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Christian Copycat

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In Bible Study last week we just finished up our study of St. Paul’s first epistle to the Thessalonians. During our time together, it struck me how many times the subject of “imitation” is raised in the letter. In this post I’d like to take a brief survey of these references.

Likeness in Jesus Alone?

The first example of imitation and mimicry appears in the very first chapter of the epistle:

And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit… – 1 Thessalonians 1:6

This is typically the verse that I reach for when speaking with Christians who object to the Catholic devotion to Saints, and who tell me that “The only person we need to imitate is Jesus”. Clearly, this wasn’t the opinion of St. Paul, who speaks proudly of how his fledgling congregation imitates, not only Lord, but also the senders of this letter (Paul, Timothy and Silas).

In that first chapter Paul describes himself as a nursing mother and a loving father:

But we were gentle… among you, like a nurse taking care of her children… for you know how, like a father with his children – 1 1 Thessalonians 2:7,11

Given these loving parental terms, it’s hardly surprising that the Thessalonians began to imitate the evangelists.

Mimics

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Tell them about “the cells”…

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Today’s post is one of those posts which I’m writing purely for my own benefit. Who said this has to be selfless?! I’m hoping that, in the process of writing this, that the information will stay in my brain, or at the very least, make it easier for me to find when I forget it… 🙂

FMcIf any of you have heard Fr. Donald Callaway give a talk, you will have almost certainly heard him mention at some point something called Fetal Microchimerism, the biological process whereby cells from a fetus pass through the placenta into the mother’s own body (and vice versa).

The amazing thing about this process is that these cells have been shown to persist not only beyond pregnancy, but have even been found to remain in the mother’s body for decades afterwards. As far as I can tell, the scientific community is uncertain as to the consequence of the presence of these cells, with some suggesting that this is a source of potential disease, while others suggest that the child’s cells actually help to defend the mother.

When speaking about Fetal Microchimerism, Fr. Callaway reflects upon the intimate nature of the connection between mother and child. Even after a child has grown up, or even in the tragic cases of miscarriage or abortion, through Fetal Microchimerism, part of the child lives on in the mother.

Of course, where Fr. Callaway really goes to town is in the application of this biology to the area of theology. If this process is found in normal human pregnancies, then it is more than possible that this took place during the Blessed Mother’s pregnancy with Jesus. This would mean that some of the Saviour’s cells passed to His mother and remained there. The Lord’s human nature lived on in Mary’s body, even as He lay in the grave and even after He rose again and ascended into Heaven.

Not only that, if it is true that the child’s cells come to protect the mother from disease, then this has implications for Mary’s Assumption/Dormition, as well as providing a beautiful foreshadowing of the Eucharist, whereby Jesus gives us His Body, in the words of St. Ignatius of Antioch, as the “medicine of immortality”.

Quick Apology: Why confess to a priest?

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Objection

Today’s “Quick Apology” concerns a very common objection heard by Catholics from Protestants…

“Why do Catholics confess their sins to a priest? He’s just a man. Why not confess your sins to God directly?”

Response

Obviously, a question like this truly deserves thorough theological treatment. However, since these are quick apologies, these are the points I typically try to make:

1.  Nowhere in the Bible is confession to God through a priest explicitly forbidden. In fact, Scripture explicitly encouraged to confess to other humans (James 5:16).

2. In the Old Covenant, God set up a priesthood for the forgiveness of sins (Leviticus 5).

3. Following this pattern, in the New Covenant Jesus grants His apostles the particular grace and authority to forgive sin:

“He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whoever’s sins you forgive they are forgiven, whoever’s sins you retain, they  are retained'” – John 20:20-23

Why grant this power unless it is to be used? Through exercising this gift, Church leaders are entrusted with a “ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18) and to act “in persona Christi” (2 Corinthians 2:10).

However, in addition to these points, when answering the above objection, I try to include a little testimony about the healing I’ve received through the Sacrament Confession. I’ve often found this more effective and lead to more productive conversations than simply giving above the arguments.

confession

Sitting down with a Jehovah’s Witness

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So, as many of you know, a couple of weeks ago I had Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) scheduled to visit my home. I had already received two rounds of visits from them but had not yet managed to get them across my threshold. However, on their previous visit they had promised that next time they would have time to come in and have a proper chat.

I had received my first visit about a month earlier when two female JWs had called. During our discussion on the doorstep, I had spoken a little bit about my reversion to Catholicism and about how the question of the canon had played an important part in my return, being rather unimpressed with the various Protestant explanations as to the Bible’s Table Of Contents. Since JWs are distinctly set apart from Protestants, I asked the ladies on my doorstep how they would justify the contents of the Biblical canon. They had no explanation, but said that they would find out and get back to me.

Several weeks later, two gentlemen rang my doorbell, saying that they had heard from their associates that I was interested in knowing about the “hidden” books of the Bible. I explained that my question was not about the deuterocanon/apocrypha per se, but rather about the Biblical canon as a whole. How did they know the right books were in the Bible? How did they know that there were no wrong ones included and no books missed out? Unfortunately, they said that they didn’t have time to talk with me there and then, but they booked an appointment for the following week.

In today’s blog post I’d like to explain what happened on this next visit and the rather interesting turn of events towards the end…

Tea_Feature

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Quick Apology: Why not go to the source?

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Today’s “Quick Apology” is a sequel to an earlier post, Quick Apology: You can’t pray to dead people. In that post I explained how those who have died in friendship with Christ are not “dead”, but are in fact more alive than we are. On Facebook, one of my friends responded with this question…

Objection

“But why would you want to pray to a Saint? Why not just go to the source, Christ?”

Response

This question is a reasonable one and makes sense until we consider everyday Christian practice…

When I meet up with my closest Christian friends, I will almost always ask them for their prayers concerning particular things going on in my life. However, if the above objection were valid, shouldn’t I being going directly to Christ? Why would I ask others to intercede for me when I could just instead make my requests to the Source directly?

To be certain, Christ has a special kind of mediation (1 Timothy 2:5), but that doesn’t preclude other kinds of mediation. In fact, we’re told in Scripture that we should intercede for each other (1 Timothy 2:1). So, the reasons why one would ask the Saints for their intercession are the same reasons why one would ask for the prayers of close friends. As my friend Steve said:

I’ve never seen a man in a true emergency when, for example, a car wreck requires emergency surgery for his young child, opt out of having others pray with him because he’d rather go straight to the Source.

It’s not an either/or proposition. Praying to the Lord directly is a good thing. Asking for the intercession of others is also a good thing. These two things don’t have to be in competition.

“We are taught by the Catholic faith that we may pray not only to God himself, but also to the Blessed in heaven, though in different manner; because we ask from God as from the Source of all good, but from the Saints as from intercessors” – Pope Leo XIII (Augustissimae Virginis Mariae 9)

So, back to the question: why would you want to pray to Saint? Well, when we are baptised, we become part of a very large family, a “great cloud of witnesses”, all united together in Christ. What do good families do? They pray for each other.

When we ask friends to pray for us, I think it’s safe to say that we particularly request intercession from those whom we esteem as being strong in faith since “the prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (James 5:16). Who is more righteous than those standing before the throne of God, those in “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem…just men made perfect”?

Cloud of Witnesses

PS – I’ll endeavour to do a more thorough post in the future as to what mean when we speak of “prayer” to the Saints. Don’t let me forget…

PPS – Joe over at Shameless Popery also blogged about this topic yesterday. Go check it out 🙂

Top 11 reasons why all men should learn to dance

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All in all, I’ve taught quite a few dance classes this year. For example, at the beginning of the summer, I visited a local school and introduced a class of Eighth Graders to swing dancing and last month I taught a group of a hundred and fifty teenagers (eesh!) at a youth retreat in Julian.

As a general rule, when I teach dance lessons, the girls are really enthusiastic about learning whereas the guys are usually more reluctant. I’ve noticed that this reaction is not limited to teenagers. I’ve seen the same thing when I’ve taught  “young adults” and I’ve even seen the same reaction among real grown-ups too! For example, towards the beginning of the year I taught Nightclub Foxtrot at a local parish event and, when it was time for the lesson, all the men were suddenly rather absent… Where had all the “leaders” gone?

In this post I would like to outline the top eleven reasons as to why every man should learn to dance. Anyone who knows me well will know that I think all guys, without exception, should know how to dance. In Medieval times, a knight’s training was considered incomplete if he could not dance. It was true then and I think it’s no less true today… 🙂

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