable things because I sought God's direction in that way. I don't recommend that this be done in every circumstance, as it can degenerate into superstition, but it can and does prove to be an effective way to get a solution to a problem. Another practice related to this that some do is the discipline of fasting. Fasting is typically to be observed as an act of self-denial in order to draw close to God, and over the years I have learned it is never proper to fast for direction, as this amounts to essentially just a "hunger strike" to get what one wants from God, and it doesn't work that way. Fasting is first and foremost an act of worship - you are denying self to give God more of a central place in your life. If you fast for simple direction, it will not avail much as God is not the object of the discipline, but rather your need is. That is why I would never suggest that anyone fast for direction - you fast as an act of adoration, not to get something. Many Pentecostals have misunderstood that over the years, and it was only after understanding Lenten devotion better that I learned how to observe fasting and abstinence properly. It is my hope that more of these people who have a misunderstanding about the discipline of fasting would see the light as well.
In summary, there are two things we understand about God's promise to give us direction:
1. If we seek divine guidance, we need to ask that it be given to us in a clear way, to avoid the confusion with our own feelings.
2. It is OK to do a tangible expression of seeking direction - such as a "fleece" - but never use the spiritual discipline of fasting and abstinence in that regard.
Now that I have explored these promises in detail, it is time to add some concluding thoughts.
Conclusion
There are many more things that could be said on this topic, and one area I wanted to touch on but forgot to do so is the practice of "pleading the blood of Jesus" as an act of asking for protection. I have decided to do a separate study on that later, as honestly, it would take more detail to talk about that, but it is needed teaching for sure as many (including until recently myself) have misunderstood that. However, as a precursor to that, let me just say this - the precious and sacred should never be reduced to mere talismans, for then they become the focal points of our faith rather than God Himself, and that is a form of witchcraft. Again, I will deal more in-depth with that at another time though.
I hope this study, like other insights I have shared, will be a help to someone, as it is my prayer that what I write here will be used of God to touch others and make an impact. If it does, you are always welcome to share it. Until next time, thank you for allowing me to share my own insights with you, and hopefully will be back soon.
To begin, it must be understood that the promises I will be talking about are not contingent upon salvation, but are rather fruits of salvation. There are actually a couple of promises though that are contingent upon salvation, and they are made possible through sacramental grace - the first is forgiveness of sins (which is represented through both the sacraments of baptism and reconciliation) and healing of the whole person (primarily represented by the sacrament of unction). The two of those are always tied together, as they both represent a type of restoration that Christ fulfilled in His Atonement. As we go through our pilgrimage of faith though, it doesn't take a degree in rocket science to understand that we are still in this natural world, and thus are still subject to certain necessities that are warranted by the process of life and survival itself. Those promises are given by God throughout Scripture in many places we will be discussing, and they are the result of the covenantal relationship of faith we have in Christ. There are three of those promises that are specific to our discussion, and each will be discussed at length momentarily - provision for our needs, protection from damage of adversity, and direction for important decisions and choices we make. Upon those three promises are what rest our trust in God beyond the grace of salvation, and are not conditional to salvation but are residual benefits we receive.
Over the years, teachings on similar things have been taken out of focus, and we will deal with specific cases of that later as we discuss each of these three promises individually. However, the purpose of those three promises is to provide the stability to do that which God has called each of us to. Especially if you are in full-time service to the Church, these promises are crucial, as often a sacred vocation is not something that will land one in the "Fortune 500" or on a high-society registry. With that being established, let us now take each promise and initiate our discussion on them individually.
A. Provision of Needs
If you are like me, you often find yourself placing a priority on financial concerns and other needs in your daily prayers, and in this day and age finances seem to dominate our prayers for some reason. Does God grant material needs? Looking at Philippians 4:19, we see our first and pivotal verse about this - it says "God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory." Let us unpack this a little, as at times this is a big one which has generated its own plethora of misunderstandings and misapplications. The first thing that comes to mind for many is the stereotypical image of the televangelist on religious television programs making statements such as "if you sow a seed, you'll meet a need." The term for this type of "teaching" is either Positive Confession or "Word of Faith," and its detractors call it "Name it and claim it" or "blab it and grab it." This faulty application, as we discussed earlier, has its genesis in what is known as the New Thought movement, which itself was a derivative of Christian Science. In the early 1900s, a Baptist minister by the name of Esseck William (E.W.) Kenyon (1867-1948), who began teaching some ideas that were similar to the New Thought understanding of words creating reality (R.M. Riss, "Kenyon, Esseck William," in Burgess, Alexander, McGee, Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988. p. 517). This later entered the Salvation/Healing Movement among American Pentecostals via first Oral Roberts, who first taught the idea of "sowing seed," and later was more associated with Kenneth Hagin (1917-2003), who was a tent-revival Assemblies of God evangelist who later was considered the "founding father" of the Word of Faith movement. Hagin, and the dozens of his proteges such as Kenneth Copeland, Frederick Price, and others, emphasized a teaching that centered on an uncompromising faith via "positive confession" (meaning speaking things essentially into existence that are not there as a work of exercising that faith) in God's desire to bless in every area of life provided no doubt entered the picture. This has at its core a Biblical truth (based on Philippians 4:19 and other such passages) that was taken, twisted, and made to be something it was never originally intended. It is important to understand that the key word in the Philippians verse is needs. Over the years, Hagin and his myriad of successors and imitators (most prominent today being Joel Osteen) have twisted this idea in such a way that essentially they thought it was possible for God to even grant wants (or more aptly and rhythmically, greeds) and they taught people to treat this promise as if it were a quasi-occultic talisman or something, and that is where we have some serious problems. I want to spend a little time on this now, as it is pivotal to the discussion.
If what Hagin and others like him taught were true, a little common sense would dictate that results would be obvious - the mega-church parking lots where many of these people spout this stuff should be overflowing with Mercedes Benzes, Lamborghinis, and Lincolns, and instead of asking for more money, those preaching that message would supposedly have so much that they'd be giving it away and living by "sowing their own seeds," would they not? Sadly, this is not the reality - oftentimes, those who are sucked in by the heretical "Word of Faith" teachings are often among the poorest, and those who teach it are the only ones benefitting from it, as they fly around in multi-million dollar private planes and live in palatial estates that were financed by people who often cannot even afford a bicycle, much less an Oldsmobile. And, it also begs the question too - I am in no position to judge the hearts or intentions of such "teachers," but it seems to me that if they truly believed what they tell others, they would be handing out cash to everyone because they would have more of it than they know what to do with. Yet, I don't see that - people who "sow a seed" to these people are often on the verge of losing their homes, or cannot afford to feed their families or pay their bills, yet they are not seeing Kenneth Copeland knocking on their door to help them, do they? Hence, in the well-worn but appropriate axiom, the emperor has no clothes. However, there is a more balanced way to look at this, and that is where the crux of my teaching here rests.
In Philippians 4:19, we are told that God will supply all of our needs, and this generates some questions. First, what is a need? To answer that, a need is something that is vital to a person's stability and survival, while a want is a luxury that someone could actually live without. Needs like this include food, shelter, utilities, reliable transportation, and financial resources to cover those things. They may not be anything pretty - for instance, you may have a need for transportation, but God provides either a 1980 Chevy with a bad paint job or enough cash to provide a bus ticket - but it is a need that is met. When we look in Scripture, we see a lot of examples of that type of provision being made, notably in I Kings 17:2-16, where Elijah is fed by ravens in a cave, or in 2 Kings 4 where his disciple Elisha stays with a poor widow and she manages on meager rations to have enough to feed her son and Elisha while the latter stays with her. We also see it even with Jesus Himself, in the feeding of the five thousand - a couple of loaves and a few stinky fish feed a huge number of people and provide a need for satisfying a pang of hunger. These are examples of God supplying needs. One could also point out in Exodus the manna and quails God provided for the Israelites to eat in the wilderness - although they were not satisfied with it, those manna bits and quails supplied a need. These Scriptural examples are something that should show us the perspective God comes from on this - he does care for us, and because he created the natural order he knows very well those things we need to survive, and if we put our trust in Him, He will take care of us. And, that is the proper context of the idea.
Also in the context of supplying needs, there is a sort of meritocracy involved. This meritocracy has nothing to do however with our salvation, as that cannot be earned, but rather it has to do with being awarded the fruits of our labor. If you have a certain level of skill, education, or experience, then you deserve to have an occupation that provides dividends. To divert any confusion on this, it in no way is the same sort of nonsense that Kenneth Hagin and his successors proclaim - you don't just get something for nothing, as that is not how the natural order of things works. However, if you work toward something, then doors can open, and you deserve to harvest the fruits of your labor - this is reminiscent of a truth embodied in James 2:20 which is wrongly applied by some sects as being soteriological but rather is meritocratic - "faith without works is dead." It also doesn't mean the incorrect saying "God helps those who help themselves" either, as that comes from Enlightenment-era Deism and Freemasonry and is not Biblical, although there is a valid principle at its core. What it means simply is this - if you do your part, God will provide the increase to it, rewarding faithful labor. Personal success then doesn't get handed to someone on a silver platter - you work toward it, and thus it is cultivated fruit and not a "faith promise."
Noting all of these things, the provision of our needs then summarily consists of two dimensions:
1. Our basic necessities will be covered if we trust in God to do so, but they may not be luxurious provisions yet will meet the need we have.
2. Personal success cannot be "confessed," but rather is the result of merit in the area we are striving to achieve something, be it the promotion at work we have invested a lot of hard work into earning, or that graduate degree we have studied hard to achieve. This is not a "positive confession," but rather a cultivated fruit that will not be given to someone who doesn't invest the effort into it on a silver platter.
3. Provision of our needs is not a clause of our salvation, but rather is a fruit of walking in our salvation.
B. Protection From the Damages of Adversity
This is another interesting promise God has made, and again, what it entails is not freedom from adversity, but rather the strength to overcome it and come out better. Adversity is a fact of life we all face - as a consequence of the Fall, adversity is a sure bet at some point in all of our lives, and it is inescapable. The question is not if we face adversity, but rather when, and how we face it. The primary passage in Scripture that addresses this is the famous "Armor of God" passage in Ephesians 6:10-18, and accompanying that is another verse from Isaiah 54:17 - "No weapon formed against me will prosper." In my personal prayer time every morning, I always "put on" the armor of God based on the promise in Isaiah that weapons pointed at me will not take me down, and it's actually a good prayer to have. Let us unpack this some more, shall we?
What is the purpose of wearing armor after all? It is to protect the soldier in battle, not to help the soldier avoid battle. If the battle could be avoided, the armor would not be needed - that is just plain common sense, right? Within the passage of Ephesians 6 that deals with this, the reason for the armor is given from the outset, that we might stand in the "evil day." So, what is an "evil day" then? It is not a collective event, as every one of us faces an "evil day" at some point. If you are on social media, for instance, and you are standing up for your faith and traditional values, inevitably someone will get "triggered" and go on the attack - the moment that happens is an "evil day." Or, it could be while you are shopping and a thug attempts to mug you at an ATM - that also is an "evil day" when it happens. The "evil day" when is that moment when we face adversity of some sort, and it may scare and intimidate us. But, if we trust in God, eventually it works out, because as Romans 8:28, all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Even a bad situation can be clay in the Master Potter's hand, and He can use that to mold and shape our character. I want to now go to two prime examples of this in Scripture, and then I want to share how in retrospect this has worked in my life.
Let's first look at the story of Joseph, one of the progenitors of the Twelve Tribes of Israel and a son of Jacob (his favorite actually) which we begin to read about in Genesis 37 and continues until the end of the book, as the story of Joseph is even longer in some aspects than that of Abraham, his great-grandfather. Joseph is essentially spoiled rotten and protected by his father Jacob, so much so that he is given special treatment and even given a very expensive piece of clothing. This arouses the jealousy of his brothers, who actually entrap him and sell him to some Arab slave-traders who in turn sell him to Potiphar, a high official in the Pharaoh's government. God uses this experience to bring Joseph to where he wants him to be, as Joseph had a lot of bizarre dreams and they led him to this point. However, adversity strikes again when that hussey of a wife of Potiphar's tries to molest Joseph, and he flees but is falsely accused of trying to molest her - this lands him in prison, where he has a series of dreams that get the attention of the Pharaoh eventually (I am abbreviating details of the story of the butler and baker), and he ends up in effect becoming the Pharaoh's prime minister - not bad for a nomad's son from Palestine, is it? Adversity struck Joseph hard, in other words, but God preserved him. We also see a similar situation in the story of Job too, in which Job is attacked mercilessly by Satan to try to prove God wrong, but Job prevails and is abundantly blessed later for it. Again, that whole Romans 8:28 thing comes in.
It is true also in my own life too - when I was around 9 years old, my mother and I ended up in a chaotic situation that left us dirt-poor and destitute for a number of years. Yet, during that time, I worked at my studies, and eventually, I was able to complete both my Bachelor's and Master's degrees. God made the way possible, and often in lieu of less-extreme circumstances I admittedly forget that and get impatient with Him, but He reminds me of where I came from. One other aspect of adversity is that it is in a sense the fertilizer in which character grows. The sweet-smelling roses or succulent tomatoes we often enjoy from our gardens and flower boxes are often nourished by the foulest and nastiest fertilizer - ground-up cow dung, decaying animal carcasses, etc. Yet, out of that mess grows the beautiful rose or the succulent vegetable. That is how the adversity we face in life often works to our benefit. It is also why we pray for God to protect us - we don't pray necessarily for him to protect us from the adversity, but rather from being destroyed by the adversity. What often is meant for our destruction can actually be exactly what we need to grow us, and that is one reason God allows the adversity to happen, but he also will help us navigate through it.
In summary, there are two things to glean from God's promise of protection:
1. We are often not spared from going through the adversity itself but are equipped to go through it without lasting damage.
2. Adversity is not necessarily evil, although it may have initially been intended to be so - rather, it is a chance to cultivate and grow our character.
C. Direction for Important Decisions and Choices
Have you ever been in a position where a life-changing decision has faced you, and you are not sure what to do? If you go one direction, it may have one consequence, yet if you go another, it could have other consequences. The permanence of the consequences for whatever decisions we make can make or break us, and thus they are things that cannot be entered into lightly. As Christians, God has clearly promised to guide and direct us in all we do, and it is our responsibility to trust him to keep that promise. Again, Romans 8:28 comes into play, as all things do work together for our good. In this context, the rightness or wrongness of our decision is not the factor, as even when we screw up God can use that to bring us to the place he wants us. Rather, it is about relying on God to make the appropriate decision for the current situation, and in doing so it requires a lot of trust.
There are two main passages besides Romans 8:28 that relate to this promise. The first is in Psalm 119:105 - "Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." The second is Psalm 37:23 - "the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord." A third and very important verse is also related to this, in that we should expect and accept nothing less than clear spiritual direction, and that verse is in I Corinthians 14:33 - God is not the author of confusion. I am going to discuss various aspects of this now, as they are very important to the study.
We as human beings are limited, and as a result, bad decision-making at some point is inevitable. A bad choice or decision on an important issue can lead to a lot of negative impact for our lives and those of our family, so obviously these things are not to be taken lightly. When we rely on God for direction, we should pray for and expect nothing less than a clear answer. This has nothing whatsoever to do with His faithfulness, but rather with our own propensity to go on feelings and other misleading criteria. To see an example of how this works, we look at the story of Gideon in Judges 6:36-40. In that account, Gideon was the de facto leader (judge) of all of Israel, and as his people moved toward their Promised Land, they faced a lot of obstacles - hostile tribes such as the Midianites in this case. Gideon knew that based on his own wisdom he could not strategize successfully to battle the Midianites threatening his people's camp, so he did something interesting. In order to get God's direction, Gideon took a wool fleece, and based on whether it was wet or dry, he would take it as God's direction to render his decision. He wanted to be absolutely sure he was doing the right thing, so he did this test three times, and God did what he asked all three times. The result was a successful battle and a momentous win for the people of Israel, and it got them closer to their destination.
In my Pentecostal days, it was often a common practice to "put a fleece before the Lord" in order to discern the proper way to go about making a decision, something I still do today I might add. Many times it works, and I have been able to do some remarkable things because I sought God's direction in that way. I don't recommend that this be done in every circumstance, as it can degenerate into superstition, but it can and does prove to be an effective way to get a solution to a problem. Another practice related to this that some do is the discipline of fasting. Fasting is typically to be observed as an act of self-denial in order to draw close to God, and over the years I have learned it is never proper to fast for direction, as this amounts to essentially just a "hunger strike" to get what one wants from God, and it doesn't work that way. Fasting is first and foremost an act of worship - you are denying self to give God more of a central place in your life. If you fast for simple direction, it will not avail much as God is not the object of the discipline, but rather your need is. That is why I would never suggest that anyone fast for direction - you fast as an act of adoration, not to get something. Many Pentecostals have misunderstood that over the years, and it was only after understanding Lenten devotion better that I learned how to observe fasting and abstinence properly. It is my hope that more of these people who have a misunderstanding about the discipline of fasting would see the light as well.
In summary, there are two things we understand about God's promise to give us direction:
1. If we seek divine guidance, we need to ask that it be given to us in a clear way, to avoid the confusion with our own feelings.
2. It is OK to do a tangible expression of seeking direction - such as a "fleece" - but never use the spiritual discipline of fasting and abstinence in that regard.
Now that I have explored these promises in detail, it is time to add some concluding thoughts.
Conclusion
There are many more things that could be said on this topic, and one area I wanted to touch on but forgot to do so is the practice of "pleading the blood of Jesus" as an act of asking for protection. I have decided to do a separate study on that later, as honestly, it would take more detail to talk about that, but it is needed teaching for sure as many (including until recently myself) have misunderstood that. However, as a precursor to that, let me just say this - the precious and sacred should never be reduced to mere talismans, for then they become the focal points of our faith rather than God Himself, and that is a form of witchcraft. Again, I will deal more in-depth with that at another time though.
I hope this study, like other insights I have shared, will be a help to someone, as it is my prayer that what I write here will be used of God to touch others and make an impact. If it does, you are always welcome to share it. Until next time, thank you for allowing me to share my own insights with you, and hopefully will be back soon.
Friday, May 17, 2019
Dealing With Anti-Semitism Masquerading as "Pro-Life" and "Conservative"
Over the past few days, a couple of social media groups I have been part of have engaged in some discussions which, frankly, have me a bit concerned. One of the groups called the "Pro-Life and Anti-Communist League," has had an influx of people spouting some very volatile and controversial stuff on it, and frankly, it needs to be addressed. I am only going to deal with this briefly as I don't want to get into a discussion that is too detailed, but some things need to be said.
Many of the people in this particular group profess to be "traditional Catholics," and to be honest, when I see someone who identifies as a "traditional Catholic" yet spews anti-semitic vitriol, I immediately become skeptical of their professed Catholic faith. As I am about to demonstrate, it is perfectly fine to do two things in regard to the issue of the Jews:
1. It is acceptable to criticize some policies of the modern state of Israel without diminishing support for Israel. Despite any special status Israel has in God's overall plan of salvation, the modern nation of Israel is still led by fallible human beings, and they are not perfect - none of us are honestly. You can fully support anything but also disagree with an action in connection with that which you support, so that is not the issue.
2. The salvation of the Jews in lieu of the evangelical mission of the Church is also a valid concern. We should share Christ's love with everyone, and that includes Jewish people. As you will see later, it is not only acceptable but also necessary to share the Gospel with Jesus's own people, the Jews. To do so is an act of love, not hate. And, therefore, the salvation of Jewish people is not the issue either.
The real issues in regard to this subject are as follows, and thus the anti-semitism
1. "Jewish conspiracy" theories - when you start hearing comments about how "all bankers and Hollywood executives are Jews," it should send up a red flag immediately. I have heard some of this talk on the social media pages I have mentioned, and it is an excuse for an anti-semite to use religion to justify hatred of the Jews, which is not the message of the Gospel. Although there are a lot of Jews who are in positions of leadership in politics, banking, etc., it doesn't mean that they as individuals are somehow the fault of the whole Jewish people as a group. Many of the worst of these people are who they are oftentimes in spite of their Jewish heritage, and not because of it. Many of these evil individuals over the centuries - George Soros, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, etc. - were actually atheistic and had rejected their Jewish roots and upbringing, and much of what they stand for would be in direct contradiction with the traditional Jewish worldview as embodied in both Talmudic tradition as well as their adherence to the Torah as moral law. This same sort of argument is often used by those espousing anti-Catholic views as well - some Fundamentalists, for instance, try to point out that Hitler's Nazis were inspired by the Catholic Church when in reality they were directly opposed to it. Catholics would be wise to be more careful about trying to use this argument to buttress anti-semitism then.
2. The argument that "Talmudic Judaism is not compatible with Catholic faith" is a serious fallacy, and often the person spouting it is ignorant of what the Talmud actually is. The Talmud is not a monolithic authority in the same way Scripture is but is defined as a "comprehensive term for Jewish tradition transmitted orally from generation to generation until finally committed to writing." (Rabbi Ben Isaacson and Deborah Wigoder, The International Jewish Encyclopedia. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973. p. 290). It must be understood that the Talmud is not a single book either, as the complete collection of it would fill a small library, and like the law books you see in many attorney's offices, it documents discussions on how Jewish moral and ceremonial law is to be implemented - and, within its content are debates and even differing opinions about how those things are implemented, so it is not necessarily authoritative on its own for Jews, but rather provides guidance as to what is to be done in a specific situation. As Wigoder and Isaacson note, the vastness of the work even includes much irrelevant and even at times offensive content, but it also is, in essence, the symbolism of the continuance of the Jews as a people, and thus its importance cannot be underestimated either. Anti-semitic groups and individuals at times have tried to target the Talmud as something "evil," and its importance to the literary survival of the Jewish people has always been seen as a threat by their enemies, and hence the problem. It is also similar to how anti-Catholic Protestant Fundamentalists like to accuse Catholics of "worshipping" the Church Fathers for the same reason, although in reality, the Talmud is more similar to the Catholic Code of Canon Law than it is to the Patristic writings. So, rather than being a "threat" or "evil," the Talmud is basically just a written record of the centuries-long discourse of rabbis and other authorities debating how certain issues are to be addressed in lieu of Jewish tradition and what the Torah says. There are also different collections of the Talmud as well, at least three if I am not mistaken, and each of them even differs from the others to some degree. So, attacking the Talmud is an insufficient reason to be anti-semitic.
3. The third argument is a bit of a gem, and it is so because there is actually some truth to it. One individual on the discussion board of the particular social media group actually made the argument that someone who doesn't like Jews cannot be anti-semitic because Arabs are Semites too. My question to that individual was "yes, so what is your point?" Jews are indeed a Semitic people, and as such, they belong to a family of Semitic peoples that includes Arabs, Assyro-Chaldaeans, Syriacs, Lebanese Syro-Maronites, Amharic (and related peoples) of Ethiopia, and the natives of the island of Malta. However, when this argument is used to justify hatred of Jews by saying the term "anti-semitism" is a bad term to use, it is important to remind that individual that the accepted term for anti-Jewish hatred is anti-semitism - the whole world as a consensus accepts that definition. For a person to use that argument to justify their own bigotry is weak at best and just asserts that they will resort to a semantic argument to attempt to justify their own hatred.
4. A fourth argument is one I am not hearing as much but it is still bandied about, and that is this - "well, today's Jews are not the same people as the ancient Israelites." I have heard this one ad nauseum from even college professors, and in general, it entails a fallacy that most of today's Jews are actually Turks by race, as they are supposedly the descendants of a tribe called the Khazars. The fallacy here is simple - DNA testing in modern times has pretty much established that Jews are a Semitic people, not Turks, and it also flies in the face of history as well. The Khazars were a historical people, and at a certain point in their history they did adopt Judaism as their state religion, but there is no logical proof that every Jew in the world is somehow merely a Khazar. As a matter of fact, evidence exists to the contrary - when the Khazar state fell in the 10th century, its rulers wanted to secure help from the neighboring Khwarezm kingdom which was Islamic - the Khwarez sultan refused to help them because they were "infidels," and thus the Khazars became Muslims in order to preserve their kingdom through a political alliance, a claim noted by a contemporary Islamic writer of the time by the name of Ibn al-Athir ("Khazars," at Wikipedia.com, updated 11 May 2019 at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars - accessed 5/17/2019). If that is the case, due to the geographic location of where the ancient Khazar kingdom was, it was highly possible that the majority of Khazars were assimilated into Turkish Muslim populations, and the more likely descendants of the Khazars may be some enclaves of Azeri Turks today rather than Jews. Many scholars also reject the "Khazar theory" as well, based on recent advances in DNA research and other evidence, plus the association of the "Khazar theory" with anti-semitic groups of various persuasions. Also, if we were even to entertain the notion that in some alternate reality the Khazars would not have been assimilated into another related Islamic Turkish group, but instead lived on as an independent entity with their Judaism intact, it is still not plausible that Jews would somehow all be Khazars today because the Jewish Diaspora predated the Khazars' adaptation of Judaism by centuries, and there were already viable Jewish communities all over Europe and in the Middle East prior to the Khazars. That is another reason that argument falls flat.
5. The final argument I wanted to debunk is one that some in the Church have been spewing for centuries, and it is fallacious on many levels. This one is that because the Jews are somehow a "cursed people" for their rejection of Christ, it is therefore acceptable for Christians to hate and persecute them. Often, those who espouse this crazy idea (which also flies in the face of clear teaching from the Gospels, I might add) often try to justify it by referencing the Church Fathers, who at times did speak harshly of Jews. There are two things that totally blow this argument out of the water. First, often those references are taken totally out of context - no Patristic writer or any other Church authority has ever said it was "acceptable" to hate and persecute Jews, not one. On the contrary, often the harsh words of the Church Fathers are more chastizing of the Jews for rejecting Christ, which for many Church Fathers and other writers was actually beyond comprehension - their reasoning was that it was foolish for the Jews to reject a Messiah who was sent specifically to them first, and then kill Him, although they also acknowledge that the Atonement was necessary for all of humanity's salvation. That Jews continued to reject Christ was to them baffling, and they didn't mince words saying so! However, what many critics and people who use these quotes to justify their own anti-semitism on religious grounds, miss, is the rest of the story in context - if you read further in their writings, many Church Fathers actually prayed for Jews to be converted, and although harsh otherwise, they actually believed that Jews should be the logical ones to convert as their own traditions taught them that a Messiah from among them would be sent to them first, and that rejection of that truth was the ultimate foolish act. As the Jewish convert to Catholicism, Roy Schoeman, writes in his book Salvation is From the Jews (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003) on page 355, when a Jewish person does convert to the truth of the Christian faith, they often testify that they are far more Jewish after their conversion than before and that on a very fundamental level their thirst for God and His Truth is met in a way it would not have been outside Christianity. Schoeman also notes on page 354 that Satan has often used "Christian" persecution of Jews as a way to make Jews who are targeted hostile to the Christian message, and that leads to the rise of people like Karl Marx - as noted in #1 above, the worst and most evil representations of people of Jewish heritage who are often used as an excuse to justify anti-semitism are often the result of people persecuting Jews earlier in the name of Christ, and thus a Jew on the receiving end of that gets a flawed witness of religious faith that often makes them hostile to religion. So, the "Christian" anti-semite is actually more responsible for the people that Karl Marx was and George Soros is than the Jews themselves, so where is the real "conspiracy" then? It is supposed and professed "Christians" creating monsters through their own hate, and Satan wins as a result in that battle. We as a Christian people have much to account for in that regard, as much of the moral decay is not the result of some "Zionist conspiracy," but rather it is the result of the failure of the Church to do her mission. When we stop scapegoating others and take responsibility for our own actions in that regard, it will lead to the freedom of the Holy Spirit to convict us and supernatural grace to do its work in us.
In retrospect, when we look at the writings of both Catholic and Orthodox Fathers, visionaries, and theologians over the centuries, a common theme can be seen in regard to the Jews and eschatology - prior to the return of Christ, there is to be a conversion of the Jewish people to the truths of the Gospel. Let's set up that scenario.
Desmond Birch, a phenomenal Catholic scholar, wrote a book some years back called Trial, Tribulation, and Triumph (Santa Barbara, CA: Queenship, 1996). This book is a pretty detailed encyclopedic work documenting references from Church Fathers and others in Catholic tradition over the centuries in regard to the end times, and many of them have detailed writings about the conversion of the Jews. There is a time noted, for instance, that a "fullness of the Gentiles" will take place when Gentiles will no longer come into the Church, and many will actually apostatize from it - we have seen that since the Enlightenment, although in the past century it has accelerated somewhat. The Scriptural premise for this is based on Romans 11:25-27, which has to do with the re-introduction of national Israel (the Jews) into spiritual Israel (the Church). We see this also in Ephesians 3:6 as well, as it is called there "the In-Grafting." There is to be an "Age of Peace" just prior to the Tribulation in which an overwhelming majority of national Israel (meaning the Jews) would be converted, and during this mass conversion of the Jews would be the "Great Apostasy" of the Gentiles, which we also see in Scripture in 2 Thessalonians 1-2 as well as in Matthew 24:10 and in I Timothy 4:1. This Apostasy would be so great that it would be unprecedented in history up to that time, and if one looks at what is happening in Western civilization today, we see it - no need to go into the details, but just look at what dominates our news, social media, etc. When this happens, according to St. Jerome and others, the time when Israel would be converted would come. The Catechism of the Catholic Church also affirms this in CCC 674, and it specifically states there that the Second Coming of Christ will not happen until the conversion of "all Israel." (Birch, pp. 417-419). Fr. Elias Friedman, in his 1987 book Jewish Identity (Ypsilanti, MI: The Miriam Press, 1987), notes that the Apostle St. Paul revealed in the noted passage in Romans that the final destiny of post-Christic Jewry would be accession to the Christian faith (Friedman, p. 128), and he also notes on page 130 of his text St. John Chrysostom's Homily on the Epistle to the Romans, where the great saint actually says that as God notes the abuse of the grace He gave the Gentiles, He will recall the Jews a second time. Fr. Friedman, later in his book, also concurs with the Orthodox ascetic Lev Gillet in the latter's book Communion in the Messiah, with the fact that Israel as a modern state is divinely ordered by Christ Himself as a major part of the plan of a future Jewish conversion - Gillet saw that happening in 1942 when he authored the book, six years before the modern nation of Israel was established, and Fr. Friedman saw in the experience of Israel a sharing in the nature of Christ Himself - the Holocaust, for instance, was a participation in the Passion, while the establishment of Israel was a sort of picture of the Resurrection (Friedman, p. 124), and the later conversion of Israel to the truth of Christ was in essence like a Second Coming. Birch and Friedman, as well as Schoeman, also cite numerous references that God has not given up on the Jews yet - on the contrary, He wills to save the Jews and bring them into the fulness of His kingdom. And, those references come from a pretty broad cross-section of Church Fathers, saints, Popes, and even contemporary theologians of the past 500 years or so. There are likewise Orthodox Fathers and saints who have stated the same - a small book published by Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, NY, entitled Apostasy and Antichrist includes a number of references from Orthodox Fathers and theologians pretty much stating the same idea as the Catholic references one finds in Birch's and Friedman's books. I, unfortunately, don't have that small 47-page booklet handy at this point, as it is packed away in a box in my office, but it is worth reading for sure.
Now, it may be asked how this is compatible with political Zionism? Honestly, I have serious problems with my own with so-called "Christian Zionism," in that it may be more anti-semitic than it is in support of the Jewish people. It also does a serious disservice to indigenous Christians of the region as well, and that cannot be tolerated. Hearing blow-hards on "religious television" such as John Hagee basically saying the Jews are somehow "exempt" from salvation is a heresy, as Jesus died for all humanity, Jew and Gentile included. Also, in their pursuit of "Christian Zionism," often Evangelicals who embrace that idea throw evangelization of the Jewish people out the window in deference to some political ideology. It is one reason why I do believe Israel has a right to exist as a nation, and I even believe it is divinely-mandated as a way to disseminate the Gospel to the Jewish people to bring about their conversion, but at the same time I do not support the "Christian Zionist" agenda which often makes Israel look "perfect" when at times its government does make mistakes - not everything Israel does is perfect, as they are still fallible human beings like us all and are capable of bad judgments, and where they do so, it should be addressed truthfully. Since my own conversion to the Catholic Church and my deliverance from the ideology of "Christian Zionism," my own views on the whole Israel/Palestinian issue have gotten more complicated and it has taken some time to sort them out. That is one reason why in recent years I think one of the best movies that accurately illustrates what we should be striving for is the Adam Sandler film You Don't Mess With the Zohan. The movie, which entails a super-powerful Israeli spy named Zohan and his nemesis, an equally-powerful Palestinian terrorist called the Phantom, has as its premise how pointless and futile war is, and in the end Zohan ends up actually mending fences with Phantom and marrying his sister, whom he'd briefly worked for as a hairdresser in New York. Now, the movie is somewhat off-color, as there are some rather raunchy scenes in it, but like most of Sandler's films over the years, once you get past the off-base humor there is actually a good moral underneath it. And, the moral is this - in the end, we are all still humans despite our differences, which increasingly become more superficial. And, as humans from a Catholic perspective, we are all deeply in need of salvation and God's grace, both of which he has provided in his Son, Jesus Christ. And, that leads to my last point.
Anti-semitism, or any other nationalist, ethic, or racially-based hatred and prejudice, is not a Christian virtue. Therefore, I have a warning for you "Christian" anti-semites out there today, especially if you profess to be Catholic. Many of those to whom this is directed pride themselves in being "traditionalists:" they prefer the Latin Mass, rail against anything that smacks of "modernism," and they yearn for the Catholic faith to be restored. Nothing wrong with any of that in the proper context, but here's the thing - many of these people who decry modernism and other ills they perceive in society have themselves a deficiency of supernatural grace in their own lives. They are often more concerned with how their fellow communicants receive the Eucharist at Mass (the debate is whether it should be received in the hand or on the tongue, or if it should be received standing or kneeling) than they are with the transformation of their own hearts. They do all the right things outside but lack inner conversion. It is often these individuals who are anti-semitic and racist in their attitudes, and many of us who are Traditionalists call them "MadTrads" because they are often obnoxious, self-righteous, prideful, and just unpleasant people. Those individuals, instead of railing against the Novus Ordo Mass or how the person in the pew in front of them receives Communion, should be paying a visit to the confessional or spending more time studying Scripture and praying, as they have an attitude problem that may imperil their salvation. They are as much an instrument of Satan, honestly, as the Modernist who tries to advance the LGBT agenda and other junk. Apostasy comes in a variety of forms, and we should be careful to not be seduced by the siren song of one of those forms. "MadTrads" without a conversion of heart who spout anti-semitic conspiracy theories are just as evil as James Martin, the "Rainbow Jesuit" who is pushing for "gay marriage" in the Church - both of them represent the worst in concupiscent nature, and both need to have a conversion of heart. That is what prompted this article today, and more could be said but I have to stop somewhere. Hopefully, those to whom this is directed will allow the Holy Spirit to use it to work in them to bring repentance, and then we all should pray for the conversion also of our Jewish neighbors, with all the charity Christ commands us to have. Thanks again for allowing me to share, and will see you next time.
Many of the people in this particular group profess to be "traditional Catholics," and to be honest, when I see someone who identifies as a "traditional Catholic" yet spews anti-semitic vitriol, I immediately become skeptical of their professed Catholic faith. As I am about to demonstrate, it is perfectly fine to do two things in regard to the issue of the Jews:
1. It is acceptable to criticize some policies of the modern state of Israel without diminishing support for Israel. Despite any special status Israel has in God's overall plan of salvation, the modern nation of Israel is still led by fallible human beings, and they are not perfect - none of us are honestly. You can fully support anything but also disagree with an action in connection with that which you support, so that is not the issue.
2. The salvation of the Jews in lieu of the evangelical mission of the Church is also a valid concern. We should share Christ's love with everyone, and that includes Jewish people. As you will see later, it is not only acceptable but also necessary to share the Gospel with Jesus's own people, the Jews. To do so is an act of love, not hate. And, therefore, the salvation of Jewish people is not the issue either.
The real issues in regard to this subject are as follows, and thus the anti-semitism
1. "Jewish conspiracy" theories - when you start hearing comments about how "all bankers and Hollywood executives are Jews," it should send up a red flag immediately. I have heard some of this talk on the social media pages I have mentioned, and it is an excuse for an anti-semite to use religion to justify hatred of the Jews, which is not the message of the Gospel. Although there are a lot of Jews who are in positions of leadership in politics, banking, etc., it doesn't mean that they as individuals are somehow the fault of the whole Jewish people as a group. Many of the worst of these people are who they are oftentimes in spite of their Jewish heritage, and not because of it. Many of these evil individuals over the centuries - George Soros, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, etc. - were actually atheistic and had rejected their Jewish roots and upbringing, and much of what they stand for would be in direct contradiction with the traditional Jewish worldview as embodied in both Talmudic tradition as well as their adherence to the Torah as moral law. This same sort of argument is often used by those espousing anti-Catholic views as well - some Fundamentalists, for instance, try to point out that Hitler's Nazis were inspired by the Catholic Church when in reality they were directly opposed to it. Catholics would be wise to be more careful about trying to use this argument to buttress anti-semitism then.
2. The argument that "Talmudic Judaism is not compatible with Catholic faith" is a serious fallacy, and often the person spouting it is ignorant of what the Talmud actually is. The Talmud is not a monolithic authority in the same way Scripture is but is defined as a "comprehensive term for Jewish tradition transmitted orally from generation to generation until finally committed to writing." (Rabbi Ben Isaacson and Deborah Wigoder, The International Jewish Encyclopedia. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973. p. 290). It must be understood that the Talmud is not a single book either, as the complete collection of it would fill a small library, and like the law books you see in many attorney's offices, it documents discussions on how Jewish moral and ceremonial law is to be implemented - and, within its content are debates and even differing opinions about how those things are implemented, so it is not necessarily authoritative on its own for Jews, but rather provides guidance as to what is to be done in a specific situation. As Wigoder and Isaacson note, the vastness of the work even includes much irrelevant and even at times offensive content, but it also is, in essence, the symbolism of the continuance of the Jews as a people, and thus its importance cannot be underestimated either. Anti-semitic groups and individuals at times have tried to target the Talmud as something "evil," and its importance to the literary survival of the Jewish people has always been seen as a threat by their enemies, and hence the problem. It is also similar to how anti-Catholic Protestant Fundamentalists like to accuse Catholics of "worshipping" the Church Fathers for the same reason, although in reality, the Talmud is more similar to the Catholic Code of Canon Law than it is to the Patristic writings. So, rather than being a "threat" or "evil," the Talmud is basically just a written record of the centuries-long discourse of rabbis and other authorities debating how certain issues are to be addressed in lieu of Jewish tradition and what the Torah says. There are also different collections of the Talmud as well, at least three if I am not mistaken, and each of them even differs from the others to some degree. So, attacking the Talmud is an insufficient reason to be anti-semitic.
3. The third argument is a bit of a gem, and it is so because there is actually some truth to it. One individual on the discussion board of the particular social media group actually made the argument that someone who doesn't like Jews cannot be anti-semitic because Arabs are Semites too. My question to that individual was "yes, so what is your point?" Jews are indeed a Semitic people, and as such, they belong to a family of Semitic peoples that includes Arabs, Assyro-Chaldaeans, Syriacs, Lebanese Syro-Maronites, Amharic (and related peoples) of Ethiopia, and the natives of the island of Malta. However, when this argument is used to justify hatred of Jews by saying the term "anti-semitism" is a bad term to use, it is important to remind that individual that the accepted term for anti-Jewish hatred is anti-semitism - the whole world as a consensus accepts that definition. For a person to use that argument to justify their own bigotry is weak at best and just asserts that they will resort to a semantic argument to attempt to justify their own hatred.
4. A fourth argument is one I am not hearing as much but it is still bandied about, and that is this - "well, today's Jews are not the same people as the ancient Israelites." I have heard this one ad nauseum from even college professors, and in general, it entails a fallacy that most of today's Jews are actually Turks by race, as they are supposedly the descendants of a tribe called the Khazars. The fallacy here is simple - DNA testing in modern times has pretty much established that Jews are a Semitic people, not Turks, and it also flies in the face of history as well. The Khazars were a historical people, and at a certain point in their history they did adopt Judaism as their state religion, but there is no logical proof that every Jew in the world is somehow merely a Khazar. As a matter of fact, evidence exists to the contrary - when the Khazar state fell in the 10th century, its rulers wanted to secure help from the neighboring Khwarezm kingdom which was Islamic - the Khwarez sultan refused to help them because they were "infidels," and thus the Khazars became Muslims in order to preserve their kingdom through a political alliance, a claim noted by a contemporary Islamic writer of the time by the name of Ibn al-Athir ("Khazars," at Wikipedia.com, updated 11 May 2019 at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars - accessed 5/17/2019). If that is the case, due to the geographic location of where the ancient Khazar kingdom was, it was highly possible that the majority of Khazars were assimilated into Turkish Muslim populations, and the more likely descendants of the Khazars may be some enclaves of Azeri Turks today rather than Jews. Many scholars also reject the "Khazar theory" as well, based on recent advances in DNA research and other evidence, plus the association of the "Khazar theory" with anti-semitic groups of various persuasions. Also, if we were even to entertain the notion that in some alternate reality the Khazars would not have been assimilated into another related Islamic Turkish group, but instead lived on as an independent entity with their Judaism intact, it is still not plausible that Jews would somehow all be Khazars today because the Jewish Diaspora predated the Khazars' adaptation of Judaism by centuries, and there were already viable Jewish communities all over Europe and in the Middle East prior to the Khazars. That is another reason that argument falls flat.
5. The final argument I wanted to debunk is one that some in the Church have been spewing for centuries, and it is fallacious on many levels. This one is that because the Jews are somehow a "cursed people" for their rejection of Christ, it is therefore acceptable for Christians to hate and persecute them. Often, those who espouse this crazy idea (which also flies in the face of clear teaching from the Gospels, I might add) often try to justify it by referencing the Church Fathers, who at times did speak harshly of Jews. There are two things that totally blow this argument out of the water. First, often those references are taken totally out of context - no Patristic writer or any other Church authority has ever said it was "acceptable" to hate and persecute Jews, not one. On the contrary, often the harsh words of the Church Fathers are more chastizing of the Jews for rejecting Christ, which for many Church Fathers and other writers was actually beyond comprehension - their reasoning was that it was foolish for the Jews to reject a Messiah who was sent specifically to them first, and then kill Him, although they also acknowledge that the Atonement was necessary for all of humanity's salvation. That Jews continued to reject Christ was to them baffling, and they didn't mince words saying so! However, what many critics and people who use these quotes to justify their own anti-semitism on religious grounds, miss, is the rest of the story in context - if you read further in their writings, many Church Fathers actually prayed for Jews to be converted, and although harsh otherwise, they actually believed that Jews should be the logical ones to convert as their own traditions taught them that a Messiah from among them would be sent to them first, and that rejection of that truth was the ultimate foolish act. As the Jewish convert to Catholicism, Roy Schoeman, writes in his book Salvation is From the Jews (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003) on page 355, when a Jewish person does convert to the truth of the Christian faith, they often testify that they are far more Jewish after their conversion than before and that on a very fundamental level their thirst for God and His Truth is met in a way it would not have been outside Christianity. Schoeman also notes on page 354 that Satan has often used "Christian" persecution of Jews as a way to make Jews who are targeted hostile to the Christian message, and that leads to the rise of people like Karl Marx - as noted in #1 above, the worst and most evil representations of people of Jewish heritage who are often used as an excuse to justify anti-semitism are often the result of people persecuting Jews earlier in the name of Christ, and thus a Jew on the receiving end of that gets a flawed witness of religious faith that often makes them hostile to religion. So, the "Christian" anti-semite is actually more responsible for the people that Karl Marx was and George Soros is than the Jews themselves, so where is the real "conspiracy" then? It is supposed and professed "Christians" creating monsters through their own hate, and Satan wins as a result in that battle. We as a Christian people have much to account for in that regard, as much of the moral decay is not the result of some "Zionist conspiracy," but rather it is the result of the failure of the Church to do her mission. When we stop scapegoating others and take responsibility for our own actions in that regard, it will lead to the freedom of the Holy Spirit to convict us and supernatural grace to do its work in us.
In retrospect, when we look at the writings of both Catholic and Orthodox Fathers, visionaries, and theologians over the centuries, a common theme can be seen in regard to the Jews and eschatology - prior to the return of Christ, there is to be a conversion of the Jewish people to the truths of the Gospel. Let's set up that scenario.
Desmond Birch, a phenomenal Catholic scholar, wrote a book some years back called Trial, Tribulation, and Triumph (Santa Barbara, CA: Queenship, 1996). This book is a pretty detailed encyclopedic work documenting references from Church Fathers and others in Catholic tradition over the centuries in regard to the end times, and many of them have detailed writings about the conversion of the Jews. There is a time noted, for instance, that a "fullness of the Gentiles" will take place when Gentiles will no longer come into the Church, and many will actually apostatize from it - we have seen that since the Enlightenment, although in the past century it has accelerated somewhat. The Scriptural premise for this is based on Romans 11:25-27, which has to do with the re-introduction of national Israel (the Jews) into spiritual Israel (the Church). We see this also in Ephesians 3:6 as well, as it is called there "the In-Grafting." There is to be an "Age of Peace" just prior to the Tribulation in which an overwhelming majority of national Israel (meaning the Jews) would be converted, and during this mass conversion of the Jews would be the "Great Apostasy" of the Gentiles, which we also see in Scripture in 2 Thessalonians 1-2 as well as in Matthew 24:10 and in I Timothy 4:1. This Apostasy would be so great that it would be unprecedented in history up to that time, and if one looks at what is happening in Western civilization today, we see it - no need to go into the details, but just look at what dominates our news, social media, etc. When this happens, according to St. Jerome and others, the time when Israel would be converted would come. The Catechism of the Catholic Church also affirms this in CCC 674, and it specifically states there that the Second Coming of Christ will not happen until the conversion of "all Israel." (Birch, pp. 417-419). Fr. Elias Friedman, in his 1987 book Jewish Identity (Ypsilanti, MI: The Miriam Press, 1987), notes that the Apostle St. Paul revealed in the noted passage in Romans that the final destiny of post-Christic Jewry would be accession to the Christian faith (Friedman, p. 128), and he also notes on page 130 of his text St. John Chrysostom's Homily on the Epistle to the Romans, where the great saint actually says that as God notes the abuse of the grace He gave the Gentiles, He will recall the Jews a second time. Fr. Friedman, later in his book, also concurs with the Orthodox ascetic Lev Gillet in the latter's book Communion in the Messiah, with the fact that Israel as a modern state is divinely ordered by Christ Himself as a major part of the plan of a future Jewish conversion - Gillet saw that happening in 1942 when he authored the book, six years before the modern nation of Israel was established, and Fr. Friedman saw in the experience of Israel a sharing in the nature of Christ Himself - the Holocaust, for instance, was a participation in the Passion, while the establishment of Israel was a sort of picture of the Resurrection (Friedman, p. 124), and the later conversion of Israel to the truth of Christ was in essence like a Second Coming. Birch and Friedman, as well as Schoeman, also cite numerous references that God has not given up on the Jews yet - on the contrary, He wills to save the Jews and bring them into the fulness of His kingdom. And, those references come from a pretty broad cross-section of Church Fathers, saints, Popes, and even contemporary theologians of the past 500 years or so. There are likewise Orthodox Fathers and saints who have stated the same - a small book published by Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, NY, entitled Apostasy and Antichrist includes a number of references from Orthodox Fathers and theologians pretty much stating the same idea as the Catholic references one finds in Birch's and Friedman's books. I, unfortunately, don't have that small 47-page booklet handy at this point, as it is packed away in a box in my office, but it is worth reading for sure.
Now, it may be asked how this is compatible with political Zionism? Honestly, I have serious problems with my own with so-called "Christian Zionism," in that it may be more anti-semitic than it is in support of the Jewish people. It also does a serious disservice to indigenous Christians of the region as well, and that cannot be tolerated. Hearing blow-hards on "religious television" such as John Hagee basically saying the Jews are somehow "exempt" from salvation is a heresy, as Jesus died for all humanity, Jew and Gentile included. Also, in their pursuit of "Christian Zionism," often Evangelicals who embrace that idea throw evangelization of the Jewish people out the window in deference to some political ideology. It is one reason why I do believe Israel has a right to exist as a nation, and I even believe it is divinely-mandated as a way to disseminate the Gospel to the Jewish people to bring about their conversion, but at the same time I do not support the "Christian Zionist" agenda which often makes Israel look "perfect" when at times its government does make mistakes - not everything Israel does is perfect, as they are still fallible human beings like us all and are capable of bad judgments, and where they do so, it should be addressed truthfully. Since my own conversion to the Catholic Church and my deliverance from the ideology of "Christian Zionism," my own views on the whole Israel/Palestinian issue have gotten more complicated and it has taken some time to sort them out. That is one reason why in recent years I think one of the best movies that accurately illustrates what we should be striving for is the Adam Sandler film You Don't Mess With the Zohan. The movie, which entails a super-powerful Israeli spy named Zohan and his nemesis, an equally-powerful Palestinian terrorist called the Phantom, has as its premise how pointless and futile war is, and in the end Zohan ends up actually mending fences with Phantom and marrying his sister, whom he'd briefly worked for as a hairdresser in New York. Now, the movie is somewhat off-color, as there are some rather raunchy scenes in it, but like most of Sandler's films over the years, once you get past the off-base humor there is actually a good moral underneath it. And, the moral is this - in the end, we are all still humans despite our differences, which increasingly become more superficial. And, as humans from a Catholic perspective, we are all deeply in need of salvation and God's grace, both of which he has provided in his Son, Jesus Christ. And, that leads to my last point.
Anti-semitism, or any other nationalist, ethic, or racially-based hatred and prejudice, is not a Christian virtue. Therefore, I have a warning for you "Christian" anti-semites out there today, especially if you profess to be Catholic. Many of those to whom this is directed pride themselves in being "traditionalists:" they prefer the Latin Mass, rail against anything that smacks of "modernism," and they yearn for the Catholic faith to be restored. Nothing wrong with any of that in the proper context, but here's the thing - many of these people who decry modernism and other ills they perceive in society have themselves a deficiency of supernatural grace in their own lives. They are often more concerned with how their fellow communicants receive the Eucharist at Mass (the debate is whether it should be received in the hand or on the tongue, or if it should be received standing or kneeling) than they are with the transformation of their own hearts. They do all the right things outside but lack inner conversion. It is often these individuals who are anti-semitic and racist in their attitudes, and many of us who are Traditionalists call them "MadTrads" because they are often obnoxious, self-righteous, prideful, and just unpleasant people. Those individuals, instead of railing against the Novus Ordo Mass or how the person in the pew in front of them receives Communion, should be paying a visit to the confessional or spending more time studying Scripture and praying, as they have an attitude problem that may imperil their salvation. They are as much an instrument of Satan, honestly, as the Modernist who tries to advance the LGBT agenda and other junk. Apostasy comes in a variety of forms, and we should be careful to not be seduced by the siren song of one of those forms. "MadTrads" without a conversion of heart who spout anti-semitic conspiracy theories are just as evil as James Martin, the "Rainbow Jesuit" who is pushing for "gay marriage" in the Church - both of them represent the worst in concupiscent nature, and both need to have a conversion of heart. That is what prompted this article today, and more could be said but I have to stop somewhere. Hopefully, those to whom this is directed will allow the Holy Spirit to use it to work in them to bring repentance, and then we all should pray for the conversion also of our Jewish neighbors, with all the charity Christ commands us to have. Thanks again for allowing me to share, and will see you next time.
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
A Basic Teaching on the Virgin Mary
Every year that I have been teaching my sixth-graders as a catechist, I devote the last class session of the year to teach about what we as Catholics believe concerning the Virgin Mary, as that is an important topic. It is important because what we believe about Mary is interconnected to what we believe about Christ, the Church, and everything else, and therefore it is important to have a correct understanding about who she is and what she means to us as the Church. Unfortunately, much of what is included in the curriculum our own parish uses is somewhat deficient when it comes to teaching about Mary, so I have taken it upon myself to present something pretty basic to the kids on the subject. However, it may be important to also include it here, as there are many Catholics - not to mention some of our Protestant brethren who say we believe things about Mary we actually don't - who could use this. That is why I am doing this study today.
The question I often ask as an opening to the lesson to my sixth-graders is this - what do you know about the Virgin Mary? To that question, I get a number of answers, and on a basic level they are all correct - she was Jesus's mother, she was St. Joseph's wife, her name appears in the Rosary prayers, etc. That is actually a good starting place, because naturally on a surface level all of that is correct, as Mary was indeed all those things. However, the next question I ask - what does the Church believe about Mary? - tends to get a lot of blank stares. That is troubling to me, in that we don't have a solid grounding anymore concerning what we actually believe, and when the subject comes up during the time that guy in the white shirt and tie from the local independent Baptist church down the street armed with a portfolio full of Chick comics, no one can counter the misconceptions and faulty accusations that our Fundamentalist friends voice in regard to the Virgin Mary. So, we are going to start there.
The Catholic Church has four important dogmas that address the Virgin Mary, and of the four, two of them are actually accepted by many Protestants, one is universally accepted by all Christian traditions, and only the fourth is specifically a Roman Catholic position, but in practice it is actually believed by others who aren't Roman Catholic either. The four dogmas are as follows, and in the remainder of this discussion they will be dealt with more in-depth:
1. The Immaculate Conception
2. Mary as the Mother of God
3. The Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
4. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven
Everything else that we believe about Mary is tied to one of those four dogmas, and those four dogmas also tie into other aspects of theology as well - they play an important part in our understanding of Jesus Christ, for instance. That being established, let us begin our discussion.
I. The Immaculate Conception
The Immaculate Conception was actually one of the hardest doctrines for me to accept as a convert because when you really think about it, a misunderstanding of this doctrine almost puts Mary on the same level as Christ, and that was troubling - that is, until I understood it properly. To understand the Immaculate Conception one has to first understand supernatural grace and the Fall. Prior to the Fall, mankind was perfect - sinless, and the idea of original sin didn't exist until Eve first partook of the fruit and then gave it to Adam. This necessitated supernatural grace, which has the duty (through the Atonement of Christ) to elevate, perfect, and heal us of the sting of original sin. For many of us, that will not fully happen until our death and passing on to the next life, but in the case of the Virgin Mary, something important happened. As you will also recall, one of the prefigurements of Mary in the Old Testament is that of the Ark of the Covenant - the Ark was holy, and was not touched or defamed with human hands. Mary is the Ark, so to speak, of the New Covenant, and she was chosen to be so from the foundation of Creation by God Himself. Naturally, a vessel with a special purpose needs to be consecrated, so at her conception, God imparted to her the full measure of the supernatural grace that we acquire over a lifetime to prepare her for the ultimate act of evangelization - giving the Savior to the world. That being said, there are a couple of clarifications to make here.
First, because Mary was consecrated and sanctified in the Womb does not mean she was birthed in the same way as Jesus. This is a common misunderstanding, and it is important at this point to clear that one up. Mary's parents were both biological - her mother was St. Ann, and her father was St. Joachim. She was also conceived in the normal way, with normal parents participating in the loving act of procreation. If she had a DNA test today, that would be confirmed quickly. So, this means that Mary was a human being, not a god. However, in the womb of her mother, at her conception, God did a miraculous work by giving her an instantaneous measure of supernatural grace, which completely perfected and sanctified her - she became the consecrated vessel from the womb, in other words, of the great vocation that God called her to. For a Catholic to believe otherwise would constitute a heresy, in other words. That being said, let us see what the Church herself has to say about this.
The Immaculate Conception is dealt with specifically in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, from 490-493. In the "Hail Mary" prayer that makes up the bulk of the Rosary, the first line of it proclaims this - Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. That phrase "full of grace" is seen by the Church as important, in that it is also noted in the Gospel in Luke 1:28 when the angel St. Gabriel greets her in this way. As the Catechism states, in order for Mary to fully give the free consent of her faith to this announcement, it was necessary that she be wholly borne by God's grace. And, that happened at her conception. To put it in Evangelical vernacular, Mary was "born again" by God's grace before she was born naturally. The Eastern Orthodox, while not officially codifying a doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, also affirms this by calling Mary "the All-Holy," and she is affirmed as being "free from any stain of sin...formed as a new creature" (CCC 493, LG 56). The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which was proclaimed in 1854 by Pope Pius IX, echoes this very thing but elaborates by adding that she is "preserved immune from all stain of original sin" (CCC 491, Ineffabilus Deus 2803). As Scott Hahn points out, this also ties into Mary's role as the "New Eve," meaning that she can properly be seen as a counterimage of the original Eve - as Eve became bound by original sin, Mary was cleansed of it at her conception (Scott Hahn, ed., The Catholic Bible Dictionary. New York: Doubleday, 2009. p. 587). The earliest mentions of this in the Church Fathers, as Mark Miravalle points out, see Mary referred to in such ways as "all holy," "all pure," "more innocent," "a miracle of grace," "purer than the angels," and "altogether without sin" (Mark Miravalle, Introduction to Mary. Santa Barbara, CA: Queenship Publishing, 1993. p. 39). St. Ambrose, from the 4th century, actually wrote that Mary was "free from all stain of sin," and St. Sophronius in the 7th century declared of Mary, "no one has been pre-purified (of original sin - my add) but you" (Miravalle, p. 40). As Miravalle points out, belief in Mary's Immaculate Conception should be easier than we sometimes make it to be, in that she essentially received through a miraculous imparting of supernatural grace what we all will receive at the General Resurrection, provided we die in a state of that grace in Christ (ibid.). This hopefully will help to dispel the common Protestant allegations of putting Mary on a level with Jesus, in that we should be looking to her as a symbol of hope in our own perfection in the world to come.
This belief in the Immaculate Conception will still have misconceptions to be sure, but in examining it more closely, it actually makes perfect sense as far as the plan of salvation goes. And, coming to this understanding myself - mostly due in part to Dr. Miravalle, whom I had the privilege of having as a professor when I pursued my Master's at Steubenville - has been revolutionary for me, and I now can see the plan of salvation in a whole new light.
II. Mary As Mother of God
The question I often ask as an opening to the lesson to my sixth-graders is this - what do you know about the Virgin Mary? To that question, I get a number of answers, and on a basic level they are all correct - she was Jesus's mother, she was St. Joseph's wife, her name appears in the Rosary prayers, etc. That is actually a good starting place, because naturally on a surface level all of that is correct, as Mary was indeed all those things. However, the next question I ask - what does the Church believe about Mary? - tends to get a lot of blank stares. That is troubling to me, in that we don't have a solid grounding anymore concerning what we actually believe, and when the subject comes up during the time that guy in the white shirt and tie from the local independent Baptist church down the street armed with a portfolio full of Chick comics, no one can counter the misconceptions and faulty accusations that our Fundamentalist friends voice in regard to the Virgin Mary. So, we are going to start there.
The Catholic Church has four important dogmas that address the Virgin Mary, and of the four, two of them are actually accepted by many Protestants, one is universally accepted by all Christian traditions, and only the fourth is specifically a Roman Catholic position, but in practice it is actually believed by others who aren't Roman Catholic either. The four dogmas are as follows, and in the remainder of this discussion they will be dealt with more in-depth:
1. The Immaculate Conception
2. Mary as the Mother of God
3. The Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
4. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven
Everything else that we believe about Mary is tied to one of those four dogmas, and those four dogmas also tie into other aspects of theology as well - they play an important part in our understanding of Jesus Christ, for instance. That being established, let us begin our discussion.
I. The Immaculate Conception
The Immaculate Conception was actually one of the hardest doctrines for me to accept as a convert because when you really think about it, a misunderstanding of this doctrine almost puts Mary on the same level as Christ, and that was troubling - that is, until I understood it properly. To understand the Immaculate Conception one has to first understand supernatural grace and the Fall. Prior to the Fall, mankind was perfect - sinless, and the idea of original sin didn't exist until Eve first partook of the fruit and then gave it to Adam. This necessitated supernatural grace, which has the duty (through the Atonement of Christ) to elevate, perfect, and heal us of the sting of original sin. For many of us, that will not fully happen until our death and passing on to the next life, but in the case of the Virgin Mary, something important happened. As you will also recall, one of the prefigurements of Mary in the Old Testament is that of the Ark of the Covenant - the Ark was holy, and was not touched or defamed with human hands. Mary is the Ark, so to speak, of the New Covenant, and she was chosen to be so from the foundation of Creation by God Himself. Naturally, a vessel with a special purpose needs to be consecrated, so at her conception, God imparted to her the full measure of the supernatural grace that we acquire over a lifetime to prepare her for the ultimate act of evangelization - giving the Savior to the world. That being said, there are a couple of clarifications to make here.
First, because Mary was consecrated and sanctified in the Womb does not mean she was birthed in the same way as Jesus. This is a common misunderstanding, and it is important at this point to clear that one up. Mary's parents were both biological - her mother was St. Ann, and her father was St. Joachim. She was also conceived in the normal way, with normal parents participating in the loving act of procreation. If she had a DNA test today, that would be confirmed quickly. So, this means that Mary was a human being, not a god. However, in the womb of her mother, at her conception, God did a miraculous work by giving her an instantaneous measure of supernatural grace, which completely perfected and sanctified her - she became the consecrated vessel from the womb, in other words, of the great vocation that God called her to. For a Catholic to believe otherwise would constitute a heresy, in other words. That being said, let us see what the Church herself has to say about this.
The Immaculate Conception is dealt with specifically in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, from 490-493. In the "Hail Mary" prayer that makes up the bulk of the Rosary, the first line of it proclaims this - Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. That phrase "full of grace" is seen by the Church as important, in that it is also noted in the Gospel in Luke 1:28 when the angel St. Gabriel greets her in this way. As the Catechism states, in order for Mary to fully give the free consent of her faith to this announcement, it was necessary that she be wholly borne by God's grace. And, that happened at her conception. To put it in Evangelical vernacular, Mary was "born again" by God's grace before she was born naturally. The Eastern Orthodox, while not officially codifying a doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, also affirms this by calling Mary "the All-Holy," and she is affirmed as being "free from any stain of sin...formed as a new creature" (CCC 493, LG 56). The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which was proclaimed in 1854 by Pope Pius IX, echoes this very thing but elaborates by adding that she is "preserved immune from all stain of original sin" (CCC 491, Ineffabilus Deus 2803). As Scott Hahn points out, this also ties into Mary's role as the "New Eve," meaning that she can properly be seen as a counterimage of the original Eve - as Eve became bound by original sin, Mary was cleansed of it at her conception (Scott Hahn, ed., The Catholic Bible Dictionary. New York: Doubleday, 2009. p. 587). The earliest mentions of this in the Church Fathers, as Mark Miravalle points out, see Mary referred to in such ways as "all holy," "all pure," "more innocent," "a miracle of grace," "purer than the angels," and "altogether without sin" (Mark Miravalle, Introduction to Mary. Santa Barbara, CA: Queenship Publishing, 1993. p. 39). St. Ambrose, from the 4th century, actually wrote that Mary was "free from all stain of sin," and St. Sophronius in the 7th century declared of Mary, "no one has been pre-purified (of original sin - my add) but you" (Miravalle, p. 40). As Miravalle points out, belief in Mary's Immaculate Conception should be easier than we sometimes make it to be, in that she essentially received through a miraculous imparting of supernatural grace what we all will receive at the General Resurrection, provided we die in a state of that grace in Christ (ibid.). This hopefully will help to dispel the common Protestant allegations of putting Mary on a level with Jesus, in that we should be looking to her as a symbol of hope in our own perfection in the world to come.
This belief in the Immaculate Conception will still have misconceptions to be sure, but in examining it more closely, it actually makes perfect sense as far as the plan of salvation goes. And, coming to this understanding myself - mostly due in part to Dr. Miravalle, whom I had the privilege of having as a professor when I pursued my Master's at Steubenville - has been revolutionary for me, and I now can see the plan of salvation in a whole new light.
II. Mary As Mother of God
As controversial as the Immaculate Conception is, the dogma of Mary being the Mother of God is pretty much universally accepted by all the denominations of Christendom. This particular dogma is also intertwined with Christology, as the person of Christ is defined in many ways by the dogma of Mary as Mother of God. This goes back to what we believe about Christ Himself - we accept Him as one man with two natures; He is both fully human and fully divine. This had to be defined as in the 4th century a variety of controversies arose in the Church about the person of Christ, and heresies evolved out of the controversy on both extremes. On one hand, you had the Nestorians, who believed that Mary was the mother of Jesus the man but not of God the Son. On the other, you had the Monophysites, who at that time taught that God could not be in any way human, so therefore Mary literally birthed God in the flesh and the human quality was something that was a "shell" of His true divinity within. The debates over this became so heated, and they also centered around Mary's role in the issue - did she give birth to God, Jesus, or a being that constituted both? The final decision on this was made at the Council of Ephesus in AD 431, which rejected the Nestorian heresy and affirmed the dogma of Mary as the Mother of God, and it was later clarified further at the Council of Chalcedon twenty years later in AD 451 when the Monophysite heresy was also condemned. The result of both of those councils was an affirmation of what is called the hypostatic union, in which Christ was correctly understood as one person with two full natures - He is 100% man but also 100% God. This also impacted how the Church now saw Mary, as she was proclaimed the Mother of God at Ephesus in 431, and the issue was settled once and for all. Today, as a result, this orthodox Christology is accepted by virtually all of Christendom - Orthodox, Protestant, and Catholic - as well as even by Churches that at one time rejected it; for instance, the Assyrian Church of the East, which originally was thought to be the "Nestorian Church," in 1995 signed a common Christological agreement with the Catholic Church - the signatories were then-Patriarch Mar Dinkha of the Assyrian Church and Pope St. John Paul II of the Catholic Church. I don't recollect the exact dates, but those who inherited the "Monophysite" label (Armenians, Copts, Syriacs, Ethiopians, Malankara Syrians of India, etc.) accepted this too, first in a formal agreement with the Eastern Orthodox and later with the Roman Catholics. Most Protestants have accepted orthodox Christology from the outset, as that was really not an area of contention with them at the time of the Reformation. How that affected Mary will now be discussed.
The Greek term for this nomenclature in regard to the Virgin Mary is the word Theotokos, which literally translates as "bearer of God," or "God-Bearer." Some confusion can be evident from that term, but a proper understanding of it in no way nullifies the fact that Mary was the human mother chosen for God the Son to be brought into the world. One thing to note here is that Mary's participation in this important task was totally voluntary, despite her having been consecrated from the womb for it. What this means, therefore, is that her importance has never been emphasized in isolation from her relationship to her Son, who is the incarnate Word of God - had she not cooperated as a Co-Redemptrix in this work, Jesus would not have been able to take on the human nature He did. This makes Mary's "yes" to the divine will (concurring the free will she was also given with God's will) a pivotal point in the salvation of mankind. She, therefore, serves as a model for us of humanity's response to God's initiative (Procurat, Golitzin, and Peterson, Historical Dictionary of the Orthodox Church. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996. p. 212). Mary's acceptance of the role of Theotokos then was an exercise in free will, which deepens the significance of the Incarnation of Christ.
If you happen to visit either a Byzantine Catholic or an Orthodox parish, one thing you will also note over the altar of these churches is an icon of the Virgin Mary with a circle where her belly is with the Christ Child in it - this is a visual representation of the Theotokos, and it also is a clear imagery that reflects back on the typology of the Ark of the Covenant - within the Ark of the Covenant was the Bread of Life, the manna of the wilderness, as well as an almond branch and the Law. The almond branch was the staff Aaron used during the Exodus, and there is an interesting fact to note about that almond branch. The almond branch as depicted in artistic renderings has, oddly, a cruciform shape. The interesting thing about this is the symbolism of the almond in traditional Hebraic/Judaic thought - for Jews, the almond branch is a symbol of a promise of God to bring his word to pass (Jeremiah 1:11). It is in Numbers 17 where it is reported that Moses included Aaron's rod in the contents of the Ark itself, and the rod blossomed even without being connected to a tree. The word God promised to bring to pass was the promise of the salvation of mankind, and perhaps the shape of the almond branch reminds us of that promise. As far as the depiction of this icon of the Theotokos being found over the altar of an Orthodox or Byzantine Church, it symbolizes that Christ is present on the altar, and that altar has become His new mercy seat, from which grace is given to those who humbly receive it and have belief. Mary, in essence, also is a foreshadowing of the Tabernacle that houses the Body of Christ we see on altars, in that like the Tabernacle, she truly "bears" the living Christ to all who will receive. Hence, the importance of Mary as the Mother of God cannot be emphasized enough.
We now turn back to the Catechism on this, which reminds us that "what the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines, in turn, its faith in Christ" (CCC 487). Quoting from the Vatican II Council's document Lumen Gentium (LG 53 specifically), the Catechism also affirms that the Virgin Mary is acknowledged and honored as being truly the Mother of God and of the Redeemer, and by extension also the Mother of His Bride, the Church (CCC 963). As we become part of Christ through receiving the Sacrament of the Eucharist, we by default also become children of Mary too. That is why, again, the importance of the dogma of Mary as the Mother of God cannot be emphasized enough.
III. Mary as Ever-Virgin
The dogma of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, or Mary Ever-Virgin, is also an ancient belief of the Church that dates back at least to the 2nd century, when St. Irenaeus wrote, "To this effect, they testify that before Joseph had come together with Mary. while she remained in virginity, she was found with child by the Holy Spirit" (David Bercot, Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998. p. 670). Also, there is Origen, who wrote around the year AD 245 that the theory existed that Joseph was older and a widower before he met Mary, and that he had children by a former wife. Origen then elaborates that this belief was in harmony with reason, the belief being that Mary's virginity was preserved to the end of her life and that her body was not to know physical intercourse with a man after the Holy Spirit sanctified and overshadowed her (Bercot, p. 439). The Church - both East and West - has always understood this as meaning Mary is Ever-Virgin, and thus it is depicted in Church iconography as three stars upon the veil she wears over her and on each shoulder (Prokurat, Golitzin, Peterson, p. 212).
Many early Protestant Reformers - notably Luther, Wesley, Calvin, and Zwingli - also believed and defended the doctrine, as do many Anglo-Catholic scholars. A question is raised, as a matter of fact, which is based on the premise of faith and reason together - if Jesus supposedly had other "brothers," then why was the Apostle St. John given the authority to care for Mary at the Passion? If Jesus indeed had "brothers," this would be the worst of insults to them. This means, therefore, that the Perpetual Virginity of Mary was a doctrine believed by Christians of all confessions since the earliest of times, and by the 4th century, it was widely accepted by many of the Church Fathers as an essential doctrine. However, the passages regarding these supposed "brothers of the Lord" was still somewhat debated - although all agreed at the time that these were not biological children of Mary, the debate was whether or not they were children of Joseph's by a previous marriage or were cousins. Scripture is not explicit on that relationship either, although James and John are said to be sons of another Mary in Scripture (note Matthew 13:55 and 28:1). And, as far as I have determined in researching this issue, neither of the major languages of Scripture at the time (Greek and Aramaic) have an actual word for "cousin," so the hypothesis I will assert at this point is as follows: The term "brothers" may have been translated due to misunderstanding about the idea of "cousin," and my personal take on this is a passage may have said "sons of my brother" that the translator may have inadvertently just translated "brother." By all indications, and as part of a miraculous commitment that Mary made to God at the time of the Annunciation, it appears that Mary was virgin the rest of her life, which also has proven to be an inspiration for many over the centuries that have dedicated their lives to some form of Christian asceticism.
As all of these doctrines are interconnected, and they all are built upon one another, in particular, the Ever-Virgin Mary is connected to the Immaculate Conception we spoke of earlier, as well as the Ark typology of the dogma of Mary as Mother of God. She is a consecrated vessel, chosen and sanctified from conception, and it would only make sense that this consecration was lifelong. So, why did she marry St. Joseph then if she didn't "know him in the Biblical sense?" That is an excellent question, and what I would personally propose based on my own study is this - due to cultural taboos of the time, it was possible that marriage to Joseph may have protected Mary from the scandal of being an unwed mother (despite her virginity) and thus Joseph was God's providential solution to the problem. However, I think Joseph did love Mary, and he more than likely treated the child Jesus like his own son, which gives him a special status in the communion of saints as well. However, it was not a conjugal love, and there was a grace there that Mary had and Joseph later cultivated that transcended the marriage bed, and thus a marital bond, in that case, would have been totally of supernatural grace's doing. As I have stated, that is just personal speculation and is subject to revision as I become more educated on that subject as well.
As the Catechism points out, the mystery of the Virgin Birth is that Jesus didn't diminish Mary's virginity when He was conceived, but rather sanctified it (LG 57, CCC 499). What this means, therefore, is that Mary was further consecrated by bearing the God-man in the womb, thus tying the doctrine of Mary Ever-Virgin to the earlier-discussed dogma of Mary as Mother of God. In the Protoevangelium of James, an early Church document, the narrative is that until the age of 12 Mary was entrusted to a sorority of Temple virgins until she was given into the care of Joseph, who was a man of means, and being Joseph is also said by this text to have had children by a previous marriage, this means that Jesus would have had no biological siblings to speak of (Hahn, p. 584). As for the Church codifying this as dogma, the pivotal council for that seems to be the Council of Capua in AD 392. The principal reason for this particular council was to refute the errors of a bishop named Bonosus, who was one of the first to assert that Mary had more than one child - this was based on a misinterpretation by him of Matthew 1:18-25. Paul Haffner, as quoted by Monsignor Calkins, noted that the term "brother" in this passage need not be interpreted in the literal modern sense of the word (Arthur Burton Calkins, "Our Lady's Perpetual Virginity," in Miravalle, Mariology: A Guide for Priests, Deacons, Seminarians, and Consecrated Persons. Goleta, CA: Seat of Wisdom Books, 2007. pp. 310-311). This goes back to my reasoning that the word "cousin" cannot be found in either Greek or Aramaic, so the term was translated "brother," and naturally the concept of step-relatives didn't exist then either if one presupposes Joseph had children by a previous marriage. The solemn form given to this teaching though was refined and proclaimed at the Lateran Council in AD 649 by Pope St. Martin I, who noted that Mary's "virginity remained equally inviolate after the birth," and thus it became official teaching of the Magisterium.
Whether or not one accepts these "brothers of the Lord" as step-brothers or cousins in Scripture, the fact that the dogma of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary as truth must be accepted by the faithful of the Church. I am not exactly sure if the "brothers" mentioned are step-relatives or cousins either myself - I lean toward cousins personally, but am open to the idea of step-relatives too, and in time I will hopefully formulate a more solid consensus on that issue. However, the issue of whether the "brothers" were cousins or step-relatives is not really the important aspect of this doctrine, and Catholics of good faith can debate that in good conscience while still believing Mary was Ever-Virgin as the Church teaches. The important thing is believing and accepting Magisterial teaching, which has a long history and is unchanging.
IV. The Assumption of the Virgin Mary
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is something that has had contention among some Christian traditions, but full acceptance among others - the Roman Catholics, Orthodox, many Anglo-Catholics, and some Protestants fully believe in it. Essentially, what this entails is Mary's being "assumed," or taken up, into heaven at her repose. In the Church, this teaching has been believed and held since very early times. For instance, Orthodox Christians in the Levant, Palestine, and Mesopotamia (the Syriac and Greek/Byzantine traditions) have affirmed it since at least the 4th century, and it was extensively discussed in the sixth century by St. Gregory of Tours, Dionysius the Areopagite, and Germanus of Constantinople. One quote from an Eastern Church Father noted that "her tomb becomes a ladder to heaven" (Prokurat, Golitzin, and Peterson, p. 129). Other sources I have researched note a belief in the dogma of the Assumption as early as the 2nd century. However it is viewed, the Assumption of Mary is something that gives the rest of us hope, and there is no conflict as far as I can see with anything in orthodox Christian belief.
The word Assumption should be examined for a moment. It comes from the verb "to assume," which in this context it would have the definition of "to take up or in," which means that in the context of Mary, she was taken up to her eternal reward at her repose. That sounds familiar doesn't it, especially if you happen to be an Evangelical Protestant of some tradition. This idea of Assumption bears a remarkable similarity that one finds in some Protestant eschatologies, that being the word "Rapture," which comes from a Latin root that means the same thing. Although Fr. Paul Haffner and other fellow Catholic writers would differ with me on this, I believe the same idea is being talked about here. Although in a chapter in Mark Miravalle's book Mariology Fr. Haffner says this - "However, this assumption of a last generation of believers is to be carefully distinguished from the notion of the 'Rapture.' current in some Protestant and Pentecostal thought" (Miravalle, p. 318) - he bases his own premise on the very same Scripture (I Thessalonians 4:16-17) that many Protestant premillennialists and dispensationalists use to ground their belief in this doctrine. And, to be fair, Fr. Haffner is both correct and incorrect in his statement - he is correct in that the interpretation of the word "Rapture" as used by dispensationalist Evangelicals is different, but he is also incorrect in that the notion of "Rapture" is missing from Catholic theology. The word "Rapture" comes from a Latin word that means "catching up," and would be the exact translation St. Jerome used in this passage from I Thessalonians - the same root word also gives its genesis to words such as "rhapsody" as well. All the word means is "catching up," and although we as Catholics don't believe it exactly as the Evangelical dispensationalist might, we still believe a "rapture" will happen because we confess it in the Creeds every Sunday at Mass. It is more a question of debate over timing of the event than the actual event itself, in other words. As the Catechism notes, the Assumption of Mary is a singular participation in her Son's Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians - the Byzantine Troparion sung on the Feast of the Assumption (celebrated in the West on August 15th) affirms this by noting that in her Assumption Mary was joined to the source of Life, being God Himself in Christ (CCC 966). As we confess in the Creed on Sundays at Mass - "...And He shall come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead, and of His kingdom there shall be no end." - so we do, as orthodox Catholics, believe in the bodily resurrection. Mary gives us an idea by her Assumption of what the rest of us will experience either "by rapture or repose."
In the Christian East, the term for the Assumption is Dormition, which means a literal falling-asleep. Looking at it from this perspective, Mary appears to have died a natural death, and was translated upon her repose to her eternal reward, based on the fact she was totally consecrated from conception to God in order to be the chosen vessel. In this way, the Assumption intersects all previous dogmas we discussed, as it provides a fitting conclusion to a spectacular life of holiness as embodied in Our Lady.
There is some debate regarding where Mary's final resting-place was at the time of her Assumption. Many would say Jerusalem, but others, based on the fact that Jesus entrusted the Apostle John with her care, would say Ephesus since John was bishop there. Sources from the fourth century - such as Dionysius the Areopagite and Bishop Titus - note her tomb as being in Gethsemane in Jerusalem, a position also held by St. John of Damascus, who affirmed that the place of her Assumption was Jerusalem (Miravalle, Mariology, p. 318). Others, such as Pope Benedict XIV and private revelations such as those of Anne Katherine Emmerich, maintain that she reposed in Ephesus. Emmerich in particular describes in fascinating detail the death and burial of Mary she received in a private revelation, including receiving Viaticum at the hand of St. Peter himself. However, being this has its source in private revelation, it may be a matter of debate. In this article we will not speculate whether Mary's final repose was at Ephesus or Jerusalem, as location is not relevant to the actual doctrine. However, all accounts seem to concur that when St. John opened her coffin, she was not there, and thus the Assumption (Donald Carroll, Mary's House. London: Veritas Books, 2000. pp. 45-47).
There are also questions regarding her passing, as often some will compare her Assumption to that of Enoch or Elijah. However, there is an important difference: the Scriptural accounts of Moses and Elijah have them not actually dying, but being taken up into heaven while still alive (which also gives some substantiation to the appearance of the "Two Witnesses" who face the Antichrist during the Tribulation period, an event held by both Evangelical and Catholic eschatology as part of the legitimate timeline of future events). By all indications, Mary actually did pass away, and by the evidence I see her Assumption would be more like that of Moses, who was also "assumed" into heaven upon his natural death. This, however, is a legitimate debate, and it's a debate that goes back at least to the 4th century, when St. Epiphanius in his writings didn't exactly endorse the view, but didn't rule it out either. Fr. Haffner suggests that Epiphanius was being cautious in his wording as two major heresies regarding the Virgin Mary existed at that time - one being the Antidicomarianites, who denied the perpetual virginity of Mary, and the other being the Collyridians, who basically wanted to make her a fourth member of the Holy Trinity. Other Church leaders though, notably Timothy of Jerusalem, would assert that Mary didn't die a natural death, and this was later also the position of St. Isidore of Seville and others. Despite those with somewhat differing opinions however, the consensus of the overwhelming majority of Church Fathers was that Mary died a natural death (Miravalle, Mariology, pp. 320-321). St. Augustine, for one, made the case that although Mary was free of original sin due to the Immaculate Conception (as defined later), she was not free of the other consequence of the Fall, which is death (Ibid., p. 321). As Miravalle points out in another text, the death that takes place as a result of sin is associated with the corruption of the body, although death as a consequence of the Fall in general would not be subject to that - Mary's death and its details, he notes, remains a secondary subject in the Church, but given the fact that the Church as a consensus accepts a natural death of Mary, it was a willed acceptance by her of a temporary separation of soul and body which emulates that of Jesus Himself at His Passion - it is a fitting close to a consecrated life free of original sin through the fullness given to Mary of supernatural grace (Miravalle, Introduction to Mary, p. 165).
In conclusion, Mary I believe personally was as the Church has proclaimed - she was bodily assumed into heaven by Jesus Himself upon her natural death as a climax of her holy life. And, in her Assumption, she is special but at the same time she also received in a special way something we all will one day experience if we die in a state of grace in Christ - a "rapture" to an eternal reward of everlasting life in glorified form.
Some Final Thoughts
Now, at the close of our study, I wanted to mention a few additional things about Mary in order to clarify the Catholic teaching regarding her. First, despite her favored status, Mary is not divinity, and she is not to be worshipped as such. Despite some Protestant Fundamentalist accusations of Catholics "worshipping Mary," the facts demonstrate this is not the case. You can honor someone without worshipping them, and in Catholic teaching this is sanctioned in the distinction of what is called Latria and doulia. Latria, which is a Latin term derived from a Greek word of similar meaning, simply means that it is a worship and adoration that is reserved for the Holy Trinity alone. It is sacrificial in character, and is offered only to God Himself. The term Doulia, on the other hand, is a type of respect paid to special individuals - we as a society give a type of doulia to the President, to bishops of the Church, and in medieval times it was also given to nobles of certain peerage. In the Church, it is given to saints, but even there a hierarchy is evident - in lieu of Mary's exalted position, she is given what is called hyperdoulia, a special honor. It means that these people are not deity, but due to their examples of holiness and their specific ministries, we can covet their intercessions for us on our behalf. To put it simply, Latria is praying to God alone, and doulia is asking a saint to pray for you.
That being said, one of the titles Mary is often given is Mediatrix of graces, and this can be a bone of contention with Protestants and others who misunderstand the term. What it actually means is not that Mary is a source of graces herself (only Jesus is the Source) but part of her special vocation is being entrusted with the distribution of those graces to the faithful who seek them. Mary depends on Christ for the grace to carry out this vocation, and in seeking them it is important to understand that. Although Scripture doesn't specifically note anything about Mary being bestowed this task of Mediatrix, it is implicitly given in passages such as Genesis 3:15 (the Protoevangelium), which is something we see particularly illustrated in the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe, as well as in Revelation 12. In short, the intercession of Mary on the behalf of those who seek it is a powerful weapon against Satan, which is one reason why many dismiss it - the demotion of Mary by Protestants and others, therefore, is in implicit deception of Satan to rob believers of something very powerful, as Satan knows that the perfected Mother of God has been created to be a powerful weapon against him. Mary, also as Mother of the Church by adoption, is like a good mother also protective of her children too. More could be said on this, but I may actually devote another article to that aspect of Marian doctrine later.
I hope that gives you a good synopsis on the Church's basic dogmas in regard to Mary, and at a later time I will follow up with a more specific teaching to clarify some misunderstandings about Marian teaching in the Church. Thank you, and may you all have a blessed week ahead.
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