Yesterday I began writing a response to a comment which was left by someone named Kelley on an article I wrote about Blessed Mary (Luke 1:42). This was the comment:
“‘My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.’ If Mary were sinless, why did she need a Savior? Wouldn’t she be lying?
Did she realize Romans 3:23 All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God? When she compared herself to the law of a holy God, had she realized she had formerly, lied, coveted, dishonored her parents by not always obeying them, etc. and like every single person needs a Savior? There are none good, no not one (Romans 3), except Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5:21 For He (God the Father) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Also see Romans 11:6. Thank you Jesus, my Savior.”
Today I’d like to look at some of the Scriptural evidence Kelley uses to develop the case against Mary’s sinlessness.
Surah 112 -“The Purity of faith” (Al-Ikhlas)
In the hadith (collections of stories about Muhammad’s life), Muhammad said that this surah is equivalent to a whole third of the Qur’an. It asserts tawhid (Islamic monotheism), saying “He is Allah, [who is] One”, but also appears to specifically challenge Christianity and Jesus as the status of the only begotten Son of God (“He neither begets nor is born”).
Questions
Q1. Would you agree that “He neither begets nor is born” is a statement referring to the Christian belief that Jesus is the Son of God?
The Second Reading at Mass today is one of those better known Scripture passages, St. Paul’s praise of the virtue of love, found in his First Letter to the Corinthians.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, …“. I’m pretty sure I don’t need to quote the rest of this passage as you will have certainly heard it at…every…single…wedding…you have ever attended 😉
It is my guess that St. Paul’s great hymn of love was the inspiration for a section of an epistle written by St. Clement of Rome at the end of the First Century. A few decades after St. Paul’s death, St. Clement wrote a letter to that same troublesome Corinthian congregation to address that community’s latest round of problems. Some young whipper-snappers had usurped control of the church and deposed their clergy. The Bishop of Rome wrote to them, urging the members of the church to obedience and to brotherly love.
Last week I received an email from Beverly from StandupForCaregivers.org asking if I would share some information about helping the elderly, particularly during this time. Here’s what she sent me…
Want to Help the Elderly? How the Church Can Learn About Their Daily Challenges and Take Action
The church has a long history of helping the elderly. As times change, however, we must stay on our toes and always be willing to learn new ways to help the seniors in our communities. This is especially true for the elderly who do not have relatives or friends nearby to help them navigate the challenges of daily life. The first step we should take is to learn about some of the difficulties they face. Then, we need to take that knowledge and actively engage in the caregiving village.
If you’re part of a local church, these resources might prove useful to you as you set out to help improve the lives of seniors in your area:
Common Challenges
Many seniors face a variety of physical, mental, and emotional challenges on a daily basis.
Whether or not a senior is a Christian, you can offer to connect them with a local church community or another type of organization that holds social events and meetings.
One practical way to help seniors in your community is to ask them if there is anything you can do to help make their home safer, more comfortable, and more accessible.
Even the smallest of gestures can mean the world to a senior who needs assistance. Continue to learn about the challenges that many elderly people encounter each day, and use your knowledge to help the seniors in your community who need it most.
One of my favourite things about having a blog is that, every now and then, I’ll get an email out of the blue from someone I don’t know. I love getting emails from people I’ve never met. There’s something quite wonderful in having an interaction with someone from across the continent or even the world, all because of something you’ve written!
Very often when I get emails they contain questions of an apologetics nature. I’m trying to get better at converting these email exchanges into posts. So, in light of that, I would like to share a response I gave to an email I received a few weeks ago. The gentleman asked the following question:
While discussing Christ’s establishment of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, I brought up John 20:21-23. My Protestant friends said that this is Jesus’ way of warning everyone not to hold a grudge against someone by retaining their sin. I know what Jesus was doing here, but I lack the bomb-proof Catholic response to this interpretation; can you help?
I’m not sure if my response qualifies as “bomb-proof”, but here was my reply…
Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time: October 9th, 2011
The Gospel passage this week is a continuation from last week’s Gospel Reading. It takes place the Wednesday before Good Friday and, oh dear, the Jewish leaders are in trouble again with Jesus! For the last few weeks we have heard Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven using the image of a vineyard. This week, Jesus uses an alternative image, that of a banquet…
In this week’s episode, we return to the Early Church and discuss the successors to the Apostles, known as the Early Church Fathers. Somehow Nessa manages to talk about relationships… :-/
* I mentioned my article I’ve written called “Before 300” where I outline 21 documented beliefs of Christians prior to the rise of the Emperor Constantine:
Part #1: The Church
1. The Church is Catholic
2. The Church has a three-fold structure of leadership
3. There is unity through episcopal authority and schism is evil
4. Sacred Tradition is authoritative
5. Worship is liturgical
6. There is Apostolic Succession
7. Peter has Primacy
Part #2: Salvation & Sacraments
1. The Eucharist is a Sacrifice
2. Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist
3. The Eucharist is taken to the sick
4. Infants are to be baptized
5. Baptism actually washes away sin
6. Priests forgive sins
7. Works are involved in salvation
Part #3: The Saints and Our Lady
1. Prayers are said for the dead
2. There is purgation after death
3. Relics are venerated and Saints are celebrated
4. Mary is the New Eve
5. Mary was a perpetual virgin
6. Mary is the Mother of God
7. Prayers are made and songs are sung to Mary
1. Antiquity Did this person live sometime between the time of Christ and the end of the 8th Century? This span of time is called the “Patristic Era” (“Patristic” simply means relating to the Early Church Fathers).
2. Sanctity Did this person live a life of outstanding holiness? Is this person a canonized Saint?
3. Orthodoxy
Did this person hold heretical views? Tertullian and Origen are two early Christians who are typically disqualified here due to some of their erroneous beliefs. We therefore instead give them the title of “Early Ecclesiastical Writers”.
4. Church Recognition and Approval Has the Church and Christians throughout history generally referred to this person as a Father of the Church?
* There were about one hundred Early Church Fathers.
* The Early Church Fathers of the 1st and 2nd Centuries are usually called the “Apostolic Fathers” since they were born during the era of the Apostles.
* We then briefly spoke about three Apostolic Fathers:
1. St. Clement of Rome
* A successor to St. Peter as Bishop of Rome
* He wrote a letter to the Church at Corinth (AD ~96) in response to the ejection of their clergy
* In the letter he gives many Old Testament examples of those who flaunted God-given authority and who suffered the consequences
* In a particularly beautiful passage reminiscent of 1 Corinthians 13, Clement exhorts the Corinthians to love. I had a small rant about 1 Corinthians 13, pointing out that Paul is speaking of “agape” love rather than “eros” love.
2. St. Ignatius of Antioch
* A successor to St. Peter as Bishop of Antioch
* Taken to Rome in chains (AD ~107) to be thrown to wild animals
* Wrote seven letters, one to St. Polycarp (see below), several to nearby Churches and one to the Church in Rome
* In his letter to the Roman Church he begs them to not interfere with his coming martyrdom: “I beseech of you not to show an unseasonable goodwill towards me. Suffer me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, and am ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of God”
* In the account of his martyrdom, the Governor tells Polycarp to say “Caesar is Lord”, but Polycarp knew that “Christ/Jesus is Lord”. He was told to “revile Christ”, but he responded: “Eighty-six years have I served Him, and He never did me any wrong: how then dare I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?”
* Prior to being burned alive, Polycarp gives a prayer which sounds an awful lot like a Eucharistic Prayer.
* As he was burned, people reported the smell of baking bread.
* Some Jews claimed that the Christians might start worshipping Polycarp after his death. The author of the Martyrdom account says the following: “They did not realize that we could never abandon Christ, He who suffered for our salvation – the blameless one for sinners! – or worship any other. Him we worship as being the Son of God, the martyrs we love as being disciples and imitators of the Lord; and deservedly so, because of their unsurpassable devotion to their King and Teacher. May it be our good fortune, too, to be their companions and fellow disciples!”
* After his death, the Christians gathered Polycarp’s relics and and interred them in a fitting place: “There the Lord will permit us, as far as possible, to assemble in rapturous joy and celebrate his martyrdom – his birthday – both in order to commemorate the heroes that have gone before, and to train the heroes yet to come…”
* In last week’s episode, we spoke about another Early Church Father, St. Basil of Caesarea.
* If you would like to read what the different Fathers wrote about the Sunday Gospel, you can look it up using the Catena Aurea (“Golden Chain”), a collection of patristic commentary which was assembled by St. Thomas Aquinas. You can also get it on your mobile!
Yesterday I began writing a response to a comment which was left by someone named Kelley on an article I wrote about Blessed Mary (Luke 1:42). This was the comment:
The 
One of my favourite things about having a blog is that, every now and then, I’ll get an 
