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Trusted Testimony?!

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I’m reading through the Qu’ran one last time this year and wanted to follow along with a Tafsir. I discovered Quran Garden which was just the sort of thing I was looking for. Something was said early in the course which I found jaw-dropping:

Historically, as the Quran was being collected and written down in its book form, two rules were implemented for writing down each verse.  The first rule required that two people who had memorized the verse were present, and the second rule required that the verse was also found written down by one of the Prophet’s companions.  These two conditions were met for each and every verse in the Quran except for one.  This one verse was found written down; however, it was only memorized by one companion.  So, according to the rules, this verse should have been excluded from the Book.

But here comes an incident that shows the wisdom and mercy of God Almighty.  This particular verse was memorized by a man named  خزيمة (Khuzaima), and no one else.  The scribe who was writing down the Quran remembered that the Prophet, peace be upon him, said, “Whomever Khuzaima testified for, it should suffice.”  The Prophet had given Khuzaima’s testimony the weight of two testimonies.  This was based on an event that happened while he, peace be upon him, was alive.  The Prophet had borrowed money from a man and then repaid him the debt.  After some time, the man came back to the Prophet asking for his money back.  The Prophet told the man that he had already repaid him the debt in full.  So this man asked the Prophet to bring forward a witness who saw the transaction.  However, no one was with the Prophet at the time he repaid the debt.  This is when Khuzaima came forward and said, “I was present when the Prophet repaid you the money.”   After the man left, the Prophet turned to Khuzaima and said, “I know you were not present when I repaid my debt, no one was there.  How could you say that you were with me?”  Khuzaima looked at the Prophet and said, “How can I believe you in all the revelations you brought from the heavens, and then disbelieve you about a few coins?”   Khuzaima, through his wisdom, saw that the Prophet, the most honest and truthful man he knew, could not be dishonest about a small worldly matter when he was honest in delivering God’s message.  When the Prophet saw Khuzaima’s deep understanding and belief, he was delighted and said, “Whomever Khuzaima testified for, it should suffice.”

This is bizarre logic! Muhammad declared Khuzaima to always offer trustworthy testimony because he knew for a fact that he was a liar!

Quick Apology: “Saint intercession isn’t in the Bible”

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In previous “Quick Apologies”, I’ve dealt with different aspects of the intercession of the saints. Today I’d like to address one of the final pieces of the puzzle…

Objection

After explaining the Catholic understanding of Saintly intercession, as well as having shown its merit, one is often presented with a common retort against many Catholic doctrines:

“But [Doctrine X] is not in the Bible!”

I’ve written before in another post about the problem with this objection and about the logical problems and presuppositions associated with it. However, is the claim actually true in this case? Is it correct to say that we don’t see saintly intercession within the pages of Scripture?

Response

We actually do see Saintly intercession within the pages of Scripture. We see departed Saints offering prayers and pleading for God to take action upon the earth.  In fact, we don’t just see departed Christians doing this…

Heavenly Helpers

In John’s Book of Revelation, we read the following:

And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and with golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints…
– Revelation 5:8

These “twenty-four elders” are deceased humans, yet we are told that they offer bowls of incense before the throne of God which are representative of the prayers of other Christians. If they are offering these prayers to God, it would make sense that they have some knowledge of their content too.

In response to this, I’ve heard a variety of attempts to deny that this passage teaches Saintly intercession. However, the fact cannot be denied that the Book of Revelation presents us with a picture of the deceased interacting in some way with the prayers of those on earth. This stands in rather stark contrast to assertions which Catholics often hear (“Christians in Heaven can have nothing to do with Christians on earth”).

On earth as it is in Heaven

A little later in the Book of Revelation, we read about how the martyrs in Heaven petition God:

…I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne; they cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before thou wilt judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?” – Revelation 6:9-10

Here we have a concrete example of deceased Christian martyrs pleading for God to take action upon earth!

Not just Saints

A few chapters later, we see not only Saints, but angels as having something to do with prayers from earth:

And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne; and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God. – Revelation 8:3-4

One might ask how this is possible. How could an angel have anything to do with the prayers of men on earth? How could they know of the contents of a man’s prayer? If we recall that angels rejoice whenever a sinner repents (Luke 15:10) then surely anything is possible through the grace of God.

Angel

UPDATE 11/20/15 07:10 – I just got back from Mass where the First Reading included the first passage I quoted in this post. I had no idea prior to posting 🙂

Stuff I’ve Had To Learn: Sun Beats Wind

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I’ve been thinking a lot about Aesop’s Fables recently, and one fable in particular which was read to me as a child. I remember the pictures in the book and the story vividly:

“The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said:

‘I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin.’

So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveller. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveller wrap his cloak round him, till at last, the Wind had to give up.

Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on and took it off.”

I think there’s something intrinsic to human nature which makes us believe that the best way of bringing someone around to our way of thinking is through confrontation and force. Even though this rarely works, we persist in using this approach, probably because it looks like the most direct approach and therefore the most efficient means of achieving a favourable outcome.

However, as this fable teaches, gentleness, kindness and persuasion are often more effective tools than direct force. This is because when we try and force someone to do our will, that person will resist all the more. When we attack, that person will automatically get defensive and when we try to wrestle a belief away from someone, that person will usually only cling to it all the more.

The difficulty is that being “The Sun”, rather than the “The Wind”, is hard… Patience is required because results are often not immediately visible. When we feel someone has an incorrect opinion, our pride all too often gets in the way and we become harsh as we try to “fix” this person.  Finally, treating someone with gentleness is often costly, particularly when we feel we have been wronged or treated badly. Yet, if we are seeking a beneficial and peaceful end, gentleness is what is required:

“A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger…The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit…” – Proverbs 15:1, 4

Mary, the New Eve

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It is a common misconception that, when people convert or revert to the Catholic Church that they only do so when they fully understand all of the Church’s doctrine. This certainly was not true for me. I had come to the point of recognizing that Sola Scriptura made little sense and that Christ founded a visible Church. However, there were many of the Catholic Church’s teachings I didn’t really understand. For me, most of these difficulties surrounded the person of Mary. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the Catholic fascination with the mother of Jesus…

All this started to change when I discovered Biblical Typology and started to see Mary pre-figured in the Old Testament. I have written before about how Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant and how this helped me to understand Mary’s Holiness. I have also written about how Mary is the Queen Mother and how this aided my understanding of her as intercessor. Today I would like to write about another very important parallel which I discuss in the talk Mary & The Early Church. Once I began to see Mary as the New Eve I began to see the significance of Mary in the story of Salvation History…

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Courageous

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At the end of this month, the movie “Courageous” is going to be released…

I was fortunate enough to be invited to see a preview screening of this film a while back and thought it was superb. The essential focus of the movie is Fatherhood and, more broadly, masculinity. The tagline of the film is from the book of Joshua:

“But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD” – Joshua 24:15

This film is coming from the same group of people who brought us the movie “Fireproof” and includes some of the same actors. I actually think that Courageous is a more polished film than Fireproof, which I felt was, at times, slightly clunky and a little bit cheesy. Courageous has a few moments that made me wince, but they were generally few and far between.

One of the actors was at the screening I attended and he said that they hoped that Courageous would do for Fatherhood what Fireproof did for marriage. I think it certainly does hit its mark in this respect and I left the movie theatre feeling inspired. I’ve organized a group “man trip” to the cinema shortly after it goes on general release and I hope that those coming will be likewise inspired.

Oh yes, one other thing. The title soundtrack comes from the greatest band in the world, Casting Crowns…

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