Hebrews Chapter 3

Sorry I'm so slow about this, but here go my notes on Hebrews Chapter 3:

vs 1 - We need to see the word "confession" here as something somewhat deeper as Catholics...it incorporates all that we believe. Christ is the high priest of it all. "Confession" here reminds me of "profession" such as we do of the Creed at every mass.

vs 7-11 - these verses are extremely important (quoted from the Psalms) to Catholics. Every priest, deacon, and religious sister and brother in the world says these words every single day in the invitatory of the Liturgy of the Hours. That is how important they are to us. We can never lose faith and harden our hearts. We have a responsibility to the world to show forth the true light of Faith even in the face of adversity and in the world we live in where our Faith is ridiculed and persecuted.

vs 12+ - The author reflects here on the Psalm and its meaning to us as Christians. As we "share in Christ" through the Eucharist, his precious body and blood is given to us every mass and make us one with him - we become his Body through that Eucharist. With the graces we receive from that sacrament, how much more must we as Catholics not all into the hardening of hearts and unbelief we see in the story of the Jewish people following Moses.

Hebrews Chapter 2

Continuing my thoughts on the Book of Hebrews from a Catholic perspective:

Chapter 2:

vs 1-4: Here we see a lot of focus on "what we have heard" - the oral tradition of the Early Church. Note the progression, Christ taught the Apostles (those who witnessed him) and they founded the "Apostolic Tradition", the oral tradition that by the time Hebrews is written the entire Church understands as the teaching of God.

vs 8: I can't help but notice this verse in light of the coming "Solemnity of Christ the King" towards the end of November, the last Sunday of Ordinary time. At the end of the Church calendar, we have celebrated the entire spiritual history of God's people, and how could we end in a more fitting manner than recognizing Christ as King, he whom the Father has "subjected all things and put them under his feet". This is especially important as we recognize Advent season coming up where we look not only for the coming of Christ's birth in the Church calendar, but also of his real second coming at the end of time.

vs 10,18: These two verses are some of those in the New Testament that reveal the Catholic idea of suffering and how we are perfected through that suffering. Not just Christ suffers for us, but as we suffer (except of course in punishment for wrongdoing), we share in the suffering of Christ in some deep and mysterious way.

vs. 14-15: I like to use these verses to reflect on the "mystery of faith" that we proclaim as a parish during each mass. Specifically, one of these four responses is "Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life, Lord Jesus come in Glory". Very similar to the message in the latter part of vs. 14 and vs 15

vs 17: Christ is "Our High Priest". This makes me think quite a bit about our priesthood as individuals, but also those called to separate themselves from the world and become our pastors, bishops, and other clergy. Thinking about how we all serve and offer sacrifice in some way as priests (again with that distinction between what clergy do and what the laity do, but remembering that we are all priests and that is because we all offer sacrifice at mass of the Body and Blood of Christ to God the Father) but that Christ is our High Priest, at our head and obviously strongly involved in offering his own body and blood to the Father.

Pray for me

Say a little prayer for me. Nothing major going on, but I do need to refocus on some spiritual things after last week - which was one of the most spiritual of my life leading into last weekend. Pray that I can retain that focus. Also, I'm almost finished with a book called "Maria of Guadalupe" which I hope to share a review of soon.

Review: Divine Office for Dodos

So, I don't feel like too much of a Dodo, per se, but I did feel that although I am now very comfortable with the Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office) that there were a few rough edges that I needed to iron out. This book is absolutely fantastic! The author does a wonderful job of explaining exactly how the office is prayed and irons out even the most minute of the confusing details. If you pray the office or are thinking about it, pick up her book and give it a read. It is almost like an easy to read instruction manual for the Liturgy of the Hours.

Mother Teresa

So I was listening to an episode of the SaintCast and they were talking about Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. It was mentioned how much the main stream media and other individuals want to try so hard to prove that she had lost her Catholic faith or that she was an agnostic of sorts. Many times they try to refer to her writings about spiritual struggle that were recently published (and they obviously have not read any of the book at all, just running on their own suppositions). I wondered why they feel the need to do this, and then I realized it.

Mother Teresa is someone who proves God exists in a way. She shows us as well as anyone the true nature of Christianity and what it means to love our neighbor. Grappling with the fact that such immense good comes from our Faith means that we have to grapple with the idea that that is how God really wants us to live. You never hear anything about Catholics who do negative things "losing their Faith" or not being good Christians, but the one woman in recent years we can look at and say she absolutely and beyond a shadow of a doubt had a true Faith needs to be attacked, because it would be scary to admit the Love of God.

Even I, when I was Protestant had to try to demonize Mother Teresa in some way. I couldn't grasp the fact that such a wonderful and pure person could be Catholic. It didn't make sense how she would be going to hell after such a life. I'm just thankful that God has given me the graces to come to a better understanding of Faith and Christianity now.

St. Francis of Assisi

I recently finished reading "St. Francis of Assisi" by Johannes Jorgensen, a Danish author.  Overall, the book was a good treatment/overview of the Life of St. Francis.  There were two major downfalls to the book, however.  One was that it tended to get boring at certain points; the author spends a great deal of time on some points in St. Francis's life and breezes over others.  The selection of how much time to spend on different events seemed fairly arbitrary to me.  Secondly, the author tends to have a hard time sorting out what might be thought of as "legendary" events in the Life of St. Francis and those that actually happened.  This might not be his fault because he bases a lot of his research on the older texts describing the saint's life.  Overall, it's a good book to pick up if you are interested in learning a bit more about Francis.  

Miserably Failing

Limited access to the internet and other issues have caused me to miserably fail at trying to post every day during Lent.  I also decided that it might be better to stop this and post some better quality posts when I really had something to say.  I'm getting behind on my book reviews and have a couple that I wanted to post - something I hope to do later today.  

I guess this is a sign to quit looking at the past and start pressing on towards the future.  

Second Week of Lent - Monday

Last year:

I've been doing a little reading about the similarities between the Jewish and Christian form of liturgical worship, and I've found it rather fascinating. I'm not sure, but there may be a good book out there that discusses the similiarities between the two. It seems that (naturally) early Christians took the Jewish form of liturgical worship (readings, responsorial psalms, public participation by responses to the priest, etc.) and adapted it to suit the purposes of Christians. This is the way Christ worshipped in the 1st century, and it was brought into the Church. One of the best ways to see it in the Bible is to look at the Book of Revelation where the activities going on in Heaven are much like a Catholic service today. I havn't been to a Jewish worship service (and I have heard that they differ from place to place), but a Catholic friend of mine was telling me that he went to one here in Morgantown and was really shocked by the similarities in worship. It's really a neat historical look at how Christian worship has developed over the years (although of course many Protestants since the 16th century or so have begun to reject the liturgical form of worship, and that's a whole historical study in and of itself that is very interesting!) Anyone seen any good history books on the evolution of Christian worship from the basic Jewish forms in the 1st Century to the broader Protestant movements of today? Feel free to recommend them if you have.

I found two books since this post and read them.  The first is Mike Aquilina's "Mass of the Early Christians".  The other is Scott Hahn's "The Lamb's Supper".  Both I would highly recommend because they explore the links between the liturgy and what the early Christians did as well as Sacred Scripture.  I still have not found any that dealt purely with the Jewish/Christian liturgical similarities, but it has been hinted at in many of the Holy Father's writings.  

Book Review - The Faith of Millions

I just finished the book "The Faith of Millions" by Father John O'Brien.  I think this is a wonderful place to talk about this book, especially in light of the discussions we have been having about our relationship with those who aren't Catholic recently on this blog.  

This book was given to my Grandfather in Law when he was confirmed into the Catholic Church.  My Grandmother-in-Law gave it to me on Thanksgiving, because she thought I would really like to read it, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I wanted to discuss it briefly because it was an excellent book, and well worth reading, to both Catholics and non-Catholics.  If you click on the title of this post, it should take you to Amazon, where you can buy a used copy of this book for 1 penny!  Thankfully she gave it to me, because it is out of print and I don't think I would have found it anywhere else.

First, we need to note that this book was originally written pre-Vatican II.  That being said, we need to realize that a lot of its language reflects the Church's relationship with Protestants before that council, a very different relationship indeed.  If any of you have read books from the 50s and 60s, you will quickly recognize the tone and type of language that Father O'Brien uses.  It can seem very harsh at times, and I think he assumes that everyone will logically come to the same conclusions that he does, perhaps not realizing that people's own inherent spiritual tradition and biases can cause them to come to different conclusions altogether.  

That being said, I think this book is very clearly and easily written.  It gives some insights into Catholic teaching and Tradition that almost no other book I have read can do so clearly.  I imagine that it was probably read by young faith groups or in RCIA classes in the past, because it really is nice to do an overview of Catholic teaching, but also gets into issues like an entire Chapter on St. Joseph that many other cathechetical books do not do.  His teaching on marriage and sexuality is very well done as well.

If you are a member of my former denomination the "Church of Christ" (and I know there are several who are and read this blog), I highly recommend this book because the style and prose are highly reminiscent of many books that are read by those there.  The way it is laid out reminded me of many books that CoC writers used to write, only here you will see that the same "plain logic" that they lay out can be understood very differently by Catholic thinking.  It also answers a lot of questions that you guys have posed to me here and elsewhere.

If you do pick up a copy of this book, try not to get too upset at the harsh language he uses towards Protestants at times.  I think he wrote it from a loving perspective, but I can see how it could be a big turnoff to someone who really rejects the Catholic Church.  It was updated after Vatican II, but mostly that update only takes place in the last Chapter where he really hits on the idea of ecumenicalism.  

I give it a 9/10 - only because it is in need of a more thorough updating.  As for explaining the teaching of the Church and such, it is perfect for both Catholics and non-Catholics, mostly because it does not get bogged down in too much theological teaching, while at the same time being advanced enough to explain complex teachings.  

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Advent

In today's office of readings, the first reading is from the Book of Isaiah the Prophet.  It is a very good prophecy of the coming of our Lord, perfect for the Advent season.  The second reading is from St. Hippolytus (one of his treatises against the heretics).  He emphasizes the importance of reading the scriptures for all of us - something that I think most of us could work on to improve.  That's another reason that I love the Liturgy of the Hours so much, I get to read several Psalms and scriptures each day, and it isn't just me picking and choosing what to read and when.  

In other news, a major issue that I've been praying hard about has been answered in a wonderful way by God!  

Friday of the Third Week of Advent

I'm slowly trying to get to the point where I can post with home on the new Blackberry we have.  It's a little complicated as Blogger decided to make it extra hard for Blackberry users for some reason.  I do get to read most of your blogs from home, but I don't get to comment often.

Today, I have been thinking about a great spiritual hole that exists in my life right now.  About a week before Advent started, I ordered the Advent/Christmas Volume of the Liturgy of the Hours.  The company had some kind of screw up, and while I was not charged, I did not receive the LotH either.  So, last week I reordered it, this time from Amazon, but since it is Christmas, the mail is going very slow and I won't have it till next week probably.

I would have never imagined this, but being the first time since Lent that I have gone this long without being able to pray the LotH has been brutal.  It is like my relationship with God is somehow more distant when I am not structured and praying the Psalms and doing the readings regularly.  Luckily, the fact that we are having a child has drawn me closer to God, as has Advent season.  I would feel destitute had this happened during ordinary time.  

Wednesday of the Second Week of Advent

So, recovering from a sinus infection as I am, I could not sleep all night last night.  Instead, I read the second Ann Rice book "Christ the Lord - The Road to Cana".  Here we find Christ at 30 years old.  This book follows him from right before his baptism to the wedding feast at Cana.  I must admit that I was slightly weirded by some of the dialogue in this one, the fact that Christ was attracted to a woman, among other things.  But, he was tempted in all ways like we were, so I assume he did have attraction to women, and he handles it very well in the book.  

Interestingly, my complaint about the first book - that it was poorly written - has begun to develop some in this book.  The writing style is significantly better (still not the best written book I have ever read), but I think the author is developing Christ's mind as he matures, and thus brings up the style of her writing a notch or two.  

Overall, I think this one was a little better than the first, but now I will have to wait for the third one to come out before I can finish the story up.

Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent

Book Review - Christ the Lord - Out of Egypt

I have never read an Ann Rice book before this one.  And, to be quite honest, I highly doubt I would like any of her other books.  She has a very poor writing style (probably similar to mine in that it isn't complex enough to really be good literature).  That being said, Christ the Lord out of Egypt (her first in a trilogy? of the life of Christ) deals with Christ between the ages of 7 and 8 years old.  It is a reasonably interesting and thought provoking book, making you think quite a bit about what the young family life of Jesus must have been like.  Mary, for instance, is forbidden to enter the synagogue in Nazereth because they believe she was impregnated outside of marriage.  Whether or not these things are true, what traditions or legends they are based off of, etc. is really irrelevant, because I don't think the book is pushing it on us as truth, but rather trying to enlarge our minds about what Christ must have been like and how he developed into the great teacher we see in the New Testament.  

It's an interesting read, and I picked up the second book tonight.

Tuesday of the First Week of Advent

I recently finished Pope John Paul II's Crossing the Threshhold of Hope.  If you havn't read the book, I highly recommend it.  Basically, a reporter sent the Holy Father several questions regarding Our Faith, many of which were very hard hitting.  He covers issues like suffering, salvation, those ouside the Church, etc.  He did a superb job of answering these questions, although many times he seemed to get off track of the original question and the reporter was a little soft on bringing him back to the original.  Much of his being "off track", however, I think flowed from his immense theological understanding that, quite frankly could leave me in the dust. While I think he tried to keep his answers to something the lay person could appreciate, his genius shines forth a little too much, making it a difficult and time consuming read, but definitely one that all Catholics should do if they get the opportunity.  

What Catholics Really Believe

It's been a while since I have done a book review, so here goes one.  I just finished up "What Catholics Really Believe:  52 Answers to Common Misconceptions About the Catholic Faith" by Karl Keating.  Overall, this book is fairly good at presenting apologetics in a very simple, easy to understand manner.  Actually, it was a little too simple for me, but I imagine it would be great for a non-Catholic or someone who does not know a lot about their faith.  It also would be great for someone who has their faith challenged frequently (non-Catholic spouse, friends, family, etc.) because it clearly explains ways to answer these types of typical misunderstandings.  

There are several negatives to the book though.  First, I would much more highly recommend his "Catholicism and Fundamentalism" because it is much more in-depth, and answers many of the same charges in a more systematic way, targeting the responses at those who are generally challenging our faith - fundamentalists.  Secondly, Keating has the bad habit of being quite antagonizing when he responds to these challenges that he sees as common.  His writing style and attitude come off in a way that is likely to put off many readers, especially those who may be mistaken about the faith honestly and hold false conceptions, they may feel that he is unfair to their position or belittling of their intelligence.  If you have read any of his other works, you will be familiar with what I am talking about.  

Finally, there are a few questions that I think he inadequately answers by putting the real answers off and instead just discussing them in light of things that other Christians believe.  His discussion on the rosary and prayers for the dead were both inadequate, in my opinion.  Again, this could be a useful tool or a quick refresher course for those wanting to learn more about Church teaching or being challenged by a non-Catholic friend or family member.  

Roots of Premillenial Theory

I was reading the book "Lives of the Popes" written in the 15th Century today. Very interestingly, the author had this to say:

What shall I say about the most foul teaching of Cerinthus? He said Christ's Kingdom would come after a thousand years and would be on Earth; hence in Greek he was called a "chiliast". Since he was intolerant of lusts and desires, he held out the prospect of sensual pleasures, an abundance of food and plenty of women, in the holy promises of the kingdom to come. Nepos, a Bishop in parts of Egypt, also believed this. He said that the saints would reign on Earth with Christ amid every delight and pleasure of the body. the followers of this filthy sect were called Nepotians.

Now, even if there is no direct link between these heretics and the premillenial theology that we hear today, it is very interesting that this worldly Kingdom and 1000 year reign of Christ was given no merit at all among the Early Church, and by the 15th Century, it seemed to be a very perverse idea indeed.

The Exorcist - A Review

So, as mentioned earlier I was reading the book "The Exorcist". Since it has at least tangentially involves the Catholic Church (at least it's portrayal in the media), I'll talk about it a bit.

First, it should be noted that The Exorcist has scenes that are intensely lewd, grotesque, and sacrilegious. Maybe that should be obvious since the subject matter is demon possession. People who are deeply disturbed by violence or sexuality really should not read this book, and young people should stay away from it as well.

Secondly, it is very hard to tell exactly what the author's opinion of the Catholic Church is. He is very positive about many aspects of it, but also negative about some (homosexuality in some priests, lack of faith among clergy, etc.) Now, one might counter and say that he did a good job of balancing the Church, because we would probably be liars if we tried to claim that these things don't exist in the Church, no matter how limited.

As for the story itself, again, who really knows? While I believe in exorcism and demon possession (I think the gospels are pretty clear about it), I have very little understanding of what it actually involves. I've never met an exorcist, to my knowledge never met anyone who is/was possessed by a demon, and I've never witnessed an exorcism in person. Obviously the Church keeps pretty tight wraps on that. So, is it a realistic story or is it purely speculative fiction?
Some would argue that it was more realistic than not:

"According to Rev. Father William O'Malley (who played Father Joseph Dyer in the film), the events depicted in the film are approximately 80% true. He claims the major differences between the movie and the actual event were the gender of the subject (a boy in the case and girl in the novel) and that the possession occurred just outside DC in Cottage City, MD and not in Georgetown proper. Also, in the actual event, the boy's head did not rotate 360 degrees, though he claims that nearly everything else in the movie actually occurred." - From the bastion of truth, Wikipedia.

Whatever the case might be, it was an above average horror novel. Better than most that I have read, and will keep you up late gripping the book with your white knuckles until you collapse in exhaustion. Worth a read if you are mature enough to handle it. Now I just need to convince Seraphina to watch the movie with me.....

History of the Mass by Robert Cabie

I recently finished the book History of the Mass by Robert Cabie and translated by Lawrence J. Johnson. I highly recommend this book to people who want to learn more about our mass and it's roots in history and tradition. This book cannot be completely divorced from Mike Aquilina's wonderful work "The Mass of the Early Christians" because there are a lot of similarities. Mike's book I would suggest for those who are interested in Apologetics, while Cabie's book is better for a straight up history and for your own benefit. "Early Christians" also deals almost exclusively with the first 300 years or so of the Mass (33-400 A.D) while Cabie's breaks down each time period from the the scriptural evidence on to today.

One of the highlights is his discussion of various incidents in the Bible and how they related to the liturgy of the early Church. Another is his exhaustive look at various writings over the last 2000 years and how they described the mass at the time they were living, from the Didache, Pliny the Younger, and St. Justin Martyr on to Vatican II documents. Probably one thing I realized while reading this book (and this book may come off as being apologetic about Vatican II), but many of the changes in the Novus Ordo took us back to the early Church and how they practiced the liturgy.

Probably the biggest problem is that Cabie at times tends to look down upon some changes in the mass (Priest with his back to the parish, the fact that at times in history certain laity did not take the Eucharist every Sunday, etc.) Unfortunately, I would have to say that he presents only the negative side of these developments and ignores some of their positive attributes.

Bible Study - Afterthoughts

So, last night I had a Bible study with a Protestant from my former denomination, the Church of Christ Non-Institutional. It went fairly well, although kind of heated (not screaming or anything). I think only two points were impressed upon him, which I will talk about here.

The NI CoC believes that you cannot use money from the Church treasury to help non-Christians. This belief is based off their understanding of passages that say "collection for the needy saints". "needy saints" limits them from giving to non-saints. The problem that lies here is that they use this "collection for the needy saints" for all kinds of other uses, buildings, lawn mowers, gasoline, televisions, bibles. While these things are important (and obviously I think we can buy them), no one would argue that is under the term needy saints as Paul uses it. Instead, they are using extra-Biblical tradition to argue these things are "expedients to worship". I think that point bugged him quite substantially.

Secondly, he admitted that he could tell that we still had a love for the people we used to know. That meant a lot to us because we were slandered pretty heavily after leaving.

He definitely could not fathom the idea of the real presence of Christ and some of his off the cuff comments (which I know he did out of ignorance) about the blessed sacrament were what caused me to get a little overworked at times.

One of my favorite discussions was on Sola Scriptura where I asked him how he knew which books were part of inspired scripture. As for the Old Testament, he looks at Jewish oral tradition (ironic). As for the New Testament, he knows Paul's writings are inspired because Peter said so (VERY ironic), but he wasn't sure why he had faith that Peter's writings were inspired.....I hope he thinks about it some more.

He indicated that he would read "Christ in His Fullness" by Bruce Sullivan. Let's pray that he does. All in all, it was fairly a positive discussion.

2nd Coming of Christ

Last night, my wife (who I hope will add more to this in another post) and I began reading through St. Paul's letters in honor of this jubilee year. We started with Romans and were reading the commentary about the book in the St. Joseph edition of the New American Bible. It mentioned that common speculation says that Paul may have thought the 2nd coming of our Lord would be very soon, maybe even within his lifetime. Because of this possibility, Paul saw the urgency of converting others and spreading the gospel of our Lord. This became one of his main focuses in life, worried that time was running short. So, Seraphina asks me, "Do you think the Catholic Church has lost sight of his coming in glory? Do we not worry about it enough today?" I think that's a mixed bag answer. On one hand, no we do not. Most of us have lost our urgency to evangelize and convert others. We don't see the reasons to quickly get our lives in order so that we will be found prepared at his coming. We are like the 10 virgins who forget their oil until the last minute, then are unprepared when the groom shows up.

On the other hand, there are some very interesting things that the Catholic Church does which do indicate that we have not forgotten. First, we pray about his coming in at least two places during the mass as a community (one when we proclaim the mystery of our faith and the other during the Our Father). I tend to believe what Pope Benedict said in his book Jesus of Nazereth, that many times when we mention the "Kingdom" we are talking about the person of Christ. (I won't go into too much detail about this now). Also, there are convents and monestaries that keep watch all the time with things like perpetual adoration. I believe this idea is steeped in tradition of watching for his coming. Likewise,the liturgy of the hours makes many references to his second coming and our being watchful, and so does the idea that we have "Vigil Masses". Pretty interesting.