Body of Christ

Image © 2010 Gregory Watson

Pencil Sketch, 5 1/2" x 8 1/2".

I know I don't typically post my artwork here at Barque of Peter. That's what Doubting Thomist is for (and the image is posted there, too), but it just seemed to fit so perfectly with my recent and ongoing writings on the Eucharist, that I thought I'd put this sketch up here, too.

It's the value drawing of a painting I plan to do in the not too distant future. The image was inspired by an experience I had this past February or March. I was sponsoring someone through the RCIA process at my parish, and on one of the Rites of Welcoming, we happened to be in the front pew during Communion. At the time, we had a seminarian with us doing his internship, Deacon (now Father) Jeff Oehring, who happened to be distributing the Host directly in front of where I was kneeling after receiving the Eucharist. I looked up from prayer, and right in front of my face was the ciborium that he was holding, and reflected in it, I could see myself, and the entire church behind me. Immediately, I knew I had to paint it.

Hence the image here, depicting, in a slightly different way, the scene that I saw. I say slightly different because that's not technically me in the foreground of the ciborium. It was intentionally a generic blurry person. Also, the structure of the church is decidedly more traditional and Gothic than my parish. Finally, I had intended to depict reception of the Eucharist kneeling and on the tongue (of course, the image doesn't depict the actual communicating, so it's a bit ambiguous that way, which is good in its way because it's applicable to a wider range of Catholic experience then).

The title, "Body of Christ", is as multi-layered as is the term in Catholic theology, which is what made me want to make this image. Obviously, first and foremost, it refers to the Eucharistic Host, in which Jesus is truly present, His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. The moment captured is right when the priest or other minister of Holy Communion would say, "The Body of Christ" before administering the host to the communicant. However, the priest's hands are also a part of the meaning of "Body of Christ", since we hold that the priest is himself an alter Christus--by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, the priest has the authority to act in persona Christi for us, a tangible sign and example of Christ's presence among us.

Finally, the reflection of the Church in the ciborium brings out a third dimension to "Body of Christ", in that we, the Church, is the Body of Christ, and we, individually, are members of it. It is through Communion that we become that Body, as St. Paul writes, "The blessing-cup, which we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ; and the loaf of bread which we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? And as there is one loaf, so we, although there are many of us, are one single body, for we share in the one loaf" (1 Corinthians 10:16-17).

God bless
Gregory

Journeying Into His Real Presence

Sorry for the long delay in new posts. Had to deal with a comment on an old Open Forum, turned it into an article unto itself for Doubting Thomist, and then had to deal with the slew of comments it generated--as well as actual, you know, life stuff.

Anyway, before I delve into the strictly apologetical writing on the Eucharist, I wanted to write a personal post and give a testimony of sorts about how I came to believe that Jesus is truly present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the Eucharist.

As anyone who's been around this blog for any length of time--or who's read the blurb below my name in the right hand sidebar, or, for that matter, has read my Conversion Story--knows, I grew up in the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. Despite having a deep and lively faith, believing that Jesus could in the Bible, and still did today work miracles of all sorts, and believing that we should be filled with the Spirit and have Jesus alive in our hearts, we deplored the notion that sacraments had any efficacious power. While the Baptism of the Holy Spirit could cause one to speak in tongues and prophesy, baptism in water was simply a symbolic action (for adults and children old enough to decide on their own). While miraculous healings were claimed all the time, the clear biblical instruction to anoint with oil in the sacrament of the anointing of the sick was by and large overlooked. While the sanctity of marriage was stressed, the sacrament of marriage was never mentioned. Ordination was outright denied, within the ceremony itself, to have any power to confer any unique authority to the newly ordained pastor. Confession was supposed to be to God alone, because the Temple Veil had been torn open at the Crucifixion, and "confirmation" was when someone said something, or some sign was perceived, as verifying a thought that you had that you weren't sure was from God or not.

And, of course, we celebrated the "Lord's Supper", because He commanded us to do so, after all. But while, "Do this in memory of Me" was taken literally, "This is My body...This is My blood..." was most certainly not! And while the Book of Acts was used to argue that every time someone was baptised in the Holy Spirit, they spoke in tongues, and therefore tongues had to be the initial evidence of the baptism in the Spirit, apparently the clear example of Acts that the early Christians met together daily to "break bread" was not in any way an instruction on how often the Lord's Supper was to be celebrated. In an effort to keep this memorial meal from losing its meaning and impact, it was celebrated on the first Sunday of every month, instead--with saltine crackers and Welch's grape juice.

Now, to be fair, Communion in the Pentecostal Church really is just a symbol of that Last Supper. The cracker and grape juice one receives really is only a token of Jesus' Body and Blood. Not having anything even resembling Holy Orders in the Pentecostal Assemblies, let alone valid Apostolic Succession, there is no one capable of consecrating the bread and wine so that it would actually become the Body and Blood of Christ, even if they believed that it should.

Despite this rather impoverished view of the Eucharist, we still managed to take it rather seriously in my family. I remember one morning saying to my mother as a little boy, "I'm glad we're having communion today, Mommy, because I'm hungry!" This comment greatly disturbed her, and she wouldn't let me partake, understanding, even as a Pentecostal memorialist, that this was no ordinary food.

I remember, as a boy, very in tune to the love of God and attracted to the mystical things in life, staring at the cup of grape juice (it was a little clear plastic "shot glass", more or less), and seeing the sparkle from the ceiling lights reflecting in the deep purple of the juice, and listening to the words, "This is My blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. Drink this, in memory of Me." I "knew" Jesus was being metaphorical when He said those words, but even so, I felt that it was something. At the time, I didn't even know what the Catholic Church was, let alone what it taught about the Eucharist. I just knew Pentecostalism, and the various Protestant denominations I encountered at private Christian school growing up. Nothing in my upbringing even suggested that Jesus might have actually meant what He said. Even so, I had a glimmer.

During high school, I undertook to actually read through the whole Bible, cover to cover. I actually made it, too (after stalling out repeatedly in Leviticus). Actually going through the text, cover to cover (even with a Protestant Bible, missing its seven-plus books, and containing very dispensationalistic footnotes), really makes you sit up and say, "Hey, I've never heard of this before!" I'd been going to church all my life--memorising Bible verses since I was six years old or younger. But they never covered everything, cover-to-cover. I quipped to a friend of mine recently that the rule of faith for Protestants is not the Bible, but the Bible Alone. What I meant by that rather glib statement, was what I began to learn when I actually read the Bible through for the first time: There's a heckuva lot in there that never gets touched. And I'm not talking about obscure Old Testament prophecies. I mean a good chunk of everything between 2 Thessalonians and Revelation.

This included certain fascinating (and eventually life-altering) tidbits such as St. Peter's statement in his first epistle, "Baptism now saves you" (1 Peter 3:21). That one made me sit up and say "huh?" As I said above, I believed baptism was nothing more than a symbol of our new life in Christ--not the thing that actually gave us new life in Christ! What on earth could Peter be talking about?! This small portion of a verse eventually revolutionised my thinking about baptism--but that's another article. But a similar phenomenon happened as I read through 1 Corinthians. I saw St. Paul building up an argument, from at least chapter 10, and culminating in chapter 11, that took "the Lord's Supper" far beyond anything I'd understood before. I couldn't articulate it then, and didn't know how to ask what I wanted to ask, let alone who to ask it of. So, beyond offering confirmation of those glimmers I'd had in childhood, I pocketed this idea as "something to investigate" later.

Later ended up being Bible College (where so many things are investigated). In a class on Worship, taught by a former Catholic, we discussed at some length the centrality of the Eucharist (I believe Bible College was the first time I'd heard the term) and its centrality in the Christian life. That it was central was news to me, honestly. I could never understand why so much time was devoted to it in classical art, since it was only celebrated once a month! Of course, I found out that there's a spectrum among Protestants--from once a year (or not at all), to quarterly, to monthly, to weekly. Those of us who celebrated no more regularly than monthly, like myself, viewed weekly celebration as ritualistic, and tending to take the meaning out of the Eucharist. That was, after all, the justification for less frequent celebrations. Of course, the sad irony is that it's those who celebrate it less who think it means less.

We further discussed different interpretations of the Eucharist--from Zwinglian Memorialism, to a Calvinist view of a "Spiritual Presence", to Lutheran "Consubstantiation", and finally, Catholic "Transubstantiation." That someone would actually believe that the Eucharist was really Jesus boggled my mind. However, my previous experiences and study of Scripture had already convinced me that a purely memorialist understanding of the Lord's Supper was insufficient. Calvin's "middle of the road" approach seemed very much in keeping with what I was discovering. I talked to a friend of mine about all of this, because it was so new to me. I figured most common sense people would believe in a memorialist understanding, and that this new "Spiritual Presence" concept was somewhat "out there". But I was challenged by it, and wanted to see where others stood. I still remember my shock when my friend told me he agreed with the notion of Consubstantiation--that Jesus was truly and bodily present with the bread in the Eucharist. It was enough of a shock that someone could believe such a thing--it was augmented by the fact that my friend believed it. I resolved to research this further.

It was around this time that I'd been introduced to Catholicism--in no small part by the worship class I mentioned, but also through history classes and theology and others. I'd met the Early Church Fathers while researching papers, and found that these giants were startlingly Catholic in their beliefs. At first, I easily dismissed their Catholicism as somehow being "leftover paganism" (or, more sinisterly, "pagan syncretism"). I would read St. Augustine and say, "He sure makes some amazingly good points here, but about this, he's way off," until one day I realised the arrogance of supposing that I, a Bible College undergrad, knew more about theology than one of the people who essentially wrote the book on it. Around this time I also started dating the woman who would become my wife, herself a cradle Catholic. I started attending Mass with her, and experiencing (though merely as a spectator) the Eucharistic Liturgy for myself. I studied the Fathers, I studied contemporary Catholic sources like the Catechism and websites like Catholic Answers and Biblical Evidence for Catholicism. And I studied the Scriptures--I intensely scrutinised what the Bible had to say about the Eucharist. What I didn't study, awkwardly, was my Bible College course load. It's a strange irony to learn more about your faith than ever before, and fail the courses trying to teach it to you.

I remember sitting in History class, hearing the professor disparage various Catholic beliefs saying, "And then the Catholics started believing such and so on this or that date. How ridiculous is that?" Transubstantiation definitely received such attention, the belief being attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas as if no one had ever taught or heard of such a thing as Jesus transforming the Eucharistic elements into His flesh and blood. I remember thinking, "I could probably put together a thoroughly biblical defence of that doctrine in 10 minutes--and I don't even believe in it!" It was, perhaps, the overwhelming bias of my history professor that led me to really pursue an investigation of what the Catholic Church actually taught.

So I investigated Scripture (the conclusions of which will make up the next few articles, so I won't go into great detail here). As I said, 1 Corinthians had made an impact. Being the earliest-recorded account of the Eucharist, St. Paul's thoughts had particular interest to me. I knew from childhood that one wasn't to partake "unworthily", but what did that mean? In the context of chapter 11, Paul writes rather clearly, that "a person who eats and drinks without recognising the Body is eating and drinking his own condemnation" (v.29). Earlier, in verse 27, he writes that eating and drinking unworthily makes us "answerable for the body and blood of the Lord" (v. 27), which, I found out, was a juridical term in Paul's day, meaning, "You're guilty of murdering that person." Now that's a fancy claim to make about a symbol! And it was so serious that many who were guilty of this were getting sick, and even dying, at the Corinthian Church! This was certainly serious business! Something more was going on than a symbolic memorial. Something seemed to be going on even beyond a "spiritual presence." If I'm to recognise a body, there must be a body to recognise!

Could Jesus have really meant what He said, when He said, "This is My body"? Instinctively, I said, "That's cannibalism!"--which, incidentally, is what the pagan Romans accused the early Christians of. Hmmm. I said, "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?"--which is what the unbelieving Jews said in John 6.

So I read through John 6. At first, I wanted to isolate it from the notion of the Eucharist. But St. John doesn't allow that. In verse 4, he lets us know that Jesus said everything in the context of the Jewish Passover--the same Feast He was celebrating with His disciples the night before He died. The insinuation was clear. And Jesus said, in no uncertain terms, "I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world" (v. 51). That's staggering enough, but then He repeats this four different times in four different ways--each and every time getting more specific and more literal. "Spiritualising" John 6, or taking Jesus figuratively, is completely impossible. This is clearly seen in the fact that he let the multitudes leave Him because they couldn't accept this teaching. Had it been a metaphor, He could have--and should have--corrected their misunderstanding. But the Jews, and even His disciples, knew exactly what He meant, and that He meant it. And because they couldn't accept it, they walked away from Him.

I realised, at this point, that because the Reformers, and their successors, couldn't accept it, they rewrote their theology.

It seemed to me that changing my theology to not recognise the Body was exactly the same thing as walking away from Jesus. I didn't want to walk away from Jesus, and I knew what He meant in John 6. I knew what He meant in that Upper Room. I knew what Paul meant about "recognising the Body". I recognised the Body, and I hungered for Him.

However, because I still struggled with other Catholic beliefs, I remained outside the Catholic faith. I attended Mass every week for three years as I struggled to believe in these other things, believing all the while that "This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Happy are those who are called to His supper."

I remember thinking, and praying, during this time, that I wish I could be called to that supper. I had heard about mystics in the middle ages who, for whatever reason, were barred from receiving Jesus, but He Himself brought them the Host. I wished, I longed for such an experience--that when I responded with the prayer, "Lord, I am not worthy to receive You, but only say the word, and I shall be healed," that maybe, just maybe, Jesus would work just such a miracle, and say that Word. That miracle never came, and my "Eucharistic Hunger" (as my priest called it) continued to grow--often to unbearable peaks. This itself was the miracle, the word of healing for which I prayed. My hunger for Jesus in the Eucharist was the impetus--often the only impetus--for continuing to struggle with the other doctrinal issues keeping me from faith in the Catholic Church. Finally, I was able to surrender in faith to the Catholic Church, and really recognise the other "Body of Christ".

I remember, that Easter Vigil night, when I was to be Confirmed and receive my First Holy Communion, that a diabolical doubt overtook me. "What if I'm wrong? What if it really is just bread and wine? What if this 'Eucharistic Hunger' I've built up over more than three long years finds its culmination in an anti-climactic let-down of a lie?"

For two hours I sat, enveloped by the beauty of the liturgy--from the lighting of the candles through the Scripture readings that outlined God's plan of salvation, up until that Great Alleluia and the proclamation of the Gospel, and Jesus' Resurrection, and on through the homily, the baptisms, the confirmations, and right up until the Eucharistic Liturgy with this nagging doubt, this awkward "What if...?"

I recognise that feelings are not what we should base our faith on. I recognise that Grace is not something we can perceive with our emotions or our senses. But God is faithful, and when I came up to receive our Precious Lord for the first time, He did not disappoint! I felt such an overwhelming sense of His Presence going through me that I was compelled to let out a little of my inner Pentecostal. I returned to the pew speaking in tongues (as quietly as possible, so as not to freak out any of my fellow new converts), and could not stop the entire time the packed church's parishioners filed up for their own encounter with the Risen Lord.

I will not say that this experience is normative, or that every time I receive Communion I'm caught up into ecstacy. But I know in my knower (as my mother would say) that this truly is Jesus, the Lamb of God. Despite bad music, sloppy liturgies, and even, occasionally, faithless priests, Jesus is still present, truly and completely, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist, waiting for us to come to Him and imbibe on Him, so that He may come into us and dwell with us in a manner more intimate than anything else we can experience.

It's deeper than sex.
It's better than chocolate!

Jesus Himself ardently desires your presence at the altar. Don't wait three long years as I did. Run to Him, and let Him fill your soul so that you become, literally, what you eat--until you become another Christ.

Amen.


(Category: Catholic Distinctives: Sacraments--The Eucharist)

Procession

I'm not sure why--whether it's a cultural thing here in Canada, or if the practice simply died out in past years due to the post-Vatican-II confusion, or if other reasons were at work--but Corpus Christi processions aren't that common here. Last year, the Legion of Mary wanted to renew the practice of Corpus Christi processions, and picked our parish, St. Margaret Mary, to host it. We had a great turnout and Fr. Bill Trusz, our pastor, thought it would be a good tradition to maintain and develop in future years. I heartily agree! So this year, we had our second annual Corpus Christi procession.
It is a wonderfully inspiring thing to see Catholics taking their faith to the streets in a public witness. Through rosaries prayed on the way, to meditations at three outdoor altars set up for the occasion, with litanies and Gospel readings, we announced the Gospel of Jesus--that He loves us and comes to be with us, desiring a relationship with us. He died for us and rose again to save us, and remains present with us in the Eucharist--through which we can experience intimate Communion with Him.

It had poured rain the entire night before, and was supposed to rain all weekend. It was even drizzling in the morning for Mass. But the skies cleared up in time for the procession, although the parks were a bit flooded. Nevertheless, the procession went off without a hitch, thanks to the careful planning of Laurie Jasvac.


It was fascinating to see the people on the streets and in the parks, and their varied reactions to the procession. Especially the children, who stopped their playing to gape and ask questions about what was going on--many of whom ended up tagging along (and "shh-ing" their friends!). There was a group of four girls, who had simply been playing in the park by one of the altars, who had a yellow ribbon. They had been twirling around with it when we arrived. After stopping and listening for a while, they began to dance innocently with the ribbon as we sang the Tantum Ergo (the last two stanzas of the hymn with which I closed yesterday's post). Now, you might not be a fan of liturgical dance during Mass. I'm not either. But this wasn't Mass. It wasn't even in the Church. And most importantly, these children weren't from the Church (so far as I know. They weren't part of the procession, anyway). They simply were responding in innocence to the Innocent One before them.

It reminded me of the reading Fr. Bill read to open the radio show I was a guest on (you can listen to that here), from St. Thérèse of Lisieux's autobiography, about her own childhood recollections of Processions when she was growing up. The wonder, innocence, and wholesomeness of the scene was very moving.

Growing up in the Evangelical Protestant world, vocal and public expressions of faith in order to evangelise are very much a part of my worldview. I recognise their need and their importance in the saving of souls. "How shall they hear without a preacher?" (Romans 10:14). Yet here was a type of preaching that I'd never encountered in my Evangelical days. Here, just as Jesus is present to us in the Church, we simply made Jesus, and the Church, present in the neighbourhood. We prayed, we sang, we heard the Gospel--and we adored our Eucharistic Lord.

Blessed be God.
Blessed be His holy Name.
Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man.
Blessed be the Name of Jesus.
Blessed be His Most Sacred Heart.
Blessed be His Most Precious Blood.
Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.
Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
Blessed be St. Joseph, her most chaste Spouse.
Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints.
Amen. (The Divine Praises)

Thanks to Brian Bolt for taking the pictures for me, while I was busy being an acolyte!


(Category: Catholic Distinctives: Sacraments--The Eucharist;
Catholic Devotions: Eucharistic Devotions)

Corpus Christi

Today is the Feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord, or, as it's traditionally known, the Feast of Corpus Christi. Today we celebrate the most precious gift of Jesus Himself, truly present, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, within the Eucharistic elements. This mysterious truth requires a great deal of faith to believe, but God does not leave us without help to believe it--He has confirmed it through other miracles throughout history that help bolster our faith in the Eucharist.

This video from Youtube documents one such miracle--a very recent one, in fact--and gives scientific evidence for what has taken place. Please watch it--you'll be glad you did!



For the next however long (until I'm done, really), I'm going to be writing about the Eucharist, which the Church calls the Source and Summit of our Faith. I can attest to this being the case in my own faith life--Jesus' real presence in the Eucharist is the reason I became a Catholic. I will write about that aspect of my journey in my next post. As soon as I can, I'll also post pictures from this years annual Corpus Christi Procession at my parish of St. Margaret Mary, Hamilton, ON.

After that, I will expound on the various dimensions of theological teachings about the Eucharist--the Real Presence and Transubstantiation, Communion with Christ, the Sacrifice of the Mass, etc.

Then I will recount other instances of Eucharistic Miracles throughout history, in order to inspire our faith further.

And I will conclude our series by advocating greater devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist through not only frequent participation in the Mass, but also through the custom of Eucharistic Adoration.

I leave you now with the words to that great Eucharistic Hymn, written by St. Thomas Aquinas for the Feast of Corpus Christi--The Pange Lingua Gloriosi:

Pange, lingua, gloriosi
Corporis mysterium,
Sanguinisque pretiosi,
quem in mundi pretium
fructus ventris generosi
Rex effudit Gentium.

Nobis datus, nobis natus
ex intacta Virgine,
et in mundo conversatus,
sparso verbi semine,
sui moras incolatus
miro clausit ordine.

In supremae nocte coenae
recumbens cum fratribus
observata lege plene
cibis in legalibus,
cibum turbae duodenae
se dat suis manibus.

Verbum caro, panem verum
verbo carnem efficit:
fitque sanguis Christi merum,
et si sensus deficit,
ad firmandum cor sincerum
sola fides sufficit.

Tantum ergo Sacramentum
veneremur cernui:
et antiquum documentum
novo cedat ritui:
praestet fides supplementum
sensuum defectui.

Genitori, Genitoque
laus et jubilatio,
salus, honor, virtus quoque
sit et benedictio:
Procedenti ab utroque
compar sit laudatio.

Amen. Alleluia.

God bless,
Gregory
On the Feast of Corpus Christi


(Category: Catholic Distinctives: Sacraments--The Eucharist)

The Trinity: Letters to Eric (Part 13)

This is the conclusion to my series of letters to Eric on the subject of the Trinity. As I said in the Edit of the first post, apparently, he and I really agreed about the Trinity all along. Where we disagree is in the necessity of a Christian believing in the Trinity. The misunderstanding has led to some frustration, but I hope the exchange itself might be profitable nevertheless for someone who has doubts or questions about the Triune Nature of God.

I admit to more extensively editing this letter than the previous ones, for the sake of maintaining the pertinent subject matter (the Trinity) at the fore of the discussion, and as well to keep the various trains of thought together; in case Eric reads this and wonders why this letter is rather different than the one I initially sent him. I hope Eric continues to strive to apprehend the truth. Our conversation is still ongoing, but the topic has switched back to something he seems more comfortable discussing--namely, what's wrong with the Catholic Church. I'm sure our conversation will find its way to the blog sooner or later.

Dear Eric,
The beginning of your last letter gladdened my heart. That is, you wrote that you can honestly say you agree. Of course, you didn't specifically say with what you agreed, but I'll assume that you agree with me about the Doctrine of the Trinity.

I'll reciprocate, and declare that I agree with you that someone who simply has an erroneous belief about the Trinity out of genuine ignorance or stupidity is not thereby damned for it. However, some people do choose to be wilfully ignorant, and many others outright reject the truth. These folks are indeed culpable for their lack of faith.

I am also very glad to hear that God has given you a desire to continue to search out the truth regarding His triune nature. I'm interested in hearing this deeper understanding that you feel God has given you once you can formulate it, but if, like Pelagius (whom you keep mentioning in surprisingly positive tones), your understanding is in error, I'll be sure to critique it for you and try to demonstrate why the error is error. Of course, it may very well be that you've hit on the truth, for which I will rejoice with you exceedingly.

In your letter, you made some rather disparaging remarks about the Catholic faith, which I would like to address before I close.

You claim, pertaining to dogma, that the Catholic Church has added dogmas that either weren't present in the early Church, or which render the Gospel weak or obsolete. I vehemently deny that this is the case. Every teaching of the Catholic Church today can be traced back, generation by generation, right to the Apostles. Now, of course, over time our understanding of the Church's teaching has grown and matured, but it was certainly present in seed form.

As for your claim that the Church adds other planks to salvation, I assure you that it teaches nothing regarding salvation that isn't in Scripture and which hasn't been handed down by the Apostles themselves. And I'm more than willing to have that discussion with you, as well as the discussion about dogmas rendering the faith obsolete. But, as you admitted, that is another discussion.

You again reference Pelagius, saying that you're somewhat reticent to elaborate on your new found understanding of the Trinity because if, like Pelagius, it differs from Catholic dogma, you'll be branded a heretic. This gives you some rancor, because you claim that if the Church is wrong, taking such an attitude will prevent it from ever coming to the Truth.

The thing is, if you don't hold the Church's line, like Pelagius, you are a heretic. Pelagius was indeed wrong--teaching that we could save ourselves without God's grace. He was right to be condemned.

As to whether the Church, holding to such a dogmatic position, can therefore be wrong, and, if wrong, whether it can then find the truth, first we have to ask whether Jesus did give us a Church that could authoritatively pronounce what is true and what is false in matters of Dogma. If there is no such Church, then His statements in Matthew 16:16-19 and Matthew 18:18 are meaningless, as is 1 Timothy 3:15. If there is a Church with such authority, then we are called to obedience to it, since as Jesus said, "He who hears you, hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me, and the One who sent Me" (Luke 10:16).

If the Church was wrong since the beginning, then the ultimate conclusion, the only one possible, is that Jesus couldn't keep His promise. That's not a conclusion I'm very willing to entertain.

The beautiful reality is, though, that Jesus did promise and deliver us a Church, guided by His Holy Spirit into all truth. He promised that this Church would never be overcome by error, but would proclaim the truth to the whole world. If we can trust Jesus, then we can trust the Church which He founded, which is His bride and His body. And no other Church out there can adequately make the claim to be that Church--no Church except the Catholic Church.

May God bless you, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.


It is here, of course, that our conversation on the Trinity came to an end, and our discussion of the Church and the Sacraments was taken up, and is still ongoing. Coming up next here, I'll be beginning a series on the Eucharist, starting tomorrow, the Feast of Corpus Christi. When my discussion with Eric of the Church and the Sacraments is over, I'll be sure to post it here.
God bless.
Gregory


(Category: Theology Proper: The Holy Trinity.)

The Trinity: Letters to Eric (Part 12)

Dear Eric,
Sorry for my delay in replying. This past week [May 2-9] has been pretty busy. Wednesday was my wife's birthday. Saturday was my own. Sunday was obviously Mother's Day. I'm starting a new shift at work this week, so hopefully that will give me more time and energy--rather than nights all the time...

Anyway, you wrote in your last letter, first, affirming that you agree with me that the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses make a false claim to a relationship with Jesus, but then you ask "What if their claim was true? What then?"

First of all, I'm not sure what relevance the question has, since we both don't believe their claims. "What if" questions like this are usually attempts at sophistry. However, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and answer your question.

If the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses actually had a true relationship with Jesus, then I would have a false one. Only one of us can be right (it's also important to remember that the Mormons would disagree as much with the Jehovah's Witnesses about Jesus as they would with you or me). That's why it's important to seek and to know the Truth, so that we're not led astray by every wind of doctrine, as Ephesians 4 tells us. And Ephesians 4 also gives us the antidote to being so tossed about: the Church--namely, the leaders, Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers. Each serves in their own role the function of preserving, proclaiming, and clarifying the Faith for the people, so that we can be sure of the Truth, so that when someone comes up with a new cockamamie concept of God, we can say "This is not true, because it does not line up with the historic faith handed down from the Apostles until now, faithfully and without change." Nowhere is such a consistent tradition preserved except in the Catholic Church. Every other Christian denomination, and every cult that has split off from Christianity, has changed their beliefs in some radical way since their inception. I'm not trying to sound arrogant or prideful in saying this--it's a matter of historical record.

You then state that if a particular dogma doesn't accurately describe the one with whom we are seeking a relationship--namely, God--then that dogma should be clarified so that it more truthfully describes the relationship, and not partially or incompletely.

If a Dogma doesn't fit the relationship, then yes, the Dogma should be clarified. But clarification doesn't equal rejection or change to the Dogma. What the Dogma says, if it's True, is True. But the fact that it's True doesn't mean it's easily understood. The role of the Pastor and Teacher of Ephesians 4 is precisely to help explain the Dogma so that, on the one hand, more people can easily understand it, while on the other hand, the truth of the Dogma is not lost. It's a very difficult tension to maintain. And, frankly, sometimes it's not the explanation that needs further simplification, but it's a matter of the learner becoming more educated.

When St. Thomas Aquinas wrote his Summa Theologica, it was written in such a way that those in the 13th Century who read it could easily understand it, even if they were only beginning to study theology. Now, some 800 years later, even with modern translations, it takes some effort to figure out. That's not because Thomas failed to make his Summa easily understandable, but because our society, quite frankly, doesn't have the same level of education in theological and philosophical matters as they did in the 1200s. So, on the one hand, we can seek to simplify the Summa even further, but there comes a point where we simply have to try to educate its readers.

But stepping back a second, this is why, even though Dogma doesn't change, it nevertheless develops. From the Early Church until now, the faith once for all handed down to and through the Apostles is the same as taught today in the Catholic Church. But what we believe today has expanded upon and clarified what the Early Christians believed in seed form. Even the dogma of the Trinity took many hundreds of years to really describe properly, avoiding one heresy on the left and the other on the right. But the core truth of the Trinity was believed by the very first Christians, even if it wasn't fully explained at that time.

This is why we can attempt to puzzle through the mystery of how there can be One God subsisting in three Persons, and seek to better explain and understand this mystery; and it's why we cannot and must not deny that there is One God subsisting in three Persons, either by saying there are actually three gods, or that there is only One God and He expresses Himself in three modes or representations. Neither of these is true, even if they are easier to understand.

The very incomprehensibility of One Being in Three Persons itself speaks to the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity. If infinite God could be truly comprehended, He wouldn't be infinite. In the end, if we can really fully understand God, it's because He isn't actually God.

May the God who is greater than anything we can conceive, richly bless you beyond all that you can ask or imagine.
Gregory


(Category: Theology Proper: The Holy Trinity.)

The Trinity: Letters to Eric (Part 11)

Dear Eric,
I'm afraid that I just can't agree that the Doctrine of the Trinity isn't all that important. I think that not only is the doctrine important, but is absolutely foundational to Christianity. Moreover, I don't believe that attempting to correctly understand the doctrine and to avoid serious errors about it can be constituted "over-analysing" it at all. For one thing, we are made as rational beings--possessing intellect. It's a part of what makes us the image of God. Now, the goal of the intellect is Truth. Since God is absolute Truth, we can hardly be accused of being overly analytical when it comes to trying to understand that Truth--even though here and now we may never fully succeed. We would be denying one of the very fundamental parts of what it means to be human if we didn't try.

That is not to say that everyone is equally equipped to plumb the depths of theological mysteries. I do think one can have a wonderful relationship with Jesus without ever delving deeply into the mystery of the Trinity (so long as he believes in It despite never "over-analysing" It). However, the problem is when someone offers an erroneous understanding of the Trinity. It can lead to significant problems in the rest of his theology. It can be a slippery slope between worshipping Jesus without thinking too deeply about Who He is, and ending up worshipping the wrong Jesus. A Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness could make a similar claim to yours, that they have a relationship with Jesus without ever thinking too deeply or "over-analysing" Who He is--but Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong precisely because they deny the Trinity. The relationship that a Mormon or a Witness has with Jesus, is with the wrong Jesus.

As to your point about Saul, my point was that the "evil spirit" may very well not have been what we associate with "evil spirits" such as Jesus cast out of people in the Gospel. Even if it was, though, the point is that God did not send it to cause Saul evil, but to bring him to an ultimate good. That is, because of this evil spirit, Saul was ministered to by David, upon whom God's Spirit rested. Saul had the choice to accept David and find healing, but eventually he rejected even this gift from God.

It's similar to 2 Corinthians 12:7ff, where Paul writes about his "thorn in the flesh". It is described as being a "messenger from Satan", but it was sent for Paul's good--namely, to keep him humble, and to teach him about the all-sufficiency of God's grace. So even though it seemed "evil" to Paul, it really was good for him. Again, seeking one's good doesn't always mean doing nice things for them. The only reason that God allows evil is so that a greater good can result.

I completely agree with you that true is always true and false is always false. I would never, ever deny that. It's what I've built my life around. The problem is that you preface this maxim with the disclaimer that you're open to any understanding of God, even if that were polytheism. Yet you desire to argue so vociferously with my attempt to provide you with the historical, traditional teachings of the Church on the Holy Trinity. On the one hand, you claim to seek the truth, and on the other, you act utterly resistant to "prejudicing [your] mind" as you call it, by being humble and teachable enough to learn the truth from those whom Jesus entrusted with the task of passing it on to us.

You claim that your goal is a relationship. That's my goal, as well. That's what the Catholic Faith is all about--leading us deeper into that relationship with Jesus. That's why it bothers me so when people suggest that the Church stands in the way of a relationship with Jesus. The very opposite is the case. Since becoming Catholic, I've only experienced my relationship with Jesus grow stronger and more intimate.

But dogma is not antithetical to relationship, as you seem to think. A dogma is just an expression of truth about the one with whom we are in relationship. Just like there are true things and false things about my wife, and it's important that I know them, so there are true things and false things about God, and it's important to know them, too.

If someone came up to me and tried to assert that my wife was blonde, blue-eyed, and from Norway, I would know instantly that they've got the wrong lady, because their description is not true. If we view the dogmas about God as being like a physical description of my wife--that is, identifiers to make sure we've got the right Person, then we see why we need to at least have an understanding of the basics of dogmas, and know who has the authority to proclaim them. Just as I know my wife more intimately than anyone else on earth, so the Church, the Bride of Christ, knows Him more intimately than anyone else. The intimate details that I know about my wife are just like the Church's dogmas. They were revealed by the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and passed on down to the bishops throughout every age, through a relationship with Jesus.

And just as a person who doesn't know my wife's hair colour (for example) can't claim that they really know her or have even met her, so a person who has contradictory teachings about Jesus than His Bride, cannot really claim to be in a relationship with Him, can they?

Yours truly,
Gregory


(Category: Theology Proper: The Holy Trinity.)