I remember the first time I heard the Bible at Mass. By that, I don’t mean the first time I heard a Reading from Scripture in the Liturgy of the Word. No, I’m referring to the first time I heard some words from the lips of the priest and thought to myself “Hey, that’s straight from Scripture”.
Now, I knew some of the more prominent features of the liturgy such as the Gloria, Sanctus and Kyrie came from Scripture, but I thought that was pretty much it. It turns out I was very wrong…
So when was the first time I “heard the Bible at Mass”? Well, I was an altar server and went to wash the priest’s hands prior to the Eucharistic prayer. The priest came forward and, as I poured water over his hands, he said the words “Lord, wash away my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin”. I recognized those words! I had been reading through the book of Psalms at the time and recognized the verse from Psalm 51:
Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin – Psalm 51:2
Sound familiar? 🙂
After that experience, I began to pay closer attention to the words of the Mass. Again and again I found that virtually everything that was said came from Scripture. In fact, now whenever I have non-Catholic Christians attend Mass with me, I invite them to keep a tally of the number of Scripture quotations or Biblical allusions they hear.
So do Catholics know the Bible? Well, maybe better than they think…
I haven’t written a Bucket List entry in quite a while, so I thought I’d come back with a nice simple one:
Bucket List Item #3: Light a votive candle
In virtually every single Catholic church you’ll find a place where there are a collection of lit candles, often in front of a statue or icon. Every now and then you’ll see someone go up and light a candle, usually lingering for a few moments in prayer.
April 11th 2018: Christina Barba @ Mission San Diego
About the speaker: Proclaiming the dignity of human life has been a lifelong passion for Cristina. Since her early childhood, she has been involved in the pro-life movement with her family at events such as prayer vigils, life chains, and much more. While attending The Pennsylvania State University, she served as president of Penn State Students for Life organization, leading the efforts to build the culture of life on campus. Upon graduation, Cristina attended the Emmanuel School of Mission in Rome, Italy, a mission organization sponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Laity. She has spent the last decade in full time mission in the pro-life, chastity and new evangelization world.
In July of 2014, Cristina founded The Culture Project International. Her vision was to restore culture through the experience of virtue. Since its inception, The Culture Project has provided a mission program to more than 50 missionaries who have served 45 dioceses and invited over 100,000 students to reclaim sexual integrity and the meaning of life, thereby inviting our culture to be fully alive.
Cristina received Honorable Mention by Our Sunday Visitor as one of the Inspiring Catholics of 2012. In 2016, she was one of the recipients of the Students for Life of America, Defender of Life Award.
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If you’ve been reading my blog for a while now, you’ll know that a good portion of my posts either come from questions people have asked me or from my own wondering about a particular subject. Today’s post falls into the latter category…
When Jesus preached to the crowds, Scripture records that one time He ascended a mountain to teach them (Matthew 5:1) and on another occasion He got into a boat and moved a little way from the shore (Luke 5:3). There is theological significance to both of these actions, but there’s also a very practical reason that the Lord did this – He wanted His preaching to be heard clearly by as many people as possible.
The necessity to clearly hear the words of preaching continues today and we see it reflected in the architecture of our church buildings in the presence of a pulpit/ambo/lecturn.
For quite a while, I’ve noticed that Catholic liturgists typically use the word “ambo” to describe the preacher’s platform, rather than “pulpit”, which you hear more often both in the Protestant world and in popular culture. However, is there really a difference between “ambo” and “pulpit”, or is this just a case of Catholic/Protestant “potato/potahto”?
There is no god besides you who have the care of all, that you need show you have not unjustly condemned. For your might is the source of justice; your mastery over all things makes you lenient to all. For you show your might when the perfection of your power is disbelieved; and in those who know you, you rebuke temerity. But though you are master of might, you judge with clemency, and with much lenience you govern us; for power, whenever you will, attends you. And you taught your people, by these deeds, that those who are just must be kind; and you gave your children good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins.
Suggested Questions:
What does this reading say about God’s character?
What are the similarities and differences between the way we act and the way God acts? What should we learn from this?
We now begin the final part of C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”, Book IV (“Beyond Personality”). My notes for the rest of the book are also available.
1. Many people think that people don’t want “theology”, just “plain practical religion”
“I do not think the ordinary reader is such a fool. Theology means ‘the science of God,’ and I think any man who wants to think about God at all would like to have the clearest and most accurate ideas about Him which are available. You are not children: why should you be treated like children?”
2. Some people are, indeed, put off by Theology
“[I have been told:] I’ve no use for all that stuff. But, mind you, I’m a religious man too. I know there’s a God. I’ve felt Him: out alone in the desert at night: the tremendous mystery. And that’s just why I don’t believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about Him. To anyone who’s met the real thing they all seem so petty and pedantic and unreal!”
3. Consider the difference between experiencing the Atlantic from the beach and looking at a map of the Atlantic
“…if a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of coloured paper”
The Map is superior in the sense that…
(i) It is based on the experience of many more people
“…it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found out by sailing the real Atlantic… masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single isolated glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together”
(ii) The map is more useful if you want to travel
“…if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary. As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map. But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America”
4. Theology is like the map
“Merely learning and thinking about the Christian doctrine, if you stop there, is less real and less exciting than [direct spiritual experiences]”
However, it is very similar to the comparison between the Atlantic and the map of the Atlantic…
(i) It is based on more than just your own experience
“Doctrines are not God: they are only a kind of map. But that map is based on the experience of hundreds of people who really were in touch with God – experiences compared with which any thrills or pious feelings you and I are likely to get on our own are very elementary and very confused”
(ii) It helps to direct your experience
“In fact, that is just why a vague religion-all about feeling God in nature, and so on-is so attractive. It is all thrills and no work; like watching the waves from the beach. But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music. Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map”
5. You cannot avoid having ideas about God. The question is just whether or not they are good ideas.
“Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed. Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology, that will not mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones-bad, muddled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God which are trotted out as novelties today, are simply the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected. To believe in the popular religion of modern England is retrogression-like believing the earth is fiat”
6. Popular culture tries to reduce Christianity to Jesus’ moral teachings. It then tells us that, if we adopted His teaching, the world would be a better place.
“…the popular idea of Christianity simply this: that Jesus Christ was a great moral teacher and that if only we took his advice we might be able to establish a better social order and avoid another war?”
(i) This is true, but we don’t even need to go as far as Christ’s teaching in order to make the world a better place
“It is quite true that if we took Christ’s advice we should soon be living in a happier world. You need not even go as far as Christ. If we did all that Plato or Aristotle or Confucius told us, we should get on a great deal better than we do”
(ii) We didn’t follow other moral teachers, why would we follow someone who makes even greater demands upon us than they did?
“And so what? We never have followed the advice of the great teachers. Why are we likely to begin now? Why are we more likely to follow Christ than any of the others? Because he is the best moral teacher? But that makes it even less likely that we shall follow him. If we cannot take the elementary lessons, is it likely we are going to take the most advanced one? If Christianity only means one more bit of good advice, then Christianity is of no importance. There has been no lack of good advice for the last four thousand years. A bit more makes no difference”
7. Christian writings don’t just speak about moral living, but of man becoming “sons of God”
“But as soon as you look at any real Christian writings, you find that they are talking about something quite different from this popular religion. They say that Christ is the Son of God (whatever that means). They say that those who give Him their confidence can also become Sons of God (whatever that means). They say that His death saved us from our sins (whatever that means)”
8. Don’t complain that Christianity is difficult
“There is no good complaining that these statements are difficult. Christianity claims to be telling us about another world, about something behind the world we can touch and hear and see. You may think the claim false; but if it were true, what it tells us would be bound to be difficult-at least as difficult as modern Physics, and for the same reason”
9. We are “Sons of God” already in a sense, but not in the sense that the Bible uses.
“One asks “Aren’t we Sons of God already? Surely the fatherhood of God is one of the main Christian ideas?” Well, in a certain sense, no doubt we are sons of God already. I mean, God has brought us into existence and loves us and looks after us, and in that way is like a father. But when the Bible talks of our “becoming” Sons of God, obviously it must mean something different”
10. When we speak of the Son being “begotten”, we are not talking about the incarnation
“One of the creeds says that Christ is the Son of God “begotten, not created”; and it adds “begotten by his Father before all worlds.” Will you please get it quite clear that this has nothing to do with the fact that when Christ was born on earth as a man, that man was the son of a virgin? We are not now thinking about the Virgin Birth. We are thinking about something that happened before Nature was created at all, before time began. “Before all worlds” Christ is begotten, not created”
(i) To beget means to have something of the same kind
“To beget is to become the father of: to create is to make. And the difference is this. When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers and a bird begets eggs which turn into little birds”
(ii) To make is to make something of a different kind
“But when you make, you make something of a different kind from yourself. A bird makes a nest, a beaver builds a dam, a man makes a wireless set-or he may make something more like himself than a wireless set: say, a statue. If he is a clever enough carver he may make a statue which is very like a man indeed. But, of course, it is not a real man; it only looks like one. It cannot breathe or think. It is not alive”
(iii) There is a difference between making and begetting
“What God begets is God; just as what man begets is man. What God creates is not God; just as what man makes is not man. That is why men are not Sons of God in the sense that Christ is. They may be like God in certain ways, but they are not things of the same kind. They are more like statues or pictures of God”
(iv) There are varying degrees of similarity to God in Creation
“Everything God has made has some likeness to Himself. Space is like Him in its hugeness: not that the greatness of space is the same kind of greatness as God’s, but it is a sort of symbol of it, or a translation of it into non-spiritual terms. Matter is like God in having energy: though, again, of course, physical energy is a different kind of thing from the power of God. The vegetable world is like Him because it is alive, and He is the “living God.” But life, in this biological sense, is not the same as the life there is in God: it is only a kind of symbol or shadow of it. When we come on to the animals, we find other kinds of resemblance in addition to biological life. The intense activity and fertility of the insects, for example, is a first dim resemblance to the unceasing activity and the creativeness of God. In the higher mammals we get the beginnings of instinctive affection. That is not the same thing as the love that exists in God: but it is like it-rather in the way that a picture drawn on a flat piece of paper can nevertheless be “like” a landscape. When we come to man, the highest of the animals, we get the completest resemblance to God which we know of. (There may be creatures in other worlds who are more like God than man is, but we do not know about them.) Man not only lives, but loves and reasons: biological life reaches its highest known level in him”
11. Naturally we don’t have the divine life
(i) Bios and Zoe
But what man, in his natural condition, has not got, is Spiritual life-the higher and different sort of life that exists in God. We use the same word life for both: but if you thought that both must therefore be the same sort of thing, that would be like thinking that the “greatness” of space and the “greatness” of God were the same sort of greatness. In reality, the difference between Biological life and spiritual life is so important that I am going to give them two distinct names. The Biological sort which comes to us through Nature, and which (like everything else in Nature) is always tending to run down and decay so that it can only be kept up by incessant subsidies from Nature in the form of air, water, food, etc., is Bios. The Spiritual life which is in God from all eternity, and which made the whole natural universe, is Zoe. Bios has, to be sure, a certain shadowy or symbolic resemblance to Zoe: but only the sort of resemblance there is between a photo and a place, or a statue and a man. A man who changed from having Bios to having Zoe would have gone through as big a change as a statue which changed from being a carved stone to being a real man.
(ii) But this is what Christianity promises
“And that is precisely what Christianity is about. This world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there is a rumour going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life”
Questions
1. Why do you think many people told Jack not to talk about “theology”?
2. Why does Jack think that theology is a good and useful thing?
3. What does it mean to become a son of God?
4. What does it mean to be “begotten” as opposed to being “made”?
5. What are the two kinds of life which Jack identifies?
Yesterday I identified some of the common features recognizable by Catholics in St. Justin’s description of the Second Century liturgy. There were two other comments I wanted to make about the extract we studied last night in the JP2 Group from Justin’s First Apology.
Accept no imitations
It is popular these days to assert that Christianity just stole ideas from all the other religions around it. It is fortuitous, therefore, that we have the testimony of Justin asserting that it was the Mithras cult which imitated the Christian Eucharist and not the other way around:
“This the wicked devils have imitated, commanding the same thing to be done in the mysteries of Mithras. There, in the mystic rites of initiation, bread and a cup of water are placed amid certain incantations. This you already know or can discover”
Now, whether you choose to believe Justin’s assertion is another matter, but it is significant that we have a Christian writing to a Pagan Emperor trying to set the record straight.
Do Catholics know the Bible?
Yesterday