AUTHORITY

When I was in my early 20's, and despite having no education in Christianity whatsoever, I used to say the stupidest things, in a very authoritative tone.

"Christ was just a good man who said beautiful things."

"The Catholic Church is just a bunch of misogynistic men parading around in dresses and tall hats."

"What about the Spanish Inquisition?!!!"

I was repeating sentiments I had heard elsewhere by folks that were hostile to Christianity.  They reflected an anti-Christian worldview that sought to justify a promiscuous, hedonistic and materialistic lifestyle that was gaining momentum in the 1970's.

Later, when I actually began to learn the Truth about Catholicism, and Christianity in general, I was mortified by the previous breezy and condescending myths I had helped to spread about the Faith arising from my abundance of ignorance.

Oddly enough, it was in the Hindu convent where I first read the works and lives of the mystics and doctors of the Catholic faith that I began to get a clue about the beautiful Truth at the heart of it.  That was the beginning of a gradual dawning of understanding that took many years to shine into the recesses of my heart and fully illuminate it.  Finally, I was accepted into the church and the real work began.

Fortunately, I had several decades of experience in genealogy research that contributed to my understanding that, in order to know the Truth about a thing, one has to rely upon authoritative source data.  I learned to identify the relative credibility of source materials and to seek out the most authoritative.

Authority.  It is an unpopular word, culturally speaking.  American culture, with its hyper-emphasis on the individual, encourages the individual person to "speak his mind," "stand up for what he believes in," and freely express his "opinion" as if it were a sacred fact.  These opinions spring from a person's attitudes toward life, rather than having been arrived at through an examination of facts, what to speak of authoritative sources!  I myself was guilty of this travesty until I matured as a person and learned that I am not the center of the universe and that Truth does not originate with me and my inclinations.

It is significant to me that Jesus created the Catholic Church.  He gave clear instructions about its mission.  He "staffed" it with the apostles and gave them their marching orders, after having spent several years instructing them in the faith.  He breathed upon them and bestowed his power and authority to forgive sins and to do a host of other things.  He announced that whoever listened to them listened to Jesus and listened to the Father who sent Him, thereby establishing their authority for all time.  He assigned a leader to whom he gave a name never used for a human being before this time: Peter, the rock.  Upon that rock, Jesus established his Church, which would stand forever.

After Jesus ascended to heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit to further enliven and empower all of them, not just the apostles but Mary his mother, and Mary Magdalene also.  None of the female disciples were named as apostles.  Many modern people complain about women getting short shrift in the Catholic Church because they can't be priests.  If Jesus had intended them to have that sort of job, He would have included at least ONE among the Apostles that he charged with going out into the world and baptizing all nations in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  I doubt it was an oversight on his part or that he was such a wimp that He was afraid to buck the paternalistic culture of the time by installing a woman or two.  It doesn't make sense.  God is not a slave of time as we humans are, and this "modern" time in which we are enmeshed is seen by God at all times.  If women were intended to occupy the jobs that Christ assigned to the men, He would have instructed it.  He didn't.

The reason why the Catholic Church does not change its doctrines is that Truth does not change.  Ultimate Truth was the same then as it is now.  We are aware of a great deal of time having gone by, but God is outside of time.  The Catholic Church was given Christ's power and authority.  While it is true that some people within the church have failed it, and failed it spectacularly, it is not because the Truths were wrong or the Church was no longer the highest authority, but because the individual failed to live the Truth and fell away from the teachings of the faith.

I do not judge the Catholic faith by the people that fail to live up to its precepts.  I judge it by what Jesus said about it.  His authority is unimpeachable.  These days, I continue to study and learn as much as I can about the faith while doing the best I can to live up to its commandments.  It does not occur to me to replace any part of the faith with a "modern" perspective.  Truth never goes out of style.

Silver "Rose" Parnell
(c) 2015

JUDGE NOT

In one context, Jesus said, "Judge not that ye be not judged.  For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." (Matthew 7:1-3) This is the one Bible phrase some people have committed to heart, and they frequently use it to condone sinful actions in an attempt to shut up anyone who points out that their behavior runs counter to the Christian faith. People who use this tactic are obscuring the meaning of the verse.

Judgment, such as the rabble that judged the woman caught in adultery, is the process of deciding a person's guilt and punishment.  In this instance, the rabble were going to act as executioners and stone the woman to death for her sin.  It WAS sin, and Jesus did tell the woman to "go and sin no more." So what is meant by not judging someone else?  Jesus did not opt for punishment, but neither did he tell the sinner to "go and sin some more," or "what you are doing is OK."  He never condoned sin.  He spoke against it.  Speaking against sin is not "judging" someone.  Behaving as judge and jury and telling a person that they are going to hell, i.e., deciding on their ultimate fate and punishment, is the type of "judgment" being spoke about.  Only God knows the ultimate disposition of each soul.

Part of the good news of Christianity is delivering with clarity the message about those things which are deemed sinful in the eyes of God.  To tell a person that fornication outside of marriage is a sin, i.e., not the highest good that God has in mind for us, is to deliver part of the good news.  We are required to do it.  Our focus is on relaying the information about the act, and not in castigating the person who may be practicing that sinful act, i.e., not judging the person.

When instructing the apostles in how they were to behave if their words were rejected by the people to whom they brought the good news, he said to "shake the dust from" their feet and leave that place. Shaking the dust from one's feet was a way of strongly saying that you reject those people just like dirt.

"As you enter the house, give it your greeting.  If the house is worthy, give it your blessing of peace.  But if it is not worthy, take back your blessing of peace.  Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet..."  (Matthew 10:12-14)

This sounds harsh to the ears of the people who believe in the unicorn-and-fairies Jesus that they have invented, but, practically speaking, what else could the apostles do?  Jesus had told them that when people hear and accept the words of the apostles, they are hearing and accepting Jesus and thereby hearing and accepting the words of God.

Unicorn and rainbow Jesus

Invented by Anti-Christians

"Whoever hears you, hears me.  And whoever despises you, despises me.  And whoever despises me, despises Him who sent me."  (Luke 10:16)

If the people did not accept the good news, the apostles were to move on to people who would.  God created us as creatures with free will, after all, and we are free to choose evil rather than good.  It is only our love freely given that God desires.

When Paul is instructing the church in his first letter to the Corinthians, he points out that "the spiritual person, however, can judge everything, but is not subject to judgment by anyone." (1Corinthians 2:15.)  This is because "we have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God.  And we speak about them, not with words taught by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms." (1 Corinthians 2:12-13)

The New Catholic Answers Bible makes the point that "The spiritual person...is not subject to judgment; since spiritual persons have been given knowledge of what pertains to God, they share in God's own capacity to judge.  One to whom the mind of the the Lord (and of Christ) is revealed (1 Cor 2:11-12, they share in God's own capacity to judge.  One to whom the mind of the Lord (and of Christ) is revealed (1 Cor 2:16) can be said to share in some sense in God's exemption from counseling and criticism."

This "spiritual person" does not contradict the words of Christ because "the mind of the Lord (and of Christ)" has been revealed to the spiritual person and that person shares the mind of God (Christ) to some degree.  Those who refute the words of Jesus and of those He sent out to spread the gospel, those who speak against His church and its Biblical precepts, are obviously not in tune with the Lord (and Christ)  and do not share in the above-referenced "exemption from counseling and criticism."

Jesus warned that, in times to come, some people would call out to him "Lord, Lord" but will not be saved because they are not faithful to Him.  He will send them away and tell them that he does not know them.  In several places he comments that those who love him will follow his commandments.

"He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him."  (John 14:21)

The apostles spent time with Jesus Himself.  When Jesus was walking the earth in human form, they interacted with Him, watched Him and listened to Him.  He deputized them to go out into the world and teach what He had taught them.  He rose after death and again instructed them.  Afterwards, he sent the Holy Spirit to light upon them.  They were spiritual people, touched by God Himself, speaking for God, by God's authority.  They, in turn, transmitted their authority to the next generation of preachers, and it has been thus for the last 2,000 years.

Just as the Jesus and the Holy Spirit transmitted something spiritually tangible and authoritative to the apostles, they likewise transmitted this to those that came after them.  This is called "apostolic succession" and is of crucial importance to the faith.

We live in a world where, even those who claim to be followers of Christ and who call for him, "Lord! Lord!," are at the same time speaking against the teachings of the Church that have been carried forward, intact, for 2,000 years.  They despise the words of the Apostles, thereby despising Jesus and the One who sent him.  They despise His church, many of them from within the church. Like large tapeworms, they consume the church and its resources from the inside while encouraging others to attack it from the outside.

Are we to sit back while the worm destroys its host because, supposedly, we aren't supposed to object because it means we are "judging" people?  Ireland recently approved "marriage" between people of the same sex.  Jesus said that a man and a woman become one in the sacrament of marriage.  A man and a woman. The secular world tells us that we are being bigoted and hateful if we speak in favor of marriage between a man and a woman, which even nature tells us is the only intended purpose of male and female.

If someone claims they are Catholic and they proceed to tell me that marriage between two people of the same sex is perfectly fine, or that it is alright that abortion is legal, or that artificial contraception is the modern way to be and that Jesus would be fine with all of it, am I to sit in tacit agreement so that I can avoid being called "judgmental" and other names?

No.  I have a responsibility to carry forward the good news of Christianity.  If, however, I am despised because of it, I will kick the dirt from my sandals and move on.

Silver "Rose" Parnell
Copyright (c) 2015
All rights reserved

MEDITATION ON GOD'S TIMELESSNESS AND THE EUCHARIST

I once read that the definition of time is "the measurement of the movement of particles through space."  We measure the earth's rotation around the sun to arrive at our concepts of days, weeks, months, years, minutes, seconds, etc.

God, however, is timeless.  We know this instinctively, and logic confirms it. God, the creator of all things, the originator of our time, is omnipotent, omnipresent, and is not confined by the time in which we live.  He cannot be defined or limited to the powers of the planets as we are.  Even for us, time is not absolute.  Einstein demonstrated this for us in his theory of relativity.  Time is, in a simplistic sense, a function of where you are in the universe.  You can't pin down God.  He is everywhere and nowhere.

If you haven't read Einstein's Theory of Relativity in its entirety, by the way, I recommend slogging through it.  I once had a small book that contained it and made the mistake of lending it.  I will have to get another to read it again.  My mind couldn't contain all of it, but I found it spiritually enlightening.

One day, while meditating on the timelessness of God, I realized that the moment the priest confects the Eucharist is the moment when God, in his timelessness, intersects the time of our world.  This is what is meant when we are told that we are participating in the sacrifice of Jesus and not recreating the sacrifice that we feel was completed "a long time ago."  We are not crucifying Jesus over and over again.  We are participating in the one and only sacrifice of Jesus.  It is hard for most of us to grasp this because we are limited by time and our minds are ordered in a linear fashion because of that immersion in time.

The incredible meeting of the timelessness of God with the time-bound souls on earth which IS the confection of the Eucharist is not some magical hocus pocus that anyone could do if they only had the right words and performed the right movements.  It isn't witchcraft or a skill that one can develop.  If anyone other than a validly ordained priest in the line of apostolic succession  were to imitate every action that was performed during the sacrifice of the mass, the body and blood of Christ would not be present.  Why?

The power to confect the Eucharist is transmitted to a priest through the apostolic succession that extends back to Jesus himself.  Jesus created the church and gave authority and power to the apostles.  He created the hierarchy by naming Simon Cephas, "the rock", which was later translated to "Peter," and saying that on that rock he would build his church.  It is interesting to note that Cephas was not a proper name until Jesus gave it to him, so his moniker would be quite striking during his lifetime.  This word, the logos, Chephas' name, was meant to convey Jesus' intention that he would be the head of the church by being its foundation.  On him, Jesus' church would be built and even the gates of  hell could not stand against it.

When Jesus appeared to the apostles after His resurrection, he first said, "Peace be with you," then identified himself by showing them the wounds in his hand and his side.  Then he said, "Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, so I send you."  His church was already formed, with the 12 disciples, one of whom was named as the leader, the foundation of the church.  The teachings had already been given to them, but something else was needed.  They had to "graduate" in a sense and carry Jesus' teachings out into the world, so he sent them out as the Father had sent Him out.  This sending of the Apostles into the world was Jesus' confirmation of their authority and a continuation of the mercy of the Lord in sending Jesus among us to begin with.

Then, Jesus breathed on them and said, "receive the Holy Spirit."  So, they had first, their marching orders; second, their bona fides; and third, a new life in the Holy Spirit.  In addition, Jesus told them, "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."  In those days, it was clearly understood that only God could forgive sins, yet Jesus had transmitted this capacity to the apostles.  The apostles were to stand, teach and speak "in persona Christi," on behalf of Christ.

The Catholic Church has an unbroken line of spiritual transmission from the time Jesus breathed upon the Apostles until today.  The power and authority that was given to the apostles is the same power and authority that is transmitted to a Catholic priest when he becomes ordained.  In our minds, the power has come "full circle," returning to the altar to confect the Eucharist, but in reality that power is the exact same power transmitted to the apostles.  It is not some old, dusty memory of something that happened once, a long time ago.

When I attend the Divine Liturgy, I often remind myself that nowhere else can I receive the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.

If I think about the timelessness of the Lord at the moment the Eucharist is confected, I picture the congregation rising up to meet the Holy One while he comes down to meet us.  The angels and saints glory in that moment, and there is music and singing like nothing we have ever heard, I am sure.  When I am paying proper attention, I am more than a little moved and in awe.  I try to hold onto that mystery in my mind while it is occurring and leave my heart completely open to the limitless Lord with whom we are making the most extraordinary contact.

Jesus himself ordained this miraculous contact between us, this stunning experience of unity and salvation.  He said, "Whoever does not eat my flesh and drink my blood has no life within himself."  Some people think we are just eating crackers and drinking wine.

Glory to Jesus Christ!  Glory to Him forever.

Silver Rose Parnell