Monthly Archives: August 2024

Tradition of the Faith

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ear Folks,

Our Gospel for today from Mark 7 tells of Jesus clashing with the Pharisees about God’s teach- ing and their traditions (See vv. 1-23 for the whole story). We see, “In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts… You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition (see Mark 7:7-8).”

The Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum) says: “[T]here exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. … Consequently, it is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore, both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence. … Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church (DV 9,10).”

Some have claimed that the Catholic Church is doing what the Pharisees were doing with re- gard to tradition. We want to look deeper into the issue. Both Catholics and Protestants have the tradition of calling the Bible “The Word of God” but the Bible tells us the first meaning of the term is Jesus Himself (John 1:1). Jesus is condemning corrupt tradition, and the word “tradition” means “something handed down (Greek paradosis, verb form paradidomi).” We see, for example St. Paul tells people to hold to the traditions they received (1 Corinthians 11:2; 2 Thess 2:15; verb form 1 Corinthians 15:3).

To understand the Catholic Church’s thoughts about tradition, consider: it doesn’t make sense to us that God would reveal the fullness of truth and then let it get lost. It doesn’t make sense to us that God would protect and preserve the truth in the Church up to a certain point in history and then stop. Hence, we have trouble with the notion that after the Bible was written, the Church as a whole misunderstood it for centuries and centuries until fifteen hundred years later someone got it right. What the Church has taught, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, for many generations carries great weight. We must be aware that we can be manipulated by the world around us, and the testimony of generations of Christians is a vital counterweight.

Some people claim all they need is the Bible, however, many groups who make that claim teach contradictory things, and I don’t see any limit to those contradictions. When I was in col- lege, I met a group called Students for New Testament Restoration. They held that God has given us the Bible to teach us the truth, so we should be able to read the Bible and reliably find and know the truth, otherwise we are saying that God did a poor job writing it. Therefore, after they read the Bible and understood what it meant, everyone who disagreed with them was just being dishonest. They didn’t make a lot of friends, but I admired the consistency of their logic.

God clearly allows messy disagreements, but when it threatens to tear the Church apart and have the Gospel get lost the leaders of the Church, appointed by Christ, or their successors, resolve it (see Acts 15).

It is a constant task to stay faithful to the Gospel revealed in Jesus, passed down in the Church under the protection of the Holy Spirit. As usual, God’s grace does not make it easy but makes it possible.

Blessings, Fr.Jim

We Are Being Tested

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Dear Folks,This Sunday we finish chapter 6 of the Gospel of John, and we see many of Jesus’ followers leaving Him and going back to their former ways of life. Imagine Jesus’ heartbreak watching them go. Imagine what He is feeling as He asks the twelve if they want to leave also. Peter gives a less than enthusiastic response, but they stay. They probably had as much trouble with what He had said as the others did and had as much reason to leave, but their reason to stay was stronger. We have been reading, and hearing, and talking for many years about people leaving the practice of the Catholic faith. Many people immediately talk about bad experiences that spark their leaving. I think this is the wrong focus. There have always been bad experiences of Church, and while we want to try to minimize them, they will always be a part of life in any community. The Church is full of sinners. It has been from the beginning. When He called the first disciples, He knew they were flawed. He warned us that it would be an issue until the end of time (See the parable of the wheat and the weeds Matthew 13:24-30).I suggest so many have been leaving because they haven’t been taught enough about the faith to give them enough reason to stay, so it doesn’t take much to get them to leave. I have talked to lots (and lots) of Catholics, and a great many of them were taught a very feeble understanding about the Catholic faith. I’ve thought many times, “If that’s what I thought the faith was, I would have left too.” Some believed that it’s basically a general encouragement to be a nice person. I’ve asked people, “Why is it a good thing to be a practicing Catholic Christian?” and some have no answer. Some say they get a good feeling on Sunday morning. Some people were actually taught they didn’t need to go to church, and if they felt closer to God in the woods, that’s where they should go instead (as if closeness to God were a feeling. Where did that idea come from?).I have witnessed and experienced many kinds of toxic church. I’m still here because I believe that the Catholic faith is the truth, and that living that faith is the core purpose of life. As long as I believe that, you folks are stuck with me. This is why I’m such a fanatic about people continuing to learn about the faith. I have calmed down enough not to be as obnoxious about it as I used to be, but I’m still just as determined. Our Church is being tested and will be tested further (Can anyone look at what is happening in the world and what is happening in the Church and not believe that?).I suggest we shall have many occasions to say, “this is a hard saying,” and “this is a hard situation,” and feel tempted to leave. If God is testing us, are we prepared? Is our faith deep enough, wide enough and strong enough to endure? I propose two things: First, spend time with God (always a good thing). Second, explore more about the great treasure of our faith. The more I learn the more amazing I find it.God will give us what we need if we are willing to receive it. Blessings,

Fr. Jim

God Made Us Incarnate

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Dear Folks,
The history of the Church is full of drama, and a lot of it is the challenge of those who would try to change or falsify the Catholic faith. There is room for some legitimate disagreement within the boundaries of the faith, but when one steps out of those boundaries, that is heresy and does great harm.
There was a group called the Gnostics, who believed that we are spirits trapped in bodies, and the bodies were evil, or at best of no importance. The name comes from the Greek word for knowledge, and they claimed that salvation centers around having secret knowledge (that they claimed to possess) and if you had it, your behavior didn’t matter.
Some scholars believe the letters of John were written to fight the errors that would later develop into Gnosticism.
There was another group called the Manicheans, following a guy named Mani. They also believed that the body was evil and to be escaped. St. Augustine became one of them for a while trying to solve the problem of evil (If God created everything where did evil come from?) He later would learn better answers and became a mighty force opposing them. The Catholic faith believes very strongly that we are incarnate beings. We are both body and soul, and Jesus became fully incarnate, fully human. The Gospel of John is considered the most theologically developed, most philosophically elevated of the Gospels, but there are points where it gets especially earthy. Only in John do we see Jesus spitting and putting His fingers in the mud (John 9:6). Only in John does it show Jesus apparently cooking (John 21:9). When Jesus speaks of eating His flesh and drinking His blood, the word for “eat” is “trogo,” the more primal word used for eating like an animal more than for fine
dining. Christianity does not shy away from the fullness of implications of Jesus’ incarnate nature, or ours.
Our service to God naturally involves our bodies. Our faith has always held it honorable to sweat and get callouses doing God’s work. Our worship is also meant to involve the body. We are called to say and sing the words and do the actions, gestures and postures that pertain to our roles. This engages our whole self.
Being physically present is also a part of it. If all one can do is watch the Mass on television, then we remember we are not called to the impossible. However, something precious was lost. During Covid, many people decided they liked watching Mass on tv better. Some people blame the decision to close the churches for this trend. We can argue about what the bishops should have done during the crisis (I prefer to use my time more productively), but I would say that many people’s sense of the power of the Mass was pretty thin to begin with, and this was an excuse. Mass attendance had been declining for decades before, and this just accelerated it. The task now is for us to rebuild.
The first part of transforming the world is always for us to fall more deeply in love with Jesus. I would leave you with one question: how do you bring your whole self to Jesus?
Blessings
Fr Jim