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Sunday Lectionary: The Big Question

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Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time: August 26th, 2012

The Readings this Sunday ask a basic question: whom do you choose?

In the First Reading, Joshua asks this question of Israel. Whom will they serve? Yahweh or some other god? In the Gospel Reading, after hearing the “hard teaching” of the Lord about His Body and Blood, Jesus asks the Twelve if they wish to leave along with some of the other disciples.  Peter answers the  question in the same way I hope we would all answer: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life”.

We have a fundamental choice in life. Do we choose God, or do we choose something or someone else? As we hear God’s Word this week and gather around the altar to “taste and see that the Lord is good”, let us renew our commitment to the Lord and say with Peter “We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God”.

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Quick Apology: Circumcision and Abortion?

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During my blogging hiatus, one of my friends posted the following meme:

Circumcision

When I first saw this meme I sat there for a few minutes trying to work out what argument it was actually making. It’s trying to point out what it perceives as an inconsistency, but what solution is being implied here? Is the meme-maker saying that circumcision shouldn’t happen because of potential pain experienced by the baby? Or is the argument being made that babies should be aborted, regardless of whether or not they suffer pain during the process?

Of course, a false equivalency is being made here. The number of babies who die because of circumcision is somewhat lower than those who die from abortion and, while some advantages to being circumcised may be argued, the unborn typically don’t report too many health benefits following the abortion procedure…

Paternal Protestations

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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.

Forgotten Treasure

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 🙂

How You Shouldn’t Treat The Fathers

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.

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The Four Loves – Chapter 2 (Part 2: “Love of nature”)

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Four Loves 2

Continuing my notes on The Four Loves, this is the first of two posts which continue my summary of Chapter 2 (“Likings and Loves for the subhuman”). In this post we will be looking at the section which Lewis devotes to the love of nature.

1. Some people have a special love of nature

For some people, perhaps especially for Englishmen and Russians, what we call “the love of nature” is a permanent and serious sentiment. I mean here that love of nature which cannot be adequately classified simply as an instance of our love for beauty.

(a) This is more than simply an appreciation of beauty

Of course many natural objects – trees, flowers and animals – are beautiful.

(i) Either of individual objects…

But the nature-lovers whom I have in mind are not very much concerned with individual beautiful objects of that sort. The man who is distracts them. An enthusiastic botanist is for them a dreadful companion on a ramble. He is always stopping to draw their attention to particulars. N

(ii) …or of vistas

or are they looking for “views” or landscapes. Wordsworth, their spokesman, strongly deprecates this. It leads to “a comparison of scene with scene”, makes you “pamper” yourself with “meagre novelties of colour and proportion”.

(b) For these lovers of nature, it is about the “Spirit” of the place

While you are busying yourself with this critical and discriminating activity you lose what really matters – the “moods of time and season”, the “spirit” of the place. And of course Wordsworth is right. That is why, if you love nature in his fashion, a landscape painter is (out of doors) an even worse companion than a botanist. It is the “moods” or the “spirit” that matter.

(c) Which is why beauty itself per se is the focus

Nature-lovers want to receive as fully as possible whatever nature, at each particular time and place, is, so to speak, saying. The obvious richness, grace and harmony of some scenes are no more precious to them than the grimness, bleakness, terror, monotony, or “visionary dreariness” of others. The featureless itself gets from them a willing response. It is one more word uttered by nature. They lay themselves bare to the sheer quality of every countryside every hour of the day. They want to absorb it into themselves, to be coloured through and through by it.

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Polycarp and the Presidency

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trump

I awoke this morning to discover two things.

The first thing was confirmation that Donald Trump is going to be the next President of the United States.

The second thing I found was my Facebook Newsfeed in a state of practical hysteria.

To lay my cards on the table, while I have not supported Hillary Clinton, I have also not been much of a fan of Donald Trump either. I was more than a little suspicious of his claim to being pro-life and, like many people, I was rather disturbed by some of the words which came out of his mouth on a range of subjects.

But what can I say? That’s democracy! Whether you like it or not, the American people have spoken and, despite the many celebrity endourcements of Hillary Clinton, the American people have chosen Donald Trump.

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Calling Up The Dead

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A while ago I promised a friend that I would do an in-depth treatment of the Catholic Church’s teaching on the Communion of Saints. I’m still planning on doing that more detailed examination at some point in the future, but today I’d like to do another brief post following on from yesterday’s posts about All Saints Day.

I’ve mentioned Jay before, a Protestant with whom I dialogued for several months. During our discussions he brought up the subject of the Saints. It wasn’t really pertinent to the subject at hand so I didn’t dwell on it for long, but here was what I wrote to him:

“The Saints” was another issue you raised, but again, in an effort to stay on-topic, I’ll try to be brief. 

We don’t worship Saints – we honour them.  Worship is for God alone. If you catch any Catholic worshiping a Saint, let me know and I’ll make sure that both their Priest and Bishop find out. I will ensure that they are kept behind after Mass for extra catechism classes while the other parishioners enjoy coffee and donuts 😉

I can pretty much guarantee that all of your disagreements stem from how you view the Church.  The Catholic view is that the Body Of Christ is simply one, composed of:

1. …those here on earth (“Church Militant”)
2. …those in purgatory (“Church Expectant”)
3. …and those in heaven (“Church Triumphant”). 

Although we may be physically separated by the barrier of death, we nonetheless remain united to each other.

I’m sure you’ve asked people to pray for you before – it’s a very natural thing to do and I’m guessing you would find no conflict here with 1 Timothy 2:5 (to which you allude).  Moses, Abraham and Job were all mediators and intercessors.  In fact, as you rightly point out, interceding for others is a living out of our universal priestly calling. 

I would also suggest that the people you ask to pray for you are often those whose faith is the strongest, as you hope in the power of their intercession (James 5:17).  The Catholic response to this is a hearty “Amen!”  But how much more powerful will the prayer be of one who has been completely sanctified and is standing before the throne of God?

There’s loads more I could say about this, but I’ll simply say that this is why we ask Saints for their intercession and why the Vatican teaches “filial reverence” – it’s simply because these are people who are part of the Church – it’s just that this part that is in heaven.

Naming the books of Moses

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I’ve recently started studying the first five books of the Bible in more depth. Almost as soon as I started, I had an “Oh, I never knew that!” moment which is the subject of today’s post.

Torah

The opening books of the Bible are known by the Greek word “Pentateuch”, which literally means “five volumes”. Unsurprisingly, there are five books which make up the Pentateuch:

1. Genesis
In Greek, “Genesis” means “Beginning”, which is an appropriate title for this book since it describes the Creation of all things. It also covers the lives of the early Patriarchs, up until the time of Jacob and the Twelve Tribes.

2. Exodus
The second book of the Bible describes the escape of the Children of Israel from Egypt and the giving of the Ten Commandments on Sinai. This is reflected in the book’s title, which literally means “Departure”.

3. Leviticus
If you’ve ever tried to read Leviticus, you’ll know that it goes into great detail concerning all the different sacrifices in the cultic worship of Israel. This worship was performed in the Temple by the priestly tribe of the Levites, which gave rise to the this volume’s title, “Book of the Levites”.

4. Numbers
This book recounts the events of Israel’s sojourn in the desert. Unlike the other volumes in the Pentateuch, its title is not very descriptive, being so named because the opening pages of the book concern a census that was taken among the people.

5. Deuteronomy
The final volume in the Pentateuch contains the Law given by Moses on the plains of Moab prior to his death and before the entry into the Promised Land.

My first “Oh, I didn’t know that!” moment was when I found out the meaning of this book’s title. The Greek word for “Law” is “nomos” and it’s the word used throughout the New Testament to refer to the Law of Moses. You can see this Greek word hidden away in the name of the book: “Deuteronomy“. The prefix, “deutero” means “second” (e.g. “deuterocanon” means “second canon”). Therefore, “Deuteronomy” means “Second Law”. It is so called because it’s the second major piece of legislative material in the Books of Moses.

I previously knew that the Jewish people often refer to the Pentateuch as “The Torah”, the Hebrew word for “Instruction”, “Teaching”, or “Law”. However, what I didn’t know was that the they have different names for each of these books. The names which I listed above (Genesis, Exodus, …) come from the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Pentateuch sometime around 250 BC. Within Judaism, however, the following Hebrew names are used:

1. Bereshith (“In the Beginning”)
2. Shemuoth (“Names”)
3. Wayiqra (“And he said”)
4. Bamidbar (“In the desert”)
5. Debarim (“Words”)

As you might be able to guess from the translations in parentheses, the Jews follow the same naming convention used in Catholic Papal Encyclicals, naming the book after the opening words of the document.

Well, that’s enough nerding out for one day… 🙂

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