"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Yesterday, Brantly Millegan posted on his blog Young, Evangelical, and Catholic the second part of his series “Why we’re contraception-free” (Part 1 | Part 2). I’ve really been enjoying it and I think you should read it too 🙂
The article Read why they’re contraception-free first appeared on RestlessPilgrim.net
As you’ll see from the categorization of this entry, this is an apologetics post. In this article I am going to be defending the use of the writings of the Early Church Fathers in demonstrating the historicity and veracity of the Catholic Faith.
The problem with writing a defence of anything is that, even with the best will in the world, it’s still easy to come across as though you’re attacking those to whom you are responding.
So, if you’re reading this post and you feel that it comes across as Protestant-bashing then I’m truly sorry. This is certainly not my intention. In fact, this was one of the reasons why I penned the Ecumenical Apologist entry, to try and dispel such charges. In this post I simply want to present something of an explanation as to why one should care about the Early Church Fathers.
On the occasions when I’ve been engaged in apologetics with non-Catholic Christians I’ve often mentioned the Early Fathers. I’m usually met with blank stares. The Early who?! Unfortunately, like Catholics, our separated brethren haven’t read much of the Early Church Fathers either 🙁
One of my hopes for this blog is that it will encourage both groups to read the Fathers and learn more about our common heritage. The Early Church Fathers are fundamentally important in ecumenical work since they were living in a time prior to the divisions of the Great East/West Schism and the Reformation.
On the odd occasion when I do encounter non-Catholics who have heard of the Fathers, they usually only have second-hand information and have actually not read any of their writings. This is not true of all non-Catholics, of course, but in my limited experience it has at least been the larger majority. It should come as no surprise then, upon meeting Catholic or Protestant Christians unfamiliar with the Fathers, I immediately encourage them to begin by reading the letters of my favourite Early Church Father, St. Ignatius of Antioch 🙂
Yesterday, Joe over at Shameless Popery wrote a great post entitled Three Ways You Shouldn’t Treat The Church Fathers. Here were his three points:
Wrong Way #1: Ignoring or Fearing the Church Fathers
Reason: It Reduces Christianity to Incoherence
Wrong Way #2: Exploiting the Church Fathers
Reason: It Doesn’t Treat the Fathers Honestly
Wrong Way #3: Treating the Church Fathers as Infallible
Reason: The Fathers Occasionally Disagree
In this blog post I would like to talk a little bit about the third item. In apologetic exchanges I have often had to correct the non-Catholic assertion that we regard the Fathers as infallible. We don’t. As Joe points out, the Fathers occasionally disagree. It is on this point that I sometimes hear another objection. Here is what someone recently wrote to me:
“The fathers didn’t agree on every matter of doctrine so their opinion is no more reliable than anyone else’s. There were some heated arguments between some of them. In what way are they different from two modern-day non-Catholic pastors disagreeing over a certain interpretation of the Bible?“
I would like to take the rest of this blog entry to address this objection.
A few years ago I went on a pilgrimage to Rome with some friends from Washington DC. We spent a wonderful few days touring the sights and praying in some of the most beautiful churches on earth.
Sadly, this weekend I received a message on Facebook that one of the priests who accompanied us, Fr. Bill Dunn, recently died. A doctor for thirty years before entering the seminary, he was a kind and gentle soul. I hadn’t met him prior to our trip, but he and I had the opportunity to become better acquainted on one of our itinerary-free days in “The Eternal City”. We ended up wandering around the city in a search for the best cappuccino money could buy:
Fr. William Dunn: Rest In Peace
The natural human response at the death of a friend is one of mourning, sadness at being physically parted from a loved one. For the Christian, however, death is not the end. As Christians, we also respond with thanksgiving, praising God for allowing us to share in the life of one who loved the Lord so deeply. Finally, the Catholic also responds with petition, that God will have mercy on our friend’s soul and grant entrance into Heaven. I say it is a Catholic’s natural response but, in truth, I think it is the natural response of every Christian, Catholic or otherwise. We want the best for our loved ones, in this life and the next, so we naturally want to intercede for them in this life and the next.
Today I’d like to talk a little bit about Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist.
A little a while ago I was conversing via email with a non-Catholic called Gerry. We spoke briefly about the Eucharist and he graciously agreed to allow me to post some of our conversation here. Here’s what he said:
“And the mother of it all, in my opinion, is the Eucharist. Transubstantiation. Utterly abominable. Christ was a “victim” once and it was sufficient forever!
The mass is as unholy as a thing can be. We eat His flesh and drink His blood in the spiritual sense, not literal. And to think they even bow down and worship and kiss that cracker because it is (supposedly) Christ in the flesh. And God won’t judge these abominations?!” – Gerry, Email #2
I’m not going to offer a complete defense of the Eucharist here, many other more capable than I have done that already. Instead, today I’d just like to ask a couple of questions concerning one Scripture passage and then on Friday to take a brief look at Christian history.
Below is part of the “Bread of Life” discourse given by Jesus in John’s Gospel:
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh….Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. – John 6:51-54
There are two main questions I’d like to raise here:
1. How did Jesus’ audience understand Him?
After giving this sermon, many people who had been following Jesus left Him. Why did they leave? It’s because they took Him at His word! They believed that He was saying that they had to actually eat His flesh and drink His blood.They took his words literally!
Souls were lost that day because they assumed Jesus wasn’t speaking metaphorically. This begs the question: if Jesus was speaking figuratively, why did He allow so many to leave Him over a something that was just a misunderstanding? Would God really be that cruel?
2. What would He have had to say if He wanted to speak literally?
When speaking with people who interpret John 6 figuratively, I propose the following thought experiment. Firstly, I assume that they are correct in their interpretation of John 6. Jesus was speaking figuratively. However, I then offer the following challenge: if you wanted to go back and alter John 6 to make Jesus speak literally about His flesh, what would you change? Or, put another way, if Jesus had wanted to speak of his flesh literally, what could He have said to convince you that he was speaking literally and not figuratively? I mean, how could His language have been any more extreme than “my flesh is real food“?
So that’s an extremely brief look at John 6. On Friday we’ll look at the Christian witness of the Eucharist in the first two centuries.
The article Real Food, Real Drink first appeared on RestlessPilgrim.net
Nothing major today, I just wanted to share a short article on Apostolic Succession by Francis Beckwith which I stumbled across while online:
Since today is the Feast of the Annunication, I thought I’d post a quick response to a recent question asked by a non-Catholic:
“1 Timothy 2:5 says ‘For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus’. How does Mary fit into this?”
Patrick Vandapool put up a great post on his blog outlining the case for the Papacy using only the Bible:
