The Nature of Sin

I am more than fifty pounds overweight. I have suffered with high blood pressure and gout since I was about eighteen. I am also a type two diabetic and have the beginning stages of neuropathy and vision problems related to that. I have heart disease and had a quintuple bypass at the age of forty-five. My heart was over 90% blocked. Needless to say, I am in poor shape. Sadly, I am not alone. Over 40% of the American population is in the same boat and that number grows every day. As the American lifestyle spreads throughout the world so do our health problems.

Yet, there is hope. I have found a cure. I have found a pill that reverses every disease that I suffer with. It has been medically proven to end obesity, reverse diabetes and heart disease, and even clear my blocked arteries. There are doctors screaming at the top of their lungs trying to get the news out. People in my predicament either haven’t heard, don’t believe, or choose not to accept the cure. My brother in the diaconate told me about it and I have seen this miracle work in his life. I’ve done my research. I am a believer.

What is this miracle pill you may ask? Well, it’s not really a pill. It is a whole foods, plant based diet that concentrates on starch as the primary fuel source. Whoa, hang on a minute. That’s code for vegan. Well, yes and no. A WFPB diet does qualify as a vegan diet but many vegan diets don’t qualify as a WFPB diet. It’s a square-rectangle sort of thing.

Now, I know that I have lost over half the people reading this blog. There is just no way they are willing to look at giving up eating meat and oil and fat even it is the key to having a long healthy life. They are unwilling to listen even if it means saving their life. They want their hamburgers and bacon and steaks more than they want a healthy life. The desire for something pleasurable today outweighs life in abundance tomorrow.

And that is exactly the nature of sin. Christ offers us life in abundance if we love him. What is the proof of love?

                “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” – John 14:15

So, we show our love for Jesus by following his teachings. Only the Catholic Church has the fullness of truth. Jesus passed his teachings down to his Disciples, who passed them on to their replacements, continually through time, until we end up with the Pope and the Magisterium. The Catholic Church is the pillar and bulwark of the truth today (1 Timothy 3:15). When people disagree with the Catholic Church when it comes to faith or morals they do not disagree with the Church, they disagree with Jesus.

We sin, that is, we choose to disobey one of God’s commands for one of two reasons: desire or fear. We choose to disobey God because we desire a temporary pleasure that we are not allowed or because we fear some sort of pain or suffering. Our society is not only physically obese but we are spiritually obese as well. Our society, which once claimed to be predominantly Christian, is leaving the mainstream Christian faiths for a more “spiritual”, personal relationship with Jesus. Of course that relationship is more like the one you have with a neighbor you never talk to and only occasionally wave at if you happen to see them taking out their trash.

People claim they love Jesus yet have no desire to follow his commands because, well, they are just too restrictive. I want to sleep with anyone I please, marry whomever I desire for any amount of time I deem long enough, lie, cheat, steal, and kill offspring I am not ready to care for. As a matter of fact, I don’t even want to follow the natural law and define my gender for myself solely based upon what my feelings are today. God created them man and woman in his image. Man and woman pushed God out of the picture and recreated themselves in an image of their choosing.

We are physically obese because we choose our desire to eat what we please over what we are designed to eat. We are spiritually obese because we choose to sin through desire over loving Jesus. Both types of obesity lead to death. Physical obesity leads to a poor life and mortal death. Spiritual obesity also leads to a poor life but ends with eternal death.

For some of us it takes a near death experience, like a clogged heart and a quintuple bypass, to wake us from our slumber to make the changes necessary to live. It is not too late to throw out that bacon and pick up an apple. If you are reading, this it is also not too late to start actually loving Jesus and begin following his commands. God desires obedience more than sacrifice – 1 Samuel 15. Turn to him with a contrite heart and take that first step to spiritual fitness.

A Pearl in the Making

When an irritant, such as a sharp piece of sand, works its way into an oyster it deploys a defensive mechanism where it coats the irritant with a slime-like substance called nacre. Layer after layer of this nacre is applied until the irritant is smooth and lustrous and known as a pearl. The longer this pearl remains in the oyster the larger and more beautiful it becomes. The best and most valuable pearls are formed over a very long time.

Despite God’s perfect, sacrificial love for me I am sure that I am as irritating to him as a sharp piece of sand is to an oyster. God doesn’t coat me in layers of nacre but he is forming me none the less. I know I am not the man I was three years ago when I was accepted into aspirancy to be ordained a permanent deacon in the Roman Catholic Church. I am nowhere near the man I was five years ago when this journey began. I also know that I am nowhere close to the man I will be in two years, God willing, when I am ordained nor the man I will be each year after that. Formation is something that lasts right up to the beginning of purgatory.

I was about as far away from the man I am today that I could have been. I am a former fleet sailor, a salty dog, with sea water in my veins. I was a Gunner’s Mate, a dealer of death and destruction. I ate like a sailor, drank like a sailor, played like a sailor, and have a mouth of a sailor. This is something only a sailor truly understands but the stereotype wasn’t far off base back then. The nineteen year old me would have probably hated the me of today.

Reading scripture I see that I am in good company. King David would have been right at home on a warship. He was about as flawed a person as they come. But he was also a man after God’s own heart. How could a man as flawed as David be favored by God? He knew when to be humble and honestly repent. True repentance is in very short supply today. Today’s culture is more like King Saul who thought he knew what was better for God than God did.

And then we have Saint Paul. Before he went by his gentile name of Paul he was known by his Jewish name of Saul. Saul was the Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was even more Jewish than the great Jewish teacher of the law, Gamaliel. Paul’s formation began with a blinding light and Jesus asking why Paul was persecuting him. Paul went on to become the Apostle to the Gentiles and one of the greatest Christian evangelists to ever walk the planet. But he didn’t start out this way. After regaining his sight he was more or less exiled to Tarsus to undergo three years of formation.

Lord, I do not know where this road I am on is leading but I trust it is where you want me to go. Keep applying the nacre. I hope to be a pearl for you one day.

Sola, Sola, Sola

My uncle is a devout Lutheran. He loves God deeply and is on fire with the Holy Spirit. He does the good work of bringing men into a deeper love for God and to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. He recently asked me why I converted to Catholicism. The simple answer is that I came to believe that the Catholic claims were truth.

Luther founded his church on three basic principles: sola fide, sola gratia, and sola scriptura. As a Catholic I believe the first two although I understand them a bit differently. The big difference between the two faiths is with sola scriptura.

Sola Fide – By Faith

The doctrine of Sola Fide says that a person is saved through faith. This is absolutely correct. One can only be saved if he or she has faith in Jesus Christ, son of the living God. Luther changed the verse in Holy Scripture that says this by adding the word “alone” to it because it was his opinion that it should have been written that way. The Lutheran belief is that one need to do nothing more than have faith and salvation will be granted. Luther believed that no sin could separate man from God and that he could commit murder or adultery a thousand times a day and that it wouldn’t matter. This has led to the common belief that all sins are already forgiven so asking forgiveness for sin is no longer necessary. It has also led to the belief that one does not have to do any “works” to prove your faith.

Catholics agree that a person is saved through faith. Without faith one cannot obtain salvation. But scripture is also very clear that sin can still separate man from God and that sins committed after the crucifixion still need to be forgiven apart from the crucifixion. For this Jesus gave us the Sacrament of Reconciliation. He paid the price for sin but we still have to ask for that to be applied to our debt.

Think of it like this – a rich man creates a fund to pay the electric bills of everyone in his town. Catholics believe that you have to apply, or ask for, this money to be applied to your bill. Lutherans believe that your bill is automatically paid without you asking for it to be.

So, instead of believing that all we need is faith alone Catholics believe that we are saved by faith through love. Jesus said that if you love him you will follow his commands. Following his commands require works of love and obedience. Are works required for salvation? If you love Jesus and therefore are obedient to him they are.

Sola Gratia – By Grace

The doctrine of Sola Gratia says that a person is saved by grace. Again, this is absolutely correct. All salvation is granted through the grace of God and cannot be merited on our own accord. Here again Luther inserts the word “alone” to break the tie between the works that we do and the grace that we receive. No works are necessary. God will grant his grace to whoever believes in him. In reality we do the good works we do because of the grace we receive. One way to think of grace is like a supernatural glow our souls have when our wills are aligned with God’s will. When we receive God’s grace we will be doing the good works of love that he wants us to do. A good way to state the Catholic belief is:

By the grace of God, we are saved through our faith; this faith entails by its very nature, good works, always enabled by prior grace, without which this faith is dead.

Sola Scriptura – Scripture Alone

Thus brings us to the probably the biggest issue that separated Catholics from non-Catholic Christians. One of Luther’s doctrines is sola scriptura or scripture alone. Catholics believe in the three legged stool of sacred Scripture, sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium. Until Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press c. 1440 the Christian faith was passed on orally. The common people generally did not know how to read and books were expensive. The faith was passed on by the bishops who passed on faithfully that which they had received from their bishops who received it from their bishops who received it, going back to the beginning, from the mouth of Jesus. The Magisterium is made up of the Pope (the head bishop) in union with all of the bishops. Through apostolic succession the Magisterium is the sole authority of the Catholic faith.

Sacred Tradition did not support Luther’s theology so one of the things he had to do when he broke away was throw out 1500 years of Catholic teaching so he could teach his opinion instead. He did this by instituting the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. Sola Scriptura states that we do not need sacred Tradition, we only need that which is written in the bible. So what does the bible have to say about that?

“I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long; but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God. Follow what is written in Holy Scripture, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.”

1 Timothy 3: 14-15

Anyone familiar with this verse knows that is not what is says. The actual scripture says –

“…you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.”

It is not scripture that is the pillar and bulwark of the truth, it is the Church. Holy Scripture says that Holy Scripture is not the pillar of God’s truth, the Church is. Luther threw out 1500 years of the Church so he could interpret scripture to support his differing opinion. If the Church is the pillar of truth and Luther disagrees with the Church…

This is where I started to believe the Catholic claims.

God's Recital

Susan was a six year old ballerina. She worked hard for weeks and now was on stage for her first recital. She wanted nothing more than for her daddy to see her dance but he was away on business. He had hoped to make it home but with flight delays due to bad weather it didn’t look good.

Susan stood on stage with the other little girls as she scanned the audience. Her eyes desperately darted about looking for her father but he was nowhere to be found. Her heart began to sink as the music started. Then she saw his smile. He was sitting front row center. He had made it and she was filled with joy.

My older children were brought into a life of faith when they were older. It is not something they grew up with. They are now rebellious teens and question the things they have been taught. They are not sure if they believe or if they don’t or really what they believe. Mass is something they do only because it is required.

I have struggled with that. During Mass we make a few oaths that we will live for Christ and die for him if necessary. Whether we realize it or not we swear our eternal lives as part of these oaths. Yet many, including my children, don’t have the slightest clue what they are actually doing or committing their lives to. We come to watch other people sing. We take communion. We get donuts afterwards if the youngest is good. Really, there is nothing to get excited about.

There are days that this really bothers me. Why require them to go and take a half hearted oath they do not understand? There are times where I just throw up my hands and say fine – stay home. That is exactly what I did when I got confirmed. I left the church. That wasn’t God’s plan for my life and he continually beckoned for me to return home for over a decade. Eventually my ears were opened and I heard his voice. Can I trust God to do the same with my children?

Mass is the single greatest event in human history, second only to the incarnation. In each and every Mass heaven is connected to earth and we are allowed to stand at the foot of the cross during the sacrifice of our Lord with all of the angels and saints that have ever existed and who ever will. We cannot see this supernatural reality happening around us in our fallen nature but it is happening none the less. If we could see this reality there is no other place we would ever want to be. I get to make up for what is lacking in Jesus’ crucifixion. What possibly could be lacking? Quite simply, my participation. That is what Mass does. It allows me to participate in the greatest sacrifice of all time. I get to stand at the foot of the cross with Mary.

Susan so desperately wanted her father to see her dance. She worked hard trying to get the moves just right. It was something extremely important to her and she wanted to share that experience. Mass is that for me. I don’t require my children to attend Mass because I am a mean dad. I don’t have the misconception that they will suddenly be filled with the Holy Spirit and commit their lives to God. I do it because I know it is the most beautiful and important thing we can ever experience on this side of heaven and I want to share in the beauty with them. I am less, my family is less when they aren’t there with us.

Lord, I will get them there. The rest is up to you. Help me to open their hearts to your beauty and love.

Catholic Guide to the Triduum

Thanks to Jonathan Teixeira and Melissa Keating at The Focus Blog for putting this together.
http://focus.org/blog

To Have and to Hold

It was a beautiful Saturday in June. The Church was full. A man and woman stood in front of them all and exchanged their vows. The priest announced them, man and wife. When the pictures were taken the man walked out of the Church, got into a car with his girlfriend, and the two sped off to dinner together.

All of us would look upon that man with distain. How could he treat his marriage vows so flippantly? Did they actually mean anything to him? Few of us realize how much of that man is in so many of us.

One facet of a Sacrament is it is an oath to the death. In marriage, the couple exchange vows promising to be faithful to each other until the natural death of one of the two. What these vows do is to define their relationship. A Sacrament is a covenant. A covenant is an agreement where you give your full self in return of another’s full self until death of one of the two parties. This is why there is no such thing as a Catholic divorce. A contract is an exchange of goods or services for an agreed upon period of time. Far too many marriages these days are contractual instead of covenantal.

Every Sacrament has this aspect to it. In the Sacrament of Confirmation a person stands before the entire Church and makes a declaration of faith. You make vows to God that you will the live the faith faithfully. Does this sound like a marriage? Well, that is pretty much what it is. In the Sacrament you define the terms of the covenant. You are my God and I am your son or daughter. When we receive the Sacrament of Confirmation we agree to certain duties and responsibilities which include things like attending Mass every Sunday and other holy days of obligation, making a confession at least once a year, abstaining from meat on Fridays or offering another penance on Fridays outside of Lent, and following a proper fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Many who receive this Sacrament never darken the doorstep of a Church again until they want either the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony or a funeral. Others do attend Mass on occasion but put as much work into this marriage as they would if they were attending a time share meeting in Florida.

The Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist isn’t about receiving communion. Yes, we do receive the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ when we present ourselves at communion but this Sacrament is also a covenant. It too is an oath to the death that comes with duties and responsibilities. In it we receive our Lord but we also give ourselves to him. When we receive the Eucharist we are taking a vow to live for Jesus and die for him if necessary. How do you show Jesus you love him? It is not by doing good works or by being nice to people. You show your love for him by obeying his commands. Jesus passed his teachings on to his disciples, who passed them on to their replacements. This continued through the centuries until the teachings were handed down to the bishops who currently serve the Church today.

We live at a time when rebellion to authority is common place. There are many who receive the Eucharist who can’t wait until they get to the Narthex to tell you the ways the Catholic Church is wrong and needs to change. If Church teachings are handed down from Jesus then they aren’t disagreeing with the Church, they are disagreeing with Jesus. If you love me you will follow my commands. Sorry Jesus, you are out of date and need to change these commands to be compatible with our times.

So we look with disdain on the man who leaves his new wife at the reception and goes off with his girlfriend to dinner. We concentrate more on the splinter in his eye over the plank in ours. When you don’t see a Sacrament for what it truly is it is easy to overlook our own vows. When you start treating the Sacraments as the oaths to the death they really are you begin to see the beauty each covenant brings and draw ever nearer to Jesus.

Kumbaya

I once worked with a man who often confused words and their meanings. One night he told us a story about a man in Minnesota who lost both of his arms at the elbows in a concubine. Imagine the look of horror on our faces, and not for the reason he thought it was there.  Finally, someone asked him if he knew what a concubine was. He said yes, it was that green tractor that harvests corn.

Um, no Wade…

The truth of the matter is that words do have meanings despite how we choose to use them. You would never hear a doctor say that he was going to perform an appendectomy if he were going to remove your tonsils. You would never ask a mechanic to fix your drive shaft if your car wasn’t stopping properly.

Take the word communion as an example. From a general religious understanding it is a communal meal shared with all present. Most Christian faiths celebrate some sort of communion where all are invited to partake in the community meal representing the Last Supper. Catholics in particular are often criticized for only allowing only Catholics in a state of Grace to present themselves for communion. How is this considered communion if the entire community present is not invited to partake?

If we break the word down into its parts we get “com – union”. The deeper sense of the word means “with – union” or “in union with”. Receiving Catholic communion isn’t simply the getting the bread and wine that represents the Last Supper. Catholic communion is a Sacrament, which, when traced to its original is “an oath to the death”. When one presents himself for communion how is he taking an oath to the death?

When I present myself for communion (actually the reception of the Holy Eucharist) I am making a public statement, and renewing my oath to the death, that I am in union with the Catholic Church and all of her teachings, that I will live my life for Jesus and die for him if necessary. If I do not live up to this oath I forfeit that which I gave as collateral for this Sacrament, namely my eternal life. It would be intellectually dishonest for someone who doesn’t hold the Catholic faith to present themself to receive the Eucharist and take this oath. They are not in union with the Roman Catholic Church.

Likewise, Catholics are barred from receiving communion from another faith tradition for the exact same reason. That faith community may very well view it as nothing more than a communal meal all are invited to share but to a Catholic it is a public affirmation of being in union with that faith. We are not in union with that faith so we must not partake in that communion.

Unfortunately we live in an age where more and more Catholics stand at Mass and utter the creed, “I believe in one God…” but then only make it as far as the Narthex before they are willing to say, “But the Church is wrong on (insert any number of issues)”. There is no shortage of Catholics who say that the Church needs to change Her teachings to get with the times. You cannot possibly be in union with the Church when you believe that the Church is wrong. If you are not in union with the Church you cannot honestly take an oath to the death stating that you are.

We are required by our faith to believe and accept all of the Church’s teaching on faith and morals even if we do not understand them. When you disagree with a Church teaching you disagree with Christ directly. To say that the Church is wrong in the matters of faith and morals is to say that Jesus is wrong. To say that Jesus is wrong is to cease to be Catholic.

The Triple Lindy

Thornton Melon was a first generation son of an Italian tailor. He did poorly in school and went into his father’s line of work. Through hard work he became a giant in the corporate business world. When his son tells him that he is going to drop out of college because he was not doing well Thornton enrolls as a freshman to go through the process with his son.

One of the first classes Thornton has is in business administration where he immediately butts heads with the Dean of the business school. Dr. Barbay teaches text book business administration that no longer coincides with the reality of how business is actually run. The students pay more attention to Thornton than to the professor. The movie, of course, is Rodney Dangerfield’s 1986 comedy Back to School.

You cannot teach something to someone that you are not immersed in yourself. Reading a cook book does not make one a gourmet chef any more than owning a piano makes one a pianist. Real teachers live in the subject they teach.

Many main stream non-Catholic faith traditions hold fast to the sola scriptura belief, the belief that only the things in the bible are important. But Jesus didn’t write a book. In fact, the only time that the bible says Jesus wrote anything it was in the dirt and never seen by anyone but him. Life as a Christian probably would be so much easier if he had written down exactly what his teachings were in a way we wouldn’t argue over them. But Jesus knew that you couldn’t teach what you are not immersed in.

So Jesus didn’t write a book. Jesus lived with the Twelve. They traveled everywhere together. Jesus did the majority of his teaching, not in the temple, not in a synagogue, and not on a mountain top. Jesus did the majority of his teaching on the road as he and the Twelve walked from place to place. The Twelve were immersed at every moment with the teaching of the Master.

After Jesus ascended to heaven the Twelve did likewise and immersed their disciples into the teachings they had received. They didn’t sit down and write the New Testament. They saw no need to record, in written form, their way of life. They lived the New Testament and they brought converts to the faith by the example of their lives.

History is often lost to the sands of time if it is not recorded for posterity. Only after they realized that Jesus probably wasn’t going to come again in their lifetimes and seeing their end in sight did they start to write down their witness. But that did not change greatly how the faith was passed on. It was still passed on by immersion. For almost 1500 years the faith was handed down, not in book form, but by Sacred Tradition. The Church lived their faith. It wasn’t until the invention of the printing press in c.1440 that the concept of the bible in book form, available to the masses, was even possible.

Then in 1517, a Catholic monk revolting from the Church, threw out Sacred Tradition, and introduced the world to the concept of sola scriptura –scripture alone. This allowed him to translate the newly printed bible in a way that proof texted his opinions over the teachings that have been handed down for a millennium and a half. Even in his own lifetime scholars of Luther used his own argument of sola scriptura against him by arguing that he was also wrong and that their opinion was correct. This has spawned the nearly 40,000 different denominations of Christian faith that all teach something different as the whole truth.

The Catholic Church, both Eastern and Western, still maintain their immersion in both Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, passed down to the faithful through the authoritative teaching office of the Church known as the Magisterium.

This is the “Triple Lindy” of our faith, Scripture – Tradition – Apostolic Succession.