Catholic | Blogger Priest

What Does It Mean to be a Catholic?

Posted on April 1, 2024 by Father Joe

I have had people angry with me because there was no formal way for them to disaffiliate with the Catholic Church. A few years ago, there was an effort to allow those intellectually and/or emotionally alienated from the faith to juridically separate themselves with a written document signed by their pastor and bishop. But clergy largely refused to sign it. The legitimacy of this whole business was called into question regarding dispensations, marriage annulment cases and tribunals. Complicating matters further, there was a disagreement between two Vatican congregations— Liturgy and Doctrine of the Faith. The pressing doctrinal fact remains that baptism is a once-and-forever sacrament. Baptism cleanses us of original sin, infuses sanctifying grace, makes one an adopted child of the Father and a temple of the Holy Spirit. We become a Christian and a member of the Church with privileges and duties. Baptized a Catholic, one remains always a Catholic. A person might become lapsed or start worshiping in a non-Catholic church, but he or she remains a Catholic and will be judged by God as a Catholic.

There are many others that insist upon being designated as “Catholic” when they have long since stopped living the faith. Their religion is treated as a club or as an ethnic matter. When pollsters interview such people on beliefs and the value shifts of the day, the results are skewed to the left. That is why those seeking serious statistics distinguish between those Catholics that regularly participate at Mass and those that do not.

Can one be a Catholic in truth while abiding in mortal sin, literally with one foot in hell? Remember that the deliberate failure (through our own fault) to go to Mass on Sundays and holy days is a grievous sin that brings us to perdition. Status becomes even more dire when a host of other mortal sins are added like fornication, adultery, homosexuality, abortion, and various forms of contraception. The failure to worship dishonors almighty God. The so-called pelvis or sexual sins bring dishonor to created persons and human life. The trouble with the latter is not a misplaced preoccupation of the Church with human sexuality but rather a failure of men and women to respect themselves as bodily creatures. Human dignity is violated through disobedience to both natural and divine positive law.

It may be that many others go through the motions of faith but suffer from missing or inadequate religious formation. How many do not understand or reject the “real presence” of Christ in the Eucharist? Does everyone in the pews appreciate that the Mass is an unbloody re-presentation of the immolation of Calvary? Do we go to church solely from duty or do we intend to adore the trinitarian God? Do we all pray? Are there some that do not know how? Do we invoke the Holy Spirit and petition for the intercession of the saints? Do we see the priest at the altar as one who participates in the one priesthood of Jesus Christ? He is so very different from a minister as in Protestant sects.

At baptism we were anointed as priest, prophet, and king. A priestly people render sacrifice, literally taking up their crosses to follow Jesus— spiritually grafting themselves to Jesus as an acceptable offering to the Father. As a nation of prophets, we are commissioned to proclaim and share the Good News of the Lord to all whom we meet. Given that Jesus is king, and Mary is the queen mother, we are made family members of the royal household of God. Do we acknowledge this privileged dignity and dutifully preach the truth and participate in Sunday Mass?

Salvation requires faith in Christ; however, it is more nuanced than the evangelical’s easy profession of Jesus as one’s “personal Lord and savior.” The Catholic appreciation takes into consideration the Gospel of Mark, the writings of Paul and the epistle by James. We are not saved by faith alone, but by grace alone. Works are important as well, because remade in his likeness, we allow the Lord to minister through us. Whatever Jesus does, has value. Saving faith includes the ingredients of charity and obedience. We must have both a personal and a corporate relationship with Christ that is realized through loving fidelity (John 14:15; 24).

Affiliation with the Church is not optional. Just like the Jewish people of old, we are called to the Lord as members of his new People of God or New Zion— the Church. The Church is the mystical body of Christ. Just as Jesus is the one WAY to the Father, the Church is also necessarily the way— the means through which we sacramentally encounter Christ. It is for this reason that we teach that there is no salvation outside the Church. This provides the mandate for evangelization and for the Church’s prayerful intervention for everyone. While the identities of “the many” that will be saved remains with divine providence, the Church cooperates in proclaiming the universal call to salvation.

Our Lord makes a point of instituting the Church and giving Peter the keys to the kingdom. Jesus gives the promise that the Church will prevail until the very end of the world. This is the same Church we proclaim in the Creed as one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. These four marks find their home in Roman Catholicism.

Too often we use political labels for the persuasion or depth of one’s Catholicism. We say that this or that person is “liberal” or “conservative.” The true measure of faith is between “orthodoxy” and “heresy.” One cannot be a good Catholic and subscribe to false doctrines or immoral practices. We are also obliged to remain in union with the pope who is the Vicar of Christ and the successor to St. Peter. Such relationships can be strained when bishops of Rome promote their fallible ideas over immutable truths; but we trust that the Holy Spirit will preserve both the faith and the papacy. The Pope is the servant of the Word and not its master. His trust is to preserve and to pass on the timeless faith. It is for this reason that Catholics have an obligation to know the Scriptures and the Catechism. Too many are ignorant and easily swayed by the changing fads and whimsy of the day. Indeed, many have spoken of an unofficial schism that afflicts the Church. We should make the firm resolution to practice the Catholic faith, despite outside pressures, disappointments inside the Church, and personal doubts and weaknesses.

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The Wonderful Absurdity of the New Eve

Posted on March 21, 2024 by Father Joe

Granting that the role of Mary is a manifestation of truth, it still stands out to many as a theological absurdity. Her place in the history of salvation becomes a point of contention in the early Church. She plays a singular part in cooperating with the redemptive work of her Son. And yet, we affirm that Jesus is the one Redeemer— the Way, the Truth, and the Life. There is no other WAY to the Father except through him. Concurrently, Mary is acclaimed as the Theotokos (Bearer of God) or Mother of God. Indeed, given that Jesus is a divine Person (God), the genuine adversary of Satan (an angelic creature) is the Virgin Mary (a human person and creature of flesh and spirit). It astounds us that almighty God would make himself dependent and entrust himself to a creature. How can the first principle for all things proceed from that which is secondary?

Something of this mystery is spoken about in the primordial garden. Satan as the serpent tempts the first Eve with fruit from the forbidden tree, saying, “God knows well that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, who know good and evil.” The irony here is that there is a twisted truth hidden behind the deception. Our first parents would know good and evil because they would literally “know sin” and stand before God as guilty of a disobedience that would bring disharmony to all creation. Whenever humanity usurps the sovereignty of the deity, the very first of the commandments is violated— it is the highest in the hierarchy of sins. But how does this speak to the person and role of Christ’s Mother? The words of the serpent are fully realized in a manner that mocks the devil. While Adam and Eve will not themselves be “as gods,” over the expanse of time a Savior would be born to humanity, a new Adam who literally is the incarnate Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Jesus as a son of Adam is also the eternal Son of God. Christ comes to restore what was lost. While Eve is the vehicle for Adam’s transgression by giving him the forbidden fruit to eat; Mary is the handmaid of the Lord who gives us all the saving “fruit” of her womb, Jesus. The devil despises the woman as she is beneath him in the hierarchy of being. He is a pure spirit, albeit fallen, while the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve are akin to animals, sacks of skin filled with blood. Of course, Mary has that which the devil has forever forfeited, sanctifying grace. Those who are children of God in faith and baptism, and thus sons and daughters to Mary, also share this divine favor that allows us to be spiritually born again. Satan hates the Blessed Mother and all who take refuge under her mantle.

Her YES to God at the annunciation is made not just for herself but for all humanity. She has been preserved from sin so that she might serve as the immaculate vehicle or conduit through which God would enter the world of men. The sacramental value of the cross reaches backward into human history and touches her at the first moment of her existence in the womb of St. Ann. Unlike the first Eve, she will treasure her righteous standing before God, remaining sinless and now interceding for us as the Queen of Heaven.

Although only a blessed creature and not divine, she is called upon as “Mother” throughout the world and the many passing centuries. She is the first disciple of her Son. She is at the creche, at the Cross and in the Upper Room. She holds out her newborn child at Bethlehem and extends her arms again to receive him on Calvary. The Mother of the Redeemer becomes the Mother of all the redeemed.

Awaiting the Messiah, any woman could have been the vehicle through which the ancient promise would be fulfilled. Despite the lies of our times, this signifies that gender does matter and is never irrelevant. There is a profound miracle to the feminine potency for motherhood. It is a hallmark of God’s plan that clashes with human capriciousness and fanciful denial. A similar discordance arises between a secular world and the meaning of Mary’s Son as the incarnate Christ. We view something of the Christ Child in the countenance of every child. Any child could have been the Christ Child. That is why the Good News will always be a Gospel of Life. Mary becomes a guidepost, not only to Christ, but to the dignity of motherhood and the person. If the first Eve ushers forth death, Mary as the new Eve is the cradle of life. Of course, this is through her cooperation with her Son. “For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life . . .” (1 Corinthians 15:22). The apostle repeats this message in Romans 5:19: “For just as through the disobedience of one person the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one the many will be made righteous.”

After condemning the serpent to crawl on its belly, the divine judgment against the devil plays a part in our understanding of Mary as “the woman” or new Eve: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel” (Genesis 3;15). That last line is sometimes translated as “her heal” making the connection with Mary even more striking. While we often posit the image of Mary as meek and humble, as the new Eve she is not only a sovereign of the kingdom but a warrior queen. The first Eve rebels within the safe and peaceful confines of the garden; Mary’s fidelity comes to realization on the battlefield of a dangerous world. The first woman forfeited grace while the immaculate Virgin Mary is hailed as full of grace. The first Eve fostered division between God and man as well as within the human family. The new Eve would know an intimate unity with the Lord which she would share with all her children.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Bible, blessed-virgin-mary, Catholic, immaculate-conception, Jesus | Leave a comment »

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