Heresy is in the "not".

One of the tricky things about Christianity is all of the versions that are out there.  They all seem to have similar beliefs and it can be hard to separate exactly what each one is trying to say.  The first thing we need to discuss is a little logic, and vs. or.  The words "and" and "or" are actually very technical terms.  The word "and" is used to describe an intersection and the word "or" describes a union.

If you go to an ice cream shop and tell the attendant "I would like chocolate and vanilla". If they just give you a scoop of chocolate, you will be unhappy.  If they just give you a scoop of vanilla, you will not be happy.  Only a scoop of each will satisfy your demand.  Thus, the word "and" describes a scenario where both conditions must be met.

If you say to the attendant, "I would like chocolate or vanilla," you will be happy with a scoop of chocolate, and you will be happy with a scoop of vanilla, because you said "or".  However, this is where people often get confused; How would you feel if the attendant gave you a scoop of both?  Did they meet your request?  Yes! They actually did.  There are two kinds of or, an exclusive or and an inclusive or.  The exclusive or means "one, but not the other".  The inclusive or means "one, or the other, or both".  Whether the "or" in question is inclusive or exclusive is largely taken from context.

Here is an example of a clearly inclusive or:
"The students that are in math or physics classes this term."
This would be all of the students who are in math or physics or both.

Here is an example of a clearly exclusive or:
"Two movies are playing at 7pm tonight, do you want to see Spider-Man or Super-Man?"
Clearly you can't be in both theaters at the same time, so it is one or the other.

In general, I think as a society we get a bit confused because we usually only see the "or" as being exclusive. I don't have any study to back this up, but think about whether you have said "or both" before.  The "both" is implied with the "or" and is logically speaking, completely unnecessary.  Since we feel like we need to say "or both" if it is indeed an option, I think this is strong empirical evidence that we are an exclusive-or culture.

This all applies directly to Christianity.  Take, for example, Faith and Works.  The protestant community teaches that we are saved by Faith alone, and that works are not necessary.  This argument is exacerbated by the misunderstanding of the word "and".  It is often viewed as an exclusive or.  If it isn't faith alone, then it must be work alone.  But that isn't what Catholics are saying either.  Catholics believe that it is by Faith and Works.  Not just by faith, not just by works.  When we say "and" we really and truly mean both.

This point can be seen in many, many cases.  The interesting thing is that Catholics can largely agree with what protestants affirm.  It is what protestants deny that is the problem.  The problem is with the "not".  "Saved by Faith alone" can be re-stated as "saved by Faith, but not works".  So, we affirm the positive, but reject the negative.  In fact, most, if not all, heresies are of this form.  The misunderstanding of the "both-and" is prominent in protestant-Catholic dialogs.  Here is a list of "affirm but reject" statements by various ecclesiastical communities.  For each and every one of them, the Catholic teaching is "both-and".  We affirm the affirmation, but reject the "not".

• We are saved by faith, but not by works.
• Jesus was a man, but not God.
• Jesus is the redeemer, but not divine.
• Communion is a memorial, but Christ is not present.
• Christ is spiritually present in the Eucharist, but not bodily.
• Scripture is authoritative, but not tradition.
• Jesus is our mediator to the Father, but not the Saints.
• The world can be understood by Science, but not philosophy and Religion.
• It is about relationship, not religion
• Jesus is the Son of God, not the son of Mary
• We believe in the New Testament, not the Old
• The Eucharist is a community meal of thanksgiving, not a sacrifice.
• Creationism, but not evolution (or commonly vice-versa)
• God is merciful, but not just.

I say again... Each of these is a heresy to the Catholic faith.  The Catholic position on every last one of them, and many, many more, is both-and.

The communication begins to break down when a Catholic says "No" to one of these claims.  The feeling is that we believe that some version of the "opposite" must be true; that if it isn't (A and not B) it must be (B and not A).  However, we aren't arguing that, we say (A and B).  And, so I conclude by fixing the above statements to the Catholic view:

• We are saved by faith and by works.
• Jesus was all man and all God.
• Jesus is the redeemer and he is divine.
• Communion is a memorial and Christ is present.
• Christ is spiritually and bodily present in the Eucharist.
• Scripture and tradition are authoritative.
• Jesus and Saints (through Jesus) are mediators.
• The world can be understood by Science and philosophy and Religion.
• It is about relationship and religion
• Jesus is the Son of God and the son of Mary
• We believe in the Old and New Testament
• The Eucharist is a community meal of thanksgiving and a sacrifice.
• Creationism and evolution
• God is merciful and just.

Who says?!

In my first post, I said that I wasn't going to get into the history of why I am now Catholic, but as this seems to be a topic of continual discussion in my current studies, now is the appropriate time to tell some of it...

After I decided that God existed when I was about 18, I went searching for him.  I started with what was most familiar to me with my nominal presbyterian exposure, that is to say,  I started with the protestant denominations.  I went to several Churches and heard sermon after sermon (most of which turned out to be about tithing) all which claimed to "know what the bible meant."  But this caused some inner turmoil for me.  What did the bible mean?  They all understood that this book was the "law of the land," but if it was so clear, why did they interpret it in different ways?  How long had people been interpreting scripture the way they had?  And most importantly: Who SAYS?!?!  I mean, if it is so easy to understand, why doesn't everyone see it the same way.  If the Holy Sprit is truly in charge of making sure that we all understand the scripture properly, then the only conclusion is that we would all agree!  No, something was mightily wrong with this perspective.  To add to that, nobody ever seemed to be able to explain where on earth this book-of-books came from.  I mean, why were those books in there and not other books?  Again, who says?!?!

My then-girlfriend-now-wife and her family were Catholic, so I decided to give that church a fair shot at these questions.  I should mention that having been raised by a Presbyterian and an Agnostic, my spoon-fed views on the Catholic church were, well, not good; not good at all.  They were the birthplace of heresy and tyranny!  :)  But, as nothing else seemed to make sense, I thought they should be given a fair chance to explain themselves and address my questions.  The sermons (or homilies as they called them) were frequently about how the people of the day would have interpreted the day's readings and how that applied to us here and now.  Oh, and each day had it's own reading that was read everywhere in the world, so there was terrific unity. This community that they were a part of that was much bigger than a block-party.  I enrolled conditionally in RCIA (the rite of Catholic initiation for adults).  I could attend classes with no-strings-attached, if I wanted baptized, great, if not, that was fine too.  Sweet!  I get to hear from the horses mouth what all of their nonsense is about.  And so it began...

My biggest questions were addressed right away.  Apostolic succession and the bible.  The Church didn't claim to be the best interpretation of the bible, it claimed to be THE church that Jesus founded when he said to Peter in Matthew 16:18, "You are my rock, and on this rock I will build my Church."  He didn't write a book, he founded a church.  And the Catholics claimed to be THAT CHURCH!  This was a bold claim.  But, then came apostolic succession.  They had a list of popes, a genealogy if you will, that listed pope to pope, the handing down of the church and the "keys to the kingdom" from Peter all the way to John Paul II (at the time).  Holy Smoly!  Evidence?  What is this?!  They too had claims to the bible.  My protestant friends never told me (or maybe they didn't know, or didn't want to admit) that the bible was actually produced by the Catholic Church!  Go look it up for yourself.  It was in 382 AD at the council of Rome, held by Pope Damasus I, that the canon of scripture was formed.  This is actually public knowledge, but seems to be a better kept secret of Protestant communities.  The Catholic Church was the Christian church of old, and the protestant bible actually belonged to the Catholic church.  (Until they, i.e. protestants, changed it; which is another post for another day...)

The rest of the story can be left for another day.  The Church not only had answers to all of my objections/complaints/misunderstandings, but they were strong answers.  The bible, in some ways, is like the Constitution of the United States.  What would happen if the forefathers wrote the constitution and then left it up for everyone to interpret on their own?  Pandemonium.  So, what did they do?  They left someone/something in charge of interpreting it:  The judicial branch.  It is in their charge to keep the spirit of the constitution alive and tell everyone what it means.  The Magisterium of the Church is a lot like the judicial branch.  It is the living teaching of the Church.  It tells us how we should interpret the bible.  We can see this analogy break down pretty quickly as men run the judicial branch.  But do men run the church?  Yes, and no.  Men are the physical and visible head, but as Jesus said in John 14:16-17

"I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it.  But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you."

In short, the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit.  It is up to the Holy Spirit through the work of men to maintain the teachings of the Church and a proper interpretation of the bible.  When will the Holy Spirit leave the Church?  We go back to Matthew 16:18 "... and the gates of Jell shall never prevail against it."  Never.  The Holy Spirit didn't guide the Church until the Reformation in the 16th century.  He stays with it now and will stay with it until the end...

Adam's Sin of Omission

I am sure we are all familiar with the story of creation, and that of the fall.  In Genesis chapter 3 we have the story,

Now the snake was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made. He asked the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any of the trees in the garden’?” The woman answered the snake: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, or else you will die.’” But the snake said to the woman: “You certainly will not die! God knows well that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, who know good and evil.” The woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and the tree was desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

There are a couple of things I have learned that I want to point out.  First of all, in the first verse the devil says "You shall not eat...".  I don't know hebrew, but those that do have said that the "you" in this sentence is actually plural in Hebrew.  And so, if it were translated into a Texas accent it would say "Y'all should not eat..."  This is significant in the sense that Adam was present.  In most children's picture books, we see Adam off tilling the garden whilst Eve is conversing with the serpent.  But that isn't the whole truth.  Adam was there.  He was with Eve.  In verse 6 it said "... she took some of its fruit and ate it, and she gave some to her husband, who was with her..."  My bible did not have this part, but I am glad to see that the online version does have it.  The point is that Adam was there, and he didn't say a word.  As Eve was his bride, his silence was the first sin of omission as he did not stand up to protect her.

The next question is, what gives?  Why was Adam silent? I heard Dr. Pitre give a talk on his take on why Adam was silent and it was rather compelling.  What happens EVERY time an angel appears in the bible?  Here are some examples:

• Joshua 5:14: In this passage, an Angel appears to Joshua and he falls on the ground in worship.
• Isaiah 6:5: Two Seraphim spoke and the door shook and the house was filled with smoke and Isaiah said "Woe is me, I am doomed!"
• Daniel 10:2-21: Two things happen here.  An angel appears and only Daniel can see him, then "but great fear seized those who were with me; they fled and hid themselves, although they did not see the vision." The people who didn't even see the angel fled!!  Then when Daniel saw the angel he "fell face forward unconscious.
• Matthew 28:4: When the angel appears to the guards at the tomb, they were shaken for fear of him and "became like dead men," i.e. they fainted.
• Luke 2:9-11: When the angel Gabriel appears to Mary he says, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people."  Get that, the first thing he says is "Do Not Be Afraid."

What is the common theme of these passages: fear.  Whenever an angel appears, the people are afraid.  Now, who exactly is the serpent?   He is the evil one, Satan, the Devil, who was a fallen angel named Lucifer.  Of the 9 choirs, he was most likely from the choir of Cherubim.  The highest choir is Seraphim, and they praise God singing "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God of Hosts." (which we actually just looked at in Isaiah 6).  As Lucifer chose an existence that is eternally separated from God, I can't imagine that he ever said this.  Cherubim, on the other hand, are described as having knowledge of God.  And, as we just saw in Genesis, this is what the serpent knows all about...  Knowledge and pride are linked at the hip.

If we put these two concepts together, "fear of angels" and "the serpent was an angel", it isn't hard to imagine that Adam was scared!  Almost everyone else who saw an angel fainted!  We might ask, why didn't Adam just say out loud, "Hey God, this angel over here is bothering me."?  Have we ever acted contrary to God when we were afraid?  All. The. Time.  In fact, one could argue that all sin is rooted in some kind of fear.  Moreover, you can actually make a very good case that all sin is rooted in the fear of death in particular!  Just read the creation story again.  Remember the quote above "Y'all shall not die."

At the very least, I think we can sympathize with Adam at this point.  After all, we do the same thing day in, and day out.  But, we need to learn from that experience.  We need to remember that whenever we are face-to-face with temptation, we need to lean on the Lord for assistance; for it is written, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:13)

Aspect of the verb

Let's get a little "down and dirty" with linguistics.  Let's talk about aspect.  I am certainly not an expert, if you want a better explanation of this, do a google search.  I found this one, and I think it suffices:

http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/aspectterm.htm

The two important forms of verbs are the perfect and the progressive.  The perfect aspect describes events that have already been completed at a previous time (here the verb "have" is perfect).  The progressive aspect describes events that are ongoing; events that may have been taking place, but are not yet complete (ing is often an ending).

For a couple examples:
"I have completed a blog post on counting to 3." (have is perfect)
"I am working on a blog post about the aspect of a verb." (working is progressive)

We have a little trouble with this in English.  Lord knows my English knowledge is a work in progress.  Other languages have this too, Greek in particular.  The greek word for "repentance" is "metanoia".  And the word metanoia carries with it an aspect...  And its aspect is, progressive.  Before I get into what that means for us, lets talk about the following scenario of table behavior.

As anyone who has dined with a toddler will know, there is a common theme to their dining routine, standing at the table.  We adults recognize that standing on our chair is bad, not just for etiquette, but for safety!  We know that if a toddler stands on a chair for long enough, they will likely tip the chair over, or at the very least, fall off.  So, what do we tell them as responsible adults?  "Sit."  We may or may not use an exclamation point instead of a period if this is the second time, or third time, or fourth time, or....  What happens if the toddler sits down and then stands back up?  Technically speaking, they did what we commanded.  We said, "sit," and they sat.  But is that what we really meant when we told them to sit?  NO!  What we meant by the command "sit" was actually something more along the line of "Sit, and keep sitting until I tell you to stop!" (If you get to the point where you actually utter these words to the kid, it will always have an exclamation point).  What this means is that the verb "sit" is progressive.  We don't mean it with the intention that you get to be done following directions the moment you comply.  We mean something that is ongoing and continuous.

Back to metanoia.  If this verb is progressive, what will that imply?  When Jesus says, "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand."  It doesn't mean, "Repent, and then go about your business as usual."  It means "Repent, and keep repenting until I tell you to stop!"  Jesus doesn't command us to simply repent one time and then be "saved" forever.  He wants us to continually repent, and not stop.  This intrinsically implies that what we do really matters, otherwise we wouldn't need to keep repenting.  And so, we can rightly say,

I have been saved, (Ephesians 2:5)
I am being saved, (Philippians 2:12)
and if I endure to the end, I shall be saved. (Matthew 10:22)

If I endure to the end... That is, if I repent, and keep repenting until Jesus tells me to stop: Metanoia.

(Thank you to Fr. Richard Simon for the content of this post.  He talked about it in his homily recorded in the "He Must Reign" CD set.)

What is "The Kingdom" Jesus keeps talking about?

I heard a talk on time that posed the question, "What did Jesus talk about the most in his ministry?"  This was a curious question.  I've never thought too much about that.  Was it forgiveness? Being obedient? Following the commandments? Being merciful?  He talks about each of those a lot...  It turns out that the idea that he keeps bring up over and over and over again is, the Kingdom.  So, we would do well to study precisely what "the Kingdom" is.  If you are like me, the first mention of the kingdom that comes to mind is in the Lord's prayer:

"...Thy Kingdom come, thy Will be done..."

This prayer is present in both Matthew's and Luke's gospel.  My early impression of the Kingdom was that of Heaven.  When we say, "Thy Kingdom come," my imagination takes that as "it ain't here yet".  But that word is a little tricky.  If someone says "Come on over," we think of this as a future tense.  But how would you ask if it happened?  "Did you come over?"  We use the same word to reference the past as well.  Here, the verb "come" depends more on the noun than the action.  Weird.  Anyway, more on that in a bit.  To make a long story short, I have always thought that "The Kingdom" was simply, Heaven.  And that if we die before Jesus comes back, we will go to the Kingdom.  But ultimately, when we say "Thy Kingdom come" I thought we were really referring to the 2nd coming.  But is this really the case?

What are some other things that Jesus compares the Kingdom to in Matthew's gospel?  Here are a few:

• A man who sowed good seed in his field (Mat 13:24)
• A mustard seed (Mat 13:31)
• Leaven (Mat 13:33)
• Treasure hidden in a field (Mat 13:44)
• A merchant in search of fine pearls (Mat 13:45)
• A net (Mat 13:47)

A couple of these stand out with a particular problem...  Can these happen in Heaven alone?  Look at the sower.  The sower tosses out some seed and, "the enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat."  Wait, what?  Can the devil put bad people in Heaven?  Absolutely not.  Hmmm.  The kingdom is like leaven, toss in a little and it will leaven the whole batch.  Wait, is all of Heaven not yet holy?  Why would the leaven need to spread?  The kingdom is like a net, it will be tossed into the sea and catch a bunch of fish, but the fishermen keep the good and toss out the bad.  But, there are only "good fish" in Heaven.  I only mentioned a few, but almost all of them have some sort of element that suggest that there is evil around the Kingdom.  The Kingdom can't simply be Heaven alone, it must have some sort of earthly component.

What would that earthly component be?  If we look around the world and start to search for the Kingdom we might see something interesting.  Scott Hahn put this quite well, "Where ever the King is, there is his Kingdom."  Yes!  So, the "Kingdom" is actually the Church.  When we put on this lens, the parables make perfect sense.  There are weeds among the body of Christ.  The Church was put into the world like leaven so that it would spread to the whole world.  The Gospel is proclaimed through the Church and it will catch the "good fish".  The Church is a treasure that we are meant to find.

Scott Hahn's quote actually went one step further, "Where ever the King is, there is his Kingdom; and where ever the Eucharist is, there is the King."  (dramatic pause).  The first time I heard this, I had to pick my jaw up off of the floor.  Wow.  The Kingdom is the Church.  Christ gave us the Church and he didn't leave us at all.  He is with us each and every day in the Eucharist.  In the mass, we participate with all of the heavens in our worship of Christ.  Heaven touches earth.  The earthly kingdom and the heavenly kingdom are united through the most blessed sacrament of the altar.

Looking back at the Lord's prayer, with all of this in mind, we can see that "Thy Kingdom come" doesn't mean "let us into heaven".  It means, "Lord, come to us in the Eucharist".  The kingdom has been coming ever since the last supper, and it will keep coming every time we celebrate mass, over and over again.  Look in the book of revelation (chapters 4-6 in particular).  John's vision is a MASS!  This IS the Kingdom of God.

Can Catholics Count to 3?

I had always wondered about how Catholics said that Jesus died on Good Friday and then rose on Sunday.  That is clearly 2 days later.  One day after Friday is Saturday, two days after Friday is Sunday and 3 days after Friday is Monday.  All of the prophecies said "on the 3rd day" or "in 3 days".  It is important to note that (at least in my opinion) "in" and "on" mean different things.  To me, "in" would fit in the "tomorrow is 1 day later" category, and "on" says that we count "today is day 1".  English is hard...

Ultimately this didn't pass the "who cares" test.  Whether he died on a Thursday and rose 3 days later on Sunday or died on a Friday and rose 2 days later on Sunday, didn't compel me to look into it any more.  The day of the week didn't matter to me as much as whether it DID happen.  But, nevertheless, it has been a lurking question in the back of my mind, just not one I devoted any thought to.  So, here is the solution that I stumbled upon that actually solve both problems:

1) He definitely died on a Friday:
In Luke 23 we see that they were in a hurry to get Jesus down off of the cross and into a tomb.  They had to do it before nightfall because it was going to be the Sabbath.  That is, Saturday.  So, he clearly died in a Friday, because the Sabbath began on Friday evening (as we would call it today).  Their days went evening to evening, not midnight to midnight.  So, it was definitely Friday.

2) "On the 3rd day".
This is the one that I had a little trouble with.  The bottom line is that "3 days and 3 nights" was an idiom for "at least part of 3 days".  After all, "night" was the beginning of the next day.  We can see a precedence for this Esther chapters 4 and 5, when she fasts for "3 days" but starts late on the first day and quits early on the 3rd day.  If you fasted for any part of one day, then that counted as a "day".  The bottom line is that they started counting at 1 not 0.  Tomorrow was day 2 of today, not 1 day after today.  That wasn't the language that they used; they counted the 'of', not the 'after'.  Just think 12 days 'of' Christmas.  Day 1 is the first day and day 3 is the 3rd day of Christmas.

Put all of that together and you get: Jesus died on Good Friday, and rose again on the 3rd day, Sunday, the Lord's day.  It goes to show you that it is important to read the bible from the perspective of a person reading it in the first century.  I can imagine them reading the lyrics to a Michael Jackson song and thinking, "Wait, it is good to be 'bad'?"